Part 36

From what we have related about rogues and the Cours des Miracles, one might perhaps be tempted to suppose that France was specially privileged; but it was not so, for Italy was far worse in this respect. The rogues were called by the Italians _bianti_, or _ceretani_, and were subdivided into more than forty classes, the various characteristics of which have been described by a certain Rafael Frianoro. It is not necessary to state that the analogue of more than one of these classes is to be found in the short description we have given of the Argotic kingdom in France. We will therefore only mention those which were more especially Italian. It must not be forgotten that in the southern countries, where religions superstition was more marked than elsewhere, the numerous family of rogues had no difficulty in practising every description of imposture, inasmuch as they trusted to the various manifestations of religions feeling to effect their purposes. Thus the _affrati_, in order to obtain more alms and offerings, went about in the garb of monks and priests, even saying mass, and pretending that it was the first time they had exercised their sacred office. So the _morghigeri_ walked behind a donkey, carrying a bell and a lamp, with their string of beads in their hands, and asking how they were to pay for the bell, which they were always "just going to buy." The _felsi_ pretended that they were divinely inspired and endowed with the gift of second sight, and announced that there were hidden treasures in certain houses under the guardianship of evil spirits. They asserted that these treasures could not be discovered without danger, except by means of fastings and offerings, which they and their brethren could alone make, in consideration of which they entered into a bargain, and received a certain sum of money from the owners. The _accatosi_ deserve mention on account of the cleverness with which they contrived to assume the appearance of captives recently escaped from slavery. Shaking the chains with which they said they had been bound, jabbering unintelligible words, telling heart-rending tales of their sufferings and privations, and showing the marks of blows which they had received, they went on their knees, begging for money that they might buy off their brethren or their friends, whom they said they had left in the hands of the Saracens or the Turks, We must mention, also, the _allacrimanti_, or weepers, who owed their name to the facility which they possessed of shedding tears at will; and the _testatori_, who, pretending to be seriously ill and about to die, extorted money from all those to whom they promised to leave their fortunes, though, of course, they had not a son to leave behind them. We must not forget the _protobianti_ (master rogues), who made no scruple of exciting compassion from their own comrades (Fig. 381), nor the _vergognosi_, who, notwithstanding their poverty, wished to be thought rich, and considered that assistance was due to them from the mere fact of their being noble. We must here conclude, for it would occupy too much time to go through the list of these Italian vagabonds. As for the German (Figs. 382 and 383), Spanish, and English rogues, we may simply remark that no type exists among them which is not to be met with amongst the Argotiers of France or the Bianti of Italy. In giving a description, therefore, of the mendicity practised in these two countries during the Middle Ages, we are sure to be representing what it was in other parts of Europe.

[Illustration: Fig. 381.--Italian Beggar.--From an Engraving by Callot.]

[Illustration: Figs. 382 and 383.--German Beggars.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.]

The history of regular robbers and highwaymen during this long period is more difficult to describe; it contains only disconnected anecdotes of a more or less interesting character. It is probable, moreover, that robbers did not always commit their depredations singly, and that they early understood the advantages of associating together. The _Tafurs_, or _Halegrins_, whom we notice as followers of Godefroy de Bouillon at the time of the Crusades, towards the end of the eleventh century, were terribly bad characters, and are actually accused by contemporary writers of violating tombs, and of living on human flesh. On this account they were looked upon with the utmost horror by the infidels, who dreaded more their savage ferocity than the valour of the Crusaders. The latter even, who had these hordes of Tafurs under their command, were not without considerable mistrust of them, and when, during their march through Hungary, under the protection of the cross, these miscreants committed depredations, Godefroy de Bouillion was obliged to ask pardon for them from the king of that country.

An ancient poet has handed down to us a story in verse setting forth the exploits of Eustace the monk, who, after having thrown aside his frock, embraced the life of a robber, and only abandoned it to become Admiral of France under Philip Augustus. He was killed before Sandwich, in 1217. We have satisfactory proof that as early as the thirteenth century sharpers were very expert masters of their trade, for the ingenious and amusing tricks of which they were guilty are quite equal to the most skilled of those now recorded in our police reports. In the two following centuries the science of the _pince_ and of the _croc_ (pincers and hook), as it was then called, alone made progress, and Pathelin (a character in comedy, and an incomparable type of craft and dishonesty) never lacked disciples any more than Villon did imitators. We know that this charming poet, who was at the same time a most expert thief, narrowly escaped hanging on two occasions. His contemporaries attributed to him a poem of twelve hundred verses, entitled "Les Repues Franches," in which are described the methods in use among his companions for procuring wine, bread, meat, and fish, without having to pay for them. They form a series of interesting stories, the moral of which is to be gathered from the following lines:--

"C'est bien, disné, quand on eschappe Sans desbourcer pas ung denier, Et dire adieu an tavernier, En torchant son nez à la nappe."

The meaning of this doggrel, which is somewhat broad, may be rendered--"He dines well who escapes without paying a penny, and who bids farewell to the innkeeper by wiping his nose on the tablecloth."

Side by side with this poem of Yillon we ought to cite one of a later period--"La Légende de Maître Faifeu," versified by Charles Boudigné. This Faifeu was a kind of Villon of Anjou, who excelled in all kinds of rascality, and who might possibly have taught it even to the gipsies themselves. The character of Panurge, in the "Pantagruel," is no other than the type of Faifeu, immortalised by the genius of Rabelais. We must also mention one of the pamphlets of Guillaume Bouchet, written towards the end of the sixteenth century, which gives a very amusing account of thieves of every description, and also "L'Histoire Générale des Larrons," in which are related numerous wonderful tales of murders, robberies, and other atrocities, which made our admiring ancestors well acquainted with the heroes of the Grève and of Montfaucon. It must not be supposed that in those days the life of a robber who pursued his occupation with any degree of industry and skill was unattended with danger, for the most harmless cut-purses were hung without mercy whenever they were caught; the fear, however, of this fate did not prevent the _Enfants de la Matte_ from performing wonders.

Brantôme relates that King Charles IX. had the curiosity to wish to "know how the cut-purses performed their arts with so much skill and dexterity," and begged Captain La Chambre to introduce to him, on the occasion of a banquet and a ball, the cleverest cut-purses, giving them full liberty to exhibit their skill. The captain went to the Cours des Miracles and fetched ten of the most expert of these thieves, whom he presented to the King. Charles, "after the dinner and the ball had taken place, wished to see all the plunder, and found that they had absolutely earned three thousand écus, either in money from purses, or in precious stones, pearls, or other jewels; some of the guests even lost their cloaks, at which the King thought he should die of laughter." The King allowed them to keep what they had thus earned at the expense of his guests; but he forbad them "to continue this sort of life," under penalty of being hung, and he had them enrolled in the army, in order to recompense them for their clever feats. We may safely assert that they made but indifferent soldiers.

[Illustration: Fig. 384.--The Exhibitor of strange Animals (Twelfth Century Manuscript, Royal Library of Brussels).]

Ceremonials.

Origin of Modern Ceremonial.--Uncertainty of French Ceremonial up to the End of the Sixteenth Century.--Consecration of the Kings of France.--Coronation of the Emperors of Germany.--Consecration of the Doges of Venice.--Marriage of the Doge with the Sea.--State Entries of Sovereigns.--An Account of the Entry of Isabel of Bavaria into Paris.--Seats of Justice.--Visits of Ceremony between Persons of rank.--Mourning.--Social Courtesies.--Popular Demonstrations and National Commemorations.--New Year's Day.--Local Festivals.--_Vins d'Honneur._--Processions of Trades.

Although society during the Middle Ages was, as a whole, closely cemented together, being animated by the same sentiments and imbued with the same spirit, it was divided, as we have already stated, into three great classes, namely, the clergy, the nobility, and the _liers-état._ These classes, each of which formed a distinct body within the State, carried on an existence peculiar to itself, and presented in its collective capacity a separate individuality. Hence there was a distinct ceremonial for each class. We will not attempt to give in detail the innumerable laws of these three kinds of ceremonial; our attention will be directed solely to their most characteristic customs, and to their most remarkable and interesting aspects taken as a whole. We must altogether lay aside matters relating specially to ceremonies of a purely religions character, as they are connected more or less with the traditions and customs of the Church, and belong to quite a distinct order of things.

"When the Germans, and especially the Franks," says the learned paleographer Vallet de Viriville, "had succeeded in establishing their own rule in place of that of the Romans, these almost savage nations, and the barbarian chiefs who were at their head under the title of kings, necessarily borrowed more or less the refined practices relating to ceremonial possessed by the people whom they had conquered. The elevation of the elected chief or king on the shield and the solemn taking of arms in the midst of the tribe seem to be the only traces of public ceremonies which we can discover among the Grermans. The marvellous display and the imposing splendour of the political hierarchy of the Roman Empire, especially in its outward arrangements, must have astonished the minds of these uncultivated people. Thus we find the Frank kings becoming immediately after a victory the simple and clumsy imitators of the civilisation which they had broken up." Clovis on returning to Tours in 507, after having defeated Alaric, received the titles of _Patrician_ and _Consul_ from the Emperor Anastasius, and bedecked himself with the purple, the chlamys, and the diadem. The same principle of imitation was afterwards exhibited in the internal and external court ceremonial, in proportion as it became developed in the royal person. Charlemagne, who aimed at everything which could adorn and add strength to a new monarchy, established a regular method for the general and special administration of his empire, as also for the internal arrangement and discipline of his palace. We have already referred to this twofold organization (_vide_ chapters on Private Life and on Food), but we may here remark that, notwithstanding these ancient tendencies to the creation of a fixed ceremonial, the trifling rules which made etiquette a science and a law, were introduced by degrees, and have only very recently been established amongst us.

In 1385, when King Charles VI. married the notorious Isabel of Bavaria, then scarcely fourteen years of age, he desired to arrange for her a magnificent entry into Paris, the pomp and brilliancy of which should be consistent with the rank and illustrious descent of his young bride. He therefore begged the old Queen Blanche, widow of Philippe de Valois, to preside over the ceremony, and to have it conducted according to the custom of olden times. She was consequently obliged, in the absence of any fixed rules on the subject, to consult the official records,--that is to say, the "Chronique du Monastère de Saint-Denis." The first embodiment of rules relating to these matters in use among the nobility, which had appeared in France under the title of "Honneurs de la Cour," only goes back to the end of the fifteenth century. It appears, however, that even then this was not generally admitted among the nobility as the basis of ceremonial, for in 1548 we find that nothing had been definitely settled. This is evident from the fact that when King Henri III. desired to know the rank and order of precedence of the princes of the royal blood, both dukes and counts--as also that of the other princes, the barons, the nobles of the kingdom, the constables, the marshals of France and the admirals, and what position they had held on great public occasions during the reigns of his predecessors--he commissioned Jean du Tillet, the civil registrar of the Parliament of Paris, to search among the royal archives for the various authentic documents which might throw light on this question, and serve as a precedent for the future. In fact, it was Henri III. who, in 1585, created the office of Grand Master of the Ceremonies of France, entrusting it to Guillaume Pot, a noble of Rhodes, which office for many generations remained hereditary in his family.

[Illustration: Fig. 385.--Herald (Fourteenth Century).--From a Miniature in the "Chroniques de Saint-Denis" (Imperial Library of Paris).]

Nevertheless the question of ceremonial, and especially that of precedence, had already more than once occupied the attention of sovereigns, not only within their own states, but also in relation to diplomatic matters. The meetings of councils, at which the ambassadors of all the Christian Powers, with the delegates of the Catholic Church, were assembled, did not fail to bring this subject up for decision. Pope Julius II. in 1504 instructed Pierre de Crassis, his Master of the Ceremonies, to publish a decree, determining the rank to be taken by the various sovereigns of Europe or by their representatives; but we should add that this Papal decree never received the sanction of the parties interested, and that the question of precedence, even at the most unimportant public ceremonies, was during the whole of the Middle Ages a perpetual source of litigation in courts of law, and of quarrels which too often ended in bloodshed.

It is right that we should place at the head of political ceremonies those having reference to the coronation of sovereigns, which were not only political, but owed their supreme importance and dignity to the necessary intervention of ecclesiastical authority. We will therefore first speak of the consecration and coronation of the kings of France.

Pépin le Bref, son of Charles Martel and founder of the second dynasty, was the first of the French kings who was consecrated by the religions rite of anointing. But its mode of administration for a long period underwent numerous changes, before becoming established by a definite law. Thus Pépin, after having been first consecrated in 752 in the Cathedral of Boissons, by the Archbishop of Mayence, was again consecrated with his two sons Charlemagne and Carloman, in 753, in the Abbey of St. Denis, by Pope Stephen III. Charlemagne was twice anointed by the Sovereign Pontiff, first as King of Lombardy, and then as Emperor. Louis le Débonnaire, his immediate successor, was consecrated at Rheims by Pope Stephen IV. in 816. In 877 Louis le Bègue received unction and the sceptre, at Compiègne, at the hands of the Archbishop of Rheims. Charles le Simple in 893, and Robert I. in 922, were consecrated and crowned at Rheims; but the coronation of Raoul, in 923, was celebrated in the Abbey of St. Médard de Soissons, and that of Louis d'Outremer, in 936, at Laon. From the accession of King Lothaire to that of Louis VI. (called Le Gros), the consecration of the kings of France sometimes took place in the metropolitan church of Rheims, and sometimes in other churches, but more frequently in the former. Louis VI. having been consecrated in the Cathedral of Orleans, the clergy of Rheims appealed against this supposed infraction of custom and their own special privileges. A long discussion took place, in which were brought forward the titles which the Church of Rheims possessed subsequently to the reign of Clovis to the exclusive honour of having kings consecrated in it; and King Louis le Jeune, son of Louis le Gros, who was himself consecrated at Rheims, promulgated a special decree on this question, in anticipation of the consecration of his son, Philippe Auguste. This decree finally settled the rights of this ancient church, and at the same time defined the order which was to be observed in future at the ceremony of consecration. From that date, down to the end of the reign of the Bourbons of the elder line, kings were invariably consecrated, according to legal rite, in the metropolitan church of Rheims, with the exception of Henry IV., who was crowned at Chartres by the bishop of that town, on account of the civil wars which then divided his kingdom, and caused the gates of Rheims to be closed against him.

[Illustration: Fig. 386.--Coronation of Charlemagne.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Chroniques de Saint-Denis," Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century (Imperial Library of Paris).]

The consecration of the kings of France always took place on a Sunday. On the previous day, at the conclusion of evening prayers, the custody of the cathedral devolved upon certain royal officers, assisted by the ordinary officials. During the evening the monarch came to the church for devotion, and "according to his religions feelings, to pass part of the night in prayer," an act which was called _la veillée des armes_. A large platform, surmounted by a throne, was erected between the chancel and the great nave. Upon this assembled, besides the King and his officers of State, twelve ecclesiastical peers, together with those prelates whom the King might be pleased to invite, and six lay peers, with other officers or nobles. At daybreak, the King sent a deputation of barons to the Abbey of St. Remi for the holy vial, which was a small glass vessel called _ampoule_, from the Latin word _ampulla_, containing the holy oil to be used at the royal anointing. According to tradition, this vial was brought from heaven by a dove at the time of the consecration of Clovis. Four of the nobles remained as hostages at the abbey during the time that the Abbot of St. Remi, followed by his monks and escorted by the barons, went in procession to the cathedral to place the sacred vessel upon the altar. The abbot of St. Denis in France had in a similar manner to bring from Rheims with great pomp, and deposit by the side of the holy vial, the royal insignia, which were kept in the treasury of his monastery, and had been there since the reign of Charlemagne. They consisted of the crown, the sword sheathed, the golden spurs, the gilt sceptre, the rod adorned with an ivory handle in the form of a hand, the sandals of blue silk, embroidered with fleur de lis, the chasuble or _dalmatique_, and the _surcot_, or royal mantle, in the shape of a cape without a hood. The King, immediately on rising from his bed, entered the cathedral, and forthwith took oath to maintain the Catholio faith and the privileges of the Church, and to dispense good and impartial justice to his subjects. He then walked to the foot of the altar, and divested himself of part of his dress, having his head bare, and wearing a tunic with openings on the chest, on the shoulders, at the elbows, and in the middle of the back; these openings were closed by means of silver aigulets. The Archbishop of Rheims then drew the sword from the scabbard and handed it to the King, who passed it to the principal officer in attendance. The prelate then proceeded with the religious part of the ceremony of consecration, and taking a drop of the miraculous oil out of the holy vial by means of a gold needle, he mixed it with the holy oil from his own church. This being done, and sitting in the posture of consecration, he anointed the King, who was kneeling before him, in five different parts of the body, namely, on the forehead, on the breast, on the back, on the shoulders, and on the joints of the arms. After this the King rose up, and with the assistance of his officers, put on his royal robes. The Archbishop handed to him successively the ring, the sceptre, and the rod of justice, and lastly placed the crown on his head. At this moment the twelve peers formed themselves into a group, the lay peers being in the first rank, immediately around the sovereign, and raising their hands to the crown, they held it for a moment, and then they conducted the King to the throne. The consecrating prelate, putting down his mitre, then knelt at the feet of the monarch and took the oath of allegiance, his example being followed by the other peers and their vassals who were in attendance. At the same time, the cry of "_Vive le Roi_!" uttered by the archbishop, was repeated three times outside the cathedral by the heralds-at-arms, who shouted it to the assembled multitude. The latter replied, "_Noel! Noel! Noel!_" and scrambled for the small pieces of money thrown to them by the officers, who at the same time cried out, "_Largesse, largesse aux manants_!" Every part of this ceremony was accompanied by benedictions and prayers, the form of which was read out of the consecration service as ordered by the bishop, and the proceedings terminated by the return of the civil and religious procession which had composed the _cortège_. When the sovereign was married, his wife participated with him in the honours of the consecration, the symbolical investiture, and the coronation; but she only partook of the homage rendered to the King to a limited degree, which was meant to imply that the Queen had a less extended authority and a less exalted rank.

[Illustration: Fig. 387.--Dalmatica and Sandals of Charlemagne, Insignia of the Kings of France at their Coronation, preserved in the Treasury of the Abbey of St. Denis.]