together in their Golias, as Rabelais in later days, solemnity and buffoonery, pedantic learning and vulgar humour, a profound respect for sacred things and freedom of invective against sacred persons. The Goliards became a kind of monkish rhapsodists, the companions and rivals of the Jongleurs (the reciters of the merry and licentious fabliaux); Goliardery was a recognised kind of medieval poetry. Golias has his Metamorphoses, his Apocalypse, his terrible Preachment, his Confession, his Complaint to the Pope, his Address to the Roman Court, to the impious Prelates, to the Priests of Christ, to the Prelates of France; and, finally, a Satire on women, that is, against taking a wife, instinct with true monastic rigour and coarseness. Towards the Pope himself-though Golias scruples not to arraign his avarice, to treat his Bulls with scorn-there is yet some awe.k I doubt if show itself written in Pavia. Compare the copy of the Confession in Wright (p. 71), and the Carmina Benedicto-Burana (p. 57). i The Confession contains the famous drinking song. The close is entirely different, and shows the sort of common property in the poems. Both poems mention Pavia. Yet the English copy names the Bishop of Coventry, the German 66 the Elect of Cologne," as Diocesan. I have already quoted the lines in one of those songs in which he derives the word Papa, by apocope, from pagare, "pay, pay." In his complaint to the Pope, Golias is a poor clerical scholar poet: Turpe tibi, pastor bone, Spretâ fiam laicus, Redditu vel alio, Vivam licet non habunde, From a very different author in a dif- 1. "Dic Xti veritas, Dic cara raritas, 2. Bulla fulminante Itur et recurritur the Roman Pontiff was yet to the fiercest of these poets, as to the Albigensians and to the Spiritual Franciscans, Antichrist. The Cardinals meet with less respect; that excessive and proverbial venality, which we have heard denounced century after century, is confirmed, if it needed confirmation, by these unsparing satirists." The Bishops are still arraigned for their martial habits," their neglect of their sacred functions, their pride, their venality, their tyranny. Some were married: this and universal concubinage is the burthen of the complaint against the Clergy." The Satirists are stern monks to others, however their amatory poetry may tell against 3. "Respondit Caritas Nec in euro, nec in austro, De Jericho sum veniens Ploro cum sauciato, Quem duplex Levi transiens Non astitit grabato." Carmina Benedicto-Burana, p. 51. This is but a sample of these Poems. One of these stanzas is contained in a "Nos peccata relaxamus Sedibus ethereis, Nos habemus nostras leges, Alligantes omnes reges In manicis aureis." Carm., B. B., p. 17. m See the Poem de Ruinâ Romæ. Wright, p. 217. Carmina B. B. 16: 3. "Vidi vidi caput mundi Episcopi cornuti Conticuere muti, ad prædam sunt parati et indecenter coronati pro virgâ ferunt lanceam, Sicut fortes incedunt, et a Deo discedunt," &c. Carm. B. Burana, p. 15. Compare themselves. The Archdeacons' Court is a grievance which seems to have risen to a great height in England. Henry II. we have heard bitterly complaining against its abuses it levied enormous sums on the vices of the people, which it did not restrain. All are bitterly reproached with the sale of the services of the Church, even of the Sacraments." The monks do not escape; but it seems rather a quarrel of different Orders than a general denunciation of all. The terrible preachment of Golias on the Last Judgement ought not to be passed by. The rude doggrel rises almost to sublimity as it summons all alike before the Judge, clerk as well as layman; and sternly cuts off all reply, all legal quibble, all appeal to the throne of St. Peter. The rich will find no favour before Him who is the Judge, the Author of the sentence, the Witness. God the Judge will judge Judges, he will judge Kings; be he Bishop or Cardinal, the sinner will be plunged into the stench of hell. There will be no fee for Bull or Notary, no bribe to Chamberlain or Porter. Prelates will be delivered up to the most savage tormentors; their life will be eternal death.s Latin History throughout these centuries bore on its face that it was the work not of the statesman or history. the warrior, unless of the Crusader or of the warrior Bishop, it was that of the Monk. It is universally Latin during the earlier period: at first indeed in Italy, in Latin which may seem breaking down into an initiatory Romance or Italian. Erchempert and the Salernitan Chronicle, and some others of that period, are barbarous beyond later barbarism. When history became almost the exclusive property of the Monks, it was written in their Latin, which at least was a kind of Latin. Most of the earlier Chronicles were intended each to be a universal history for the instruction of the brotherhood. Hence monkish historians rarely begin lower than the Creation or the Deluge. According to the erudition of the writer, the historian is more or less diffuse on the pre-Christian History, and that of the Cæsars. As the writers approach their own age, the brief Chronicle expands and registers at first all that relates to the institution and interests of the monastery, its founders and benefactors, their lives and miracles, and condescends to admit the affairs of the times in due subordination. But there is still something of the legend. Gradually, however, the actual world widens before the eyes of the monkish historian; present events in which he, his monastery, at all events the Church, are mingled, assume their proper magnitude. The universal-history preface is sometimes actually discarded, or shrinks into a narrower compass. He is still a chronicler; he still, as it were, surveys everything from within his conventwalls; but the world has entered within his convent. The Monk has become a Churchman, or the Churchman, retired into the monastery, become almost an historian. The high name of Historian, indeed, cannot be claimed for any medieval Latin writer; but as chroniclers of their own times (their value is entirely confined to their own times; on the past they are merely servile copyists of the same traditions) they are invaluable. Their very faults are their merits. They are full of, and therefore represent the passions, the opinions, the prejudices, the partialities, the animosities of their days. Every kingdom, every city in Italy, in Germany every province, has its chronicler." In England, though the residence of the chronicler, the order to which he belongs, and the office which he occupies, are usually manifest, it is more often the affairs of the realm which occupy the annals. France, or rather the Franco-Teutonic Empire, began with better promise; Eginhard has received his due praise; the Biographers of Louis the Pious, Thegan, and the Astronomer, may be read with pleasure as with instruction: Nithard falls off. In England Matthew Paris, E.g. in the Saxon Chronicle. To characterise the Chronicles, even those of the different nations, would be an endless labour. VOL. IX. |