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consistency, generosity, or patriotism affected the policy of either Is it surprising that under such circumstances and with such masters the society of the Christian world should have remained for many centuries absolutely stagnant, without advancement in the arts, without incentives to literary effort, without exertion in the fascinating domain of science, almost without the consolation of hope beyond the grave? When we consider the boundless opportunities for good in the grasp of these two great enemies of human progress, and the energy and ability employed by one of them especially to stifle all inquiry and every aspiration for mental improvement, we may realize the extent of the darkness which enveloped the society of Europe for nearly a thousand years, and appreciate the efforts of the Mohammedan nations, whose self-instructed genius illumined with such a brilliant light the path of civilization and knowledge.
The most pernicious and debasing conditions of Byzantine society prevailed to even a greater degree in the brutalized communities of Central and Western Europe. In no country of that continent did there exist a firmly established or legally constituted government. The authority of the sovereign was nominal and complimentary,— obeyed when it was more convenient to do so than to dispute it, and practically recognized under protest. The order of succession was perpetually violated. Ambitious vassals overturned thrones won by the valor of great chieftains, or ruled with despotic power in the names of their feeble progeny. Anarchy prevailed throughout those provinces whose population was not intimidated by the immediate presence of the court. Property and life were at the mercy of banditti in the pay and under the protection of powerful nobles, who complacently shared the spoils and the infamy of these highway plunderers. The savage and absurd customs imported by barbarians from the forests of Germany and Britain usurped the office of laws approved by the wisdom and practice of Roman jurisprudence. The decay of that science under the later emperors, and especially under the system established by Constantine, must be attributed to the increasing interest in religious doctrines and theological controversy, which ignored the talents and ambition once exercised in the profession of the civil law. The priest had become the successful rival of the advocate, and ecclesiastical preferment was prized more
highly by the educated than the triumphs of judicial learning and forensic eloquence. The arm of the strongest determined the justice of a cause without the formalities of evidence and argument. A graduated tariff of compensation for bodily injury existed, and any offence could be expiated by the payment of a stipulated sum. The imposition and collection of taxes were not regulated by any established principles, and the obvious rules of political economy were violated in the application and enforcement of the fiscal regulations. Amidst the universal disorder, the Church lost no opportunity to increase her acquisitions and consolidate her power She encouraged the continuance of the incredible ignorance and inhumanity of the age. She resolutely set her face against every attempt of the laity to shake off the fetters imposed upon it by violence and superstition. She punished with atrocious severity the slightest manifestation to question the genuineness of her pretensions or the validity of her canons.
The warlike and pugnacious spirit of an age governed by force affected even a profession generally associated with the offices of mercy and peace. For centuries among the Saxons it was the bishop and not the king who conferred the distinction of knighthood. In martial assemblies no difference existed in the appearance of the prelate and the warrior. The panoply and weapons of the field were often also a feature of ecclesiastical convocations. Godfrey, Archbishop of Narbonne, presided in complete armor over councils called to determine points of religious doctrine. The Bishop of Cahors, in Provence, refused to say mass unless his sword and gauntlets had been previously deposited on the altar. The Treasurer of the Cathedral of Nevers appeared in the choir armed to the teeth and with his hawk upon his wrist. In Languedoc, during the thirteenth century, it was the practice of priests to settle questions in dispute by fisticuffs.
After the destruction of the Roman Empire, the first attempt to reorganize society was made by the institution of the Feudal System. It was an instance of the selection of the lesser of two evils. In consideration of protection, the vassal paid homage to his lord and promised him military and other services under certain ill-defined
conditions. Defective and susceptible of enormous abuses as this arrangement was, it alleviated to some degree the misery of the lower orders. Its jurisdiction was coextensive with the dominions formerly embraced by the empire of Charlemagne. The temptation it held out to oppression more than neutralized the benefits it occasionally conferred. It organized and perpetuated the most vexatious of thraldoms, the tyranny of caste. It appropriated all property in the soil, and a person not of noble birth or ecclesiastical distinction was doomed to the humiliating dependence of vassalage or serfdom. The nominal liberty originally enjoyed by the descendants of the ancient Roman colonists was easily forfeited by the non-payment of taxes, whose amount was regulated by the caprice of the lord; the failure to perform military service or even the neglect to observe obligations of trifling importance of themselves was sufficient to reduce the offender to a condition of servitude.
The serfs were divided into two principal classes, known to the technical jargon of the law as villains in gross and villains regardant. The authority of the lord over both of these was absolute and irresponsible; the former were attached to his person and, like other chattels, could be sold or otherwise disposed of; the latter belonged to the soil and could under no circumstances be alienated. In every case villains were inventoried and valued as beasts of burden. They experienced all the hardships that greed and malice could invent or cruelty inflict. Not only were they exposed to the violence and rapacity of their superiors, but they were subject to the exaction of certain privileges which could only have been tolerated in an age wholly devoid of the principles of honor, justice, and decency. A conveyance for the transfer of a fief scarcely deigned to mention the wretched creatures who in the eye of the law formed a part of the glebe, and one from which the latter derived its principal value. The avarice of unfeeling lords compelled the peasant to labor throughout the night and to share the lodgings of the cattle. Around his neck was soldered a metal collar, sometimes of brass, often of silver, on which were engraved his name and that of his master. His manhood was entirely destroyed; he possessed no rights, enjoyed no liberties, participated in no diversions. His identity was lost, his very being was merged into the soil on whose surface he toiled from early childhood
until released by death. No more pathetic and forlorn example of the deplorable effects of human tyranny and human suffering exists than that presented by the life of the villain regardant of the Middle Ages.
The code of seignioral rights which governed the lord in the relations he maintained with his vassals is one of the most curious and remarkable collections in the entire system of jurisprudence. Voluminous treatises have been written upon it. Dictionaries have been compiled in explanation of the obscure and technical terms by which its customs are designated. The abuse of its prerogatives has led to more than one event whose effects have been experienced in the fall of empires, the institution of anarchy, the weakening of religious sentiment, the destruction of social order.
By the provisions of this code, whose authority was usually presumed to be based upon charters or capitularies conferred by reigning monarchs, the suzerain, always an individual of noble lineage or clerical importance, was invested with all the powers of despotism, so far as the jurisdiction of his estates was concerned. The infliction of the death penalty was within his discretion. He could impose taxes at will, and there was no check upon his rapacity except that suggested by considerations of private interest. The rights of legalized plunder were multiplied to an astonishing degree —for every important action of life, for the performance of every labor, for every change of condition, for birth, death, marriage, for the gathering of harvests, for the construction of buildings, for the keeping of animals, permission was required and a contribution demanded. The virtue of the female serf was absolutely at the mercy of her lord. She was the subject of the most flagitious and degrading section in this code of infamy The charters or the prescriptive regulations of many fiefs conceded to the lord the exercise of certain prior rights over the bride of a vassal. Where such a privilege existed, none of any rank who owed homage to prince or noble were exempt from its enforcement. Known in different countries by various names,—in France, as Cuissage; in Italy, as Cazzagio; in Flanders, as Bednood; in Germany, as Reit-Schot; in England, as Maidenrent, —it was one of the most widely diffused of all feudal exactions. The gentlemen of the clergy practised it most assiduously; they were
among the first to adopt and the last to relinquish it. This odious privilege attached to the estates of most of the great abbeys and sees of Catholic Europe. Its exertion might be commuted for a sum of money, but this was a matter entirely dependent on the caprice of him who enjoyed it. In different localities the interpretation of the general law which sanctioned its use was, by common consent, enlarged, and its indiscriminate infliction was not infrequently imposed upon the serfs of a neighbor as a penalty for trespass and other misdemeanors. Modern propriety will not tolerate the enumeration of the curious and revolting details concerning the “Droit de prélibation,” with which the ancient charters of mediæval times are filled. The evils resulting from this custom frequently aroused the indignation of even the meek and plodding villain, and incited him to assassination and rebellion. It is an extraordinary circumstance, however, that the victim most nearly affected by the operation of this iniquitous law, which had a direct tendency permanently to impair domestic happiness and cast a stigma upon the offspring of every family, never complained of its hardships. Among all the remonstrances and memorials presented during the Middle Ages to monarchs and legislative bodies which have been preserved, and many of which are signed by women, not a single instance can be found where a female vassal requested the abolition of a custom whose continuance was a constant menace to her modesty and virtue.
The essential principles of feudalism were territorial and martial. The right to receive homage implied the possession of real property and the privilege of private warfare. The soldier was the controlling power in the state. Questions affecting the integrity or loyalty of an individual, the liability for civil forfeiture or criminal punishment, the settlement of a boundary, the vindication of personal honor, were referred, not to a judicial tribunal to be determined by the application of well-established rules and precedents, but to the wager of battle. In cases where heresy was suspected, other and even more absurd tests, such as the ordeals by fire and water, were adopted. No rational ideas existed for the ascertainment of truth or the dispensation of justice. Every nation was subject to a haughty and cruel aristocracy, whose tyranny was sometimes tempered and
sometimes aggravated by the influence of the clerical order, as its interests or its passions at the time might dictate. Whenever a rebellious spirit was evinced by the peasantry, and the authority of the barons was not strong enough to suppress it, bands of foreign mercenaries and outlaws were enlisted, who were paid with the effects of the serfs which had escaped the rapacity of the suzerain. The maintenance of a system which countenanced the settlement of private feuds by the sword and admitted the virtual independence of the nobles was, of course, inimical to the dignity and power of the sovereign. In France the seignioral fiefs bestowed by charters numbered five thousand, and their lords exercised jurisdiction over thirty thousand villages. There were abbeys whose domains were tilled by as many as twenty thousand serfs attached to the glebe. This enumeration did not include the villains in gross, who sometimes exceeded in number all the other retainers and dependents of the lords. The greater portion of the vast territory administered by the hierarchy under the customs of feudalism was obtained from wealthy pilgrims and crusaders, who sacrificed their earthly possessions to the thrifty priesthood for a trifle in the vain expectation of securing a celestial inheritance. By means of this folly, as well as through the effects of ecclesiastical oppression and torture, France lost thirty-three per cent. of its population during the thirteenth century. In Saxon England the peasants had absolutely no guaranty of protection. Their property was appropriated and their persons enslaved by the petty kings and piratical chieftains who contended in incessant warfare for control of the affairs of Britain. The conquest by the Normans was productive of little improvement. A tyranny of race and caste arose, aggravated by the worst features of the Feudal System, and the despised and humiliated Saxon was degraded almost to the level of a brute. During this unhappy epoch the law of force was paramount throughout Europe. The moral influence exerted by the clergy through the medium of superstitious fear afforded the only instance where obedience was not dependent upon the sword. Where the privileges of feudalism were combined with the exactions of sacerdotal avarice and intolerance, the lot of the serf was indeed grievous. But in cases that did not compromise the prestige or affect the revenues of the hierarchy, the Church not
infrequently interposed to protect the victim of aristocratic persecution and injustice. The savage baron, all but omnipotent elsewhere, dared not invade the hallowed precincts of her sanctuary. Under the beneficent shadow of her altar the fugitive peasant was safe from the vengeance of his oppressor. By the tender of her mediation in the quarrels of powerful chieftains, peace was reestablished over extensive provinces where anarchy and implacable hatred had long held sway. And it was by her aid, combined with the efforts of the outraged Third Estate, and encouraged by monarchs whose prerogatives had been usurped, that the offensive and cruel rights of feudalism were finally abolished. The Crusades struck a fatal blow at the system by impoverishing the lords through the alienation of their estates and the consequent overthrow of their power. For this service, if for no other, posterity owes to the priesthood an incalculable debt of gratitude. So firmly rooted were many of the practices of the Feudal System that to this day they have not been entirely eradicated. Ceremonies unquestionably derived from seignioral privileges are still observed in remote districts of France and Italy. The statutes of England and her colonies have not yet been purged of provisions and terms which suggest to the legal antiquary the mutual obligations of vassal and suzerain.
The relative position of nations in the scale of barbarism or civilization is largely determined by the nature of their tastes and favorite occupations, by their pastimes, by the means which they invent or adopt to add to the comforts and conveniences of daily life. During the greater portion of the period under consideration in this chapter, the existence of the people of Europe, without distinction of rank or resources, was a purely animal one. The necessities of the fortress, the camp, and the hovel were easily supplied. Articles of the simplest construction and most inexpensive materials, whose uses must have occurred spontaneously to the most unimaginative mind, and are now considered indispensable in every household, were unknown. The castle of the noble partook of all the forbidding characteristics of a prison. Its frowning donjon, its impassable moat, its embattled walls, its jealously guarded portals, were suggestive of tyranny and disorder. The interior was not more inviting. The halls
were cold and cheerless; the gloomy chambers, into whose damp recesses the rays of the sun struggled with difficulty through narrow, unglazed windows, the stone seats, the massive furniture and mildewed tapestry were typical of the coarse simplicity and unsettled condition of society in that age. The banqueting hall, where hospitality was dispensed on state occasions with rude magnificence, was at almost every meal the scene of gluttony and uncontrolled inebriety.
The decorations and their surroundings exhibited the greatest possible incongruity. Hangings of silk and velvet embroidered with gold were suspended against whitewashed walls. Plate of the precious metals was served upon tables of rough and uneven boards. The mailed foot of the knight and the dainty slipper of the chatelaine reposed upon undressed flags, whose coldness was somewhat counteracted by a covering of straw or fragrant herbs. In the viands abundance was considered rather than excellence of flavor, which, however, on extraordinary occasions was supposed to be supplied by the use of rose-water profusely sprinkled over every dish. The repast, where incredible quantities of food were consumed, was characterized by coarse jests and barbaric revelry. The favorite beverage was beer, often brewed in the castle and indulged in to disgusting excess; for through its potency the festivities became the fatal cause of indescribable libertinism and sanguinary encounters. The guests were served by squires and pages, youths of rank, who, inmates of the castle, acquired there a knowledge of arms as well as an acquaintance with the more doubtful accomplishments of gaming and amorous intrigue. The intimate associations and domestic character of mediæval society arising from a sparse population removed all suspicion of menial service from this duty, which was considered highly honorable, and was gladly performed by the proudest noble at the board of his royal suzerain.
The amusements of the feudal lord were confined to war or its substitute, the chase. In the intervals of peace the tournament supplied the necessary practice in arms as well as the military pomp and excitement of the field. One of the favorite diversions of both the nobility and the wealthier clergy was flying the falcon. An
extraordinary importance attached to the possession and use of these birds of prey. Property in them was inviolate. They were inseparably connected with the aristocratical or personal privileges of the owner, and could not be alienated, even with his consent, for the ransom of their master. Persons of plebeian station were not permitted to purchase or keep them. They were universally recognized symbols of suzerainty. Kings, bishops, abbots, ladies never went abroad without these birds upon their fists. Warriors carried them in battle. Prelates deposited them in the chancel while they recited the service of the altar The regulations of falconry constituted a science only to be mastered after months of assiduous study. The education of these birds required the exertion of great skill and boundless patience. Each falcon was carried upon a glove which could not be used for any other. It bore the arms of the master, and was often embroidered with gold and ornamented with jewels. In many kingdoms the office of Grand Falconer was one of the greatest distinction and importance. In France the emoluments of this dignitary were eighty thousand francs a year, and gentlemen of rank eagerly competed for the subordinate employments at his disposal.
The supreme ambition of baronial life was the fame that attached to martial deeds and romantic adventure. The first care of the noble was to secure himself against the treachery and violence of his neighbors. His castle, perched upon a lofty eminence, was furnished with every device to render it impregnable. The most incessant vigilance was adopted to provide against surprise. In front of the gateway, or projected from the summit of the keep and overhanging the moat, was a gibbet, a significant reminder to malefactors of the consequences of violated law or resisted oppression. By the overscrupulous, immunity was purchased from the Church with the proceeds of the spoliation of the helpless. On all sides—in the bloody traditions of the moated stronghold, with its subterranean dungeons and its instruments of torture; in the license of the armored troop that rode down the ripening harvest and levied blackmail on the trader and the pilgrim; in the perpetual labors of the uncomplaining serf; in the outraged modesty of weeping womanhood; in the summary execution of suspected offenders
against feudal privilege,—everywhere were visible the brutalizing effects of unrestrained cruelty and irresponsible power.
But with all their defects, the baronial institutions of mediæval times bestowed upon society advantages that in some measure compensated for the evil which they too often occasioned. The military tastes of the age gave rise to the laws of chivalry and the institution of knighthood, whence in turn were derived graces and amenities of social intercourse hitherto unpractised by the savage warriors of Gallic and Saxon Europe.
The tournament was, as might be imagined, the most popular of the diversions of the Middle Ages. From far and near multitudes flocked to the scene of martial skill and splendor. The town where it was held presented the aspect of an immense fair. For leagues around the country was dotted with tents, and with pavilions surmounted by the pennons of the chivalry of many lands. The retinues of prince and noble not infrequently assumed the dimensions of an army. The followers of Gottfried, Duke von Löwen, at Trazignies in 1169 numbered three thousand. At a tournament near Soissons in 1175, Count Baldwin von Hennegau appeared with an escort of a hundred knights and twelve hundred esquires. The blazons of the most ancient and celebrated houses of Europe were conspicuous in the vast encampment. Kings frequently held their courts within its precincts. All classes were in holiday garb. The magnificence of the spectacle was enhanced by gorgeously caparisoned horses, damascened harnesses, waving plumes, many colored silks, sparkling jewels, the parade of men-at-arms, the pomp of marching squadrons, the resplendent charms of female beauty. The contest, repeatedly, but without effect, prohibited by the edicts of Pope and Council, was conducted with all the ferocity of battle. The thirst of blood predominated over every other sentiment. It was not an unusual occurrences for scores of knights to be carried lifeless from the lists after one of these fierce encounters.
The point of honor which inspired the conduct of the mediæval champion of distressed innocence and avenger of privileged oppression had no existence among the most civilized races of antiquity. The individuality implied by its exercise could not be
comprehended by communities whose members, while capable of renouncing every tie of kindred in behalf of the interests of the state and of undergoing the most severe privations to sustain the national supremacy, were prevented by the peculiar circumstances of their surroundings from appreciating the qualities which ennobled even the vices of the knight of the Middle Ages. Without this prominent and compensating feature the condition of society during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries would have been one of unredeemed and unequivocal barbarism.
The coarse though abundant fare of the castle board, the more delicate but still far from dainty viands of the monastic refectory, the boisterous amusements which occupied the leisure and menaced the safety of the participants, the drunken revels of gluttonous banquets, the incessant perils of domestic warfare, to which baron and monk were alike exposed, were suggestive of absolute happiness and luxury when contrasted with the conditions under which was sustained the miserable existence of the serf. His habitation was shared by beasts of burden, the companions of his daily and nightly toil. Composed of unhewn logs or of sticks wattled with rushes, thatched with straw and plastered with mud, its primitive and defective construction afforded little security against the vicissitudes of the climate or the inclemency of the seasons. Through a hole in the centre of the roof the smoke emerged and the storm descended; the walls were blackened with soot; the earthen floor was covered with a trampled litter of hay, mingled with bones and the decaying fragments of many a repast which the occupants had never taken the trouble to remove. Of furniture there was almost none; a bench, perhaps, and a table of unsmoothed planks answered the simple requirements of the hapless villain. He reposed upon a heap of straw with a block of wood for a pillow; the few culinary utensils he possessed were of the rudest description, and had been fashioned by the hand of the owner. No provision was made for the decencies of life or the safeguards of virtue, which were indeed unknown; the family occupied a common apartment, and often a single bed, while the grunting of swine and the lowing of oxen, which animals ranged at will through the dwelling, were sounds too familiar to disturb the slumbers of the drowsy household. The accumulated filth of years,
combined with indescribable personal neglect and revolting customs, attracted and multiplied swarming multitudes of every species of vermin. The garments of the peasant, usually of skins, descended uncleansed and unchanged from father to son through many generations, bearing in their contaminated folds the germs of pestilence and death. Where the circumstances of the serf were not sufficiently prosperous to afford even this protection against the weather, his shivering limbs were wrapped with ropes of straw. His head was uncovered, often even in the depth of winter. The most obvious precautions of hygiene were neglected; the simplest precepts of medical science had not yet penetrated to the isolated communities of Western Europe or were sedulously discountenanced by the interests of superstition; and the plague, assisted by favorable climatic conditions, as well as by the physical debasement and the fears of the people, at each visitation numbered its victims by myriads. With game in every grove and fish in every stream, the famishing peasant was often reduced to appease his hunger with unwholesome roots and bark when the meal of chestnuts and acorns, his most luxurious fare, was wanting. The severity of the forest laws visited upon the poacher, even when impelled by the pangs of starvation to trespass on the seignioral demesnes, the most barbarous of punishments. Around the monastery and the castle were visible the signs of unskilled and reluctant cultivation; but not far away was a wilderness diversified with vast forests, majestic rivers, and pestilential marshes. Intercommunication was irregular and limited to populous districts; many villages of no inconsiderable dimensions were as completely separated from the outside world as if they stood on islands in the midst of the ocean. Barter of commodities necessarily prevailed in the almost entire absence of money; there was no opportunity for the establishment of trade; no incitement to agricultural industry; no work for the artisan. The accumulation of property was effectually discouraged through the incapacity of the laborer to retain or enjoy it when his hopes were constantly frustrated by the insinuating artifices of the priest or the significant threats of the noble. The extortions of the inexorable tax-receiver, the inhumanity of licensed hirelings, the enormities countenanced by baronial tyranny, carried dismay into
every hamlet. Epidemics appeared without warning, and spread with mysterious and appalling rapidity; the death-rate was frightful; fatal symptoms developed almost with the first attack, while in the ignorance of rational treatment the application of relics and the mummeries of the clergy proved signally ineffectual to avert what was considered the vengeance of Heaven.
Confined in the lazar-house with hundreds of his fellow-sufferers or banished to a lonely hut, far from the haunts of men, the hapless leper dragged out his melancholy existence in pain, in disgrace, in penury. The law declared him civilly dead. With a ceremony not less solemn than that performed over the remains of a Christian actually deceased, the priest announced his final separation from the society of mankind. His body was enveloped in a shroud. He was laid upon a bier. With the repetition of the legal formula which consigned him to a life of odium and sorrow, a few garments and necessary utensils were placed in his hands. He was forbidden to eat with any person but a leper; to wash his hands in running water; to give away any object he had touched; to frequent places of public resort; even to enter the house of a relative or a friend. With his shoulders covered with a tattered scarlet mantle,—a danger-signal, visible from afar,— hideous to the sight, emaciated to a skeleton, and horribly scarred with disease, he crouched by the wayside, sounding his rattle to arouse the compassion and solicit the charity of the passer-by. Deprived of civil rights and debarred from invoking the protection of the law, he was, however, not wholly an outcast, for with the exclusion from these privileges he became the ward and vassal of the Church. So loathed and dreaded was his malady—often considered a divine penalty for crime or sacrilege—that no physician could be induced to employ the scanty medical science of the day for the alleviation of his sufferings; and, even if wealthy, he was abandoned to the suspicious ministrations of wizards, barbers, and charlatans. Shunned as accursed and repulsive during his lifetime, when dead he was unceremoniously buried under the floor of his hovel.
The segregation of lepers in the Middle Ages, as a measure of public safety, was productive of singular results in subsequent times.
The disease, which at different periods seems to have been both infectious and contagious, gradually disappeared. But the prejudice attaching to the posterity of the unfortunate outcasts, formerly cut off from all intercourse with their fellow-men, and who formed isolated communities, still remained. The origin of that prejudice was completely forgotten. The people in their ignorance attributed the cause of their enmity to religious differences. It was believed that the objects of their unreasoning aversion were variously sprung from the Goths, the Jews, the Saracens, the Albigenses. Modern research, however, has definitely established the fact that the former pariahs of Southwestern Europe, known in Languedoc and Gascony as Capots and Gahets, in Brittany as Cacous, in the Pyrenees as Cagots, in Spain as Agotes, were the descendants of mediæval lepers. A century has hardly elapsed since these victims of popular antipathy have been divested of that suspicion of uncleanness which was their ancient and unhappy heritage.
In the disorganized state of society which everywhere prevailed, facilities for the profitable and friendly intercourse which promote the intelligence and contribute to the temporal welfare of nations could not exist. Even in provinces of the same country the professional robber and the bandit noble united to imperil the life and seize the merchandise of the trader. The courses of the old Roman highways, unused for centuries, concealed by rubbish and sometimes overgrown with forests, had been utterly lost. There was no provision made by the state for the protection of commerce, and the universal insecurity discouraged the schemes of private enterprise. The mortality resulting from habitual violation of the most obvious sanitary laws, from the use of insufficient and innutritious food, from the hardships of incessant toil, and from daily exposure to the elements, effectually retarded the increase of population. That district was fortunate indeed where even a uniform standard was preserved. In many localities in kingdoms where modern civilization has achieved her most signal triumphs, a solitary shepherd pasturing his flock, or a tottering hovel standing in the centre of a dismal waste, alone proclaimed the presence of man.
The condition of the towns, where an improvement in the manner of living might reasonably have been expected, was in but few respects superior to that of the scattered villages and isolated settlements of the country. Even the main thoroughfares were narrow, tortuous, and dirty. Without drainage or adequate municipal supervision, they were receptacles for the refuse of the household and the offensive carcasses of dead and decaying animals. Even as late as the reign of Francis I., the hogs belonging to the monks of St. Anthony, who asserted and exercised special privileges for the animals sacred to their patron, wandered at will through the fashionable quarters of the metropolitan city of Paris. From the overhanging balconies filthy slops were dashed, without warning, upon the head of the unwary passer-by. By night, daring criminals, secure from the risk of punishment, plied their lawless calling in these dismal and unlighted lanes. He who ventured, unattended, to thread the maze of alleys that wound through even the most frequented quarters of great cities did so at peril of his life. Each corner formed a convenient lair for the lurking assassin. The projecting gables of the houses aided in obscuring the gloomy footways. As the citizen stood in constant fear of robbers, his dwelling was always barred and silent. No light was visible anywhere save the flickering gleam in the lantern carried by the trembling pedestrian, always on his guard against some prowling assailant. Sometimes the mud was so deep that locomotion was impossible for the bearers of sedans, and women were carried from place to place upon the backs of porters, as the narrow and crooked streets precluded the use of vehicles drawn by horses. In the habitations of even those considered wealthy, a general air of discomfort was prevalent. The apartments were dark, ill-ventilated, and unclean. In the windows plates of horn and sheets of oiled paper supplied the place of glass, which was practically unknown. No carpet covered the floors, which were strewn with rushes. The foul surroundings assisted materially in the propagation of fevers and the spread of contagion. Provision for frequent ablution, so conducive to personal comfort as well as to immunity from disease, was unheard of. In many of the most populous capitals of Europe not a single public bath could be found. The attire of the prosperous burgher and
merchant was prescribed by sumptuary laws dictated by the jealous spirit of the aristocracy, who could not tolerate a display of plebeian splendor to which their own resources were unable to attain. Their garments were limited to coarse woollen stuffs, whose cut and fashion were regulated according to the capricious decisions of the court. The use of golden ornaments and jewels, so indispensable to the gratification of female vanity, was prohibited to the wives and daughters of their households, who were also restricted to a sombre and unattractive garb. In some instances this contemptible exercise of authority went still further It dictated the quantity and quality of the food and the beverages to be consumed at the table of the citizen, the description and the price of the light which illumined his home and of the fuel that warmed him. If he had anything to sell, he was paid by his superiors in the product of a debased coinage or with counterfeit money, whose manufacture was everywhere prosecuted with comparative impunity.
Drunkenness was so prevalent in England during the reign of Edgar that restrictions were placed upon the quantity of liquor to be consumed,—the amount allowed each guest being indicated by a mark on the side of the cup or the drinking-horn. The observance of these tyrannical and senseless ordinances was secured by a harassing system of espionage and informers, and their violation was punished by ruinous fines and by condemnation to the stocks or the pillory. The publication and enforcement of sumptuary laws necessarily prevented the development of commerce, already greatly retarded by the prevalent barbarism and poverty of the age. Countries enjoying unlimited natural resources of soil, minerals, timber, and water-power, and whose noble streams only required a portion of the energy and enterprise of man to bring the fertile regions they traversed into intimate contact with the humanizing influences and exquisite products of the highest civilization, were as backward as the savage kingdoms of central Africa are to-day.
A good index of the force of the bigoted prejudice and public intolerance of the time is discernible in the treatment universally received by the Jew. He was the financier, the physician, the merchant, the broker, the scholar of the Middle Ages. He managed
with eminent success the fiscal departments of vast empires and kingdoms. In the great catastrophes which overwhelmed entire nations,—amidst the want and despair occasioned by earthquakes, wars, famine, pestilence,—his shrewdness and his resources always afforded relief to the suffering induced by the prevalent evils, although it must be confessed rarely without exorbitant compensation. His medical talents and surgical skill brought him under the ban of the clergy as a dealer in magic; but neither the statutes of Parliament nor the anathemas of priests could deprive him of the protection and friendship of orthodox monarchs, or of even the Sovereign Pontiff himself. True to the adventurous and acquisitive character of his race, he introduced the knowledge and use of foreign commodities in lands rarely trodden by the foot of the stranger, defying the storms of sea and ocean, braving alike the unprincipled rapacity of the noble, the violence of the highwayman, the perils of remote and unexplored solitudes. In maritime cities he established depôts for the importation and exchange of every description of merchandise. His credit and his tact enabled him to negotiate loans for improvident princes, which, more than once, saved distressed nations from bankruptcy. Amidst the multifarious variety of his occupations, he found time for the recreation derived from the pursuits of literature. In this sphere, as in all others to which he devoted his talents, he attained to the highest distinction. In philosophy, in astronomy, in chemistry, in mathematics, his opinions were regarded by his contemporaries with the reverence attaching to oracles. His poetry and his eloquence delighted such courts as those of Cordova and Bagdad; his erudition instructed and his genius illumined schools like those of Salerno, Montpellier, and Narbonne.
How then did society reward such inestimable benefits? Alas! for the credit of humanity, it must be confessed that the intolerance fostered by centuries of hatred obliterated every generous impulse, every sentiment of gratitude. The remembrance of the decision of the Sanhedrim, the story of the sacrifice on Calvary, extinguished in the minds of the fanatical populace the sense of any subsequent obligation. The anniversary of that tremendous event was the signal for insult and outrage. The most heinous accusations, many of them extravagant and improbable in their very nature, were brought by
popular clamor, instigated by ecclesiastical malice, against the defenceless Hebrew. His commercial relations with the East had introduced the leprosy. The plague was caused by poison which he had thrown into the wells. The meat he sold was sometimes whispered to be human flesh; and the milk he dealt in not yielded by the cow, but drawn from the breasts of the females of his household. He kidnapped children, whose blood he made use of in the concoction of magical potions. On Good Friday, aided by his kinsmen, he re-enacted the tragedy of Golgotha, the victim being a Christian youth who played, perforce, the rôle of the Saviour, and who, with unavailing struggles and lamentations, endured the humiliation and agony of the Crucifixion. Kings, merely by proclamation, appropriated the Jews of their realms as the absolute property of the crown. Then, by virtue of this arbitrary proceeding, they confiscated the possessions of these victims of royal avarice, under pretence of fines or ransom. Under these significant circumstances it requires no extraordinary degree of discernment to perceive that the wealth of the Jews was the principal cause of their persecution. By their talents and industry they had reached the highest posts in the learned professions; had monopolized the trade; had controlled, to a greater or less extent, the policy of every government in Christendom. Under Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnair their condition was more prosperous than under succeeding monarchs for eight hundred years. In every walk of life they received the consideration merited by their commanding abilities. Their influence was unrivalled. They maintained royal state. Great concessions were made to their convenience and religious prejudices. Their prosperity excited the envy of the rabble. Their influence with the monarch enraged the courtiers. The clergy, whose profits were reduced by their enterprise and whose monopolies they antagonized by their insinuating arts, regarded them with the double hatred engendered by imperilled temporal interests and ferocious bigotry Among every class and rank their superior intelligence was believed to be due to sacrilegious bargains with the powers of darkness. The prejudice attaching to their name and religion always afforded a specious pretext for persecution. In every Christian kingdom they were the objects of popular execration. They were
unceremoniously robbed by the government. They were banished without notice. Their debtors were encouraged to repudiate contracts made with them. The officials of the Inquisition took exquisite pleasure in burning Hebrews, always selecting the most wealthy for its victims. Of the one hundred and sixty thousand persons burnt or disciplined during the twenty-eight years comprising the administrations of Torquemada and Ximenes as Inquisitors-General, the majority were of that unfortunate race. The cause of a Jew was prejudged before every tribunal, and it was often difficult for him to obtain a hearing, and still more to secure the protection to which he was legally entitled. Under such intolerable oppression it is not strange that he should, by the adoption of unprincipled methods and by the exaction of enormous usury, have endeavored to compensate himself, in some degree, for the degradation and hardships he was compelled to undergo. This course, however, only intensified the popular hatred until the term Jew was considered the epitome of all dishonor, deceit, and unprincipled villany. These discreditable prejudices, dictated by general ignorance and by the sacerdotal malice of the Middle Ages, are still, it is well known, far from being eradicated even by the superior understanding and liberal opinions of the twentieth century.
The universal distress which afflicted the peasantry, as well as the poorer classes of the cities, is revealed by the inhumanity with which they were accustomed to treat their offspring. Robbed and oppressed by both priest and baron, and barely able to eke out a miserable existence by themselves, they regarded the birth of an infant as a domestic calamity. Parents deliberately abandoned their children in unfrequented places to perish by starvation or to be torn to pieces by birds of prey. Many were drowned like puppies. Some were buried alive. Others were deposited at the doors of churches and convents, where they were often killed by dogs. The extent of the evil, as well as the prevalent immorality existing in a single country, may be inferred from the fact that the Hospital of Santa Cruz, founded by Cardinal Mendoza of Spain in the sixteenth century, received and sheltered during twenty years more than thirteen thousand foundlings.
The great epidemics that from time to time raged throughout Europe afford glimpses of the life and character of the people not readily obtained from other sources. Medical science recognizes today that the principal causes of such visitations are private uncleanness and the accumulation of filth in public places. During the Middle Ages, the regulations of sanitary police were wholly unknown. On every side heaps of garbage and putrefying offal met the eye and offended the nostrils. The necessity for the thorough ventilation and drainage of dwellings was unsuspected. The prejudice against bathing, which universally existed, was partly due to the example of the clergy, who were not supposed to have time to spare from their sacred duties to care for their persons, and partly due to contempt for the Mohammedans, whose lustrations were a peremptory religious duty. As Christianity spread, the practice of ablution gradually declined. The Roman thermæ, one of the wonders of the capital, were at first abandoned and afterwards utilized as quarries for the palace and the cathedral. A general idea prevailed that the ceremony of baptism removed all necessity for the subsequent application of water to the body. Filth became a test of devotion, and, following the example of their spiritual guides, the multitude came finally, by the natural law of association, to regard the unsavory manifestations of personal neglect as prima-facie evidence of Christian orthodoxy. Thus, sanctioned by public opinion and confirmed by ecclesiastical authority, a stigma was placed upon cleanliness, and a premium offered for corporeal foulness and offensive surroundings. Those who violated the established custom were in danger of being denounced as heretics. It was one of the most serious accusations against the Emperor Frederick II. that he was addicted to the frequent use of the bath. Among the upper classes of society, the unpleasant consequences of untidy habits were in a measure neutralized by the excessive use of strong perfumes, such as musk, civet, and ambergris. Among the lower orders many of the physical conditions of life were indescribable. In the vicinity of towns, as well as of isolated habitations, equal negligence of the laws of health prevailed. From the moat, with its stagnant waters reeking with the refuse of the castle, to the vast marshes, with their exhalations poisoning the air around the hut of
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