Chapter XI: The Child in Earlier and Medieval Europe (2)

"Very extraordinary ideas were current as to the properties of jewels; talismanic and medicinal powers were attributed to many of them--it was thought that the jaspar, agate, and toad-stone neutralized or detected poisons, that pearls dissolved in powder cured stomachic complaints, and that coral acted as a charm. Great importance was attached to engraving, because it was held that if a gem were engraved by a skilful person under the right planetary influence its virtue was greatly increased. If, for example, an engraving depicting Ophinclius, the constellation which had the power of resisting poison, were cut on an agate its efficiency would be doubled. Even substances which had in themselves no talismanic qualities could acquire them if they were inscribed with words or symbols possessing them, and consequently sacred names and mystic signs were frequently placed not only upon gems, but also upon all kinds of jewelry, and sometimes upon other things, such as drinking cups, as well."[210]

=Food.= Eating and drinking was a most important function of the middle ages. Banquets were held to celebrate great events and feasting occurred on all occasions, both public and private. Good things to eat were so well thought of that it was the custom to send gifts of food to friends and patrons and the very highest in the land, as was often shown in England, did not think it undignified to give or to receive such presents, from whomever they might come. Towns in order to gain favors would send out as presents large quantities of food to royal personages, and loyalty shown by towns and individuals was sometimes rewarded by the king in the same way.

As artificial light was hard to get, the meals were usually partaken of during daylight. The cooks of the time showed great skill in the preparation of foods and in decorating their dishes, being fond of coloring all kinds of food and displaying branches and flowers about the food and table. The table was covered with a cloth and each guest furnished with a napkin, knife, and spoon but no fork, the fingers being used instead. Good manners prohibited the putting of the knife into the mouth, but it was all right to dip sops or morsels into soups or sauces, and it was a mark of good breeding to be able to carry such to the mouth without letting any drops fall upon the tablecloth or the person.

There were many different kinds of bread; among the meats were beef and pork, poultry and game of all sorts, among such eaten being peacocks, gulls, swans, herons, and cranes; many varieties of fish were to be had; there were many different kinds of fruits and vegetables used, among the fruits being quinces, pears, cherries, strawberries, apples, peaches, plums, and grapes, and of the vegetables, peas, leeks, cabbages, onions, turnips, parsnips, and beets. Soups and broths were very common, and the mixing of ingredients in dishes was much in use, as, meat was cut up into small pieces, boiled, ground in a mortar, passed through a strainer, and then mixed with spice, salt, sugar or honey, almonds, dates, raisins, and grated bread, all being blended together with the yolk of eggs.

The poorer classes sometimes fared badly, but usually in England the peasants had sufficient food, although often of the cheaper sort and not of great variety. "The methods of preparing the raw material for baking differed in various parts of this island. For a very long period it was imperative on the manorial populations in both England and Scotland that they should take their corn to be ground at the lord's mill. But when this regulation fell into disuse, all sorts of contrivances for grinding crept in. The most primitive was undoubtedly that of the Highland peasant. The first process was the separation of the grain from the ear. This was not threshed, but graddaned--that is to say, it was burned out of the ear in much the same fashion as the parched corn of Boaz. Either whole sheaves or several ears were fired on the cottage floor. Though the burning of the entire sheaf was the most expeditious process, it was a sad waste of manure and thatch. Sometimes oats were beaten out of the straw with a rude mallet, and kiln-dried. But usually both they and barley underwent the burning treatment. The housewife knelt before the fire, holding a few stalks in her left hand. Setting the ears alight, she deftly beat out the grain with a stick, just when the husk was quite consumed. The grains, blackened like coal, were picked off the floor with the hand and placed in the quern. This consisted of two stones, 1½ ft. in diameter, the lower slightly convex, the upper slightly concave. In the middle of each was a round hole, and on one side of it a long handle. The Scotch housewife shed the grain into the hole with one hand, and worked the handle round with the other. The corn slid down the convexity of the lower stone, and by the motion of the upper one was ground in the passage."[211] "Hasty pudding was a great favorite among the poorer sort. Indeed, all spoon meat of a sweet description was popular, as Houghton proves by a delightful little anecdote. Two Norfolk boys once were overheard discussing the kind of treat in which either of them would indulge if he became King of England. The one decided that he would have pudding every day for dinner; the other burst into tears, because his comrade's wish had left him nothing good from which to choose."[212]

=Children of the Ancient Britons.= "It seems to have been the custom of the Celts to plunge their new-born infants into some lake or river in order to try the firmness of their constitutions and to harden their bodies--this even in the winter season. The Scandinavians used, it is said, to pour water upon the heads of their children as soon as they were born, and this long before the introduction of Christianity; but there is no certainty that this custom was observed in Britain. Before the introduction of Christianity the inhabitants of the northern part of Britain did not give names, it is said, to their sons before they had performed some brave action, or given some indication of their disposition and character....

"The early British matron, even of the highest rank, always nursed her infants, and would have resented in the greatest degree the delegation of this parental office to another woman. We know little of the bringing up of the children. There is a story of Solinus to the effect that his first morsel of food was put into the infant's mouth on the point of the father's sword, with a prayer that he might prove a great and brave warrior and die on the field of battle. This seems more likely to apply to the races who succeeded them and the Roman occupation than to the veritable Britons. ... The Ancient Britons were accustomed almost from infancy to handle arms and to sing the glorious actions of their ancestors. The young were thus inspired to feats of strength and to be engaged in war. As they advanced in years they were, while being instructed in martial exercises, also taught that everything in life depended on their valor--the praises of the bards, the favor of the great, and the applause of the people, and that happiness after death was the reward only of those who were daring in war. It may be considered certain that the youth of Britain at this period were not delicately nurtured; a rough and hardy people would not educate their children in a manner unfitting for their surroundings and way of life, and doubtless--as in Germany--the families of the nobler sort were brought up with no more delicacy or tenderness than the common people. Tacitus says of the Germans, 'In every house you see the little boys, the sons of lords and peasants, equally sordid and ill-clothed, lying and playing promiscuously together on the ground and among the cattle, without any visible distinction. In this manner they grow up to that prodigious strength which we behold with admiration.' The sons of the ancient Germans, Gauls, and Britains of all ranks were allowed to run, wrestle, jump, swim, climb, and to engage in vigorous exercises at their will and without restraint until they approached manhood. To this continued exercise, together with the simplicity of their diet, is ascribed by Caesar the great strength of body and boldness of spirit to which these nations attained. Caesar says that when the youth of Germany, Gaul, and Britain began to approach the manly age, some more attention seems to have been paid to them by the public and their parents than previously, for when the son was younger it was accounted a shame for a father to be seen in his company. Children who were designed for the priestly order were then put under the direction of the Druids for their instruction in the sciences and in the principles of law, morality, and religion, while those who were intended for a warlike life--according to Caesar--had arms put into their hands by their fathers, or nearest kinsmen, in a public assembly of the warriors of the state or clan. Some vestiges of this custom continued till later times--especially with respect to the eldest sons of the lairds or chieftains--in some parts of the Highlands and western isles of Scotland."[213]

=Children among the Early Christians.= The old church fathers were so much given to ascetism that it would appear as if there was really an antagonism to marriage in their time and which must have had a great influence on family life. Donaldson states[214] that children are seldom mentioned in the Christian writings of the second and third centuries, and that almost nothing is said of their training, as if there were but little attention given to their instruction. And yet infants were considered with a much higher standard than among the Greeks and Romans, for, as given in the chapters dealing with children among these nations, infanticide was practiced by them, as the father had the right to expose his children, so that infants on their birth might be abandoned and left to perish, and this was particularly the case with weakly and deformed children and often with female children without blemish. From the very first Christianity condemned the practice and denounced it as murder. They even went further, for the church forbid the practice of the destruction of children before birth. Thus Christianity protected the lives of infants and especially of female infants.

=Child and Parent.= In England at least there did not at times seem to have been a great, strong affection between parents and children. This may have been caused in part from the custom of boarding out the children or sending them out to be servants or ladies-in-waiting to the persons with whom they were sent to live, as children who would thus go out from parents at an early age and not getting to see them often would not have the opportunity of showing affection for them and they would naturally take up with the people with whom they came in daily contact. The children who were sent to boarding-school were there throughout the entire year, being at home only a few days at a time, on holidays. Another cause for the lack of affection between parents and children may have been from the custom of the remarriage of parents, the new husband or the new wife drawing the affection away from the children. Although the children showed outward respect to their parents, which was well portrayed in the letters they wrote to them, yet it would seem there was not so deep an inward respect.

=Care and Treatment of Children.= Children were brought up quite strictly during the Middle Ages. They were punished very much, minor offenses often bringing a severe punishment, for it was held that every child needed correction and that quite frequently. The children of the poor were usually put to work when very young and had to undergo much suffering. Orphans had the hardest lot of all, for if parents cared so little for their own children and often neglected them, they would care still less for the children of other people, and so would neglect them or treat them cruelly. If the orphans were heirs, they were often despoiled of their possessions by their guardians or married to parties unfit for them in order to have control of their estate. Of course, all parents were not lacking in affection and all guardians were not knaves. Yet it would seem that children during the Middle Ages did not have the happiest of times and they often lived miserable lives.

=Apprenticeship.= There arose during the Middle Ages a belief that every child should be trained to do something. As was stated under feudalism, it was the custom for boys of the upper classes to be sent into the homes of nobles and churchmen to serve a number of years in order to become learned in chivalry and to acquire the use of arms. In like manner there grew up for the boys of the common classes the apprenticeship system, whereby they were placed under a master to spend a number of years to learn a trade or to carry on agriculture.

It was held, at least in England, that all able-bodied men should work and to that end they should be trained as boys, so that when grown up they would be able to work at a trade or farming and thereby earn their own living and not become a burden upon the state. During the sixteenth century it became a law that every child should have such training as would fit him for business or a calling. Some were apprenticed to trades and some to agriculture. If a parent could prove that he was able to furnish a maintenance for his children they were not apprenticed, but otherwise, if the children were found to be growing up in idleness, the authorities had the power to apprentice them.

There was a fee charged for apprenticeship to a trade, sometimes only an entrance fee and again an annual due, but not very large in either case. The term of service varied, in France being from three to thirteen years, while in England it generally lasted seven years. The apprentice probably secured no pay at any time, but was cared for by the master in the way of food, lodging, clothing, and other needs. After he had completed his years of service, the apprentice became a journeyman and then entered regularly into the trade, receiving wages for his labor. In the earlier times the journeyman could easily become a master, but later when capital began to be amassed and the carrying on of the manufacture of goods required much capital, the journeyman did not have very good opportunity for becoming a master. In the early days master, journeyman, and apprentice all lived and worked together and were in the same guild, and so there was not any great separation among them. But later when a large amount of capital was required to carry on business and a large number of men used, there became a wide difference between master and workmen and strife grew up between them and journeymen formed guilds for themselves alone, which guilds were sometimes suppressed by the authorities. Such a guild came in time to prohibit aliens from becoming apprentices, and thus from learning the trade, and even to restricting apprenticeship to the children and relatives of its members who were working in the trade.

=Military Training for the Young.= In order to bring back the old military training in England, in 1511 an act was passed "that every man being the king's subject, not lame, decrepit, or maimed, being within the age of sixty years, except spiritual men, justices of the one bench and of the other, justices of the assize, and barons of the exchequer, do use and exercise shooting in long bows, and also do have a bow and arrows ready continually in his house, to use himself in shooting. And that every man having a man child or men children in his house, shall provide for all such, being of the age of seven years and above, and till they shall come to the age of seventeen years, a bow and two shafts, to learn them and bring them up in shooting; and after such young men shall come to the age of seventeen years, every one of them shall provide and have a bow and four arrows continually for himself, at his proper costs and charges, or else of the gift and provision of his friends, and shall use the same as afore is rehearsed."[215]

=Amusements.= The people of medieval times were much given to amusements. This was particularly true of the people of England and what follows here is for the most part about that country.

The greatest pastime of the nobility was that of war, and the joust and the tournament were the most attractive amusements because they most resembled war. The young men engaged in a sport known as tilting at quintain, which was designed to prepare them for warfare. The figure of a Saracen with a saber or club in its right hand and a shield on the left arm was hung up so that it would turn about very readily. A young man on horseback with a lance or something similar, as in a joust, would ride at the figure and strive to strike it between the eyes or on the nose, for if some other part was struck the figure would be turned round so as to give the rider a blow on the back with the saber or club, which not only brought a laugh at his expense, but also helped to teach the young candidate for knighthood to aim accurately another time. This was practiced on other objects, as, tilting at a tree or post or at a ring. Another military exercise was throwing the spear or javelin, which might be at the quintain or some other object or to throw it to the greatest distance. Learning to throw with the sling was also another military exercise. Another great sport in the early times of this period was that of archery. Foot-races took place and likewise wrestling.

Hunting has ever been a great sport in England. The ancient Britons were hunters, as were the Saxons and also the Danes in England. But it remained for the Normans to bring hunting to a system, for they were not content to hunt in an open country, but took up thousands of acres and enclosed them in parks and stocked them with game and prohibited the common people from hunting within them, passing severe laws against such. There was a form of hunting that is most striking and became a great rage, which was hawking or falconry. This was greatly indulged in by both men and women and the birds they used for taking the other birds were highly trained and brought great prices. This was _the_ sport of the gentility and common people were not at all allowed to partake of it. Fishing was another sport, as was horse-racing and bull-baiting and cock-fighting. Throwing at cocks was another brutal amusement, wherein a heavy stick was thrown at a bird and if knocked over it belonged to the thrower if he could run and catch it before it could get to its feet.

The people managed so as to get quite a bit of pleasure out of their religion. One pastime was the wakes. On an evening preceding a saint's day the people went with lighted candles to the church, which was originally for the purpose of worship, but later it came to be a time for dancing and singing and eating, hawkers and peddlers congregating about the church to serve the crowd. Another church affair was the church ales. The church officials would brew a large quantity of ale before a holiday when there would be gatherings of people who bought and drank the ale, the profits being used for the good of the church. Another amusement was hocking, which took place on the Monday or Tuesday following the second Sunday after Easter. Men would hold a rope across a road and take toll of every woman passing or else women would have charge of the rope and collect toll off the men, the receipts going into the church treasury. The miracle and morality plays and the like, too, though intended as a means of instruction, became really a form of amusement for the masses.

Christmas was a great time for merry-making. One of the affairs at the time was mumming. Masks were used and disguises put on so as to impersonate all kinds of people and even animals. These mummers would make calls on people and sometimes even on high personages, making their entrances and exits without saying anything. May-day was a great occasion. Upon this day the houses would be decorated with flowers and branches from trees. There would be the dance about the May-pole and many games and plays. There were fair days, when people came together for traffic and for sports. There were sack races for the young men and smock races for the young women. Also there were wheelbarrow races and other kinds of races and contests. One such contest was the grinning match, where each person in the contest would thrust his head through a horse's collar and they would then vie with one another in grinning. In the yawning match, they would wait till late at night when all were tired and sleepy and then each would try to yawn the greatest. The one that yawned the widest and the most naturally and would thereby cause the most yawns from all present would win the prize.

It was a custom during this period for kings and great nobles to have Fools, who were the butt of all and who made all the butt of their jokes. They also kept minstrels in their households. Sometimes these minstrels played on different kinds of musical instruments and formed a musical band. Among the musical instruments were the ruible (a two-stringed instrument played with a bow), the veille (an instrument somewhat like a violin), the gitern (a kind of guitar), the harp, bagpipe, trumpet, pipe, lute, dulcimer, tambourine, and cymbals. There were a number of other kinds of entertainers, as, acrobats, rope-walkers, jugglers, contortionists, and conjurers. There was wire-dancing, rope-dancing, ballet-dancing, and sword-dancing. There were dancing bears and trained monkeys. There were entertainers who disguised themselves as birds and other animals and imitated their actions and cries. Dancing was, also, an amusement of the middle ages and it was indulged in by the nobility and all classes of the people.

There were plays acted in the castles and the towns and the colleges and the schools and even in the churches in the way of mysteries and moralities. There were strolling bands of players that attended wakes and fairs and played in barns and taverns and even in the farmhouse kitchen, wherever they might find place. "I shall transcribe out of Hall a description of a play which was acted by the boys of St. Paul's School, in 1527, at Greenwich. The occasion was the despatch of a French embassy to England, when Europe was outraged by the Duke of Bourbon's capture of Rome, when the children of Francis I. were prisoners in Spain, and Henry, with the full energy of his fiery nature, was flinging himself into a quarrel with Charles V. as the champion of the Holy See.

"At the conclusion of a magnificent supper 'the king led the ambassadors into the great chamber of disguisings; and in the end of the same chamber was a fountain, and on one side was a hawthorne tree, all of silk, with white flowers, and on the other side was a mulberry tree full of fair berries, all of silk. On the top of the hawthorne were the arms of England, compassed with the collar of the order of St. Michael, and in the top of the mulberry tree stood the arms of France within a garter. The fountain was all of white marble, graven and chased; the bases of the same were balls of gold, supported by ramping beasts wound in leaves of gold. In the first work were gargoylles of gold, fiercely faced, with spouts running. The second conceit of this fountain was environed with winged serpents, all of gold, which griped it; and on the summit of the same was a fair lady, out of whose breasts ran abundantly water of marvellous delicious savour. About this fountain were benches of rosemary, fretted in braydes laid on gold, all the sides set with roses, on branches as they were growing about this fountain. On the benches sate eight fair ladies in strange attire, and so richly apparelled in cloth of gold, embroidered and cut over silver, that I cannot express the cunning workmanship thereof. Then when the king and queen were set, there was played before them, by children, in the Latin tongue, a manner of tragedy, the effect whereof was that the pope was in captivity and the church brought under foot. Whereupon St. Peter appeared and put the cardinal (Wolsey) in authority to bring the pope to his liberty, and to set up the church again. And so the cardinal made intercession with the kings of England and France that they took part together, and by their means the pope was delivered. Then in came the French king's children, and complained to the cardinal how the emperour kept them as hostages, and would not come to reasonable point with their father, whereupon they desired the cardinal to help for their deliverance; which wrought so with the king his master and the French king that he brought the emperour to a peace, and caused the young princess to be delivered.'"[216]

The game of dice was found in England from an early period, as the Saxons, Danes, and Normans were much given to it, and during the Middle Ages dice were in great force and much used in gambling. There were also chess and draughts and domino and backgammon. Cards came into use late in this period, perhaps not earlier than the latter part of the fourteenth century, and seem not to have been much used in England before the middle of the fifteenth century. Gambling was very common among all classes, so much so that one of the restrictions in the indenture of apprentices was that they should keep from places where gambling was carried on. Some of the guilds had to pass laws that no help would be given a member who got into trouble or fell into poverty through playing dice.

Ball-playing was engaged in during the Middle Ages, just as in all ages and in all countries. The ball was, perhaps, more of a favorite in England than in any other country in Europe. They had club-ball, one player throwing the ball and another striking it with a straight club; cambuc or bandy-ball was probably a kind of golf, as the ball was struck on the ground with a curved club, called a bandy; pall-mall must have been a kind of croquet, as a wooden ball was used which was struck with a mallet and driven through arches of iron, there being an arch at each end of the grounds; in hand-ball the ball was struck with the palms of the hands against a wall or over something, being somewhat like tennis without a racket, and then later tennis with net and racket came to be played; there was foot-ball, the ball being kicked about by the foot.

Tip cat was a game played with a piece of wood called a cat, pointed at each end much like a double cone, which was laid on the ground in the center of a large ring; the player would strike one end of the cat with a stick, causing it to fly upward, which he then tried to strike to knock it out of the ring. There was bowling, many villages having bowling-greens. They also played quoits, fox and geese, and other kinds of outdoor games.

Young people played in the games and indulged in the sports mentioned in the foregoing and children played many of them, and also they had many other sports, such as spinning tops, catching butterflies and beetles, playing blind man's buff, and the like.

=Education.= The early Christians, surrounded as they were with pagan thoughts and ideas found it necessary to withdraw themselves from such influences, and, as they were without schools of their own, they became largely illiterate, having no training beyond what was obtained through their religion. Although they received but little literary education, yet they were given moral training of the very highest and best. As the church grew there was found the necessity of instructing those who were being brought into it, as well as the young, and so there arose what were known as the catechetical schools.

These schools began more and more to come under the influence of the old pagan culture and to drift away from their original purpose of giving religious instruction and to enter more upon the intellectual side. To counteract this they were finally taken away from the laity and brought under the influence of the clergy and came to be established in connection with the churches and then these schools became to be known as cathedral schools. They then gradually grew to become used for the training of the clergy. When monasteries arose in connection with the Christian church, there grew up in them schools for the training of those who were to become monks or priests. Thus education became to be less common than under Roman civilization and the schools to be used mostly for those who were to enter more directly into the work of the church.

One of the marked characteristics of the Middle Ages was the growth of the idea of education for all classes. In the early part of the period education was not considered highly important for any one, then came the idea of education for those who were to enter into clerical duties, and then last of all began to grow up the idea of education for all, whatever the future life work might be. That classical learning in its essential features was preserved to Europe was due to the Christian church, for keeping up the use of the Latin language the churchmen were thus given access to the written works of Roman culture and through them much was retained, especially in the monasteries. While the Roman civilization was almost annihilated in the central part of the empire, the extreme eastern and western parts were relatively undisturbed and classical learning was maintained in them, Ireland being the chief center in the West, from whence later this learning was returned to the central part of Europe. There were three distinct outbursts of learning following the darkest time of the period, the first being under Charlemagne (742-814) in France and Central Europe, the second in England under Alfred the Great (849-901), and the third under the Mohammedans in Spain.

The course of study in the schools of the Middle Ages was primarily designed to train the clergy to be able to participate in the church services and also to conduct them. The instruction was given in the elementary or song school which was followed by the grammar school and then by higher instruction. In the elementary school reading, writing, music, arithmetic, and Latin were taught. In reading the beginner was taught by the alphabetic method and when reading was begun careful attention was given to enunciation and accent and often boys were taught to read well without knowing the meaning of the words of the Latin they were reading. In writing wax tablets were used in the earlier times and then there came into use pen, ink, and parchment. This was an important phase of education because of the need of copying books. Music was an important subject because of its use in the church service. Arithmetic was begun by counting and then simple operations on the fingers, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing being drilled into the pupils through oral work, but little written work being done. Latin was only of an elementary form, a beginning in conversation being made. The student who went on with his studies took up the subjects of the trivium--grammar, rhetoric and dialectic. If he wished to pursue his studies further he entered into the subjects of the quadrivium--arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

There were three kinds of medieval church schools--the monastic school, the cathedral school, and the parish school. The monastic school occupied a place within the monastery and it was primarily intended for those who were to enter into monastic life; there were no charges for tuition, the school being maintained through gifts from pupils, sometimes such being quite large; the poor pupils were supported by charity or they paid their way by copying books or by doing other things. In the cathedral school there was usually a song school, for elementary instruction, and a grammar school, for those who should want more advanced education. As assistants in the smaller churches needed instruction, parish schools were established, in which there was but little training given beyond that needed for participation in the church services.

Lay education arose in this period in three ways. In the first place it came through the education and training of those intended for knighthood, as such produced standards of deportment that impressed themselves upon the upper classes in such a way that as civilization advanced and means of intercourse widened there came a need of systematic instruction so that there arose the great public schools of England and similar schools upon the continent. In the second place the growing importance of the cities in industry and commerce led to the establishment of schools for the training of the city youth, so that the burgher school was produced. Under the guild system there arose a kind of industrial education and the need of means of instruction of the young of the guild members so that guild schools were formed.

During the period following the fall of Rome, the culture and learning of Greece and Rome were almost entirely lost to central and western Europe. Only here and there was a little retained, usually in some monastery where some of the old manuscripts were stored away. Yet learning was never entirely lost, and when the Crusades arose and the people of the West came in contact with the old Greek culture in eastern Europe and with the scientific learning of the Moslems, and who brought learning again into Spain, they brought back with them a widening interest in learning. Too, as commerce grew and wealth increased there became more leisure for learning and there grew up a desire for further knowledge and, so to the education as discussed in the foregoing paragraphs there was added a still higher form, that of the university.

The university arose during the Middle Ages. In its beginning it came neither directly from church or state. The awakening of a scientific spirit and the spreading abroad of discussion through scholasticism caused to arise centers around which learned men gathered about them the young men of the times. The earliest of these were the universities of Bologna and Salerno in the twelfth century. The former was for the study of law and the latter for medicine. The University of Paris originated near the same time and in it arose the four faculties--theology, philosophy, law, medicine--which are still extant to-day in the universities. Oxford, Cambridge, Vienna, and many other universities were formed during this period.

From the very first, special privileges were conferred upon the universities by the authorities. Sometimes they were allowed to have full control of their own affairs, having their own special courts. Again those connected with the universities were exempt from military service, except in time of great need, and from paying taxes. There were a number of other privileges granted. These privileges were not always granted because of the high regard in which the university was held but sometimes they were gained by the university threatening to remove to another place and even doing this, for there were no great plants in those days demanding permanent residence as now, as professors and students were about all there was to a medieval university as the buildings usually were furnished for them and there were no great libraries or laboratories or other equipment. These privileges often led to abuses on the part of the students for many of them led dissolute lives and others became bullies and adventurers. Whatever may have been the cause, it is too true that the moral tone of the medieval university was low.

The medieval university in its organization was similar to the guild, the term signifying a company of persons that were joined together for study. There came to be a natural grouping together of the students from the same part of the world so that there arose the nations, and each year each nation elected a councillor, who was to be the chief to act for the nation. The university was organized into faculties, the complete number being four, of arts, law, medicine, and theology. Each faculty elected a dean, as its representative, and then deans and councillors elected the rector, the head of the university. In the South the rector was usually a student while in the North he was generally elected from the body of professors.

At first the courses offered differed in the various universities, but later the courses were fixed either by a papal decree or by the faculty. The student was not only to acquire the subject, but to be able to debate upon it. He was expected to memorize the professor's lecture and to prepare himself in debate so as to be ready to cope with students taking the other side of the question.

Usually the courses in arts were taken by the younger students as a preparation for the professional training. At first the bachelor's degree meant only that the one receiving it was granted the privilege to enter upon the work leading to the other degrees, but later it became a separate degree. Master and doctor at first were about of equal rank, and then later doctor represented a higher period of learning.

The Church Fathers were quite severe in their ideas of education. The most famous writings among them on the subject are by Saint Jerome on the education of girls, being letters to a mother. Some of the admonitions are as follows:

"Do not allow Paula to eat in public, that is, do not let her take part in family entertainments, for fear that she may desire the meats that may be served there. Let her learn not to use wine, for it is the source of all impurity. Let her food be vegetables, and only rarely fish; and let her eat so as always to be hungry.

"For myself, I entirely forbid a young girl to bathe.

"Never let Paula listen to musical instruments; let her even be ignorant of the uses served by the flute and the harp.

"Do not let Paula be found in the ways of the world (emphatic paraphrase for _streets_), in the gatherings and in the company of her kindred; let her be found only in retirement.

"Do not allow Paula to feel more affection for one of her companions than for others; do not allow her to speak with such a one in an undertone.

"Let her be educated in a cloister, where she will not know the world, where she will live as an angel, having a body but not knowing it, and where, in a word, you will be spared the care of watching over her."[217]

Whatever we may think of the foregoing, we must agree that the following advice is most wholesome:

"Do not chide her for the difficulty she may have in learning. On the contrary, encourage her by commendation, and proceed in such a way that she shall be equally sensible to the pleasure of having done well, and to the pain of not having been successful.... Especially take care that she do not conceive a dislike for study that might follow her into a more advanced age."[218]

There is not very much given on education of women during the medieval period. It is no doubt true that girls received even less education than did boys. During the time of chivalry the young women, like the young men, were often educated in the castle of some knight or lord, being trained in household management, music, and gentle manners. It would seem that sometimes girls had in their own homes governesses for training them. Sometimes girls and little boys were sent together to nunneries to be educated. Here and there are found references which imply that some women were well educated for their times and particularly so in languages, reading and writing and speaking English, French and Spanish. But in the main it was considered that all the training necessary for the girls was a little elementary education and such knowledge of housework and management as would fit them for wives.

=The Children's Crusade.= Among the greatest events in medieval Europe were the Crusades, and perhaps the most striking was the Children's Crusade. This occurred in 1212 A. D., in France and Germany. The early Crusades had been successful in taking Palestine away from the Saracens and a Christian kingdom had been established with Jerusalem as its center. But at the time of the Children's Crusade, Palestine had nearly all again fallen into the hands of the Mohammedans. It is true there had been three later crusades, but they were not successful and they had for a time ceased against Palestine and had been turned against parts of Europe. One such was made on Germany, a second was against the Saracens in Spain, and a third was against the Albigenses in southern France. People became indifferent in reference to Palestine, so the church sent out chosen ones to arouse enthusiasm and to strive to bring about another Crusade. Amid such scenes arose the Children's Crusade.

Never was there at any other time such an arousing of children. All classes of children were included. Children came from the hovel of the peasant, the hut of the shepherd, the home of the merchant, and the castle of the lord. Most of them enrolled in the Crusade from religious fervor, but many went only to get away from the restraints of home. Sad it is, too, that many worthless characters, both men and women, flocked to the standard of the children. Many girls were included in this movement, but the very greater part were boys under twelve years of age. The children seemed to be filled with the fervor and nothing could restrain them. When the procession of children went along it made the others wild to join. If by any means children could be detained by their parents, they pined so that they had to be given their freedom and be allowed to join the throng.

In France the leader was Stephen of Cloyes, who at the time of the Crusade was about twelve years of age. He was the son of a poor peasant, a shepherd. When old enough, Stephen was sent out to tend sheep and for some years he spent his summers upon the plains near his home. As in other parts of Europe, so at Cloyes means were taken to arouse the people to another crusade into Palestine. Among such were processions in which was shown the condition of the Christians in Palestine and with entreaties for the people to strive to redeem the Holy Land. As with all the others, Stephen must have witnessed these scenes and have listened to the portrayals of affairs in Palestine, which he must have greatly considered while tending his sheep.

One day a stranger appeared before him and stated that he was a pilgrim from Palestine, and asked for food. Stephen fed the stranger and asked in return to be told about the Holy Land. The stranger told his stories and he must have seen that Stephen was greatly affected as he finally declared himself to be Jesus Christ and to have come to appoint Stephen to lead the children in a crusade, and gave him a letter to the king of France. Stephen at once entered into his holy mission and told his story to parents and neighbors, showed the letter he had to the king, and declared himself to be called to go forth as a leader in the Crusade.

Stephen called the children to his crusade and there flocked about him the children of his neighborhood, but he soon saw that he could not arouse the nation, from this out-of-the-way place. So he determined to go to the greatest religious center in France, the city of St. Denis, the place of burial of the martyr Dionysius, whose tomb was the great shrine of the land, to which great crowds went on pilgrimages. To this place Stephen went, attired in his shepherd's dress, crook in hand, and wallet by side. He went from crowd to crowd, before the church door and in the market place, showing his letter to the king and preaching his Crusade. It was not long before he attracted attention and aroused enthusiasm in the young. The people carried news of him throughout France as they returned to their homes and the young people gathered together their fellows and returned with crowds of children to Stephen. As the numbers increased, Stephen led them through the towns and villages till he had all the children wild to join him. This did not go on without some opposition. Some of the more intelligent men, among them some from the clergy, thought it should not go on, and even the king, Philip Augustus, was in doubt about it. He asked an opinion concerning it from the University of Paris, and after due deliberation its members advised the king that the movement should be stopped even if vigorous means had to be used. The king then issued an edict, commanding the children to give up the enterprise and to return to their homes. This edict had but little effect, as the movement went right on, and the king did not dare enforce the edict.

The crowds of children gathered more and more over France and Stephen designated Vendôme as the central place in which to assemble and to get ready to depart for Palestine. This was a good selection as it was an important place and with roads coming into it from all directions. The bands of children came into Vendôme in great numbers, one chronicler stating that there were fifteen thousand children under twelve years of age from Paris alone, and although in all probabilities this is an overestimation, yet it shows there was a vast assembly of children, so much so that Vendôme could not contain them and they had to encamp outside its walls, each band to itself so that those from the same city or community were together. The children were from all parts of France, varying in language and dress, but not in zeal. Whether they all wore a uniform is not known, but they did put on the Cross of the Crusaders, made of red woolen cloth and sewed on the right shoulder of the coat by some one of the leaders, and of which emblem the children were all very proud. Finally all the bands had gathered and Stephen was ready to make the start for the sea, which was to open and let them march through to the Holy Land. The number assembled at Vendôme was about thirty thousand.

The message of the pilgrim delivered to Stephen must have come the last of April or the first of May, 1212, as it occurred shortly after Stephen had observed in the city of Chârtres the procession to commemorate the sufferings of those who had died in defense of the Holy Land and which was held on St. Mark's day, April 25th. He went to St. Deny's in the month of May and to Vendôme, perhaps, the last of May or the first of June and the start for the sea was made the last of July or the first of August, all of the same year.

And now all was ready for the departure from Vendôme. Their leader Stephen had become so great that there was provided for him a carriage, decorated with flags and tapestries of brilliant colors, and over him was a canopy of rich draperies as a protection from the heat of the sun. About his carriage was a band of youths of noble blood, on horseback, and equipped as knights, acting as his body guard. Good-byes were said and the procession, singing their songs, with flags and oriflammes, started. At the beginning of the journey Stephen was given great honor and gladly obeyed, they even vied with one another in showing him adulations and tried to secure a piece from his clothing or from the trimmings of the carriage or from the trappings of the horses which was kept as a relic and used as a charm. But as days went on and hardships and sufferings came upon them and their journey lengthened out, they became little more than a straggling crowd without order or discipline, and then Stephen's authority was no longer regarded by them. Their journey was to Blois, where they crossed the Loire, and then to Lyons, where the Rhone was crossed, and thence to Marseilles. As they were asked on the way where they were going they all answered: "To Jerusalem." This was an unusually hot summer and the children suffered greatly from heat and thirst and many of them from hunger, although the people along the way sympathized with the movement and aided them. At last they came to Marseilles. They asked for shelter in the city for the night only, as on the morrow God was to open the sea for them and they would proceed on their way to the Holy Land.

The city granted their request and the children entered the gates and went into the city, singing their songs as they marched through the streets. They passed the night and in the morning they went to the sea to go on with their journey. The sea did not open that day nor the next day nor on any day. This discouraged them and many gave up, but others remained, hoping for a way to Palestine. And a way did come, for two merchants of Marseilles, Hugo Ferreus and William Porcus, so their Latin names read, offered "for the cause of God, and without price," to provide ships for their transport. Preparations then were made, and seven ships furnished and it is estimated that about five thousand children went on board these ships to proceed on their way to Palestine. Nothing further was heard of these children who sailed from Marseilles on that August day in 1212, till in 1230, eighteen years afterward, when a priest came to Europe from Palestine and told that he was among those who were on the vessels with the children. He stated that two of the ships were wrecked off the coast of the island of San Pietro and all on board perished. The other five ships were taken to Bujeiah and Alexandria and the children were sold to the Saracens. Upon learning of this, Pope Gregory IX. had a church built on the island where the wreck occurred and had the remains of the children interred in it and named it the ECCLESIA NOVORUM INNOCENTIUM--_The Church of the New Innocents_.

The story of Stephen at St. Denys was not only carried all over France, but likewise to the neighboring countries, spreading to the Rhine provinces in Germany. It reached a village near Cologne where lived a boy who was about the same age as Stephen and by the name of Nicholas. Like Stephen he, too, was a shepherd boy, and he had heard the stories about the Crusades. When he learned about Stephen there arose a desire to do as he, and aided by his father, some say induced by him, he took upon himself the preaching of a children's crusade for Germany. He, too, had been called to the work, as he stated while with his flocks he saw a blazing cross in the sky and there came to him a voice that told him the cross was to lead him to victory in his undertaking to recover the Holy Land. Like Stephen, too, Nicholas went to a great religious center, the city of Cologne, as at this time this city was a great center for pilgrimages, as in its cathedral rested the bones of the "Three Kings of the East" who came "with a great multitude of camels to worshippe Christ, then a little childe of thirteen dayes olde," so the old legend ran.