Читать книгу The Story of Chartres - Cecil Headlam - Страница 13

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‘Thiebaut li quenz de Chartres fu fel é engignous

Mult out chastels é viles, é mult fu averous;

Chevalier fu mult prous é mult chevalerous

Mez mult part fu cruel é mult envious.’

Robert Wace—Roman de Rou.

ROLO, on his conversion, gave his domain of Malmaison, near Épernon, to Notre-Dame de Chartres. The deed of gift was long preserved, and ran in these terms:—

‘I, Rollo, Duke of Normandy, give to the Brethren of the Church Notre-Dame de Chartres my Castle of Malmaison, which I have won with my sword, and with my sword I will guarantee it to them, as let this knife be witness.’

A knife in the Middle Ages was a symbol of putting in possession. It was a fitting symbol for the siècle de fer, that century of moral and material disorder and disaster in which the country was now involved.

For France was now falling into the iron grip of feudalism. It is the age of castles. As the power of the central authority weakens, the power of the great vassals, dukes, counts, bishops and abbots becomes established as absolute in their fiefs. But during the period of disorder, from which the feudal régime emerged triumphant, the serf had waged with his master the same struggle that the vassal was waging with his lords and the lord with the King. The result was similar in all cases. Usurpation of servile tenures accompanied that of liberal tenures, and, territorial appropriation having taken place in every rank of society, it was as difficult to dispossess a serf of his manse as a seigneur of his benefice. The serf, therefore, emerged from the condition of almost absolute slavery in which he was at the time of the fall of the Western Empire, and from the condition of servitude that had been his up to the end of the reign of Charles-le-Chauve. From this time servitude was transformed into serfage. The serf having withdrawn his person and his field from his master’s hands, owes to him no longer his body and goods, but only a portion of his labour and his income. He ceases to be a slave and becomes a tributary.

With the advent of feudalism the map of the country underwent a change. The Roman arrangement, by which Gaul had been divided into eighteen provinces and 127 dioceses, had been little altered by the Francs, and lasted on under the Carlovingians, but it gradually disappeared in the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries. It was preserved only by the Church, the dioceses of which, up to the time of the Revolution, represented very nearly the ancient divisions of Gaul under the Romans. Before the days of Cæsar it was into pagi that Gaul had been divided. The pagus or pays persisted now; more numerous than the cities, they continued to split up and multiply. But from 800 onwards most of these pays having set up comtés of the same name and same extent began to be known as such—as, for instance, the Comté of Chartres.

When in 987 Hugues Capet, Duke of France, decided to assume the title of King, the political unity of the Chartrains had long been broken by the territorial usurpations of the great officers of the Crown. The government of the country under Charlemagne had been shared by seven counts—Chartres, Dreux, Châteaudun, Blois, Vendôme, Poissy and Mantes. But by Hugh Capet’s time these had been reduced to three—Chartres, Blois and Dreux—and in the person of Thibault-le-Vieux or le Tricheur, who was of Capetan stock, the counties of Blois and Chartres were united. They remained in his family till the death of Thibaut VI., 1218. They were then divided between the two collateral branches of the house, but reunited again in 1269.

Philippe-le-Bel acquired the county of Chartres in 1289, and gave it to his brother, Charles de Valois, whose son, Philippe de Valois, united it to the Crown (1346).

It is convenient to explain this matter of the Comté here, for the present period of the history of Chartres is connected with the dread name of Thibault-le-Tricheur, Theobald the Trickster, Count of Chartres, the chevalier fel et engignous, whom Robert Wace describes.

This first hereditary Count of Chartres was the Robert the Devil of the Pays Chartrain. Through the whole country side, from Tours to Blois, and from Blois to Chartres, the impression of his dreaded personality is indelibly stamped. The legend still runs that Thibault, the old Chasseur, nightly crosses the Loire from Montfrau to Bury with a crowd of his reckless men of arms, bent, you may suppose, on some murderous foray. This turbulent spirit threw himself eagerly into the quarrel between Lothaire and Richard, Duke of Normandy, and took an active part in the cruel war that ensued. He invaded the Duke’s territory, and, availing himself of every device, and employing every ruse, for Thibault was ‘plein d’engin et plein fu de feintie,’ he took Évreux and advanced even to the walls of Rouen. His line of advance was marked by devastation so terrible that, says the Norman chronicler, there was not the bark of a single dog to be heard throughout the county.[33]

A peace was patched up, and Thibault married Richard’s daughter. But the King and the Count shortly afterwards renewed their machinations against the Duke. The latter was hard pressed, but, thanks to his spirit and the valour of his followers, he proved victorious. He ravaged the country of his enemy, and sacked and burnt the town and church of Chartres. It is said that when Thibault, the hardened old Chasseur, came to the town—sa bonne ville de Chartres—he began to count one by one the heads of those whom the Northmen had slain. Suddenly he stopped in his counting and began to utter the cries and laughter of a madman. For the head of his own son lay there before him, and the shock of the sight unhinged his mind forever.

The Rue des Changes lies opposite the south-west corner of the Cathedral. Pursue this street and you will find yourself in the modern vegetable market—the Place Billard. It is the site on which—coolly appropriating some territory which belonged to the Monastery of S. Père—Thibault built the castle and donjon of the Counts of Chartres. It was outside the then walls of the town, between the Porte Évière and the Porte Cendreuse. Not a vestige of it now remains, if we except a few fragments of the old enclosing wall. For the donjon was destroyed in

South Transept

1587, and the castle in the nineteenth century. The great tower known as the King’s or Count’s Tower (Tour le Roi, Tour le Comte), was used for a prison, and within the spacious halls of the ancient palace most of the general assemblies of Chartres were held. It was here that for five centuries justice was administered, and it was in the chapel of the castle that the bishop, on his entry, was wont to swear that he would not go contrary to the rights of the prince. And it was here that feudal homage was done, à cause de la grosse tour de Chartres.

The castle, with its crenelated donjon, its huge façade on the crest of the hill, its massive walls and buttresses; the Cathedral, with its soaring spires, majestic nave and mystic sculptures, were typical in their juxtaposition. The fortress of the Counts, rising behind armed walls and portcullis; the stronghold of the bishops, secure within the buildings of the cloister, to which there was access only through guarded gates—such, for instance, as that facing the castle, of which you may still see a trace on the corner house of the Rue des Changes and the Rue du Lait—Castle and Cathedral so placed were stone symbols, you might fancy, of the temporal and spiritual powers which ruled with divided sway the old town of Chartres.[34]

For, throughout the Middle Ages, side by side with the persistent power of the bishops and their train of clergy and of serfs, persisted also, but waxing and waning with varying fortune, the power of the Counts. And from the vassals and dependants of these two powers was destined to spring the modern Bourgeoisie. The Counts of Blois, of Chartres, of Meaux pass before us in the pages of history, forever raising levies, waging wars and exacting tolls on merchandise. Sometimes they are in accord with the clergy; sometimes in opposition; and at one moment make large donations to the Church, at another rob it. To-day they fight for their King abroad and on their Crusades, while Viscounts represent them at home. To-morrow they are home again, fighting among themselves, or trying to throw off their allegiance to their King. Counts of Chartres or their relatives mount the throne of England and the throne of France. But war and brigandage remain their business. They pillage the bishops, and the bishops excommunicate the pillagers. They raise troops, and the bishops call their parish to arms. They war with the sword, and the bishops win with the aid of their trained ability, the cunning of their counsel, and their pens.

For the great bishops—such as Fulbert, Ives and John of Salisbury—were indeed remarkable men, and they held their own successfully, not only, if need be, against the interference of their Archbishop of Sens, but also with the Counts of Chartres and the Kings of France and England.

The eleventh century above all was an era of notable bishops.

There were, of course, good bishops and bad. Aganon, who succeeded Gantelme, was in the former class, and he devoted himself to the rebuilding and establishing of the ruined churches and monasteries; among them that of S. Père de Chartres, which had been utterly demolished by the Normans. His nephew, Ragenfroi, succeeded him, and continued in the paths of his uncle. He was one of the greatest benefactors of S. Père, to which he added many buildings, and whither he brought twelve monks from the Monastery of Fleury-sur-Loire. Their fervour and discipline, which was to give new life to the community at Chartres, had been acquired under the rule of their abbot, Vulphard, destined to be one of the great bishop-builders of Chartres.

It was under Ragenfroi that Hugues le Grand, father of Hugues Capet, gave evidence of his lively devotion to the Notre-Dame de Chartres by the donation of the domain of Ingré, ‘with all its lands cultivated or not, vineyards, pasturage and prairies, with its forests and serfs of either sex, and the church which is dedicated to Saint Leu.’ So runs the charter, and the object is ‘that the brethren deriving therefrom the necessaries of life may have the more liberty to perform Divine service and spiritual exercises, and pour out the more abundant prayers for us, our wife and our whole family.’

Hardouin, Bishop of Chartres, succeeded to his brother’s position, but not his religion, says the chronicler; for he was filled with pride and swollen with secular ambition. He waged war with the monks of S. Père, and took from them every privilege and possession he could. And the chronicler adds (writing always from the point of view of S. Père) that several later bishops followed his example, and trod in the same path of sacrilege, wasting their own property and coveting that of others, plotting against the monks and harassing them, and even robbing them of much that the charity of the faithful had bestowed upon them, and, whereas they should have protected them, acting in the blindness of their hearts like tyrants and plunderers. Count Eudes succeeded his father Thibault (977), and the following narrative, which the monk Paul gives us in connection with his name, is sufficiently eloquent of the times.

There was a holy priest, by name Sigismund, whose goodness and sanctity were clearer than the light of day to all people, lay and clerical. Chaste and humble, prudent, prayerful, burning with the fire of faith, yet jocund of speech withal, he shone as an example of all Christian virtues. Now Fulcher, Abbot of S. Lubin,[35] had committed to his care certain vineyards, from which, it appears, the Blessed Sigismund knew how to make good wine. And one day when Count Eudes of Chartres was about to dine, and his men were looking about for the best wine to be obtained, they heard that there was wine to be got for nothing in the cellar of the priest. Overjoyed at the news, they hastened there, and boldly entering the cellar filled their skins and carried them off to the hall. The good Sigismund returned from the house of God and found the chief cup-bearer sitting in his cellar, who mocked him, asking, ‘Master, tell me, is that wine of yours very good or not?’ ‘My brother,’ returned the holy man, ‘you are no novice at wine, and do not need to be told when you have only to taste for yourself.’ ‘Give me a goblet, then,’ said he. ‘Nay; the wine will be better from the cup into which it is drawn.’

The unhappy man placed the cup to his lips, but before he could drink he was seized with a fit, and fell to the earth foaming at the mouth. He was taken back to the palace, and when the Count heard of the affair he summoned Sigismund to his presence and ordered the eyes of those who had stolen the wine to be gouged out and the wine to be restored to its owner. Sigismund, however, when he saw him so roused, would not leave his presence till the Count had calmed his wrath, set the prisoners free, and consented to drink the wine gratis. Then the holy man turned to pray, and thanks to his intercession the cup-bearer was restored to his former health.

Count Eudes—whose widow, Bertha, afterwards became for a while the wife of King Robert—died in 995. He was succeeded by his son, Thibault II., and with him the struggle between the spiritual and temporal powers took the form of a claim to present to the Monastery of S. Père.

Fulbert, who was one day to be the great Bishop of Chartres, has left us an account of the matter, preserved and completed by the monk Paul, which is as curious as it is instructive.

‘The Abbot of S. Père,’ writes Fulbert, ‘was very ill, but still in full possession of his faculties, when a monk named Magenard—up to that time a dear friend of mine’ (more of a courtier than a priest, says Paul!)—‘slipped secretly out of the monastery by night and hastened to Count Thibault, who was all that time lying at Blois, with the view of begging the post of abbot for himself. The Count sent him back to us next day, accompanied by commissioners, who were to secure from the brethren a magnificent reception of him as abbot. But to almost all of us this conduct appeared as horrible as it was unprecedented. We answered, therefore, that we could not consent to their requests, for the appointment was not legal; and an ambitious schemer who had tried to secure the post of abbot before the abbot himself was dead could not be accepted. Magenard rode back in high dudgeon to the Count, and fanned the flames of the young man’s wrath against us. Five days later Gislebert, the abbot, died. The members of the monastery met, and the question was put whether anyone supported the claim of Magenard. One by one the brethren answered no. A deputation was therefore sent to the Count (who was acting as bishop at the time) to inform him of Gislebert’s death, and to ask for regular permission to choose his successor. But this deputation was forestalled by the treacherous conduct of two monks, who hastened to Blois and falsely informed the Count that Magenard had been chosen abbot by the brethren. The Count was delighted at the news, and publicly presented Magenard with the pastoral staff. The brethren who had remained at home were incensed at this fraudulent business, and promptly drew up and signed the following protest:—

‘Know all the Church that we have not chosen Magenard to be our abbot: we do not approve of him, we do not want him, we do not consent; but we disapprove, refuse, and altogether reject him—we, that is, the undersigned monks of Saint Père.’

Fulbert tells us that all the brethren either signed or witnessed their signatures in his presence. On the next day, he continues, the Count Thibault returned to Chartres and requested to be admitted with formal processions into the monastery. The monks replied that they would willingly so receive him provided that he did not bring the false abbot with him. The Count was enraged, but held his hand for one day. On the following day, however, with a noisy crowd of followers, he forced Magenard upon the Monastery of S. Père. At this violence the holy brethren, fearing to be contaminated by the presence of the intruder, bade farewell, with tears in their eyes, to the sanctuary of the Lord, and took refuge in the Cathedral. The Cathedral also lacked a bishop, and within its walls the two flocks of monks, like sheep without a shepherd, mingled their tears with mutual consolation.

The monks found a resting-place in the monastery of Lagni, and Magenard was installed by a foreign bishop, in the absence of the clergy, amidst the indignation of the people, and in spite of the open protest of the Archbishop of Sens and a few of the remaining monks of S. Père.

Not the least dramatic part of this curious story is its end. Magenard remained quietly in possession of the monastery, and ‘there was not one bishop in all France whose heart was touched by feelings of piety or love of sacred law to interfere on behalf of the monks who had been expelled.’ But presently (1004), on his return from a pilgrimage to Rome, Count Thibault died, and his body was brought back to be laid next his brother Thierry in the Chapel of S. Père. His gravestone, restored in the seventeenth century, at the time of the reconstruction of the abbey, is now to be found in the Hôtel de Ville. Now, on the death of the Count, Raoul, the Dean of Notre-Dame, who had welcomed the monks of S. Père in their flight, was appointed bishop in his stead. The bitter feeling against Magenard, which had long been smouldering, now burst into flame. He was deprived of his pastoral staff and compelled to pass some days in the bishop’s house. But when men saw how instant he was in prayer, and how fervent in vigil, how wise in speech and accomplished in letters, the flames of the quarrel died down. His staff was restored to him, together with the conduct of the monastery, and, adds the chronicler, as long as he breathed this vital air so long did he full well and lovingly feed the flock which was confided to his charge.

Bishop Hardouin died eight days after the destruction of the town and church in 962, and the pious and able Vulphard was appointed in his stead. The people of Chartres set themselves with undaunted energy to rebuild their town, and they seized the opportunity of making their houses more substantial, and of enlarging their churches. Look at the tenth-century remains of Notre-Dame and S. Père, and judge how massive was the material they used. Their houses, of course, were still made mostly of wood. Vulphard devoted himself to the business of constructing a new cathedral, which should be more beautiful than any yet conceived.

The martyrium is the kernel of the crypt of Notre-Dame. The latter half of the tenth century was the period of vast crypts, and Vulphard, not content with merely renewing the martyrium of Gislebert, added a broad ambulatory round it, enclosed with a strong circular wall, which was broken by three advanced chapels. This was intended to make the martyrium, as the depository of the treasure and the Veil, safe from all accidents. We shall see presently how well it fulfilled its purpose. The church itself was extended westwards as far as the line marked now by the labyrinth in the pavement of the nave. Two great piers were inserted in the martyrium to support the raised choir.

In order to understand the growth of the Cathedral, which is in itself, to the eye that can see, an almost complete history of Christian architecture, it is necessary to form some idea of the church which Vulphard built. For in size and site it approached the modern building.

If we count the circular portion embracing the martyrium, and connected by stairs with the main building, it must have been over 100 yards long, and in breadth at least thirty, including the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre on the one side, and the sacristy on the south. But the nave and the aisles—the floor of which was on a level with that of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre—were together only as broad as the modern nave by itself.

Like the tenth century Church of S. Martin-au-Val, the choir was raised ten or twelve steps above the nave, and was surrounded by an ambulatory. There was a double transept: and it may be that we can trace it in the recesses which now form the Chapels of S. Savinian, S. Potentian and the Saints Forts on the one side, and the Chapel of S. Clement on the other.

As to the details and ornamentation of the church nothing remains, but we can say from our knowledge of the times, and from a comparison with what tenth century work there is in Chartres, what could and what could not have been, if not what was. There may, for instance, have been a belfry, and, seeing that the great square tower of the Abbey Church of S. Père was at that time being built, there probably was. Perhaps two such towers flanked the two extremities of the façade. They would have had no spires, but a four-sided, pyramidal roof. Squat columns or square pillars, one may suppose, carried the series of plain round arches of brick and stone which connected the aisles with the central nave. But the great ‘Triumphal Arch,’ as it was called, separating choir from nave, was richly adorned with sculpture and painting.

The capitals of the pillars and their bases would be in most instances romanesque, after the fashion of that which serves as a font in the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, whilst others would be decorated like those of S. Martin-au-Val with foliage and forms of real or fantastic animals, the mystic symbols of Mediæval Masonry, the language in which the Masters of the Living Stone were now beginning to speak. The walls may have been enriched with mosaics and paintings in accordance with the precepts of Charlemagne. Above the aisles may have run a triforium or gallery, set apart for the prayers of virgins and widows. If you look at the entrance of Vulphard’s crypt you will see that the doorways were simple, and they offer a striking contrast to the porches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with their wealth of sculpture, which records, as it were, in brief the history of Christianity, and serves as a preface to the book of the Cathedral. Without going into further detail, we may add, that as the complete art of vaulting was not yet known, though the small roof of the martyrium may have been vaulted, the large roof of the Cathedral can only have been a flat wooden ceiling.

The building of this church was completed before Vulphard’s death. But the decoration of it lagged under his successor. The skilled monks engaged for that purpose disappeared. The artists had retired to their cloister to await their last hour in prayer and fasting. For the end of the world was expected. The ancient and popular doctrine of the millennium possessed all minds. Every sign, it seemed, had been given.

Wars, famine and pestilence, and the ravages of the Normans and Saracens had produced a depression of spirit, which, combined with an erroneous interpretation of the Apocalypse, led men to think that the reign of Antichrist and the end of the world must surely be at hand. The beginning of the year 1000, it began to be believed, was the appointed date of this dread climax.

‘A long and unceasing series of signs,’ writes one in 985, when bequeathing his property to the Abbey of S. Père, ‘bears witness to the approaching end of the world, and of the passing of all things therein.’

Private wars and the revolt of the Norman peasantry, who had dared to utter the word ‘commune’ and had been ferociously crushed by the feudal barons, the breaking up of the Roman Empire, and Charlemagne’s after it, the plague of S. Anthony’s fire and the scourge of famine, these and a thousand others not less awful were surely signs enough to fill the world with terror and despair. And what should a man do but seek refuge in the house of God and prepare himself

FULBERT AND HIS CHURCH.

by frenzied supplication against the great day of the Lord?

But when the year was passed and the world was still unended, a wave of religious feeling swept over Europe and men went with one accord to render thanks at the holy shrines. Pilgrims crowded to the sanctuary of Chartres to make their offerings to the Holy Veil and to acknowledge the protection of the blessed Virgin. They came also to seek relief from the terrible malady known as S. Anthony’s Fire or Mal des Ardents.

S. Fulbert[36] himself, the successor of Eudes, was afflicted with this painful plague. William of Malmesbury records the miracle by which he was healed.

‘He was sick unto death,’ he tells us, ‘of the sickness called the Sacred Fire or Mal des Ardents (erysipelas), which was devouring his tongue with grievous pain. One night, when his agony was most extreme, he beheld a beautiful lady approach with an air of majesty, attended by a numerous suite. She bade him open his mouth, and the sick man obeyed. Thereupon the mysterious lady did unto him as a mother does who suckles her infant child; she pressed upon his burning tongue some drops of her virginal milk, which refreshed his tongue and healed him instantly.

‘Even the cheeks of the saint were sprinkled with the precious liquid, and he, having wiped off some drops thereof with costly linen, left them to the Church of Chartres as relics, and as a token of the miracle which had been wrought in his favour.’ ‘Qui se veoid encores parmi les reliques,’ adds Souchet.

But Fulbert’s reputation does not rest on these passive acts of sanctity. An event was to happen shortly which brought out all the energy that lay beneath his mild excellence and his scholarly instructions.

‘It was on the 7th September 1020,’ says Souchet, ‘that the burning of the Church of Chartres happened, on the eve of the nativity of Our Lady. It is not known how or by whose agency this disaster occurred; but there was nothing in this holy temple that the fire did not consume.’ Rouillard (1608) piously supposes that lightning was sent from heaven to destroy the church, as a punishment for the sins of the pilgrims, some of whom, among the crowds of both sexes who kept vigil there, may by some act of impurity have defiled the sanctity of the place.

However it may have been, the church was once more destroyed, and, as was happening all over Italy and France at this period, it was destroyed only to rise from its ashes more beautiful than ever. So Angers, Poitiers, Beauvais, Cambrai, Rouen were rebuilt almost as soon as burnt, in the enthusiastic rivalry of the Christian builders of the day. ‘Humanity,’ in the fine phrase of Raoul Glaber, ‘rose from its long agony and set itself to build, and to shake off the rags of its old age in order to put on the white robe of the churches.’

The great bishop with whose name the new Cathedral at Chartres was to be indissolubly connected, the Fulbert of Fulbert’s Cathedral, had been the favourite pupil of Gerbert of Reims and had practised medicine in the Monastery of S. Père, where that art was long held in high honour. But Fulbert was more than a mere doctor. He was a poet, a mathematician, a theologian, grammarian and skilful musician as well. When, therefore, he became the head of the School of Chartres (from which a few years later John, called the Deaf, was to issue, doctor of Henry I. and chief of the sect of Nominalists, whose pupil was Rosselin, whose pupil Abeilard) scholars flocked from England, Germany, Denmark and all parts of France to listen to the teachings of the French Socrates, and to receive from his eloquent lips the precepts of wisdom and the counsel of friendship. For his knowledge was immense and his learning encyclopædic, ranging from the minutest details of the exact sciences to the most daring speculations of metaphysics. Fulbert, we are told, like a modern Plato, would often withdraw to a garden near the bishop’s palace, watered by the clear stream (it was clear in those days), and there, surrounded by his chosen pupils, expound with mingled sweetness and force the tenets of philosophy and the doctrines of faith. ‘The teacher of philosophers, the marvel of his age, the sun whose rays gave life,’ his pupil Adelmann called him. And among the philosophers he taught, and the rare flowers of intellect which in this age of brute force expanded beneath the quickening rays of his mind, Adelmann enumerates Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Walter of Burgundy, Lambert and Engelbert of Paris and Orléans, Hildier, wise as Socrates and learned as Pythagoras, and Sigo, the musician of the delicate ear. Fulbert’s letters,[37] which place him among the most interesting historians of this obscure period, reveal him as a theologian firm and decided, as a statesman eager to enforce order and to secure the administration of justice, as a man broad-minded, charming, enthusiastic, humane.

Inspired by a mysterious voice which bade him ‘build a sanctuary worthy of his filial love and the divine majesty,’ Fulbert now set about procuring funds to build first a veritable crypt, and then above it the new Cathedral, adopting, however, the general plan of the church left by his predecessor in order to make use of the enormous existing foundations.[38] The subterranean aspect of the old church, built about the grottoes and heaped round by the rapid deposit of rubbish which continually raised the soil of mediæval towns, would naturally suggest this scheme. But to carry it out funds beyond the ordinary were needed.

Fortunately Fulbert was no ordinary beggar. Not only did he know how to use the usual means of encouraging gifts, in money and in kind, from the clergy and people of the diocese by holding special assemblies on the site of the proposed church, and by sermons which promised heavenly rewards for those who took part in the building, but he used his connections with the great world and his power of letter-writing to the best advantage.

He wrote first of all to ‘his beloved Lord,’ the ‘good King Robert,’ in whom the historian sees more of a monk than of a sovereign.

‘All our resources fail us for the rebuilding of our church, and a great necessity is upon us. Come then to our aid, O holy father; strengthen our weakness and succour our distress to the end that God may reward your soul with all blessings.’

And doubtless the ‘father of religious architecture’ responded generously to this eloquent appeal from his former teacher.

Meanwhile every belfry in the diocese attested by its silence the disaster of the church and the sorrow of its bishop. ‘On account of the disaster,’ he writes, ‘which has befallen my church, I wish to make known my profound grief to all. In consequence I have commanded that all the bells which are wont to ring with joy and gladness shall attest henceforth by their silence my bitter sadness.’

Fulbert wrote next to his most beloved and pious Duke of Aquitaine, and he received handsome annual subscriptions from him whilst the Cathedral was a-building. ‘Your marvellous and inexhaustible charity,’ writes the bishop, ‘is pleased to overwhelm me with many gifts which I do not deserve. I should blush to receive your offerings were I not sure that you will be magnificently rewarded hereafter.’

Eudes II., Count of Chartres and Blois, was, before he met his death in the Battle of Bar-le-Duc, a generous contributor. That was to be expected from so rich a seigneur for the restoration of the principal church of his own county and town, but deeply was Fulbert touched by the receipt of a contribution from Cnut, King of Denmark and England, who, as William of Malmesbury records, ‘sent many sums to the churches across the seas, and chiefly enriched that of Chartres, where flourished Fulbert, renowned for his holiness and philosophy.’

In acknowledging the esterlings of the great Danish King, the bishop speaks of him in terms which the verdict of history has confirmed.

‘To the very noble King of Denmark, Cnut, Fulbert, by the grace of God, Bishop of Chartres, with his clerks and his monks, promises the recommendation of his prayers.

‘When we saw the offering which you deigned to send us we admired at once your astonishing wisdom and religious spirit—your wisdom in that you, a prince divided from us by language and by sea, are zealously concerned not only with the things around you, but also with the things that touch us; at your religious spirit, in that you, of whom we had heard speak as a Pagan King, show yourself a very Christian and generous benefactor of the churches and servants of God. We render lively thanks to the King of Kings, through whose mercy your gifts have descended upon us, and we beseech Him to make your reign happy and prosperous, and to deliver your soul from all sin.’

Such were the means by which the courtly bishop extracted donations from the great, and such the spiritual consolation with which he rewarded the generosity of his royal patrons.

Fulbert’s labours, supported by the enthusiastic devotion of the people, were interrupted by the turbulent behaviour of Godfrey, Viscount of Châteaudun. He, since Eudes had acquired the county of Champagne, and took, therefore, little interest in the affairs of Chartres, had, like the other great vassals of Eudes, followed the example of his suzerain. He was endeavouring, by building himself first the Castle of Gallardon, and now of Illiers, in the very centre of the bishop’s possessions, to aggrandise himself at the expense of the King and the Church. Fulbert could not prevail upon the monkish Robert to repress Godfrey by force. The spiritual arms which he himself used only roused the Count to take reprisals by plundering the episcopal farms. Eudes himself, who had assumed the title of Count Palatine, was too much occupied with his own ambitious schemes, and his opposition to King Robert and King Robert’s successor, to have either the wish or the time to interfere. For, although he had acquiesced in Fulbert’s advice, followed by Robert the Good, that Henry, the third son, should be appointed to succeed to the throne, yet, when King Robert died, Eudes espoused the cause of the fourth. He was obliged to yield at last to the force of Henry’s arms, and some years later this turbulent Count was killed at Bar-le-Duc when striving to take vengeance on the Emperor Conrad by attacking his vassal, Gothelon.

In spite of his many reverses, Eudes had greatly increased the power and repute of the house of Chartres. So far as Chartres was concerned he had made many rich presents to the Cathedral and to the Monastery of S. Père. He endowed the small church and foundation which was afterwards to become the Monastery of S. Jean-en-Vallée.[39]

But his chief act of interference was when, on the death of Fulbert, the Chapter appealed to him to uphold their election of Albert the Dean to the episcopal seat against the appointment of Theodoric, a creature of Queen Constance. Eudes, seizing the opportunity of opposing the royal will, declared that he would not admit the new bishop into his town until he had been examined by a bench of bishops, for he was said to be a man of little sense and no education. Theodoric’s appointment was, however, in the end made good.

The vast possessions of Eudes were divided between his sons, who, following the family tradition, refused to pay homage to the King. They were surprised by the energy of their royal suzerain, overpowered and held captive for six years. Étienne, the younger, died; but Thibault, at the price of the county of Tours, was set free by Geoffrey of Anjou. Thibault was now Count of Chartres, Blois, Brie and Champagne, but as to the delimitations of their territories endless hostilities arose between him and the Angevin prince. And when his hands were not full with the attentions of this neighbour he waged disastrous war for his King against William I., Duke of Normandy (1058).

But in spite of wars and famine and disease, in spite of the violence of Counts and the weakness of Kings, Fulbert’s Cathedral was completed ere his death. The fire had left but a few columns and fragments of wall standing where once was the Cathedral of Vulphard. The winter of 1020 was devoted to clearing away the débris, and so active was the work, that by September in the following year Fulbert could write ‘we have finished our crypts, and’ (this is the reason why he cannot accept the invitation of William of Aquitaine to be present at the solemn dedication of the Cathedral of Poitiers) ‘we must devote all our energies to covering them before the inclemency of the winter damages them.’ But in the following year the work had made such progress that he was able to undertake a journey at King Robert’s request to Rome, leaving the building to his canons and architect. Who that architect was may perhaps be indicated by the entry in the Nécrologie de Notre-Dame, under date October 22:—Bérenger. ‘Berengarius hujus matris ecclesiæ, Artifex Bonus.’

The martyrium had suffered less than the rest of the Cathedral, but it was thought necessary to place a large round column on the Gallo-Roman wall, in order to strengthen the vaulted roof. On this column you may descry the word Fulbert, cut not in modern days, nor yet at any great distance of time.

‘The circular part of our crypt,’ says l’Abbé Bulteau,[40] ‘with its vaulting, is to-day just as it was left then.’ But the floor was probably much lower if one may judge by the embrasures of the windows.

The convex wall of the martyrium was strengthened on the outside by a double thickness, for it had to support not only the thrust of the new vaulting, but also the weight of the upper church.

As to the rectilinear portions of the crypt, in spite of the alterations of the twelfth century, we may easily recognise the seal of the eleventh century in the piers and the abaci. To S. Fulbert we may also attribute the construction of two sacristies for Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, that on the south side now being the Chapel of S. Martin, that on the north the Cave au Bois, known formerly as the ‘Place of the Iron Chest.’

The upper church was built of the same dimensions as those of the former one, but the ground level of the whole was raised considerably, almost to the height of that of the choir.

The length of the church may be indicated by the excavations of 1849 at the centre of the labyrinth known as La Lieue, where fragments were discovered which are supposed to have been the débris of the western façade. There was a double ambulatory round the choir and chapels corresponding to those of the crypt, and two sacristies may be reckoned to have been built above those of the Sous Terre.

A transept and two side-doors existed in the same place, but of less size than those of to-day.

The decoration of the Cathedral was left in great part to Fulbert’s successors.

Henry I., who came to the throne when death had surprised his father, Robert the Good, as he was copying a manuscript in the Church of Melun, owed his succession in some degree, as we have seen, to Fulbert.

He cancelled his debt in part by paying for the wooden roof[41] of the Cathedral—wooden, for the art of extensive vaulting in stone was not yet understood—whilst Henry’s doctor, Jean le Sourd, the Chartrain pupil of Fulbert and leader of the sect of Nominalists in the battle of the schools, was responsible for the construction of the south gate and many other details. Teudon, who had made the Sainte Chasse for the Veil, undertook the principal façade. A big bell weighing 5000 livres was also hung in one of Vulphard’s towers, which still stood.

Fulbert died in the year 1028, but so rapid had the work been that he did not die before his Cathedral was complete. For William of Malmesbury (Gest., Vol. II. chap. XXV.) records that ‘Bishop Fulbert, among other proofs of his efficient labours, very magnificently completed the Church of Our Lady S. Mary, of which he himself had laid the foundations, and which, moreover,’ he adds, ‘doing everything he could for its honour, he rendered celebrated by many musical modulations. The man who has heard his chaunts, breathing only celestial vows, is best able to conceive the love he manifested in honour of the Virgin.’

Under Fulbert, indeed, the school of Chartres became famous for its music and for its plain-song renderings of the sacred offices. The celebrated François de Cologne and many others are mentioned as having belonged to this school. But Fulbert himself excelled them all in his compositions.[42] For amongst other beautiful canticles he composed, in collaboration, it is said, with King Robert, the famous responses of the Nativity of the Virgin, a feast which he, in grateful remembrance of his wondrous visitant, was the first to celebrate in France. I shall be forgiven for quoting in the untranslatable Latin this noble hymn of love, which is the most beautiful blossom of the poetic crown of Mary.