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

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Speaker 1: Section eleven 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 Pamel and Agami. Chapter six, Norman Life and Culture,
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Speaker 1: Part one. In turning from the general course of Norman
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Speaker 1: history in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to examine Norman
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Speaker 1: life and culture in this period, we encounter the difficulties
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Speaker 1: inherent in any attempt to cut a cross section of
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Speaker 1: human society in an age which was not conscious of
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Speaker 1: being a society, and has left us for description of
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Speaker 1: itself only a few raw materials of a fragmentary and
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Speaker 1: uneven sort. The chroniclers confine themselves almost entirely to external events.
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Speaker 1: The charters deal chiefly with land and boundaries, and rites
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Speaker 1: over the land. Much of the literature is theological commentary
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Speaker 1: or rhetorical commonplace, which reflects nothing of the age in
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Speaker 1: which it was written. What is lacking in all is
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Speaker 1: the concrete detail of daily life, from which alone social
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Speaker 1: and economic conditions, and even government itself can be understood.
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Speaker 1: And when we have pieced together, as best we may,
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Speaker 1: some notions of Normandy in this period, our knowledge of
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Speaker 1: the parallel conditions in other regions. Is often so inadequate
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Speaker 1: that we cannot be certain how far our results are
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Speaker 1: characteristic of normandy, how far typical of the time, or
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Speaker 1: because of the scattered nature of our material, how far
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Speaker 1: they may be merely individual and isolated. Much of the
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Speaker 1: social history of the Middle Ages is still unwritten for
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Speaker 1: lack of evidence. Much can never be written until the
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Speaker 1: available sources have been more fully explored. Nothing beyond a
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Speaker 1: provisional sketch can be attempted. Fortunately for our purposes, the
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Speaker 1: fundamental structure of society in the early Middle Ages was
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Speaker 1: exceedingly simple. There were three classes, those who fought, those
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Speaker 1: who labored, and those who prayed, corresponding respectively to the nobles,
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Speaker 1: the peasants, and the clergy. Created by the simple needs
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Speaker 1: of the feudal age. This primitive division of labor was
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Speaker 1: even declared an institution of divine origin and necessary to
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Speaker 1: the harmonious life of man. It seemed right and natural
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Speaker 1: that the nobles should defend the country and maintain order,
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Speaker 1: the clergy lead men to salvation. The peasants support by
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Speaker 1: their labor. These two beneficent classes as well as themselves.
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Speaker 1: As an ideal of social organization. This system of classes
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Speaker 1: is open to obvious objections, not the least of which
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Speaker 1: is the persistent killing and plundering of the peasants by
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Speaker 1: the class whose function it was to protect and defend them.
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Speaker 1: But as a description of actual conditions it expresses very
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Speaker 1: well the facts of the case with respect to the
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Speaker 1: fighting class. It is characteristic of the Norman habit of
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Speaker 1: order and organization that the military service of the nobles
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Speaker 1: was early defined with more system and exactness in Normandy
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Speaker 1: than in the neighboring countries of northern France. We have
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Speaker 1: already seen that at a period well before ten sixty six,
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Speaker 1: the amount of service due from the great lords to
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Speaker 1: the Duke had been fixed in rough units of five
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Speaker 1: or multiples of five, and these again subdivided among their
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Speaker 1: vassals and attached to specific pieces of land, which were
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Speaker 1: hence called knight's fees, an arrangement which the Normans carried
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Speaker 1: to England and probably to Sicily as well. By eleven
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Speaker 1: seventy two, when a comprehensive list was first drawn up,
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Speaker 1: sub infudation had produced about fifteen hundred knights fees in Normandy,
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Speaker 1: the largest holders being the Bishop of Beyeux and the
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Speaker 1: Earl of Leicester with one hundred and twenty, the Count
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Speaker 1: of Pontieu with one hundred eleven, and Earl Guifard with
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Speaker 1: one hundred three. From these, the class of fully armed
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Speaker 1: knights reached down to the holders of small fractions of
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Speaker 1: a knight's fee, all however, serving with the full armor,
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Speaker 1: which in course of time came to mark them off
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Speaker 1: as nobles from the vavassour or free soldiers whose equipment
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Speaker 1: was less complete and whose service tended to take the
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Speaker 1: form of castle guard and similar duties. Quite early also,
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Speaker 1: custom had to find other characteristic features of the feudal
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Speaker 1: service in Normandy, such as the period of forty days,
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Speaker 1: the limitation of the obligation to the frontiers of the duchy,
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Speaker 1: and the incidents of warship and marriage, deductions from feudal
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Speaker 1: principles which were here carried to their logical conclusions. The
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Speaker 1: symbol of the authority of the military class. The outward
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Speaker 1: and visible sign of feudalism was the castle where the
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Speaker 1: lord resided and from which he exercised his authority over
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Speaker 1: his fief. Originating in the period of anarchy which accompanied
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Speaker 1: the dissolution of the Frankish Empire and the invasions of
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Speaker 1: the ninth and tenth centuries. The castle spread over northern
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Speaker 1: France as feudalism spread, and was introduced into England by
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Speaker 1: the Normans when they here established their feudal state. The
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Speaker 1: earliest castles of Normandy and of England were not, however,
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Speaker 1: the mass of stone dungeons, which freemen peopled with devils
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Speaker 1: and evil men, with some exceptions, of which the Tower
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Speaker 1: of London is the most noteworthy. These hateful structures were
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Speaker 1: built of wood and surrounded by a stockade surmounting an
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Speaker 1: artificial mound or mott thrown up from the deep moat
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Speaker 1: at its base. A great drawbridge, cleadd so that horses
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Speaker 1: should not slip on the steep incline, led from the
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Speaker 1: farther side of the moat directly to the second story
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Speaker 1: of the tower, of which the ground floor used only
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Speaker 1: for stores and the custody of prisoners had no entrance
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Speaker 1: from without. Fortresses of this type have naturally left nothing
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Speaker 1: behind them save the outlines of their mounds and moats,
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Speaker 1: but they were well known from contemporary descriptions and are
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Speaker 1: clearly discernible in the Bayeux tapestry which gives rude pictures
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Speaker 1: of the strongholds of Dole, Wren, Dinon and Bayeux, and
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Speaker 1: shows a stockaded mound in actual process of construction at Hastings.
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Speaker 1: The heavy timbers of these lofty blockhouses offered stout resistance
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Speaker 1: to battering rams, but they were always in great danger
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Speaker 1: from fire, and wood was replaced by stone in the
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Speaker 1: course of the twelfth century, to which belonged the stern
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Speaker 1: square towers, which still survive in Normandy in England, as
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Speaker 1: well as the earliest examples of the more defensible round
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Speaker 1: keeps and square keeps flanked with round towers, whether of
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Speaker 1: wood or stone, the dungeon was a stern place, built
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Speaker 1: for strength rather than for comfort, and bending the life
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Speaker 1: of those within it to the imperious necessities of defense.
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Speaker 1: Space was at a premium. Windows were few and small,
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Speaker 1: sometimes only a single window and a single room to
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Speaker 1: each story. Trapdoors and ladders often did the work of stairways,
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Speaker 1: and from the wooden castles fire was usually excluded. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: the dungeons were not, as was once supposed, mere towers
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Speaker 1: of refuge used only in time of war, but were
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Speaker 1: the permanent residences of the nobles of the eleventh and
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Speaker 1: twelfth centuries. Footnote Armitage Early Norman Castles of the British Isles,
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Speaker 1: page three hundred fifty nine and footnote Only toward the
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Speaker 1: close of this period do the outer buildings develop so
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Speaker 1: as to give something of the room and convenience demanded
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Speaker 1: by the rising standard of comfort. Only in the thirteenth
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Speaker 1: century do the more spacious castles without keeps begin to
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Speaker 1: make their appearance. It is significant of the progress made
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Speaker 1: by the ducal authority in Normandy that by the time
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Speaker 1: of William the Conqueror, definite restrictions had been placed upon
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Speaker 1: the creation of these strongholds of local power and resistance.
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Speaker 1: Except with the duke's license, no one could build a castle,
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Speaker 1: or erect a fortress on a rock or an island,
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Speaker 1: or even dig of foss in the open countries so
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Speaker 1: deep that the earth could not be thrown out from
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Speaker 1: the bottom without artificial aid, while palisades were required to
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Speaker 1: be built in a simple line and without allieurs or
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Speaker 1: special works of defense. When the duke desired he might.
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Speaker 1: Knight also placed garrisons in his baron's castles and demand
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Speaker 1: hostages for their loyalty. These principles, which were applied also
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Speaker 1: in England, were of course often difficult to enforce, and
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Speaker 1: they were supplemented in the twelfth century by a great
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Speaker 1: system of dugal castles, secured partly by enlarging and strengthening
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Speaker 1: the older fortresses of Rouen, Comt, Falaise and Argentan, partly,
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Speaker 1: as we have already seen, by new strongholds on the frontiers.
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Speaker 1: Powick has shown us how these castles became the chief
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Speaker 1: administrative centers in the reigns of Henry the Second and Richard,
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Speaker 1: and how the royal letters and accounts reveal their many
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Speaker 1: sided activity in the busy days of peace as well
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Speaker 1: as in the more strenuous times of war. Footnote the
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Speaker 1: Loss of Normandy, pages two hundred ninety eight and following
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Speaker 1: en footnote Under chatelain who were royal officers rather than
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Speaker 1: feudal vassals, with garrisons of mercenaries and retinws of knights
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Speaker 1: and sergeants, clerks and chaplains and personal servants. They foreshadow
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Speaker 1: the ultimate replacement of baronial dungeons by a royal bureaucracy.
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Speaker 1: It is doubtless because of the dominant position of the
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Speaker 1: duke that Normandy is less rich than other parts of France,
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Speaker 1: in picturesque types of feudal lords or vivid episodes of
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Speaker 1: feudal conflicts. When they go beyond the affairs of the church,
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Speaker 1: the Norman chroniclers are prone to concentrate their attention upon
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Speaker 1: the deeds of the ducal house, and their accounts of
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Speaker 1: the great vassals tend to be dry and genealogical. The
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Speaker 1: chief exception is Ordericus Vitalis, whose theme and geographical position
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Speaker 1: lead him to treat at length the long anarchy under
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Speaker 1: Robert Curthouse and the incessant conflicts of the great lords
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Speaker 1: his neighbors on the southern border, the houses of Belem, Gaunt, Maisnill,
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Speaker 1: Conch and Botoi. In the main, it is a dreary
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Speaker 1: tale of surprises and sieges, of treachery and captivity and
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Speaker 1: sudden death, relieved from time to time by brighter episodes.
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Speaker 1: The Lady Isabel of Conche, sitting in the great hall
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Speaker 1: as the young men of the castle tell their dreams,
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Speaker 1: the daily battle for bread around the oven at the
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Speaker 1: siege of Courcie, the tables spread and the pots seeding
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Speaker 1: on the coals. For the Lord and lady of Saint Seynrie,
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Speaker 1: who never came back, the man of Sainte Devrie, who,
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Speaker 1: by the Saint's aide, walks unharmed out of custody at Dome, France.
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Speaker 1: The marvelous vision of the army of knights and ladies
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Speaker 1: in Torment which appeared to the Priest of Bonvale. With
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Speaker 1: these episodes of Norman feudalism, it is interesting to compare
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Speaker 1: the picture of Anglo Norman society a hundred years later,
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Speaker 1: which we find in that unique piece of feudal biography,
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Speaker 1: The history of William the Marshal, companion to the young
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Speaker 1: King and witness of the final shame of Henry the Second,
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Speaker 1: pilgrim to Jerusalem and Cologne, advanced to positions of trust
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Speaker 1: under Richard and John, Earl of Striegul and Pembroke, and
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Speaker 1: Regent of England under Henry the Third. The Earl Marshall
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Speaker 1: stood in close relations to the chief men and movements
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Speaker 1: of his day. His biographer, however, does not let himself
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Speaker 1: wander to tell of others deeds, and while his work
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Speaker 1: contains material of much importance for the general history of
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Speaker 1: the time, its chief value lies in its reflection of
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Speaker 1: the life of the age and its faithful portrait of
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Speaker 1: the man himself. Soldier of fortune, gentleman, adventurer if you will,
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Speaker 1: but always loyal, honorable, straightforward and true by the standards
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Speaker 1: of his time, a man without fear and without reproach.
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Speaker 1: Brought up in the Norman castle of ton Carville, the Marshal,
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Speaker 1: like the young king his master, became passionately addicted to
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Speaker 1: tournaments parremenence, the nightly sport of the Middle Ages, which
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Speaker 1: made hunting another pastime, seem tame, and furnished the best
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Speaker 1: preparation for real war, since, as an English chronicler tells us,
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Speaker 1: in order to shine in war, a knight must have
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Speaker 1: seen his own blood flow, have had his jaw crack
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Speaker 1: under the blow of his adversary, have been dashed to
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Speaker 1: the earth with such force as to feel the weight
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Speaker 1: of his foe, and unhorsed twenty times, he must, twenty
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Speaker 1: times have retrieved his failures, more set than ever on
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Speaker 1: the combat. Unknown to England, before the reign of Richard,
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Speaker 1: these manly sports flourished most of all in France, the
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Speaker 1: country of chivalry and feats of arms. For several years,
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Speaker 1: we follow the Marshal from combat to combat through Normandy
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Speaker 1: and Maine, Champagne, and the Il de France, so that
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Speaker 1: his renowns spread from Patu to the Rhine. At one
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Speaker 1: period in his life he tourneyed every fortnight. The tournaments
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Speaker 1: of his day, however, were not the elegant and fashionable
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Speaker 1: affairs of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which the word
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Speaker 1: is apt to call to our minds, assemblages of beauty
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Speaker 1: as well as of prowess, held in special enclosures before
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Speaker 1: crowded galleries, with elaborate rules respecting armor and weapons in
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Speaker 1: the conditions of conflict. On the contrary, they were fought
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Speaker 1: like battles in the open, with all the arms and
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Speaker 1: methods of war, and all its maneuvers and ferocity of attack. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: they differed from war mainly in being voluntary and limited
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Speaker 1: to a single day. After one series of such thunderous encounters,
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Speaker 1: the Marshal was found in a smithy, his head on
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Speaker 1: the animal, in the smith working with hammer and pincers
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Speaker 1: to remove his battered helmet. In a great tournament at Lanyi,
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Speaker 1: three thousand knights are said to have been engaged, of
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Speaker 1: which the young king furnished eighty knights fought for honor
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Speaker 1: and fame, and for sheer joy of combat. They fought also,
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Speaker 1: we must remember, for the horses and armor and ransoms
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Speaker 1: of the captives. In a Norman tournament, the marshal captured
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Speaker 1: ten knights and twelve horses between Pentecost and Lent of
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Speaker 1: one year. Their clerks calculated that he and his companion
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Speaker 1: had taken prisoners three hundred knights, without counting horses and harness.
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Speaker 1: Yet he seems to have preserved the golden mean between
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Speaker 1: the careless largesse of the young king and the merely
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Speaker 1: mercenary motives of the large number who frequented tournaments for
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Speaker 1: the sake of gain. Concerning the great agricultural class upon
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Speaker 1: which the whole social system rested, our information is of
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Speaker 1: scattered and uneven sort. The man with the hoe did
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Speaker 1: not interest the medieval chronicler, and he did not gain
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Speaker 1: a voice of his own in the period which we
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Speaker 1: have under review. The annals of the time are indeed
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Speaker 1: careful to record the droughts and floods, the seasons of
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Speaker 1: plague and pestilence and famine, of which Normandy seems to
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Speaker 1: have had its share, But they tell us nothing of
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Speaker 1: the effects of these evils upon the class which they
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Speaker 1: most directly concerned, while the charters, leases and manorial records
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Speaker 1: from which our knowledge of the peasants must be built up,
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Speaker 1: give us in this period isolated and unrelated facts. Moreover,
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Speaker 1: our information is confined almost entirely to the lands of
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Speaker 1: churches and monasteries, where agriculture was likely to be more
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Speaker 1: progressive because of their closer relations to the world outside.
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Speaker 1: Normandy was a fertile country, and so far as we
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Speaker 1: can judge, its agricultural population fared well as compared with
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Speaker 1: that of other regions. Certainly there is here after the
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Speaker 1: eleventh century no trace of serfdom or the freeing of serfs,
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Speaker 1: and the free position of its farming class distinct inguished
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Speaker 1: the Duchy from most of the lands of northern France.
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Speaker 1: In other respects, it is hard to discern important differences
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Speaker 1: between the Norman peasants and those of other regions. After
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Speaker 1: the suppression of an insurrection at the beginning of this century,
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Speaker 1: we do not hear of any general rising of the
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Speaker 1: Norman peasants parallel to those risings which make a sad
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Speaker 1: and futile chapter in the annals of many parts of Europe.
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Speaker 1: In the Middle Ages. It was, however, a local revolt
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Speaker 1: of the thirteenth century on the lands of the monks
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Speaker 1: of Mont Saint Michel that brought out one of the
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Speaker 1: best descriptions of life on a Norman manor, the Comte
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Speaker 1: de Villans de Verson footnote printed by Delille Etude sieur
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Speaker 1: la Clais Agricole, pages six hundred and sixty eight and
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Speaker 1: following and footnote. And while it is a bit late
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Speaker 1: for our purpose, it is confirmed by documentary evidence and
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Speaker 1: may well serve as an illustration of the obligations of
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Speaker 1: the agricultural class. In June, the peasants must cut and
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Speaker 1: pile the hay and carry it to the manor house.
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Speaker 1: In August they must reap and carry in the convent's grain.
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Speaker 1: Their own grain lies exposed to wind and rain, while
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Speaker 1: they hunt out the assessor of the champar and carry
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Speaker 1: his shear to his barn. On the Nativity of the Virgin,
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Speaker 1: the villen owes the pork dew one pig and eight
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Speaker 1: at San Denidae, the sand at Christmas the fowl fine
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Speaker 1: and good, and thereafter the grain dew of two satier
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Speaker 1: of barley and three quarters of wheat. On palm Sunday,
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Speaker 1: the sheep dew at easter, he must plow so and harrow.
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Speaker 1: When there is building, the tenant must bring stone and
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Speaker 1: serve the masons. He must also haul the convents wood
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Speaker 1: for two dennie a day. If he sells his land,
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Speaker 1: he owes the lord a thirteenth of its value. If
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Speaker 1: he marries his daughter outside the sea, he pays a fine.
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Speaker 1: He must grind his corn at the senorial mill and
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Speaker 1: bake his bread at the seigniorial oven, where the customary
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Speaker 1: charges do not satisfy the attendants, who grumble and threaten
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Speaker 1: to leave his bread unbaked. So long as medieval society
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Speaker 1: remained almost entirely agricultural, there was no need of adapting
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Speaker 1: its organization to other classes than those which have just
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Speaker 1: been described. In course of time, however, the growth of
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Speaker 1: industry and commerce very slow before the eleventh century, but
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Speaker 1: rapid and constant in the period during and after the Crusades,
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Speaker 1: as may be seen by the large number of markets
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Speaker 1: and fairs in Normandy, created a new class of dwellers
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Speaker 1: in towns who demanded recognition of their peculiar character and
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Speaker 1: status by reason of the nature of their occupations. They
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Speaker 1: sought release from the sennorial system, with its forced labor,
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Speaker 1: its frequent payments, and its vexatious restrictions of upon freedom
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Speaker 1: of movement and freedom of buying and selling. And as
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Speaker 1: their economic needs drew them together into industrial and commercial
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Speaker 1: centers of population, they developed a collective feeling and demanded
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Speaker 1: collective treatment. They asked, not, as has sometimes been said,
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Speaker 1: for the overthrow of the feudal system, but for a
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Speaker 1: place within it which should recognize their peculiar economic and
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Speaker 1: political interests. And the result of their efforts, when fully successful,
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Speaker 1: was to form what has been called a collective seignury,
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Speaker 1: standing as a body in the relation of vassal to
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Speaker 1: lord or king and owing the obligations of homage, fealty,
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Speaker 1: and communal military service. But while not anti feudal in theory,
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Speaker 1: this movement was often anti feudal in practice so far
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Speaker 1: at least as the rights and privileges of the immediate
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Speaker 1: overlord were concerned, and it led to friction and often
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Speaker 1: to armed contests with Bishop barhon King in Normandy. Significantly,
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Speaker 1: we find none of those communal revolts which meet us
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Speaker 1: throughout the north of France, and even as near as lement.
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Speaker 1: The towns are always subject to the ultimate authority of
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Speaker 1: the Duke, whose domainial rites were considerable even in the
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Speaker 1: episcopal cities, and who favored those forms of urban development
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Speaker 1: which strengthened the military resources of the duchy. The early
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Speaker 1: history of the Norman towns is one of the most
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Speaker 1: obscure chapters in Norman history, but it indicates a variety
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Speaker 1: of influences which do not fit into any one of
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Speaker 1: the many theories of municipal origins which have been the
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Speaker 1: subject of so much learned controversy. Some towns were originally
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Speaker 1: fortified places like the baronial stronghold of Bretuer or Henry,
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Speaker 1: the First's fortresses of Verny, Nonancour and Pontoursin on the
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Speaker 1: southern border. Some took advantage of the protection of a monastery,
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Speaker 1: as in the case of Facon or the Bourgs of
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Speaker 1: the Abbot and Abbess of Gant. The great ports like
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Speaker 1: Barfleur Antieppe obviously owed their importance to trade, and it
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Speaker 1: was trade which created the prosperity of the chief towns
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Speaker 1: of the duchy rule and cont however developed, the Norman
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Speaker 1: municipal type exerted no small influence upon urban organization. The
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Speaker 1: laws of Bertoix became the model for Norman foundations on
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Speaker 1: the Welsh border and in Ireland. The etablisment of Ruron
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Speaker 1: were copied in the principal towns of western France, tour En, Poitiers,
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Speaker 1: Angouleme and La Rochelle, even to Gascon Bayen on the
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Speaker 1: Spanish frontier. If we take as an illustration of this
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Speaker 1: development the principal Norman town Run, we find no evidence
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Speaker 1: regarding its institutions before the twelfth century, while its organization
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Speaker 1: as a commune dates from the reign of Henners. The
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Speaker 1: second end probably from the year eleven seventy one. The
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Speaker 1: fundamental law or etablissement, which Ruron then received and which
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Speaker 1: became the model for communal government elsewhere in Normandy, constitutes
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Speaker 1: a body of one hundred peers who meet once a
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Speaker 1: fortnight for judicial and other business, and who choose from
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Speaker 1: their numbers each year the twelve aschevin or magistrates, and
23:24
Speaker 1: the twelve councilors, who sit with yesheven to form the
23:28
Speaker 1: Council of Jurais. Besides these boards, which are typical of
23:32
Speaker 1: medieval town constitution, the peers also nominate three candidates for
23:37
Speaker 1: the office of mayor, but the choice among these is
23:39
Speaker 1: made by the King, and the greater authority of the
23:42
Speaker 1: mayor in this system is evidently designed to secure more
23:46
Speaker 1: effective royal control. It is the mayor who leads the
23:50
Speaker 1: communal militia, receives the revenues, supervises the execution of sentences,
23:55
Speaker 1: and presides over all meetings of magistrates and boards. Administration
24:00
Speaker 1: of justice through its own magistrates, is perhaps the most
24:04
Speaker 1: valued privilege of the commune. But the gravest crimes were
24:08
Speaker 1: reserved for the cognizance of royal officers, and the presence
24:12
Speaker 1: of the King or the session of his assize is
24:14
Speaker 1: sufficient to suspend all communal powers of justice. In a
24:19
Speaker 1: state like the Norman the limits of municipal self government
24:24
Speaker 1: are clear. The importance of Rule as a commercial and
24:28
Speaker 1: industrial center was not, however, dependent upon its form of government.
24:32
Speaker 1: Its ancient guild of court waners had been recognized by
24:36
Speaker 1: Henry the First and Stephen Its trading privileges were confirmed
24:41
Speaker 1: in one of the earliest charters of Henry the Second.
24:44
Speaker 1: Save for a single ship yearly from Cherbourg, the merchants
24:48
Speaker 1: of Rule had a monopoly of trade with Ireland. In
24:52
Speaker 1: England they could go through all the markets of the land.
24:56
Speaker 1: In London, they were quit of all payments save for
24:59
Speaker 1: wine and great fish, and had exclusive rights in their
25:03
Speaker 1: special wharf of Dowgate. Later in Henry's reign they were
25:08
Speaker 1: even freed of all dues. Throughout his dominions. Only a
25:12
Speaker 1: citizen might take a shipload of merchandise past rule, or
25:16
Speaker 1: bring wine to a cellar in the town. Besides the
25:19
Speaker 1: great trade and wine, we hear of dealings in leather, cloth, grain,
25:23
Speaker 1: and especially salt and salt fish. Under Henry the Second,
25:28
Speaker 1: the ducal rights over the town were worth annually about
25:31
Speaker 1: three thousand livres. Apart from their share in this general prosperity,
25:36
Speaker 1: the citizens had special exemptions in the matter of duties
25:39
Speaker 1: and tolls on goods which they brought in, while the
25:42
Speaker 1: freedom from feudal restraints which characterized all Burgage tenures put
25:47
Speaker 1: a premium upon their holding of property. Besides the privileged
25:51
Speaker 1: areas belonging to the cathedral and the neighboring abbeys, a
25:55
Speaker 1: foothold in the city was valued by others. The Bishop
25:59
Speaker 1: of Bayeux had at a townhouse the Abbot of Kant
26:02
Speaker 1: price the seller, and an exemption from wine dews, which
26:06
Speaker 1: he owed to the generosity of William the Conqueror. The
26:09
Speaker 1: clerks and chaplains of the king's household took advantage of
26:13
Speaker 1: their opportunities to acquire rents and houses at Ruhl, as
26:16
Speaker 1: well as at London and Winchester. Unfortunately, no one has
26:21
Speaker 1: left us in this period a description of the busy
26:23
Speaker 1: life of rule, such as Fitztephen has given of contemporary London.
26:28
Speaker 1: And it is only with the imagination that we can
26:31
Speaker 1: bring before our eyes the ships at their wharves, with
26:34
Speaker 1: their bales of marten skins from Ireland and casks of
26:38
Speaker 1: wine from Burgundy and the South. The fullers and dyers,
26:42
Speaker 1: millers and tanners plying their trades along the Oudorobach, the
26:46
Speaker 1: Burgesses trafficking in the streets in the cathedral close, the
26:50
Speaker 1: royal clerks and sergeants hastening to their master's business. Still
26:55
Speaker 1: more to be regretted is the disappearance of those material
26:58
Speaker 1: remains of its ancient and splendor, which until the last
27:02
Speaker 1: century retained the form and flavor, if not the actual
27:06
Speaker 1: wood and stone of the medieval city. Today, scarcely anything
27:11
Speaker 1: survives above ground of the ruin of the dukes of
27:15
Speaker 1: its walls and gates, destroyed by Philip Augustus, of the
27:18
Speaker 1: castle by the River, with the tower from which Henry
27:21
Speaker 1: the First threw the Trader Conan, and the great hall
27:25
Speaker 1: and rooms renewed by his grandson, of the stone bridge
27:29
Speaker 1: of the Empress Matilda, of the Royal Park and palace.
27:32
Speaker 1: Across the Seine at k V, only the Great Saint
27:36
Speaker 1: Romance Tower of the cathedral and an early bit of
27:39
Speaker 1: the abbey Church of Saintoine still bodied. Forth. The unbroken
27:43
Speaker 1: continuity of the Norman past. The Norman Church throughout the
27:48
Speaker 1: period of our study stands in the closest relation to
27:52
Speaker 1: the general condition of Norman society. The monasteries and churches
27:57
Speaker 1: of the region had been almost completely wiped out by
28:00
Speaker 1: the northern invasions, and while the Northmen soon adopted the
28:03
Speaker 1: religion of their new neighbors, it was many years before
28:07
Speaker 1: ecclesiastical life and discipline again reached the level of the
28:11
Speaker 1: other dioceses of France. As late as the year one
28:15
Speaker 1: thousand and one, Apergundian Monk reported that there was hardly
28:19
Speaker 1: a priest in Normandy who could read the lessons or
28:21
Speaker 1: say his psalms. Correctly. The prelates led the life of
28:25
Speaker 1: the great feudal families of which they were members, distributing
28:29
Speaker 1: the property of the church as fiefs to their friends
28:32
Speaker 1: or gifts to their numerous progeny, and the lower clergy,
28:36
Speaker 1: for the most part, married sought to pass on their
28:38
Speaker 1: benefices to their children. In the course of the eleventh century, however,
28:44
Speaker 1: more canonical standards began to prevail, largely through the influence
28:48
Speaker 1: of the monks of Cluny. Older foundations like Fecon were renewed,
28:53
Speaker 1: and the Norman lords soon began to vie with one
28:56
Speaker 1: another in the endowment of new monastic establishments to them.
29:00
Speaker 1: The half century which preceded the conquest of England, we
29:03
Speaker 1: can trace the beginnings of twenty important monasteries and six nunneries,
29:08
Speaker 1: not counting priories and smaller foundations, a movement for which
29:12
Speaker 1: contemporaries could find no parallel short of the Palmy days
29:16
Speaker 1: of monasticism in Roman Egypt. In course of time, the
29:20
Speaker 1: monastic ideal reacted upon the secular clergy, and the monastic
29:25
Speaker 1: schools raised the level of learning throughout the duchy, until
29:29
Speaker 1: provincial councils succeeded in establishing the celibacy of the priesthood
29:33
Speaker 1: and the stricter discipline of Rome. In all this movement
29:37
Speaker 1: for reform, the Dukes took a leading part, inviting the
29:40
Speaker 1: reformers to their courts, aiding in the foundation and restoration
29:44
Speaker 1: of cloisters, and lending their strong support to the efforts
29:48
Speaker 1: for moral improvement in the secular clergy. They also asserted
29:52
Speaker 1: their supremacy over the Norman Church, presiding in its councils,
29:57
Speaker 1: revising the judgments of its courts, appointing and investing its
30:01
Speaker 1: bishops and abbots. Moreover, while ready to co operate with
30:06
Speaker 1: the moral ideas of the papacy, they resisted all attempts
30:09
Speaker 1: at papal interference in Norman affairs. When Alexander the Second
30:15
Speaker 1: sought to restore an abbot whom William the Conqueror had deposed,
30:20
Speaker 1: the Duke replied that he would gladly receive papal legates
30:23
Speaker 1: in matters of faith and doctrine, but would hang to
30:26
Speaker 1: the tallest oak of the nearest tree any monk who
30:30
Speaker 1: dared to resist his authority in his own land. William's
30:34
Speaker 1: resistance was equally firm in the case of Gregory the
30:37
Speaker 1: Seventh who failed completely in his efforts at direct action
30:41
Speaker 1: in William's dominions. Nowhere on the continent, concludes Baumert footnote
30:48
Speaker 1: KiHa Unstadt, page forty one and footnote, was there at
30:53
Speaker 1: this time a country where the prince and his bishops
30:56
Speaker 1: were so energetic in the suppression of simony and violations
31:00
Speaker 1: of clerical vows. Nowhere was the church so completely subject
31:05
Speaker 1: to this secular government. The most prominent figure in the
31:10
Speaker 1: Norman Church of the eleventh century Odo for nearly fifty years,
31:14
Speaker 1: Bishop of Beyeux, was far from fulfilling the stricter ideal
31:19
Speaker 1: of a prelate's life. Half brother of the conqueror through
31:23
Speaker 1: their mother Arlette, he received the bishopric as a family
31:27
Speaker 1: gift at the tender age of fourteen, and became thereby
31:31
Speaker 1: one of the greatest princes of Normandy. His one hundred
31:34
Speaker 1: and twenty nights fees furnished him a body of powerful vassals.
31:39
Speaker 1: His demean gave him manners and forests for the support
31:42
Speaker 1: of his household, fuel for his fires and reeds and
31:45
Speaker 1: rushes for his haull rents and tithes at conn and
31:49
Speaker 1: the monopoly of the mill at Bayeux tolls and fines
31:53
Speaker 1: and market rights, which produced a considerable income and ready
31:56
Speaker 1: money for the invasion of England. He is said to
32:00
Speaker 1: have offered a hundred ships, and he took an active
32:02
Speaker 1: part in the Battle of Hastings, swinging a huge mace
32:06
Speaker 1: in place of spear and sword, since the shedding of
32:09
Speaker 1: blood was forbidden to an ecclesiastic. In the distribution which followed,
32:15
Speaker 1: Odo received large estates in the Southeast, as well as
32:18
Speaker 1: the Earldom of Kent and the custody of Dover Castle,
32:22
Speaker 1: and he seems to have ruled his lands with a
32:25
Speaker 1: heavy hand, both as Earl and as regent in William's absence.
32:29
Speaker 1: It even became his ambition to succeed the Mighty Hildebrand
32:34
Speaker 1: as pope, and he had already spent considerable sums at
32:38
Speaker 1: Rome when William, accusing him of tyranny and oppression, put
32:42
Speaker 1: him in prison, answering his assertion of ecclesiastical privilege with
32:47
Speaker 1: the statement the imprisoned not the Bishop of Beieux, but
32:51
Speaker 1: the Earl of Kent. There he languished for five years
32:55
Speaker 1: till William, on his death bed, against his better judgment,
32:59
Speaker 1: release him for ten more years of rule in Normandy. Yet,
33:03
Speaker 1: though Odo's eulogists admit that he was given over much
33:07
Speaker 1: to worldly ambition, the lusts of the flesh and the
33:10
Speaker 1: pride of life. They tell us of his vigorous defense
33:13
Speaker 1: of his clergy by arms as well as by eloquence,
33:17
Speaker 1: of the young men of promised, whom he supported in
33:20
Speaker 1: the schools of Lorraine and other centers of foreign learning.
33:24
Speaker 1: Of the journey to Jerusalem, on which he met his death.
33:28
Speaker 1: Of the great Cathedral, which he built in honor of
33:31
Speaker 1: the Mother of God, and adorned with gold and silver,
33:34
Speaker 1: and probably with the very Bayeux tapestry, which is the
33:38
Speaker 1: chief surviving monument of his magnificence. With the twelfth century,
33:43
Speaker 1: the type changes to the monastic historian. A bishop like
33:47
Speaker 1: Philippe d'arcour likewise of the Sea of Beyeux, may appear
33:52
Speaker 1: wise in the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness
33:55
Speaker 1: with God footnote Robert of TOURINYI additioned del Volume one,
34:01
Speaker 1: page three hundred forty four and footnote. But his wisdom
34:05
Speaker 1: shows itself in frequent journeys to Rome and persistent litigation
34:09
Speaker 1: in the Duke's courts, not in battles and sieges, and
34:13
Speaker 1: he owes his appointment to his influence as Stephen's chancellor,
34:17
Speaker 1: and not to blood relationship. Arnulf of Vicieux is another
34:22
Speaker 1: royal officer, versatile, insinuating, shifty, anything but truthful, if we
34:28
Speaker 1: may believe his fellow bishops, but proud of his Latin
34:31
Speaker 1: style and his knowledge of law, and prodigal of letters
34:35
Speaker 1: to the Pope. Their contemporaries continue to owe their promotion
34:39
Speaker 1: to service as chaplains or chancellors to the King, but
34:43
Speaker 1: they also have an eye toward Rome and must be
34:45
Speaker 1: canonists as well as secular officials. The contrast between Becket,
34:51
Speaker 1: the King's Chancellor and Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury is
34:56
Speaker 1: symptomatic of the New Age, although the conflict to which
35:00
Speaker 1: it led affected Normandy, but indirectly, relations with the lay power,
35:05
Speaker 1: which once rested on local Norman custom, came to be
35:08
Speaker 1: formulated in the sharper terms of the canon law of
35:11
Speaker 1: the Universal Church. Appeals to Roman instructions from Rome increase
35:16
Speaker 1: rapidly in volume and importance. The Norman clergy attend assemblies
35:21
Speaker 1: of the clergy of neighboring lands, and by the end
35:23
Speaker 1: of the Plantagenet period the Norman Church is ready to
35:27
Speaker 1: be absorbed into the Church of France. Respecting the daily
35:32
Speaker 1: life and conversation of the cathedral and parish clergy, the
35:35
Speaker 1: twelfth century is silent, save for the condemnations of particular
35:39
Speaker 1: evils in the councils of the province. From the middle
35:43
Speaker 1: of the thirteenth century, however, Normandy furnishes us in the
35:47
Speaker 1: Diary of Visitations kept by the Archbishop of Ruron Udigo,
35:52
Speaker 1: a picture of manners and morals which, for authenticity and
35:56
Speaker 1: fullness of detail, has probably no parallel in medieval Europe,
36:00
Speaker 1: and one is tempted to carry back two or three
36:02
Speaker 1: generations his descriptions of the canons of Ruon wandering about
36:07
Speaker 1: the cathedral and chatting with women during service, the nuns
36:11
Speaker 1: of Saint Sauver with their pet dogs and squirrels, and
36:14
Speaker 1: those of other convents celebrating the festival of the Innocence
36:17
Speaker 1: with dance and song and unseemly mirth. The monks of
36:21
Speaker 1: Beaureville without a Bible among them to read. It is
36:25
Speaker 1: hard to believe that there was anything new in the
36:28
Speaker 1: disorders which this upright archbishop chronicles placed by place year
36:33
Speaker 1: by year. Ignorance, drunkenness and incontinence among the perishing cathedral clergy,
36:39
Speaker 1: lacks discipline, loose administration, and neglect of learning in the
36:43
Speaker 1: monasteries and nunneries. What was old in the time of
36:47
Speaker 1: Roblais was probably old in the thirteenth century, and there
36:51
Speaker 1: is abundant evidence of abuses in the medieval church, in
36:54
Speaker 1: Normandy and elsewhere. What we want to know is how
36:58
Speaker 1: general these abuses were and how many there were to
37:01
Speaker 1: counteract them. Like Chaucer's Povra persuona Vatune, who taught Cristees
37:07
Speaker 1: Laura and with his Apostles twelve, but first followed it
37:11
Speaker 1: him saliva. Data of this sort are always lacking insufficient
37:16
Speaker 1: amount for any moral statistics, and they must be supplemented
37:20
Speaker 1: and interpreted by the evidence which has reached us of
37:22
Speaker 1: popular piety and devotion. Such was the processions of priests
37:27
Speaker 1: and people throughout the diocese to the cathedral at Whitsuntide,
37:31
Speaker 1: the miraculous cures of disease by our Lady of Coutens,
37:35
Speaker 1: and the extraordinary bursts of contrition, religious enthusiasm and zeal
37:40
Speaker 1: for good works which broke forth at the building of
37:43
Speaker 1: the spires of Chartre in eleven forty five and spread
37:47
Speaker 1: throughout the length and breadth of Normandy. End of section
37:53
Speaker 1: eleven st.