Anonymous

THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

Power of the Church—Ecclesiastical Legislation—Rapacity of the Papacy—Resistance of the Clergy—The Bull "Clericis Laicos"—Contests between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Power—The Scottish Church—Literature, Science, and Art—State of Learning—The Nominalists and Realists—Medicine—The Universities—Men of Learning and Science—Roger Bacon and his Contemporaries—Historians—Growth of the English Language—Poetry—Architecture—The Early Decorated Style and its Characteristics—Domestic Buildings—Sculpture and Painting—Music—Commerce, Coinage, and Shipping—Manners, Customs, Dress, and Diversions.

Between the reign of John and the termination of that of Richard II. a striking change had taken place in the power of the Church in England. From the zenith of that marvellous dominion over the kingdoms of this world, such as no church or religion had yet exercised in the annals of mankind, it had begun sensibly to wane. From that extraordinary spectacle when, at Courcy, on the Loire, in 1162, the two greatest kings of Christendom, those of England and France, were seen holding the stirrups of the servant of servants, Alexander III., and leading his horse by the reins, to the day when John, just half a century afterwards, laid the crown of this fair empire at the feet of the Pope, "and became a servant unto tribute," everything had seemed to root the Papacy deeper into the heart of the world. Kings, nobles, and people bowed down to it, and received its foot on their necks with profound humility, only occasionally evincing a slight wincing under its exactions. At that period the Church of Rome had reached the summit of its glory; but before the era at which we have now arrived, it had received a stern warning that its days in England were numbered as the established hierarchy. So long as the people were kept ignorant of the Bible, the opposition of king or peer mattered little to it; but the people withdrew their allegiance, and it fell rapidly.

The Pope, who strenuously supported John against his barons, was equally friendly to his infant son, Henry III. Archbishop Langton, now in the ascendant, held a synod at Oxford in 1222, in which fifty canons were passed, some of which let in a curious light on the internal condition of the Church. The twenty-eighth canon forbids the keeping of concubines by the clergy openly in their houses, or visiting them openly, as they did, to the great scandal of religion. In 1237 a council was held at London by Otho, the Papal legate, in which were passed what were afterwards known as the "Constitutions of Otho." The fifteenth and sixteenth canons of this constitution were aimed at the same practices, and at clandestine marriages of the priests, which were declared to be very common.

But the main object of the Church was to collect all the English moneys, and in this pursuit there was no slackness. A cardinal-legate generally resided in this country, whose chief function this was. During Otho's abode here, 300 Italians came over, and were installed in lucrative livings in the churches and abbeys. In pursuance of Magna Charta, that the Church should be free, it became the only free thing in the kingdom; every class of men were its vassals, and England was one huge sponge which the Italian pontiff squeezed vigorously. The barons in 1245 became so exasperated that they sent orders to the wardens of the seaports to seize all persons bringing bulls or mandates from Rome. The legate remonstrated, and the barons then told the king that the Church preferments alone held by Italians in England, independent of other exactions, amounted to 60,000 marks per annum, a greater sum than the revenues of the Crown. The barons went further; they sent an embassy to the Papal council of Lyons, where the Pope was presiding in person, when they declared, "We can no longer with any patience bear these oppressions. They are as detestable to God and man as they are intolerable to us; and, by the grace of God, we will no longer endure them."

But, so far from relaxing his hold, the Pope soon after sent an order demanding the half of all revenues of the non-resident clergy, and a third of those of the resident ones. This outrageous attempt roused the English clergy to determined resistance, and the rapacious Pope was defeated. Amongst the most patriotic of the English prelates was the celebrated Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. Innocent IV., one of the most imperious pontiffs that ever filled the Papal chair, had sent him a bull containing a clause which created a wonderful ferment in the Church and the public mind, commencing with the words Non obstante, which meant, notwithstanding all that the English clergy had to advance, the holy father was determined to have his will, and he commanded the venerable bishop to bestow a benefice upon an infant. The honest bishop tore up the bull, and wrote to the Pope, declaring that the conduct of the see of Rome "shook the very foundations of faith and security amongst mankind," and that to put an infant into a living would be next to the sins of Lucifer and of Antichrist, was in direct opposition to the precepts of Christ, and would be the destruction of souls, by depriving them of the benefits of the pastoral office. He refused to comply, and said plainly that the sins of those who attempted such a thing rose as high as their office.

The astonished Pope was seized with a furious passion on receiving this epistle, and swore by St. Peter and St. Paul that he would utterly confound that old, impertinent, deaf, doting fellow, and make him the astonishment of the world. "What!" he exclaimed, "is not England our possession, and its king our vassal, or rather our slave?"

The resistance of the English clergy only inflamed the cupidity and despotism of the pontiffs. Boniface, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was the servile tool of Rome, and after him Kilwardby, Peckham, and Winchelsey carried things with a high hand. At various synods and councils, held at Merton, Lambeth, London, Reading, and other places, they passed canons, which went to give the Church unlimited power over everything and everybody. The Church was to appoint to all livings and dignities; no layman was to imprison a clergyman; the Church was to enjoy peaceably all pious legacies and donations. The barons wrote to the Pope, remonstrating and complaining against the immorality of the clergy. The Pope replied that he did not suppose the English clergy were any more licentious than they had always been. The possessions of the Church went on growing to such an extent, from the arts of the priests and superstition of the wealthy, that they are said to have amounted to three-fourths of the property of the whole kingdom, and threatened to swallow up all its lands. To put a stop to this fearful condition of things, Edward I. passed his famous statute of mortmain in 1279, and arrested the progress, for a considerable time, of the Papal avarice.

But, perhaps, the finest draught of golden fishes which the imperial representative of Peter of Galilee ever made in England was twenty-five years before the passing of this Act, when he had induced Henry III. to nominate his son Edmund to the fatal crown of Naples, and, on pretence of supporting his claim, the Pope drew from England, within a few years, no less a sum than 950,000 marks, equal in value and purchasable power to £12,000,000 sterling of our present money.

Boniface VIII., famous in his day as the most haughty and uncompromising of the Popes, issued, as we have seen, a bull, known by the name of Clericis Laicos, prohibiting all princes, in all countries from levying taxes on the clergy without his consent. Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced this bull, and forbade Edward I. to touch the patrimony of the Church. But Edward was a monarch of the true British breed, and soon proved more than a match for the archbishop and his Roman master. He held a Parliament at Edmondsbury in 1296, and demanded a fifth of the movables of the clergy They refused. Edward gave them till the next Parliament, in January, 1297, to consider of it, when, still refusing, and supposing themselves victorious, the king coolly told them that as they refused to contribute to the support of the State, they should enjoy no protection from the State. He forthwith outlawed them in a body, and ordered all the sheriffs in England "to seize all the lay fees of the clergy, as well secular as regular, with all their goods and chattels, and retain them till they had further orders from him." He gave orders to all the judges, also, "to do every man justice against the clergy, but to do them justice against no man."

This was a condition of things which they had never expected; no monarch had ever dreamt of, or had dared to attempt, such a measure. It came like a thunderclap upon the clergy. They found themselves insulted, abused, and plundered on every side. The archbishop himself, the author of all this mischief, was stripped of everything, and, when on the verge of starvation, was glad to submit and pay his fifth to recover the rest of his property.

The power of the Popedom had thus been brought into collision with the royal prerogative, and the issue was most damaging to the Papal prestige all over the world. But Winchelsey, having regained his possessions, was too indignant to remain quiet. He held a second synod at Merton, and denounced the utmost terrors of the Church against all sacrilegious invaders of the Church property, and would not rest till Edward obtained his suspension from the next Pope, Clement V., and expelled him the kingdom.

These contests betwixt the civil and ecclesiastical power in England continued through the whole period we are reviewing, that is, from 1307 to 1399, or from the commencement of the reign of Edward II. to the end of that of Richard II. To increase the influence of Rome there had arrived two new orders of friars, the Franciscan and Dominican, in the reign of Henry III. The Franciscans appeared in England in 1216, and the Dominicans in 1217. At first they did good work among the poor, but they soon grew corrupt. To prevent the Pope from thrusting foreigners into English prelacies and benefices, Edward III. passed a second statute of Provisors, and followed it by the statute of PrÆmunire, ordering the confiscation of the property and the imprisonment of the person of every one who should carry any pleas out of the kingdom, as well as of the procurators of such person. This was renewed in 1393 with additional severity by Richard II., when it was made to include all who brought into the kingdom any Papal bull, excommunication, or anything of the kind.

COSTUME OF BISHOP OF THE 14TH CENTURY.

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Eight years prior to this Wycliffe died. His doctrines were rapidly spreading; the reformers, under the name of Lollards, were becoming numerous; the Papal hierarchy was proportionally alarmed, and Arundel, the Archbishop of York, became their most active enemy. But before he could mature his designs against them, he was involved in the prosecution of the adherents of the Duke of Gloucester for procuring a commission to control the king, for which his brother, the Earl of Arundel, was beheaded, and he himself banished. The dawn of the Reformation already reddened in the east, but the day was yet far off.

During the fourteenth century, the leading men of the Church in Scotland signalised themselves rather in the patriotic defence of their country against the English than in theological matters. Amongst the most distinguished of these were Lamberton, of St. Andrews; Wishart, of Glasgow; Landells, who was Bishop of St. Andrews from 1341 to 1385, forty-four years; and Robert Trail, Primate of Scotland, who built the castle of St. Andrews, and died in 1401, leaving a great name for strict discipline and wisdom. It is singular that, during this period, the doctrines of Wycliffe, which had made such ferment in England, appear to have excited little or no attention in Scotland.

During the period now under review—the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—the language of the learned was still Latin, and the circle of education included little more than the Trivium and Quadrivium of the former age, that is, the course of three sciences—grammar, rhetoric, and logic; and the course of four—music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. The grammar was almost exclusively confined to the Latin, for Roger Bacon says that there were not more than three or four persons in his time that knew anything of Greek or the Oriental languages; nay, so gross was the ignorance of the students of the time of the common elementary forms of Latin itself, that Kilwardby, Archbishop of Canterbury, on a visit to Oxford in 1276, upbraided the students with such corruptions as these:—"Ego currit;" "tu currit;" "currens est ego," &c.

When grammar was so defective, the rhetoric taught could not be very profound. The mendicant friars seem to have cultivated it with the greatest assiduity, as necessary to give effect to their harangues, and the Provincial of the Augustinians, in the fourteenth century, was greatly admired for the eloquence of his preaching.

But logic was the all-absorbing study of the time. The clergy who had attended the Crusaders had brought back from the East a knowledge of Aristotle, through Latin translations and the commentaries of his Arabian admirers. His logic was now applied not only to such metaphysics as were taught, but also to theology. Hence arose the School divinity, in which the doctrines taught by the Church were endeavoured to be made conformable to the Aristotelian modes of reasoning, and to be defended by it. If we are to judge of the logic of this period by what remains of it, we should say it was the art of disputing without meaning or object; of perplexing the plainest truths, and giving an air of plausibility to the grossest absurdities. As, for instance, it was argued with the utmost earnestness that "two contrary propositions might be both true." At this time there were several thousand students at Oxford, and Hume very reasonably asks, what were these young men all about? Studying bad logic and worse metaphysics.

FACSIMILE OF PORTION OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL IN THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

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The metaphysics of those days were almost engrossed by the great controversy of the Nominalists and the Realists; the question—agitated with all the vehemence of a matter of life or death—being whether general ideas were realities, or only the particular ideas of things were real. The Nominalists declared that a general idea, derived from comparing a great number of individual facts, was no reality, but a mere idea or name; the Realists contended that these general ideas were as absolute actualities as the individual ones on which they were based. Rocelin of CompiÈgne revived this old question at the end of the eleventh century, and thus became the head of the Schoolmen of those ages; but William of Ockham, in the fourteenth century, again revived this extraordinary question with all its ancient vehemence, his partisans acquiring the name of Ockhamists. Ockham was a Nominalist, and, says an old historian, he and his party "waged a fierce war against another sect of schoolmen, called Realists, about certain metaphysical subtleties which neither of them understood."

Moral philosophy could not be much more rationally taught when metaphysics and logic were so fantastic. Many systems of moral philosophy were taught by the Schoolmen, abounding in endless subtle distinctions and divisions of virtues and vices, and a host of questions in each of these divisions. By the logic, metaphysics and moral philosophy of the Schoolmen combined, the most preposterous doctrines were often taught. For instance, a learned divine taught this proposition in the University of Paris in 1300:—"It may be lawful to steal, and the theft can be pleasing to God. Suppose a young gentleman of good family meets with a very learned professor [meaning himself], who is able in a short time to teach him all the speculative sciences, but will not do it for less than £100, which the young gentleman cannot procure but by theft; in that case theft is lawful—which is thus proved: Whatever is pleasing to God is lawful. It is pleasing to God that a young gentleman learn all the sciences, but he cannot do this without theft; therefore theft is lawful, and pleasing to God."

It was high time that something tangible and substantial should come to the rescue of the human mind from this destructive cobwebbery of metaphysics; and the first thing which did this was the study of the canon law. The civil and the canon laws not only gave their students lucrative employment as pleaders, but were the road to advancement in the Church. The clergy in those ages were not only almost the only lawyers, but also the doctors, though some of the laity now entered the profession as a distinct branch. "The civil and canon laws," says Robert Holcot, a writer of that time, "are in our days so exceedingly profitable, procuring riches and honours, that almost the whole multitude of scholars apply to the study of them."

What was the real knowledge of the science of Medicine at this period we may learn from the great medical work of John Gaddesden, who was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and declared to be the grand luminary of physic in the fourteenth century. "He wrote," says Leland, "a large and learned work on medicine, to which, on account of its excellences, was given the illustrious title of the 'Medical Rose.' This is a recipe in the 'Illustrious Medical Rose' of Gaddesden for the cure of small-pox:—'After this (the appearance of the eruption), cause the whole body of your patient to be wrapped in red scarlet cloth, or in any other red cloth, and command everything about the bed to be made red. This is an excellent cure. It was in this manner I treated the son of the noble King of England, when he had the small-pox, and I cured him without leaving any marks.'" The royal patient thus treated must have been Edward III., or his brother, Prince John of Eltham.

To cure epilepsy, Gaddesden orders the patient "and his parents" to "fast three days and then go to church. The patient must first confess, he must have mass on Friday and Saturday, and then on Sunday the priest must read over the patient's head the Gospel for September, in the time of vintage, after the feast of the Holy Cross. After this the priest shall write out this portion of the Gospel reverently, and bind it about the patient's neck, and he shall be cured."

That is a sample of the practice of medicine from the great work of the chief physician of the age. As to the Surgery of the time, it is thus described by Guy de Cauliac, in his "System of Surgery," published in Paris in 1363:—"The practitioners in surgery are divided into five sects. The first follow Roger and Roland, and the four masters, and apply poultices to all wounds and abscesses. The second follow Brunus and Theodoric, and in the same cases use wine only. The third follow Saliceto and Lanfranc, and treat wounds with ointments and soft plasters. The fourth are chiefly Germans, who attend the armies, and promiscuously use potions, oil, and wool. The fifth are old women and ignorant people, who have recourse to the saints in all cases."

It was high time that a man like Roger Bacon should appear, and teach men to come out of all this jugglery and mere fancy-work both in science and philosophy, and put everything to the test of experiment—a mode of philosophising, however, which made little progress till the appearance, three centuries later, of another Bacon, the great Verulam. For the knowledge of geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and chemistry—or rather astrology and alchemy—as taught at that period, we may refer to our notice of Bacon amongst the great men of the era.

But the number of schools and colleges which were erected during this period is a striking proof that the spirit of inquiry and the love of knowledge were taking rapid and deep root in the nation. In Oxford alone seven colleges were founded during this period. University College was founded by William, Archdeacon of Durham, who died in 1249, and bequeathed 310 marks to provide for four Masters of Arts, a foundation which developed into "University College." Balliol College was founded by John Balliol, the father of John, the King of Scotland, about 1268, and completed by the Lady Devorguilla, his widow. Merton College was founded by Walter Merton, Bishop of Rochester, in 1264. Exeter College was founded by Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, and Peter de Skelton, a clergyman, in 1314. It was first called Stapleton College. Oriel College was founded by Edward II., and his almoner, Adam de Brun, in 1326, and was called the Hall of the Blessed Virgin of Oxford, but derived its permanent name from a fresh endowment by Richard III. Queen's College was founded by Robert Eglesfield, chaplain to Philippa, queen of Edward III., and named in her honour because she greatly aided him in establishing it. New College was named St. Mary's College by its builder and founder, William of Wykeham, who also built the college at Winchester. It was finished in 1386.

In Cambridge, during this period, were founded nine colleges, namely:—Peterhouse was founded by Hugh Balsham, afterwards Bishop of Ely, in 1257. Michaelhouse (now extinct), dedicated to St. Michael, was founded and endowed about 1324, by Harvey de Stanton, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Edward II. University Hall was founded by Richard Badew, Chancellor of the University, in 1326, but was soon after destroyed by fire. King's Hall was built by Edward III., but afterwards united to Trinity College. Clare Hall was a restoration of University Hall, by Elizabeth de Clare, Countess of Ulster, and named in honour of her family. Pembroke College was built in 1347, by Mary de St. Paul, widow of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, in memory of her husband, who was killed in a tournament soon after their marriage. She named it the Hall of Valence and Mary. Trinity Hall was founded in 1350, by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich. Gonville Hall was founded by Edward Gonville, parson of Terrington and Rushworth, in Norfolk, in 1348; after its restoration by Dr. Caius, in 1558, it was termed Gonville and Caius. Corpus Christi College was founded, in 1352, by the united guilds of Corpus Christi and St. Mary, assisted by Henry, Duke of Lancaster.

These were for the most part small and simple establishments at first, but have arrived at their present wealth and magnificence by additional benefactions.

The number of scholars who rushed into these schools at first was something extraordinary; nor were their character and appearance less so. They are described by Anthony Wood as a regular rabble, who were guilty of theft and all kinds of crimes and disorders. He declares that they lived under no discipline nor any masters, but only thrust themselves into the schools at lectures, that they might pass for scholars when they were called to account by the townsmen for any mischief, so as to free them from the jurisdiction of the burghers. At one time, according to Fitz-Ralph, the Archbishop of Armagh, there were no less than 30,000 students—or so-called students—in Oxford alone; but he says that they were again reduced to less than 6,000, so many of them had joined the mendicant friars.

Such was the disorder of the two universities at this time, the violent quarrels, not only between the students and the townspeople, but also between each other, that many of the members of both universities retired to Northampton, and, with the permission of Henry III., commenced a new university there; but the people of Oxford and Cambridge found means to obtain its dissolution from the king. About thirty years afterwards they tried the same experiment at Stamford, but were stopped in the same manner.

London at this time so abounded with schools, that it was called the third university. Edward III. built the college of St. Stephen at Westminster for a college of Divinity, which was dissolved by Henry VIII. Archbishop Bradwardine founded a theological lecture in St. Paul's Church, and John of Gaunt founded a college for divines in St. Paul's Churchyard. There were various schools besides these, but the most remarkable were the great schools of Law, which arose out of the provisions of the Great Charter, which fixed the chief courts of justice at Westminster. Sir John Fortescue, who studied in one of these inns of court, describes them as a great school or university of law, consisting of several colleges. "The situation," he says, "where the students read and study is between Westminster and the City of London. There belong to it ten lesser inns, and sometimes more, which are called the inns of Chancery, in each of which there are a hundred students at least, and in some of them a far greater number not constantly residing." In these the young nobility and gentry of England began to receive some part of their education, so that, with all these colleges of learning and of law, the laity as well as the clergy reaped the benefits of education.

Amongst the theologians of this period none surpass for extent of learning, talent, and eloquence, Robert Grosseteste, or Greathead, Bishop of Lincoln. He was originally a very poor lad; but the Mayor of Lincoln, noticing his quickness of faculty, took him into his house, and put him to school. He studied at Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris, his splendid talents acquiring him many patrons. Bacon, who knew him well, gives this testimony of him:—"Robert Greathead, Bishop of Lincoln, and his friend, Prior Adam de Marisco, are the two most learned men in the world, and excel all the rest of mankind both in divine and human knowledge."

Greathead was one of the very few real Greek scholars of the age, and was equally versed in Hebrew, French, and Latin. But, beyond his learning, which he has embodied in many voluminous works, his noble and independent character stands pre-eminent in those times. We have mentioned his opposition to the Pope inducting mere infants into Church livings; and the caution which the cardinals are reported, by Matthew Paris, to have given the Pope when he threatened to take vengeance on him is remarkable, as indicating their knowledge of the tendency of the age. "Let us not raise a tumult in the Church without necessity, and precipitate that revolt and separation from us which we know must one day take place."

But the man of that time in philosophy was Roger Bacon, as Chaucer was in literature. Bacon was born near Ilchester, and educated at Oxford, and afterwards at Paris. On his return to England, at the age of twenty-six, he again settled at Oxford, and entered the order of Franciscan friars of that city, that he might study at leisure. He soon abandoned the beaten track, and struck out a course of inquiry and experiment for himself. He was not content to study Aristotle alone at second hand, but he made himself master of Greek, and went to the fountain-head of ancient knowledge.

But that did not satisfy him. He sought to make himself acquainted with Nature, the great fountain of all our human knowledge. He declared that if you would know the truth you must seek it by actual inquiry and experiment. In this system of philosophising he preceded Francis Bacon nearly three centuries and a half; but he was before his time, and, therefore, the benefit of his teaching was, to a large extent, lost. His great work, the "Opus Majus," contains the result of his researches; and he states in that work that he had expended £2,000 in twenty years on apparatus and experiments—a sum equal to £30,000 of our money at present. This he had done through the generosity of his friends and patrons, having made a greater amount of discoveries in geometry, astronomy, physics, optics, mechanics, and chemistry, than ever was accomplished by any one man in an equal space of time. In his treatise on optics, "De Scienti PerspectivÂ," he gives you the mode of constructing spectacles and microscopic lenses. In mechanics, he talks of having ascertained by experiments wonders that we have not yet reached by steam; of a mode of propelling ships so that they should require only one man to guide them, and with a velocity greater than if they were full of sailors. "Chariots," he says, "may be constructed that will move with incredible rapidity, without the help of animals." He speculated and believed in the capability of raising the most wonderful weights by mechanical contrivance, and of walking on the bottom of the sea. But, unfortunately, he has not left us the explicit exposition of these marvels. His system of chemical analysis has, however, been greatly praised by some modern chemists, and it is evident that he was well acquainted with gunpowder. "A little matter," he says, "about the bigness of a man's thumb makes a horrible noise, and produces a dreadful corruscation; and by this a city or an army may be destroyed several ways." He then explains that sulphur, saltpetre, and powdered charcoal are the ingredients of this wonderful explosive substance. Whether Bacon discovered this mixture, or whether he learnt it in his Asiatic reading, is a moot point. At all events, he knew the fact, and in the reign of Edward III. gunpowder came into use in war.

Bacon was the martyr of science. Instead of benefiting by his discoveries, the ignorant monks of his order accused him of necromancy and dealing with the devil. He was kept in close confinement for years, and was not allowed to send his "Opus Majus" to any one except the Pope. After receiving a copy of it, Clement IV. procured him his liberty, but he was very soon imprisoned again by Jerome de Esculo, general of the Franciscan order. He continued in confinement this time eleven or twelve years, and, on coming out, old and broken down by his cruel suffering, he still continued his labours with undiminished ardour till his death about 1294.

A kindred spirit to Bacon was Michael Scott, who was born about the beginning of the thirteenth century at his family seat in Scotland. By his study of astrology and alchemy in common with Bacon and the great inquirers of the time he obtained the reputation of a magician, which has mixed up his name with the wildest popular [493]
[494]legends and superstitions of Scotland. So strong were the convictions of his countrymen that he was a magician that Dempster assures us many people in Scotland in his time dared not so much as touch his works. Bishop Tanner says, "He was one of the greatest philosophers, physicians, and linguists of his age; and, though his fondness for astrology, alchemy, physiognomy, and chiromancy made people think him a magician, none speaks or writes more respectfully of God and religion than he does." He was deeply read in the Greek and Arabic languages, and, while residing at the court of the Emperor Frederick II., he translated for that prince the works of Aristotle into Latin, to which Bacon attributes the high admiration which those works obtained afterwards in Europe.

THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURY COLLEGES OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY. (See p. 491.)

Duns Scotus, though supposed to be of Scottish origin, was educated at Oxford, from which seat of learning he went to Paris, to maintain before the university of that city his favourite doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin. He had profoundly studied moral philosophy, mathematics, civil and canon law, and school divinity. No man of his age was so admired and applauded, but his works now sleep, covered with the dust of ages.

William of Ockham was a very learned and eloquent theologian, who maintained the temporal independence of kings, and was supported, against all the efforts of three successive Popes to crush him, by his patron, the Emperor Ludwig of Germany; but on the death of that prince he was compelled to recant. He did not long survive this humiliation, having for many years borne the title of the Singular and Invincible Doctor. During his life appeared Wycliffe, who, under happier auspices, proclaimed the freedom of religion.

The historians of this period, from whom, and from the parliamentary writs and statutes, our history is derived, are chiefly these:—

Matthew Paris is the great writer of the period. Besides a Historia Minor, he wrote the important Chronica Majora. Under this title, however, is included the work of three or four, all monks of St. Albans, namely, Roger Wendover, Matthew Paris, an unknown writer, and William Rishanger. Matthew Paris's own share comprehends only the period from 1235 to 1259, about twenty-five years. He continues Wendover, and Rishanger continues him. Besides this, he wrote the lives of twenty-three abbots of St. Albans. Wendover's chronicle, "Flores Historiarum," reaches from the Creation to the year 1235, and is divided at the birth of Christ into two halves. Matthew Paris, in copying Wendover, has taken care to infuse here and there his own spirit, which was one of great freedom of remark on kings, priests, popes, and, what is singular, on the usurpations of the Court of Rome itself. Matthew had seen the world and courts, and had picked up a large quantity of amusing anecdotes and curious characteristics of great men. He went as visitor of the Benedictine order to Haco of Norway, and, at the Pope's instance, made a visitation of the monastery of Holm, in that kingdom. He was employed in writing history by Henry III., and even assisted by him in it. He says, "He wrote this almost constantly with the king in his palace, at his table, and in his closet; and that prince guided his pen in writing in the most diligent and condescending manner." No historian who has written of his own times has shown more boldness and independence than Matthew Paris. Though a monk, he did not hesitate to paint the corruptions of a monastic life in the plainest colours, nor to denounce the corruptions of the Church and hierarchy at large with equal honesty. For this he has been assailed, and charged even with interpolating falsehoods by those whom his honest freedom had offended. But Matthew Paris was not only a most accomplished man for that age, but one of the most incorruptible of those who ever associated with kings and pontiffs. He is declared at the same time to have been "famous for the purity, integrity, innocence, and simplicity of his manners."

Matthew of Westminster also wrote "Flowers of History," of which the earlier part is based on Roger of Wendover, but which is a valuable authority for the reigns of John, Henry III., and Edward I.

Thomas Wykes wrote a chronicle extending from the Conquest to 1304. He was a canon in the Abbey of Osney. The latter years of his chronicle, from 1289, are supposed to be by another hand.

Walter Hemingford, a monk of the Abbey of Gisborough, in Yorkshire, wrote a chronicle of about the same period with Wykes, continued by later hands to 1346.

John de Trokelowe and Henry de Blandford who are supposed to have been monks of St. Albans, wrote histories of Edward II., as did also the anonymous monk of Malmesbury.

Bartholomew Cotton, whose work has been published in the Rolls Series, copied other chronicles in his earlier pages; but the reign of Edward I. to the year 1298 is a very valuable contribution to our history.

Robert of Avesbury, who was registrar of the court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote the history of Edward III. to the year 1356. His account is most valuable. He gives us many particulars that appear nowhere else, which, as he had access to the best sources, are undoubtedly correct. They serve to test the accounts of Froissart, who is apt to merge into the romantic. In this work of Avesbury's abound original letters of Edward regarding the attack on Cambray in 1336, and the expedition into Brittany in 1342; besides relations of the circumstances which led to the battle of CreÇy by officers and eye-witnesses, and dispatches from the camps of the Earl of Derby and the Black Prince, with similar most interesting and invaluable documents.

Adam of Murimuth wrote the history of Edward II. and the earlier part of that of Edward III. He was engaged much in public affairs as ambassador, both from the clergy to the Pope at Avignon, and from the king to the Court of Rome, as well as afterwards to the King of Sicily on account of Edward's claims in Provence. He saw much and, as professor of civil law, was much engaged in affairs of the Government, but his account is somewhat meagre and dry.

Besides these, we may name Nicholas Trivet, who wrote "Annals," from 1136 to 1307; and Ralph Higden, whose "Polychronicon" ends in 1357, and has been translated into English by John of Trevisa. Robert de Brunne, or Manning, a canon of Brunne, in Lincolnshire, wrote a rhymed chronicle, including versions or appropriations of Ware's old French poem of Brut, and Peter Langtoft's French "Rhymed Cronicall." The latter part, from King Ina to the death of Edward I., has some historic merit. Henry Knighton, a canon of Leicester, is the author of a history from the time of King Edgar to 1395, and of an account of the deposition of Richard II. His work is of great authority in the latter of these reigns. Thomas de la Moor wrote a life of Edward II., and asserts that he had the account of the battle of Bannockburn and Edward's last days from eye-witnesses.

In Scottish history of this period, we have the "Scoticronica" of Sir Thomas Gray of Heton, who was a native of the north of England, being taken prisoner by the Scots. He has left us in his "Cronicall" many particulars of the times of Wallace. Andrew Wyntoun, the author of the "Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland," was living in the long reign of David II., and his rhymed chronicle reaches from the beginning of the world, in the fashion of those times, to the year 1424. He was canon of the priory of St. Andrews. The portion of his chronicle from the beginning of the reign of David II. to the end of Robert II. is supposed to be by another hand. John Fordun's "Scotichronicon" is a regular chronicle of Scotland to the year 1385. This work was continued by Walter Bower, Abbot of St. Icolmkill (Iona), in the fifteenth century.

Besides these, the monastic registers of Mailros (Melrose), ending in 1270; of Margan, ending 1232; of Burton, ending 1262; and Waverley, ending 1291, afford evidence of the history of Scotland and England, and of the literary talent of the two countries at this time.

But it is to the poets of this era that we must look for the chief genius, and the evidences of the progress of literature in the nation. It is a singular fact that, while the Roman Church had continued the use of the Latin language during the Middle Ages, it had neglected, or rather discouraged, the reading of the great Roman and Greek writers, so that the Greek and Roman classical literature became, as it were, extinct. The great classical authors which were not destroyed lay buried in the dust of abbeys and monasteries. So completely were Greek literature and the Greek tongues forgotten, that, as we before stated, we find Bacon declaring that there were not above four men in England who understood Greek, or could pass the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid—the familiar pons asinorum, or bridge of asses. So utterly were the clergy unacquainted with Greek that, on finding a New Testament amongst the books of the Reformers, they declared that it was some new heretical language. But, as knowledge revived, the same men who were the greatest advocates for classical studies and the restoration of the classical writers to public use were those who began also to write in their vernacular tongues; and this was especially the case with Petrarch in Italy.

Latin was the almost universal language of the learned in art, science, and literature still at this period. The works of the chroniclers were written in Latin for the most part; Bacon wrote all his works in Latin. But for some time, in the chief countries of Europe, eminent authors—and especially the poets—had begun to use their native tongues. Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch in Italy had set the example; Froissart had done it in French; and now our great poets in England did the same.

This was a proof that the English language was now travelling up from the common people, and establishing itself amongst all ranks. The Norman nobles and gentry found themselves speaking English, and engrafting on it many of their own terms. Metrical romances and songs had long been circulated amongst the people; they now reached the higher classes. Robert of Gloucester versified the chronicle of Robert of Monmouth; Peter Langtoft, a canon of Bridlington, found his chronicle in French verse translated into English by Robert Manning of Brunne, already mentioned. This was the English of that day:—

About the middle of the fourteenth century William Langland, a secular priest of Oxford, wrote a famous satirical allegory against persons of all professions, called "The Vision of Piers Plowman." This is written in alliterative verse, and its language appears to be of a purposely archaic type. This is precisely what Spenser did in his "Faery Queen," in the reign of Elizabeth; he went backwards in his diction, so that now it is nearly obsolete, while the language of his contemporary, Shakespeare, is still sterling English, and likely to continue so. Who could imagine that these lines were written in the same age as those which we shall place beside them by a contemporary?

Take now these few lines from John Barbour, of the same period:—

Now this was the work, not of an English, but of a Scottish poet, who wrote in English.

John Barbour was born in Aberdeen in 1316, though the date is somewhat uncertain. He became, under David II., Archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1356. He obtained permission of Edward III., through his own sovereign, to study at Oxford, and became famous, not only as a divine and philosopher, but as a poet, only surpassed in that age by Chaucer, and certainly far more purely English in his language than Chaucer himself. His great poem is the story of Robert Bruce and his noble companions, Douglas and Randolph, Earl of Moray.

Of the English poets, with a reference to Lawrence Minot, who celebrated the exploits of Edward III. in martial poems, and has, therefore, been styled the TyrtÆus of his age, we shall now only mention Gower and Chaucer.

John Gower was of an ancient and opulent family—we believe the Duke of Sutherland claims him as his ancestor—and he consequently received the best education that the age could supply. He was born in 1324, and entered the Inner Temple at a suitable age. He rose high in his profession, and indulged himself in his leisure hours in poetry. Gower wrote, besides smaller pieces, three considerable poems, one in Latin, one in French, and one in English, namely:—"Speculum Meditantis," "Vox Clamantis," and "Confessio Amantis." There is no question that they possess much poetical merit, and they were greatly admired in their own time and long afterwards, but at present they would find few who could enjoy them. The "Speculum Meditantis" is a moral poem, recommending fidelity and mutual affection to married people; and hence Chaucer styled him the "Moral Gower"—a name which has continued with him. To our taste he is more moral than poetical. Gower was originally disposed to call for reform in the Church, which he describes in dark colours; but the rebellion of Wat Tyler frightened him, and he became strongly opposed to Wycliffe and his doctrines. Yet he was a timid courtier. He dedicated his "Confessio Amantis" to Richard II., and afterwards to his dethroner, Henry of Lancaster.

There can be no doubt that the successful appearance of Chaucer in his native English induced Gower to do the same.

Chaucer was a far bolder, and far more original man. It is the most striking proof that English had now taken firm hold at the court itself, when two such men as Gower and Chaucer cast the chance of their fame into that vehicle. Chaucer was brother-in-law to John of Gaunt, having married Philippa, the sister of John of Gaunt's third wife, Catherine Swynford. Chaucer was educated at both Cambridge and Oxford. He was a page to Edward III., and went as ambassador to Genoa and Flanders. On the former occasion it is probable that he met with Petrarch, for he says in the prologue to the "Clerk's Tale":—

Chaucer's great poem, the "Canterbury Tales," is a collection of poems which, for spirit, humour, knowledge and enjoyment of life, have nothing like them, except Shakespeare. They are full of vigour, beauty, and the most subtle sense. They sparkle, burn, and laugh on every page. We have the most vivid picture of the times, and all the varied characters amongst whom he lived. We feel what a buoyant, genial soul he was, and yet we know that he did not escape without his troubles and his deep griefs. Warton, in his "History of English Poetry," says of him:—"Chaucer surpasses his predecessors in an infinite proportion. His genius was universal, and adapted to themes of unbounded variety. His merit was not less in painting familiar manners with humour and propriety than in moving the passions, and in representing the beautiful or the grand objects of Nature with grace and sublimity." Truly is he called the father of English poetry, and he had no real successor till the appearance of Spenser and Shakespeare.

We have already traced (see chapter XXVI.) the progress of the Early English style of architecture from its rise and through the best period of its duration. It has been seen how, by combining into one window two or more lancets, and the circle above them, tracery was made. This at first was left solid and was not moulded, and the form of the tracery was simple—generally a circle, or circles, in the head or intersecting lines. The introduction of tracery gave great facilities for enlarging the width of the windows; and we accordingly find those of two or more lights gradually superseding the lancet.

After this change it is difficult to distinguish the late examples of one style from the early ones of the other; indeed, tracery may be regarded as the commencement of the transition. But in the beginning of the reign of Edward I. a more decided change took place—tracery proper became fully developed. However, the architects had not yet ventured on the graceful flowing lines of the true Decorated style; they clung to their geometrical forms, and therefore we find, in windows of this time, circles, triangles, both plain and spherical squares, quatrefoils, trefoils, etc.; and, for this reason, this style of Edward I. has been called Geometrical, or Early Decorated, which well distinguishes it from the fully developed, or flowing Decorated. This is, perhaps, the best period of English architecture; for, though the geometrical forms give a certain stiffness to the tracery, it is more than compensated by the extreme beauty and finish of the workmanship. The imitation of natural foliage was perfect, and the drawing of the human figure more chaste and finished than at any other period. The style continued through the reign of the first Edward, after which it gradually changed into that of the more perfect Decorated.

The Decorated style differs from the Early English in its windows, which, instead of being lancets, or having tracery of the simplest forms, had the head entirely filled with tracery, either of geometrical forms, or ramifying from the mullions in the most easy and graceful manner, and in every variety of design; and the same character distinguishes them from the next, or Perpendicular style, in which the mullions are carried through in perpendicular lines to the head of the window.

In the Decorated style, Gothic architecture seems to have attained its greatest excellency; this was its culminating point. Up to this period it had gone on improving from change to change; its principles had been fully carried out, and the fancy seems to have run wild in imagining new forms of beauty. The more we contemplate the buildings of this period the more we are struck with admiration at the wonderful powers of invention possessed by the architects and workmen of the time. Wherever ornament was wanted, there it was ready, and always beautiful and appropriate. They possessed a keen perception of the beauties of Nature, and hands capable of giving form to those perceptions. But when so much perfection had been attained, it is not unnatural, however it may be regretted, that the next change should be in a downward direction. This was the case here; and the introduction of the straight line led to the entire destruction of all that grace and freedom so much admired in Decorated Gothic architecture.

Many of our finest ecclesiastical buildings are in this style. The beautiful crosses of Northampton, Waltham, and Geddington, erected by Edward I. to the memory of his Queen Eleanor, are of the early or Geometrical period, and afford many valuable details.

Exeter Cathedral, the nave of York, the chapel of Merton College, Oxford, and the Chapter House, Wells, offer excellent examples of the Geometrical period.

The west front of York is the finest specimen of a Decorated front we possess, and the details are of the most exquisite description, both in design and execution.

The Chapter House, York, is of Early Decorated character. It is octagonal and groined, and is said by Rickman to be "by far the finest polygonal room, without a central pillar, in the kingdom, and the delicacy and variety of its ornaments are nearly unequalled." That it must, even at the time of its erection, have been considered "unequalled" is shown by the inscription at the entrance:—

The Chapter House, Wells, is another extremely beautiful building of the same period, but this is supported by a central pillar.

Many fine churches of this style are to be found in various parts of the kingdom, of which one of the finest is Howden, in Yorkshire; but many of them, though belonging to this period, are very plain in their details.

The monuments of this century are, both in composition and execution, the finest which exist. We have many fine bold compositions in Early English, and many very elaborate ones in the Perpendicular style, but none of them equal the Decorated in chasteness of design and delicacy of execution.

The monument of Aymer de Valence in Westminster Abbey is a fine specimen of Early Decorated; the Percy shrine at Beverley Minster is another splendid example; and the effigy of Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abbey is one of the most elegant figures in this or any other country.

Towers.—Many church towers in this style are finished with spires, which are frequently crocketed and have spire lights, and sometimes they are banded with quatrefoils.

Windows.—These are the most important features of the Decorated style, and will require the greatest attention. In its early period, or what is called Geometrical, the lancet window is still sometimes used; but it is foliated and not plain, as in Early English. The heads of two-lights windows are divided by arches springing from the mullions. The spaces are filled with triangles, trefoils, quatrefoils, circles, etc., all the forms being such as could easily be drawn with the compasses; but the ogee, or flowing curve, is never used. In larger windows the same filling up of the head with geometrical forms is used, and plain intersecting tracery is not uncommon. These forms are combined in many different manners, and great variety is produced. The window given from Meopham is an example of early tracery.

By an easy and natural process this stiff tracery gave way to the flowing line which succeeded it. One of the earliest modifications was to fill the head of the window with flowing quatrefoils. This was much used in the time of Edward II. The use of the flowing line gave such great facilities for design, that the varieties of tracery are almost innumerable; so much so, that they are difficult to describe, or even to classify, and in our small space it is impossible. They, however, all agree in one principle—that is, in the mullions branching into tracery, and not being carried through to the head of the window, as in the next style. The one given from St. Mary's, Beverley, is a good example for showing the manner in which the lines of the mullions were carried up. There are many windows in this style which have ogee heads and canopies.

Doorways.—In small churches the doorways have frequently but little, except the mouldings, to distinguish them. These are carried without interruption down to the ground. They are commonly quite plain, but have sometimes hollows filled with the ball-flower or foliage. In cathedrals and large buildings the doorways are usually of large dimensions, and are often very deeply recessed. They are richly moulded, and the hollows filled with a profusion of ornament and foliage, among which the four-leaved flower and ball-flower are conspicuous. They have generally shafts, with capitals and bases; these shafts are not detached, as in the Early English, but cut in the same stone as the mouldings. Sometimes a series of niches with figures is carried round the door.

The finest examples we have of Decorated doors are those of the west front of York, and the south door of the choir, Lincoln. A canopy, either single or double, sometimes flowing and sometimes straight-lined and richly crocketed, is often carved over the door.

Porches are not numerous, but of great variety of form, and can in general be distinguished only by their mouldings and details. They have frequently a considerable projection, with windows in their sides and groined roofs. There is a very curious one at Over, in Cambridgeshire, which has clustered shafts and pinnacles at the angles. Wooden porches with ornamental barge boards are not uncommon.

The Buttresses of this style are usually very rich. The earlier ones are in general finished with a small gable or canopy reaching as high as the parapet, as at Merton College, Oxford, where the pediment is filled with a trefoil, and the gargoyle, or water-spout, of grotesque design, passes through just under it. Below this is a panel of window tracery, and the lower stage of the buttress has another pedimented head. This kind of buttress, though commonly plainer, belongs to the Geometrical period. A much richer variety of the same kind occurs at the west front of Howden, where there is a canopied niche with a figure in it; and the buttress terminates in a turret pinnacle, with open-work tracery, and a crocketed spire. In the later period of the style the buttresses are in many cases enriched with canopied niches, with or without figures, in both stages. Sometimes they have a plain set-off instead of a pediment; but in all cases they may be known by their peculiar mouldings. They are also repeatedly set on the angles of buildings diagonally, which is not the case in the preceding style.

The Pinnacles are numerous, and very fine. They are in general square, and set on diagonally; the sides are frequently panelled, and terminate in crocketed canopies, or gablets, from which rises the spire, which is also crocketed at the angles, and terminates in a finial. The foliage of the Crockets and Finials is loose and free, and has not the square stiff form so observable in the Perpendicular.

The Pillars of this style in small churches are occasionally octagonal or plain round; but in large buildings they are very various in section. They have, at times, a number of small shafts surrounding a central pillar; but these shafts are, like those of the doors, cut out of the same block, and not detached, as in the Early English style. In some instances the central mass is a lozenge, and in others a square set diagonally. In some cases, as at Exeter, it consists of a number of equal-sized small shafts set round a lozenge body. The small shafts are repeatedly filleted.

The Bases have not the rounds and deep hollows which we find in the Early English, but are generally made up of rounds or roll mouldings.

The Capitals are important, and form one of the most valuable marks of the style. They are often without ornament, and can then be distinguished only by their mouldings. Sometimes they have the ball-flower, and occasionally heads or human figures; but the most usual design is a wreath or ball of foliage. In the Early English style we see the stems of the foliage rising from the neck mould, or astragal, and turning over under the abacus of the capital; but in the present style we have most commonly a stem with its leaves wrapped round the bell of the capital, and filling up the space like a ball. The one here given from Selby is an excellent example of the general appearance of a rich Decorated capital; but the foliage is infinitely varied. Sometimes it is long and flowing, encircling the whole capital of a clustered column; but in general it is a faithful copy of natural forms, the oak, the ivy, the maple, and the vine being the plants most generally copied; and this is done with great delicacy and grace. Decorated foliage, whether of capitals, corbels, or cornices, is greatly superior to that of any other style; and nothing can exceed the skill with which it is drawn and carved.

Arches.—These are not so acute as those of the Early English. The equilateral is the one most frequently used, but sometimes it is still lower. They are generally moulded, but the mouldings are in many instances bold quarter rounds or filleted rounds, and sometimes the arches are merely plainly chamfered. In a few instances the mouldings of the arch are carried down to the ground without the intervention either of capital or impost. In large buildings vaulting shafts are carried up the pillars to support the groining of the Roof, which is much more complicated than in the Early English. Numerous extra ribs are introduced, and richly carved bosses placed at the intersections, which give it much richness and variety. Many beautiful open timber roofs of this style still remain, both in churches and houses. Stone groining is imitated in wood in cases where it would not be safe to place the weight of a stone roof on the walls.

The Mouldings and Ornaments are quite us important in this as any other period, as a means of distinguishing one style from another, and fixing the date of a building. The mouldings have lost the boldness of the Early English, but they have gained a greater neatness. The rounds are not so wide, and have frequently one, two, or sometimes three small fillets running along them. Another moulding, very peculiar to this style, is a round, the upper half of which projects over the lower; it is called the roll-moulding. There are also two ornaments which belong almost as exclusively to the Decorated as the zigzag to the Norman, or the tooth ornament to the Early English. These are called the ball-flower and the four-leaved flower, of which we give examples. They are used, particularly the ball-flower, in cornices, capitals, corbels, in the mouldings of doors and windows, and in every place where ornament can be used. The ball-flower is even used as crockets on the spire of Salisbury Cathedral; and the mullions and tracery of some of the windows in Gloucester Cathedral are completely filled with it.

Diaper-work is very extensively used in this style in the backs of niches, on buttresses, and for covering spaces where other ornament could not well be used.

Towards the end of the reign of Edward III. a great revolution in architecture was in progress. The change was first indicated by the introduction of straight lines among the flowing tracery of the windows, by which the beautiful freedom of their design was much impaired. This was followed by the foliage and other ornamental parts becoming more stiff and formal, and losing their truthfulness to nature.

It is curious to see how this idea of the perpendicular line and of a tendency to general squareness of form seems to have taken possession of the minds of the architects of the period; and it can only be attributed to the inherent love of variety and a desire for novelty. All things showed the approach of a change, which certainly was not the work of any one individual, but was rather the effect of a pervading idea, until William of Wykeham embodied and improved it, and brought out the new or Perpendicular style, which will be the subject of a future chapter.

Of the Domestic Buildings of the fourteenth century many good specimens yet remain. They were almost all built more or less for defence; and the more exposed the situation, the more were the defences increased, until it is difficult in many cases to say whether a building should be considered a house or a castle. The saying that "An Englishman's house is his castle" was at this time literally true. They were mostly moated, and contained but few rooms, one of which was much larger than the rest—the hall.

Of the military strongholds, or Castles, properly so called, many of the finest we possess were built during this period; among which may be mentioned Carnarvon, Chepstow, Kidwelly, Pembroke, Windsor, Clifford's Tower in York, Warwick, etc. The masonry of these is of the most perfect description; the courses, as at Clifford's Tower, York, being laid regularly through the whole extent of the building; thus showing that in castellated, as well as in every other branch of architecture, the Edwardian period stands pre-eminent.

The art of Sculpture was necessarily inseparable from ecclesiastical architecture. In our churches of the feudal ages the sculptured canopies, chantries, tracery, and statues are of singular merit and great poetic beauty in many instances, and in none more than in those of this period. They show a marked advance on the prior period. Both in the Early English and the Decorated orders we have exquisite specimens of sculpture, in spite of the destruction of the Reformation and the ravages of time. At York, Ely, Lichfield, Durham, Wells, and Westminster Abbey we can yet admire the labour of the sculptors of the eras of Henry III. and Edward I. In the cathedrals of Glasgow and Aberdeen, as well as in the splendid remains of Elgin and Holyrood, we have yet traces of it. The foliage, the trefoils, and quatrefoils of this period are peculiarly free, natural, and simple. In the Decorated order, at Croyland and Tintern, in the nave at York, in the magnificent choir at Lincoln, at Beverley, Ripon, and Carlisle, as well as in the beautiful ruin of Melrose, and a few churches in Scotland, we ought not to pass over the sculpture. On many of these graceful works the monks themselves are said to have laboured, and Walter de Colchester, sacristan of the abbey of St. Albans, is expressly celebrated by Matthew Paris as an admirable statuary.

We are assured, too, that Painting was carried to a great extent in adorning the palaces and churches of this period, though we find scarcely any trace of it left. Henry III. kept several painters constantly at work, whose names are recorded, and who executed many beautiful paintings at his various palaces at Westminster, Winchester, Woodstock, Windsor, Kenilworth, etc. Bishop Langton painted the history of the wars and life of Edward I. on the walls of the episcopal palace at Lichfield. Edward III. collected by royal order painters from all quarters to decorate his palace at Westminster; and Foxe, in his "Acts and Monuments," tells us that the principal churches and chapels had not only portraits of the Madonna and the saints, but the walls were extensively decorated with paintings. So that, whatever its merits, painting was much in demand in this period.

Of Music as practised at this period we can only speak historically, for no proofs appear to have come down to us of the actual written music of the times. Though we had good writers on music in the fourteenth century, it is not till the fifteenth that we are enabled to judge of what the music of our ancestors was by actual notation. We know that both the ancient Gauls and Britons were extremely fond of music, and that at all the banquets of the nobles their minstrels accompanied their songs on the harp. The minstrel in most European countries was a union of the poet and musician. He composed his own music, and sang it. For this cause he was the welcome guest at all great houses. Every great baron—as well as our monarchs—kept his train of minstrels who composed songs in honour of their martial deeds, and sang them to the harp at their tables. Matilda, queen of Henry I., was, according to William of Malmesbury, so fond of music, that she expended all her revenues upon it, and oppressed her tenants to pay her minstrels. John of Salisbury declares that the great of his time imitated Nero in his extravagance towards musicians. He says they prostituted their favour by bestowing it on minstrels and buffoons.

Richard I. was not only extremely fond of minstrels, but was a distinguished one himself, and every one knows the story of his being discovered by his minstrel Blondel in his prison in Germany. Edward I. would have lost his life by assassination during the Crusades, but his harper, hearing the struggle, rushed in and brained the assassin with a tripod. We could accumulate a whole volume of such facts all through our history; but one which shows, too, how well the musicians were rewarded is that Roger, or Raherus, the king's minstrel in the reign of Henry I., in the year 1102, according to Leland, founded the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew, in West Smithfield, became the first prior, and so remained till his death.

The first Earl of Chester gave a freedom of arrest on any account to all minstrels who should attend Chester Fair, and the last earl was rescued from the Welsh who besieged him in Rhuddlan Castle, by a band of these minstrels and their followers, who rushed away from the fair for that purpose.

John of Gaunt established a court of minstrels at Tutbury, in Staffordshire, traces of which remained to our own times.

In the Middle Ages, Du Cange says that these men swarmed so about the houses and courts of the great, and princes spent such large sums on them, as completely to drain their coffers. In fact, it would appear in all ages of our history that a singer would, as now, carry off more in one season than a popular author would in his whole life. The king in those times had accompanying him, when he went on his warlike expeditions, besides the musicians of the army, and expressly attached to his own train, fifteen or more minstrels. The nobles had often large bands of them in their houses. We read in the household book of the Earls of Northumberland of the regulations for the minstrels; and Bishop Percy, one of that family, in his "Hermit of Warkworth," says:—

Trokelowe the chronicler gives us a very curious passage demonstrating at once the state assumed by minstrels at this period, and the free access which they had to the very presence of royalty. What is more, it shows that women were now accredited minstrels. When Edward II. in 1316 solemnised the feast of Pentecost, and sat at table in royal state in the Great Hall at Westminster, attended by the peers of the realm, a certain woman, dressed in the habit of a minstrel, riding on a great horse, trapped in the minstrel fashion, entered the hall, and going round the several tables, acting the part of a minstrel, at length mounted the steps to the royal table, on which she deposited a letter. Having done this, she turned her horse, and, saluting all the company, she departed.

When the letter was read it was found to contain severe animadversions on the king's conduct; at which he was greatly offended, and the door-keepers being called and reprimanded for admitting her, they replied "that it never was the custom of the king's palace to deny admission to minstrels, especially on such high solemnities and feast-days."

The harp was the great and favourite instrument, but we now find a number of others mentioned. The band of musicians in the household of Edward III. consisted of five trumpeters, one cyteler, five pipers, one tabret, one mabrer, two clarions, one fiddler, three wayghts, or hautbois. In a work of the time there are mentioned the following musical instruments: the organ, the harp, the sawtrey, the lyre, the cymbal, the sistrum, the trumpet, the flute, the pipe, the tabor, the nakyre, the drum, and several others. Some of these were used in martial, some in church music, and others in social and street music.

Chaucer, in the "Canterbury Tales," makes mention of "a ribible," as used by his parish clerk, who must have been a merry fellow:—

The "giterne" was probably the guitar, and the cyteler, or citole, mentioned by Gower, the zitern, which has always been a favourite instrument on the Continent, and has of late years been introduced into England. Matthew Paris also speaks of musical instruments called "burdons," which were used in the church of St. Albans, and probably in others.

Church music, we are told by the old writers, was now as ardently studied by the clergy as secular music by the minstrels and gleemen. Music was taught in all colleges, cathedrals, convents, and capital churches; and the clergy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were by much the most able musicians, as well in instrumental as vocal music. The learned Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, who was also an excellent sculptor and goldsmith, was passionately fond of music as well as of fishing. He wrote a hand-book for anglers, "Manuel de PÊche"; and he had always a harper in the next room, and when wearied with his studies, he ordered him to play. Like Saul, he thought sweet music drove away evil spirits. Being asked—

He replied,

In the churches of this time some of the public offices were considered as musical exhibitions, and were frequented for amusement rather than devotion.

The clergy of the Middle Ages sought to amuse the people by their pageants and miracle plays, and to attract them by joyous music. To the various diversions of hunting, hawking, feasting, and dancing, which a king recommended to his daughter to chase away her melancholy, he added:—

Guido Aretini's musical scale, invented in the eleventh century, had been now greatly improved by the addition of several characters for representing the various lengths of musical sounds, and music thus delineated was called cantus mesurabilis, or measured song.

Hand-organs of a rude construction were already known and to be seen in the streets of cities, but far more frequently the pipe, the tabor, and the drum, the fiddle, and even the harp, accompanying the feats of dancing dog and bear.

Both the foreign and domestic Commerce of England at that time seems to have grown and flourished, as it has continued to do almost ever since, from an innate and unconquerable tendency in the people towards trade and commercial enterprise, rather than from any fostering and judicious exertions of the Government. On the contrary, in the reigns of the great Edwards the knowledge of the principles of trade appears to have been as completely absent from the heads of those kings as their ruinous imposts and restrictions were calculated to crush it. In the reigns of the Edwards the chief articles of export or of raw material were allowed to be sold only in certain places; and sometimes this was one place, and sometimes another. Sometimes this staple or place of sale was at home, sometimes abroad. Edward II. ordered that all articles of the staple—as wool, sheep-skins, and leather—should not be carried as heretofore to places in Brabant, Flanders, and Artois, but to Antwerp only. Edward III. made Calais the staple when that town was captured in 1347; and in 1353 he removed it again, and ordered wool, wool-fells, or sheep-skins, leather, and lead, to be sold only at Newcastle-on-Tyne, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Exeter, and Bristol for England; at Carmarthen, for Wales; and Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and Drogheda, for Ireland.

This was better than our merchants being obliged to carry all these commodities abroad; but repeated changes followed this. "The condition of the merchants," says Macpherson, in his "Annals of Commerce," "who were obliged to deal in staple goods was truly pitiable in those days of perpetual changes."

But this was not all. Suddenly and arbitrarily the king, when wanting to raise money on tolls, would proclaim a fair in Westminster, and compel all the tradesmen of London to shut up their shops, and carry all their goods thither. Matthew Paris tells us that when Henry III. did this, the fair lasted for a fortnight; and during that time all the fairs in the kingdom besides were suspended. He draws a dismal picture of the miseries and losses which the merchants suffered. The weather was dreadfully wet and cold. Their goods, removed from good shops to their tents, were drenched and spoiled, and they themselves were obliged to eat their victuals standing deep in the mud and wet. The people were loud in their complaints, but four years afterwards the king repeated the experiment, when it failed, for very few buyers came to it.

Fairs, indeed, seemed to engross the chief domestic trade of the nation; and people came to them from different countries. A fair at St. Giles's Hall, near Winchester, continued sixteen days. As at Westminster, all trade was prohibited during its continuance at Winchester, Southampton, and at any place within seven miles. Immense crowds from all parts of England and from abroad flocked to it. It resembled a great city, being laid out in regular streets, inhabited by foreign and domestic traders. To such fairs the kings, barons, prelates, and gentry of the time sent their agents, or went in person, and purchased jewels, plate, cloth, spices, liquors, furniture, horses, cattle, corn, and provisions of all kinds, men and women not excepted.

One of these fairs must have been a most extraordinary sight. Bartolomeus, a contemporary writer, assures us that men and women slaves were publicly sold in these fairs like beasts, down to the latter part of the fourteenth century.

The internal trade was not only oppressed by the arbitrary appointment of such fairs, and simultaneous closing of others, but by a host of greater and lesser impositions, called lastage, payage; passage, frontage, stallage, and others, now become unintelligible, though far too intelligible to those who were fleeced by them. Some of these taxes were demanded at every fair, and by every baron through whose domain they were compelled to pass. But if the internal trade of the country was thus oppressed, how much more the foreign. In 1275 Edward I. issued an order compelling all foreign merchants to sell their goods within forty days after their arrival. No foreign merchants were allowed to remain in the country longer than that time, except by special licence from the king. It was not till 1303 that Edward permitted foreign merchants to come and go freely, and to reside under the protection of the English laws; and it was not till fifty years afterwards that they were freed from the oppressive law of being obliged to answer for the debts and offences of every other foreign resident. In 1306 a number of foreign merchants were imprisoned in the Tower, and detained there till they gave security that none of them would leave the kingdom or export anything without the king's licence.

In 1307 Edward prohibited any coin being taken out of the country. In 1335 Edward III. made a like law, prohibiting either money or plate being taken out, on pain of forfeiture of all such property. Sworn searchers were appointed at all the ports; and in 1343 these regulations were repeated, and the searchers were to receive one-third of all the money or plate seized. All foreign cloths were to be reduced to the English measure; all were to be measured by the king's aldnagers, and whatever cloth was found of a less measure in length or breadth was to be forfeited.

How commerce could exist under such absurd restrictions is marvellous. Yet the advantages of trade with this country must, under all these obstacles, have been greater than with most others, for foreign merchants flocked hither in great numbers. They were called "merchant-strangers"; and forming themselves into companies, they soon managed to engross nearly all the foreign trade of the country. The Merchants of the Steel Yard were a most flourishing company of German merchants, who were settled here before the Conquest, but at this period were become much more opulent and powerful. This was owing to their connection with the celebrated confederation of the Hanse Towns, and to the privileges conferred on them by successive monarchs in consequence of that connection.

Then there were the Merchants of the Staple, who were established about this time. Their business was to collect the staple articles, wool, sheep-skins, leather, lead, and tin, and convey them to the staple towns. Englishmen, Irish, or Welsh might do this to the staple towns within the kingdom, but no native could be concerned in exporting them to the staple towns abroad. The great object was to enable the king to collect his customs easily, and that foreign merchants might know where to go for these articles. There were six moderators—two Germans, two Lombards, and two English—appointed to settle all disputes in the presence of the mayor and constable of the staple, for their affairs were not subject to the ordinary magistrates.

The Jews, who had been so fleeced in John's reign, were, for their wealth and usurious habits, banished from the realm in 1290.

According to Macpherson's "Annals of Commerce," the total exports of England in 1384 were £212,338 5s., and the imports £38,383 16s. 10d., leaving a balance in our favour of £173,954. But Anderson, in his "Annals," makes the balance more considerable, namely, £255,370.

During this period coals began to be used in England, and were brought by sea to London. The monks of Dunfermline, in Scotland, also obtained leave of a neighbouring baron to dig coals for their own use in his lands at Pittencrief.

Bills of exchange were now much in use, being much encouraged by the Government, under the idea that they prevented money going out of the kingdom, and in 1381 a law was passed recommending, and, in fact, commanding, their use in foreign transactions.

One of the most useful and creditable transactions of the reign of Edward III. was the issue of a gold coinage. The coinage of England had till this period consisted of silver, and chiefly in the form of marks and pennies; a mark being two-thirds of a tower-pound, the pound not being a real coin, but a pound weight of silver coins. The shilling also was a nominal coin at this time, being the twentieth part of a pound. The penny was the two hundred and fortieth part of a pound, and there were also silver halfpence and farthings; but the people often made these by cutting the pence into halves and quarters—a practice against which various ordinances were issued. At this time a penny was called an esterling, or sterling, whence our word sterling coin.

The gold coins circulated before this period were foreign, and called bezants, or byzantines. Henry I. issued a gold coin of the weight of two silver pennies, which was ordered to pass for twenty silver pennies. The people, however, refused it, as gold being only reckoned nine times the value of silver, the king had thus made it ten times the value, which was one-tenth more than the real value. So completely did this coin disappear, that no specimen, we believe, is now known of it.

Edward I. issued in 1279 a silver coin equal to four silver pennies, and called it a gross, or groat, that is, a great penny. No coins of the reign of Edward II. are known certainly to remain, but there are a few which are surmised to be his.

The new gold coinage of Edward III., issued in 1344, consisted of florins (so-called from the gold coin of Florence), to pass for six shillings; half florins for three shillings; and quarter for one shilling and sixpence. But he had committed the same fault as Henry I., and overvalued these coins, which prevented the circulation. To remedy this error, he coined in the same year gold nobles, half nobles, and farthing nobles, valued respectively at six shillings and eightpence, three shillings and fourpence, and one shilling and eightpence. The coin was called a "noble" because of the fineness of its metal. This coinage continued to circulate to the end of this period.

To prevent extortion in exchange of these moneys, and probably to secure a little profit to the Crown, Edward took the whole matter into his own hands, appointing official exchangers in every part of the kingdom, making a profit of one and one-fifth per cent. by the transactions. The great loss to the public in those times was occasioned by the extensive clipping of the coins. To such a degree had this taken place in the time of Edward I., that the Jews being accused as the chief offenders, he seized in one day, and hanged with very little trial, 244 of them. At the same time all the goldsmiths in the kingdom were taken and put into prison, on suspicion of participation in the crime.

The rate of interest was high at this period, seldom less than ten, more often twenty per cent., and, in the case of the Corsini, sixty per cent. The Church of Rome prohibited the lending of money on usury; and yet, when the Bishop of London excommunicated the Corsini, who were the papal agents, the Pope protected them, or they must have suffered the fate which overtook the Jews.

The method of coining at this time was simply by beating out thin plates of silver into a roundish form, and stamping them by a blow with a hammer. The coins were, of course, of rude workmanship.

The coins minted in Scotland in the reign of Edward III. were so much less in value that he prohibited their circulation, but ordered it to be brought to the mint as bullion. The old coins, however, he permitted to circulate. The first gold coins of Scotland are of the mintage of Robert II., 1371 to 1390. In Ireland there were several coinages of money, but in 1339 appeared a foreign inferior money called turnkeys, or black money, which was allowed to circulate from the scarcity of better.

The British sailors, during the period under review, greatly augmented the character for skill and bravery which they had acquired in King John's time. The great victory of Edward III. at Sluys, and their subsequent ones, placed them at the head of the maritime world. The Monk of Malmesbury before that, in 1315, had written thus of them:—"English ships visit every coast, and English sailors excel all others, both in the arts of navigating and of fighting." Whether this character at this time was quite true, as regarded the skill in navigation of the Genoese, is doubtful; but in fighting, they had shown their superior valour by beating the Genoese in the French service at sea, just as their comrades had done on land. The royal navy in these reigns does not appear to have been at any time numerous. The number of the ships of war of Edward II. that we are made acquainted with was only five. Of the size of these we have no information; but as early as 1270 we read of a ship of Venice which was 125 feet long, carrying 110 men. Edward III., in 1360, ordered the vessels intended to transport his troops to France to carry forty mariners, forty men-at-arms, and sixty archers. Edward's admiral and the mariners of the Cinque Ports captured no less than eighty vessels off the French coast, of which one had been purchased some years before for 5,000 francs. This was a large fleet itself. But in size the Genoese vessels must have greatly exceeded the largest of these, as we read of some of them, ship and cargo, being valued at £60,000 and £70,000 each.

The large fleets of England, however, with which Edward transported his armies and fought his sea-fights, were chiefly merchant vessels, collected by the most arbitrary authority as wanted. The press-warrants of that day show us that those who executed them were empowered to seize all vessels, great and small, that were in port or that came into port; to cause them to be unloaded, if necessary; and to conduct them at once to the place of rendezvous. In this manner were speedily mustered the 738 vessels which were drawn up at the siege of Calais, and the 1,100 vessels with which Edward invaded France in 1359.

London and Yarmouth were the two great seaports of that day, and there appears every reason to believe that Edward on this latter occasion had at least half of the whole mercantile navy of England in his service. The number of English ships was found at this time to diminish rather than to increase; nor can this be any matter of wonder. The violent seizures of trading vessels, the interruptions of commercial enterprises, and the necessary losses of property, were enough to have destroyed the whole commerce of any less vigorous country. Added to this, the encouragement of the merchant strangers, who carried on a great part of their trade in foreign bottoms, no doubt, was an additional cause of this decrease.

An event, however, took place in 1302 of unparalleled advantage to navigation—the invention of the mariner's compass by Flavio di Gioja of Amalfi. This opened up new oceans and new worlds to Europe; and already in the reign of Edward III. Nicholas de Leuna, a Carmelite friar, is said to have made five voyages of discovery towards the north pole, and presented to that monarch a description of the countries which he had seen. In 1344, one Macham, an Englishman, is said to have discovered Madeira, and in 1395 some French and Spanish adventurers discovered the Canaries.

ENGLISH SHIPS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. (See p. 508.)