III.

Now are the vanquished and the victors of Hastings blended into one nation, and they are endowed with a Parliament as a safeguard for their liberties. "This is," Montesquieu said later, "the nation in the world that has best known how to avail itself at the same time of those three great things: religion, trade, and liberty."[424] Four hundred years before Montesquieu it already availed itself of these three great things; under Edward and Richard Plantagenets, England was what it has ever been since, a "merchant island."[425]

Its mines are worked, even those of "sea-coal," as it was then called, "carboun de meer."[426] It has a numerous mercantile navy which carries to the Baltic, to Iceland, to Flanders, to Guyenne, and to Spain, wool, skins, cloth, wheat, butter and cheese, "buyre et furmage." Each year the galleys of Venice come laden with cotton, silks from Damascus, sugar, spices, perfumes, ivory, and glass. The great commercial houses, and the merchant corporations are powers in the State; Edward III. grants to the London gilds the right of electing members to Parliament, and they preserved this right until the Reform Bill of 1832. The wealthy merchants lent money to the king; they were called to his councils; they behaved as great citizens. Anthony Blache lends Edward III. 11,720 pounds; the Blankets of Bristol gather enormous wealth; John Blanket dies in 1405, bequeathing a third of his fortune to his wife, a third to his children, and a third to the poor; John Philpot, a grocer of London, embarks on his ships and fights for the kingdom; Richard Whittington, he of the legendary cat, is famed in history for his wealth and liberality, and was mayor of London in 1398, 1406, and 1419. These merchants are ennobled, and from their stock spring earls and dukes; the De la Poles, wool-merchants of Hull, mortgage their property for the king. William de la Pole rescues Edward III., detained in Flanders by want of money, and is made a knight-banneret; his son Michael is created earl of Suffolk; one of his grandsons is killed at Agincourt; another besieges Orleans, which is delivered by Joan of Arc; he becomes duke of Suffolk, is impeached in 1450 for high treason and beheaded; no honour is lacking to the house.

From the time of the Edwards, the Commons are very touchy upon the subject of the maritime power and glory of their country; they already consider the ocean as their appointed realm. Do they observe, or fancy they observe, any diminution in the strength of England? They complain to the king in remonstrances more than once heard again, word for word, within the halls of Westminster: "Twenty years ago, and always before, the shipping of the Realm was in all the ports and good towns upon the sea or rivers, so noble and plenteous that all the countries held and called our said sovereign, the King of the Sea."[427] At this time, 1372, the country is, without possibility of doubt, the England of the English.

From that period the English are found either singly or in small bands on all the seas and on all the highways.[428] Their nature has been modified; the island no longer suffices them as it sufficed the Anglo-Saxons. "Il ne sait rien, qui ne va hors"--he knows nothing who stirs not out--think they with Des Champs; they are keen to see what goes on elsewhere, and like practical folks to profit by it. When the opportunity is good they seize it, whatsoever its nature; encountering Saracens they slay them: so much towards Paradise; moving about in Italy they are not long in discovering the advantages offered by a condottiere's existence. They adopt and even perfect it, and after their death are magnificently buried in the cathedral of Florence, and Paolo Uccello paints their portrait on the wall.[429] On every occasion they behave like Normans; in the halls of Westminster, in their City counting houses, on the highroads of Italy and on the ocean they everywhere resemble the rulers whose spirit has passed into them, and prove themselves to be at once adventurous and practical. "They are good walkers and good horsemen," said Ralph Higden of them in the fourteenth century, adding: "They are curious, and like to tell the wonders they have seen and observed." How many books of travel we owe to this propensity! "They roam over all lands," he continues, "and succeed still better in other countries than in their own.... They spread over the earth; every land they inhabit becomes as their own country."[430] They are themselves, and no longer seek to be any one else; they cease by degrees to _francigenare_. This combination of boldness and obstinacy that is theirs, is the blend of qualities by which distant settlements can be established and kept; to these qualities must be traced the founding of the English colonial empire, and the power which allowed the Plantagenet kings to aspire, as early as the fourteenth century, to be the "Rois de la Mier."

Trade brings luxury, comfort, and the love of art in its train. The same happened in London as in Venice, Florence, and Bruges; these merchants and nobles were fond of beautiful things. It is an era of prosperity for imagers, miniaturists, painters, and sculptors.[431] The wealthy order to be chiselled for themselves ivory Virgins whose tender, half-mundane smile, is not less charming for the doubt it leaves whether it is of earth or of heaven; devotional tablets in painted ivory, in gold, or translucid enamels; golden goblets with figures, silver cups "enamelled with children's games," salt-cellars in the shape of lions or dogs, "golden images of St. John the Baptist, in the wilderness,"[432] all those precious articles with which our museums are filled. Edward II. sends to the Pope in 1317, among other gifts, a golden ewer and basin, studded with translucid enamels, supplied by Roger de Frowyk, a London goldsmith, for the price of one hundred and forty-seven pounds, Humphrey de Bohun, who died in 1361, said his prayers to beads of gold; Edward III. played chess on a board of jasper and crystal, silver mounted. The miniaturists represent Paradise on the margin of missals, or set forth in colours some graceful legend or fantastic tale, with knights, flowers, and butterflies.[433] In spite of foreign wars, local insurrections, the plague that returns periodically, 1349, 1362, 1369, 1375, the great uprising of the peasantry, 1381, the troubles and massacres which followed, art prospers in the fourteenth century, and what chiefly characterises it is that it is all a-smile.

That such things were coeval is not so astonishing as it may seem. Life was still at that time so fragile and so often threatened, that the notion of its being suddenly cut off was a familiar one even from childhood. Wars, plagues, and massacres never took one unawares; they were in the due course of things, and were expected; the possibility of such misfortunes saddened less in prospective than it does now that they have become less frequent. People were then always ready to fight, to kill, and to be killed. Games resembled battles, and battles games: the favourite exercises were tournaments; life was risked for nothing, as an amusement. Innumerable decrees[434] forbade those pastimes on account of the deaths they caused, and the troubles they occasioned; but the amusement was the best available, and the decrees were left unobserved. Edward starts on his war to France, and his knights, following his example, take their falconers and their hounds along with them, as though they were going to a hunt.[435] Never was felt to a greater degree what Rabelais terms "the scorn of fortuitous things." Times have changed, and until we go back to a similar state of affairs, which is not impossible, we come into the world with ideas of peace and order, and of a life likely to be a long one. We are indignant if it is threatened, very sad when the end draws near; with more lasting happinesses we smile less often. Froissart paints in radiant colours, and the subject of his pictures is the France of the Hundred Years' War. The "merry England" of the "Cursor Mundi" and after is the England of the great plagues, and of the rising of the peasants, which had two kings assassinated out of four. It is also the England whose Madonnas smile.

In architecture the English favour the development of that kind of special Gothic of which they are the inventors, the Perpendicular, a rich and well-ordered style, terrestrial, practical, pleasant to look upon. No one did more to secure it a lasting fame than the Chancellor of Edward III. and of Richard II., William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, the restorer of Windsor, founder of New College at Oxford, the greatest builder of the century.[436] The walls and vaulted roofs of chapels are thick inlaid with ornaments; broad windows let in different coloured lights through their stained-glass panes; golden-haired angels start from the cornices; architecture smiles too, and its smile, like that of the Madonnas, is half religious and half mundane.

Less care is taken to raise strong houses than formerly; among the numerous castles with which the land bristles may be seen, in the distant valley where the ancient town of St. David's lies screened, a bishop's palace that would have suited neither William de Longchamp nor Hugh de Puiset, a magnificent dwelling, without towers of defence, or moats, or drawbridges, an exceptional dwelling, built as though the inhabitants were already secure of the morrow.[437]

The outside is less rude, and the inside is adorned and enriched; life becomes more private than it used to be; existence less patriarchal and more refined; those who still cling to old customs complain that the rich man dines in a chamber with a chimney, and leaves the large hall which was made for men to take their meals in together.[438] The walls of these chambers with chimneys are painted or covered with hangings; tapestries represent (as do those of Edward II.) the king surrounded by his nobles,[439] or (like those of the Black Prince) the "Pas de Saladin," or "sea-sirens," with a border of "swans with ladies' heads," in other words, chimeras, "and ostrich feathers"; or, again, like those of Sir John Falstofe, in the following century, the adoration of the shepherds, a hawking scene, the siege of Falaise (taken in 1417), a woman playing the harp near a castle, "a giant piercing a boar with a spear": all of which are the more noticeable as they are nothing but literature put into colours or embroidery.[440]

The conveniences and elegancies of the table are now attended to; cooks write out their recipes in English; stewards draw up in the same language protocols concerning precedence, and the rules which a well-trained servant should observe. Such a one does not scratch his head, and avoids sneezing in the dish; he abstains from wiping the plates with his tongue, and in carving takes the meat in his left hand and the knife in his right, forks being then unknown; he gives each one his proper place, and remembers "that the Pope hath no peere." When the master dresses, he must be seated on a chair by the fire, a "kercheff" is spread over his shoulders, and he is "curteisly" combed with an ivory comb; he is rinsed "with rose-watur warme"; when he takes a bath the air is scented with herbs hanging from the ceiling. When he goes to bed the cats and dogs which happen to be in his room should be driven away, or else a little cloth provided for them.

The food is rich and combines extraordinary mixtures. Hens and rabbits are eaten chopped up with pounded almonds, raisins, sugar, ginger, herbs dipped in grease, onions and salt; if the mixture is not thick enough, rice flour is added, and the whole coloured with saffron. Cranes, herons, and peacocks are cooked with ginger. Great attention is paid to outward appearance and to colour; the dishes must be yellow or green, or adorned with leaves of gold and silver, a fashion still preserved in the East. Elaborate cakes, "subtleties" as they were then termed, are also served; they represent:

Maydon Mary that holy virgyne And Gabrielle gretynge hur with an Ave.[441]

People adorn their bodies as well as their houses; luxury in dress is carried to such an excess that Parliament finds it necessary to interfere, and forbids women of the lower classes to wear any furs except cat and rabbit.[442] Edward III. buys of master Paul de Monteflor gowns for the queen, in "stuffs from over the sea," to the enormous amount of 1,330 pounds. He himself wears a velvet waistcoat, on which he has caused golden pelicans to be embroidered by William Courtenay, a London embroiderer. He gives his mistress Alice Perrers 21,868 large pearls, and thirty ounces of smaller ones. His daughter Margaret receives from him two thousand pearls as a wedding present; he buys his sister Alienor a gilded carriage, tapestried and embroidered, with cushions and curtains of silk, for which he pays one thousand pounds.[443] At that time one might for the same sum have bought a herd of sixteen hundred oxen.

The sense of beauty, together with a reverence for and a worship of it, was spreading among the nation whose thoughts shortly before used to run in quite different lines. Attention is paid to physical beauty, such as it had never received before. Men and women wear tight garments, showing the shape of the figure. In the verses he composed for his tomb at Canterbury, the Black Prince mourns over "his beauty which has all gone." Richard II., while still alive, has graven on his tomb that he was "corpore procerus."[444] The taste of the English for finery becomes so well known, that to them is ascribed, even in France, the invention of new fashions. Recalling to his daughters, in order to teach them modesty, that "the deluge in the time of Noah happened for the pride and disguises of men, and mostly of women, who remodelled their shapes by means of gowns and attire," the Knight de la Tour Landry gives the English ladies the credit, or rather the discredit, of having invented the immeasurable head-dresses worn at that day. It is an evil sign; in that country people amuse themselves too much: "In England many there are that have been blamed, the report goes, I know not whether it is wrongly or rightly."[445]

Owing to the attention paid to physical beauty in England, sculptors now begin--a rare thing at that time--to have living models, and to copy the nude. In the abbey of Meaux, "Melsa," near Beverley, on the banks of the Humber, was seen in the fourteenth century a sight that would have been rather sought for by the banks of the Arno, under the indulgent sky of Italy. The abbot Hugh of Leven having ordered a new crucifix for the convent chapel, the artist "had always a naked man under his eyes, and he strove to give to his crucifix the beauty of form of his model."[446]

One last trait may be added to the others: not only the beauty of live beings, but that also of inanimate things is felt and cared for, the beauty of landscapes, and of trees. In 1350-1 the Commons complain of the cutting down of the large trees overshadowing the houses, those large trees, dear already to English hearts, and point out in Parliament the loss of this beauty, the great "damage, loss, and blemish" that results from it for the dwellings.[447]

In nearly every respect, thus, the Englishman of to-day is formed, and receives his chief features, under the Angevin princes Edward III. and Richard II.: practical, adventurous, a lover of freedom, a great traveller, a wealthy merchant, an excellent sailor. We have had a glimpse of what he is; let us now listen to what he says.

FOOTNOTES:

[384] "De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae," book iii. treatise ii. chap. xv. (Rolls, vol. ii. p. 385.) No fine if the defunct is English: "Pro Anglico vero et de quo constari possit quod Anglicus sit, non dabitur murdrum."

[385] "Statutes of the Realm," 14 Ed. III. chap. 4.

[386] "Si rex fuerit litteratus, talis est.... Forma juramenti si Rex non fuerit litteratus: Sire, voilez vous graunter et garder ... les leys et les custumes ... &c." "Statutes of the Realm," _sub anno_ 1311, vol. i. p. 168.

[387] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 422; see below, p. 421.

[388] Ralph Higden, "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 158. "Haec quidem nativae linguae corruptio provenit hodie multum ex duobus quod videlicet pueri in scolis contra morem caeterarum nationum, a primo Normannorum adventu derelicto proprio vulgari, construere gallice compelluntur; item quod filii nobilium ab ipsis cunabulorum crepundiis ad gallicum idioma informantur. Quibus profecto rurales homines assimilari volentes ut per hoc spectabiliores videantur, francigenare satagunt omni nisu."

[389] "A volume of Vocabularies, from the Xth to the XVth Century," ed. Thomas Wright, London, 1857, 4to, pp. 143 ff. See also P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xiii. p. 502.

[390]

Vus avet la levere et le levere E la livere et le livere. La levere si enclost les dens; Le levre en boys se tent dedens, La livere sert en marchaundye, Le livere sert en seynt eglise.

[391] Apostrophe of judge John de Moubray, Easter session, 44 Ed. III., "Year-books of Edward I.," ed. Horwood (Rolls), 1863 ff., vol. i. p. xxxi. Judge Hengham interrupts a counsel, saying: "Do not interpret the statute in your own way; we know it better than you, for we made it."--"Ne glosez point le statut; nous le savoms meuz de vous, qar nous le feimes." _Ibid._

[392] "Grosso modo et idiomate quocunque communiter intelligibili factum proponant." "Munimenta Academica" (Rolls), p. 77.

[393] "Pur ce qe monstre est souventefoitz au Roi par prelatz, ducs, counts, barons et toute la commune, les grantz meschiefs qe sont advenuz as plusours du realme de ce qe les leyes, custumes et estatutz du dit realme ne sont pas conuz communement en mesme le realme, par cause q'ils sont pledez, monstrez et juggez en lange Franceis q'est trop desconue en dit realme, issint qe les gentz qi pledent ou sont empledez en les courtz le Roi et les courtz d'autres n'ont entendement ne conissance de ce q'est dit por eulx ne contre eulx par lour sergeantz et autres pledours...." that henceforth all plaids "soient pledetz, monstretz, defenduz, responduz, debatuz et juggez en la lange engleise; et q'ils soient entreez et enroullez en latin." 36 Ed. III., stat. i. chap. 15, "Statutes of the Realm." In spite of these arrangements, the accounts of the pleas continued to be transcribed in French into the "Year-books," of which several have been published in the collection of the Master of the Rolls. Writing about the year 1300, the author of the Mirror of Justice had still made choice of French as being the "language best understood by you and the common people."

[394] "Chroniques," ed. Luce, vol. i. p. 306.

[395] "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 159 (contains the Latin text of Higden and the English translation of Trevisa).

[396]

And I can no Frenche in feith | but of the ferthest ende of Norfolke.

"Visions," ed. Skeat, text B, passus v. line 239. The MS. DD 12.23 of the University Library, Cambridge, contains "a treatise on French conjugations." It does not furnish any useful information as regards the history of French conjugations; "it can only serve to show how great was the corruption of current French in England in the fourteenth century." P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xv. p. 262.

[397] The ambassadors are: "Thomas Swynford, miles, custos castri villae Calisii et Nicholaus de Rysshetoun, utriusque juris professor." They admit that French is the language of treatises; but Latin was used by St. Jerome. They write to the duchess of Burgundy: "Et quamvis treugae generales inter Angliam et Franciam per Dominos et Principes temporales, videlicet duces Lancastriae et Eboraci necnon Buturiae ac Burgundiae, bonae memoriae, qui perfecte non intellexerunt latinum sicut Gallicum, de consensu eorumdem expresso, in Gallico fuerunt captae et firmatae, litterae tamen missivae ultro citroque transmissae ... continue citra in Latino, tanquam idiomate communi et vulgari extiterunt formatae; quae omnia habemus parata ostendere, exemplo Beati Ieronimi...." In no wise touched by this example, the French reply in their own language, and the ambassadors, vexed, acknowledge the receipt of the letter in somewhat undiplomatic terms: "Vestras litteras scriptas in Gallico, nobis indoctis tanquam in idiomate Hebraico ... recipimus Calisii." "Royal and Historical Letters," ed. Hingeston, 1860 (Rolls), vol. i. pp. 357 and 397. A discussion of the same kind takes place, with the same result, under Louis XIV. See "A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II.," p. 140.

[398] "Doulz francois qu'est la plus bel et la plus gracious language et plus noble parler, apres latin d'escole, qui soit ou monde, et de tous gens mieulx prisee et amee que nul autre.... Il peut bien comparer au parler des angels du ciel, pour la grant doulceur et biaultee d'icel." "La maniere de Langage," composed in 1396, at Bury St. Edmund's, ed. Paul Meyer, "Revue Critique," vol. x. p. 382.

[399] Middle of the fourteenth century, ed. Aungier, Camden Society, 1884, 4to.

[400] As an example of a composition showing the parallelism of the two vocabularies in their crude state, one may take the treatise on Dreams (time of Edward II.), published by Wright and Halliwell, which begins with the characteristic words: "Her comensez a bok of Swevenyng." "Reliquiae Antiquae."

[401] London, 1882.

[402] See a list of such words in Earle, "Philology of the English Tongue," 5th edition, Oxford, 1892, 8vo, p. 84. On the disappearance of Anglo-Saxon proper names, and the substitution of Norman-French names, "William, Henry, Roger, Walter, Ralph, Richard, Gilbert, Robert," see Grant Allen, "Anglo-Saxon Britain," ch. xix., Anglo-Saxon Nomenclature.

[403] "Troilus," iii. stanza 191.

[404] Earle's "Philology of the English Tongue," 5th ed., Oxford, 1892, p. 379.

[405] _Ibid._ p. 377.

[406] See the series of the statutes of _Provisors_ and _Praemunire_, and the renewals of the same (against presentations to benefices by the Pope and appeals to the Court of Rome), 25 Ed. III. st. 6; 27 Ed. III. st. 2; 3 Rich. II. chap. 3; 12 Rich. II. chap. 15; 13 Rich. II. st. 2, chap. 2; 16 Rich. II. chap. 5. All have for their object to restrict the action of the Holy See in England, conformably to the desire of the Commons, who protest against these appeals to the Roman Court, the consequences of which are "to undo and adnul the laws of the realm" (25 Ed. III. 1350-1), and who also protest against "the Court of Rome which ought to be the fountain-head, root, and source of holiness," and which from coveteousness has assumed the right of presenting to numberless benefices in England, so much so that the taxes collected for the Pope on this account "amount to five times as much as what the king gets from all his kingdom each year." Good Parliament of 1376, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 337; see below, p. 419.

[407] Year 1340, 14 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104.

[408] "Sicut lex justissima, provida circumspectione sacrorum principum stabilita, hortatur et statuit ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur...." Rymer, "Foedera," 1705, vol. ii. p. 689. This Roman maxim was known and appealed to, but not acted upon in France. See Commines, "Memoires," book v. chap. xix.

[409] "For some folks," says he, "might say and make the people believe things that were not true." By some folks, "acuns gentz," he means Bohun and Bigod. Proclamation of 1297, in Rymer, "Foedera", 1705, vol. ii. p. 783.

[410] Rymer, "Foedera," 1705, vol. ii. p. 783, year 1297; original in French.

[411] "Monsieur Thomas de Hungerford, chivaler, qui avoit les paroles pour les Communes d'Engleterre en cest Parlement." Parliament of 1376-7, 51 Ed. III. "Rotuli," vol. ii. p. 374.

[412] Examples: that the deputies of the counties "soient esluz par commune election de les meillours gentz des dity countees et nemye certifiez par le viscont (sheriff) soul, saunz due election." Good Parliament of 1376.--Petition that the sheriffs shall not be able to stand for the counties while they continue in office, 1372, 46 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 310; that no representative "ne soit viscont ou autre ministre," 13 Ed. III., year 1339.--Petition of the members of Parliament to be allowed to return and consult their constituents: "Ils n'oseront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et avysez les communes de lour pais." 1339, "Rot. Parl.", vol. ii. p. 104; see below, p. 418.

[413] "Return of the names of every member returned to serve in each Parliament," London, 1878, fol. (a Blue Book).--There is no doubt in several cases that by such descriptions was meant the _actual_ profession of the member. Ex.: "Johannes Kent, mercer," p. 217.

[414] "Rot. Parl.," vol. ii. p. 262.

[415] Petition of the "poverail" of Greenwich and Lewisham on whom alms are no longer bestowed (one _maille_ a week to every beggar that came) to the "grant damage des poores entour, et des almes les fondours que sont en Purgatorie." 4 Ed. III. "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 49.

[416] 4 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 33.

[417] Good Parliament of 1376.

[418] The Commons had been bold enough to complain of the expenses of the king and of the too great number of prelates and ladies he supported: "de la multitude d'Evesques qui ont seigneuries et sont avancez par le Roy et leur meignee; et aussi de pluseurs dames et leur meignee qui demuront en l'ostel du Roy et sont a ses costages." Richard replies in an angry manner that he "voet avoir sa regalie et la libertee roiale de sa corone," as heir to the throne of England "del doun de Dieu." 1397, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 339. The Commons say nothing more, but they mark the words, to remember them in due time.

[419] "Dixit expresse, velut austero et protervo, quod leges sue erant in ore suo et aliquotiens in pectore suo. Et quod ipse solus posset mutare et condere leges regni sui." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 419.

[420] Cheruel, "Dictionnaire des Institutions de la France," at the word _Parlement_. As early as the thirteenth century, Bracton, in England, declared that "laws bound the legislator," and that the king ought to obey them; his theory, however, is less bold than the one according to which the Commons act in the fourteenth century: "Dicitur enim rex," Bracton observes, "a bene regendo et non a regnando, quia rex est dum bene regit, tyrannus dum populum sibi creditum violenter opprimit dominatione. Temperet igitur potentiam suam per legem quae frenum est potentiae, quod secundum leges vivat, quod hoc sanxit lex humana quod leges suum ligent latorem." "De Legibus," 3rd part chap. ix.

[421] "Chroniques," ed. S. Luce, i. p. 337.

[422] "Memoires," ed. Dupont, Societe de l'histoire de France, 1840 ff., vol. ii. p. 142, _sub anno_, 1477.

[423] Unpublished letter to M. de Lionne, from London, July 6, 1665, Archives of the Affaires Etrangeres, vol. lxxxvi.

[424] "Esprit des Lois," vol. xx. chap. vii., "Esprit de l'Angleterre sur le Commerce."

[425] A. Sorel, "l'Europe et la Revolution Francaise," vol. i. p. 337.

[426] Parliament reverts at different times to these mines in the fourteenth century: "Come en diverses parties deinz le Roialme d'Engleterre sont diverses miners des carbons, dont les Communes du dit

## partie ont lour sustenantz en grande partie...." 51 Ed. III., "Rotuli

Parliamentorum."

[427] 46 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 311. The king returns a vague answer. See below, pp. 515, 517.

[428] "They travaile in every londe," says Gower of them, in his "Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, vol. iii. p. 109.

[429] "Joannes Acutus, eques Britannicus (John Hawkwood) ... rei militaris peritissimus ... Pauli Vccelli opus," inscription on the "grisaille," painted by Uccello, in the fifteenth century, in memory of Hawkwood, who died in the pay of Florence, in 1394. He was the son of a tanner, and was born in Essex; the Corporation of Tailors claimed that he had started in life among them; popular tales were written about him: "The honour of the Taylors, or the famous and renowned history of Sir John Hawkwood, knight, containing his ... adventures ... relating to love and arms," London, 1687, 4to. The painting by Uccello has been removed from the choir, transferred on canvas and placed against the wall at the entrance of the cathedral at Florence.

[430] "Polychronicon," ed. Babington, Rolls, vol. ii. pp. 166, 168.

[431] The most brilliant specimens of the paintings of the time were, in England, those to be seen in St. Stephen's chapel in the palace of Westminster. It was finished about 1348, and painted afterwards. The chief architect was Thomas of Canterbury, master mason; the principal painters (judging by the highest salaries) were Hugh of St. Albans and John Cotton ("Foedera," 1705, vol. v. p. 670; vi. 417). This chapel was burnt in our century with the rest of the Houses of Parliament; nothing remains but the crypt; fragments of the paintings have been saved, and are preserved in the British Museum. They represent the story of Job. The smiling aspect of the personages should be noted, especially that of the women; there is a look of happiness about them.

[432] See the jewels and other valuables enumerated in the English wills of the fourteenth century: "A collection of ... wills," London, Nichols, 1780, 4to, pp. 37, 50, 112, 113, and in "The ancient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury," ed. Palgrave, London, 1836, 3 vols. 8vo, Chess-table of Edward III., vol. iii. p. 173. _Cf._ for France, "Inventaire du mobilier de Charles V.," ed. Labarte ("Documents inedits"), 1879, 4to.

[433] Edward III. buys of Isabella of Lancaster, a nun of Aumbresbury, a manuscript romance that he keeps always in his room, for the price of 66_l._ 13_s._ and 4_d._ for (at that time the price of an ox was about twelve shillings). For the young Richard were bought two volumes, one containing the Romaunt of the Rose, the other the Romances of Perceval and Gawain; the price paid for them, and for a Bible besides being 28_l._ ("Issues of the Exchequer," ed. Devon, 1837, pp. 144, 213). On English miniaturists, see "Histoire Litteraire de la France," xxxi. p. 281.

[434] More than forty for the reign of Edward II. are to be found in the "Foedera."

[435] "Et si y avoit pluiseurs des seigneurs et des riches hommes qui avoient leurs chiens et leurs oizins ossi bien comme li rois leurs sirs." Campaign of 1360, ed. Luce, book i. chap. 83.

[436] Born at Wykeham, Hampshire, 1324, of an obscure family (whence his famous motto, "Manners makyth man," that is to say, moral qualities alone make a man of worth), clerk of the king's works in 1356, present at the peace of Bretigny, bishop of Winchester 1366, Chancellor in 1367, and again under Richard II. He died at eighty-four years of age, under Henry IV. The list of his benefices (Oct., 1366) fills more than four pages in Lowth ("Life of W. of Wykeham," Oxford, 1777, pp. 28 ff.). Froissart notes the immense influence which "Wican" had in the State.

[437] Built almost entirely by Bishop Gower, 1328-47, the "Wykeham of Saint David's." "History and Antiquities of St. David's," by Jones and Freeman, London, 1856, 4to, pp. 189 ff. There now remain only ruins, but they are among the most beautiful that can be seen.

[438]

Now hath uche riche a reule | to eten by hym-selve In a pryve parloure | for pore mennes sake, Or in a chambre with a chymneye | and leve the chief halle, That was made for meles | men te eten inne.

"Visions Concerning Piers Plowman" (ed. Skeat), text B, passus x. line 96.

[439] For this tapestry the king paid thirty pounds to Thomas de Hebenhith, mercer of London. ("Wardrobe accounts of Edward II."--"Archaeologia," vol. xxvi. p. 344.)

[440] Will of the Black Prince, in Nichols, "A Collection of Wills," London, 1780, 4to; inventory of the books of Falstofe (who died under Henry VI.), "Archaeologia," vol. xxi. p. 232; in one single castle belonging to him, that of Caister near Yarmouth, were found after his death 13,400 ounces of silver. Already, in the thirteenth century, Henry III., who had a passion for art, had caused to be painted in his chamber in the Tower the history of Antioch (3rd crusade), and in his palace of Clarendon that "Pas de Saladin" which was the subject of one of the Black Prince's tapestries; he had a painting of Jesse on the mantelpiece of his chimney at Westminster. (Hardy, "A description of the close rolls in the Tower," London, 1833, 8vo, p. 179, and Devon, "Issues of the Exchequer," 1837, p. 64.) He was so fond of the painting executed for him at Clarendon, that he ordered it to be covered with a linen cloth in his absence, so that it would not get injured. In the fourteenth century the walls were hung instead of being painted, as in the thirteenth; rich people had "salles"--that is to say, suits of hangings for a room. Common ones were made at Norwich; the finest came from Flanders.

[441] These recipes and counsels are found in: "The forme of Cury, a roll of ancient English cookery compiled about A.D. 1390, by the master-cook of King Richard II.," ed. Pegge, London, 1780, 8vo (found too in the "Antiquitates Culinariae," of Warner, 1791, 4to). The prologue informs us that this master-cook of Richard's had been guided by principle, and that the book "was compiled by assent and avysement of maisters [of] phisik and of philosophie that dwellid in his court."--"The boke of Nurture folowyng Englondis gise by me John Russell," ed. Furnivall, Early English Text Society, 1868, 8vo. Russell was marshal of the hall to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester; he wrote when he was old, in the first part of the fifteenth century; as he claims to teach the traditions and good manners of former times, it must be supposed the customs he describes date from the reign of Richard II. See below, p. 515.

[442] Year 1363. The "aignel" and the "gopil" are, however, tolerated. "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 281.

[443] "Issues of the Exchequer," ed. Devon, 1837, pp. 142, 147, 189, 209, 6 Ed. III. Richard II. pays 400 pounds for a carriage for the queen, and for a simple cart 2 pounds only. _Ibid._, pp. 236 and 263.

[444] The verses of the Black Prince (below, page 353) are found in his will, together with minute details concerning the carvings with which his tomb must be adorned, and the manner he wishes to be represented on it, "tout armez de fier de guerre." Stanley, "Historical Memorials of Canterbury," 1885, p. 132. The tomb of Richard II. at Westminster was built in his lifetime and under his eyes. The original indentures have been preserved, by which "Nicholas Broker et Godfrey Prest, citeins et copersmythes de Loundres" agree to have the statues of Richard and Anne made, such as they are seen to day with "escriptures en tour la dite toumbe," April 14, 1395. Another contract concerns the marble masonry; both are in the Record Office, "Exchequer Treasury of the recipt," "Miscellanea," 3/40.

[445] "Le livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l'enseignement de ses filles," ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1854, 12mo, pp. 46 and 98, written in 1371.

[446] "Et hominem nudum coram se stantem prospexit, secundum cujus formosam imaginem crucifixum ipsum aptius decoraret." "Chronica monasterii de Melsa," ed. Bond, Rolls, 1868, vol. iii. p. 35. Hugh of Leven, who ordered this crucifix, was abbot from 1339 to 1349. Thomas of Burton, author of the chronicle, compiled it at the end of the fourteenth century.

[447] The Commons point out that, as the royal purveyors "abatent et ount abatuz les arbres cressauntz entour les mansions des gentz de ladite commune, en grant damage, gast et blemissement de lour mansions, qe plese a Nostre Seigneur le Roi que desoremes tiels arbres ne seront copes ne pris en contre la volonte des seigneurs des ditz mansions."

Answer: "Il semble au conseil qe ceste petition est resonable." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," 25 Ed. III., vol. ii. p. 250.

## CHAPTER II.

_CHAUCER._

The new nation had its poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. By his origin, his education, his tastes, his manner of life, as well as by his writings, Chaucer represents the new age; he paints it from nature, and is a part of it. His biography is scarcely less characteristic than his works, for he describes nothing through hearsay or imagination. He is himself an actor in the scenes he depicts; he does not dream, he sees them.

His history is a sort of reduction of that of the English people at that day. They are enriched by trade, and Chaucer, the son of merchants, grows up among them. The English people no longer repair to Paris in order to study, and Chaucer does not go either; their king wages war in France, and Chaucer follows Edward along the military roads of that country; they put more and more trust in Parliament, and Chaucer sits in Parliament as member for Kent. They take an interest in things of beauty, they are fond of the arts, and want them to be all aglow with ornamentation and bright with smiles; Chaucer is clerk of the king's works, and superintends the repairs and embellishments of the royal palaces. Saxon monotony, the sadness that followed after Hastings, are forgotten past memory; this new England knows how to laugh and also how to smile; she is a merry England, with bursts of joy, and also an England of legends, of sweet songs, and of merciful Madonnas. The England of laughter and the England of smiles are both in Chaucer's works.