|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 2
Although many a feudal lord was a proud and hard-driving master, yet the
vassal and the serf knew that there were limits which his lord dared not
transgress; that the very spirit of his "caste", for such to a certain
extent was the social rank to which the feudal lord belonged, would not
tolerate any too flagrant a violation of his privileges. A bond of
united interests was found between feudal noble and his vassal. They
were found side by side in war; their larger interests were the same in
peace. Loyalty, honor, fidelity took deep root in the society which they
represented.
As the aristocracy of feudalism was founded, not on wealth or money, but
on land tenure, one of the most stable titles to prestige and authority
found in history, there was in the underlying concept of society in
those days a feeling of stability and permanency, which for a time made
feudalism, in spite of its flaws, a bulwark of order. It fostered even
a strong family spirit. Baron, count or earl, behind the thick ramparts
of his castle, lived a patriarchal life. He was, with his retainers and
men-at-arms, his chaplains, to watch over his spiritual needs, his wife
and children and vassals, dependent upon him for protection and safety,
impelled by every sense of honor, duty and chivalry to make them feel
that he was their sword and buckler. They were closely knit to him.
There was a patriarchal bond between them. Family spirit grew strong
and, under the teaching of the Church, it became pure.
Feudalism had its flaws. It was strictly an aristocratic institution. It
fostered the spirit of pride and bore harshly at times upon the serf and
the man of low degree. But its harsher features were softened by the
teachings of the Church. When it was at its height, voices of Popes like
Alexander III and of Doctors like St. Thomas Aquinas, were lifted to
proclaim the equality of all men in the sight of God. At the altar, serf
and master, count or cottier, knelt side by side. In the monasteries and
convents, the poor man's son might wear the Abbot's ring and in the
assemblies and councils of the realm, the poor clerk of former days,
might speak with all the authority of a Bishop to sway the destinies of
both Church and State.
One of the greatest evils of feudalism was that it fostered to excess
the warlike spirit. Of its very nature, the system was a complex one. It
gave rise to countless misunderstandings between the various grades of
its involved hierarchy. The opportunities and plausible pretexts for
misunderstandings, quarrels and war were many. A petty quarrel in
Burgundy, in Champagne, in the Berry in France, involved not only the
duke and count of these territories but almost every vassal or feudal
lord in the province. The same might be said of the German nobles in
Suabia, Thuringia and Franconia. Private wars were frequent, and though
the barbarism of the past ages had almost completely disappeared under
the teaching of the Gospel, these contests, as might be expected, were
both sanguinary and wasteful.
The Church fought manfully against these private wars. It took every
possible means to prevent them entirely. When in the nature of things,
it found it impossible to do away with them altogether, it tried to
mitigate their horrors, to limit their field of operation, to diminish
their savagery. If the kingly authority was flouted, save perhaps when a
sturdy ruler like William the Conqueror in England, or Hugh Capet in
France, showed that there was a man at the helm, who meant to rule and
was not afraid to quell rebellious earls and make them obey, there was
one power these mail-clad warriors respected. They respected the
Apostles Peter and Paul, they respected My Lord the Pope, and the
Bishops of France and Normandy and England who shared in their
authority. They flouted a king's edict, but none but hardened criminals
among them laughed at an episcopal or a Papal excommunication.
These rude men, and it places their rude age high in the scale of
civilization, respected religion. They lowered the sword before the
Cross. The Church had for the disobedient and the refractory one
terrible weapon, which she was loath to use, but which she occasionally
used with swift and tragic effect, the weapon of excommunication. Many a
modern historian or philosopher has smiled good-naturedly and in mild
contempt at this weapon used by the Church to frighten her children,
much as children are frightened by flaunting some horrid tale of ogre or
hobgoblin before them. Yet the student of history might profitably study
the use which the Church has made of such an instrument, and find in it
one of the most effective causes of social regeneration in the Middle
Ages.
The Church, in order to fight the military and armed excesses of
feudalism, employed many means. It is to her that we owe what is known
as the "Truce of God," or the enforced temporary suspension of
hostilities usually, from the sunset of each Wednesday to Monday
morning. Under pain of excommunication, during that interval, which at
several times was further extended so as to comprise the seasons of
Advent and Lent, and some of the major feasts, the sword might not be
drawn in private quarrel. From a decree of the Council of Elne, in the
South of France, we find that the "Truce of God," the "_Treuga Dei_" as
it was technically called, was in full honor and had reached the height
of its beneficent power in 1207. But long before, in the days when
Gregory VII was Pope, and William of Normandy had just won his English
crown, and Henry III ruled in Germany and Henry I in France, in the days
when feudalism was making its first attempts to bring order out of
chaos, several councils of the Church in France and in Normandy had
traced out the plan and the outlines of the "Truce of God." Earlier
even, at the Councils of Charroux (989), Narbonne (990), Le Puy and Anse
(990), severe penalties were pronounced against those who wantonly in
time of war destroyed the poor man's cattle or harried his fields, or
carried off his beasts of burden. "Leagues of Peace" were formed to
diminish the horrors of war, to protect the helpless, to enforce order.
The Council of Poitiers, where there is one of the earliest mentions of
these "Leagues of Peace," was held 1223 years ago. The Council of
Bourges in 1031 created a species of national militia to police the
rural districts and prevent war. Our ancestors believed in leagues with
"teeth in them." From France where the movement had its origin and
culminated at Elne (1207) in the full organization of the "Truce of
God," it spread eastward into Germany and Thuringia. The German duchies
and the Austrian marches submitted soon after to its humanitarian and
Christian code. In 1030, the Pope, the French and German princes united
their efforts for the development of the forerunners of the "Truce of
God," the conventions known as the "Peace of God." The Peace, the
earlier institution of the two, exempted from the evils of war,
churches, monasteries, clerics, children, pilgrims, husbandmen; the
cattle, the fields, the vineyards of the toiler; his instruments of
labor, his barns, his bakehouse, his milch cows, his goats and his fowl.
The Truce forbade war at certain "closed seasons." It gave angry
passions time to subside, and endeavored to discredit war by making
peace more desirable and its blessings more prolonged. It is probable
that the Council of Charroux already mentioned laid the germs of the
Truce. At the Council of Elne we see it fully organized. In 1139 the
Tenth General Council, the Second Lateran, gave in its eleventh Canon
its official approbation to what must be considered one of the most
beautiful institutions of the Middle Ages.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|