{opp372}
PORTRAIT OF POPE BONIFACE VIII. (GIOTTO, ROME)
He did much to complete in his time that arrangement and codification of canon law which his predecessors during the Thirteenth Century had so efficiently commenced. Like Innocent III. he has been much maligned because of his supposed attempt to make the governments of the time subservient to the Pope and to make the Church in each nation independent of the political government. With regard to the famous Bull Clericis Laicos, "thrice unhappy in name and fortune" as it has been designated, much more can be said in justification than is usually considered to be the case. Indeed the Rev. Dr. Barry, whose "Story of the Papal Monarchy" in the Stories of the Nations series has furnished the latest discussion of this subject, does not hesitate to declare that the Bull far from being subversive of political liberties or expressive of too arrogant a spirit on the part of the Church, was really an expression of a great principle that was to become very prominent in{373}modern history, and the basis of many of the modern declarations of rights against the claims of tyranny.
He says in part:
"Imprudent, headlong, but in its main contention founded on history, this extraordinary state-paper declared that the laity had always been hostile to the clergy, and were so now as much as ever. But they possessed no jurisdiction over the persons, no claims on the property of the church, though they had dared to exact a tenth, nay, even a half, of its income for secular objects, and time-serving prelates had not resisted. Now, on no title whatsoever from henceforth should such taxes be levied without permission of the Holy See. Every layman, though king or emperor, receiving these moneys fell by that very act under anathema; every churchman paying them was deposed from his office; universities guilty of the like offense were struck with interdict."Robert of Winchelsea, Langton's successor as primate, shared Langton's views. He was at this moment in Rome, and had doubtless urged Boniface to come to the rescue of a frightened, down-trodden clergy, whom Edward I. would not otherwise regard. In the Parliament at Bury, this very year, the clerics refused to make a grant. Edward sealed up their barns. The archbishop ordered that in every cathedral the pope's interdiction should be read. Hereupon the chief-justice declared the whole clergy outlawed; they might be robbed or murdered without redress. Naturally, not a few gave way; a fifth, and then a fourth, of their revenue was yielded up. But Archbishop Robert alone, with all the prelates except Lincoln against him, and the Dominicans preaching at Paul's cross on behalf of the king, stood out, lost his lands, and was banished to a country parsonage. War broke out in Flanders. It was the saving of the archbishop. At Westminster Edward relented and apologized. He confirmed the two great charters; he did away with illegal judgments that infringed them. Next year the primate excommunicated those royal officers who had seized goods or persons belonging to the clergy, and all who had violated Magna Charta. The Church came out of this conflict exempt, or, more truly a self-governing estate of the realm. It must be considered as{374}having greatly concurred towards the establishment of that fundamental law invoked long after by the thirteen American Colonies, 'No taxation without representation,' which is the corner stone of British freedom."
We have so often heard it said that there is nothing new under the sun, that finally the expression has come to mean very little, though its startling truth sometimes throws vivid light on historical events. Certainly the last place in the world that one would expect to find if not the origin, for all during the Thirteenth Century this great principle had been gradually asserting itself, at least, a wondrous confirmation of the principle on which our American revolution justified itself, would be in a papal document of the end of the Thirteenth Century. Here, however, is a distinguished scholar, who insists that the Colonists' contention that there must be no taxes levied unless they were allowed representation in some way in the body which determined the mode and the amount of taxation, received its first formal justification in history at the hands of a Roman Pontiff, nearly five centuries before the beginning of the quarrel between the Colonies and the Mother Country. The passage serves to suggest how much of what is modern had its definite though unsuspected origin, in this earlier time.
DECORATION THIRTEENTH CENTURY PSALTER MS.
{375}
Democracy is a word to conjure with but it is usually considered that the thing it represents had its origin in the modern world much later than the period with which we are occupied. The idea that the people should be ready to realize their own rights, to claim their privileges and to ask that they should be allowed to rule themselves, is supposed ordinarily to be a product of the last century or two. Perhaps in this matter more than any other does the Thirteenth Century need interpretation to the modern mind, yet we think that after certain democratic factors and developments in the life of this period are pointed out and their significance made clear, it will become evident that the foundations of our modern democracy were deeply laid in the Thirteenth Century, and that the spirit of what was best in the aspiration of people to be ruled by themselves, for themselves, and of themselves had its birth in this precious seed time of so much that is important for our modern life.
Lest it should be thought that this idea of the development of democracy has been engendered merely in the enthusiastic ardor of special admiration for the author's favorite century, it seems well to call attention to the fact that historians in recent years have very generally emphasized the role that the Thirteenth Century played in the development of freedom. A typical example may be quoted from the History of Anglo-Saxon Freedom by Professor James K. Hosmer, [Footnote 31] who does not hesitate to say that "while in England representative government was gradually developing during this century, in Germany the cities were beginning to send deputies to the Imperial Parliament and the Emperor, Frederick II., was allowing a certain amount of representation in the{376}Government of Sicily. In Spain, Alfonso the Wise, of Castile, permitted the cities to send representatives to the Cortez, and in France this same spirit developed to such a degree that a representative parliament met at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century." In none of these countries, however, unfortunately did the spirit of representative government continue to develop as in England and in many of them the privileges obtained in the Thirteenth Century were subsequently lost.
[Footnote 31: Scribners, New York, 1890.]
Certain phases of the rise of the democratic spirit have already been discussed, and the reader can only be referred to them now with the definite idea of recognizing in them the democratic tendencies of the time. What we have said about the trade guilds constitutes one extremely important element of the movement which will be further discussed in this chapter. After this comes the guild merchant in its various forms. After all the Hanseatic League was only one manifestation of these guilds. Its widespread influence in awakening in people's minds the realization that they could do for themselves much more, and secure success in their endeavors much better by their own united efforts, than by anything that their accepted political rulers could do or at least would do for them, will be readily appreciated by all who read that chapter.
Hansa must have been a great enlightener for the Teutonic peoples. The History of the league shows over and over again their political rulers rather interfering with than fostering their commercial prosperity. These rulers were always more than a little jealous of the wealth which the citizens of these growing towns in their realm were able to accumulate, and they showed it on more than one occasion. The history of the Hansa towns exhibits the citizens doing everything to dissemble the feelings of disaffection that inevitably came to them as the result of their appreciation of the fact, that they could rule themselves so much better than they were being ruled, and that they could accomplish so much more for themselves by their commercial combination with other cities than had ever been done for them by these hereditary princes, who claimed so much yet gave so little in their turn.
The training in self-government that came with the{377}necessities for defense as well as for the protection of commercial visitors from other cities in the league, who trustfully came to deal with their people, was an education in democracy such as could not fail to bring results. The rise of the free cities in Germany represents the growth of the democratic spirit down to our own time, better than any other single set of manifestations that we have. The international relations of these cities did more, as we have said, to broaden men's minds and make them realize the brotherhood of man in spite of national boundaries than any other factor in human history. Commerce has always been a great leveler and such it proved to be in these early days in Germany, only it must not be thought that these German cities had but faint glimmerings of the great purpose they were engaged in, for seldom has the spirit of popular government risen higher than with them.
How clearly the Teutonic mind had grasped the idea of democracy can be best appreciated perhaps from the attitude of the Swiss in this matter. These hardy mountaineers whose difficult country and rather severe climate separate them effectually from the other nations, soon learned the advisability of ruling themselves for their own benefit. Before the end of the Thirteenth Century they had formed a defensive and offensive union among themselves against the Hapsburgs, and though for a time overborne by the influence of this house after its head ascended the Imperial throne, immediately on Rudolph's death they proceeded to unite themselves still more firmly together. They then formed the famous league of 1291 which represents so important a step in the democracy of modern times. The formal document which constituted this league a federal government deserves to be quoted. It is the first great declaration of independence, and its ideas were to crop out in many another declaration in the after times. It is an original document in the strictest sense of the word. It runs as follows:
"Know all men that we, the people of the valley of Uri, the community of the valley of Schwiz, and the mountaineers of the lower valley, seeing the malice of the times, have solemnly agreed and bound ourselves by oath to aid and defend each other with all our might and main, with our lives and property,{378}both within and without our boundaries each at his own expense, against every enemy whatever who shall attempt to molest us, either singly or collectively. This is our ancient covenant. Whoever hath a lord let him obey him according to his bounden duty. We have decreed that we shall accept no magistrate in our valleys who shall have obtained his office for a price, or who is not a native or resident among us. Every difference among us shall be decided by our wisest men; and whoever shall reject their award shall be compelled by the other confederates. Whoever shall wilfully commit a murder shall suffer death, and he who shall attempt to screen the murderer from justice shall be banished from our valleys. An incendiary shall lose his privileges as a free member of the community, and whoever harbors him shall make good the damage. Whoever robs or molests another shall make full restitution out of the property he possesses among us. Everyone shall acknowledge the authority of a chief magistrate in either of the valleys. If internal quarrels arise, and one of the parties shall refuse fair satisfaction, the confederates shall support the other party. This covenant for our common weal, shall, God willing, endure forever."
In England democracy was fostered in the guilds, which, as we have already seen in connection with the cathedrals, proved the sources of education and intellectual development in nearly every mode of thought and art. The most interesting feature of these guilds was the fact that they were not institutions suggested to the workmen and tradesmen by those above them, but were the outgrowth of the spirit of self help and organization which, came over mankind during this century. At the beginning they were scarcely more than simple beneficial associations meant to be aids in times of sickness and trial, and to make the parting of families and especially the death of the head of the family not quite so difficult for the survivors, since affiliated brother workmen remained behind who would care for them. During this century, however, the spirit of democracy, that is the organized effort of the people to take care of themselves, better their conditions, and add to their own happiness, led to the development of the guilds in a fashion that it is rather difficult for generations of the modern time to{379}understand, for our trades' unions do not, as yet at least, present anything that quite resembles their work in our times.
It was because of the effective social work of these guilds that Urbain Gohier, the well-known French socialist and writer on sociological subjects, was able to say not long ago in the North American Review:
"When the workmen of the European Continent demand 'the three eights'—eight hours of work, eight hours of rest and refreshment, physical and mental, and eight hours of sleep—some of them are aware of the fact that this reform already exists in the Anglo-Saxon countries; but all are ignorant of this other fact that, during the Middle Ages, in an immense number of labor corporations and cities, a work-day was often only nine, eight and even seven hours long. Nor have they ever been told that every Saturday, and on the eve of over two dozen holidays, work was stopped everywhere at four o'clock." The Saturday half holiday began it may be said even earlier, namely at the Vesper Hour which according to medieval church customs was some time between two and three p. m. and the same was true on the vigils, as the eves of the important church festivals were called.
The only possible way to give a reasonably good idea of the spirit of the old-time guilds which succeeded in accomplishing such a wonderful social revolution, is to quote some of their rules, which serve to show their intents and purposes at least, even though they may not always have fulfilled their aims. Their rules regard two things particularly—the religious and the social functions of the guild. There was a fine for absence from the special religious services held for the members but also a fine of equal amount for absence from the annual banquet. In this they resemble the rules of the religious orders which were coming to be widely known at the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, and according to which the members of the religious community were required quite as strictly to be present at daily recreation, that is, at the hour of conversation after meals, as at daily prayer. An interesting phase of the social rules of the guild is that a member was expected to bring his wife with him, or if not his wife then his sweetheart. They were franker in these matters{380}in this simpler age and doubtless the custom encouraged matrimony a little bit more than our modern colder customs.
As giving a fair idea of the ordinances of the pre-Reformation guilds in their original shape the rules of the Guild of St. Luke at Lincoln, may be cited. St. Luke had been chosen as patron because according to tradition he was an artist as well as an evangelist. The patron saint was chosen always so that he might be a model of life as well as a protector in Heaven. Its members were the painters, guilders, stainers, and alabaster men of the city. The first rule provides that on the Sunday next after the feast of St. Luke all the brothers and sisters of the Guild shall, with their officers, go in procession from an appointed place, carrying a great candle, to the Cathedral Church of Lincoln, and there every two of the brethren and sisters shall offer one half-penny or more after their devotion, and then shall offer the great candle before an image of St. Luke within the church. And any who were absent without lawful cause shall forfeit one pound of wax to the sustentation of the said great candle.
On the same Sunday, "for love and amity and good communication to be had for the several weal of the fraternity," the guildmen dined together, every brother paying for himself and his wife, or sweetheart, the sum of four pence. Absentees were fined one pound of wax towards the aforesaid, candle.
The third rule provided that four "mornspeeches"—that its business meetings—should be held each year, "for ordering and good rule to be had and made amongst them." Absentees from a mornspeech forfeited one pound of wax to St. Luke's candle. Another rule provided that the decision of ambiguities or doubts about the forfeitures prescribed should be referred to the mayor and four aldermen of the city. Rules 4 to 11, and also 13, regulate the taking of apprentices and the setting up in trade; forbid the employing of strangers; provide for the settlement of disputes and the examination of work not sufficiently done after the sample. Already the tendency to limit the number of workmen that might be employed which was later to prove a stumbling block to artistic progress is to be noted. On the other hand the effort to keep work up to a certain standard, which was to mean so much for artistic{381}accomplishment in the next few generations must be noted as a compensatory feature of the Guild regulations.
{opp381}
DOORWAY (LINCOLN)
NAVE (DURHAM CATHEDRAL)
BROKEN ARCH (ST. MARY'S, YORK, CLIMAX OF GOTHIC)
Rule 12 directs that "when it shall happen any brother or sister of the said fraternity to depart and decease from the world, at his first Mass the gracemen and wardens (skyvens) for the time being shall offer of the goods and chattels of the said fraternity, two pence; and at his eighth day, or thirtieth day, every brother and sister shall give to a poor creature a token made by the dean, for which tokens every brother and sister shall pay the dean a fixed sum of money, and with the money thus raised he shall buy white bread to give to the poor creatures" holding the tokens, the bread to be distributed at the church of the parish in which the deceased lived.
This twelfth rule with regard to the manner of giving charity is particularly striking, because it shows a deliberate effort to avoid certain dangers, the evil possibilities of which our modern organized charity has emphasized. According to this rule of the Guild of St. Luke's at Lincoln, all the members were bound to give a certain amount in charity, for the benefit of a deceased member. This was not, however, by direct alms, but by means of tokens for which they paid a fixed price to the Dean, who redeemed the tokens when they were presented by the deserving poor. This guaranteed that each member would give the fixed sum in charity and at the same time safeguarded the almsgiving from any abuses, since the member of the guild himself would be likely to know something of the poor person and his deservingness, and if not there was always the question of the Dean being informed with regard to the needs of the case. All of this was accomplished, however, without hurting the feelings of the recipients of the charity, since they felt that it was done not for them but for the benefit of a deceased member.
How much the guilds came to influence the life of the people during the next two centuries may be best appreciated from their great increase in number and wealth.
In England, it is computed that at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century there were thirty thousand of these institutions spread over the country. The county of Norfolk alone had nine hundred, of which number the small town of{382}Wymondham had at least eleven still known by names, one—the Guild of Holy Trinity, Wymondham—being possessed of a guild-hall of its own, whilst it and the other guilds of the town are said to have been "well endowed with lands and tenements." In Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, there were twenty-three guilds; Boston, Lincolnshire, had fourteen, of which the titles and other particulars are known, whilst in London their number must have been very great. Of the London trade guilds, Stow, the Elizabethan antiquary, records the names of sixty of sufficient importance to entitle their representatives to places at the civic banquets in the reign of Henry VIII. Many of them are still in existence, having been spared at the time of the Reformation on the plea that they were trading or secular associations. Fifteen of the largest of them—including the merchant tailors, the goldsmiths and the stationers—have at the present time an annual income of over $50,000 each.
The reasons for their popularity can be readily found in the many social needs which they cared for. Socialistic cooperation has, perhaps, never been carried so far as in these medieval institutions which were literally "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Often their regulation made provisions for insurance against poverty, fire, and sometimes against burglary. Frequently they provided schoolmasters for the schools. Their funds they loaned out to needy brethren in small sums on easy terms, whilst trade and other disputes likely to give rise to ill-feeling and contention were constantly referred to the guilds for arbitration. One of the rules of the Guild of our Lady at Wymondham thus ordains, that for no manner of cause should any of the brothers or sisters of the fraternity go to law till the officers of the guild had been informed of the circumstances and had done their best to settle the dispute and restore "unity and love betwixt the parties." To assist at the burial of deceased brethren, and to aid in providing for the celebration of obits for the repose of their souls, were duties incumbent on all, defaulters without good excuse being subject to fines and censure.
It must not be thought that these tendencies to true democracy were confined to the trades guilds, however. The historian of the merchant guilds has demonstrated that they had the{383}same spirit and this was especially true for the great guild merchant. He says:
"To this category of powerful affinities must be added the Gild Merchant. The latter was from the outset a compact body emphatically characterized by fraternal solidarity of interests, a protective union that naturally engendered a consciousness of strength and a spirit of independence. As the same men generally directed the counsels of both the town and the Gild, there would be a gradual, unconscious extension of the unity of the one to the other, the cohesive force of the Gild making itself felt throughout the whole municipal organism. But the influence of the fraternity was material as well as moral. It constituted a bond of union between the heterogeneous sokes (classes of tenants) of a borough; the townsmen might be exclusively amenable to the courts of different lords, but, if engaged in trade within the town, they were all members of one and the same Gild Merchant. The independent regulation of trade also accustomed the burgesses to self-government, and constituted an important step toward autonomy; the town judiciary was always more dependent upon the crown or mesne lord than was the Gild Merchant."
Because of the supreme interest in everything connected with Shakespeare, the existence of one of the most important guilds in Stratford, has led to the illustration of guilds' works there better than for any English town during this period. The Guild of the Holy Cross was the most important institution of Stratford and enthusiastic Shakespeare scholars have applied themselves to find out every detail of its history as far as it is now available, in order to make clear the conditions—social and religious—that existed in the great dramatist's birthplace. Halliwell, in his Descriptive Calendar of the Records of Stratford on Avon, and Sidney Lee, in his Stratford on Avon in the Time of the Shakespeares, have gathered together much of this information:—"The Guild has lasted, wrote its chief officer in 1309, for many, many years and its beginning was from time whereunto the memory of man reaches not." Bowden, in his volume on the Religion of Shakespeare, has a number of the most important details with regard to Stratford's Guild. The earliest extant documents with regard to it are from the{384}Reign of Henry III., 1216-1272, and include a deed of gift by one William Sede, of a tenement to the Guild, and an indulgence granted October 7th, 1270, by Giffard, Bishop of Wooster, of forty days to all sincere penitents who after having duly confessed had conferred benefits on the Guild.
By the close of the reign of Edward I., at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, the Guild was wealthy in houses and lands, and the foundation was laid of its chapel and almshouses which, with the hall of meeting—the "Rode or Reed Hall"—stood where the Guild Hall is at the present day. Edward III. and Richard II., during the Fourteenth Century, confirmed the rights of the Guild and even added to its privileges. Though it was a purely local institution, the fame of its good works had spread so wide during these next centuries that affiliation with it became a distinction, and the nobility were attracted to its ranks. George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward, with his wife and children, and the Earl of Warwick, and the Lady Margaret were counted among its members, and merchants of distant towns counted it an honor to belong to it. Later, also, Judge Littleton, one of the famous founders of English law, was on its roll of membership.
The objects of the Guild were many and varied and touched the social life of Stratford at every point. The first object was mutual prayer. The Guild maintained five priests or chaplains who were to say masses daily, hour by hour, from six to ten o'clock for its members, it being expected that some of them would be present at each of the masses. Out of the fees of the Guild one wax candle was to be kept alight every day throughout the year at every mass in the church before the rood, or cross, "so that God and our Blessed Virgin and the Venerated Cross may keep and guard all the brethren and sisters of the Guilds from every ill." The second object was charity, under which was included all the various Works of Mercy. The needs of any brother or sister who had fallen into poverty or been robbed were to be provided for "as long as he bears himself rightly towards the brethren." When a brother died all the brethren were bound to follow the body to the church and to pray for his soul at its burial. The Guild candle and eight smaller ones were to be kept burning by the body from the{385}time of death till the funeral. When a poor man died in the town the brethren and sisters were, for their soul's health, to find four wax candles, a sheet, and a hearse cloth for the corpse. This rule also applied in the event of a stranger's death, if the stranger had not the necessary means for burial. Nor were the efforts of the Guild at Stratford devoted solely to the alleviation of the ills of mankind and the more serious purposes of life. Once a year, in Easter Week, a feast of the members was held in order to foster peace and true brotherly love among them. At this time offerings were made for the poor in order that they too might share in the happiness of the festival time. There was attendance at church before the feasting and a prayer was offered by all the "brethren and sisters that God and our Blessed Virgin and the Venerated Cross in whose honor we have come together will keep us from all ills and sins." This frequent reference to the Cross will be better understood if it is recalled that the Guild at Stratford bore the name of the Guild of the Holy Cross, and the figure of the crucified One was one of its most respected symbols and was always looked upon as a special object of veneration on the part of the members.
The thoroughly progressive spirit of the Guild at Stratford will perhaps be best appreciated by the modern mind from the fact, that to it the town owed the foundation of its famous free school. During the Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries the study of grammar, and of the various theoretical branches, was not considered the essential part of an education. Gradually, however, there had arisen the feeling that all the children should be taught the ground-work of the vulgar tongue, and that those whose parents wished it should receive education in Latin also; hence the establishment of grammar schools, that at Stratford being founded for the children of the members of the Guild about the middle of the Fifteenth Century. This was only the normal development of the earlier spirit of the Guild which enabled it to meet the growing social needs of the time. It was at this school, as reconstituted under Edward VI., that Shakespeare was educated, and the reestablishment by Edward was only in response to the many complaints which arose because of the absence of the school after its suppression by{386}Henry VIII. The fact that Shakespeare was educated at an Edward VI. grammar school, has often given occasion for commentators to point out that it was practically the Reformation in England which led to the establishment of free schools. Any such suggestion, however, can be made only in complete ignorance of the preexisting state of affairs in which the people, by organization, succeeded in accomplishing so much for themselves.
As a matter of fact the Guild at Stratford, as in most of the towns in England—for we have taken this as an example only because it is easier to get at the details of its history—was the most important factor in the preservation of social order, in the distribution of charity, in the providing of education, and even the maintenance of the security of the life and property of its inhabitants. When it was dissolved, in 1547, Stratford found itself in a chaotic state and had to petition Edward VI. to reconstitute the Guild as a civil corporation, which he did by charter in 1553.
After this consideration of the guilds and their purpose and success, it is no wonder that we should declare that the wind of the spirit of democracy was blowing in England and carrying away the old landmarks of absolute government. It is to the spirit thus fostered that must be attributed the marvelous progress in representative government, the steps of which we recall.
In 1215, all England united against the odious John Lackland and obliged him to grant the Magna Charta—a declaration of national liberty.
In 1257, the Provisions of Oxford, under Henry III., established, for the moment, the stated recurrence of the great national council of Parliament.
In 1265, under the same Prince, the earl of Leicester admitted to Parliament the knights of the shire and the representatives of the townspeople, who formed later the lower house, or House of Commons, while those personally summoned to attend by the king from the great nobles formed the upper house, or House of Lords.
Beginning with the year 1295, in the reign of Edward I., the attendance of the county and town members became{387}regular, making Parliament really representative of the country.
In 1309, in the reign of Edward II., Parliament revealed its possible strength by putting conditions on its vote for taxes.
There were other factors at work, however, and one of them at least, because of its importance, deserves to be recalled here. In the chapter on Great Beginnings of Modern Commerce we call attention to the fact, that the Crusades were responsible to a great degree for the spirit of enterprise which led to the formation of the Lombard league of cities, and later to the great Hanseatic League, which seems to have taken at least its incentive from the Southern Confederation. In the chapter on Louis IX. we point out that the Crusades, and his connection with them, far from being blots on Louis's career must rather be considered as manifestations of the great heart of the time which was awakening to all needs, and had its religious aspirations stirred so deeply that men were ready to give up everything in order to follow an idea. One thing is certain, the Crusades did more to set ferments at work in the social organization of Europe than would have been possible by any other movement. These ferments brought about two results, one the uplift of the common people, the other the centralization of power in the hands of the kings with the gradual diminution of the influence of the nobility. While fostering the spirit of democracy on the one hand, they gave birth to the spirit of nationality and to all that this has accomplished in modern history.
Storrs, in his life of St. Bernard, recently issued, has given expression to this thought in a very striking fashion. He says:
"It used to be the fashion to regard the Crusades as mere fantastic exhibitions of a temporary turbulent religious fanaticism, aiming at ends wholly visionary, and missing them, wasting the best life of Europe in colossal and bloody undertakings, and leaving effects only of evil for the time which came after. More reasonable views now prevail; and while the impulse in which the vast movement took its rise is recognized as passionate and semi-barbaric, it is seen that many effects followed which were beneficial rather than harmful, which could not perhaps have been at the time in other ways realized. As I have already suggested, properties were to an important{388}extent redistributed in Europe, and the constitutions of states were favorably affected. Lands were sold at low prices by those who were going on the distant expeditions, very probably, as they knew, never to return; and horses and armor, with all martial equipments, were bought at high prices by the Jews, who could not hold land, and the history of whom throughout the Middle Ages is commonly traced in fearful lines of blood and fire, but who increased immeasurably their movable wealth through these transfers of property. Communes bought liberties by large contributions to the needs of their lord; and their liberties, once secured, were naturally confirmed and augmented, as the years went on. The smaller tended to be absorbed in the larger; the larger often to come more strictly under royal control, thus increasing the power of the sovereign—which meant at the time, general laws, instead of local, a less minutely oppressive administration, the furtherance of the movement toward national unity. It is a noticeable fact that Italy took but a comparatively small part in the Crusades; and the long postponement of organic union between different parts of the magnificent peninsula is not without relation to this. The influence which operated elsewhere in Europe to efface distinction of custom and language in separate communities, to override and extinguish local animosities, to make scattered peoples conscious of kinship, did not operate there; and the persistent severance of sections from each other, favored, of course, by the run of the rivers and the vast separating walls of the Apenines, was the natural consequence of the want of this powerful unifying force." [Footnote 32]
[Footnote 32: Storrs, "Bernard of Chairvaux," New York (Scribners), 1897, pp. 544-45. ]
As a matter of fact very few people realize how much was accomplished for the spirit of democracy, for liberty, for true progress, as regards the rights of men of all classes, and for the feeling of the brotherhood of man itself, by the Crusades. A practical money-making age may consider them examples of foolish religious fanaticism, but those who have studied them most profoundly and with most sympathy, who are deeply interested in the social amelioration which they brought about, and, above all, those who look at them in the higher poetic{389}spirit of what they did to lift man above the sordid cares of everyday life, see them in a far different way. Charles Kingsley sang in the poem of The Saints Tragedy:
"Tell us how our stout crusading fathersFought and bled for God and not for gold."
But quite apart from the poetry of them, from the practical side much can be said which even the most matter of fact of men will appreciate. Here, for instance, are a series of paragraphs from the history of the Middle Ages by George Washington Greene, which he confesses to have taken chiefly from the French, [Footnote 33] which will make clear something of the place these great expeditions should be considered as holding in the history of democracy and of liberty:
[Footnote 33: New York, Appleton, 1867.]
"Christendom had not spent in vain its treasures and its blood in the holy wars. Its immense sacrifices were repaid by immense results, and the evils which these great expeditions necessarily brought with them were more than compensated for by the advantages which they procured for the whole of Europe."The Crusades saved Europe from the Mussulman invasion and this was their immediate good. Their influence was felt, too, in a manner less direct, but not less useful. The Crusades had been preached by a religion of equality in a society divided by odious distinctions. All had taken part in them, the weak as well as the strong, the serf and the baron, man and woman, and it was by them that the equality of man and woman, which Christianity taught, was made a social fact. St. Louis declared that he could do nothing without the consent of his queen, his wife. It was from this period that we must date that influence of woman which gave rise to chivalric courtesy, the first step towards refinement of manners and civilization. The poor, too, were the adopted children of the Christian chivalry of the Crusades. The celebrated orders of Palestine were instituted for the protection of poor pilgrims. The Knights of the hospitals called the poor their masters. Surely no lesson was more needed by these proud barons of the Middle Ages than that of charity and humility.
{390}
"These ideas were the first to shake the stern despotism of feudality, by opposing to it the generous principles of chivalry which sprang all armed from the Crusades. Bound to the military orders by a solemn vow—and in the interests of all Christendom—the knight felt himself free from feudal dependence, and raised above national limits, as the immediate warrior and servant of the united Christendom and of God. Chivalry founded not upon territorial influence, but upon personal distinction, necessarily weakened nobility by rendering it accessible to all, and diminishing the interval which separated the different classes of society. Every warrior who had distinguished himself by his valor could kneel before the king to be dubbed a knight, and rise up the equal, the superior even, of powerful vassals. The poorest knight could sit at the king's table while the noble son of a duke or prince was excluded, unless he had won the golden spurs of knighthood. Another way by which the Crusades contributed to the decay of feudalism was by favoring the enfranchisement of serfs, even without the consent of their masters. Whoever took the cross became free, just as every slave becomes free on touching the soil of England or France."The communities whose development is to be referred to the period of the Crusades, multiplied rapidly; the nobility gladly granting charters and privileges in exchange for men and money. With the communities the royal power grew, and that of the aristocracy decreased. The royal domain was enlarged, by the escheating of a great number of fiefs which had been left vacant by the death of their lords. The kings protected the communities, favored their enfranchisement, and employed them usefully against insubordinate vassals. The extension of the royal power favored the organization of the nation, by establishing a principle of unity, for till then, and with that multitude of masters, the nation had been little else than an agglomeration of provinces, strangers to one another, and destitute of any common bond or common interest. The great vassals, themselves, often united under the royal banner, became accustomed during these distant expeditions to submission and discipline, and learned to recognize a legitimate authority; and if they lost by this submission a part of their{391}personal power, they gained in compensation the honorable distinctions of chivalry."But it was not the national feeling alone which was fostered by the Crusades. Relations of fraternity, till then wholly unknown, grew up between different nations, and softened the deep-rooted antipathy of races. The knights, whom a common object united in common dangers, became brothers in arms and formally formed permanent ties of friendship. That barbarous law which gave the feudal lord a right to call every man his serf who settled in his domains was softened. Stranger and enemy seemed to be synonymous, and 'the Crusaders,' say the chroniclers of the times, 'although divided by language, seemed to form only one people, by their love for God and their neighbor.' And without coloring the picture too warmly, and making all due allowance for the exaggerations which were so natural to the first recorders of such a movement, we may say that human society was founded and united and Europe began to pass from the painful period of organization, to one of fuller and more rapid development."
Here in reality modern democracy had its rise, striking its roots deep into the disintegrating soil of the old feudalism whence it was never to be plucked, and though at times it languished it was to remain ever alive until its luxuriant growth in recent times.
ANIMALS FROM BESTIARIUM, THIRTEENTH CENTURY MS.
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Geography is usually considered to be quite a modern subject. The idea that great contributions were made to it in the Thirteenth Century would ordinarily not be entertained. America was discovered at the end of the Fifteenth Century. Knowledge of the East was obtained during the Sixteenth Century. Africa was explored in the Nineteenth and a detailed knowledge of Asia came to us in such recent years that the books are still among the novelties of publication. Our knowledge of Persia, of Northern India, of Thibet, and of the interior of China are all triumphs of Nineteenth Century enterprise and exploration. As a matter of fact, however, all portions of the East were explored, the Capital and the dominions of Jenghis Khan described, Lhasa was entered and the greater part of China thoroughly explored by travelers of the Thirteenth Century, whose books still remain as convincing evidence of the great work that they accomplished. This chapter of Thirteenth Century accomplishment is, indeed, one of the most interesting and surprising in the whole story of the time.
It is usually considered that the teaching, supposed to have been more or less generally accepted, that the Antipodes did not exist, prevented any significant development of geography until comparatively modern times. While the question of the existence of antipodes was discussed in the schools of the Middle Ages, and especially of the Thirteenth Century when men's minds were occupied with practically all of the important problems even of physical science, and while many intelligent men accepted the idea that there could not be inhabitants on the other side of the world because of physical difficulties which supposedly made it impossible, it would be a mistake to think that this idea was universally accepted. We have already called attention to the fact in the chapter on "What was Taught at the{393}Universities," that Albertus Magnus, for instance, ridiculed the notion that men could not live with their heads down, as was urged against the doctrine of the existence of antipodes, by suggesting very simply that for those on the other side of the earth what we call down was really not down but up. This expresses, of course, the very heart of the solution of the supposed difficulty.
As a matter of fact it seems clear that many of the great travelers and explorers of the later Middle Ages harbored the notion that the earth was round. As we shall note a little later in mentioning Sir John Mandeville's work, the writer, whomever he was who took that pseudonym, believed thoroughly in the rotundity of the earth and did not hesitate to use some striking expressions—which have been often quoted—that he had heard of travelers who by traveling continually to the eastward had come back eventually to the point from which they started. While in the schools, then, the existence of antipodes may have been under discussion, there was a practical acceptance of their existence among those who were better informed with regard to countries and peoples and all the other topics which form the proper subject matter of geography.
It must be realized, moreover, that though the existence of the Antipodes is an important matter in geography, at this early period it was a mere theory, not a condition antecedent to progress. It was really a side issue as compared with many other questions relating to the earth's surface and its inhabitants with which the medieval mind was occupied. To consider that no knowledge of geography could be obtained until there was a definite acceptance of the right view of the earth's surface, would be to obliterate much precious knowledge. The argument as to the existence of antipodes, as it was carried on, was entirely outside of geography properly so-called. It never influenced in the slightest degree the men who were consciously and unconsciously laying deep and broad the foundations of modern geography. To consider such a matter as vital to the development of as many sided a subject as geography, illustrates very typically the narrowness of view of so many modern scholars, who apparently can see the value of nothing which does not entirely accord with modern knowledge. The really{394}interesting historian of knowledge, however, is he who can point out the beginnings of what we now know, in unexpected quarters in the medieval mind.
As the story of these travels and explorations is really a glorious chapter in the history of the encouragement of things intellectual, as well as an interesting phase of an important origin whose foundations were laid broad and deep in the Thirteenth Century, it must be told here in some detail. Our century was the great leader in exploration and geography as in so many other matters in which its true place is often unrecognized.
The people of the time are usually considered to have had such few facilities for travel that they did not often go far from home, and that what was known about distant countries, therefore, was very little and mainly legendary. Nothing could be more false than any such impression as this. The Crusades during the previous century had given the people not only a deep interest in distant lands, but the curiosity to go and see for themselves. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land were frequent, ecclesiastics often traveled at least as far as Italy, and in general the tide of travel in proportion to the number of population must have been not very much less in amount than in our own day. After the establishment of the religious orders, missionary expeditions to the East became very common and during the Thirteenth Century, as we shall see, the Franciscans particularly, established themselves in many parts of the Near East, but also of the Far East, especially in China. Many of those wrote accounts of their travels, and so the literature of travel and exploration during the Thirteenth Century is one of the most interesting chapters of the literature of these times, while the wonderfully deep foundations that were laid for the science of geography, are worthy to be set beside the great origins in other sciences and in the arts, for which the century is so noteworthy.
To most people it will come as a distinct surprise to learn that the travelers and explorers of the Thirteenth Century—merchants, ambassadors, and missionaries—succeeded in solving many of the geographical problems that have been of deepest interest to the generations of the last half of last century.{395}The eastern part of Asia particularly was traveled over and very thoroughly described by them. Even the northern part of India, however, was not neglected in spite of the difficulties that were encountered, and Thibet was explored and Lhasa entered by travelers of the Thirteenth Century. Of China as much was written as had been learned by succeeding generations down practically to our own time. This may sound like a series of fairy-tales instead of serious science, but it is the travelers and explorers of the modern time who have thought it worth while to comment on the writings of these old-time wanderers of the Thirteenth Century, and who have pointed out the significance of their work. These men described not only the countries through which they passed, but also the characters of the people, their habits and customs, their forms of speech, with many marvelous hints as regards the relationship of the different languages, and even something about the religious practises of these countries and their attitude toward the great truths of Christianity when they were presented to them.
Undoubtedly one of the greatest travelers and explorers of all times was Marco Polo, whose book was for so long considered to be mainly made up of imaginary descriptions of things and places never seen, but which the development of modern geographical science by travels and expeditions has proved to be one of the most valuable contributions to this department of knowledge that has ever been made. It took many centuries for Marco Polo to come to his own in this respect but the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries have almost more than made up for the neglect of their predecessors. Marco Polo suffered the same fate as did Herodotus of whom Voltaire sneered "father of history, say, rather, father of lies." So long as succeeding generations had no knowledge themselves of the things of which both these great writers had written, they were distrusted and even treated contemptuously. Just as soon, however, as definite knowledge began to come it was seen how wonderfully accurate both of them were in their descriptions of things they had actually seen, though they admitted certain over-wonderful stories on the authority of others. Herodotus has now come to be acknowledged as{396}one of the greatest of historians. In his lives of celebrated travelers, James Augustus St. John states the change of mind with regard to Marco Polo rather forcibly:
"When the travels of Marco Polo first appeared, they were generally regarded as fiction; and as this absurd belief had so far gained ground, that when he lay upon his death bed, his friends and nearest relatives, coming to take their eternal adieu, conjured him as he valued the salvation of his soul, to retract whatever he had advanced in his book, or at least many such passages as every person looked upon as untrue; but the traveler whose conscience was untouched upon that score, declared solemnly, in that awful moment, that far from being guilty of exaggeration, he had not described one-half of the wonderful things which he had beheld. Such was the reception which the discoveries of this extraordinary man experienced when first promulgated. By degrees, however, as enterprise lifted more and more the veil from Central and Eastern Asia the relations of our traveler rose in the estimation of geographers; and now that the world—though containing many unknown tracts—has been more successfully explored, we begin to perceive that Marco Polo, like Herodotus, was a man of the most rigid veracity, whose testimony presumptuous ignorance alone can call in question."
There is many a fable that clings around the name of Marco Polo, but this distinguished traveler needs no fictitious adornments of his tale to make him one of the greatest explorers of all time. It is sometimes said that he helped to introduce many important inventions into Europe and one even finds his name connected with the mariner's compass and with gunpowder. There are probably no good grounds for thinking that Europe owes any knowledge of either of these great inventions to the Venetian traveler. With regard to printing there is more doubt and Polo's passage with regard to movable blocks for printing paper money as used in China may have proved suggestive.
There is no need, however, of surmises in order to increase his fame for the simple story of his travels is quite sufficient for his reputation for all time. As has been well said most of the modern travelers and explorers have only been developing what Polo indicated at least in outline, and they have been{397}scarcely more than describing with more precision of detail what he first touched upon and brought to general notice. When it is remembered that he visited such cities in Eastern Turkestan as Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan, which have been the subject of much curiosity only satisfied in quite recent years, that he had visited Thibet, or at least had traveled along its frontier, that to him the medieval world owed some definite knowledge of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia and all that it was to know of China for centuries almost, his merits will be readily appreciated. As a matter of fact there was scarcely an interesting country of the East of which Marco Polo did not have something to relate from his personal experiences. He told of Burmah, of Siam, of Cochin China, of Japan, of Java, of Sumatra, and of other islands of the great Archipelago, of Ceylon, and of India, and all of these not in the fabulous dreamland spirit of one who has not been in contact with the East but in very definite and precise fashion. Nor was this all. He had heard and could tell much, though his geographical lore was legendary and rather dim, of the Coast of Zanzibar, of the vast and distant Madagascar, and in the remotely opposite direction of Siberia, of the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and of the curious customs of the inhabitants of these distant countries.
How wonderfully acute and yet how thoroughly practical some of Polo's observations were can be best appreciated by some quotations from his description of products and industries as he saw them on his travels. We are apt to think of the use of petroleum as dating from much later than the Thirteenth Century, but Marco Polo had not only seen it in the Near East on his travels, but evidently had learned much of the great rock-oil deposits at Baku which constitute the basis for the important Russian petroleum industry in modern times. He says:
"On the north (of Armenia) is found a fountain from which a liquor like oil flows, which, though unprofitable for the seasoning of meat, is good for burning and for anointing camels afflicted with the mange. This oil flows constantly and copiously, so that camels are laden with it."
He is quite as definite in the information acquired with regard, to the use of coal. He knew and states very confidently that{398}there were immense deposits of coal in China, deposits which are so extensive that distinguished geologists and mineralogists who have learned of them in modern times have predicted that eventually the world's great manufacturing industries would be transferred to China. We are apt to think that this mineral wealth is not exploited by the Chinese, yet even in Marco Polo's time, as one commentator has remarked, the rich and poor of that land had learned the value of the black stone.
"Through the whole Province of Cathay," says Polo, "certain black stones are dug from the mountains, which, put into the fire, burn like wood, and being kindled, preserve fire a long time, and if they be kindled in the evening they keep fire all the night."
Another important mineral product which even more than petroleum or coal is supposed to be essentially modern in its employment is asbestos. Polo had not only seen this but had realized exactly what it was, had found out its origin and had recognized its value. Curiously enough he attempts to explain the origin of a peculiar usage of the word salamander (the salamander having been supposed to be an animal which was not injured by fire) by reference to the incombustibility of asbestos. The whole passage as it appears in The Romance of Travel and Exploration deserves to be quoted. While discoursing about Dsungaria, Polo says:
"And you must know that in the mountain there is a substance from which Salamander is made. The real truth is that the Salamander is no beast as they allege in our part of the world, but is a substance found in the earth. Everybody can be aware that it can be no animal's nature to live in fire seeing that every animal is composed of all the four elements. Now I, Marco Polo, had a Turkish acquaintance who related that he had lived three years in that region on behalf of the Great Khan, in order to procure these salamanders for him. He said that the way they got them was by digging in that mountain till they found a certain vein. The substance of this vein was taken and crushed, and when so treated it divides, as it were, into fibres of wool, which they set forth to dry. When dry these fibres were pounded in a copper mortar and then washed so as to remove all the earth and to leave only the fibres, like{399}fibres of wool. These were then spun and made into napkins." Needless to say this is an excellent description of asbestos.
It is not surprising, then, that the Twentieth Century so interested in travel and exploration should be ready to lay its tributes at the feet of Marco Polo, and that one of the important book announcements of recent years should be that of the publication of an annotated edition of Marco Polo from the hands of a modern explorer, who considered that there was no better way of putting definitely before the public in its true historical aspect the evolution of modern geographical knowledge with regard to Eastern countries.
It can scarcely fail to be surprising to the modern mind that Polo should practically have been forced into print. He had none of the itch of the modern traveler for publicity. The story of his travels he had often told and because of the wondrous tales he could unfold and the large numbers he found it frequently so necessary to use in order to give proper ideas of some of his wanderings, had acquired the nickname of Marco Millioni. He had never thought, however, of committing his story to writing or perhaps he feared the drudgery of such literary labor. After his return from his travels, however, he bravely accepted a patriot's duty of fighting for his native country on board one of her galleys and was captured by the Genoese in a famous sea-fight in the Adriatic in 1298. He was taken prisoner and remained in captivity in Genoa for nearly a year.
It was during this time that one Rusticiano, a writer by profession, was attracted to him and tempted him to tell him the complete story of his travels in order that they might be put into connected form. Rusticiano was a Pisan who had been a compiler of French romances and accordingly Polo's story was first told in French prose. It is not surprising that Rusticiano should have chosen French since he naturally wished his story of Polo's travels to be read by as many people as possible and realized that it would be of quite as much interest to ordinary folk as to the literary circles of Europe. How interesting the story is only those who have read it even with the knowledge acquired by all the other explorers since his time, can properly appreciate. It lacks entirely the egotistic quality that usually characterizes an explorer's account of his travels, and, indeed,{400}there can scarcely fail to be something of disappointment because of this fact. No doubt a touch more of personal adventure would have added to the interest of the book. It was not a characteristic of the Thirteenth Century, however, to insist on the merely personal and consequently the world has lost a treat it might otherwise have had. There is no question, however, or the greatness of Polo's work as a traveler, nor of the glory that was shed by it on the Thirteenth Century. Like nearly everything else that was done in this marvelous century he represents the acme of successful endeavor in his special line down even to our own time.
It has sometimes been said that Marco Polo's work greatly influenced Columbus and encouraged him in his attempt to seek India by sailing around the globe. Of this, however, there is considerable doubt. We have learned in recent times, that a very definite tradition with regard to the possibility of finding land by sailing straight westward over the Atlantic existed long before Columbus' time. [Footnote 34] Polo's indirect influence on Columbus by his creation of an interest in geographical matters generally is much clearer. There can be no doubt of how much his work succeeded in drawing men's minds to geographical questions during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries.
[Footnote 34: My learned friend, Father DeRoo, of Portland, Ore., who has written two very interesting volumes on the History of America before Columbus, does not hesitate to say that Columbus may even have met in his travels and spoken with sailors who had touched on some portions of the American Continent, and that, of course, the traditions with regard to Greenland were very clear.]
After Marco Polo, undoubtedly, the most enterprising explorer and interesting writer on Travel in the Thirteenth Century was John of Carpini, the author of a wonderful series of descriptions of things seen in Northern Asia. Like so many other travelers and explorers at this time John was a Franciscan Friar, and seems to have been one of the early companions and disciples of St. Francis of Assisi, whom he joined when he was only a young man himself. Before going on his missionary and ambassadorial expedition he had been one of the most prominent men in the order. He had much to do with its{401}propagation among the Northern nations of Europe, and occupied successively the offices of custos or prior in Saxony and of Provincial in Germany. He seems afterwards to have been sent as an organizer into Spain and to have gone even as far as the Barbary coast.
It is not surprising, then, that when, in 1245, Pope Innocent IV. (sometime after the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe and the disastrous battle of Legamites which threatened to place European civilization and Christianity in the power of the Tartars) resolved to send a mission to the Tartar monarch, John of Carpini was selected for the dangerous and important mission.
At this time Friar John was more than sixty years of age, but such was the confidence in his ability and in his executive power that everything on the embassy was committed to his discretion. He started from Lyons on Easter Day, 1245. He sought the counsel first of his old friend Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, and from that country took with him another friar, a Pole, to act as his interpreter. The first stage in his journey was to Kiev, and from here, having crossed the Dnieper and the Don to the Volga, he traveled to the camp of Batu, at this time the senior living member of Jenghis Khan's family. Batu after exchanging presents allowed them to proceed to the court of the supreme Khan in Mongolia. As Col. Yule says, the stout-hearted old man rode on horseback something like three thousand miles in the next hundred days. The bodies of himself and companion had to be tightly bandaged to enable them to stand the excessive fatigue of this enormous ride, which led them across the Ural Mountains and River past the northern part of the Caspian, across the Jaxartes, whose name they could not find out, along the Dzungarian Lakes till they reached the Imperial Camp, called the Yellow Pavilion, near the Orkhon River. There had been an interregnum in the empire which was terminated by a formal election while the Friars were at the Yellow Pavilion, where they had the opportunity to see between three and four thousand envoys and deputies from all parts of Asia and Eastern Europe, who brought with them tributes and presents for the ruler to be elected.