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13 - Normans in European History by Charles Homer Haskins · Normans in European History

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Speaker 1: Section twelve of the Normans in European History by Charles
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Speaker 1: Homer Haskins. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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Speaker 1: recording by Pamela and Agami, Chapter six, Norman Life and Culture,
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Speaker 1: Part two, Forming associations of those who confessed their sins,
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Speaker 1: received penance, and reconciled themselves with their enemies. The faithful
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Speaker 1: harnessed themselves to carts filled with stone, timber, food, and
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Speaker 1: whatever might help the churches which they sought to serve,
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Speaker 1: and drew them long miles until they seemed to fulfill
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Speaker 1: the saying of the prophet The spirit of the living
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Speaker 1: was in the wheels. The abbot of Saint Pierre Seurdive,
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Speaker 1: to whom we owe our fullest account of the movement,
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Speaker 1: tells us of these processions. Footnote. The text is printed
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Speaker 1: in the Bibliotheque de Les cold Cher, Volume twenty one,
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Speaker 1: pages one hundred twenty and following end footnote. When they
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Speaker 1: halt on the road, nothing is heard but the confession
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Speaker 1: of sins and pure and suppliant prayer to God to
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Speaker 1: obtain pardon. At the voice of the priest's preaching, peace,
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Speaker 1: hatred is forgotten, discord thrown aside, debts are remitted, the
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Speaker 1: unity of hearts is established. But if anyone is so
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Speaker 1: far advanced and evil as to be unwilling to pardon
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Speaker 1: the offender or obey the pious admonition of the priest,
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Speaker 1: his offering is instantly thrown from the wagon as impure,
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Speaker 1: and he himself is ignominiously and shamefully excluded from the
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Speaker 1: society of the Holy. There is a result of the
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Speaker 1: prayers of the faithful. One may see the sicken and
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Speaker 1: firm rise whole from their wagons. The dumb open their
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Speaker 1: mouths to the praise of God, the possessed recover a
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Speaker 1: sane mind. The priests who reside over each wagon are
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Speaker 1: seen exhorting all to repentance, confession, lamentations, and the resolution
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Speaker 1: of a better life. While old and young, and even
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Speaker 1: little children prostrate on the ground, call on the Mother
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Speaker 1: of God and utter to her from the depths of
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Speaker 1: their hearts, sobs and sighs, with words of confession and praise.
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Speaker 1: After the faithful resume their march to the sound of
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Speaker 1: trumpets and the display of banners. Their journey is so
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Speaker 1: easy that no obstacle can retard it. When they have
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Speaker 1: reached the church, they arrange the wagons around it like
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Speaker 1: a spiritual camp, and during the whole of the following night,
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Speaker 1: the army of the Lord keeps watch with psalms and canticles.
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Speaker 1: Tapers and lamps are lighted on each wagon, and the
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Speaker 1: relics of the saints are brought for the relief of
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Speaker 1: the sick and the weak, for whom priests and people
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Speaker 1: in procession implore the clemency of the Lord and his
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Speaker 1: blessed Mother. If healing does not follow at once, they
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Speaker 1: cast aside their garments, men and women alike, and drag
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Speaker 1: themselves from altar to altar, begging the priests to scourge
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Speaker 1: them for them their sins. At the close of the
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Speaker 1: Angevin period there were in Normandy something like eighty monasteries
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Speaker 1: and convents, not counting the numerous cells and priories, as,
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Speaker 1: for example, the various dependencies of the Great Abbey of
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Speaker 1: Marmoutier at Tours. These were chiefly Benedictine foundations, though the
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Speaker 1: newer movements of the Cistercians, pre Monstratensians and Augustinians were
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Speaker 1: well represented. The only distinctly Norman order, the Congregation of Sabini,
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Speaker 1: having been early absorbed by the Cistercians. The oldest of
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Speaker 1: these establishments were at the two extremes of the duchy,
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Speaker 1: Mont Saint Michel at one end, and Jumiege Saint Jundrille,
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Speaker 1: Saintoine and fa Con at the other, but the distribution
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Speaker 1: was speedily equalized, and the great abbeys of the center,
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Speaker 1: Beck and Gint and Saint Evrol were soon known throughout Europe.
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Speaker 1: The conquest of England opened a new field for monastic influence.
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Speaker 1: Twenty Norman monasteries had received lands in England by the
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Speaker 1: time of the Domesday Survey, and the number were considerably
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Speaker 1: greater when the holdings of alien priories were confiscated at
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Speaker 1: the beginning of the fifteenth century. Mont Saint Michel, for example,
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Speaker 1: had a priory in Cornwall as well as one at
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Speaker 1: le Mon, and its lands in Maine, Brittany and various
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Speaker 1: parts of England did not allay its desire for more
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Speaker 1: whenever opportunity offered. For a period of five years from
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Speaker 1: eleven fifty five to eleven fifty nine inclusive, we have
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Speaker 1: a record of the activity of its abbot, Robert of Tourgi,
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Speaker 1: in relation to the monastery's property, and a very instructive record.
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Speaker 1: It is it takes him to England and the Channel Islands,
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Speaker 1: to the King's assizes at Gavre, Don, fran Cont and
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Speaker 1: g Rentain, to the courts of the bishops of Avranche,
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Speaker 1: Courtens and Bellieux, and to that of the Archbishop of Rule,
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Speaker 1: proving his rights, compromising, exchanging, purchasing, receiving by gift a
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Speaker 1: royal charter, picking up here a bit of land, there,
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Speaker 1: a mill, a garden, a vineyard, attie, a church, to
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Speaker 1: add to the lands and rents, mills and forests, markets
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Speaker 1: and churches, and feudal rights which he already possessed. There
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Speaker 1: are also various examples of loans on mortgage, for the
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Speaker 1: monasteries were the chief source of rural credit in this period,
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Speaker 1: and as the land with its revenues passed at once
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Speaker 1: into the possession of the mortgui gi, the security was absolute,
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Speaker 1: the annual returned sure, and the chances of ultimate acquisition
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Speaker 1: of the property considerable. With the resources of the monastery,
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Speaker 1: during his administration of thirty two years, Abbot Robert was
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Speaker 1: able to increase the numbers of monks from forty to
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Speaker 1: sixty to enlarge the conventual buildings in which he entertained
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Speaker 1: the kings of England and of France, and to add
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Speaker 1: a great facade to the abbey church, a contribution to
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Speaker 1: the massive pile of the marvel which we are no
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Speaker 1: longer privileged to behold. He also labored for the intellectual
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Speaker 1: side of the monastery's life, restoring the library and enlarging
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Speaker 1: it by one hundred and twenty volumes, and composing a
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Speaker 1: variety of works on historical subjects, which make him the
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Speaker 1: chief authority for half a century of Norman history. There is, however,
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Speaker 1: not much concerning monasteries in Robert's chronicle, and even his
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Speaker 1: special essay on the history of the Norman Abbey's is
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Speaker 1: confined to externals. Perhaps he was cumbered about much serving.
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Speaker 1: More probably he saw nothing worthy of the historian's pen
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Speaker 1: in the inner life of the institution. When the abbot
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Speaker 1: had a new altar dedicated or renewed the relict queries
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Speaker 1: of Saint Aubert and Saint Lawrence, that was worth setting down.
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Speaker 1: But the daily routine of observance was the same at
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Speaker 1: Mont Saint Michel as in the other Benedictine foundations, and
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Speaker 1: has remained substantially unchanged through the centuries of monastic history.
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Speaker 1: At any rate, no Monkish Boswell has done for Normandy
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Speaker 1: what Joscelyn of Brocklonde did for contemporary England in that
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Speaker 1: vivid picture of life at Bury Saint Edmund's, which Carlyle
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Speaker 1: has made familiar in his past and present. A monk
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Speaker 1: of Saint Evroul, it is true, did a much greater
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Speaker 1: thing in his Historia Ecclesiastica of Ordericus Vitalis. But he
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Speaker 1: was an historian, not a Boswell, and his experiences of
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Speaker 1: half a century of monastic life lies embedded deep in
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Speaker 1: the five solid volumes of this wide ranging work. One
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Speaker 1: phase of the religious life of medieval monasteries is admirably
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Speaker 1: ill illustrated in Normandy, namely the mortuary roles of the
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Speaker 1: members and heads of religious houses. It early became the
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Speaker 1: custom not only to say prayers regularly for the departed
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Speaker 1: members and benefactors of such a community, but to seek
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Speaker 1: the suffrages of associated communities or of all the faithful.
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Speaker 1: To that n encyclical was prepared setting forth the virtues
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Speaker 1: of the deceased, and was carried by a special messenger
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Speaker 1: from convent to convent, each establishment indicating the prayers which
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Speaker 1: had been said, and adding the names of the brothers
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Speaker 1: for whom prayers were solicited in return. The two most
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Speaker 1: considerable documents of this sort which have come down to
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Speaker 1: us are of Norman origin, the Role of Matilda, the
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Speaker 1: first Abbess of Holy Trinity at Kha, and that of Vitalis,
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Speaker 1: Founder of the Congregation of Savigny, which belongs to the
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Speaker 1: year eleven twenty two and is the oldest manuscript of
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Speaker 1: this type, extant in its original form, with all the
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Speaker 1: quaint local varieties. In execution. Each of these was carried
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Speaker 1: throughout the greater part of England and of northern and
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Speaker 1: central France, reaching in the first case two hundred and
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Speaker 1: fifty three different monasteries and churches, in the second two
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Speaker 1: hundred and eight, and as the replies were often made
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Speaker 1: at length in prose or in verse, they constitute a
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Speaker 1: curious monument of the condition of culture in the places visited.
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Speaker 1: If the impulse toward religious reform in Normandy was of
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Speaker 1: Burgundian origin, intellectual stimulus came chiefly from Italy. The two
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Speaker 1: principal figures in the intellectual life of the Duchy in
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Speaker 1: the eleventh century, lanfranc and Anselm were Italians. Lanfranc distinguished
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Speaker 1: for his mastery of law, Lombard, Roman and canon, for
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Speaker 1: the great school which he founded at Beck, and for
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Speaker 1: his life labors in the field of ecclesiastical statesmanship. Anselm,
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Speaker 1: his pupil, and his successor as Prior of Beck and
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Speaker 1: as Archbishop of Canterbury, remarkable as a teacher, still more
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Speaker 1: remarkable as one of the foremost theologians of the Western Church.
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Speaker 1: Under the first six Dukes, we are told there was
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Speaker 1: hardly any one in Normandy who gave himself the liberal studies,
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Speaker 1: and there was no master till God, who provides all,
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Speaker 1: sent Lanfranc to these shores, teaching first at Avranche. Lanfranc
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Speaker 1: established himself at Beck in ten forty two, and his
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Speaker 1: school soon drew students from the remotest parts of France
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Speaker 1: and sent them out in all directions to positions of
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Speaker 1: honor and influence. Abbots like Gilbert Crispin of Westminster, bishops
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Speaker 1: like Saintive of Charchs, primates of rule in Canterbury, even
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Speaker 1: a pope in the person of Alexander, the second figure
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Speaker 1: on the long honor roll of Lanfranc's pupils at Beck.
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Speaker 1: For an institution of such renown. However, we know singularly
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Speaker 1: little concerning the actual course and methods of study at Beck,
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Speaker 1: and its historian is compelled to fall back upon a
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Speaker 1: general description of the trivium and quadrivium which made up
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Speaker 1: the ordinary monastic curriculum. We do not even know whether
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Speaker 1: Lannefranc actually taught the subject of law, of which he
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Speaker 1: was past master, though we can be sure that theology
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Speaker 1: and philosophy had a large part under Anselm, and that
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Speaker 1: the school must have felt the influence of the large
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Speaker 1: part which its leaders took in the theological discussions of
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Speaker 1: their time. An important form of activity in the monasteries
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Speaker 1: of the period was the copying of manuscripts, a sure
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Speaker 1: safeguard against that idleness which Saint Benedict declared the enemy
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Speaker 1: of the soul. Lnfranc sat up a good part of
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Speaker 1: the night correcting the daily copies of the monks of Bech.
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Speaker 1: The first abbot of Sainte Vrieu had a edifying tale
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Speaker 1: of an erring brother who had secured his salvation by
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Speaker 1: voluntarily copying a holy book of such dimensions that the
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Speaker 1: angels who produced it on his behalf. At the judgment
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Speaker 1: were able to check it off, letter by letter against
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Speaker 1: his sins, and leave at the end a single letter
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Speaker 1: in his favor. The monks of Sainte Vriud prided themselves
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Speaker 1: on their Latin style, especially their Latin verse, and on
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Speaker 1: their chants, which were sung even in distant Calabria. Yet
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Speaker 1: the best example of their training. The historian Ordericus freely
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Speaker 1: admits the literary supremacy of Beck, where almost everyone seems
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Speaker 1: to be a philosopher, and even the unlearned have something
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Speaker 1: to teach the frothy Grammarians. In the course of the
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Speaker 1: twelfth century, the leadership in learning passes from the regular
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Speaker 1: to the secular clergy, and the monastic schools declined before
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Speaker 1: the cathedral schools of Lowell, tour Chartres, or Leon, and Paris,
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Speaker 1: two of which Paris and or Leon soon break the
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Speaker 1: bounds of the older curriculum and develop into universities. As
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Speaker 1: the current of scholars sets towards these new centers, Normandy
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Speaker 1: is left at one side, no longer a leader, Its
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Speaker 1: students must learn their theology and philosophy at Paris, their
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Speaker 1: law at Orleon and Bologna, their medicine at Salerno and Montpellier.
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Speaker 1: The principal Norman philosopher of the New Age, William of Conch,
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Speaker 1: the tutor of Henry the second, is associated with Paris
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Speaker 1: rather than with the schools of Normandy. Perhaps the most
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Speaker 1: original work of the pioneer of the New science, the
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Speaker 1: Castillones no Tourales of Adelaide of Bath, is dedicated to
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Speaker 1: a Norman bishop, Richard of Belleux, but its author was
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Speaker 1: not a Norman. Nor do we find Norman names among
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Speaker 1: those who drank deep at the new founds of Spain
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Speaker 1: and Sicily. For a measure of the intellectual activity vity
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Speaker 1: of the Norman monasteries and cathedrals, nothing could serve better
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Speaker 1: than an examination of the contents of their libraries, where
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Speaker 1: we might judge for ourselves what books they acquired and
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Speaker 1: copied and read. This, unfortunately, we can no longer make.
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Speaker 1: The library off Beck, partly destroyed by fire in the
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Speaker 1: seventeenth century, was scattered to the four winds of Heaven
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Speaker 1: in the eighteenth and while the legislation of seventeen ninety
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Speaker 1: one provided for the transfer of such collections to the
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Speaker 1: public depositories of the neighboring towns, the libraries of Avranche,
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Speaker 1: Aloncin and Rouen reinforced by the Bibliothech Nacional, have garnered
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Speaker 1: but a small part of the ancient treasures of Mont
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Speaker 1: Saint Michel, Sainte Vrille, and the establishments of the lower Sennese.
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Speaker 1: Works of importance, as well as curiosities, still survive autograph
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Speaker 1: corrections of landfranc the originals of the great histories of
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Speaker 1: Robert of Torurini, and Ordericus Vitalis, service books throwing light
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Speaker 1: on the origins of the liturgical drama, cartularies of churches
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Speaker 1: and abbeys. But for a more comprehensive view of the
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Speaker 1: resources of the twelfth century, we must turn to the
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Speaker 1: contemporary catalogs which have come down to us from the
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Speaker 1: cloisters of Saintavrille, bech Leir and Fecon, and the Cathedral
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Speaker 1: of Ruri. After all, as that delightful academician Sylvestre Bonnard
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Speaker 1: has reminded us, there is no reading so easy, so RESTful,
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Speaker 1: or so seductive as a catalog of manuscripts. And there
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Speaker 1: is no better guide to the silence and the peace
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Speaker 1: of the monastic library, as one may still taste them
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Speaker 1: in the quiet of the Escorial or Monte Cassino. Let
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Speaker 1: Us take the most specific example, the collection of one
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Speaker 1: hundred and forty volumes bequeathed to Beck by Philip, Bishop
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Speaker 1: of Beyeux at his death in eleven sixty four, or
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Speaker 1: rather the one hundred and thirteen which reached the monastery
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Speaker 1: twenty seven, having fallen by the way and being hence
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Speaker 1: omitted from the catalog. Like the other libraries of the time,
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Speaker 1: this consisted chiefly of theology, the writings of the fathers,
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Speaker 1: and of the Carolingian and post Carolingian commentators and theologians,
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Speaker 1: ending with Philip's contemporary sam Bernard, Hubert de la Poree,
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Speaker 1: Hildebert of Tours and Hugh of Saint Victor and his
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Speaker 1: metropolitan Hugh of Amian. Wise in the Wisdom of this World.
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Speaker 1: The bishop possessed the whole Corpus Eurus qiwilis in five volumes,
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Speaker 1: as well as the leading authorities on canon law Burkert,
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Speaker 1: Saintive and the Dacretum of Grecian. He had none of
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Speaker 1: the Roman poets, although they were not unknown to Norman
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Speaker 1: writers of this age, but a fair selection of prose
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Speaker 1: works of literary and philosophical character Cicero and Quintillian, Seneca
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Speaker 1: and the younger Pliny. Besides the medieval version of Plato's
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Speaker 1: t Maaeus. There is a goodly sprinkling of the Roman
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Speaker 1: historians most in vogue in the Middle Ages, Caesar, Suetonius, Valerius, Maximus, Florus, Eutropius,
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Speaker 1: and the Latin version of Josephus, Besides such of their
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Speaker 1: medieval successors as came nearest to Anglo Norman affairs, science
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Speaker 1: was confined to Pliny's Natural History and two anonymous treatises
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Speaker 1: on mathematics and astronomy, while the practical arts were represented
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Speaker 1: by Palladius on agriculture and Wagettius on tactics. On the
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Speaker 1: whole a typical Norman library, deficient on the imaginative side,
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Speaker 1: but strong in Orthodox theology, in law and in history,
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Speaker 1: not in all respects and up to date collection, since
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Speaker 1: it contained none of those logical works of Aristotle which
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Speaker 1: were transforming European thought, and save for a treatise of
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Speaker 1: Adelarde of Bath, showed no recognizable trace of the new
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Speaker 1: science which was beginning to come in through Spain. Strikingly
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Speaker 1: lacking also save for a volume of Norman history in
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Speaker 1: products of Normandy itself, even in the field of theology
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Speaker 1: and scriptural interpretation, where for example, Richard abbottev PreO had
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Speaker 1: written marvelous commentaries upon Genesis, Deuteronomy, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs,
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Speaker 1: and the Proverbs of Solomon, and had discoursed allegorically or
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Speaker 1: tropologically in many treatises upon obscure problems of the prophets.
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Speaker 1: Footnote Orto Ricus Vitalis edition Le Prevost, Volume three, page
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Speaker 1: four thirty one end footnote. After all, works on the
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Speaker 1: history of Normandy were the most Norman thing a Norman
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Speaker 1: could produce, and it was in this way feel that
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Speaker 1: the Duchy made its chief contribution to medieval literature and learning.
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Speaker 1: All the usual types appear local annals, lists of bishops
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Speaker 1: and abbots, lives of saints, biographies of princes, but the
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Speaker 1: most characteristic are the works in which the history of
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Speaker 1: Normandy is grasped as a whole. The half legendary account
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Speaker 1: of the early Dukes by duto of Saint Quentin, the
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Speaker 1: confused but valuable Guesta of William of Jumiege, at last
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Speaker 1: restored to us in a critical edition. Footnote Guilloum de
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Speaker 1: Jumiege Guesta Nomanorum Ducam, edited by Marx Societe de Listoisto Norndi,
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Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen and footnote the Chronicle of Robert of Torrini,
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Speaker 1: and especially the Great Historia Ecclesiastica of Ordocus Vitalis, the
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Speaker 1: che de'evre of Norman historiography, and the most important historical
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Speaker 1: work written in France in the twelfth century. Born in
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Speaker 1: ten seventy five near Shrewsbury, Orto Ricus was early devoted
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Speaker 1: to the monastic life, and lest family affection might interfere
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Speaker 1: with his vocation and the sure hope of paradise held
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Speaker 1: out to the sobbing boy, his sorrowing parents sent him
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Speaker 1: forever from their sight to spend his days at Saintavrill,
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Speaker 1: near the southern border of normandy Tonsured at ten, ordained
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Speaker 1: a deacon at eighteen, and a priest at thirty two.
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Speaker 1: He bore the burden and heat of the day under
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Speaker 1: six successive abbots, until as an old man of sixty six,
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Speaker 1: he laid down his pen with a touching peroration of
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Speaker 1: prayer and thanksgiving to Him who had disposed these years
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Speaker 1: according to his good pleasure. During this half century of
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Speaker 1: poverty and obedience, Ordericus had a little opportunity to leave
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Speaker 1: the precincts of the monastery, although on rare occasions we
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Speaker 1: can't trace him in England and at Cambrern and Cluny,
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Speaker 1: and the materials of his history had to be gathered
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Speaker 1: almost wholly from the well stocked library of the abbey
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Speaker 1: and from conversation with those who passed his way. These
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Speaker 1: facilities were, however, considerable, for remote as Saint Evroul may
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Speaker 1: seem in its corner of the Peis Douche, it was
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Speaker 1: in constant relations with England, where it possessed lands, and
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Speaker 1: with southern Italy, whither it had sent its members to
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Speaker 1: found new convents. And like all such establishments, it was
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Speaker 1: a place of entertainment for travelers of all classes, priests
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Speaker 1: and monks, knights and Jean glour, even a king like
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Speaker 1: Henry the First, who brought with them accounts of their
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Speaker 1: journeys about the world and tales of great deeds in
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Speaker 1: distant Spain. In Sicily and Jerusalem, there were few better
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Speaker 1: places to collect materials for the writing of history, and
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Speaker 1: there was no one who could make better use of
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Speaker 1: them than Orus. He was fully launched in his great
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Speaker 1: work by eleven twenty three, and he kept at it
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Speaker 1: throughout the remaining eighteen years of his life, putting it
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Speaker 1: aside in the winter when his fingers grew numb with
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Speaker 1: the cold, but resuming it each spring in the clear
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Speaker 1: round hand, which meets us in many a manuscript of
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Speaker 1: Sainte Vrille, and offering it at the end to future generations,
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Speaker 1: a monument more lasting than the granite obelisk erected in
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Speaker 1: his memory in nineteen twelve. His original purpose was limited
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Speaker 1: to a history of his monastery, but the plan soon
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Speaker 1: widened to include the principal movements of his time, and
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Speaker 1: finally grew to the idea of a universal history, beginning
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Speaker 1: indeed with the Christian era instead of with the more
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Speaker 1: usual starting point of the Creation. Nevertheless, even in its
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Speaker 1: final form, the work of Ordericus is not a general
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Speaker 1: history of the Christian centuries. For the general portion is
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Speaker 1: chiefly introductory and comparatively brief. His real theme is Norman history,
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Speaker 1: centering of course round the vicissitudes of his convent and
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Speaker 1: the adjacent territory, but also giving a large place to
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Speaker 1: the deeds of the Normans in that greater Normandy which
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Speaker 1: they had created beyond the sea in England. In Italy
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Speaker 1: in Palestine. He is thus not only Norman but Pan Norman.
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Speaker 1: The plan, or rather lack of plan, of his thirteen
23:25
Speaker 1: books reflects the changes of design and the interruptions which
23:29
Speaker 1: the work underwent. There is some repetition, much confusion, and
23:33
Speaker 1: a distinct absence of architectonic art. These defects, however, do
23:39
Speaker 1: not diminish the prime merit of the work, which lies
23:42
Speaker 1: in its replacement of the jejune annals of the older
23:45
Speaker 1: type by a full and ample historical narrative, rich in detail,
23:50
Speaker 1: vivid and presentation, giving space the literary history and everyday life,
23:55
Speaker 1: as well as to the affairs of church and state,
23:58
Speaker 1: and constituting as a whole the most faithful and living
24:01
Speaker 1: picture which is reached us of the European society of
24:05
Speaker 1: his age. Neither in the world nor of the world.
24:08
Speaker 1: This monk had a ripe knowledge of men and affairs,
24:12
Speaker 1: independence of judgment, of feeling for personality, and a sure
24:16
Speaker 1: touch in characterization. He had also a Latin style of
24:21
Speaker 1: his own, labored at times rather than affected, ready to
24:25
Speaker 1: show its skill in well turned verse or in well
24:28
Speaker 1: rounded speeches after the fashion of the classical historians, but
24:33
Speaker 1: direct and vigorous and not unworthy of the flexible and
24:36
Speaker 1: sonorous language which he had made his own. Latin, however,
24:41
Speaker 1: was in exclusive possession of the clergy, and not all
24:45
Speaker 1: of them, if we can judge from the examinations held
24:48
Speaker 1: by udrigao In. By the middle of the twelfth century,
24:52
Speaker 1: the Norman baronage began to demand from the clerks an
24:56
Speaker 1: account of the Anglo Norman past in a language which
25:00
Speaker 1: which they too could understand. History in the vernacular develops
25:05
Speaker 1: in France earlier than elsewhere, and in France's earliest in
25:09
Speaker 1: Normandy and in the English lands, which shared the Norman speech,
25:14
Speaker 1: and produced the oldest surviving example of such a work,
25:18
Speaker 1: the Eastward Dessongle of Guaimar, written between eleven forty seven
25:24
Speaker 1: and eleven fifty one. The chief center for the production
25:28
Speaker 1: of vernacular history was the court of that patron of
25:32
Speaker 1: ecclesiastical and secular learning, Henry the Second and his Aquitanian queen,
25:38
Speaker 1: to one or more of whom were dedicated the histories
25:42
Speaker 1: of waste and Benois de Saint Maur Wastes. The most
25:47
Speaker 1: interesting of this group of writers was a native of
25:50
Speaker 1: Jersey and a clerk of Gant, who turned an honest
25:54
Speaker 1: penny by his compositions, and won a cannonry at Belleux
25:58
Speaker 1: by the most important of them, his Roman d' roux,
26:03
Speaker 1: beginning with Raul, from whom it takes its name. This
26:06
Speaker 1: follows the course of Norman history to the victory of
26:09
Speaker 1: Henry the first and eleven o six in simple and
26:12
Speaker 1: agreeable French verse, based upon the Latin chroniclers, but incorporating
26:17
Speaker 1: something from the popular tradition. Such a compilation adds little
26:22
Speaker 1: to our knowledge, But by the time of the Third
26:25
Speaker 1: Crusade we find a contemporary narrative in French verse, prepared
26:29
Speaker 1: by a Jean Leuavevreu, who accompanied Richard on the expedition.
26:34
Speaker 1: If we ignore the line, at best very faint, which
26:38
Speaker 1: in works of this sort separates history from Romance and
26:42
Speaker 1: from works of edification, we must carry the Norman pioneers
26:46
Speaker 1: still further back to the v de Saint Alexei, which
26:50
Speaker 1: we owe probably to a canon of Run in the
26:53
Speaker 1: eleventh century, and to the great national epoch of medieval France.
26:59
Speaker 1: The chanson pre Norman in origin, but Norman in its
27:04
Speaker 1: early form, which has recently been ascribed to Turold, Bishop
27:09
Speaker 1: of Belleux, after the death of the more famous Odo,
27:13
Speaker 1: and later for many years a monk of Beck. There
27:16
Speaker 1: is one may object, nothing monastic in this wonderful paean
27:21
Speaker 1: of medieval knighthood, whose religion is that of the God
27:24
Speaker 1: of battles, who has never lied, and whose hero meets
27:28
Speaker 1: death with his face towards Spain and his imperishable sward
27:33
Speaker 1: beneath him. But knights and monks had more in common
27:37
Speaker 1: than was once supposed, and we are coming to see
27:40
Speaker 1: that the monasteries, especially the monasteries of the Great Highways,
27:44
Speaker 1: had a large share in the making, if not in
27:47
Speaker 1: the final writing of the medieval Epic, as well as
27:51
Speaker 1: the medieval chronicles. When we reach works like these, the
27:55
Speaker 1: literary history of Normandy merges in that of France as
27:59
Speaker 1: well as in that of England, which, thanks to the
28:02
Speaker 1: Norman Conquest and the Norman Empire, long remained a literary
28:06
Speaker 1: province of France. We must not, however, leave this vernacular literature,
28:11
Speaker 1: as yet almost wholly the work of clerks, with the
28:14
Speaker 1: impression that its dominant quality is romantic or poetical. Its
28:20
Speaker 1: versified form was merely the habit of an age which
28:23
Speaker 1: found verse easy to remember the literature itself, as Gaston
28:28
Speaker 1: Peris has well observed footnote La literatur normand avon Lannexion,
28:34
Speaker 1: page twenty two end footnote was essentially a literature of
28:38
Speaker 1: instruction for the use of laymen, fit material for prose,
28:43
Speaker 1: and not for poetry. It is thus characteristically Norman in
28:47
Speaker 1: subject as well as in speech, simple and severe in form,
28:52
Speaker 1: devout and edifying rather than mystical, given to history rather
28:57
Speaker 1: than to speculation and seeking, through the moralized science of
29:02
Speaker 1: lapidaries and bestiaries and astronomical manuals to aid the everyday
29:07
Speaker 1: life of a serious and practical people. Normandy had also
29:13
Speaker 1: something to say to the world in that most medieval
29:16
Speaker 1: of arts, architecture, and especially in that Romanesque form of building,
29:22
Speaker 1: which flourished in the eleventh century and the first half
29:26
Speaker 1: of the twelfth. The great Norman churches of this epoch
29:30
Speaker 1: were the natural outgrowth of its life. The wealth of
29:34
Speaker 1: the abbeys, the splendor of princely prelates like Odo of
29:38
Speaker 1: Belleux and Geoffrey of Coutens, the piety and penance of
29:42
Speaker 1: William the Conqueror and Matilda, expiating by two abbeys their
29:47
Speaker 1: marriage within the prohibited degrees the religious devotion of the people,
29:53
Speaker 1: as illustrated by the processions of eleven forty five. The
29:57
Speaker 1: biographer of Geoffrey of mo Mowbray, for example, tells us
30:02
Speaker 1: footnote Gallia Christiana, volume nine, Instructiones COLLECTIAI, pages two, nineteen
30:08
Speaker 1: to twenty three mortet riquey de text relatif alstois de
30:13
Speaker 1: la chitetur Paris, nineteen eleven, pages seventy one to seventy five,
30:19
Speaker 1: and footnote tells us how the bishop labored day and
30:23
Speaker 1: night for the enlargement and beautification of his church at Coutens,
30:27
Speaker 1: dedicated in ten fifty six, buying the better half of
30:31
Speaker 1: the city from the Duke to get space for the
30:34
Speaker 1: cathedral and palace, traveling as far as Apulia to secure
30:39
Speaker 1: gold and gems, investments from rober Giscard and his fellow Normans,
30:44
Speaker 1: and maintaining from his rents a force of sculptors, masons,
30:48
Speaker 1: goldsmiths and workers in glass. Nearly forty years later, when
30:53
Speaker 1: the church had been damaged by earthquake and tempest, he
30:57
Speaker 1: brought a plumber from England to restore the leaden rs
31:00
Speaker 1: roof and the fallen stones of the towers and to
31:03
Speaker 1: replace the gilded cock which crowned the hole. And when
31:06
Speaker 1: he saw the cock once more glistening at the summit,
31:09
Speaker 1: he gave thanks to God and shortly passed away, pronouncing
31:14
Speaker 1: eternal maledictions upon those who should injure his church of
31:19
Speaker 1: this famous structure. Nothing now remains above the ground. For
31:23
Speaker 1: the noble towers which look from the Hill of Coutons
31:26
Speaker 1: toward the western Sea are Gothic like the rest of
31:28
Speaker 1: the church, And for surviving monuments of cathedrals of the
31:32
Speaker 1: eleventh and twelfth centuries, we must go to the knaves
31:36
Speaker 1: of Belleux and Evre and the Centromantauer of Rouon. Even
31:41
Speaker 1: here the impression will be fragmentary, broken by Gothic choirs
31:47
Speaker 1: and by towers and spires of a still later age,
31:50
Speaker 1: just as the simple lines of the early Church of
31:53
Speaker 1: Mont Saint Michel are swallowed up in the ornate Gothic
31:56
Speaker 1: of the loftier parts of the great pile edifices. Wholly
32:01
Speaker 1: of the Romanesque period must be sought in the parish
32:04
Speaker 1: churches in which Normandy is so rich, or in the
32:08
Speaker 1: larger abbey churches which meet us at Laseai, Cerisi, Ghunt
32:14
Speaker 1: Jumiege and Bouchier VI Jumiege, though in Ruins preserves the
32:20
Speaker 1: full outline of the style of the middle of the
32:22
Speaker 1: eleventh century, Gun presents in the Abbeozam and the Abbey
32:26
Speaker 1: Odam two perfect, though contrasted types of a few years later,
32:31
Speaker 1: the one simple and austere, the other richer and less grand.
32:35
Speaker 1: Freemen may seem fanciful when he suggests that these sister
32:38
Speaker 1: churches express the spirit of their respective founders, the imperial
32:43
Speaker 1: will of the conquering Duke and the milder temper of
32:46
Speaker 1: his loving and faithful Duchess. Footnote Norman Conquest, Volume three,
32:51
Speaker 1: page one, O nine and footnote. But in any event,
32:54
Speaker 1: they are Norman and typical of their age and country.
32:58
Speaker 1: There are elements in the ornamentation of Norman churches in
33:01
Speaker 1: this period which have been explained by reference to the
33:04
Speaker 1: distant influence of the Scandinavian North or the farther east.
33:09
Speaker 1: There are perhaps traces of Lombard architecture in their plan,
33:12
Speaker 1: but their structure as a whole is as Norman as
33:15
Speaker 1: the stone of which they are built, distinguished by local
33:19
Speaker 1: traits from the other varieties of French Romanesque, to which
33:23
Speaker 1: this period gave rise. Not the least Norman feature of
33:26
Speaker 1: these buildings is the persistent common sense of design and execution.
33:31
Speaker 1: The Norman architects did not attempt the architecturally impossible, or
33:35
Speaker 1: undertake tasks like the Cathedral of Beauvais which they were
33:39
Speaker 1: unable to finish in their own time and style. What
33:42
Speaker 1: they began, they completed, writes the nest Store of American
33:47
Speaker 1: historians in his sympathetic interpretation of the art and spirit
33:52
Speaker 1: of mont Saint michel aen Chartre. In Norman art, as
33:57
Speaker 1: in other phases of Norman achievement, the vast word cannot
34:01
Speaker 1: be said till we have followed it far beyond the
34:03
Speaker 1: borders of the Duchy, northward to Durham, half House of
34:07
Speaker 1: God and half Castle against the Scot and the other
34:11
Speaker 1: massive monuments which made Norman synonymous with a whole style
34:16
Speaker 1: and period of English architecture, and southward to those more
34:20
Speaker 1: ornate structures which Norman princes reared at Bari and Cafalu,
34:25
Speaker 1: Palermo and Montreale. No art, either Greek or Byzantine, Italian
34:31
Speaker 1: or Arab, says Henry Adams, has ever created two religious
34:36
Speaker 1: types so beautiful, so serious, so impressive, and yet so
34:41
Speaker 1: different as Mont Saint Michel watching over its northern ocean,
34:46
Speaker 1: and Montreale looking down over its forests of orange and
34:50
Speaker 1: lemon on, Palermo and the Sicilian Seas. Footnote Mont Saint
34:55
Speaker 1: Michel and chartre Page four, end footnote N of Section
35:01
Speaker 1: twelve