The Historians' History of the World 08

On whom fell all the burden of these feudal wars? They were not very murderous for the nobles wrapped in steel, but they were so for the peasant with scarcely any defensive armour. At Brenneville, where the kings of France and England fought, nine hundred knights took part, and only three were left on the battle-field. At Bouvines, Philip Augustus was thrown from his horse and remained some time helpless amidst the foot-soldiers of the enemy. They vainly sought some opening in his armour through which to pass a dagger blade, and they dealt heavy blows which could not break his cuirass. His knights took their time about rescuing and replacing him in the saddle. After which he threw himself with them into the midst of that rabble where their long lances and heavy axes did not deliver a single blow in vain. The sovereign captured, another calamity; his ransom must be paid. But who paid for the cottage and the burned fields of the poor peasant—who stanched his wounds, who provided for his widow and orphans?

Two contemporary writers, historians of the Crusades, paint thus these direful times: “Before the Christians left for the countries beyond the sea,” says Guibert de Nogent, “the kingdom of France was in the throes of constant trouble and hostilities. One heard nothing but of brigandage on the public roads. Fires were innumerable, and war was inflicted on every hand for no other reason than insatiable cupidity. In short, grasping men respected no right of property and gave themselves up to pillage with unrestrained boldness.”

And William, archbishop of Tyre,h says: “There was no security for property. Were a man regarded as rich, this was sufficient excuse for throwing him into prison, keeping him in irons, and putting him to cruel torture. Sword-girded brigands infested the roads, lay in ambush, and spared neither strangers nor men devoted to the service of God. Cities and fortified towns were not safe from such crimes. Cut-throats made the streets and squares dangerous for the wealthy man.” In the seventy years between 970 and 1040 there were forty of famine and pestilence.

However, the onward march of civilisation can never be so completely suspended that these centuries were absolutely sterile for the progress of humanity. In the church thought awakened, and in lay society poetry made its appearance. There was even some progress in morals, at least among the ruling classes. In the isolation in which each one lived, exposed to all sorts of perils, the soul fortified itself to meet them. The feeling of the dignity of man, which despotism managed to smother, was revived; and the society which spilled blood with such deplorable facility showed often a moral elevation which is to be found only in this age. The low vices and cowardice of the decadent Romans or enslaved peoples were unknown to them, and the Middle Ages have bequeathed to modern times the sentiment of honour. The feudal nobility knew how to die, which is the first condition of knowing how to get the most out of life.

Another beneficial consequence was the reorganisation of the family. In ancient cities the head of the family lived outside his house, in the fields or in the forum. He scarcely knew his wife and children, yet had over them the right of life and death. In primitive times the custom of polygamy and the facility for divorce prevented the family from establishing itself on any better basis. In feudal society men lived in isolation, and the head of the family was brought into close touch with it. When wars gave him leisure in his castle, perched like an eagle’s nest on the mountain top, he had nothing to occupy his life and his heart but his wife and children. The church, which brought rough soldiers to the feet of a virgin and made them for the sake of the mother of Christ respect female virtue, softened the temper of the warrior and prepared him to come under the spell of the finer feelings and more delicate sentiments with which nature had endowed the other sex.

Woman assumed, then, her place in the family and in society which the Mosaic law had once given her. Things went even further—she became the object of a cult which created new sentiments, which the poetry of troubadours and minstrels seized upon and which chivalry expressed in action. As in the beautiful legend of St. Christopher, the strong was conquered by the weak, the giant by the little child.

Tower of a German Feudal Castle

This is seen in an institution of the times. Robert d’Arbrissel founded near Saumur at Fontevrault, about the year 1100, an abbey which soon became famous, and which opened its gates to recluses of both sexes. The women were cloistered, and spent their time in prayer. The men worked in the fields, drained the marshes, cleared the land, and remained the perpetual servants of the women. The abbey was governed by an abbess, “because,” says the bull of confirmation, “Jesus Christ in dying gave his best beloved disciple to his mother for a son.”