The cardinals stood confounded; the people could not suppress their profound sympathy. The assembly was hastily broken up; the Provost was commanded to conduct the prisoners back to their dungeons. "To-morrow we will hold further counsel." But on the moment that the King heard these things, without a day's delay, without the least consultation with the ecclesiastical authorities, he ordered them to death as relapsed heretics. On the island in the Seine, where now stands the statue of Henry IV, between the King's garden on one side and the convent of the Augustinian monks on the other, the two pyres were raised—two out of the four had shrunk back into their ignoble confessions. It was the hour of vespers when these two aged and noble men were led out to be burned; they were tied each to the stake. The flames kindled dully and heavily; the wood, hastily piled up, was green or wet; or in cruel mercy the tardiness was designed that the victims might have time, while the fire was still curling round their extremities, to recant their bold recantation. But there was no sign, no word of weakness. Du Molay implored that the image of the Mother of God might be held up before him, and his hands unchained, that he might clasp them in prayer. Both, as the smoke rose to their lips, as the fire crept up to their vital parts, continued solemnly to aver the innocence and the Catholic faith of the order. The King himself sat and beheld, it might seem without remorse, this hideous spectacle; the words of Du Molay might have reached his ears. But the people looked on with far other feelings. Stupor kindled into admiration; the execution was a martyrdom; friars gathered up their ashes and bones and carried them away, hardly by stealth, to consecrated ground; they became holy relics. The two who wanted courage to die pined away their miserable life in prison.

The wonder and the pity of the times which immediately followed, arrayed Du Molay not only in the robes of the martyr, but gave him the terrible language of a prophet. "Clement, iniquitous and cruel judge, I summon thee within forty days to meet me before the throne of the Most High!" According to some accounts this fearful sentence included the King, by whom, if uttered, it might have been heard. The earliest allusion to this awful speech does not contain that striking particularity, which, if part of it, would be fatal to its credibility, i.e., the precise date of Clement's death. It was not till the year after that Clement and King Philip passed to their account. The fate of these two men during the next year might naturally so appal the popular imagination, as to approximate more closely the prophecy and its accomplishment. At all events it betrayed the deep and general feeling of the cruel wrong inflicted on the order; while the unlamented death of the Pope, the disastrous close of Philip's reign, and the disgraceful crimes which attainted the honor of his family seemed as declarations of heaven as to the innocence of their noble victims.



JAMES VAN ARTEVELDE LEADS A FLEMISH REVOLT

EDWARD III OF ENGLAND ASSUMES THE TITLE OF KING OF FRANCE

A.D. 1337-1340

FRANCOIS P. G. GUIZOT

Having defeated the Flemings at Mons-la-Puelle in 1304, Philip the Fair of France found that they were unsubdued and ready to renew their war against him. Therefore he very soon acknowledged their independence under their count, Robert de Bethune. But Philip continually violated the treaty he had made, and just before his death (1314) he again began hostilities against Flanders.

Little of historical importance occurred in that country between the death of Philip the Fair and the accession of Philip of Valois (1328). His first act was to take up the cause of Louis de Nevers, then Count of Flanders, whom the independent burghers of most of the chief cities had united to deprive of his territories, leaving him only Ghent for a refuge. In the first year of his reign Philip gained a victory over the Flemish "weavers" at Cassel, and laid all Flanders at the feet of its rejected count.

In 1338 began the Hundred Years' War, arising from the claim of Edward III of England to the French throne. Edward's most important measure in preparation for the war was the securing of an alliance with the Flemish burghers, whose French count, Louis de Nevers, had gained nothing in their affections through the humiliation of Cassel, which confirmed his rule. The hated count showed his hostility to Edward, as well as his spite against his own subjects, by various petty acts which interfered with the commerce and industry of both Flanders and England.

At last, by prohibiting the exportation of wool to Flanders, Edward reduced the Flemings to despair and forced them to fling themselves into his arms. Many of them emigrated to England, where they helped to lay the foundation of manufactures. But the Flemish towns burst into insurrection and proceeded to organized action in the manner here related by Guizot, who draws largely upon the narrative of Froissart.

The Flemings bore the first brunt of that war which was to be so cruel and so long. It was a lamentable position for them; their industrial and commercial prosperity was being ruined; their security at home was going from them; their communal liberties were compromised; divisions set in among them; by interest and habitual intercourse they were drawn toward England, but the Count, their lord, did all he could to turn them away from her, and many among them were loath to separate themselves entirely from France. "Burghers of Ghent, as they chatted in the thoroughfares and at the cross-roads, said one to another that they had heard much wisdom, to their mind, from a burgher who was called James van Artevelde, and who was a brewer of beer. They had heard him say that, if he could obtain a hearing and credit, he would in a little while restore Flanders to good estate, and they would recover all their gains without standing ill with the King of France or the King of England.

"These sayings began to get spread abroad insomuch that a quarter or half the city was informed thereof, especially the small folk of the commonalty, whom the evil touched most nearly. They began to assemble in the streets, and it came to pass that one day, after dinner, several went from house to house calling for their comrades, and saying, 'Come and hear the wise man's counsel.' On December 26, 1337, they came to the house of the said James van Artevelde, and found him leaning against his door. Far off as they were when they first perceived him, they made him a deep obeisance, and 'Dear sir,' they said, 'we are come to you for counsel; for we are told that by your great and good sense you will restore the country of Flanders to good case. So tell us how.'

"Then James van Artevelde came forward, and said: 'Sirs comrades, I am a native and burgher of this city, and here I have my means. Know that I would gladly aid you with all my power, you and all the country; if there were here a man who would be willing to take the lead, I would be willing to risk body and means at his side; and if the rest of ye be willing to be brethren, friends, and comrades to me, to abide in all matters at my side, notwithstanding that I am not worthy of it, I will undertake it willingly.' Then said all with one voice: 'We promise you faithfully to abide at your side in all matters and to therewith adventure body and means, for we know well that in the whole countship of Flanders there is not a man but you worthy so to do.'" Then Van Artevelde bound them to assemble on the next day but one in the grounds of the monastery of Biloke, which had received numerous benefits from the ancestors of Sohier of Courtrai, whose son-in-law Van Artevelde was.

This bold burgher of Ghent, who was born about 1285, was sprung from a family the name of which had been for a long while inscribed in their city upon the register of industrial corporations. His father, John van Artevelde, a cloth-worker, had been several times over-sheriff of Ghent, and his mother, Mary van Groete, was great-aunt to the grandfather of the illustrious publicist called in history Grotius. James van Artevelde in his youth accompanied Count Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the Handsome, upon his adventurous expeditions in Italy, Sicily, and Greece, and to the island of Rhodes; and it had been close by the spots where the soldiers of Marathon and Salamis had beaten the armies of Darius and Xerxes that he had heard of the victory of the Flemish burghers and workmen attacked in 1302, at Courtrai, by the splendid army of Philip the Handsome.

James van Artevelde, on returning to his country, had been busy with his manufactures,[46] his fields, the education of his children, and Flemish affairs up to the day when, at his invitation, the burghers of Ghent thronged to the meeting on December 28, 1337, in the grounds of the monastery of Biloke. There he delivered an eloquent speech, pointing out unhesitatingly but temperately the policy which he considered good for the country. "Forget not," he said, "the might and the glory of Flanders. Who, pray, shall forbid that we defend our interests by using our rights? Can the King of France prevent us from treating with the King of England? And may we not be certain that if we were to treat with the King of England, the King of France would not be the less urgent in seeking our alliance? Besides, have we not with us all the communes of Brabant, of Hainault, of Holland, and of Zealand?" The audience cheered these words; the commune of Ghent forthwith assembled, and on January 3, 1337, reestablished the offices of captains of parishes according to olden usage, when the city was exposed to any pressing danger.

It was carried that one of these captains should have the chief government of the city; and James van Artevelde was at once invested with it. From that moment the conduct of Van Artevelde was ruled by one predominant idea: to secure free and fair commercial intercourse for Flanders with England, while observing a general neutrality in the war between the kings of England and France, and to combine so far all the communes of Flanders in one and the same policy. And he succeeded in this twofold purpose. On April 29, 1338, the representatives of all the communes of Flanders—the city of Bruges numbering among them a hundred and eight deputies—repaired to the castle of Male, a residence of Count Louis, and then James van Artevelde set before the Count what had been resolved upon among them. The Count submitted, and swore that he would thenceforth maintain the liberties of Flanders in the state in which they had hitherto existed. In the month of May following a deputation, consisting of James van Artevelde and other burghers appointed by the cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres scoured the whole of Flanders, from Bailleul to Termonde, and from Ninove to Dunkirk, "to reconcile the good folk of the communes to the Count of Flanders, as well for the Count's honor as for the peace of the country." Lastly, on June 10, 1338, a treaty was signed at Anvers between the deputies of the Flemish communes and the English ambassadors, the latter declaring: "We do all to wit that we have negotiated the way and substance of friendship with the good folk of the communes of Flanders, in form and manner hereinafter following:

"First, they shall be able to go and buy the wools and other merchandise which have been exported from England to Holland, Zealand, or any other place whatsoever; and all traders of Flanders who shall repair to the ports of England shall there be safe and free in their persons and their goods, just as in any other place where their ventures might bring them together.

"Item, we have agreed with the good folk and with all the common country of Flanders that they must not mix nor intermeddle in any way, by assistance in men or arms, in the wars of our lord the King and the noble Sir Philip of Valois (who holdeth himself for King of France)."

Three articles following regulated in detail the principles laid down in the first two, and, by another charter, Edward III ordained that "all stuffs marked with the seal of the city of Ghent might travel freely in England without being subject according to ellage and quality to the control to which all foreign merchandise was subject."

Van Artevelde was right in telling the Flemings that, if they treated with the King of England, the King of France would be only the more anxious for their alliance. Philip of Valois and even Count Louis of Flanders, when they got to know of the negotiations entered into between the Flemish communes and King Edward, redoubled their offers and promises to them. But when the passions of men have taken full possession of their souls, words of concession and attempts at accommodation are nothing more than postponements or lies. Philip, when he heard about the conclusion of a treaty between the Flemish communes and the King of England, sent word to Count Louis "that this James van Artevelde must not, on any account, be allowed to rule or even live, for if it were so for long, the Count would lose his land." The Count, very much disposed to accept such advice, repaired to Ghent and sent for Van Artevelde to come and see him at his hotel. He went, but with so large a following that the Count was not at the time at all in a position to resist him. He tried to persuade the Flemish burgher that "if he would keep a hand on the people so as to keep them to their love for the King of France, he having more authority than anyone else for such a purpose, much good would result to him; mingling, besides, with this address, some words of threatening import."

Van Artevelde, who was not the least afraid of the threat, and who at heart was fond of the English, told the Count that he would do as he had promised the communes. "Hereupon he left the Count, who consulted his confidants as to what he was to do in this business, and they counselled him to let them go and assemble their people, saying that they would kill Van Artevelde secretly or otherwise. And, indeed, they did lay many traps and made many attempts against the captain; but it was of no avail, since all the commonalty was for him." When the rumor of these projects and these attempts was spread abroad in the city, the excitement was extreme, and all the burghers assumed white hoods, which was the mark peculiar to the members of the commune when they assembled under their flags; so that the Count found himself reduced to assuming one, for he was afraid of being kept captive at Ghent, and, on the pretext of a hunting-party, he lost no time in gaining his castle of Male.

The burghers of Ghent had their minds still filled with their late alarm when they heard that by order, it was said, of the King of France—Count Louis had sent and beheaded at the castle of Rupelmonde, in the very bed in which he was confined by his infirmities, their fellow-citizen Sohier of Courtrai, Van Artevelde's father-in-law, who had been kept for many months in prison for his intimacy with the English. On the same day the Bishop of Senlis and the Abbot of St. Denis had arrived at Tournai, and had superintended the reading out in the market-place of a sentence of excommunication against the Ghentese.

It was probably at this date that Van Artevelde in his vexation and disquietude assumed in Ghent an attitude threatening and despotic even to tyranny. "He had continually after him," says Froissart, "sixty or eighty armed varlets, among whom were two or three who knew some of his secrets. When he met a man whom he hated or had in suspicion, this man was at once killed, for Van Artevelde had given this order to his varlets: 'The moment I meet a man, and make such and such a sign to you, slay him without delay, however great he may be, without waiting for more speech.' In this way he had many great masters slain. And as soon as these sixty varlets had taken him home to his hotel, each went to dinner at his own house; and the moment dinner was over they returned and stood before his hotel and waited in the street until that he was minded to go and play and take his pastime in the city, and so they attended him to supper-time.

"And know that each of these hirelings had per diem four groschen of Flanders for their expenses and wages, and he had them regularly paid from week to week. And even in the case of all that were most powerful in Flanders, knights, esquires, and burghers of the good cities, whom he believed to be favorable to the Count of Flanders, them he banished from Flanders and levied half their revenues. He had levies made of rents, of dues on merchandise and all the revenues belonging to the Count, wherever it might be in Flanders, and he disbursed them at his will, and gave them away without rendering any account. And when he would borrow of any burghers on his word for payment, there was none that durst say him nay. In short there was never in Flanders, or in any other country, duke, count, prince, or other who can have had a country at his will as James van Artevelde had for a long time." It is possible that, as some historians have thought, Froissart, being less favorable to burghers than to princes, did not deny himself a little exaggeration in this portrait of a great burgher-patriot transformed by the force of events and passions into a demagogic tyrant.

While the Count of Flanders, after having vainly attempted to excite an uprising against Van Artevelde, was being forced, in order to escape from the people of Bruges, to mount his horse in hot haste, at night and barely armed, and to flee away to St. Omer, Philip of Valois and Edward III were preparing on either side, for the war which they could see drawing near. Philip was vigorously at work on the Pope, the Emperor of Germany, and the princes neighbors of Flanders, in order to raise obstacles against his rival or rob him of his allies. He ordered that short-lived meeting of the states-general about which we have no information left us, save that it voted the principle that "no talliage could be imposed on the people if urgent necessity or evident utility should not require it, and unless by concession of the estates."

Philip, as chief of feudal society rather than of the nation which was forming itself little by little around the lords, convoked at Amiens all his vassals great and small, laic or cleric, placing all his strength in their cooperation, and not caring at all to associate the country itself in the affairs of his government. Edward, on the contrary, while equipping his fleet and amassing treasure at the expense of the Jews and Lombard usurers, was assembling his parliament, talking to it "of this important and costly war," for which he obtained large subsidies, and accepting, without making any difficulty, the vote of the commons' house, which expressed a desire "to consult their constituents upon this subject, and begged him to summon an early parliament, to which there should be elected, in each county, two knights taken from among the best landowners of their counties."

The King set out for the Continent; the parliament met and considered the exigences of the war by land and sea, in Scotland and in France; traders, shipowners, and mariners were called and examined; and the forces determined to be necessary were voted. Edward took the field, pillaging, burning, and ravaging, "destroying all the country for twelve or fourteen leagues in extent," as he himself said in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. When he set foot on French territory, Count William of Hainault, his brother-in-law and up to that time his ally, came to him and said that "he would ride with him no farther, for that his presence was prayed and required by his uncle the King of France, to whom he bore no hate, and whom he would go and serve in his own kingdom, as he had served King Edward on the territory of the Emperor, whose vicar he was," and Edward wished him "Godspeed!" Such was the binding nature of feudal ties that the same lord held himself bound to pass from one camp to another according as he found himself upon the domains of one or the other of his suzerains in a war one against the other.

Edward continued his march toward St. Quentin, where Philip had at last arrived with his allies the kings of Bohemia, Navarre, and Scotland, "after delays which had given rise to great scandal and murmurs throughout the whole kingdom." The two armies, with a strength, according to Froissart, of a hundred thousand men on the French side, and forty-four thousand on the English, were soon facing one another, near Buironfosse, a large burgh of Picardy. A herald came from the English camp to tell the King of France that the King of England "demanded of him battle. To which demand," says Froissart, "the King of France gave willing assent and accepted the day which was fixed at first for Thursday the 21st, and afterward for Saturday the 25th of October, 1339."

To judge from the somewhat tangled accounts of the chroniclers and of Froissart himself, neither of the two kings was very anxious to come to blows. The forces of Edward were much inferior to those of Philip; and the former had accordingly taken up, as it appears, a position which rendered attack difficult for Philip. There was much division of opinion in the French camp. Independently of military grounds, a great deal was said about certain letters from Robert, King of Naples, "a mighty necromancer and full of mighty wisdom, it was reported, who, after having several times cast their horoscopes, had discovered, by astrology and from experience, that, if his cousin, the King of France, were to fight the King of England, the former would be worsted."

"In thus disputing and debating," says Froissart, "the time passed till full mid-day. A little afterward a hare came leaping across the fields, and rushed among the French. Those who saw it began shouting and making a great halloo. Those who were behind thought that those who were in front were engaging in battle; and several put on their helmets and gripped their swords. Thereupon several knights were made; and the Count of Hainault himself made fourteen, who were thenceforth nicknamed Knights of the Hare."

Whatever his motive may have been, Philip did not attack; and Edward promptly began a retreat. They both dismissed their allies; and during the early days of November Philip fell back upon St. Quentin, and Edward went and took up his winter-quarters at Brussels.

For Edward it was a serious check not to have dared to attack the King whose kingdom he made a pretence of conquering; and he took it grievously to heart. At Brussels he had an interview with his allies and asked their counsel. Most of the princes of the Low Countries remained faithful to him and the Count of Hainault seemed inclined to go back to him; but all hesitated as to what he was to do to recover from the check. Van Artevelde showed more invention and more boldness. The Flemish communes had concentrated their forces not far from the spot where the two kings had kept their armies looking at one another; but they had maintained a strict neutrality, and at the invitation of the Count of Flanders, who promised them that the King of France would entertain all their claims, Artevelde and Breydel, the deputies from Ghent and Bruges, even repaired to Courtrai to make terms with him. But as they got there nothing but ambiguous engagements and evasive promises, they let the negotiation drop, and, while Count Louis was on his way to rejoin Philip at St. Quentin, Artevelde with the deputies from the Flemish communes started for Brussels.

Edward, who was already living on very confidential terms with him, told him that "if the Flemings were minded to help him to keep up the war and go with him whithersoever he would take them, they should aid him to recover Lille, Douai, and Bethune, then occupied by the King of France. Artevelde, after consulting his colleagues, returned to Edward, and, 'Dear sir,' said he, 'you have already made such requests to us, and verily, if we could do so while keeping our honor and faith, we would do as you demand: but we be bound, by faith and oath, and on a bond of two millions of florins entered into with the Pope, not to go to war with the King of France without incurring a debt to the amount of that sum and a sentence of excommunication; but if you do that which we are about to say to you, if you will be pleased to adopt the arms of France, and quarter them with those of England, and openly call yourself King of France, we will uphold you for the true King of France; you, as King of France, shall give us quittance of our faith; and then we will obey you as King of France, and will go whithersoever you shall ordain.'"

This prospect pleased Edward mightily: but "it irked him to take the name and arms of that of which he had as yet won no title." He consulted his allies. Some of them hesitated; but "his most privy and especial friend," Robert d'Artois, strongly urged him to consent to the proposal. So a French prince and a Flemish burgher prevailed upon the King of England to pursue, as in assertion of his avowed rights, the conquest of the kingdom of France. King, prince, and burgher fixed Ghent as their place of meeting for the official conclusion of the alliance; and there, in January, 1340, the mutual engagement was signed and sealed. The King of England "assumed the arms of France quartered with those of England," and thenceforth took the title of King of France.



BATTLES OF SLUYS AND CRECY

A.D. 1340-1346

SIR JOHN FROISSART[47]

The sea fight of Sluys began the Hundred Years' War between England and France. It is also memorable as England's first great naval victory. The origin of the war lay in the Salic Law, which excludes women from the throne of France. This overruled the claims of Queen Isabella of England, and her son Edward III in 1328, when the twelve peers and barons of France unanimously gave the crown to Isabella's cousin, Philip of Valois, who ascended the throne as Philip VI of France.

Edward III ingeniously maintained that though the Salic Law prevented his mother from filling the throne, it did not destroy the rights of her male descendants, and he early entertained the project of enforcing this contention; but it was not until 1337 that he felt able to assert formally his claim to the French crown and to assume the title of king of France.

The following year, with a considerable body of troops to support his presumed rights, he crossed to the Continent, and passed the winter at Antwerp among the Flemings who had taken up his cause, and with whom, as well as with the Emperor-King of Germany, he effected aggressive alliances. He made a formal declaration of war in 1339, beginning hostilities which were prolonged into the Hundred Years' War, and which as a contest of the English kings for the sovereignty of France produced a series of important revolutions in the fortunes of that country.

The first serious action of the war was a naval battle at Sluys, near the Belgian frontier just northeast of Bruges, June 23, 1340. King Edward and his entire navy sailed from the Thames June 22, and made straight for Sluys. Sir Hugh Quiriel and other French officers, with over one hundred and twenty large vessels, were lying near Sluys for the purpose of disputing the English King's passage. Froissart, with his usual terseness, has graphically recorded the combat which ensued.

A more important victory was that won in the land battle at Crecy in 1346, which, however, simply paved the way to the capture of Calais, for it was not until the battle of Poitiers, ten years later, that Edward made any progress toward the conquest of France. In 1346, after landing with a force of troops at Cape La Hogue, Edward reduced Cherbourg, Carentan, and Caen, and, with the intention of crossing the Seine at Rouen, commenced his march on Calais, where he was to be joined by his Flemish allies. Philip, making a rapid march from Paris to Amiens, had posted detachments of soldiers along the right bank of the river Somme, guarding every ford, breaking down every bridge, and gradually shutting up the invaders in the narrow space between the Somme and the sea.

Edward sent out his marshals with their battalions to find a passage, but they were unsuccessful, until a peasant led them to the tidal ford of Blanchetaque. Although desperately opposed by fully twelve thousand French, under the Norman baron Sir Godemar du Fay, they effected a crossing, and, marching on, encamped in the fields near Crecy. The King of France with the main body of his troops had taken up his quarters in Abbeville.

BATTLE OF SLUYS

When the King's fleet was almost got to Sluys, they saw so many masts standing before it that they looked like a wood. The King asked the commander of his ship what they could be, who answered that he imagined they must be that armament of Normans which the King of France kept at sea and which had so frequently done him much damage, had burned his good town of Southampton, and taken his large ship the Christopher. The King replied: "I have for a long time wished to meet with them, and now, please God and St. George, we will fight them; for, in truth, they have done me so much mischief that I will be revenged on them if it be possible."

The King drew up all his vessels, placing the strongest in the front, and on the wings his archers. Between every two vessels with archers there was one of men-at-arms. He stationed some detached vessels as a reserve, full of archers, to assist and help such as might be damaged. There were in this fleet a great many ladies from England, countesses, baronesses, and knights' and gentlemen's wives, who were going to attend on the Queen at Ghent. These the King had guarded most carefully by three hundred men-at-arms and five hundred archers.

When the King of England and his marshals had properly divided the fleet, they hoisted their sails to have the wind on their quarter, as the sun shone full in their faces, which they considered might be of disadvantage to them, and stretched out a little, so that at last they got the wind as they wished. The Normans, who saw them tack, could not help wondering why they did so, and said they took good care to turn about, for they were afraid of meddling with them. They perceived, however, by his banner, that the King was on board, which gave them great joy, as they were eager to fight with him; so they put their vessels in proper order, for they were expert and gallant men on the seas. They filled the Christopher, the large ship which they had taken the year before from the English, with trumpets and other warlike instruments, and ordered her to fall upon the English.

The battle then began very fiercely; archers and cross-bowmen shot with all their might at each other, and the men-at-arms engaged hand to hand. In order to be more successful, they had large grapnels, and iron hooks with chains, which they flung from ship to ship, to moor them to each other. There were many valiant deeds performed, many prisoners made, and many rescues. The Christopher, which led the van, was recaptured by the English, and all in her taken or killed. There were then great shouts and cries, and the English manned her again with archers and sent her to fight against the Genoese.

This battle was very murderous and horrible. Combats at sea are more destructive and obstinate than upon the land, for it is not possible to retreat or flee—everyone must abide his fortune and exert his prowess and valor. Sir Hugh Quiriel and his companions were bold and determined men, had done much mischief to the English at sea and destroyed many of their ships; this combat, therefore, lasted from early in the morning until noon, and the English were hard pressed, for their enemies were four to one, and the greater part men who had been used to the sea.

The King, who was in the flower of his youth, showed himself on that day a gallant knight, as did the earls of Derby, Pembroke, Hereford, Huntingdon, Northampton, and Gloucester; the Lord Reginald Cobham, Lord Felton, Lord Bradestan, Sir Richard Stafford, the Lord Percy, Sir Walter Manny, Sir Henry de Flanders, Sir John Beauchamp, Sir John Chandos, the Lord Delaware, Lucie Lord Malton, and the Lord Robert d'Artois, now called Earl of Richmond.

I cannot remember all the names of those who behaved so valiantly in the combat; but they did so well that, with some assistance from Bruges and those parts of the country, the French were completely defeated, and all the Normans and the others killed or drowned, so that not one of them escaped. This was soon known all over Flanders; and when it came to the two armies before Thin-l'Eveque, the Hainaulters were as much rejoiced as their enemies were dismayed.

After the King had gained this victory, which was on the eve of St. John's Day, he remained all that night on board of his ship before Sluys, and there were great noises with trumpets and all kinds of other instruments. The Flemings came to wait on him, having heard of his arrival and what deeds he had performed. The King inquired of the citizens of Bruges after Jacob van Artevelde, and they told him he was gone to the aid of the Earl of Hainault with upward of sixty thousand men, against the Duke of Normandy. On the morrow, which was Midsummer Day, the King and his fleet entered the port. As soon as they were landed, the King, attended by crowds of knights, set out on foot on a pilgrimage to our Lady of Ardemburg, where he heard mass and dined. He then mounted his horse and went that day to Ghent, where the Queen was, who received him with great joy and kindness. The army and baggage, with the attendants of the King, followed him by degrees to the same place.

BATTLE OF CRECY

The two battalions of the marshals came, on Friday in the afternoon, to where the King was, and they fixed their quarters, all three together, near Crecy in Ponthieu. The King of England, who had been informed that the King of France was following him, in order to give him battle, said to his people: "Let us post ourselves here, for we will not go farther before we have seen our enemies. I have good reason to wait for them on this spot; as I am now upon the lawful inheritance of my lady mother, which was given her as her marriage portion, and I am resolved to defend it against my adversary, Philip de Valois." On account of his not having more than an eighth part of the forces which the King of France had, his marshals fixed upon the most advantageous situation, and the army went and took possession of it. He then sent his scouts toward Abbeville, to learn if the King of France meant to take the field this Friday, but they returned and said they saw no appearance of it; upon which he dismissed his men to their quarters with orders to be in readiness by times in the morning and to assemble in the same place. The King of France remained all Friday in Abbeville, waiting for more troops. He sent his marshals, the Lord of St. Venant and Lord Charles of Montmorency, out of Abbeville, to examine the country and get some certain intelligence of the English. They returned about vespers with information that the English were encamped on the plain. That night the King of France entertained at supper in Abbeville all the princes and chief lords. There was much conversation relative to war; and the King entreated them after supper that they would always remain in friendship with each other; that they would be friends without jealousy, and courteous without pride. The King was still expecting the Earl of Savoy, who ought to have been there with a thousand lances, as he had been well paid for them at Troyes in Champaign, three months in advance.

The King of England encamped this Friday in the plain, for he found the country abounding in provisions, but, if they should have failed, he had plenty in the carriages which attended on him. The army set about furbishing and repairing their armor, and the King gave a supper that evening to the earls and barons of his army, where they made good cheer. On their taking leave the King remained alone with the lords of his bedchamber; he retired into his oratory, and, falling on his knees before the altar, prayed to God that if he should combat his enemies on the morrow, he might come off with honor. About midnight he went to bed and, rising early the next day, he and the Prince of Wales heard mass and communicated. The greater part of his army did the same, confessed, and made proper preparations. After mass, the King ordered his men to arm themselves, and assemble on the ground he had before fixed on. He had enclosed a large park near a wood, on the rear of his army, in which he placed all his baggage wagons and horses. This park had but one entrance; his men-at-arms and archers remained on foot.

The King afterward ordered, through his constable and his two marshals, that the army should be divided into three battalions. In the first he placed the young Prince of Wales, and with him the earls of Warwick and Oxford, Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, the Lord Reginald Cobham, Lord Thomas Holland, Lord Stafford, Lord Mauley, the Lord Delaware, Sir John Chandos, Lord Bartholomew Burgherst, Lord Robert Neville, Lord Thomas Clifford, Lord Bourchier, Lord Latimer, and many other knights and squires. There might be, in this first division, about eight hundred men-at-arms, two thousand archers, and a thousand Welshmen. They advanced in regular order to their ground, each lord under his banner and pennon and in the centre of his men. In the second battalion were the Earl of Northampton, the Earl of Arundel, the lords Roos, Willoughby, Basset, St. Albans, Sir Lewis Tufton, Lord Multon, Lord Lascels, and many others; amounting, in the whole, to about eight hundred men-at-arms and twelve hundred archers. The third battalion was commanded by the King, and was composed of about seven hundred men-at-arms and two thousand archers.

The King then mounted a small palfrey, having a white wand in his hand, and, attended by his two marshals on each side of him, he rode at a footpace through all the ranks, encouraging and entreating the army that they would guard his honor and defend his right. He spoke this so sweetly and with such a cheerful countenance that all who had been dispirited were directly comforted by seeing and hearing him. When he had thus visited all the battalions it was near ten o'clock; he retired to his own division, and ordered them all to eat heartily and drink a glass after. They ate and drank at their ease, and, having packed up pots, barrels, etc., in the carts they returned to their battalions according to the marshals' orders, and seated themselves on the ground, placing their helmets and bows before them, that they might be the fresher when their enemies should arrive.

On Saturday the King of France rose betimes, and heard mass in the monastery of St. Peter's in Abbeville, where he was lodged; having ordered his army to do the same, he left that town after sunrise. When he had marched about two leagues from Abbeville, and was approaching the enemy, he was advised to form his army in order of battle and to let those on foot march forward that they might not be trampled on by the horses. The King, upon this, sent off four knights, Lord Moyne of Bastleberg, Lord of Noyers, Lord of Beaujeu, and the Lord of Aubigny, who rode so near to the English that they could clearly distinguish their position. The English plainly perceived they were come to reconnoitre them; however, they took no notice of it, but suffered them to return unmolested. When the King of France saw them coming back, he halted his army; and the knights, pushing through the crowd, came near the King, who said to them, "My lords, what news?" They looked at each other, without opening their mouths, for neither chose to speak first. At last the King addressed himself to the Lord Moyne, who was attached to the King of Bohemia, and had performed very many gallant deeds, so that he was esteemed one of the most valiant knights in Christendom. Lord Moyne said: "Sir, I will speak, since it pleases you to order me, but under the correction of my companions. We have advanced far enough to reconnoitre your enemies. Know, then, that they are drawn up in three battalions, and are waiting for you. I would advise, for my part—submitting, however, to better counsel—that you halt your army here and quarter them for the night; for before the rear shall come up and the army be properly drawn out, it will be very late; your men will be tired and in disorder, while they will find your enemies fresh and properly arrayed. On the morrow you may draw up your army more at your ease and may reconnoitre at leisure on what part it will be most advantageous to begin the attack; for, be assured, they will wait for you." The King commanded that it should be so done, and the two marshals rode, one toward the front, and the other to the rear, crying out, "Halt banners, in the name of God and St. Denis." Those that were in the front halted, but those behind said they would not halt until they were as forward as the front. When the front perceived the rear pressing on they pushed forward, and neither the King nor the marshals could stop them, but they marched without any order until they came in sight of their enemies. As soon as the foremost rank saw them they fell back at once in great disorder, which alarmed those in the rear, who thought they had been fighting. There was then space and room enough for them to have passed forward, had they been willing so to do; some did so, but others remained shy. All the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered with common people, who, when they were come within three leagues of their enemies, drew their swords, bawling out, "Kill, kill," and with them were many great lords that were eager to make show of their courage. There is no man—unless he had been present—that can imagine or describe truly the confusion of that day; especially the bad management and disorder of the French, whose troops were out of number.

The English were drawn up in three divisions and seated on the ground. On seeing their enemies advance they rose up and fell into their ranks. That of the Prince was the first to do so, whose archers were formed in the manner of a portcullis, or harrow, and the men-at-arms in the rear. The earls of Northampton and Arundel, who commanded the second division, had posted themselves in good order on his wing, to assist and succor the Prince if necessary. You must know that these kings, earls, barons, and lords of France did not advance in any regular order, but one after the other, or any way most pleasing to themselves. As soon as the King of France came in sight of the English his blood began to boil, and he cried out to his marshals, "Order the Genoese forward and begin the battle, in the name of God and St. Denis." There were about fifteen thousand Genoese cross-bowmen, but they were quite fatigued, having marched on foot that day six leagues, completely armed and with their cross-bows. They told the constable they were not in a fit condition to do any great things that day in battle. The Earl of Alencon, hearing this, said, "This is what one gets by employing such scoundrels, who fall off when there is any need for them." During this time a heavy rain fell, accompanied by thunder and a very terrible eclipse of the sun, and before this rain a great flight of crows hovered in the air over all those battalions, making a loud noise. Shortly afterward it cleared up and the sun shone very bright, but the Frenchmen had it on their faces and the English on their backs. When the Genoese were somewhat in order and approached the English they set up a loud shout[48] in order to frighten them, but they remained quite still and did not seem to attend to it. They then set up a second shout and advanced a little forward, but the English never moved.

They hooted a third time, advancing with their cross-bows presented and began to shoot. The English archers then advanced one step forward and shot their arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed as if it snowed. When the Genoese felt these arrows, which pierced their arms, heads, and through their armor, some of them cut the strings of their cross-bows; others flung them on the ground and all turned about and retreated quite discomfited. The French had a large body of men-at-arms on horseback, richly dressed, to support the Genoese. The King of France seeing them thus fall back cried out, "Kill me those scoundrels, for they stop up our road without any reason." You would then have seen the above-mentioned men-at-arms lay about them, killing all they could of these runaways.

The English continued shooting as vigorously and quickly as before; some of their arrows fell among the horsemen, who were sumptuously equipped, and, killing and wounding many, made them caper and fall among the Genoese, so that they were in such confusion they could never rally again. In the English army there were some Cornish and Welshmen on foot who had armed themselves with large knives. These, advancing through the ranks of the men-at-arms and archers, who made way for them, came upon the French when they were in this danger, and, falling upon earls, barons, knights, and squires, slew many; at which the King of England was afterward much exasperated. The valiant King of Bohemia was slain there. He was called Charles of Luxembourg, for he was the son of the gallant king and emperor Henry of Luxembourg. Having heard the order of the battle, he inquired where his son, Lord Charles, was. His attendants answered that they did not know, but believed he was fighting. The King said to them: "Gentlemen, you are all my people, my friends and brethren-at-arms this day; therefore, as I am blind,[49] I request of you to lead me so far into the engagement that I may strike one stroke with my sword." The knights replied that they would directly lead him forward, and, in order that they might not lose him in the crowd, they fastened all the reins of their horses together and put the King at their head, that he might gratify his wish and advance toward the enemy. Lord Charles of Bohemia—who already signed his name as King of Germany and bore the arms—had come in good order to the engagement, but when he perceived that it was likely to turn out against the French he departed. The King, his father, had rode in among the enemy, and made good use of his sword, for he and his companions had fought most gallantly. They had advanced so far that they were all slain, and on the morrow they were found on the ground, with their horses all tied together.

The Earl of Alencon advanced in regular order upon the English, to fight with them; as did the Earl of Flanders in another part. These two lords, with their detachments—coasting, as it were, the archers—came to the Prince's battalion, where they fought valiantly for a length of time. The King of France was eager to march to the place were he saw their banners displayed, but there was a hedge of archers before him. He had that day made a present of a handsome black horse to Sir John of Hainault, who had mounted on it a knight called Sir John de Fusselles, that bore his banner. The horse ran off with him and forced its way through the English army, and, when about to return, stumbled and fell into a ditch and severely wounded him. He would have been dead if his page had not followed him round the battalions and found him unable to rise. He had not, however, any other hinderance than from his horse; for the English did not quit the ranks that day to make prisoners. The page alighted and raised him up, but he did not return the way he came, as he would have found it difficult from the crowd. This battle, which was fought on the Saturday, between La Broyes and Crecy, was very murderous and cruel, and many gallant deeds of arms were performed that were never known. Toward evening many knights and squires of the French had lost their masters. They wandered up and down the plain, attacking the English in small parties. They were soon destroyed, for the English had determined that day to give no quarter nor hear of ransom from anyone.

Early in the day some French, Germans, and Savoyards had broken through the archers of the Prince's battalion and had engaged with the men-at-arms; upon which the second battalion came to his aid, otherwise he would have been hard pressed. The first division, seeing the danger they were in, sent a knight in great haste to the King of England, who was posted upon an eminence near a windmill. On the knight's arrival he said: "Sir, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Reginald Cobham, and the others who are about your son are vigorously attacked by the French. They entreat that you would come to their assistance with your battalion, for, if their numbers should increase, they fear he will have too much to do."

The King replied, "Is my son dead, unhorsed, or so badly wounded that he cannot support himself?"

"Nothing of the sort, thank God," rejoined the knight, "but he is in so hot an engagement that he has great need of your help." The King answered: "Now, Sir Thomas, return back to those that sent you, and tell them from me not to send again for me this day, or expect that I shall come, let what will happen, as long as my son has life; and say that I command them to let the boy win his spurs; for I am determined, if it please God, that all the glory and honor of this day shall be given to him and to those into whose care I have intrusted him." The knight returned to his lords, and related the King's answer, which mightily encouraged them and made them repent they had ever sent such a message.[50]

It is a certain fact that Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, who was in the Prince's battalion, having been told by some of the English that they had seen the banner of his brother engaged in the battle against him, was exceedingly anxious to save him; but he was too late, for he was left dead on the field, and so was the Earl of Aumarle, his nephew. On the other hand, the earls of Alencon and of Flanders were fighting lustily under their banners and with their own people, but they could not resist the force of the English, and were slain, as well as many other knights and squires that were attending on or accompanying them. The Earl of Blois, nephew to the King of France, and the Duke of Lorraine, his brother-in-law, with their troops, made a gallant defence; but they were surrounded by a troop of English and Welsh and slain in spite of their prowess. The Earl of St. Pol and the Earl of Auxerre were also killed, as well as many others.

Late after vespers, the King of France had not more about him than sixty men—every one included. Sir John of Hainault, who was of the number, had once remounted the King; for his horse had been killed under him by an arrow. He said to the King: "Sir, retreat while you have an opportunity and do not expose yourself so simply. If you have lost this battle, another time you will be the conqueror." After he had said this, he took the bridle of the King's horse and led him off by force, for he had before entreated him to retire. The King rode on until he came to the castle of La Broyes, where he found the gates shut, for it was very dark. The King ordered the governor of it to be summoned. He came upon the battlements and asked who it was that called at such an hour. The King answered: "Open, open, governor! It is the fortune of France!" The governor, hearing the King's voice, immediately descended, opened the gate and let down the bridge. The King and his company entered the castle, but he had only with him five barons, Sir John of Hainault, Lord Charles of Montmorency, Lord Beaujeu, Lord Aubigny, and Lord Montfort. The King would not bury himself in such a place as that, but, having taken some refreshments, set out again with his attendants about midnight, and rode on, under the direction of guides—who were well acquainted with the country—until about daybreak, when he came to Amiens, where he halted. The English never quitted their ranks in pursuit of anyone, but remained on the field, guarding their position and defending themselves against all who attacked them. The battle was ended at the hour of vespers.

When, on Saturday night, the English heard no more hooting or shouting, nor any more crying out to particular lords or their banners, they looked upon the field as their own and their enemies as beaten. They made great fires, and lighted torches because of the obscurity of the night. King Edward then came down from his post, who all that day had not put on his helmet, and with his whole battalion advanced to the Prince of Wales, whom he embraced in his arms and kissed, and said: "Sweet son, God give you good perseverance; you are my son, for most loyally have you acquitted yourself this day. You are worthy to be a sovereign." The Prince bowed down very low and humbled himself, giving all the honor to the King, his father. The English, during the night, made frequent thanksgivings to the Lord for the happy issue of the day, and without rioting, for the King had forbidden all riot or noise. On Sunday morning there was so great a fog that one could scarcely see the distance of half an acre. The King ordered a detachment from the army, under the command of the two marshals—consisting of about five hundred lances and two thousand archers—to make an excursion and see if there were any bodies of French troops collected together. The quota of troops from Rouen and Beauvais had that morning left Abbeville and St. Ricquier in Ponthieu to join the French army, and were ignorant of the defeat of the preceding evening. They met this detachment, and, thinking they must be French, hastened to join them.

As soon as the English found who they were, they fell upon them and there was a sharp engagement. The French soon turned their backs and fled in great disorder. There were slain in this flight in the open fields, under hedges and bushes, upward of seven thousand; and had it been clear weather, not one soul would have escaped.

A little time afterward this same party fell in with the Archbishop of Rouen and the great Prior of France, who were also ignorant of the discomfiture of the French, for they had been informed that the King was not to fight before Sunday. Here began a fresh battle; for those two lords were well attended by good men-at-arms. However, they could not withstand the English, but were almost all slain, with the two chiefs who commanded them; very few escaping. In the morning the English found many Frenchmen who had lost their road on Saturday and had lain in the open fields, not knowing what was become of the King or their own leaders. The English put to the sword all they met; and it has been assured to me for fact that of foot soldiers, sent from the cities, towns, and municipalities, there were slain, this Sunday morning, four times as many as in the battle of Saturday.

This detachment, which had been sent to look after the French, returned as the King was coming from mass, and related to him all that they had seen and met with. After he had been assured by them that there was not any likelihood of the French collecting another army, he sent to have the number and condition of the dead examined. He ordered on this business Lord Reginald Cobham, Lord Stafford, and three heralds to examine their arms, and two secretaries to write down all the names. They took much pains to examine all the dead, and were the whole day in the field of battle, not returning but just as the King was sitting down to supper. They made him a very circumstantial report of all they had observed, and said they had found eighty banners, the bodies of eleven princes, twelve hundred knights, and about thirty thousand common men.



MODERN RECOGNITION OF SCENIC BEAUTY

CROWNING OF PETRARCH AT ROME

A.D. 1341

JACOB BURCKHARDT

The beauty of nature, of natural scenery amid mountains, fields, and lakes, seems to have passed unheeded during early mediaeval times. Even in the ancient days of classic culture it apparently attracted very little notice, except from an occasional poet. The present attitude of enthusiasm, which leads thousands of tourists to flock to Switzerland or to Niagara every year, is wholly a modern development. This development of what is almost a new sense in man certainly deserves notice. To fix an exact date for its beginning is, of course, impossible, but it is generally regarded as a product of the Italian Renaissance, and Burckhardt, seeking for its slow unfolding, traces it back to Petrarch, who, in his poetry, speaks of nature repeatedly.

Petrarch's poetry was so highly valued by the Italians that they unanimously agreed to confer upon the author a laurel crown. This was a revival of the old Greek method of honoring poets, and as such it was felt by the Italians a specially fitting way to proclaim their reviving interest in art. So a great public gathering was arranged at Rome, and the laurel was with elaborate ceremonies placed on Petrarch's brow.

The recipient of this new and distinguished honor is regarded as second only to Dante in Italian literature. In addition to his world-famed sonnets to Laura, he wrote much-admired Latin poems, and was a scholar of high repute. His enthusiasm for the ancient Greek and Latin authors made him the central figure in that revival of classic learning which at this time began in Italy.

Petrarch, who lives in the memory of most people nowadays chiefly as a great Italian poet, owed his fame among his contemporaries far rather to the fact that he was a kind of living representative of antiquity, that he imitated all styles of Latin poetry, endeavored by his voluminous historical and philosophical writings not to supplant, but to make known, the works of the ancients, and wrote letters that, as treatises on matters of antiquarian interest, obtained a reputation which to us is unintelligible, but which was natural enough in an age without handbooks. Petrarch himself trusted and hoped that his Latin writings would bring him fame with his contemporaries and with posterity, and thought so little of his Italian poems that, as he often tells us, he would gladly have destroyed them if he could have succeeded thereby in blotting them out from the memory of men.

It was the same with Boccaccio. For two centuries, when but little was known of the Decameron north of the Alps, he was famous all over Europe simply on account of his Latin compilations on mythology, geography, and biography. One of these, de Genealogia Deorum, contains in the fourteenth and fifteenth books a remarkable appendix, in which he discusses the position of the then youthful humanism with regard to the age. We must not be misled by his exclusive references to poesia, as closer observation shows that he means thereby the whole mental activity of the poet-scholars. This it is whose enemies he so vigorously combats—the frivolous ignoramuses who have no soul for anything but debauchery; the sophistical theologian to whom Helicon, the Castalian fountain, and the grove of Apollo were foolishness; the greedy lawyers, to whom poetry was a superfluity, since no money was to be made by it; finally the mendicant friars, described periphrastically, but clearly enough, who made free with their charges of paganism and immorality. Then follow the defence of poetry, the proof that the poetry of the ancients and of their modern followers contains nothing mendacious, the praise of it, and especially of the deeper and allegorical meanings which we must always attribute to it, and of that calculated obscurity which is intended to repel the dull minds of the ignorant.

And finally, with a clear reference to his own scholarly work, the writer justifies the new relation in which his age stood to paganism. The case was wholly different, he pleads, when the Early Church had to fight its way among the heathen. Now—praised be Jesus Christ!—true religion was strengthened, paganism destroyed, and the victorious Church in possession of the hostile camp. It was now possible to touch and study paganism almost (fere) without danger. Boccaccio, however, did not hold this liberal view consistently. The ground of his apostasy lay partly in the mobility of his character, partly in the still powerful and widespread prejudice that classical pursuits were unbecoming in a theologian. To these reasons must be added the warning given him in the name of the dead Pietro Petroni by the monk Gioacchino Ciani to give up his pagan studies under pain of early death. He accordingly determined to abandon them, and was only brought back from this cowardly resolve by the earnest exhortations of Petrarch, and by the latter's able demonstration that humanism was reconcilable with religion.

There was thus a new cause in the world, and a new class of men to maintain it. It is idle to ask if this cause ought not to have stopped short in its career of victory, to have restrained itself deliberately, and conceded the first place to purely national elements of culture. No conviction was more firmly rooted in the popular mind than that antiquity was the highest title to glory which Italy possessed.

There was a symbolical ceremony familiar to this generation of poet-scholars which lasted on into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though losing the higher sentiment which inspired it—the coronation of the poets with the laurel wreath. The origin of this system in the Middle Ages is obscure, and the ritual of the ceremony never became fixed. It was a public demonstration, an outward and visible expression of literary enthusiasm, and naturally its form was variable. Dante, for instance, seems to have understood it in the sense of a half-religious consecration; he desired to assume the wreath in the baptistery of San Giovanni, where, like thousands of other Florentine children, he had received baptism. He could, says his biographer, have anywhere received the crown in virtue of his fame, but desired it nowhere but in his native city, and therefore died uncrowned. From the same source we learn that the usage was till then uncommon, and was held to be inherited by the ancient Romans from the Greeks. The most recent source to which the practices could be referred is to be found in the Capitoline contests of musicians, poets, and other artists, founded by Domitian in imitation of the Greeks and celebrated every five years, which may possibly have survived for a time the fall of the Roman Empire; but as few other men would venture to crown themselves, as Dante desired to do, the question arises, To whom did this office belong? Albertino Mussato was crowned at Padua in 1310 by the Bishop and the rector of the university.

The University of Paris, the rector of which was then a Florentine, 1341, and the municipal authorities of Rome competed for the honor of crowning Petrarch. His self-elected examiner, King Robert of Anjou, would gladly have performed the ceremony at Naples, but Petrarch preferred to be crowned on the Capitol by the senator of Rome. This honor was long the highest object of ambition, and so it seemed to Jacobus Pizinga, an illustrious Sicilian magistrate. Then came the Italian journey of Charles IV, whom it amused to flatter the vanity of ambitious men, and impress the ignorant multitude by means of gorgeous ceremonies. Starting from the fiction that the coronation of poets was a prerogative of the old Roman emperors, and consequently was no less his own, he crowned, May 15, 1355, the Florentine scholar Zanobi della Strada at Pisa, to the annoyance of Petrarch, who complained that the barbarian laurel had dared adorn the man loved by the Ausonian muses, and to the great disgust of Boccaccio, who declined to recognize this laurea Pisana as legitimate. Indeed, it might be fairly asked with what right this stranger, half Slavonic by birth, came to sit in judgment on the merits of Italian poets. But from henceforth the emperors crowned poets whenever they went on their travels; and in the fifteenth century the popes and other princes assumed the same right, till at last no regard whatever was paid to place or circumstances.

Outside the sphere of scientific investigation, there is another way to draw near to nature. The Italians are the first among modern peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful. The power to do so is always the result of a long and complicated development, and its origin is not easily detected, since a dim feeling of this kind may exist long before it shows itself in poetry and painting, and thereby becomes conscious of itself. Among the ancients, for example, art and poetry had gone through the whole circle of human interests before they turned to the representation of nature, and even then the latter filled always a limited and subordinate place. And yet, from the time of Homer downward, the powerful impression made by nature upon man is shown by countless verses and chance expressions. The Germanic races which founded their states on the ruins of the Roman Empire were thoroughly and specially fitted to understand the spirit of natural scenery; and though Christianity compelled them for a while to see in the springs and mountains, in the lakes and woods, which they had till then revered, the working of evil demons, yet this transitional conception was soon outgrown.

By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine, hearty enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively expression in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of nature—spring with its flowers, the green fields, and the woods. But these pictures are all foreground, without perspective. Even the crusaders, who travelled so far and saw so much, are not recognizable as such in these poems. The epic poetry, which describes armor and costumes so fully, does not attempt more than a sketch of outward nature; and even the great Wolfram von Eschenbach scarcely anywhere gives us an adequate picture of the scene on which his heroes move. From these poems it would never be guessed that their noble authors in all countries inhabited or visited lofty castles, commanding distant prospects. Even in the Latin poems of the wandering clerks, we find no traces of a distant view—of landscape properly so called; but what lies near is sometimes described with a glow and splendor which none of the knightly minstrels can surpass.

To the Italian mind, at all events, nature had by this time lost its taint of sin, and had shaken off all trace of demoniacal powers. St. Francis of Assisi, in his Hymn to the Sun, frankly praises the Lord for creating the heavenly bodies and the four elements.

The unmistakable proofs of a deepening effect of nature on the human spirit begin with Dante. Not only does he awaken in us by a few vigorous lines the sense of the morning airs and the trembling light on the distant ocean, or of the grandeur of the storm-beaten forest, but he makes the ascent of lofty peaks, with the only possible object of enjoying the view—the first man, perhaps, since the days of antiquity who did so. In Boccaccio we can do little more than infer how country scenery affected him; yet his pastoral romances show his imagination to have been filled with it.

But the significance of nature for a receptive spirit is fully and clearly displayed by Petrarch—one of the first truly modern men. That clear soul—who first collected from the literature of all countries evidence of the origin and progress of the sense of natural beauty, and himself, in his Ansichten der Natur, achieved the noblest masterpiece of description—Alexander von Humboldt, has not done full justice to Petrarch; and, following in the steps of the great reaper, we may still hope to glean a few ears of interest and value.

Petrarch was not only a distinguished geographer—the first map of Italy is said to have been drawn by his direction—and not only a reproducer of the sayings of the ancients, but felt himself the influence of natural beauty. The enjoyment of nature is, for him, the favorite accompaniment of intellectual pursuits; it was to combine the two that he lived in learned retirement at Vaucluse and elsewhere, that he from time to time fled from the world and from his age. We should do him wrong by inferring from his weak and undeveloped power of describing natural scenery that he did not feel it deeply. His picture, for instance, of the lovely Gulf of Spezzia and Porto Venere, which he inserts at the end of the sixth book of the Africa, for the reason that none of the ancients or moderns had sung of it, is no more than a simple enumeration, but the descriptions in letters to his friends of Rome, Naples, and other Italian cities in which he willingly lingered, are picturesque and worthy of the subject. Petrarch is also conscious of the beauty of rock scenery, and is perfectly able to distinguish the picturesqueness from the utility of nature. During his stay among the woods of Reggio, the sudden sight of an impressive landscape so affected him that he resumed a poem which he had long laid aside. But the deepest impression of all was made upon him by the ascent of Mont Ventoux, near Avignon. An indefinable longing for a distant panorama grew stronger and stronger in him, till at length the accidental sight of a passage in Livy, where King Philip, the enemy of Rome, ascends the Haemus, decided him. He thought that what was not blamed in a gray-headed monarch might be well excused in a young man of private station.

The ascent of a mountain for its own sake was unheard of, and there could be no thought of the companionship of friends or acquaintances. Petrarch took with him only his younger brother and two country people from the last place where he halted. At the foot of the mountain an old herdsman besought him to turn back, saying that he himself had attempted to climb it fifty years before, and had brought home nothing but repentance, broken bones, and torn clothes, and that neither before nor after had anyone ventured to do the same. Nevertheless, they struggled forward and upward, till the clouds lay beneath their feet, and at last they reached the top. A description of the view from the summit would be looked for in vain, not because the poet was insensible to it, but, on the contrary, because the impression was too overwhelming. His whole past life, with all its follies, rose before his mind; he remembered that ten years ago that day he had quitted Bologna a young man, and turned a longing gaze toward his native country; he opened a book which then was his constant companion, the Confessions of St. Augustine, and his eye fell on the passage in the tenth chapter, "and men go forth, and admire lofty mountains and broad seas and roaring torrents and the ocean and the course of the stars, and forget their own selves while doing so." His brother, to whom he read these words, could not understand why he closed the book and said no more.

Some decades later, about 1360, Fazio degli Uberti describes, in his rhyming geography, the wide panorama from the mountains of Auvergne, with the interest, it is true, of the geographer and antiquarian only, but still showing clearly that he himself had seen it. He must, however, have ascended higher peaks, since he is familiar with facts which only occur at a height of ten thousand feet or more above the sea—mountain-sickness and its accompaniments—of which his imaginary comrade Solinus tries to cure him with a sponge dipped in essence. The ascents of Parnassus and Olympus, of which he speaks, are perhaps only fictions.

In the fifteenth century, the great masters of the Flemish school, Hubert and Johann van Eyck, suddenly lifted the veil from nature. Their landscapes are not merely the fruit of an endeavor to reflect the real world in art, but have, even if expressed conventionally, a certain poetical meaning—in short, a soul. Their influence on the whole art of the West is undeniable, and extended to the landscape-painting of the Italians, but without preventing the characteristic interest of the Italian eye for nature from finding its own expression.

On this point, as in the scientific description of nature, AEneas Sylvius is again one of the most weighty voices of his time. Even if we grant the justice of all that has been said against his character, we must, nevertheless, admit that in few other men was the picture of the age and its culture so fully reflected, and that few came nearer to the normal type of the men of the early Renaissance. It may be added parenthetically that even in respect to his moral character he will not be fairly judged if we listen solely to the complaints of the German Church, which his fickleness helped to balk of the council it so ardently desired.

He here claims our attention as the first who not only enjoyed the magnificence of the Italian landscape, but described it with enthusiasm down to its minutest details. The ecclesiastical state and the South of Tuscany—his native home—he knew thoroughly, and after he became pope he spent his leisure during the favorable season chiefly in excursions to the country. Then at last the gouty man was rich enough to have himself carried in a litter through the mountains and valleys; and when we compare his enjoyments with those of the popes who succeeded him, Pius, whose chief delight was in nature, antiquity, and simple but noble architecture, appears almost a saint. In the elegant and flowing Latin of his Commentaries he freely tells us of his happiness.

His eye seems as keen and practised as that of any modern observer. He enjoys with rapture the panoramic splendor of the view from the summit of the Alban hills—from the Monte Cavo—whence he could see the shores of St. Peter from Terracina and the promontory of Circe as far as Monte Argentaro, and the wide expanse of country round about, with the ruined cities of the past, and with the mountain chains of central Italy beyond; and then his eye would turn to the green woods in the hollows beneath, and the mountain lakes among them. He feels the beauty of the position of Todi, crowning the vineyards and olive-clad slopes, looking down upon distant woods and upon the valley of the Tiber, where towns and castles rise above the winding river. The lovely hills about Siena, with villas and monasteries on every height, are his own home, and his descriptions of them are touched with a peculiar feeling. Single picturesque glimpses charm him, too, like the little promontory of Capo di Monte that stretches out into the Lake of Bolsena. "Rocky steps," we read, "shaded by vines, descend to the water's edge, where the evergreen oaks stand between the cliffs, alive with the song of thrushes." On the path round the Lake of Nemi, beneath the chestnuts and fruit-trees, he feels that here, if anywhere, a poet's soul must awake—here in the hiding-place of Diana! He often held consistories or received ambassadors under huge old chestnut-trees, or beneath the olives on the greensward by some gurgling spring. A view like that of a narrowing gorge, with a bridge arched boldly over it, awakens at once his artistic sense. Even the smallest details give him delight through something beautiful, or perfect, or characteristic in them—the blue fields of waving flax, the yellow gorge which covers the hills, even tangled thickets, or single trees, or springs, which seem to him like wonders of nature.

The height of his enthusiasm for natural beauty was reached during his stay on Monte Amiata, in the summer of 1462, when plague and heat made the lowlands uninhabitable. Half way up the mountain, in the old Lombard monastery of San Salvatore, he and his court took up their quarters. There, between the chestnuts which clothe the steep declivity, the eye may wander over all Southern Tuscany, with the towers of Siena in the distance. The ascent of the highest peak he left to his companions, who were joined by the Venetian envoy; they found at the top two vast blocks of stone one upon the other—perhaps the sacrificial altar of a prehistorical people—and fancied that in the far distance they saw Corsica and Sardinia rising above the sea.

In the cool air of the hills, among the old oaks and chestnuts, on the green meadows where there were no thorns to wound the feet and no snakes or insects to hurt or to annoy, the Pope passed days of unclouded happiness. For the segnatura, which took place on certain days of the week, he selected on each occasion some new shady retreat "novas in convallibus fontes et novas inveniens umbras, quae dubiam jacerent electionem." At such times the dogs would perhaps start a great stag from his lair, who, after defending himself a while with hoofs and antlers, would fly at last up the mountain. In the evening the Pope was accustomed to sit before the monastery on the spot from which the whole valley of the Paglia was visible, holding lively conversations with the cardinals. The courtiers, who ventured down from the heights on their hunting expeditions, found the heat below intolerable, and the scorched plains like a very hell, while the monastery, with its cool, shady woods, seemed like an abode of the blessed.

All this is genuine modern enjoyment, not a reflection of antiquity. As surely as the ancients themselves felt in the same manner, so surely, nevertheless, were the scanty expressions of the writers whom Pius knew insufficient to awaken in him such enthusiasm.

The second great age of Italian poetry, which now followed at the end of the fifteenth century, as well as the Latin poetry of the same period, is rich in proofs of the powerful effect of nature on the human mind. The first glance at the lyric poets of that time will suffice to convince us. Elaborate descriptions, it is true, of natural scenery are very rare, for the reason that, in this energetic age, the novels and the lyric or epic poetry had something else to deal with. Bojardo and Ariosto paint nature vigorously, but as briefly as possible, and with no effort to appeal by their descriptions to the feelings of the reader, which they endeavor to reach solely by their narrative and characters.

Letter-writers and the authors of philosophical dialogues are, in fact, better evidences of the growing love of nature than the poets. The novelist Bandello, for example, observes rigorously the rules of his department of literature; he gives us in his novels themselves not a word more than is necessary on the natural scenery amid which the action of his tales takes place, but in the dedications which always precede them we meet with charming descriptions of nature as the setting for his dialogues and social pictures. Among letter-writers, Aretino unfortunately must be named as the first who has fully painted in words the splendid effect of light and shadow in an Italian sunset.

We sometimes find the feeling of the poets, also, attaching itself with tenderness to graceful scenes of country life. Tito Strozza, about the year 1480, describes in a Latin elegy the dwelling of his mistress. We are shown an old ivy-clad house, half hidden in trees, and adorned with weather-stained frescoes of the saints, and near it a chapel, much damaged by the violence of the river Po, which flowed hard by; not far off, the priest ploughs his few barren roods with borrowed cattle. This is no reminiscence of the Roman elegists, but true modern sentiment.

It may be objected that the German painters at the beginning of the sixteenth century succeed in representing with perfect mastery these scenes of country life, as, for instance, Albrecht Durer, in his engraving of the prodigal son. But it is one thing if a painter, brought up in a school of realism, introduces such scenes, and quite another thing if a poet, accustomed to an ideal or mythological framework, is driven by inward impulse into realism. Besides which, priority in point of time is here, as in the descriptions of country life, on the side of the Italian poets.



RIENZI'S REVOLUTION IN ROME

A.D. 1347

R. LODGE

When for nearly forty years Rome had been deserted by the popes, who had betaken themselves in 1309 to a long residence at Avignon, France, and when the Eternal City was virtually without an imperial government—the Teutonic emperors having likewise abandoned her—she fell back upon the memories of her great past, recalling the glories of her ancient supremacy and the means whereby it had been established and maintained. Whatever might promise to restore it she was ready to welcome.

At this time the real masters of Rome were the princes or barons dwelling in their fortified castles outside or in their strong palaces within the city. Over the northern district, near the Quirinal, reigned the celebrated old family of the Colonnas; while along the Tiber, from the Campo-di-Fiore to the Church of St. Peter, extended the sway of the new family of the Orsini. Other members of the nobility, in the country, held their seats in small fortified cities or castles. Under such domination Rome had become almost deserted. "The population of the seven-hilled city had come down to about thirty thousand souls." When at peace with one another—which was rarely—the barons exercised over the citizens and serfs a combined tyranny, while the farmers, travellers, and pilgrims were made victims of their plunder. At this period Petrarch—that "first modern man"—wrote to Pope Clement VI that Rome had become the abode of demons, the receptacle of all crimes, a hell for the living.

"It was in these circumstances that a momentary revival of order and liberty was effected by the most extraordinary adventurer of an age that was prolific in adventurers." This was Cola Di Rienzi, who was born in Rome about 1313, and who is sometimes styled "an Italian patriot." In his ambitious endeavor to reinstate the Caesarean power in Italy he appears alternately in the figure of a hero and the character of a charlatan. Believing himself the founder of a new era, he was inflamed by his successes, and ended in "mystical extravagances and follies which could not fail to cause his ruin."

Cola Di Rienzi was born of humble parents, though he afterward tried to gratify his own vanity and to gain the ear of Charles IV by claiming to be the bastard son of Henry VII. A wrong which he could not venture to avenge excited his bitter hostility against the baronage, while the study of Livy and other classical writers inspired him with regretful admiration for the glories of ancient Rome.

He succeeded in attracting notice by his personal beauty and by the rather turgid eloquence which was his chief talent. In 1342 he took the most prominent part in an embassy from the citizens to Clement VI; and though he failed to induce the Pope to return to Rome, which at that time he seems to have regarded as the panacea for the evils of the time, he gained sufficient favor at Avignon to be appointed papal notary.

From this time he deliberately set himself to raise the people to open resistance against their oppressors, while he disarmed the suspicions of the nobles by intentional buffoonery and extravagance of conduct. On May 20, 1347, the first blow was struck. Rienzi, with a chosen band of conspirators, and accompanied by the papal vicar, who had every interest in weakening the baronage, proceeded to the Capitol, and, amid the applause of the mob, promulgated the laws of the buono stato.

He himself took the title of tribune, in order to emphasize his championship of the lower classes. The most important of his laws were for the maintenance of order. Private garrisons and fortified houses were forbidden. Each of the thirteen districts was to maintain an armed force of a hundred infantry and twenty-five horsemen. Every port was provided with a cruiser for the protection of merchandise, and the trade on the Tiber was to be secured by a river police.

The nobles watched the progress of this astonishing revolution with impotent surprise. Stefano Colonna, who was absent on the eventful day, expressed his scorn of the mob and their leader. But a popular attack on his palace convinced him of his error and forced him to fly from the city. Within fifteen days the triumph of Rienzi seemed to be complete, when the proudest nobles of Rome submitted and took an oath to support the new constitution. But the suddenness of his success was enough to turn a head which was never of the strongest.

The Tribune began to dream of restoring to the Roman Republic its old supremacy. And for a moment even this dream seemed hardly chimerical. Europe was really dazzled by the revival of its ancient capital. Louis of Hungary and Joanna of Naples submitted their quarrel to Rienzi's arbitration. Thus encouraged, he set no bounds to his ambition. He called upon the Pope and cardinals to return at once to Rome. He summoned Louis and Charles, the two claimants to the Imperial dignity, to appear before his throne and submit to his tribunal.

His arrogance was shown in the pretentious titles which he assumed and in the gorgeous pomp with which he was accompanied on public and even on private occasions. On August 15th, after bathing in the porphyry font in which the emperor Constantine had been baptized, he was crowned with seven crowns representing the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. His most loyal admirer prophesied disaster when the Tribune ventured on this occasion to blasphemously compare himself with Christ.

Rienzi's government deteriorated with his personal character. It had at first been liberal and just; it became arbitrary and even treacherous. His personal timidity made him at once harsh and vacillating. The heads of the great families, whom he had invited to a banquet, were seized and condemned to death on a charge of conspiracy. But a sudden terror of the possible consequences of his action caused him to relent, and he released his victims just as they were preparing for execution. His leniency was as ill-timed as his previous severity. The nobles could no longer trust him, and their fear was diminished by the weakness which they despised while they profited by it. They retired from Rome and concerted measures for the overthrow of their enemy.

The first attack, which was led by Stefano Colonna, was repulsed almost by accident; but Rienzi, who had shown more cowardice than generalship, disgusted his supporters by his indecent exultation over the bodies of the slain. And there was one fatal ambiguity in Rienzi's position. He had begun by announcing himself as the ally and champion of the papacy, and Clement VI had been willing enough to stand by and watch the destruction of the baronage. But the growing independence and the arrogant pretensions of the Tribune exasperated the Pope. A new legate was despatched to Italy to denounce and excommunicate Rienzi as a heretic. The latter had no longer any support to lean upon. When a new attack was threatened, the people sullenly refused to obey the call to arms. Rienzi had not sufficient courage to risk a final struggle. On December 15th he abdicated and retired in disguise from Rome. His rise to power, his dazzling triumph, and his downfall were all comprised within the brief period of seven months.

For the next few years Rienzi disappeared from view. According to his own account he was concealed in a cave in the Apennines, where he associated with some of the wilder members of the sect of the Fraticelli and probably imbibed some of their tenets. Rome relapsed into anarchy, and men's minds were distracted from politics by the ravages of the black death. The great jubilee held in Rome in 1350 became a kind of thanksgiving service of those whom the plague had spared.

It is said that Rienzi himself visited the scene of his exploits without detection among the crowds of pilgrims. But he was destined to reappear in a more public and disastrous manner. In his solitude his courage and his ambition revived, and he meditated new plans for restoring freedom to Rome and to Italy. The allegiance to the Church, which he had professed in 1347, was weakened by the conduct of Clement VI and by the influence of the Fraticelli, and he resolved in the future to ally himself with the secular rather than with the ecclesiastical power, with the Empire rather than with the papacy. In August, 1351, he appeared in disguise in Prague and demanded an audience of Charles IV. To him he proposed the far-reaching scheme which he had formed during his exile.

The Pope and the whole body of clergy were to be deprived of their temporal power; the petty tyrants of Italy were to be driven out; and the Emperor was to fix his residence in Rome as the supreme ruler of Christendom. All this was to be accomplished by Rienzi himself at his own cost and trouble. Charles IV listened with some curiosity to a man whose career had excited such universal interest, but he was the last man to be carried away by such chimerical suggestions.

The introduction into the political proposals of some of the religious and communistic ideas of the Fraticelli gave the Emperor a pretext for committing Rienzi to the Archbishop of Prague for correction and instruction. The Archbishop communicated with the Pope, and on the demand of Clement VI Charles agreed to hand Rienzi over to the papal court on condition that his life should be spared. In 1352 Rienzi was conveyed to Avignon and thrust into prison. He owed his life perhaps less to the Emperor's request than to the opportune death of Clement VI in this year.

The new Pope, Innocent VI, was more independent of French control than his immediate predecessors. The French King was fully occupied with internal disorders and with the English war. Thus the Pope was able to give more attention to Italian politics, which were sufficiently pressing. The independence and anarchy of the Papal States constituted a serious problem, but the danger of their subjection to a foreign power was still more serious. In 1350 the important city of Bologna had been seized by the Visconti of Milan, and the progress of this powerful family threatened to absorb the whole of the Romagna. Innocent determined to resist their encroachments and at the same time to restore the papal authority, and in 1353 he intrusted this double task to Cardinal Albornoz.

Albornoz, equally distinguished as a diplomatist and as a military commander, resolved to ally the cause of the papacy with that of liberty. His programme was to overthrow the tyrants as the enemies both of the people and of the popes, and to restore municipal self-government under papal protection. His attention was first directed to the city of Rome, which, after many vicissitudes since 1347, had fallen under the influence of a demagogue named Baroncelli.

Baroncelli had revived to some extent the schemes of Rienzi, but had declared openly against papal rule. To oppose this new tribune, Albornoz conceived the project of using the influence of Rienzi, whose rule was now regretted by the populace that had previously deserted him. The Pope was persuaded to release Rienzi from prison and to send him to Rome, where the effect of his presence was almost magical. The Romans flocked to welcome their former liberator, and he was reinstalled in power with the title of senator, conferred upon him by the Pope. But his character was not improved by adversity, and his rule was more arbitrary and selfish than it had been before.

The execution of the condottiere, Fra Moreale, was an act of ingratitude as well as of treachery. Popular favor was soon alienated from a ruler who could no longer command either affection or respect, and, in a mob rising, Rienzi was put to death, October 8, 1354. But his return had served the purpose of Albornoz. Rome was preserved to the papacy, and the cardinal could proceed in safety with his task of subduing the independent tyrants of Romagna.

Central Italy had not yet witnessed the general introduction of mercenaries, and the native populations still fought their own battles. The policy of exciting revolts among the subject citizens was completely successful, and by 1360 almost the whole of Romagna had submitted to the papal legate. His triumph was crowned in this year, when, by skilful use of quarrels among the Visconti princes, he succeeded in recovering Bologna.



BEGINNING AND PROGRESS OF THE RENAISSANCE

FOURTEENTH TO SIXTEENTH CENTURY

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

The new birth or resurrection known as the "Renaissance" is usually considered to have begun in Italy in the fourteenth century, though some writers would date its origin from the reign of Frederick II, 1215-1250; and by this Prince—the most enlightened man of his age—it was at least anticipated. Well versed in languages and science, he was a patron of scholars, whom he gathered about him, from all parts of the world, at his court in Palermo.

At all events the Renaissance was heralded through the recovery by Italian scholars of Greek and Roman classical literature. When the movement began, the civilization of Greece and Rome had long been exerting a partial influence, not only upon Italy, but on other parts of mediaeval Europe as well. But in Italy especially, when the wave of barbarism had passed, the people began to feel a returning consciousness of their ancient culture, and a desire to reproduce it. To Italians the Latin language was easy, and their country abounded in documents and monumental records which symbolized past greatness.

The modern Italian spirit was produced through the combination of various elements, among which were the political institutions brought by the Lombards from Germany, the influence of chivalry and other northern forms of civilization, and the more immediate power of the Church. That which was foreshadowed in the thirteenth century became in the fourteenth a distinct national development, which, as Symonds, its most discerning interpreter, shows us, was constructing a model for the whole western world.

The word "renaissance" has of late years received a more extended significance than that which is implied in our English equivalent—the "revival of learning." We use it to denote the whole transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world; and though it is possible to assign certain limits to the period during which this transition took place, we cannot fix on any dates so positively as to say between this year and that the movement was accomplished. To do so would be like trying to name the days on which spring in any particular season began and ended. Yet we speak of spring as different from winter and from summer.

The truth is that in many senses we are still in mid-Renaissance. The evolution has not been completed. The new life is our own and is progressive. As in the transformation scene of some pantomime, so here the waning and the waxing shapes are mingled; the new forms, at first shadowy and filmy, gain upon the old; and now both blend; and now the old scene fades into the background; still, who shall say whether the new scene be finally set up?

In like manner we cannot refer the whole phenomena of the Renaissance to any one cause or circumstance, or limit them within the field of any one department of human knowledge. If we ask the students of art what they mean by the Renaissance, they will reply that it was the revolution effected in architecture, painting, and sculpture by the recovery of antique monuments. Students of literature, philosophy, and theology see in the Renaissance that discovery of manuscripts, that passion for antiquity, that progress in philology and criticism, which led to a correct knowledge of the classics, to a fresh taste in poetry, to new systems of thought, to more accurate analysis, and finally to the Lutheran schism and the emancipation of the conscience. Men of science will discourse about the discovery of the solar system by Copernicus and Galileo, the anatomy of Vesalius, and Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood. The origination of a truly scientific method is the point which interests them most in the Renaissance. The political historian, again, has his own answer to the question. The extinction of feudalism, the development of the great nationalities of Europe, the growth of monarchy, the limitation of the ecclesiastical authority, and the erection of the papacy into an Italian kingdom, and in the last place the gradual emergence of that sense of popular freedom which exploded in the Revolution: these are the aspects of the movement which engross his attention.