 CHAPTER X. A large convent served as an info-traveler. It had the care of many manors, and often it was also a school and a place of pilgrimage. The castle, too, entertained a large number of guests and controlled numerous manors. Men were needed at both places for all sorts of work, and there was a sale for whatever they produced. Moreover, they were sure of protection, and these were three good reasons why people should make their homes under the walls of convents and castles. Occasionally it came to pass that a manor village grew into a town. If it chanced to have a particularly strong manor house with moat and heavy stone walls, it might put up fortifications and prove itself so valuable as a defense that the Lord was very willing to have it become a town. He would give it a charter, or written promises of privileges and protection, and this would bring many more people within its walls to increase his income by their taxes. Sometimes a town was founded by a king or noble, who decided that a certain place was a good location. The story is told that once, when Edward I of England was on a hunting expedition, his attention was attracted to a tiny village on the wide river Humber, near which some shepherds were watching their flocks. "'That would be a most excellent place for a fortress,' he said to himself, and a city there would be sure to carry on a great deal of commerce. He asked the shepherds how deep the river was and to what height the tides rose. The land belonged to a convent, but the abbot was willing to take other land in exchange. Then the king published a charter declaring the rights that he would give to all merchants who would carry on their business in the place. So it was that the town of Hull was founded. A wall and towers were built for defense, and the settlement flourished. The fact that it is today a city of a quarter of a million of inhabitants proves the wisdom of Edward in choosing its location. Such a maid-to-order town was commonly spoken of as the new town or the free town. Sometimes it never received any other title, and that is why we have such name as Neustadt and Freiberg in Germany, Villanueva and Villafranca in Spain, and Villeneuve and Villefranche in France. King Edward was not so fortunate in another of his towns that of Winshelsee. The old settlement had been washed away by the ocean, and the king laid out another one on a new site two miles away. And they pounced down upon it before the walls were done. Winshel did not take a liking to it, and in spite of the king's efforts it never flourished. Curiously enough, within the last four hundred years, the sea, which had laid the old town in ruins, has retreated from the new town, and the former seaport is now a village a mile and a half from the ocean and surrounded by a salt march. Italian towns were stronger and larger than those of France. Each one held widespreading territories, and therefore the whole country was really in their hands. Everyone had chartered communities earlier than France or England. In these Spanish towns, citizens of a certain amount of property paid no taxes, but if fighting men were needed to protect the country, they were bound to serve and also to provide horses for themselves at their own expense. For this reason a man's horse could not be seized for debt. In France the citizens must defend their land if necessary, but they could be called out for only a limited time and to a certain distance from the walls of their home city. There was another law which also tended to make them somewhat independent. This was that, before they agreed to enter upon any piece of military service, they had a right to take into account the nature of the cause for which they were called into service. This was an excellent arrangement, for if two nobles, for instance, took up arms because of some trivial quarrel, the citizens could not be forced to join it. A town, then, in the Middle Ages was simply a large village with walls and towers. They had special privileges, granted by the king or by the convent or the noble in whose province it was situated, and it was sure to gain more, either by purchase or by some shrewd bargaining with the owner in his time of need. A town usually had many customs peculiar to itself. At Chester, in England, if a fire caught in a man's house and the flames spread, he must pay his next neighbor two shillings, and pay the town a fine of five shillings. In some of the English towns it was a rule for the mayor and corporation to walk once a year around the boundaries, inspecting the landmarks. A company of children were taken with them, and in order to impress the limits upon their minds, copper coins were given to them at each turning, a far more agreeable method than the old Roman fashion of sacrificing a lamb or pig at every corner. To be called a city, a town must be the residence of a bishop. For a long while, a town was as much a piece of private property as a manner. Its lord could sell it if he chose, and the citizens could do nothing to hinder him. The value was somewhat in proportion to its size. It was therefore of advantage to the owner to have the number of inhabitants increase, and strangers were usually welcome. The walls about a town were thick and high. Watchmen were always on guard to give the alarm at the approach of an enemy. The houses were built of various materials. There were cottages of mud, and there were comfortable residences of brick. Some were built of wood with the framework arranged in elaborate patterns. Others were ornamented with plaster decorations and painted panels. In many cases the lower story was of stone and the rest of the house of wood. Rooves thatched with straw or reeds were common for a long while, but at length it was required that tiles should be used. Windows were sometimes glazed, and sometimes the space was filled in with wooden latticework. There were churches and inns for travelers, and there was always a town hall in which the business of the town was transacted. The town halls on the continent were larger and more splendid than those in England, but the English halls were not to be ashamed of by any means, for it was a matter of pride with the town to have as handsome a hall as could be afforded. By far the greater number of people in a city were either craftsmen, that is, manufacturers of various articles or merchants. To become a craftsman required a long training. If a boy wished to be a carpenter, for instance, his parents selected some master carpenter and asked him to take their son as apprentice. If he was willing, both parents and master signed a formal agreement. The parents gave their son into the charge of the master for a fixed number of years, promising on the boy's part that he would be obedient and diligent and would not tell any of his master's secrets. The master agreed to give the boy a home and his clothes and to teach him all that he himself knew about the carpenter's trade. The boy was not supposed to be of much service during the first years of his apprenticeship, but long before the end of his time had come he was expected to be able to assist the master enough to pay him for all previous trouble and expense. After the boy had learned the trade and his time was up he became a journeyman. This name is thought to have come from the French journée, meaning day, because he worked by the day. Many journeymen never rose any higher, but an industrious workman could soon save enough money to set up for himself, which meant becoming a master, having a shop in his own house, hiring journeymen, and taking apprentices. Providing himself with tools was not a difficult matter, for they were few and simple. Two axes and adds, a square and a spoke-shave were all that were necessary, and their combined cost was only one shilling. Materials were often supplied by the customers. No journeyman was allowed to become a master until he had presented a master piece, or an excellent piece of carpentry to the guild or society of carpenter's, and had thus shown them that he was able to do work that would meet with their approval. The merchants varied in rank from the great importer whose vessels sailed wherever desirable exports could be found, to the small tradesman whose little shop was in his own house. Some of these merchants were both rich and generous, and attained to high positions in affairs of state. They built for themselves handsome houses that were probably decidedly more comfortable than the castles of the time. The house of one of the smaller traders was usually a combination of shop and home and storehouse. The building was generally narrow and high, with a gable overlooking the street. In the gable was a door. From this door a crane projected. The lower floor was a basement or cellar. The first floor was given up to the shop. Above that was the living room, and back of the living room was the kitchen. The floor above was the general sleeping room, and over this was the great garret. This was used as a storeroom, and goods were lifted to it by means of the crane and the gable. Often a sales room was merely a bench under a porch. Here whatever the workmen made was spread out for the passers-by to see, and purchased if they would. Many signs swung over the street, and on each of them was painted some device to suggest the business of the house. The boar's head, a favorite Christmas dish, was often adopted as a tavern sign. The pilgrims and chaucers' cantebrae tales spent the night at the tabard inn, and doubtless this had a wooden sign representing a tabard, or sleeveless jacket worn over armor. The flying horse was the name of a tavern in Canterbury, and we can easily guess what the sign must have been. The ivy was sacred to Bacchus, god of wine, and therefore the custom arose of putting a spray of wine, or even a green bush over the door of a place where wine was sold. To this day the mortar and pestle often indicate an apothecaries. The shop of the pawnbroker is marked not by a name, but by three golden balls, taken from the arms of the Lombards, the first great moneylenders in England. And the twinning stripes of the barber's pole signify either the flowing blood or the bandages used in bleeding, for in early times the barbers were also the bleeders. The streets and medieval days were narrow, and except in made to order towns, they were crooked and rambling. The upper stories of the houses often projected so far over them that opposite neighbors could almost shake hands from their windows. In front the houses must have been rather gloomy, but back of them there were usually gardens, which must have been a great delight to the good folk of the time, for they not only walked in them, but played chess and danced and ate their dinners in them. In England lilies and roses seemed to have been the favorite flowers, but marigolds, poppies, violets, and fox clubs were often seen. Many plants were cultivated as medicines, among them sage, mallows, and nightshade. In the vegetable gardens there were lettuce, creses, onions, melons, cucumbers, and beets. Apples and pears were common, and cherries seemed to have been well-known and general favorites. Every year, when the cherries were ripe, feasts or fairs were held in the orchards, which were called cherry fairs. People seemed never to weary of trying experiments on the cherry tree. An old book on gardening declared that grapes could be made to ripen as early as cherries. This was the way it was to be done. A grapevine must be set out beside a cherry tree, and after it was growing thriftily it must be drawn through a hole bored through the tree. The bark of the vine was to be cut away from the part that went through the tree, and the hole must be completely filled. After a year had passed the vine was supposed to be as much at home in the tree as its own roots might be cut off, and it would find its fruit in the sap of the cherry. It was a faithful monk who gave this recipe, but one cannot help wondering whether he had ever tested it, or only reasoned it out in his cell, and whether, even if it was a success in the fifteenth century, the daring gardener who ventured to try it in the twentieth would not come to grief. Anyone who is more fond of pomegranates than peaches may wish to try another recipe that seems to have been in good standing at about the same time. This one bad that when the peach tree was in bloom it should be sprinkled with goat's milk several times a day for three days, whereupon it would not fail to produce pomegranates. Only this was a far simpler and easier method than grafting. There was ample opportunity for even the Londoners to try all such experiments, for besides the smaller gardens within the city there were large and spacious orchards just beyond the walls, with plenty of room for trees of all sorts. Outside the city wall was a ditch or moat two hundred feet broad. This was dug in the early part of the thirteenth century as a means of fortification, and for many years it was kept in good order. At length, however, it became so foul that every householder in London was taxed five pence, the price of a day's work, to help pay for cleaning it out. More agreeable waters abounded on the north side of the city, for there lay pastures and meadowland rich in springs and streams. The springs were all named, and a number of them were walled in. Richard Whittington, the hero of the nursery tale, Thrice Lord Mayor of London, left money to build a stone coping about one of them. In the thirteenth century water was brought into the city in lead pipes, for the poor to drink and the rich to dress their meat. In the clear streams the mill-wheels turned merrily about, and the crops grew abundantly in the fertile soil. Toward the end of the twelfth century a law was passed that the lower parts of houses, at least, should be built of stone, and the roofs should be covered with slate or tile. This was to prevent destruction by fire. William FitzSteven, clerk of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote an account of London in his time, the latter part of the twelfth century, and he says that the only pests of London are the immoderate drinking of fools and the frequency of fires. Some years later a man built a house with a lofty tower of brick, which seems to have greatly annoyed the Londoners. They looked upon it as manifesting a desire on the part of the owner to show himself superior to his neighbors. And folk thought that the blindness which came upon him was deserved punishment for his pride. The second house that was built with a tower to overlook neighbors was reared by a young tailor. The poor young man was soon attacked by gout and was not able to climb his own stairs, and this was rather unteritably regarded as a judgment come upon him. It is possible that the next owner of this house did not venture to retain the tower, for the record says he knew buildeth it. No historian has handed down the name of the person who built the third tower, but it must have been a man of unbounded fearlessness and audacity. Even stone-built houses were not places of safety in the troubled times of the twelfth century. It was a common practice for bands of wealthy young men to roam the streets at night, killing any one whom they chance to meet and breaking into houses. One of these fashionable ruffians was finally captured. He offered the king five hundred pounds of silver to let him go free, but the king commanded him to be hanged, and for a long while citizens slept more peacefully. One convenience of the city fit Stephen felt to be the very height of luxury. This was a cook-shop on the bank of the river. He says that if unexpected visitors arrived, their host could slip down to the river bank, and there he would find fish, fowl, and meat, fried, roasted, or boiled, as he would, to carry to his hungry guests. Fit Stephen had an unlimited confidence in the resources of this cook-shop, for he declared that, no matter how great a multitude of soldiers or travelers entered the city at any hour of the day or night, they could be quickly served with all the delicacies of the season. Either the multitude of the Middle Ages was not so very large, or this really was a most remarkable cook-shop. London had many churches, and it was well supplied with hospitals. These latter were for the blind or poor or insane or for lepers. Richard Whittington endowed an alms-house which he called God's house for thirteen poor men. Thirteen was a favorite number in the charities, but often there were restrictions far more whimsical than this. At the close of the fifteenth century, somewhat later than the Middle Ages, King Henry VII endowed a home for thirteen poor men. One must be a priest, forty-five years old, and a good grimerian. The other twelve men were to be fifty years of age and without wives. Every Saturday, as long as they lived, the priest was to receive four pence a day for his food, who perhaps were not so good grimerians were to receive only two pence half-penny a day. Every year each man was given a gown and a hood. The charge of the house, the cooking, and the care of the poor men in illness was put into the hands of three women, each of whom was to receive one gown each year and sixteen pence every Saturday. Coal and wood were provided. It was ordered that a discreet monk, who was to be paid forty shillings a year but was to receive no gown, should be overseer of all. Many persons of wealth gave away food in large quantities. One kind-hearted bishop had every week more than two hundred pounds of wheat made into bread to give to the poor. One of the archbishops of Canterbury gave, on Fridays and Sundays, a loaf of bread to every beggar who came to his gates, and sometimes there were five thousand of them. To people who were too sick or too feeble to come, he sent meat, bread, and drink, and often money and clothes. One of the oddest of charitable whims was that of Henry III, in the twelfth century. Soon after the close of the Christmas season, all the poor and needy boys and girls that could be found were brought into a great hall, and made comfortable before a big fire. Soon they saw a rare and wonderful sight. For the king's children, the princes and princesses were led into the room. These royal youngsters were carefully weighed, and a quantity of food equal to their weight was distributed among their hungry guests. There seems to have been a good supply of schools in London, for in the twelfth century there were three especially notable, and also a number of lesser fame. These were connected with churches, and upon festival days people flocked to their doors to listen to the boys. The good folk of that time believed that the surest proof of a pupil's diligence and talent was his ability to argue, and on these occasions the boys did their best to get the better of one another in argument. The listeners watched eagerly to see who used good, queer, logical reasoning, and who manifested skill and persuasion, and who spoke flowingly with a lavish supply of words but with few genuine arguments. After the more serious part of the program had come to an end, the boys had a bout of capping verses, in Latin, of course, and contending about the rules and principles of grammar. Then came an hour of vast amusement, for now they set to work to make witty rhymes and speeches about one another. They were not allowed to mention names, but they were free to jest keenly as they chose about one another's faults and oddities, nipping and quipping their fellows. Long after the formal school exercises in the churches had been given up, the boys used to go to Smithfield, or Smoothfield, just outside the city, for their duels of argument. A platform had been built up under a tree, and upon this a boy would take a stand, make some statement in grammar or philosophy, and uphold it until he was argued down by some boy of keen or wit. This second boy then mounted the platform and upheld some statement of his own choice, until he, too, was obliged to yield. At the close of the arguing, prizes were given to those who had done best. After a while these debates were given up, but the tradition was handed down by one class of boys to another, and even in the sixteenth century, they were continued in a fashion that perhaps entertained the boys quite as much as the more formal displays of earlier times. The most famous school in the thirteenth century was that of the Cathedral of St. Paul's. Its pupils were called Paul's Pigeons, because many Pigeons were bred about the church. A later, but most excellent school was that of St. Anthony's. There was a legend that this kind-hearted saint had been followed about by a favorite pig. No boy would forget that story, and of course the pupils of St. Anthony's were nicknamed Anthony's Pigs. When a company of Paul's Pigeons chanced to meet some of Anthony's pigs in the street, some boy from one group was sure to demand of the other group, will you hold an argument with me? This was a challenge which could not be slighted. Some question in Latin grammar was chosen, and the contest proceeded, first by argument, but before long with blows of fists and satchels of books. The challenge was always made in Latin—Salve te coque plus et tibii mecum disputare? But it came to me little more than the very modern—hello, want a fight?—but the amusements of London were not limited to Latin contests and street brawls. On Shrove Tuesday of each year the schoolboys carried game-cocks to school, and all the forenoon master and pupils watched them fight. In the afternoon the young men of the city went to the ball-ground to play, while their elders cantered out on horseback to watch the game. Every Friday in Lent some of the young men went through various maneuvers on horseback, and others with shields and blunted lances carried on a mimic war. After a while this was given up, and the night's practice with the quaintain took its place. Prizes were given to those who did best. The favorite prize was a peacock. At Easter time the banks of the Thames, the wharves, bridges, and houses were filled with people waiting to see an interesting sort of naval contest. A pole was firmly fixed in the middle of the stream, and on it a shield was hung. The young man who was to try his fate took his position with lance in hand in the bow of a little boat some distance above the people. He had neither oars nor paddle, but the current filled the place of both, for a time was always chosen when the tide was going out rapidly. The feat was to charge upon the shield with the lance and not lose one's balance. If the lance did not break, the contestant was sure to tumble into the water. The unlucky youth was in no danger, for on each side of the shield were two boats full of men to rescue him, but the shouts of laughter that echoed up and down the river must have been worse than the wedding. All summer long there were sports of different kinds, such as leaping, dancing, wrestling, shooting, and casting the stone. When winter had come and the flats north of the city were frozen, then there was sliding on the ice, which Fitz Stephen describes as follows. Some, striding as wide as they may, do slide swiftly. Another amusement was for one to take his seat upon a cake of ice as big as a millstone, while his companions took hold of hands and drew him about. The interesting part of this amusement seemed to be that the horses frequently slipped and all tumbled down together. Another sport was evidently a forerunner of skating. Fitz Stephen describes it thus. Some tie bones to their feet and under their heels, and shoved themselves by a little-picked staff, do slide as swiftly as a bird flyeth on the air, or an arrow out of a crossbow. One exercise which seems to have been required of the young apprentices was to practice with bucklers and wasters, or blunt-edged swords in front of their master's doors at twilight. The girls were not forgotten, for garlands were hung across the street as prizes, and for these the maidens danced to the music of a timbrel or drum. It is a pity that all the amusements were not as simple and harmless as these, but the cruel and revolting cock-fighting, as well as bear and bull-baiting, that is, muzzling and tying up one of these animals to be attacked by dogs, were not given up, even after people became, in many respects, far more enlightened than during the Middle Ages. In Smithfield there was held every Friday, except on specially holy days, a horse market. Everybody went to it, earls and barons and knights, as well as the common citizens. There were horses broken and horses unbroken. There were handsome, graceful amblers. There were steadfast trodders for men-at-arms. And there were strong, sober steeds for the plough or farm-wagon. There were pigs and cows and sheep and oxen. It was quite allowable to keep as many pigs as one chose within the city, but by the fourteenth century the Londoners were beginning to feel that the pigs ought not be permitted to roam about the streets at pleasure, and the stern decree was passed that whoever kept a pig must feed it at his own house, that is, all pigs must board and lodge at home. Whoever chanced to find one wandering about the streets of the city had a right to kill it, and if the owner wished to have the carcass he must pay fourpence for it. Verily, as honest Fitz-Steven declared, London was a good city indeed when it had a good master. In the Middle Ages there were guilds or societies for all purposes. There were guilds to mend the walls and bridges of their home cities and guilds to keep certain roads in good condition. There were guilds of minstrels and guilds of ringers of church-bells. Indeed there were so many varieties of guild that one almost wonders how a man ventured to light his fire in the morning without belonging to a guild for the kindling of hearth-fires. In the towns, as has been said before, almost every citizen had something to do with manufacturers and with trade. Perhaps his manufacturing was only making candles in his own home and selling them from his first floor, but even then it was an important matter for him to get his wax as cheaply as the other candle-makers of the town. He was interested too in having his prices and those of the others of his trade nearly the same, and he did not wish foreigners or even people from other towns to come in and spoil his sales. It was for these reasons that the merchant guilds were formed. Probably in earlier times, all or nearly all of the citizens of a town belonged to its merchant guild. The guildsmen called one another brethren, and their rules bound them to work together and help one another as much as possible. The first business, then, of the guild in a town was to look out for the interests of its merchants and tradesmen. It prevented strangers from coming into the town to sell any goods unless they paid tolls, and even then they were allowed to sell only certain things who sell would not interfere with the interests of the guildsmen. In many places no foreign merchant was allowed to remain more than forty days, and during this time he must dispose of all his goods. If a guildsman became poor or sick his guild helped him. If in time of peace he was thrown into prison his guild came to his aid. At his death the guild attended his funeral, and in many cases paid for masses for the repose of his soul. The member owed various duties to the guild. He must pay his dues and fines, and in case of a disagreement between him and another member he must submit to the decision of the guild. He must permit the officers of the guild to examine his goods, and if they found fault with their quality, or weight, or measure, he must obey the guild's orders and mend his ways. These merchant guilds often became very wealthy and powerful. They were able to loan large sums of money, and, oddly enough, they sometimes loaned it to themselves. This came about because although the guildsmen and the citizens were nearly the same people they were, nevertheless, entirely separate bodies, and when a town wanted to borrow money it would naturally appeal to the guild first of all. In many cases a guild even made bargains with the king. It would pay the king the round sum that he demanded from the city in taxation, and then it was entirely free from him in money matters and could collect the amount just as the members thought best. The merchant guild was of aid to men in manufacturing goods, as has been said, but there were many matters of importance to the manufacturers or craftsmen which the merchant guilds did not touch. To begin with, what the plasterers, for instance, wanted was quite different from what the shoemakers wanted, and in a town where many trades were represented, of course no one guild could care for the interests of all. The natural thing, then, was for the men of each craft to form a guild of their own. This was not only a natural, but also an easy and convenient thing to do, for those who practiced the same craft generally lived on the same street, or at any rate in the same quarter of the town. These newer guilds had two special objects. The first was to see that every member had work. This was brought about by limiting the number of apprentices who were permitted to learn any one trade. The second object was to make sure that every member's work was good. Each craftsman was obliged to allow the guild officers to examine his materials and his work, both in the making and after it was finished. No one was allowed to labor on Saturday afternoons, Sundays or holy days. Working in the night was strictly forbidden. The chief reason, probably, was that it was difficult to inspect night work, and that with the poor lights then used few articles could be well made. But there were often other reasons given for refusing to allow it. For instance, in the town of Lincoln, England, the Spurriers' guild forbade its members to work longer than from daylight to curfew, by reason that no man can work so neatly by night as by day. But the decree went on to say furthermore that if the Spurriers were allowed to work at night they would idle about all day and get drunk and frantic. Then when night had come they would blow up their fires and seize their tools. Although the fires were apparel to the houses and the noise was a great annoyance to the sick, and so became the cause of many quarrels. The craft guilds looked out for the interest of their members in much the same way as the merchant guilds. That is, they cared for them in illness, attended their funeral services, paid for masses for the repose of their souls, and helped their widows and orphans. It was the business of the guild to settle, if possible, any disputes that might arise between members. Sometimes there were disputes between guilds. The work of each craft was strictly marked off. A man who made shoes must not mend them, and a man whose business it was to mend shoes was not allowed to make them. A man who made hats for his trade was forbidden to make caps. If one craft did any work that another craft claimed as its own, then there was trouble. For instance, a disagreement of this sort arose between the Farriers and the Blacksmiths of York and England. For many years either craft troubled other. At length the mayor persuaded them to allow the matter to be settled by four men whom he would appoint from other crafts. Everything was done to induce the members of a guild to treat the other members like brothers, and if anyone tried to get the better of the rest in buying material, especially for the things necessary to life, like bread, before the others could have the same chance, or by purchasing all that was for sale and then charging a higher price, he was likely to get into trouble with his guild officers. Every guild had its feast day once a year, or oftener, and every guild had also its patron saint. On the day sacred to him all the members put on the guild library or uniform and marched from their guild hall to the church for services. Another religious duty of the craft guilds was the acting of plays, mystery or miracle plays as they were called. Long before the Middle Ages the priests in various countries often acted stories from the Bible, such as that of the birth of Christ in order to impress them upon the minds of the people. These were acted in the church, then on platforms in the churchyard, but so many came to see them that the graves were trampled upon, and it was decreed that they should be acted on other ground. These plays did not always follow the Bible narrative strictly, but added old legends or any incidents that it was thought would interest the people. For instance in one of the plays of the Garden of Eden, when Adam took the apple he apparently tried to swallow it whole. The play says that it stuck in his throat, causing the Adam's apple. In the play of the Slaughter of the Innocence an old tradition is brought in that by mistake Herod's own baby son was slain. In the play of the Shepherds the honest men talked together about how to care for their sheep. They sit down and eat their supper, bread, butter, pudding, onions, garlic, and leeks, green cheese and sheep's head soused in oil, a noble supper, as one of them calls it. After supper masters and boys are wrestling together when a bright star blazes out. They kneel down and pray to God to tell them why it is sent. Then the angel Gabriel appears to them and sings, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. This is sung in Latin, of course, for it would not have seemed to a writer of the Middle Ages at all respectful to represent an angel as singing in English. The Shepherds have a rather hard time with the Latin, but they make out some of the words. They talk about the singing. One of them says of the angel. He had a much better voice than I have. Then they sing together, a merry song. The angel appears again and tells them that the Christ is born in Bethlehem. After they have gone to find him the three shepherd boys set out to follow their masters. They wish that they had something to carry to the child, but they have only the few things that they use themselves. One, therefore, gives the child his water bottle, which he says is good, only it needs a stopper. The second takes off his own hood for a gift, and the third presents him with a nut hook to pull down apples, pears, and plums. In almost all of these plays there was considerable fun making and horse play. Just as the good folk of the Middle Ages saw no harm in making a pilgrimage, a merry and entertaining little journey, so in the mystery plays they demanded to be amused as well as instructed. In the play of the flood Noah's wife is indignant that her husband has worked on the ark so many years without telling her. She declares that she will not enter it, and she finally has to be dragged in by Noah and his sons. Harrod struts about the stage. She boasts how mighty a king he is and how easily he can destroy the child who has been born in Bethlehem. Then there must have been loud guffaws of laughter from the audience when the devil rushed in and carried him off. Satan was the clown, the fun-maker, and whenever he appeared the people watched eagerly to see him fooled and cheated by some good spirit. He always wore a dress of leather, ending in claws at the fingers and toes. The souls of the good were dazzling in their white coats, while the wicked were robed in black and yellow with sometimes a touch of crimson. Then Satan and his evil spirits made their appearance. They came by way of hell-mouth. This was a great pair of gaping jaws made of painted linen and worked by two men. A fire was lighted to look as if hell-mouth were full of flame. Some of the items on the old expense accounts are amusing to read. For the mending of hell-mouth, for keeping up the fire at hell-mouth, sound rather alarming. One item was for a barrel to make an earthquake, another was for a beard for St. Peter, and yet another for a quart of wine to pay for hiring a gown for the wife of Herod. Long before the place became so elaborate as to demand so many properties, they passed into the hands of the craft-guilds. In the early part of the 13th century most of the guilds fixed upon Corpus Christi Day for their chief celebration. They marched in procession, carrying sacred pictures and images of the saints. Often members of the guild took the parts of Bible characters, and at length whole Bible stories were acted. These were played in pageants, or great lumbering wagons, two or three stories high. The lower part was covered by a curtain, and here the actors dressed. The second floor was the stage upon which the acting took place. The third floor, if there was one, represented heaven. An attempt was made to have each scene as realistic as possible. For instance, the stage directions for the play of the creation ordered that as many animals as could be obtained should be suddenly let loose. Each guild had its own special day. One would play the three kings, another the crucifixion, another the murder of Abel, and so on. In England they were so arranged that the main stories of the Bible were played in the Bible order, beginning with the creation and ending with the last judgment. Early in the morning the ponderous pageants were dragged out to the different streets of the town. Sometimes men of means paid a good price to have them stop in front of their houses. As soon as a play had been acted, each one moved on and acted the same play in another place. This was usually continued through three days, and a person who remained in one place could see the whole cycle of plays. While if he cared to see any one of them repeated, he had only to follow the pageant to the next street. The plays were entertaining, and that was reason enough for bringing together a good audience. Moreover, to attend them was thought to be particularly good for one's soul, and to do something religious and be entertained while doing it was regarded by the good folk of the Middle Ages as a most excellent arrangement. As for the guilds, at first they looked upon presenting these plays as an honor and also a religious privilege. They chose the actors from their members and paid them in proportion to the length of their speeches and the amount of stage business for which they were responsible. In the play of St. Peter in Coventry the man who did the crowning was paid four pence, but when he also attended to the hanging of Judas he received ten pence more. The guild had to pay these charges, buy costumes, and keep them in order, and provide provisions for the actors at rehearsals. It is true that collections were taken up in the streets to help pay expenses, but the burden was still a heavy one. Then too trades changed with the changing fashions. Sometimes one trade was divided into two. In 1492 the blacksmiths and bladesmiths in a town separated. This resulted in two weak guilds instead of one strong one, and the whole expense of a pageant was a serious tax to each. As time passed the guilds made strenuous objections to keeping up the plays, but now the law stepped in and in many towns they were required to produce their pageants or else pay a large fine. As the craft guilds became more numerous and powerful the merchant guilds lost in power and slowly died away. The craft guilds too weakened with changes in methods of manufacture and most of these also disappeared. In London a number of guilds still exist, but the procession which takes place whenever a Lord Mayor is to be inducted into office is the last reminder of the old trade pageants. CHAPTER XII. OF WHEN NIGHTS WERE BOLD. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER XII. HOW GOODS WERE SOLD. After a man had manufactured something, shoes or taps or saddles or swords, as the case might be, after his guild had declared that the material was good and that the articles were well made, the next question was how to dispose of them. If he lived in a large town he could sell many goods to the people of the town from the bench in front of his house. As has been said, the people of one craft lived near together. And if any one wanted a sword, for instance, he went to the street of the sword-makers. If he wanted some cloth he went to the street of the drapers. For bread he visited the pestures, for saddles, the cellars, and for fish the pestiners. If he needed to have a window glazed he called upon their verruers. If he intended to indulge himself in a new suit of clothes he went to the place of the talalaunders to give his order. But if he purposed only to have old ones repaired he went to the quarters of the doobers. Many goods were sold in the country at castles, cottages, convents, and manor houses by peddlers who roamed about the land. They packed their merchandise into bundles or boxes and slung them over a horse or a mule. They carried all sorts of articles for a house or a wardrobe such as caps, hats, girdles, gloves, purses, pewter pots, hoods for men, headdresses for women, and even musical instruments. These peddlers must have been a great convenience to the people who could not come to town, but they did not bear a very good reputation for honesty. There is an old picture that the folk of the time must have enjoyed. It represents a peddler sound asleep beside a tree, while three monkeys are opening his pack and helping themselves to its contents. Another opportunity to dispose of goods was at the markets, which were held in many towns one to three times a week. No town could hold a market without the permission of the king. The permission was a valuable gift for everyone wishing to sell in the market, had to pay a toll unless he lived in the town. Sometimes the king gave the market to the abbey, sometimes to a noble, and sometimes to the town itself. Before a new market could be established, the question had to be considered whether it would be so near some older one as to lessen its tolls, and so injure the owner. It was a common feeling that markets should not be more than six miles apart in order the people might walk there, sell, or buy what they wished, and get home before dark. When market day had come, the good folk from all about came to town and went to the marketplace. This was open space in some central location. Stalls and booths were set up and were rented by some of the dealers. Others sat on low stools with baskets of eggs or rolls of butter and live poultry in front of them and waited for customers. In the marketplace a cross of wood or stone was usually set up, and often some article belonging to the king, such as a glove, hat, sword, or shield, was put upon it to show to all people that the spot was under the special protection of the sovereign. In some towns on the continent huge stone figures were reared called Rowlands, perhaps from Charlemagne's famous knight of that name. Each Rowland bore the sword of justice, and the threat was more than an empty show. For whoever committed any offense during market time had to pay not only the usual penalty, but also a good-sized fine. Every market had a court of its own to decide the disagreements that were sure to arise where many people were buying and selling. It was composed of merchants that was called the court of pie-powder, or more properly pie-polder, that is the court of dusty feet, because when any dispute arose the disputants came before this court at once, even with their dusty feet from their journey. Each one told a story, and the matter was promptly settled. This court was held in a hut or booth called the toll booth, that is, a booth for collecting tolls. Usually a better building was put out for the court after a while, and this became the town prison, or perhaps the town hall, paying toll. The tolls were of so many kinds that one wonders how the traders could have made money enough for their sales to pay them all. If a man who was not a citizen of the market town wished to sell fish, for instance, in the market, he must first pay a toll for each load, car-goad, horse-load, or man-load that he brought in. From the board on which his fish was laid for sale he paid a rent of one farthing a day, and every car-load on the board was also taxed one penny. After a while little shops were opened in the towns, but they had only a narrow variety of articles. Most of the towns were so small that it did not pay traders to bring very many goods of a kind or to come long distances, even for market days. And those who needed large quantities or articles from other countries fared poorly at the markets. But on one occasion people did gather in great numbers, and that was on pilgrimages. On the special saint's day of any famous shrine, thousands came together. The wide-awake merchants were not slow in finding this out and in bringing goods of all sorts to such places. This was the beginning of the famous fairs that were held in every country in Europe. For these fairs merchants at first put up simple boots of green branches in the churchards, and there sold their goods. This was soon forbidden, but they were allowed to establish themselves outside the towns. Fairs soon began to be held at other places than shrines, but it was always necessary to choose a location that could be reached either by good roads or by waterways. The right to hold a fair had to be obtained from the king. This was an exceedingly valuable privilege, for of course the tolls were much greater than those received from a market. The king usually gave this right to some favored nobleman or to an abbey or a hospital. If a town had been burned or had met with other serious misfortune, their sovereign did not need to draw upon his treasure for a contribution. He simply granted the town a permit to hold a fair. These permits were very definite. They stated not only whether the fair might be held once, twice, three times, or four times a year, but even the number of days that it was allowed to remain open. Another privilege of value was that during fair time the shops and neighboring towns were ordered to be closed, and if these were market towns it was forbidden to hold a market until the fair was over. This was not so unjust as it might appear, for merchants could bring their goods to the fair and probably make much larger sales than if they had remained in their shops. They had to bait tolls to be sure, and occasionally a closed fist and trader would avoid the entrance fees by working his way into the fair enclosure much as a bad boy at the storybooks gets under the circus tent. Most people who sold also purchased, and as a general thing deeders felt that their toll money was well spent, for at fairs weights and measures were so carefully tested that there was far less chance of being cheated. There was also another protection for the buyer. If he discovered that he had been tricked by some merchant, the laws of the fair held not only the one man, but all the merchants from his hometown responsible for the amount, and the goods of any of them could be seized to make the buyer whole. When a fair was to be held streets were laid out in line with wooden or canvas booths. People of one trade were usually on the same street or row, and there were pew-towers row, tailors row, and others. The day before the fair was to open, officers of the person or hospital or church that owned the fair went about the town declaring its rules. Every merchant must be in his place at a certain time unless he had been delayed by a storm at sea, by some accident, or by robbers. There was danger of robbers everywhere, for the noble in his castle often demanded toll of any merchant who passed near his stronghold. This really meant that the noble and his followers dashed out upon any merchant who was so unfortunate as to be obliged to go by his castle. The merchant lost his goods and counted himself in luck if he did not lose his life. The officers also announced the disagreements would be settled by the courts of the Pied Podre, and that nothing could be sold within several miles of the fair, but whoever had anything to dispose of must bring it within the gates. They proclaimed how strong the wine and ale must be, and how much the loaves of bread must weigh. These officers tested the weights and measures. If any false ones were discovered they were burned, and the owners were obliged to pay fines. It was forbidden to make any sale until the fair was opened, but when the hour had come a trumpet was blown as a signal, and the trade began at once. There were swarms of people from town and country. There were merchants from distant lands. There were knights and ladies and peasants. There were gestures and jugglers and minstrels. Stewards of large abbeys were there to lay in a year's supply of salt, spices, wine, fur, and linen. And humbler folk were there to buy a few little deities that would be their only luxuries for the year to come. Foreign goods, tar, gold, cattle, horses, wool, hides, cloth, velvets, ribbon, silk, satins, hay, grain, and glass, copper, flax, saltfish, wax, tallow, honey-oil, resin, pitch, timber, armor. These were only a few of the articles that were for sale. There were, too, so many kinds of amusements that everyone could find entertainment. Jugglers did their sleight-of-hand tricks. Jugglers chanted romances. Trained bears went through their performances. Cheap jacks sold their quack medicines. Wrestlers showed their strength and skill, and dancers balanced themselves on their hands rather than their feet. Ferris were not only a great convenience for buyers and sellers, but they were a help in keeping prices steady. Small quantities of goods brought into a town would often command a high price, because there might not be enough for all that wanted them. But if the people knew that in a short time the same sort of goods would be for sale at a fair near at hand, and at reasonable cost, they would wait, if possible. This would lessen the demand for the goods, and only a fair price could be obtained. Ferris were held, as has been said throughout Europe. The journeys of the crusaders had shown what comforts and luxuries there were in the world. People had developed new tastes, and they made new demands. They would have thought themselves ill treated, indeed, if they had to depend upon a town market to supply their wants. In England, the largest fair was that of Stourbridge, near Cambridge. Its streets and booths were spread over an area half a mile square. Some of these streets were named for the trades represented, and others for the nations represented. Stourbridge fair lasted a month, and during this time there were immense sales of both English and foreign productions. Two seaports specially liked by merchants on the continent were near Stourbridge, and vessels came in by scores loaded with foreign goods. Italy sent silks, and valvettes, and glass of our own manufacture, and also cotton, spices, and manufactured articles from the East. From France and Spain came quantities of wine. Flemish ships brought fine linen and woolen cloth. The Hanseatic lead, or union of German towns that ruled the commerce of Northern Europe, brought many products of the North, such as iron, copper, timber, saltfish, and meat, furs, grain, amber, dried herring, resin, and pitch. As time passed, the business of the league spread to the South and West, and then this great mercantile union brought wine and oil and salt from France and Spain and Portugal. At Stourbridge the league merchants bought a barley for breweries of Flanders, together with large numbers of horses and cattle. Most of all, however, they wanted wool to sell to the various towns where it was to be woven into cloth. England raised such vast quantities of wool that it sales brought in large amounts of money. It was looked upon as an important source of the country's wealth, and to this day, when the Lord Chancellor enters the House of Lords, he takes a seat upon a large square bag of wool covered with red cloth. Another famous English fair was held at Winchester. This dates from the time of William the Conqueror. He allowed the Bishop of Winchester to hold it one day in the year, but William's great-grandson, Henry II, allowed it to be held for sixteen days. Whoever travelled on a road leading to the fair, or crossed a bridge, had to pay toll. The fair was a valuable bit of property in those days, but its chief dependence was upon the sale of wool. The sale gradually passed to the eastern ports, and the fair dwindled away. Often fairs became noted for the sale of some one thing. William England, who wanted to buy geese, went to knotting him. Those who wanted to enjoy every kind of amusement that was dear to the folk of the time, could hardly wait for the opening of the Greenwich Fair. Probably no one ever made a long journey to Birmingham, expressly to buy gingerbread and onions, but those were certainly the two articles that had won feying for the Birmingham Fair. And Smithfield, where the London Dirtlers went to their sports, St. Bartholomew's Fair was held. This was famous for some time for woolen cloth. Later the chief sales were of wool and cattle. Gradually the character of the fair changed, and it became simply a place for wild and rollicking abusements. It is only seventy years since St. Bartholomew's Fair was given up, and some of the great fairs have continued to this day. There was one in Boccaire, in France, seven hundred years old, where all sorts of rare merchandise may still be found. The fair of Leipzig in Germany is even older. It has a most excellent location, because it is so central that it can be easily reached from any part of Europe. It is held, and is well known for its sales of books. Navigarade. The most famous fair that is still in existence is that of needing Navigarade, or lower Navigarade, in Russia. This began, no one knows when, in an old custom of Russian merchants and merchants of the east meeting on the Volga River to exchange goods. The place of meeting moved from one side to another, and about one hundred years ago it was permanently settled in any Navigarade. When the time of the fair draws near, the Volga River swarms with boats, and the quays for ten miles along the river front are heaped up with goods, protected as best they may be by sheds until they can be removed to the shops made ready for them. There are about six thousand of these shops, most of them built by stone. To this fair Asia sends tea, cotton, silk, matter, and various manufactured wares, made chiefly of leather. Western Europe sends groceries, wines, and manufactured articles. Russia herself provides four-fifths of the goods sold, and she makes a fine display of iron, grain, salt, furs, and pottery. The fair continues for a month. It is estimated that the value of the goods sold there each year now amounts to about three hundred million dollars. An enormous quantity of merchandise was carried over Europe every year, and always by water whenever there was a convenient river or sea. In the thirteenth century goods from India were brought up the Persian Gulf and the Tigris River, until the point nearest Antioch and Silucia was reached. Some merchants then went directly to these cities, and there put their goods on board Venetian vessels. Others went from the Tigris northward to Trésabon on the Black Sea by caravans. At Trebizond they made Venetian vessels, and the spices, silks, cottons, oils, sugar, gums, and precious stones of the east were carried through the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmor, around Greece, into the Adriatic Sea, and then to Venice. A third route was to go by water from India to Aitim at the southeast end of the Red Sea, make a nine-days journey to the Nile, down the Nile to Cairo, through a canal to Alexandria, and then transfer the cargo to Venetian vessels. It was chiefly through this trade that Venice, and a little later Genoa, became wealthy and powerful. But in 1497 three small vessels set sail from Portugal to make a long voyage. When they returned they had rounded Africa, and so had discovered a new route to India in the east. The people of the east were no longer obliged to send their goods to Europe by wearysome and dangerous caravan journeys. They could load them upon ships and dispatch them directly to Portugal. The power of Venice grew less. Genoa was forced to yield its to Milan, which, like Florence, had won wealth and fame by its manufacturers. Trade routes from east to Venice. So it was the goods were brought from the east to Europe. The traders, who carried them from southern to northern Europe, must have been glad that there were two such rivers as the Danube and the Rhine, for they could load their vessels on the Black Sea and float them up the Danube and the Wag, if they were going to Russia. Or they could continue up the Danube, as far as it was navigable, and go by land to the Rhine River, and then down the Rhine to the quaint old Flemish city of Bruges. They could also go northwest from Venice to the Rhine, if they wished, and then to Bruges, which was for a long while the center of commerce in the north. And many Venetian merchants were accustomed to go all the way by sea, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, and up the coasts of Portugal and France to Flanders. At a time when no one seemed to think it possible to do any special thing, Alicee was a member of society for doing that thing, of course all this buying and selling was carried on in great degree, but not by individuals, but by companies and merchants. This was far more than mere custom. Traders usually had to make long stays in the countries where they went to sell goods. It was often next to impossible for a foreigner to obtain justice if any disagreement arose between him and a native. But many merchants united in a strong company could win not only justice, but valuable privileges of trade. One of the most important of these associations in England was known as the Merchants of the Staple. The articles exported from England in large quantities, such as wool, tin, and lead, were called staples. In order to make sure of collecting the duty on them, laws were made forbidding anyone to export these things from any other place in England except the ten staple towns—Newcastle, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chester, Winchester, Exeter, and Bristol. The staple goods were then taken to these towns to be weighed and taxed, and then they might be shipped to other countries. Wool was the most important staple. For until the middle of the fourteenth century the English wool only coarsed heavy cloth and imported their fine cloth chiefly from the Netherlands. Some town in the Netherlands was chosen as a foreign staple, and there the English goods must be carried before they could be sold. The plans for the government, however, for staples was very uncertain. Just as merchants became well accustomed to one foreign staple town, another one was chosen. Then it was decided to remove the staple to England, then to the Netherlands again, and more than once the whole plan of staples was given up for a time, and merchants were free to carry what they liked wherever they chose to take it. Trade routes from the south to the north of Europe. Traders who imported or exported goods in their own vessels were called adventurers. In England there was a famous association called the Merchants Adventurers. Fine weaving had at length been introduced into England, and the air exports which they carried from England to the Netherlands were chiefly cloth. In the beginning of the 16th century the adventurers were great folk indeed, and their governor or 24 assistant governors, their great wealth, and also their brand new charter and their coat of arms both granted to them by the king. There was one company, however, far greater and more famous than all the others. This was the Hansetic League, which has already been mentioned. Hans, or Hansa, is a word of several meanings. It seems to have signified in the first place a society. Then the fee paid for merchants into a trading guild, then a company of merchants trading away from home. The Hansetic League was a union of 70 or 80 cities in northern Germany. It was aimed not only at commerce, but at making it safe to travel among these towns and also by sea. In those days piracy was looked upon as being disagreeable, indeed, for any vessel that was captured and robbed. But it was nevertheless a perfectly respectable calling. The German Ocean and the Baltic Sea were overrun by a gang of pirates. One of whose leaders was a nobleman named Stortbecker. The League sent out its vessels in pursuit, captured the leaders, and 150 men. Even if piracy was regarded as respectable, the pirate who was caught was a judge to deserve death, and his nobleman was doomed to be hanged with his companions. Let me go free, he said, and I will give you a chain of pure gold long enough to go around the cathedral and the town. This request was refused, but his second wish was granted, namely that he and his comrades might dress themselves in their best and march to the place of execution, to the music of drum and fife. The Hansetic League aimed at monopolizing the trade of the greater part of Europe. It grew stronger and stronger. Sometimes the members bought trade privilege, and sometimes they fought for them. They established factories or trading stations in many countries as possible. Bergen in Norway was one of their chief stations. They paid no taxes and obliged the people to send to Bergen all the productions of the land that were for sale. There the Hansards selected what was of most value before any sales could be made elsewhere. About 3,000 members of the League lived in the factory of Bergen. They were forbidden to marry or to spend a single night out of bounds. The young men and boys were treated with the utmost severity. Every newcomer had to undergo tortures, one of the mildest of which was to be flogged till the blood came. If he survived, the possibility lay before him of raising to a high position and gaining great wealth. The trade of Denmark and Sweden was in the hands of the League. In Russia, it was for many years so powerful that it was able to forbid the Russian merchants to trade on the sea. The members established themselves a Novograd. At a length became strong enough to oblige Russians to obey whatever laws they chose to make. For instance, if a Russian merchant failed, the League decreed that he must pay in full whatever he might owe the Germans before he was allowed to pay the smallest debt to his countrymen. In the Netherlands, the Hansards founded a factory at Berge. Here they obliged every passing vestibule, save those going to England or the Baltic coast, to halt at the port of Berge, pay toll, and allow them to select from the cargo whatever they chose to buy. In France, Spain, Portugal, and Venice, they carried on trade, but not so widely as in the northern countries. In England, the power of the League was greatest. The English called its members Easterlings, because their land lay to the east of England. The German money was often spoke of as Easterling or Sterling money. It was with this Sterling money that the Hansards bought their way to the favor of the English sovereigns. More than once, when an English king was in need of gold, the League helped out with his difficulties. And in return, graciously accepted trade privileges worth far more than the loans that they had made. The people of England were not always pleased to have these favors shown to foreigners. And during the Watt-Tiler rebellion in the latter part of the 13th century, they made a fierce attack upon the Germans. Say, bread and cheese, they would command everyone who was suspected of being a foreigner. If he pronounced the words with the trace of the German accent, he was struck down on the instant. It was easy, however, for the Hansards to get their revenge. All they had to do was to tax the English heavily at Bruges or Bergen, or to refuse to allow their vessels to enter the Baltic Sea, or to stop at any port of Iceland or Greenland. In the latter part of the 15th century, however, both Hansards and English had been playing pirate. And at length a treaty was actually made between them with as many formalities as if this trading company had been another nation. The headquarters of the league in England was a settlement in London, known as the Steel Yard. Probably because here stood the great scales called by that name. Its buildings stretched up the riverfront so that the merchandise of the league could be unloaded on its own wharves. Here stood the Great Hall, a handsome stolen building which was used for business meetings and also for a dining room. A strong tower protected the treasures of the company. Not far away was a garden with trees and vines. There were also tables and seats, for the garden became a favorite resort for both Hansards and Londoners, who went there summer evenings to drink renish wine and eat the salmon, caviar, and neat tongue for which it was famous. Life in the Steel Yard was far from being all play, however, for there was plenty of work for everybody and the rules of the place were exceedingly strict. No one was allowed to marry so long as he remained at the settlement. Playing at dice, even in one's own room, and entertaining any person not a member of the league was punished by heavy fines. If a man fenced or played tennis with an Englishman he was fined twenty shillings. If two men indulged in a fight, with either fists or knives, they needed to have long purses, for the find was one hundred shillings. Every evening, promptly at nine o'clock, the door of each dwelling was shut and locked, and the key given to one of the officers. Transporting Merchandise In Norway the Hansards behaved with a high hand, demanding whatever they desired, and forcing the helpless folk of Bergen to do as they were bitten. In England the German merchants were no less bent upon having their own way, but as far as possible they bought privileges rather than demanded them. They made liberal gifts, but usually in directions where they would do the most good. The Lord Mayor of London received from them a generous present each year. The English alderman, whose business it was to settle any disputes that might arise between English and Germans, was more than willing to accept from the league its annual gift of fifteen gold coins, worth about one hundred shillings, wrapped in a pair of gloves. The Inspector of Customs fared even better. For once a year a friendly windfall of about four hundred shillings delighted his heart. In spite of lavish gifts to those in power, and of princely loans to English sovereigns, the steel-yard had to be prepared at all times to defend itself against a London mob, and as a safeguard a high stone wall was built to shut in the settlement from the rest of the city. Every merchant was required to keep in his room a suit of armour and a supply of arms in order to be prepared for any possible uprising. As English merchants grew stronger their jealousy of the league increased. The attacks of the mob upon the steel-yard became more frequent and at length near the end of the sixteenth century its charter was taken away. The later history of the league and other countries was much the same. The handsetting merchants were so successful that the merchants of other lands sought earnestly for the same success, and as soon as the different cities and countries became rich and powerful enough to manage their own trade the league was weakened and came to its end. The free cities Hamburg and Bremen were the last to yield, but in 1888 these two gave up their independence and joined the German Empire. If we judge the handsetting league by present standards its methods seem cruel and despotic, but it is a long way from the thirteenth century to the twentieth, and many things are frowned upon now that were regarded entirely right and proper seven hundred years ago. Remembering this we can appreciate the fact that the record of the league should be looked upon as a noble one. It aided the development of industry, it spread civilization, it created the commerce of northern Europe, and it trained merchants and magistrates and seek captains. In the cities of the league there was courage and independence, there was industry and enterprise, but still there was an ever increasing appreciation of order and peace. CHAPTER XIII. OF WHEN NIGHTS WERE BOLD. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The nights were bold by Ava March Tappan. CHAPTER XIII. SCHOOLS AND LITERATURE. The schools of the middle ages were quite unlike those of today. They are interesting to read about, but they can hardly have been interesting to the pupils. For the poor children were treated with the utmost severity. It was the general belief that Satan was in them and that nothing but frequent whippings would drive them out. Even in their own homes the troubles of children were many. For instance, on the twenty-eighth of every December, Holy Innocence Day, they were flogged in their beds that they might remember Herod's murder of the babies of Bethlehem. In many schools boys were flogged at regular intervals, whether they had been good or bad. In some places, even as late as the fourteenth century, a man who had been chosen schoolmasters was given a feral, a god, and a boy, and was required to show in public how well he could administer a flogging. Between five hundred and eleven hundred the clergy were the only schoolmasters. Sometimes the parish priest of a village or town carried on an elementary school. There were also cathedral schools in charge of the bishops of various dioceses. But by far the larger number were connected with the monasteries. In the early part of the Middle Ages, from the sixth century to the middle of the eighth, the monastery schools of Ireland and of England were by far the best. Three or four centuries after the days of St. Patrick, Ireland was known as the island of saints and scholars, and was the most learned country in Europe. The pupils built tiny huts near the schools, and in these a rich scholar and a poor often lived together, the poor serving the rich for his food and clothes. There were no prizes, and tuition was free to all who could not afford to pay. Most of the studying and reciting was done in the open air. Latin was the book language of the time, and was used in teaching as soon as pupils could understand it. But in the Irish schools Gaelic and Greek were also studied. One who had completed the course in school and university and became an olive or doctor of philosophy was expected to be able to compose verses extemporary on any subject. He must know 750 historical tales and be ready to recite any that were called for at feasts. The greatest respect was paid to the olive. He sat next to the chief or king. For his support, twenty-one cows and their grass were given him. When he went on a journey he had the right to an escort of twenty-four tutors, advanced pupils, and servants. It was looked upon as so great an honor to entertain him and his retinue that no one below a certain rank was permitted to have this privilege. If in the teacher's old age even his twenty-one cows and their grass did not keep him from poverty, his former pupils were expected to care for him. This was always done with reverence and tenderness. In England one of the most famous schools was at the monastery of Jarrow, where six hundred monks, besides many strangers, and no one knows how many boys studied. The chief teacher was Beda, or the venerable Bede, the first English scholar. He loved the out-of-doors work that was required of the monks, the care of the garden, the sheep, and the young calves, but he loved his books and his pupils. I don't want my boys to read a lie, he said, and he translated for them the Gospel of St. John and made for their textbooks collections of all that was then known, of science and grammar and rhetoric. During the reign of Charlemagne at some time between seven-eighty and eight-hundred, the various monasteries wrote to him that within their walls prayers would be offered for him. He thanked the monks most cordially, but told them plainly that the language of their letters was rude and illiterate, and bade them begin to study. He founded schools, and he kept watch of them. Once at least he examined a number of the boys' exercises. He found that the poor boys had done far better than the rich. He praised the poor boys most warmly, and then gave a severe lecture to the wealthy ones. He told them that their birth and riches would count for nothing at all with him, and that if they hoped for his favour they must go to work. Charlemagne said these idle pupils a good example, for he himself was a student. He tried his best to learn to write, and under his pillow he kept tablets for practicing. But his great hand was accustomed to wielding a mighty sword rather than a slender pen, and he never succeeded. He was deeply interested in astronomy, and he had a fair knowledge of Greek. Latin, he is said to have spoken as readily as German. It had long been accustomed to carry on a school at the Frankish court, but the palace school took on new life under the care of Charlemagne, for he himself was its most eager member. The pupils were the family of the king and the courtiers. For the older folk the school was a sort of club which meant to discuss literary and scientific questions. The members dropped their real names and took others. Charlemagne chose David, others chose Samuel, Homer, etc. One name, Vito, meaning white, was changed to the Latin form Candidus. Arno, meaning eagle, became in the same way Aquila. The master of the school, the learned Alquan, had formerly been at the head of the monastery school of York. He wrote textbooks for his royal pupils. For the king's son Pepin, a boy of sixteen, he prepared a list of questions and answers. These are rather poetical than scientific. One question is, what is frost? And the answer is, a persecutor of plants, a destroyer of leaves, a fetter of the earth, a fountain of water. Some of the questions are hardly more than puzzles or riddles. One is, what is wonderful? No one would ever guess the answer, for it is, I lately saw a man stand and a dead man walk, who never existed. The explanation follows that the object seen was a reflection in the water. The king was so eager to bring educated men around him that when he was told of the learning of St. Augustine and St. Jerome he exclaimed, Why cannot I have twelve such men as these? What! cried Alquan. The Lord of heaven and earth had but two such, and wouldst thou have twelve? In England monasteries and libraries had been destroyed by the Danes, and when Alfred came to the throne in 971 there was not one priest south of the River Thames, the most enlightened part of England, who could translate a page of Latin into English. It was many years before Alfred could win quiet for his land, but when peace had been made he built monasteries and sent for learned men, his favorite among them being the Welsh priest, Osser. Both Alfred and Charlemagne realized that people ought to be able to read their own language, even if it was not so polished as the Latin. Alfred decreed that all the free young folk of the kingdom should learn to read English, and that only those who could give more time to study should learn Latin. There were very few English books, and the busy man with a kingdom on his hands set to work to translate those that he thought best adapted to the needs of his people. One was a sort of history and geography written by a Spaniard called Orocius. Alfred made many additions of his own, and there is no doubt that they were needed, for the book was already five hundred years old. This book by Orocius was used as a textbook in Europe for many centuries. Other favorites were the writings of Bede and the doctrinal of one Alexander Delensis. This was a textbook of grammar and was used for some three or four hundred years. The Latin Psalter was perhaps the most common textbook. As soon as boys had learned the alphabet and could read a little, they were promoted to the Psalter. They went over this so often that many of them could say it by heart, often without knowing its meaning. They learned to write with the stylus on waxed tablets. Then they were allowed to use quills and ink and write on parchment. They were taught to sing the church service. In Latin they studied the declensions and conjugations and long lists of words, and they also learned Latin conversation books by heart. As soon as the boys had completed this elementary work, they began on the trivium, or threefold way. This was grammar, rhetoric, and logic. In grammar they had to learn long lists of answers to questions. They copied the fables of Esop, besides many proverbs and maxims. They read Virgil and some of the Christian poets. In rhetoric they studied the works of Cicero and Quintilian. The end of the trivium came the quadrivium, or the fourfold way. These included music, arithmetic, geometry, and what was known of the sciences. Even the most elementary arithmetic was no easy study, for until the Arabic numerals were introduced the Roman notation was used. In speaking numbers were often indicated by motions. To place the left hand on the breast meant ten thousand. To fold both hands a hundred thousand. In business the abacus was sometimes employed, an instrument made by stringing beads on wires. The first wire indicating units, the second tens, and so on. Sometimes a board was marked off into spaces, and the numbers were expressed by pebbles. The number two thousand four hundred fifty one, for instance, would be represented as dot dot slash, dot dot dot dot slash, dot dot dot dot dot slash dot. Among the studies of the quadrivium, astronomy was especially important because the time of the church festivals was reckoned by that science. There were so few textbooks that as a general thing the teacher dictated and the pupils wrote. Then they learned by heart what they had written, and were soundly whipped if they made mistakes. Girls were taught in convents by the nuns. They learned to embroider, to care for a house, to follow the services of the church, and obey her rules, and also to read and write to some degree. All learning centered in the church. The monks and clergy were the teachers, and the first object of their teaching was to train boys for her various offices. No boy was shut out of her schools because of poverty. Those who declared that they meant to become monks, the obladi, were taught and fed free of charge. The others, the externs, paid nothing for tuition, and if they could not afford to pay for food it was given them by the convent. During the tenth and eleventh centuries especially there was great interest in chivalry, in the deeds that a man could do with his own right arm, in individuality. The towns increased in number and size. Their crusades gave people broader ideas of the world. In Spain the serocents were searching for the philosopher's stone that should turn into gold whatever it touched, and for the wonderful elixir that should give a man youth and life for as long as he chose. They were using the Arabic, or probably more correctly the Hindu numerals, and this alone opened a new world for mathematics. By all these means the people of Europe were aroused and made eager to learn something new. The result of this desire was the founding of numerous universities in the twelfth century. The modern way of founding a university is to raise money, obtain a charter, buy land, and put up some buildings. But the method of the twelfth century was quite different. Indeed in those times a university grew rather than was founded. Any learned man who believed that he had something to say about a favorite subject could settle himself near some school and give lectures to as many as care to listen to him. Other learned men followed him and lectured on other subjects. In short at first anybody lectured and anybody listened, and the lecturer who could bring together the greatest number of students received the most money in fees. After a while men were obliged to secure a license before being permitted to teach. The students were not regarded as citizens of the town in which the university was situated, and therefore in order to protect themselves those who spoke the same language united in one association, or nation. Naturally they tried to lodge in the same part of the city, and sometimes they even built lodgings for themselves. At five or six o'clock in the morning the students in Paris thronged to the lecture hall and sat down on the floor on the straw or hay with which it was strewn. They took notes on waxed tablets for several hours. Some of them hurried home to copy their notes. Others met in a meadow playground for wrestling, ball playing, running, jumping, or swimming in the river, saying. Sometimes the different nations carried on a rough and tumble warfare with one another. Sometimes they fought with the townsfolk. The town could do nothing to control them, for the university had no buildings and no apparatus. And if they chose teachers and pupils could simply put on their hats, take up their handful of books, and go elsewhere, leaving the merchants of the town to mourn over their loss of several thousand customers. As a general thing each university became specially excellent in some one branch. The university at Paris, for instance, was famed for its teaching of theology, that of Salerno for its instruction in medicine, and that of Bologna in law. Students wandered from one to another, learning in no place decent manners, set a monk indignantly. Many who were poor begged their food as they journeyed, often singing their petitions. One of these songs begins, I, a wondering student lad, born for toil and sadness, oftentimes am driven by poverty to madness. Literature and knowledge I feign would still be earning, or it not that one of self makes me cease from learning. He then rehearses his many needs and begs. Take a mind unto thee now, like unto St. Martin's, clothe the pilgrim's nakedness, wish him well at parting. So may God translate your soul into peace eternal, and the bliss of saints be yours in his realm supernal. A great deal of writing was done by these learned folk, but the larger part of it was about philosophy and theology. Much of the most interesting literary work of the Middle Ages came from the common folk, and was in the first place stories and legends recited by one person to another, or songs that were chanted at feasts and merry-makings. If in any country there was a brave man who was greatly admired by the people, of course the accounts of his mighty deeds were told and retold, and there is small doubt that they grew a little more marvelous at each telling. Often they were put into verse. No one who repeated them cared in the least whether he gave them correctly or not, and each added or altered to suit his taste. By and by someone welded the ballads together into a heroic poem with a beginning and an ending. The old Saxon, or early English poem of Beowulf, is thought to have grown up in this way from the songs sung by the harpers before the Saxons left the continent to come to Britain. It is the story of a brave young hero from whom the poem takes its name. He kills a horrible monster named Grendel, who stalks up from the fins in the misty twilight and devours the thanes, or followers of the aged chief Wrothgar. Grendel's mother is as terrible as he, but Beowulf dives down to the depths of the lake and kills her in her cavern. Wrothgar's men stand on the cliff, gazing at the blood stained water. They fear that they will never again see the bold champion. But at last he comes to the surface. Then there is feasting and rejoicing, and Beowulf goes home to his people, loaded with gifts from the Grateful Wrothgar. He is afterward slain in a contest with a fire-breathing dragon. The Nebelunglen, or the songs of the Nebelings, comes from Germany in one form and from Scandinavia in another. In the German version of the story, the haughty and athletic maiden Brunhild declares that she will marry no one who cannot in three contests prove himself stronger than she. Siegfried, the hero, puts on a magic cap which makes him invisible, and then by his help her suitor Gunther, king of Burgundy, wins his bride. Siegfried's reward is the hand of Gunther's sister, the beautiful Creamhild. They live happily together in the Netherlands, enjoying the Rheingold and the Nebelunglen treasure, which he had seized from the sons of the kings of the Nebelings. But the two women quarreled, and Creamhild let out the secret of the invisible cap and the victory of Gunther in the contest. Then Brunhild plotted revenge. She learned that Siegfried could be slain in only one way, that is, by piercing a certain spot between his shoulders, and she induced Creamhild's uncle, Hagen, to kill him as he knelt by a brook to drink. After years of grieving, Creamhild married Etzel, or Attila, on condition that he would avenge the death of Siegfried. When a fitting time had come, Attila invited the Burgundians to visit his court, and there they were massacred by the Huns at the bidding of Creamhild. She slew Hagen with her own hand, but one of Attila's knights struck her down, and she fell dead by the sight of Siegfried's murderer. The treasure of the Nebelings had been stolen from her, and sunk in the river Rhine by Hagen, and if the tale is true, there it still lies hidden. The Sid comes from Spain. It is a poem about a real person, one Rodrigo Díaz, who won the title of El Sid, or my lord, by overcoming five Moorish kings. El Sid was the hero of many of the feats that the folk of the twelfth century counted valorous. He killed the enemy of his father, and galloped home with the bloody head of the foe hanging from his horse's collar. He drove away the invaders of Spain, and he captured cities. But his greatest exploit of all took place after his death. Without him the Spaniards could not expel the Moors, but they well knew that the terror of his name would do more than all the arms of Castile and León. They took the dead body of their leader, dressed it in battle array with a sword in the cold hand, with a coat of mail, a shield, a helmet, and a lance, mounted it on Bapica, their lord's favorite war-horse, set it at the end of the line, and then went forth to battle, with the dead rider at their head. The enemy fled before them, and after the victories had been won, they laid the body reverently in a tomb in Castile. When the good horse Bapica came to his end, he was buried under the trees before the door of the tomb. To this day the memory of the Sid is so dear to the Spaniards that, to swear by the faith of Rodrigo, is the strongest vow of loyalty that they can make. The most delightful old romances of knighthood are about Charlemagne of Germany and Arthur of Britain and their knights. The people of Charlemagne's followers were so equal in bravery that they were known as peers, and sometimes they were called paladins or dwellers in the palace. They performed most amazing exploits. They tamed wild horses. They overcame giants. They captured cities, rescued fair ladies, and conquered demons who flew over the world on winged steeds. Two of the peers, Roland and Oliver, were once chosen to fight a duel in order to settle a disagreement between Charlemagne and one of his underlords. Their faces were hidden by their helmets, and neither knew who his adversary was. For two long hours they fought, but neither could gain the smallest advantage over the other. At length Roland struck so savage a blow that his sword stuck fast in Oliver's shield, and at the same instant Oliver struck at Roland's breastplate so fiercely that his sword broke off at the handle. They wrestled together, but neither fell. Then they tore off each other's helmet, and, behold, each found that he had been fighting with his dearest friend. I yield, said Oliver. I am vanquished, cried Roland. It is from this that the saying arose, a Roland for an Oliver. The most famous story of the paladins of Charlemagne is told in the poem called The Song of Roland, which relates how the brave knight came to his death at Ronseval through the treachery of an enemy. There is a tradition that when William the Conqueror came to England, his menstrual telepher rode out in front of the line of battle, singing this song of Roland, and struck the first blow at the English for his master. Arthur is supposed to have been a British hero who resisted the Saxons on their coming to Britain. The romances say that he and his knights sat at a famous table, round in shape that it might have neither head nor foot. They contended with the heathen invaders, they took part in jousts and wonderful tournaments, and they had wild and bold adventures in their attempts to avenge the wrongs that came within their kin. In their hall of feasting there was a special seat or siege for each, but one the siege perilous was vacant, for should any one who was not altogether pure in heart venture to occupy it, the earth would open and swallow him. One day an old, old man led a beautiful youth named Gallowhad into Arthur's hall, and bade him seat himself in the siege perilous. And behold, when the covering was lifted from it, there appeared written on the chair, this is the siege of Ser Gallowhad, the good night. At this point the story of Arthur and his knight mingles with another, that of the Holy Grail or the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper. According to the legend this cup was brought by Joseph of Arimathea to Britain. As men became sinful it vanished, for it could be seen by him only who was pure and true in heart. It came to pass that one evening while the knights sat at Supper a cracking of thunder was heard and a beam of light seven times brighter than that of the sun passed through the hall, and in the beam was the Holy Grail, but covered with white semi-t that none might see. The knights took a solemn vow that they would set forth and wander through and through the world until the vision of the Holy Thing should come to them. Their courage was good, and their adventures were many, but to Gallowhad alone, of unstained heart, did the vision come. This was their never-know-man so hardy for to say that he had seen the Sand Grail, said the old story. From Iceland comes the Heimsgringla, or World's Circle, so named from the first words of the manuscript. From Iceland too came the Edda, or the younger Edda, and all three are full of wild tales of gods and heroes. One of the best known of the Icelandic tales is the Saga, or Hero Story, of Frithjof. The story says that as a child Frithjof played with Ingeborg and learned to love her well, but when they were grown up and he begged her brothers for her hand they scorned him and drove him away. For he was but a subject, while the father of Ingeborg had been a king. The brothers went to war, and the two lovers met in the Temple of Baldur, the God of Beauty and Truth. For a man to speak with a woman in this Temple was looked upon as irreverent to the gods, and in punishment Frithjof was bidden to go to the Orkney Islands and collect a tribute which had long been due. He set off on a dangerous journey in his magic vessel, Elida, which knew his voice and obeyed his word, and after storms at sea and adventures on land he brought back the gold. But much had come to pass while he had been away. His home had been burned by Helga, Ingeborg's brother, and Ingeborg had become the wife of a king, Sigurd Ring. Frithjof flung the purse of gold in Helga's face and fled to his ship Elida. Over the world he wandered, sailing, fighting, winning treasure for his men, and fame for himself, but all the time longing eagerly for Ingeborg. At length he felt that he must know whether she was happy, and he made his way as a stranger to the court of King Sigurd Ring. The king begged him to remain as his guest, and henceforth wherever Sigurd and Ingeborg might be there was Frithjof caring for them and saving them from danger. King Sigurd was an old man, and when the time of his death drew near he called Frithjof to his side. "'I have known you from the first,' he said, "'I have tested you and found you ever as true as you were brave. In a little while Ingeborg shall be your own. Love her well, and care for my child, who is to be king in my stead.' So it was that Frithjof gained the beautiful Ingeborg for his wife. He guarded the kingdom until the child was of an age to govern it. Then he went away with Ingeborg to a kingdom of his own, which he had won in battle. The stories that have been briefly given here are only a few of the many that were the delight of the people of the days of chivalry. One other sort of writing pleased them greatly, namely that which took for its subject the deeds of Alexander the Great, or some other worthy of classical times. It is true that any one of these heroes would have been amazed at the actions ascribed to him by the writers. But that did not matter to the people who listened to the romances, and apparently found it quite a satisfactory to make Alexander the hero of the good story as any other man. From the German comes the beast epic, the story of wicked Reynard the Fox, who is always playing tricks on Bruin the Bear, Tybert the Cat, Isgrim the Wolf, and the other animals. It is really a satire on the state of Germany in the middle ages. But the best way to enjoy it is to forget that it is anything but a good story, and read it purely for the fun of it. By the way, it is because of this story that even to this day we call the Fox Reynard. Another fashion of writing about animals is shown in the Beecherries, or Beast Books. A chapter in a Beechery describes some remarkable act of a beast, such as what's never seen in the middle ages or at any other time, and drew from it an elaborate moral. The following is taken from the Anchorn Rule and its natural history as well as its moral was probably believed most implicitly by the recluses for whom it was written. The pelican is a lean bird, so peevish and so wrathful that often in her anger she killeth her own young ones when they molest her. And then, soon after, she is very sorry and maketh great moan, and smideth herself with her bill wherewith she slew her young, and draweth blood out of her breast, and with the blood she then quickeneth her slain birds. This pelican is the peevish recluse. Her birds are her good works, which she often slayeth with the bill of sharp wrath, and when she hath so done, she, as the pelican doth, quickly repents, and with her own bill pecks her breast. That is, with confession of her mouth wherewith she sinned and slew her good works, draweth the blood of sin out of her breast. That is, of the heart in which is the life of the soul, and thus shall then quicken her slain birds, which are her works. A delightful old book called The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandible was a great favourite. It describes the way to Jerusalem and reports to have been written as a guidebook for those who wished to make the pilgrimage. When people read it, they felt as in watching the mystery place that they were gaining something religiously and also having an exceedingly good time. Sir John sees as many marvels as sinbath the sailor. By the dead sea he finds apples that are fair to look upon, but within are nothing but ashes and cinders. He gazes at people with ears that hang down to their knees, upon hens that bear wool, upon pygmies, giants, and griffins. He closes his book with the request that all its readers will pray for him as he will pray for them, and surely a man who has written so entertainingly has a right to ask the favour of those who enjoy his book. Their crusades gave rise, of course, to tales and romances without number. In one some returning crusaders brought with them an image of the Virgin Mary. Suddenly it became so heavy that they could not carry it. Before they stopped and built a church-fread on the spot. Another story, coming from Burgundy, said that a long-bearded crusader, sick and travel-worn, appeared at his old home in the garb of a pilgrim. The house was full of rejoicing, for its mistress, who had waited many weary years in the hope that her husband would return, was now about to marry a second time. She had always kept half of the gold ring that she and her husband had divided, and now she produced the other half. There was no second marriage, and the wife and her long-lost husband lived together again in great happiness. But it seemed that the crusader had been taken captive by the serocents and had only been allowed to go home on condition of returning to captivity if he could not find money for his ransom. The money could not be raised. He said a sorrowful farewell to his wife and went back to Saladin. When the generous Saracen heard the story, he bade that the honest man be set free. But name your oldest son for me, he said, and let your coat of arms be bells and crescents. The writings of the Middle Ages may be divided into two classes, those written in Latin, which are generally dull and uninteresting, and those written in the languages of the different peoples, which are generally bright and entertaining. In most of the countries that had been ruled by the Romans, especially Italy, France, and Spain, the people spoke what are called the Roman languages. These were more or less like that of the Romans, but far simpler. For instance, the Latin word for mother, mater, became in French, maire. And instead of saying matris for of the mother and matri for to the mother, people used prepositions and said de la maire and ala maire. It was much easier to remember a few prepositions than to learn how to decline every now. Verbs and other parts of speech were gradually simplified in somewhat the same fashion, and by the eleventh century there were languages which were far more manageable for light poems and stories than the more dignified Latin. The use of rhyme and accent in poetry had come in. No one knows just how this came about, but it is certain that the taste of people had gradually changed. And now, instead of liking the Latin fashion of quantity, that is, of giving to each syllable a fixed length of time, either long or short, they prefer to accent certain syllables of a line and end it with the words or syllables that rhymed. Then it was that the troubadours of southern France and a little later, the truvers, or truvers of northern France, began to compose their songs. The troubadours used the form of old French that was called the Lang-Doc, because in southern France, yes, was oc. In northern France, yes, was oul, and therefore the northern tongue was called the Lang-dulle. The troubadours composed chiefly love songs and battle songs. The troubadours seemed to love poetry, and any wanderer was welcomed at the most lordly castle if he could only compose verses and sing them to the music of the harp. A knight would have thought it far beneath him to joust with a common man, but to sing songs together was quite a different matter, and the proudest noble would not have found it any disgrace to mingle his voice with that of a beggar. After a tournament was over and the prizes had been distributed, the Lady of the Castle often opened what was called a Court of Love. Here knights and even sovereigns thide with one another in singing extemporary verses. Richard the Lion-hearted was as proud of his skill as a troubadour as of his prowess in battle. At the close of the Court of Love the ladies discussed at length the merits of the different singers, and giving the most deserving prizes which were as much valued as those of the tournament. Some of our best accounts of tournaments, as indeed of battles and many other things, came from the pen of Frasar, a French clergyman who wrote at the end of the fourteenth century. A nobleman employed him to write a history of the wars of the time, and Frasar mounted his horse and ambled along from one place to another. Wherever a battle had been fought or any other event of special interest had come to pass. He talked to the people and gathered all the information that he could, and then wrote it in his chronicles. He does not care what caused the war or who wins, and he is just as jubilant over an English victory as a French. The one thing that he wants to do is to get hold of a good story and tell it. It is he who paints such a picture of the Black Prince humbly serving the French king, who had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Poitiers. It is he who described so vividly the coming of the six wealthy citizens of Concord Collet to Edward III, in their shirts, barefooted, and with ropes about their necks, that by their death the anger of the king might be appeased and their fellow citizens forgiven. Just at the moment when the reader despairs of their being saved, Frasar brings in Queen Philippa with so earnest a plea for mercy that the king cannot refuse to pardon them. Indeed, whenever one discovers a particularly lively account of any event that came within the kin of Frasar, it is almost sure to have been written by his pen. It is no wonder that, as he roamed about from castle to castle, telling his tales wherever he went, he always found a welcome. About a century later than the time when the Troubadours began to flourish in southern France, the Trouvert in northern France were singing in the language stool, and were great favourites at the courts of the Dukes of Normandy. The Normans were descendants of the fierce Vikings of an earlier day who had settled in France. They had lost none of their boldness and daring, but they had adopted French customs and the French language. From these Trouverts came gay little tales of love and adventure called Fablieux, many of the mystery plays that have already been mentioned, and brilliant romances of chivalry. The craze for these romances, and for even the feebler imitations of them that were composed somewhat later, was so intense and lasted so long that at the beginning of the seventeenth century Cervantes of Spain wrote the famous Don Quixote as a parody on them. The good old Don is described as having read so many of these productions that his brain is touched, and with a helmet of pasteboard, an ancient suit of rusty armor, a farm horse for a steed of war, and a country laborer for a squire. He set out in search of adventures. He found them in plenty. To his disordered mind some windmills on a plain seem to be evil giants. One can guess the result of his valiant attack upon them. A flock of sheep moving toward him, he is convinced, is an immense army of knights, and he charges on them most valiantly. It is no wonder that this book put an end to the composing of romances and the fashion of reading them. In Germany, too, between the twelfth century and the fourteenth, there were many poets. Some sang of Arthur and the Holy Grail and Charlemagne and the Nibelungs. But far more tenderly and elegantly, and with much better taste than the poets of the Langdok or those of the Langdul. Some of the German poets called menacingers or love-singers, and their poems are really dainty and graceful, and far more refined in feeling and expression than the rather coarse songs of the Courts of Love. Knights, priests, wandering students, kings, and simple country folk meet together in the joy of poetry and music, and sing of love and sorrow and the beauties of spring with a pureness and freshness that hold their charm even to this day. The names of two great authors shine out from the Middle Ages. The Italian Dante and the English Chaucer. Dante wrote about thirteen hundred, his famous Divine Comedy. In this poem he passes through the gates of hell under the guidance of Virgil. He visits one circle after another, each occupied by some one class of criminals, and sees the terrible punishments inflicted upon them. He then enters purgatory, and here sinners are expiating the wrongs that they have committed. Those who have been greedy suffer constantly from hunger and thirst. Those who held their heads too high in their pride are dragged down by heavy weights. Those who are lazy are now forced to run about continually. Each penance is adapted to the thought. On top of the mountain of purgatory is the maiden Beatrice, whom Dante had loved even as a child, and had lost by her early death. He now becomes his guide, and leads him through the nine heavens where he meets the great and good of all ages, and finally is permitted a vision of God and his angels. The poem is great because its language is so rich and beautiful, because its characters are alive and its pictures so vivid that an artist could work from them, and most of all because it is so complete in its plan and in every detail as to show a marvelous imagination. It is said that the good folk of Florence used to point at Dante as he went along the street and whisper half fearfully, That's the man who has been in hell. But I fancy that people of Chaucer, that's the man who sees everything and enjoys whatever he sees. For he seems to take such genuine pleasure in every common sight and in studying every person. In his canterbury tales wherein a large company of all sorts of people go on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, he is apparently as much interested in one as in another, but he treats each one in different fashion. He looks with respect upon the very perfect gentle night, and he has a kindly word for the gay young squire who is singing or whistling from morning to night. He makes us see the coy and dainty ways of the nun, and he really cannot help making a sly jest at her French, which was not that of Paris, but after the Skoll of Stratford-Otbeau, a town in England. He is a bit indignant at the friar, who knew the taverns well in every town, and is better acquainted with innkeepers and barmaids than with lepers and beggars. But he has a warm sympathy for the poor clerk who would rather have books than gorgeous robes, and he speaks most reverently of the good parish priest who love to give to the poor and who never scorned even a sinful man. In the poem these good folk tell stories, stories of chivalry, of the crafty fox who stole Chanticleer, of magic swords, of fairies and giants and enchanted steeds, and in each the author is at home and enjoying himself. He drops in so many little confidential speeches to the reader that one feels as if the poet were right at his elbow, instead of being five centuries away. These are snatches of the writings that come to mind first when one thinks of the days of nighthood. Leaving out the two great names of Dante and Chaucer, there is little that has any great excellence, but it is entertaining and rich in promise, and the promise has been nobly fulfilled. CHAPTER XIII