 Section 29. Jews. Dispersion of the Jews, Jewish quarters in the medieval towns, the ghetto of Rome, ancient Prague, the Guisida of Venice, condition of the Jews, animosity of the people against them, severity and vexatious treatment of the sovereigns, the Jews of Lincoln, the Jews of Blois, mission of the pastoral, extermination of the Jews, the price at which the Jews purchased indulgences, marks set upon them, wealth, knowledge, industry and financial aptitude of the Jews, regulations respecting usury as practiced by the Jews, attachment of the Jews to their religion. A painful and gloomy history commences for the Jewish race from the day when the Romans seized upon Jerusalem and expelled its unfortunate inhabitants. A race so essentially homogeneous, strong, patient and religious, and dating its origin from the remotest period of the patriarchal ages. The Jews, proud of the title of the people of God, were scattered, proscribed and received universal reprobation, notwithstanding that their annals collected under divine inspiration by Moses and the sacred writers, and furnished a glorious prologue to the annals of all modern nations, and had given to the world the holy and divine history of Christ, who, by establishing the Gospel, was to become the regenerator of the whole human family. Their temple is destroyed, and the crowd, which had once passed beneath its portico as a flock of the living God, has become a miserable tribe, restless and unquiet in the present, but full of hope as regards the future. The Jewish nation exists nowhere, nevertheless the Jewish people are to be found everywhere. They are wanderers upon the face of the earth, continually pursued, threatened and persecuted. It would seem as if the existence of the offspring of Israel is perpetuated simply to present to Christian eyes a clear and awful warning of the divine vengeance, a special and, at the time, an overwhelming example of the vicitudes which God alone can determine in the life of a people. Imdepin, a historian of this race so long accursed, after having been for centuries blessed and favored by God, says, quote, a Jewish community in an European town during the Middle Ages resembled a colony on an island, or on a distant coast. Isolated from the rest of the population, it generally occupied a district or street which was separated from the town or borough. The Jews, like a troop of lepers, were thrust away and huddled together into the most uncomfortable and most unhealthy quarter of the city, as miserable as it was disgusting. There, in ill-constructed houses, this poor and numerous population was amassed. In some cases high walls enclose the small and dark narrow streets of the quarter occupied by this branded race which prevented its extension, though at the same time it often protected the inhabitants from the fury of the populace. In order to form a just appreciation of what the Jewish quarters were in the medieval towns one must visit the ghetto of Rome, or ancient Prague. The latter place especially has in all respects preserved its antique appearance. We must picture to ourselves a large enclosure of wretched houses, irregularly built, divided by small streets with no attempt at uniformity. The principal thoroughfare is lined with stalls in which are sold not only old clothes, furniture and utensils, but also new and glittering articles. The inhabitants of this enclosure can, without crossing its limits, procure everything necessary to material life. This quarter contains the old synagogue, a square building, begrimmed with the dirt of ages, and so covered with dirt and moss that the stone of which it is built is scarcely visible. The building, which is as mournful as a prison, has only narrow loopholes by way of windows, and a door so low that one must stoop to enter it. A dark passage leads to the interior into which air and light can scarcely penetrate. A few lamps contend with the darkness, and lighted fires serve to modify a little the icy temperature of the cellar. Here and there pillars seem to support a roof which is too high and too darkened for the eye of the visitor to distinguish. On the sides are dark and damp recesses, where women assist at the celebration of worship, which is always carried on according to ancient custom, with much wailing and strange gestures of the body. The Book of the Law, which is in use, is no less vulnerable than the edifice in which it is contained. It appears that this synagogue has never undergone the slightest repairs or changes for many centuries. The successive generations who have prayed in this ancient temple rest under thousands of sepulcher stones in a cemetery which is of the same date as the synagogue, and is about a league in circumference. Paris has never possessed, properly speaking, a regular Jewish quarter. It is true that the Israelites settled down in the neighborhood of the markets, and in certain narrow streets, which, at some period or other, took the name of Juvery, or Viveil Juvery, or Jewery. But they were never distinct from the rest of the population. They only had a separate cemetery at the bottom, or rather on the slope of the hill of St. Genevieve. On the other hand, most of the towns of France and of Europe had their Jewery. In certain countries the colonies of Jews enjoyed a share of immunities and protections, thus rendering their life a little less precarious and their occupations of a rather more settled character. In Spain and Portugal the Jews in consequence of their having been on several occasions useful to the kings of those two countries were allowed to carry on their trade and to engage in money speculations outside their own quarters. A few were elevated to positions of responsibility, and some were even tolerated at court. In the southern towns of France, which they enriched by commerce and taxes, and where they formed considerable communities the Jews enjoyed the protection of the nobles. We find them in Languedo and Provence, buying and selling property like Christians, a privilege which was not permitted to them elsewhere. This is proved by charters of contracts made during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries which bear the signature of certain Jews in Hebrew characters. On papal lands at Avogon and Carpetra on Avelon they had bales or consils of their nation. The Jews of Roussellon, during their Spanish rule, fifteenth century, were governed by two syndics and a scribe, elected by the community. The latter levied the taxes due to the king of Avogon. In Burgundy they cultivated the vines, which was rather singular, for the Jews generally preferred towns where they could form groups more compact and more capable of mutual assistance. The name of Sabbath, given to a vineyard in the neighborhood of Malkon, still points out the position of their synagogue. The Hamlet of Moes, a dependency of the communities of Preci, owns its name to a rich Israelite, Moses, who had received that land as an enmity for money lent to Count Jeffroy de Malkon, which the latter had been unable to repay. In Vienna, where the Israelites had a special quarter, still the Jews square, a special judge named by the Duke was set over them. Exempted from the city rates, they paid a special poll tax, and they contributed but on the same footing as Christian vassals to extraordinary rates, war taxes and traveling expenses of the nobles, etc. This community even became so rich that it eventually held mortgages on the greater part of the houses of the town. In Venice also the Jews had their quarter, the Guideca, which is still one of the darkest in the town. But they did not much care about such trifling inconveniences, as the Republic allowed them to bank, that is, to lend money at interest, and although they were driven out on several occasions, they always found means to return and recommend their operations. When they were authorized to establish themselves in the towns of the Adriatic, their presence did not fail to annoy the Christian merchants, whose rivals they were. But neither in Venice nor in the Italian Republics had they to fear court intrigues, nor the hatred of corporations with trades which were so powerful in France and in Germany. It was in the north of Europe that the animosity against the Jews was greatest. The Christian population continually threatened the Jewish quarters, which public opinion pointed to as haunts and sinks of iniquity. The Jews were believed to be much more amiable to the doctrines of Talmud than to the laws of Moses. However secret they may have kept their learning, a portion of its tenets transpired, which was supposed to inculcate the right to pillage and murder Christians. And it is to the vague knowledge of these odious prescriptions of the Talmud that we must attribute the readiness with which the most atrocious accusations against the Jews were always welcomed. Besides this, the public mind in those days of bigotry was naturally filled with a deep antipathy against the Jewish deicides, when monks and priests came annually in Holy Week to relate from the pulpit to their hearers the revolting details of the passion. Resentment was kindled in the hearts of the Christians against the descendants of the judges and executioners of the Savior. And when on going out of the churches excited by the sermons they had just heard, the faithful saw in pictures, in the cemeteries, and elsewhere representations of the mystery of the death of our Savior, in which the Jews played so odious a part, there was scarcely a spectator who did not feel an increased hatred against the condemned race. Hence, it was that in many towns, even when the authorities did not compel them to do so, the Israelites found it prudent to shut themselves up in their own quarter and even in their own houses during the whole of Passion Week, for, in consequence of the public feeling roused during those days of mourning and penance, a false rumor was quite sufficient to give the people a pretext for offering violence to the Jews. In fact, from the earliest days of Christianity a certain number of accusations were always being made, sometimes in one country, sometimes in another, against the Israelites, which always ended in bringing down the same misfortunes on their heads. The most common and most easily credited report was that which attributed to them the murder of some Christian child said to be sacrificed in Passion Week in token of their hatred of Christ. And in the event of this terrible accusation being once uttered, and maintained by popular opinion, it never failed to spread with remarkable swiftness. In such cases, popular fury, not being on all occasions satisfied with the tardiness of judicial forms, vented itself upon the first Jews who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of their enemies. As soon as the disturbance was heard, the Jewish quarter was closed, fathers and mothers barricaded themselves in with their children, concealed whatever riches they possessed, and listened tremblingly to the clamor of the multitude which was about to besiege them. In 1255 in Lincoln the report was suddenly spread that a child of the name of Hughes had been enticed into the Jewish quarter, and there scourged, crucified and pierced with lances in the presence of all the Israelites of the district who were convoked and assembled to take part in this horrible barbarity. The king and queen of England, on their return from a journey to Scotland, arrived in Lincoln at the very time when the inhabitants were so much agitated by this mysterious announcement. The people called for vengeance. An order was issued to the bailiffs and officers of the king to deliver the murderer into the hands of justice, and the quarter in which the Jews had shut themselves up, so as to avoid the public animosity, was immediately invaded by armed men. The rabbi, in whose house the child was supposed to have been tortured, was seized, and at once condemned to be tied to the tail of a horse, dragged through the streets of the town. After this his mangled body, which was only half dead, was hung. Many of the Jews ran away and hid themselves in all parts of the kingdom, and those who had the misfortune to be caught were thrown into chains and led to London. Orders were given in the provinces to imprison all the Israelites who were accused or even suspected of having taken any part, whether actively or indirectly, in the murder of the Lincoln child, and suspicion made rapid strides in those days. In a short space of time, eighteen Israelites in London shared the fate of the rabbi of their community in Lincoln. Some Dominican monks, who were charitable and courageous enough to interfere in favour of the wretched prisoners, brought down odium on their own heads and were accused of having allowed themselves to be corrupted by the money of the Jews. Seventy-one prisoners were retained in the dungeons of London, and seemed inevitable fated to die, when the king's brother, Richard, came to their aid by asserting his right over all the Jews of the kingdom, a right which the king had pledged to him for a loan of five thousand silver marks. The unfortunate prisoners were therefore saved thanks to Richard's desire to protect his securities. History does not tell what their liberty cost them, but we must hope that a sense of justice alone guided the English Prince, and that the Jews found other means besides money, by which to show their gratitude. There is scarcely a country in Europe which cannot recount similar tales. In eleven-seventy-one we find the murder of a child at Orleans, or Blo, causing capital punishment to be inflicted on several Jews. Imputations of this horrible character were continually renewed during the Middle Ages, and were of very ancient origin, for we hear of them in the times of Horrhenius and Theodosus the Younger. We find them reproduced with equal remnants in fourteen-seventy-five at Trent, where a furious mob was excited against the Jews, who were accused of having destroyed a child twenty-nine months old named Simon. The tale of the martyrdom of this child was circulated widely, and woodcut representations of it were freely distributed, which necessarily increased, especially in Germany, the horror which was aroused in the minds of Christians against the accursed nation. The Jews gave cause for other accusations calculated to keep up this hatred, such as the desecration of the consecrated host, the mutilation of the crucifix. Tradition informs us of a miracle which took place in Paris in twelve-ninety, in the Rue des Chardins, when a Jew dared to mutilate and boil a consecrated host. This miracle was commemorated by the erection of a chapel on the spot, which was afterwards replaced by the church and convent of Bilete. In thirteen-seventy the people of Brussels were startled in consequence of the statements of a Jewess, who accused her co-religionists of having made her carry a fi full of stolen hosts to the Jews of Cologne, for the purpose of submitting them to the most horrible profanations. The woman added that the Jews having pierced these hosts with sticks and knives, such a quantity of blood poured from them that the culpates were struck with terror and concealed themselves in their quarter. The Jews were all imprisoned, tortured, and burnt alive. In order to perpetuate the memory of the miracle of the bleeding host, an annual procession took place, which was the origin of the great Kermisi or annual fair. In the event of any unforeseen misfortune, or any great catastrophe occurring amongst the Christians, the Odium was frequently cast on the Jews. If the Crusades met with reverses in Asia, fanatics formed themselves into bands, who, under the name of the pastoral, spread over the country, killing and robbing not only the Jews, but many Christians also. In the event of any general sickness, and especially during the prevalence of epidemics, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the water of fountains and pits, and the people massacred them in consequence. Thousands perished in this way when the black plague made ravages in Europe in the fourteenth century. The sovereigns, who were tardy in suppressing these sanguinary proceedings, never thought of indemifying the Jewish families, which so unjustly suffered. In fact, it was then most religiously believed that by despising and holding the Jewish nation under the yoke, banished as it was from Judea for the murder of Jesus Christ, the will of the Almighty was being carried out, so much so that the greater number of kings and princes looked upon themselves as absolute masters over the Jews who lived under their protection. All feudal lords spoke with scorn of their Jews. They allowed them to establish themselves on their lands. But on the condition that as they became the subjects and property of their Lord, the latter should draw his best income from them. We have shown by an instance borrowed from the history of England that the Jews were often mortgaged by the kings like land. This was not all for the Jews who inhabited Great Britain during the reign of Henry III in the middle of the thirteenth century, were not only obliged to acknowledge by voluntarily contributing large sums of money, the service the king's brother had rendered them in clearing them from the imputation of having had any participation in the murder of the child Richard. But the loan on mortgage, for which they were the material and passive security, became the cause of odious extortions from them. The king had pledged them to the Earl of Cornwall for five thousand marks, but they themselves had to repay the royal loan by means of enormous taxes. When they had succeeded in cancelling the king's debt to his brother, that necessitorious monarch again mortgaged them, but on this occasion to his son Edward, soon after the son having rebelled against his father, the latter took back his Jews, and having assembled six elders from each of their communities, he told them that he required twenty thousand silver marks, and ordered them to pay him that sum at two stated periods. The payments were rigorously exacted, those who were behind hand were imprisoned, and the debtor, who was in arrear for the second payment, was sued for the whole sum. On the king's death his successor continued the same system of tyranny against the Jews. In 1279 they were charged with having issued counterfeit coin, and on this vague or imaginary accusation two hundred and eighty men and women were put to death in London alone. In the countries there were also numerous executions, and many innocent persons were thrown into dungeons, and at last, in 1290, King Edward, who wished to enrich himself by taking possession of their properties, banished the Jews from his kingdom. A short time before this the English people had offered to pay an annual fine to the king on condition of his expelling the Jews from the country, but the Jews outbid him, and thus obtained the repeal of the edict of banishment. However, on this last occasion there was no mercy shown, and the Jews, sixteen thousand in number, were expelled from England, and the king seized upon their goods. At the same period Philippe de Belle of France gave the example of this system of persecuting the Jews, but instead of confiscating all their goods he was satisfied with taking one-fifth, his subjects therefore almost accused him of generosity. The Jews often took their precaution of purchasing certain rights and franchises from their sovereign or from the feudal lord under whose sway they lived, but generally these were one-sided bargains, for not being protected by common rights and only forming a very small part of the population, they could nowhere depend upon the promises or privileges which had been made to them, even though they had purchased them with their own money. To the uncertainty and annoyance of a life which was continually being threatened was added a number of vexations and personal insults, even in ordinary times, and when they enjoyed a kind of normal tolerance. They were almost everywhere obliged to wear a visible mark on their dress, such as a patch of gaudy color attached to the shoulder or chest in order to prevent their being mistaken from Christians. By this or some other means they were continually subject to insults from the people, and only succeeded in ridding themselves of it by paying the most enormous fines. Nothing was spared to humiliate and insult them. At Toulot they were forced to send a representative to the cathedral on every good Friday that he might there publicly receive a box on the ears. At Bezzers, during Passion Week, the mob assumed the right of attacking the Jews' houses with stones. The Jews bought off this right in eleven sixty by paying a certain sum to the Vidicombe de Bezzers, and by promising an annual poll tax to him and to his successors. A Jew passing on the road to Tampes, beneath the tower of Monterey, had to pay an aboulay if he had, in his possession, a Hebrew book he paid four dinaires, and if he carried his lamp with him two obliques. At Chandre-feu, Soudalur, a Jew on passing had to pay twelve dinaires, and a Jewish six. It has been said that there were various ancient rates levied upon Jews in which they were treated like cattle, but this requires authentication. During the Carnival in Rome they were forced to run in the lists amidst the jeers of the populace. This public outrage was stopped at a subsequent period by attacks of three hundred ica,s which a deputation from the ghetto presented on their knees to the magistrates of the city at the same time thanking them for their protection. When Pope Martin IV arrived at the Council of Constance in 1417, the Jewish community, which was as numerous as it was powerful in that old city, came in great state to present him with the book of the law. The Holy Father received the Jews kindly and prayed God to open their eyes and bring them back into the bosom of his church. We know, too, how charitable the Popes were to the Jews. In the face of the distressing position they occupied, it may be asked what powerful motive induced the Jews to live amongst nations who almost invariably treated them as enemies, and to remain at the mercy of sovereigns whose sole object was to oppress, plunder, and subject them to all kinds of vexations. To understand this, it is sufficient to remember that in their peculiar apness for earning and hoarding money they found, or at least hope to find, a means of compensation whereby they might be led to forget the servitude to which they were subjected. There existed amongst them, and especially in the southern countries, some very learned men who devoted themselves principally to medicine, and in order to avoid having to struggle against insupportable prejudice, they were careful to disguise their nationality and religion in the exercise of that art. They pretended, in order not to arouse the suspicion of their patience, to be practitioners from Lombardi or Spain or even from Arabia, whether they were really clever or only made a pretense of being so, in an art which was then very much a compound of quackery and imposture, it is difficult to say. But they acquired wealth as well as renown in its practice. But there was another science, to the study of which they applied themselves with the utmost ador and perseverance, and for which they possessed a marvelous degree of necessary qualities to ensure success. And that science was the science of finance. In matters having reference to the recovering of arrears of taxes, to contracts for the sale of goods and produce of industry, to turning a royalty to account, to making hazardous commercial enterprises lucrative, or to the accumulating of large sums of money for the use of sovereigns or poor nobles, the Jews were always at hand and might invariably be reckoned upon. They created capital, for they always had funds to dispose of, even in the midst of the most terrible public calamities. And when all other means were exhausted, when all expedience fulfilling empty purses had been resorted to without success, the Jews were called in. Often in consequence of the envy which they excited from being known to possess hordes of gold, they were exposed to many dangers which they nevertheless faced, buoying themselves up with the insatiable love of gain. Few Christians in the Middle Ages were given to speculation, and they were especially ignorant of financial matters. As demanding interest on loans was almost always looked upon as usury, and consequently such dealings were stigmatized as disgraceful. The Jews were far from sharing these high-minded scruples, and they took advantage of the ignorance of Christians by devoting themselves as much as possible to enterprises and speculations, which were at all times the distinguishing occupation of their race. For this reason we find the Jews who were engaged in the export trade from the 12th to the 15th centuries, doing a most excellent business, even in the commercial towns of the Mediterranean. We can, to a certain extent, in speaking of the intercourse of which the Jews with the Christians of the Middle Ages apply what Lady Montage remarked as late as 1717, when comparing the Jews of Turkey with the Muslims. The former, she says, have monopolized all the commerce of the Empire thanks to those close ties which exist among them, and to the laziness and want of industry of the Turks. No bargain is made without their conveyance. They are the physicians and stewards of all nobility. It is easy to conceive the unity which this gives to a nation which never despises the smallest profits. They have found means of rendering themselves so useful that they are certain of protection at court, whoever the ruling minister may be. Many of them are enormously rich, and they are careful to make, but little outward display, although living in the greatest possible luxury. The condition of the Jews in the East was never so precarious, nor so difficult as it was in the West, from the Councils of Paris in 615 down to the end of the 15th century. The nobles and the civil and ecclesiastical authorities excluded the Jews from administrative positions. But it continually happened that a positive want of money against which the Jews were ever ready to provide caused a repeal or modification of these arbitrary measures. Moreover, Christians did not feel any scruple in partying with their most valued treasures and giving them as pledges to the Jews for a loan of money when they were in need of it. This plan of lending on pledge or usury belonged especially to the Jews in Europe during the Middle Ages and was both the cause of their prosperity and of their misfortune, of their prosperity because they cleverly contrived to become possessors of all the coin and of their misfortune because their usurice demands became so detrimental to public welfare and were often exacted with such unscrupulous severity that people not unfrequently became exasperated and acts of violence were committed, which as often fell upon the innocent as upon the guilty. The greater number of the acts of banishment were those for which no other motive was assigned, or at all events no other pretext was made than the usury practiced by these strangers in the provinces and in the towns in which they were permitted to reside. When the Christians heard that these raptious guests had harshly pressed and entirely stripped certain poor debtors, when they learned that the debtors ruined by usury were still kept prisoners in the house of their pitiless creditors, general indignation often manifested itself by personal attacks. This feeling was frequently shared by the authorities themselves, who instead of dispensing equal justice to the strangers and to the citizens, according to the spirit of the law, often decided with partiality and even with resentment and in some cases abandoned the Jews to the fury of the people. The people's feelings of hatred against the soared adverse of the Jews was continually kept up by ballads which were sung and legends which were related in the public streets of the cities and in the cottages of the villages, ballads and legends in which usurers were depicted in hideous colors. The most celebrated of these popular compositions was evidently that which must have furnished the idea to Shakespeare of the Merchant of Venice, for in this old English drama mention is made of a bargain struck between a Jew and a Christian who borrows money of him on condition that if he cannot refund it on a certain day the lender shall have the right of cutting a pound of flesh from his body. All the evil which the people said and thought of the Jews during the Middle Ages seemed concentrated in the shy lock of the English poet. The rate of interest for loans was nevertheless everywhere settled by law and at all times. This rate varied according to the scarcity of gold and was always high enough to give a very ample profit to the lenders, although they too often required a very much higher rate. In truth the small security offered by those borrowing and the arbitrary manner in which debts were at times canceled increased the risk of the lender and the normal difficulties of obtaining a loan. We find everywhere in all ancient legislations a mass of rules on the rate of pecuniary interest to be allowed to the Jews. In some countries, especially in England, precautionary measures were taken for regulating the compacts entered into between Christians and Jews. One of the departments of the Ezekier received the register of these compacts, which thus acquired a legal value. However, it was not unfrequent for the kings of England to grant of their own free will letters of release to persons owing money to Jews. And these letters, which were often equivalent to the canceling of the entire debt, were even at times actually purchased from the sovereign. Mention of sums received by the royal treasury for the liberation of debtors, or for enabling them to recover their mortgage lands without payment, may still be found in the registers of the executor of London, at the same time Jews on the other hand, who paid the king large sums in order that he might allow justice to take its course against powerful debtors who were in arrear, and who could not be induced to pay. We thus see that if the Jews practiced usury, the Christians and especially kings and powerful nobles defrauded the Jews in every way, and were too often disposed to sell to them the smallest concessions at a great price. Indeed, Christians often went so far as to persecute them in order to obtain the greatest possible amount from them, and the Jews of the Middle Ages put up with anything provided they could enrich themselves. It must not be supposed, however, that great as were their capabilities, the Jews exclusively devoted themselves to financial matters. When they were permitted to trade, they were well satisfied to become artisans or agriculturalists. In Spain, they proved themselves most industrious, and that kingdom suffered a great loss and consequence of their being expelled from it. In whatever country they established themselves, the Jews carried on most of the mechanical and manual industries with cleverness and success. But they could not hope to become landed proprietors in countries where they were in such bad odor, and where the possession of land far from offering them any security could not fail to excite the envy of their enemies. If, as is the case, Oriental people are of a serious turn of mind, it is easy to understand that the Jews should have been still more so, since they were always objects of hatred and abhorrence. We find a touching allegory in the Talmud. Each time that a human being is created, God orders his angels to bring a soul before his throne, and orders this soul to go and inhabit the body which is about to be born on earth. The soul is grieved and supplicates the supreme being to spare it that painful trial in which it only sees sorrow and affliction. This allegory may be suitably applied to a people who have only to expect contempt, mistrust, and hatred everywhere. The Israelites, therefore, clung enthusiastically to the hope of the advent of a Messiah who should bring back to them the happy days of the land of promise, and they looked upon their absence from Palestine as only a passing exile. But, the Christians said to them, this Messiah has long since come. Alas! they answered. If he had appeared on earth, should we still be miserable? Fulbert, Bishop of Charteres, preached three sermons to undeceive the Jews by endeavouring to prove to them that their Messiah was no other than Jesus Christ. But he preached to the winds, for the Jews remained obstinately attached to their illusion that the Messiah was yet to come. In any case the Jews, who mixed up the mysteries and absurdities of the Talmud, with the ancient laws and numerous rules of the religion of their ancestors, found in the practice of their national customs and in the celebration of their mysterious ceremonies the sweetest emotions, especially when they could devote themselves to them in a peaceful retirement of the ghetto. For, in all the countries in which they lived scattered and isolated amongst Christians, they were careful to conceal their worship and to conduct their ceremonial as secret as possible. The clergy, in striving to convert the Jews, repeatedly had conferences with the rabbis of a controversial character, which often led to quarrels and aggravated the lot of the Jewish community. If Catholic proselytism succeeded in completely detaching a few individuals or a few families from the Israelite creed, these uttered converts rekindled the horror of the people against their former co-religionists by revealing some of the precepts of the Talmud. Sometimes the conversion of a whole masses of Jews was effected, but this happened much less through conviction on their part than through the fear of exile, plunder, or execution. These pretended conversions, however, did not always protect them from danger. In Spain, the Inquisition kept a close watch on converted Jews, and, if they were not true to their new faith, severe punishment was inflicted upon them. In 1506 the inhabitants of Abrantes, a town of Portugal, massacred all the baptized Jews. Manwale, a king of Portugal, forbade the converts from selling their goods and leaving his dominions. The church excluded them from ecclesiastical dignities, and, when they succeeded in obtaining civil employments, they were received with distrust. In France, the parliaments tried, with a show of justice, to prevent converted Jews from being reproached for their former condition, but Louis XII, during his pressing wants, did not scruple to exact a special tax from them, and, in 1611, we again find that they were unjustly denounced, and under the form of a remonstrance to the king and the parliament of province on account of the great family alliances of the new converts. An appeal was made for the most cruel reprisals against this unfortunate race, quote, which deserved only to be banished and their goods compensated. Section 30 of Manners, Customs, and Dress This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Manners, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance period by Paul Lacroix. Section 30 Gypsies, Tramps, Beggars, and Cours de Miracle First appearance of Gypsies in the West. Gypsies in Paris. Manners and Customs of these wandering tribes. Tricks of Captain Charles. Gypsies expelled by Royal Edict. Language of Gypsies. The Kingdom of Slang. The Great Saucer, Chief of the Vagrants, his Vassals, and Subjects. Divisions of the Slang People. Its decay and the causes thereof. Cours de Miracle. The Camp of Royne. Cunning Language or Slang. Foreign Rogues, Thieves, and Pickpockets. In the year 1417, the inhabitants of the country situated near the mouth of the Elba were disturbed by the arrival of strangers, whose manners and appearance were far from pre-possessing. These strange travelers took a course thence toward the Teutonic Hans, starting from the Lundberg. They subsequently proceeded to Hamburg, and then going from east to west along the Baltic, they visited the free towns of Lubic, Wiesmar, Rostock, Straßlund, and Greifswald. These new visitors, known in Europe under the names of Tsingari, Tsigani, Gypsies, Hitanos, Egyptians, or Bohemians, but who in their own language called themselves Romi, or Jean-Marier, numbered about three hundred men and women besides the children who were very numerous. They divided themselves into seven bands, all of which followed the same track. Very dirty, excessively ugly, and remarkable for their dark complexions, these people had for foreign leaders a duke and account, as they were called, who were superbly dressed and to whom they acknowledged allegiance. Some of them rode on horseback, whilst others went on foot. The women and children traveled on beasts of burden and in wagons. If we are to believe their own story, their wandering life was caused by the return to paganism after having been previously converted to the Christian faith, and as a punishment for their sin, they were to continue their adventurous course for a period of seven years. They showed letters of recommendation from various princes, among others from Siege-Mund, King of the Romans, and these letters, whether authentic or false, poor cured for them a welcome wherever they went. They encamped in the fields at night because the habit they indulged in of stealing everything for which they had a fancy caused them to fear being disturbed in the towns. It was not long, however, before many of them were arrested and put to death for theft when the rest speedily decamped. In the course of the following year we find them at Mason in Saxony, once they were driven out on account of the robberies and disturbances they committed, and then in Switzerland where they passed through the countries of the Grison, the cantons of Appenzell, and Zurich, stopping at Argevy, chroniclers who mentioned them at the time speak of their chief, Michel, as Duke of Egypt, and relate that these strangers calling themselves Egyptians pretended that they were driven from their country by the Sultan of Turkey and condemned to wander for seven years in want and misery. These chroniclers add that they were very honest people who scrupulously followed all of the practices of the Christian religion, that they were poorly clad, but that they had gold and silver in abundance, that they lived well and paid for everything they had, and that at the end of seven years they went away to return home, as they said. However, whether because a considerable number remained on the road or because they had been reinforced by others of the same tribe during the year, a troupe of fifty men, accompanied by a number of hideous women and filthy children, made their appearance in the neighborhood of Augsburg. These vagabonds gave out that they were exiles from lower Egypt and pretended to know the art of predicting coming events. It was soon found out that they were much less versed in divination and in the occult sciences than in the arts of plundering, roguery, and cheating. The following year a similar horde calling themselves Saracens appeared at Cisteron in Provence, and on the eighteenth of July, fourteen twenty-two, a chronicler of Bologna mentions the arrival in the town of a troupe of foreigners commanded by a certain André, Duke of Egypt, and composed of at least one hundred persons including women and children. They encamped inside and outside the gates de Galera, with the exception of the Duke who lodged at the inn Del Ray, during the fifteen days which they spent at Bologna, a number of the people of the town went to see them, and especially to see the wife of the Duke, who it was said knew how to foretell future events and to tell what was to happen to people, what their fortunes would be, the number of their children, if they were good or bad, and many other things. Few men, however, left the house of the so-called Duke of Egypt without having their purse stolen, and but few women escaped without having the skirts of their dresses cut. The Egyptian women walked about the town in groups of six or seven, and while some were talking to the townspeople, telling them their fortunes or bartering in shops, one of their number would lay her hand on anything which was within reach. So many robberies were committed in this way that the magistrates of the town and the ecclesiastical authorities forbade the inhabitants from visiting the Egyptian's camp, or from having any intercourse with them, under penalty of excommunication and of a fine of fifty libra. Besides this, by a strange application of the laws of retaliation, those who had been robbed by these foreigners were permitted to rob them to the extent of the value of the things stolen. In consequence of this, the Balonians entered a stable in which several of the Egyptian's horses were kept, and took out one of the finest of them. In order to recover him, the Egyptians agreed to restore what they had taken, and the restitution was made. But perceiving that they could no longer do any good for themselves in this province, they struck their tents and started for Rome, to which city they said they were bound to go, not only in order to accomplish a pilgrimage imposed upon them by the Sultan, who had expelled them from their own land, but especially to obtain their letters of absolution from the Holy Father. In fourteen twenty-two the ban left Italy, and we find them at Bal and in Suabia. Then, besides the imperial passports of which they had up to that time alone boasted, they pretended to have in their possession bulls which they stated that they had obtained from the Pope. They also modified their original tale and stated that they were descendants of the Egyptians who refused hospitality to the Holy Virgin and to St. Joseph during their flight into Egypt. They also declared that, in consequence of this crime, God had doomed their race to perpetual misery and exile. Five years later we find them in the neighborhood of Paris. The Sunday after the middle of August says the journal of a bourgeois of Paris. There came to Paris twelve so called pilgrims, that is to say a duke, a count, and ten men, all on horseback. They said that they were very good Christians and that they came from lower Egypt. And on the twenty-ninth of August, the anniversary of the beheading of St. John, the rest of the ban made their appearance. These, however, were not allowed to enter Paris, but in order of the provost were lodged in the chapel of St. Denis. They did not number more than one hundred and twenty, including women and children. They stated that, when they left their own country, they numbered from a thousand to twelve hundred, but that the rest had died on the road. Whilst they were at the chapel, never was such a concourse of people collected, even at the blessing of the fair of Landis, as went from Paris, St. Denis, and elsewhere to see these strangers. Almost all of them had their ears pierced, and in each one, one or two silver rings, which, in their country, they said, was a mark of nobility. The men were very swarthy, with curly hair. The women were very ugly and extremely dark, with long black hair, like a horse's tail, their only garment being an old rug tied around their shoulder by a strip of cloth or a bit of rope. Amongst them were several fortune-tellers who, by looking into people's hands, told them what had happened or what was going to happen to them, and by this means often did a good deal to sow discord in families. What was worse, either by magic, by satanic agency, or by sleight of hand, they managed to empty people's purses whilst talking to them. So, at least, everyone said. At last, accounts respecting them reached the ears of the Bishop of Paris. He went to them with a Franciscan friar called Le Petit Jacobin, who, by the Bishop's order, delivered an earnest address to them and excommunicated all those who had anything to do with them or who had their fortunes told. He further advised the Gypsies to go away, and, on the festival of Notre Dame, they departed for Pontoise. Here, again, the Gypsies somewhat varied their story. They said that they were originally Christians but that in consequence of an invasion by the Syracians they had been forced to renounce their religion, that at a subsequent period powerful monarchs had come to free them from the yoke of the infidels, and had decreed that as a punishment to them for having renounced the Christian faith, they should not be allowed to return to their country before they had obtained permission from the Pope. They stated that the Holy Father, to whom they had gone to confess their sins, had then ordered them to wander about the world for seven years without sleeping in beds, at the same time giving direction to every bishop and every priest whom they met to offer them ten Lyrus, a direction which the abbots and bishops were no hurry to obey. These strange pilgrims stated that they had been only five years on the road when they arrived in Paris. A nerve has been said to show that, although the object of their long pilgrimage was ostensibly a pious one, the Egyptians or Gypsies were not very slow in giving to the people whom they visited a true estimate of their questionable honesty, and we do not think it would be particularly interesting to follow step by step the track of this odious band which, from this period, made its appearance sometimes in one country and sometimes in another, not only in the north but in the south, and especially in the center of Europe. Suffice it to say that their quarrels with the authorities, or the habitants of the countries which had the misfortune to be periodically visited by them, have left numerous traces in history. On the 7th of November, 1453, from 60 to 80 Gypsies, coming from Cour-de-Sole, arrived at the entrance of the town of Shep, near Chalon-sur-Marne. The strangers, many of whom carried javelins, darts, and other implements of war, having asked for hospitality, the mayor of the town informed them that it was not long since some of the same company, or others very like them, had been lodged in the town and had been guilty of various acts of theft. The Gypsies persisted in their demands. The indignation of the people was aroused, and they were soon obliged to resume their journey. During their unwilling retreat, they were pursued by many of the inhabitants of the town, one of whom killed a Gypsy named Martin de la Barre, the murderer, however, obtained the king's pardon. In 1532, at Plein Palais, a suburb of Geneva, some rascals from among a band of Gypsies, consisting of upwards of three hundred in number, fell upon several of the officers who were stationed to prevent their entering the town. The citizens hurried up to the scene of disturbance. The Gypsies retired to the monastery of the Augustine friars in which they fortified themselves. The bourgeois besieged them and would have committed summary justice on them, but the authorities interfered and some twenty of the vagrants were arrested, but they sued for mercy and were discharged. In 1632, the inhabitants of Viarm, in the department of La Tigueran, made an onslaught upon a troop of Gypsies who wanted to take up their quarters in the town. The whole of them were killed, with the exception of their chief who was taken prisoner and brought before the parliament of Bordeaux and ordered to be hung. Twenty-one years before this, the mayor and magistrate of Bordeaux gave orders to the soldiers of the watch to arrest the Gypsy chief who, having shut himself up in the town of Vairine at Merignac, ransacked the surrounding country. On the twenty-first of July, 1622, the same magistrates ordered the Gypsies to leave the parish of Aizines within twenty-four hours under penalty of the lash. It was not often that the Gypsies used violence or openly resisted authority. They more frequently had recourse to artifice and cunning in order to attain their end. A certain Captain Charles acquired a great reputation amongst them for the clever trickeries which he continually conceived and which his troop undertook to carry out. A chronicler of the time says that by means of certain herbs which he gave to a half-starved horse, he made him into a fat and sleek animal. The horse was then sold at one of the neighbouring fairs or markets, but the purchaser detected the fraud within a week, for the horse soon became again thin and usually sickened and died. Tal Monte-Rio relates that, on one occasion, Captain Charles and his attendants took up their quarter in a village, the curay of which, being rich and parsimonious, was much liked by his parishioners. The curay never left his house and the Gypsies could not therefore get an opportunity to rob him. In this difficulty they pretended that one of them had committed a crime and had been condemned to be hung a quarter of a leak from the village where they betook themselves with all their goods. The man, at the foot of the gibbet, asked for a confessor and they went to fetch the curay. He had first refused to go, but his parishioners compelled him. During his absence, some Gypsies entered his house, took five hundred A.Q. from his strongbox, and quickly rejoined the troop. As soon as a rascal saw them returning, he said that he appealed to the king of Le Petit-Egypt upon which the captain acclaimed, Ah, the traitor! I expected he would appeal. Immediately they packed up, secured the prisoner, and were far enough away from the scene before the curay re-entered his house. Tal-Mal relates another good trick. Near Roy, in Picardy, a Gypsy who had stolen a sheep offered it to a butcher for one hundred two, but the butcher declined to give him more than five lira for it. The butcher then went away, whereupon the gypsy pulled the sheep from a sack into which he had put it, and substituted for it a child belonging to his tribe. He then ran after the butcher and said, Give me five lira, and you shall have the sack into the bargain. The butcher paid him the money and went away. When he got home he opened the sack, and was much astonished when he saw a little boy jump out of it who, in an instant, caught up the sack and ran off. Never was a poor man so thoroughly hoaxed as his butcher, says Tal-Monte-Reo. The Gypsies had thousands of other tricks in stock as good as the ones we have just related, in proof of which we have but to refer to the testimony of one of their own tribe who, under the name of Pechante-Ruby, published towards the close of the sixteenth century, La Vie Générose de Matois, Géau, Bohemien et Gajou. When they want to leave a place where they have been stopping, they set out in an opposite direction to that in which they are going, and after travelling about half a league, they take their right course. They possess the best and most accurate maps in which are laid down not only all the towns, villages and rivers, but also the houses of the Gentry and others, and they fix upon places of rendezvous every ten days at twelve leagues from the point from whence they set out. The captain hands over to each of their chief's three or four families to take charge of, and these small bands take different crossroads towards the place of rendezvous. Those who are well armed and mounted, he sends off with a good almanac, on which are marked all the fairs, and they continually change their dress and their horses. When they take up their quarters in any village, they steal very little in its immediate vicinity, but in the neighbouring parishes they rob and plunder in the most daring manner. If they find a sum of money, they give notice to the captain and make a rapid flight from the place. They coin counterfeit money and put it into circulation. They play at all sorts of games, they buy all sorts of horses, whether sound or unsound, provided that they can manage to pay for them in their own base coin. When they buy food, they pay for it in good money the first time, as they are held in such distrust. But, when they are about to leave a neighbourhood, they again buy something for which they tender false coin, receiving the change in good money. In harvest time, all doors are shut against them, nevertheless they contrive by means of picklocks and other instruments to affect an entrance into houses when they steal linen, cloaks, silver, and any other movable article which they can lay their hands on. They give a strict account of everything to their captain who takes a share of all they get, except of what they earn by fortune-telling. They are very clear at making a good bargain, when they know of a rich merchant being in the place they disguise themselves, enter into communications with him and swindle him. After which they change their clothes, have their horses shod the reverse way and the shoes covered with some sort of material lest they should be heard and gallop away. In the Histoire Générale de la Ronde, we read that the vagabonds called gypsies sometimes play tricks with goblets, sometimes danced on the tightrope, turned double somersaults, and performed other feats, which proves that these adventurers adopted all kinds of methods of gaining a livelihood. Highway robbery not accepted. We must not therefore be surprised if in almost all countries very severe police measures were taken against these dangerous race, though we must admit that these measures sometimes partook of a barbarous character. After having forbidden them, with a threat of six years at the galleys to Zerjourn in Spain, Charles V ordered them to leave Flanders under penalty of death. In 1545, a gypsy who had infringed the sentence of banishment was condemned by the court of Utrecht to be flogged till the blood appeared, to have his nostril slit, his hair removed, his beard shaved off, and to be banished for life. We can form some idea, says the German historian Grelman, of the miserable condition of the gypsies from the following facts. Many of them, especially the women, have been burned by their own request in order to end their miserable state of existence, and we can give the case of a gypsy who, having been arrested, flogged and conducted to the frontier with a threat that if he reappeared in the country he would be hanged, resolutely returned after three successive and similar threats at three different places and implored that the capital sentence might be carried out in order that he might be released from a life of such misery. These unfortunate people, continues the historian, were not even looked upon as human beings for, during a hunting-party consisting of members of a small German court, the huntsmen had no scruple whatsoever in killing a gypsy woman who was suckling her child, just as they would have done, any wild beast which came in their way. M. Franzisk Michel says, amongst the questions which arise from a consideration of the existence of this remarkable people, is one which, although neglected, is nevertheless of considerable interest. Namely, how would a strange language, unlike any used in Europe, the gypsies could make themselves understood by the people amongst whom they made their appearance for the first time. Newly arrived in the West, they could have none of those interpreters who are only to be found amongst a long-established people, and who have political and commercial intercourse with other nations. Where, then, did the gypsies obtain interpreters? The answer seems to us to be clear. Receiving into their ranks all those whom crime, the fear of punishment, an uneasy conscience, or the charm of a roaming life continually through in their path, they made use of them either to find their way into countries of which they were ignorant, or to commit robberies which would otherwise have been impracticable. Themselves adept in all sorts of bad practices, they were not slow to form an alliance with profligate characters who sometimes worked in concert with them, and sometimes alone, and who always framed the model for their own organization from that of the gypsies. This alliance, governed by statutes, the honor of compiling which has been given to a certain Rago, who styled himself captain, was composed of matua, or sharpers, of Marcelot, or hawkers, who were very little better than the former, of Géot, or dishonest beggars, and of a host of other swindlers constituting the order or hierarchy of the Argo, or slang people. Their chief was called the Grand Souser, a vagabond broken to all the tricks of his trade, says M. Francis Comichel, and who frequently ended his days on the rack on the biggest gibbet. History has furnished us with the story of a miserable cripple who used to sit in a wooden bowl, and who, after having seen Grand Souser for three years, was broken alive on the wheel of Bordeaux for his crimes. He was called Ra de Thune, of Tunis, and was drawn about by two large dogs. One of his successors, the Grand Souser, named Anard Cléon, who suffered from the same infirmity, namely that of a cripple, wrote about Paris on a donkey begging. He generally held his court on the Port d'au Foin, where he sat on his throne, dressed in a mantle made of a thousand pieces. The Grand Souser had a lieutenant in each province called Gajou, whose business it was to initiate apprentices in the secret of the craft, and who looked after, in different localities, those whom the chief had entrusted to his care. He gave an account of the property he received, and thus exercising his stewardship, and of the money as well as of the clothing which he took from the argotouillère who refused to recognize his authority. As a renumeration of their duties, the Gajou were exempted from all tributes to their chief. They received their share of the property taken from persons whom they had ordered to be robbed, and they were free to beg in any way they pleased. After the Gajou came the Arquis Supaud, who being recruited from the low dregs of the clergy, and others who had been in a better position, were, so to speak, the teachers of the law. To them was entrusted the duty of instructing the less experienced rogues, and of determining the language of slang, and, as a reward for their good and loyal services, they had the right of begging without paying any fees to their chiefs. The grand saucer levied a tax of twenty-four sous per annum upon the young rogues who went about the streets pretending to shed tears as hopeless orphans in order to excite public sympathy. The marquandière had to pay an aiku. They were tramps clothed in a tolerable good doublet who passed themselves off as merchants ruined by war, by fire, or by having been robbed on the highway. The malinge roe had to pay forty sous. They were covered with sores, most of which were self-inflicted, or they pretended to have swellings of some kind, and stated that they were about to undertake a pilgrimage to St. Mayan in Brittany in order to be cured. The pietra, or lame rogues, paid half an aiku, and walked with crutches. The saboulot, who were commonly called the poor sick of St. John, were in the habit of frequenting friars and markets, or the vicinity of the churches. There smeared with blood and appearing as if foaming at the mouth by means of a piece of soap they had placed in it, they struggled on the ground as if in a fit, and in this way realized a considerable amount of alms. These consequently paid the largest fees to the saucer. Besides these there were the kayo, who were either affected with a scurphy disease or pretended to be so, and who were contributors to the civil list of their chief to the amount of seven sous, as also the coquillard or pretended pilgrim of St. James or St. Michael, and the huban, who according to the forged certificate which they carried with them were going to or returning from St. Hubert after having been bitten by a mad dog. The poliçon paid two aiku to the saucer, but they earned a considerable amount, especially in winter, for benevolent people touched with their destitution and half-nakedness gave them sometimes a doublet, sometimes a shirt or some other article of clothing, which of course they immediately sold. The front-metoo, who were never taxed above five sous, were sickly members of the fraternity, or at all events pretended to be such, they tied their arms above the elbow so as to stop the pulse and fell down apparently fainting on the public footpaths. We must also mention the Ruffet and the Millaire, who went into the country in groups begging. The capons were cut purses who hardly ever left the towns and who laid hands on everything within their reach. The courtreaux de bottage pretended to be workmen and were to be met with everything with the tools of their craft on their back, though they never used them. The convertee pretended to have been impressed by the exhortations of some excellent preacher and made a public profession of faith. They afterwards situated themselves at church doors as recently converted Catholics, and in this way received liberal contributions. Lastly, we must mention the Dree, the Narquois, or the people of the Petit Flamb, who for the most part were old pensioners and who begged in the streets from house to house with their swords at their sides. These who at times lived a racketing and luxurious life at last rebelled against the grand saucer and would no longer be reckoned among his subjects, a step which gave a considerable shock to the monarchy. Gypsies, Tramps, Beggars, and Cour de Miracle. There was another cause which greatly contributed to diminish the power as well as a prestige of this eccentric sovereign, and this was that the cut purses, the night prowlers and wood thieves not finding sufficient means of livelihood in their own department and seeing that the argotier on the contrary were always in a more luxurious position, tried to amalgamate robbery with mendacity, which raised an outcry amongst these sections of their community. The Archie Supo and the Khaju at first declined such an alliance, but eventually they were obliged to admit all with the exception of the wood thieves who were all together excluded. In the 17th century, therefore, in order to become a thorough argotier, it was necessary not only to solicit alms like any mere beggar, but also to possess the dexterity of the cut purse and the thief. These arts were to be learned in the places which served as the habitual rendezvous of the very dregs of society, and which were generally known as the Cour de Miracle. These houses, or rather resorts, had been so-called, if we are to believe a writer of the early part of the 17th century, because rogues and others who have all day been cripples, maimed, dropsicle, and beset with every sort of bodily ailment, come home at night, carrying under their arms a sirloin of beef, a joint of veal, or a leg of mutton, not forgetting to hang a bottle of wine to their belt, and, on entering the court, they throw aside their crutches, resume their healthy and lusty appearance, and in imitation of the ancient Bacchanalian revelries, dance all kinds of dances with their trophies in their hands, whilst the host is preparing their suppers. Can there be a greater miracle than is to be seen in this court, where the maimed walk upright? In Paris, there were several Cour de Miracle, but the most celebrated was that which, from the time of Soval, the singular historian of the antiquities of Paris, to the middle of the 17th century, preserved this generic name par excellence, and which exists to this day. He says, it is a place of considerable size, and is in an unhealthy, muddy, and irregular, blind alley. Formally, it was situated on the outskirts of Paris. Now, it is in one of the worst-built dirtiest and most out-of-the-way quarters of the town. Between the Rue Montargoy, the Convent de Fille-deux, and the Rue Nouve Sanssovo, to get there, one must wander through narrow, close and by streets, and in order to enter it, one must descend a somewhat winding and rugged declivity. In this place, I found a mud-house, half-buried, very shaky from old age and rottenness, and only eight-metre square, but in which, nevertheless, some fifty families are living, who have the charge of a large number of children, many of whom are stolen or illegitimate. I was assured that upwards of five hundred large families occupy that and other houses adjoining. Large as this court is, it was formerly even bigger. Here, without any care of the future, everyone enjoys the present and eats in the evening what he has earned during the day with so much trouble, and often with so many blows. For it is one of the fundamental rules of the Cours de mi Rocco, never to lay by anything for the morrow. Everyone who lives there indulges in the utmost licentiousness. Both religion and law are utterly ignored. It is true that outwardly, they appear to acknowledge a God, for they have set up in a niche an image of God the Father, which they have stolen from some church, and before which they come daily to offer up certain prayers. But this is only because they superstitiously imagine that by this means they are released from the necessity of performing the duties of Christians to their pastor and their parish, and are even absolved from the sin of entering a church for the purpose of robbery and purse-cutting. Paris, the capital of the kingdom of rogues, was not the only town which possessed a Cours de mi Rocco, for we find here and there, especially at Lyon and Bordeaux, some traces of these privileged resorts of rogues and thieves, which then flourished under the scepter of the Grand Saucer. Soval states, on the testimony of people worthy of credit, that at Saint Andorre, the most holy place of pilgrimage in Brittany, under the superintendents of the Order of the Reformed Carmelite Friars, there was a large field called Rogues Field. This was covered with mud huts, and here the Grand Saucer resorted annually on the principal solemn festivals with his officers and subjects in order to hold council of state, that is to say, in order to settle and arrange respecting robbery. At these state meetings, which were not always held at Saint Andorre, all the subjects of the Grand Saucer were present and paid homage to their lord and master. Some came and paid him the tribute, which was required of them by the statutes of the craft. Others rendered him an account of what they had done and what they had earned during the year. When they had executed their work badly, he ordered them to be punished, either corporally or pecuniarily, according to the gravity of their offenses. When he had not himself properly governed his people, he was dethroned and a successor was appointed by acclamation. At these assemblies, as well as in the Coup de Miracle, French was not spoken, but a strange and artificial language was used called jargon, lang-matoise, narquois, etc. This language, which is still in use under the name of argot, or slang, had for the most part been borrowed from the jargon or slang of the lower orders. To a considerable extent, according to the learned philologist of this mysterious language, M. Francisque Michel, it was composed of French words lengthened or abbreviated of proverbial expressions, of words expressing the symbols of things instead of the things themselves, of terms either intentionally or unintentionally altered from their true meaning, and of words which resembled other words in sound, but which had not the same signification. Thus, for mouth, they said pantière, from pain, bread, which they put into it. The arms were lion, binders, an ox, osé cornant, horned, a purse, a fouille, or fouillouse, a coque, a horloge, or timepiece, the legs, des cuites, nine pins, et sous, et rond, or round thing, the eyes, des louisants, sparklers, etc. In jargon, several words were also taken from the ancient language of the gypsies, which testifies to the part which these vagabonds played in the formation of the archaic community. For example, a shirt was called lim, a chambermaid limogère, sheets, limon, words all derived from the gypsy word lima, a shirt. They called an ecu et rousquin, or rougesme, from rougia, the common word for money. A rich man, a roupin, a house, tourne, a knife, chorin, from group tourna and choré, which in the gypsy tongue mean respectively silver, castle, and knife. From what we have related about rogues and the cour de miroco, one might perhaps be tempted to suppose that France was especially privileged, but it was not so, for Italy was far worse in this respect. The rogues were called by the Italians pianti, or ceretani, and were subdivided into more than forty classes, the various characteristics of which have been described by a certain Raphael Frianoro. It is not necessary to state that the analog of more than one of these classes is to be found in the short description we have given of the Argata Kingdom in France. We will therefore only mention those which were more especially Italian. It must not be forgotten that in the southern countries where religious superstition was more marked than elsewhere, the numerous family of rogues had no difficulty in practicing every description of imposture in as much as they trusted to the various manifestations of religious feeling to affect their purposes. Thus the Afrati, in order to obtain more alms and offerings, went about in the garb of monks and priests, even saying mass and pretending that it was the first time they had exercised their sacred office. So the Morgigueri walked behind a donkey, carrying a bell and a lamp with their string of beads in their hands and asking how they were to pay for the bell, which they were always just going to buy. The Felsi pretended that they were divinely inspired and endowed with a gift of second sight and announced that there were hidden treasures in certain houses under the guardianship of evil spirits. They asserted that these treasures could not be discovered without danger, except by means of fastings and offerings, which they and their brethren could alone make in consideration of which they entered into a bargain and received a certain sum of money from the owners. The Akatosi deserve mention on account of the cleverness with which they contrived to assume the appearance of captives recently escaped from slavery, shaking the chains with which they said they had been bound, jabbering unintelligible words, telling heart-rendering tales of their suffering and privations, and showing the mark of blows which they had received. They went on their knees begging for money that they might buy off their brethren or their friends, whom they said they had left in the hands of the Saracens or the Turks. We must mention also the Alacrimanti, or weepers, who owed their name to the facility with which they possessed of shedding tears at will, and the Testatori, who, pretending to be the seriously ill and about to die, extorted money from all those to whom they promised to leave their fortunes, though, of course, they had not a son to leave behind them. We must not forget the Proto-Bianti, master-rogues, who made no scruple of exciting compassion from their own comrades, nor the Vergognosi, who, notwithstanding their poverty, wished to be thought rich, and considered that assistance was due to them from the mere fact of their being noble. We must here conclude, for it would occupy too much time to go through the list of these Italian vagabonds, as for the German, Spanish, and English rogues, we may simply remark that no type exists among them, which is not to be met with amongst the Argotie of France, or the Bianti of Italy. In giving a description, therefore, of the mendicity practiced in these two countries during the Middle Ages, we are sure to be representing what it was in other parts of Europe. The history of regular robbers and highwaymen during this long period is more difficult to describe. It contains only disconnected anecdotes of a more or less interesting character. It is probable, moreover, that robbers did not always commit their depredations singly, and that they early understood the advantages of associating together. The tafours, or halegrens, whom we notice as followers of Godfrey de Bouillon, at the time of the Crusades, towards the end of the eleventh century, were terribly bad characters, and are actually accused by contemporary writers of violating tombs and of living on human flesh. On this account, they were looked upon with the utmost horror by the infidels, who dreaded more their savage ferocity than the valor of the Crusaders. The latter, even, who had these hordes of tafours under their command, were not without considerable mistrust of them, and when, during their march through Hungary, under the protection of the Cross, these miscreants committed depredations, Godfrey de Bouillon was obliged to ask pardon for them from the king of that country. An ancient poet has handed down to us a story in verse setting forth the exploits of Eustace the monk, who, after having thrown aside his frock, embraced the life of a robber, and only abandoned it to become admiral of France under Philip Augustus. He was killed before sandwich in 1217. We have satisfactory proof that as early as the thirteenth century, sharpers were very expert masters of their trade, for the ingenious and amusing tricks of which they were guilty are quite equal to the most skilled of those now recorded in our police reports. In the two following centuries, the science of the pints and of the crock, pincers and hook, as it was then called, alone made progress and patholin, a character in comedy and incomparable type of craft and dishonesty, never lacked disciples any more than Bouillon did imitators. We know that this charming poet, who was at the same time a most expert thief, narrowly escaped hanging on two occasions. His contemporaries attributed to him a poem of twelve hundred verses entitled La Repu-Franche, in which are described the methods in use among his companions for procuring wine, bread, meat, and fish without having to pay for them. They form a series of interesting stories, the moral of which is to be gathered from the following lines. The meaning of this dog roll, which is somewhat broad, may be rendered, he dines well who escapes without paying a penny and who bids farewell to the innkeeper by wiping his nose on the tablecloth. Side by side with this poem of Bouillon, we ought to cite one of a later period, La Légion de Maître Faiffaud, versified by Charles Boudigny. This Faiffaud was a kind of Bouillon of Anjou, who excelled in all kinds of rascality and who might possibly have taught it even to the gypsies themselves. The character of Pannurge, in the Pintu Gruel, is no other than the type of Faiffaud immortalized by the genius of Rapalet. We must also mention one of the pamphlets of Guillaume Boucher written towards the end of the 16th century, which gives a very amusing account of thieves of every description, and also l'histoire générale de la ronde, in which are related numerous wonderful tales of murders, robberies, and other atrocities, which made our admiring ancestors well acquainted with the heroes of the Raev and of Mont-Façon. It must not be supposed that in those days the life of a robber who pursued his occupation with any degree of industry and skill was unattended with danger, for the most harmless cut purses were hung without mercy whenever they were caught. The fear, however, of this fate did not prevent the enfant de la matte from performing wonders. Brantôme relates that King Charles IX had the curiosity to wish to know how the cut purses performed their arts with so much skill and dexterity, and begged Captain Lachambre to introduce to him on the occasion of a banquet and a ball the cleverest cut purses given them full liberty to exhibit their skill. The captain went on to the Côte de Miracle and fetched ten of the most expert of these thieves whom he presented to the king. Charles, after the dinner and the ball had taken place, wished to see all the plunder and found that they had absolutely earned 3000 a.q., either in money from purses or in precious stones, pearls, or other jewels. Some of the guests even lost their cloaks, at which the king thought he should die of laughter. The king allowed them to keep what they had thus earned at the expense of his guests, but he forbade them to continue this sort of life under penalty of being hung and he had them enrolled in the army in order to recompense them for their clever feats. We may safely assert that they made but indifferent soldiers. End of section 31 section 32 of Manners, Customs, and Dress. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Donna Stewart. Manners, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance period by Paul de Croix section 32. Ceremonials. Origin of modern ceremonial. Uncertainty of French ceremonial up to the end of the 16th century. Consecration of the kings of France. Coronation of the emperors of Germany. Consecration of the doges of Venice. Marriage of the doge with the sea. State entries of sovereigns. An account of the entry of Isabella of Bavaria into Paris. Seats of justice. Visits of ceremony between persons of rank. Morning. Social courtesies. Popular demonstrations and national commemorations. New Year's Day. Local festivals. Vain d'honneur. Processions of trades. Although society during the Middle Ages was as a whole closely cemented together, being animated by the same sentiments and imbued with the same spirit, it was divided as we have already stated into three great classes. Namely, the clergy, the nobility, and the lier etain. These classes, each of which formed a distinct body within the state, carried on an existence peculiar to itself and presented in its collective capacity a separate individuality. Hence there was a distinct ceremonial for each class. We will not attempt to give in detail the innumerable laws of these three kinds of ceremonial. Our attention will be directed solely to their most characteristic customs and to their most remarkable and interesting aspects taken as a whole. We must all together lay aside matters relating specially to ceremonies of a purely religious character as they are connected more or less with the traditions and customs of the church and belong to a quite distinct order of things. When the Germans, and especially the Franks, says the learned paleographer Vallette de Vieville, had succeeded in establishing their own rule in place of that of the Romans, these almost savage nations and the barbarian chiefs who were at their head under the title of kings necessarily borrowed more or less the refined practices relating to the ceremonial possessed by the people whom they had conquered. The elevation of the elected chief or king on the shield and the solemn taking of arms in the midst of the tribe seem to be the only traces of public ceremonies which we can discover among the Germans. The marvelous display and the imposing splendor of the political hierarchy of the Roman Empire, especially in its outward arrangements, must have astonished the minds of these uncultivated people. Thus we find the Frank kings becoming immediately after a victory the simple and clumsy imitators of the civilization which they had broken up. Clovis, on returning to tours in 507, having defeated Alaric, received the titles of patrician and consul from the emperor Anastasius and bedecked himself with the purple, the clamies and the diadem. The same principle of imitation was afterwards exhibited in the internal and external court ceremonial in proportion as it became developed in the royal person. Charlemagne, who aimed at everything which could adorn and add strength to a new monarchy, established a regular method for the general and special administration of his empire, as also for the internal arrangement and discipline of his palace. We have already referred to this twofold organization. See chapters on private life and on food, but we may hear remark that notwithstanding these ancient tendencies to the creation of a fixed ceremonial, the trifling rules which made etiquette a science and a law were introduced by degrees and have only very recently been established amongst us. In 1385, when King Charles VI married the notorious Isabel of Bavaria, then scarcely fourteen years of age, he desired to arrange for her a magnificent entry into Paris, the pomp and brilliancy of which should be consistent with the rank and illustrious descent of his young bride. He therefore begged the old queen Blanche, widow of Philippe de Valois, to preside over the ceremony and to have it conducted according to the custom of the olden times. She was consequently obliged, in the absence of any fixed rules on the subject, to consult the official records, that is to say the Chronique du Monestère de Saint-Denis. The first embodiment of rules relating to these matters in use among the nobility, which had appeared in France under the title of honneur de la coeur, only goes back to the end of the fifteenth century. It appears, however, that even then this was not generally admitted among the nobility as the basis of ceremonial, for in 1548 we find that nothing had been definitely settled. This is evident from the fact that when King Henry III desired to know the rank and order of precedence of the princes of the royal blood, both dukes and counts, as also that of the other princes, the barons, the nobles of the kingdom, the constables, the marshals of France and the admirals, and what position they had held on great public occasions during the reigns of his predecessors, he commissioned Jean de Telet, the civil registrar of the Parliament of Paris, to search among the royal archives for the various authentic documents which might throw light on this question and serve as a precedent for the future. In fact, it was Henry III who, in 1585, created the Office of Grand Master of the Ceremonies of France and trusting it to Guillaume Poe, a noble of Rhodes, which Office for many generations remained hereditary in his family. Nevertheless, the question of ceremonial, especially that of precedence, had already more than once occupied the attention of sovereigns, not only within their own states, but also in relation to diplomatic matters. The meetings of councils at which the ambassadors of all the Christian powers, with the delegates of the Catholic Church were assembled, did not fail to bring this subject up for decision. Pope Julius II, in 1504, instructed Pierre de Crassie, his Master of the Ceremonies, to publish a decree determining the rank to be taken by the various sovereigns of Europe or by their representatives. But we should add that this papal decree never received the sanction of the parties interested, and that the question of precedence, even at the most unimportant public ceremonies, was during the whole of the Middle Ages a perpetual source of litigation in courts of law and of quarrels which too often ended in bloodshed. It is right that we should place at the head of political ceremonies those having referenced to the coronation of sovereigns, which were not only political but owed their supreme importance and dignity to the necessary intervention of ecclesiastical authority. We will therefore first speak of the consecration and coronation of the kings of France. Pepin Le Bref, son of Charles Martel and founder of the Second Dynasty, was the first of the French kings who was consecrated by the religious right of anointing. But its mode of administration for a long period underwent numerous changes before becoming established by a definite law. Thus Pepin, after having been first consecrated in 752 in the Cathedral of Boisson by the Archbishop of Mayance, was again consecrated with his two sons, Charlemagne and Carlemagne, in 753 in the Abbey of Saint-Denis by Pope Stephen III. Charlemagne was twice anointed by the sovereign Pontiff, first as King of Lombardy and then as Emperor. Louis Le Debonair, his immediate successor, was consecrated at Reims by Pope Stephen IV in 816. In 877 Louis de Begut received Unction and Deceptor at Compiègne at the hands of the Archbishop of Reims. Charles the Simple in 893 and Robert I in 922 were consecrated and crowned at Reims, but the coronation of Raoul in 923 was celebrated in the Abbey of Sémédin de Soissons and that of Louis du Toimet in 936 at Laon. From the accession of King Lothair to that of Louis VI called Le Gros, the consecration of the Kings of France sometimes took place in the Metropolitan Church of Reims and sometimes in other churches, but more frequently in the former. Louis VI, having been consecrated in the Cathedral of Orléans, the clergy of Reims appealed against this supposed infraction of custom and their own special privileges. A long discussion took place in which were brought forward the titles which the Church of Reims possessed subsequently to the reign of Clovis, to the exclusive honor of having Kings consecrated in it, and King Louis Lejeune, son of Louis Legros who was himself consecrated at Reims, promulgated a special decree on this question in anticipation of the consecration of his son, Philip Auguste. This decree finally settled the rights of this ancient Church and, at the same time, defined the order which was to be observed in future at the ceremony of consecration. From that date, down to the end of the reign of the Bourbons of the Elder Line, Kings were invariably consecrated according to legal right in the Metropolitan Church of Reims, with the exception of Henry IV, who was crowned at Chartres by the bishop of that town on account of the civil wars which then divided his kingdom and caused the gates of Reims to be closed against him. The consecration of the Kings of France always took place on a Sunday. On the previous day, at the conclusion of evening prayers, the custody of the cathedral devolved upon certain royal officers assisted by the ordinary officials. During the evening, the monarch came to the Church for devotion and according to his religious feelings to pass part of the night in prayer, an act which was called La Veille des Aumes. A large platform, surmounted by a throne, was erected between the chancel and the Great Nave. Upon this, assembled, besides the King and his officers of state, twelve ecclesiastical peers, together with those prelates whom the King might be pleased to invite, and six lay peers, with other officers or nobles. At daybreak, the King sent a deputation of barons to the Abbey of Saint-Romey for the Holy Veille, which was a small glass vessel called Ampoule, from the Latin word Ampoule, containing the holy oil to be used at the royal anointing. According to tradition, this Veille was brought from heaven by a dove at the time of the consecration of Clovis. Four of the nobles remained as hostages at the Abbey during the time that the abbot of Saint-Romey, followed by his monks and escorted by barons, went in procession to the cathedral to place the sacred vessel upon the altar. The abbot of Saint-Romey in France had in a similar manner to bring from Reims with great pomp, and deposit by the side of the Holy Veille, the Royal Insignia, which were kept in the treasury of his monastery and had been there since the reign of Charlemagne. They consisted of the crown, the sword sheathed, the golden spurs, the guilt scepter, the rod adorned with an ivory handle in the form of a hand, the sandals of pure silk embroidered with fleur-de-lis, the chasseville or dalmatique, and the circle or royal mantle in the shape of a cape without a hood. The king, immediately on rising from his bed, entered the cathedral and forthwith took oath to maintain the Catholic faith and the privileges of the church and to dispense good and impartial justice on his subjects. He then walked to the foot of the altar and divested himself of part of his dress, having his head bare and wearing a tunic with openings on the chest, on the shoulders at the elbows, and in the middle of the back. These openings were closed by means of silver agulets. The bishop of Reims then drew the sword from the scabbard and handed it to the king who passed it to the principal officer in attendance. The prelate then proceeded with the religious part of the ceremony of consecration and taking a drop of the miraculous oil out of the holy vial by means of a gold needle, he mixed it with a holy oil from his own church. This being done and sitting in the posture of consecration, he anointed the king who was kneeling before him in five different parts of the body, namely on the forehead, on the breast, on the back, on the shoulders, and on the joints of the arms. After this the king rose up and with the assistance of his officers put on his royal robes. The arch bishop handed to him successively the ring, the scepter, and the rod of justice, and lastly placed the crown on his head. At this moment the twelve peers formed themselves into a group, the lay peers being in the first rank immediately around the sovereign and raising their hands to the crown, they held it for a moment and then they conducted the king to the throne. The consecrating prelate, putting down his mitre, then knelt at the feet of the monarch and took the oath of allegiance, his example being followed by the other peers and their vassals who were in attendance. At the same time the cry of Vive-le-Roi, uttered by the arch bishop, was repeated three times outside the cathedral by the heralds at arms who shouted it to the assembled multitude. The latter replied, Noël, Noël, Noël, and scrambled for the small pieces of money thrown to them by the officers who at the same time cried out, L'argesse, L'argesse au menant. Every part of this ceremony was accompanied by benedictions and prayers, the form of which was read out of the consecration service as ordered by the bishop and the proceedings terminated by the return of the civil and religious procession which had composed the cortège. When the sovereign was married, his wife participated with him in the honors of the consecration, the symbolical investiture, and the coronation. But she only partook of the homage rendered to the king to a limited degree, which was meant to imply that the queen had a less extended authority and a less exalted rank. The ceremonies which accompanied the accessions of the emperors of Germany are equally interesting, and were settled by a decree which the emperor Charles IX promulgated in 1356 at the diet of Nuremberg. According to the terms of this decree, which is still preserved among the archives of Frankfurt on the Main, and which is known as the Bulldor, or Golden Bull, from the fact of its bearing a seal of pure gold. On the death of an emperor, the Archbishop of Mayance summoned for an appointed day the Prince Electors of the Empire, who, during the whole course of the Middle Ages, remained seven in number. In honor, says the bull, of the seven candlesticks mentioned in the Apocalypse. These electors, who occupied the same position near the emperor that the twelve peers did in relation to the King of France, were the Archbishops of Mayance, of Trev and of Cologne, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. On the appointed day, the mass of the Holy Spirit was duly solemnized in the Church of St. Bartholomew of Frankfurt, a town in which not only the election of the emperor, but also his coronation almost always took place, though one might have supposed that Isla Chapelle would have been selected for such ceremonies. The electors attended, and, after the service was concluded, they retired to the sacristy of the Church accompanied by their officers and secretaries. They had thirty days for deliberation, but beyond that period they were not allowed to eat, bread, or drink water until they had agreed at least by a majority to give a temporal chief to the Christian people, that is to say a King of the Romans who should in due time be promoted to emperor. The newly elected prince was, in fact, at first simply King of the Romans, and this title was often borne by persons who were merely nominated for the office by the voice of the electors or by political combinations. In order to be promoted to the full measure of power and authority, the King of the Romans had to receive both religious consecration and the crown. The ceremonies adopted at this solemnity were very analogous to those used to the consecrations of the kings of France as well as to those of installation of all Christian princes. The service was celebrated by the Archbishop of Cologne who placed the crown on the head of the sovereign elect whom he consecrated emperor. The symbols of his authority were handed to him by the electors and then he was proclaimed Caesar Most Sacred Ever-August Majesty Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the Nation of Germany. The imperial cortege then came out from the Church of St. Bartholomew and went through the town, halting at the town hall called the Romer in commemoration of the noble name of Rome where a splendid banquet prepared in the Kaisersaal Hall of the Caesars awaited the principal performers in this august ceremony. At the moment that the emperor set foot on the threshold of the Romer, the elector of Saxony, chief marshal of the empire, on horseback, galloped at full speed toward a heap of oats which was piled up in the middle of the square, holding in one hand a silver measure and in the other a scraper of the same metal, each of which weighed six marks, he filled the measure with oats, leveled it with a scraper, and handed it over to the hereditary marshal. The rest of the heap was noisily scrambled for by the people who had been witnesses of this allegorical performance. Then the Count Palatine, as chief seneschal, proceeded to perform his part in the ceremony, which consisted of placing before the emperor who was sitting at table four silver dishes, each weighing three marks. The king of Bohemia, as chief butler, handed to the monarch wine and water in a silver cup weighing 12 marks, and then the Margrave of Magdeburg presented to him a silver basin of the same weight for washing his hands. The other three electors or arch-chancellors provided at their own expense the silver baton weighing 12 marks suspended to which one of them carried the seals of the empire. Lastly the emperor and with him the empress if he was married, the princes and the electors sat down to a banquet at separate tables and were waited upon by their respective officers. On another table or stage were placed the imperial insignia. The ceremony was concluded outside by public rejoicings. Fountains were set to play, wine, beer, and other beverages were distributed. Gigantic bonfires were made at which whole oxen were roasted. Refreshment tables were set out in the open air at which anyone might sit down and partake and in a word every bounty as well as every amusement was provided. In this way for centuries public fets were celebrated on these occasions. The dojas of Venice as well as the emperors of Germany and in some other heads of states differed from other Christian sovereigns in this respect that instead of holding their high office by heredity or divine right they were installed therein by election. At Venice a conclave consisting of forty electors appointed by a much more numerous body of man of high position elected the doge or president of the most serene republic. From the day when Laurent Tiepolo immediately after his election in 1268 was spontaneously carried in triumph by the Venetian sailors it became the custom for a similar ovation to take place in honor of any newly elected doge. In order to do this the workmen of the harbor had the new doge seated in a splendid palanquin and carried him on their shoulders in great pomp around the Piazza San Marco. But another still more characteristic ceremony distinguished this magisterial election. On ascension day the doge entering a magnificent gallery called the Boussentour which was elegantly equipped and resplendent with gold and precious stuffs crossed the Grand Canal went outside the town and proceeded in the midst of a nautical cortege escorted by bands of music to the distance of about a league from the town on the Adriatic Gulf. Then the Patriarch of Venice gave his blessing to the sea and the doge taking the helm threw a gold ring into the water saying oh sea I espouse thee in the name and in token of our true and perpetual sovereignty. Immediately the waters were strewed with flowers and the shouts of joy and the clapping of hands of the crowd were intermingled with the strains of instruments of music of all sorts whilst the glorious sky of Venice smiled on the poetic scene. End of section 32. Recording by Donna Stewart Seattle Washington.