Chapter XXV: Part II (7)

[720] I have sometimes been surprised at the facility with which prices adjusted themselves to the quantity of silver contained in the current coin, in ages which appear too ignorant and too little commercial for the application of this mercantile principle. But the extensive dealings of the Jewish and Lombard usurers, who had many debtors in almost all parts of the country, would of itself introduce a knowledge, that silver, not its stamp, was the measure, of value. I have mentioned in another place (vol. i. p. 211) the heavy discontents excited by this debasement of the coin in France; but the more gradual enhancement of nominal prices in England seems to have prevented any strong manifestations of a similar spirit at the successive reductions in value which the coin experienced from the year 1300. The connexion however between commodities and silver was well understood. Wykes, an annalist of Edward I.'s age, tells us, that the Jews clipped our coin, till it retained hardly half its due weight, the effect of which was a general enhancement of prices, and decline of foreign trade: Mercatores transmarini cum mercimoniis suis regnum Angliae minus solito frequentabant; necnon quod omnimoda venalium genera incomparabiliter solito fuerunt cariora. 2 Gale, XV Script. p. 107. Another chronicler of the same age complains of bad foreign money, alloyed with copper; nec erat in quatuor aut quinque ex iis pondus unius denarii argentii.... Eratque pessimum saeculum pro tali moneta, et fiebant commutationes plurimae in emptione et venditione rerum. Edward, as the historian informs us, bought in this bad money at a rate below its value, in order to make a profit; and fined some persons who interfered with his traffic. W. Hemingford, ad ann. 1299.

[721] These will chiefly be found in Sir F. Eden's table of prices; the following may be added from the account-book of a convent between 1415 and 1425. Wheat varied from 4_s._ to 6_s._--barley from 3_s._ 2_d._ to 4_s._ 10_d._--oats from 1_s._ 8_d._ to 2_s._ 4_d._--oxen from 12_s._ to 16_s._--sheep from 1_s._ 2_d._ to 1_s._ 4_d._--butter 3/4_d._ per lb.--eggs twenty-five for 1_d._--cheese 1/2_d._ per lb. Lansdowne MSS., vol. i. No. 28 and 29. These prices do not always agree with those given in other documents of equal authority in the same period; but the value of provisions varied in different counties, and still more so in different seasons of the year.

[722] I insert the following comparative table of English money from Sir Frederick Eden. The unit, or present value, refers of course to that of the shilling before the last coinage, which reduced it.

------------------+----------------+-------------
| Value of |
| pound |
| sterling, |
| present money. | Proportion.
+----------------+-------------
| L. s. d. |
Conquest, 1066 | 2 18 1-1/2 | 2.906
28 E. I. 1300 | 2 17 5 | 2.871
18 E. III. 1344 | 2 12 5-1/4 | 2.622
20 E. III. 1346 | 2 11 8 | 2.583
27 E. III. 1353 | 2 6 6 | 2.325
13 H. IV. 1412 | 1 18 9 | 1.937
4 E. IV. 1464 | 1 11 0 | 1.55
18 H. VIII. 1527 | 1 7 6-3/4 | 1.378
34 H. VIII. 1543 | 1 3 3-1/4 | 1.163
36 H. VIII. 1545 | 0 13 11-1/2 | 0.698
37 H. VIII. 1546 | 0 9 3-3/4 | 0.466
5 E. VI. 1551 | 0 4 7-3/4 | 0.232
6 E. VI. 1552 | 1 0 6-3/4 | 1.028
1 Mary 1553 | 1 0 5-3/4 | 1.024
2 Eliz. 1560 | 1 0 8 | 1.033
43 Eliz. 1601 | 1 0 0 | 1.000
------------------+----------------+-------------

[723] Macpherson's Annals, p. 424, from Matt. Paris.

[724] Difference of Limited and Absolute Monarchy, p. 133.

[725] Hist. of Hawsted, p. 141.

[726] Nicholls's Illustrations, p. 2. One fact of this class did, I own, stagger me. The great earl of Warwick writes to a private gentleman, Sir Thomas Tudenham, begging the loan of ten or twenty pounds to make up a sum he had to pay. Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 84. What way shall we make this commensurate to the present value of money? But an ingenious friend suggested, what I do not question is the case, that this was one of many letters addressed to the adherents of Warwick, in order to raise by their contributions a considerable sum. It is curious, in this light, as an illustration of manners.

[727] Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 224; Cullum's Hawsted, p. 182.

[728] Hist. of Hawsted, p. 228.

[729] Mr Malthus observes on this that I "have overlooked the distinction between the reigns of Edw. III. and Henry VIII. (perhaps a misprint for VI.), with regard to the state of the labouring classes. The two periods appear to have been essentially different in this respect." Principles of Political Economy, p. 293, 1st edit. He conceives that the earnings of the labourer in corn were unusually low in the latter years of Edward III., which appears to have been effected by the statute of labourers (25 E. III.), immediately after the great pestilence of 1350, though that mortality ought, in the natural course of things, to have considerably raised the real wages of labour. The result of his researches is that, in the reign of Edward III., the labourer could not purchase half a peck of wheat with a day's labour; from that of Richard II. to the middle of that of Henry VI., he could purchase nearly a peck; and from thence to the end of the century, nearly two pecks. At the time when the passage in the text was written [1816], the labourer could rarely have purchased more than a peck with a day's labour, and frequently a good deal less. In some parts of England this is the case at present [1846]; but in many counties the real wages of agricultural labourers are considerably higher than at that time, though not by any means so high as, according to Malthus himself, they were in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The excessive fluctuations in the price of corn, even taking averages of a long term of years, which we find through the middle ages, and indeed much later, account more than any other assignable cause for those in real wages of labour, which do not regulate themselves very promptly by that standard, especially when coercive measures are adopted to restrain them.

[730] See these rates more at length in Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 32, &c.

[731] In the Archaeologia, vol. xviii. p. 281, we have a bailiffs account of expenses in 1387, where it appears that a ploughman had sixpence a week, and five shillings a year, with an allowance of diet; which seems to have been only pottage. These wages are certainly not more than fifteen shillings a week in present value [1816]; which, though materially above the average rate of agricultural labour, is less so than some of the statutes would lead us to expect. Other facts may be found of a similar nature.

[732] See that singular book, Piers Plowman's Vision, p. 145 (Whitaker's edition), for the different modes of living before and after harvest. The passage may be found in Ellis's Specimens, vol. i. p. 151.

[733] Fortescue's Difference between Abs. and Lim. Monarchy, p. 19. The passages in Fortescue, which bear on his favourite theme, the liberty and consequent happiness of the English, are very important, and triumphantly refute those superficial writers who would make us believe that they were a set of beggarly slaves.

[734] Besides the books to which I have occasionally referred, Mr. Ellis's Specimens of English Poetry, vol. i. chap. 13, contain a short digression, but from well-selected materials, on the private life of the English in the middling and lower ranks about the fifteenth century. [I leave the foregoing pages with little alteration, but they may probably contain expressions which I would not now adopt. 1850.]

[735] Besides the German historians, see Du Cange, v. Ganerbium, for the confederacies in the empire, and Hermandatum for those in Castile. These appear to have been merely voluntary associations, and perhaps directed as much towards the prevention of robbery, as of what is strictly called private war. But no man can easily distinguish offensive war from robbery except by its scale; and where this was so considerably reduced, the two modes of injury almost coincide. In Aragon, there was a distinct institution for the maintenance of peace, the kingdom being divided into unions or juntas, with a chief officer, called Suprajunctarius, at their head. Du Cange, v. Juncta.

[736] Henault, Abrege Chronol. a l'an. 1255. The institutions of Louis IX. and his successors relating to police form a part, though rather a smaller part than we should expect from the title, of an immense work, replete with miscellaneous information, by Delamare, Traite de la Police, 4 vols. in folio. A sketch of them may be found in Velly, t. v. p. 349, t. xviii. p. 437.

[737] Velly, t. v. p. 162, where this incident is told in an interesting manner from William de Nangis. Boulainvilliers has taken an extraordinary view of the king's behaviour. Hist. de l'Ancien Gouvernement, t. ii. p. 26. In his eyes princes and plebeians were made to be the slaves of a feudal aristocracy.

[738] Velly, t. viii. p. 132.

[739] Id. xviii. p. 437.

[740] Fleury, 3me Discours sur l'Hist. Eccles.

[741] The most authentic account of the Paulicians is found in a little treatise of Petrus Siculus, who lived about 870, under Basil the Macedonian. He had been employed on an embassy to Tephrica, the principal town of these heretics, so that he might easily be well informed; and, though he is sufficiently bigoted, I do not see any reason to question the general truth of his testimony, especially as it tallies so well with what we learn of the predecessors and successors of the Paulicians. They had rejected several of the Manichean doctrines, those, I believe, which were borrowed from the Oriental, Gnostic, and Cabbalistic philosophy of emanation; and therefore readily condemned Manes, prothumos anathematizousi Maneta. But they retained his capital errors, so far as regarded the principle of dualism, which he had taken from Zerdusht's religion, and the consequences he had derived from it. Petrus Siculus enumerates six Paulician heresies. 1. They maintained the existence of two deities, the one evil, and the creator of this world; the other good, called pater epouranios, the author of that which is to come. 2. They refused to worship the Virgin, and asserted that Christ brought his body from heaven. 3. They rejected the Lord's Supper. 4. And the adoration of the cross. 5. They denied the authority of the Old Testament, but admitted the New, except the epistles of St. Peter, and, perhaps, the Apocalypse. 6. They did not acknowledge the order of priests.

There seems every reason to suppose that the Paulicians, notwithstanding their mistakes, were endowed with sincere and zealous piety, and studious of the Scriptures. A Paulician woman asked a young man if he had read the Gospels: he replied that laymen were not permitted to do so, but only the clergy: ouk exestin hemin tois kosmikois ousi tauta anaginoskein, ei me tois hiereusi monois. p. 57. A curious proof that the Scriptures were already forbidden in the Greek church, which I am inclined to believe, notwithstanding the leniency with which Protestant writers have treated it, was always more corrupt and more intolerant than the Latin.

[742] Gibbon, c. 54. This chapter of the historian of the Decline and Fall upon the Paulicians appears to be accurate, as well as luminous, and is at least far superior to any modern work on the subject.

[743] It is generally agreed, that the Manicheans from Bulgaria did not penetrate into the west of Europe before the year 1000; and they seem to have been in small numbers till about 1140. We find them, however, early in the eleventh century. Under the reign of Robert in 1007 several heretics were burned at Orleans for tenets which are represented as Manichean. Velly, t. ii. p. 307. These are said to have been imported from Italy; and the heresy began to strike root in that country about the same time. Muratori, Dissert. 60 (Antichita Italiane, t. iii. p. 304). The Italian Manicheans were generally called Paterini, the meaning of which word has never been explained. We find few traces of them in France at this time; but about the beginning of the twelfth century, Guibert, bishop of Soissons, describes the heretics of that city, who denied the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and rejected the sacraments. Hist. Litteraire de la France, t. x. p. 451. Before the middle of that age, the Cathari, Henricians, Petrobussians, and others appear, and the new opinions attracted universal notice. Some of these sectaries, however, were not Manicheans. Mosheim, vol. iii. p. 116.

The acts of the inquisition of Toulouse, published by Limborch, from an ancient manuscript, contain many additional proofs that the Albigenses held the Manichean doctrine. Limborch himself will guide the reader to the principal passages, p. 30. In fact, the proof of Manicheism among the heretics of the twelfth century is so strong (for I have confined myself to those of Languedoc, and could easily have brought other testimony as to the Cathari), that I should never have thought of arguing the point, but for the confidence of some modern ecclesiastical writers.--What can we think of one who says, "It was not unusual to stigmatize new sects with the odious name of Manichees, though I _know no evidence_ that there were any real remains of that ancient sect in the twelfth century"? Milner's History of the Church, vol. iii. p. 380. Though this writer was by no means learned enough for the task he undertook, he could not be ignorant of facts related by Mosheim and other common historians.

I will only add, in order to obviate cavilling, that I use the word Albigenses for the Manichean sects, without pretending to assert that their doctrines prevailed more in the neighbourhood of Albi than elsewhere. The main position is, that a large part of the Languedocian heretics against whom the crusade was directed had imbibed the Paulician opinions. If any one chooses rather to call them Catharists, it will not be material.

[744] M. Paris, p. 267. (A.D. 1223.) Circa dies istos, haeretici Albigenses constituerunt sibi Antipapam in finibus Bulgarorum, Croatiae et Dalmatiae, nomine Bartholomaeum, &c. We are assured by good authorities that Bosnia was full of Manicheans and Arians as late as the middle of the fifteenth century. AEneas Sylvius, p. 407; Spondanus, ad an. 1460; Mosheim.

[745] There has been so prevalent a disposition among English divines to vindicate not only the morals and sincerity, but the orthodoxy of these Albigenses, that I deem it necessary to confirm what I have said in the text by some authorities, especially as few readers have it in their power to examine this very obscure subject. Petrus Monachus, a Cistercian monk, who wrote a history of the crusades against the Albigenses, gives an account of the tenets maintained by the different heretical sects. Many of them asserted two principles or creative beings: a good one for things invisible, an evil one for things visible; the former author of the New Testament, the latter of the Old. Novum Testamentum benigno deo, vetus vero maligno attribuebant; et illud omnino repudiabant, praeter quasdam auctoritates, quae de Veteri Testamento Novo sunt insertae, quas ob Novi reverentiam Testamenti recipere dignum aestimabant. A vast number of strange errors are imputed to them, most of which are not mentioned by Alanus, a more dispassionate writer. Du Chesne, Scriptores Francorum, t. v. p. 556. This Alanus de Insulis, whose treatise against heretics, written about 1200, was published by Masson at Lyons, in 1612, has left, I think, conclusive evidence of the Manicheism of the Albigenses. He states their argument upon every disputed point as fairly as possible, though his refutation is of course more at length. It appears that great discrepancies of opinion existed among these heretics, but the general tenor of their doctrines is evidently Manichean. Aiunt haeretici temporis nostri quod duo sunt principia rerum, principium lucis et principium tenebrarum, &c. This opinion, strange as we may think it, was supported by Scriptural texts; so insufficient is a mere acquaintance with the sacred writings to secure unlearned and prejudiced minds from the wildest perversions of their meaning! Some denied the reality of Christ's body; others his being the Son of God; many the resurrection of the body; some even of a future state. They asserted in general the Mosaic law to have proceeded from the devil, proving this by the crimes committed during its dispensation, and by the words of St. Paul, "the law entered that sin might abound." They rejected infant baptism, but were divided as to the reason; some saying that infants could not sin, and did not need baptism; others, that they could not be saved without faith, and consequently that it was useless. They held sin after baptism to be irremissible. It does not appear that they rejected either of the sacraments. They laid great stress upon the imposition of hands, which seems to have been their distinctive rite.

One circumstance, which both Alanus and Robertus Monachus mention, and which other authorities confirm, is their division into two classes; the Perfect, and the Credentes, or Consolati, both of which appellations are used. The former abstained from animal food, and from marriage, and led in every respect an austere life. The latter were a kind of lay brethren, living in a secular manner. This distinction is thoroughly Manichean, and leaves no doubt as to the origin of the Albigenses. See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, t. ii. p. 762 and 777. This candid writer represents the early Manicheans as a harmless and austere set of enthusiasts, exactly what the Paulicians and Albigenses appear to have been in succeeding ages. As many calumnies were vented against one as the other.

The long battle as to the Manicheism of the Albigensian sectaries has been renewed since the publication of this work, by Dr. Maitland on one side, and Mr. Faber and Dr. Gilly on the other; and it is not likely to reach a termination; being conducted by one party with far less regard to the weight of evidence than to the bearing it may have on the theological hypotheses of the writers. I have seen no reason for altering what is said in the text.

The chief strength of the argument seems to me to lie in the independent testimonies as to the Manicheism of the Paulicians, in Petrus Siculus and Photius, on the one hand, and as to that of the Languedocian heretics in the Latin writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries on the other; the connexion of the two sects through Bulgaria being established by history, but the latter class of writers being unacquainted with the former. It is certain that the probability of general truth in these concurrent testimonies is greatly enhanced by their independence. And it will be found that those who deny any tinge of Manicheism in the Albigenses, are equally confident as to the orthodoxy of the Paulicians. [1848.]

[746] The contemporary writers seem uniformly to represent Waldo as the founder of the Waldenses; and I am not aware that they refer the locality of that sect to the valleys of Piedmont, between Exiles and Pignerol (see Leger's map), which have so long been distinguished as the native country of the Vaudois. In the acts of the Inquisition, we find Waldenses, sive pauperes de Lugduno, used as equivalent terms; and it can hardly be doubted that the poor men of Lyons were the disciples of Waldo. Alanus, the second book of whose treatise against heretics is an attack upon the Waldenses, expressly derives them from Waldo. Petrus Monachus does the same. These seem strong authorities, as it is not easy to perceive what advantage they could derive from misrepresentation. It has been however a position zealously maintained by some modern writers of respectable name, that the people of the valleys had preserved a pure faith for several ages before the appearance of Waldo. I have read what is advanced on this head by Leger (Histoire des Eglises Vaudoises) and by Allix (Remarks on the Ecclesiastical History of the Churches of Piedmont), but without finding any sufficient proof for this supposition, which nevertheless is not to be rejected as absolutely improbable. Their best argument is deduced from an ancient poem called La Noble Loicon, an original manuscript of which is in the public library of Cambridge, and another in that of Geneva. This poem is alleged to bear date in 1100, more than half a century before the appearance of Waldo. But the lines that contain the date are loosely expressed, and may very well suit with any epoch before the termination of the twelfth century.

Ben ha mil et cent ans compli entierament,
Che fu scritta loro que sen al derier temp.

Eleven hundred years are now gone and past,
Since thus it was written; These times are the last.

See Literature of Europe in 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, chap. 1, Sec. 33.

I have found however a passage in a late work, which remarkably illustrates the antiquity of Alpine protestantism, if we may depend on the date it assigns to the quotation. Mr. Planta's History of Switzerland, p. 93, 4to. edit., contains the following note:--"A curious passage, singularly descriptive of the character of the Swiss, has lately been discovered in a MS. chronicle of the Abbey of Corvey, which appears to have been written about the beginning of the twelfth century. Religionem nostram, et omnium Latinae ecclesiae Christianorum fidem, laici ex Suavia, Suicia, et Bavaria humiliare voluerunt; homines seducti ab antiqua progenie simplicium hominum, qui Alpes et viciniam habitant, et semper amant antiqua. In Suaviam, Bavariam et Italiam borealem saepe intrant illorum (ex Suicia) mercatores, qui biblia ediscunt memoriter, et ritus ecclesiae aversantur, quos credunt esse novos. Nolunt imagines venerari, reliquias sanctorum aversantur, olera comedunt, raro masticantes carnem, alii nunquam. Appellamus eos idcirco Manichaeos. Horum quidam ab Hungaria ad eos convenerunt, &c." It is a pity that the quotation has been broken off, as it might have illustrated the connexion of the Bulgarians with these sectaries.

[747] The Waldenses were always considered as much less erroneous in their tenets than the Albigenses, or Manicheans. Erant praeterea alii haeretici, says Robert Monachus in the passage above quoted, qui Waldenses dicebantur, a quodam Waldio nomine Lugdunensi. Hi quidem mali erant, sed comparatione aliorum haereticorum longe minus perversi; in multis enim nobiscum conveniebant, in quibusdam dissentiebant. The only faults he seems to impute to them are the denial of the lawfulness of oaths and capital punishment, and the wearing wooden shoes. By this peculiarity of wooden sandals (sabots) they got the name of Sabbatati or Insabbatati. (Du Cange.) William du Puy, another historian of the same time, makes a similar distinction. Erant quidam Ariani, quidam Manichaei, quidam etiam Waldenses sive Lugdunenses, qui licet inter se dissidentes, omnes tamen in animarum perniciem contra fidem Catholicam conspirabant; et illi quidem Waldenses contra alios acutissime disputant. Du Chesne, t. v. p. 666. Alanus, in his second book, where he treats of the Waldenses, charges them principally with disregarding the authority of the church and preaching without a regular mission. It is evident however from the acts of the Inquisition, that they denied the existence of purgatory; and I should suppose that, even at that time, they had thrown off most of the popish system of doctrine, which is so nearly connected with clerical wealth and power. The difference made in these records between the Waldenses and the Manichean sects shows that the imputations cast upon the latter were not indiscriminate calumnies. See Limborch, p. 201 and 228.

The History of Languedoc, by Vaissette and Vich, contains a very good account of the sectaries in that country; but I have not immediate access to the book. I believe that proof will be found of the distinction between the Waldenses and Albigenses in t. iii. p. 446. But I am satisfied that no one who has looked at the original authorities will dispute the proposition. These Benedictine historians represent the Henricians, an early set of reformers, condemned by the council of Lombez, in 1165, as Manichees. Mosheim considers them as of the Vaudois school. They appeared some time before Waldo.

[748] The general testimony of their enemies to the purity of morals among the Languedocian and Lyonese sectaries is abundantly sufficient. One Regnier, who had lived among them, and became afterwards an inquisitor, does them justice in this respect. See Turner's History of England for several other proofs of this. It must be confessed that the Catharists are not free from the imputation of promiscuous licentiousness. But whether this was a mere calumny, or partly founded upon truth, I cannot determine. Their prototypes, the ancient Gnostics, are said to have been divided into two parties, the austere and the relaxed; both condemning marriage for opposite reasons. Alanus, in the book above quoted, seems to have taken up several vulgar prejudices against the Cathari. He gives an etymology of their name a catto; quia osculantur posteriora catti; in cujus specie, ut aiunt, appareret iis Lucifer, p. 146. This notable charge was brought afterwards against the Templars.

As to the Waldenses, their innocence is out of all doubt. No book can be written in a more edifying manner than La Noble Loicon, of which large extracts are given by Leger, in his Histoire des Eglises Vaudoises. Four lines are quoted by Voltaire (Hist. Universelle, c. 69), as a specimen of the Provencal language, though they belong rather to the patois of the valleys. But as he has not copied them rightly, and as they illustrate the subject of this note, I shall repeat them here from Leger, p. 28.

Que sel se troba alcun bon que vollia amar Dio e temer Jeshu Xrist,
Que non vollia maudire, ni jura, ni mentir,
Ni avoutrar, ni aucire, ni penre de l'autruy,
Ni venjar se de li sio ennemie,
Illi dison quel es Vaudes e degne de murir.

[749] It would be difficult to specify all the dispersed authorities which attest the existence of the sects derived from the Waldenses and Paulicians in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. Besides Mosheim, who has paid considerable attention to the subject, I would mention some articles in Du Cange which supply gleanings; namely, Beghardi, Bulgari, Lollardi, Paterini, Picardi, Pifli, Populicani.

Upon the subject of the Waldenses and Albigenses generally, I have borrowed some light from Mr. Turner's History of England, vol. ii. p. 377, 393. This learned writer has seen some books that have not fallen into my way; and I am indebted to him for a knowledge of Alanus's treatise, which I have since read. At the same time I must observe, that Mr. Turner has not perceived the essential distinction between the two leading sects.

The name of Albigenses does not frequently occur after the middle of the thirteenth century; but the Waldenses, or sects bearing that denomination, were dispersed over Europe. As a term of different reproach was derived from the word Bulgarian, so _vauderie_, or the profession of the Vaudois, was sometimes applied to witchcraft. Thus in the proceedings of the Chambre Brulante at Arras, in 1459, against persons accused of sorcery, their crime is denominated _vauderie_. The fullest account of this remarkable story is found in the Memoirs of Du Clercq, first published in the general collection of Historical Memoirs, t. ix. p. 430, 471. It exhibits a complete parallel to the events that happened in 1682 at Salem in New England. A few obscure persons were accused of _vauderie_, or witchcraft. After their condemnation, which was founded on confessions obtained by torture, and afterwards retracted, an epidemical contagion of superstitious dread was diffused all around. Numbers were arrested, burned alive by order of a tribunal instituted for the detection of this offence, or detained in prison; so that no person in Arras thought himself safe. It was believed that many were accused for the sake of their possessions, which were confiscated to the use of the church. At length the duke of Burgundy interfered, and put a stop to the persecutions. The whole narrative in Du Clercq is interesting, as a curious document of the tyranny of bigots, and of the facility with which it is turned to private ends.

To return to the Waldenses: the principal course of their emigration is said to have been into Bohemia, where, in the fifteenth century, the name was borne by one of the seceding sects. By their profession of faith, presented to Ladislaus Posthumus, it appears that they acknowledged the corporal presence in the eucharist, but rejected purgatory and other Romish doctrines. See it in the Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum, a collection of treatises illustrating the origin of the Reformation, originally published at Cologne in 1535, and reprinted at London in 1690.

[750] Opera Innocent III. p. 468, 537. A translation of the Bible had been made by direction of Peter Waldo; but whether this used in Lorrain was the same, does not appear. Metz was full of the Vaudois, as we find by other authorities.

[751] Schilteri Thesaurus Antiq. Teutonicorum.

[752] Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xvii. p. 720.

[753] The Anglo-Saxon versions are deserving of particular remark. It has been said that our church maintained the privilege of having part of the daily service in the mother tongue. "Even the mass itself," says Lappenberg, "was not read entirely in Latin." Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 202. This, however, is denied by Lingard, whose authority is probably superior. Hist. of Ang.-Sax. Church, i. 307. But he allows that the Epistle and Gospel were read in English, which implies an authorized translation. And we may adopt in a great measure Lappenberg's proposition, which follows the above passage: "The numerous versions and paraphrases of the Old and New Testament made those books known to the laity and more familiar to the clergy."

We have seen a little above, that the laity were not permitted by the Greek Church of the ninth century, and probably before, to read the Scriptures, even in the original. This shows how much more honest and pious the Western Church was before she became corrupted by ambition and by the captivating hope of keeping the laity in servitude by means of ignorance. The translation of the four Books of Kings into French has been published in the Collection de Documens Inedits, 1841. It is in a northern dialect, but the age seems not satisfactorily ascertained; the close of the eleventh century is the earliest date that can be assigned. Translations into the Provencal by the Waldensian or other heretics were made in the twelfth; several manuscripts of them are in existence, and one has been published by Dr. Gilly. [1848.]

[754] The application of the visions of the Apocalypse to the corruptions of Rome has commonly been said to have been first made by the Franciscan seceders. But it may be traced higher, and is remarkably pointed out by Dante.

Di voi pastor s' accorse 'l Vangelista,
Quando colei, chi siede sovra l'acque,
Puttaneggiar co' regi a lui fu vista.

Inferno, cant. xix.

[755] Walsingham, p. 238; Lewis's Life of Pecock, p. 65. Bishop Pecock's answer to the Lollards of his time contains passages well worthy of Hooker, both for weight of matter and dignity of style, setting forth the necessity and importance of "the moral law of kinde, or moral philosophie," in opposition to those who derive all morality from revelation.

This great man fell afterwards under the displeasure of the church for propositions, not indeed heretical, but repugnant to her scheme of spiritual power. He asserted, indirectly, the right of private judgment, and wrote on theological subjects in English, which gave much offence. In fact, Pecock seems to have hoped that his acute reasoning would convince the people, without requiring an implicit faith. But he greatly misunderstood the principle of an infallible church. Lewis's Life of Pecock does justice to his character, which, I need not say, is unfairly represented by such historians as Collier, and such antiquaries as Thomas Hearne.

[756] Lewis's Life of Wicliffe, p. 115; Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, t. i. p. 213.

[757] Huss does not appear to have rejected any of the peculiar tenets of popery. Lenfant, p. 414. He embraced, like Wicliffe, the predestinarian system of Augustin, without pausing at any of those inferences, apparently deducible from it, which, in the heads of enthusiasts, may produce such extensive mischief. These were maintained by Huss (id. p. 328), though not perhaps so crudely as by Luther. Everything relative to the history and doctrine of Huss and his followers will be found in Lenfant's three works on the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle.

[758] Lenfant, Hist. de la Guerre des Hussites et du Concile de Basle; Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. v.

[759] Nihil neque publicae neque privatae rei nisi armati agunt. Sed arma sumere non ante cuiquam moris, quam civitas suffecturum probaverit. Tum in ipso concilio, vel principum aliquis, vel pater, vel propinquus, scuto frameaque juvenem ornant; haec apud eos toga, hic primus juventae honos; ante hoc domus pars videntur, mox reipublicae. De Moribus German. c. 13.

[760] William of Malmsbury says that Alfred conferred knighthood on Athelstan, donatum chlamyde coccinea, gemmato balteo, ense Saxonico cum vagina aurea. 1. ii. c. 6. St. Palaye (Memoires sur la Chevalerie, p. 2) mentions other instances; which may also be found in Du Cange's Glossary, v. Arma, and in his 22nd dissertation on Joinville.

[761] Comites et vassalli nostri qui beneficia habere noscuntur, et _caballarii_ omnes ad placitum nostrum veniant bene preparati. Capitularia, A.D. 807, in Baluze, t. i. p. 460.

[762] We must take for this the more favourable representations of the Indian nations. A deteriorating intercourse with Europeans, or a race of European extraction, has tended to efface those virtues which possibly were rather exaggerated by earlier writers.

[763] Since this passage was written, I have found a parallel drawn by Mr. Sharon Turner, in his valuable History of England, between Achilles and Richard Coeur de Lion; the superior justness of which I readily acknowledge. The real hero does not indeed excite so much interest in me as the poetical; but the marks of resemblance are very striking, whether we consider their passions, their talents, their virtues, their vices, or the waste of their heroism.

The two principal persons in the Iliad, if I may digress into the observation, appear to me representatives of the heroic character in its two leading varieties; of the energy which has its sole principle, of action within itself, and of that which borrows its impulse from external relations; of the spirit of honour, in short, and of patriotism. As every sentiment of Achilles is independent and self-supported, so those of Hector all bear reference to his kindred and his country. The ardour of the one might have been extinguished for want of nourishment in Thessaly; but that of the other might, we fancy, have never been kindled but for the dangers of Troy. Peace could have brought no delight to the one but from the memory of war; war had no alleviation to the other but from the images of peace. Compare, for example, the two speeches, beginning Il. Z. 441, and Il. II. 49; or rather compare the two characters throughout the Iliad. So wonderfully were those two great springs of human sympathy, variously interesting according to the diversity of our tempers, first touched by that ancient patriarch,

a quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.

[764] Ingulfus, in Gale, XV Scriptores, t. i. p. 70. William Rufus, however, was knighted by Archbishop Lanfranc, which looks as if the ceremony was not absolutely repugnant to the Norman practice.

[765] Du Cange, v. Miles, and 22nd Dissertation on Joinville, St. Palaye, Mem. sur la Chevalerie, part ii. A curious original illustration of this, as well as of other chivalrous principles, will be found in l'Ordene de Chevalerie, a long metrical romance published in Barbazan's Fabliaux, t. i. p. 59 (edit. 1808).

[766] Y eut huit cens chevaliers seant a table; et si n'y eust celui qui n'eust une dame on une pucelle a son ecuelle. In Launcelot du Lac, a lady, who was troubled with a jealous husband, complains that it was a long time since a knight had eaten off her plate. Le Grand, t. i. p. 24.

[767] Le Grand, Fabliaux, t. iii. p. 438; St. Palaye, t. i. p. 41. I quote St. Palaye's Memoires from the first edition in 1759, which is not the best.

[768] Statuimus, quod omnis homo, sive miles sive alius, qui iverit cum domina generosa, salvus sit atque securus, nisi fuerit homicida. De Marca, Marca Hispanica, p. 1428.

[769] Le Grand, t. i. p. 120; St. Palaye, t. i. p. 13, 134, 221; Fabliaux, Romances, &c., passim.

[770] St. Palaye, p. 222.

[771] Froissart, p. 33.

[772] St. Palaye, p. 268.

[773] The romances will speak for themselves; and the character of the Provencal morality may be collected from Millot, Hist. des Troubadours, passim; and from Sismondi, Litterature du Midi, t. i. p. 179, &c. See too St. Palaye, t. ii. p. 62 and 68.

[774] St. Palaye, part ii.

[775] Non laudem meruit, sed summae potius opprobrium vilitatis; nam idem facinus est putandum captum nobilem vel ignobilem offendere, vel ferire, quam gladio caedere cadaver. Rolandinus, in Script Rer. Ital. t. viii. p. 351.

[776] Froissart, 1. i. c. 161. He remarks in another place that all English and French gentlemen treat their prisoners well; not so the Germans, who put them in fetters, in order to extort more money, c. 136.

[777] St Palaye, part iv. p. 312, 367, &c. Le Grand, Fabliaux, t. i. p. 115, 167. It was the custom in Great Britain, (says the romance of Perceforest, speaking of course in an imaginary history,) that noblemen and ladies placed a helmet on the highest point of their castles, as a sign that all persons of such rank travelling that road might boldly enter their houses like their own. St. Palaye, p. 367.

[778] Fabliaux de Barbasan, t. i.

[779] Joinville in Collection des Memoires, t. i. p. 43.

[780] St. Palaye, part i.

[781] Du Cange, 5me Dissertation sur Joinville. St. Palaye, t. i. p. 87, 118. Le Grand, t. i. p. 14.

[782] St. Palaye, t. i. p. 191.

[783] Godfrey de Preuilly, a French knight, is said by several contemporary writers to have invented tournaments; which must of course be understood in a limited sense. The Germans ascribe them to Henry the Fowler; but this, according to Du Cange, is on no authority. 6me Dissertation sur Joinville.

[784] St. Palaye, part ii. and part iii. au commencement. Du Cange, Dissert. 6 and 7: and Glossary, v. Torneamentum. Le Grand, Fabliaux, t. i. p. 184.

[785] St. Palaye, part iv. Selden's Titles of Honour, p. 806. There was not, however, so much distinction in England as in France.

[786] St. Palaye, vol. i. p. 70, has forgotten to make this distinction. It is, however, capable of abundant proof. Gunther, in his poem called Ligurinus, observes of the Milanese republic:

Quoslibet ex humili vulgo, quod Gallia foedum
Judicat, accingi gladio concedit equestri.

Otho of Frisingen expresses the same in prose. It is said, in the Establishments of St. Louis, that if any one not being a gentleman on the father's side was knighted, the king or baron in whose territory he resides, may hack off his spurs on a dunghill, c. 130. The count de Nevers, having knighted a person who was not noble exparte paterna, was fined in the king's court. The king, however, (Philip III.) confirmed the knighthood. Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Francoise, p. 98. Fuit propositum (says a passage quoted by Daniel) contra comitem Flandriensem, quod non poterat, nec debebat facere de villano militem, sine auctoritate regis. ibid. Statuimus, says James I. of Aragon, in 1234, ut nullus faciat militem nisi filium militis. Marca Hispanica, p. 1428. Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 592, produces other evidence to the same effect. And the emperor Sigismund having conferred knighthood, during his stay in Paris in 1415, on a person incompetent to receive it for want of nobility, the French were indignant at his conduct, as an assumption of sovereignty. Villaret, t. xiii. p. 397. We are told, however, by Giannone, 1. xx. c. 3, that nobility was not in fact required for receiving chivalry at Naples, though it was in France.

The privilege of every knight to associate qualified persons to the order at his pleasure, lasted very long in France; certainly down to the English wars of Charles VII. (Monstrelet, part ii. folio 50), and, if I am not mistaken, down to the time of Francis I. But in England, where the spirit of independence did not prevail so much among the nobility, it soon ceased. Selden mentions one remarkable instance in a writ of the 29th year of Henry III. summoning tenants in capite to come and receive knighthood from the king, ad recipiendum a nobis arma militaria; and tenants of mesne lords to be knighted by whomsoever they pleased, ad recipiendum arma de quibuscunque voluerint. Titles of Honour, p. 792. But soon after this time, it became an established principle of our law that no subject can confer knighthood except by the king's authority. Thus Edward III. grants to a burgess of _Lyndia_ in Guienne (I know not what place this is) the privilege of receiving that rank at the hands of any knight, his want of noble birth notwithstanding. Rymer, t. v. p. 623. It seems, however, that a different law obtained in some places. Twenty-three of the chief inhabitants of Beaucaire, partly knights, partly burgesses, certified in 1298, that the immemorial usage of Beaucaire and of Provence had been, for burgesses to receive knighthood at the hands of noblemen, without the prince's permission. Vaissette, Hist. de Languedoc, t. iii. p. 530. Burgesses, in the great commercial towns, were considered as of a superior class to the roturiers, and possessed a kind of demi-nobility. Charles V. appears to have conceded a similar indulgence to the citizens of Paris. Villaret, t. x. p. 248.

[787] St. Palaye, part iii. passim.

[788] The word bachelor has been sometimes derived from bas chevalier; in opposition to banneret. But this cannot be right. We do not find any authority for the expression bas chevalier, nor any equivalent in Latin, baccalaureus certainly not suggesting that sense; and it is strange that the corruption should obliterate every trace of the original term. Bachelor is a very old word, and is used in early French poetry for a young man, as bachelette is for a girl. So also in Chaucer:

"A yonge Squire,
A lover, and a lusty _bachelor_."

[789] Du Cange, Dissertation 9me sur Joinville. The number of men at arms, whom a banneret ought to command, was properly fifty. But Olivier de la Marche speaks of twenty-five as sufficient; and it appears that, in fact, knights-banneret often did not bring so many.

[790] Ibid. Olivier de la Marche (Collection des Memoires, t. viii. p. 337) gives a particular example of this; and makes a distinction between the bachelor, created a banneret on account of his estate, and the hereditary banneret, who took a public opportunity of requesting the sovereign to unfold his family banner which he had before borne wound round his lance. The first was said relever banniere; the second, entrer en banniere. This difference is more fully explained by Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Francoise, p. 116. Chandos's banner was unfolded, not cut, at Navarette. We read sometimes of esquire-bannerets, that is, of bannerets by descent, not yet knighted.

[791] Froissart, part i. c. 241.

[792] Mem. sur la Chevalerie, part v.

[793] The prerogative exercised by the kings of England of compelling men sufficiently qualified in point of estate to take on them the honour of knighthood was inconsistent with the true spirit of chivalry. This began, according to Lord Lyttelton, under Henry III. Hist. of Henry II. vol. ii. p. 238. Independently of this, several causes tended to render England less under the influence of chivalrous principles than France or Germany; such as, her comparatively peaceful state, the smaller share she took in the crusades, her inferiority in romances of knight-errantry, but above all, the democratical character of her laws and government. Still this is only to be understood relatively to the two other countries above named; for chivalry was always in high repute among us, nor did any nation produce more admirable specimens of its excellences.

I am not minutely acquainted with the state of chivalry in Spain, where it seems to have flourished considerably. Italy, except in Naples, and perhaps Piedmont, displayed little of its spirit; which neither suited the free republics of the twelfth and thirteenth, nor the jealous tyrannies of the following centuries. Yet even here we find enough to furnish Muratori with materials for his 53rd Dissertation.

[794] The well-known Memoirs of St. Palaye are the best repository of interesting and illustrative facts respecting chivalry. Possibly he may have relied a little too much on romances, whose pictures will naturally be overcharged. Froissart himself has somewhat of this partial tendency, and the manners of chivalrous times do not make so fair an appearance in Monstrelet. In the Memoirs of la Tremouille (Collect. des Mem. t. xiv. p. 169), we have perhaps the earliest delineation from the life of those severe and stately virtues in high-born ladies, of which our own country furnished so many examples in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which were derived from the influence of chivalrous principles. And those of Bayard in the same collection (t. xiv. and xv.) are a beautiful exhibition of the best effects of that discipline.

It appears to me that M. Guizot, to whose judgment I owe all deference, has dwelt rather too much on the feudal character of chivalry. Hist. de la Civilisation en France, Lecon 36. Hence he treats the institution as in its decline during the fourteenth century, when, if we can trust either Froissart or the romancers, it was at its height. Certainly, if mere knighthood was of right both in England and the north of France, a territorial dignity, which bore with it no actual presumption of merit, it was sometimes also conferred on a more honourable principle. It was not every knight who possessed a fief, nor in practice did every possessor of a fief receive knighthood.

Guizot justly remarks, as Sismondi has done, the disparity between the lives of most knights and the theory of chivalrous rectitude. But the same has been seen in religion, and can be no reproach to either principle. Partout la pensee morale des hommes s'eleve et aspire fort au dessus de leur vie. Et gardez vous de croire que parce qu'elle ne gouvernait pas immediatement les actions, parceque la pratique demontait sans cesse et etrangement la theorie, l'influence de la theorie fut nulle et sans valeur. C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines; tot ou tard il devient efficace.

It may be thought by many severe judges, that I have over-valued the efficacy of chivalrous sentiments in elevating the moral character of the middle ages. But I do not see ground for withdrawing or modifying any sentence. The comparison is never to be made with an ideal standard, or even with one which a purer religion and a more liberal organization of society may have rendered effectual, but with the condition of a country where neither the sentiments of honour nor those of right prevail. And it seems to me that I have not veiled the deficiencies and the vices of chivalry any more than its beneficial tendencies.

A very fascinating picture of chivalrous manners has been drawn by a writer of considerable reading, and still more considerable ability, Mr. Kenelm Digby, in his Broad Stone of Honour. The bravery, the courteousness, the munificence, above all, the deeply religious character of knighthood and its reverence for the church, naturally took hold of a heart so susceptible of these emotions, and a fancy so quick to embody them. St. Palaye himself is a less enthusiastic eulogist of chivalry, because he has seen it more on the side of mere romance, and been less penetrated with the conviction of its moral excellence. But the progress of still deeper impression seems to have moderated the ardour of Mr. Digby's admiration for the historical character of knighthood; he has discovered enough of human alloy to render unqualified praise hardly fitting, in his judgment, for a Christian writer; and in the Mores Catholici, the second work of this amiable and gifted man, the colours in which chivalry appears are by no means so brilliant [1848.]

[795] Four very recent publications (not to mention that of Buhle on modern philosophy) enter much at large into the middle literature; those of M. Ginguene and M. Sismondi, the history of England by Mr. Sharon Turner, and the Literary History of the Middle Ages by Mr. Berington. All of these contain more or less useful information and judicious remarks; but that of Ginguene is among the most learned and important works of this century. I have no hesitation to prefer it, as far as its subjects extend, to Tiraboschi.

[A subsequent work of my own, Introduction to the History of Literature in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, contains, in the first and second chapters, some additional illustrations of the antecedent period, to which the reader may be referred, as complementary to these pages. 1848.]

[796] Heineccius, Hist. Juris German. c. 1. p. 15.

[797] Giannone, 1. iv. c. 6. Selden, ad Fletam, p. 1071.

[798] Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 359. Ginguene, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 155.

[799] Irnerius is sometimes called Guarnerius, sometimes Warnerius: the German W is changed into Gu by the Italians, and occasionally omitted, especially in latinizing, for the sake of euphony or purity.

[800] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 38; t. v. p. 55.

[801] Tiraboschi, t. v. Vaissette, Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 517; t. iii. p. 527; t. iv. p. 504.

[802] Duck, de Usu Juris Civilis, 1. ii. c. 6.

[803] Idem, 1. ii. 2.

[804] Duck, 1. ii. c. 5, s. 30, 31. Fleury, Hist. du Droit Francois, p. 74 (prefixed to Argou, Institutions au Droit Francois, edit. 1787), says that it was a great question among lawyers, and still undecided (i.e. in 1674), whether the Roman law was the common law in the pays coutumiers, as to those points wherein their local customs were silent. And, if I understand Denisart, (Dictionnaire des Decisions, art. Droit-ecrit,) the affirmative prevailed. It is plain at least by the Causes Celebres, that appeal was continually made to the principles of the civil law in the argument of Parisian advocates.

[805] Crevier, Hist. de l'Universite de Paris, t. i. p. 316; t. ii. p. 275.

[806] Johan. Salisburiensis, apud Selden ad Fletam, p. 1082.

[807] Selden, ubi supra, p. 1095-1104. This passage is worthy of attention. Yet, notwithstanding Selden's authority, I am not satisfied that he has not extenuated the effect of Bracton's predilection for the maxims of Roman jurisprudence. No early lawyer has contributed so much to form our own system as Bracton; and if his definitions and rules are sometimes borrowed from the civilians, as all admit, our common law may have indirectly received greater modification from that influence, than its professors were ready to acknowledge, or even than they knew. A full view of this subject is still, I think, a desideratum in the history of English law, which it would illustrate in a very interesting manner.

[808] Duck, De Usu Juris Civilis, 1. i. c. 87.

[809] Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 196.

[810] Those who feel some curiosity about the civilians of the middle ages will find a concise and elegant account in Gravina, De Origine Juris Civilis, p. 166-206. (Lips. 1708.) Tiraboschi contains perhaps more information; but his prolixity is very wearisome. Besides this fault, it is evident that Tiraboschi knew very little of law, and had not read the civilians of whom he treats; whereas Gravina discusses their merits not only with legal knowledge, but with an acuteness of criticism which, to say the truth, Tiraboschi never shows except on a date or a name.

[The civil lawyers of the mediaeval period are not at all forgotten on the continent, as the great work of Savigny, History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages, sufficiently proves. It is certain that the civil law must always be studied in Europe, nor ought the new codes to supersede it, seeing they are in great measure derived from its fountain; though I have heard that it is less regarded in France than formerly. In my earlier editions I depreciated the study of the civil law too much, and with too exclusive an attention to English notions.]