As to the amount of probability judged necessary for these mediæval tales, we may perhaps gauge it by a story related as grave matter of fact in the 'Lanercost Chronicle,' of a famous Bishop of Winchester: 'Having mentioned Peter de Roches, Bishop of Winchester, I will tell you what I have heard from older men. He was a man vain and worldly, as is too much the fashion with our prelates; and once upon a time, taking with him, as he was wont, his hunters, he went to the forest to search for wild beasts when he ought to have been rather hunting for souls. In the forest his followers became separated from him, and the bishop coming to an open space suddenly beholds a beautiful mansion which he had never seen before. He admires its grace, and wondering to whom it belongs, hastens on to see. As he approaches, servants in rich liveries come to meet him, and invite him to the banquet of the king. When he hesitated on account of his dress, they bring him a fair cloak, and, leading him to the feast, place him on the right side of the prince. In the midst of the banquet, he demands of the prince who he is. He informs him that he is Arthur, the king of the whole of Britain. The bishop then asks if he is saved. The king replies, "I expect the mercy of God." "Alas!" says the bishop, "who will believe me if I tell them that I have to-day seen and spoken with the great Arthur? "Shut," says the king, "your right hand." The bishop did so. "Now open it." He did, and straightway out flew a butterfly. Now," said King Arthur, " as long as you live, you shall have this memorial of me, that whenever you please to shut and open your right hand, you shall be able to make a butterfly come forth and fly away.' This became so well known, that men used to come to the bishop, asking him instead of a blessing for a butterfly, and many used to call him the butterfly-bishop.'-Chronicon de Lanercost, p. 23. 66 We can easily conceive a friar telling this story with much relish. There was the sly fling at the bishops as being vain, and worldly, and fond of amusements; there was the adroit support of the legend of Arthur's continued life, 'rex quondam, rexque futurus, which was so much cherished and delighted in by Englishmen; and there was the strange and bewildering audacity, which asserted of one of the best known men in England-a man whose ways and actions were closely watched and familiarly scanned that he never shut and opened his right hand without letting forth a butterfly. The following story represents the same unblushing audacity, applied to another world: There was a king of Saxony who had married a princess of Norway, who bad borne him two fine boys. This king being constantly engaged in wars, grew tired of the regal life, and one day confided to his consort his design of retiring from the throne, entering a religious order, and leaving her to carry on the government. This plan the queen violently resisted, and they agreed to refer it to the archbishop for his decision whether it were the holier act for the king to leave his wife and children and take religious vows, or to remain and perform his duty as king and husband. The archbishop decided that it was the king's duty to choose the religious life; upon which the queen insisted also on entering it. So the King of Saxony became a Minorite friar, and after nineteen years spent in the holy life, he died. Now, it chanced that on the very day of his death a holy nun departed this life who had made a solemn compact with her abbess to come back on the third day, and bring her news of the world beyond. The abbess was much astonished that she did not fulfil her majority of stories told in the legends of saints, and in the manuals, religious and moral, which contain such an abundant store of tales, have this characteristic. Of the books we have placed at the head of this article, the Lanercost Chronicle' was written by English Franciscan or Minorite friars, the great collectors, manipulators, and dexterous users of these stories; the 'Handlyng Synne' is a book of stories, made by a good canon to enforce religious duties; and the 'Book de la Tour-Laundry' is a collection of stories made in France, by a father, for the use of his daughters. As these latter were also drawn, as is acknowledged, from clerical sources, we have in these three books a fair sample of the sort of stories which were familiarly in the mouth of the religious teacher in the Middle Age. It has often and with great probability been asserted, that one chief cause of the high popularity which the friars obtained was the amount of good stories that they had at command. They were constantly introducing these into their sermons, thus making their discourses far more attractive than the stiff and dry orations of the parish priest; and we may be sure that in their frequent visits in their districts they were wise enough to soothe the unpalatable demand for alms with the softening influence of a piquant and merry tale. 'Now mot a frere studyen and stumblen in tales, What To purchasen him his pursefull to pay for the drynke.'1 They thus made themselves acceptable, not only as quack doctors and pedlars, but also as having at command a wonderful fund of thrilling and sensational interest and amusement. the trouveur was in the knight's castle, that was the friar in the farm-house or hostelry. The unblushing indecency of many of the stories may prevent their reproduction in modern days, but there is enough and to spare on record, even omitting the indelicate stories, for us to get a fair notion of the sort of tales that the friars told and delighted to record and accumulate, of the seasoning which they provided for their pulpit discourses and their private exhortations in commendation of that highest of all virtues, the contributing towards the support and aggrandisement of the brethren of S. Francis or S. Dominic. It must be confessed that the stories for the most part have somewhat too obvious and palpable a moral, and bear somewhat too distinctly upon the great virtue aforesaid. Nevertheless, this is not the case in all of them, and there are to be found in them many curious illustrations of the manners, customs, and tone of thought of their age. 1 Piers the Ploughman's Crede (ed. Skeat), 1. 591. As to the amount of probability judged necessary for these mediæval tales, we may perhaps gauge it by a story related as grave matter of fact in the Lanercost Chronicle,' of a famous Bishop of Winchester: 'Having mentioned Peter de Roches, Bishop of Winchester, I will tell you what I have heard from older men. He was a man vain and worldly, as is too much the fashion with our prelates; and once upon a time, taking with him, as he was wont, his hunters, he went to the forest to search for wild beasts when he ought to have been rather hunting for souls. In the forest his followers became separated from him, and the bishop coming to an open space suddenly beholds a beautiful mansion which he had never seen before. He admires its grace, and wondering to whom it belongs, hastens on to see. As he approaches, servants in rich liveries come to meet him, and invite him to the banquet of the king. When he hesitated on account of his dress, they bring him a fair cloak, and, leading him to the feast, place him on the right side of the prince. In the midst of the banquet, he demands of the prince who he is. He informs him that he is Arthur, the king of the whole of Britain. The bishop then asks if he is saved. The king replies, "I expect the mercy of God." "Alas!" says the bishop, "who will believe me if I tell them that I have to-day seen and spoken with the great Arthur? "Shut," says the king, your right hand." The bishop did so. "Now open it." He did, and straightway out flew a butterfly. "Now," said King Arthur, as long as you live, you shall have this memorial of me, that whenever you please to shut and open your right band, you shall be able to make a butterfly come forth and fly away." This became so well known, that men used to come to the bishop, asking him instead of a blessing for a butterfly, and many used to call him the butterfly-bishop.'-Chronicon de Lanercost, p. 23. 66 We can easily conceive a friar telling this story with much relish. There was the sly fling at the bishops as being vain, and worldly, and fond of amusements; there was the adroit support of the legend of Arthur's continued life, 'rex quondam, rexque futurus, which was so much cherished and delighted in by Englishmen; and there was the strange and bewildering audacity, which asserted of one of the best known men in England-a man whose ways and actions were closely watched and familiarly scanned that he never shut and opened his right hand without letting forth a butterfly. The following story represents the same unblushing audacity, applied to another world: -- 'There was a king of Saxony who had married a princess of Norway, who had borne him two fine boys. This king being constantly engaged in wars, grew tired of the regal life, and one day confided to his consort his design of retiring from the throne, entering a religious order, and leaving her to carry on the government. This plan the queen violently resisted, and they agreed to refer it to the archbishop for his decision whether it were the holier act for the king to leave his wife and children and take religious vows, or to remain and perform his duty as king and husband. The archbishop decided that it was the king's duty to choose the religious life; upon which the queen insisted also on entering it. So the King of Saxony became a Minorite friar, and after nineteen years spent in the holy life, he died. Now, it chanced that on the very day of his death a holy nun departed this life who had made a solemn compact with her abbess to come back on the third day, and bring her news of the world beyond. The abbess was much astonished that she did not fulfil her promise. She fasted and prayed, and began to think that there might be deceit even in the inhabitants of heaven, when on the ninth day the nun appeared in glorious apparel. She explained her delay by saying that on the day of her migration to the heavenly land it chanced that a certain most famous saint was going the same way, viz. a king who had laid aside his crown to take the vows of a Minorite. At his death there was such exultation in heaven, and such a general rejoicing, that strict orders had been given by the Lord that no one should leave the heavenly courts for seven days, but that all should unite together to do honour to the illustrious royal friar.'-Lanercost Chronicle, p. 33. The following is related of the writer's own times, and is specially connected with the name of Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln: "There was a certain knight who had a high devotion for S. Nicholas, and every year celebrated his feast with great honour, and a large assembly of his friends and neighbours. It chanced one year, when the solemn services of the church were over, they were all making themselves ready for the banquet. But the ladies, who take a longer time in preparing themselves, and who were in an inner chamber with the mistress of the house, decking their persons, were being waited for in the hall by their husbands. Then the wife of the knight, being a true daughter of Eve, and full of pride and vanity, standing before her mirror, asked her attendant whether she looked elegant and well-decked. The servant answered that she was indeed nobly apparelled. Then the lady added, "Do you think that I may be considered equal in beauty to the statue of the Virgin to which honour is paid in the church?" Instantly did this blasphemy receive its punishment, for a huge toad, swollen and hideous, was fixed by its front feet to her forehead, and hung down with its hind legs below her nose in a way horrible to behold. The terrified women cry and scream, the master of the house and others rush in: they try to drag the hideous beast away with pincers, and other means; but they prevailed nothing, for ever it clings more strongly. The feast is turned into a deadly lamentation, nor is there any hope of remedy save through the mercy of that Mother to whom the wretched woman had dared to compare herself. She is placed on a litter and carried to Lincoln, attended by a large band of friends. She gives herself to vigils and prayers, while all the country runs to see the sight, and some laugh and some pity her. For thirty days she remains afflicted. After this, having been thoroughly humiliated in mind and body, on waking from a brief sleep she finds herself entirely delivered from her misfortune, nor did any trace of the beast nor any wound remain.'-Lanercost Chronicle, p. 45. This may serve to illustrate the amount of boldness of assertion which these stories exhibit, a boldness not confined to remote times, or to the unseen world, but freely applied to contemporary events, challenging the consent of a great number of persons in known places, and with circumstances alleged easy to be sifted and detected. It may, we think, be said that the audacity of assertion was quite unlimited. But there is one especial point to be noted in passing, and that is the grossly irreverent way in which the Blessed Virgin is treated in these narratives. In the story just recited she is made to be the censor of vanity and fine clothes. So also in the 'Book de la Tour-Laundry,' where we are told that there were in the church of Roch-Madame 'Divers tresses of ladies and gentlewomen that had been washed in wine and other things for to make the bair of colour otherwise than God made it, the which ladies and gentlewomen that owned the tresses were coming thitherward on pilgrimage, but they may never have power to come within the church door unto the time that they had cut off the tresses of their hair, the which is hanged there before the image of our Lady; and this is true, and a thing proved, as divers that have been there say.'-Book of the Knight de la Tour-Laundry (E.E.T.S.), p. 70. It may be thought that these daring assertions as to the Blessed Virgin do not represent her in an unworthy light, although they may tend greatly to lower the high reverence with which she ought to be regarded. It is far otherwise, however, with the immorality and repulsive sentiment of gallantry with which the stories in which she is introduced are sometimes marked. Take for instance the following, from Caxton's 'Golden Legend: ' 'There was a thief that often stole, but he had always great devotion to the Virgin Mary, and saluted her oft. It was that he was taken and judged to be hanged; and when he was hanged, the Blessed Virgin sustained him and held him up with her hands three days, so that he died not, and had no hurt. And they that hanged him passed by, by chance, and found him living and of good cheer. And thence they supposed that the cord had not been well strained, and would have slain him with a sword, and have cut his throat, but our Blessed Lady set her hand before the strokes so that they might not slay him. And then knew they by what he told them, how that the Blessed Mother of God helped him; and they marvelled and took him down, and let him go, in honour of the Virgin Mary. And he went and entered into a monastery, and was in the service of the Mother of God as long as he lived.' 'There was a clerk who loved much the Blessed Virgin, but who, coming into a great estate, thought to take a wife. On his way to the church he remembered that he had not that day said the hours of our Lady, and he went into a church by the wayside. Then did the Blessed Virgin reproach him a little cruelly : O fool, and unhappy! why hast thou left me that am thy spouse and thy friend, and lovest another woman before me ?" Then did the clerk leave his promised bride, and spend the rest of his days in a house of religion.' There is a story in the 'Lanercost Chronicle' which narrates how two thieves, captured for their misdeeds and lodged in a deep and filthy dungeon, determined with themselves that they would address special devotions to the Virgin. Whereupon they were visited in their dungeon by the object of their prayers, and bid to arise and depart, and not to remain there like slothful men. On this they make an attempt to move, and their fetters are found to yield like wax; the doors open before them—the guardians of the prison are struck dumb and powerless-and the robbers pass out unchecked. This,' says the writer, 'I myself heard from the priest who had received the confession of one of the escaped culprits.'1 1 Lanercost Chronicle, p. 77. |