Читать книгу Life on a Mediaeval Barony - William Stearns Davis - Страница 16

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Conon, we have said, has lived in great harmony with his baroness. Well he might. A short time ago a visiting cavalier, who had learned to string words after the South Country troubadour fashion, saw fit to praise Adela after this manner: "She has fair blond locks and a forehead whiter than the lilies. Her laughing eyes change color with her mood. Her nose is straight and firm. Her fresh face outvies the white and vermilion of the flowers. Her mouth is small and her teeth are white like snow on the wild rose. White are her fair hands, and the fingers are both smooth and slender." Also the baron is very proud of his sister, for whom he is planning a worthy marriage. A Breton jongleur, who found St. Aliquis's hospitality grateful, sang thus of Alienor: "Passing slim is the lady, sweet of bodice and slender of girdle. Her throat is whiter than snow on branch, and her eyes are like flowers set in the healthful pallor of her face. She has a witching mouth, a dainty nose, and an open brow. Her eyebrows are brown, and her golden hair is parted in two soft waves upon her forehead."[20]

Types of Beautiful Women

Both of these laudators exaggerate. Neither Adela nor Alienor has a monopoly of good looks; yet a life of eager exercise in the open has given them both a complexion which many a town-pent rival might envy. Their positions in the castle, as at once the gracious hostesses to equals and the unquestioned mistresses over hundreds of dependents, bestow on them dignity and "noble" assurance. Each lady rejoices in the good fortune of being blond, a first prerequisite to beauty—for in all the romances there is hardly one brunette maiden who comes in for praise. Their hair falls down the length of their arms, to the owners' great satisfaction, and is worn in two long braids, entwined with ribbons, or on gala days with gold thread, resting in front over their shoulders. Adela, at least, has long since become complaisant to all kinds of flatteries, though Alienor is still thrilled when a jongleur or sentimental knight assures her that she has "lips small as an infant's," "cheeks the color of peach bloom," "teeth of perfect regularity," "breath sweet as the censer swung above a church altar," and that "her beauty suddenly illuminates the whole castle." Both of the ladies are tall and slender, again the ideal type of femininity; and they have unconcealed pity for the poor Viscountess of Foretvert, who is short, plump, and afflicted with dark hair.

COIFFURE OF A NOBLEWOMAN

Twelfth century

(cathedral of Chartres).

Alienor's mother is dead, but her sister-in-law is enough older to take her place somewhat and give much well-meant advice, which the younger damsel must take meekly. Adela often admonishes thus: "My fair sister, be courteous and meek, for nothing else so secures the favor of God and of mortals. Be friendly to small and great. I have seen a great duchess bow ceremoniously to an ironmonger. One of her followers was astonished. 'I prefer' replied she, 'to have been guilty of too great courtesy toward that man, than guilty of the least incivility toward a knight.' Also one must shun foreign fashions at festivals and tourneys, lest one become foolishly conspicuous; and above all beware of lofty headgear, lest you resemble stags who must lower their heads on entering a wood, and in order that you may not by your loud fashions make everyone stare at you as if you were a wild beast."

Recently, too, Adela has been giving sisterly advice on how to walk becomingly: "Look straight before you, with your eyelids low and fixed, gazing forward at the ground six fathoms ahead, not changing your look from one place to another, nor laughing, nor stopping to chatter with anybody upon the highway."

Conon, too, has beset poor Alienor, with all the superiority of an elder brother. He has commended the instructions of a certain trouvère (North French minstrel) to a young noblewoman. She must not talk too much; especially she must not boast of the attentions paid by young knights. When going to church she must not "trot or run," but salute "debonairely" all persons she meets. She must not let men caress her with their hands or kiss her upon the mouth. They might misconstrue such familiarities. She must not go around with part of her body uncovered, undress in the presence of men, nor accept presents from any man not a kinsman nor her accepted lover.

Good Manners for Noblewomen

The trouvère instructor also goes on to warn his fair pupils against scolding in public, against overeating, and against getting drunk, "whence much mischief might arise." Unless she is ugly or deformed, she should not cover her face coquettishly. "A lady who is pale faced or has not a good smell ought to breakfast early in the morning! for good wine gives a very good color, and she who eats and drinks well can heighten her complexion." To avoid bad breath eat aniseed and fennel for breakfast. Keep your hands clean and cut your nails so as not to retain dirt. When you are sharing the same dish at table with some one else (as is the custom) do not pick out all the best bits for yourself; and beware of swallowing too large or too hot a morsel of food. Also, wipe your mouth frequently, but on your napkin, and particularly not upon the tablecloth. Also, do not spill from your mouth or grease your hands too much. Young ladies also should keep from telling lies.—Alienor wishes the impertinent trouvère in purgatory.

But following Conon and Adela, Father Grégoire, the chaplain, and then even holy Brother Matthew, the prior of the abbey, takes her in hand. She must avoid sin by never letting her mantle trail disgracefully, lest she seem like a fox whose glory is in his tail. Her maids must avoid repeating gossip. She must never travel without proper retinue, lest she be caught in compromising situations. She must attend mass regularly and not be satisfied "merely with hearing low mass and hurrying two or three times through the Lord's Prayer and then going off to indulge herself with sweetmeats." Alienor should also avoid all games of chance, including backgammon (advice, indeed, at which Conon laughs) and not to waste too much time even at chess, nor to take indecent pleasure in the low songs and antics of the jongleurs. No wonder the poor girl vows she will perversely do these very things at first opportunity![21]

Alienor tells herself, however, that she is fortunate she is not troubled by worse things than hortatory friends. Champions of "equality of sexes" from a later age can become horrified over the legal status of women in the feudal centuries. Females can never bear arms; they must remain perpetually as minors before the law. Even a great heiress will be under severe pressure to take a husband who will perform the military duties of her fief as soon as possible. If a baron dies, leaving only a young daughter, the suzerain can complain that he has been injured in one of his most important rights—his claim to armed service from the fief holder. Where now is the vassal to follow his banner? Perhaps a decent suzerain will wait until the heiress is twelve. Then he will "give" her to some battleworthy follower. She will not have any real choice, even if the bridegroom is old, ugly, and brutal.

On the other hand, many a fatherless girl becomes terribly anxious to be married. Only married women have a fixed status in feudal society. Only a husband can keep an heiress's lands from shameless plunder. There is the familiar story of a young noblewoman who went straight before the king and said: "My father has been dead two months. I demand of you a husband." She never dreamed of suggesting any particular husband. That was the suzerain's business; but to leave her in unprotected celibacy was an outrage which no lord had a right to inflict upon an orphan.

Position of Women in Castles

Legally and morally, husbands have the right to treat their wives harshly if the latter provoke them. Every girl around St. Aliquis knows the story of the silly wife who often contradicted her husband in public, and how, after he had vainly remonstrated, "one day raised his fist, knocked her down, and kicked her in the face while she was prostrate, and so broke her nose." The story conveys the plain lesson that she was directly to blame, "for it is only right that words of authority should belong to her lord, and the wife's duty requires that she should listen in peace and obedience." It is, indeed, repeated as something rather exceptional that Adela has recently boasted to certain relatives: "My husband since our marriage has never once laid hands on me." Not that all castellans are brutal—but after all, men will be men, lose their tempers, and treat their wives accordingly. Everybody knows the scene from an epic poem where a certain king is angered at a tactless remark by his queen, and therefore "shows his anger in his face, and strikes her in the nose so hard that he draws four drops of blood, at which the lady meekly says 'Many thanks. When it pleases you, you may do it again!'" Such submissiveness is the best way to disarm a husband's anger.

Conon has been mildly ridiculed among his fellow knights because he takes counsel with his wife. Minstrels like to make fun of such cavaliers and to commend the baron who told his officious spouse: "Woman, go within and eat and drink with your maids. Busy yourself dyeing silks. Such is your business. Mine it is to strike with the sword of steel!"[22] Of course, many knights do worse things than to tell their wives not to meddle, and, if not obeyed, occasionally knock them down. It has been told how Baron Garnier imprisoned his unhappy consort. This was harsh, but not exceptional. Philip Augustus, the reigning king, kept his unlucky bride, Ingebord of Denmark, long years in captivity, notwithstanding the menaces of the Church; holding her tight in the gloomy Tower of Éstampes, where she complained she had not enough either to eat or to wear. Many nobles sometimes imitate their lord. Thus over in Burgundy, Gautier of Salins recently threw his wife into prison, whence, however, she contrived to escape to her parents. In any case, when, for the sake of her fiefs, a girl of twelve to eighteen is wedded to a husband of forty or fifty, all kinds of unhappy things can happen. The devil can fill the poor damsel's mind with love for a handsome squire. Her lord may neglect her scandalously until suddenly he finds himself required to avenge "his honor" by some deed of startling cruelty. Such things make the kind saints weep. Not without reason does Conon make discreet inquiries concerning a certain widower knight who has sought Alienor's hand: "Does he horsewhip his servants save for good cause? Did he leave his last wife to mope about the hall while he spent his months riotously at the king's court?"

Nevertheless the chatelaines and baronesses of these parts are not always meek doves at the mercy of their husbands. Are they not sprung themselves from a domineering stock? Are they not reared around a castle, which is a great barrack, and where the talk is ever of feuds and forays, horses, lances, and armor? Many a noble lady can answer her husband's fist with a rousing box on the ear, and, if he is not a courageous man, make him quail and surrender before her passions. Her habits are likely to seem very masculine. If she can quarrel like a virago, she can also prove a she-wolf in times of danger. A knight will ride away to the wars, leaving his castle under the command of his wife and feel certain that it will be defended to the inner donjon. The rough men at arms will obey her orders as implicitly as her husband's. In short, the feudal noblewoman is, as might be expected, a compound of mortal weaknesses and excellencies, but all of these qualities are somewhat naïve and elemental.

In any case the castle women cannot complain of being shut up in a harem. They have perfect freedom to meet strange men. If we accept the epic poems, when noble maidens believe a visiting knight to be very handsome they do not hesitate to tell him so to his face. In many love stories the first advances come from the lady, and not infrequently these advances are rather coldly received by the knight. Your average mail-clad cavalier is a man of strong passions, but he is often more interested in war and the chase than in fair maidens. He is seldom a philanderer.

Grossness of Castle Life

If we visited the castles around St. Aliquis and listened to typical jongleurs' tales, we should gather abundant material for monkish preachments. Noble ladies are said to make few difficulties about inviting male visitors to their chambers to sit on their beds while they are still within the same—or entering the room of a male guest and sitting on his bed while conversing very familiarly. Women often meet strangers in scandalously insufficient garments. Ladies also talk with the uttermost freedom to men, quite as openly as young men will talk on ticklish matters among themselves. Many a story, jesting question, or "gab" which is utterly coarse, not to say worse, will be exchanged in mixed company. Young women are seldom well chaperoned. In place of the duenna there is the "waiting woman," herself apt to have her own lover and ready to help her mistress push matters with hers. If there is a sensual intrigue, all criticism ceases if there is, at the end, a formal marriage; but many romances (according to the current stories) in no wise end in marriages. A wedding is by no means the standard climax even to a happy love affair.

The monks, of course, are scandalized at less harmful things than these. They assert that the fair sex, besides being sinful coquettes, are spendthrifts, ruining their husbands by their own extravagance. Women as a sex are inordinately fond of false hair, rouging, and other forms of giving a lie to the faces which God has vouchsafed. As for controlling them, Brother Guyot, of Provins, wrote in despair thus: "The wisest are astray when they wish to judge or correct a woman. She has never found her master, and who can flatter himself that he knows her? When her eyes weep her heart laughs. There are men who teach astronomy, necromancy, geometry, law, medicine, and music; but I have never known a person who was not a fool to take woman for a subject of study."

All the above seems true. Yet when due allowances are made, the number of noblewomen who lead happy, honorable lives is great; and if many barons are unkind to their wives, many others reckon them as their greatest treasures. If reasonable care has been taken not to force the mating of obviously uncongenial couples, a decent respect is likely to result, even after a marriage arranged wholly by outsiders. If, in many of the epics, sundry fair ladies seem unprudish, very many others are superlatively faithful, devoted to their husbands, foes to all evil thoughts and seducers, and know how to draw the line very sharply between those familiar attentions which courtesy demands and those where real sinfulness begins. Even a baron who will curse his wife roundly and switch her shoulders treats her also as his juré, the holder of his pledge, to whom he can trust his honor and leave the command of his castle when he rides to war.

Accomplishments of Castle Women

"A great deal depends upon the woman herself," Adela assures Alienor. Husbands and wives are shut up together in a castle often for weary months, and a clever wife can easily make herself indispensable to her husband, and then rule the whole barony. In short, in treatment of women, as in all things else, the Feudal Age is a jumble of contradictions. You can find the worst and the best. "A good woman suffices to illuminate a kingdom," a poet declares; while even a crusty monk writes that "we ought to love, serve, and honor woman, for out of her we all come." And what, in one sense, is the intense worship of the Virgin but a sign that woman is extraordinarily venerated and very powerful? "God, thou son of St. Mary"—is that not a standing invocation among the knights?

As for the pursuits of the women, there is little about the castle to which they cannot devote themselves. Sometimes they have even to replace the men on armed expeditions. Adela is grateful that she has not had to imitate the great Countess Blanche of Champagne, who (while guardian of her young son) has recently, in 1218, conducted an invading army into Lorraine and burned Nancy, and then again, near Château-Villein, has led her knights in person and won a real pitched battle. Adela, however, understands all the technic of defending the castle in a siege, she can help her husband about the entire peace-time economy of the seigneury, check up the provosts's accounts, sift out the complaints of the peasants, arrange the alms to the poor, and, best of all, knows how to manage the local bishop and abbot, with a mingling of piety, harmless coquetry, and firmness—a great asset for the weal of the barony.

Her greatest task, however, is to direct the perpetual weaving, knitting, embroidering, and sewing of the castle women. Even if some of the finer cloth is imported, nearly all the garments must be made up in St. Aliquis; and the ladies must set their maids as good an example with their needles as the baron must furnish to his men with his sword. The chambers of the palais, and even the garden in summer, seem given over to incessant cutting and sewing; and many a time can you watch the fair Alienor, like the girl in the romance, "seated in her brother's chambers, working a stole and 'amise' in silk and gold, right skillfully; and she made it with care, and many a little cross and many a little star she sets therein, singing all the while the 'Song of the Cloth'"—a gentle, lilting air suitable for the movements of her white hands and her needle.

It was when so engaged that her brother, coming in early from the hounds, vowed he would not spare the dowry to get her a gallant husband; and that night he cast five deniers to the jongleur who praised her to her face before the applauding hall:

She is the rose, the lily, too,

The sweetest violet, and through

Her noble beauty, stately mien,

I think her now the finest queen

Which mortal eyes have ever seen.

Simple, yet coy, her eyes flash joy:

God give her life without annoy

And every bliss whereof I ween!

Customs at Births and Baptisms

Of course, the prime centers of Adela's life are the rearing of her children and the management of her servants. When little François and Anseau were being born, the castle bell, and that, too, of the village church, were all the time rung furiously to induce the saints to ease their mother's labor. Sensible Father Grégoire had to interpose his ghostly authority to check the midwife from at once plunging the feet of the newly born into icy water to toughen them to the cold, or rubbing their cheeks with a gold piece to make them rich. Of course, Conon was delighted each time they told him, "A sturdy son!" On François' advent he called all his vassals to a feast. "Be joyous!" he proclaimed. "There is born the seigneur from whom you will hold your lands. He will give you rich furs, white and gray, beautiful arms, and horses of price. Yes, in twenty years my son will be dubbed a knight!"

CRADLE

Thirteenth-century manuscript in the Cambridge Library (Green).

The young St. Aliquis barons were rocked in beautifully carved cradles. They were bathed before a great fire and wrapped, not merely in the usual long baby clothes, but in little robes of silk and furs, even of precious ermine, to proclaim their noble rank. They were, of course, baptized at first opportunity, because unbaptized children had very dubious chances in the next world. Adela had been unable to go to the ceremony for either, but there had been a great gathering of relatives and vassals; for a christening is the formal acknowledgment of the child's legitimacy and settles many claims to inheritance. A child must have three godparents, two of its own sex and one of the other. At the font, one of these holds the babe round the body, and each of the others grasps a leg. Then the priest dips the child completely in the water. "Bare as a babe at baptism," runs the saying. Of course, the higher the rank of the godparents, the luckier the infant. François is proud already because the Duke of Quelqueparte calls him "godson," and Anseau because he is styled the same by the high Countess of Blois.

Up to seven the young boys were left to the care of their mother. Adela nursed her own sons, although wet nurses were the rule in many noble families; but at least three maids were constantly in attendance on each young sprig of St. Aliquis. Neither François nor Anseau is spared the wholesome diet of many blows. Monkish preachers are always warning against sparing the rod and spoiling the child, and every father and mother heeds this particular admonition. Truth to tell, conditions round a castle often tend to make boys little demons of rascality. All the hall has laughed at the epic "Daurel and Beton," in which a child at four was clever enough to steal his guardian's gloves, and at five to play chess and dice and to ride a tall horse. But François and Anseau are growing up reasonably honest, thanks to frequent dermal pain. They have enjoyed a great variety of toys, most of them of types as old as the Pyramids and which will be a delight in succeeding centuries. There are dolls with hempen wigs, carved wooden soldiers with helms and hauberks, windmills, all kinds of animals made of baked clay, wooden horses, and, of course, an armory of wooden weapons. The scores of children swarming the bailey are at their disposal as playfellows, with the sons of the higher officers preferred. There are innumerable games of the tag variety, but already François is learning to marshal his playmates in military companies. What greater delight than to defend some tower against their father's old foe, Foretvert? It will be lucky if they do not filch real arbalists and shoot deadly bolts at one another.

Education of Young Noblewomen

François is now being taken in hand by his father and taught many things needful for a baron's son to know before he is sent away to be "nourished" by some friendly seigneur. He has no sisters, but his aunt Alienor is just emerging from the usual education of a girl of family. If there had been a local nunnery she might have been sent to the convent school. As it was, Conon took in the daughter of a petty noble, a kind of sister under minor vows, who was half teacher, half attendant.

This good soul has given Alienor rather more of bookish learning than François will probably obtain. The young lady has learned to read and write Romain (North French) and at least to read Latin. The result is that she devours every romance manuscript which she can borrow or can persuade her brother to buy. She has been taught arithmetic fairly well; she has learned the names of the chief stars and constellations and the legend about the "Way of St. Jacques" (the Milky Way). She has picked up a knowledge of healing herbs and is not afraid of the sight of blood, nor does she flinch when binding up a wound. Warfare and tourneys require that young girls should become expert nurses and even make shift to set shattered bones. Of course, she can ride, and at hawking or hunting upon her dear roan Marchegai can keep up with the best; and, like every fortunate maiden in France, her lips are perpetually light with songs—pious or secular, from quaint little chants in honor of the Virgin to the merry

Easter time in April

Sings each small bird gentle,

"Zo fricandés, zo, zo!— Zo fricandés, zo!"

Assuredly, Father Grégoire and the monks have not neglected her religious education. She has learned many prayers, besides the Credo, Ave, and Paternoster, which every Christian child must memorize as soon as possible. Her brother one Easter gave her a finely illustrated psalter, and she has most of the chants by heart. By constant attendance at mass she knows practically the entire service and understands its symbolism. She has plenty of quaint little superstitions, but no degrading ones. At bedtime she repeats a prayer which is popular with all the girls of France: "I implore thee again, Virgin Mary, mayest thou, with all the saints and the elect of God, keep close to me and council me, and further all my prayers and desires: and be with me in all my sorrows and necessities, in all that I am called upon to do, to say, or to think; on all days, at all hours, through all the moments of my life."

Her dolls, of course, have been much finer, and have been retained much longer, than those of François. In her chamber her pet falcon is seldom lacking from his perch—a fact which does not add to cleanliness. She has also a caged magpie which she is laboriously teaching to talk. At the last fair she longed vainly for a rare Eastern parrot, but has consoled herself with a very small lap dog presented by a friendly vassal. Cats abound in the bailey, but they are not pets for noblewomen. There is something plebeian about them. Ill-famed old crones always possess black cats, which possibly partake of the devil. The Church, however, does not support this last belief, because in most nunneries the sisters are forbidden to keep any animals except cats, which evidently belong less to this world than dogs, the companions of secular warriors.

There is one thing which Alienor really loves even better than riding and hawking—a long, hard dance. The mania young people have for dancing is sinful. The Church vainly tries to restrain it. Preferably, Alienor would dance with a handsome knight or squire, yet if these lack, the most indifferent music and company will suffice. The truth is that her robust, vigorous body demands a violent outlet. It is vain for the graver Adela to tell her of the count who allowed so much dancing in his castle that finally at a bal on Christmas Day so many joined the revel and all danced so violently that the floor of his great hall suddenly collapsed. The whole company were flung to the cellar, and the foolish count's own daughter was the first body to be taken out.

At the time of the great Church festivals, of course, comes the delight of the mystery plays, and Alienor herself has participated therein, once as an angel and once also as Queen Esther at the Easter play arranged at Pontdebois by the cathedral clergy. She has hopes now that next Easter she can be Herodias's daughter—which is surely the best part open to women, except that of the Holy Virgin herself.