an epic novel of Christians and
Jews in the plague years
Copyright 1988 Roberta Kalechofsky
Published by Seltzer Books. seltzerbooks.com/
established in 1974, as
B&R
Samizdat Express
other books by Roberta
are
available for free online at seltzerbooks.com/kalechofsky.html
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About the Author
Roberta Kalechofsky is the author
of seven works of fiction,
a monograph on George Orwell, poetry and two collections
of essays.
She has been published in quarterlies, reviews and anthologies,
and was the
recipient of Literary Fellowships from the National Endowment
for the Arts and
the Massachusetts Council on the Arts.
Several of her stories,
and two
novellas, La Hoya and Stephen's Passion, have been translated into
Italian and
published in Italy. La Hoya received excellent reviews in major
publications,
such as Corriere Della Sera., and was included in a college
curriculum in Italy
under the title, Veduta di Toledo.. Stephen's Passion has also
been included in
a college curriculum in courses in American Fiction in the
University of
Florence, under the title, La Passione Di Stephen. Her novel,
Bodmin, 1349: An
Epic Novel of Christians and Jews in the Plague Years, was
included twice in a
college curriculum in the United States.
She began Micah
Publications in
1975 and has received publishing grants from the National
Endowment for the
Arts and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, in addition to her
literary
fellowships. As a publisher, she created The Echad Series, which
includes five
anthologies of Jewish writing from around the world, and has
published 40
different titles in poetry, fiction, scholarship, vegetarianism
and animal rights.
She is active in the animal rights and vegetarian movements and
began the
organization, Jews for Animal Rights, in 1985, and coordinates
publishing
projects with this organization.
She has also been a
contributing
editor to various magazines, such as Margins, and On The Issues,
and taught at
Brooklyn College for four years.
She was a participant in
a
round-table discussion, "Please Use Other Door: Literary
Creativity and
the Publishing Industry," with Cynthia Ozick, Hugh Nissenson,
Gordon Lish,
Elizabeth Sifton and Robert Boyers, which was published in RSA
Journal, #3
(March, 1992).
She graduated from
Brooklyn College
and received a doctorate in English literature in 1970 from New
York
University.
A critical essay on her
work can be
found in the Dictionary of Literary Biographies, Volume 28: Jewish
Fiction
Writers. A list of her published work and/or extended resume is
available upon
request.
Text on back cover:
"... an amazing work --
Cynthia Ozick
"Bodmin, 1349 is a
masterful
work. Language here is a powerful and highly original cognitive
instrument,
surpassing Eco's The Name of the Rose. -- Mario Materassi
"... skillful novel...
grounded in well-documented data -- provides a fascinating glimpse
of the rich
relilgious heritage of both Christians and Jews." -- Publishers
Weekly
"... a very unusual work
of
fiction and scholarship ... Bodmin, 1349 is a fascinating
introduction to a
vanished era." -- Sylvia Rothchild
"... remarkable novel
...
every sentence in her book is grounded in little-known but
fascinating details
fo the daily lives of serfs, monks and Jews in the Middle Ages."
-- Gerald
Jonas
Here is history with
veracity and
humor, told from the point of view of all the social classes who
experienced
The Black Death.
Here is history with
human faces in
the characters of Will, a peasant from York, and his wife, Miriam,
rumored to
be Jewish, a "leftover" from the expulsion of the Jews from
England
in 1290, who becomes a picaresque heroine through whom the events
for the Black
Death on the continent are told.
The novel is passionate
and witty
as it interweaves existing documents from the times, charters and
chronicles,
monastic life and town life, the rectory and the brothel, with
fantasy, vision,
and lyricism. It is a compelling work of the religious and
historical
imagination.
Dedication
for Kal, whose
perseverance saw
this through
Chapter
One: The Road to Bodmin
Priory
Chapter
Two: The Holiness of
Poverty
Chapter
Three: The Road to
Newool
Chapter
Four: The Road to
Bodmin Village
Chapter
Five: The Treasury of
Heaven
Chapter
Seven: The Road to
London
Chapter
Eight: Stadluft
Macht Frei
Chapter
One: Miriam's
Testament
Chapter
Five: The Coin of
Salvation
In 1349, European man
perceived
that his problem, like ours, was survival, not salvation. We have
still to work
out that religious insight.
In our time the fate of
man and the
fate of life are one, and we would be less than wise to ignore the
survivor's
voice... To new prisoners on their first night in Sachsenhausen, a
survivor spoke
these words: "I have not told you of our experiences to harrow
you, but to
strengthen you... Now you may decide if you are justified in
despairing."
-- The Survivor by
Terrance Des
Pres
Will Langland, a good
man in search
of peace in the year 1348, came from York to the priory of Bodmin
in the early
spring of that year, six months before the plague came to England,
although the
news of it had already reached the shores, carried in the throats
of birds that
crossed the waters from Europe, and each man dealt with the rumor
as best he
could.
Will walked the road to
Bodmin in
the county of Exeter and thought in the manner of his times: "A
man can
choke on his thoughts if he be by himself too long." The
loneliness of
travelling alone was harder to bear than he had bargained for, and
his feet
were sore, the scenery now soothing, now bleak, depending which
way his
thoughts blew, back to his wife who had run away, or forward to
peace at
Bodmin. Will walked doggedly, putting the distance between himself
and his
wife, she to Europe and he to the priory, he a man who loved
living itself, a
glass of ale and a lass upon the knee, the hum of a river in his
ear and the
look, oh! the look of a beauty as his hot eye caught hers. He,
this Will of the
world, went to make inquiry about matters of faith.
In his way was a fork in
the road:
two roads as plain as his two hands, two feet, two eyes and two
ears, and never
a sign to tell him which road to take. He sat down against a rock
to deliberate
and cut himself a piece of cheese and bread to help the matter,
and the dew and
dream of the scene fell upon him. He laid himself down in the
wilderness of this
world and dreamed a dream of fair earth, of wife and home and
hearth: pasture,
farmland, and hill all about him, his boyhood's beloved
countryside, with cows
and sheep and rounded hills. And on the flat of the land the
windmill and
around the bend beside the bank the watermill, and all around in
the further
distance God's spire and the air adrift with bells and the earth
beneath, God's
great gift to man He loves, laid clean with arable strips and
humps of growing
edibles, and a crouching man or woman to gather them, pare them,
peel them, and
bring them. to table, and one early lass to carry an apronful to
her babe or
man to give him a taste of goodness to come: warm milk smelling of
the cow's
grass, Betsy beloved of poor farmers, patient in the pasture,
standing ready to
hand, her great moo God's voice to a starving man, and Will's wife
so dear on
their wedding day kicking her shoe up a tree.
"Fetch it, fetch it.
Aha! I'll
give you my body if you fetch it, aha!"
Oh! love, I climbed into
the tree
and set my eye upon a blossom for your hair and fell into your
arms afaint with
love and heat. Oh! love, you kicked your shoes off and danced upon
the river
and all about you the guests laughed and the cows mooed and the
sheep baaed.
And you called through all the sacred voices, "Will. Love. Now."
Such
was Will's great love. To walk barefoot in her grass, to drink
from God's good
running stream and let his eye go blind with looking at the hot
sun upon it,
God's great rivers flowing with milk and honey and oil » and wine
and in each
Will dipped his love and she rose three times on their wedding
night raining
love and the guests and the bells laughed all night and all day
and the smell
of the hay on the next hot day made him dizzy with more desire and
he bellowed
like a bull as he drove his plough through field and furrow and
bed, and the
steam came smoking with green flies from the cowpile behind the
shed. And this
was Will's great love. He caught her behind a hill and under a
tree and in back
of Betsy and before the bells stopped ringing the thing was done
in the heat of
the day and all the folk passed into church in the evening in the
village, and
the stars cooled him not a bit. This was his great love for three
years, three
months, three weeks, and three days, a lass and grass and a
roaring river and
hay in the hot sun. Oh! love. Where has she gone, Will? Gone to
doom, he
thought unkindly, damning her as he bit his cheese and chewed his
hard bread.
Ah! Will! Oh! Will! She was your great springtime heat. You
clutched her to
your bosom when she was warm to hand and wrapped your long legs
about her and
three times called upon your ram's horn and now the altar lies in
shambles and
weeping flowers. She to Europe and you to Bodmin. Plainly the road
has become
twain. He, with Christ's help, to heaven, for he cared not for
this world
anymore, a world of rude rumors and ruder fates, grey mists and
grimy clouds.
He for heaven where all voices sing the same and that was good
enough for him.
He for the eternal choir and she for the constant cackle. "Whore!
Greatest
deceiver of them all, deceiver of all good Christian men. Whore of
Babylon!" Let her be in Europe! He to Bodmin, and he rose up and
set out
upon the road.
The birds cawed and flew
in
circles. Will brushed his crumbs to them with a curse. "Get
yours,"
he thought. "Who cares what for what?"
The birds dove and
dipped for the
crumbs, while Will chose his road and kicked the pebbles in the
dust. The grass
turned brown before his eyes. "Now what?" he thought, and blinked
unhappily,
and woke from his good dream. No doubt about it. The earth had
turned upside
down, the cows lay in the field with blackened tongues, the sheep
on the
hillside staggered and stiffened and fell one by one. The lambs
bleated, all
ribs and shrunken heads and weeping seared eyes. Five thousand
sheep in one
field lay rotting, their coats all black with vermin, and before
Will could
hide his face a thousand, thousand men, a thousand, thousand,
thousand men came
over the hill, with black and furry tongues, and cried out to him
in the
language of famine, "Europe is coming, Will, and you will not
escape, run
as you can." And the vultures hovered and circled but wisely came
not to
earth, for the dead lay rotting in the sun and rotting in the hay
and rotting
in the furrows with the vegetables, and mothers turned to slime
before their
children's ey ìes and fell before the dead could close their eyes
upon their
children or their children upon each other, and in every town and
in every
village the dead lay in higher and higher heaps, brothers in the
arms of
sisters, the mother dead in her labor and the half born babe dead
of the
plague, and young gentlemen in knight's armor dead upon their
horses, and the
shepherd dead upon his hill and the sheep dead all about him, and
the young
husband dead upon the altar and the weeping bride gone home to die
and to bury
her parents who buried her brother who buried his wife who buried
her sister
who buried her husband who buried his father who buried his son
who buried his
mistress who buried her child from plague and shame; and the
tavernkeeper and
the fiddler, the yeoman and the farmer, dead, dead, dead in the
fields, dead in
the roads, dead in the byways, and none to ring the bell of
mourning and none
to bury them, no, not priest or friend, for all who could have
fled and only
the gravediggers can prosper for never have there been such prices
for burial
without benefit of prayer, and fires lit the length of Europe to
bum the dead
and clean the air, and men with garlic who bathed in vinegar with
charcoal on
their bodies; but nothing helped and the whole earth stank for
never had the
earth known such smells and sights, such putrid winds and deaths.
Will saw it
all and shook with rumor and vision and called out to his great
foreboding:
"Oh, God, what have we done this time? Thy great punishments are
beyond
all reckoning and all thy great good earth and all the air above
it and all thy
animals created with love and genius stiffen here with fright,
their ears flick
this way and that to get away from thy wind and they stand, even
as I do,
trusting to Providence and scared, hopeful in thy judgments and
terrified." Will's tongue dried even as he prayed and he tasted
Europe
upon it and regretted that his wife was there and prayed that God
would cancel.
This harsh thoughts about her, but God knows he knew not what to
do with her or
about her.
Will tasted Europe upon
his tongue
and looked about the countryside now restored to former good,
Betsy, brilliant
Betsy in her generous charity and all the good fattling sheep,
sheep and lamb,
the young and the old, md thanksgiving broke out in him in a
sweating prayer:
"Oh, God, took Thou upon these handsome sheep and cows, look Thou
upon
these folk in field, Thou who saved a gourd, look Thou now before
Thy great
death cometh."
Will tasted Europe upon
his tongue
and like all men stalked by a bad rumor, disavowed all his past
mean thoughts
to man or beast, even to his wife, prayed to be remembered for his
good deeds
and not for his bad thoughts, reminded God that a man's temper is
wind, and his
heart is better than his mouth, and prayed that God keep far from
England this
death that no man could see. Having done what he could to stave
off disaster,
he took a drink from his pouch and hastened through Barnstable to
Bodmin, to
arrive there before ghosts or doom or evil spirits or loneliness
or the plague
catch him unawares.
He crossed the bridge
over the
Tamara River into Cornwall and took stock of himself again. "You
have but
a little way to go now, Will, that is to Bodmin, but a great
distance to heaven
for your mind shifts about like bog. All your thoughts are muddied
and
confused. Did not Adam deprive you of Paradise because of love of
Eve and would
you repeat that sorry fate for love of your wife? He saw he must
strengthen
himself against his thoughts of her and, as is the custom of
everyone resisting
temptation, he magnified his temptress, and was seized with
desperation as if
the world's fate lay with him, as he knew it did with every good
man who wished
to be a good Christian man. He spat into the river, gesture of
defiance at
Adam's weak member, and crossed the bridge into Cornwall.
And there put up in
Launceston for
the night where the talk at the inn was of Edward's doings and bad
bishops, the
pope in Avignon, the wars in Spain, the Jews, the Moors, the
sheep, the evil
French, the plague, the war, the trade in tin, and worse than all
the rest, the
price in barley and wool, and clay pits wherein a man may sink
feet first to
eternity, so what need had an honest sinner of hell?
"Ha! Will! your hot eye
is
upon me," the innkeeper' daughter crowed.
"Much good it does my
eye," Will said.
"Where are you bound
for?"
"I be bound for Bodmin
Priory."
"To be a monk?" she
winked at him.
"Aye, to do the Lord's
work."
Claryce chuckled in her
throat.
"The LordÕs work," she sang out. "God help all men to love the
Lord's work as I do." And she caught his hot eye on her wet lip
and
whispered to him, "You have a hot look, Will. Wilt bed with me
awhile?"
No sooner did she whisper this to him than to his surprise his
member stood
bolt upright and he winked back at her, "I Î be not at Bodmin
yet."
"You have a good day's
journey, I warrant," she said.
"More's pity if I make
me not
a good monk tomorrow, I'll be a good man tonight."
But in the morning he
felt
differently about it. His tongue felt green and dissolute and
thoughts of hell
attacked him. He looked at Claryce curled up in the bed and blamed
her and Adam
for his fall. "You betrayed me," he said.
"So say all men," she
mumbled.
"Nay," Will said, more
to
himself as a continuation of the thoughts that were pressing on
him, "Adam
satisfied no lust when he was betrayed by Eve. It was not his
member but his
heart that drew him."
"You is ready to be a
monk," Claryce yawned. 'You was more honest last night."
Will condemned her as a
whore and
left Launceston in a somber mood. It was a mystery how attractive
and proper
his desire seemed at night, and how rude it appears in the
morning. He blamed
his wife for causing this delusion. "Had you not tricked me like
the whori
Þng devil you be, I would not have been tempted by the whore," he
said. He
took the road through the Moors, which added loneliness to his
sense of shame.
If ever there was a
landscape to
give a man respect for the devil it was Twelve Men's Moor which
Will crossed in
the grey light of the dawn. Not only grim and craggy with twists
in the high
rocks and the high tors that looked over one like shapes the eye
had never seen
before, there was not a sign for a man to go by to know where he
was heading.
Not a bird's sound broke the air nor a lizard brought movement a
brush. Nothing
liked the Moors. Will was unlearned, but he was a speculative man,
and all
manner of thoughts blew through him, and he decided that an empty
space that
has no social friendliness of any kind in it, or inhabitant to
assure a man of
the 'force of life, is an evil thing. And a lonely man in that
empty space,
though he call upon God, it is fear that answers him.
Will got hungry but
would not stop
to eat. He got tired but would not stop to rest. Such psalms and
prayers as he
remembered fluttered through his brain. "What has man to fear if
the Lord
be with him," he said, and tried to blow the spirit of Christ upon
the
Moors. But this spirit, familiar in his village church, familiar
in the folk
who greeted him there, was not familiar here at all. Christ seemed
not to know
the Moors. He seemed to like a human scene as well as any man, for
it was
easier to think of God where mankind was or had been. Will looked
upon this
naked nature and felt a jolting disbelief, a thing different from
whether one
believed precisely this or that, but whether one believed in
anything at all,
in God or man or in the world.
The place was like hell
to Will,
though he had fancied hell to be a crowded place, full up, so to
speak, with a
lot of whimpering and crying people and a lot of crawling things
with wings and
teeth and claws and such, so that a man was always covering his
head or privy
parts and wa ¦s in constant motion to protect himself against
swirling objects.
But here hell was silence and a lot of empty space, more like what
he had been
told Eternity would be like. "Nay, it cannot be," he said,
wondering
of what use such an eternity would be and fearing he was losing
his wits. He
thought of his good dog, Rug, and a dumb thing it was that he
hadn't taken the
animal with him for company. "There be no lizards in these rocks
but all
manner of creeping things be in my head. "Nay, Will," he chided
himself, "you will not fall to doubting on your way to Bodmin to
become a
monk," and he took stem hold of himself and paused. "Let up," he
said out loud, "and best pray now while your wits are still in
place," and he clumped to his knees and made the sign of the
cross.
"Lord, Lord, help this sinner on these Moors. you must know where
I am,
for you made this place. And I pray you, Lord, not so much for
understanding
why you made this place, but for courage to pass through here and
to keep my
wits to serve you. I will say now with the psalmist that you alone
must be my
shepherd here, for I see none other, and though you take me
through this valley
for reasons unbeknownest to me, I will not fear the passage,
seeing how you
took it into your mind to make it." Then God's spirit blew through
the
Moors for Will, and he triumphed over primordial matter.
He came at last to
Dozmare Lake
lying in a flattened hollow between the hills. For all its boast
that it was
here that Belvidere threw King Arthur's sword, Dozmare Lake was a
clammy,
gloomy water lying under a clammy, gloomy sky. The naked eye,
Innocent of its
legends, saw nothing in it but gloom and the effort one must make
to cross it
or walk around it or sink beneath the boggy shore.
'Heart, man," Will said
to
himself, "it is but a little way more, and though he knew he was
bound for
heaven it was thoughts of a bowl of soup and a log upon the fire
that set his
feet to walking fast and drew up the heat of Claryce's flesh.
"Nay, not so soon
again,"
he said. "This time I am forewarned and forearmed. Aye." he
sighed,
"and alone too. Well, that must be God s sign that I am heaven
bound, for
God knows if flesh were here I would sin again."
And so by nightfall,
what with
saying one thing to himself and then another, he had crossed
treacherous Twelve
Men's Moor and Bodmin Moor, the craggy spine of Cornwall. He
crossed brook and
bog and marsh, and climbed cliff and tor and found by evening an
old pilgrim's
resting place in a wild wastrell laying by -the side of a wasted
road, deserted
of mankind but himself and, God give him cheer for a blasted day
spent in cold
misery, another fellow traveler sitting upon the wall of the
place.
"Good day," Will said,
"what be this place and who be yourself?"
The fellow traveler was
a stringy
looking fellow, scabby but cheerful, flee bitten but dogged with a
sprightly
eye for argument and adventure. "I'm called Walt of Landsend," he
said, "this place be Capella de Temple, built for pilgrims who be
bound
for Jerusalem."
"I be bound for Bodmin,"
Will said.
"I for London," Walt
said. "Where hail you from?"
"Settle."
"Where be that?"
"Settle on the River
Ribble,
hard by Kirkly Lounsdale."
Walt shrugged his
shoulders.
"Has heard of
Harrowgate?" Will asked.
"Nay."
"Has heard of the River
Lune?"
"Nay."
"There be where Settle
is,
upon the River Ribble not far from the River Lune against
Harrowgate. A long
journey from where I stand now. I be upon the road three weeks,
all the way
through Wilts and Somerset and Devon, and all the time walking but
for a single
day when a wagon gave me a ride with two oxen."
"Mankind is not good
these
dayes," Walt said, dispassionately. "It is a bad time for God and
man."
"Mean you the plague?"
Will asked.
"Plague and popes, Walt
said.
That was a cue to Will
that Walt
was a political man. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "What is
that to
an Englishman?" and looked at Walt more keenly. "What manner of
man
are you?"
Walt laughed. "I'll tell
you
for you have an honest face, but it is atwixt you and me that I be
a
priest."
"For sure?" Will asked,
surprised, for the man had an unpriestly look about him.
"For sure and true," Walt said, but he drew his fingers under his
throat
to indicate the ax.
"Art a criminal man?"
Will asked, uneasily.
"Aye, a criminal priest,
as
all good priests are."
Will was not dense. He
was aware of
the loneliness of the spot and the cutting temper of the man.
"Good ay to
you, Walt," he said.
"Make you for Bodmin
Priory?" Walt called after him, but Will felt he had shared enough
information with a stranger. Walt called after him again, "Monks
and
priests are sworn enemies, for the monks eat the fat of the earth
while the
priests starve with the sheep. Good day to you yourself, monkman.
Keep your
vest laces untied for your spreading belly."
Will kept his ears shut,
for it was
never good to hear seditious talk. The man was intemperate and
careless of the
distrust he spread, sure clues of a desperate nature. Will had
enough to do
with the weariness of the journey without being bitten by a rabid
stranger. He
shrugged the words away and crossed Cornwall, King Arthur's land,
as rumor had
it, and in that year under the guidance of good John de
Grandisson, the
seventeenth bishop of Exeter.
It is said that Cornwall
was first
populated by a Celtic people, ruddy and foreign looking to the
English. Places
abound in legends of cutthroats and saints, bloody wars and
miracles. The site
of Bodmin Priory, It is said, was first chosen by a hermit named
Goron who, in
348, had founded a single cell where the grand monastery now
stands. Here he
had lived his life, as saints used to do, surrounded by the moors
and sky,
living on berries an Çd lizards and the Gospels which he sang
night and day, so
that the stones were worn smooth with his songs. Goron yielded his
site for the
future of the commonwealth of Bodmin saints, to St. Petrock, who
is accorded to
be the true founder and patron saint of Bodmin Priory, and whose
bones are kept
beneath its floors.
Will was not aware of
any of this.
He had never heard of Goron or St. Petrock, nor did the past as a
number mean
anything to him. The past to him was the year of the Great Storm
or the year
his brother Davey got the smallpox. All Will saw about him was a
grey
countryside, a desolate land that was hard on the eyes, where sky
and earth
were the same color as slate, a country of broken rocks and
forsaken
battlements, settled by Celtic missionaries and early Romans, so
that no one
could now tell what part was nature and what part humans had left
behind,
whether the rocks were placed by Roman, churchmen, or God. And
here in the
heart of it all sprawled Twelve Men's Moor and icy estuaries and
behind every
rock the sound of unkind water wearing the earth away and cutting
brooks from
quagmires.
"Well, Will, " he said
to
himself, "you like not the scenery after a day's travail. But here
is Landsend
and spirit's beginning. Stick that into your mind and let it root
there."
The demesne of Bodmin
Priory began
at the bottom of Twelve Men's Moor and stretched to the Cornish
Heights and to
Truro on the coast. Its village lay at the southwest end of the
moor, on the
main Landsend Road which some say once was a transpeninsular route
between the
two estuaries, the Fowey and the Camel. The village had
sixty-eight families,
cotters, villeins and serfs, a freeman called Leboren, a miller, a
reeve, a
blacksmith, and a priest called Clooke the clerk, and three leper
houses, St.
George, St. Anthony, and St. Laurence. But the salt from the sea
ten miles away
was on everybody's tongue.
Will came at last to the
gate of the
priory in the ringing him to lay the monastery stones, and where
his bones now
lay in an ivory box beneath their floors. "Safe," Will said to
himself, "or safe enough." The ringing of the bells in the coming
night echoed this thought, and Will knew he had taken the right
road, away from
the world, away from his wife who had deceived him. For how can a
man settle
the score with his soul unless he take a great step out into the
wilderness of
his being?
Here was the great gate
of peace
and behind him the night where no man would cross the moors after
dark. Here
was peace and order, Matins, Prime, Tierce, Sexte, None, Vespers,
Compline,
three and six and nine and noon, three and six and nine and noon.
Here was
silence and prayer, here was learning and God. Here was the voice
of a brother
soul, not the quarrelsome voice of a difficult woman. "Through all
eternity she will stand outside the gate, Matins, Prime, Terce,
Sexte, None and
Vespers, and will cry. Ha! Ha! While I will sing all day in heaven
with pater,
ave, and creed." There was nothing left for him to do but to knock
upon
the door.
"True, true," the bell
tolled, "now is this monastery your Eden. Guard yourself against
the works
of woman. Here is order, Will. Here is the mastery and mystery of
order. The
soul is nought without order, it is nought but fluid and
efflorescence. It has
no shape but what order gives it. This is the secret of monk's
stones. Order is
man and time and building, each brick and bush and chore and
prayer in place.
Here is harmony between man and time and building, in the great
transept of the
church, as in the transept of the soul. Seekest peace? Fasten thy
anchor in
order. Seekest joy? Lay hold of praise to God. Here thou leavest
earth's cares
to the earthly, thy ancient passions and heat to the fire-eaters.
Shal t stoke
no more that fire that crackled at sight of thy wife. Three years,
three
months, three weeks and three days Is enough for any man to bum.
Now slake your
thirst In Christ's waters. Your choice is clear. thy soul or thy
wife, heaven
or earth, the eternal choir or the cackle in the grass.
Six bells tolled in
Will's head:
peace, peace to thee, Brother Will, peace to thy distraught
member. It is but a
small part of thy being and no part of the v eternal soul, for in
heaven it is
useless. Put it aside as thou hast put aside thy wife. Hast heard
of an angel
fornicating? Cut thyself off from thy wife and from temptation to
return. Cut
it off, Will. In heaven it is useless and would but frighten the
angels.
So the bells tolled,
saying first
one thing and then another. The tunes bellowed about in Will's
head and gave
such thoughts that knocked about, fear of going in and fear of
staying out,
that to still the matter once and for all he raised the clangor on
the gate and
banged it with all his might, lest standing there he lose heart at
the sight of
heaven.
"Hold your peace," the gatekeeper grumbled. "I am not deaf, and
Christ knows there be nought in this doorway but bells and knocks.
What manner
of man is it knocks so hard at twilight?"
"I be Will Langland from
York," he shouted above the bells.
"The devil care where ye
be
from, you be a hard knocker. Have you got your seal on you?"
Will took out his pass
with his
bishop's seal on it and the gatekeeper, though he could not read,
looked it
over carefully under his torch. "That be a good seal to seal you
in a
lifetime," he said, and opened the gate for Will, and before him
lay the
priory of Bodmin like an anchor in the ocean of worldliness,
great, green acres
of landed peace that swept across more acres to the cluster of
buildings
huddled in the stillness of holy stones, cloister and tower and
transept.
No sooner did Will take
a step
towards them than he heard a ssshhhing in the grass.
"I say ye hid it in your
pants, Brother Sneak."
"You may search me,
Brother
Catseyes, come and search me with your gaming hands."
"Wouldst have me touch a
filthy body? Give me the dice and not another word."
"Now, Brother Catseyes,
wouldst accuse a monk of gaming?"
"What's this? Will said,
and
the bells stopped tolling.
Brother Ralph stepped
out from
behind a tree. "Who be you?"
"Will Langland, to begin
service tomorrow. If this be Bodmin, what be this talk?"
Brother Ralph laughed,
untroubled.
"All God's children quarrel. We be but God's children. Came you a
long
way?"
"From York, all the way
by
foot but for half a day on a wagon with an ox."
'That be long enough.
Came you to
take up the monk's life?"
'Aye and put down the
burden of
this other one."
"Aha," Brother Ralph
laughed. "We are all fishes in God's net. Now is it cast this way
and now
that way.' And he looked Will over and winked to Brother Walter
who winked back
and shrugged his shoulders and shook his head and flicked his
ears.
"Now, what be this
game?"
Will said to himself.
Though Wil «l did not
speak,
Brother Ralph divined his question. "Brother Walter will not break
his vow
of silence to a stranger."
"Aha," Will said,
"methinks his head wags more than tongue would."
Brother Ralph, as Will
was soon to
learn, took such comments placidly and was rarely offended. In
like manner, he
asked, "What news of the plague?" as if it were all one to him
what
the world said, he having heard enough of it by now."
"Pray it comes not to
England," Will said.
"That be for certain it
will
not. Here be no Jews 40 to let it in. Praised be Edward."
Brother Walter's amen
hung in the
air, but Will preferred not to address himself to this remark.
Instead, he said
parenthetically, "I saw in a tavern I arrived in in Launceston,
The Sign
of The Red Whale, it was called, a hard writing upon the wall
where I had
reason to go, having drunken more wine than is usual, what with
the innkeeper
and his wenches singing,
White wine, Å red wine,
Gascon and Spanish
Wash down your meat
With the finest Rhenish
and I did my best to
accommodate
all men of good will in that tavern, not thinking of my bladder
nor my
pocketbook until it was too late for either and I jumped to the
wall not a drop
too soon."
"Now what was this
writing?" Brother Ralph said.
"What writing?"
"This writing upon the
wall,
Brother Long, that you just spoke of where you hurried to the wall
not a drop
too soon."
"Aye, not soon enough as
matters turned out and my leather hose got one good soaking. But
so beclouded
was my head I could barely read this sign being but a newly
reading man
thinking his way through the wine. Well, to be brief, it said when
you see the
sun awry and two monksheads in heaven, one that talks much and one
that shakes
his head as if he had the palsy and when a maiden has her magical
powers about
her then the plague and the famine shall judge the world and Davy
the ditcher
shall die of hu ²nger unless God in his mercy grant us at once a
truce with his
judgment."
"What made you of this
sign'?"
Will laughed ruefully.
"See
you mercy, brothers Christ's or man's. I tell you plainly I had
more of Claryce
the whore who watched me through a hole in the wall and called
out, have you
not a drop left, Will?"
"Now, now, none of that
here," Bother Ralph said. "That be not monk's talk fit for monk's
ears."
Will felt himself
properly
chastised, for had he not shaken the dust of the world from his
shoes.
"You be right," he said generously, "I forgot my pledge."
Brother Ralph was
equally generous,
detecting Will's honesty. "It be best to leave such thoughts
outside the
gate. What were you, Will, in York?"
"A laboring man, a
shepherd
when there were sheep, with a little learning, and a married one."
Brother Walter cast his
eyes toward
heaven. "That be a laboring man twice over," Brother Ralph said.
"And you left your wife µ for the sake of Jesus Christ?"
"She left me and I left
her
and I left her once and she left me for good then. First we
quarreled and then
I left her, and when I returned she left me and so then I left
her. Now we are
apart. What were you in the world?"
"I was a babe," Brother
Ralph said. "I came here at age six without mother or father, only
a mean
uncle. Some man took me on his horse and said I best be cared for
by the
brothers. How be it to live beyond the gate, Brother?"
Will scratched his head.
"I mean be it good or
bad?"
"It be a bit of both,"
Will said.
"Can you get into heaven
if
you live out there?"
"If you be a good
Christian," Will said, and then laughed slyly. "I tell you
something
to warm your tempers a bit. Some say out there all good men get
into heaven
except the monks and Jews and Saracens. Have you never heard that
saying?"
"Na, I never did. But I
tell
you what. I tell you that them that says it be « jealous for our
clean souls
that we keep so white for Christ's sake."
"Aye," Will said,
"an' they be jealous for the Jews?"
"They be right there,"
Brother Ralph said, "for no man without baptism can go to heaven.
Where
think you the Jews go when they die?"
"I know not," Will said,
"nor will thinking upon it, one way or the other or altogether
tell me,
for I have thought and thought and do not know."
"We best return,"
Brother
Ralph said, seeing Will's impatience. "You might as well begin at
once to
rehearse the rules. Keep your eyes upon the ground od your tongue
in your
mouth. If you have chosen to serve God you must begin by mastering
yourself,
first tongue and eyes and lastly cock and I fear that since you
was a married
man you best begin at once no more to think upon your former life,
for evil is
first thought upon and then is remembered and then is done. Better
it would
have been had Adam covered his mouth that °knew the apple and
wherein sin
entered than covered his loin which knew not of the apple. Keep
your mouth shut
and your eyes cast down and you will make a good monk. Think upon
Adam's sin
that lusted for the apple and for his wife. It is that way with
sin, all cut
from the same cloth, desire and lust.
Homely Will was overcome
by such a
speech. Though he knew he had a soul, never yet had the ambulation
from the
body to the spirit taken such a circuitous route and never had
apple led him to
temptation for woman.
Brothers Ralph and
Walter brought
him to the guest house where he was to stay for three days,
according to the
rules, before he could petition the brethren to be admitted among
them.
Bodmin was a modest
priory and its
guest house was a modest stony square room which had a single cot
and a
blanket, a cruet of oil, some scented hay upon the floor and a
crucifix upon
the wall. A large monastery, such as Glastonbury or Cluny, could
accommodate a
king and his retinue. But not Bodmin, which had seen better days
and worse days
and was, in this year when Will arrived, on a middling course of
prosperity. It
housed only eleven brothers but held a title from William's time
to the land
and the villages about, the woodlands, pasturelands, five thousand
sheep and
more. It leased the mill on the nearby river and collected fees
from the
grindingstone. Though Bodmin was modest, it clung to an income of
sorts on the
edge of debts. The Norman tower was antiquated and looked
primitive in an age
of stone lacery, but the tower boasted six bells and the priory a
fashionable
lady chapel.
No one came to greet
Will that
night, not even the guest-master, Brother Benedict, who left the
problem of
novices to Brother Bernard whenever he could. Brothers Ralph and
Walter walked
silently along, having said all that was fit to say for the day,
and only the
swish of the Äir boots and linen capes made a sound as they moved.
They showed
Will to his room and bid him goodnight. Will thanked them, and
hoped to put the
bidding to good use, for he was tired with his three weeks' walk,
and tired
with thinking, and tired with the talk of plague wherever he
stopped, and tired
most of all with the tiredness that comes to a man who changes his
way of life
and must find new habits and new ways of thinking.
But when he sank upon
his cot,
sleep, for which he would have paid a pence, did not come, for all
that this
was the first time that he had a room and a cot himself, and
scented hay upon
the floor. In his worldly life Will had been a great sleeper,
first on the bosom
of his mother, then penned and pinned between mother and father
like a skiff
between two waves that heaved all night and thrashed and spewed
out dreams,
while his brother Davey lay crosswise at the bottom of the bed,
hanging on to
Will's toe like an anchor lest a legjerk from his father send him
sprawling on
top of Rug, the sheepdog who lay on the floor. Will not once had
had a bed for
himself until this night, and his loneliness was keen without his
wife or Rug,
who filled her bedspot with smell and snore in her absence.
This room had nothing in
it but a
light, a crucifix and a cot and he missed the smells and snores
and that once
had lullabied him all night long. At Matins and at Lauds he heard
the bell that
woke the brothers for their nightly prayers and heard or thought
he heard their
slippered footfall and their distant voices. He woke at Prime
feeling not at
all like a man who had come in search of peace.
And later at breakfast,
as he sat
apart from the others in the refectory, in a caracel that was kept
for novices,
he discovered that the morning meal was only a quarter pound of
bread and a
third of a pint of beer, eaten while Brother Benedict read from
the Book of
Martyrs. Will ate hopefully, but wit µh little pleasure, no
different from the
others whose acquaintance he was soon to make: Brother Stephen
from Ireland and
Brother Thomas from Scotland, Brother Harald from York, Brothers
Claude and
Bernard from France, Brother Benedict from Rome and Brother
Anthony from south
of there; Brother John from hereabouts, Brothers Ralph and Walter
also from
hereabouts, and Brother Namlis from nowhere. These were now Will's
family to
take the place of his brother Davey and his sheepdog, Rug, and
other members of
his natural family. Here was his holy family: Brother Stephen,
scabby and
saintly, who had made his way in a corked wicker basket that
bobbed from Bantry
Bay to Barnstable across St. George's Channel, and arrived with a
bleached,
bald head and a single tooth in his mouth, faithful, fearless,
fierce and feared.
Like other Irish saints before him, he did not hold with Roman
rules, cut his
tonsure as he pleased and kept a private dating Ø of Easter. He
preached that
the Irish were a lost tribe, that the prophet Jeremiah had made
his way to
Ireland via Egypt and was known to the saintly community
everywhere in Ireland
as the prophet Ollam Fola. He himself had seen tombstones in
Bantry Bay with
legends of: "Aaron de Hibernia, Jusaeus etc., dead with wife and
child,
Sept. 12, 1189," and who had put such tombstones there, he would
like to
know and how had this Aaron come to Ireland.
Prior Godfrey advised
Will in a
private chat that morning "that there is nought to any of this,"
but
that Brother Stephen held these notions "to vex the English with
antiquity
as well as with other sundry and peculiar matters."
Brother Stephen had not
removed his
hairshirt in thirty years. He ate but a single piece of bread a
day which he
chewed with his single tooth and felt no ill
effects. His body had adapted totally. His flesh was worn away to
nerves and
vessels, strings and things that clung with suckers to his inmost
will. Like
most other men, Will admired and was awed by him, and believed the
world was
saved by such, content as he was himself to lapse from practice
now and then.
Then there was Brother
Thomas, an
easier sort of man, who had come with the Scots in 1333. He had
been a soldier,
and loved to jab and stick, playfully. When the Scots receded,
they left
Brother Thomas behind who took up the staff to Jerusalem, with
begging bowl and
two mild eyes that won the hearts of women, who passed him along
as far as
Byzantium when hard luck overtook him. He acquired the French
disease and palsy
and a little paunchy belly. He shook and twitched and itched his
way back to
Dover and came to rest at Bodmin Priory. His eyes were now weepy
blue and he
prayed constantly to St. Mathurin, even throughout the night, to
the
consternation of the others who shared the dormitory with him.
Brother Bernard was an
altogether
different man, with a reputation for great learning though he was
slow of
speech. His birthplace was in Provence, a descendant of the
Albigensians who
had been done away with in the Great Crusade. A few offspring had
survived and
passed the trauma of their history down through the generations.
Bernard was
now a faithful Christian, with no leaning towards heresy or
extinction. He was
scholastic, honest, ponderous, and very melancholy, digesting
tomes of
arguments, pros and contras Arians, Monophysites, gnostics,
Marcionites, and other
sundry histories of heresies and wars and stratagems against them.
He was the
master-of-novices as
well as the cantor or precentor and had charge of regulating the
right hand
side of the choir. But chiefly he was the librarian and archivist
in charge of
records, lists, necrology and charters, and faithfully kept the
ledgers and
records of the daily life of Bodmin, as well the habits of the
birds
thereabout. He was tall and thin and kind and looked down upon the
world from
·a height of melancholy memory and melancholy learning.
But though Brother Bernard had great learning he could not impart
it. He had
not an inkling of how to go about ordinary conversation. Talk
passed through
him ponderously as grass through a cow's stomach, chewed twice
over. Will had
to learn his Latin on his own and he stumbled through the chants
and prayers
from one mnemonic device to the next.
Bernard's countryman
from the north
of France, Brother Claude, was again a different sort. A perfect
warrior, he
had fought triumphantly against Saracens and other infidels in
Spain and Egypt
and the Holy Land, and wherever else they could be found. He had
seen Jerusalem
and the Holy Sepulchre, travelled with his squire, dined in
castles, and had
picked up along the way a little Latin, a little Arabic, and much
refinement in
the art of love. He was in Rome in 1300 when Pope Boniface had
appeared before
all the world wearing the imperial ³ insignia and carrying the two
swords of
spiritual and temporal power while heralds ran before him and
proclaimed,
"I am Caesar! I am the Emperor!" Brother Claude had seen what
there
was to see of Christendom in that century, its crusades, its great
jubilee, its
auto-da-fes and pilgrimages, and was soon to see the plague.
Misfortune overtook him
in the form
of age when his hand could no longer bear the weight of his sword
nor his body
that of his armor. He fell from his horse one day near a chapel on
the River
Seine, while baroque images of hell sucked at his brain, drawing
off the
moisture from his mouth. His loyal squire hacked Its suit of armor
from him and
exposed the grey skin to sun and air. "S'done," Sir Claude said.
"Not so, m'lord," his
squire murmured.
Sir Claude pressed his
eyes shut.
The sun, the sight of past processions, of jousts, the brotherhood
of shout and
smell, of sweat and danger, the knighthood of ten t Âhousand men
with plumes
and banners bearing down upon the infidel, the castles, the
fruits, the
dainties, the sweat, the venison, the beribboned ladies with bared
bodices and
veils across their faces, the nights beneath stars and furskins.
"S'done," he said and
lay
inert upon the ground.
"Steady, m'lord," his
squire said.
"Nay, I will have it
back," Sir Claude wept. "it is the sweetest life on earth."
"Perhaps on earth," his
squire said and led him to a chapel near at hand where his master
discovered
the afterworld of knighthood. The year was 1336. A poster on the
wall announced
that the Doctrine of Benedictus Deus had been proclaimed, which
clarified the
state of hell, revealing that punishment took place immediately
after death.
Brother Claude perceived he had not a moment to waste. He
denounced war, he
denounced lust, he denounced himself. He presumed he was a changed
man and
sought his peace at Bodmin, 'la grisly cheerless place which is
punishment
enough and will reduce my stay in hell," he thought. His arms aged
appropriately, his legs aged as well so that he tottered when he
walked, but
his loins refused to age, and he soon became famous for his lusts.
He
worshipped Mary and feared hell and by his sixtieth year was dark
and grizzled
and corpulent in paunch and jowl. He prayed day and night to St.
Caesarius and
was a dangerous misogynist, though no one could restrain him if a
woman crossed
his path. Twice Priory Godfrey had sealed the laundry maid's lips
with coins.
Brother Claude was given services to perform that kept him within
the cathedral
walls. He had to regulate the singing on the left side of the
choir and prod
the sleepy monks awake during the Night Office. Better it would
have been had
he remained a boon companion and died upon his horse, for he
carried his wars
within himself and became dyspeptic to everything that lived.
Broth ªer Claude and
Brother
Harald, it seemed to Will, were peculiar kinds of men, without a
good word for
human flesh. Brother Harald was quick to recommend odd remedies
for spiritual
incontinence that Brother Thomas' tongue be taken out, that
Brother Claude's
clapper be removed, "else it will ring all up and down the
countryside
before the plague takes him."
It amused Brother Harald
to say
such things, for he did not wish to be at Bodmin where his father
had put him.
Brother Harald was one of those who believed he deserved better,
deserved at
least to be an abbot, for he had a genius for administration,
while Prior
Godfrey had none. Hence, his talents and his soul were wasted, one
by bad luck
and the other by an unrelenting hypochondria.
His father had married a
daughter
to Baron Roundsleigh's nephew, one son he kept at home with him,
but four
others he had put away in monasteries to shift as they could with
the
circumstances. One was the famous Abbot Roland, a second was a
nullity and was
sent to be a monk at Skye; the third was a monastic disgrace, hot
as a dog in
heat; and the fourth was Brother Harald, sent to Bodmin to keep an
eye on the
manor there, while the first and eldest son sat in York and ate
venison and had
his fill of women, and never Christ seemed to care. The brother
that was the
famous abbot chose to be in France, "for advancement's sake,"
Brother
Harald said through bloodless lips, "now that the pope is in
Avignon." Still, he practiced monkhood perfectly, kept all his
vow, never
lost his place in the Psalter or sang a false note.
But Brother Harald's
talents were
not altogether wasted at Bodmin Priory. Since he knew the value of
movables as
well as land, he was given the care of altar cloths and
candlesticks, the
hangings, ornaments and corporals. He looked after the lighting:
four cressets
in the cloister in the wintertime, and four in the church, in the
nave, at the
choir-gates, at the top of the steps to the sanctuary, and in the
treasury.
Such tasks pleased him, for while he required little food and
little sleep and
no sex, and was lean and hypochondriacal, he liked to be in charge
of things
like gold and linen and souls and minds, and best of all to go
about through
the priory grange on a horse, for he had been bred to the medieval
respect for
land and all forms of institutional power in pope and king and
baron md bishop;
and most of all he had the medieval covetousness for landpower,
and so served
Bodmin Priory very well. He performed the services of gathering
rent and
overseeing the overseers punctiliously, and next to Brother Ralph
who was born
an eunuch, was the only one Prior Godfrey could trust to go
outside the
monastery walls to collect the tithes and taxes, for which tasks
he was well
suited, being an exacting man without nerves.
Of the lowborn, Walter,
Ralph, and
Namlis, was nothing much to say except that Brother Namlis had a
hump and no
tongue. Between them and Brother Thomas they divided the work of
the kitchen
and the lavatory: the cellarer's chores were Brother Ralph's, who
did the
catering and the marketing. The cook was a hired servant who kept
an
apprentice, who was his son. Brother Walter was the kitchener,
whose duty it
was to clean and count the household goods, plate, linen, napkins,
baskets,
barrels and anything else that moved from the kitchen to the
refectory. It also
fell to him to keep the fish fresh with damp cloths and to keep
charge of the
beer allotments.
Brother Namlis was the
chamberlain.
He had charge of old clothes, and kept the supply for the poor, as
well as
tallies and lists for the laundry. He was chosen for this latter
because the
duty involved social intercourse with the laundress, a paid
servant from the
village. Brother Namlis was no eunuch, but Prior Godfrey believed
his hump
would help him keep his vow of chastity. Brother Namlis was fond
of women and
women were fond of Brother Namlis, but in an appropriate way,
which left him
free to do his duties. He kept the supplies of catskins and
lambskins ready for
the winter, of pigs' fat to weatherproof the boots, he was in
charge of baths
and shaving and the communal feet-washing every Saturday. He also
kept the
heating-room or calefactory ready throughout the winter months so
that the
brethren could take refuge there from the cold. He did the
tailoring, for which
he had great talent and often could be seen sitting at a carrel in
the cloister
with crossed legs, his hump hanging on his back, sewing a
brother's hood while
the others studied Latin or read. Brother Namlis sometimes went
with Brother
Ralph to market to purchase cloth and needles, which he loved to
do, to push
and jostle and make his way in the market crowd, and gape and
snort and smell,
for in all the world there is nothing like a ¨trade for
entertainment.
Brother Thomas saw to
the lavatory
and Brother Stephen, as refectorian, set the table and kept the
hay and rushes
on the floor clean and smelling sweetly. And finally, of Brothers
Benedict and
Anthony, the first was from a Roman family with pride of lineage
and land. He
was the guest-master because he was considered knowledgeable in
men and
manners, being very patrician in his carriage. But his
Christianity had in it
some Marcionite matter, which the Church had labored to purge, to
no avail.
Underground, here and there, in written and in oral tradition, the
Marcionite
heresy which looked upon God the Father with a jaundiced eye,
expressed itself
towards Jews and women and the Creator of matter with greater
vehemence than
was usual, even for the Medieval world. Brother Benedict had
renounced his
wife, his land, his castles, the Hebrew Scriptures and meat, and
in their place
embraced the law o Éf chastity. Unlike Brother Claude, Brother
Benedict altered
the function of his appetites and his nature, but not of his
temperament.
He was large of girth,
the picture
of the type of monk regarded as a glutton, lecher, viper and
dicer, but he was
in fact as ascetic as Brother Stephen. Inside his large body were
tissues and
organs which had become dehydrated with fasting. His liver was
comatose and did
not do its proper job of cleansing the
bile. The fecal matter was often green. Brother Benedict rightly
suspected
cancer, but Prior Godfrey was certain the trouble was extremes of
abstinence.
He disapproved of such extraordinary measures. He even loathed
them on
patriotic grounds, regarding them as "continental, of "Spanish,"
or "Italian." Brother Benedict ignored Prior Godfrey's order to be
sensible or consider another monastery. Believing there was a
connection
between corruption in the world and his own corrupt nature,
redemption of the
world became for him a matter of moral willpower. He fasted on
behalf of
Avignon and simony, on behalf of luxurious cardinals, on behalf of
the Pope for
having a mistress, on behalf of his wife whom he no longer saw, on
behalf of
his children, two of whom had gone to Jerusalem and married
Saracens. But he
never transcended his self-denial and acquired peace. Within his
corpulent and
dignified frame, he was remorseless, somber, and agitated. More
than anyone
else at Bodmin, he conveyed the authority of the embattled spirit,
the
metamorphosis of sinner turned saint, and the idea of personality
as an
historic form.
Virginity was the
distinguishing
mark of Christian salvation. Aquinas had declared it to be the
state closest to
that of the angels. Its reputation seemed firmly fixed, if not its
practice.
Consequently, woman was despised as the stumbling block into
heaven, and lusted
after. But it did not follow from this that men, even when they
practised
chastity, nec ³essarily hated women and regarded them as inferior.
There were
other options, and the monks showed as much variety of attitude in
their
observance of chastity as they did in the practice of their other
vows. Some, like
Brother Stephen, were vigorously chaste, but regarded men and
women as equally
depraved; Brother Anthony was chaste, but regarded woman as
salvageable;
Brothers Walter and Thomas never thought about women and resorted
to private
acts; Brother Ralph was never troubled and never thought about the
matter,
Brother Namlis was always troubled and would have sinned gladly if
given the
chance; Brother Claude denounced woman and was unchaste as often
as he could
be; Brother Benedict had ceased communication and would not even
read about
female saints, or appear in the queen's presence if summoned
there, and Prior
Godfrey condemned all unpragmatic attitudes which hampered his
administration
and for this reason could not abide ¿either Brother Anthony or
Brother Benedict.
Brother Anthony came
from a little
further south in Italy than did Brother Benedict. They were rivals
in spiritual
matters as well as in class. Brother Benedict spoke French and
Latin, but
Brother Anthony had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on his knees
and
afterwards had lived on locusts in the desert. He carried
splinters between his
nails and was purged of earth and matter. Morning, noon, and night
he said the
psalms with his eyes upon the ground.
It might be thought that
he and
Brother Stephen were of one cloth, but saints can differ quite a
bit. Brother
Stephen had been known to laugh and had an edge of humor to him,
though he was
quick to tell a man his failings. Brother Anthony communicated
with no one.
Fenced in as he was with prayer as he polished and fished and
drank his bowl of
soup and said the Gospels four times a day and had known no other
speech for
forty years. He was appointe ®d as the infirmaries, since he knew
herbal
secrets, and had the care of the cemetery, which was a charge of
some scope,
housing as it did six centuries of saintly lives sleeping beneath
rose bushes
and mint patches, some in crypts with Celtic crosses. A stone
angel of
Gabriel's demeanor stood guard over the hallowed ground, blowing a
silent horn
and calling the faithful to the resurrection.
No one ever discovered
what had
brought Brother Anthony to Bodmin Priory, since he was originally
a hermit,
having lived most of his life on a blob of sand in north Africa.
It could not
have been a longing for social intercourse, for he never broke his
vow of
silence, even when the brethren had permission to. But perhaps it
is a mistake
to believe that the hermit found peace in his lonely hermitage. We
should not
overlook in the hermit-saints' literature the repetition of
never-ceasing
battle with temptation that beset them. No doubt Brother Anthony
found this
unique torment in his loneliness, a perpetual bedazzlement and
betrayal of the
senses, beastly hallucinations which he transcended only
occasionally. The
cries of the damned were very real. Aquinas regarded them as the
chief reward
of the saved, those who would be fortunate enough to sit in heaven
and listen
eternally to the cries of the tortured. The energies of medieval
man were
mobilized by these terrors of the afterworld and of Christ's
judgment, and in
this world by a rapacious hunger for land and earthly power. His
breathtaking
colorfulness and adventurism and profound cruelty are of a piece.
No other
people combined piety with greed for gold and land with such
historic force.
Thus, the Middle Ages have become famous for being both spiritual
and earthy.
But here on earth, Brother Anthony heard the cries of the
tormented inside his
head day and night. He found succor from these voices at Bodmin,
not among the
living, whose grimacing silences and tawdry gossip he could hardly
bare, but
among the dead to whom he sang the Gospels all day long.
Brother John was the
last and
youngest member of Bodmin. He was fifteen, and still a novice, but
distinguished because he was Bishop Roundsleigh's firstborn and,
in opposition
to his father, had conceived an appetite for the holy life. He was
yellow
haired and milky skinned, and Bishop Roundsleigh had a French wife
picked for
him, and planned for him to inherit his lands which lay in the
north of
England, near York, as well as in the southeast near Barnstable,
as well as in
the south of France in the Provence. But Brother John chose
instead a cubicle
and a caracel, and not at Cluny but at Bodmin. Prior Godfrey
regarded him as
the most valuable object in the Priory, next to St. Petrock's
bones, but Bishop
Roundsleigh swore up and down the countryside that he would have
Its revenge
for this.
Such were they about the
table in
the refectory that morning, each seated according to his station
and rank,
eleven brethren in black capes and hoods, all bound for the same
port with
tonsures cut in the same manner (except for Brother Stephen), all
pressed into
the same duties day and night, spring and winter, all praying with
one voice,
all eating the same food, all sleeping in one place and at one
time, all rising
together to pray, to work, to read, to sing, to eat, to weed and
plant,and
plant and weed, all attending to their wants at the same hour and
in the same
way, all recognizing the same God, all copying the same Bible
(except Brother
Benedict), all obeying the same bells, all living in the same
calendrical
climate that made of each season and each hour a ritual, each ear
attuned to
the same great toll, each man's hopes bound for the same heaven
and in fear of
the same hell, each living in the same eternity, grasping the
same, time and
the same spirit with one mind, tilling God's earth for the same
purpose.
Yet it was not long
before Will
could distinguish which man smelled of Europe and which man
smelled of English
soil, which came of landed people and which of the landless, and
which man he
felt at ease with. Though each man's soul was known to God alone,
it was not
long before Will felt their individual weight and not long,
despite their vows
of silence and the grace of only half an hour a day in which to
hear the human
tongue in idle conversation, before Will knew what each man's life
had been
before he came to Bodmin. For the great gossip of the world, like
the salt of
the sea and the climate of Cornwall, could not be kept out.
The distinctions of
personality
pervaded the monastery. Traits there were that transcended the
order or were
irrelevant to it, and traits which could not be absorbed by it,
and traits
which sometimes, but rarely, were transformed by it. This life
suited some very
well and others not at all. Some adjusted, while others developed
kinks and
fell into terrible depressions or developed unseemly habits: ticks
and
twitches, palpitations, nail-biting, eye-rolling, murmuring,
deafness, or were
given to bedwetting and became childish and ludicrous, banal and
senile, weepy
and melancholy, remote and transcendent, or morbidly irritable.
The religious
spirit is not democratic. Some have more of it than others. It is
not like the right
to vote: available to everyone. As St. Bernard noted, "The sun
does not
warm all those on whom it shines: many of those who are taught
what they must
do by Wisdom are not equally inspired to do it." Here was the best
of
institutions created for the noblest of reasons: to save the
world; yet the
human traits of well being and sourness, the capacity to love and
enjoy, the
tendencies to hate and revile, the temptations to insurrection and
rebelliousness, lapses into boredom and remoteness, in short the
human range of
humankind is recorded to have remained the same during these
formidable and
strenuous soul-saving centuries.
As with any institution
or
vocation, some are better suited for it than others. The status
and
availability of a dominant institution will attract the unsuitable
as well as
the suitable. The chronicles kept by the monks indicate a
sociology in
spiritual matters, social drifts and norms and appetites, modes of
pettiness
and viciousness irrespective of salvation. It was not unheard of
for a monk to
arise from an ardent prayer to the Virgin Mary and forcefully
seduce the
closest female peasant. Medieval literature abounds with such
anecdotes and
with the populace's fiery resentment of monkish venery and greed.
For some such as Will,
preoccupied
with "holy," "sacred," "chosen," and
"redemption," the monastery was a welcome place. But other monks
suffered unendurable tedium, called the "monk's disease," or
accidie,
diagnosed as melancholy or "vicious impiousness" and suffered it
in
the face of Christ.
On that first morning
Will did not
know what the others thought of the poor breakfast fare, but he
remembered the
lard and eggs that lay on his breakfast table in York, and a
terrible regret
settled on him as he thought: "it is not enough," and immediately
felt each eye say back to him, "It is." He dared not raise his
eyes
while all ate standing while Brother Benedict read to them from
the Book of
Martyrs and the glorious tale circled above them. Will looked
covertly at the
eleven brothers in cassocks and capes who appeared to be steady
souls, not at
all troubled by their meager breakfast.
The reading was finished
with a
murmuring amen and amen and a ringing bell, and as soon as the
bell was
finished and all filed out to say Mass, up comes the thought to
Will again,
"It is not enough," and behind him, next to his left ear, though
the
brother moved not a lip, Will heard him say, "It is," and next to
his
right ear as distinctly as the bell tolled, though that brother
too moved never
a lip, he heard another one say, "Bad thoughts make a great
noise."
The first was Brother Stephen who had a way of saying much with
few words or
none at all, and the second was Brother Harald whom even Prior
Godfrey
respected for his cleverness and wished him somewhere else.
"Come, Will," Prior
Godfrey said to him, and invited him to his private room where, to
Will's
happiness, he offered him another quarter pound of bread and
another third of a
pint of beer and said, "Now, Will, we mean not to have you spend
your
first day weeping for what you left behind." Will sensed that his
appetite
had been revealed, but he assured Prior Godfrey that he was full
to the level
of his adam's apple. Prior Godfrey winked at him and said he
doubted not but
that such a long log as Will would find more room inside himself
and pushed the
bread and beer forward. Will thought it would be churlish to
quarrel on his
first day, and thanked Prior Godfrey and ate gratefully, but
feeling awkward.
The room was severely
silent except
for his chewing, or so it seemed to him, until Prior Godfrey
cleared his
throat, said "ahem" and "well," and took St. George, his
falcon, from his perch where he sat in front of the bay window and
put him on
his wrist like a jewel and walked about with him and said again,
ahem," or
"well," and finally, "Now, Will, what shall I tell you of your
new life. You must know somewhat of it already or you would have
gone
elsewhere." Here there was an embarrassing pause, and Will felt
that Prior
Godfrey wished him to give an explanation, a confirmation of his
calling
towards the canons, but Will had made up his mind to be as quiet
as he could be
f or as long as he could, though he could not say why he had laid
this command
upon himself. Bu t Will often laid commands upon himself and they
would take
hold of him as keenly as a superior's command: he would no more Á
question the
one than the other. So he kept still and looked respectful and
inspired as he
felt it befit a man who wished to begin a monk's life. Moreover,
he did not
know if Prior Godfrey could settle his peculiar problem and he
decided, between
craft and faith, to practice craft. Once the great cow was out of
the barn she
could give milk to any man, but while Will kept his hand upon the
latch and his
tongue in his mouth he was the master of his fate.
So when Prior Godfrey
said to him,
"You were a married man," Will said, "Yes, it and said no more,
but sat on his chair and ate his bread and gazed wonderfully at
St. George, who
tinkled the little bells attached to his leg, engraved with the
name of Bodmin
Priory on them, his black eyes wise with the knowledge of his
descent from
Osiris and Isis, his speckled chest filled with pride of lineage,
and that his
master, Prior Godfrey, had accomplished the art of carrying him
properly, at
the fashionable height and distance from the waist.
"You therefore give up
more
than some," Prior Godfrey said, forcing his attention back to
Will,
"and I know full well it will not be easy for you to become a
monk, for
even when you swear and war against the flesh the flesh will
remember your wife
by itself. Thou hast a hard battle, Will, and I must ask if you
are prepared to
do such battle day and night, to still the burning that be in the
heart and
elsewhere."
He paused at his
lectern, where he
kept his accounting book and business notes concerning Bodmin
Priory and waited
there for Will's reply. Will knew he should give an account of
himself, but
only said, "I cannot say. have been away more than three weeks and
my
heart has been so heavy, nought more can I feel but grief and loss
and
confusion."
"How long have you been
a
married man?"
"Three years, three
months,
three weeks, and three days."
"And your wife left you
for
another?"
Will shifted in his
chair. He would
not have this particular construction put upon his marriage, yet
he could not
find another that suited him. "We left each other somewhat," he
said
thriftily. "First, she left me, but only in a manner of speaking,
but in
such a way you might say by her manner of speaking that I must
leave her and
when I returned she left me and so I left her. I cannot say how
all this
leaving began because I loved her right well but she wouldn't
forgive me for a
knock I gave her on her head and wept and left me."
Well, what was in it,
Prior Godfrey
thought, but a little of this and a little of that, as in most
matters. He
advised Will to pray to St. Caesarius and picked up a crumb from
Will's plate
and offered it to St. George.
"Now, Will," he said,
"you shall be neither here nor there if this be the matter. If you
have
still a longing for your wife you may put your soul in danger. You
must think
upon what the good doctor Aquinas said, that virginity alone can
make men equal
with the angels and it is already late for you. You cannot any
longer be as the
angels and in eternity you will be leaven though you may still
save your mortal
soul. Think upon it, Will, whether you came here for peace or for
faith."
"I came for both," Will
said pugnaciously. "I have wrestled with Christ because of my wife
and I
have wrestled with my wife because of Christ and now I must choose
a road and
walk upon it. I have been a laboring man with a little learning
and I mean to
become a learned man and to labor now to know God's will for this
world. I have
been walking three weeks and sometimes the scene looks this way
and sometimes
the scene looks that way with every green thing turned black and I
know that
here you have great books that will tell me how I should look upon
these things
and I came not for peace or faith alone, but for help, for peace
and faith and
help are one to me."
What another would have
made of
this speech cannot be known, but Prior Godfrey, as the
administrator of an
establishment, never addressed himself to imponderables. He dipped
his 'quill
with dye and wrote a note in his accounting book. "Canst speak a
bit of
Latin?" he asked.
"I speak nought but the
English tongue."
"Your letter said you
had a
bit of learning."
"Only in matters
natural, not
in matters of many languages. I can read my native tongue and have
preached
somewhat here and there to my fellowman."
Prior Godfrey looked up
from his
accounting book and said sternly, "Here we pray and sing in Latin
and do
God's work, for you know right well that prayer will redeem the
world, prayer
will redeem the lusty men outside these walls. It is a great thing
to dwell in
brotherhood in one house, but it is a hard thing. 'You must know
your place,
hold your tongue, keep your eyes down and your stomach from
talking when it is
hungry, to pray when it is cold, study when you be tired, stay
awake when you
be sleepy, eat little and pray much, keep your tongue still and
your thoughts
clean. Here you know we do only God's work. Here we all row
together like
Noah's helpers. We be an ark upon the waters and our mariner
Christ who
oftentimes has sailed the sea calls us to tell us of where the
perils be, the
perils within and the perils without, perils of ourselves, perils
of enemies,
perils of the high sea and perils of ports where drunken sailors
be among them
that wash their deeds in wine. Christ guides us through many
bitter storms, for
we be the sailors upon a ship called Holy Church and if you be
here you must
row with us and take your orders like a sailor in danger of death
upon the high
sea. With poverty you must renounce the world, with obedience to
your superior
you must renounce your worldly pride, with silence you must
renounce frivolity
and with chastity you must renounce the flesh and all these vows
you must keep.
We be not like ·the Jews who be children of the flesh but we be
children of the
spirit, circumcised as St. Paul has said in the spirit and not in
the flesh as
was the Hebrew. Therefore it be for you that separation of husband
and wife be
your sign and your price of eternal life. It must be this way for
love of wife
leads man into privacy and love of finery and soon he buys a house
to dwell in
with his wife and so he takes himself a wife and forsakes his
soul, as the old
god said to Adam you shall cling to your wife and forsake the
others, which was
a law given to the Jews. But it is not fit for Christian man to do
so. He must
follow Christ's words when Christ said to leave your brother and
your wife and
your children too, leave all, even your cat and follow after him,
who is the
son of God. You cannot have it both ways, Will, you must choose
Heaven or
earth, Christ's way or the old Adam."
The length of the speech
amazed
Will, containing as it did a few words on the virtue of silence.
He was
furthermore perturbed by it because, like any other man, Will
preferred a bit
of this world and a bit of the other and to avoid, if he could, a
hard choice.
Prior Godfrey, on the other hand, felt he had set the record
straight, showed
Will the road he must travel and if matters did not work out well
Will had only
himself to blame.
"Do not say I will begin
tomorrow to do God's work, or that God will forgive me if I think
once more
upon her. For if you think once you be as good as married again.
First you
think, then you want. There is no doubt but that the way back to
the world is
through the woman, for what led Samson astray and what Adam and
what caused
David to sin and led Solomon to idolatry so that God must divide
the Jew's kingdom,
and what be the bride of Israel but the whore of Babylon. If you
wish to go to
Heaven you must stamp out thinking upon your wife, and if the
devil sends her
to you in your th Ëoughts make the cross and call upon the name of
holy Mary.
Remember Will, if you choose the monk's life, the holy spirit will
be your
Eve."
A bird perched upon the
windowsill
with a worm in its mouth. And as often happened with Will, who was
a great
lover of the world, whenever bird or it animal looked him in the
eye, he looked
back at it. So it is," he thought, regarding the bird, "Christ
said
the great Father will feed us as he feeds the birds in Heaven, but
it seems to
me we be as the birds on earth. And who can tell why God made the
earth this
way and not another md why He gave to man a worm that he must
carry upon his
soul."
Will did not say any of
this to
Prior Godfrey, who liked his own speech well enough. Will never
said such
things to any man, for such thoughts were barely in his head
before they blew
away. They went by like a shadow, without enough substance for
language. All of
Will's life, as he planted and seeded, he thought such thoughts,
for the earth
gave a man different sights from those he had when he looked up to
heaven.
Shepherding and planting, Will would think, "This earth that God
created
with love and genius must be substantial to the heart. This flesh
that will be
made clean through and through in the Resurrection, why is it not
holy here on
earth?"
A man, he discovered,
could read
good things in the stars and hear a heavenly music, but the tune
of the earth
kept changing. It could not be heard this way or that. It was full
of chase and
hunt and dark beguilements, buzzing gnats that ate your brains out
and a green
hillside of white flowers, fields of rock and bog and marsh to
befuddle your
wits. Will was a torn man, half in love with the world for all the
good things
in it and the rest of him filled with hatred for its malice and
diseases. And
the shadow of his hatred would come upon him from nowhere, and was
so ever
since he could remember and had nothing to do with what any man
had taught him
or preacher had preached, but came with the wind and went that
way. So he could
not tell Prior Godfrey about it, for it was in and out of his
brain before he
knew it.
"Now is heaven
sufficient,
Bodmin thy Eden," Prior Godfrey said. "Here poverty is blessed,
here
are sinners converted, here the fallen are raised, the stricken
succored, the
poor are fed and here is silence worshipped, for language is but
corruption. Of
the making of books there is no end and of whys and why nots even
the infidel
ask. One idea spawns but another, even as rabbits do. Knowledge is
quicksand.
The more a man struggles to know the further he sinks. Here is
nought but
faith, Will. Christ did not say a man must study to be saved. Such
did the
pagans, yet we know they bum right well. Plato and Aristotle, they
be not in
heaven, for they had not the word of Christ that he is raised from
the dead.
They worshipped reason which is nought but a bird which flies
away. The mind is
like this bird, it is transitory and all that it knows is shadow.
Plato proved
all this and said himself that the soul alone is eternal. The mind
is a net.
Many waters flow in and out of it, but the soul is a good
container made by a
goodly potter which holds all the right morsels. If you choose to
stay and put
on the habit, Jesus Christ will be your portion, your knowledge,
and your
world."
"I came not to seek
advice," Will said impatiently, "for I made my mind up before I
set my
foot out the door of my house, and while a man has more thoughts
in his head
than he cares for, I have chosen my road and mean to walk on it. I
be not
learned, but I be not ignorant."
"Well, then, Will, I
will show
you all the grounds so that you may see how fair your new home
will be. Hard
though it may be to be a monk the cloister is the fairest world
upon this
earth. When the flood fails and the fishes lack fresh water they
gasp and die
with drought µ upon the land. Likewise is a monk who delights in
living outside
the cloister. He be like a fish outside of water, for here is our
life in
common. Here is all property God sanctified by church. She owns
everything as
God owns everything, and the church, as you know, is the trustee
for Jesus
Christ as Noah was God's servant and the master of his ship, so is
Christ
the master of our cloister which is likewise an ark which swims
upon the
worldly flood.
He then led Will out to
see the
grounds, carrying St. George on his wrist with impunity, letting
him take flight
when he wished to, for not the peasants of the land nor even the
eagles of the
sky would dare to trouble him.
Bodmin was as spacious
and fair as
Prior Godfrey said it was. There were grounds for gardening and
shepherding, a
pond stocked with carp and pike, a sweet smelling herbiary,
vineyards and
granaries, a woodshed with wood piled high enough for three
winters, an
infirmary and a cemetery. Behind the refectory was the kitchen
with a
bake-house, a hay-house, a brewing house, a stockfish house, a
pudding house, a
house for keeping beer, a collumbarium where Prior Godfrey kept
his pigeons and
doves, a pantry, and a boulting house where the corn was sieved.
There were thirteen
servants on the
grounds: Adam, the larderer who had charge of the live animals and
who milked
the cows and made the butter and slaughtered the fowl and ground
the spices and
was in charge of the keys to the pantry and the hay-house and the
stock-house
and, as general husbandman, ran all day between the animal-keep
and the kitchen
in his leather apron; and Matthew the bell-ringer who was a short,
thick man
with bowed legs and rounded shoulders and thickened arms; and
Peter the
gardener who was long and lean with a ti red face, whose third
wife had died in
the birth of his fif th son; and the cook who was a giant of a man
who daily
worked three cauldrons of boiling soup, and his son who worked the
spit in the
fireplace and whose eyes were blind from its smoke; and Michael,
Michael the
gate-keeper whom Will had met the night before; the carriers,
Rufus and Luke
who removed the refuse and brought the fuel; and the breviator who
went about
like a letter-carrier from monastery to monastery, and from
monastery to
village and read the scrolls of news and the names of the recently
deceased.
Of the women servants,
there were
two pudding-wives who came on the occasions of guests or holidays,
to bake or
make special soups and sauces, the elderly Moll with grey hair on
her chin and
her dim-witted granddaughter who had one eye; the two
launderesses, Beth whom
the smallpox had robbed of skin and Rose who limped pitifully and
sniveled when
she spoke. They came on Monday and Thursday to collect the washing
from Brother
Namlis, and
whatever could be given to the poor.
It took three hours for
Prior Godfrey
to take Will about and show him all there was at Bodmin and to
relate to him
how each thing had come to be and was attended to with ritual and
with love;
how Brother Bernard drew up the mortuary role when a brother died
and how he
gave it to the breviator who carried the death notice to the other
monasteries
and religious houses in England, and how this breviator was
received with honor
and was entitled to the mattress of the deceased. Prior Godfrey
told Will of
the cunning names by which place or person had come to be known at
Bodmin, how
the cemetery was called God's Acre, how it was Brother Anthony's
responsibility
to keep the sacred plot free from wandering animals and weeds and
marauders who
were known to dig up the graves even of monks in search of
treasure; how
Brother Harald had to see to the reliquaries and the shrines, the
altars and
the sconces and the cloths and to look after the supply of wax
which sometimes
was as much as thirty pounds a year,, how Brother Claude was
called the watchman
because it was his duty to prod the sleepy monks who nodded at
Matins. He told
him how Brother Namlis made grease for their boots and stored
lambskins and
catskins for the cold weather, how Brother Stephen cleaned the
refectory and
purchased five loads of straw three times a year to carpet the
refectory floor
with, how he scattered bay leaves in the necessarium: how every
domestic duty
had its wise servant, for however a man may hope for heaven he
must still keep
his earthly home in order. He told Will he must bathe four times a
year and let
his blood four times a year, in April, September, October and
February; and was
most particular about these last orders.
They circled Bodmin
twice, until
Prior Godfrey came to the end -of the history and the gossip, for
Bodmin
Priory, like all great institutions, had its own history and had
undergone
vicissitude and permutations. 'There hath been monks, then nuns,
then secular
priests, then monks again, and last we come, the canons regular in
this, St.
Petrocke's Church." The priory had been a Benedictine monastery at
one
time, and the religious orders that had come and gone reflected
the adjustment
each age had made to crisis and to inspiration. Bodmin was now an
Augustinian
monastery, and not Cistercian, Benedictine, French or what," Prior
Godfrey
said, for he had no taste for "religious aliens."
"Henry I loved the canon
and
now we have two hundred and eight houses in this land, and we feed
the poor and
care for them, keep hospital and hear confessions, and here monks
do not eat
meat."
Bodmin was only a small
priory at Landsend
in Cornwall, but Prior Godfrey knew that it was as good a link as
any in the
medieval chain of rex et sacerdos and the trinity of clergy, king
and usurer
which has vanished with its labyrinthine economy, leaving behind
its monumental
stones and the memory of the usurer.
Bodmin was small, as
monasteries
were considered in that day, for there were far greater
establishments, such as
Cluny and Glastonbury which undertook not only the salvation of
souls, but the
world's business by way of finance and industry, art, culture, and
administration. At Cluny and other such monasteries, four hundred
monks could
find joy, as well as popes and kings with retinues of servants,
scholars,
artists and usurers, tax collectors, lawyers, and soldiers. The
abbot of such
an establishment was as important as the governor of a modern
state. In such a
monastery, lay servants and serfs tilled the earth and performed
the mundane
tasks of delivery and trade and carting out the refuse, to protect
the monks
from contact with a soiled world; to provide them with the leisure
to pray and
copy, compose and read. In this form, the monastery was the
dominant
institution in Europe for a thousand years, in which time some
40,000 monasteries
had acquired institutional power, some spiritual gain, and then
oblivion.
A paradox inheres in the
history of
salvation, for the monastery was created to offer man an
alternative to the
world. But where it established itself, common civilization
flourished:
industry, art, finance, and administration, and even the business
of salvation
acquired a history.
The monastic movement
can be traced
to pre-Christian times, to the Essenes and the Jewish Theraputae
in Egypt, and
before that possibly to Eastern religions. Its early Christian
beginnings,
however, are inauspicious: a counterculture movement of desert
hermits on
Egyptian soil who retreated from the Roman world, men like Brother
Anthony,
hermits of the lonely cell whose only defense against evil was
retreat and
abstinence. Spiritual longing led them away from civilization at
first, as it
later inadvertently led them back. They froze in caves of
Cappadocia and burned
on African sands and dined on wine and wafers and apocalyptic
visions until the
earth and its inhabitants became shadows. Their skins became the
color of
chestnuts and as wrinkled as an elephant's. Their beards grew
everywhere and
their skins fell detached from their bony structures. They became
scabs and
ribs and acquired lice and warts, training themselves to sit still
for forty
days and forty nights until their knees could not unbend, and they
ceased to
move; or like Simon Stylites stood continually upon a column sixty
feet in the
air and unhinged their knees only to pray; or like the Irish
saints, they stood
in icy water up to their necks and sang the psalms for hours.
Legends of
prodigious feasts attend these saints in search of God. They
chained themselves
to rocks, they lived in wattled huts, in holes, in cages, in
baskets. The birth
pangs of Christianity were terrible. Its saints willingly
confronted the
hazards of solitude and nature with a naked spirit. But none ever
reported that
the world is saved.
A follower of St.
Francis, Brother
Salimbene, records the imitatio dei of a fellow monk: he had
himself
circumcised "to be very like the Lord and lay down by a woman's
side and
there did drink her milk." Energies drawn from the primal therapy
of a
religious day! But what of salvation! Saint! tell me, what of
salvation.
Early ecclesiastics
suspected the
monastic movement in spite of such influential proponents as
Basil, Chrysostom,
Jerome and Augustine. But by the fifth century, the movement had
the support of
the papacy. In 410, 'Honoratus established a monastery in southern
Gaul and between
413-416, John Cassian established the monasteries of St. Victor
and St. May,
which housed over five thousand monks and nuns. Still further
civil order was
required for bands of roaming monks who plagued the countryside
with all kinds
of fervors.
There seems to be a
millennial
rhythm to European history. In 529 C.E. the schools of the
Athenian
philosophers closed after a continuous existence of a thousand
years, and the
Roman emperor Justinian formulated his Code; St. Benedict of
patrician Roman
lineage, hailed as "a very Roman of the Romans," emerged from a
cave
in a gorge in the wild Abruzzi, where Nero once had had a palace,
and there
gave his famous Rule at Monte Cassino which tamed the desert
ascetae and
brought stability to their flaming fervor. Guiding this tradition
of the desert
monks, with their desperate requirements of solitude and
asceticism, he of all
men's brought their ardor within the grasp of all men's potential,
and
established the monastic tradition which saved Europe from the
Goth for the
benefit of future generations. He gave the desert saint a home
behind the walls
of civilization, where he mastered many arts and industries and
grew very
wealthy and very necessary. Looking back, we see that all forms of
social life,
h ±owever desperate the hour and the spiritual need, are drawn
towards
civilization.
St. Benedict and his
sister,
Scholastica were buried with the gratitude of loving followers in
a grave where
once had stood the altar of Apollo. Literature cannot embellish
this historic
fact. Thus, and tritely, the new order buried the old order and
even the Romans
were glad to see it go, and now worked in the monastic fields in
the lowly garb
of monks.
The Church became very
rich and
popes sat on gilded thrones, but such as Brother Anthony still
clung to rocks
and sat in the deserts, and now prayed for the salvation of the
Church. Reform
movements came and went, and Boniface VIII ignored them all, and
in the year of
the first jubilee he had himself addressed as "Caesar and
"Emperor."
By the end of the next
millennium
there were many kinds of monasteries: Benedictine, Cluniac,
Cistercian,
Carthusian, canons regular of the order of St. Augustine Ä,
Premonstratensian
canons, Gilbertine canons, Knights Hospitaller, Knights Templar,
Dominican
Friars, Franciscan Friars, Friars of Our Lady, Friars of the Holy
Trinity,
Crutched, or Crossed Friars, Bethlemite Friars, Pied Friars or
Frates de Pica;
Friars of the Sack, Trinitarians, Bonshommes, and many others.
Monasteries bred
monasteries as clusters and colonies. Great establishments, such
as Cluny, gave
birth to daughter and sister establishments which fell under
complex
administrations. In Charlemagne's time, the entire town of Tours,
composed of
20,000 people, was monastic, its numbers swollen by political
prisoners,
opponents of Charlemagne, and by others pressed into monkhood by
their lords,
or recruited into monkhood like soldiers, and bought like slaves,
"condemned to monkhood," as some complained. Sad to say that so
much
of the grandeur of an era, of its art and learning, rests upon
simple criminal
impulse and plainest vainglory.
Still, the flock gathers
where
there is wealth and social safety. Vagabonds and orphans, civil
servants
seeking sinecures, prelates seeking power, discarded soldiers and
multitudes of
boys sought salvation in the monastery. It functioned as an
orphanage, as an
old age home, as a place of retirement, as a resting place for
pilgrims, as a
barracks for armies, so intimate was this religious institution
with the social
needs of its day.
Orders arose in response
to the
Crusades, in response to the growth of cities, in response to
reforms, in
response to political pressures, in response to financial needs,
or for the
production of wine or wool, and monasteries arose even in sheer
spite, in
response to other orders. Monasteries were established on the
basis of trade or
philosophies. Monasteries arose which followed the Roman sentiment
of regarding
manual labor as degrading, and monasteries arose which honored
manual labor.
Monasteries arose which stressed contemplation and scholasticism,
others which
developed esthetic ambitions md became skilled in the production
of
stained-glass windows, illuminated texts, and chanting. Many
abbots shared with
the imperial rulers a passion for building on a colossal scale and
bled the
peasant with taxes for these glories. As much as any Puritan in
Milton's day,
St. Bernard retched at this extravagance of the combined force of
art, religion
and imperial design. He reminded his fellow monks that their
concern should be
for souls and not for stones. But souls vanish and stone remains,
and what
remains on earth counts for its history. Still other orders arose,
like the
Cistercians led by St. Bernard, which denounced art as a
distraction from the
spiritual life. And finally monasteries arose which denounced the
monastic
habit of separation from the world, the cycle came full swing and
there was no
one prevailing philosophy of how the monastery Would accomplish
the work of
salvation.
As Prior Godfrey showed
Will the
grounds of Bodmin Priory on this afternoon, and related to him its
history of
wars and skirmishes with the local gentry, disruptions and
eruptions, its great
visitors and processions, and showed Mm the new scriptorium with
its great new
Latin Bible, the garden where his best roses blew in the sea wind,
and the
treasury buried beneath the spot where they stood, where the notes
of debts and
credits of the priory, its jewels and relics and precious objects
lay buried,
nothing of the dismal future occurred to him. He had every reason
to believe,
as he took Will about, that his was an eternal order, but his is a
vanished
order we address ourselves to and bid come forth from the winding
sheet of
history. Prior Godfrey's bald and slightly oily forehead looked
serene, and his
round, Nordic, uninteresting, mild and plain blue eyes looked
trusting in the
order which he knew and loved. He could not even see six months'
time Ô ahead
when Brother Claude's lascivious ravings would come to an end and
Brother
Harald's hypochondria would be mocked by reality. Of the brethren,
only two
would survive and of the paid servants only Moll, the
pudding-wife. The
bell-ringer would be found dead in the Norman tower with a black
tongue
sticking out of his mouth, and Michael the gate-keeper would be
found dying of
thirst outside the priory wall.
The midday bell rang.
Prior Godfrey
had been tried in his competence and felt relieved to go and rest.
"I will
not detain you any longer," he said to Will, "but I will advise
you
to eat a good meal. It makes the body better able to let the soul
labor for
God's sake. But I would you go first to the necessarium, for a
monk must keep
himself clean. We be not like some that let in the lice to eat of
their bread
and their bodies. Heaven must be clean," Prior Godfrey said with
an
emphasis that suggested hostility for hidden enemies and ideas
which eluded Wil
èl. "If Christ let in dirty monks, they would not keep it clean,
and it is
not dirty, for none have said so of heaven, but that the streets
are of marble
and the saints wear spotless robes."
Prior Godfrey's
insistence upon
these matters, to the exclusion of other matters, confounded even
Bishop Grandisson.
When he made his visitation, Prior Godfrey showed him first the
necessarium.
"Your books, Prior Godfrey," Bishop Grandisson would say, "not
your lavatory. I would see your accountings, not your toilets."
At night, in bed,
Brother Harald
would silently rehearse this scene with delirious disapprobation.
On the other
side of him, where they slept, Brothers Benedict and Claude
communicated their
disdain for the English with a secret telepathic device which the
other
brothers were privy to. Brothers Ralph and Walter dreamed of dice
and Brother
Thomas tossed and yelled, "I dareye, I dareye," and woke in the
morning, wrinkled and unfit.
Bishop Grandisson was
God's wise,
good, and courageous administrator for four decades in the see of
Exeter, and a
word must be said for him. He was a good man in a bad time:
1328-1369.
Englishborn in Herefordshire in 1298, he was French educated, as
was any
educated man of his day, and rose to be chaplain to Pope John XXII
in Avignon,
and was consecrated there in the Church of the Friars at age 36,
before he set
out for England to assume his duties, the previous Bishop
Stapeldon having been
murdered. The see was in shambles when he crossed the channel at
Christmastime
and arrived in Dover on the 3rd of February, 1328, and at his
diocese on the
9th of June to lament the case of a monk who had married, and of
cne who had
not merely married but had sent food from his table to one Joan,
the wife of
Henry Cosyn, his partner in sin, " and to excoriate the practice
of
child-marriage among the Brotherhood of Brothelyngham, and to
avert an attempt
upon his own life on the 13th of October in the year, 1343, and to
censure an
invasion of î the Scots, the first of several that took place in
that dark
century.
But it was on October
24, 1329,
when he first visited the Priory of Bodmin, that Bishop Grandisson
understood
the scope of his duties. Rot was in the fields. Negligence was
everywhere. Ink
blots like bats adorned the scripts and the margins of holy texts
were
ornamented with unspeakable ditties:
Adam had a wife named
Eve,
She hid her apple where she pleased;
He put his serpent between her knees,
So God He cast them from Paradis
Neither had the straw
been changed
from the refectory floor in more than a year and an odor was
discernible
everywhere. There was no lard in the larder or tallow in the
storeroom or fish
in the pond. Evidence of gambling and gaming and dicing was
everywhere. The
bishop issued an ordinance for the reformation of these abuses. He
dismissed
the then prior and had a new one put in his place. Things at once
improved, and
then slid to a side and changed the shape of their corruption. The
larder was
stocked and the hay removed, but neglect and mismanagement
continued in other
ways, undreamed of by the bishop. The lavater was cleaned, the
monks were
shaved, the linen kept in order, but bible scripts remained
untouched, the
fields unharvested and the poor scrounged the countryside for
food. Ten years
before Will arrived, the priory walls, the great gate and sundry
other
buildings had been battered by the storms of 1338 and were in
desperate
condition. Bodmin was forced to do unholy things to raise money
for repairs,
because things did not repair themselves even when set aside for
spiritual use.
Storms, like plagues, are careless with the sacred, and Prior
Godfrey put up
St. Petrock's bones as collateral for a loan.
But worse was yet to
come. The year
before Will arrived, the almoner was removed for an unspeakable
offense, the
numbers of paid servants increased in an alarming way, were
reduced, and
increased again. Bishop Grandisson sent Prior Godfrey away and
appointed ó an
interim administrator to patch things up: books and records and
discipline.
When Will arrived at Bodmin, from the point of view of history,
things were not
as good as they could be, but hardly as bad as they had been.
Things had
improved from deterioration to stasis. Prior Godfrey had been
returned and was
at pains to know what Bishop Grandisson now wished reformed.
Bishop Grandisson
was a nuisance! Prior Godfrey sent papal letters to Avignon, but
Bishop
Grandisson came of an established family and had a manor at Cyst
in Exeter and
a residence at Chudleigh. In fact, Bishop Grandisson could have
settled for
land and power and bribes and promises and peace. Instead, he
settled for such
as Prior Godfrey. He undertook the reformation of the monasteries
in his
diocese, and the thankless job of lecturing to the heads of
powerful families
who neglected their lands and their duties, and bled the people
with taxes on
their crops; who went abroad to raise money from the usurers, to
return to
England to wage war to win more land to neglect; whose sons were
priors and
abbots and had the care of souls and monasteries and neglected
church lands to
travel abroad and consult with kings and other heads of other
powerful
families.
It was one thing if Walt
of Landsend
scratched his scabby cheeks and protested that the times were bad.
It was
another thing if Bishop Grandisson, born to wealth and rank,
undertook the
tedious job of checking books and records, stock and larder, and
listening to
every complaint and asservation from monks' lechery and claims of
miracle
births to accusations of spite and wrath and greed and gluttony.
Oh, Bishop Grandisson!
You could
have hunted and wenched and slept under three layers of fur. You
could have
sported a falcon on your wrist, but did not. In every age and
place there is a
man who plugs up the hole in the dikes of sin with nothing but
soul and effort
and keeps the times from going utterly to rot.
So Will was to learn
that when
things went wrong, he was to bring his petition to Bishop
Grandisson, though
Prior Godfrey considered himself unfortunate in having been
appointed such a
bad-tempered bishop, precise in his figures and so fussy about
trivial matters,
altogether unbecoming in a bishop, whose complaints should be set
on higher
things than book-keeping matters. There was neither lechery nor
usury, to speak
of, at Bodmin Priory, and certainly no uncleanliness. The evidence
that Bishop
Grandisson brought him of an unfortunate thought here or there
scribbled in the
scriptorium was unbecoming for a bishop to show his prior, who was
his equal in
family.
"What of it?" Prior
Godfrey said, "it is in the Jews' part of the book and can be said
to be
dirt only in a manner of speaking."
Bishop Grandisson cared
nothing for
Prior Godfrey's family, but he was loath to remove him again, to
make such
notoriety public. Besides, dismissals, as everyone knows, only
leave gaps
filled in by other jackals. Bishop Grandisson became resigned.
Superficiality
is the common vice of bureaucracies, and not its worst. In Bishop
Grandisson's
rule over many monasteries he dealt with worse: gaming, hunting,
whoring,
incontinences of all kinds, lasciviousness, drinking, and praying
in such a
manner as to convey the opposite effect of belief and piety. No
highborn could
bribe Bishop Grandisson with the gift of a relic or the promise of
advancement.
And a fool could not worst him with his foolishness. He learned to
deal with
Prior Godfrey.
Will followed the
brethren from the
necessarium to the refectory and was gratified to see that the
midday meal was
considerably ampler than breakfast had been: cheese and bread and
eggs and
beans and oysters and a glass of mead. The meal reconciled him to
other losses.
"Now this be more like what my stomach wants," he thought, but he
didn't enjoy the thought for long. The habit of recrimination took
root early,
and he imagined Brother Harald looked suspiciously at him. He
searched the other
faces, but no one else's looked perturbed. Brother Anthony left
all his food
but his one cup of mead and a slice of bread. Brother Stephen ate
only half of
what was given him. Brothers Wait and Ralph looked fondly at their
empty plates
when they were done, but otherwise seemed cheerful enough.
Nor did Will see a face
to his
liking on this first morning. He never could tolerate young old
men like
Brother Ralph and Brother Walter, and Brother John was still a lad
with rapt
eyes set to become a saint before he was twenty; and Brother
Benedict moved his
mouth, small as a cherry, in such a way Will knew he could never
abide his
company. Each man had his tic or wrinkle that set his nerves on
edge, and he
wondered why he had come there.
After the meal they went
out into
the garden where Prior Godfrey preached a sermon against accidia,
"the
midday demon, the little voice that will tell you that all is
vanity, that God
sees not our work, nor our reaping and sowing matter, nor reading
nor copying
nor monks' learning. There be those who slander the monks and say
he is a
sleuthful man, for the times are against the Lord. But Christ
loves the labor
of the monk and the Augustinians have wrought well with their wool
trade on
English grounds. The laborer is worthy of his hire and a monk's
labor is trebly
worthy."
Brothers Ralph and
Walter looked
singularly alike in spirit, as they listened to the sermon, and a
thing like
that is apt to make each man look less serious than he might be.
Brother Ralph
had the sharper glance and more knowing air. Otherwise, both
seemed genial and
candid, and accustoms to monkhood. That is to say, they had known
no other
life, desired no other, and believed that fate had done wisely
with them. They
had come as babes, though at different times. Now being the oldest
residents at
Bodmin, having seen three priors come and go an ³d a score of
brethren, they
enjoyed each other's friendship by virtue of similar experiences
and similar
temperaments. They never quarreled. They had achieved a state of
communication
untroubled by the baggage of language, even though Brother Ralph
liked very
much to gossip and gossiped on every possible occasion, gardening,
reading,
praying, and washing his hands in the necessarium. He whispered
news behind
Will's ear as they promenaded in the cloister, and whispered news
from behind
his prayerbook to whomever, as they knelt in the choir box.
Brother Ralph
gossiped in his sleep. He spoke aloud in the dark like a possessed
oracle
imparting to the air and all who stayed awake to listen,
information about what
dignitary was about to visit Bodmin, what Moll the laundress had
said, what the
king's mistress was like, what discrepancy Bishop Grandisson had
found in the
books, whether Prior Godfrey would be removed again, whether the
wool trade was
succeeding or failing, whether war would come this spring, how it
went in
neighboring monasteries, who had died, who had wined, who had
wived and who had
been caught and punished.
Brother Ralph's
nocturnal speeches
had been brought to Prior Godfrey's notice several times. One
afternoon
following the midday meal, there was a sermon and debate on
whether talking in
one's sleep violated the vow of silence. Brother Thomas pleaded
guilty and
offered to have his tongue removed. To Will's surprise, Brother
Ralph took a
hard line and said that a monk who practiced his vow properly
would not speak
even in his sleep. "Even had he a nightmare he will not call out
but
swallow his tongue to keep himself from speaking out. A monk that
speaks in his
sleep is the bait of Satan. Brother Thomas was crushed by such a
judgment and
could not keep his head erect, but he made a good recovery by the
evening meal
and appeared with a cheerful patch of red on each cheek.
Brother Benedict could
not abide
Brother Ralph's speech, rendered in his lowborn tongue. Nor could
he abide
Brother Ralph's complexion, "dirty-dark," with yellow eyes.
Brother
Harald smirked as usual, more accustomed to sin by innuendo than
by commission,
but Brother Stephen said stonily: "If Brother Ralph likes the
taste of
human tongue and if he is not prepared to feast upon his own he
should not
recommend that of others.
Brother Stephen was
never sparing
in his censure. Will heard Brother Harald call him "a little Jonah
cast up
by the Irish Sea." Brother Stephen was barely five feet tall with
dainty
hands and dainty feet and coal-black eyes and a smoldering tongue
that darted
like a snake's about your ears when he spoke. He never slurred or
praised and
said candidly there was nothing on earth worth his praise. 'It is
nought but a
mudhole that sucks and bubbles about your feet."
"Do you not like the
sunshine?" Will asked him once.
Brother Stephen put his
hands
inside the sleeves of his cape, and for all his size, looked
imposing. "A
man who reckons prayer as praise means to buy off the world and
take a cheap
recompense."
Will puzzled over this
speech many
times. There was a hint of something marvelously austere about it
that was
belittling to a man like himself. Brother Stephen always spoke
this way, to the
point and never waywardly or frivolously, but always with a
suitable bitterness
that, for all Will could see, came from the air itself.
Brothers Ralph, Walter,
and Namlis
the hunchback, had the distinctions of seniority, for they had
been at Bodmin
longer than the others, almost from infancy. Brothers Harald and
Stephen
enjoyed the distinction of merit in that they fulfilled their vows
to
perfection and were allowed to lead in prayers and give readings;
Brother
Benedict and Brother Anthony who knew the Bible, and Brother
Claude who knew
Arabic, ¸ and Brother Bernard who was the archivist, enjoyed the
distinction of
culture; while Brother John enjoyed the distinction of youth and
the
uncared-for- distinction of being Bishop Roundsleigh's firstborn
son. And so at
Bodmin, as everywhere else, were these ways of judging merit.
The morning before Will
was to make
his profession, he was left to wander by himself. Indecisiveness
and muddle
followed him about. He sat down by the fishpond to straighten out
his thoughts,
his brain adazzle with lectures and readings and having heard
little but the
word of God since he had arrived. He scratched his head. "It is a
question, after all, if heaven be man's proper element. Nay Will,"
he
chided himself, "you cannot doubt the joy of eternity. See how the
f ish
swim about in their element, yet tomorrow at mealtime they will be
in thine,
without a view of heaven. Marvelously innocent of you," he said to
them,
"to go about your watery business ¯careless of your souls."
He caught sight of
Brother Namlis
fishing on' the opposite side of the pond and came around to stand
beside him,
for politeness sake, for it was as little to converse with a man
who had no
tongue as to converse with the fish.
"You seem a good
fisher,"
he said courteously Brother Namlis could only smile and nod his
head and blink
his eyes.
Will thought it a hard
fate for a
man to be so homely, with a hump, and without a tongue. Still, he
seemed
cheerful enough, and Will was as glad to prattle to him as to the
fish. "I
tell you what I think," he said. "I do not think Namlis is your
Christian name, if I must tell you truly. My dog had a better name
and was
known by all as Rug, God bless her soul." Her image appeared
before him,
leaning starboard in her old age, and he began to cry and craved a
word of
comfort for his homesickness, even from a tongueless man, but
Brother Namlis
became more distressed t rhan Will and it was Will who had to do
the
comforting- "I tell you what," he said, "the tongue's not worth
much in man anyway. Here was my dog Rug and she could not speak
yet I loved her
full and here was my wife who spoke right well and we quarreled
the whole day
of it. Had you ever a wife?"
Brother Namlis smiled
slyly but
shook his head.
"That's a good man,"
Will
said, recovering his equanimity. "You will be with the angels, as
Aquinas
said, no doubt. What need has a silent man for a wife. That end
works harder
than the other end. It is not worth a bet to say whether a married
man quarrels
or beds more. If one end is not wagging, the other is. Though I
trust they did
not cut off your other end as well."
Brother Namlis tossed
his fishpole
in the air with glee, and laughed, but his laugh, like his cry,
was a terrible
sound to hear and it took Will aback. Still he was content to make
a tongueless
man so merry, and he warmed to the subject of a sermon. "I say
with the
preacher, God alone knows why He made woman and maybe He knows it
not. You have
not your tongue and I have not my wife." With this, to his
surprise, he
began to cry again. "Truth be, Brother Silence, you be not company
for a
man without a wife though I like you well enough, and do not mind
your hump at
all. Think upon it this way, Brother Silence, you may not have a
tongue but you
have a soul and I had a wife which had no soul though Christ knew
I meant her
no harm for the lack of it, but seeing I will not be with her in
Heaven I
thought it best to call it off with her here. Man may cut off
either end of
you, seeing the angels care not for such clappers.
It was Brother Ralph who
told Will
a few days later how Brother Namlis had come to lose his tongue.
His mother had
cut it out.
"It cannot be œ," Will
said, astounded.
"As ever I tell you,"
Brother Ralph whispered.
"Did ever man hear of
such
evil," Will cried.
"She said he whined and
puled
too much. She was nought but a wench who went about the land with
any man and
she has sent many a babe to a monastery."
That was not the whole
of the
story, for Brother Namlis' survival had been miraculous in every
way. Not
content to cut his tongue out, his mother had thrown him down a
well.
"Along came this ruffian," Brother Ralph said, "drunk with the
barley and stops to fetch a drink when he hears this thrashing
from down below
and fetches it up, believing it is a fish and he will have his
supper from it.
His mother came running and screeching, for she was for throwing
the babe back,
but this wayfarer held her off and made off with the babe and
brought him here.
Never has God done to man what this one's mother did to her own,
for his back
was broke in th ¨e fall."
"God give all women a
good
black eye," Will said.
Brother Namlis held no
such view of
his mother but cherished the few good memories he had of her and
prayed for her
soul every night. Will waxed loquacious, standing by the side of
the pond with
him. Talking with a tongueless man had its merits. Will could
argue his points
without contention. Nor could it be counted for a sin against the
vow of
silence, since it could not be said that they conversed.
Suddenly, however, a
ferocious
noise brought the bliss to an end. It was a hunting call, but it
came like a
clap of thunder and before Will could catch his breath, a band of
dogs and
horses jumped the wall to the sounds of horns and tally-ho, and
immediately
Prior Godfrey came running and shouting curses, "Damnye, damnye,"
with vexation and wringing of hands, pursued by the brethren and
calling out, "The
devil bum your horse's tail and your own as well, you devil of a
baron."
But this was Baron
Roundsleigh who
was not put off by such a speech. He leaned down from his horse
and I
"sounded his horn in Prior Godfrey's ear and said with I merry
hatred,
"You blooksuckin' landleecher, who told you to set my son in your
priory.
I will have my son or your grounds. Christscabsandwounds, may
blood dry on your
sores and embalm you if I don't shake St. Petrockes bones loose
from you."
With that, he drove his horse so hard her hoofs churned up the
earth beneath,
and he drove her straight across the cemetery, across the hallowed
grounds,
while Prior Godfrey ran after him and screeched that Christ will
put him in
hell, him and his hounds and his dogs and his whores, and he will
hunt for
foxes in the fire. But Baron Roundsleigh had no fear of heaven or
of hell, and
neither did his lords or ladies or his dogs. They all galloped
across the
hallowed ground in pursuit of a fox or a whim. Baron Roundble Ðigh
was an
atheist and no man could threaten him. His motto on his banner and
his
breastplate was, "als ik kan." His people had come with William
the
Conqueror and he recognized no native Englishman above himself,
especially not
Prior Godfrey who had borrowed from him £ 300 on pledge of St.
Petrock's bones,
in return for which Baron Roundsleigh had the r-entals and the
harvest from a
portion of the manor lands until such time as Prior Godfrey would
pay him back
the money which, for all Baron Roundsleigh could make of Prior
Godfrey's inefficiency,
would be never. So he rode across the hallowed grounds where five
centuries of
saints awaited the resurrection, conscious of his castles on the
Rhine, his tin
mines in Cornwall, and Prior Godfrey's debts to him.
"God save me from these
cocks
that neither crow nor generate, these landleechers and
bloodsuckers that will
steal a man's son as ever the gypsies are said to do."
He caught sight of his
son, John,
running wi ®th the other brethren and called out to him, "It
behooved you
to be like Ysaac and obedient to your father's ways. The Jew had
more from his
son than ever I will have of mine.
The brethren held their
tongues and
ran in silence, Brother Stephen's face cursed as loud as thunder,
but never a
word was sounded. Brother John swooned. Brother Anthony caught
hold of the
reins of the baron's horse but could not hold on. The foxes, the
dogs, the
horses, the hounds and the lords and ladies jumped the wall and
disappeared
into the countryside.
"It be not so tame here
as I
thought," Will said to himself. The bell for vespers rang. "Oh!
Will,
what are you doing here?"
He followed the brethren
to the
refectory and took his meager breakfast of bread and beer, and
thought again,
"It is not enough." The thought would not stay down, but floated
up
again and again like a bloated bubble, though it was the morning
when he was to
enter the C Îhapter House and say his profession and be parted
from the things
he loved, village dances and village laughter, Claryce and Rug and
Davy, good
souls he had nothing against if truth be told, yet he had pledged
to renounce
them in order to save them.
He could not accommodate
the
thought, no matter how he turned it, Christian though he was all
his life. It
was his hunger that made it took peculiar, he thought, as he knelt
among the
brethren in the Chapter House and said a prayer in Latin and asked
to be
received into their community and promised to take his vows and
part from the
world though he would pray for its redemption. This Christianity,
with the eyes
of the brethren upon him, was not the familiar one he knew when he
tramped
through a muddy meadow to hear a preacher say Mass in a clay hut
where the
farmers stood with their animals and pitchforks and the women
carried their
babes, where the folk laughed and pushed and shoved forward rudely
for
salvation.
De profundis demani ad te, Domine;
Domine, ex dudi vocen mean
Fiant aures tuae intendentes in vocem
Will was a man fraught
with
sincerity, but this tongue was not his and he suffered the travail
of a foreign
language. Still in his leather pants and jacket of a farming man,
he kneeled
with confusion and solicited the goodwill of his prior and
brethren to permit
him to become one of them. He vowed to adopt them as his spiritual
family, to
serve his year as a novice, to become practised in duty and
prayer, to keep his
vows of silence, poverty, obedience, and chastity, to set his feet
upon the
heavenly road, and in all ways to follow Jesus Christ. Throughout
his petition,
Brother Benedict rang a small bell, and when Will stopped the bell
stopped.
There was a great amen, and then there was silence. That night
Will was given a
place to sleep in the dormitory between Brother Namlis and Brother
Thomas.
The next afternoon,
Brother Namlis
took him to the cupboard to fit him with a monk's habit and cowl.
He was taught
first monastic manners, for the monastery was a way of life, not
only
accountable for conduct and ethics, but for having a style that
was appropriate
to iL As with all civilizations, it placed value on outward
behavior as a sign
of the inward state of mind. Brother Bernard gave him his first
lessons as well
as that grave man could deal with mundane matters; how to wear his
habit
properly, how to get in and out of bed with modesty, how to walk
with dignity,
how to hold his hands and head so as to assume a bearing of
gravity. If Will
was to be a monk, he must look and act like a monk as well as feel
like one.
His second lesson
concerned the
custody of his eyes and tongue and respect for his superiors. Will
was urged to
think of his senses as being in the custodial care of Ids soul.
Medieval man
sought a state of grace, not a' state of nature. After he was
taught how to
chant and to pray properly, then began his lessons in Latin.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritu Sancto
Brother Bernard intoned,
and Will
intoned after him. To learn to read was to learn to pray and to
chant, for
reading was said aloud. "The tongue dictates to the hand," the
great
scholar Alcuin had said. He who wished to read properly must learn
to pronounce
and to recite, to sing and to play aloud, to create an aural
chamber in the
brain, for sound enforced memory, and language and reading were to
be enjoyed
sensuously. Brother Bernard's Latin was excellent, but he was
loath to correct
errors and Will was left to render his Latin in his Yorkshire
accent.
The month of May passed
for him
with increasing interest in what he was learning, except for his
stomach. The
cattle were put out to pasture and their bells and lowing mingled
with the
steeple bells. In the village, Clooke, the village priest, led the
villagers in
procession to celebrate Rogation Days. They carried banners and
bells and
crosses and went about the boundaries of the village and their
land to bless it
and to mark it, and on Sundays came to hear Mass in the priory.
Will slept in the dorter
with the
others, a long hall with a crucifix and a candle at one end of it.
Each brother
had a cot and a lectern with a Bible and a candle on it, and a
partial screen
on each side of his cot for privacy. Their places were fixed in
the dormitory,
as they were fixed in the refectory and in the choir box. Brothers
Harald,
Bernard, John, Claude, Stephen and Anthony lay on one side,
Brother Benedict,
and then Brothers Walter, Ralph, Thomas, Namlis and now Will on
the other.
Will wondered that
Brother Namlis
could lay on his hump and snore with comfort, while all night
Brother Thomas
called out, 'I dareye, I dareye," as he jousted with the devil or
carried
on nocturnal battles with the English. These were not Rug's snores
or his
wife's ditties sung in ” the night to alert him, but in time such
noises came
to take the place of the family snores he still missed.
He rose at Matins in the
dark with
the brethren, for a monk's day begins at midnight. It was Brother
Harald's duty
to light the candles on the steps and in the choir box so that
they could find
their way. A distant bell tolled. They rose and crossed themselves
and
commended their souls to God's protection. Brother John carried
the lantern,
and they followed him into the church where Prior Godfrey waited
for them. When
the bell stopped tolling, they bowed and said the Pater, Ave, and
Creed, they
sang the psalms and Deus in Adjutorium and the Responsorium and te
Deum and a
portion of the Gospel.
They prayed most of the
night,
while the world slept. Immediately Matins was concluded, the bell
rang for
Lauds. The continuity of vigil was kept, as it had formerly been
kept by the
Temple priest ¾s during the Night Watch, and by the early
Christians who had
performed Mass at midnight over the graves of their martyrs.
It was mostly during the
Night
Office that Will's stomach growled with hunger. His flesh would
not give up, bu
t kicked and spit at him and cursed him in his@ bowels. It stomped
about inside
of him and demanded food. "If it is not one thing it is another,"
Will said to himself, "stomach, tongue or clapper." He saw that
the
battle would not be done until his soul split from his flesh.
Sometimes, in the
morning, his
stomach flew about inside of him like bats, or bit him like a nest
of snakes.
With a heavy heart, he looked forward to his quarter pound of
bread and pint of
beer. At the table, every man looked mean to him, and Brother
Benedict who read
the Saints' Lives in Latin, had a womanly voice which he could not
abide, and
he believed that Brother Stephen passed unpleasant judgments on
him. In time
his body came t Êo trouble him less, but never Brother Stephen.
After breakfast, they
met in the
Chapter Room to discuss the list of the week's misdemeanors.
Brothers Ralph and
Walter had been caught gaming again. Brother Claude had dripped
tallow wax on
his manuscript, and later had hidden Brother Benedict's music
sheets and had
effaced them in a lewd manner. They listened to the reading of the
Rule, for it
could not be repeated often enough, and then discussed other
business matters.
A visit was expected from Abbot Roland, Brother Harald's brother,
and Prior Godfrey
wished them to learn their chants better, for nothing pleased
Christ as much as
a musical, mellifluous voice. "Speech is a privilege given to man
and not
to the beasts. Christ hears what you say as well as what you sing
and prefers
to hear you sing your prayers, for the tongue knows nought but to
speak
slander, frivolity, and lewdness." So saying, he bid them good day
and
retired for his nap.
They went out two by two
into the
field. Brother Claude, as usual, walked beside Brother Bernard,
whom he regarded
as a simpleton, but as one with whom he could converse in French,
if one could
converse at all with Brother Bernard. Brother Claude was from the
north of
France and was the disinherited son of a lord, and was therefore
very
quarrelsome, while Brother Bernard had outlived his grievances and
had little
to say. Brother Claude had more in common with Brother Harald, who
was also a
disinherited son and who suffered from unrequited ambition as
Brother Claude
suffered from unrequited lust, but Brother Claude had no love for
the English
and Brother Harald regarded Brother Claude as the Gaul's revenge
for English
victories.
Brother Thomas shuffled
his feet in
a palsied manner, but turned each corner of the cloister briskly,
pretending he
was marching to a martial air. Only Brother John would walk beside
Brother
Thomas, tempting the fate of the French disease Ù; or sometimes
Brother Namlis
who, being a tongueless man, was glad for any man's company, at
any cost.
Brother Stephen had a "walking" friendship with Brother Benedict,
though no other. Brother Anthony was indifferent to social
intercourse and
walked by himself. Brother Ralph walked beside Will and whispered
to him,
"Well, now that you have met Bishop Roundsleigh, you have met the
whole
holy family of Bodmin."
"What mean you by this?"
Will whispered back.
Brother Ralph winked in
John's
direction. "He is that one's father and he has not forgiven the
church for
taking his eldest son. First born is first born. He meant to marry
him to a
lady in France and as you can see he would have made a right fair
husband for a
French damsel. But he has come here, for his father is a sinful
man and he
wishes to pray to save his father's soul. But his father cares
nought to have
his soul saved. He wishes to have his land saved and he wants his
son to give
him heirs."
"How can it be that the
church
does not lock him away for his evil tongue?" Will asked.
"No man can do anything
with
him, for he has jewels and castles and eats at the king's table.
He came from
France with William's men and holds title to much land. I tell you
what,"
Brother Ralph said, "those who eat English meat and drink French
wine do
right well in this country.
"But if he believes not
that
Christ be risen what will become of him?" Will asked.
Brother Ralph was
surprised that
Will took this view of the matter. "It matters not what he thinks.
Christ
may bum him right well for slandering him, but as for now he does
as he
pleases." With that, Will became privy to the politics of Bodmin,
to Bishop
Roundsleigh's notes against the land, to his secret plottings with
Brother
Harald to dislodge Prior Godfrey, to the messages he sent to
France via Brother
Claude to the Jewish usurers, to his attempts to kidnap back his
son, to his
accusations noised up and down the country side that his heir had
been
castrated by the church to put an end to the Roundsleigh dynasty
and extirpate
the French influence.
Will was astounded by
such
revelations and distrusted Brother Ralph's report. "I came not
here for
such, things," he said to himself, and regretted the pangs of
hunger he
suffered. He thought about what Brother Ralph had told him and
decided to
believe no more than half of what he heard.
It was a tradition at
Bodmin, as at
most monasteries, for those monks who could deny themselves
further, to set
aside a portion of their daily bread for the poor who would come
during the
week to collect it. Brother Anthony's lips barely parted for bread
and water,
still a portion was collected from him every nightfall. It
boggled mind and philosophy how the
flesh stayed on him. Brother John always left something too, and
wept at night
for the pain it caused him. Brother Stephen left the same amount
every day, a
third of his noontime bread. Brother Benedict followed an
unpredictable
pattern, sometimes leaving, sometimes not. It was thought that he
had a cancer
which caused him to be chary and often irritable. Brother Harald
left a small
portion on the first of each month, while Brothers Ralph and
Walter took turns.
One week one left something, and
the next week the other. Brother Thomas was sneaky. On rare
occasions when the
brothers had a whole loaf to eat, he dug out the interior and
donated an empty
shell.
After Will had been at
Bodmin three
months, he was provisionally appointed almoner, in charge of
collecting discarded
clothing and blankets, and such portions of bread donated by the
brethren, to
distribute to the poor who would come to the gatehouse after the
midday meal on
Sundays and Thursdays. There was often a small crowd of ten or
fifteen men and
women, and often with their children. Some accepted alms with
gratitude, some
with a surly manner, most neither one way or the other, only with
hunger and
patience, or with hunger and impatience.
In larger monasteries,
where huge
crowds of poor would gather and where the monastery could afford
it, a small
number of the poor, usually three, were invited on each day to
have their feet
washed and to partake of a meal in the priory kitchen. But at
Bodmin where only
two dozen or so would gather, the custom was reduced to a simple
foot-washing
on Thursday which Will now administered at the gatehouse, and
which Prior
Godfrey administered on Sundays on the Galilee Porch, and
afterwards invited
some of the chosen poor to something more substantial than bread:
fish, ale, or
fresh fruit.
At Bodmin Priory, there
was a
moderate amount of social intercourse between the monks and the
outside world.
Brother Harald went three times a year to collect the tithes and
taxes, and
Brother Ralph went to market once a month and Brother Namlis went
with him four
times a year, to purchase thread and needles and cat skins. Under
other
circumstances, the almoner too went to the village once a
fortnight to visit
the leper house and once a week to visit the other sick. But the
previous
almoner had died more than a year ago and this duty had lapsed,
while the
feeding of the poor continued haphazardly, Brothers Anthony,
Stephen, and John
taking turns.
It was a poor
arrangement, for
Brother John was at an age when he should not be exposed to women,
as some of
the poor were, and Brothers Anthony and Stephen performed their
task too
zealously, bringing all the poor to the Galilee Porch, both on
Thursdays and on
Sundays, much to the cook's consternation if he had not prepared
enough and he
would then be in a foul temper. And if the food ran out, the poor
grumbled that
the monks ate the fat of the lamb. And furthermore, feeding the
same poor from
w ¹eek to week encouraged indolence, kind deeds being liable to
corruption. No
matter that in these times the poor were regarded as Christ's
patrimony, and
therefore as more blessed and honored than the wealthy and the
powerful. They
were regarded as the stone that had been rejected, and the
cornerstone on which
such edifices as Bodmin Priory rested. No matter that in this
theological age
they were a theological category, that the poor had a share in
God's plan if
not in the state's. "The meek shall inherit the earth." True it
was
that Prior Godfrey had no intention of permitting this event to
happen, but the
intention of the Maundy ceremony was to obviate the condition of
poverty as
disgraceful. The poor were Christ's patrimony.
The curious thing about
this idea
was that it changed the behavior of few people. Almost no one
volunteered to
become a member of Christ's patrimony. Except for a Every few
people like St.
Francis, no one willingly gave up anything and almost everyone,
including the
clergy and the laity, the learned and the unlearned, those who
spoke Latin and
those who didn't, desired earthly comforts at the least, and some
desired a lot
more. The poor themselves, who were Christ's patrimony, seemed not
to care at
all about being that, for as soon as the plague made conditions,
favorable,
they seized the opportunity to get out of the category of the
meek. The wealthy
did not volunteer to give up their wealth and seek to join the
poor, and
whenever the poor tried to take their wealth them by raiding the
monasteries
and churches or Manor houses, the wealthy made a great fuss and
tried to beat
them off.
The scandal of theology
is not so
much that it affronts human reason as that it affronts human
instinct. The
desire to partake of immortality, for example, has never been
recorded, even
once, as a motive for suicide.
The poor, when the
plague came,
fled from the land they had been taught to regard as Christ's
estate. By
December of that year, only a few months later, they swarmed over
England and
neither religion nor tradition, nor laws passed by Parliament or
by Edward
declaring it illegal for a peasant to leave the land or to be
hired elsewhere
but where he was born and had served, not even their honor as
Christ's
patrimony nor threats of excommunication, not fear of hell or
prison, kept them
back. That December, when Will left for London, he met them
everywhere on the
roads as they fled the plague, the grange lands and the villages.
In a few
short months the feudal order of England had disappeared, but at
this moment,
under a hot August sun, Will went to the gatehouse with a basket
of rolls to
feed the motley assembly, so different in many respects from other
such groups,
for each culture has its own kind of poor, urban or rural mainly
men or women,
mainly old or young, mainly black or white.
But it is the poor of
the Medieval
world which have become famous as "the poor" because we hear
little
of other poor, nothing of the Hellenic poor and not enough of the
Roman poor
except that they liked bread and circuses. We hear nothing of Gaul
or Parthian
poor and only know that the Egyptians and Carthaginians had
slaves, but not
whether they had poor. Whether because there were more of the
Medieval poor, or
the poor of other cultures have fallen into a memory hole, or
whether because
the classical poor were so despicable they challenge even
Christian mercy, or
not despicable enough and not challenging enough; or because they
were not
Christian poor and therefore not Christ's patrimony, they have no
role in our
imagination while these, our poor, re indispensably picturesque to
the times.
The Ages of Faith cannot do without them.
We see the Hellenic poor
in their
classical purity, it we see them at all; and the Roman poor as
mean and
bullying and threatening the Christians; but not. crippled,
diseased, starving
and dying, with a claim to sympathy. The poor of other ages no
doubt died
famine and neglect, but they seem to have kept their skin and
hair, and
certainly their wits. A remnant of human physique clung to them.
The Torah says
of it poor only: remember them, leave a comer of the field for
them to glean,
and the prophets say God loves those who help the widowed, the
orphaned and the
poor. do not say, Pugh! what a stench of crippled man!
All poor are rarely
presentable to
the eye. They appeal to our moral sense, but rarely to the eye.
these poor, our
poor, do, though they are the unseemliest lot of human poor in a
score of
centuries, body wracked as no other poor were. Their diseases, of
rashes and
running sores, cataracts and poxes, humps and withered stumps,
cleft tongues
and dirty eye patches, became the stock of artists. Greek
esthetics could not
deal with them, but the canvas of the Middle Ages is spread with
the
hunch-backed and knobbly-legged, the clubfooted, the blind, the
maimed and the
halt, the ravaged with fleas and dysentery, bellies swollen with
nutritional
diseases, shaking with nervous disorders, smelling of rags and
animal fat,
palsied and possessed of devils, toothless, eyeless, leprous,
devil-ridden,
dwarfed and elephantine.
'Where do they come
from?"
Will asked Michael, the gatekeeper.
Michael thought that a
peculiar
question. He was the kind of man of whom it was difficult to know
whether he
was witty or witless. "They do not come from anywhere. They be
Cornish
men. Some say they be always be here like the dirt upon the
earth."
Well, Will had seen poor
men
before, in York, but always they were working men, and the working
poor look
'different from the idle poor or the crippled poor or the diseased
poor. Their
chins are set in a different manner and they carry a tool in their
hands, ready
for a job. The artisan who goes Ðfrom town to town looking for
work does not
took the same as a crippled man lying in his vomit. Even among the
poor, and
especially among the poor, distinctions of age and purpose and
health are
crucial.
'Have they no work?"
Will
asked.
Michael thought that
another
peculiar question. "These be tinners and cotters," he said, "and
the tin be low this year and the law says the laborer must stay
where he was
born. If they go elsewhere none will hire them, for it is against
the law to do
so."
"Aye," a voice cackled.
Will recognized the sound instantly, though he had heard it only
once before.
It was the same as the whip at his back when he had parted from
Walt of Landsend
at Capella du Temple. "Aye," Walt cackled, and singled himself out
from the small crowd, unshaven, skinny in a brown smock and
graceless, forlorn
hose. He wiped the crumbs from his greying cheeks. "How are you,
man. You
look right well since last we met. The sadness has left your
face."
To his surprise, Will
said
precipitously, "I eat not more than these do."
Wait laughed
unpleasantly. All of
Walt's tones, like his hose and his brown smock, were graceless
and dirty. Will
remembered his voice and felt forewarned. "Aye," Wait said, "but
these have not souls such as a holy monk as yourself might have.
These have but
bellies and a belly is a nasty thing when it is angry. A soul does
much for the
grace of man."
Will pursed his lips
together and
defended himself against Walt with silence. He put his towel and
bowl on the
ground and picked three poor and washed their toes as quickly as
he could. He
tried to feel proper humility in this humblest of acts, but he
felt Walt's eyes
upon him like prickers in his skin.
Scabby, shameless Walt
was quick to
see the look of guilt on any man's face and he was not one to let
up on the
pressure. "Aye," he cackled coarsely, "you might as well wash
this one's feet whose skin is rotted and keep your own soul clean
for heaven's
sake. But here is not heaven but hard land and these be Cornish
men who mine
the earth, these be diggers and copper seekers and tinners and
clay workers.
These be not monk's toys. These be poor who be planted in the
ground when they
be dead. Their souls are dirty things to see, fed on lice and such
crumbs as Will
here brings them." He paused, but Will did not respond. Something
warned
him to keep silent. It was true he could not bring himself to
touch the poor
manes toe with his naked hand. Such a purple, hairy, bulbous,
bewarted thing
with cracked skin and pus he had never seen. Will was sure that if
it had been
his, he would have cut it off rather than have it dangle from the
bottom of him
and tempt the worms. Walt knew his thoughts and eyed him
maliciously. He had a
talent for scorn and was working himself up to rhetorical heights.
"If the flesh be not
holy here
on earth it matters not that it be resurrected."
Will was not the man to
rebuke
another for heretical thinking, but combat flared in, him. He did
not like the
way Walt shoved his feelings around and treated himself to airs of
spiritual
superiority. Here was Will rising at midnight to pray for his soul
and for the
world, here he was washing the feet of an unknown man with such
warts and
cracks upon his skin as would scare the devil, and he felt no
better than any
man, not even much better than the heathen. So Walt had better not
give him a
faceful of holy looks. "You are speaking heresy," he said.
That was the proper
thing to say to
Walt. He loved enmity. Accusation amused him. Red splotches leaped
into his
grey cheeks. "Ssss," he hissed. "You had a better tongue when we
met along the way. Now your tongue is clipped with Latin and you
speak neither
York nor Cornish."
"You will hang," Will
said, "or burn." Formerly, he would have said such a thing with
misgiving, more to himself in a Æ surly manner than out loud with
authority.
Walt, who was one of
those who had
nothing to lose and no hope of gain, spat back, "Either will do."
Thus began a contest
between them,
for Walt came often with the Cornish poor, and as often as he came
he chided
Will for his monk's ways and made Will's work barren, so that he
wished for
some office other than that of almoner. He never knew whether Walt
would be
there or not, for Walt came and went as he wished and where he was
in between
times Will did not know. Walt was one of the great disinherited of
the earth,
belonging to no place or time, only to obsession and passion, so
that no one
could account for his coming and going. Heat made him appear, a
social seizure,
a fit of circumstance, and what took him away no one could say.
Walt had
neither property nor family, which root mankind in accountability.
Only the
winds of love and hate blew him about. But Walt was not an amoral
force, nor an
arbitrary one. He was a calculating one. Fierce winds blew him
about, but he
chose his direction, and when he blew Will's way he made his day
bitter. For
Will, who was not the man to rebuke another for heretical
thinking, combat
flared in him. He did not like the way Walt shoved his feelings
around and
treated himself to airs of spiritual superiority. Here was Will
rising at
midnight to pray for his soul and for the world, here he was
washing the feet
of an unknown man with such warts and cracks upon his skin as
would scare the
devil, and he felt no better than any man, not even much better
than the
heathen. So Walt had better not give him a faceful of holy looks.
"You are
speaking heresy," he said.
For Will, who was one of
the most
unselfish men of his day, could not shrug him away. When he sat in
the choir
box the next Sunday, on the Feast of Firstfruits, he heard from
the back of the
Priory Church Walt's wheezing laughter creeping about his Gospel
pages, curling
and snarling with as much lascivious snap as his wife's voice ever
had.
On this Sunday the
villagers joined
the priory church for Mass, for they came to give their tithe of
the
firstfruits, and Walt joined them in order to work his propaganda.
These people
were not the same as the very poor, who were migrants or miners or
disinherited
sons or freeborn laborers. These were the villagers, villeins who
had rented
land from the lord for centuries, some cotters who rented only the
roof over
their heads, the parish priest, Clooke, the blacksmith and
officiaries of the
village, the bailiff, the miller and the reeve, and sundry
servants and serfs
to the manor.
This harvest, the
villagers brought
their tithes more begrudgingly than usual, for a conflict was in
the air
between themselves and the miller. The conflict had been fanned by
a recent event
at St. Martin, a neighboring Premonstratensian monastery. By law,
the peasants
were required to use the lord's mill and oven. Lords, being what
they are even,
when they are a monastery, set the fees for these high and
millers, being what
they are, would cheat on the weight of the flour. Miller Mehler
cheated
fiercely and the villagers had taken to keeping secret handmills
under their
bedding or in the hay. Miller Mehler suspected this, for the
housewives were
baking more bread than the flour they brought to the lord's mill
could account
for. He made the matter known to Prior Godfrey, who gave orders to
search the
quarters of each villein.
This quarrel over the
right to
grind flour went on everywhere in England, for a mill concession
was a great
source of wealth. At the monastery of St. Martin, the matter had
worsened
rapidly because the villeins had longstanding grudges against the
abbot there.
One night, recently, there was an insurrection, and a group of
villeins
captured Abbot Denis and chained him to the altar and took the
flour from the
monastery larder and strewed it all over the floor. "Christ give
millers
and abbots and Jews a reckoning," they cried, swearing that the
work of
their hands was being ground in the mills and burned in the ovens
of their
lord.
Baron Roundsleigh
received immense
pleasure from this incident. His remarks were heard all over the
countryside.
He paid Bodmin Priory a visit the next day, taking his hunting
party across its
fields and grounds, and kicking down three tombstones in the
cemetery-
"Christ love villeins," he bellowed, and twirled his mace above
his
head. Abbot Denis took out a deposition against Bishop Roundsleigh
and swore he
had seen him lead the villeins. The matter came to the ear of
Bishop Grandisson
at his cathedral seat in Exeter. He had nothing to say in favor of
either Abbot
Denis or Bishop Roundsleigh, but wrote a sympathetic letter to the
abbot,
inquiring after his welts and bruises, and a diplomatic letter to
Bishop
Roundsleigh, reminding him that an attack upon an abbot was a
serious affair,
subverting the monastic structure everywhere.
The people of Cornwall,
villeins
and serfs though they were, were a prickly pack of people, apt to
flog a priest
if they were pushed too far. They were Christians in the same way
a man is a
Frenchman or a Scotsman, born to it but none think an accident of
birth gives a
government the right to cheat its citizens. There was a sort of
"treaty" between the villagers and their lord. That is to say, a
state of war existed between them, with each class covetous of its
rights and
liberties. A liberty" was not an inalienable right, but something
won with
struggle or bought with money: the "liberty" to trade or the
"liberty" to become a townsman. A liberty was a license" granted
by the authority when there was no precedent or custom to cover
the situation.
A "right" was different from a "liberty." A
"right" derived its validity from custom. The villeins had
sharpened
their wits on these rights, whether they involved a certain amount
of firewood
from the lord's forest or a certain amount of hay from his
pasture, an extra
bread or ale at Christmastime, they knew what these rights were
and could be
quarrelsome and surly, husbanding every inch of ground that was
won. They took
each other to court continually, fighting for a half acre of
arable land or
half a day's loan on an ox or a plough. To prove that a thing had
been done
before and was custom was the whole of the law. The past carried
legal weight,
and so the memories of the villeins were very sharp. Where a
boundary had been
fixed in 1249, there it would remain as long as heirs were alive
to testify to
it. Where a right had been granted that would allow a peasant to
pasture his
sheep with the lord's, his sheep could never be pushed out. Year
after year,
his three or five or eight sheep would ê run with the lord's
thousands, and if
the reeve had not a sharp eye to tell the difference, who else
would?
In the year of the great
storm,
when the roofs blew off the priory buildings, the prior was
pressed into
granting the villeins a half day less in the year to work the
priory grange
lands in return for helping him restore the roofs, and this
routine was
established from that time. So scheming and rude and unruly did
the peasants
appear to the barons and abbots, taking advantage of storms and
famines and
plagues, like the Jews using the misfortunes of others to better
their lot,
they would have agreed with Michelet's epithet: "The medieval
peasant
would have burst but for his hope in the devil."
Such as these came in
now from the
fields into Bodmin Priory church, with pitchfork and hoe in hand
to celebrate
the beginnings of the harvest with their tithe offerings. They
were barely, but
a little more restrained here than when they came into their
parish church in
the village, for the grandeur of the vaulted ceiling, the oak
floor, the nave
sixty feet in length and the new stained glass windows, inspired a
respect
which their square, stone church in the village did not. Moreover,
they didn't care
for Clooke their priest, and brought their pigs and goats to
church as much to
vex him as to trade. They came to hear Mass at the priory on the
special
occasions of sowing and harvesting when they needed more than
Clooke's prayers.
Clooke could say nothing but, "In nomine patris et filii et
spiritus
sancti." They did not believe his prayers were as effective as the
monks',
for they could see that the monks prospered very well while Clooke
was a
husbandman like themselves and prospered as well or as little as
they did.
Though they were more
respectful in
Bodmin Priory, they still left room for improvement to bring them
up to conduct
in a modern church. The air was filled with crying babies,
housewives shrieking
their hellos, men in leather trousers calling out a plough for
hire or a pig
for sale. Barter never stopped, for they could never cease to be
concerned
about it, seeing their livelihood depended upon it. Prior
Godfrey's kyrie
eleison was all but swallowed up in the gossip and cheer and
crying.
There was Adam, the
larderer,
taking account of the livestock gossip, and Peter the gardener
with his five
sons and their five wives and his twenty-three grandchildren.
There was the
cook whose shoulders were set above the heads of the others, and
his son with
his blind eyes and blackened face and Michael, Michael the
gatekeeper, sitting
upon his two stumps so that he could see over the heads of the
others, and
Rufus and Luke, and the breviator, and the loathesome miller and
his loathesome
wife and their loathesome children; and the widowed Moll and her
dim-witted
granddaughter, and the two widowed laundresses, Ruth and Agnes,
who had had a
dispute that morning and would not sit with each other, and the
unpopular reev e
and the neatherd and Joan, his ale-wife.
They were named for
their fathers,
like Robert Leboren, or named for a place like Wait of Landsend,
or named for
their jobs like Tyler and Straw, Baxter, Miller, Smith, Tailor,
and Cowper. And
some were named for places in the village or on the demesne, like
Richard
Furrough, Dick Assart and William Well, Dick Oake, Walter Woode
and Matthew
Meadowe, or named for the day of their birth, like Margery
Whitsun.
In the back were the
other poor who
came with a stray hound to hire for money, or their own backs and
hands in
exchange for some coins. There was great fuss and noise and
shoving about, for
it was the beginning of the corn harvest and the Feast of
Firstfruits, and the
villagers came with baskets of oats and barley to leave, willingly
or not.
One needed strength for
church in
those days, for the icy blasts of air that came in through the
great church doors
in the winter, and for the damp and the noise in the summertime,
the smell of
mold and bay leaves that made the nose itch so that the place was
filled with
coughs and sneezes and a shot of snot flung often enough through
the air, and
loves consummated behind the oak door as well as anywhere else by
pubescents
who made their own use of the hallowed ground in the summertime,
when heat
burned away the dread of the dead and the fear of damnation.
Confusion and riot,
merriment and
piety. Such hardworking people could not afford a sober sabbath.
Restraint
burst their leather breeches and the women's breasts popped
through, their
bodices gushing milk and winks. It was the coming together of it
all that
mattered: grace and nature, salvation and survival. To make up to
them for
their other misfortune, God gave them lust and anger and ferocious
laughter.
And who could say they did not have the better of it in that day,
thumping one
another on the head and shoulders instead of sitting in the choir
box with
Brother John and Brother Benedict, bodily exhaustion instead of
ennui, coarse
flesh instead of spirit, mutton instead of venison. Who's to say?
None anymore,
for in six months' time most were taken by the plague and the rest
ran away.
Brother Claude went to
hell gazing
upon buxom Bessie nursing her baby, and all his Latin came out
crooked. Will
saw Walt in the back row, his hot blue eyes shimmering down the
oaken walls and
the altar and squinting at the stained-glass windows. "That man is
my
enemy," Will thought, though why was hard to say, except that a
man becomes
an enemy out of winks and nods and gestures and a heap of
speculation. His
brain became heated with the smell and sight of the villagers and
homesickness
and memory of basil and ginger and his wife standing in the church
doorway with
the summer breeze bl owing her smock against her warm thighs.
Will sat in his spot in
the choir
stall, under the eastern window. The sun streamed through down the
oaken nave
and lit the spot where St. Petrock's bones rested in their ivory
coffer under
the choir floor, warming anciently beneath the geometric center
where the old
fashioned Norman tower crossed the stone pavement.
Up to the century
before, for three
hundred years, the bones had lain in the Lady Chapel and had been
a valuable
relic for pilgrims throughout England, for in the eleventh century
Bodmin was
the religious center of Cornwall. The bishops of Cornwall were
frequently
resident at Bodmin, which was the capital of their see, and
William Warlewast,
the nephew of William the Conqueror, was Bishop of Exeter. But one
day the
religious tide turned elsewhere, to Rouen and Compestelia, and
after the
Crusades, as far away as Jerusalem.
St Petrock's bones were
stolen, but
miraculously rediscovered at Barnstaple Mano —r. The relic was
secured again by
the monks of Bodmin and the prior, determined this should not
happen again, put
them in their ivory coffer and placed them beneath the choir
floor, where the
brethren and the prior could watch them almost all the time. It
was said that
when the prior had the floor's stones removed, the monks had found
scratched on
the foundation underneath an apocryphal message from the time when
the
monastery had first been found and hermits had sat like crabs upon
the holy
ground:
Master. "What is the
best and
worst thing, my son? And why do we keep the vow of silence?"
Novice: "Words, words
are the
best and worst thing. That is why we keep the vow of silence."
Week after week, Will
occupied the
same place in the choir box, during the Night Office and the daily
Masses,
gazing across the noses of Brother Namlis and Brother Walter to
St. Petrock's
place, sensing Brother Claude's dis ¹tracted eyes and Brother
Stephen's silent
admonishments, singling out Brother Benedict's Latin and Brother
Harald's crisp
pronunciation. Prayer and place and posture and hour were molded
together. By
such routine, some monks achieved peace, but others let their
thoughts wander,
some even raved with inward distress& and none could say why
an order so
long meditated upon and created in spirits longing for mankind's
good inspired
in Brothers Ralph and Thomas nothing better than the urge to wage
a secret duel
with their forefingers on the oak bench between them, jabbing in
the palm and
wrist, first one and then the other, mindful of Brother Bernard,
the hebdomadarian
of the week, now ascending the altar while Prior Godfrey rapped on
his stall
and gave the signal for Pater and Ave to begin. Brother Anthony
was already on
the altar, in preparation for reading the gospel portion. He fixed
his yellow
eyes on Brother Ralph and Brother Thomas an d transmitted his
message of
disapproval. But Brother Ralph was too old an habitue of the
monastery to care,
and Brother Thomas was too absorbed in the duel to notice. Patches
of red
flamed on his cheeks as he slashed Brother Ralph's skin between
his forefinger
and ringfinger. "Oi have you," he said as low as he could, but was
heard by everyone. Brother Harald set his teeth on edge and raised
his prayer
book in front of his face.
Pater noster, qui est in
caelis,
Sanctificetur nomen tuum;
Adveniat regnum tuum;
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
Brother Namlis pretended
to speech
and opposite him, Brother Thomas became quite Scotslike as he
recited, and all
his Latin accents fell out of place. Brother Claude's ear for
language had long
been destroyed by the sounds of war and shouting. All his
consonants clumped
about, while Brother Benedict held each vowel a second longer than
the rest.
Prior Godfrey made his
way through
the shaft of sunlight æto the altar steps. He was small, but
appropriately
rotund. Vested in robes, a different stride carried him down the
aisle from
that of the administrator who made his rounds with St. George
tinkling on his
wrist, but as Trevelyan observed of the medieval bishop,
"'Respectability
compassed them about." Prior Godfrey believed in the resurrection
and
salvation, and that it was incumbent upon him to pray for the
souls of others,
but most of all he respected order and fitness and his office was
the texture
of his religious personality, coexistent with his administrative
duties as a
landlord to care for Christ's house, to keep his books in order,
to till
Christ's soil, to mind Christ's property, for monastic land was
sacred. Prior
Godfrey cared for the afterworld and he cared for this world. He
wrote reports
on the state of the crops, on yield from Bodmin land, purchases of
further
land, employment of serfs and lay brethren to work the land,
manumission of
serfs, crop yield, percentage õ of food taken or stolen by the lay
brethren, doves,
pigeons and falcons poached, sheep bought and wool sold, the tithe
given to the
priory, profit on the crops from land lent to villagers; interest
raised on
land lent to villagers; purchases of buildings in the village, the
cost of
caring for the lepers, the taxes raised to contribute to the
papacy or the
king, the purchases of relics, hay, tallow; the expense of food
given to
Michael the gate keeper, Adam the larderer, the cook and the
cook's' s son who
ate on the grounds; expenses laid out for repair of walls and
buildings; monies
raised from rates on crops borrowed by the villagers; monies laid
out in robes
and blankets, books and guests; taxes collected in heriot from the
death of a
villager; monies laid out for the burial of a brethren; monies
laid out in
gifts to other abbots; the cost of hospitality to a visiting
bishop; the
transfer of serfs from Bodmin land, the purchase of other serfs,
taxes
collected from the marriages of two daughters of peasants.
Prior Godfrey did not
require
religious passion to feel religious reality. His society spoke its
language for
him, like a pledge of allegiance: "In the name of the Father, the
Son and
the Holy Ghost." And wise men before him had created the other
language
necessary to transcend its earthly media. The attitudes of the
soul, even
contrition, remorse, and repentance, have a history. Ancient
Manasseh prayed:
Thou, o Lord, according
to Thy
great goodness
Has promised repentance and forgiveness to those
Who have sinned against Thee:
And in the multitude of Thy mercies
Thou hast appointed repentance for sinners that they may be saved
The psalmist's cry
hovers with the
eagles. Down below the priest weeps for his people
Kyrie eleison
Kyrie eleison
Cleanse my heart and my
lips,
almighty God,
Who didst cleanse the lips of the prophet Isaiah with a live coal
Kyrie eleison
Kyrie eleison
For Thou, o Lord, God of
the
righteous,
Has not appointed repentance for the righteous,
For Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
Who did not sin against Thee;
But has appointed repentance for the unrighteous
Kyrie eleison
Kyrie eleison
How well I have loved
Thy house in
its beauty,
The place where Thy glory dwells;
Lord, never count this soul for lost with the wicked,
This life among the bloodthirsty.
Unworthy as I am, Thou wilt save me in
Thy
Great
Mercy
Kyrie eleison
Kyrie eleison
Will's eyes drifted from
his prayer
book to the faces of his brethren: Brother York, Brother Exeter,
Brother
Glastonbury, Brother Lindisfarne, Brother Canterbury, Brother
Lincoln, Brother
Norwich, Brother Peterboro, Brother Bly, Brother Coventry, Brother
Leominster,
Brother Bodmin. "What readst thou upon these faces, Will, for I
see that
thy eyes are not moving. Eyes that read, move, Brother William."
Will's
eyes blinkered at Walt and floated back to his page with a
telepathic message
of resistance.
Holy Father, Everlasting
God,
Accept this unblemished offering
I, unworthy servant, make to Thee,
My living and true God,
For my countless sins, offenses and neglects,
And on behalf of all who are present here;
And for all believing Christians, living and dead.
Accept it for their good and mine,
May it save us and bring us to everlasting life
The eagle mounts the air
and cries
with the priest. We have pinned a message beneath the eagle's
wing:
Hurry, God, hurry,
Destruction is all about
Now as ever the lions roar
Terror is in the winds;
Hurry, God, hurry;
Make haste, Deliverer,
Warrior, king, creator and judge,
Haste, haste, o Lord, haste;
Our night of terror is coming
As in the past so tomorrow,
World without end
We praise Thee
We bless Thee
We adore Thee
We glorify Thee
Father of Mercies
Have mercy
have mercy
have mercy,
and make haste
Prior Godfrey crossed
himself and
bowed to the altar md bowed to the Majestas and magisterially,
even he, struck
his breast three times and confessed his failings, md chanted in
response with
Brother Bernard: "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the
Holy
Ghost." And he lifted the host and the chalice, cognizant that
even he, of
the union of history with ceremony, vested in robes for the
ecclesiastical
moment, in the dalmatia and the chasuble worn sixteen centuries
before by the
Jewish ephod as he led away the goat selected to redeem man:
"May the gift of the moment become for us an everlasting remedy."
Inadequate goat!
Inadequate man!
Inadequate priest!
The psalmist's cry
hovers in the
air with the eagle. The smell of death hovers in the August air.
The eagle's
eye is hot and waxy.
"As it was in the
beginning,
is now, and ever shall be, world without end." Brother Bernard
chanted,
and the brethren sang amen.
The shaft of sunlight
came in
through the eastern window, over the altar, over the raised host,
over the
sanctified stones. Prior Godfrey received the response and the
language of
pleading as his birthright, and grasped in his inadequate mouth an
inheritance
of spirit
The villagers spilled
out the doors
on to the Galilee Porch. The sky had become overcast. They left
their offers of
wheat and barley and beans and apples. The poorer poor stood in a
tight circle
and watched the coffers fill up. They bartered vociferously, their
working time
for an article of clothing, a tool for some gleanings from a
field. Robert
Leboren, the cotter, stood with these poor and tried to trade his
labor for
some coins.
No matter what their
vitality, the
got nothing or very little, for every man who worked above the
ground knew that
he who worked below had nothing to give when the land was worn
out. Still the
poorer poor pressed and shrieked like diseased hawks, until the
village poor tired
of them and went away.
Walt went with the
villagers, to
plead with them outside the priory walls, to berate them for
ignoring the other
poor. He ran among them like a sheepdog with a leather pouch h
²anging by his
side, with his Gospel in it.
"Brethren, I call you
brethren, for never was Jesus a monk and all the poor were his
brethren. It is
not fit that you leave your food for the monks to eat when
their tongues these poor stand by your side with eyes in and
hunger in their
eyes. You leave your food to - feed the fat sheep while the lean
sheep starve
by your side."
He ran among them with
arguments
and pricks of conscience until Richard Furrough's wife pulled up
short and gave
him back:
"Hold your tongue. I
will
leave my food where I will. You know we leave our food for the
monks for the
law says we must and the monks will pray for our souls."
Walt shrieked back at
her,
"Have you never heard that God needs not your sacrifices. Have you
never
heard the prophet say that all the Lord wishes of you is to love
Him and to
help the poor and that that is the whole of it."
"Nay, I never heard
that," the housewife said. "I tell
you what I have heard, Walt. I have heard it said that if
do not do my
duty by Christ my soul will burn in hell for eternity, and I tell
you that is
too long for me to burn."
"She cares not to burn
even
for one night," her husband said.
That sat well with them,
for they
resented being bullied by Walt for what they saw as common sense.
They resented
the tithe, but unless famine or desperation caught them, they did
not care to
clash with the authorities. As long as they had their margin for
survival, they
sought no conflict with the powers. When the yoke was easy, when
the sheep
dropped well and the cows calved safely, candles and masses and
chants were
well enough left alone. But in a bad year, ten percent a poor
harvest could
bring a villein's family to starvation. So one year they minded
less, and one
year grumbled more and passed such wicked sayings as, "What the
prior's
doves leave, the bishop's sheep t ²ake," or "Between the dove of
peace and the gentle lamb, a man need not die to go to hell," but
neither
the church nor the king listened to the grumbling, nor knew the
difference from
one year to the next.
Nor did Walt disapprove
of the
tithe and the church's due. He disapproved that the monies
collected went to
support buildings and landholdings, wars, and travel. "What the
profit of
a golden altar and a gilded text when the people lack food for
their
bellies."
There have always been a
few such
voices. They create a ripple of conscience in their time, but
their influence
is short lived. History is too much a matter of -pomp and
circumstance. Where
there is much gold, there is much influence, and that is where
history is made.
Where there is a great civilization there is much taxation, for a
great
civilization, even when dedicated to salvation and to saving the
world, is an
expensive item.
How fared the Church as
a landlord?
This was the tax system:
There were
three tithes on the peasant: the great tithes of crops and cattle,
a tenth of
this yield: the increase of his cattle, the produce from his
garden, and a
tenth of his wages paid in coin, if he were a laborer. In Bodmin,
this tithe
went to the parish church, while the tithe of the firstfruits went
to the
priory. But the village priest, Clooke, got little profit from
this tithe, for
he himself had to pay a tithe and taxes to Bodmin Priory, for the
land he
farmed, as well as pay taxes to the church in Rome. As with the
other villages,
he paid a land tax to the priory, which was his legal landlord.
In practice, the peasant
owned the
land, but the lord owned it in fact and in legal theory. When the
peasant died,
his land reverted to the lord. To inherit it back, the peasant's
heirs had to
buy it back. A peasant's family might work a piece of land for
centuries and
not own it, as the Abbot of Burton told his protesting serfs that
they owned
nothing but their bellies, and so curious is history that an
inventory of a
peasant's holding in 1293 shows his possessions to have been a
bolster, a rug,
two sheets, a brass dish, a trivet, and his belly. Except for the
ruling
classes, taxes were an implacable condition, and the ruling
classes seemed
always to be in need of huge sums. No matter how broadly based the
tax system
was, there was never enough money. There were taxes such as the
merchet, which
was a tax to be paid if a daughter married into another manor, for
it was
argued that her husband's work was lost to the manor on which she
had been
raised, since she went to live on his manor. There were taxes on
roads, on
rivers, on bridges and harbors, on gates and entrances and exits.
Whoever owned
the land where the tolls were, church or king's vassal, collected
the tax.
There were taxes to be paid for burials, weddings, communications,
and there
was tallage, the most hated tax of all levied on serf and Jew, for
special
occasions when the ruling classes were more in need of money than
usual, for
state occasions, coronations, and royal weddings.
Cheating was
immeasurable. How was
anyone to know if the peasant gave his tithe truthfully? Who could
count the
eggs his chicken laid, or how many beans he had harvested that
year? Though he
feared hell, the peasant cheated. He cheated the miller and he
cheated his
lord. The Church feared for his soul, and a system of taxation
arose to ensure
the peasant's passage into heaven. This was the heriot, the second
most hated
tax. When the peasant died, it gave the lord of the manor the
right to the
peasant's best beast, and often his best cloak or brass dish. The
mortuary gave
the village priest the right to the peasant's second-best beast,
which often
left the peasant family without an animal to pull its plough, or a
cow or goat
to milk. Dying was dangerous.
Like Walt, there were
other
protesting voices, on rare occasion among the lords themselves. It
is told how
St. Hugh of Lincoln's steward went to claim the ox from a recently
widowed
woman. She went to the bishop and beseeched him to restore her ox,
for she had
no way to care for her orphaned family. He granted her request,
but his
steward, taken aback by this, reminded the bishop at if he was
tempted by
charity of this sort, he would soon not be able to hold on to his
land.
There are names and
deeds and
anecdotes, usually noted in the margins of history, incidents in
the flux,
which leap from the pages as a cry against the times. It is said
that the
Bishop of Lincoln leaped from his horse to the mud and filled his
hands with
clumps of earth, and cried to his steward, "This, this is the way
I hold
my land."
How fared the Church as
a landlord?
In the year that the
plague came to
England, one Giovanni de Mussi wrote in the Chronicle of Piacenza:
"It is
now more than a thousand years since these territories and cities
have been
given to the priests and ever since then the most violent wars
have been waged
on their account, and yet the priests neither now possess them in
peace, nor
will ever be able to possess them. It were in truth better before
the eyes of
God and the world that these pastors should entirely renounce the
dominium
temporale: for since Sylvester's time the consequences of the
temporal power
have been innumerable wars and the overthrow of people and cities.
How is it
possible that there has never been any good pope to remedy such
evils and that
so many wars have been waged for these transient possessions?
Truly we cannot
serve God and Mammon at the same time, cannot stan ªd with one
foot in Heaven
and the other on Earth."
There were court fines
and fees and
taxes to be paid to be released from vows, for sins, for penance,
and there
were foreign taxes called Peter's Pence that went to Italy; and
taxes Bodmin
Priory paid to the papacy and to the king, but tallage was the
most hated tax
of all because it was the sign of the serf's condition. All the
other taxes,
hard as they were, were rooted in the legal stem and tradition,
but tallage was
arbitrary. It could fall on Jew and serf at any time or whim.
Tradition gave
the peasant a sense of security in the system; tallage took it
away. The serf
could, if he managed to save some money, buy his way out of his
condition, but
since he had no land or status to barter with, money was the coin
of his
salvation.
It was not only the rich
churchlords who milked the sheep, but the parish priests as well.
Our favorite
good man, Bishop Grandisson, complained of such as Clooke:
"Such men do more than
suck
the milk and clip the fleece of Christ's sheep and carry the
spoils away. For I
believe that, in all this man's time, he hath not fed a single
poor person in
his parish from his tithes, nor intoned a single anthem in his
church, nor once
worn the clerical habit, nor restored the ruined parsonage, nor
ever vouchsafed
to see my face, his overlord and pastor, unworthy though I be.
Wherefore I do
as best I can after God's pleasure; the rest, which I cannot do by
reason of
those who uphold such folk I commit to God, and lay the burden on
your
consciences."
"Fearest thou not hell?"
Clooke jeered at Walt.
Now Clooke was an
inbetwixt,
scarecrow sort of man, with a head of hay for hair, put where he
was by Bishop
Roundsleigh who had bought the incumbency for him, in return for
which Clooke
said Mass in the bishop's own chapel, when called upon to do such
service. Then
he was given a meal to eat with a cloth upon the table. He
exhorted the
villagers to remember the bishop's dead and burned candles and
said Mass for
them and grieved for the bishop's son.
Clooke had been one
cause of
contention between Prior Godfrey and Bishop Roundsleigh, for
Bodmin Priory
owned the manor and claimed the right to appoint the parish priest
on its own
lands, but Baron Roundsleigh said that Augustinians could not
appoint a parish
priest because Bodmin Priory had first been Benedictine, and it
was the custom
for the Benedictines to appoint the parish priest. Thus the
village had been
without a parish priest for several years, while letters went back
and forth to
the papacy. Prior Godfrey cared not a whit who the village priest
was, but he
knew that Baron Roundsleigh had designs on Bodmin Manor. He
claimed title to it
through William Warlewart, his ancestor, who had come with William
the
Conqueror, while Prior Godfrey claimed the land belonged to the
priory by right
of a deed given by the hermit Geron to St. Petrock, who had
fortunately laid
Its bones down on the manor before William the Conqueror had been
born.
Walt hated Clooke worse
than he did
the monks. "Hell!" he jeered at him, "I tell you what, I fear
you more than the devil."
"You will have a short
life of
it," the tiler said to Walt, more as a warning than as censure.
"You should content
yourself
with Christ's mercy," Clooke said, but with little vigor, for he
was in
terror of Walt. The sight of Clooke in a good leather jacket and a
gold
crucifix on his belt put ashes in Walt's mouth. Better a
straightforward
upsidedown hypocritical monk than a priest who knew only two lines
of Latin to
save his neck with. "Mercy," he screeched at him. "Mercy, he
bellowed. "Mercy," he laughed contemptuously. "We need not
mercy, for we are hardy enough to do our own work. Give us justice
and mercy
will follow fast. justice, justice, thou shall follow, as the
prophet said,
just laws and, just taxes, and we need not mercy." He spat upon
the
ground. "What has a laboring man to do with mercy when he must
first seek
justice."
The villagers had heard
it all
before. They did not question the truth of it, for they could see
well enough
for themselves what their humanity deserved. Up and down the
countryside the
jingle was: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the
gentleman?" The truth was the truth of a fairytale: the heart
responded,
but there seemed to be no scheme in reality which did.
The sky was overcast. A
wet, chill
wind was blowing. The villagers were getting hungry. Moll, the
laundress, stood
behind her dim-witted granddaughter, and clicked her broken teeth
at Walt. What
had Moll to do with Walt's sermons? Her husband had died and had
left her
plough, an ox, two sheep, and some chickens. The church had taken
her ox, and
her plough was no good to her without it. She had sold her strip
of land and
her plough to her son in return for his guarantee that he would
feed her two
meals a day for the rest of her life. A short time later he caught
the pox and
died -and his wife ran off to London, leaving an infant in her
care. The sheep
had long been slaughtered for food. The chickens were pampered in
every way,
but aged and died just the same. She shared her room with her
granddaughter and
gathered firewood for others in return for food and slept on hay.
The room had
no chimney, as was the case with all the village houses, and their
faces were
black from smoke, like a coalminer's, and their lungs just as bad.
Moll's
husband had been a villein, but Moll was now a cotter, and like
Robert Leboren
owned only the roof over her head. Robert Leboren's family had
held the rank of
freeborn for three generations and though free, he was poorer than
the serfs or
villeins in Bodmin Village. The villeins envied him his freedom,
but they did
not respect him. Like the lords, they too respected land. Some of
them
"owned" a good deal of land, though ownership was provisional, for
in
medieval legal theory only the king and the church could own land,
and they
were bitter rivals for it. But a de facto ownership was recognized
among the
villeins, and respect was given accordingly to those who owned
more of it or,
more to the point, had more acres to work. The villeins might have
common
hatreds, but they still had contempt for the poor among them. It
was this
disunity among the disinherited that aroused Walt's fury more than
the facile
piety of the monks. Like the prophets, he flogged his own beasts
worst for
their failings. He almost spit straight into Moll's face, who
stood behind her
granddaughter, her hands on her shoulders, the both of them stumpy
and lumpy,
with broken teeth. "But, say, Wait," she said, "say in truth,
fear you not hell?"
"I fear this hell," he
screeched at her. "I fear that sin that will took upon a starving
man and
not give him a morsel to eat. You know right well who our poor
are, Cornish
people as yourself, but you turn your backs upon them, even as the
priests and
the bishops do, for they feed them not enough to keep skin upon
them. You are
worse than the monks, and you will go to hell with them and burn
right
alongside."
"Aye, " Moll said, for
she hated to be reminded of poverty or of hell. There was not a
person there
who had not known hunger, for in every generation there had been a
famine.
"We be not hard people, but we be afraid for our bodies and our
souls, and
we fear hell more than you."
"Aye," Tyler said, for
she summed up the argument for them. Words were wind, hunger was
real. He
turned away. The rest followed, and Walt was left standing alone
in the dusty lane.
Moll's argument affected
Walt, for
he believed in the afterworld, in heaven and hell and purgatory.
Though he
jeered and snarled and spoke coarsely, he also prayed to be saved
and worried
about the condition of his eternal soul and that he risked it for
ingrates, who
"knew not where and what salvation was." He sensed the
cosmological
split, and it tore him because he could not heal it. It worried
him that he had
no answer, and he was inclined to accept his damnation. Skinny,
unshaven,
uncouth, dirty, he stood up like Job. "But this I do in thy name,"
he
said to Christ, "and if you slay me, slay me.
He disappeared the month
of August,
and Will hoped that he had taken flight for good, though he did
not think it
likely. Moreover, Wait occupied his thoughts: how he happened to
be among these
poor, what his business was, what his aims. Though he counted him
for an enemy,
he was curious about him and he asked the gatekeeper, Michael,
questions time and
again, but Michael was not given to speculations about anything.
Michael viewed
the world as a horse with blinkers do; looking straight on the
road.
"He be Walt of
Landsend,"
he said.
"I know that," Will said
impatiently, "but what does he here?"
Michael thought that was
a peculiar
question and no way a man could answer it.
The poor seemed not to
miss Walt
when he was gone, nor to take notice when he was with them. As
with Michael, to
them he was Walt of Landsend, and that seemed enough. They
continued to come
regularly Thursdays and Sundays. Sometimes ten, sometimes thirty,
and why there
should be more or less of them from time to time, was equally
mysterious. Some
that came more regularly than others, Will began to know and to
talk with.
There was one, a long strapping man with a blackened face from
chimney smoke.
He brought with him his three daughters who ate while he watched.
One day Will asked him
why he did
not eat too.
"Did you ever think,
man, that
if such a big one as myself had his full there would be no food
left."
"Then what do you live
on?" Will asked aggressively.
"You have come
recently?"
the man asked.
"Aye."
"What were you before?"
"A Yorkman and a
villein,
sometimes a preacher as well. I have a bit of learning and have
wrote a
book."
"Hast thou?"
"Aye."
'What be it about?"
But Will had lost his
desire to
speak about his former life. "It be about God's people, as you and
I," he said shortly, and began to turn away. The man caught him by
his
sleeve. "You look to me like a good soul," he said, 'art thou a
good
soul?"
"I cannot answer you as
you
might like, but I believe as God gave me life and as I live yet to
see my sweet
sheep dog, I believe that my soul means you well."
"I thank you for that. I
believe you do mean me well, as Christ means me well. Did he not
teach us to
regard the lilies of the fields, and that God made the heavens and
all the fowl,
and the vines for all mankind."
Will was taken aback.
The argument
was proper and cunning, and Will knew who had taught the man those
words.
Still, he asked, "Who taught you to speak like that?"
"You know right well,"
the man said, and began himself to move away.
This man, called Robert
Le Boren or
Robert Lebom or Leboume, was free born and a cotter, which is to
say that he
owned a one room house, its walls and a spade. He had no plough or
beast and
sold his labor for coin or food. Sometimes he helped at mowing or
shearing time
In return for a round of cheese. He had learned to read and had
read the Bible
because he thought it would give him power over affairs.
Will did not see Walt
for many
weeks, and the summer -came to an end. The records agree that the
weather in
Cornwall for the year, 1348, was unusually windy and wet: in
short, dank. Omens
and rumors and birds and oppressive thoughts circulated in the
chill. Pilgrims
came with bad news from Europe, and everyone waited for the worst
to happen,
not knowing what else to do.
Throughout history,
chroniclers
have noted that plagues are presaged by abnormal weather
conditions. Some
students of the subject scoff at the idea of a connection between
the movements
of the microscopic world and the atmosphere. Others, equally
eminent, believe
there is a relationship among all phenomena: falling pressure
which stirs
bacterial activity; heavy wetness which covers the earth like a
mildewed
blanket and influences the microscopic life beneath the soil,
beneath the
stumps of trees and bushes, and leaves fleas and mold clinging to
the wool of
sheep and in the tails of cows --- and pushes the microscopic-
world to heave
and set forth on an imperceptible migration around the world, from
nation to
nation. In 1346, just such an intensity of atmospheric activity
was reported
everywhere, from China to Scotland: meteors, floods, earthquakes.
Western man,
heir to the Bible, compared the coming catastrophe to Noah's
flood. It was the
only metaphor he could avail himself of for a tragedy of such
dimensions. The
chronicles of the times are filled with references to the Deluge.
The Black
Death, when it came, exceeded the limits of human knowledge. It
exceeded the
limits of faith. It only did not exceed the capacity of humankind
to endure, and
the children of Noah, set adrift on a flaming land, clung to God's
promise not
to destroy them utterly.
The news that the plague
was in
England arrived inauspiciously at the end of September. A beadle
came on
horseback to say that two monks were dead of it in Somerset.
"I trust you came not
from
there yourself," Prior Godfrey said snappishly, and did not offer
the man
so much as a glass of ale to detain him.
Little was done in the
way of
taking measures. Brother Anthony continued to say the psalms and
the Gospels
without perceptible difference, neither faster nor slower nor more
volubly.
Brothers Ralph and Walter looked penitent, but soon went back to
dicing
devoutly. Brother Benedict received the news as a sign of God's
chastisement.
Brother Thomas had a very bad dream that night. He woke between
Lauds and Prime
and walked around in circles, making a petition against the devil.
But it was
Brother Claude who suffered the most, he who had been whacked from
his horse
with the weight of a hundred-pound sword, he succumbed to terror.
There was
nothing left to his face but bloodshot eyes and grizzled cheeks.
He did not
fear to die in battle, but to die of plague against which no suit
of armor
could prevail, sucked the marrow from his bones, for a man may
fear a type of
death more than death itself. Will himself tried to think more
kindly thoughts
of his brethren, to be more tolerant of Brother Stephen and
Brother Thomas's
calling out at night.
But as no other deaths
were
reported, the sense of terror was soon dulled, and habit and daily
routine
reasserted themselves. Will found Brother Harald more of a
nuisance than rumors
of evil.
One day Brother Harald
asked Will
how he, a married man, came to give up his wife and become a monk.
'It is a long tale,"
Will said
shortly.
Brother Harald had an
equally long
nose for suspicion. Was she a fornicator?" he asked, without ado.
Will was not a man who
could lie
outright, but he did not feel obliged to tell Brother Harald the
truth.
"In a way of speaking," he said.
"What means that?"
"It means she fornicated
with
her soul."
Brother Harald knew the
answer was
an evasion. He was curious, but he did not press further.
Great flocks of birds
flew through
the wet skies and unpleasant moldy odors rose from the earth. Will
continued
his duty as the almoner, but he felt less and less suited for the
task as he
sensed the distance between principle and practice. The poor were
Christ's
patrimony, but Will felt a growing disassociation from them with
passing week
and wondered if he were being afflicted with hardness of heart.
He did other jobs around
the
monastery. He cleaned the columbarium for Prior Godfrey, tended
his private
garden and helped Brother Anthony in the cemetery. Some of the
inscriptions
were in Latin, some in Norman French. Some of the crosses looked
strange to
Will and he wondered if these were Christian dead that lay beneath
them.
Brother Anthony never spoke, and Will could not ask him. Brother
Anthony
squatted among the tombstones on his spidery legs, plucked the
weeds, and
recited the psalms between his teeth.
In the middle of the
month, two
pilgrims from Santiago de Compostola asked for hospitality. Prior
Godfrey did
not think it wise to entertain strangers, seeing how grave the
times were, but
it also was unseemly to set aside the rules, though these two
pilgrims
unspiritual looking a pair as he had were as seen, decorated with
shells from
the Sinai, crosses from Bethlehem and keys from Rome, with skinny,
dirty calves
and uncombed hair. One might suspect them of a thousand kinds of
misdemeanors.
The thinner one swung Ids shells with a jaunty manner, and the
broader one
carried his staff like a mace. They might have turned up in
Provence as
jugglers or drifters without homes or destinies, the sort of
people who make up
a portion of the world's population at any time. Settled society
and they have
instant disrespect for each other. As marginal people, they
develop qualities
of de ference and watchfulness, and pay their way by amusing
others.
They came into the
Chapter Room,
after the evening meal. Brothers Anthony and Stephen retired, as
they always
did when company came and the privilege of conversation was given,
for they did
not think the world had anything to tell them. Brother John felt
it respectful
to keep quiet, and Brother Namlis had no choice. The rest were
eager to speak
and to hear, for even in a monastery curiosity about the world is
hard to
forgo.
One question was
uppermost: how
does the plague? The pilgrims had been to Jerusalem and through
the Crimea, had
crossed the Pyrenees and had been to Spain. How was it in the
world with the
plague?
"It spreads and
spreads,"
the first pilgrim said. "You is fortunate here in Bodmin."
"Aye" Prior Godfrey
said,
who believed that was true in all ways, "for it is not likely that
the
plague will cross the channel."
"It goes where it
likes,"
the pilgrim said, wondering at this prior's confidence. "We have
met with
such as have told us that in China and Tibet the plague has been."
Though
the news was dire, he gave it with gusto, for to be news-less was
a state worse
than the plague.
'How does the plague in
France?" Brother Bernard asked.
"They say not half the
people
stand upon their feet in three months time. It has come to Paris
and all who
can have fled and all who have not fled are dead, or have been
burned by the
people."
"Men are given to much
exaggeration," Brother Benedict said haughtily through his pain.
"Plagues have been and plagues will be."
"No doubt," the pilgrim
said, falling back upon the policy of agreeableness. Cautiously,
he tried
another tack: "Some say it is the time of the antiChrist."
"No doubt it is," Prior
Godfrey concurred, for how else explain the ignobility of the pope
in Avignon,
who opposed the policies of Edward III.
This pilgrim, seeing how
matters
stood with Prior Godfrey, told how Clement had come to the aid of
the Jews and
the second pilgrim added to the fire: "Have you not heard of the
bands of
men that roam about the cities, disrobing in public and whipping
one another
and crying and praying?"
The first pilgrim added
what he
knew of this. "These say that as man sins by himself he can punish
himself," at which Prior Godfrey exploded, "Sayest thou!"
"Not I," the pilgrim
said
quickly, "I know that Christ alone binds and looses, judges and
punishes,
but these brethren say," he said cautiously, "that each man has
the
care of his own soul and so may do with it as he wishes and they
whip one
another right sturdily for this thought.
"None can whip them
harder," the other pilgrim laughed.
"And where they go," the
pilgrim continued, seeing he had their attention fixed, "there the
people
fall upon the Jew; for they are so stirred up by the talk of these
who march
without their clothes though the pope has said the people might
not kill the
Jews they kill them right well for they would rather listen to
these
others."
Prior Godfrey was
disgusted, but
not surprised. Anything was possible with Frenchmen and Italians.
"What might be the good
of
it?" Will asked.
"It amazes that they are
given
liberty to preach," Brother Benedict said.
"Nay," the thin pilgrim
said, "everywhere they are chased and none in authority give them
liberty,
but their numbers swell. We met a pilgrim who had come from Paris
and he said
that not one less than ten thousand gathered before Notre Dame one
Sunday and
those that watched on were glad for them though afraid to join. It
is because
they say the Church cannot stop the plague and never has there
been such talk
of heresy."
The brethren were amazed
to hear
this.
"Many there are," the
thin pilgrim went on, "who join these flagellants as they be
called, in
penance and prayer, knowing not what else to do, for they say the
Church and
the doctors alike have failed them."
"In Paris anything is
possible," Prior Godfrey said.
The pilgrim was
impressed by the
effect of his speech.
"The priests have
refused to
give the rites to those that die of the plague, and the pope has
declared that
if we die without the rites it will not bar us from heaven. Seeing
how he has
now declared this, men now say' the rites are nought and it
matters not one way
or the other. In all the cities fires have been set to drive away
the plague
but it abates not and the people stay in church all day and pray
and it abates
not. Nought abates it, though the people whip one another and pray
all day and
weep upon their knees."
Prior Godfrey believed
the problem
was the French. Brother Claude glared balefully at Prior Godfrey,
but Prior
Godfrey believed that such acts were as unenglish as Brother
Claude was. Europe
was to him what the city is to the confirmed countryman. Not one
street lay
straight with another and none of the signs were useful. Their
cathedrals
looked sinister and their climate bred diseases. It had no brace.
It vexed him
that so many of Bodmin's brethren were from Europe. It gave his
priory
unfamiliar mannerisms as well as unfamiliar speech. He 'could not
remember to
have heard Brother Anthony's natural voice, and he often felt not
at home in
his own priory on his own land. Oh, Brother Benedict! May thy
cancer swiftly
take thee and bring Prior Godfrey an Englishman in thy place.
"What be the talk in
Spain?" Brother Harald asked calmly, seeing they had come most
recently
from there. The question brought a light of amusement to faces.
"In Spain they read the
book
of Juan Ruiz and say the priests may copulate as good as any man,
and some say
even better."
Prior Godfrey paled, but
responded
sturdily, "I doubt it not, seeing how they live among the Jews and
Moors."
'Aye," the first pilgrim
said,
"but they war against the Moors and will not marry with them. The
plague
has come to their aid, for it do drive the sheep southward through
the Moors'
pastureland and bless me if the Christian sheep do not drive the
Arab horse
from his own home.
"Some good there is
then," Prior Godfrey said, "but I have heard that the wool of this
benemerino sheep is now to be found in the markets more than
English wool. It
is a wind that blows both good and bad."
"As winds be," the
second
pilgrim said, "for the plague drives the price of wool up
everywhere and
whether this wind be good or bad is a matter of whether you run
with the wind
or against it."
"If the sheep do not
sicken
and the wool be gathered it will be good for them that gathers
it," the
first pilgrim said.
"There is talk that two
Jews
in Basel confessed to spreading the plague," Brother Harald said.
"Aye," the bigger
pilgrim
said, "put to rack and told how they did spread it through the
wells and
signed the confession which was known everywhere within the day."
The thinner pilgrim
added to this.
"In every city good Christian folk have taken arms against them
for their
wicked deeds."
"And the Jews?" Will
asked, "what say they?"
The pilgrims laughed.
"Why,
good brothers, what matters? They deny it and bite one another
with
confusion."
"So let it end here,"
Prior Godfrey said. "England is safe, for there has been scarcely
but a
case in Somerset. And if there be no Jews the plague will not
spread."
"Aye," the second
pilgrim
said, and winked compliance, "good it is to be on English ground
again."
That was the proper note
on which
to end their talk. "Their souls were satisfied. They had shared
their
experience of the world with the brethren, and when Brother Ralph,
who was
going to Noir-on-the Coast in the morning to do the marketing,
invited them to
journey, along, they accepted the invitation with alacrity. It was
more good
fortune than they could have hoped for and Brother Ralph, who was
to be
accompanied by Brother Namlis, was exuberant at the thought of
more gossip They
bid each other good night in high spirits in spite of the fact
that they had
spent the evening exchanging somber news.
Maream, the horse, was
taken from
the stable and hitched to the wagon, f or she knew the road to
'Noir-on-the-Coast
better than the other horses at the priory. She had been pulling
Brother Ralph
there for seven years, as well as running other errands for the
brethren. She
was a great favorite at the priory, reliable and rarely balky,
always happy for
an outing in the countryside. The old almoner who had died had put
a bell on
her forehead and the sound accompanied her wherever she went. When
Michael the
gatekeeper hitched her to the wagon in the morning, she stomped
and steamed
with anticipation, while Brother Ralph and Brother Namlis climbed
into the
front of the wagon and two pilgrims climbed aboard in the back.
Brother Ralph
and Brother Namlis would be gone three days, a day to go to
Noir-on-the Coast,
known at that time as Newool-on-the-Lerin, a day to do the
marketing and a day
to return. Brother Ralph was supposed to mind his vows of silence
outside the
monastery walls, but he Amended them no more than inside. Nor did
he think of
the outside world as corrupt anymore than a housewife does when
she steps
outside her home and goes to market. Bodmin Priory was his home.
He was happy
when traders and villagers regarded his status as special, but not
surprised if
he met with the other kind. Sour faced buffoons! As long as they
did not
threaten him he was content. One could pass through places where
the villeins
threw sheepdung and bees nests at the monks.
In all things, even in
matters of
the spiritual life there is an ebb and tide. The 14th century was
not as high
in spirituality as the 12th had been, but it was not as low as the
10th. It
kept a middling course in matters of corruption. It was not the
sinfulness of
the monks that was resented, for medieval man understood sin as
well as anyone
else; it was their seeming uselessness which the peasant did not
understand.
Serfs and villeins were in the fields, scything the hay for Bodmin
Priory and
they did not look up to greet the wagon as it Ú went by.
"Surly peasants,"
Brother
Ralph thought, but a holiday soon erases anxiety. It is a trick of
nature to divert
the bile. Brother Ralph and Brother Namlis were in good spirits as
they
travelled across Bodmin demesnes in the wet, morning air. The
insects hung over
the heath. The sky was low and humid. Brother Ralph commented on
everything he
saw: the sky, the clouds, the sultry air, the moors, the
woodlands, the wagons
they passed on the road, the state of the hedges, the land bounded
by sod or
stone walls, so old, so sunken into the earth they looked to be
part of nature
and not put there by man at all. The two pilgrims lay in the back
of the wagon
and whistled and passed wink& The wind blew over the wet
landscape, fetid
to the sensitive nose, but it blended with the smell of the cut
hay which, of
all odors, is the most reassuring of the earth's bounty and of the
morality of
husbandry. Brother Ralph chattered to the pilgrims and to the
universe at
large. Brother Namlis did not think that Brother Ralph's worldly
talk went with
the wind' and the sound of the scythes and the rumors of the day,
but he had
never put any man in his place, nor could. He bore with the gossip
about sheep
and hay and the cost of wine and the price of a new altar cloth
and the gossip
about the coming visit from Brother Harald's Brother, the great
Abbot Roland.
"Twill cost a penny to be host to that one," Brother Ralph said,
"and I must ask you why he chooses to travel in this direction and
not
another? I will tell you why. He wishes that one, our own Brother
Harald to be
the prior here."
Brother Namlis had no
tongue, but
he had a brain. He had heard this rumor before. Things might not
be as good as
they could be, but they were far from being as bad as they might
be. Monastic
politics, as other kinds, rested on personalities, and often came
down to
whether the helmsman could steer. Brother Harald would steer too
well. Every
spirit would be made straight, and Brother Namlis believed that
his was meant
to be crooked. He did not believe he was bound for heaven, and had
settled his
mind on purgatory since he could not manage the idea of hell at
all. Its
terrors could not even come into his mind, unlike Brother Claude
who fought
them daily in place of infidels. Brother Namlis was used to humps
and had
worked out a way of living where he could be at peace with his
vows and his
nature. The balance was necessarily delicate, and a change in
administration
could upset it. Monks regard such changes as any household would
regard a new
head coming to rule over it: the old accommodations have to be
discarded, and
it takes years to work out new ones.
The wagon came into open
fields
where the hay harvest was finished and the sheep had been put in
folds and the
cattle had been put to pasture. Brother Ralph dropped the matter
of Brother
Harald, which was idle speculation, and addressed himself to the
economy of the
sheep. "A goodly sight for a Christian man. There is nought that a
sheep
can do that is evil, and I do bless the sheep as I am upon this
wagon. I thank
Christ and ever shall, it is the sheep has paid for all. They say
the price of
cloth this year is risen and that the Flanders merchants howl for
our wool.
What say you?" he asked the pilgrims, calling over his shoulder,
"how
is the price of cloth in Flanders?"
The bigger pilgrim
scratched his
dirty hair, pressed for answer, not because he had not taken
notice of the
'Price of goods, but because it was seldom wise to be too specific
in his
answers. "As I live," he said, "I wear but 'leather myself and
have yet to have a piece of wool upon my back."
"Sayest thou! What! Have
you
no use for the good cloth the holy men labor to make?"
"Aye, I have use, but
not
money. A piece of leather goes a man's life. It wears not out as
it wears not
out upon the beast."
"Say you wool wears out
upon
the beast?"
"Not as God gave the
wool to
the beast, but as man weaves it. As God gave the wool to the
beast, no doubt it
is suited to last the beast's life, for never have I seen a sheep
without his
wool upon him except those that be clipped right close."
Brother Ralph would not
be worsted.
"You wear not the pilgrim's sackcloth, he said, finding fault
where he
could.
"Aye, I do."
"Dost thou?"
"Aye, see you not my
sackcloth?"
"I see not your
sackcloth."
"I wear my sackcloth
where it
holds my spirit up best," he laughed.
"He wears it upon his
cock," the other said.
Brother Ralph clicked
his teeth
with disgust. "Much good it does him there."
"It does me much good,
for
sure it is Christ's punishment for longing and I suffer most
hardily."
"Aye," the other said,
"his is a right goodly sackcloth. You can well believe such a
sackcloth
was a rare piece in Jerusalem."
Brother Ralph changed
the
conversation again. "See you that sheep there with her udders
full,"
he said, reining in the horse. "Jesu love me as ever I did see
such bags
upon womankind, and her young is not about for what I can see.
Poor mother to
stand with such full bags. Poor womankind. Poor sheep standing in
the field
with her bags bursting. What say you, Brother Namlis, if we help
ourselves to a
drink, for there is no animal so good for Christian man. For God's
milk,"
and he climbed down from the wagon and hitched his habit over his
ankles as he
went after the sheep.
"Good sheep," he called
to her, "holy udders. God knows you will be good to a holy man,
for I have
not had fresh milk this time it makes a year."
The sheep was flattered,
but
cautious and eyed his outstretched hands. "Good monk, she said
with a
benevolent eye, "As God made me He made me for my young. I have
not Thor's
spigot."
"Good sheep," Brother
Ralph said, "thou art beloved of Christ and holy to the Christian
man.
There are those I have heard who worship the cow and I have heard
it said that
once there were those who worshipped the bull and the Jews are
said to worship
an ass, but we have glorified thee full well."
"Good monk," she said,
"I care not to be worshipped, for worship leads to sacrifice," and
she moved coyly away.
"Good sheep," Brother
Ralph said with an outstretched hand, "know you not your
shepherd."
'Aye," she said, "He who
created me."
Brother Ralph called to
Brother
Namlis to come and help him but Brother Namlis, who was a trusting
soul, knew
it would be injudicious to leave the wagon in the care of two
strange pilgrims.
Brother Ralph, who was not a trusting soul, forgot. Was ever man
led so astray
by a female? I He beckoned again to Brother Namlis to come and
help.
Grudgingly, against his better judgment, Brother Namlis climbed
down from the
wagon. The sheep remained intransigent. Her milk was not for man,
monk or
pilgrim. As stealthily as the two approached, she coyly moved off.
Their mouths
watered, but she remained resistant. She flicked her tail and
rolled a watchful
eye, her milky jewels beyond their reach. "Oh! sheep, oh! mother."
Brother Ralph felt his lips curl about her udder. "May every good
woman
carry such a bagful. Come, Mother Maree, hast no mercy for a
thirsty monk that
does the work of heaven."
It was Brother Namlis
who sensed
the danger as they made their way further and further from the
wagon. His ears
flicked, but he could not tell Brother Ralph of his anxiety, but
premonition
hit him full force. He ran and leaped for the wagon as the big
pilgrim seized
hold of the reins. He clung to its side with his gnarled strength
While the
thinner pilgrim hit him on the head with his fist. Then Brother
Ralph abandoned
the sheep and came running. "Hie, fie," he called and ran after
the
wagon, Pitching stones and rocks. One hit t ¿he side of the wagon,
one hit
Maream in her ear, one hit Brother Namlis on his hump, and one hit
the reeve
who came running with a shovel. The pilgrims perceived their
danger and jumped
from the wagon and scattered.
"Christ slay the man who
will
steal sheep," the reeve cried.
"Nay," Brother Ralph
said, "canst not see we be men of God. These pilgrims made foul
game of
us."
The reeve squinted a
pair of
cunning eyes at him.
"We be monks of Bodmin,"
Brother Ralph said, and this be Bodmin land. Know you not Brother
Ralph?"
The reeve raised a
scoffing
shoulder. "I know sheep. I know land and sheep and the price of
wool."
"You be a reeve after a
monk's
heart, and I will tell Prior Godfrey you guard his sheep well." He
set the
wagon right under the watchful eyes of the reeve. "What think you
of this
world?" he said to Brother Namlis as they moved on, "a pilgrim
that
will steal a monk's wagon! It is the time of the antichrist for
sure, as all Ç
say it is and a great blackness is about to fall upon US."
Brother Namlis ignored
him this
time. His hump now had an extra swelling, and he was dumbstruck
with bad luck.
They came to St. Martin
by
nightfall. They did not care to stay there, but they had no
choice. St. Martin
had not righted itself since the trouble with the flour, and the
monks as well
as the villeins in the village were in a mutinous mood, each for
their own
reasons.
Abbot Denis was a bit of
that
earthly clod the church could never shake from her doorstep, the
gluttonous,
lecherous monk. Where Prior Godfrey kept a falcon, Abbot Denis
kept hawks and
hounds. Where Prior Godfrey had grown reconciled to chastity,
Abbot Denis
remained unrepentant. Where Prior Godfrey kept books, Abbot Denis
kept
concubines. Where Prior Godfrey was fanatical about cleanliness,
Abbot Denis
was dirty in his personal habits, and the monastery reflected his
leadership.
The plates the monks ate from were dirty.
The season's various
puddings and
meats were encrusted on them. The hay on the refectory floor was
smelly with
age and refuse and venison fat. The cloth on the tables were
stained with
mutton grease. The habits the monks wore were wormy and licy.
Unlike the monks
of Bodmin whose habit was black, the monks of St. Martin wore
white. When
clean, they looked grand; when dirty, their sins of gluttony were
apparent.
Abbot Denis was the
eighth son of a
French bishop. His father had bought him the abbot's position when
he had
reached puberty. St. Martin was already an example of
institutional sloth, the
kind of fate that can overtake any asylum pampered by society.
When Abbot Denis
me to reign there at the age of fourteen, St. Martin slid giddily
and
altogether toward indulgence and cynicism. The seventeen monks
beneath him
passed from covert to overt dissipation. While Brother Ralph and
Brother Namlis
wore their habits when abroad, these did not. They shed their
habits whenever
they left the monastery grounds, and they left the grounds
whenever they chose
to, and went wherever they wanted to, taverns and elsewhere.
Bishop Grandisson
received letters of protest from neighboring villages regarding
the safety of
their wives and daughters, and one letter hinted at worse. The
villeins
threatened more reprisals if the abbot was not removed. They
threatened to tear
St. Martin down stone by sacred stone.
Even the brethren of St.
Martin
threatened to rebel if Abbot Denis did not mend things
sufficiently to quiet
the rebellious mood of the villagers. They sent a Brother to
consult with the
reeve of the demesne to organize matters better, to give an
accounting of the
peasants' sheep to them and to pay them for their portions of
wool. They
cleaned the hospital attached to their monastery. They made a
donation to the
parish church and bought the priest there new robes to wear. They
dismissed the
old miller and put a new one in his place and, most importantly,
they swept out
the old hay and down new hay.
They improved many
things, except
Abbot Denis who had lived through three attempts on his life, six
attempts to
remove him, innumerable scoldings and abuse, all of which had
convinced him of
the impossibility of reform. Abbot Denis was not wise or learned
or temperate
or continent or moderate in speech, or anything an abbot should
be. He did not
even have a sense of humor. He was a sullen man, without
sufficient temperament
to be pompous, though he tried. Everyone wished him elsewhere. His
father had sent
him to England and had committed simony on his behalf. His
brethren sent a
letter to the abbot at Premontre in France, recommending that he
be made an
archbishop, but the abbot of Premontre wrote to Bishop Grandisson
that he was
pleased to hear that Abbot Denis proved to be an asset to English
religious
life. Bishop Grandisson reminded the Abbot of Premontre how much
the spiritual
life of France would be enriched by the presence of Abbot Denis.
Then the abbot
of Premontre was taken away by the plague, while Abbot Denis
continued in his
office where he had been for fifty years, evading all cosmological
and
terrestrial furies that laid low so many others. He buried with
grace, within
the year, thirteen of the brethren. The four who survived left St.
Martin and
joined a sect called the Luciferians.
Two months had passed
since Abbot
Denis had been chained to his altar, when Brother Ralph and
Brother Namlis
arrived, but the event still consumed Abbot Denis' thoughts. What
said Bodmin
Priory of this matter? What thought the other monasteries? Would
they join him
in raising an army to crush the rebellious peasants? He reminded
Brother Ralph
how all the brethren of the religious life shared a spiritual
relationship, and
glossed over the suspect nature of his house as "alien." Abbot
Denis
was not many things, but he was bold and he dared Brother Ralph to
confront
him. Brother Ralph was many things which no one gave him credit
for being,
among them subtle and he did not rise to this invitation. "It is
the time of
the antichrist, no doubt," he commiserated loudly," and he told
Abbot
Denis about their misadventure with the pilgrims but Abbot Denis
knew how
rarely loved he was by Augustinians and lapped at this speech with
untrusting
eyes.
Brother Ralph tried to
divert him
and told him of the pilgrim's news of plague and heresies and
flagellants, but
Abbot Denis didn't care a straw for any of this. Brother Ralph
looked down the
refectory where the other brethren sat, now disguised as angels,
and lowered
his voice: "It is not for us to judge that Clement protects the
Jews, but
in this matter he has set himself against the wishes of the
people. There is
rebellion everywhere, even against the pope." Ibis laid a broad
foundation
beneath Abbot Denis' view of things, and he saw the act of spite
against him in
international dimensions. "The less is known of matters in these
times the
best it is," Brother Ralph said and bid Abbot Denis goodnight with
the
satisfaction of believing that he had played a skillful part.
He was not loath to brag
of it to
Brother Namlis the next morning when they were on their way again.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha and
aha," he laughed. "Didst ever see such a houseful of demons. I
warrant they fell into mayhem afore the wagon passed out the
gate."
Brother Namlis preferred
to presume
the innocence of mankind whenever possible, but he knew this would
prick Brother
Ralph to greater heights of denunciation, so he kept a
noncommittal
countenance.
They met two carters
along the
road, one pulled by horses carrying bolts of cloth and headed for
the market in
Newool-on-the-Lerin, the other pulled by oxen and carrying sacks
of wool and
headed for the port of Bristol. Brother Ralph's eyes registered
the cargo on
every wagon that they passed. He had been instructed to buy Cloth
from Ghent or
Brabant, "not English cloth" as Prior Godfrey put it, for Edward
received his revenue from the cloth that was imported, and not the
other way
around. Prior Godfrey supported these taxes in support of Edward's
claims in the
Hundred Years' War, of England's claim to France, and her claim as
leading
exporter of wool to the cloth markets of Calais, Ghent and
Flanders. War makes
money, but only if you win. In the meantime, it costs money.
Embroiled in the moist
summery air
that hung too low and stayed too long and that oppressed with
thoughts of the
plague, blew the winds of social change, as always confusing,
laying some low
and raising up others, and sometimes not those who expected to be
raised.
Sometimes those who never had a thought of changing their
positions, were
pushed up or out or sideways, or suddenly got a voice when no one
had ever
heard from them, or suddenly parted company from an old position
and took quite
another direction or split off altogether and disappeared, as if
Proteus were
the god of history; so that it is never easy to know who or what,
or even when,
to support.
Brother Ralph nudged
Brother Namlis
on the shoulder to look yonder where the walls of
Newool-on-the-Lerin rose. The
ground alongside the road was rapidly becoming moist. A trickle of
water ran
that soon swelled into the river Lerin that circled the walls that
circled
Newool-on-the-Lerin, that carried the odors of hogs and dying
chickens,
butchers, tanneries, and dyers.
Medieval towns were
famous for their
noise and color and confusion, liveliness, lustiness and famous,
most of all,
for their evil odors and their dirt. No great city of antiquity,
not Antioch or
Carthage, smelled like London or Paris in the Middle Ages. We do
not know
whether Athens or Constantinople suffered daily from internal
disorders,
self-generated by body lice. We see the one in her Attic grace set
against her
chaste hills, with Pericles orating from a pinnacle; the other
winding
exotically through Byzantine streets in the twilight of the Roman
era,
Alexandrinely seducing the Latin crusader with oriental scents.
Athens arouses
thoughts of virgin wind; philosophers treading her streets with
noble gait,
poets, playwrights and tragedians; Constantinople, city of
political wars,
arouses thoughts of skills and sex, pomade, musk oils, the scent
of roses
pressed into the armpits of ladies.
But a good earthly
medieval city!
Offal, dung and blood! The market square, the executioner's block,
the winding
streets! The overhanging balconies! The slops thrown therefrom!
The towncrier,
the screeching shrews, the lepers, the lepers' bells, the sheep,
the pigs, the
geese. No elegance whatever. Backwoodsmen turned bourgeois in
coats of arms.
London or Norwich, York, Calais, or Ghent! We hear the names and
think of
vintner; mercers, haberdashers, burghers, merchants, carter;
weighers and
dyers. The syllables bring to mind the economic and industrial
revolutions, the
profit motive, the ploy of parliamentary power, all the seamy
developments of
civilization that apparently missed Rome, Antioch and Jerusalem.
The name "Newool" at one
time boasted of something more classical: Noire, or Blacktown in
memory of the
bloodshed there between the Saxons and the Normans, for possession
of the
place. Even earlier, it had at first been called Newall, by the
ancient,
ancient Saxons, in deference to the Danes who had built a wall on
top of the
Roman wall that had been built there by the Romans I protect
themselves against
the Picts and Welsh who took so long to go away. With the sea to
their backs
and the wall to the Welsh, first the Romans thrived in their small
encampment,
and then the Danes in their larger o àne, until the Normans came
and drove them
out. A vassal to William set up a victory stone on Christmas Day
and renamed
the place Nouelle, carved into the slab of stone beneath a French
cross beneath
the Roman date, Dec. XXV, MLXVI. The Normans built a Norman church
as an
expression of their gratitude and a Norman castle for protection
and then
claimed the surrounding land, the marshes and the river, which
they called Le
Rin.
For two hundred years
Nouelle
remained a wall and a stone with a cross and a date on it, and a
castle with a
Keep. As such it prospered very well. The barons changed their
crop from barley
to oats to sheep, keeping up with the times, until the crusade of
1248 when the
iron Neufhenser pledged himself to St. Louis, and his castle and
his sheep to
the creditors in Florence in order raise an army befitting a
Norman baron.
Neither he nor his army returned to England. An illegitimate son
and a
determined wife were left to deal with the creditor. He was inept,
she was
zealous. She burned out three husbands in an effort to find one
who could
defend the place, and finally took to armor herself. Her peasants
rallied
around her, stirred by her temperament and the promise of two
acres of land to
anyone who fought. They held the creditors at bay for thirty
years, until she
died in the saddle, when the creditors pressed their claims again
while the
peasants now claimed half the land and preferred to serve a French
baronness
rather than Italian merchants. The rights of armed struggle fought
with the
legal machinery. In those days, creditors had a hard time
collecting on their
loans. Their debtors either defaulted or ran their creditors out
of the
country. In 1300, Edward I promised to settle the peasants' claim,
to give them
a royal charter to the place if they would help him fight the
Scots. Once
again, the peasants went to war, the sons and the grandsons of the
peasants who
had helped the baron's wife, and the great-great-great grandsons
of the
peasants who had pledged their lives to Baron Neufhenser in return
for a piece
of Jerusalem.
The present peasants
rebuilt the
old wall, though the Welsh were by now quiescent and had retreated
north behind
another wall. In honor of their victory and their royal charter to
found a city
to trade in wool, and to' expunge the French and Roman influence,
they threw
down the ancient slab of stone and renamed the place Newool. As
such it thrived
for another two hundred year, looking outward across the water to
Europe rather
than' inland across the marshes and the woodlands to the Scots.
Its situation
beside a river and alongside the channel was propitious.
Egypt! Paris! Rome!
Jerusalem!
Cities founded on high bluffs for protection, or along waterways
for commerce,
or as places of refuge where the dead await the resurrection or
where the
living find refuge by grace of the law, cities of sanctuary where
a criminal
can escape vengeance or a man get a foothold in freedom:
"And the cities shall be
unto
you for refuge from the avenger .... Ye shall give three cities
beyond the
Jordan and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan; for
they shall be
cities of refuge. For the children of Israel and for the stranger
and for the
sojourner among them, shall these six cities be for refuge ....
But if the
manslayer shall at any time go beyond the border of his city of
refuge, hither
he fleeth; and the avenger of blood find him without the border of
his city of
refuge, and the avenger of blood slay the manslayer; he shall not
be guilty of
blood; because he should have remained in his city of refuge."
Medieval English law
likewise
provided that if a serf could make his way to a town and remain
there for a
year and a day, he could escape his lord. Burgers, merchants,
guild masters and
craftsmen, tanners, grocers, stitchers, smiths and drapers, hungry
for labor,
gave their protection and many a serf preferred the mercer's mercy
to his
lord's. The bargain was struck "between the serf's desire for
freedom and
the towns' need for masons. The medieval city grew out of commerce
and trade
and lusty greed and love of liberty. In her the medieval town was
a whore. Men
lusted for her and paid for her in coin and she gave herself to
every newcomer.
She became famous for brawls and smells and taverns and the rules
of the bawdy
house, the brothel on the frontier of every man's imagination.
Newool had just such a
hectic
atmosphere, the air of a boomtown. Graingrowers, butchers,
spicers,
fishmongers, and tavernkeepers had a common goal and kept a jaunty
pace in the
winding streets. Newool was the first town In Cornwall to sell
homemade cloth
spun from English wool and this quickened the foot and the
laughter, the vision
and temper of its citizens. Wharves and warehouses sprang up on
the channel
side. Boats came from Bologne and Cherbourg. On the land side,
carters passed
in and out of the town gates from sunrise to sunset, swelling the
town's money
with tolls. Prosperity calls to prosperity. Traders came from
Somerset, Dorset
and Wilts. Barter merged with commerce; coins passed everywhere,
and whoever
got a coin by barter or labor was able to find a place in the town
and purchase
his franchise of liberty. Mankind found a new lease on life.
Money makes money.
Prosperity loves
prosperity. Newool guaranteed Edward an annual rent of £ 55. In
return, Edward
gave Newool the rights to collect his taxes from the surrounding
land and
villages. In years, when the tax collectors were successful,
Newool made money
on its rent to Edward. It was a form of speculation, but it was
not called
usury, for every Christian knew that that was forbidden.
Ten years later, Newool
guaranteed
another annual sum to Edward, and in return "bought" the right to
collect the tolls on the roads, the river, the docks, and the
gates. In years
when the traffic was high, the amount collected was doubled the
annual sum
given to Edward, but neither was this called usury. By means moral
and
Chr00istian, the town's treasury grew. In time, Newool bought the
land
surrounding its walls, bought the marshes and the woodlands,
bought the river
and the mills on it and, of course, bought the Norman castle. In
time, a
wealthy merchant of the eighteenth century, descended from a
wooltrader who
walked the streets of Newool as Brother Ralph's wagon passed
through the Head Gate,
bought the castle and gave it to his French wife as a wedding
gift.
Inside the town walls
much building
and brawling and trading. A new church, St. George, with the name
of promise,
was being constructed in the new architectural style so handsomely
funded by
the wool merchants and so named for them as "wool churches":
ribbed
vaulting, an apse, a clerestory, and stained glass windows
commemorating the
guilds and the merchants who had contributed generously to the
church. There æ
was a window donated by the Guild of Drapers, and there was a
window with the
heads of three councilmen drawn as Peter, Paul and St. Jerome. The
brass
effigies of William de Staple, the prominent wooltrader of
Cornwall, and his
wife Matilde, had been laid to rest in a private chantry; and
citizens who
stopped to watch the progress of the building traded jokes with
the masons
about how in England wool was turned into stone which would be a
monument for
the ages. New two-story houses made of oak were being built, and
in the center
of the town was the auspicious guild hall which rose as high as
St, George's
steeple.
Brother Ralph whipped
Marean with
anticipation and spurred her on. The numbers of carters that
passed them on the
road in both directions doubled and trebled. Living intensified.
The river ran
faster, broader, deeper. Two great mills for grinding flour and a
fulling mill
for beating cloth straddled the river, and a windmill sat on the
banks, while
the millers sat atop the platforms on the mills and poured the
precious grain
over the millstones. The butchers, the tanners and the dyers, made
to practice
their trades outside the walls because of their foul odors, ranged
themselves
along the banks of the river. Sheep
and hogs bleated as they were being slaughtered, giving hide for
the tanners
and carcasses for the butchers, while the dyers stirred huge vats
of blue,
madder for red and for scarlet, saffron and green and brown, which
they emptied
into the river so often that it ran like a ribbon of many colors
mixed with the
blood of the sheep. The towns scavengers, who collected the refuse
into carts,
dumped it into the huge ditch 'which circled the wall and served
as a moat,
where rose every manner of odor from the garbage of the human
race, to mingle
smells with the cries of the animals death and with the sounds of
the lepers'
bells warning the human race of the presence of disease. Overhead
the preybirds
circled in patterns of lowering flight.
Brother Ralph paid the
toll to
cross the Head Bridge that spanned the river and paid another toll
to enter the
North Gate, and directed the wagon straight to the center of town,
knowing
where everything a man could wish for in the way of fish and flesh
and meat and
wine and wool and dice could be found.
Marean knew the way too
and needed
no prodding. Neither sheep nor pig stopped her trod.
The center of Newool was
a large
gridiron of blocks in the shape of a compass cross. In this
center, where the
four directions met, engraven into the street was the town s
crest: a lamb, a
sack of virgin wool, the fuller mill, and the dyer's vat; and
underneath the-
crest was the town's motto: "The Sovereign Merchandise and Jewel
of This
Realm."
The sheep is worthy of
this
veneration. Among the oldest of man's domesticated animals, she is
woven into
the history of civilization and this story cannot be told without
her. She
accompanied Abraham and Jacob, and was sacrificed for Isaac. She
kept the
shepherd company in his lonely work. She accompanied the nomads of
the desert
in their search for settlements. She kept man company in his
solitary watches
for the raiders. She developed in him mercy and protectiveness. In
due time,
from her tender body was born the industriousness of the modern
world. Well may
she be called the lamb of God.
On the west side was the
Guild Hall
where the town council met. The lower story was framed in arches
and here the
traders set out their wares. From the central beam of the
overhanging porch
hung the town's great weighing machines. On the east side rose St.
George, with
its three decorated arch doors, which no other church in Cornwall
could boast
In one arch stood the Virgin Mary holding her infant Jesus, in the
central arch
stood Jesus holding a lamb in his arms, and in the third' arch
stood St.
Godfried of Finchale, patron saint of merchants, holding the
scales ß of
justice.
On the north side was
the town well
where the gossips and vendors clustered. To the left of that was
the stockade
for criminals, where teasing brats gathered; and in the angle
between the north
and the west streets a cockfighting pit where gamblers and gapers
crowded; and
close to that a cookpit where the housewife could bring her meat
to be cooked
while she sallied elsewhere. Between the town's two great edifices
were ranged
the lesser buildings and the carts of the traders.
Brother Ralph drove the
wagon down
Spice Lane in a state of hilarity, and even the mild-tempered
Brother Namlis
grinned with his big, brown teeth. Never did e wish for anything
so much as to
get up at that moment and shout to the horse, "Hie, hie, hie and
fie,
giddap, you old brown mare, ride, ride, ride through the town and
the devil
take the care." Marean read his thoughts. Being old and well
trained to
Bodmin Priory habits, she made straight for the tavern. Not that
Brother Ralph
was a drinking man or that Brother Namlis was a gambling man, but
they left it
up to Marean and put their consciences on her tail.
Inside the tavern, the
ale flowed
from brown barrels and Betty the Brewife measured the cup
carefully. Brother
Namlis got his pint and Brother Ralph found the gaming table with
six yeomen at
hazard. He watched until it was ill mannered of them not to invite
him in, and
he declined until it was ill mannered of him to refuse any longer.
"Now,
Brother Monk," they said, "how does the dice in your hands." His
dice did very well. They rolled and crackled and kissed the oak
table while
"Brother Namlis watched Betty the Brewife, whom he hoped liked
humps.
Brother Ralph measured
his sinning
carefully. He played for an hour, won a negligible but pleasing
amount and left
in good time to bet his winnings on a cockfight, which he lost,
for it was dice
he knew best. Brother Namlis was sorry to leave the sight of Betty
the Brewife,
but outside was almost èas good as inside, such women "there were
who
immodestly sold threads and things from "covered baskets, apples
and
strawberries and such sundry frui t. He feasted his sight on them
all,
pockmarked, toothless, aging, belly-swinging, flabby breasted, and
those who
walked with their breasts tilted and their mouths so drawn with a
stylish pout
it made him shiver.
Nor were the women the
whole of the
sights. Within the afternoon, Brother Ralph and Brother Namlis
witnessed the
stoning of a ship, saw a man stabbed in a brawl and left to bleed
in the
streets, a child's arm tom off by the spokes of a cart's wheel,
and a wife
trampled by a runaway horse and the horse itself flogged to death
and left to
die outside the Head Gate, as flies picked its sweetly dying
flesh.
"Let's to the cloth and
return,"
Brother Ralph said now that he had had his fill of dice, "for
there is
little else here for the good monk," and he directed Brother
Namlis to the
cloth counters underneath the Guild Hall porch. ·
"What seek you?" the
merchant asked.
Brother Ralph had at his
disposal
three or four personalities: the monk, the prattler, the put-upon
gambler, and
the shrewd trader. He cast his eyes upon the cloth laid out. He
fingered this
one and he fingered that one but would not say one thing or
another. Finally, when
he had tried the merchants patience with so much appraising, he
asked,
"What be this cloth?"
The trader appraised
Brother Ralph
in turn, taking into account his monk's clothing. "As Christ rules
our
land and we be good Christians, this be English cloth."
Brother Ralph was not
impressed. 'I
seek cloth from abroad," he said.
The trader said less
piously,
"Seek. It will not be found in Newool." Brother Ralph reworded the
matter. "You can not mean there is not cloth from Ghent or Brabant
to be
found in Newool."
"Aye. There is not
such."
Brother Ralph said, "We
pray
for all good Christian souls, for they say winter will come fast
this year and
will be hard."
The merchant said,
"Neither
Christ nor winter sets the market for cloth this year, but plague.
Hast thou
not heard it? There be no hands to weave and that which was woven
six months
ago in Flanders or Brabant, men are afeared to put on their backs
for those
that wove it are dead, and now English cloth is in English
markets."
Brother Ralph said, "We
pray
at night and oft times the chill rises from the floor and up our
robes so that
a monk cannot pray rightly as befits the saving of souls."
The merchant lowered his
voice:
"We be not like the Spaniards. We will keep our wool for ourselves
and not
the king's treasury. I tell you what. I have cloth that came by
boat but two
months ago woven in Brabant where now is said the plague rages.
This cloth I
will sell you at last year's price, for cloth is risen, and you
may bless me
for my honesty, for I know not if such hones ty will purchase me a
place in
heaven," and he unrolled a bolt of cloth. "Here it is. It looks
not
different from other cloth."
Brother Ralph examined
the bolt
with his eyes, but not with his hands. "How is it known if there
be plague
on It?" he asked.
"It is not known. It is
only
feared, for none know how the plague passes, but the boat it was
on was chased
afterwards from Lizard Head to Eddistone Rocks because plague was
on it. But it
may be there was no plague aboard the boat though two bodies came
washed ashore
in Mullion black as night and men care not what the captain says
that they died
not of the plague."
"How come you to have
this
cloth?" Brother Ralph asked.
"If you trust me not,"
the
merchant said, "trust not the cloth," and he unrolled a third
bolt.
"This be English cloth. Clean. No plague in it, for there, be no
plague in
England. It cost twopence more by the yard, but it will not sicken
you."
"I tell you what,"
Brother Ralph said to Brother Namlis, "I trust this merchant, for
he seems
to be a good Christian man," but he said to the merchant, " We
will
return to Bodmin and ask our prior how he judges, and with his
permission we
will return to you in a fortnight. It may be by then the
disposition of the
cloth will be known and with God's mercy the price of this cloth
will come down
as well, for we be monks that live by prayer and not by trade."
The merchant said he did
not hope
to see the price come down until the world righted itself. Brother
Ralph, for
his part, had no intention of leaving Newool without his. bolts of
cloth, and
he moved away to test another
trader.
"Seek, seek," the
merchant shouted after him, "You will not find this year's cloth
from
abroad, for none will take it, nor would I put last year's cloth
from Brabant
upon my children's backs."
Brother Ralph moved away
with an
injured air, common to all bargainers. He and Brother Namlis
sauntered through
the archways under the Guild Hall Porch until he believed they
could not be
seen by the merchant anymore. But before he could maneuver any
further, the cry
of danger was sounded, shrill whistles and shouts came up from the
waterfront.
"Boat, boat, boat, boat from Calais. Good citizens, protect
yourselves.
Ship from Calais."
The crowd responded
instantly.
Transformed, the social head reared itself collectively with the
sense of
danger. As one body it ran in the direction of the
wharves. The square was immediately emptied of everyone except the
traders who
stayed to watch their wares. Dogs, children, horses ran. Citizens
ran with upraised,
menacing hands.
"What means this?"
Brother Ralph asked a merchant.
"It is a boat that is
thought
to have the plague abroad her and has asked to land here."
"Nay," the town shouted,
and ran with javelins and bows and arrows and flaming torches.
Now even a man who has
lived an
adventurous Ü life, chasing whales or hunting bears, may not be
prepared for
the sudden uprising of a town. How much less Brother Ralph and
Brother Namlis,
whose lives had been passed within monastery walls except for such
marketing
holidays as this one. Though they believed in the devil and in
hell, they had
yet to meet a demonic force.
The trader warned them
not to stand
in the way of the crowd. The very dogs of the town ran, with their
tails
between their legs, depressed with fear. The town crier climbed to
the top of
the Guild Hall Porch and kept up his warning.
But not everyone ran.
The culprit
in the stocks could not. The gamblers did not, for they never
leave their game
and the tavern keepers stayed to make ready their barrels of wine
for when the
traffic would return.
"How know you the plague
is on
her?" Brother Ralph asked someone.
"Aye, it is," this
citizen said. "She is from Calais, and there has been word up and
down the
coast that men have died aboard her."
"But if there is not?"
Brother Ralph asked.
"I care not," the man
said, "no one will go to enquire."
True. The ship sat out
in the
harbor for half the day, while the town kept watch. It bobbed and
sparkled in
the water, as any boat in a harbor will do. It was hard to find
her menacing.
Her lines were etched in the sunlight, her poop deck and flag
breasted the air.
The glittering gold of her name, The Mary Gallant, flaunted her
flanks, while
from her deck was heard the cries of her sailors torn away by the
wind. She sat
in the harbor until the tide took her elsewhere. She was heard of
now and then,
here and there, and then was heard from no more.
Brother Ralph hastened
back to the
first merchant and bought the English cloth from him and told
Brother Namlis to
purchase his threads and needles. "It must be this way, for to
return with
nought would not be good either, for who can say what the next
month will
bring."
It was a sensible
decision, but
Prior Godfrey did not see it this way. Brother Ralph and Brother
Namlis piled
twelve bolts of cloth on to the back of the wagon and directed
Maream towards
Head Gate. Brother Ralph spoke little on the journey back. "It is
not a
good world," is almost all he said. Brother Namlis' lips were dry,
but he
felt no thirst and no urge to drink. The twilight was warm and
wet. The cries
of the animals being slaughtered along the riverbank became
distant. Overhead,
the birds of prey passed on in the direction of Newool.
The genealogy of
Newool's name
should be brought up to date: Within six months of Brother Namlis'
and Brother
'Ralph's visit, the population of this town was reduced by half.
The measure of
not permitting ships to come into the harbor proved to be
ineffective, for the
plague came to Newool down the inland coastline. The trader who
had sold the
cloth to Brother Ralph was dead, the tavern keeper was dead, Betty
the Brewife
was dead. Of the me £n Brother Ralph had gambled with, five were
dead, Of the
people who had run down to the docks to keep the ship from Calais
from landing,
half were dead. The dump carters dragged their bodies to the ditch
outside the
town walls, and in three weeks the moat was filled with two
thousand bodies and
the birds walked boldly upon them.
The town council ceased
to meet.
The fragment that remained could not sustain the town. 'Three
priests were left
to minister to fifteen churches, and St. George was never
completed. The
stained-glass windows and the oaken carvings were eventually
removed and placed
in other churches. Prosperity drifted elsewhere. Grass grew over
the town. The
ditch was filled in with drifting land. The wall crumbled little
by little, and
little by little the town disappeared until a new landscape formed
itself, a
picturesque one of a coastline with a castle in the distance. The
place was
named, Noir, an µd it is thought that this name commemorates the
Black Death
that came there in the winter of 1348.
Today, there is a new
slab of stone
that stands on a sandy dune, a mile marker with a legend carved on
it,
Noir-By-The-Coast, 3 KM., looking more like a tombstone than like
the
auspicious beginnings, or even the unfortunate remains, of a town.
Its present
name is a corruption, like its history. The moral of all this is
not to point
to Ozymandias or to the vanity of human endeavor, but to the
uneasy alliance
between nature and civilization.
These thoughts affected
Brother
Namlis, for while he could not speak, he was not beyond sensations
of
profundity.
But rumors of world
fatality are
not grasped by everyone all at once. Prior Godfrey refused to
believe that the
ship carried plague. "It carried cloth of 'Brabant," he berated
Brother Ralph, and screeched at him, "Aye, the price of wool will
fall and
the price of cloth will rise and you Å will take to mending many a
hole in your
habit, for where will you buy cloth if you cannot sell the wool
abroad. A good
thing that merchant did with you. They made you believe there was
plague in
cloth, but there was nought but good cloth from Calais where
Edward has
established his market, and these men of Newool that will not let
this ship
land be not Englishmen but devils."
Politics will make any
man
choleric. Prior Godfrey, like other churchmen of his day, regarded
the rising
towns with distrust, for they beckoned to the serf and even to the
free
villein, and if every man left for the new towns, who would work
the lord's
land? He had lost three serfs to Newool within the last half dozen
years. He
had claims against the town, while the guildmasters lied him,
saying they had a
writ that such and such was free born, or that such and such "had
bought
his blood," meaning his freedom. They believed what the serfs told
them,
and were made arrogant É by lawyers and charters, and they did not
hold with
tradition but what was written in a charter. Like everyone else,
Prior Godfrey
said the times were bad. The times were oozing, like clay, into
other shapes.
The times would not stay as he wanted them to stay: landed and
Saxon and under
the governance of the Church. Bodmin land was not clay to him. It
was
consecrated ground, it was hallowed ground, it was holy ground, it
was
churchland. The odor that rose from its grass after a rain was not
like the
odor of other grass: it was incense. Such lands as his were being
bought up by
laymen, merchants who had made fortunes in wool, who bought money
from London
bankers, from Lombards, from Jews in Paris. Their abbots
themselves sold off
portions of their manor lands to buy other land, more land
elsewhere, to buy
relics to attract pilgrims, to hire masons and carpenters to bring
their
churches up to date, to add wings and walls and chapels and
windows co
¯mmemorating deeds and people. And they went into debt, sold
relics to pay off
their creditors, sold statuary and mortgaged off their crops or
gave out on
loan acres of fields. Usury rotted the foundation of their
buildings. The earth
would not stay still. It was infected with invisible forces that
were changing
its nature everywhere.
The wool had been pulled
over their
eyes. The twelve bolts of plain English manufactured cloth had
been bought, the
money had been spent and was gone. The next day Prior Godfrey
delivered his
midday sermon on the evils of dicing, the wagging of monks'
tongues in the world
about, the contumely of the French, and the robbing of Christ's
treasury for
the pleasures of the world.
Only Prior Godfrey did
not believe
Brother Ralph that the boat from Calais carried plague. The other
brethren did.
Conviction that the plague would come to England came to them with
this piece
of news. But nothing else changed. The quotidian held them in its
grasp. The
days continued with their patterns of prayers, study and work,
This ritual was
so old it could not easily be dislodged by bad news. Though all
but two would
be dead within six months, their imaginations could not encompass
it they could
not imagine what had never happened in the world before, and the
world, as
everyone knows, is very old and has seen many things and is not
likely to see
something it has not seen in the past.
Plague too is very old,
as old as
the world is old, seemingly bred into the very nature of the
universe as part
of the manicheanism of creation: plague which brings not merely
death, but the
death of social orders and institutions, villages and cities,
which bring death
in such numbers it sweeps away the times, which combs the
countryside and
gathers up the living and drops them in attitudes of disaster,
distorted flesh
and pain which extinguishes human sympathy and makes man know that
death is
very real and putrefying, and not an eternal sleep.
Brother Benedict did not
think the
plague could be as bad as his cancer. He had been dying for two
years, and the
world had not changed. The plague could not be as bad as his
disillusionments.
As he became sicker, he became more insistent on not being
touched,' on doing
for himself, putting his marker in his Gospel with precision,
folding his robe
with purifying carefulness. Those who wished to help him were
rebuffed. A
sullen disappointment seemed to have afflicted him which he could
relieve only
by persistent attention to his purity and independence.
The coming plague, in
all its
documentation, was less real to Brother Harald than his
hypochondria, which was
a daily struggle to which he expected no end. Rumors of the plague
gave him a
pinprick of fear, nothing comparable to the terrors he had lived
with from his
childhood. There was no known cause or origin to these terrors.
Monastic life
had not caused them and could not cure them. Almost daily, the
terror would
come upon him anywhere at any time: reading, conversing, eating,
praying. It
lasted only minutes, it came only once or twice a day, but the
conviction that
his heart was about to stop, that a blood vessel was about to
burst in his
brain, that a force was about to deprive him swiftly, utterly and
thoroughly,
ruled his life. He did not identify at all with Brother Benedict's
symptoms. He
did not imagine himself withering away or weakening slowly. He was
simply
seized by the catastrophic and believed he about to be destroyed,
like a tree
blasted by lightning, its nature twisted from its original design
in an
instant. The terror was too much for any book or prayer. He could
utter nothing
in the presence of it.
Inevitably, he was none
the wiser
for it, for it surpassed all understanding. He could not tell
anyone about it,
for there was no language for it. So he had endured into his
fortieth year, and
went about his business, and when he had to, went about the manor
lands to
collect the tithes and learned to live with himself as Caesar
learned to live
with epilepsy, not cancelling any battles. Though Brother Harald
passed through
living death once or twice a day, he had no spells or fears as he
rode to the
Cornish Heights, as far as Wodesbridge on St. George's channels,
everywhere
hearing the rumors of the plague. He spoke with reeves and
overseers and kept a
tally of serfs and villeins, who had died, and who owed a death
tax and whether
any had daughters who had married off the lands and owed taxes for
such;
whether any had given birth and how many were in the litter;
whether any had
run away and if any had conspired in their escape. Without him,
Prior Godfrey
could not have kept his books.
This year he brought
back other
news: everywhere on Bodmin Manor the sheep lay dying in the
fields, and that
was known everywhere. The laundress had told the cook; the carrier
who bought
their hay confirmed it to Adam the larderer, Poll screeched it one
day into the
air and Michael the gatekeeper, who never had anything to say, one
day said to
Will, "There is plague in London. Aye, there is plague in London,
and on
the grangeland as far as Bristol. It be all about the Cornish
Height& There
is plague everywhere in England now and not a spot to stand on."
Will hushed him and
Michael looked
quaintly back at him and gave him a smile full of bad teeth. Not
the prior, nor
anyone else Will knew, had anything to say on the matter, except,
"Pray it
comes not to Bodmin." And that is what Will said to Michael.
Walt reappeared and
confirmed the
rumors. There was) plague in London, there was plague in Bath,
there was plague
in Southampton. "There is plague here," he said gleefully. "Your
å walls will not keep it out." Will ignored him.
Prior Godfrey brought
the matter up
at the next Chapter hour. Brother Stephen spared nothing of his
Celtic wrath.
"There is nae plague in Cornwall and if there be plague or not, we
forsake
not our Christian duty."
None of the brethren
opposed him.
Brother Harald put down this compliance to spiritual diplomacy.
Brother Bernard
suggested they write to Bishop Grandisson for instructions.
Bishop Grandisson
answered in a
manner that left them little room to maneuver in. "If thou be not
Christians in time of trouble, what means thy Christianity?" He
forbade
them to suspend the Mass for the villagers, and he forbade them to
suspend the
Maundy. He reminded them of their obligations to the poor. He
conjoined them to
continue with their Christian lives with even-ness and certainty
in the
outcome. And to be certain that they would, he informed Prior
Godfrey, that he
would pay a visitation before the year was out.
Prior Godfrey hedged on
these instructions
as much as he could. He moved the Sunday Maundy to be held at the
gate and
conducted by Will alone.
So Will met twice a week
now with
the poor, and they ed never worse.
"Aye," Wait laughed,
following his glances, "they're ungraceful to the eye.
Shitty-smelling and
vermined, and though I am their priest I tell you I would not
trust one of them
to my turned back. This one would pick a flea from between the
cracks of my ass
and sell it for priest's gold. But I tell you, man," he moved
towards
Will, for Will kept backing away, and so began a dance between
them, "I
tell you, man --- stand still and do not hop so --- I tell you I
do love them,
for their suffering is deeper than their dirt. Nail you to a
place, Will,"
he shouted at him, "and hear my words. A scrubbed man is a
different man.
Soap is grace, Will." Poor Will kept moving backwards. "Pox on
you,
Monk," Walt shouted at him, "do you not know there is a storm
coming?"
"Mean you the plague?"
Will asked.
Walt blinked his eyes
impatiently.
"I mean not your plague. Famine is plague enough for us."
"Plague kills quicker."
Walt cackled with dirty
laughter.
"Look at my flock. The poor are the first trampled by the horses
of the
apocalypse." He howled with malice, but still Will moved away.
In truth, it was
difficult to
absorb Walt into a social pattern. His nervous system was keyed
too much to a
single resolution. His moods flashed from malice to anger to
cunning. He was
too intemperate, too combustible for social intercourse.
"I will not stand and
dispute
with you," Will said, "I must return."
"Aye," Walt said
scornfully, "aye, return," and he flung the empty basket at him.
"And return next Sunday with it full up. We are always here."
Will would not stoop to
pick up the
basket. He returned without it, and when Prior Godfrey asked him
the next
morning where the basket for the bread was. Will told him he
thought it best
not to bring back into Bodmin what had been outside its walls,
considering the
times.
For the second time,
within a week,
Prior Godfrey was astonished at a spendthrifty act. "And what
shall we
carry the bread in?" he shouted. Will surlily offered to carry it
in his
blanket. "Do!" Prior Godfrey said, but the next time Will left
that
outside too, for Walt snatched it, up with a, "We thank you, we
thank the
prior, the good monks, the sacristan, we thank the baron and the
bishop."
"Enough! Will cried at
him.
"I am not your enemy nor any man's enemy that I know of."
Such a note was in
Will's voice
that even Walt paused. "Nae, man," he said, more kindly, "not in
your flesh, for I know you for a good man in your heart, but in
your habit and
in your manners it is otherwise. The cage you sing in is befouled,
worse than
this man's dirty flesh which so offends you."
Will was not pleased
with himself
that human misery disgusted him, but a man who has a hole in his
face where his
eye should be is not pleasant to look at.
Seeing Will's struggle,
Walt
relented. "Aye," he said, "so it is. My heart is torn with love
of Christ and with hatred for his monks, for they eat the fat of
the land while
the poor eat from a basket. And Will, though I am mean to you, I
like you and I
would have you with me and not against me."
Will went back in
silence. He faced
the problem that night of being without a blanket and in the
morning had to
request another. Brother Namlis, to his regret, took the matter up
with Prior
Godfrey, for no such thing had happened before. Blankets wore out,
indeed on
occasion mysteriously disappeared, stolen by thieving servants,
but never had
one simply been dropped. "You are mad, Will," Prior Godfrey
screamed
at him, "Bishop Grandisson will accuse us of unworthy
spendthriftiness."
'Nay," Will said, "I
gave
it to the poor."
"Commendable," Prior
Godfrey spit at him, "but how will you cover your own body. And
will you
give all our blankets away? There are more poor at Cornwall than
there are
blankets in Bodmin. You must ask that man Welt to return the
blanket. I tell
you truly, Will, I have had it in my mind to sell St. Petroke's
relic for
tallow wax, so poor have we become with the price of things and
the taxes never
letting up. You will shiver this winter."
"I will shiver," Will
said sullenly, and reminded Prior Godfrey that it was not wise to
bring a
blanket back that "might well have been touched with fleas and
what
not."
Prior Godfrey swallowed
his wrath
and any sermon he might have delivered to Will on committing the
poor to God's
Providence who was wiser in handling these matters than man could
hope to be.
"You are right," he said, biting back further comments, and walked
away.
But the next day, in the
balmy,
summer's end garden smelling of basil and thyme in the midday sun,
Prior
Godfrey delivered a sermon on the evils of parish priests "who
flee from
the cities on feast-days and poach upon God's grounds and lure the
sheep out
from within the monastery walls and do such unseemly things that
everywhere men
cry out against them as abominations in the holy land. It has been
said close
by that one such parish priest who calls himself Walt of Landsend
and a pack of
Cornish men as he controls broke down the gate to St. Martin and
made off with
the gold from the altars. The times are wicked and brethren who
desire peace must
arm themselves to do Christ's work and battle for him and scatter
such as be
lice from our clean selves. Christian folk take from such priests
pernicious
examples of the sins of gluttony and greed, for these priests who
cannot read
their Latin take the gold from the altars and the bread of heaven
from the
monk's table."
Prior Godfrey could
hardly catch
his breath, his words flowed so fast. "And I have heard it said
that this
wait sups more splendidly than kings though he goes about the
countryside dressed
in rags to win the fold and cries up poverty and down with the
monks. Such is
his masquerade as the Gospel says is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
And such was
not Christ's way. Christ suffered in silence. Christ bore his
pains with grace
and clamored not with noise though the spear pierced him right
hard so that he
fainted. Though the Jews spat and the spear struck his side Christ
cursed not
his enemies. In this way we see that this Walt and his band are
not true
Christians or of true Christian fellowship." He paused at last.
Will who claimed he had
no love for
Walt, warned him that a sermon had been preached against him. Walt
denied a
part in the St. Martin affair, but he might as well have had a
part, for he
openly declared his sympathies.
"You must see that it is
a sin
to rob ·the gold from a holy altar," Will said.
"I see it not," Walt
said
curtly. "Christ had not a gold altar, nor statues and lace and
such. He
preached against the priests that walk in long robes and sing
through their
noses and bum incense. He preached for the heavenly treasure.
Earth must do for
earth and where men starve, gold will not do, for we cannot eat
say no more. My
tongue is tired." And to Will's astonishment, he walked away, for
when had
Walt ever turned his back on a good lecture.
Will tried to puzzle it
out with
Brother Namlis in the cloister walk. "They be not as the prior has
said," he said. "Though this Walt has no love for monks, I do not
think he is an unchristian man and yet it is beyond me to see why
he dislikes us
so. Here are you and I no different than this Walt. None can be
more saintly
than Brother Anthony or Brother Stephen. None can call them
wealthy. They eat
not a bird's worth of food for the day. And Brother John has yet
to feel the
sap of anger rise within him. Now there may be among us some who
pray not as
hard as they should, who keep not their vows too firmly, but all
men cannot be
cast in the same mold and there are some here who are better here
than out
there, for Brother Harald would be unkind wherever he went, and so
I think it
is a wise Providence that sends him abroad only now and then.
Surely, Walt has
not thought out the matter in all this way.
When Walt disappeared
for a time,
it seemed to Will that the better arguments were on his side. When
he brought
the food to the poor in whatever container he could find, what
vessel the cook
or the larderer or Brother Namlis found for him, it seemed
merciful and fit and
right, and the monastery seemed vindicated though the poor seemed
never to
change one way or the other, and he could never say what was in
their minds.
The one that was called Leboren said little more to Will.
The days passed and «
his thoughts
worked and reworked themselves, for how a matter of injustice is
perceived
depends upon many things. Most people can perceive it, but a
passionate
reaction to it comes from somewhere else. Bishop Grandisson was
conscientious,
but St. Hugh of Lincoln was passionate, though the same religion
had bred them.
But Will's thoughts were soon distracted elsewhere, for a
breviator cane from a
Benedictine house in Dorset with the notice of death of two
brethren there.
Will received the roll and gave it to Brother Bernard to read it
to the
brethren and make copies to distribute about the countryside, as
was the custom
with the death of brethren.
"You have been about?"
Will asked the breviator. "What is being said?"
"Nought is being said
for none
know what to say."
Michael the gatekeeper
was given
orders to admit none but the carriers and the breviators. Prior
Godfrey
dispensed with the Aspergis that Sunday and sent word that the
villagers were
not to come. The brethren sat in the choir box in their order: on
the north
side, Brother Harald, Brother Benedict whose cancer drew less
attention now,
Brother Anthony who was unchanged by any news, Brother Walter who
was immune to
any disturbance, and Brothers Namlis and Will. On the south side
Brother Claude
whose face grew darker each day; Brother Bernard who had copied
the death
notice with a tremor; Brother John who had fled the world and was
soon to die;
Brother Stephen who believed in God's will, even if it brought the
plague;
Brother Ralph whose temperament did not invite pessimism; and
Brother Thomas
whose nightly terrors increased but whose daytime demeanor became
more jovial.
The huge church was gloomy and seemed preternaturally empty
without the
villagers. The brethren found, to their surprise, that they missed
the noise
and the shrieks and calls which they censured in their prayers.
When the
breviator from a Franciscan monastery in Somerset deposited his
roll ten days
later, which contained the news that three brethren there had
died, Will was
careful to take it from him without touching his hands, and though
he invited
him to eat, he did not linger in his company. Prior Godfrey told
Brother
Bernard not to make out copies for the poor to take about. "For
the deaths
of the brethren are the concern only of brethren and have nought
to do with
other folk.
News was heard from
Michael the
gatekeeper who heard it from the carriers and who told it to Will
that there
was plague in many monasteries, there was plague and more plague
everywhere,
there was plague in Somerset and Dorset, and it was said to be in
Cornwall. For
the first time Michael said more than he had to: "There be those
what talk
of leaving the land. Who will there be to carry on work that must
be
done?"
This rumor, anyhow, was
considered
irrelevant, for if there was plague everywhere, where was there to
run. In a
month's time, death rose from the ground and fell from the air,
not in such
multiples as was heard to be in London, but one heard of a child
in Launceton
who died three days ago and one heard of a housewife in Taunton
who was found
dead in the meadow where she was milking her cow, and one heard of
a pilgrim
who was found on the road with a blackened face and a black tongue
sticking out
from his mouth. None ventured anywhere now except for the most
important
mission. The brethren quietly drew their circle of safety closer
about them,
sealing themselves off as much as they could from visitors and
strangers.
Pilgrims and wayfarers found the doors locked. Michael received
his
instructions. The only exception to be made was for Abbot Roland.
Will noticed that the
collection of
bread was cut by half. Brother Harald and Brother Claude, Brother
Thomas and
Brothers Ralph and Walter ceased to give. Of those who continued,
none looked
with accusation at the others who ate everything from their plates
and left
nothing for poor. Brother Harald did not withhold the poor's
Portion out of
lack of charity, but because his practical nature told him that
the poor must
be driven from the gate sooner or later.
Will went to the gate on
Thursdays
and Sundays with a sinking heart for the little that he carried
with him and
for the look fixed upon him of hungry people with hostile ye;
searching for an
explanation to his empty baskets. Brother John and Brother Namlis,
Stephen and
Anthony lay aside more as the others lay aside less. Yet the less
became too
much for the more. More poor gathered, as plague and famine drove
them from
elsewhere and they snatched food from each others' hands, snatched
them from
the hands of children and bit the hands and cheeks of anyone who
took a piece
of bread from them. They clawed and pried the bread loose from
each other. Walt
appeared among them again, but had no greeting for Will. He ran among his poor with
a stick and beat them
for their bad manners. "Brethren," he shouted at them, "best we
die together than we destroy one another. I will beat any man who
takes the
bread from a child."
At the next Chapter
meeting, Will
declared that it must not continue. "Nay. The portions must be
increased
again."
"What then, Brother
Nice," Brother Claude squinted at 'him, "do you not know that the
time is coming when we will not be able to purchase for
ourselves?"
Brother John, who never
spoke even
when given permission, reminded Brother Claude of the miracles of
loaves and
fishes and of Jesus' sermon on the lilies.
"Lilies do not eat
bread, Brother
Claude sneered at him.
Brother John did not
feel rebuked.
Unnoticed by the others, he had already disciplined his nature to
accept
rebuffs. Monastic life both exhilarated and disappointed him. To
save what he
could of his enthusiasm he had to carefully weed out the
disappointments. He
was hardier than anyone thought.
When we contrast this
with Brothers
Stephen and Anthony, whom everyone noticed and agreed were saints,
we see that
saintliness can be arrived at from opposite ends.
In spite of his hard
words, Brother
Claude increased in fervor. He took to fasting and wearing a
hairshirt and
crawling the length of the nave on his knees. Prior Godfrey was
disgusted.
Brother Claude belonged in some other monastery, perhaps a Spanish
one, but not
an English one.
It was Will, however,
who troubled
Prior Godfrey most. His habit did not fit him properly. One
shoulder slipped
continually, exposing his boney yeoman neck. He did not walk
properly. His
tread was always to be heard. His stride made his habit swish and
swing around
his ankles.' "You should not alert the world to your coming,"
Prior
Godfrey said. in addition, Will's Latin was as bad as Cornish
English and
showed no sign of improving. "How is it you have left off learning
Latin,"
Prior Godfrey asked him.
"I have taken to
thinking," Will said, pretending not to understand that he was
being
rebuked, "and I cannot do both at the same time. My thoughts
occupy me
much."
This ingenuousness did
not
recommend itself to Prior Godfrey, who put it down to the nature
of the
Yorkshire man.
At this time Prior
Godfrey had the
unpleasant task of bringing a writ against Robert Leboren, counter
charging his
claim to freedom. The ambiguity surrounding Leboren's claim arose
from the fact
that his grandfather, who had been a serf on Bodmin manor, had run
away to
Dunstable Monastery and there, through one contrivance and another
with the
Jews who were then in England, had raised coin and bought his
freedom. He had
borrowed money, and when the Jews were sent from England,
Leboren's grandfather
had been left with his money and no one to return it to, though
legally it
should have reverted to the king, if the king had known about it.
But he did
not. Still it was said everywhere, as these things go, that
Leboren had
perfidious money on him. He hid it and denied it and denied it as
many times as
the Abbot of Dunstable charged him with it and threatened him with
excommunication. He denied it for three years, and in the meantime
traded
quietly.
At the end of this time,
there were
six other serfs on the manor of Dunstable Monastery who had, willy
nilly,
collected coins when the abbot was in need of money to pay for a
new altar. For
this he intended to send his sacristan to the Italian creditors in
London to
raise the money when Leboren and these six serfs reminded the
abbot that it was
perfidious to deal in usury and offered, for their love of Christ,
to give him
the money for the altar without charging interest, for that would
have been
usurious, but only if he would make out a writ releasing
them from tallage and serfdom.
The Abbot of Dunstable
turned red.
His breath hummocked in his throat. The swine! To tell him what
was sin and
what was not! "How came you by this money?"
"By Adam's sin and
punishment," they said.
They fought and wrestled
and
struggled for months The Abbot of Dunstable would not be had by
serfs. He
ordered his sacristan to London. The poor man was found the next
morning with
his toes cut off.
"I'd as lief go to hell
as be
beaten in this matter," Leborne's grandfather said.
The gilding on the altar
chipped
and cracked and became altogether uncreditable. The time came when
Edward II
was to visit the manor, and word went out that the buildings and
movables and
carvings and sculpture and chapels and windows should be cleaned
and the abbot
sent his reeve to London, but the man disappeared. Then the Abbot
of Dunstable
accepted the offer from the serfs.
But in an ignorant
moment,
Leboren's son returned to Bodmin Manor where he had been born,
thinking his
father's purchase made his freedom legal everywhere in the realm,
as well as
that of his children. But the right of serfs to make wills was in
dispute, for
the children of serfs were held to be "sequela" or
"litter", that is, not human, and therefore not entitled to
inheritance, which was a human privilege. In this matter, the
Church went
against the barons and upheld the right of the serfs to make
wills, but Prior
Godfrey considered the church to be in error in this matter since
"the
pope sits not where he should sit, but sits in Avignon and has
French advisors
and French counsellors to instruct him in English law." Leboren
said that
Prior Godfrey had the spite of the times in him, fear of the
plague and
contention within the church. He said, as people always say when
misfortune
hits them, that the times had gone sour and each man's life had
become a pawn.
The problem for Prior
Godfrey was
whom to send to the village with the writ, and furthermore to take
the
inventory of the village, for it was heard from the pudding wives
that the
people were in agitation. Adam confirmed this news:
They do gather twice a
day to say
the Mass and for all that Clooke knows no Latin but bibble babble
they be
pleased to have him light a candle and blow the smoke about. It
has been heard
that there was a death in Barnstaple, and none will take the wool
there to be
sold."
This was vexing news.
Prior Godfrey
reconsidered the wisdom of the measure he had taken, that the
villagers not
attend Mass at his church on Sundays, for it now seemed best to
keep the gossip
close at hand. However, a counter measure now would be suspect and
even
dangerous. He struck his forehead and went immediately to Brother
Bernard's
caracel, where that monk sat in his accustomed place. "Your
accounts, Brother
Bernard. You must bring me your accounting books and we must have
an account of
the village."
As sacristan, Brother
Bernard
worked on the Bodmin rolls twice a week in the Scriptorium. This
was the great
daily chronicle kept by many monasteries and manors, the
insuperable data of
their lives: what they ate, how many candles were burned, what
taxes were owed,
who died, who was excommunicated, what was paid for heriot, what
for merchet,
and so on. It is called "rolls" because those budgetary accounts
were
written in rolls of parchment before the book was invented, but
they constitute
a Book of life. Into Brother Bernard's roll went the name of each
villager,
tithe owed and paid, taxes owed and paid, boondays, land owned,
inheritance
taxes, size of croft, numbers of chickens, lambs, sheep, oxen,
commutation of
labor services, coin paid to the reeve and miller, relics sold and
bought, wool
sold, merchandise bought, fees collected from court trials, fees
on poachers,
damages caused by Baron Roundsleigh to the cemetery and otherwise,
cases of
incontinence, adultery, illegal children. Christ's work, for
abbots and priors,
was largely estate management and no monastery could manage
without its ledgers
and accountings. In Bodmin Village at this time, the tax scheme
was as the
following:
Name, Land, Labor per
annum, Tax
per annum, Tithe
Clooke the Clerk, 20
acres, service
as parish priest 2 days a week to manor, and all boon days, 4S 6P,
H ×Is best
lamb and 2 dozen eggs
Adam the Larderer, 50
acres, 3 days
per week in priory, and all church holidays and other special
occasions, 6S, 1
lamb, 3 hens and a sack of beans
William White the cook,
38 acres,
1/2 day, 7 days a week, gives his son also for special occasions,
7S, 1 lamb, a
sack of flour, 3 sacks of beans
Simon Smith the smith,
15 acres, 3
days per wk on the lord's fields, also for special occasions, 6S,
same tithe as
above
Henry Cupper the
carrier, 14 acres,
1/2 day every day, 2S, same as above
Simon Muleward the
carrier, 22
acres, same as above
Michael the gatekeeper,
freeborn,
services paid in coin every day at Lord's gate, tax 2S, tithe
commuted 2S
Moll the widow, 6 acres,
2 days per
week, all boondays including granddaughter's work, tax 2S, tithe 1
lamb at
Eastertime, 1 hen, 3 sacks of beans
Wm. Osborne gardener,
freeborn, 3
days per week in the lord's fields, paid in coin, tax 2S, tithe
commuted paid
in coin 3S
Hugh Alyn pudding wife's
husband,
17 acres, 3 days per week, all boondays, tax 3S 1P, tithe 1 lamb,
2 hens, 2
dozen eggs, 2 sacks of beans
Rosey the brew-wife
widowed, free-born,
tax 4S, tithe 12 barrels of ale
Robert Leboren,
free-born, tax 6S,
tithe 2S 1P
Some may note an inconsistency in this tax structure, but it is
not more
inconsistent than other tax structures. It was noted then, as
now, that the tax
system was peculiar, shaggy, lopsided and misshapen, if not
downright unjust.
This was because it was rooted in customs which could not be
easily disposed
of. Sometimes, one simply had to jump from one's horse, as the
Bishop of
Lincoln did, and cry out, "This is how I hold my land." But the
legislated
past was on the side of Prior Godfrey.
Whole schools of lawyers
labored
then as now to correct the tax thing, but the tax thing proved
impossible to
correct. We may marvel at ecclesiastical heads taxing Moll the
Widow as much
for her six acres as Simon Muleward for his twenty-two, or taxing
William
Osbourne who owned no land at all, or taxing Robert Leboren who
owned a one
room cottage as much as Dan the Larderer who owned fifty acres,
but who today
thinks he's justly taxed?
Brother Bernard gave no
signs, as
we might, of reacting to these questions. He sat in his carrel in
the
Scriptorium, his long legs tucked and folded under the oaken
stand, his quill
in a bottle of dye and the Bodmin customals unrolled before his
particularizing
glance. His observation fastened upon other trifles. He knew how
much timber
there was in Bodmin woodlands, how many rabbits had multiplied,
how many fish
had spawned. He could watch two raindrops course down a window and
measure
their orbidity, pace and landing. He kept account of everything:
amounts of
rainfall, average temperatures, yield of corn, runaway serfs,
numbers of
candles burned. He could discriminate the difference between two
peas in a
peapod. Like the old Saxon chronicler who bemoaned the
toilsomeness of the
office of chronicler which imposed upon him the duty of not
neglecting
"anything that might prove useful, not even a mouse trap, nor
even, what
is less, a fly for a hasp," Brother Bernard was the "compleat
householder." To this wild mannered man, to the combination of his
long
days and avid observation, his conscientious and laborious
record-keeping, his
absentmindedness, his love of solitude and idle watching, we owe
our knowledge
of this past.
The Knights Templar are
credited
with having developed the first sophisticated accounting book in
their effort
to deal with the costs and charges of the Crusades and with the
accounts left
by the Crusaders. In England, the Domesday Rolls, kept from the
time of the
Norman Conquest, have acquired their just place in history, but it
was the
Winchester Rolls which were the earliest to be systematized in
England. Brother
Bernard began his rolls in 1327, the year of the accession of
Edward III and
practically the year in which Bishop Grandisson came to Exeter.
The sacristan
before Brother Bernard kept the rolls from 1310, the year in which
the Knights
Templar met their doom in France. The sacristan before that, one
Brother Hugh,
had kept the rolls for only ten years, from 1300-1310, having
initiated them in
celebration of the first jubilee year. Earlier than this, the
rolls dribble
into half articulated statements, smudges of observation, without
usefulness
for the historian.
It is with Brother
Bernard that the
Bodmin Rolls come into their own. Given his meticulous nature and
his scholarly
innocence, he recorded everything and left the record of his
civilization,
which was left to Will to finish.
The homely mortar of
culture,
housekeeping and management, is taken for granted, and
record-keepers such as
Brother Bernard are historians without glory. Most of us would
rather visit a
museum than read an accounting book, would rather visit a
cathedral and have
our é souls stirred with its splendor than be inundated with daily
thinginess.
Brother Bernard entered Bodmin as a young man in search of God and
in need of
spiritual comfort. We do not know if he found these, but he left
us, his heirs,
his accounting book, matter enough for spiritual contemplation.
Similarly, Prior Godfrey
never
acknowledged his debt to Brother Bernard, but simply called for
his accounts,
as it was his right to do. He then perused them for the year
beginning at the
previous Michaelmas, sensitive as he was to the coming visit of
Abbot Roland.
While Abbot Roland had no authority over Bodmin's budget, his
reputation was so
august that Prior Godfrey wanted to set his records in order to
assure himself
of his administrative skills as a way of acquiring the necessary
psychological
weight for the coming visit. Going over the accounts, he fastened
upon the
matter of Leboren as an untidy loose string in the legal machinery
of the
manor.
It is the impulse
towards
efficiency that sets such motions in order. Prior Godfrey
deliberated a day
about whom to send on this mission, and decided to send Will,
unprecedented as
it was to send a novice. But the times were unprecedented. Go down
the list!
His bailiff was in Barnstaple with a writ against Bishop
Roundsleigh for
damages done to the cemetery grounds; his reeve was on the
grangelands; Brother
John was pubescent and vulnerable and, moreover, liable to be
kidnapped back by
Clooke the priest, who was Bishop Roundsleigh's man; Brother
Thomas was
deranged; Brother Harald was on the grangelands with the reeve;
Brother Claude
was not to be trusted; Brother Namlis could not speak; Brother
Bernard was
absentminded and might wander to the wrong village; Brother Walter
would never
speak; Prior Godfrey had taken away the privilege of leaving the
monastery
grounds from Brother Ralph; Brother Stephen and Brother Anthony
would not
approve of this mission and would refuse to go; Brother Benedict
was in too
much pain to walk.
Will was sent. He left
after Mass
and a little breakfast and followed the footpath through the
pasture and the
meadow. A haze of morning summer heat lay on the fields, a
silvery, half dewy,
half podseed atmospheric sloth. The air had a perfume in it that
makes a man
think embarrassing thoughts, and Will's thoughts spilled out over
the
countryside. Ah, Will! World lover, wounded by your worldly wife.
She lay by
your side as close as Adam's rib, when the heavens were your
covering.
Langorous Will! Regretful Will! No sooner did he think these
thoughts than a
shadow ran beside him, the shadow of the gone years that lay
inside his brain,
as powerful a sensation as any he had ever had, so that he
wondered why he
could not reach out and touch the shadow that walked beside him,
the shadow of
his sensuous past. He had loved his wife in that past, and a man
who has once
loved a woman and cannot get her ways, domestic and sexual, out of
his mind,
will hate her if he strives not love her.
"You are not that man
anymore," he reminded himself, remembering how he had passed this
way
three months ago in leather pants and vest in the ringing of
vespers, seeking
to shed his Yorkshire self. "You are not that man and it behooves
you to
remember your gait as Prior Godfrey has taught you and not to
slump. It
behooves you to walk in Christ's time and not your own." He
shifted gear
and arranged his walk to accommodate these thoughts, so that he
could enter the
village with the air of purpose which befits a man of the habit
who carries a
legal writ. But like most human beings anywhere at any time, he
would rather
not have been the bearer of bad news, but seeing that he was, the
mundane past
seemed, lighter than the spiritual present. Dichotomous reality
took revenge on
Will: a shadow walked beside him.
Bodmin Village was in
the distance,
a lane of cottages and crofts, with the perennial river running
beside it, the
sheep in the field, the smell of dung and hay, apples and
marigold, daisies and
thyme, basil and mint. One could tell what the season was by
whether crop or
cattle were in the field. One could tell the season by the odors
on the land.
The village was not a
small version
of the town. It was an altogether different social unit. Its
economy was
agricultural, not trade. There were craftsmen and officials, such
as the
bailiff and the reeve, but them were no tradesmen and rarely a
guild. The legal
basis of rights in the village rested on custom. In the town it
rested on a
charter. Hence, the villager was conservative, "backward-looking,"
from whence he derived his rights; while the townsman came to
suspect tradition
as a deterrent to his "liberties" which could only be granted and
bought, created "newly" to meet the new situation. Thus the
£townsman
came to depend on law and books. He nourished the growing
profession of lawyers
as he won the right to establish municipal courts and town
councils, while the
villager's case would be tried by a different body of men, the
ecclesiastical
or the manor court. Legally, the village and the church belonged
to the feudal
system. The villagers were as expert at law as the lawyers of
their day, for
they were just as zealous of their rights as burghers and
tradesmen were. But
their rights were rooted in the past and their memories were an
adjunct of the
legal framework, and the personalities of the villagers, as those
of the
townspeople, were partly shaped by their legal status.
Will went to the church
first, to
pay respect to Clooke because good manners told him to do that.
The villagers
were still there, and all heads turned to look at Will. As
sometimes happens in
such a situation, for no ostensible reason, a Í psychosis of
estrangement rose
out of nowhere. Will felt conspicuous and out of place, disjointed
and peculiar
in his monk's habit. The shadow of his former self became more
insistent. He
missed his brother, Davey. He missed Rug's shaggy body and her
leanto walk,
braving every hillside storm with him. God keep you, Rug, Will
thought, as he
took his seat, feeling displaced in the church, Christian though
he was.
Clooke, the clerk, was
flattered by
Will's appearance, though Will intended him no flattery, only
elementary
respect. Nor should Clooke have been flattered, seeing he was
Bishop
Roundsleigh's man, as could be seen by the appointments in his
church: the
tapestry on the rood screen depicting the conquest of William the
Conqueror
with Bishop Roundsleigh's ancestor leading the troops, the
alabaster statue of
the Virgin Mary bearing the likeness of the bishop's grandmother,
and the
stained glass window with the portrait of Bishop Roundsleigh in
knight's armor,
Combatting a three-tailed devil who bore the likeness of Prior
Godfrey.
Clooke, out of his
peasant leather
clothes and in vestments, stood beneath the glorious windowed
allegory of man's
struggle with good and evil, through which the September sun
giving Bishop
Roundsleigh's mitred face a wash of ochre gold.
All ninety mature
citizens of
Bodmin were in the church that morning. They flung themselves upon
hope in
extremity, conscious as they were that their lives were not what
they should
have been, often fornicated, often gossiped in church, often slept
through
prayers, often ridiculed Clooke, and more often never went to
church. Now they
were rarely out of church, except to eat and sleep. Like everyone
else, they
thought of God mostly when things went wrong, relegating Him to
the compartment
of disaster until He naturally got a bad reputation.
On the one hand, they
felt
reprieved seeing that there was still no plague in Bodmin,
wondering £if, like
Noah, they had been set apart for survival, and praying it was so.
On the other
hand, the news was not yet so bad anywhere that prayer might not
help, unlike in
Europe where prayer had never helped. But they had sore doubts
about Clooke who
only knew "in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti," and made
the rest up as he went along. But since he was Bishop
Roundsleigh's man, they
were advised to let well enough alone. It would be easier to
remove a Roman
wall than to remove Clooke.
They instituted triple
Masses,
though rumors reached them of other remedies. It was heard that
the pope in
Avignon sat surrounded by six vast vats of boiling water, from
which rose a
constant vapor which was supposed to purify the air and which kept
the auditors
at bay. Almost anything was considered likely to help, and in the
end
everything failed. By that Easter the village of Bodmin was gone.
The door of
the parish c ¦hurch flapped open in the winter wind and no one
came to shut it.
Bishop Roundsleigh gazed from the stained-glass window at an empty
church for
centuries to come, and fought Prior Godfrey to no avail. Within
three months,
Moll's granddaughter was killed by the villagers driven crazy with
terror and
the deaths of their children. The voice of Richard Strawyer, whose
wife and
three children died within a week, cried out that the devil must
be destroyed,
and the villagers passed from the worship of Christ to murdering
their
neighbors without a change of constitution. Moll herself survived
the plague,
but she remained deaf from the events of that night, hearing
nothing more of
the world but the voice of her granddaughter calling for help.
This morning they sat in
church and
prayed to prevent this future, though it was no more than three
months away.
One would have thought that a hint of something so close would be
upon their
faces. But the only expressions they had were resentment towards
Will for being
there, and after church they jostled him in the street. It was
guessed what he
was doing there, for they had a sharp nose for legal affairs and
no love for
any who came on such errands. Richard Strawyer said, "Never in the
realm
of the land has it been heard that a man's grandson has lost his
freedom once
bought and paid for with coin."
"Aye," Cupper the
carrier
said, "but the custom of one manor does not prevail on another.
His
grandad bought his blood on Dunstaple Manor and it prevails not on
Bodmin
manor."
"The custom," Robert the
Reeve said, "is for each manor and Leboren should have stayed
where his
grandad bought his blood."
"Aye," mocked Joanna,
Leboren's wife, a stoutish woman with a blackened face from the
cooking pit,
"and what freedom is it if a man can't move about?"
"It is law and custom,"
the reeve said, "and each manor goes its way and you must abide by
this."
Joanna almost swung a
child at his
head, "Aye," she said with fury, "and me and my man will go
ours," and she walked away, a child in her arm, one at her skirt,
and one
by the hand. "Good day," Leboren said, "I will go with my
family." He carried his Bible in the crook of his elbow and struck
an
aloof pose, one he felt proper to a man who could read.
Will was dismayed to see
that
Leboren, whose name he had not known, was the man he had spoken to
outside the
priory gate. As any man, Will was hoping to find the man he had to
bring a writ
against to be unlikeable and deserving of punishment.
"What say you of this
talk of
plague?" Leboren asked Will.
The topic was singularly
not
uppermost in Will's mind at the moment. "I suppose we must pray it
comes
not here," he said sententiously.
"Aye," Leboren said,
eyeing him, "have you no other recommendations or advice or
remedies?"
'I have not."
Joanna clicked her
teeth. In
deference to this, Will and Leboren walked the rest of the way
silently, Joanna
with a child in her arms, and one by the hand and the other at her
skirt, and
Leboren with the Bible in the crook of his arm.
"I have read the Bible,"
he said after a while, "and I have read that there has been plague
among
the children of God."
"There has been plague
always," Will said ineptly.
"So it seems, which is a
strange thing if you consider how much praying man has done to be
rid of
it."
Bodmin Village was laid
out along
one main road through which the sheep could be driven, and they
followed this
to Leboren's house in further silence, for Will felt that Leboren
was prodding
him and he surlily resisted. Will understood the reservoir of
doubt that 1ay
underneath everything, but he had no mind to say it to a man he
had a writ
against.
As they came to their
cottage,
Joanna pushed in before her husband. Unlike him she made little
show of
manners. He made a show of manners because it amused him to do so,
but the
things which amused him did not amuse her and vice versa. She was
sullen
because she could not say she "had fields," and he said that
"fields were not worth worms if a man could not stray from them."
She
said she had no wish to go anywhere. "I had no thought to marry a
travelling man." Her mockery was a gnat on his tail.
"Taint travelling, but
being," he quarreled.
"Being?" she mocked,
"how is it being if you have your freedom but no land," and so on
and
on between them the whole of their rnarried life.
In Will's presence,
Leboren lay low
and played cool, while Joanna's shoulders let it be known that
she'd be damned
if she'd let a cockless rooster crow to her man. So it was
turnabout and
turnabout with these two, smirks and eyebrow lifts, and "I ¡told
you
so" glances. After Will was gone, Joanna said she'd laugh her head
off if
she had to pull a plough on her back to pay the court fees to the
priory,
"though you win your case." And Leboren said drily, whittling on a
piece of wood, that if she were so hot for fields she should not
mind to pull
the plough on her back for them.
It was peasants such as
these who
had given rise to the metaphor of the black rage, for their skins
were always
black from the smokepit in their huts. The poor did not have
chimneys in those
days, and the smoke settled everywhere: on the table, the chairs,
the mats,
their faces and in their lungs. They came to be the color of
smoke, and when
they quarreled their faces turned even darker.
This room was, not
unfamiliar to
Will, except for one piece of furniture in it, which was a rocking
chair.
Otherwise, there was the immemorial straw pallets, the one woolen
blanket, a
table, a brass pot, a candlestick, some wooden plates. The
unfamiliar item was
a rocking chair over which the three girls fought as to who should
have the
first ride in it.
"Not any," Leboren said,
"for we must let our guest try it first."
Will declined the favor.
The thing
moved about by Itself. His fear was flattering. "Try it," Leboren
urged. Will refused. "What," Leboren said, "if a child can work
it, why cannot a grown man?"
Fear is not respectable
and Will
remembered his writ and his errand, and so hitched up his habit
and carefully
lowered himself down into the thing. But the chair moved away from
him and he
jumped from it in alarm.
"Control it," Leboren
said. "You must work it with your own feet," and he gave Will a
demonstration. Curiosity replaced fear. Nor was Will the man to
hold out
indefinitely for the sake of dignity. He got back into the chair
and this time
managed it.
"How came you to think
of such
a strange creature?' he asked.
"One day I was looking
at my
scythe and thought how would it be to set a chair upon it. I made
such a chair
with but one curving piece in the center, but it fell to a side.
Then I thought
you cannot make a wagon with a single set of wheels and how it
must have an
axle and so on."
"You are a clever man,"
Will said.
"Aye," Joanna said, with
a glinting voice.
"You are a good man,"
Leboren said, pressing him.
Joanna kept silent. Will
understood. He rose from the chair. "I mean you no harm," he said,
and laid the writ on the table.
"Aye," Leboren said,
"Leave it where it is. It makes no difference here, for the Gospel
says in
Christ all men are free."
It is strange what
different
messages are read from the same book. Here Prior Godfrey and such
as Brother
Benedict and Brother Harald read the Gospel everyday, but when
such as Leboren
quoted from it they pressed their lips together and said that the
times had
given every man the Gospel to read as a weapon. Will felt the
cutting edge. He
sat upon it. It rocked beneath him. He could not steady it. He
felt the cunning
of Leboren's words and fel t the cunning in his eyes and the
watchfulness of
his family, their balance between courtesy and hostility.
He returned to Bodmin
Prior by
twilight. He heard the Vesper bells, but he felt little
anticipation in passing
through the gate this time. He understood very well now why Walt
execrated his
order, but when he stood at breakfast the next morning in the
refectory and saw
the faces of his brethren he could not judge them guilty of
inhumanity, except
perhaps Brother Harald. None carried the corporate image on him.
Certainly,
Brother Namlis wished no man ill. Surely a man who has been so
injured his own
mother had a right to a little hatred, but Will had never found
any in him.
Bodmin had given Brother Namlis refuge. Will could not feel Walt's
rage at
this. He felt as many before him, and after him have felt: that he
lived in a
world not of his own choosing and was the bearer of confusing
messages. But
when he heard a week later that Leboren had bolted for Newool, he
thanked God.
So his thoughts came to
him in
confusion and contradictoriness, and no one thought lay smoothly
for long.
Abbot Roland's visit
anywhere in
the Europe of his day caused a moral excitation. Some said the
mantle of St.
Bernard had fallen to him.
To celebrate the
occasion of such a
visitor Prior Godfrey preached a sermon on the treasury in heaven,
based on the
latest spiritual enunciation. In addition, he gave the cook, Adam
the larderer,
and the pudding wives special instructions for the preparations of
meals and
sent the bailiff to retain a victualer on behalf of the meats to
be served. He
ordered a fire to be set in the calefactory though it was only
September, and
the lambskins and the fur capes to be taken from the closets and
set out for
the use of Abbot Roland and his company: his secretary, a scribe,
a servant,
and the abbot's physician who was said to be a converted Jew,
Preparations for
sermon and ceremony were done on behalf of Bodmin's prestige,
preparations for
warmth were done on behalf of the abbot's famous frailty.
It was a thing often
forgotten
about him in his presence, and when remembered was for the sake of
underlining
with legendary awesomeness his personal and public achievements.
Abbot Roland was one of
those who
suffered from multiple disorders. a spinal defect, stomach
problems, migraine,
inexplicable fevers, an undiagnosable form of arthritis, and
having suffered
from them practically from birth, had acquired the elaborate
gentleness of the
sick child He had learned at an early age to suffer
unostentatiously.
His complexion was pale.
The veins
on his forehead were visible under his sparse hair, his shoulders
were narrow.
He was barely five feet two, always cold, his toes, his fingers,
his bones.
Except for his shawl, he never yielded to the temptation of
physical comfort,
or to the need for varieties in food, and had eaten the same meals
every day
for thirty-five years. His private room was the traditional one
for a monk:
stone and square, with a narrow bed, a reading lectern, a candle
and a
crucifix. He wrote, standing at his lectern: his accounts, his
state letters,
his personal correspondence, his treatises on the nature of God,
love, man,
etc. As with other monks or philosophers of his time, it was a
novel experience
to read or think while sitting; tradition was still in favor of
the discipline
of thinking while on one's feet.
In the autumn of every
year, since
he had become a monk, he retired for forty days to a retreat in
the Jura
Mountains, where he enjoyed the silence and the space he seemed
always to
crave, » as if the breath allotted him by the religious world for
his small frame
was not sufficient. This season was the first in fourteen years he
had not gone
to the mountains but came to England instead. He was pleased to be
back in his
native land but felt he had missed a step he would not recover. He
felt the
wound of not being in his adopted landscape which had ingratiated
itself into
his spiritual year.
Though it escaped the
attention of
his biographers, his survival through childhood was wholly
unpredictable, and
wholly unpredictable his moral survival. In another tradition, he
might have
been given to the herdsman to be disposed of in the forest. In his
own home in
the family castle in York, his father had left him to his mother
and his mother
had left him to a servant. As is sometimes and also unaccountably
the case, this
one had compassion on his skinny, knobbly legs, his malformed
back, and his
unfortunate face. Being ignored, herself useless, elderly,
childless, homely,
she became his companion. A mat was set in his room for her to
sleep on. She
died when he was fifteen, having lived long enough for her to
accomplish the
work she had to do. The church was the next step. When the servant
dies, his
parents could think of nothing else. At that time, the single
piece of good
fortune that could happen to an unpretentious, homely but
intelligent youth,
was to come to the attention of a wise teacher. Roland's
potential, housed as
it was in a sickly adolescent, was not wasted on Abbot Thomas of
the Cistercian
Monastery at Fountaineville, outside York. He nursed him and
tutored him and
within five years, though Roland did not grow another inch, he had
mastered
Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and his life's pattern as a scholar was
set. But
Abbot Thomas decided there was more to be had from his student and
sent him to
study in the papal court where he could learn church politics and
ecclesiastical diplomacy. Roland also discovered that the climate
in France was
beneficial to his health. In spite of this, he asked to return to
England, but
Abbot Thomas, having learned that the climate in France favored
his pupil,
refused the request.
As is so often the case
with a
decision that seems temporary, it became permanent. Abbot Thomas
aged and died
in the Abbey of Fountaineville which he had not left for fifty
years, and Abbot
Roland did not see him again; but he had received from him the
necessary brace
to withstand the nature of the papal court Roland arrived in
Avignon, the
corpuscular heart of Christianity, in 1313, at the age of
twenty-three.
Whatever else may be
said of its
spiritual atmosphere, Avignon was in many ways an average Medieval
city,
enclosed by the usual walls, possessed of the usual muddy streets,
bad air, bad
odors, narrow lanes, badly ventilated houses and exorbitant rents,
by crafts
people of all kinds, butchers, goldsmiths, furriers, masons,
musicians, book
illuminators, and many, many lawyers. Finally, the usual suburbs
and
settlements sprang up outside the walls, pushing the city into the
countryside
with sprawling cosmopolitan pressure.
The popes came in 1305,
bringing to
a provincial Provencal town the international and urbane climate
attendant upon
the papacy in those days. That the popes came here, into the heart
of the
heretical Midi which they had labored to extirpate and had all but
destroyed by
1251, leaving only the arches of the Pont St. Benezet, is surely
an irony. With
them came guards and servants, couriers, usurers, prostitutes,
thieves,
bureaucrats, diplomats, ambassadors, pimps, artists, scholars, and
foreigners
of all sorts. The Germans formed a confraternity, the Italians
founded banking
houses, the Tuscans a school of painters, and the French an
establishment of
architects.
Guillaume Mollat, in The
Popes of
Avignon, gives three hundred as the number that were usually in
attendance upon
the pope: over a hundred knights and squires, doorkeepers of
various kinds:
third-hand porters who opened and closed the first ring of outside
doors,
second-hand porters who opened the second ring of inner doors, and
the
master-porters who opened the first ring of doors to the pope's
private
chambers; sergeants-at-arms, varying in number throughout the
century from 23
to 72; thirty-two chaplains who sang matins at midnight and bore
the cross
before the Holy Pope when he rode on horseback or appeared in
recession; a subdeacon
who read to him at mealtimes, and a priest who handed him the
psalter when he
wished to recite Vespers; chamberlains and kitchen staff, scribes
and notaries,
wine butlers, two masters of the buttery who bought the corn,
bread, salt,
cheese, etc., and one who handed the pope his napkin when he
wished to wipe his
hands; three masters of the stable with a staff of stable-boys,
grooms,
mule-drivers and carters; a fu ðrrier to arrange for summer and
winter wear, a
gaoler to keep guard over the papal prison, 43 moneychangers and
one Master of
Theology. Mollat computed that for the year 1329-1330 alone, "John
XXII
spent almost three million gold francs on the maintenance and
payment of
members of his staff," compared with the expenses in that same
year of the
king of France, the queens, the duke of Normandy and the duke of
Orleans
together, whose combined expenses were 265,873 livres, 5 sous, and
3 deniers.
"Unholy Babylon, thou
Hell on
earth, thou sink of iniquity, thou cesspool of the world. There is
neither
faith nor charity nor religion, nor fear of God, no shame, no
truth, no
holiness, albeit the residence within its walls of the supreme
pontiff should
have made it a shrine and the stronghold of religion."
So said Petrarch, but
Daudet sang
of the same place in this way:
"Avignon! Avignon! on
her
mighty rock. Avignon! the joyful ringer of hills whose stone
carved belfries,
side by side, point heavenwards."
But St. Bridgit of
Sweden and St.
Catherine of Sienna sided with Petrarch and regarded Avignon as
ravished by the
sins of simony, avarice, pride and luxury, and wished the city "to
be torn
out by a plough and purified."
How are we being neither
Italian
nor French nor Swedish of the fourteenth century, to make a
judgment? We must
take note of wealth, for wealth is always consequential in the
influence of
good and evil, and the source of wealth, at least in the
fourteenth century,
was explicit in the taxation system. Couriers and courtiers came
constantly to
Avignon from foreign countries, hot with messages upon their lips.
Vatican
ambassadors and papal nuncios were discharged across Europe,
visitors flowed
into the city continually like the River Rhone, bearing the gifts
of loyalty.
Merchants, traders and usurers came and went between Venice and
Avignon, and
tax collectors went out to the corners of the Continent to gather
in the
blessings of the lands,
This economic and
spiritual world,
like any world into which one is born, seemed as solid as the
Roman bridges on
the river. No one anticipated change. No one ever does. The towers
of the papal
palace rose higher and higher on the Rocher des Dams. More
churches and
monasteries and cloisters were pressed into the city behind the
walls, and when
the city could not hold another building the palaces of
anglophobic cardinals
sprang up along the banks of the historic river, where cardinals
and pontiffs
sailed on their magnificent barges with banners and bunting.
The spirit of the age
was
formulated in the architecture of the papal palace: arches formed
of the largest
machicolations in the world, every gate defended with its
portcullis, every
wall crowded with parapets. "If it was the home of the Vicar of
Christ," Y.A. Cook commented, "it was very clearly also meant to
be
the fortress of the Church Militant here upon earth." And at this
it was
successful. For ten years of siege, Pope Boniface XIII £ held out
behind these
walls.
When not besieged, the
popes sailed
under St. Benezet's Bridge, past Notre-Dame Des Dams, past the
papal palace,
past the Hotel Des Monnares, and past the papal mint, while friars
and papal
guards stood in the squares and sang Latin chants as their barges
went by.
Daudet wrote: "He who
did not
see Avignon in the days of the Popes has seen nothing. It was
unrivalled for
exuberance and mirth and endless feasting. From morn till eve,
processions and
pilgrimages filled the garlanded, tower-strewn streets."
Up this river sailed
Roland,
arrived from the sober English Cistercian monastery, outside York.
Shyness
protected him at first. Then his various sicknesses aided him. His
stomach
could not hold down the rich foods, the venison, the puddings and
the wines.
His arthritis made it impossible for him to hunt. He suffered
seasickness on
the canopied cruises. His knuckles were too gnarled to wear rings.
His body
suffered calamitously when he was fitted with heavy robes. He
developed a humor
about his inabilities. "It seems," he wrote Abbot Thomas, "God
wishes me to go only in sackcloth. I am achieving a reputation for
piety when
it should be for infirmity, for there is no doubt that this manner
of living in
Avignon calls for great strength and fortitude. To live in a
palace such as the
one I am now in, serving as secretary to Cardinal de Garves, tests
one's
physical well as spiritual skills."
Roland wrote regularly
to Abbot
Thomas for twenty years. His letters are our record of life in
Avignon from
1313 until 1333, when Abbot Thomas died, and the letters ceased.
Roland sent
his teacher not only observations, but philosophical and
theological observations,
for Roland had a weakness" for philosophy. To Aristotle's famous
dictum
"man seeks to know," he appended "God," and wrote his
comments on the life to be met with in the corridors of the
cardinal's palace.
"Seeking and knowing are
not
the same," he wrote.
His style was
aphoristic. He set
down notations, each one as a commentary upon the next. "It is
difficult
to record the soul," he made a note of that somewhere, "therefore,
simple language is recommended for this. For who has not observed
an animal
seek food and not find it. Thus, men may seek and not find or
know. To know is
a gift. As some are more gifted in the knowledge of mathematics,
so some are
more gifted in the knowledge of God. Gifts cannot be explained.
But they can be
accepted and used. But an unwise gift which its receiver misuses
can be an
affliction. And he who misuses a gift from God betrays its giver.
He who uses a
gift to betray its giver has violated the spirit of all charity.
As it is said:
cast no stone into a well from which you have drunk good water.
The manner of knowing
must be
appropriate to the thing sought to be known, for one cannot know
the way of the
stallion with the same methods of knowing the way of the ant. And
the manner of
receiving a gift should be appropriate to the gift that is given,
for surely
the gift of God requires a manner of reception different from the
gift of
earthly goods."
He wrote, as he always
did on such
subjects, standing by his lectern with his shawl on his shoulders
and his fur
slippers on his feet. Even after Abbot Thomas died, he wrote
tracts and
treatises as if he were writing them to him, as though this old
and now dead
teacher were an axis around which his mind and soul rotated so
customarily that
Abbot Thomas' death made no difference to his spiritual tropism.
Apparently, a
small man such as Roland can be nourished by one good teacher and
a good
servant.
He pointed out to the
dead Abbot
Thomas, that verbs of knowing were not synonymous. Each suggested
modes of
knowing, For example, "to experience breathing" was not the same
thing as "to meditate upon breathing," "to contemplate the act
of breathing" was not the same thing "to experiment with
breathing," "to breathe ritualistically -- panting in patterns"
was not the same thing as to construct a syllogism, such as "I
breathe,
therefore, etc." Hence to experience God was not the same thing as
to
reason about or to contemplate or to remember having experienced.
How different
was breath to the sick man who struggled for it, or to the
mountain climber who
was unselfconsciously conscious of the sweet air, or to a person
breathing
unselfconsciously. "The mode of reasoning," he wrote, may be the
least valuable way of knowing. Hence we cannot say that man alone
can know God
because only man alone can reason about God." Here he appended a
statement
from St. Bernard: "But it matters what sort of generation it is
which
receives consolation from the remembrance of God."
In 1333, Abbot Roland
was offered
the position of Cardinal and urged by friends to accept it, seeing
that there
was such a preponderance of French cardinals and so few English
ones. That was
the political argument, one which Prior Godfrey ruefully
resurrected on the
occasion of Abbot Roland's visit to Bodmin Priory. To refuse
wealth and power
is always suspicious, and the cardinals at this time were very
wealthy and
being very wealthy were very powerful. Cardinal de Garves himself
owned no less
than fifty-one establishments, and over two hundred horses housed
in a dozen
different stables. So wealthy were the cardinals that even the
popes borrowed
money from them. Nevertheless, Abbot Roland apologized with subtle
grace,
"that his failing strength would not allow him to undertake the
strenuous
career of cardinal and he asked instead permission to establish a
Cistercian
monastery in a pocket of land northeast of Dijon and Vesoul, an
outcropping in
the Jura Mountains, surrounded by the four rivers of the Rhine,
the Doubs, the
Saone, and the Rhone.
After founding Mount
Saint Bernard,
he established his yearly retreat each autumn and was pleased to
discover that
he could stretch the meager resources of his body. "Habit," he
wrote
the dead Abbot Thomas after his first retreat, "is a great
consoler and a
bad teacher. It allows' us to assume our limitations. I may not be
strong
enough to eat venison and dainties or to return to York, but I am
fit enough to
live on roots and berries." This was to chide Abbot Thomas for
having
refused his request to return to England.
In the winter of 1323,
Abbot Thomas
had a stroke and foretold his death. He lost his ability to speak
and to write
for about three months. He made a partial recovery so that he
could write a
letter to Abbot Roland in which he advised him of his illness and
his coming
death, and forebade him to sorrow or to return. 'Your destiny is
to stay,"
he wrote. "I leave an heir for the world in you, and in how many
ways is
this to be preferred to a school of many where one's spirit is
divided l ½ike
the robe of Jesus." He ended his letter by describing
Fountaineville and
how it had weathered over the years, the gardens, the rose-colored
stones, the
fountain, the birds peculiar to the place. "No man can wish for
more than
to die among the things he loves."
Abbot Roland did not
return, but
homesickness surprised him with its tenaciousness. He longed for
England, he
even longed for the climate that was inimical to him. He mourned
for Abbot
Thomas and for the collisional feeling of spiritual abundance in
himself and
spiritual uselessness in the corridors of Cardinal de Garve's
palace. But he
stayed because his teacher had asked him to, and he witnessed the
rules of
Clement V, John XXIII, Benedict XII, and Clement VI, and matured,
his piety
hedged round by history. In the earthly Jerusalem, he was
sometimes impatient
but never incautious, often frustrated but never stopped. Once
he'd been driven
into a state of such anger he lost his hearing for two days. After
this he
practiced even temperateness until he died. He had enemies, of
course, and they
branded him dispassionate. Commenting on this to Abbot Thomas, he
wrote,
"Nevertheless, there is no justice without wise administration."
In his honor, Prior
Godfrey
preached a sermon from oaken pulpit in St. Bodmin's Church,
beneath the window.
It did not look as grand this morning as he could have wished, for
the light
was dull owing to the weather, but the interior of the church with
its statuary
and candlesticks compensated for this. Prior Godfrey looked over
the altar
railing at the brethren, the priory servants, and his guest, the
papal nuncio,
the chamberlain, the scribe, Abbot Roland and his peculiar doctor.
A sense of
their foreignness struck him, but he mastered it and began in good
voice.
"There is in heaven a great coffer filled with the spirits of the
good
works of Christ's laborers here on earth. Christ gave this coffer
to St. Peter
and St. Peter keeps it for the good, clean souls who will go to
heaven. This
treasure, for which Christ paid for with his dear life,
accumulates and
increases with worth and merit and increases each day with each
good deed a man
does upon this earth. Therefore, think upon it in these ways, that
whatever is
done here its value increases in heaven. The good works on earth
add to the
heavenly store. So it is that a sinful man may sometimes borrow
from this
treasure to tide him to confession time so that he may not walk in
sin till he
be confessed. He may borrow and do good deeds double and pay back
with interest
into heaven's
treasury.
So my brethren, doubt
not but that
good increases of wealth come from thy works. When the good souls
are gone into
heaven they may help themselves to Christ's treasure. Be not like
the Jews who
hoard treasure upon earth, be thou for heaven's treasure and keep
you a look
out in the last days when there will be a great rush of many
people crying that
heavens treasure belongs to them, keep you a look out for
deceivers going about
for their own profit and crying that for a penny they Will buy a
piece of the
heavenly treasure. Nay, nay, the heavenly treasure cannot be had
so cheap.
There was a man here in Bodmin Village who bought a false bull
from a false
pardoner who for a penny told him that he had no more sin and
would go to
heaven with a clean soul, but when this man came to heaven Saint
Peter held
fast the gate against his crying though he cried ever so loud,
"let me in.
I paid my penny to a pardoner and am sinless." "Not so," said
Saint Peter, "you paid your penny to a false pardoner and I cannot
let you
in for your soul is sinful and dirty and it will soil up this
clean heaven.
Straightway he hurled this man down to the eternal fire and Saint
Peter's laugh
followed him all the way down. This man lost all hope as well as
his penny.
Therefore. I say to you, be not like the Jews and take pardon of a
false
pardoner. It will not avail against Saint Peter. Lay up, lay up
your treasure
in heaven."
Afterwards, they went
into the
Chapter Room, where Abbot Roland thanked Prior Godfrey for his
special
considerations of food and comfort and sermon, and talked about
his health, the
welfare of Bodmin and of England, and his Brother Harald whom he
regretted
missing. The amenities over, he came to the point of his visit.
Prior Godfrey
drummed on the arms of his chair, with his fingers, while Abbot
Roland
discoursed about taxes and figures and death.
Europe was burning! He
had the
facts of its demise at his fingertips. In Sienna, 80,000 had died
in seven
months out of a population of 100,000. In Marseilles 50,000 had
died. In Paris,
80,000 were reported dead only this past summer. The famous
physician, Guy de
Chaullac, had written from that stricken city, "Human charity is
dead. All
fear the plague so that a father will not visit his son, nor the
son his
father." And in Avignon, in Avignon itself, 62,000 people had died
in four
months time, only between this past January and April. Eleven
thousand bodies
had been buried in one cemetery, and the rest thrown into the
Rhone. Seven cardinals
had died within three days of each other. Palaces stood deserted.
The river was
glutted with bodies and carrion. Not a soul to be seen in the
piazzas. The
halls of celebration were empty and one mourned not only human
life, but the
decay of magnificence, our emblems of our earthly desires and
achievement.
As Abbot Roland reached
England,
Rome itself was destroyed by an earthquake on September 9. Europe
was burning!
Europe was burning with plague and war and famine. He had come to
persuade the
religious houses of England to cut off Edward's revenues so that
he could not
continue his war against France. "Europe is burning!" He cried it
hoarsely. He said it everywhere. It was his only message. It was
not only
moral, but reasonable and right and righteous and humane and even
commonsensical for humankind to cease its hostilities. Was it not
enough that
nature warred on man?
He carried the message
to the
Benedictine Abbey of Coventry, to the Earl of Warwick, to the
Augustinian
Canonry of Kenilworth, to the Cistercian Abbey of Combe, to all of
England's
largest landowners. He carried the message to monasteries and
castles, to the
feudal demesnes of England. "Europe was burning"' He was obsessed
with this old, corrupt, ever-renewing, barbaric and civilized
civilization,
ever over-ripe. He was obsessed with love and fear for it, and his
obsession
kept him at a journey that taxed his strength and worried his
physician.
"Europe was burning! Ò" Europe was sinking beneath the weight of
catastrophes. The palaces were sinking, the bridges were sinking,
the rivers
and the land were sinking beneath the weight of dead bodies.
Europe was
burning! Europe was sinking beneath its own weight. He went
further, into
Cornwall, and his secretary and his servant ran after him, and his
physician
followed him with blankets and ointments and entreaties to return.
He waved the
arguments away and held audiences with the Bishop of Winchester
and the Bishop
of Canterbury and Bishop Grandisson in Exeter. And he arrived at
each gate too
late, already foiled by the nature of things. His reputation for
saintliness,
hedged as it was by history, had been sacrificed before he had set
foot in
Dover. To the English he had become Frenchified and to the French
he remained
English, everywhere respected for his probity and suspected of his
loyalties.
The problem was to persuade people to do what was good for them,
even if their
¹enemies benefitted.
The main source of
Edward's funds
was the wool tax. The largest suppliers of this wool exported to
Europe were
the monasteries. The history of this wool tax, which had brought
Abbot Roland
to England was this: In 1275 the first specific wool tax had been
created, 7S
6d on the sack. This tax was afterwards known as the "Great and
Ancient
custom and was the occasion for the first councilor meetings of
the baron,
which then gave rise to Parliament. The barons met to see what
they could do to
meet the king's expenses, as the king himself had requested them
to do, not
dreaming that out of his problem of fiscal management would grow
our notions of
democracy, of advice and consent to the ruler. No one minded this
tax at first,
but when it jumped to 40S on the sack in 1294, the "Great and
Ancient
Custom" became known as the "maltote." By that time, it was too
late to undo the thing, for never has it been heard of a tax bei
Îng removed.
In fact, by 1348, the tax upon wool was L2 on the sack. One
hundred and eighty
English monasteries produced wool that was transported to the
continent.
Lincolnshire, Fountains, Rievaulx, Kirkstead, Revesby and Spalding
alone
exported 5,800 tons annually, and the tax on this was
considerable, quite
enough to wage a war. In addition, Edward, to the chagrin of the
pope, had been
appropriating the revenue from vacant alien bishoprics. To the
chagrin of the
crown, monies raised from the alien incumbencies in England,
passed from the
papacy to the French. It was Abbot Roland's task to swim against
these
currents, to bear in mind that the pope who had sent him to
England had once
been chancellor to Philip VI of Valois, who was now Edward's
enemy.
"Tut!" Prior Godfrey
said
and raised a pontifical hand, all this matters not now that the
Jews have
confessed to poisoning the wells. The plague will soon end and
with it France's
fears for another war, for no doubt she will arm herself again
once the plague
is past," and he declared Clement's bulls against the persecution
of the
Jews to be pointless.
Abbot Roland fumbled for
his shawl.
"I plead not for France, but for Europe and for Christendom. What
avails
it if the Jews burn, Europe will still be Europe, Christendom will
still be
Christendom, and if the Jews burn, we will not be able to raise
coin in all of
Europe."
Prior Godfrey was not
impressed.
"Coin may be raised by Englishmen as well," and though he did not
say
it, he went on to think, as well as by Florentines, Lombard, and
whatever you
may call the pope's tax collectors." But he reminded Abbot Roland
that one
hundred years ago, the king s brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall
who had owned
the Cornish tin mines, had been the chief lender in the realm,
"though I
defend him not, for it is unworthy to raise coin, but it is not a
talent for
Jews alone and Englishmen can raise coin as well as another. Have
you not heard
that William de la Pole has stepped into the shoes of the
Florentine
bankers." Prior Godfrey imparted this as a piece of eminently good
news,
"For if coin must be, better it be in the hands of the English
than the
French, the Florentine or Jew." There was nothing on the economic
horizon
that he judged disturbing now that economics and politics
travelled in the same
direction. He did not see himself as playing the dangerous game of
sitting on
two stools at once, land and coin. His values were feudal and he
did not assume
these could be superseded by a temporary flirtation with other
forms of
economic power. What he saw in the newly rising commercialism was
his own
chance to increase his land power and the wealth of his monastery
"for the
benefit of Christ." He could recite Edward's warm commendation to
William
de la Pole when he made that "merchant" a baronette in 1339:
"Because he had made and procured to be made such a supply of
money that
by his means our honor and the honor of our followers, thanks be
to God, has
been preserved." He would have rejoiced to see de la Pole's son
become
Earl of Suffolk, though Prior Godfrey abhorred and denounced
usury, as did
every good Christian.
Abbot Roland reminded
him of the
misfortune that had befallen Laurence of Ludlow, the great wool
merchant who
had first negotiated the hated wool tax for the king, and was
afterwards
drowned in a ship laden with wool. "For the peasant loses thereby,
as you
well know, for his profit goes off in the tax."
"Tut! what he loses in
the one
hand he grasps with the other," Prior Godfrey said. "Where there
is
wool there must be markets to sell the wool. Where markets are
sought, there
must be wars to capture them. Wars must be financed. The peasant
paid and
gained at Crecy and Calais, as well as did the lords of the
manors."
Moreover, as Abbot Roland knew, wool was traded for wine from
Gascony. Where
would they obtain wine had they not the wool for it?
Prior Godfrey could not comprehend Abbot Roland's misgivings. In
Castile, the
king raised money from the wool export to fight the Moors, the
same as Edward
did to fight the French. Prior Godfrey shrewdly pressed this
point. "In
Spain, the sheep does the work of Christian soldiers. God bless
the sheep, for
she runs now where the Arab horses ran but a short while ago. How
can the king
fight the infidel without money and where can he raise this money
without a
tax. God bless the sheep, I say."
Abbot Roland did not
address
himself to the broad question of crusades everywhere. He argued
against a
specific tax for a specific purpose at an inconvenient time.
"Would it not
be better for England to let the peasant keep the wool and
manufacture cloth
from it?" Prior Godfrey's nerves fluttered at this, but he
ventured to
say, "We are encouraging as we can. The welfare of our serfs is
close to
the heart of Bodmin Priory, as is the welfare of our country."
"But England is none the
worse, aye better if she keeps the wool," Abbot Roland said.
"Aye, and so is France."
Abbot Roland knew that
there were
few words that could dispel suspicion once it was lodged in a
brain. A diplomat
cannot plead his sincerity once his credibility is questioned. He
would let the
matter rest and see what his visit to Abbot Denis would bring. He
could only
hope to accumulate hints and to mold them.
Prior Godfrey was glad
to see him
go, but not to Abbot Denis', whose monastery he suspected of
harboring spies,
but Abbot Denis welcomed Abbot Roland with the emotion of one in
exile. He
burst into tears and embraced Abbot Roland, sparing him not a
detail about the unpleasant
events he had endured in this island. Nevertheless, his table was
elaborate,
with mutton and venison and fish and hot spiced ale, though not
much more so
than was usual. Scent and herbs had been laid down in the straw,
which was
unusual. The linen of seventeen brethren had been laundered, but
their faces
still bore the strain of their cynicism, sullenness and apathy.
When Abbot
Roland remarked on their lack of spirit for the Lord's work, Abbot
Denis told
him, 'It is all this talk of plague which the English have noised
about. We
live in an atmosphere of rumor and discontent which saps the joy
of
prayer."
Abbot Roland made the
sign of the
cross as he sat down to eat in the midst of this company,
reminding himself
that a part of his mission was to bring moral support to the alien
priories.
"Tell them the purpose of prayer is to sap the venom from rumor.
They live
by reverse motion."
"Aye, we live in
difficult
times and in a difficult place," Abbot Denis said, glad to
unburden
himself. "England is a godless country, for all her religious
houses. I
will not waste your time with talk of this place, but tell me how
does the
flower of Europe?"
"She is trampled with
plague."
"How's that?"
"In France, the plague
is not
an Englishman's rumor."
There seemed something
censorious
in this remark to Abbot Denis, not merely informative. "But one
cannot
believe everything that is said," he said.
"True," Abbot Roland
said
with carefulness, "but believe this."
"One must sift and
choose and
think upon the reasonableness of whatever is being said."
"True. It is difficult
to
persuade people to swim against the current of their wishes."
"Well, as for that, I
have
heard it said that there are fishes with two heads in the sea, and
men on the
other side of the world with their eyes slanted towards their
ears. Bless me,
if I can believe the Lord would create such monstrosities."
"No form is impossible,"
Abbot Roland said.
"Aha, then you would
believe
me if I told you I had wings on my shoulders pinned beneath my
cape."
Abbot Roland's utensil
drifted
slowly downwards towards his plate. He was in no hurry to eat.
Hunger was not
his problem. Being such a small man, he could almost exist on air.
"I am
afraid you have caught me there," he smiled.
"I have caught you
there," Abbot Denis said. "There is a limit to everything, even to
matters of creation." He flushed with philosophical victory and
forgot
what his original point was, which was something about Englishmen
and the plague.
Abbot Roland intervened to help him out. "I only meant that in
theory God
could create anything, even wings on your shoulders, and that
therefore we
should be prepared to welcome even that which would be most
unusual."
Abbot Denis recovered
his thought.
"God could not create the Englishman and none can be prepared to
love
him," adding quickly, "excepting yourself."
"Friend in Christ,"
Abbot
Roland said to Abbot Denis' surprise, "I come not as Frenchman or
as
Englishman. Be assured, the plague rages every bit as rumor says.
In this
matter, trust rumor. It cannot enlarge upon the matter. If our
generation does
not know what it is suffering, what will future generations know?"
Abbot Denis ì found this
outburst
unnecessary, for he concurred, a thousand times he concurred that
Edward's
funds should be cut off. "As for my loyalty to Clement," he said,
"be assured that I shall give my reeve orders to let my wool stay
in the
land, though it cost me the love of the London bankers. In this
matter I shall
persevere. Trust me. I have an advance on this year's wool from
Chaunton. Trust
me. I shall return half of it."
Abbot Roland fancied he
looked as
drained of energy as the seventeen brethren who sat a step beneath
him. History
seemed to overwhelm the sentiment of righteousness.
"You will surely do
that," he said with a dry tongue, and he rose to retire.
"Trust me," Abbot Denis
said again, "I will not fail France or the Pope."
Abbot Roland transcended
the moment
and set a kiss of gratitude on his cheek. "I do thank you," he
said.
'But now," he held Abbot Denis away with outstretched arms, "I
will.
say the evening prayers in my room. I do 'believe my old teacher
was correct
and the climate here is not good for me."
Philip his physician
observed the
more than usual weakness in Abbot Roland and followed him to his
room. That it
was no use to ask him to return, he knew. From the moment they had
landed on
English soil, he also knew the journey would be irretrievable. And
for what
good? Did he not know Europe as well as Roland did, and this place
as well.
From the moment they had stepped ashore and he had heard the
accent of this
island people, the language they spoke stirred cells in his brain
and evoked
the disease of memory. He was a native of another kind, one who
had been here
through others, whose empirical self was trapped in the memories
of others.
'At fifty-eight, Philip
was slender
to a fault, tensile. He moved with the inelastic grace of the monk
who had
outlived his problematic youth and has channeled his inner turmoil
into the
routine of monastic life, but whose struggle for a spiritual life
had all but
desiccated him. He was reserved and seemed to have no personal
life, he was
habitually to be found alongside Abbot Roland, or just behind him,
so that he
had been dubbed "the abbot's shadow." In his youth, Philip was
tormented by any jeer, expressed or inferred. But successive
rebellions seemed
to erode his personality and his strength and did nothing to
weaken his
oppressors. To himself he felt like an animal caught in such a net
that its
attempts to extricate itself traps it further, and its own efforts
to escape
destroy it. He could ignore his brethren's jeers now. For one
thing, by a
mutual absorption of one another, theirs and his antipathies had
become
sufficiently' muted to make life bearable. They had worn each
other out.
Exhaustion was evident in his brown eyes, but poise too in the way
that his
black habit fell supply along his thin body, his onyx cross lying
authoritatively on his chest. His friendship with Abbot Roland
compensated him
for the lack of other friendships and justified to him the path
life had set
him on.
If it is a fault, it was
a fault
that Philip's bearing was too monkish," as the secular would say,
or
"too metaphysical," as his brethren would say, "leaning too much
into the spirit of the thing." Had his appearance conveyed only
unctuousness they would have found a,' place for him in monastic
life, which
had its share of this quality. But his shoulders conveyed a
heightened and,
camouflaged self-awareness, and in the monastic world,
temperamental deviation,
particularly the effort to' conceal that deviation, invited
enmity,
particularly too if the deviation took the form of both
declarative holiness
and the effort to conceal it.
Philip had a rare
singing voice
which rose above the other voices when he sang in a chorus. It
could not be
concealed, for merely to hear it was to wonder where this rare
sound was coming
from. It had both purity and volume and seemed to be immanent in
the halls, to
come from everywhere at once. Visitors always inquired whose voice
it was, and
if the visitor was distinguished, an archbishop or a baron, Philip
was brought
forward to perform alone, and sometimes invited to accompany the
visitor to his
castle to perform at Rheims or in Paris, and in return he would be
given gifts
to bring back to his monastery. Because of this gift, he was
singled out for
many advantages which his brethren could not share. In their
spiritual lexicon
they believed that for decency's sake, he should modulate his
tones and blend
them better with their own. Philip wished to avoid invidiousness
and would
respond: "I am singing for the glory of the Church."
Perversely, this remark
aroused
their contempt.
Later ages might believe
that
Philip could have made a wiser response, but at fifteen or sixteen
in 1306, the
conjunction of "fit" between his response and his condition struck
him as so inescapable as to be natural, and so natural as to be Ý
logical, and
therefore convincing to him. He said it because he believed it,
but no one else
did. He imitated expressions he read in books and it pleased him
to say them.
At any rate, there is no guarantee that if he had moderated his
voice or had
refused to sing altogether, that things would have been different
for him. If
he had not aroused envy and contempt, he might have only aroused
contempt.
In the beginning,
however, his
voice was a source of great pain to him, not only because of the
sacrifice it
had entailed but because he could not hear it without reliving the
terror of
his kidnapping, and this memory evoked antecedent memories of a
home he could
not return to. In the beginning, his longing to go home was
unendurable, his
gift a curse, the ground plan of evil for which everyone else
flattered and
complimented him while he believed himself insidious. He was an
animal whose
trap is his own nature. Singing, he heard his mother singing in
accents and in
a language he never heard again, until he came to England.
Singing, his father
carried him to the altar singing hosannas to his 'firstborn.
Singing, his
grandfather kept the beat for him with his hand and accompanied
him with
spiritual care so that no sound of prayer went awry, mindful of
the shadows
that accompany error. Singing, their voices transcended his.
Singing, they
surrounded his soul like the leaves of a fruit. Singing with him
now, they
would not let him sing with the others.
Eventually the past was
muted and
became less threatening. Sometimes he would forget it altogether
for long
periods at a time. Then, some minor event would remind him,
invariably
something insignificant as a cloud or a certain pitch to a certain
voice, and
the past would assault him like splinters penetrating his tissues,
not so much
as memory but as pressures he could not identify, threatening and
seemingly
unreasonable, causing him terror, depriving him of a sense of
direction, causing
him vertigo. Such moods could come upon him anywhere at any time.
They were as
unpredictable as a disease. One awoke one morning and discovered a
pain that
had not been there the night before. The pain might or might not
go away, might
or might not be symptomatic, should or should not be taken
seriously. He
treated these "moods" as illness and would go to the infirmary or
take
to his bed until the mood or the threat of it, or the "temporary
inconvenience" of it had passed.
Psychological strategies
governed
his development. Freedom of self, to live without this threat from
within,
governed all his decisions, survival of the self became the
premise of his
intellectual and religious thought. His childhood became remote
and strange to
his present mind. In the long run, reason, with its constructive
abilities and
claim to reality and sanity, had to triumph over sentiments and
memories, or
Philip would have spent his life, metaphorically speaking, inside
the potato
sack that had been lowered over his head when he was first
kidnapped, kicking
with terror.
He could not say then,
or ever,
where he had been taken to. A potato sack had been dropped over
his head, like
over a kicking cat, and that night he found himself in a monastery
with three
others. In the morning they were fed, put on a wagon and
transported somewhere
el se. During the day, they were separated, and he travelled alone
in the
company of a priest. He identified the place that he was brought
to as eretz
norte. He did not recognize the landscape, but he had heard
stories that it was
here where Jewish children were taken when they disappeared. He
believed he was
as far north as the North Sea, for the air was cold. His fears
diminished when
he realized he would not be physically threatened, but the thought
of his
parents' grief agitated him. When his request that his captors
send them word
of assurance was refused, he suffered his first shock of
impotence.
In reality, he was not
far from his
home, a few miles north of Cologne, on a road his uncle travelled
twice a
month. A priest had brought him there, who meant to collect the
ransom for a
debt he had been taxed with by Archbishop Sigismund to pay the
usurer, Mose
Menaheim. The abbot of the monastery convinced him to let the boy
stay and be
baptized. The weight of spiritual argument was on the abbot's side
and the
priest relinquished his -interest in the ransom.
Philip was baptized and
kept three
years. His voice attracted the ear of Abbot Waldheim and at the
appropriate
time he had him castrated and sent as a present to Abbot
Gottfried. Here Philip
stayed hardly a year. Abbot Gottfried had no ear for music and
Philip could not
get along with the other novitiates in his monastery. He made no
friends. He
was sullen and melancholy, and his voice caused envy and contempt,
because it
was known that he was a convert.
The problem of Philip's
origins
would not go away. "His brethren confronted him in the cloister as
neither
fish nor fowl. While the Church strenuously advocated his
'conversion as a
solution to history, it was apparent from Philip's case that his
conversion did
not solve anything. There beneath tempus eterna, war, famine,
plague and plain
everyday distemper raged on. Philip lived among his brethren as a
'brethren
among brethren, as the 'brethren lived at Bodmin, but his brethren
sabotaged
his efforts at salvation in any way they could. They marked up his
songbooks,
they put ink splotches on the notes and they distorted their
values. One, he
claimed, had thrown his Gospel into the fireplace. "It had been
possessed
of motion by itself," the other student explained to Abbot
Waldheim.
Philip's condition as a
convert was
not unusual, Though the Church welcomed converts, indeed sought
them and
promised them salvation, it cannot be said, except perhaps for a
very few, that
any found it. As a rule, they remained "converts" even to the
fourth
or fifth generation. Sometimes it took as long as five hundred
years for a
"new" Christian to become simply a Christian and what was the
condition of their souls in all that time is not known, wandering
in spiritual
ambiguity through purgatory as they waited for conversion to
complete
itself.
Philip distressed
himself with
these questions. His conversion had been imposed upon him but in
time he took
it seriously, while his brethren did not even take seriously their
monastic
vows "in the brotherhood of charity." Born to the manor, so to
speak,
they could not suffer eviction except under extraordinary
conditions of
sinning. It was rare that anyone simply dropped out of being a
Christian or,
for that matter, of being a Jew, so much birthright conditions
spiritual
destiny. His brethren acted on the prerogatives Å of their
birthright. A great
many adjectives made up their complaints about Philip: "guarded,"
"secretive," "unfriendly." These gave rise to other
unpleasant rumors, for Philip was guarded and unfriendly, and
almost anything
could be said about him---"he had arcane thoughts," he
"squinted" at the crucifix, "he dipped his fingers in
urine" before making the blessing.
Philip did practice
tricks, chiefly
on himself. He could spend days in which he refused to acknowledge
the
existence of anyone; he could stop his breath and have fainting
spells; he
could become deaf for days and hear nothing and consequently could
not hear the
bells and come to prayer or attend meals or follow a discipline of
any kind.
Once --- the final straw for Abbot Waldheim--he was found on the
steps of the
altar, gazing at the crucifix, apparently dead. When touched, he
fell over like
a rock. He was in fact pronounced dead in a short while and only
awaited
internment, but he recovered in time. So close did he come to real
or imagined
death that he did not do this again, but afterwards focused on hs
reading and
singing and became very "monkish."
Abbot Waldheim, who was
not an
imaginative man, regarded this as Philip's last trick. He wrote a
letter to his
bishop requesting his removal from his monastery, describing him
as
"intractable," and causing trouble 'wherever he went. He himself
had
witnessed his resurrection from death which, in Philip's case
merited his quick
removal. He was a danger to the spiritual health of the monastery.
He was
possessed, he was and always would be a "Jewish devil not worth
the effort
to convert." Abbot Waldheim had no plans for Philip's future
salvation,
but with his bishop's approval he packed him off to Abbot
Benedict's monastery
with the warning, "I doubt that the Jew can be made into a
Christian, for
his soul resists the truth as the eyes of a bat resists the
light."
Abbot Benedict, of St.
Boniface's Monastery,
was a long-standing friend of Abbot Waldheim, and never accepted
his judgment
in anything. Philip arrived at seventeen, appearing very much as
Abbot Waldheim
had described him: "possessed, inattentive, perhaps dull, his eyes
wandering, incommunicative, unpleasant, sometimes violent." Abbot
Benedict
distrusted all these statements; he distrusted Abbot Waldheim, and
he abhorred
such methods that were taken to convert the Jews as had been taken
with Philip.
His intentions were to make amends as soon as he could, but as he
became aware
of Philip's condition he understood the difficulties and for the
time had to
content himself with letting Philip be "until time should reveal a
calmer
nature."
In time, Philip did mend
and became
attentive to his monastic duties, but he made no friends. Abbot
Benedict
believed that even in a monastery, social attachment was good.
Philip ate
silently, he read silently, he walked in the cloister silently, he
worked in
the garden silently. His voice wa Üs only heard when he was
compelled to sing.
He was both compliant and withdrawn. The voices of his parents and
his sisters
and his brother still accompanied him, though he knew he would
never go home,
not even if he were able to go home. He could not sing with them
anymore. He
could not sing with them in the synagogue if his father asked him
to, and he would
not explain to them why he could not. For what was the glory of
the Church was
the shame of the synagogue.
He had been converted in
every part
of himself, in the secret parts of his body and in his tongue. He
could not be
recognized as a Jew by anyone, not even by Jews. Three recently
had come to
talk with Abbot Benedict on the matter of a loan. They passed him
in the garden
as he worked and did not recognize that he was a Jew. They spoke
among
themselves, but not to him. They did not know that he could
understand their
language. He could speak it, but he did not. He would not open his
mouth. How
startled they would have been! He could not open his mouth, but he
prayed that
God would open their eyes so they could see into his heart and
gather him up.
If he could be healed! Made whole again. if his parts could come
together!
Nothing was too difficult for God, Healer of all afflictions.
Could He not heal
history and return him as a full Jew?
One afternoon, Abbot
Benedict
stopped him in the cloister to speak about his parents. Philip
began to
tremble. "You must know your parents suffer," Abbot Benedict said.
Philip's trembling became violent. Abbot Benedict was sorry he had
spoken.
"I do not wish to go back," Philip said. "I will bear their
suffering on my conscience." He looked down at the mosaic floor
with its
elaborately worked unfolding of New Testament deeds.
Abbot Benedict went
away, troubled.
What was done could not be undone. Perhaps worse harm could come
trying to undo
the past. He decided that he must change the course of Philip's
development and
do what he could so that Philip could enjoy a full Christian life.
He must not
be left to drift anymore, betwixt and between. Having been so
wounded, it was
no cure to be left to subsist on the periphery of Christian life.
Abbot
Benedict took personal charge of him and attended to his
education. Philip
proved responsive. He advanced intellectually, but he still kept
distant from
his peers, in time incurring the worst of social reactions:
contempt and envy.
After two years, Abbot
Benedict
wrote to Archbishop Sigmund for advice, detailing the matter of
Philip's background
and requesting with due respect to all the difficulties, that
Philip be
returned to his former life. Archbishop Sigmund had more of the
official
conscience than Abbot Benedict, and he responded in kind.
"Christian piety
accepts the Jews who, by their own guilt, are consigned to
perpetual servitude
because they crucified the Lord. Through baptism are they redeemed
from this
servitude. Would Abbot Benedict wish to consign one back to
servitude whom
fortune has rescued and given the grace of freedom and eternal
salvation?"
Abbot Benedict's doubts
subsided
for a few months, but they revived again, and he wrote again, this
time
requesting Archbishop Sigmund to examine Philip personally and if
he would do
that, whatever the decision, there would be an end to the matter,
for it could
not be borne with any longer.
Philip was gone a week,
and
returned bearing a lengthy response from Archbishop Sigmund:
"Having done that which
always
enriches the Church with a new child, we send back to you as a
Christian our
dear son, Philip, the bearer of this letter. We have caused to be
added to this
document also that which we have heard from him, the substance and
sequence of
his story, for it is pleasant to relate the wonders of God. We
have tried him
and have questioned him in every way and we are assured that he is
in the
Faith. Since, however, a new plant of this kind should be
strengthened not
alone by the dew of doctrine, but also nourished by temporal
benefits, so that
God may show him an increase, we order your fraternity so to
arrange matters
that he be provided with such advantages and preferments as to
advance his
position in life and sweeten his departure from his enslavement so
that he not
be forced, from spiritual or temporal want, to look backward, as
you have
complained of him, but to steady his gaze and be encouraged to
look forward to
his salvation.
"As the soul is superior
to
the body, to that extent are things spiritual preferable to things
temporal. We
could not look with favor upon the return of one to slavery and
servitude when
he stands already within the door of the Church and has taken a
step upon the
path to freedom and eternal salvation. We rejoice that he is akin
to the angels
and is a jewel in the Crown of Our Lord."
Abbot Benedict took heed
and sent
Philip to the University of Paris to study medicine, to give
Philip's
intelligence and personality a wholly different direction from the
monastic
one, for Abbot Benedict wisely, considered that Philip's morbidity
might be due
to this environment as well as to his estranged past. Philip was
released from
his monastic vows, but he continued to wear the habit at the
university. The
atmosphere was wholly different here from the monastery, but so
contentious as
almost to frighten him. Everyone here laid claim to his soul. The
privileges
and the curriculum of the religious classes were contested, while
the Orders
assailed him with arguments against reading the new pagan
literature, lyrical
poetry, the "new sciences." The best of these religious could not
value
empiricism as the means to redemption, or experimentation as a
foundation for
morality; the worst careerists who protected their priestly
positions.
The idea that the
university is the
place for the contemplative life is a contradiction in terms, for
nothing
breeds contention like ideas. Bickering is the disease of
philosophers. Thus
the University of Paris, when Abelard taught there: "... within a
few days
after I began to teach dialectic there, with what envy our master
began to grow
green, with what grief to rage, is not easy to express in words."
Thus, also, Pelagius, On
the Vices
of Masters: "Moved by envy, they scorn to admit well-prepared
subordinates
to professorial chairs, and full of arrogance, they despise others
and censure
their utterances unreasonably. They teach useless, vain, and
sometimes false
doctrines. They are dumb dogs to bark, as Isaiah inveighs against
them (66:10).
Seeing the faults of peoples and lords, they keep silent lest they
displease
them, when they ought to argue at least in secret --- which they
also sometimes
admit to do because they are involved in like vices themselves.
And although
receiving sufficient salaries, they avariciously demand beyond
their due or
refuse to teach the poor unless paid for it, and want pay whether
they teach on
feast days or not, or fail to lecture when they should, attending
to other
matters, or teach less diligently."
The atmosphere was
contentious. The
scandal of the Knights Templar pervaded it and condensed
everyone's thinking,
bordering as it did on so many areas of concern: religion,
politics, economics,
heresy. The scandal of the Grand Master of the Knights Templar
being tried for
confessing that at his reception he thrice denied Christ, thrice
spit on the
Cross and once on the ground," intelligently aroused cynicism in
most
Christians. Kings in need of money were apt to burn anybody. Even
the pope was
skeptical and attempted to intervene on behalf of the Grand
Master. But
persecution was lucrative in those days, and the pope's power ½s
were limited.
The Dominicans had grown in strength and were to be seen
everywhere during this
time, intellectually competent, self-assured and useful while the
Franciscans,
deprived as they were of any significant part in the Inquisition,
contented themselves
with lyrical introspection and with carrying on their warfare with
the
university faculty for the soul of man, "holding classes," their
secular faculty charged, "when the faculty voted to retire, in
order to
influence the students in their absence." In the end, Jacques de
Molay,
along with other brothers of the order, was burned practically
beneath Philips
nose.
He did not go to watch
the
proceedings, though everyone else did, but he was immersed in
their writings
about heretics. Into his searching hands fell all manner of
literature,
particularly the records of Jews who had converted to Christianity
and had
relapsed back to Judaism. From an anonymous Parisian journal of
the century
before, came this!
"In that year, 1268, a
certain
accursed Jew was seized; he had been a Christian for twenty years
or more, had
taken a wife according to Christian law, and through her had sired
Christian
children, of whom he subsequently caused two to be circumcised and
to Judaize
with him. On Sunday prior to the Feast of St. Vincent, at St.
Anthony near
Paris, with a multitude of good men in attendance--for those who
attended
received major indulgences from the bishop--the accused was
stripped of orders
by the bishop, was degraded, and was turned over to the secular
court. On the
following Thursday --- after he had chosen for himself fire rather
than to
return to the Christian faith, asserting that if all the kindling
of Paris were
gathered and ignited and he be thrown into the midst, he would not
be burned by
that fire --- he was led into the square where hogs were sold in
Paris and
there, bound fast, he was totally consumed by the fire, so that
nothing
remained unburned either of his body or of his limbs. Then his
ashes were
strewn throughout the adjacent fields."
A second case was even
more
desperate.
April 18, 1266, with
God's grace we
preached near the Mare-du-Parc, where the clergy and people of
Rouen had
collected after marching thither in a procession. Here we adjudged
and
condemned as an apostate and an heretic one who had been converted
from Judaism
to the Catholic faith. He had again reverted from the Catholic
faith to Judaic
depravity, and once again baptized, had once more reverted to
Judaism, being
unwilling afterwards to be restored to the Catholic faith,
although several
times admonished to do so. He was consequently burned by the
bailiff. The
Register of Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen.
Philip was surrounded by
a century
of conversions and relapses and re-conversions. What could one
tell from the record?
Believer: There is a
major proof
for our faith in that there is no people lowlier than the Jews.
Unbeliever: Precisely
the opposite!
It is a major proof of our faith, that we remain steadfast in it
nonetheless.
Biblioteca nazionale,
Rome, Hebrew
ms. no 53, 24b.
For Philip there was no
longer any
question of relapse, but he was driven to justify the path he was
on. For him,
as for Paul, only that Jesus be the risen Christ, he too would be
justified,
redeemed from his flesh with a magnanimity of compensation.
He asked himself, why
the Jews who
believed in the resurrection of the flesh, did not believe that
Jesus was the
Risen Christ. This argument raged throughout the century in
disputations which
had become popular literature: their Messiah was not divine, their
Scriptures
did not require him to be divine, their prophecies foretold that
when the
Messiah arrived he would be concerned with the affairs of the
earth. Some held
that the Messiah had to do with the Resurrection of the flesh, but
that this had
to do with the end of history when the dead would arise and take
their place in
the Eternal world. Others disputed this. Upon close inspection,
there were many
ideas concerning the Messiah, the Resurrection of the flesh, the
nature of the
afterworld, among both the Jews and the Christians. Some believed
the flesh was
resurrected soon after the body died; others believed in a general
resurrection
at the end of time; others were vague about the when and the how
but were quite
clear about everything else. The prophecy was not precise. Even
Pope John XXII
had become lost in its maze of contradictions and had to be
condemned for
heresy.
A cruel thought occurred
to Philip:
whether in the Resurrection the flesh was made whole? Did the lame
and the deaf
and the halt and the blind enter into Eternal Life with the stigma
of their
earthly condition upon them. This, at least, he ruled out. For if
the Eternal
Life did not heal the wounds of earth, what els could be its
function? No
blemished sacrifice entered into the Kingdom of God.
He turned to the
writings of famous
Jewish apostates, who had not relapsed: Nicholas Domin, Pablos
Christianos, and
his famous contemporary, R. Abner of Burgos. He turned finally to
Raymond
Lully, intrigued with the gossip pertaining to his birth. Some
said he was born
of a Saracen father and a Jewish mother. Some said he was born of
a Jewish
father and an Albigensian mother. Learned in all these traditions,
in the
mystical writings of the Jews and in the philosophical writings of
the Arab; he
was an authoritative Christian.
After Philip finished
his studies
at the University of Paris, Abbot Benedict secured a position for
him as
Cardinal de Garve's physician in Avignon, but the city was no
longer the center
of religious discourse. It was by this time a thoroughly
politically embattled
city suffering the vice of luxury like a snake coiled around it.
As Philip walked
along the corridors of Cardinal de Garve's palace, such
convictions regarding
Christianity weakened before this confrontation with the earthly
form of the
religion. By comparison now, his life in the monastery, unhappy
though it was,
seemed more suited to him, more suggestive of the religious
reality he sought
than the papal city. But his temperament, he knew, was not suited
to monastic
life. The virtues of cosmopolitan life are intensity and variety,
and these
Philip needed to exhaust him. He needed to be exhausted by the
world.
It is often assumed that
the
castrato loses sexual desire. The hell is otherwise, as Origen
learned to his
embarrassment. He retains desire. What he loses is effective
ability. In time,
Philip learned to master this unique condition of having been
given an
unworkable set of rules for his salvation,, for the Church
abhorred crushed
privy parts as much as the synagogue did, and regarded the removal
of testicles
as bad as the removal of foreskin.
Abbot Benedict had also
informed
Cardinal de Garve of Philip's voice, and his reputation was
established. In a
city like Avignon particularly, where the arts were esteemed, his
voice very
soon attracted attention. He sang at lavish dinners and was part
of every papal
ceremony As with everyone else, he became addicted to the flattery
of being
wanted and of being presumed him serviceable. But the flattery
soon enervated
him. The buried tension arose again between his self-flagellating
"I which
understood that the condition of this gift lay in deformity and
his
estrangement from a world which could ignore the conditions of a
gift which
humiliated him. Moreover, he was rarely asked to practice the
medicine he had
been trained in. When real illness struck a member of the
cardinal's family,
paralysis or a tumor, the cardinal called in the Jewish physician
from
Toulouse. Philip's function was to purge the cardinal of the bad
effects of his
indulgences. He complained to Roland, "The only time I see him
clutch his
cross is when the passage is painful."
Roland's refusal to
accept the
cardinal's cap influenced Philip deeply. The offer was political
enough,
courting English friendship with an English cardinal, with
scarcely the
courtesy of recognizing Roland's nature. He refused, not because
he felt
slighted by the obviously political nature of the offer. In fact,
he weighed
that problem carefully. He re fu sed because he understood the
limitations of
power, its inhibitions with respect to trust its inevitable
complicity with
luxury and justification by pomp, its inclination to delusion and
self-devourment,
its inflexible and limited parameters in the field of moral
action, for of
itself power has no vision, only force. No one could say how he
came to know
this. No one had ever observed him to read a book on this subject.
e seemed to
have been born knowing this. Þ Unlike Philip the knowledge caused
him no
strain. Sometimes he was caught off-guard and became impatient,
indignant, even
angry. But he never became confused.
He left in 1333 to
establish his
monastery in the Jura Mountains, and Philip remained behind in the
service of
Cardinal de Garve. The situation soon became untenable for him.
There was no
infinitude of distraction any longer. Avignon, with its intrigues
and, luxury,
was routine by now; his medical attentions were debasing; his
singing had never
been a pleasure to him. He had not become accustomed to the wound
of himself.
But he wanted no more searchings, no more forays, no more crises.
He wanted
plain and simple rest. His everlastingly bruised soul required and
deserved a
home.
He thought again of
monastic life
and explored the subject with himself, and in letters to Abbot
Roland, who
responded that his was "a plain and arduous monastery, Cistercian,
plain
singing, little ornament in art or music."
"I am relieved," Philip
wrote back. He confessed his fear of being ill suited to the
monastic life,
"but then what life am I suited for?" Thus, he finally confessed
everything, his origins, his early years, his condition, "Believe
me, I
pray fully with all my heart," he wrote Abbot Roland, "that my
sacrifice was not in vain, that I never discover its vanity, but I
cannot
believe that Christ asks such gifts of us."
That winter, Abbot
Roland suffered
a particularly painful attack of arthritis and asked Philip to
visit him. 'Come
and stay for a while. At least, help me bear this winter. Believe
me, it is I
who needs you. It is enough if you come as my doctor and ease my
pains. You
will not stay more than you wish to. It is enough if we are
friends. Believe me
when I tell you, as St. Bernard wrote, there is a grace of nature
common to all
mankind, and one who shares with us in nature has his share in
grace. You are
free, my friend, to come, to stay, or to go."
Philip stayed. He ceased
to
contrive at conviction, but he also ceased to be tormented by the
lack of it.
Monastic life did not abuse him any longer, and he found a place
in it.
Christian life simply carried him along until he became a part of
it.
But the habits of
psychological
conservation were very strong in him. He repulsed change. Routine
gave him
confidence. The unpredictable threatened, and he did what he could
to frustrate
the plans for this journey. Even en route, on every step along the
way he
warned md pleaded with Abbot Roland to return before it was too
late.
'Too late for what?"
Abbot
Roland chided him. "It is ready too late." He put on his furry
slippers. "Yes, 'this English climate has produced a race of
stalwart
souls, and I am to be counted among them. All my life people have
thought that
every day that I lived was a miracle. See how I multiply
miracles."
"There is a È boundary
to
everything, you once told me," Philip said. "To suffering. Even to
miracles, I think."
"Did I teach you that?"
"Not quite."
"Well, then, I am not in
danger of contradicting myself, and we can take a step further."
Philip saw that he could
not change
Abbot Roland's mind and left his room, angry with a world that was
too much for
human beings.
Abbot Roland lit a
candle and
placed his crucifix next to it. He would not say so to Philip, but
he felt
weak, and he did not care to die. This time, In years past, he
would go into
the mountains "to exercise dominion over his nature,' he would
say. He
meant to conquer his, frailties, his physical weaknesses, and
especially the'
unpleasant voices that accumulated from libraries and corridors
and missions.
In the mountains, along any stream, watching a chipmunk, he
recognized the
essentials element of his faith: that the world God had created
was good, and
in its goodness was God justified.
He missed the journey
this year,
the renovation of his soul and the thought of the rest of the way
through
England that he had still to go, dismayed him: Somerset,
Gloucester, Hereford,
Worcester, Leonminster, Yorkshire., He pitted his spirit against
the times and prayed
that he be equal to the task.
"Lord, Jesus, enlarge
Thou me
in love that I may find room in my heart for this earth, as I have
found room
in my soul for Your kingdom. Enlarge Thou me, that I may find
peace in this
earth, and I will find peace in Your Eternity. If it is Thy will
to bring me
home, Thy will be, done," he said, and blew out the candle.
This chapter could not
have been
written without the help of the chronicler, Mathew of Paris, as
well as others,
who wrote approximately one hundred years before Will was sent to
London while
the plague was raging there in the December of 1348, charged with
Prior
Godfrey's instructions to borrow a certain sum of money from
certain parties
for certain reasons which had to do with certain sums of money he
had borrowed
in previous years from Bishop Roundsleigh, which he now moreover
owed to the
papal collectors, because of certain sums of money he withheld
from last year's
taxes for certain reasons which had to do with the buying of more
sheep to
multiply the sacks of wool to be gathered which would allow him to
borrow
further sums of money against the wool as collateral.
In 1253, Mathew of
Paris, monk and
chronicler, wrote: "The whole world knows that usury is held to be
detestable in the Old and New Testament, and is forbidden by God.
Yet now the
Lord Pope's merchants or moneychangers practice their usury
publicly in London
to the disgust of the Jews." Mathew continues; "And if, by chance,
thou wilt pay the Papal usurer the principle of the money which
thou hast now
in thy possession, within a month or less of the day of the
borrowing, he will
not accept it unless thou pay him ä the whole hundred pounds. This
is worse
than a Jew's condition, for a Jew will receive the principal
courteously
whensoever thou shalt return it, with only so much interest as is
proportionate
to the time for which thou has had it in hand." Mathew writes on:
"From that time forward (1229) the land of: England had never
lacked
certain Ultramontanes, who style themselves merchants, most
impious usurers,
who, seek nothing else than to ensnare those men in especial whom
the Roman
Court is pressing for money."
Another Bendictine
chronicler,
Oxenides, bursts with similar resentment: "Usury being forbidden
in both
Testaments is now practiced almost as a lawful trade by those
usurers of the
Roman Pontiff who are called merchants." In 1258, he wrote: "The
plague of usury ... did so ensnare the English religious houses
that there was
no conventual house, nor cathedral, nor any so modest foundation
but that it
was involved in so many debts as made it despair of acquittance at
any
time."
And Pope Innocent III
candidly
admitted that "not a church in Europe would remain standing but
for usury,
while Archbishop Pecham gives us this sobering account of the
awesome abyss
that gaped beneath the feet of ecclesiastics:
"To the most Holy Father
and
lord in Christ, Nicholas, by divine providence supreme pontiff of
the Holy
Roman Church, his poor little brother John, priest of Canterbury,
sendeth
greeting, falling down with all reverence and kissing his holy
feet.... there
hath lately reached me a letter of execution, horrible to see and
terrible to
hear, whereof the final purpose is this: that unless, within a
month from the
feast of Michaelmas next coming, I pay fully and completely to the
merchants of
Lucca, from whom I borrowed at the court of Rome, the sum of a
hundred marks
for a hundred pounds, which I am to pay at the end of the terms I
shall be
forthwith involved in a sentence of excommunication, and shall be
denounced as
excommunicate in my own and other cathedral churches, with bell,
book and
candle, on every Sunday and holy day....And this, although
according to the
contract which I signed, I might have secured freedom to myself
and my church
for an indefinite time so long as I paid the damages and interest
to the
aforesaid merchants, in consideration of the losses they would
incur by my
delay .... Therefore, most Holy Father, may it please your most
merciful
Holiness to reach me the right hand of succor and to revoke this
cruel letter ...
otherwise, I see no other refuge but either to leave this prelacy
committed to
me, to disperse my household or flock, and to depart as an exile
into some
distant land, where I may lurk alone in some monastery and bear
this anathema
with humility until, as God shall give occasion, I shall have
succeeded in
satisfying the aforesaid merchants from the revenues of my see, in
proportion
as they can be raised from time to time, or, again, to borrow
further from
these merchants and, as a borrower, to fawn upon them, and to bear
with
patience their base speech though, by your Holiness's special
mandate, it would
be my duty to take strong measures against such lenders, since in
these days no
other men can be found in England who have money enough nor, in
the face of the
present change and clipping of coinage, could I borrow elsewhere
than from
these merchants of Lucca."
Paradoxically, the moral
reputation
of the Jewish usurer during the Middle Ages was very high. A
Norman chronicler,
in 1306, describes the expulsion of the Jews from France, and the
consequences
in this way:
"... there are many
occasions
on which people, however well off they may be, have a sudden need
of money, and
if they cannot produce it, either lose an inheritance, are
excommunicated, or
are punished; or else they fall into some great misfortune because
they cannot
rapidly collect the rents or debts due them; whereas if they could
raise the
money for a little usury, they would escape. But after the
expulsion of the
Jews, they could not find any money, except by borrowing it
through agents from
certain Christians, both clerics and laymen, who lent at such an
enormous rate
of interest that it was more than double what was charged by the
Jews, and who
did it in such a way that the debtors did not know the lenders
were in
possession of their pledges. This was a dangerous situation, for
if the agents
died or gave up the business, they did not know where to recover
them."
In 1480, the Elector of
Brandenburg, stated, "... at one time the Jews were forbidden to
stay in
Brandenburg, in that period the people were worse oppressed by the
Christians
than they had been by the Jews, so that the latter had been
readmitted."
The state of unreality
is such that
many matters now being fiction, there is no reason why fiction
should not avail
itself of documentation to rid us of our unreality. Prior
Godfrey's problem was
similar to Archbishop Pecham's, as it was similar to that of many
abbots and
priors of that time. The Church demanded a year's income in
advance from each
monastery, called "first fruits." Prior Godfrey, like so many
householders, was always a year in arrears. Instead of first
fruits, his were
the last fruits. Debt was the natural condition of all the classes
in the
Middle Ages. Prior Godfrey's iniquities were not deliberate, but
like any
householder, he found that there was always something to be paid
off, bought in
advance of having money for it: the new gatehouse or the new east
window, his
pride and pleasure as he sat in the choir box. It was not only
pomp and status
which motivated him, but the simple love of thinginess which
clings to the most
spiritual of men, but which always costs money. Prior Godfrey was
always
behind, and he always imagined that he could catch up the
following year, like
most of us. The more debt he accumulated, the less real his debts
became. Like
Archbishop Pecham, he too blamed his creditors for this inglorious
spiritual
pinch. On the one hand, his was a position of authority and wealth
and power,
while on the other hand he was in constant craven fear of
excommunication and
was reduced to the ignoble method of cheating Peter to pay Paul.
Usury was the
black business of the Middle Ages, it was its addiction, its
secret and most
beloved vice, practiced with the most misgiving, not because it
was condemned,
but because most churchmen rightly sensed that usury was gnawing
away at the
foundations of the feudal system, and that they themselves were
digging its
grave. Usury was the irresistible disease. Every ermine robe,
every set of
jewels, every ivory reliquary, every carving, every stained-glass
window, every
crusade, every war, every state marriage, every coronation
ceremony, cost money
and was paid for in coin. The fabulous and lauded artwork of the
Middle Ages was
paid for in the coin that the Church condemned. The reverential
works, the
inspiring gardens, the church architecture, the beatific cloister
pathways, the
stately monasteries, all paid for from the pockets of the despised
usurer,
constituting the most singular collaboration between vice and
faith. Usury was
condemned by the Church and practiced by everyone: Lombards and
Cahorsins, who
often disguised themselves as Jews to escape the detection of the
Church, for
Jewish usury, where permitted, was legal and was the only legal
usury in the
Middle Ages. Usury was practiced by Florentine and Venetian
merchants and papal
collectors Rome. It was practiced by men and women, and women were
as adept at
it as men.
The problem appears to
have been
schizophrenic and was schizophrenic, as are all problems resulting
from moral
"delusions, particularly the moral delusions of the powerful
classes,
spiritual and secular. Power itself is part of the delusion,
resting on
relationships and connections which in their own turn become part
of the process
of the attrition of the power of the powerful. Everything keeps
changing, even
so powerful a force as power. In Prior Godfrey's case, it had been
a good
number of years that he had always managed, willy nilly, to pay
his debts. He
had witnessed the excommunication of other abbots for their
failure to meet
their debts, but he himself had never fallen so low for so long
that he did not
manage to escape this fate. It was reasonable for him to imagine
that matters
would continue in this way, that he could keep his balance between
debt and
credit, allowing him to finish his life with equanimity, and to go
to heaven.
As with other abbots who were in continual debt, worries of hell
brushed his
mind from time to time, but he, like the others, solved his doubts
about
salvation through the Jew. In their stead, the Jew went to hell.
But when Brother Harald
delivered
his report on the state of the sheep, Prior Godfrey momentarily
lost his
balance. He took the rolls from Brother Harald's hands, and laid
them out on his
lectern without a response to him. In fact, he crudely waved him
down, which
irritated Brother Harald. In the past, their roles had been
reversed. It was
Prior Godfrey who was always intemperate, irritable, quaking with
alarm, while
Brother Harald exhibited the sang froid which caused Prior Godfrey
so much
envy. Brother Harald's brain was now in a fever, calculating the
possible ruin
that could happen to Bodmin Priory. The only cheerful aspect of
such a future
was the certain excommunication of Prior Godfrey, upon which
Brother Harald
could reasonably expect that he would become prior.
This humanly indulgence
in a
fantasy led him to regret that he had missed his brother's visit,
for in his
mind he already read back his appointment and imagined that it was
he who had
greeted Abbot Roland and had conversed with him on matters of
state. He would
have relished the meeting, for reasons of affection and
confrontation, the
chance to appraise the surprising development of his brother's
career. Their
parents had viewed it with cynical gratitude, but when they had
learned that
their son had refused to become a cardinal it confirmed them about
his peculiar
nature. "Christ rot the runt!" his father had yelled, "there is
a place in hell reserved for those who turn their backs on their
duties."
But Brother Harald, his
father's
voice still echoing memorably in his mind, had not been there to
greet his
brother. It was more necessary for him to do his duty,
particularly this year
when rumor of plague and what not might permit the reeves and
bailiffs to take
more liberties than ever. No one questioned the idea that family
relations were
subordinated to monastic affairs anymore than a general today
would think that
family matters should call him away from his war, and Brother
Harald was as
formidable in his protection of churchlands as Prior Godfrey was
obstinate in
its theories. For all their antipathies to each other, they were
one on this
'issue, though Prior Godfrey frequently found the official
presence of Brother
Harald, who did everything properly, too much for him. But his
advice was
always correct. He was the perfect aid or secretary, lawyer,
counsellor, or
minister. His bearing required a portfolio. It was his talent for
efficiency
which made Brother Harald impatient with Prior Godfrey, who always
flew into a
temper when his additions were corrected. It was obvious in every
way that
Brother Harald should be the prior and that Prior Godfrey, being
forced to use
the man he most disliked, could not be expected to feel gratitude
towards him.
But when the time came for Brother Harald to take his trip to the
grangelands,
then Prior Godfrey appreciated him most fully, for in estate
management, nothing
brings a landowner the sense of security and bliss so much as a
competent
overseer.
A husband does not
rejoice in a
chaste wife more than a landowner in a trustworthy overseer, or a
master in a
servant in whom he has confidence. Go the world over! To surrender
some portion
of your well-being, whether psychological or material, to one who
is not
trustworthy, is scary. To be cheated is unpleasant, and marvelous
is it in the
history of human relationships that Prior Godfrey, who so disliked
Brother
Harald as to sometimes leave him out of his prayers, trusted him
completely
with this task.
Brother Harald deserved
it. In
Wodesbridge he heard talk that plague was in London. He did not
move his horse
any the faster for that. "What of it?" he said to the reeve who
told
him, "there's plague everywhere." He bought an air purifier made
of a
hollowed-out orange filled with vinegar and garlic and kept it at
his nose as
he went about, regarding with disdain the fires that were being
set everywhere
to purify the air. 'It makes the air smell worse," he said to the
reeve.
"A man does not die of
bad
smells except in hell, the reeve said back.
"It makes the people
fearful," Brother Harald said.
"There is none that have
run
away," the reeve said.
Brother Harald was
reassured, but
he laid down a warning. "Who would hire a villein from priory
grounds?"
It was not the reeve's
business to
tell Brother Harald, and he did not. It is a condition of
political life
anywhere at any time that an underling does not give his superior
bad news.
That is why the leader who has spent sums of money to maintain his
security
with a spy network, is often ca Äught by surprise when his edifice
crumbles.
Who but an oracle would tell a king he is about to lose his
kingdom? Certainly
not the reeve. Brother Harald was pleased. There had been seven
births, and no
runaways. He gathered the account rolls and placed them in his
leather pouch
and turned his horse back home. He had gone as far as Baron
Roundsleigh's
Barnstaple Manor to oversee the countryside. The cattle were being
driven in
for the yearly slaughtering which, in advance of the plague, was
being done
rapidly this year. Scores of cows and sheep and bulls and pigs,
and even
calves, were being killed in every village, and their screams were
heard day
and night. The villagers, accustomed as they were to this season
of slaughter,
nevertheless took on a greyer look this year. Like the winter
skies, they
darkened daily as they slumped to this task, determined to endure
what had to
be endured, even it was their own brutality. The cattle could not
be š kept
alive during the winter, and the meat had to be salted in the cold
weather. It
was the only food the peasant had during the winter: meat now, and
fruits and
vegetables during the summer. His diet was dictated by the
seasons. This being
the season for meat, the land ran with blood and the air was
filled with the
smell of animal fright.
Brother Harald kept to
his purpose
of getting to Bodmin Priory as soon as he could. Rumor followed
him everywhere,
but he saw no evidence of the plague, and interestingly enough, it
did not
frighten him. One would think that a hypochondriacal man would
panic.
Evidently, morbidity did not issue from anything in the world at
large. Reality
did not frighten him. On the contrary, it frequently relieved him,
and he often
viewed with confidence what confident men quivered at. Thus, he
sat on his
horse and gazed down on Bodmin Priory Manor, filled with stricken
sheep, som Êe
already dead, others staggering on their feet, leaning against
anything they
could find to steady them, flinging vomit in tile air. The
shepherd, of course,
was gone. His family had stayed its ground for three centuries,
through war and
famine, but this offspring fled with panic.
What had become of the
shepherd? Of
Aristaeus, of Hermes who saved the ram and the ram who saved
Isaac, of
animalkind and humankind, Noah who had saved the animals and the
whale who had
saved Jonah. Our debts I are so intertwined, we cannot tell who
owes what to
whom, but here the sheep were left to die without a sympathetic
eye to witness
their terror. The sheep and the dog and the cow, man's company
through
evolution, rotted in the fields and only Brother Harald astride
his dextre
under a November sky, counted the loss and galloped rapidly back
to Bodmin
Monastery to record it. As soon as he was gone, Prior Godfrey
began to groan to
'himself. St. George picked up his he «ad and squinted at him.
Prior Godfrey
groaned so pitifully that St. George began to hop wildly about on
his perch,
his nerves twittering with gloom. "My sleek bird, what shall we
do?"
Prior Godfrey said to him. "Such a plague has not been since the
time of
King David. Christ keep all usurers in hell for this plague upon
the
land."
He had no plans for
rectification
at the moment, beyond such utterances, but the matter pressed on
him so heavily
all night that he could not sleep. He woke once, he woke twice, he
woke a third
time. He put his slippers and his mantle on and walked about the
room m with
St. George, who was vexed at losing sleep and puzzled at being
woken. Each time
Prior Godfrey put him on his wrist he thought the dawn had come.
But, no! From
under his wing he saw that it was still dark. The hours were
becoming jumbled.
Fever take Prior Godfrey! he thought, proof that all living things
are selfish
mostly a Œbout their sleep.
When Prior Godfrey woke
a fourth
time, St. George buried his beak beneath his wing and refused to
stir. It
occurred to Prior Godfrey to light a candle and to pray. It was
now Prime and
the bell calling the brethren to prayer came through the doorway.
It reminded
him of those satisfactions of Bodmin Priory that eluded the
economics of the
situation, for Prior Godfrey had his memories and his sentiments
and no man
likes to see his home destroyed. He groaned, though he did not
believe that it
could happen. His home, after all, was the Church.
Nevertheless, he ate his
breakfast
soberly that morning, mindful of the difficult times ahead and
after early Mass
had Brother Bernard bring him the Bodmin Rolls which he perused
privately in
his room for three days.
How Brother Ralph came
to put two
and two together is a mystery. From Brother Harald's temper, from
a glance of
Prior Godfrey's, from a frown of Brother Harald's, Brother Ralph
deduced and
told everyone else, 'It seems things do not go well this year on
the grange
Since Brother Walter never spoke, no one expected him to respond,
and he did
not. Brother Namlis could not. Brothers Stephen and Anthony would
not, caring
not one bit about how things went on the grange, and Brother
Benedict was now
brought so low with his cancer that he cared not a bit about the
gossip either.
It fell to Will to 'inquire, "What mean you?"
'In former years"
Brother
Ralph said, "Brother Harald has looked otherwise as he returned
with his
accounts. Sure as I am who I am, there must be trouble abroad and
what can it
be but that it pertains to matters of the plague and if it
pertains to matters
of the plague and Brother Harald be himself not dead of it, it
must be that
others be dead of it, that is Bodmin serfs and sheep and that must
mean a
reckoning with debt."
Will ¢'s first impulse
was to laugh
at Brother Ralph's ratiocination, for like everyone else he took
him for a
harmless gossiper who hit upon the truth by accident and not due
to any quality
in himself, but that going about with his constant rambling could
scarcely miss
the mark on occasion. Brother Ralph was not a vain man and did not
care if he
was accredited with acuity or not. He did not even care much about
the truth.
It was the work of detection that he liked. "What think you?" he
whispered, "serfs or sheep shall plunge us in debt?" and he
puzzled
about it all morning.
It being now quite cold,
they were
called to the calefactory that morning for the Chapter Reading and
the sermon.
Prior Godfrey requested that logs be set burning in the fireplace
and gave the
brethren permission to warm themselves before it. Brother Benedict
was not
among them. He remained in his bed in the dormitory.
The time being
propitious, All
Hallows, Prior Godfrey had a great deal on his mind. The tide of
evil was
surely risen as never before and promoters of evil, false bishops
and falser
preachers and even some who be among his own brethren with
uncharitable
thoughts whose hearts and obedience he felt to be far away from
the good of all
at Bodmin. The time being propitious, All Hallows, he preached a
sermon on the
gloom of hell and the vanity of worldliness and the punishment of
plague
"on those who for vanity's sake decorate pulpits to raise the
sacred host,
this being more sacrilegious than Judas himself who afterwards
hung himself
while this priest his blasphemy is warmed by the bishop's fire.
Through much
pride and through sin from prosperity we sail into much woe. In
this way, has
the plague come to England in the same way as do devils and
diverse such evils,
such as fly above in the air as thick as motes in the sun dropping
unclean
matter from the sky and leaving droppings everywhere. Now they
come in such
diverse shapes, now as swine, now as dogs, now as an asp or a
horse, now as a
spider that crawls in your pants, a damsel with her skirts hitched
up, now as a
parish clerk with incense in his nose, now as a bad servant, now
as a bad
bishop that rides about all day and tramples the good work of the
brethren, now
as a vain Brother who sets his heart upon his abbot's chair, now
comes such
diverse evils as these spiders and flies and gnats that sit upon a
lettuce leaf
or swim about in the ale causing it to sour, or they sit in the
stock and make
evil divinations of things to come."
He cast so wide a net,
as indeed an
accounting of evil must, that each of the brethren, with the
exception of
Brother Benedict who was not there to hear him, and of Brother
Anthony and
Brother Stephen and Br ¦other Harald who had contempt for this
list of evils,
felt he had something to repent. Brother Anthony and Brother
Stephen accepted
their sinful states and could think of nothing in particular which
had made
them worse this week than any other. It could not be said, by them
at my rate,
that they had sinned more this month than last, so as to have
caused the plague
to come to England. Brother Claude could think of nothing he
wasn't guilty of,
and more so as time went on. Brother Ralph felt that if the plague
was caused
by his gossipping he would sacrifice his tongue, seeing Brother
Namlis might
get into heaven as well as another. Brother Thomas agreed with
everything Prior
Godfrey said, particularly the parts about evil coming in the
shapes of dogs and
spiders.
Prior Godfrey concluded
with the
worst evil yet to be told. "Five thousand sheep lay dead and so
great is
this evil that for three nights and three days have I thought upon
in it,
mourning much the death of these innocent lambs and I have asked
myself what
can it be that Christ means by this calamity but that it is his
sign that he
wishes Bodmin to free herself from the evil grip of the usurer and
such as keep
their banks of iniquity in London.
"He means not to pay his
debts," Brother Ralph told Will later that afternoon.
How so unworldly a man
as Brother
Ralph who had had only the unworldly ear of Brother Walter for
forty years
could come to know so much about the world, we worldlings will
never know.
However, in this instance, Ralph was not exactly correct, for
Prior Godfrey,
after consulting the rolls and the accounts and after coming to
close figures
with Brother Harald who, toss the matter anyway, he respected for
his opinions
in such matters, decided to send to London for further
consolation, for as
Brother Harald said, "Let the plague rage as it will, it must come
to an
end and the end will bring restoration."
This view was so
salutary that
Prior Godfrey delayed several weeks on the good sense that one
should put off
the evil day of borrowing more sums before it was necessary to
borrow them, for
to do so prematurely would bring notice to the fact that one did
not have the
wherewithal to pay back the sums one had already borrowed, and was
not
therefore likely to inspire trust for further credit.
How long to delay? Prior
Godfrey
did not need sums until the next harvest. On the other hand, such
was the
increasing disarray of matters everywhere, it occurred to him that
to delay
might put him in danger of that time when there would be no credit
to be had in
all of England, for rumor had it that several banking houses in
London had
collapsed with the inability of the borrowers to pay back what
they had
borrowed against the guarantees of wool. The sheep were stricken
everywhere and
such London firms as Peruzzi, Bardi, and de la Pole were sheared
to their
skins. The sheep baaed and the bankers groaned, and no one
rejoiced that so
pernicious an activity as borrowing and lending would come to an
end by the
course of nature. On the contrary, preachers blamed the plague on
greed while
bishops and abbots and lords tossed in their sleep as accounts of
stricken
sheep were brought in, and Prior Godfrey grew waspish with waiting
and
cantankerous with suspicion that Brother Harald's advice to wait
was a trap. He
did not know what to believe. When it is difficult to make an
accounting of
reality, all messages bear equal weight.
Prior Godfrey sat in the
choir box
at Mass, pained at the sound of Brother Harald's voice intoned so
meticulously
through his narrow nostrils that Prior Godfrey went straight from
Mass to the
Scriptorium to consult with Brother Bernard about his accounts.
His eyes fell
upon the place where Leboren's name had been and the tax that
could no longer
be collected from him.
"Cursed be the towns and
such
new inventions," he screeched, and regarded it as a divine
commentary
when, news reached Bodmin Priory that the plague had broken out in
Newool.
The brethren prayed for
the souls
there and prayed that the plague come no closer. But it was
otherwise, for the
plague was soon in Cornwall,. it was soon in Taunton, it was also
soon in
Launceton, in Barnestaple, in Newool, and one morning it was in
Bodmin.
The news that Adam the
cook was
found dead in his house with such and such marks upon him was
given by Michael
the gatekeeper to Will.
"So," Will said grimly
to
himself, letting out his breath, and only conscious then that he
had been
holding it. And, how could it be otherwise? The vanity of thinking
that they
would be spared! Mockery alleviated the fear he felt. He said to
himself that
he had known all along that they ¨ would not be spared, for why
should they be
spared? Were they not sinners too? problem of evil demands a
rationale for
spared as well as for those who are not who were spared in the
Great Death of
1349 were as confused about why they were spar-ed as those who
were dead of it
and were no longer confused.
Still the brethren
continued to
hope. They heard news about Adam and about the alewife and the
miller, and
still they hoped. The mill fell into disuse. No one came to bake
bread in the
oven. And still they hoped. The glittering edge of possibility
seduced them.
They hoped. Prior Godfrey gave orders that virtually sealed off
the gatehouse
from visitors. They hoped it would work. Michael was given
instructions to
admit no one, not the pudding wives, not the ale brewers, not the
carters, not
pilgrims, not Edward himself if he should come to the gatehouse.
Only the
breviator was given permission to, enter to bring news of °the
outside world.
The brethren made calculations of what food and clothing and
candles and straw
and wine and ale and meats were available. Brother Namlis took
over the duties
of Adam and Brother Thomas took over the duties of the cook's son.
No one would
be permitted beyond the gatehouse except the breviator whose
services would
only be dispensed with at the last.
Will did not sleep that
night. Nor
did Brother Benedict, who never left his bed again, but lay out
the remainder
of his days on his thin palette with a crucifix between his
fingers, while
Brother Namlis and Brother Stephen took turns feeding him soup and
placing hot
towels on his abdomen.
It is a curious thing to
have a man
dying of cancer when everyone else is dying of plague. Will often
relieved the
others of their vigil, for he wished Brother Benedict would speak
to him about
death. Since he had been dying for two years, Will thought he
should have some
notions regarding death, something Will could use in preparation.
But Brother
Benedict kept silent on the issue, and a spiritual courtesy did
not allow Will
to ask him how he felt about dying and if he had advice to leave
to the others.
The dying, so eager to complain of this and that pain, of the soup
being too
cool, of the blanket being too heavy on their legs, have nothing
to say of the
heaviness or the lightness, or any quality whatever of their
dying.
Brother Benedict, who
had been on
his slow journey towards death for two years, kept his eyes upon
his crucifix
and concentrated all elucidation in it. "Death be death no matter
how it
come," Will thought to himself, "yet I would rather fall from a
horse
and die of it than die of the cancer or the plague." If there were
as many
ways of dying as there were ways of living, he would' prefer to
choose his way
and let it be fast and fierce and ther-e be an end to it.
Thus died Michael the
Gatekeeper on
December 12. He was found dead of the plague outside the
gatehouse, by the
breviator who had come to report the news of other deaths. The
disease had
raged in Michael from mid-afternoon the day before. Since no one
came anymore
to the gatehouse, no one had noticed. Throughout the night he
called for water
through his broken teeth, and tossed Its bowlegged dwarfish body
into pits and
ditches, clawing the ground for some coolness for his burning
chest Brother
Thomas, as was his nightly custom, also tossed and turned in his
sleep, calling
by name the twenty-three devils that besieged him. Brother Namlis,
however,
snored soundly, having modestly put his mind to rest that what
will be will be,
seeing the wise heads of Europe say there is nothing to be done.
The College of
Physicians at Paris had issued a gloomy report advising flight.
One would not
expect a tongueless hunchback to have suggestions to the contrary.
Brother Benedict kept
his vigil
before his crucifix and Brother Harald awoke at matins and lit a
candle and bid
the others follow him into the church to say their prayers. The
stone floor was
cold to the touch and Will carefully fished with his big toe for
his slippers,
not caring to make more than one toe uncomfortable. The bell rang.
Their
breaths made vapor on the air. Will kept his cloak wrapped around
him, careful
it not swish up the cold air around his legs, and filed quietly
past Brother
Benedict's bed in the a.m. darkness.
The news of Michael the
Gatekeeper's death was brought in by the breviator later in the
afternoon. He had
come to tell them that two brethren from Abbot Denis' monastery
were dead with
plague and "that one such lays outside the gate of Bodmin." Will
was
sent to investigate and to take the breviator back with him with
the
instruction that "seeing nought can be done in this severe
calamity it
would be best not to come again." The breviator thought it best
too.
"Madness has seized the world and I would not be abroad in it. In
Bodmin
Village six are dead this morning and the lepers are afraid beyond
all reckoning
and have taken to banging on their doors by night and by day and
the people
cannot bear the noise of it anymore. There is terrible talk all
about."
"What kind of talk?"
Will
asked, for by now rumor and gossip was held to be as dangerous as
the plague.
The breviator scratched
his head.
Will pressed him. I cannot say for sure," the breviator said at
last, and
he 'could not, "for the talk is all of doom and the world's end
and such
like talk that has not been heard by me. The alewife has perished,
and the
alewife's husband has gone daft. He has lost the good of her work
and two lads
and has but one left to help him bring the winter wood in."
Will thanked him for the
news as he
saw him to the gate. From a distance he ascertained that Michael
the gatekeeper
was indeed dead. He,shut the gate after the breviator left, and
brought the
news back to the others.
"We cannot leave his
body
outdoors," he said.
Prior Godfrey drummed
his fingers
on the arms of his chair. Unholy motives might be imputed to him
for being
impatient with Will, but he could not see the sense of bringing
Michael the
gatekeeper's body within the walls, 'dead and menacing, when live
it had spent
its time happily enough outside the walls. Nor was there any clear
ruling for
these times on the question of hallowed burial ground. "It is not
fit," he said, "that he be buried in the brethren's cemetery.
They sat in the Chapter
Room to
debate the issue, and quarreled over it, for there was no remedy
that pleased
two at the same time and if a remedy such as Brother 'Harald's
advice that they
bum the body pleased him, it ceased to please Brother Claude who
had originally
suggested it.
"Who will go outside the
gate
to perform the task?" he asked sneeringly. It was a cruel
question.
Philosophy came asunder Brother Ralph whistled between his teeth.
Brother
Claude turned choleric.
"How now, Brother
Terror," Brother Harald chided him, methinks such a man as
yourself with
your fiery temper would be best.
Brother Claude who, by
devious
intuition guessed at Brother Harald's hypochondria, continued to
sneer, "I
take it, Brother Fear, you be not the man to perform this act of
piety."
"It would be an act of
mercy
to send Brother Thomas,' Brother Harald said, but Brother Thomas
was not so far
gone in his wits. His night-time mind might wander, but his
daytime mind saw
the point about death readily.
Brother Anthony hissed
at them
through his yellow eyes. He turned his head away and mumbled his
prayers into a
corner of the room, fearing that his breath might be befouled by
the others.
When they gathered in the refectory for the evening meal, his
place was empty.
Silence being imposed on them, no one inquired, or cared to, nor
had to, for
Brother Anthony being who he was an,' what he was, they realized
he had gone to
bury Michael the gatekeeper. But having done this, he did not
return, and no
one inquired about this either, though everyone more or less
surmised where he
had gone next. He went to Bodmin Village, to the leper houses that
had been
deserted by their friars, and with no word to any member of the
human race, not
even a word of pity, only with his holy anger, he buried those he
found dead in
St. Laurance and brought water to the others, the dying and the
frightened, and
all day and all night read his prayer book to them for three weeks
until the
plague took him.
Brother Stephen missed
the
willfulness of Brother Anthony's spiritual edge, and he missed the
competition
of his discipline. By his mere presence, and that without
affectation, Brother
Anthony had kept Brother Stephen's irascibility in check, which
now expressed
itself with unbridled pleasure.
"You do bite well these
days," Brother Harald said to him.
"Aye, with but two
teeth," Brother Stephen said. "Had I a mouth of molars you would
be gone."
"I say you have nothing
to
resent, Brother Ireland."
"I resent mankind,"
Brother
Stephen said.
"Some men are made into
saints
by their anger," Brother Harald said, "and others into donkeys and
insects."
"I take it, Brother Sly,
you
are not fit for either destiny."
They walked in the
cloister, in
their customary way, their voices sibilantly harsh with the
irritability that
comes to those who are forced to pass their lives together.
Only Brother John and
Brother
Walter were as before, the one mild, the other silent. Brother
Bernard appeared
full of gloomier thoughts than usual, and consequently more
absentminded. He
retired to the scriptorium more often, where he found more and
more consolation
in his rolls, recording the deaths of those in Bodmin Village, the
failing
taxes, the failing prices and the rising wages.
Neither Brother Claude's
temper nor
his piety wore well under the circumstances. To Prior Godfrey's
disgust,
Brother Claude took to wearing sackcloth and walking the length of
the nave on
his knees. Prior Godfrey himself kept to his room as much as
possible, where he
amused himself with St. George's company, thoughts of vengeance on
Leboren, and
who and when and how to send a messenger to London.
On Dec. 15, he made up
his mind he
must send someone with all haste, and went to get the accounting
books from
Brother Bernard in the scriptorium, but that long-legged, harm
less, faithful
chronicler lay on the floor of the caracel where he had died a few
hours
earlier, having entered his last account into his rolls: summa
omnium
expensarium. His face was mottled. His thick tongue hung out of
his mouth. He
died with the signs of the times upon him, and with an epitaph
passed by Will:
decent man, kind, loyal monk who lived so quietly that none knew
you.
There were no debates
about where
and whether to bury him, for his body lay on the monastery floor.
It was lifted
up by Brother Stephen and Will and carried by them to the
cemetery.
"Without and within,"
Brother
Stephen cackled.
'What mean you?" Will
said,
not in good humor.
"Without and within. It
is all
the same. Without and within, and within two days he left Bodmin
Priory and
disappeared.
"Better yet," Brother
Harald said the next morning, after breakfast, "seeing he took no
food
with him."
Brother John pressed his
lips
together but passed no spoken word of censure. Will could not
forebear.
"Better food in his belly than in yours."
Brother Harald was the
kind of man
whom sentiments of this kind filled him with contempt rather than
with anger.
"Speak for yourself, Brother Kind," he hissed.
The argument was about
reality, and
Brother Harald believed he read it right, but he did not care to
be thought
less charitable than another because he read the handwriting on
the wall. He
coveted a good reputation as much as the next man did and could
not bear to
have his character impugned at the expense of another's inability
to read the
world. The pressure lay on Will too. The pressure lay all about,
the fear of
witnessing presumed charities slip away. 'I met a pilgrim in
Wodesbridge,"
Brother Harald said to Will the next day, "who says the wife you
married
be a brothel keeper and the cocks crow all about her."
Steady, Will said to
himself. He
cannot, nor any man in England, know anything. "Worse," he said,
jabbing the word as if it were a spear at a bull.
"Worse!" Brother Harald
exclaimed. His eyebrows pinched together at the bridge of his
nose. He was
intrigued.
It was wintry cold in
the cloisters
and they took their noonday walk in boots and fur capes. Will felt
his temper
snapping. He was a man who could be challenged in his soul, but
who could not
bear sassiness. He could not hold his tongue anymore with Brother
Harald.
"Hold your tongue," he said to himself, but he knew the way of the
tongue and the clapper, and he betrayed himself even as he
admonished himself.
"Would to God she were a brothel keeper," he said to Brother
Harald,
"and brought some coin in for her evil ways, but she be a Jewess
of which
evil there is nothing to be made."
Brother Harald, for the
first time
that anyone knew of it, laughed out loud. "The man has wit," he
thought to himself. "There be not a Jew in England from the time
of the
first Edward," he said to Will, with a warning look on his face
that he
was not the man to be fooled with a cock and bull story. "They be
banished
now fifty years."
Will was pleased with
himself.
"Canst banish water? Or the serpent. Or air or an odor that
blows?"
Brother Harald thought
for two days
about Will's response. So much did it entertain him that his
thoughts moderated
his voice in the choir box, though no one sung near him now',
Brother Benedict
being in bed, Brother Anthony being away, Brother Namlis being
tongueless and
Brother Stephen being gone.
The winter light came in
through
the window over the Majestatis, thin and gray as their voices. The
place where
Brother Bernard had sat seemed emptiest of all, though no one had
missed him
while he lived. So regular were the places where they slept and
ate and prayed,
that the empty beds and the empty chairs were mordant signs that
surrounded
everything they did.
Brother Claude was now
more
frequently given the duties of hebdomadarian, reading from the
gospels and the
Book of Martyrs in a voice that made Brother Harald spiteful. Even
Brother
Walter was prevailed upon to read the psalter, and with much
contrition opened
his mouth. So much were the routines altered, the brethren came
into the
kitchen to help themselves to their meals.
In the meantime, Brother
Harald,
with much to occupy his mind, ruminated about his talk with Will.
"It
cannot be, but on the other hand," etc. By the end of the third
day he
made up his mind that it was, and said to Will in the cloister,
"So that
is your great secret. Why you have become a monk. Tell me, Brother
Tricked,
since you were bound thigh and hoof in the nuptial bed, what is
the Jewess
like?"
"Brother Curious," Will
said spitefully, "I will tell you that what there is between our
legs
would not find peace there, or elsewhere"
Brother Harald could not
get more
from him than spite. He asked permission of Prior Godfrey to speak
with him in
his private room. Prior Godfrey was
compelled to consent, though he did not care to be in close
quarters with
anyone these days and particularly not with Brother Harald, whom
he had
suspected of harboring a secret disease all these years. He lit a
roaring fire
in the fireplace in his room and set himself in the path of the
smoke and bid
Brother Harald stay on the other side of the room. His response to
the news was
the same as Brother Harald's had been at first. It cannot be!"
Beads of
sweat broke out on his face from the heat of the fire, while on
the other side
of the room Brother Harald froze with chill.
"Why would a man noise
such a
thing about except that it be true?"
St. George did not like
the smoke
at all, and he was not convinced it kept the plague away. It made
his eyes
blink too fast. Prior Godfrey lowered himself into a chair in the
path of the
smoke and waved as much of it as he could on to his face as he
digested Brother
Harald's arguments. Could it be? But would a man say so if it were
not? Will
had not the wit to make up such a thing. "Praised be to God," he
finally said, and raised his arms accordingly. "He will know where
to
raise coin." And thus it was that Will was sent to London, and
told to go
immediately.
But Will was
disconcerted to hear
this. He did not know why he was chosen and preferred not to be,
for it seemed
to him, as it did to the others, that if there was safety left
anywhere it was
within the walls, and not without, and certainly not in London.
But even this comfort
was gone by
the next morning for, without warning, at the breakfast table,
without
preparation, without sign or symbol, in the plain barrenness of
the reality,
Brother Claude's hand faltered as he brought the cereal to his
mouth. The
trembling was noticed immediately. "Tis nothing," he said, but he
had
fever and he knew it. "How now, Brother Europe, Brother Harald
thought,
and picked up his bowl and moved to the other end of the table.
"May the English rot,"
Brother Claude said aloud and tried to ignore his shaking hand.
With great
effort he lowered his face to his arm and licked up the gruel.
Sweat broke out
in his armpits. Chill wrapped itself like a snake around his neck
and
shoulders. "Brethren, I pray you, help," he suddenly cried. His
tongue began to thicken. His chest ached and rattled with mucous.
Images of
hell moved very close to him, deformities that had not been
imagined by the
Creator and could not be found on earth, but were found in books,
in art, and
in the imagination of mortals. Eels that lived on land bit his
toes. Birds,
formerly thought benign, wrapped their wet wings about him and dug
their spikey
claws into a thousand places in his skin. His chest burned. His
voice rasped.
The claws of a thousand creatures tore at his throat. Nothing on
earth, not the
plague itself, was comparable to the monsters that burst from his
mind, spawned
by a thousand creators who had painted the soul of man. His hand
swept the
dishes and his psalter from the table. His fingers clutched
spastically at his
forehead, at the creatures that sat there. His imagination cracked
open and the
shapes of hell oozed out, inchoate nightforms, protean and
indecipherable,
unmatched by anything on earth, and very intimate. He prayed, he
pleaded, he
rattled, he ached. Even malignant earth seemed worth the struggle
to stay alive
to this Mass of Christian pain, but his tongue swelled beyond the
size of his
mouth and betray Þed his words. Black, it became obscene as it was
lascivious
with its curl and tip and cruel refinements. It emerged from his
mouth which
could no longer hold it, furry and prickly and swollen, a common
organ gone
awry, demented with size and discoloration. It burst all reason to
think that
so common an object could become so transformed that its original
design was
destroyed. He could not say his terrors anymore. His restraints
gave way. He
fled to the church, praying to be saved, but he could not say from
what, so
much he feared leaving this world and feared the next one.
"Brethren, I
pray you, help," he wept, he crawled down the nave, he beat his
forehead
on the church floor.
Only Will and Brother
John followed
after him, and they kept a distance. "What, wouldst?" Will called
to
him, but Brother Claude could not say anything more. He found no
correspondence
between his fears and anything offered him. "Wouldst water?" Will
called out to him. "Nay, nay, nay," Brother Claude cried and beat
the
floor with his head and his hands. No form of remedy occurred to
him. No image
fit the affliction he felt. Still he crawled to the altar in hopes
of being;
rescued. He was a mass of discomfort, burning and freezing at the
same time.
What remedy could there be in this contradiction? Here he burned,
there he
froze. The temperature of his body fought itself. He did not know
whether he
wished to live, seeing his pain was insurmountable, or if he
wished to die,
seeing he was eternally damned. He did not know if he wished to be
saved fr-om
this world or from the next. He managed the altar steps, only to
feel the
weight of the judgment of the Majestatis that looked down upon
him, the
judgment he could no longer evade as the magnitude of what he was
burst his dying
eardrums with a thousand snippets of gossip about his life that no
Christian
piety could relieve him of the embarrassment of having lived. Man
who has drunk
blood cannot slake his thirst with water.
Mercifully, he died
quickly of
multiple causes: heart failure, plague, and fear.
The rest sat in the
refectory, numb
and tense as they listened to his ravings. They sat until they
heard nothing
anymore, and the silence brought them a specious relief. Brother
Harald grasped
the issue in its entirety and reminded them that it would only
make matters
worse if the body were not removed quickly, and suggested they
draw lots
immediately. The lot fell to Brother Namlis who, not having a
tongue to protest
his bad luck, bowed to it. But Brother John and Will volunteered
to help him
dig the grave. The times could not elicit much better, but these
three formed a
liaison of spirit and acted against the narrowing of human
charity.
The day was unrelieved
in its
tension. Each Brother crowded into himself, no longer a member of
the
community. Brother Namlis, Brother John and Will dug the plot
silently and
wrapped Brother Claude's sadly -unloved body in a blanket, dressed
as he died,
so that no one had to touch his skin, their faces wrapped with
cloths so as not
to breathe in the affects. That only they attended the burial
seemed worse than
the plague itself, for a man, no matter what his life has been,
should be
buried by his peers as a sign of the generation in which he has
lived, but in
this generation the social context had disappeared. They buried
Brother Claude
in the cemetery, in a plot next to Brother Bernard and prayed for
his soul,
"In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost," and
fled
back to the Chapter Room as quickly as they could, for the air
itself had
become their enemy, causing suspicion with every breath they
inhaled.
Will avoided the moors.
His memory
of them was not pleasant. And because he avoided the moors, he
unwittingly
followed the path of the plague along the coastal towns. Not once
as he rode
did he see a sky not blackened by vultures nor a village not
surrounded by
ditches filled with dead bodies and with bonfires around it, lit
to purify the
air. Everywhere along the roads were streams of people, going from
here to
there, following rumors of safety, mostly pressing northward away
from the
coastal areas. Since the markets and fairs of the districts had
been shut down,
these were not traders or drovers or merchants, but people without
wagons
pulling an ox, a sheep, a pig or whatever else was left them of
their
husbandry, since they could not take the fields with them. They
were refugees,
who had left the manors and the villages that they had lived in
for hundreds of
years. Some fled from villages that had riot been touched at all,
but fear and
rumor drove them out as keenly as the plague itself. In the
distance, over the
fields which lay untended, Will could see the walls that circled
the towns or
monasteries, in every case tightly shut against the fleeing people
who, in most
cases, were carrying the plague with them.
Brother Namlis and
Brother John had
seen Will to the gate that morning to say goodbye. Will mounted
Maream, and
jiggled her bells diffidently, a gesture to keep up his spirits.
She leaned to
the right and licked the wind, for what did she know. He took
several days'
supply of food and instructions "to go in breeches, the times
being what
they are." Brother Namlis cried at his 'going, a sound too
horrible to
hear.
"For pity's sake," Will
berated him. "Let me go in peace as I can."
When life becomes a
matter of
survival some, like Brother Harald, see it metaphysically. The
meanness of the
times justifies everything, including themselves. Others, like
Brother Namlis,
see no special message in catastrophe other than things have gone
very
sour." Brother Namlis had no world view, but he wished it was
Brother
Harald who was leaving this morning. He had never complained about
things
before. He had not even complained that his mother had cut out his
tongue. On
the contrary, he believed he would meet her in the that she would
afterworld
and explain her actions to him. But he took it as a bad sign that
it was Will
who was being sent, and not Brother Harald. He wanted Will to
stay, and he
begrudged the powers that had decided otherwise.
'Christ keep you and
bring you
back," Brother John said "for I know not if we can bear with the
company of others without you."
The pubescent light was
gone from
his face, the look of future grace. "I know not if we will meet
again," he said, summoning the courage to say it. "Christ be with
you
always." Brother Namlis could not say anything and did not affect
any
courage and plainly wept, but he proved reliable nonetheless. When
Brother John
fell ill, he never ceased to nurse him, and when he died, he dug
the pit for
him and carried him to the cemetery in trembling arms.
Will rode away, his eyes
on the
horizon, under an unpleasant sky filled with carrion. Near the
towns, the
plague carts travelled the roads where there were no burial
grounds left
anymore. The groans of those who were not yet dead could be heard
coming from
the carts. Will was fearful of the gravediggers and pretended not
to hear
anything. He clicked noisily to Maream who bucked her head away
from the
noxious smelling carts. "No doubt," Will said to himself, "it be
my imagination," but he knew it wasn't.
Some said the grave
diggers did
their job too willingly, for there never was a time when death was
not
profitable. Rings on the fingers, a gold piece in the hem of a
dress, a brooch
on a child. It's the eternal, business. The dead are the safest
investment.
They never come back to make a claim against you. You may borrow
from them
forever, non-returnable goods.
This suspicion so
gripped the
people that the gravediggers, along with the lepers, Jews, and
doctors, were
accused of spreading the plague. And once aroused, European man is
not known
for assuaging his hostilities. Scores of gravediggers were killed
from time to
time, a fitting end! But more always arose to take their place,
for employment
was always to be had. They were drawn from the criminal and
poorest classes, so
they had nothing to lose but their lives and more to gain, if they
survived
this employment, than any other class. It was the chance of a
lifetime. The
grimness of it all, the tightrope of opportunity they walked on,
was etched
into their faces with centuries of careworn envy for little things
and the dirt
of burial places thick beneath their nails. Families came to bury
their dead
and never, noticed who did the digging while they did the praying.
It was clear
why those who prayed prayed, but why did, the others dig?
The fact was that in all
of Europe
there were no others to compare with the gravediggers for courage
and
steadfastness. They walked into houses where three lay dead, they
walked into
houses where a family of eight were dead, including the barnyard
geese and the
dog and the cat who were skinned for their fur. They walked into
rooms where
the priest would not come. They walked into houses where friends
would not co
me. They walked into inns where a knight lay dead. They walked
into rooms where
a child in a linen cap lay with her eyes. still open, with her
mother dead
beside her.
They were hated and
needed, which
is the worst social condition to be in. They were detested, and in
demand.,
Like prostitutes, and other such, pawnbrokers and usurers,
undertakers and
garbage collectors, they did the dirty work of their civilization.
Every
family, every monastery, even peasants and reeves and knights and
bishops and
monks called for their service. When they came, their clients
cursed them. The
gravediggers knew what they were: profiteers in shadow, identified
with the
disease, so that even courage and sympathy, when it was found in
them, could
not redound to their credit, for it was counted as part of their
plot to
profit.
European man distrusted
the doctor
who perchance came to help him, he distrusted the priest who
perchance came to
pray him into the next world; he distrusted his relatives who
waited for his
death. He hid the rings on his fingers under his blankets and
believed that the
entire world schemed to get his little gold nugget. And this
mistrust that came
with the plague was both right and wrong, for sometimes it was
true and
sometimes it wasn't, but you couldn't tell until it was too late
when many of
the bodies of the plague victims were found with their ring
fingers cut off.
No one would let Will in
for a
night's sleep, neither at the monasteries or the castles, though
he carried
with him safe conduct papers and other credentials. They did him
no good, for
no one came to answer his knock to read his credentials. He had to
sleep on the
ground, an unfair thing in December. He made a bed as best he
could beneath
Maream's body and bid her not piss or he would take measures she
would not
forget. Maream was sympathetic. All night, she kept watch and
self-control,
glad to relinquish both in the morning. Will slept on his pouch of
papers and
covered himself with his cloak. All the same, in the morning his
leather
breeches cracked with the cold and chafed his legs when he rode so
that he cursed
Maream for her substantial hide.
"Ingrate," she thought,
and like every other living beast reflected on how unjust life
was, that she
should carry a man around on her back when it should be the other
way. Her
bells jangled less jauntily that morning as they rode. Will
detected the strain
in their ì relationship and tried to soothe it away. "It be the
times," he said. In all fairness to Will, he was a naturally
sympathetic
man to everything that lived, but conscience and cold nagged at
him. Lovingkindness
does best in a warm house and in breeches that do not crack with
cold in the
groin. In a strip of forest, out of Exmouth, to make it up to his
conscience,
Will offered a ride to a working man he saw on the road with a
sack on his back
filled with a spade and a shovel and whatever else. He offered him
a ride in
hopes of conversation, as well as out of charity, but the man was
not the
talking kind, or may have been, but was not any longer. He
accepted the ride
and mounted behind Will and minded his manners and thanked him,
and then fell
silent for the most part.
"Whereya bound for?"
Will
asked.
"Up ahead aways."
"Where come you from?"
"Wareham on Poole Bay."
"What brought you out
seeing
you ain't no carter and you have no goods to sell?"
"The plague," he said.
"The plague brought me out. My family be gone in the plague, my
wife, a
son of ten and a set of twin gals. The lord of my manor and his
wife be dead
same as the reeve an' the miller. Nought left in my village but
two free men as
myself." Then he set his eyes on the cold air and said nothing
more. So
they rode in silence for two hours until Will got hungry. He took
out some
bread and cheese and offered them to him. The man mumbled, "thank
ye,"
and took it and said no more. So they rode in silence for two more
hours, there
being little to say to this history but to watch the sky and to
listen to
Maream's bells. Will realized that he had not seen a fire or smoke
in some time
and realized too that most of the villages were deserted here.
"See you a
light anywhere?" he asked.
"Nane."
"They say the plague
lasts not
forever. It stays its time and goes."
"It is all one to me. I
care
not what the plague does anymore."
"Aye. It is hard to hope
for
shore in the middle of the ocean."
The man decided he did
not need
philosophy in addition to the plague and bid Will stop the horse
so that he
could get off. "God go with you," Will said.
"Aye. I would that He
would,
that I do. I wish him go with my wife and all," and he turned into
the
woods.
Will made his bed on the
ground
again that night and repeated his warning to Maream, who cared not
a bit for
this arrangement. Like all living things, she missed her stall,
her straw, the
company of other horses, natures she could understand, sounds they
made that reverberated
in her cells. Species comfort is not to be lightly set aside. Even
Will, in
cold discomfort upon the winter ground, dreamed of his home in
York and smelled
his old bed with his Brother Davey in it hanging on to his toe
while he himself
hung on to Rug's tail and the bed heaved with animal warmth as
they sailed
through the night in a huddle of man and beast. Will woke
unwillingly, as any
man would on a cold morning. Still dreaming of warmth, he clung to
Rug' ¦s side
while faces steamed above him in the frosty morning air and a
harsh voice
called to him. It was not his mother's, for it was a masculine
voice, and it
was not his father's, for it was a mocking voice and Will had
never known his
father to mock or to chide, rarely even to laugh, with little to
say about most
things but "yea" or "nane." He was a straightforward man
and sure as Will lay on the ground in winter, this one wasn't.
This one's voice
curled and looped and sparkled and loved to sport with disaster,
not like Brother
Harald in a philosophical way but more like Walt who sucked the
marrow of
discord with glee as a goad to the promised land.
"Walt!" Will brawled out
and jumped up from the ground. "what does you on this road in this
calamity of cold?"
"Same as you," Walt
said,
"fleeing." Behind him pressed a crowd of fifteen like him, some
villagers Will recognized, Cupper the Carrier, Simon Muleward,
Hugh Alyn,
Osbourne the Gardener, and Robert Leboren sporting an "F" on his
forehead.
"Ah ain't fleeing," Will
said. "I go to London on an errand.
"Sayest you?" Walt said,
eyes already twinkling. "What may be that errand that you travel
in
breeches for?"
Instinct warned Will not
to discuss
it with Walt. "An errand," he said, and said nothing more, but
climbed on Maream, flicked her bells, and bid Walt good day.
"Carest not for our
company?" Walt called after him.
"I best hurry," Will
said
diplomatically.
"Aye," Walt called after
him, "seeing how your roof covers you not anymore."
"Plague be on you," Will
swore, them reminded himself it was not a thing to say these days.
He whipped
Maream and put as much distance as he could as quickly as possible
between
himself and Walt.
He passed through
Melcombe Regis
where some say the plague first entered England. At least, it had
raged there
since September. The fields were untended, but there were no
plague cart És on
the road and Will began to hope that the worst was over in
Melcombe Regis. But
if the worst was over in one place, it had gone on to another.
Will had no more
bread left, and no food for Maream. Hunger was not much better
than the plague,
if it came to dying of something. "Never mind," he consoled Maream
"We shall be in Winchester on the morrow and food cannot fail us
there," but Maream did not care for this form of comfort. She had
been
petted and kept for errands and messages and had been kept well
for her duties,
and she did not understand the meaning of scarcity. Food lay in
the fields all about,
but Will would not take it because of the ooze and rot that was on
it. Maream
became nervous and bucked her head. Will protested his own
discomfort.
"Think you I have food? I have no food. It is the same for man and
beast
and you best put your mind to it."
At Bournemouth, he went
to the inns
in search of something to eat, but they were shut. "Closed," a
sign
said, "because of plague," and there was a red cross on the door
which warned Will to stay away. He went to a nearby tavern, but
there was
nothing to be had there but ale, and the alewife was dead and
could not pour
and her husband was sunken in spirits.
"Blast you," Maream
said,
"if I carry you a foot further without food," and she sank on her
knees.
"Help," Will cried to
the
tavernkeeper. "See you my beast fainting?"
"There be hay on the
floor of
the church," the tavernkeeper said. "The priest there is dead
three
days, md none come to church anymore. For all I care, you may eat
the hay
yourself along with your mare."
At the church a lad hung
about and
said in his desultory way of hanging about after a great
catastrophe, 'The
priest is dead. There is none to hear confession."
"Has the plague been
here?" Will asked.
"It's been and gone."
Will led Maream into the
church
where she gratefully ate the hay from the floor. The boy followed.
"Hast
food for me?" Will asked.
The boy clicked his
teeth wizendly.
"There was some in my father's house, but I know not if it be gone
by
now."
"I thank you," Will
said,
"I thank you for whatever little." He tied Maream to a pew and
walked
back with the boy to his house, who announced Will's purpose to
his father with
little ceremony. "This here man wants a piece of bread."
"The times be evil," the
man said. He sat on a chair in an empty room, like a rock that had
never known
movement. "There is not food for three where twelve must be fed."
He
looked Will over. "Where be you from?"
"Bodmin Priory," dumb
Will answered.
A distancing glint came
into the
man's eyes. "A monk in breeches! Flee you?"
'Nay. A monk on an
errand."
"A monk all the same. It
be a
good day when monks come abegging for food."
Will would not let
himself stand
accused on behalf of unknown factorings. "I think it be a bad day
when any
man begs for food."
The man was a burly,
hungover sort
who had been, content to accept his lot until the plague had
worsened it. It
not only took away his family, it took away his work, for he was a
carrier for
the local monastery, and they had shut themselves in and would
allow no one to
pass through their gates. The town had done the same, had posted a
watchman on
its walls who threatened anyone who came there, with a bow and
arrow. The man
now was exposed in his poverty. The plague stripped him down to
belly and idle
hours.
In such a mood,
resentments
accumulate. Hard times expose different currents. He was a poor
man to whom,
poverty was a natural state, but he had slipped a notch below what
he deemed
natural and he was, in a coarsely natural way, aware of the power
of a piece of
bread and' held it meanly in his hands.
'I never wished harm to
any
man," Will said.
"Nor I," the man said.
"The monks wish it not, but they do it."
Will forced his eyes
away from the
bread. "I am a novice. I say it not for your pardon, but that I am
a
learner and hoped to do God's work and not evil to any man. And
now though I be
hungry, and you have bread, I will take my leave of you."
The man relented and
pushed the
bread towards him, begrudging his own good instincts. "Take it,
seeing an
empty stomach has nought to say to any man."
"I shall surely pray for
you."
"Nay, pray not. I'd
sooner
plant a seed in the dead earth as say a prayer."
Will took the bread and
thanked the
man and hurried back to the church for Maream. He mounted her and
went on to
Winchester, which he reached by noon the next day.
The great cathedral city
was quiet.
The bishop had given orders not to toll the bells anymore, for in
these times
they conveyed only the news of death and caused too much gloom to
hear.
But everything did not
come to a
halt in plaguetime, and less so in England than on the continent.
The
persistence of life is formidable. The Hundred Years War
continued, as well as
other things. Some things were accelerated, like burying, while
some things
were postponed, like Parliament. Some things merely suffered an
interruption,
like the remodeling of the great cathedral, so that when Will saw
it was
halfway there and halfway not, but still a landmark in every way.
The of the
arcade had been doubled, and the old wooden ceiling had been
replaced by a
stone vault. The cathedral was being remodeled along the new
architectural
style of the fourteenth century, the perpendicular style famously
founded by
the wool merchants.
Outside of Winchester,
Maream
showed symptoms of sickness. Her knees buckled, whether from
hunger or
otherwise, and she refused to carry Will any further.
'Up," he said
aggressively,
but she stood her ground and would not move.
"Up," he commanded
She flicked an ear at
him.
"What say you?" a voice
said, "she be of no use to you anymore."
Will wheeled around and
saw six
armed men standing in a circle. "Nay," he said, "you will not
lay a hand on her."
"It is but a beast," one
said.
"And the Scriptures say
Adam
was given the beast for his own."
"Nay, " Will said,
"I have heard that the Jews forbid the eating of an animal in the
fields.
So it cannot be that Adam was given the beast for such a cause."
"This be not Paradise,"
a
fourth said, "and we follow not the Jew's law."
Will backed away. "Hear
me," he said, "I am hungry too. Such be the times, man and beast
are
hungry together. But she is not a beast fit for a man's belly.
tell you
truthfully the plague be in her, for did you not see her legs go
down. See for
yourself that she cannot carry herself,' and he picked up a rock
and flung it
at her. She turned her head towards him, amazed ana, dismayed. He
threw another
rock at her, and she moved away, slowly and skittishly. Will
scrambled for
another, rock and had only raised his arm when she sensed
something unholy in
this attention and loped forward, trotting on her buckling legs.
The six men
began to pursue her. Will threw a third rock and shouted to her to
run. She
loped slowly forward. Her bells jangled discordantly. Will could
not bear the
sound, which betrayed her wherever she went.
What to do about the
beasts? If it
was hard to know what to do about one's fellowman, it was harder
to know what
to do about the beasts. The difference between species was
apparent in crisis.
Will wept for her, as he would not weep for Brother Harald, but
what he might
have done for a fellowman under similar circumstances, he would
not do for
Maream, though she bore him on her back.
He turned away from the
sound of
her bells and the sound of the men running after her and ran off
in another
direction, hoping to be far away when they overtook her.
As he was now on foot,
it was not
long before Walt caught up with him. "How come you to be afoot?"
he
asked.
Will resigned himself to
his presence,
seeing he could not f lee him without a horse. "My horse has run
away and
is pursued by ruffians."
Walt shook his head.
"The
times be evil for man and beast. Go you to London?"
"Aye. Afoot now."
"Aye, as we do. You are
welcome to our company."
Will could find no ready
excuse to
refuse Walt's invitation. "Companionship is sweet for the
traveler,"
he said.
Walt accepted what he
wanted of
this with a straight face. He could be well mannered when he cared
to be, but
not for long. Sooner or later his native grouch rose to the
surface. He walked
beside Will with an air of courteous restraint, his torn psalter
swinging by
the side of his torn leather pants, his hose crumpled, his teeth
loosening, his
hair thinning and marvelously unkempt. Cupper the Carrier and Hugh
Alyn and
Osbourne the gardener and some of the others thought Will strange
company for
this trip, but they trusted Walt, and Walt é trusted himself. So
they tramped
altogether through the woods to London.
Walt was unusually
cheerful,
considering the times and Will, though he swore he would have
nothing to do
with the man but walk beside him, could not resist asking him the
reason for
his happiness.
"We be free men," Walt
said.
Will told himself not to
go a step
further in this talk, but he did. "What mean you?" he asked.
Walt had his answer
prepared. He
had a sermon prepared, but before he could deliver it they heard a
voice
calling for help, and the taunts of a mob in pursuit of a monk who
wished to
bury the dead on consecrated ground within the village of Windsor.
He was
pursued by those who wished otherwise. So keenly did they wish it
otherwise,
they took strong measures to prevent it, and beat him severely on
his head with
their shovels, men and women alike.
"What, ho!" Walt
shouted.
"Let be."
"Let be yourself," they
said menacingly, ready to beat Walt as well, who showed surprising
strength and
acumen. He dodged a shovel, raised his knee to a man's groin and
threw him to
the ground with a flip of his arm. So rapidly are friends and
enemies made in
difficult times that Walt found himself defending the monk and
Will found
himself defending Walt. With that, the die was cast. Cupper and
Hugh grabbed
branches and rock, and teeth and eyeballs were spit out on the
ground. The men
of Windsor, taken aback at finding opposition where they thought
the woods were
empty, believed the monk had secreted sympathizers in the forest
and flung
their shovels away and fled, running fast but having the time to
spit out
curses over their shoulders.
'God split the pants and
heart of
him who would defend a monk."
'Aye, brethren," Walt
called
after them, "I am one with you there."
"Plague take you more
than
ever then," they shouted back.
"Good Christian," the
monk said, dazzled by the bedraggled look of his savior, "who are
you?"
"Walt of Landsend, and
what be
the cause of this melee?"
"The cause be the
plague," the monk said. "The plague be the cause of everything."
He rubbed a bruise on his head and picked off the twigs from his
habit.
"These be unholy men who wish to bury the dead without
consecration."
"The dead be consecrated
by
the plague," Walt said.
In difficult times, when
matters
are split, a sentence or two is enough to show where a man stands
on an issue.
His talk is a vote. The monk understood. "You are a preacher," he
said.
"A man of God," Walt
said.
"A man of God would lay
the
dead in hallowed ground."
"Where these dead lay,
the
ground is hallowed."
And so it went in this
contest.
Each in an had his pithy comment, for each attitude had been bred
by history
and had come to its point of crystallization in this century.
The monk shook his habit
free of
the dirt and dun and mud that had been f lung at him. "I thank you
nevertheless,"
he said, and went his way, limping in pain, his soul hurt in the
worst way a
soul can be hurt: attempting to save the soul of another. His
forehead bled,
his shoulder was twisted, and one leg looked crippled. Even Walt
felt sorry for
him, Walt who hated monkhood, friars, Carthusians, Benedictines,
Cistercians,
or whatever kind, "who cover the land like scabs." nd read th
Though
they prayed for the soul of man a Gospel the whole day, to a man
like Walt they
committed the unforgiveable sin: they ate well when others ate not
at all.
Albeit they fasted and minced at their food for their souls' sake,
they ate
where others ate not at all. Still, to see a man s head crushed
with a shovel
was an unlovely sight, and more so if that man be almost bald.
"You deceived our
cause,"
Hugh Alyn said.
"Damme, Walt said, "if I
stick not a hand out to a man who is drowning. You all know right
well my
'thoughts on this matter."
"He would not do so for
you," Robert Leboren said.
Walt scratched his head
and said aloofly,
as befits a leader, "The matter is not to be debated anymore. Go
we now to
London or not. I say we go to London." But he felt required to
redeem his
position by a show of and attacked Will as they tramped on through
'the woods.
He called him a twaddler, an idler, and a lackey.
'Let go," Will said,
hanging
on to his temper, still hoping to see the other side of the man.
"I be not
any of these things."
"Aye," Walt agreed, to
Will's surprise. "But tell me, what b your errand?" Will would not
say, nor did Walt need Will to tell him. "I know right well your
prior has
sent you to London to raise coin, though he preached on Sunday
last against
usury and such. So do all the priors and abbots preach and do
otherwise."
Will's lips were screwed
shut.
'Aye," Leboren said, "we
need not you to tell us how the world goes. For a man can read the
times
whether he can read his letters or not."
"What means that letter
on
your forehead?" Will asked, as much out of curiosity as to change
the
subject.
'Know you not?" Walt
said, who
could hardly forebear on such an issue. "The king has passed a law
that
none may leave the land to look for work and to take wages but is
to work in
bondage for him who claims him."
"Aye," Leboren said,
"your own reeve did capture me and brand me."
"Nay, it cannot be,"
Will
said.
"Aye," one of the
Cornish
men said, "it can be and is. Stand you now with us, Will, against
prelate
and monk."
Will's heart fluttered.
"What
mean you?" he asked ineptly, for he knew what the man meant.
"Hear me right, Will,"
Wait said, "I do not say the Church is not a grand thing, but her
servants
are fleas and maggots, swarming over the whole of it and turning
soul's meat to
garbage, same as the fleas and the plague does in the meadow.
Christ was not a
monk and he was not a priest. I tell you what, Will. Ê I think he
was like me,
a rebel preacher. What church had he and what land had he? What
owned he but
body and soul? And any man that says I came to do him harm, or his
holy mother
may well be a monk, for between Christ and monk is the same enmity
as between
Christ and the moneychangers in the temple, for what be the monks
and the
prelates but moneychangers when they come through for Peter's
pence and let out
on lend. What did Christ say but shame on that priest that walks
in long robes,
intones through his nose, and bums incense. And what do the monks
but such. And
who be that man but yourself, Will? You came' to Bodmin for peace.
You cannot
have peace and truth., If Christ be truth,, he is not peace. You
must choose,
between them, as Christ chose. Had Christ wished for peace, never
would he have
taken up the cross. He, would have stayed in the desert and fasted
for his Soul
as the monks do. But he came not for peace. This generation must
enter into
heaven by violence, he has told us. So it has always been. Aye,
Will. The truth
be in your own pocket in the letter you carry with you to London.
When my
brethren's' bellies are fill up like your good Prior Godfrey's
whose falcon eats
better than the poor, then will my sword be sheathed. Peace,
peace, the man of
plenty cries. In plenty there is much peace. In poverty there is
no peace.
There is no truth, there is no love. There is not even balm of
animal life. For
a wolf will feed her young, but a starving man will eat his own. A
hungry man
has ever the sword's edge against his throat. Sow you
righteousness and
justice, as the Lord says, and you shall reap mercy. Stand with
me, Will, stand
with me now against prelate and monk."
They were then in the
manor of
Friedhanman, outside of London where, if we can trust the
chronicler of that
priory, the abbot and sixteen monks were set upon by the people of
that village
in this December of 1348. A mob broke down the gate to the priory,
trampled on
the altar and set fire to two buildings and locked the prior into
his church.
The crowd was fierce looking. Many had smeared their faces with
ashes, either
to hide their identities or to symbolize death, while a red "F"
flamed on the foreheads of others.
"What, ho!" Walt cried,
who never feared an angry crowd and caught hold of the reins of
one of the
horses that fled by.
"Look out, man," the
rider said, intent on his mischief.
"I be with you," Walt
said, who had no doubts.
"Christ redeem you," the
man said, and rode on.
"You cannot fall in with
these
men," Will cried to him.
"Aye, I can," Walt said,
"Me and my men will. You please yourself," and off he went.
Will neither fell in nor
fell out
but was carried along. Hugh Alyn, Osbourne, the men from the
village, the men
from his own manor, went past him with torches and blackened
faces. The eye of
Robert Leboren went through him like an arrow. Walt said in his
ear, "Hear
me, Will, the devil's altar is made of gold and is covered with
lace. The devil's
prayer is said in Latin. I speak from bereavement. What the people
need is
plain speech in God's language. They need not prittle prattle
dominie patria.
They need God to speak to them in the language to which they were
born, the
language they heard in their mother's mouth before the prelate
ever spoke to
them. Stand with me, Will," Walt said through the forest of
tramping feet.
"You be a hot-tempered
miscreant," Will cried back, and shuddered at this curious crisis
of
taking up arms against the people who had promised to save their
souls. The men
from his manor pressed against him with their claims and bonds.
The men from
Cornwall went by him with their bedraggled faces smeared with
ashes to give
look of dreadful courage. They might be doomed to hell, as they
believed they
were, but they would risk it for the sake of some work and this
world, they
would risk their eternal souls ˆ for the world, they would risk
damnation for a
piece of bread.
"What be the "F" on
your forehead," Will asked another.
"Fugitive," the man
said.
"I be branded for leaving my manor."
"What be your manor?"
"Friedhanman. And now I
return
to take my revenge that ever I was branded as Cain was. So be it,
now I ride
with Cain."
"Brother," Will said,
"it was an unkind thing the Church did to brand you, but you
should not
ride against your manor."
"Stand aside," the man
said.
"Stand with us," Walt
cried, as they broke down the door to the church, and shouted with
one voice,
"Now wait we God's visitation," and swept forward as if their
grudges
had burst a dam, they caught hold of the prior who was crouching
within, tied
him to the attar and bid him pray for his soul.
So they rode throughout
the night
from monastery to setting fire to fields and stones, a foretaste
of Wat Tyler's
ride to London a generation later when his men broke down the
manor house of
the Knights Hospitaller and burned Lambeth and St. John's Priory
and beheaded
its Grand Prior, the Treasurer of the Realm.
Those who had horses
rode on to
other monasteries. Those on foot could not hope to keep up with
them. Walt and
his men bid the horsemen goodbye and may the spirit of almighty
God and freedom
ride with you," they shouted after them, and made their way to
London in
high spirits, except for Will, who felt uneasy about what he was
doing. But the
times goaded them. The times burned in their bellies with hunger
and fear. The
times outraged their souls, though they wished no harm to any man
and prayed to
be redeemed.
Wait understood their
mood, but he
would not have their spirits troubled by these fears, he would not
have this
unprecedented taste of freedom thrown up by the times diminished
by their
religious conscience. He could not explain to them why they should
be in
opposition to the Church, but his conviction
that it was right overwhelmed their doubts. He jumped
aboard a wagon
which stood empty by the side of the road outside Smithfield.
"Hear
me," he said, "hear me clear. Chide not your souls for what you
did
this night. I promise you, heaven will be not less your reward.
Confuse not
Christ with prior and bishop. I say if the Church lived as the
Church ought
there would be no usury in the land. It is Christian avarice, love
of war and
land and lend that has brought this misery to us. To expel the
Jewish usurer is
easy, but how rid we ourselves of Christian greed? I say the dance
is one of
land and lend. Brethren, I say to you, this day we be free men. As
the Lord God
took the Hebrew out of the land of Egypt, he has freed us likewise
this day
from the bondage of the land. Now is the earth diseased with
plague as in the
days of Egypt. Now is all nature sick, earth and air and water and
even the
animals die before your eyes. I say bless the plague as the
Israelite in Egypt
blessed the plague. I say bless the vermin that kills the abbot's
sheep. I say
hold dear its dying. We are free men today. Free to wander where
our legs will
take us and free to labor with our arms for wages and none can
tell us nay.
Justice, justice you must follow, just laws and just taxation. We
need not
mercy and the bread of charity, for we be hardy enough for
ourselves. As the
Lord God made us he made us hardy to endure. We need just laws,
justice and
freedom, and mercy will be abundant in the land. I say bless the
plague. Good
comes to man in God's time. Hold fast this faith and weep no more
for your
dead. We are free men this 'day. Brethren, march we to London now
even as Moses
marched and follow we the God of freedom."
So Walt and Will, willy
nilly, and
Simon Muleward and Hugh Alyn and Robert Leboren with the "F" on
his
forehead for fugitive or freedom, and Cupper the Carrier and the
others, club-footed,
cross-eyed, faces blackened by the smoke of the fires they had
set, went on and
soon were in sight of London which they knew by the smoke the
distance and the
stench and the cries of the hog being butchered outside the walls
and the
increase of plague carts on the road. The look of crisis and
accomplishment was
on every man's face, that they had come so far, for never had
these men expected
London or any city. Though they could see nothing more of it than
the smoke
around it they knew the city was the sign of history where the
record of man
was kept.
It being the hour of
Nones, Walt
took out his Bible and bid the men kneel and pray. Will was glad
to kneel with
Walt, glad of an act he could share with him. Walt bent his
knobbly knees to
the ground and prayed in the field with his followers. "It is fit
we give
thanks, for it is not by our might that we are here, as the Lord
God has said it,
but by His spirit that we have arrived."
In his hour of triumph
against the
world, in his hour of history, pain seized him under his ribs as
he prayed and
pierced him to his backbone. Sweat broke out on forehead and in
his armpits.
The plague struck Walt as he knelt, and he did not rise from the
field. It was
the only force that had ever robbed him of his voice and hi
breath.
The others perceived
immediately
what was wrong and began to back away, except for Will. He stayed
his ground
and grasped Walt under his armpits and tried to raise him up.
"It will pass," Walt
said.
"Nay, it will not,"
Simon
Muleward mumbled.
"Fetch him water," Will
said.
"There is but a brackish
stream close by," one said.
"Aye," Will said
bitterly, "now seize we the day."
"It cannot be but as God
wills," one said, beginning to feel doubts again about his
actions. ¼
"This be the year of the
devil
and not of God," Will cried to him.
"Nay," Walt said,
"curse not this day. Though I die, it be a fair day."
'Nay," Will cried, to
his own
surprise, "you will not die."
"Methinks you were
always
wrong in your calculations" Walt said, gasping at his old
merriment, but
the sobriety of death was the stronger force. "Let be," he moaned.
'Surely I have done my work. Move yonder with the "others. It is
not grace
to watch an old dog die."
To his amazement, Will
seized
Walt's shoulders. "Nay, I cannot, though God knows you be rotten
to set me
down for ignorant now."
"Will," Walt tried to
laugh, "you humor me well if you ,curse me, but I would you moved
off with
the others."
"I would I do as I would
and I
would that I stay. Hear me, Walt, you must stay with us, it cannot
be
otherwise," but blood broke from Walt's nose, a fog rose over his
eyes.
"Bless me," he said, dizzy with fright and pain, "you were always
a quarrelsome monk." He tried to get up, but he staggered back. He
fell on
his knees. Is psalter swung out from his leather belt. His leather
jacket was
tom in a thousand places and had been ended a thousand times.
"Walt," Will called to him. "Hear me, Walt, you have broken my
heart. I promise, you will sup with God this day"
It is often assumed that
medieval
cities no wallowed in dirt, but wished to wallow in dirt, that
they had no
plumbing because they did not wish to have, plumbing. We are
indebted for our
reassessment to the scholar, Sabine, who studied the two foremost
problems of
medieval London: "Butchering," and "Latrines and
Cesspools." Contrary to modern judgments on medieval man, the
municipal
records of London for 1349, show that London citizens went to
desperate lengths
to rid themselves of excrement, some even suffering martyrdom.
Here was Richard
Raker, so keen for hygiene he built a latrine in his house, but in
the course
of its construction, misstepped through the rotten planks and
drowned
"moste monstrously in his owne ordure." Here were two men exposed
at
the Assize of Nuisances for piping their waters away into the
cellar of a
neighbor which ruse, in due time, was discovered when the water in
his cellar
rose unprecedently. And here was a woman, who put a latrine "in
her
solar" and connected it by a wooden pipe with a street gutter in
Queenhithi, ordered to remove "said offense." And here were good
men
who left bequests in their will for the repair of public latrines,
unknown
benefactors in the history of the city. But here were others,
fined and
pilloried for connecting pipes where they should not be connected:
into the
main street, into wells, into gardens, into rivers, into their
neighbors'
homes. Here was a Citizens Watch Committee set up not only to
check the pipes
and the flow to where and from whom, but littering of any manner,
that so
keenly punished a pedlar in Mary-la-Bow who in that year threw an
eel skin to
the ground and was immediately killed by his neighbors.
It is not true that
medieval man
desired his excrement. He wished it away, far away, into his
neighbor's house
or lawn or well. The records show that there was simply more of it
than could
be moved. Edward III registered a complaint that so clogged was
the Thames that
his royal barge could not make its way up that historical river.
In the economics of
civilizations
the two pressing problems are waste and death, both of which give
rise to the
problems of smell, making fumigation of the air the great need of
all time, and
the nose the most sensitive register of progress.
Nor is the intellect a
guard
against the problem. We find complaints made in Cambridge of
"noxious open
gutters made by the Masters of Michaelhouse and Ganville Hall,
which ran from
those colleges to High Street, through which many »masters and
scholars had
access to the school of the University," having to brave "gutters
which gave out so abominable a stench and so corrupted the air
that many
masters and scholars passing fell sick."
"Soap! For God's sake,
give us
a bar of soap!" That's the cry through the ages.
For what profits it if a
people
have a university if their pipes are clogged, or to have books if
they have no
pipes.
Build thy city on a
mound to ensure
drainage, or alongside a river or upon the shore, to ensure
"watering" and "wafting" of the odors. Regard the fate of
cities built on the plains. The smog cannot lift from them, and
the wrath of
heaven sits on them forever.
The Londoner was
conscious of such
matters early on. By 1307, the palace of Westminster had set the
fashion in
lavatories. A pipe ran from the king's room to the main sewer. The
houses of
lesser nobles had small platforms which jutted out over the Royal
Thames where
they could relieve themselves outside their rooms. In the
courtyards great
leaden urinals were kept at the ready. In other neighborhoods, not
so fortunate
to have the Thames go by, ditches were built to catch the flow.
Garbage was
collected, a formidable task in those days. A "raker' was
appointed for
each ward and there were as many as fifty carts and horses in the
city for the
removal of said stuff. Fines were levied: 2S in 1345 to any
householder who
left his "messe" outside his house. There were municipal bath
houses,
then as now confused with brothels, also known as stews. Many a
man such as
Will, got confused by the language, to his great embarrassment.
The problem was not
ignorance or
lack of motivation. or love of excrement. The problem was the
problem.
During the plague the
cemeteries
were put outside the city walls, to the chagrin of the country
dwellers. Two
new cemeteries, one at Smithfield and one called Spittle Croft,
were hastily
dug to catch the overflow of death. Stowe, the London historian,,
claims he saw
this inscription at Spittle Croft: "A great plague raging in the
year of
our Lord, 1349, this churchyard was consecrated wherein, and
within the bounds
of the present monastery were buried more than fifty thousand
bodies of the
dead, besides many others from then to the present time, whose
souls God have
mercy upon. Amen, amen, and amen."
The problem was more
acute by
Christmas time, and Will's spirits were low as he made his way
into the city.
The closer he came the more it looked and smelled like a charnel
house instead
of like the city it was famous for being, where the wealthy and
the powerful
dressed as the wealthy and the powerful should, and never was so
much spent on
fashions as when clothes and color were symbols of status set by
the law, and
everyone knew an alderman from a cardinal or a landed nobleman
from a merchant
by the color of his cape and the shape of his hat, by his furs and
h ·is
velvets and his gold embroidered pearls, and Its orient grained
scarlet. Oh!
age of fabric and cloth, of silks, linens and wools, worsted
medley, vair,
miniver, sendall and sable. London! City of foreigners, where
tradesmen of the
continent, clothiers and spinners, came to display their
industriousness on the
persons of your citizens.
City of Commerce! They
sailed up
the Thames: Flemish weavers, Genoese and Florentine bankers,
Venetian traders
and Hansard importers. All gone in the plague year. They lay now
on top of
carts like moppets of history, dismal to Will's eyes as he came
into the city
through Ludgate. A few months ago the squeals of dying pigs
drowned out the
bells of St. Paul, and the smell of their blood and their fright,
as the
butchers did their work, buried the smell of the river, the air
quivered with
cock fighting, bear baiting and hog killing, and the shrieks of
laughing
children as they watched the animals di ªe, and helped to kill
them with clubs
and rocks.
Medieval man, famous for
his heaven
and hell in art theology, was not moved by sights such as these,
since his
theology did not advise him where the animals go after they die.
They go to an
animal afterworld, where they hunt man. For surely even a cat or a
bear has its
place in the great scheme of retribution which God is said to have
at His
disposal, and which no doubt consists of reversing the roles of
hunter and
hunted. Seigneure Venous! You, who burned thirty horses alive for
the
entertainment of your guests --- surely these horses wait for you.
Medieval Christian man
did not take
cognizance of such deeds, for cruelty was not one of his seven
deadly sins.
Will made his way as
best he could
to Thames Street, advised by such citizens as he found in the
streets and which
he dared to speak to, where the house of Walter Chaunton, Wool
Merchant, Trader
and Creditor was. He ³ carried with him his instructions and
letter from Prior
Godfrey which Prior Godfrey had spent three days writing and had
told Will,
"it is not worth your soul in heaven if you deliver it not."
Will made his way
through dreary
lanes and gutters, 'the gloom of that year being such it was
difficult to
remember that he had arrived in London at Christmas time, when
medieval
festivities were usually at their height with tournaments and
jousts and ridings,
with horse races in Smithfield, ice skating in Moorsefield, and
boat jousts on
the Thames, where the prosperity of the city was marked by the
House of the
Hanseatic League with its big scales in the Steelyard without
which, as Daniel
knew, no people can weigh their goods, bales of wool stacked in
the
churchyards, whose famous bells ringing at Matins, at Lauds, at
Prime, Tierce,
Sexts, Nones, and Vespers, at births and at deaths, shed their
sounds as far as
Highgate, four miles away.
'For London was the
"Place a
I'Eglise" of Europe. On every street was a church or a monastery,
with its
hospital and its almonry, its college for priests and its house
for priests,
its charity and fraternity and endowment. The Priory of St.
Bartholomew, the Priory
of the Holy Trinity, the House of St. Mary Overies, the Hospital
of St.
Katherine, Priory of the Crutched Friars, St. Olaf's Church, the
Order of St.
Augustine, the Priory of St. Helen, St. Martin le Grand, the
foundations of the
Grey Friars, Christ Church and St. Nicholas Shambles and St. Ewin,
the House of
the Carmelites and the Order of the Mendicants, Tintem, and
Glastonbury and
Whitby.
Besant, in his history
of London,
gives this eulogistic description: "Every House was possessed of
rich
manors and broad lands every House had its treasury filled with
title-deeds as
well as with heaps of gold and silver plate; every House had its
church crowded
with marble monuments, adorned with rich shrines and blazing
altars and painted
glass, such as we can no longer make .... And they thought ---
priest and
people alike --- that it was all going to last forever."
The influence of St.
Paul was
visible in the precious relics it owned: a hand of St. John the
Evangelist, a
phial containing some drops of the virgin's milk, the arm of St.
Mellitus,
fragments from the skull of St. Thomas a Becket, a hair from St.
Mary
Magdalene, the entire head of St. Ethelbert, Jesus' knife, and a
jeweled
reliquary containing the blood of St. Paul. It was visible in the
officers it
employed: a bishop, a dean, four archdeacons, a treasurer, a
precentor, a
chancellor, thirty greater canons, twelve lesser canons, thirty
vicars and
fifty chantry priests; a sacristan and three vergers, a succentor,
a Master of
the Singing-school, a Master of the Grammar-School, an almoner and
four
vergers, a surveyor, twelve scribes, servitors, a book
transcriber, a
book-binder, ? the chamberlain, the rent-collector, the brewer,
the baker, the
singing-men, the choir boys and bedesmen, and all with their own
servants. In
addition: sextons, grave-diggers, gardeners, bell-ringers, makers
and menders
of ecclesiastical robes, cleaners and sweepers, carpenters,
masons, painters,
carvers and gilders. "St. Paul alone found a livelihood for
thousands."
That church's opulence
and industry
was rivalled in its day only by the merchants who often lived in
houses large
enough to house six hundred guests, with courts and oriel windows
and walls
lined with tapestries and beds covered with skins, and walls
covered with
carvings of heraldic figures: unicorns, dolphins and dragons. Some
merchants
became legendarily powerful like Sir Henry Picard, once mayor of
London, who is
said to have gambled with five kings of Europe in one evening:
Edward III, John
of France, King David of Scotland, the King of Cyprus, and the
Black Prince.
(The King of Cyprus was the loser that evening.)
"Seest thou a man
diligent in
his business. He shall stand before kings," went the proverb of
the day,
and the careers of many, like William de la Pole, proved the
saying, though it
sometimes cost the merchant a great deal when the king cancelled
his debt to
him; and it sometimes cost the merchant his life when the king
cancelled the
creditor; but it sometimes brought the merchant good fortune by
way of a baronetcy
or an earldom. Since the mayor of London, whose position was
linked to his
trade and guild connections, was taxed in that century the same as
an earl, a
mitred abbot or a bishop, he might as well be an earl.
A few random walkers
were in the
streets, but the usual sounds of the city were gone, the grinders
and vendors
and smithies, the cries of the drovers and carters and fish
mongers, the
clinging, the clanging, the hammering, the firing, the grinding,
the screeching
of animals, were silent.
Trade and work had
stopped, and
many who were in the streets should not have been there, being
infected, though
they did not know it, while others ran through the streets, driven
crazy with
the pain of the disease. In every parish there were daily
incidents of this
kind setting everyone's nerves on edge. The dying would not die
quietly but
made public spectacles of themselves though everything was done to
prevent
this. Every household had to report the outbreak of plague in it
within two
hours, and to put a large red cross in the center of its door.
Watchmen were
posted to keep guard over the houses where infection was known to
be, so that
no one could go in or out. Families were loath to report their
cases, for the
healthy became imprisoned with their sick, condemned to breathe
their air, and
were not let cut even to buy food. The sick and the dying became
the jailors of
the healthy.
There were a few
provident people
who had boarded themselves and their families into their homes and
had hoarded
and provided enough food to seal themselves off from the world for
several
months. They were those who had believed the rumors. They had some
mechanism
for smelling the air correctly, which the others did not have.
Most others
gambled with the rumors and lost, and then had to be sealed into
their houses
with insufficient food, and when they could, they fled through the
pipes and
the sewers. They bribed watchmen or tricked their way out, for
boredom became
as great a problem as the lack of food and the fear of death.
Markets were
closed and work was stopped and most people feared visiting each
other. People
walked abroad aimlessly, in the center of the streets, in single
file, avoiding
each other, carrying a garlic or a herbal ball pressed to their
noses. Doctors
and priests who had entered the homes of plague victims carried a
red rod three
feet long to warn t ‘he public of their presence. The merciful and
the
compassionate were shunned along with the lepers.
Midwives could not be
had, and many
women suffered alone in labor. The numbers of deaths from
childbirth rose very
high. Often an infected woman was delivered of an infected infant.
Doctors'
reports tell of buboes appearing in the groin of an infant not two
hours old,
and mother and child dead a few hours later.
Plague knows no class
barrier, but
famine does. The poor stand exposed in their poverty more than
ever in plague
time and die in incalculable numbers. But then their numbers are
always greater
to begin with and some, as an infamous king in eighth century
Ireland, have
gone so far as to see in plague a remedy for the poor.
There were others in the
streets,
men and women with vacant stares who had buried every member of
their families
and had passed the legally required forty days of quarantine.
Judged to be
safe, they had nothing to fear anymore. Deliverance gave them a
desultory look,
nothing pious, nothing triumphant. There were still others in the
streets, the
criers of doom who walked among the delivered and warned them of
the wrath to
come. They emerged from the plague fiery-eyed and filled with
pronouncements of
earthly corruption and judgment. The times gave birth to them as
masters of it,
and they rode the times like a master horseman, naked upon the
animal.
Like them, quack curers
and quack
medicines flourished: "Sovereign Cordials Against Corruptions of
the Air,"
"An Universal Remedy for the Plague," adding to the skittishness,
the
cynicism, the desperation of the public mind, the psychotic public
mind which
became as injurious to itself as the plague. For when an event
happens for
which one explanation seems as good as another, the world loses
its intellectual
order. Reason and reasonableness crumble. A world in which any and
every
explanation will do, where everything is tried and nothing works,
where every
remedy is in doubt and every idea is in transit, is a protean
world given over
to the realm of the magician who can turn cats into rats, lepers
into demons,
Jews into devils, and God into Satan.
Hungry for information
about its
survival, the public mind became preternaturally sharp and watched
the universe
for signs: clouds, wind, stars, changes in temperature. Mental
processes became
mercurial, too rapid for intellectual structure. Inhuman mistakes
in judgment
were made. Fevers, ague, tremors, chills or catarrh, running sores
and rashes,
were shunned as the plague. Old men with chest colds and children
with scabby
scales were thrown onto the plague carts. Women in childbirth were
gagged and
strapped to their beds lest their screams be taken for the plague
and the
house, with ™ everyone in it, condemned.
Opinions about
everything changed
swiftly, while at the same time the actual pace of life became
dull and
monotonous. Individuals became isolated cells, while the public in
mind raged
in the streets, ravenous with superstitions, its mental energies
rendered inert
with fear and speculations, trapped between the reality of the
plague and a
hypochondriacal terror of its own self.
It could be said that a
flea had
come to rule the world and claim the reward of the gnostic faiths.
On every
face that Will saw, the message was plainly written: theology had
lost its
accountability; religion and nature had parted ways, as religion
and history
have parted in our time: events were no longer consonant with the
mercy and
justice of God. In such times it is no mean feat to steer a
boatload of
terrified animals on the rising flood.
A woman made her way
across a
cobblestone lane, a scented b ¿all pressed to her nose, a
prostitute braving
death for a few pennies, a brazen gleam of greed and need passing
between her
and anyone else who knew they must make good in these times or
never.
The warehouses stood
empty or
filled with rotting goods. Their huge doors were shut tight or
swung open on a
disheveled scene of unpacked goods, or goods spilled and
sprawling, the signs
of death and looting. In their rooms above, where it was the
custom of the
traders to live splendidly, they died like everyone else.
But there is a vitality
to business
that will carry London out of this gloom within the year, for the
merchant
class is singular, and from it has come the genius of Europe: St.
Francis,
Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare --- all born to merchant fathers.
The end of the century
was marked
by Sir William Sevenoake, the first known instance in England "of
a lad of
humble birth rising to great wealth in London," who left a portion
of his
wealth to Ö found a grammar school in his native town. Hereafter,
the money of
the great merchants go to endow hospitals, to build roads, to
supply water, to
construct latrines, to sustain urban life. John Barnes, a wealthy
business man
"leaves a thousand marks for the use of young men to go into
business." The age of endowing monasteries is over.
Prior Godfrey did not
send Will in
haste because he intuited the future, but because he knew from the
past 'what
his punishment would be if he failed to meet his debts. London
recovered from
the plague in a different manner from the countryside. Her future
was no longer
consonant with it. Worldliness came to Will from Prior 'Godfrey's
nervous
grumblings about his problems with debt, common to all who live
beyond their
means, even ecclesiastics. Love of wealth is natural to everyone,
to Oriental
man and to Occidental man. Who wants to be poor? Not even the poor
want that.
Poor Will! He came to
London at the
wrong time. A year earlier or a year later would have been more
suitable, but
neither the future nor the past was of help now. The meaner sort
of people slid
by him: barefoot, brazen pilgrims, their eyes trained to look
pious dithering
with holiness, lepers and leprous prostitutes, criminal looking
people
everywhere, except for a few of the better looking kind, women who
made Will
wish he had worn his novitiate's robe to ward off their warm
looks, for some things
go on as usual, even in plague time. Houses were shrouded and
marked with the
red _cross where there was plague, but the taverns stood open and
from the
sounds inside and the swinging signs overhead, "The Cup and the
Horn," or "The Plough and the Seed," and the toasts of the
tipplers, "Here's to the old raker, you knew there was still life
in the
city, though the signs on the trade shops along the Chepway read:
CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF
PLAGUE
CLOSED DUE TO FAMINE AND
WAR AND
DISEASE
CLOSED BECAUSE OF HARD
TIMES
Life had moved out of
the markets
and the churches and had gone underground into the taverns and the
bawdy
houses. Will was tempted, but he dismissed his temptation as much
out of fear
as to the oaths he had taken. Most of all, he wanted to get his
errand over
with. Urgency and dread of the city carried him forward. He wanted
to be done
and return as quickly as possible to Bodmin before temptation or
plague seized
him.
His path took him
through the old
Jewish neighborhood, whose- signs and Hebrew markings on the stone
walls, told
him where he was: Huggin Lane, named for the Hagin family,
descendants of R.
Simeon of Treves, and the synagogue in Gresham, called Bakewell
Hall in those
times, the Domus Conversorum established in Chancery Lane by Henry
III in 1232
as a domicile for converted Jews. There were cobblestones and
whatever stones
with Hebrew writings on it, which can be found in almost every
city of Europe,
from old tombstones now used to pave the streets or fix a breach
in the city
wall.
He went on to Thames
Street, down
near the wharves where the wool merchants kept their houses. The
bales of wool
lay stinking on the ground floor, and the stench from the river
blew its foul
air through his soul. A set of large steel scales hung from the
ceiling beams,
with the merchant's trademark scratched in them: a sheep's hoof
and ear. The
wool merchant, Chaunton, came into the hall, as if prepared to
find Will there,
or someone else with bad news, cancelled debts or cancelled
debtors. Dressed in
the silk permitted to his estate, wearing a tunic and a cap and a
gold chain,
he carried a letter in his hand which bore Bishop Roundsleigh's
seal, and he
rattled this unpleasantly.
Cancelling debts and
even
cancelling creditors was common business in these days. Finance,
being in its
nascent state, had not acquired the securities of our time. Its
skeletal
structure was plainly that of "gambling. Risks were high and
losses often
drastic. This was an age when traders became very rich or very
poor very
quickly. When Edward III cancelled his debts to his creditors,
great banking
houses like that of Bardi and Peruzzi went bankrupt and dragged
other banking
houses down with them. Could the king do that? Apparently, yes. He
was the
king. Some barons thought it was a good idea when the king
cancelled his debt,
hoping their taxes would be diminished. Other barons thought it
was a bad idea,
if they were connected with the creditors. Sometimes the barons
who thought it
was a good idea and the barons who thought it was a bad idea went
to war with
each other. The winner settled the fiscal policy. It's the
winner's right to do
that.
Kings were high risk
investments.
But if they won their wars and made a great deal of money in loot
and ransom,
the gamble for the creditor paid off. If the king lost his war, he
cancelled
his debt, or brought such charges against his creditor á which
might interest
the Inquisition. If the Inquisition could not be interested in the
charges, the
king expelled or imprisoned the creditor. Could the king do that?
Apparently
yes. Still, there were always merchants who were eager to lend
money to the
king, because winning was everything, even though losing was too.
The merchant
might be rewarded with an earldom and his family crest established
forever. The
prize was immortality.
Though the risks were
high,
sometimes as high as death, it was the risk which justified the
usury, a
principle established by Thomas Aquinas: risk could justify the
charging of
interest rates without loss of soul or eternal life, and the
investments in the
Middle Ages were all very risky, so that the Christian usurer felt
justified in
charging as much as 83
, arguing that "he'd as
leif
go to hell for a sheep as for a lamb," while the Jew risked
massacre and
expulsion and his rates were set by the law at about 1/4 the
Christian charges.
Walter Ê Chaunton, wool
merchant
from Hull, had advanced monies to Bishop Roundsleigh against the
collateral of
the wool to be sheared from his sheep. In due time, Bishop
Roundsleigh was
forced to write to Chaunton: "Five thousand sheep dead due to
plague. Debt
cancelled. The Lord bless and keep the Church and her bishops,
which has freed
herself this day from the bondage of usury. In the name of the
Father and the
Son and the Holy Ghost, I am your gracious bishop,
Ever present with you in
Spirit,
Signed this day, 30 November
in the year of our Lord, 1348
witnessed this day by my reeve and steward
to which is afixed my seal, as may be seen
by all honest men. Amen, amen, and amen.
The merchant laid the
letter on the
table amidst a clutter of coins he did his business with, coins of
the many
varieties of civilizations of his time. History need not be
written in volumes
and in encyclopedias. It can be written on the face of a coin and
carried by
ordinary Ë people in their pockets, and they can cause
revolutions. The Romans,
as everyone knows, put the image of their emperor on their coins
and caused a
revolution in Judea. Jewish coins bore the image of the lily, a
chalice of
manna, a blossoming rod, the lulav and citron, a cornucopia with
poppy head,
and common inscriptions were, "Jerusalem the Holy," and "The
Redemption of Zion," but from the time of Constantine's conversion
until
the present day there are no coins minted in Europe carrying these
images or
inscriptions.
Like the Hebrews, the
Moslems also
objected to religious imagery on coins. They objected to the image
of the
Cross, the Virgin Mary and Christ on coins, and refused to use
them in trade.
Their coins bore only the 'date and place of minting, a quotation
from the
Koran and the statement in Arabic, "There is no God but Allah." In
Byzantium, during the time of the Crusades, the religious
iconography on Christian
coins, the Chi-Rho, the Divine Hand, the Christ, was so shocking
to Mohammedans
it caused a crisis in trade between the east and the west. To
alleviate the
problem, coins were minted to accommodate the Islamic distaste for
religious
Images. In 1124, the Crusaders in the east struck gold coins which
imitated the
Arab coins and proclaimed Islamic doctrine in Arabic writing. This
allowed
trade to continue, but Pope Innocent III excommunicated the
minters.
There is an old saying
that
"money is money," but evidently it is not. Evidently, money is
more
than money. The Crusaders and the minters in the east sought
another
accommodation, one suitable to both Christian and Islamic
religious sentiment.
As Porteous describes it, "Thereafter the dinars of the Crusaders
were distinguished
by the sign of the cross and Arabic statements of Christian
belief, which may
have restricted their circulation farther east, but at least
appeased western
opinion." These Crusader coins are rare and exceptionally
valuable.
The first coin in
western
civilization is alleged to have been minted in Lydia, in the
Kingdom of
Croesus. The habit of putting religious symbols or the images of
one's Woods on
coins dates back at least to the Phoenicians who put the images of
Zeus Mamas
or Melkarth, the deity of Tyre, on their coins. Later, the Greeks
put the head
of Pallas Athene on coins, unabashedly connecting wisdom with
money.
The Romans not only put
the heads
of their deified emperors on their coins, but devised a monetary
system
designed to keep the ruling classes richer than the trading
classes. They
minted gold coins for tax purposes only, and used a less valuable,
debased
silver metal for purposes of trade.
The early Christians
minted at
first only for tax purposes. As Porteous points out, their mints
were located
"at all points where taxes might be gathered, not only royal fiefs
and
palaces, but also fortresses, local, capitals, maritime and river
ports, and
toll places." But between the seventh and the thirteenth
centuries, gold
coinage "misteriously" ceased. During the seventh century there
began
an abrupt decline in the amount of available coin, which Porteous
ascribes to
"the persistent accumulation of treasure by the Church," causing
"the withdrawal of gold from circulation." Gold disappeared, but
taxes did not, and trade was on the increase, so coins were struck
in other
metals, less valuable metals such as silver. In the single year,
1279, 107,000
pounds of silver were used to mint coins in the Tower of London.
In the
following year, 1280, both Gui de Dampierre, Count of Flanders and
of Mamur,
and John of Brabant, minted silver coins in order to meet their
wool payments
to England.
During the Ages of Faith
it was
easy to mint coins. Almost anyone with access to the suitable
metals could. No
special building was required, and the only requisite tools were a
block, dies,
hammer, and shears. A mint could be set up anywhere, in a castle
or a stable.
The English kings, however, always kept central control over the
minting. In
France, on the other hand, minting was as feudalized as the
territory. Money
was minted by dukes, counts, electors, lords, barons, abbots,
abbesses, bishops,
and archbishops. Some places had several mints: archiepiscopal,
municipal, and
seignorial.
The Church too was
prominent in
minting. Coins were minted in the names of bishops and minted in
abbeys, such
as St. Martin of Tours and St. Martial of Limoges. Many of these
coins bore the
image of the patron saint of the abbey. St. Maieul appeared on the
coins of the
Cluniac Priory at Souvigny, and the Virgin appeared on deniers
minted by the
bishops of Clermont. By the Merovingian era there were more than a
thousand
separate mints in Christendom, and more than 1,400 moneyers, many
of whom were
ecclesiastics. A stained-glass window in a church in Le Mans, set
in 1240,
celebrates the moneychanger's trade. The irony, vis a vis Jesus,
is too obvious
to underscore. The relationship between money and religion was
attested to by
both ecclesiastics and merchants. Innocent III proclaimed, "Not a
church
in Christendom would remain standing but for usury," and the great
merchant of Prato, Francesco Datini, who made his wealth in
Avignon, always
wrote on the first page of his ledgers: "In the name of God and
Profit." Most guilds everywhere bore the names for saints and
invoked
their blessings and raised great funds for the churches which, in
turn,
celebrated their trades by devoting stained glass windows to the
various
guilds. In London, Florentine merchants published guides for their
agents with
the rates of exchange and the lists of monasteries where wool was
to be had,
and almost all businessmen of the day commonly opened their books
with the
phrase, "Messer Le Bon Dieu."
The Papacy began its own
coinage in
the eighth century, under Adrian I. These first coins minted by
the papacy bore
on the obverse side a full face bust of the Pope, and the Cross on
the reverse
side. All the Christian symbols, Christ, the Virgin, the Paschal
Lamb, were put
upon the coins in Europe, immediately after Constantine's
conversion, and bore
the Christian dies of conquest. The French Ecu, the English Noble,
the Florin,
the Ducat, the Byzantine Nomisma, the coins of Europe, were minted
by
Christians in Christian countries for the use of Christians who
proclaimed the
holiness of poverty and the insidiousness of finance. The Papacy
ceased to mint
only in the nineteenth century, when Rome became integrated with
Italy.
Gold coinage was
re-introduced into
Europe in 1252, in Florence, when the city struck the famous
Florin, the first
gold coin in six centuries. It bore the head of St. John the
Baptist and
rapidly became the most popular and most imitated coin in Europe.
Everyone
tried to copy it. It was minted at the Papal mint, under Pope John
XXIII at
Avignon, which had become by now an important city on the trade
route between
Italy and central France. Venice competitively minted the ducat
d'oro which
became so popular too, that hereafter all gold coins were called
ducats,
whether or not minted at Venice. The Venetian ducat carried the
image of the
Doge kneeling before St. Mark on the obverse side, and the image
of Christ on
the reverse side. So good were the Italians at minting gold coins
Edward III
appointed them to supervise his first issue of gold coins in
England in 1344,
four years before the plague arrived there
Over the centuries the
Christian
designs became very elaborate. They developed from an early simple
cross and
monogram to representations of the Virgin and Child the Trinity,
martyrs and
saints. By the fourteenth century, however, religious designs
began to be
replaced by secular portraits, by heraldic and armorial designs.
In our present
age, coin designing has become so careless that, Rawlings
remarked, "coins
are good for nothing but spending.
In the intervening six
centuries in
which gold had disappeared, the coin which was most often minted
to carry on
the drabber work of civilization was the homely silver denarius,
which became
the coin of the usurer. It could not compete with gold, always
valued for
religious and artistic purposes, but it caused a revolution in the
political
and economic structure of Europe.
A peculiar snappishness
afflicts
merchant people. Like politicians, kings, noblemen, and
newspapermen, people
who have a public power, they crave and distrust expressions of
regard for
themselves. They know the raven center of all appeals. With one
expression, the
merchant sniffed through his nose and indicated to Will that he
drop his letter
on a grate that smoked nearby as a precaution against the plague.
Then Chaunton
picked up the letter with a pair of tongs and a merchant's
obsessed interest to
know its content. Oh! would that the good things of this world
were free of
taint. But worse. His caution was ineffectual, for he was dead of
the plague
three weeks later, to the great and short-lived delight of Prior
Godfrey, who
wrote a letter full of solicitous inquiry for his health:
"Master, I will call you
Master, as befits a source of charity which as you well know is
the sum and
substance of Christian life. Did not St. Paul say it truly that of
faith, hope
and charity, charity be the greatest. If a man have faith, but
have not
charity, he is nought. If a man have but hope, but have not
charity, he will
not come into eternal life. If a man have both faith and hope, but
has not
charity he is like the Saracen and the Jew and his soul is lost
forever. That
man that has charity, he has a draft on heaven's treasury. Here
the merits of
Christ and all the saints are kept for the man of charity, and he
may borrow on
these merits for his earthly life here. For this reason, I am
instructed by my
faith in Christ to set before you St. Petroke's bones as insurance
for your
charity. Whatsoever merit of charity the goodly saint has stored
up for himself
in this earthly life it will bring you interest in the Eternal
World.
"A man cannot assure
himself
of this eternal interest in any manner better than to save the
church in her
hour of need. You well know what the times be that God has sent
this terrible
plague for a punishment on such that sin through greed and avarice
so that my
sheep, through God's great judgment, have died in the field and
the wool that I
would were yours is now the devil's. We know not whether this be
God's judgment
v or the Jews', as it is said that they poisoned the wells.
"Be it as it may we must
take
arms against the devil and lay up good works nevertheless. The
plague cannot
but pass. Christ's love is stronger than the devil and the
Church's enemies,
and the sheep, as I am a true believer, will frisk in the fields
next year and
the wool which I care not about one way or the other, I promise
you will have
to collect for your own. For this gift, I ask a small loan to be
had at this
pressing time, for coin does not die as sheep die and Christ
advises us
mercifully and wisely to use what we may when that which we were
wont to use
cannot be used since it is dead but will come again, as I may
assure you of
this our Saint Petroke. For such wise reason, for the sanctity of
the name of
Bodmin, that cur monastery may continue her good works for all
time, I pledge
the relic of St. Bodmin if your charity is not returned with good
measure.
"The sum of all this is
L200,
for which your merit in heaven will be compounded throughout
eternity in return
for which Bodmin Priory pledges its haven to you in your old age
so that you
may pass your years of wisdom in this sacred place preparing your
soul for its
eternal life."
yours in Christ and the
Life to
Come,
Signed this day and year, 22 December, 1348.
The merchant sensed in
the letter
the piety that had gone rank, the sentiment that had become
officious, the
cynical use of it for mendacious reasons, but he took the wording
of it for the
manners of his day and was flattered to write in the same vein. He
was
originally 'from the town of Hull and had bought this house in
only three years
ago. He was educated. He could read Latin and knew some medicine
and law. He
'took an interest in the guilds, in mayoralty politics, in
'Edward's debts, in
the progress of the war, the wool monopoly in Calais, and the
weaving centers
in Brabant. 'He moved the coins on his desk aside, so that he
could write his
response. He appreciated the images on them, whether it was the
English plain
cross, or the floriate cross, or the fleur-de-lis cross or the
cross with lis
and leopard. They all bound him to Prior Godfrey with a common
expression, if
not a common interest.
To the Priory of
Bodmin, and its House of Saints, Christ keep you in Eternal Life
To the Revered and Most
Reverent
Prior
To Holy Grace, and Truth and Peace,
"It causes me pain not
to
fulfill what you have asked, but we have fallen upon evil times so
that my
conscience and soul sicken with misgiving that I cannot come to
your aid with a
full heart. Where is the sheep that does not bleat to hear her
lamb call for
help, where is the shepherd that does not run with alarm to see
the sheep
wanting. May it be Christ's will that you are fulfilled by Him."
To Will, he said more
succinctly,
"Here is St. Michael in Taunton offering me sanctuary in return
for £3000,
and here is St. Martin in Winchester assuring me prayers and safe
conduct to
the other world in return for the same sum. I shall come to Christ
washed as a
newborn lamb. The times be hard." he said, as required, "no man
knows
the future. There is no assurance the wool will be gathered next
year. I pray
you tell your prior I would for my own soul's sake I could give
him this sum
and let the interest be in heaven, but we have made our loans to
Edward for his
wars in France and this year his war is not so gainful. I cannot
but give your
prior coin for this amount which he may have for a period of grace
for three
month's time for his own, at which time seeing he cannot pay back,
the wisdom
of the Church does require penance for this sin of borrowing, and
at such time
this penance, commencing then at the conclusion of March will be
53."
"Bless me," Will said,
to
his surprise, "if you be not a bitter usurer."
"Nay," Chaunton said, "this be not usury, for usury forbidden.
have given your prior a period of grace. He knows right well that
I may go to
hell for usury."
Will did not argue
further. He had
been told not to settle for anything above 40
, but he saw no other
choice, and
he felt ill used that he was made to do another's dirty work. He
had not come
to Bodmin for this. Matters had not evolved according to the plan
he had for
the salvation of his soul. Moreover, Chaunton was more determined
about his
business than Will was about his. For the first time, the merchant
realized
that Will was not in clerical robes. "Be you a monk?" he asked
quizzically.
"A novice," Will
replied.
"Aye," the merchant said
unpleasantly.
"Aye," Will said
sharply,
for no man likes to have others think him naive, even if he ought
to be.
"I will take your coins back to my prior with your terms," he
said,
and left, irritated for not carrying the errand through Õ better.
But he
believed the fault was not his and felt pugnaciously defensive
that he would be
blamed for failure. The December wind crept through his vest and
shirt. The few
pilgrims he saw in the streets looked menacing, especially those
who appeared
to have just arrived from the Continent. He imagined them diseased
in soul and
body. The shops were shut. The sky was slate, the river was cold
and choppy and
smelly. Carrion sat on its surface, bobbing with the bilge. Their
very
insouciance gave him a sense of dread and disparity with
everything about him.
He wished himself out of London quickly, never to return again. A
man not born
to city ways should not come to the city. A man should stay where
he was born.
He regretted even that he had left York because, truth to tell, he
was
beginning to decide that it was the same everywhere, but better in
York where
the river ran clear, where good Rug lay in the doorway, where the
church was
small and made of good ß rude stones and where his wife, though it
had come to
nought with her, had warmed his bed and kept his candle lit. Truth
to tell, he
had not seen a man nor an animal that had gladdened his heart
since he had left
home, and it seemed to Will that instead of being saved, he was
going sour with
the merchant's talk, and Walt's quibble with the Church and his
death, and his
fear of the plague that prayer could not weaken the hold of, and
his
disappointment that for all the Latin he had learned, his thoughts
came the
same way into his head. He remained the same as he was when he had
come earlier
in the year on foot to Bodmin.
He crossed the icy,
muddy lanes and
made his way again through the city gate, as quickly as he could.
But as
quickly as he went, no man ever escaped the city without being
corrupted by it.
So, too, Will fell. He got as far as Southwerke, the suburb of
London, famous
in that day for its brothels, and he fell, laden with the triple
disappointment
in priory, city, and himself: a fertile condition for falling. No
sooner did he
enter Southwerke, with its taverns and its stores and its
"Winchester
geese," as the women were called after the brothels owned by the
Bishop of
Winchester, no sooner did he enter than Will saw what was up with
him. Even
while he hurried to escape his downfall, he wondered why he should
hurry to
escape it, it seemed all one to him in this dismal world.
It is the beguilement of
depression
to make things seem like this, and the call of gaiety in a dead
season is hard
to withstand. There was singing in the taverns and women at the
windows. Old
Will kicked at new Will, and new Will kicked back. "Nay," he said
sternly to himself, "wouldst forfeit your vows?"
It was the plague which
brought
such immorality that wenches stood openly at windows with bosoms
naked on the
sills, so that the sight of them in this dead time throwing winks
at Will
pricked him with a good throb, so that before he knew it he
knocked at a door
under the, sign of "The New Moon."
"Nay, I cannot," he
thought, but he did.
However, matters turned
out so that
he was saved. The door opened and a voice said merrily to him, "Be
you the
plague cart driver? There be no dead here." God help Will, for she
was
naked to the waist so that he answered her back in kind, "Nor
here,"
and put his hand upon the knocker to steady himself.
The woman, a shrewd
Betty, sized
him up from top to toe. "You swing a full pouch," she said.
"Aye," he said.
HERE ENDS BOOK ONE
So it was that Will came
face to
face with his wife in a luridly-lewdly lit room, more unlit than
lit, to which
he had been led to in this bathhouse in Southwerke, as he was
returning to
Bodmin Priory to save it from ruin.
She recognized him
first, coming by
what signs and in what manner as she could in the darkened room.
"What does you here?"
she
asked, without further ado.
Will recognized her
voice
immediately, so tied were they in such instant recognition, even
in such a
reversal of matters! His pants down to his ankles, he hitched his
breeches back
up as best he could.
"Whore!" he shrieked.
"Ha!" she shrieked back.
"Whore of Babylon!" he
spit at her.
"Of Southwerke too!" she
hissed defiantly.
He struck her.
"You be Will alright,"
she spat bitterly. A glint of hardness came into her voice for the
unchangeableness of their lives. Will knew the mood well. A prick
at his
memory, and it all came back to him. "Whore!" he said again, his
breeches up now, standing without a shred of the year's change in
voice or
manner, which was as husbandry as ever. "How come you to be in a
stewhouse
in Southwerke?"
"How come I? Fancy my
fancy
man!" She lit a better taper and held it in front of him. "How
come
you?"
"Be this not a
bathhouse?" he blinked at her.
She registered ¯ the
hypocrisy,
familiar the world round, to Will and whoever, and clicked her
teeth with
disgust. 'So say they all. What! Ain't this a proper stewhouse?
Aye, a proper
stewhouse for such unclean souls as come to have their pouches
cleaned of their
coins."
Will checked his pouch
to see that
it was where he had put it. "I have been deceived," he said.
"Christ knows this world has turned upside down this season. How
come you
to be in England when I thought you was elsewhere?"
"How come you to have a
pouchful of coins aswinging between your legs when I thought you
went to become
a monk?"
"So I have. I have
joined
myself to the priory at Bodmin. And where have you been this
time'?"
She stuck her taper into
a holder
in the wall. "I have been abroad as you well know," she said
caustically, so that he would know that the trip had not been a
pleasant one
and he was cautious about what to ask her next, for he did not
want to be ”
liable for bad information. Still, he was ex-husbandly curious.
Where had she
been? Without him? What was she doing back in England? His
curiosity was smoked
with his past intimacy with her, which he would not acknowledge
and would not
forego. 'He felt his temper rising that she would not tell him
where she had
been without his having to ask her though he could tell she knew
he wanted to
know. He claimed her, though they had agreed to part six months
ago, if
"agreed" is the proper word, for each one claimed to have agreed
only
to what the other had coerced him to. She felt his claim, but
pretended not to
notice it, which he knew she noticed. Though he had been a novice
for six
months with six month's training in patience and humility, he
shrieked at her,
"What does you in a whorehouse?"
"Same as you," she
answered
coolly.
God help her, Will
thought, if I do
not strangle her by the throat, and ½would any man blame him for
hating her,
seeing she baited him like this.
"Nay, Will," she said,
"we be in the stewhouse together. And you with your vows come to
nought. I
be here by plain bereftness to keep flesh on my bones, but what
brings you
here, Will?"
"You be the same as
ever," he said hotly.
"Ha!" she laughed in
response, "I know you right well. You want it both ways, heaven
and earth,
and me when the times suit you."
He practised aloofness,
though his
nervous system was charged. He should have known, he told himself,
aye he
should have known that if he fell from grace on his way back to
Bodmin it would
be due to her. He should have known he would meet her on the way
to damnation,
damned twice, once with hot desire and the second with cool
aloofness. As soon
as he had entered the queerly lit room with no light at all to
speak of but
what came luridly-lewdly from some place he could not see, but saw
enough to
find the spot where she lay wrapped in strange smells to becloud
his mind, he
should have known it was his wife come to spy on his sins.
Wherever he went, no
matter how he prayed and fasted she spied on him. Whether he
stayed with her or
left her, it never was any good though he put a river between
them. She kept a
record of his crimes, graven on his forehead like the sign of
Cain. Even his
leaving her she put down to him as a crime, though how could he
take vows' and
become a monk and how could he save his soul if he did not leave
her. She set a
trap for him and he fell into it, Willy nilly.
Poor Will! The near
misdeed was too
much for him. He could not take upon himself the blame, nor see
that he was
still not fallen. He felt fallen. He felt a roiling and a broiling
and a good
hot hatred for her because she betrayed him in every way every
time she
recognized him. So he struck her on the chin again.
"You be Will all right,"
she said, "Clapper and hand ever the same." But she stood her
ground
and was not shaken. Not by his threats nor by his apologies which
he tended as
quickly as he struck her, the whole round of which she knew well
by now, as any
abused wife of long standing.
"Hear me, Will," she
said, "I have been abroad and have seen such things that I fear
you not
anymore nor your talk of hell, and I came back to tell you as
much. Sit you
down and let us have it out at once. Let go the look of mistrust
in your eyes.
I know your good side and I will not trample on it though I mean
to save
myself. Though you beat me sore betimes, I will not fear to have
my say now. If
Job could have his say to God so may I to you before this night
runs out. For
you know what the times be, Will. I will tell you the truth, an
abbot came by
here this day last week that brought the plague with him and died
in this house
betrayed by his own cock as it might be said, and two that were
with him died soon
after. So sit yourself down and hear me out. You have known me in
the flesh,
but I would that you know me otherwise before you kill me as Herod
did the wife
be loved. I came back but to tell you this. Though the past bind
you to me,
Will, in its strange ways, I would we go different paths now. I
have set out
upon a road myself and I mean to walk my road as you mean to walk
ours. I saw a
long while ago how it would be between is in the end as it was
between my
mother and father. How in the end she took her life because he
said she had
betrayed him as you have said it to me. I mean not to take my
life, Will. I
mean to walk my road.
All the time I was your
wife I was
a guph while you held your soul before me and told me how it will
go to heaven
and how you longed to sing with the angels. knew before you how it
must end
between us, for eternity must fall out in a different way for you
than it must
fo ©r me, and I even feared the cemetery where we would lay
together, for I
knew that God must part us as soon as the graves were opened on
judgment day. I
knew mt where I was bound for. I was a guph, a soul that waits
around for its
time to take it up while all the while you spoke to me of your
soul and of the
angels and how Christ will pardon your sins though you pardon me
not mine, nor
care I anymore for your pardon. You may keep your pardon, Will.
Nay, start not.
Keep your temper and hear me out seeing how the plague rages all
about, and we
may be dead by morning.
You know how matters
ended with my
mother, but you know not the why and wherefore of it. I will tell
it to you
now, for how she lived and how she came to die has brought me to
this pitch and
place.
As you know, my mother
was born to
the manor at Fountainville when the Jews were put out of the land
in the time
of the first Edward and she was raised there by ‰the reeve as a
freeborn,
seeing how she was freeborn albeit his wife from Bishop
Roundsleigh's manor was
not: But it mattered not between them, for the reeve had' much
coin which he
paid to the bishop for his wife in the days before the Jews left
the land and
coin could be had by the reeve. He took this wife, one Alice de
Brier for a
true breeder, seeing how wide her hips were, but she was not. She
bred not at
all. He cursed her, but she cared not. She cursed him back as good
and said the
fault was his, she knew it for the truth but would not say how she
knew. For
three years she said the fault, was his and that she knew it for
the truth,
giving the world a broad wink each time she said it so that he
could not bear
with it anymore, but one night brought home with him from the
manor house a
daughter scarcely born and said it is hers. 'Aye, husband,' she
said, without a
hitch in her voice, 'A goodly birth I had, while you was gone. Lay
the child by
my breast that it may take some warmth.'
Neither the man nor the
wife said
another word on the matter, where the child came from or how, but
gave it about
that it was theirs and called it Belleassez, seeing the infant was
fair of
face, and raised it for their own. The world winked back as the
world does.
"There be plenty gypsies about" was the say, and "what of it?
Let be, seeing it does no harm to man or wife."
But much harm came of it
later when
my mother, born a freewoman as she thought, married my father who
came from the
manor where the reeve's wife came from. My mother, as the law
would have it,
came to live on my father's manor. Then the cry went up from
Fountainville that
my father must pay the merchet for her. 'Nay,' he said, 'I pay no
tax for a
freeborn woman.' But the steward would not have it so, saying she
be not
freeborn since she was born of a bonded mother from the manor of
Bishop
Roundsleigh. My father said the law said otherwise. There was none
to ask of
this matter, for the reeve and his wife Alice were now both dead,
laid to rest
in the cemetery at Fountainville in the village. The reeve died
many years ago
and Alice was brought low and died in childbirth.
My mother said she knew
not that
her mother was bonded, for always it was said that she was
freeborn. The world
winked again and some remembered this and some remembered that and
told how the
reeve and his wife had been childless until such time as the Jews
left the
land. My mother was an unbrave girl and she cared not for this
disputation. She
had with her one grey cat she kept about her all the time.
Sometimes in her
arms, sometimes on her shoulder, for she loved this grey cat, and
some began to
say that this cat was a sign of the witch in her, for they
remembered that she
was born without Alice conceiving.
My mother feared this
talk and knew
not what to make of it. My father was a man of temper as you know,
purple in the
face with the barley and the anger, and he said full loud that he
wished that
he had not married my mother if he must pay the merchet for her.
But the priest
would not unsay the marriage as my father asked him to, but said
he knew not if
my mother be freeborn or not, which question was before the courts
and not for
him, but that he married them property and now must be paid for
the banns and
his service.
My father said he would
not pay the
priest nor for the banns, seeing how he misliked this marriage but
that he
would see first how he stood in this business of the merchet, and
so to court
he went.
My mother declared again
what she
could, that she knew not but that she be freeborn to the manor of
Fountainville. The abbot there lay sick at this time but sent his
steward to
declare m oy mother freeborn. The Steward caught a cramp in his
leg and came
not to court it day and on the next day the abbot died and a new
abbot came who
would not declare for my mother one way or the other seeing, he
said, he knew not
of these matters but must leave it to the memory of her neighbors
how things
stood with her.
Up speaks the miller and
tells how
it was in such and such a time that she was born and in such and
such a way and
that she be Jewish, be she bond or free. My mother almost died of
her
confusion.
'Nay,' she said, 'it
cannot be.'
'It cannot be
otherwise,' said this
miller.
'Aye,' says this and
that one and
the other. Then up speaks one and tells how when the Jews be in
the land of
York they will not eat pork and how this be a sign among them
until the people
came one day and said if you eat not pork we will bum you. But so
fast they
held with no ™t eating pork, they marched into their church and
burned
themselves.
'What say you?' Bishop
Roundsleigh
asked my mother, 'well, what say you?'
My mother, in sore
confusion, said
she could not say one way or the other. She took communion as she
had been
instructed to do and went to Mass and made the cross.
'Nought of that,' said
Bishop
Roundsleigh, 'the Church will not harbor false Christians.' Then
asks he of my
mother if she changes her linen on Friday or what day, and if she
eats pork and
if she can say the creed. My mother tells him the creed, but says
she eats not
pork because it sits not right in her, but she cannot say why
except that so it
has been from her childhood days.
Then my father whistles
low and
gives out how at night he heard the prophet Isaiah speaking in his
ear, but
knew not how he could hear him, seeing he knew not Hebrew.
'Well, you know,' my
mother says
gently to him, 'the earthfolk can speak in many languages, Latin
even, or'
Hebrew.'
'Twas no earthfolk,' my
father
says.
My mother knew not what
to say to
any of it and the court could not declare if she be bonded because
of my
father, or if my father be a free man because of my mother. The
new abbot
declared that the merchet must be paid to him, be she Jewish or
not, be she
born free or not, seeing she be born of a bondswoman on his manor
and now be
married to a bondsman. She be thrice bonded, he said, be she
bonded in birth or
not and furthermore, having left the manor of Fountainville to the
great cost
of her working days there, her husband must pay the tax for her.
My father's face turned
dark
purple. In terror of it, up stands my mother and declares herself
to be Jewish
and not born of a bonded mother.
'How say you?' asks the
bishop. My
father declared it to be so. 'Aye,' he said, 'she be Jewish and
speaks with
Isaiah in my ear.'
Bishop Roundsleigh
declared my father
to be in mortal sin, 'for never,' he said, 'had he heard of a
Christian man
declare his wife to be Jewish to the scandal of the Church to
escape the tax
due for marrying her,' and he advised my father for the benefit of
his soul to
cease his terrible lie before he excommunicates him.
Then up speaks one and
tells how he
remembers how in the days of Alice's reeve the manor was in such
debt to Aaron
of York that none knew but that he might take the manor except
that a Jew could
not take the Lord's manor, but it was feared he would sell it to
the Baron of
Gall.
'And what became of the
papers?'
asked Bishop Roundsleigh.
None knew what became of
the
papers, but my father laughed and said it be a good day if his
wife could lay
her claim to the manor of Fountainville and he must still pay the
merchet for
marrying her.
Bishop Roundsleigh would
none of
this and declared Fountainville free of debt. Amen, amen and amen.
Thus ended this matter.
My father
must pay the merchet, be my mother what she be. In the meantime, I
came to a
few years and not baptized yet, none knew not what to declare me
to be. The
parish priest came to my father and said how I must be baptized
and what the
cost of it will be. My father declares me born a Jew and says it
boots not to
baptize a Jew. Then says the priest how he will convert me and
then baptize me.
'Nay,' said my father, 'it boots not to convert one born a
Christian. 'What,'
says the priest, 'be she born a Jew or Christian?' 'Aye,' says my
father, and
so it went between them while the bishop was away in Barnstaple
for the while,
and in his absence my father cared not what this priest said but
stayed on the
manor and drove his plow ever so good saying how if he must pay
the merchet for
my mother he had a husband's right to plow the land. Nor did my
mother gainsay
him, seeing she knew not where she stood in this matter and seeing
he had paid
the tax for her. Nor cared she one way or the other, seeing that
the spirit of
life had gone out from her with so much talk. Nor would she have
ought to do
with anyone but with her cat and me at times.
The priest came for the
marrying
fee and the banns and the steward came from the manor of
Fountainville for the
merchet. My mother and her cat and myself and cur one sheep and
pig be in the
room when in comes the steward with his ledger and up rises my
father's wrath,
first a rumbling in his belly, which my mother knew well from
beforetimes. Then
turns his face purple which my mother knew well also from
beforetimes. Then
begins he to shake like an earthquake, heaving from side to side
and turns his
face black as the smoke from the firepit As soon as my mother sees
this
blackness she runs out the house. And out jumps the cat through
the window, and
the pig and the sheep run away too.
The rumbling spreads
itself upwards
from his belly into his throat where it seizes him so that he
begins to choke,
and his cheeks to steam and to blow and the waters to run from his
eyes. None
could stop it, though all could see what was to happen. None could
halt his
anger, and never could, for it must run its course like a runaway
horse until
the strength of it be spent by itself. Alas! Alas! The rumbling
now could be
heard outside the house. My father's beard begins to blow in the
steam of his
face. His eyes fill up with mighty waters and his cheeks fill up
like a cow's
udders that just has calved. Then I leap though the doorway in
time to escape
his hand which comes down upon the chair where I just had sat and
cleaves it in
two like a woodcutter's axe. The splinters fly about so one falls
into the
steward's eye and takes it clean away. 'I would,' my father weeps,
'I would I
had been driven from this place like the Jews before this tax came
to me.' The
steward shook with pain and anger and put my father's words down
in his ledger
for a mortal sin.
This sorry business
began in this
way and ended in this way with my mother's demise. My father must
pay the
merchet and when the collector from Rome came at tithing time for
Peter's
Pence, my father said he had nought to pay but a daft wife with a
cat. The
collector cared not for such talk. My father said back to him, Let
the pope
take my wife and do what he will with her. Peter knew he had
nought to give but
his soul and Peter was welcome to tax that if he could.'
The collector stood by
most
courteously until the end of this speech and then read my father
the law of the
land, beginning with St. Peter himself who was the first 'bishop
of Rome and
traveling down speedily to our own day.
My father answered
nought to this
reading, but drank his barley and blew his beard about, then says
again that he
had for all his troubles one unbaptized daughter that none knew
how she be and
one daft wife with a cat, a cup of ale and a blight upon his land,
for his
livestock did not increase, nor did his fruit multiply. 'What,'
says he, 'you
want ten percent of my cup of ale?'
and
goes to give this collector a portion of it in his face.
My mother who held
herself as one
never to interfere in lordly matters, took it upon herself to
interfere, seeing
how matters were bitter with her husband and she the cause of it.
'Here is
nought but ale and a few grains of barley,' she says. 'Peter
cannot hold with
taxing a poor man for he was but poor himself and could not but
know the hard
time. I hear it said Christ himself had no love for the rich and
drove them
from the holy temple. What would he with a tax upon a poor man's
plow and ox?
Here is a good man with nought to see him through this hard winter
but his
daughter and his wife starving by his side.'
It was this speech that
gave
suspicion to the collector from Rome. So he went to the priest in
the village
and made inquiry and found out the whole of the scandal and
threatened to
excommunicate my father if he put it not to rights at once.
'And how shall I do
that?' my
father asked.
'You must cast her off
and baptize
your daughter.'
But my father said he
would not pay
to baptize a Jew and seeing he had paid the merchet for my mother
he had a
right to lay with her, be what she be.
My mother was a silly
woman with
nought to love but her cat and me. She laid herself down when my
father bade
her, caring not one way or the other seeing how matters had turned
out between
them. But now she saw there would be no end to this matter for it
followed her about,
as you know when you came to marry me and my mother declared me
freeborn but
the lord's court declared me born in bondage, and so again we had
this matter
and the scandal of it threatened us all again. My mother could not
hold with it
anymore and went daft from sorrow. She called me to her side one
day and said,
I raised you but I can stay no more seeing how my presence will be
but a bad
remembrance for you all your days. I must trust Ìyou to your own
Will now,
howsoever this matter ends.
I could make nought of
this
peculiar speech but I laid it to her joy and sorrow at my coming
marriage,
seeing how mothers sometimes be at joyful seasons. For the joy was
out and all
about and the spring was big with birth that year in cattle and
sheep and all
declared that the sun had not warmed the earth so well in ten
years' time. But
the season would not hold, for whatever be the joy of a season the
past will
break out upon it.
My mother waited until
the marriage
was done, for she would not burden me with her deed until she
could hold it
back no longer and went and took my father's coin and bought
herself a winding
sheet. My father thought a thief had taken the coin, but my mother
wept and
said it was her. And for what? 'For a winding sheet!' My father
roared. 'Bless
me if I make not use of it,' and began to beat her as the law gave
him the
right until she lay upon the floor and was near fainting but
farted not from
her body. Then out he went to his plow and up she jumps and takes
the winding
sheet and her cat and runs to the great oak tree above the river
that runs by
the land where the Jewears grow so bountifully upon the bank, and
climbs she up
this great oak tree with her grey cat in her arms. But she jumped
not so fast
being afraid of heights and water, and one saw her weeping there
in the tree
and sent for my father and the parish priest and soon all came
running and
shouting to her, 'Come down, 'come down, they call to her.
'Nay, I come not down,'
she said.
'Come down, come down,'
my father
shouted. 'You have cost me the merchet and you might as well come
down.'
'I care not anymore,' my
mother
said, and she clung to branch in the tree with the cat in her
hand. My father
shook the tree with his mighty roar but she held fast to it though
he tried to
shake her loose with mickle strength, and though she was ever a
frightened
woman she held fast.
'Come down,' the parish
priest
called to her. 'You may not lay in a Christian cemetery if you do
this thing.'
'What!' says my father
and lets go
the tree. 'In this wise she will cost me no burial tax.'
'Aye, she will,' the
priest says,
and they fall to arguing.
'I care not where I
lay,' my mother
weeps and with the grey cat in her arms and the winding sheet upon
her head she
jumped into the river below her.
'Look out!' the priest
yelled.
'Look out!' my father
yells too,
and all run to fish her out, but the sheet caught itself upon a
branch and
there she swings in the air like a leaf. My father shook his fist
at her. 'Have
I not trouble enough without to pay the cost of your death. Come
down, I say.'
The tears drop from my
mother's
eyes. 'I cannot, she says and down she falls holding her cat, and
together they
are born to the sea.
Then comes the lord's
priest and
the parish priest on the day next to collect the death dues.
'What!' shouts my
father, 'she be
no cost to you now seeing she drowned herself.' But the parish
priest put down
the cost of the candles to be lit for her soul, and the prayers he
must say to
win the mercy of Christ for a suicide, and such and such for the
cost to fish
her out the river and give her a Christian burial, for all which
the priest
claimed my father's cow and also his plow, and he wrote it out so
that my father
would have it legal with the lord's seal upon it.
My father's wrath was up
and it
shook him till he coughed up a fishbone. 'Let her rot in the
river,' he shouts.
'Let be, let be,' I said
to my
heart, hearing this speech. 'This world cannot be set right. Let
her lie with
the fishes and the cat that loved her.'
Then came the lord's
priest the
following day and told my father how it was sinful for a Christian
man to let
his wife lay in the river and the cost of the great struggle he
must wage for
the sinning of his soul.
'Wait up,' says my
father in an
evil hour. 'I pay it not if she be Jewish.'
The lord's priest,
hearing this,
went and made inquiry about the matter but could come no way by
the truth of it
but declared her to be excommunicated seeing how the record gave
that she be
baptized though she be not a true Christian, and he wrote out the
cost of it to
my father: a pence to write the papal letters and a pence for
letters to the
lord's archbishop. £3. 4S to the nuncios to carry the letters
about the realm.
2S to make the register of it in the church. 20S for sealing wax.
10S for the
parchment with which the registers will be made in the Church. £2
12S for the
travel money for the scribe to go from the parish of Bishop
Roundsleigh about
the realm to register my mother's death and her excommunication in
all the
churches in all the king's realm. 12S for the bellringers to ring
the bells in
all the churches in the see. And there it was signed and sealed,
sealed and
signed as legal as the lord could make it.
My father got off the
cost of the
candles and the prayers and had some peace at last in this matter,
for he said
it was as well ended as could be. Glad he was he would not have to
put up with
her in the next world seeing she was such a peculiar woman he
could not say how
matters stood with her.
That done, they began to
ring the
bells in all the countryside, such bells they rang they rang my
mother's name
and now she calls me evermore by my own name: Marymine, Marymore,
Marymine,
Maream, Maremare, Sarah, Sorrow, Sorrisari, Child O child,
daughter, daughter,
my Miriam, my Maream, you are now free of the land to wander.
That was a bell that
broke my heart
which tolled for me as well. I hear it evermore in all the waters
of the world.
With that ended my mother's life and began my wandering, as you
know, Will,
when we left off living together and I had no kin in this world
and so went in
search of my mother's folk."
You know, then, Will,
how matters
ended with us. I could not but tell you the whole of it seeing how
the
countryside gave it out and you would not but have it your way and
strike me on
the chin and swear yourself for the holy life. So you have no more
claim on m
e, and what I have done is of no account between you and me, but
between me and
God, for I went to find my mother's own and went where I could to
see how
matters stood.
I came first to Flanders
with
pilgrims bound for the holy land but the plague raged so among us
that three
that were with us died on the boat and two more upon the shore and
we were
driven apart by fear. Some went back to England and some to Spain,
but I stayed
seeing how I had nought to go back to or sidewise and knew not
where to go, but
that I heard God's voice for the first time and he bid me go to
Rouen.
I came to this city for
I had heard
it said there were Jews that betimes had been in England and I
looked for my
mother's kin among them. I marveled at the sights for never had I
been to
London, and at the great church there that never had I hoped to
see anywhere
but in heaven. Never did I put my foot down upon such steps, nor
in a hall so
vast as my mind could hold of it, but I knew not if I belonged
there in a
proper way, and so feared to enter within.
Two days I went about
asking for
the Jews but there were few in the streets for fear of the plague,
and those
that were about wondered at my questions until one pointed me the
way to Rue as
Gyeres. As I went to find this place a press of people gathered in
the streets
bound for the market and I wondered at it, seeing that the plague
raged and all
the booths were closed. Heralds and drummers followed and men in
black robes
carrying big books. It looked like a fair, but none looked happy
to be there.
These that came from Rue as Gyeres wore yellow stars upon their
breasts, the
which I shall tell you of, others not. Many had their children by
the hand or
in their arms. All manner of people came, for what I could see of
them.
'What be the holy day?'
I asked one
with the star, thinking he would speak my tongue, but he spoke it
not. Nor the
next, nor the next, and I could make not a whit of what was
passing in the
procession with the heralds and the drummers and the men in black
and I feared
that these be the Brethren of the Cross who are said to whip each
other.
'What be the holy day,'
I asked a
fourth who wore the star. This one spoke my tongue. 'No holiday,'
he said, 'but
a tournament.'
'Be you from England?' I
asked.
'Aforetime,' he said.
'my
grandfather came of there.'
'From York, mayhap?'
'Aye. Be you of there?'
'I came by boat three
days ago to
find the Jews.'
He squinted at è me,
which I
misliked. 'I wish to f mind the Jews,' I said, 'that live in this
city for I
have heard it said they were aforetime from England.'
'Some,' he said, and
squinted at me
some more. 'These be the Jews here with the stars you see on
them.'
'What? Be this the whole
of them?'
'The whole of them in
this city.'
I looked about and could
not say if
these be my mother's people. 'Have you ever heard of Belleassiz?'
I asked.
'Belaset?' he asked.
'No, Belleassez.'
'I know not Belleassiz,
but one
Belaset of Lincoln that was my grandmother was hanged for clipping
the coins in
the time of the second Edward. Know you Belaset of Lincoln?'
'It cannot be the same,'
I said,
'for Belleassez was my mother's name and she was not hanged but
drowned.' He
shrugged his shoulders as much to say all ends are the same. 'What
be your
business with her?' he asked.
'Some say her people
came to this
city when they left England and I have come to find them.'
'Be she Jewish?' he
asked. I told
him I could not say, for the courts would not decide one way or
the other. He
squinted at me again, and seeing he wore this start misliked his
squint, not
knowing what a Jewsquint means and not remembering if ever I saw
my mother
squint. But I stood my ground before him, which is to say that the
crowd
pressed us together so that I could not see a way to leave him. I
wondered at
this crowd, seeing that the plague raged still, and all the time
came more
learned professors in cap and gown with great books and sat
themselves down
upon this stage, some on one side with the cross and the other on
the other
side with the star.
'Be this the tournament
of the star
and the cross?' I asked, not remembering if in England such a
famous tournament
had been.
'This be the tournament
of the
Testaments,' he said, and all are bidden to listen to it be the
weather fair or
foul.' I saw by this answer that he took this tournament not for
pleasure, nor
could I see any who did. None brought wine nor wore their
codpieces but only
sombre looks. He saw by my ignorance that I was a stranger. 'Be
you Jewish?' he
asked, and squinted at me full.
I would not tell him I
was a guph
and began to fear his squint more than the plague and resolved to
move away.
More heralds came with
horns, and
more and more, so that the crowd must part for them and I stepped
slyly away to
another place where none wore stars and watched to see if these
would squint.
Some squinted and some did not. Some twitched and some stood idly
by, sleeping
on their feet, a wondrous thing to see. Some stood with babes at
the breast and
marketing to do and craftsmen in their leather aprons. And here
one took me by
the arm and said, 'Speak not with those who wear the star for they
have killed
the Lord.'
'What!' I said, 'he was
well in
York this time last month.' But I heeded this good man and kept
away seeing how
they had the power to kill from afar. I pray you, mother, I
prayed, you had
nought to do with this.
I asked one why they
wore the star
and I will tell you, Will, how you can keep yourself from sinning
ever after
and how it is I saved you this night. For you thought your wrong
was that you
married me, but the law has it that you must not lay with me. This
man told me
it was for the sake of the law which says that a Christian may not
eat or lay
with a Jew and that seeing how mistakes are made as you know
yourself, for the
Christian cannot tell if one be Jewish or otherwise except that he
wear this
star. Afore he wore it there was much eating and laying together
in the land
and much Christian sinning in this way. Glad am I that I knew this
law before
you sinned some more.
All this time the crowd
became more
and more, some with stars and some without but all with bored
faces. There was
no drink nor eat nor dancing nor coming together of any kind which
is found in
all the great tournaments. Here was only talk, and never ·did I
see such a
tournament or hope to see again. Yet none could leave, for it was
the law that
they must stay. Strange it was that the people abided by such a
law that says
you must not eat nor lay but must listen to talk. One upon the
stage with a
cross upon his breast spoke in Latin for an hour and the other
with the star
upon his breast spoke in Hebrew for an hour.
'I am dreaming,' I said
out loud.
'No,' said one next to
me and
pinched my breast.
'Mind your fingers,' I
said to him.
'I cannot,' he says,
'they go where
they will. My whole life I have had this trouble.' I moved away,
seeing how
things were with him, but he came after me, and I moved away
again, and again
he came after me. 'You be a spicy lass,' he says, 'and you speak
my tongue.'
'I aint for you,' I
said, and fair
would tell him I lost my star somewhere when the heralds raised
their horns and
blew a blast.
"Come we now to the
great
debate
The Tournament of the Ages
Wits and scholars, priests and sages
Gather here to heed the call:
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
which be the fairest God of all."
So soon as they finished
one with a
falcon's head chirruped in a universal language. He read from a
roll so long I
thought he could never come to the end of it, whether Christ be
messiah, shoot
of Jesse, born immaculate Mary, whether the Jews be rejected of
God and have
not hope of salvation, if there be a life after this one for them
and what
manner of life it will be, and all the time this one with the
fingers follows
me about. put my mind away from him to learn what I could of this
issue. It was
all in a treatise called Contra Perfidiam judaeorum, and never did
I know the
problems between the Jews and the Christians were so many.
Heretofore, Will, I
thought you may not eat or lay or marry with me, but you know not
the list that
was read, which as I remember it I will render it to you now so
that you may
have it for your own remembrance against further sinning if ever
the time comes
that you forsake the holy life, which I pray you will not. Seeing
there be Jews
here in England anymore but myself and as I will not tempt you
anymore, Will,
you are surely bound for the holy life. And here is the list he
read.
"Testimony on the law
and the
Prophets, on the Father and on the Son
Testimony of the holy ghost
Testimony of the Trinity
Reasons and authorities for faith in the holy trinity
Testimony of the prophets that the son was sent by the father
Testimony that Christ came in the flesh Testimony that Christ was
born of David
Testimony that Christ was born of the nations
That he did come in his one person
That he was God and seed of the man Abraham
Testimonies of the time and the place of the birth of Christ that
the desires
of the prophets were fulfilled by Christ."
Here he finished and sat
himself
down to much applause.
Then came this one with
the star
and said no to it all. He said nay, nay, and nay, that the
prophecies were not
fulfilled, that it matters not that Jesus died on the cross for
the kingdom of
God is not yet. There was much hissing at this, but the Jew cared
not about it.
He said it was not anywhere in the scriptures that the Jews must
believe in
messiah for salvation of their souls and he said it was not
written that God
slays the Hebrew because he believes not in Christ but because he
sins with
pride and with stiff-neckedness and with whoring after false Gods.
So hot he
waxed with his argument he cared not for the hissing. 'God,' he
said,
'demandeth of the Jew faith in God and not faith in messiah for
salvation. It
says not in the ten commandments I am the lord your God messiah.'
Then he said
that for the Jew his salvation was in the law of the Lord, and so
soon as he
says the word law they all begin to hiss again and the one with
the cross says
hotly, 'Aye, it is so. You are bound by the law in our flesh and
since the
flesh dieth the Jew dieth. But we are bound to the spirit by
faith.'
So strong did the word
law work the
people up they hissed so loud I could not hear the speech go forth
anymore.
'Nay,' said the one with
the star,
'Jesus gave a new law for the salvation of the soul and never did
I meet with a
Christian who obeys this new law, for he said right clear, if you
would be
perfect, go sell what you possess and give it to the poor, and for
all I see
this be harder for a Christian to do than for a Jew to follow the
613
commandments of the law.' Though I knew not what these
commandments were, yet I
could not but agree with lam that this one law of Jesus Christ was
a hard law
for Christians to follow, for never do I see them follow it.
But up jumps the other
and says
Jesus Christ laid this not down for a new law, but gave it only in
a manner of
speaking.
'No, he did not,' says
the one with
the star, and they began to argue whether Jesus said it this way
or the other
way, and each one took each word and found more than a hundred
meanings to each
word, whether by perfect was meant perfect or only good, whether
if this law
made man perfect he could sell his possessions but lie and steal
and copulate,
whether he could sell his possessions and buy them back, whether
he must sell
his neighbor's possessions as it must be his duty to make his
neighbor perfect,
and so they spoke much that was confusion to the ear, till it
began to get dark
and hunger came upon us all.
The one with the star
waxed
wrathful and said, 'You take what you will of Scripture. Though
Jesus himself
upheld the law and nowhere does it say you enter the Kingdom of
God if you
believe in Jesus it says it not in Scripture, you take what you
will and leave
the law though Jesus left it not. Did God speak with two voices in
Script, one
for Christians who listen but to the prophecies, and one for Jews
who listen to
the prophecies and to the law? God spoke with one voice to Jesus
though you hear
not the voice he spoke with to Jesus, For the times were but the
times and not
the time. Then he told of the many multiple signs that had not yet
come to pass
such as the gathering of the twelve tribes under a king from
David, and seeing
how ten be now lost I know not if this prophecy can ever come to
pass. Another
sign be the battle of Gog and Magog and the cleaving of the Mount
of Olives and
the drying up of the river in Egypt called Red when the dispersed
shall be
gathered together, and another is the running of water from the
place where the
temple in Jerusalem stood, and seeing how this temple stands not
anymore I
grieved that the prophecy could not be fulfilled. And he told of
others that
were fulfilled not, that must wait for the time when ten men from
other nations
take hold of the hem of a Jew's coat and say to him that they will
go with him
for they have heard that good is with him, and so it would be that
in the whole
world there would be the faith of Israel and the going up of all
nations to Jerusalem
to worship and I could not but think of the press of the people
that would be
there. And he said more, that the time would be fulfilled when the
wild beasts
of the world and the animals that we keep by our side make peace
with each
other, and I knew by this that the time was not yet, for you know
Will that the
shepherd cannot leave his sheep for fear of the wolves nor has it
yet been
heard that the fox will not eat a chicken if he finds him. But
when he said
that the time is fulfilled when sin and suffering is at an end
then I knew for
certain the time was not fulfilled, the time was less than what
had been for
confusion was more than ever and one could not be in the streets
for fear of
the sinning that was there and the talk one heard that Mohamet was
greater than
Jesus and the faith of the infidel greater than the Christian and
that
fulfillment was now with them. And I wondered what my ears heard,
for certain
it was that unless heart and soul and mind lie, the time was not
fulfilled, not
in these days for Jew nor Christian.
After this one finished
his long
speech about the signs, be said it mattered not that the Jews were
in galuth
and that the galuth was not a sign of their suffering for the
death of Jesus,
for this was already the fourth galuth and they had been in galuth
before Jesus
had come, for he counted the Babylonian captivity for a galuth.
He said many things such
as these
as plain as could be, but when I looked about in the crowd I saw
that those who
wore the cross and those who wore the star slept upon their feet,
the men in
their leather aprons, the. women with the babes upon their
breasts, even the
babes slept, their mouths with milk from their mothers' breasts.
And if it were
not that the bells began to ring which signaled the end of this
debate, for all
I know they may have slept straight into eternity. But soon as the
bells were
wrung and it was known that the debate was at an end the people
began and move
about, and this one's fingers began to play where they could.
I moved myself back
among those
that wore the star for I saw the Christian would not follow me
here for fear of
sinning, but I went among them with care to see what their power
be and if I be
of them. They saw I wore no star and wondered at me. One there
told me it was not
lawful for me to be among them. I wondered that I understood his
tongue and
asked him if he be English born.
'Nay,' he said, 'but my
grandfather
was.'
'Does he speak my
tongue?'
'He speaks not any
tongue. He is
dead. But he spake not English when he lived in England. He spake
then French,
for his father spake French before him and I ¤speak English though
I be born
here for my father spake the English tongue.' And I knew by what
he told me
that one speaks not the tongue of the land he is born in but the
tongue of his
mother and father, be they born anywhere. Seeing also that he
squinted not I
asked him what tongue God speaks in, French or English.
He wondered at me.
'Neither,' he
said, 'you know right well He speaks in Hebrew.'
'It cannot be,' I said,
'for He
spake and told me to come to this city, I heard Him and I know not
the Hebrew
tongue. Not the priest in the parish where I was born and married
has heard the
Hebrew tongue, and he gives it out that he speaks God's word.'
Then he began to squint
at me and I
went away in fear of him and the others that wore the star. I knew
not what
they would make of me that I heard God not in the Hebrew tongue
and I began to
fear what God it was that spoke with me and told me to come to
this city.
Fearing if I heard a
true voice or
a false one, I left the city, though it was night and took the
road to Paris,
not knowing where else to go and hearing that in Paris were many
more
professors than be here. The plague carts came into the city to
fetch the dead
and carry them outside the walls. From every plague cart came the
muttering
voices of those that were not dead, and some with cries for help
who cried that
they had not the plague. But who would say? None came there to
help, for such
was the fear of the times that none would look among the dead
bodies to find a
live one. I saw piled on one cart, even babes that had their eyes
open and were
taken with the mother to be buried, for none wished for orphans
with the famine
that was everywhere. It was heard that these had no food and if
there arose a
fresh mouth in the house, they rid themselves of it in this way.
Such were the
times it brooked not fulfillment, and God forbid this Í be the
fulfillment of
the prophecies.
The road grew dark and I
misliked
being on it, seeing I knew not the tongue of the land and mayhap
not the tongue
of the God so that I could not call upon him or man. Strange fears
afflict one
not as much as strange tongues. The sky was filled with the birds
that feast on
the dead and in the distance were the fires lit by the
gravediggers.
Suddenly I heard this
whistle
behind me so that the hair on my neck stood up. This one that
followed me about
in the crowd followed hot after me on the road. 'Wait up,' says
he. 'You should
not take the road by yourself at night. It is dangerous for a
woman.' So it is,
I think to myself and walk a little faster. So he too. 'Wait up,'
he calls
after me, 'I'll keep you company.' I hasten my step a little more
but did ever
a woman outhasten a hot man. I look about for safety but there is
nought but
the forest on either side and the plague carts upon the road and
the fires in
the ² distance and this one whistling behind me. I heard a groan
from a cart
and dare not look up or down but shut my ears to it. I know not
what to fear
more, the dead living. A hand drops down through the slats of the
wagon and
drops a star upon the ground. Whether this be a Jewscart or not I
know not, but
I fetched up the star and pinned it to my breast.
'What!' says this one
with the
fingers, 'be you Jewish? You was not Jewish this afternoon.'
I would not say yea or
nay but
hoped the star would ward him off. But he caught me by the arm and
plucked it
from my breast with his fingers and a laugh. 'None can say what
you are now, he
says, 'and for all one can see it makes not the farthing of a
difference
between the legs, and he pressed himself upon me there and then.
'You will burn,' I said
to him.
'Aye,' he laughs hotly,
'if I get
not my breeches down.'
I bit his neck but he
took it for a
sign of passion,
'Not so fast,' he says?
A plague cart came by
and I called
to the driver or help, but a man can make merry even on the way to
bury the
dead. This one jumps from the cart and says 'Go to,' and jumps
upon me as well.
Will jumped up,
agitated.
"What!" he cried, "the whoring devils!"
"Nay," she soothed him,
"they could not take hold of me for fear of the dead of three that
rose
from the cart with the star upon them and made to breathe the
plague upon us.
So weak they were, so plague ridden, so close to death they had
but strength to
breathe, but it would have been enough had their breath reached
us. The driver
began to beat them with his horsewhip till they lay down again,
but my attacker
ran off seized with the terror of the dead. The driver had no mind
for me
anymore and climbed aboard the cart and made off in fear that the
dead would
rise again, and went his way, carrying the living with him. It
booted not to be
overly nice and ° tell the difference. And no prelate could stop
it, for when
the times be bad the people govern themselves. The government
governs when the
times be good, and the people do not care then who governs them.
I picked up the star and
put it in
my sack thinking it would be safer sometimes than without to warn
Christian men
they might not lay with me, howsobeit I saw that if the seizure
took them they
cared not what the law said.
I went by myself in the
night, by
the side of the road and hid when the carts went by, and thought
all the while
on the debate that was preached in the city of Rouen and how none
there could
resolve it. Though I cannot read the bible as you know Will, and
you read it
yourself and have told me that Jesus is messiah, never did I hear
it said
before that he was not nor can I say if my mother said one way or
the other or
if she knew. She went to church and crossed herself at Mass and
was declared to
be a Jew and was excommunicated as a Christian. Mother, my dear, I
said to
myself, you have reared me in darkness and I know not anything.
But mayhap it
was so that she knew not herself but followed the custom of the
land. Now when
Gabriel blows his born she will not know where to go. I am a guph
now, but my
mother will be a guph forever, and I began to cry, thinking on
this.
So I came with much
walking and
weeping and hunger to Paris and prayed that in the university they
would answer
my questions. But it was worse than before. Dead bodies lay in the
river and
the smell of it was so bad that none could stay in the city but
those who
wished to make mischief, like the Brethren of the Cross, who were
here in many
numbers and worked their evil upon the people. The times were such
the bishops
had no more power than the government& I know, Will, you have
not seen
these brethren in England and if you had you would know how I
feared the star
in my sack and knew not whether to throw it away or keep it. These
brethren
marched in columns of two, many hundreds at a time. At the head of
them marched
their master and his helpers carrying banners of purple and cloth
of gold but
the others wore black and their faces were hidden with masks and
they wore a
red cross on their backs and. carried their whips, and so much
power had they
not a. priest would say nay to them though they cried down the
priests
themselves. The people came from everywhere to hear them. Lord, I
think, in
Europe the people have nought to do but to stand about in crowds
and hear
speeches. I kept myself to myself with care that them be none in
the crowd with
moving fingers, but there were many though these brethren marched
right in
front of them weeping for man's sins and I must think they meant
such free
copulation as could be had in a crowd. Men can preach against the
Jews and the
Jews must go away, but when they preach against sin, sin does not
go away.
And these preached
against sin with
much gnashing of teeth that if any could drive it from the streets
they could,
but though the crowd agreed with every word, sin stayed. One came
and stood
beside me and breathed so hot into my ear I feared he blew the
plague upon me. I
moved away to see what I could and saw that the crowd be merrier
here than in
Rouen. These men in black tore off their clothes but for a cloth
to cover the
privy and lay themselves down in a circle around this small child,
newly dead
and prayed for her resurrection and prayed as well for the
resurrection of
Frederick the emperor who they said would kill the priests and
give their money
to the poor. Though the priests did not like this talk and it, was
said the
pope preached against them none would say, a word out loud for
fear of the
times and the crowds and because these had the power of persuasion
in them as
could be seen by the price they paid. Their master beat them on
their backs
while they moaned and they groaned and the crowd moaned with them
for their
pain and the master beat them until they jumped to their feet and
beat each
other with terrible whips that made the blood fall faster so that
it dropped to
the ground. Then they fell themselves to the ground, then jumped
they up again,
all the time whipping and singing, and the crowd singing with
them.
"Ply the scourge for
Jesus'
sake
and God through Christ your sin will take
Woe! Usurers! woe sinners!
Except it be for our contrition
all Christendom would mete perdition
Come here for punishment good and well
In this way we will escape from hell."
And the people groaned
and sang
with them for they believed these would save them. Some their
bodies swelled up
so and became blue before our eyes, and some died right there of
their pain and
these were held in great esteem. So terrible were the times some
drove nails
into their flesh and said it was nought to what Christ had done
for them. And
this they did three times a day, thirty-three days in each city,
each day as
they said for a year in the life of Jesus Christ who died for
them. And the
crowd moaned and groaned with them, for it was near their last
days in Paris
and the crowd prayed for them to stay longer and lift the evil
times, for
nought else that one could see would do it.
There were some in the
crowd that
were Jews as I saw by their star, but when they heard these
brethren cry up how
the Jews be usurers one with the bad priests and the bishops and
how they have
poisoned the wells and spread the plague they moved away and in a
little while
"on the next day when these brethren came and laid themselves down
in a
circle and beat and whipped themselves I saw no more those with
the stars in
the circle.
There was nought to say
to any of
this but to walk with care. Food was hard to come by and I went to
the churches
to find what I could. Some had now charnel houses put by them
where the dying
were brought to die and I would not go to these for I could not
bear with the
ing, the weeping of the children who lay so sore, some carried in
the arms of
the nuns who would not leave them to die alone, that I wondered at
their
courage, for hungry though I was I would not take food where there
be a charnel
house, though these sisters of mercy laid. themselves down with
the dying to pray
for them. And some there were that were friars that carried the
dead in their
arms to bury them for they would not leave them to the ways of the
gravediggers
and the carrion that went everywhere, but many there were that
fled in fear of
the plague and the talk in the streets, and I fled in fear of it
myself. For on
the morrow it was said that two Jews in Chillon confessed to this
poisoning and
the people rose everywhere against them though the pope said
against it and the
doctors said against it and said it could not be. But the students
rioted and
the people said it could be and was, and everywhere on the morrow
it was said
how these Jews had by them a pouch with red and black powder
hidden in a dead
egg which they had. thrown into the wells of Thonon and that this
it was which
caused the plague and any priest or bishop who said nay to this
was brought
before the crowd, for the crowd followed the Brethren of the
Cross, and said as
they said. And the power of the Church could not: prevail against
these Christians.
I would not stay in
Paris and went
my way through Christendom, caring nought to have with priests or
Jews. I
wandered as a wayfaress and thought to stay a guph but the times
would not let
me be. I came to a place where the four rivers meet where the
plague and the
burning of the Jews raged together. I ate as I could, finding food
in the
fields that the ã fleeing had left behind, and once some bread in
a lazar house
that had been emptied by the burners and sometimes in an inn where
all were
dead and the food was left about, for which I thanked God. For
though I feared
to eat it, so hungry was I, I feared more to starve. The inn was
empty, only
one grey cat left alive and all the food standing about. I took
the grey cat as
a sign from my mother and ate my fill of the food which did me no
harm as you
can see. Not the food, but one who lay hidden behind a door sought
to take his
full of me, thinking to have bread and cake together. He was hot
and hungry but
cowardly and before he would take anything he asks me in my own
tongue if I
have the plague.
'Aye,' I said, I have
the buboes in
my armpit,' and I go to show it to him.
'Hold off,' he says, and
backs
away.
'Be you afraid or
lusty?" I
ask.
'Both,' he says and
laughs. 'The
plague gave me courage.
'You have a cruel
problem,' I said,
'how come you to speak the English tongue?'
He squints at me.
'Be you Jewish?' I ask.
'What!' he says, 'better
the
plague. I be a pilgrim from England.' Then he squints at me again,
not knowing
what way to come at me, waxing and waning. 'I think you have not
the plague,'
he says, and steps to me again.
'If this be not the
plague it must
be the devil's sign,' I say and make to him again with my arm
raised up.
'Hold off,' he says
again, 'throw
me there a piece of bread and I'll go my way.'
'What!' I said, 'don't
you fancy me
anymore. I may be sick but I ain't dead.'
'It would be a sin,' he
says,
'copulation without the bann, it would be a sin.'
And worse with one who be Jewish and out I take my star and show
it him.' He
whistled low. 'You be twice cursed to have the plague and be a
Jew.'
'Aye,' I said, 'you can
go to hell
but once, and you might as well go because of the plague in me as
the Jew.'
'I mean not to go at
all,' he said,
and took his leave and left me to the food which I did not waste.
I ê took the cat with
me, for I
knew her now as a sign from my mother. Whatever would be said of
witches and
cats never is it said of cats and Jews, so I took her with me.
I wandered as a
wayfaress and
enquired of all who were there and could speak my tongue, Jew or
Christian, how
does the world with them and what be my mother and I saw how this
one died of
the plague and another'; Christian beat his wife and together they
beat their
children or bum the Jews and the lepers or die alone on the road.
I came to the wine
country where
the four rivers meet and crossed over the rivers as God provided.
For here
there was much plague and burning of Jews and lepers and strangers
whatever
they be. Though it was almost winter the air was hot with the
burning and the
ashes were in the streets and the people had blackened faces and
walked with
masks on their noses for they could not breathe for fear of the
plague and the
stench and the, smoke. So fierce were the Brethren of the Cross in
this place
Ï, with many others to help them, Beghardes and Cellites as they
were called,
that the power of the church was as nothing, and I wondered at the
powers that
prevail in an evil time.
I could not say what
this place was
called where the rivers met for I was afraid to speak with anyone,
seeing the
business the town was about. They took together the Jews and the
lepers and
brought them to the river's edge. None went willingly. Some they
pulled by the
hair and some by their legs and some they tore the children from
their mothers'
arms and these screamed the worst of all, and some they tore the
clothes from
their backs so hot for the coin they were that they thought to
find it on their
bodies. They carried torches and made, haste through the streets
and the forest
to the river's edge where they threw these into the fire that
burned there. One
leper called out for pity's sake. Him they kept in the fire with
sticks until
nought could be seen of his poor flesh. My c ¿at hissed for the
beat and I went
away for I could not bear with the screams anymore.
None could prevail
against the
Brethren of the Cross.
The bishop came and the
Landgrave
came and forbade the burning, but the crowd pressed upon them and
they fled for
their lives.
The bishop came and
carried the
cross against these others who carried the cross, but he could not
prevail. As
soon as they said he did usury with the Jews he went away.
The few who would save
could not
prevail against the many who would not, and all night and all day
for three days
and three nights they burned the Jews and the lepers. The bells of
the church
melted in the heat and could ring out no more and it seemed as if
all
Christendom was burning.
On the third night came
the
winegrowers with torches and winekegs through the streets and the
forest, with
song and with wine. They came through the forest with a heigh and
a ho, with
song and with carol and a ringing of bells.
"Praised be Jesus, the
vine of
love
Praised be the wine that flows from the land"
They sang and they took
what was
left of the living and put them afloat on the river in winekegs.
With song and
with praising, with prayer and with hymn they set them afloat down
the river,
the living. They came with torches and song, with drink and with
wine from the
land, for the price of the wine had fallen, and with none to buy
they drank it
themselves and said it was holy wine which they praised with their
songs and
their prayers but they spilled it into the river. Though they said
it was holy
wine which they praised they came with torches and song through
the forest and
set the winekegs into the river and put the living in with the
wine and set the
winekegs down the river with lights and with laughter. With song
and with
prayer and with mirthful tunes, with a heigh and a ho and hope on
their faces
for the new day when ¤ the land be rid of the Jews and the lepers.
With praise
of Jesus, the vine of love, they set forty winekegs down the river
and they
bobbed with the lights from their nailheads. With a heigh and a ho
and hope on
their faces though the bishop said nay and the pope forbade it
they stood on
the banks of the winey Rhine with their torches and songs and
their heigh and
their ho the winekegs bobbed on the river so gaily their nailheads
gleamed in
the light of the torches as they bobbed down the river that ran
red in the
night. For the river ran red with wine and with blood and the
river glittered
the light from the torches, and the winekegs bobbed down the river
like jewels
down the river and out to the sea.
Soon there was nought
left to be
seen, the last light was gone, the last torches put out, the dawn
in the sky
but no bird sang. Some say they died from the smoke in the air,
for all through
the forest their bodies were found, the sparrows and finches and
goshawks and
owls. No sound was heard again of their singing, no sound was
heard again of
their muttering. No sound was heard in the land at all, for the
bells of the
church had melted, the bishop had fled for fear of his life, the
animals had
fled for fear of the fire, and the birds lay dead all about.
I made my way thereafter
with a
fear that would not go away. I could hold with no more and never
will that the
time was fulfilled, and so feared to be a Christian for my soul's
sake and
feared to be a Jew for my life's sake. I passed my way through the
mountains
and the forests for I would not hold with the towns where the
fires burned so
hot that the animals fled, and I fled with them, I and my cat.
Where there were
no more fires and the plague had passed over and the animals
stayed to rest,
the hoof of the huntsman came back to hunt them, for things seek
their past, as
you know yourself, Will. And where the plague had once passed the
people came
back, both the high and the low, the knights with their ladies and
the peasant
with his plow. And peace there was not, for where the plague had
been was now
hunger and struggle, for the lord he wished to hunt in the land as
before and
many were taken for poaching and for eating the lord's birds with
hunger.
I went my way in fear of
it all,
and in fear to be known as a stranger I would speak with no one,
and kept my
cat in my sack with my star if one passed me by on the road, and I
went where I
could find food. I came to a monastery weak with hunger and sought
succor
there, but the plague raged so they would not let me through and
there was no
abbot about to teach them better, for it was said he had gone to
England and
the brethren had fallen to riot without their master. So I could
not hold with
the towns and I could not hold with the monasteries, but wandered
as I could to
look for my food. I fled with the animals and went into the
forests. I fled and
the animals fled with me, the animals of the forest and the
animals of the
world, those with their young and those without for Christendom
was burning and
there was no place for foot or paw.
I fled with the wolf and
the deer
and the hart and found my food as ever they did. Though I could
not read in a
book what things mean I read the earth and found. my food, for
even the wind
has a law. It lists not as it, wills, as you have told me, but it
has a law and
it lists after the law. I fled with the law and the animals for I
saw that in all
things they did there was a law to it, but man who has a soul has
no law to
govern it, and it is the soul that lists as it wills.
I came into the forest
when I heard
the cry of the hunter and I fled with the foxes for I feared to be
found a
stranger with my cat and a star in my sack. The horses came hot
for the hunt,
bearing heralds and lords and ladies with timballs and bells and
cries of Ho!
Tallyho! And the horses wore cloth of gold and the women
embroidered linen and
tunics of silk. So bright was the sunshine upon them, their rings
and their
jewels, their silver horns, their pearls sewn into their dresses,
their golden
hawks and the falcons they carried and their hunting dogs by their
side yelling
with glee for the foxes which ran before them with a pounding
heart, and I ran,
with them for I carried the mark of the stranger in the sack. I
ran with the
foxes through the forest and led for my safety with the sound of
the galloping
horses behind me, the lords and the ladies so bright on their
backs, the air so
golden and green and silver and the falcons spread to the sky so
blue. 'God
bless the chase, cried the lord of the hunt, 'the hunt is the
fairest sport for
a Christian,' and all through the forest the animals ran, the
deer, the hart,
the fox and the rabbit. Was only their fear and their breath was
not pretty,
for it was not golden nor green nor silver and ñit had no sound
like the sound
of the horn, like the singing of ladies and the ringing of bells,
their merry
tunes and their whistles and the tramps of the horses. 'God bless
the chase,'
calls the lord of the hunt, and he dashed through the forest with
his
thundering hoofs.
Five horses they had
that were
black as the night. Four, you know well from your gospel, but the
fifth was
called Contra Judaeos and he pulled as strong as the others.
Sometimes one
horse pulled ahead, sometimes the other, sometimes the horse
called plague and
sometimes the horse called famine, but always the fifth horse rode
beside them
and where they went he went with them and where they turned he
turned.
Sometimes he pulled ahead and seemed fair to win the race in the
world, but
always they stayed together, these five horses of the apocalypse,
these horses
of the terrible night, flank to flank and hoof to hoof, plague and
war and
famine and death and the one called Contra Judaeos.
The hunter rode all five
at once
and ·leaped from one to the other like a master who never missed
his foot for
they stayed together, flank to flank and hoof to hoof, these
horses of the
terrible night, plague and war and famine and death and the fifth
called Contra
Judaeos.
They bore down upon me
all at once
with their merry ladies and lords and banners and horns and
falcons and dogs.
The foxes scattered beneath their hooves and I ran as fast as I
could with my
sack and my cat and my star when a voice came out of the universe
and yelled to
me, 'jump,' and I did its bidding and jumped aside into a ditch
and the horses
and the dogs and the ladies and the lords passed over my head. But
I lay in the
bottom of a hole in a faint with nothing for solace but the wind
and the sky. I
lay and could not move for the fear and the anger that held me so
fast, I was
afraid and lay like a rock. The wind and the sun and the moon
passed over me
and I lay like a rock with the law of the rock. Light and dark and
heat and
shadow passed over me in their law that went its round, and I lay
like a rock
at the bottom of this hole until I mastered the peace of it. I lay
like a rock
at the bottom of the world. The dawn came up and its noices woke
me and I fed
on the sounds for my stomach's sake. Fill up, fill up, I said to
myself, for
what your belly can't have let your eyes and your ears. or you
shall faint for
the lack of it all. Though you starve for the lack of food, yet
must your
spirit be filled if only with air. And I fed on the feast of the
world, for I
saw there a duck upon her egg and a lamb at her mother's teats,
the calf and
the cow that stood together and the beasts of the field at the
beck of their
young, 'Lord,' I wept, 'how is it there is food for the beasts and
none for
mankind?'
A whimpering roused me
from my
hunger and weak as I was I crawled from my hole and found in the
woods a mutter
whelping, for she had lain herself down to do her work and had
come into this
ditch out of the way of the hunters. Her pups came out and she
licked them
clean and pushed them about with her tongue until they had life
and began to
move and found their way to her teats. She laid herself down with
no more ado
while I, cast out from the animal world, wandered with fear and
with hunger.
But I went now with peace for I saw there was law and governance
in the world,
and I cared no more for what others taught of the evil that be in
nature and
matter, and that the soul alone can lift this evil. I cared no
more for what
they teach for I saw that the mutter had a law that governed her.
I saw that
the sun and the moon and the birds and the beasts had a law,
though you have
taught that they have no soul, but man who has a soul has no law
that governs
him. So I went my way and came back to tell you that though you
left me for the
holy life, I have found a better and mean not, to be left but to
leave.
Winter was hard now upon
the land
and I must go into the towns, whether I would or would not. My cat
had the
worst of it, for I kept her in my sack by my side, for so fierce
was the hunger
in the land I feared for her life. Some food we found in a church
nearby where
the priest shut not his door.
Many were on the road
again between
town and town. Many were fleeing again from hunger or plague or
the law that
said they must stay and serve their lord. But as many fled and as
many died so
there were as many left in the towns that followed the Brethren of
the Cross.
And where these were I would not stay but fled from town to town
and so came to
as great a church as that which I saw first in Rouen with a
cemetery for the
lepers. Here I wrote on the stones, 'What nature made sick, man
destroyed
altogether.' Then I
entered the church
to find some food, be the condition of my soul what it be. Mayhap,
I thought,
the priest of this church will set me right, whether I be Jew or
Christian.
Great as the church was
there was
no one about and I sat with the pictures in the windows and the
statues and my
cat and my star until the priest came through a door in his
cassock and asks me
my business there.
So faint am I, I cannot
tell him.
'I have no business but hunger,' I say, which he saw well enough
for himself,
and brought me to the kitchen and fed me full up and gave my cat
milk to drink.
Hungrily she sat on the table's edge and her sweet tongue never
lapped so good,
the pink end of it filled with the good of the world. Then the
priest asks me
if I would make my confession now that I have eaten somewhat, and
I confess my
confusion that I know not if I be Christian or Jew.
'What!' says he.
Whereupon I tell
him the whole of it, how my mother was declared a Jew in the
courts and
excommunicated for being a Christian which cost my ¸ father so
many coins that
he would not pay the tax to baptize me, not knowing if I be Jew or
Christian
and what boots it to baptize a Jew he said and how my mother sick
of this talk
climbed the great oak tree and drowned herself in the river with
her cat which
I know not but is now the cat I have in my sack and how she came
to save
herself I cannot say, nor how it was that my talk so warmed him up
that I saw
how little by little his cassock fell open. It cannot be, I said
to myself, but
it was and I stood up to go.
'What!' he says again,
'never did I
hear such a speech as this,' and he stands up beside me so that
his cassock
opens all the way and I saw what was up with him. I saw that
though he be a
priest it mattered not that I be Jew or Christian, the power of
the moment was
upon him and I could not but strive to save him though he wished
it not. I have
had my full and can stay no more,' I said, and though the fear of
burning was upon
me I took my star from my sack to save him further from sinning
but 'twas
otherwise for it heated him up so that he was upon me all at once,
his hand
upon my dress, much upon as in and down and the other hand up from
under.
'Let be,' I cried and
pulled my
skirt about my legs as best I could. But nought would stay this
prepuced priest
who in the twinkle of an eye took out what Adam well enough knew
to hide and
thrust his head where head never grew and put his hand upon my
mouth to stay my
screams. Nor would I for I knew if I brought the town to me I
would burn faster
than him. But my cat, who had had her full of milk, sprang from
the table to
his head before he could make his prelatical thrust, and so took
him by
surprise he fell out where he meant to fall in and I sprang to my
feet and out
the door with my cat at my heels, and we made our way into the
country again,
for I would no more with the towns.
There was nought to do
but to steal
for our Ñ food. And so sore was my hunger I went to the charnel
houses close
by, for some there fed the sick and though I went with fear of the
plague and
the dead and that one such as me would steal a piece of bread from
their hands.
But so it was up and
down the river
Rhone and I know not whether since the time of Noah such misery we
anywhere,
nor can it be thought that such times will come again.
I came now to Avignon
where the
weather was warmer, but the sky still so black with smoke I knew
the plague was
not gone from here. And one who lay dying upon a post I saw on the
road itself.
It was a little past noon and he cast his shadow upon the ground,
tied to a
post like a criminal so that I feared to come near him. not
knowing what his
crime was. But soon as my distance grew shorter, I saw that a
falcon sat upon
his chest and ate the flesh of his breast. As he groaned for help
could not but
run down the road to him to beat off this bird as well as I could
with what rocks
and sticks I found on the road. His wings beat on the poor man's
face. Since I
could not drive it away I untied the man's knots and little by
little I pried
him loose. Alas! poor man, so weak he was from the falcon he sank
at my feet. I
asked him who did this terrible thing, who tied him to this post
and left him
to be eaten by this bird. He told me it was his lord who did it,
for he had
been driven by hunger to poach on the land and he had eaten of the
lord's birds
and it was the lord's law that he pay in this way for this sin. He
could say no
more but told me to flee, for the lord's steward would be back to
fetch him.
But no one came to fetch him to give him water or succor, and I
sorrowed with
him because I saw he was dying, and no one came to fetch him. I
covered him
with my body's shadow so that the sun smote him not so fast,
seeing what his
own had done to him, and when his eyes were closed I put him on
the earth and
made my way to Avignon.
But this city raged as
bad as the
others and the river stank from the burials in it. Here was no
more singing, as
I have heard had been, but nuns and priests hurrying in the
streets with their
heads bowed down and their handkerchiefs at their noses. I thought
to see the
pope's palace but could not come near it for the guards. I could
see nought of
it but the smoke that came up from the chimney over the turrets
and the tapers
of the Rocher des Dames, and only such as had strict business came
and went,
hurrying with handkerchiefs at their noses, for the pope feared
the plague as
well as me. Many were the palaces on the banks of the river but
the river ran
brown between the shores, and none but the carrion sailed on it
now.
There was no more to see
here than
in Rouen or in Paris. There was no more to see anywhere in
Christendom, and I
went my way until I came to the sea and could go no further and
could go
nowhere else for I feared the towns, and the castles and the
monasteries were
all shut up.
I ¦lay my sack on the
ground and
let my cat out to take her walk upon the sand and took out my star
to wonder at
it. 'What boots my wandering?' I said to myself, 'if I cannot find
my mother's
people and what boots it if I find them if I must burn with them?'
With that the sea began
to churn
herself, to chum and to spit and to swirl about so that I thought
a mighty fish
was trapped in her waves, but it was a winekeg that, bobbed upon
the waters as
if it had life in it, and I remembered the living that had been
put inside
them. It cannot be, I thought, but must be the devil, but I could
not stand
this thought seeing I was by myself on the seashore. So I picked
up my skirts
and walked out to fetch it to shore and see what was with it, for
never heard I
such a racket of noise from wine. I took a rock and hit the hinges
to let
whatever was inside out. I knocked on the keg and the inside
knocked back. I
knocked twice and it † knocked twice. I knocked thrice and it
knocked thrice. I
knew not what it was but that, it could count seemed certain. I
learned
forthwith it had journeyed from the Moselle into the Rhine into
the Rhone and
into the Gulf of Lyons and so made its way against the tide so
that it was of
sturdy frame seemed without doubt. I took off the lid and out
poured wine and
candles and books and papers and when all was finished flowing
from this barrel
out steps this man and his wife. I see he wears the star upon his
breast and he
be of good birth, for the clothes he wore and the cut of his beard
and his
manner and his speech which betrays not his fear though he was old
in years and
came out of this winekeg red in the face flowing with matter like
a babe with
the afterbirth.
'Many thanks,' he says,
'for you
have rescued us.' And. straightway began to say his prayers. The
sand all about
turned re ‘d with the wine and I stood there astonished with the
sight of it
all, and he as astonished as me for he saw there my star upon the
sand.
'Are you Jewish?' he
asks in this
English tongue I took to be English though I knew it not, for it
sounded both
right and wrong to my ears. I told him how the star fell out from
a Jew's
plague cart and how I picked it up and kept it by my side for
safety's sake.
Then I tell him the whole of my wearisome story, how I left
England to look
after my mother's kin and he is more astonished than ever and
begins to cry and
falls upon his knees to pray and says, Lord God who preserveth
worlds, hast
Thou preserved the descendant of Belaset?'
'What!' I cried out,
'know you my
mother?'
"'Nay, but your
grandmother,
if she be the same as that lady in Lincoln. For we be ourselves
from England,
many years gone by, and though I am old my memory has not failed
me.'
'You see, Will, how his
English
differed from mine, so that he spoke it different, yet I
understood him well.'
His wife knew not what
to say to
any of this but wrung out her clothes and wept and laughed at the
sight of the
sun, but her husband showed me this book he had wrote in the
winekeg and
pressed it upon me to read it. I cried out with pain that I knew
not words,
though all this long travail I had been reading the world. He wept
for my
failings and said he must read it to me, though I saw his wife had
no more
patience to hear it, for beseems she had heard it for twenty-eight
days. She
clamored with hunger and I took what bread I had by me and gave
them to eat.
His wife was appeased not, but he sat me down there on the sand by
the sea, so
great his impatience was it was nought to his hunger. So great was
his hurry to
read me his book he read it forthwith.
Ribbono shel olem
Baruch Melekh ho olam
Baruch Ha Shem
Baruch A'donoy
Baruch E'loheynu
That my children may set
their
households in order, that they may know the Lord and that He may
bless them, I
write my will for my descendants. As Jacob prayed,
'Ribbono-shel-olam, take not
my soul until I have exhorted and blessed my children,' and as my
father prayed
when we brought him to the shore at Calais where he sat with his
face toward
England for so long, we feared for his mind. But he rose at last
and went
forward with us to Cologne where my brother's bride and family
waited to greet
us. Burdened though we were with the death of my mother, my
brother was greeted
with the joy of the bridegroom and my father with the honors due
him. It was in
Andemach that he died, still grieving for my mother, though two
decades had
passed since her death. And we brought his body to Carcassonne and
buried him,
as he had instructed us to do, next to the g |rave of his
father-in-law whom he
chose for 'reasons of highest imperative' to clasp in the Eternal
Dust.
Moses Menaheim was my
father,
Presbyter of the Jews in London, physician to the Count of
Hainsault ambassador
to the courts of Henry III and Edward 1. He had four sons and a
daughter who
lived a few weeks and ..was buried with my mother in the graves we
left behind.
I, Jacobus Elias, was the eldest. My father had been elected
presbyter, our
right to elect our own rulers having been fixed in the charter we
held from the
third Henry, wheretofore our presbyters had been appointed by the
king.
Our further rights had
been
previously given us by the Charter of King John:
"Know that we have
granted to
all the Jews of England and Normandy to have freely and honorably
residence in
our land and to hold all that from us which they held from King
Henry, our
father's grandfather, an ”d all that now they reasonably hold in
land and fees
and mortgages and goods, and that they have all their liberties
and customs
just as they had them in the time of the aforesaid king Henry, our
father's
grandfather, better and more quietly and honorably.
"And if any dispute
arise
between a Christian and a Jew, he who summonses the other to have
complaint
shall have witnesses, viz.: a lawful Christian and a lawful Jew.
And if a Jew
has a writ about his complaint, the writ shall be a witness for
him, and if a
Christian have a complaint against a Jew, let it be judged by
peers of the Jew.
"And when a Jew dies his
body
shall not be detained above the earth, but his heirs shall have
his money and
his debts, so that he shall not be disturbed therefore if he has
an heir who
may answer for him and do what is right about his debts and his
forfeit. And
let it be lawful for Jews to receive and to buy without difficulty
all things
that may be brought to them except things of the church or
bloodstained cloth.
"And if there is a
dispute
between a Christian and a Jew about accommodations of some money
the Jew shall
prove the capital and the Christian the interest.
"And let it be lawful
for the
Jew to sell his pledge after it is certain that he has held it for
a whole year
and a day.
"And wherever the Jews
may be,
let it be lawful for them to go when they will with their chattels
just as our
own property, and let none stop or prevent them in this.
"John, by the grace of
God,
etc. Know that we have conceded and by this present Charter of
ours confirmed
to our Jews in England that excesses which may arise among them
except those
which belong to our crown and justice, as homicide, mayhem,
premeditated
assault, burglary, rape, theft, arson, and treasure trove, shall
be brought
before them according to their law and remedied, and they shall do
justice
thereon among themselves."
So we kept our laws and
went our
own way, having been here with William the Conqueror, we were
assured after the
events in York and sought not to go elsewhere, but governed
ourselves and when
events enabled us, intervened for such was were Jews in Gascony
and elsewhere
which, by law, belonged also to the king of, England and to be
taxed as he
provided.
The two branches of my
family came
to England at different times, my mother's more recently. My
father's family
had been in the Moselle valley engaged in viticulture since the
time of
Charlemagne until the time of William the Conqueror, when the
priests began to
complain of the Jews who lived in the countryside because they
could not
collect the tax on the land from them since they did not hold this
land by
their allegiance to the Church, and that they were Judaizing among
the
peasants, for there were a few who came Š to us for conversion.
The charter we
held from Justinian, assuring us of the right to own land here,
was dismissed
and the law was passed that we may not own land anymore, but must
now seek our
livelihood in the towns. So also by the Synod of Bourges, in my
mother's time,
in the land where she came from, they could not live any longer in
the villages
and the countryside, but must live henceforth in the cities and
the towns.
Thus, they ceased to cultivate the vines, as our law demanded we
do for the
Purity of our wine but went where the new laws said we must go. My
family came
to England, my father's first, md settled in York where they lived
from the
time of t he first Richard when two hundred under Reb Yomtob
sanctified the
Name of the Unity. My great grandfather, Reb Yehuda Menaheim,
considered then
to return to 'Normandy, but upon conditions stipulated in the
charter of John,
moved the family to London where we had a cemetery and a mikveh
and three
synagogues, and so we stayed and obeyed the king's laws.
It was here that my
mother arrived
from Carcassonne in the year 4,627. She came with her grandmother
and her
father, a brother and his wife, and a servant-companion who was
Clemence the
Albigensian, for she would not stay behind, her family having been
martyred in
the Crusade. They sailed from Aigues-Mortes in the year King Louis
sailed from
there on his last crusade east. My mother arrived a bride and a
stranger who
spoke no French. Her mother had been martyred in the Crusade and
sleeps in the
Eternal Dust in Carcassonne. My mother read Hebrew, for my
grandfather held
that daughters must be educated as well as sons, and as she was
the
granddaughter of Rabbi Simon ben Meir, no less was expected of
her. But of the
tongue she spoke only Occitan when she first arrived. My father
spoke Hebrew,
French, and Latin.
The difference ¡ between
them was
not only the language, but from the first, as I heard it later,
commencing with
the marriage ceremony, to which my father was never reconciled. My
mother had
been betrothed to the son of the Nasi in Toulouse, who had been
struck down by
the crusader's sword in their war against the Albigenses. She
wished the
ceremony to be held on a Thursday as for one who was widowed. My
father argued
that she had been betrothed, but not married, and he would not
marry her as if
she had been a widow. He insisted the ceremony be held on a
Wednesday, as
prescribed for virgins. My grandfather, who was an authority in
such matters,
believed she should be married on Thursday, as befitting a widow.
The marriage
was delayed for months with this quarrel, and then to the scandal
of the
community they were married on a Friday.
She stayed at my
father's kinsman's
house in Isenmongre Lane, Leo Cruse, whose family went s with us
in the
Expulsion, until she was led on a Friday morning to my father's
house. There
was much gossip that my father had married a widowed virgin," but
none
said so to his face, but blessed the union, and my mother was,
accompanied by
our kinsmen to the altar with song and dancing.
Of our neighbors and kin
came Jacob
Bonami and, Moscus Crispin, the armourer; Jorvin Sackerel, a
silversmith, whose
house passed to Benedict Shoreditch in the Expulsion; Antera vid
Vines in
Cateaton Street whose house passed to John de Butterleye; Leo
Cresse our
kinsman and musician, Gamaliel Oxon, the stonecutter. May his
children leave a
good memorial for him as he has left for others. Elie le Evesk,
the baker from
Sporier Street, Sarra Diei, tradeswoman, Muriel Cresse, precentor
in our
synagogue, Aaron Slemne, innkeeper in St. Olave Jewry; Abraham
Matron,
goldsmith, whose, daughter afterwards married my son; Benedict
Mayer, tanner,
whose wife bore him Samson at a weight of eleven stone; Elie
Braggard, the
cloth merchant; Bateman Cresse from Lade Street, winemaker,
afterwards settled
in the city of Rashi; Sarra Oxon, cloth merchant, Benedict Muriel
in Milke
Street, carpenter, Mosse Bonamie, locksmith, and many others whose
names I have
forgotten, notables, rabbis and counsellors from Norwich and
Bristol; Belaset
Duelcresse and the Bishop of Lincoln of which and Cok Hagin who
translated
Ymage de Monde of which you have heard, and two knights of the
realm. Of the
poor, for which my father set a great table, came David Derbie the
Dyer,
afterwards settled in Paris during the uprising of the shepherds;
Massa ben
Issac, the maker of mousetraps; Solomon the Mule-seller, Isaac
Muriel the
basketweaver and his son Eliezer ben Muriel who herded sheep for
the Bishop of
Winchester. Came three hundred and twenty-two guests withal and
went to the
synagogue in Cateaton Street, afterwards called St. Lawrence in
Jewry.
Though my mother was a
stranger,
she walked in procession among them in her wedding dress made of
silk and linen
and a jeweled belt and a crown of pearls on her air. She wore also
the veil,
which none had seen here before, and embroidered her star upon it.
My father's
kinsmen ran beside her carrying the canopy above her head and
chanted the
blessing, which I charge my descendants to sing in her memory:
"Blessed art Thou, Lord
God,
creator of the Universe
Who created joy and gladness,
the Bridegroom and the
Bride,
Pleasure and delight
Peace and fellowship.
Blessed art Thou Who brings joy to the world,
Blessed art Thou
Who created the Bride and the Bridegroom.
"Now is the voice of the
Bridegroom heard in the land
And the voice of the Bride answers him.
The jubilant notes of the Bridegroom are heard
from the canopy and from the feast of song."
When she arrived at his
door, she
would not enter his house but sat herself on a chair and bid him
read aloud the
ketubah. His kinsmen murmured at this, but my father, in nice
deference to her
and to his father-in-law, as strangers in his home, agreed. After
the reading,
she gave him her ring in token of her acceptance. But it was such
a ring, a box
heavily wrought in gold with small bells in each corner and a
sprig of myrtle
inside that he laid it aside afterwards and declined to wear it
because, he
said, of its size but it was because of the sprig of myrtle. Then
he poured
ashes on his head in commemoration of Zion, whereupon my
grandfather took hold
of the ashes as well and, saying a prayer for his kinsmen whom
they had left
behind in Provence, smeared his forehead with the ash.
'It is a thing done only
in
commemoration of Zion,' my father's kinsmen murmured. But my
grandfather
brooked little dispute, for he was a rabbi himself and he informed
them of how
matters stood with this law. My mother's grandmother hurried
forward and gave
my mother an egg to eat, and my father hurried to the synagogue
for the
morning's reading, while the kinswoman hurried to the courtyard to
make ready
for the feast.
My mother's grandmother
fed my
mother eggs from a hen we kept in the house, so that the Law could
be fulfilled
by us that a good master is one who feeds his animals before
himself, which
charge I lay upon you, be it a hen or a goat, a calf or a lamb. My
mother
called our hen Mellisent and ate an egg from her every day until
she conceived.
Afterwards, I ate the eggs and then my brothers, until the hen
died. May she be
gathered to the embrace of the Creator for I remember her from my
youth and my
infant eyes delighted in her, she fed us from her body and we fed
her from our
souls. My mother's brother and his wife, who took a house in Mike
Street, kept
a cat to fulfill the Law, but my father derided this for a cat
gives neither
milk nor eggs. So we had always a hen or a goat, but you may keep
a cat for
your soul's sake.
My mother's grandmother
also lit
candles for the souls of the dead, which my father forbade. But
though he
forbade it, I charge you to do likewise in memory of my mother,
for there is no
law against it, and it was but which made it strange to my father
and
aggravated his peace of mind. It is a curious thing about the
human being,
though he undertake arduous travails, if his egg is not properly
made his daily
disposition will be soured. For this reason, look well to your
homes. Be not
niggardly in them. Bring to your home the largesse of your souls.
He who can
rule his household is a better king than he who rules an empire.
My grandfather had a
fancy to
wearing a sarbel to the synagogue, a handsomely embroidered mantle
he had
carried with him from Carcassonne, but my father had not a fancy
to it at all,
for he considered that it surpassed the sumptuary laws of our
people. My father
s strict in these matters, for he said that wealthy dress and
finery in Jews
not only caused envy in our 'Christian neighbors but beggared our
own poor. He
believed that no Jew should wear on his body an article of
clothing which could
not be worn by the poorest Jew He was equally strict in his diet
as in his
dress, while m; mother and great grandmother loved to wear gold
and jewelry and
pearls and to carry feathered fans, so that when they appeared in
the street
they caused comment.
I cannot say why, and
though I
honor my mother, the most incurable trait in women is love of
baubles, and
chiefly among the Spanish women. I cannot say why it should make a
woman so
happy to put on fine clothes, but even our sages caution us to let
them have
their way in this. My grandfather, no doubt under an evil
influence from Spain,
would not yield his sarbel. My father was skilled in diplomacy for
he was
praised by the king himself for his felicitous tongue. I do not
know therefore
how he addressed my grandfather on this issue, but I heard my
mother say that
never did my grandfather love that embroidered cloth so well as
after that
speech.
My grandfather and my
mother and
her grandmother and Clemence, our servant, would sing songs of
winds and
flowers that were not to be found in England, songs of the
troubadors, of Judah
Halevi, of yearnings which made the flesh unquiet and turned it
into soul, and
which unsettled my father in his own house. Clemence who was
almost as old as
my mother's grandmother, standing in age between my mother and her
grandmother
been a troubador at the court of Raymond of Languedoc. She had
known the great
troubadors of her time and had many songs to sing and stories to
tell, and composed
songs herself.
"In an orchard where the
leaves of hawthorne hide,
The lady holds a lover to her side,
Until the watcher in the dawning cried,
Ah, God, ah God, the
dawn, it comes
how soon."
I heard these songs from
childhood,
and I found nothing, strange in them. No one in the household but
my father,
found anything strange in them for until we were born everyone but
he in the
household was from the Midi. Only when we carried him there to
bury him did he
come to this land whose ways had destroyed his household peace,
this land of
the sensual soul where I journeyed myself afterwards. Here Jew and
Christian
had lived side by side for a thousand years, and later Moslems and
Waldensians,
Cathars and others found peace here until the Pope preached a
crusade against
the Cathars and destroyed the balance of beliefs and uprooted the
habits and
loyalties of centuries. The Cathars were destroyed and with them
the Jews of
this region as well as the faithful Catholics who came to the aid
of their
heretic friends when the crusaders tore out the tangled roots of
faith and
daily living. 'Slay them all and God will choose; His own,' the
Pope's legate
had said. But the soil knew no difference. It received alike the
blood of all.
This history I had from
Clemence
before I could read the chronicles for myself, for her grandmother
had been a
perfecta, revered throughout the Albigensis. On her deathbed, two
Dominicans
came and pretending to be Cathar as she was, gave her the
Consolatem which, as
she received it, they had proof of her heresy and immediately took
her up and
delivered her to the auto da fe. Her family on her grandmother's
side were
martyred. She alone was saved by a Catholic neighbor who was
martyred for this
act. Finally, taken in by my grandfather, she fled with his family
from
Carcassonne and stayed with us until her death. There was no home
for her in
Languedoc anymore, nor could she hold with her religion in
England, for t Ùhere
was no church for her there, and as she would not attend the one
there was, the
Bishop came again and again and asked for her conversion, to which
she would
say that she was already a Christian and needed no conversion; for
which he
would accuse us of Judaizing, for which my father would ask her to
declare
herself for what she was, for it was not lawful for us to keep a
Christian
servant. She would not declare herself to be a Cathar, fearing for
her life,
and we would not declare her to be a Christian, fearing for our
own. Betwixt
and between this problem, we lived with the help of God, it giving
rise to
argument on Monday and resolution on Thursday.
Though she did not hold
with the
laws of Moses, her people went unarmed in the world and pursued
peace. My
grandfather often held discourse with her on this matter, though
never in my
father's hearing. She was well versed in our Bible but, strange to
my ears,
regarded it as the work of a demiurge and, stranger yet, t ¹his
idea did not
diminish her affection for us, nor my grandfather's for her.
"Come,
come," he would say, "you cannot reject the Creator. You might as
well reject existence." But she held that all matter was evil and
that
only the spirit was good and that He who created matter was evil.
My grandfather
never took offense. On the contrary, the idea seemed to amuse him,
but we all
understood that it would not have amused my father, and conspiracy
was afoot
never to discuss these matters in his presence.
Clemence kept her ears
and tongue
sharp and since she knew our laws, 'better,' my father said 'than
my mother's
family did,' he could not find fault with her. She went, to market
every day
with my mother, except on Friday when my father bought for the
Sabbath.
It was not my mother's
tongue and
language alone he could not understand, but all that came from
this region and
these people whose eyes were the color of dark olives. My mother
arrived with
her "languedoc air" and was set down for a stranger. She was the
granddaughter of Rabbi Simon ben Meir of Narbonne, married to her
present good
fortune in being settled with my father. But when a woman is
beautiful no one
expects her to be anything else. That my mother was beautiful was
perhaps too
much for my father who had expected only to fulfill his
responsibilities. Her
customs, her songs, her "air" provided them with a spiritual
rivalry
that remained side by side with the bonds of their marriage. Shall
one say this
marriage should not have taken place? It was the wisdom of our
religion to
provide for my mother by her marriage to my father that she not be
left to
wander in that torn land and go, astray in the world.
She was the
granddaughter of Rabbi
Simon ben Meir, may his name be a blessing among his heirs
forever. How then
should she not be brought back into the house of life to raise up
heirs? But
she was possessed of the womanliness of Provence and was given to
songs and
expressions and ways and stories my father found difficult and
alienating, as
he was soon the only member of his own household for whom such
customs were strange,
for I and my brothers were born to them. She remained to the end,
kin and
stranger to him. Though they bore children together, she remained
a foreigner
to him, one who had dispossessed him from his own home and whose
death brought
him no relief and, in the end, a violent, grief, contrary to his
nature. The
pain of his marriage was expressed in awkward verses he composed
on her name,
Florria-Sara, which we discovered after his death.
My grandfather
accommodated himself
to my father in one matter: he spoke his language, but neither
Clemence nor my
mother nor her mother would. If my father addressed them in French
a veil would
drop over their eyes as if they were dumb. My father would not or
could not
learn their tongue. And they would not, whether they could or
could not, learn
his. Hebrew my mother could read but not speak. French she would
not speak,
Latin was unknown to her. Yet to market she must go and speak
something.
She relented and learned
French
after we were born, for we had to learn our lessons from her. My
father forbade
us to speak Occitan, and from this point he never yielded. She
must yield,
either her language or her place in the household as our mentor,
for that we
should learn our lessons in a doomed tongue could not be
countenanced. What she
would not yield as a wife, she yielded as a mother. For our sake,
she yielded
and for her sake, Clemence yielded too and thus they were
permitted to prepare
me for school.
I charge you, my
descendants, if
you wish your child to love learning, do likewise: Take him on the
Feast of
Pentecost, dress him in fine clothes so that he may feel like a
prince, and
feed him three cakes made of fine flour and honey baked by a young
maiden. Thus
may he learn the sweetness
of learning
and yearn for it as the tongue yearns for the sweet taste of a
fruit that has
just departed from it. You may also feed him three cooked eggs and
apples or
other fruit, but nothing sour or bitter must pass his lips.
Likewise do as my
great grandmother and Clemence did, who baked me cakes in the mold
of our
letters and dipped each one in honey and fed them to me as I was
carried
through the streets on my father's shoulders to the Beth Hamidrash
where I was
set on the dais. Here our kinsmen and friends greeted us with
their blessings.
"May the Law be sweet upon your lips." And Clemence herself
blessed
me in the French she now spoke. Weeping for the sound of it, she
kissed me on
my honeyed lips.
I charge you, my sons
and
daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, for the sake of my
servant, if you
would live in peace with your neighbor, take not his language up
as a cause of
discontent, but put honey on your lips.
Afterwards, my father
trusted me to
their care, to take me to school or to go to the market. I went
with Clemence
to the wharves to see the boats from Flanders and Calais. It
pleased her to see
their wares laid out in the streets though there was nothing, as
she would have
it, to compare with the fair at Beaucaire, where the boats came
from Genoa,
Pisa, Venice, Egypt, and Spain, Africa, Greece and the Levant,
bearing oranges
and leather from Morocco, dates from Africa, cloth from France,
scents and
soaps and oil from elsewhere. She wondered that Englishmen were
content with
scarcity and coarseness. When she was like this, she spoke in
Occitan, but it
could not be said that she broke her word to my father, for she
spoke to
herself and not for my ears, and I never answered a word back.
When my brother Mose and
I brought
my father to Carcassonne to be buried there I listened for her
tongue, but it
was not heard anymore. Everything else in the city was as she
described it, the
paths of acacia trees and the wind called the mistral. I entered
this city in
which I had never been as if I had lived there in another life,
passing over
the bridge of my mother's past to this land of the Albigenses
where she had
come from, a land of crusaders and troubadors and bloodshed, a
Roman land with
a Roman past, which was now no more, neither by its tongue nor its
laws. Until
the Crusade, the Jews had lived there by the Roman privileges
which had been
given to them from the time of Justinian. They cultivated the land
and came of
vineyards and orchards under the protection of the counts of
Toulouse, as did
the Albigenses, until the preaching of the Crusade against them by
Innocent
III, led by the ecclesiastical might of Europe, the archbishops of
Rheims,
Sens, and Rouen, the bishops of Autun, Clermont, Nevers, Bayeux,
Lisieux, and
Chartres, and the cruelest man of the century, Simon de Montfort,
wherefore
20,000 Cathars fell in an afternoon at Beziers before his army.
Clemence knew bitter
songs as well
as gentle ones: "God confound thee, Rome! Who draggest all who
trust in
thee into the bottomless pit, and forgives sins only for to money:
"Shame to him who will
not
bear
In this our glorious cause his share,
Noble souls, we do not fear,
Strong in the hope that help is near."
But it was not to be,
and her fate
became ours. Here the Inquisition was born for her people. Who
knew then that
what had been devised for others would catch our own in its net?
Living as they
did, mingled among the Albigenses in the cities of Beziers,
Carcassonne and
Toulouse, it was not to be expected that they would escape. I have
read in the
Chronicle of Shanzaler: "In 1209, the year of sorrow, outlaws came
out of
France to wage war, and on the 19th of Ab, there arose a great
slaughter, and
of the uncircumcised 20,000 were killed, and of the Jews, 200."
The column
of crusaders, winding its way from France into the land of the
Albigenses,
swollen with thousands of starved peasants as well as with knights
and
noblemen, led by Simon de Montfort and the Archdeacon Theodosious
from the
Cathedral of Notre Dame, that famed master of siegecraft and
engines of assault
and battery, brought terror and warning wherever it was sighted.
They set fire
to the land, to the castles, to the cities. At Chateau de Termes,
the
Archdeacon Theodosious, his cross atop his engine, set the flames
himself.
Fires were set in all the cities of Provence. One hundred and
fifty Cathars
were burned at Minerve, fir hundred at Lavaur, eighty at Casses,
two hundred at
Montsegure. Languedoc burned for fifty years. The land was
scorched to its
roots, and even the animals fled from its heat.
At Beziers, Simon de
Montfort
gouged out the eyes and cut off the ears and noses of a hundred
men, but one
eye he left in the hundredth and first to lead the others across
Provence as a
warning to all heretics. Their tongues he also left them to tell
the tale of
After that, every city flung down its gates for the crusaders.
Only Carcassonne
kept its closed. Here the beloved Vicomte de Beziers, hero and
patriot, waited
for Simon de Montfort and the crusaders. He sent his son away for
safety. His
uncle, the king of Aragon, pleaded with him to flee too. But he
stayed, and
sleeps now in the Eternal Dust. His form and his fate have passed
likewise into
a poem and a story. Alas! How shall we keep our history. Not in
books alone. So
Clemence relieved the burden of memory through her songs.
The siege for
Carcassonne began on
August 1, 1209, and lasted fourteen days. I have heard my
grandfather tell that
when the gates of the city were lowered a stench of death from
famine floated
over the land. The dead were piled against the gates, clawing the
earth for
water, Jew and Christian, men, women, and children, whole
households who died
together. In the aftermath, what siege and engine could not do,
the Inquisition
did. The Church brought into this already burdened world a
terrible new power
which we have not seen the end of and cannot reckon what it will
be.
When complaint was made
by
Catholics, who sought to come to the aid of others, that the
believer was being
killed with the heretic, and when the Pope's legate responded,
"Slay them
all and God will choose His own," then all knew that before this
force
neither belief nor disbelief, neither faith nor lack of faith,
mattered. Who
could, fled, Jew and Christian and Cathar, seeing how the Church
slew her own.
The Counts of Toulouse
weakened,
and the Jews lost their protector. The king's brother, Alfonse de
Poitou, came
to power and enforced the Synod of 1209, removing Jews from their
public posts,
and enforced the decree that they wear the yellow badge, though
heretofore none
in Languedoc, while the Counts of Toulouse ruled, would enforce
this
ignominious ruling. De Montfort's wife, Alice of Montmorency,
ordered the
imprisonment of the Jews to be kept until such time as they were
converted.
Though they were in time released, the baptized children were
never returned.
As with my son.
My mother's family fled,
but
tragedy found them. My mother's cousin, Pulchellina, was martyred
in Narbonne.
She carried the same name as my great grandmother's grandmother
who had been
martyred in Blois the century before. Taken in labor she delivered
her child in
the flames. My grandmother had warned her sister against that
name, and she
groaned with heaviness of breath, "Pulchellina, Pulchellina."
But I charge you, my
descendants,
remember this name, for my great grandmother's sake, for her
grandmother's sake
martyred in Blois, she who delivered her child in the flames, for
the sake of
my sister to whom she gave this name and who died with my mother
on the eve of
our departure from England. Sons of mt sons, I charge you to
remember this name
as you lead your wives to the altars, for the sake of the mother
and the child
who died, in the flames. Remember your wives and your daughters
who sleep in
the Eternal Dust.
Began then my mother her
practice
of lighting candles on the anniversary of the deaths of her
relatives, keeping
customs that were ever more strange to us, and for which we began
to ridicule
her. Ribbono shel olom will have mercy for the deeds of my youth
which I cannot
retrieve.
She and her family left
the Midi
two years before the land fell and the Jews of Languedoc now
belonged to the
French crown, many forced by the new law to serve the treasury in
Paris. When I
and my brother went to Carcassonne to bury my father, we could
find none who
spoke their tongue anymore.
Blessed art Thou Who
preserveth
worlds as Thou did preserve the world of Noah, Who made and keeps
faith with
Thy Eternal Promise.
I keep this account for
my Jewish
descendants, as a will against the future, for I see that my wife
and I
survived the burning in the cities of Europe and that with a
mighty hand Ha
Shem Who created the world sustained us. As I saw that we passed
our first
hours in this habitat in fear but without threat to our lives, I
knew that He
would bring us to safety. The wine was only a fifth of the level
of the barrel,
and the barrel corked so well, with pitch and tar to preserve it
against air
and rot, that it floated on the river without hazard to us. I
found a small
opening above the level of the water where the staves had not been
properly
fastened. It was a pinhole, but I could look out on the surface of
the water
and see all manner of life on it and tell the hour the day. It was
night when
we had first been put inside. I watched at this opening until I
tired, but
little by little I saw there were patterns of light on the water
and that I
could tell the movement of the sun by them, and could say my
prayers at the
appointed times. "Blessed art Thou Who has created the world
wherein there
is no place that is not fit for your creatures. Blessed art Thou
Who multiplies
berakhot."
We were immersed with
our Siddurs,
our candlesticks, and our candles, as our oppressors meant to bury
us with what
to them are the hated emblems of our religion. My wife was
frightened, as I
was, but her fears were mixed with lamentable anger for, as the
proverb says,
to the sinner bring kindness, neither wrath nor upbraiding. But my
wife wept
and cursed and, given our confinement, I could neither blame her
nor be kind.
"I will only weep that my life has taken this strange turn," she
cried. Her face, ruddy as her ancestors were, was also puffy with
fright and
from the ingestion of the wine we had almost drowned in. "What
boots it to
pray," she wept, "sitting in a winekeg? Can you not see, husband,
what has overtaken us?"
She did not have her
oppressors
about her anymore and turned her anger on me. "What boots it that
you say
your prayers? You have not a minyan. You have only me. You are
mad."
My wife's family was of
Exeter and
Cornwall, settled there in the time of the first Richard, and her
father had
owned a house and a watermill on the river Tamar. As a
consequence, her
complexion was ruddy to which she applied powders to no avail. She
had the
story from her mother how the thirty thousand dishes were served
for the Earl
of Cornwall's wedding to Queen Eleanor's sister, Cynthia, for
which the Jews
were taxed 20,000 marks, and for which reason this number never
ceased to augur
well or ill for her, so that she could say of a jubilant event
that it was
worth twenty thousand marks as well as of a tragic event that it
surely cost
20,000 marks. Such an equal expression for good and evil puzzled
me, and I told
her so, but my puzzlement puzzled her.
"It matters not the
number," she said. "Tis but an expression meaning much, whether
much
joy or much tragedy," but I pointed out to her that for the sake
of the
Book of Life in which an accounting must be kept, that she should
choose a
bigger number for a joyful event, even if it be bigger only by one
.
We had this argument
many times,
for she was a stubborn woman, coming from Cornwall, and determined
to have her
way. "I will not," she said flatly. 'It be one expression meaning
much and much and much can be the sorrow as much can be the joy.
Mayhap the sum
of joy in the world be not one more but one less than the sum of
sorrow in the
world which thought I took to be the evil influence of her
birthplace.
"Do you think I cannot
add and
say what be the difference between two sums as well as you?" she
said.
Thereupon I remained
silent for I
would not broach the argument with her beyond this point. Having
learned as
much in so many years of marriage, I learned to live with this
expression which
was upon her lips twice a day, if she heard of a fire or when her
cousin with
the clubfoot was delivered of a normal child. From time to time I
attempted to
instruct her in further subtlety, that she should not use the same
term of
measurement for good as for evil. "Say you?" she would say and
narrow
her eyes to unwholesome slits, "I will say what I will say. It is
nought
but an expression and means nought."
"Every meaning means
something," I cautioned. "One must never say a saying frivolously,
for the word is a portion of the Eternal Life. Do we not say for
this reason
that the tongue of the slanderer brings worse death than the sword
of the
warrior, for it slays the soul of a people."
"Master of languages!"
she then called me.
For the sake of peace in
our
household I shut my ears to her tongue, for what was a matter of
universal
knowledge she took as a personal insult if one attempted to
instruct her, and
as our quarters were now by so much reduced, leaving us no room to
withdraw
from each other, I prayed, and we quarreled. Much thought I had to
Noah as he
sailed in the small ark with his wife for forty days. Certain it
is that God
designed the flood to test him as a householder as well as a
preserver of the
world.
To my father also fell
that double
duty when he received my mother's family after all effort to stem
the tide of
change in the Midi had failed. Twenty thousand liras paid to
Alphonse de Poitou
for the ransom of Jewish prisoners, the delegation led by Rabbi
Simon ben Meir
to protest the laws that sought to curb our finances, Jews now
being forbidden
to collect their debts from their Christian debtors though
Christians could
continue collect their debts; Jews now forbidden to move from
place to place,
which rendered them serfs to the barons on whose lands they lived,
as the
Christians were.
Praised be the memory of
Rabbi ben
Meir, who laid down for all time and for all our descendants, the
conditions,
the laws, the practice and spirit of the usury by which we
received our means
of survival as we received our manna in the desert. We praise the
everliving
Master of the Universe. We praise Thee, we thank Thee, we render
blessings
without end to Thee Who out of the rock brought water, out of the
desert
brought manna, and out of this life gave us our means to live. We
praise Thee,
we bless Thee, we thank Thee Who preserves Thy people Israel on
this soil of
Christendom as Thou didst preserve her in the deserts of Egypt. We
praise Thee,
we thank Thee, we glorify Thee, Who out of chaos created the world
as Thou
sustains our world on the soil of Christendom.
So spoke Rabbi Simon ben
Meir to
the royal delegates. He reminded the assembly that being forbidden
membership
in the guilds, forbidden ownership of land except on condition of
apostasy,
forbidden public posts, forbidden access to the universities,
forbidden to
practice medicine in all of Languedoc except in Narbonne, he
believed that the
Living Master of the Universe had created this means for the
Jewish people to
survive, as a spider spins a web, spinning what it must for very
survival
against the calumnies of the universe. He reminded the assembly
that where
there is Jewish usury there is lawful usury. He reminded the
assembly that
profit was neither forbidden by Torah nor by the laws of Christian
kings, but
that like every force needed to be controlled, to be made lawful,
not lawless.
He reminded the assembly that where Jews were forbidden to
practice usury,
there sprang up Christian usury, a wild and rampant usury that
knew no bounds,
that escaped all effort to control it, as when Louis, the king,
forbade
Christian promissory notes to the Jews there began the practice of
Christians
to borrow on securities, and a Christian usury then flourished at
extraordinary
interest rates, to the dismay of this king who thirsted for
sainthood. He
reminded the assembly that usury is not expelled with the Jew, but
that after
the Jew leaves, it remains unchecked in its secret devices with
the Christian,
a matter of record in every province in the realm. He reminded the
assembly
that when the Jewish usurer departs, the people, and even the king
and the
barons clamor for his return, as Louis himself discovered, who so
ardently
wished to rid the land of usury and be a saint but knew not where
else to raise
his tax money from if not from the Jewish usurers, but wanting
holily what he
wanted urgently.
My father too had had
experience in
negotiating for the Jews of England for the ransom of Jewish
prisoners and
Jewish slaves, and told how King Henry wept: "It is no wonder that
I covet
money, for it is dreadful to think of the debts in which I am
involved. I am a
humiliated and diminished king. I am therefore under necessity of
living on
money obtained in all quarters, from whomsoever, in what ever
manner I can
acquire it." And having wept and said thus openly, levied such
taxes ¤on
his Jewish subjects that in the single year of 4,605 they paid
60,000 marks in
tallage, a sum equal to what all his other English subjects paid,
and between
1230, and 1259 had paid more than 250,000 marks in tallage alone,
sums which
fell outside of the fines imposed consequent upon blood
accusations, death
duties often amounting third of the estate and multitudinous
donations for
royal weddings and festivals, for as the Church taxed its own for
its luxuries
so the kings taxed their Jewish subjects for theirs.
Did not Aquinas warn the
governors
that to tax the Jews beyond all just endurance must drive them
further into
usury.
We petitioned King Henry
to let us
leave England and seek our living elsewhere. Three hundred rabbis
the island
and his provinces in France and went to Palestine, but he would
not let the
rest of us go out, as G, said afterwards at the Expulsion, when we
would he not
and when we would not he would.
Rabbi Meir reminded the
assembly
that the Church traffics in relics and indulgences and raises
revenues from the
sales of the souls of its peoples. Christian coins squeezed from
Christian sin
and fear, while the raises coin only from coin. Did not the
scholar Abelard
have the Jew say, "We can possess neither fields vines nor any
land. Our
sole resort is usury by which we maintain our miserable
livelihood. Yet through
this we provoke your bitter hatred."
Of what use Bernard,
Aquinas, and
Abelard? Of what use your scholars and saints, for when you want
money you
ignore them all.
He reminded the assembly
that if it
were not for Christian love of war and pageantry, for tournaments
and
monuments, there would be no traffic in coins, for what was the
money ever used
for, for what cause? what charity? other than to pay armies of
mercenaries to
fight for land and loot, to celebrate the knight's prowess in war,
in costly
pageants and costly castles and abbots in costly churches.
Let Rabbi Meir's voice
be our
monument to the Jewish ages: "How shall we pay our taxes,
exceeding that
of all other citizens, except through usury? How shall we pay for
protection
against your mobs, except that you love wealth? Our nails have
been torn from
our fingers to raise coins for you, our hair from our heads, our
teeth from our
mouths.
Now you call us brother
and say
that we have transgressed the Law which holds that a brother
should not pay
interest on debt to his brother. Now you call us brother when you
are called to
pay back your debts. How are we brothers? Are we not your slaves,
both by canon
law and civil law? Are we not the servants of your treasury by
your law, and by
royal decree? Are brothers as slave to master, as servant to
overlord? Do you
not teach us that we are in perpetual servitude for the death of
your God, that
we may not build a synagogue but by your leave, that we may not
build it high
to offend the sight of the Church, that we may not sing or pray
aloud to offend
the ears of the Church, that we may not exchange gifts with you,
or share meals
with you or live among your countrymen, or have Christians in our
homes, for
fear of fraternizing? Are these not your laws? Stated not once or
twice, but
repeated in every century with renewed force, since you appeared
upon the
earth?
Thus does a brother to a
brother?
How then are we brothers? Does a brother slander his brother, his
people, his
book, his God? That you have slandered our books and our people,
we forgive
you, but God must forgive you for slandering Him. He Who brought
living water
out of the rock of the desert has given us the means to wring our
living from
this Christian rock. He Who brought us out of Egypt where we were
made to
furnish bricks for Pharaoh's monuments, will deliver us from this
bondage to
the Lord's treasury, where we are made to furnish gold instead.
And for what were your
sums used?
You have read your history books. For kings and barons who loved
their wars and
their castles, and for abbots and who loved their costly
monasteries and their
monuments. And for what and from where and in what way and with
what means were
these sums raised? Brother Debt and Brother Debtor, we are now
quits."
For this speech he was
exiled and
withdrew to Palestine, but his voice remains with us for a legacy.
His
granddaughter came to England while the fate of the others who
remained behind
became intertwined with the fate of the Waldensians and the
Cathars, in one
place for usury, in another for religion, for they were as often
accused of
Judaizing as of usury, so compounded was the Waldensian faith of
elements of
Judaism, preaching as they did the circumcision. And as the
Cathars repudiated
the Pope himself and all the sacraments but baptism and denied the
images and
the relics and came to regard themselves as the true Catholics,
and in time
acquired so many adherents that there were seminaries and convents
throughout
the land, in the whole of Bosnia, Innocent III took alarm and
preached the
Crusade against them under Simon de Montfort, after victory
invested by the
Pope the Count of Toulouse, and so came to rule in Languedoc. The
House of
Raymond went down and with him Cathars, the Waldensians, the whole
of Languedoc
went down. There is none left anymore to sing their songs and few
even read their
chronicles.
My Jewish descendants, I
would have
you know this history as well as your own, the histories of
vanished peoples,
that you no longer believe that God has singled you out from among
the nations
for suffering, for many who have suffered are no longer with us.
But I would
have you know, again, that Moses gave it for a blessing that you
were chosen
for life and not for death, that your history is a Þ history among
the many who
have perished and whose history has ended.
Remembering this, I
passed through
the gates to the city of Carcassonne with my brother, Mose.
So the first Edward too
hoped to
divert us from usury, for by the charter of 1275 we were granted
permission to
own land and houses without swearing faith in the Trinity and
forswearing
ourselves as Jews:
"Foreasmuch as the King
hath
seen that diverse Evils, and the disinheriting of the Good men of
this realm
have happened by the Usuries which the Jews have made in Time
past, and that
divers Sins have followed thereupon; albeit he and his Ancestors
have received
much benefit from the Jewish People in all Time past; nevertheless
for the Honor
of God and the common benefit of the people, the King hath
ordained and
established, That henceforth no Jew shall lend any Thing at Usury,
either upon
Land, or upon Rent, or upon other Thing.
"That all Jews shall
dwell in
the King's own Cities and Boroughs, where the chests of
Chirographs of jewry
are wont to be: and that each Jew after he shall be Seven Years
old, shall wear
a Badge on his outer Garment; that is to say, in the form of Two
Tables joined,
of yellow Felt, of the Length of Six Inches, and of the Breadth of
Three
Inches. And that each one, after he shall be Twelve Years old, pay
three pence
yearly at Easter of Tax to the King, whose Bondman he is; and this
shall hold
as well for a Woman as a Man.
"And, Foreasmuch as it
is the
Will and Sufferance of Holy Church, that they may live and be
preserved, the
King taketh them under his Protection, and granteth them his
Peace; and
commandeth that none shall do them harm, or damage, or wrong, in
their Bodies
or in their Goods, moveable or immoveable. And that none shall owe
Obedience,
or Service, or Rent, except to the King, or his Bailiffs in his
name; unless it
be for their dwellings which they now hold by paying Rent; saving
the right of
Holy Church.
"And the king granteth
unto
them that they may gain their living by lawful Merchandise and
their Labor, and
that they may have intercourse with Christians, in order to carry
on lawful
Trade by selling and buying. But that no Christian, for this cause
or any
other, shall dwell among them. And the King willeth that they
shall not by
reason of their Merchandise be put to Lot or Scot, nor in taxes
with the Men of
the Cities or Boroughs where they abide; for they are taxable to
the King as
his Bondmen', and to none other but the King.
"Moreover, the King
granteth
unto them that they may buy Houses and Curtilages, in the Cities
and the
Boroughs where they abide, so that they hold them in chief of the
King; savings
unto the Lords of the Fee their service due and accustomed. And
that they may
take or buy Farms and Land for the Term of Ten Years or less,
without taking
Homages or Realities, or such sort of obedience from Christians;
and that they
may be able to gain their living in the World, if they have not
the means of
trading, or cannot labor; and this license to take lands to Farm
shall endure
to them only for fifteen years from this Time forward."
Which from the time of
the
granting, 4,635 to the time of our expulsion, 4,650, was fifteen
years. But as
were not admitted to the guilds, neither merchant nor artisan, and
as we could
not go among the general population and practice a trade at large,
and by law
were confined to the towns and the cities where there was little
farmland to be
had; and as the taxes upon us remained of so formidable a nature
that there was
no way to raise the sums but by the way of usury that we knew,
many of our kin,
glad as we now were to own houses, were further impoverished by
this law and
many, like my uncle, who had not heretofore lent money on
interest, were driven
to it.
And as we saw that our
heirs would
not inherit from the fruit of our efforts, and we saw that what we
labored for
must revert to the king, we were not diverted from our our usury,
and there
arose a great clamor among the people, for which cause we were
then expelled.
"Master Menaheim," I
said
again, "it cannot be that this tale has aught to do with me."
"Aye, it does," he said
so wonderfully that I fell silent again, and he went his way as
before.
"My father laid his
claim to
the stone house in Huggin Lane in which we had been living, seeing
he could now
do so without apostasy and furnished it grandly. My mother's
brother and his
wife, who took a house in Milke Street, had likewise a stone house
with a
chimney on the inside and a staircase within to go from one floor
to the other,
but since my uncle kept his debtors' notes in a chest in the house
they had no
window on the ground floor for fear of thieves. Our staircase was
on the
inside, so that we could pass from one floor to the other without
exposing
ourselves to the weather. We had a chimney whereby the smoke was
let outside
the house, and we had a window on the ground floor which looked
out upon my
mother's garden, to everyone's pleasure but my father's, for
because my
grandfather placed his lectern beside it, it caused much dispute
in our
household.
Our house was not as
grand as our
cousins in Lincoln, but there was nothing lacking for our holiday
banquets. Our
festal board had three silver kiddush cups and wool cloth my
mother had brought
with her as well as an embroidered one with gold thread which my
father had
given her, and above the table our seven-armed lamp. We had a
carpet on the
floor in the room where we ate, and there in a niche was an urn
for handwashing
where my mother hung her best cloth woven of linen and silk which
my father
instructed us to use for the blowing of our noses. My great
grandmother had
brought with her six silver spoons, carved with lambs and lilies,
but my
father considered this excessive and would not let them appear on
the table, to
my mother's hurt.
Nor the mezzuzah which
she put up
on the doorpost, carved of wrought silver. He took it down at
once, for he
regarded the inscription in it as magician's work to ward off evil
spirits. She
abided by his feelings until the week before my second brother was
to be born,
when went up again, and none could say how. My father returned
from synagogue
one day and stopping by the doorway, as if in a spell, looked at
the mezzuzah
hung upon the lintel. He did not move from the spot, for how long
no one can
say, until Clemence, coming from shopping, saw him standing thus.
When she
inquired, he said, "I will not pass into my house unless it be
removed.
The signal was given. My mother and grandmother came as quickly as
they could. My
grandfather was not to be found. My grandmother said she had seen
it go ± up in
a dream, and would not take it down, for she feared to do so.
Neither Clemence
nor my mother could say how it came to be there. The hour
approached minha. My
father, seeing the late time, took it down but it went up again a
few days
later, whereupon my uncle's wife came to the door of our house and
said that
she had also dreamed that the hand of God had put it there, and as
my mother
began to labor with my brother my aunt charged my father with her
wellbeing if
he took it down. My mother's screams mounted, and my aunt ran for
the midwife.
My great grandmother wrung her hands and implored my father to let
it stay. My
mother screamed and my father wavered. My great grandmother
immediately grabbed
his hand in gratitude.
Shortly, many visitors
stopped by
our door and wondered at it. My father, who felt his authority had
been
gainsaid, would not declare to them what it was. But my
grandfather believed
his authority was Ç as good as my father's and said he would
declare its
contents. Otherwise, it was an object of decoration, which God
forbid it to be.
An argument arose which went on at every meal, including the
Sabbath, which
vexed my father, for he would have us only sing at the Sabbath
meal and not
talk or dispute. He remarked one Friday evening, as my grandfather
was heated
in the defense of the inscription, "that it was a great wonder how
he fell
m one transgression into the next."
The next day in
synagogue, in a
pause between messages and declarations, my grandfather arose from
his seat and
said what the inscription in the mezzuzah was and bid each Jew in
London obtain
one for himself.
My father never walked
beside him
in the street again, but walked in such a way after that, rapidly,
so that it
caused my grandfather to drift behind, for my father was a long
man and my
grandfather was not only short in his legs, but one leg was
shorter than the
other, so that he drifted far behind.
My mother complained at
this
disrespect to her father. My father said he meant no disrespect,
but that my
grandfather's legs being made shorter than was customarily seen in
England, and
of unequal length as well, he did not know how to accommodate
himself to this
peculiar stride without hobbling his soul. As the matter of the
mezzuzah is now
common custom, nothing more is to be said.
The disputes between my
father and
my grandfather concerned chiefly these three subjects: my
grandfather's Bible,
where his lectern should be placed; and the merits of the fathers;
but because
of these all philosophy and custom divided them.
My grandfather had
brought with
them from Provence an illuminated Bible. My father forbade us to
look at it and
was distressed that it should be in the house, though my
grandfather argued
that its illuminations were of such things as never had been seen
on earth,
objects with the faces and tails of monkeys and the bodies of
lions. My father
argued that they were intended for images of men. "God forbid!" my
grandfather said. I learned then, that the home requires as much
diplomacy in
getting about in it as the world does.
Concerning my
grandfather's
lectern, he love dto keep it by the window. As matters would have
it, all
manner of life passed his sight, birds which carried his glance
away,
Mellisent's feathery body, a snail on the wall. My grandfather,
may he rest in
peace, would say a berkhot for everything that flew or fluttered
past his view.
My father believed that anything which distracted from study
should be removed.
As he would not have us 1earn bad habits in such an important
matter as study
and prayer, he felt compelled to remove my grandfather's lectern
to the side of
the room that had no window. My grandfather believed that as "the
Almighty
had created the universe, there was no twig or flower or blade
grass that was
unholy and not fit to be praised," and he moved his lectern back
to the
side of the room with the window. There was no rest or pause in
this dispute
until the coming of Solomon ibn Alfaqui, who distracted and
distressed my
father for three years.
Concerning the third
dispute, my'
grandfather considered it a greater mitzva to give to the poor
than to be
learned in Torah. Without doubt, neither can be neglected, but
neither can be
fulfilled to everyone's satisfaction. The problem, though
theoretical, may be
crucial in a crisis and so should be thought out in advance, that
events may
not find us unprepared, in a spirit of surprise at the nature of
the universe.
The ethical imagination must imagine all possibilities, the
sublime and the
ridiculous, and the Jew must be prepared with his answer.
Though my grandfather
neglected his
studies and was content to spend each morning at his lectern and
each afternoon
in synagogue, he asserted that if he had a single hour left in the
world he
would hasten to spend it by giving charity to the poor rather than
to spend it
by reading Torah. He seemed or pretended to ignore my father's
vexation, and
put down in his will, "Next to prayer, to give to the poor is the
highest
mitzva." My father said it was the second highest mitzva. He was
familiar
with Aristotle's dictum, "mankind wishes to know," for he came
abreast of the new learning from the continent in an unfortunate
way and fought
to keep it holy. "To know what?" he said. "Wisdom, like the
body, wants the discipline of chastity. It cannot be that
curiosity for its own
sake can be man's highest aim."
"Why not?" my
grandfather
asked.
"Why not?" my father's
temper rose. "Because it cannot be. That's why not."
Nor did those who later
oppose him
necessarily disagree with this view. God is the God of life and
not the God of
learning. My father, may his soul find the peace he wished for
others, rose in
the Bezier Synod and said, "I abominate that learning that
separates man from
man, that is fit for some and not fit for others. Moses, when he
delivered the
Torah, spoke to all at the foot of the mountain, and they all
heard with one
ear. The learning which distinguishes between the fit and the
unfit destroys a
people. If your teaching cannot end for all with the maxim, now go
forth and
practice, it is not fit for the ear."
If one could have
separated the
issues, kept this idea from leaning upon that idea or person,
finding support
where it should not, we might have kept the house together. But
who can contain
an idea. More than the wind, it goes where it will and blows
itself into shapes
unforeseen so that a man who cursed Maimonides, as R. Gerondi did,
died
afterwards with his name on his lips, while others informed
against his disciples
to the Inquisition.
How much also an idea
takes the
color of the person who expresses it, so that it seems to be part
of his
manners, his behavior. For us Solomon ibn Alfaqui was the first
instrument of
these ideas. He it was who brought them from the continent and for
my father
they carried ever afterwards the unfortunate impress of the
satirist and the
courtier, though Solomon donned the shawl twice a day and was in
all ways
devoted to the Law. But said my father, "As he studies, so he is.
As he
reads so is the man." Solomon read with closed lips and with only
his
eyes. "He is afraid to utter his thoughts. Can God trust a closed
mouth?" Soon, because my grandfather defended Solomon's way of
reading and
took such matters differently, my father came to regard them as
allies and our
visitor as a scorpion in his house.
Solomon ibn Alfaqui had
been a
courtier at the court of Alphonse X, and now he was an exile. The
king had been
generous and loyal to the Jews when he first came to power, but he
turned on them
when his son Sancho rebelled against him and brought civil war to
Castile. He
accused the Jews of aiding his son and of giving him money for his
wars in
Granada. On the second Sabbath in January, in the year 1281 that
Solomon ibn
Alfaqui fled from Castile to Toulouse and thence to England, the
king had the
Jews arrested in their synagogues and would not release them until
they agreed
to pay 4,380,000 gold maravedis, for which coin was raised by the
Jews
throughout the realm. Nevertheless, in Toledo, they we destroyed.
Viziers and
ministers were arrested, hanged burned, and dragged to death. Don
Cag de la
Maleha, who had been Solomon's patron at court, fell from power
and was soon
executed. Solomon's sister, who was a mistress to Alphonse's
nephew, a cousin
and unfortunately an ally to Sancho, was imprisoned with her
family, and his
father was executed. Solomon himself barely escaped.
As he stayed three years
with us,
his affect upon our household history was not inconsequential. My
father was at
first hospitable, as one should be to an exile and a stranger, bu
t he soon
came to dislike our guest so profoundly that his presence alone
threw him into
a temper. Solomon carried his sword at all times. As Jews in
England were not
permitted to carry weapons, my father believed he should forego
this privilege.
His beard was cut in the manner of the hidalgo, which my father
felt was
immodest. He wore an amulet on his chest with Arabic writing on
it, which he
said his nurse had put on him when he was born, and which he wore
in deference
to her. Worse than this, he bore the English ill will and showed
little
gratitude for our hospitality. This wore my father's temper thin.
For his part
Solomon attributed my father's temper to the English climate. "His
thinking is Spanish," my father said.
My grandfather took our
guest with
better humor, while my mother and great grandmother and Clemence
doted on him,
for Solomon had the charm of the storyteller which no one, except
my father,
can resist.
"Castile Ï is my home,"
Solomon declared. "The tide will turn."
"Pray it will," my
father
said.
"We have lived in
Castile for
a thousand years,' Solomon said. His great grandmother, he told
us, had been
the paramour of Alfonso VIII, her father, Omar Joseph ibn Shoshan
had been the
king's vizier. "My great uncle and his children and his children's
children are Christiano viejo rancio y sin mancha." Fortunately,
only my
grandfather understood his language. Solomon brooked no censure
against Castile
or the king. He spent his exile writing a book on the art of
horsemanship and a
verse history of the reigns from Alphonso VIII to Alphonso X. "His
wrath
will not last. We have been with his family too long. We have
lived among the
Moors and know their language and translate their documents for
him. I assure
you, my friends, he needs us and will come to his senses. His
wrath will not
last. He is a man of many moods."
"Kings usually are," my
grandfather said.
I was eleven when
Solomon entered
our home. The Eternal alone knows why a gilded mortal will set the
heart of a
youth aflame, so that until I married and other responsibilities
set my mind
elsewhere, I wished only to fly from this island, to soar and to
see the world
Solomon ibn Alfaqui sang to us about, a world of fountains and
black-eyed
ladies, of speech spoken like song, I wished to be an eagle and be
consumed
with seeing this world.
I followed Solomon
everywhere, to my
father's consternation. I would not be parted from him. What my
father forbade,
I did secretly. Mose and I followed Solomon on all his errands, to
the wharves,
the warehouses, the shops, and whistled to our Gentile friends,
Peter
Smythfield and Tom Redd who were behind a hedge, so they could
hear the tales
of the wars between the Arabs and Christians, the stories of el
Cid and the
Three Rings. "But Castile is a peaceful land," Solomon laughed,
"for the Pope has forbidden us to war on Thursday, and the Moslems
will
not fight on Friday, the Jews will not fight on Saturday, and the
Christians
will not fight on Sunday."
"I warrant they do right
well
the rest of the week," Tom said, "for my uncle was there once and
said pray Spain does not war with England, for in Spain the
knights die in
their armor whilst the Englishman wears nothing but leather."
Mose and I went with Tom
and Peter
where we should not, to bearbaiting and cockfighting, the jousts
and the
markets with slaughtered animals.
One day Mose and I went
with them
to the King's forest where we hid and waited for the hunting party
to go by. We
spied a deer and chased her over a wall where she jumped and fell
and broke her
neck. We jumped the wall and followed after her and found her
bleating on the other
side. As she could not be saved, Tom took out his knife and put an
end to her
and divided her up. He built a fire to have a meal of her, but
Mose and I fled,
for we were forbidden to eat an animal in à this manner.
All night, the deer's
eyes haunted
me, for I knew I had violated the holy mountain. Afterwards, we
were found out
and charged with the death of the King's deer, but Peter
Smythfield stood bail
for me and Mose, so that my father would not hear of this
misdemeanor, and Mose
swore me to silence.
Soon after I went with
my father
one morning to synagogue, to say our prayers. Elisha the Carter,
Gamaliel Oxon,
Elie le Evesk the baker, and Mosse Bonavil the locksmith, not able
to go home
for their breakfast, sat in the courtyard and ate their morning
meal. The sun
was hardly up. They rose upon seeing my father, to say a blessing
in his
presence, and returned to their meals.
Peace to my father's
soul. May it
enter the Kingdom of God and may it plead for my sins. Though he
sleeps beside
my grandfather in the Eternal Dust, he put down in his will to us,
"Torah
is a lamp which will illuminate the world."
Whether from pride or
philosophy,
my grandfather would not satisfy my father on this point. The
issue of the
Maimunists went to the heart of our generation, and set rabbi
against rabbi,
brother against brother and, at last, son against father.
The flowering of these
ideas was
revealed to my father through Solomon ibn Alfaqui who, whether he
read
Maimonides or not, we never ascertained, but he read such poets
who spoke of
the Shekhinah as la Matronita or as a day star in heaven. Yet he
himself mocked
those who thought like him and once surprised us with a verse
satire on such
thinkers.
"Jews so-called who
cherish
Christian lore
Who walk in darkness from Moses' Law estranged,
Who transgress the ages' precepts,
Too blind to esteem the Hebrew faith:
Hebrew we need not know,
Castillian
is our tongue, or Arabic,"
and so on. but he
himself continued
in the same way, and he told us that educated people did not speak
Hebrew in
Castile, that Arabic was the language of civilized people, and
that only
Englishmen spoke French, or even in Provence anyone who wished to
study
philosophy must know Arabic.
"He is worse that the
Gentiles," my father said, "for at least their learned men honor
Hebrew."
So much wrath did
Solomon cause in
him, that even as he stood at his lectern one morning, wrapped in
phylacteries,
he burst out, "Cursed be those who speak of Abraham and Sarah as
matter
and form. Cursed be those who speak of God, rock and redeemer and
everlasting
fountain of mercy, as first cause. Cursed be the allegorist and
cursed be the
astrologists who fix laws in the stars and say there is no divine
will. Cursed
be those who say there is no creator, no miracles, no redemption,
and no
resurrection of the flesh. Cursed be such Jews who pray with
closed lips, who
do not say grace after their meals, who do not bless the world and
soon will
come to say, as there is no Creator so there is no world but only
cause and effect.
Cursed be they who write such scabrous poetry, for what can be the
practice of
their ideas?"
My grandfather too stood
in prayer
at his lectern at the window. "Practice!" he said. He was not
himself
easy with these ideas, but he considered it his duty, as he was
the sole
defendant in this community in England, of the scholars of
Provence against
whom anathemas were growing, to defend them. He was proud of the
place of his
birth and sometimes let slip the feeling that Solomon was not
altogether wrong in
his impatience with our community. He respected my father's
learning but
believed my father lacked a quality of refinement which he had in
abundance.
"Your father was," he once said to me, "bred an Englishman. This
is no fault of his. No doubt the Creator is fond of him, and as we
are made in
the image of Ha Shem, we should be likewise."
It was not fair of my
grandfather
to say this, hinting at his own lineage, but not less fair than it
was for my
father to walk with him with a huge stride and make him lag
behind.
"Can a poor uneducated man read philosophy?" my father asked,
winding
and unwinding his phylacteries. "Will this new teaching not divide
rich
from poor, for the unschooled must be left behind, and who are
these
philosophers and proponents but courtiers and grandees who speak
Arabic and
Catalan but cannot read Hebrew aloud in a bountiful voice? What
can be the aim
of such teaching?"
"The aim?" my
grandfather
said in a voice he deemed suited to the message. "The aim is
contemplation."
My father left the room.
The issue was not
Aristotle or
Maimonides, but our civilization which we now felt threatened from
within as
without. But what a man will not say in life he will say in death,
for who
would wish to write a lie into the book of Eternity. Thus, my
grandfather put
down in his will to us, "More than the calf needs to suck, the for
needs
heifer needs to suckle it. Remember always to praise the universe,
though the
Creator does not need your praise." And though he quarreled with
my father
every day that he lived, he inscribed on his tombstone, "Wisdom is
acquired, but charity is from the heart."
Solomon made his home
with us for
three years, until Alphonso's son came to power and word went out
that the new
king welcomed Jews back to the realm. We heard that Solomon's
cousin, Don
Abraham el Barchilas, had secured a two-year lease from Don Sancho
and had the
crown's permission to mint the coin of the realm. The new king
turned over the
revenues of Fronteras Toledo and Murcia to Jews, so that they
could raise
interest on it. We heard that friends of Solomon, the courtiers el
rab don
Yucaf and el rab don Samuel de Vallodolid, were called back and in
time Solomon
was too. He wrote a poem to commemorate the occasion.
"Before I go to one of
flesh
and blood,
I shall praise God
That He might turn to my will the heart
of the king and the nobles
May my liege command his vassals."
"All is well again, my
grandfather said.
The pleasure of soon
returning
transformed Solomon. "Castile is my home," he said. So much
goodwill
he now had that he complimented my great grandmother and Clemence
on their
cooking, who had always taken pains to please him. My great
grandmother baked
special breads for him and at the Sabbath meal covered his fish
with special
wines and herbs. Now, in turn, he gave us dainty riddles to puzzle
us with at
the table and sang such songs as we had never heard: "Ophra bathes
her
garments in the waters of my tears and dries them in the sunshine
of my bright
eyes," and all day long sang songs of adoration to women: to
Clairette, to
Adelasie, to, Bausette, to Florette, to Emeline, to Beatrice, to
Stephanette.
"It is well that he is
returning," my father said, 'he' needs a wife."
Solomon confessed that
he was
betrothed "to a beautiful woman from Navarre," whose name,
Preciosa,
he uttered like a nightingale. My father expressed his surprise,
seeing his
years, that he was not yet married to her. With greater generosity
of spirit
than my father was prepared for, Solomon answered him that if he
married her he
would not be able to worship her, and he continued to sing his
songs to
Rambause and to Jeanne, to Laura and to Flora, and soon addressed
my mother as
Donna Florria-Sara.
My father wrote to Rabbi
ibn Adret
in Barcelona of his misgivings for the Jewish people in the
Sepharad, and there
began a correspondence between them which determined my father to
enter the
Maimunist controversy which, as it affected then only the
communities of the
Midi and Champagne, we never expected to entangle ourselves, or
that this small
wedge of concern would grow so wide as to cause division among our
people.
In the meantime, Solomon
made his
preparation to depart for Castile in a spirit of gaiety which
embraced us all.
I followed him about in the markets, through the wharves and the
Chepe.
Sometimes my grandfather joined us. They would speak together in
Arabic, or
Solomon would recite verses from Judah Halevi and ibn Gabirol. So
much he knew
that I did not! Stars fell from his lips.
He accompanied my
grandfather to
synagogue, and as he managed to adjust his gait to my
grandfather's, my
grandfather announced that he "walked once more as a man among men
and not
as a stranger among strangers," and regretted his departure. I did
not see
him again until I went to Rome in the year of the Pastoreaux,
where I had heard
that he now made his home and sought him out. The year in which he
left our
home, Castile eclipsed Zion for me as a place where Jews lived as
they lived
nowhere else, where they carried swords and wore jewels and where
kings
beckoned to them.
My father left us that
year for a
brief while, for our great leader and light, Rabbi Meir ben Baruch
of Worms,
had been imprisoned as he planned to leave for Palestine, and was
kept as hostage
for the Jews who had left the city, as it was charged that the
taxes from them
were now lost. He was imprisoned in the fortress Enisheim near
Colmar. My
father and my uncle went abroad to raise money to redeem him, and
went with the
others where they could to redeem him, but Rabbi ben Baruch
refused to come
out, fearing to set a pattern for extortion from our communities.
Great sums
were raised, but as he forbade payment to be given for him he
lingered in
prison for eight years where he died, whence we later paid for his
body to bury
it.
When my father returned
home, he
hastened to betroth me, seeing I was now fifteen. But troubles
ensued in that
year. The prophet of Avila came out and declared himself to be the
Messiah and
went to Rome to undertake the conversion of the Pope, causing much
dissension
and anger, as did the Dominican friar, Robert de Redingge, who
converted to
Judaism. He underwent circumcision and took the name of Haggai and
married a
Jewess, for which reason riots broke out in Exeter, in Lincoln and
in Norwich.
My uncle's house was broken into. The thieves contrived to enter
through a
window on the top floor, broke his box and made off with the
debtors' notes. My
uncle could not protest, for he did not wish it known that he
continued to lend
on interest. His daughters, of which he had four, having now no
dowries, my
grandfather and my father pledged for two of them. A year later,
my uncle
received back the capital from one borrower and a note which said
that that was
all that he was required to do by the law, and seeing that the
king profited
more than all, and seeing that his children were now penniless, he
would not
have him think all Christians poor debtors, and wished to set his
soul straight
and be quits with the Jew. It lifted my uncle's spirits, but no
more was
returned and nothing More to be done, for which cause he fell into
greater
trouble, and was later hanged.
At this time, we
travelled to
Lincoln for the wedding of my father's É niece, that Judith,
daughter of
Belaset of Duelcresse, of whom you now know. This wedding was
grander than my
father's wedding to which many notables in the realm came, and two
illustrious
knights and a great table set for the poor, so that I heard it
said there were
no less than five hundred guests, and my father brought my mother
fine clothes
for it. She carried a fan of ostrich feathers and had a bodice of
pearls. The
house stirred with preparation for the trip There now were I and
my brother,
Mose, my brother Elie, Clemence, my mother, my grandfather, my
great
grandmother, my father, my aunt and my uncle. We gave Mellisent to
a neighbor
to care for while we were gone, and with boxes., and gifts went
across the
frozen roads. It was my first journey from the city. Beyond the
cemetery and
the fields and the woods, Mose and I had not been. We sat quiet as
we were bid,
but alert. Ellie cried most of the way and was passed from hand to
hand. In
Lincoln the other wedding guests stayed at the inn, but we stayed
in the house
of our kinswoman, Belaset Duelcresse, in High Street, which as I
have told you
was grander than ours in London, all in stone, with a corbelled
chimney over
the doorway, decorated, I have heard it said, after Bishop
Alexander's work in
Lincoln Cathedral, for which pride she paid dearly. The windows
had a shaft
between them and gave out two lights. The wedding feast lasted
seven days and
never did the food or the music stop, for her Gentile neighbors
played on the
Sabbath when the Jewish musicians would not, and as Judith was her
only child and
she was widowed and a woman of great skill in business, said to be
able to cast
sums and to read Latin as well as Hebrew, who had done business
with knights
and bishops, she stinted nothing for her daughter's wedding, not
in wine or
food or song so that even my great grandmother, with flesh and
age, danced
withal. As the proverb says, the woman of sixty runs to the sound
of music as a
girl of six.
Descendants, keep all
your
occasions for rejoicing, keep the festivals of life with joy, be
not niggardly with
your pleasures, for they are your guarantors against pain. The
Lord God has
given you these festivals for rejoicing. Remember them, for they
will keep your
souls sweet with memory in your time of travail. As spices are to
a meal, so
are festivals to the soul.
So we sang to the groom
and fetched
him at dawn on Friday to go to the synagogue where we greeted him
with light
from our torches and with music from our instruments, and then
fetched his
bride to meet him in the courtyard and when she entered, the
congregation cast
wheat to them and sang their blessings, the bride led back to her
house to
await her groom who went with us inside the synagogue, attired in
his tallith,
and we blessed him with psalm and with hymn and brought him back
to his bride,
and I gave them honey and milk and a white egg, and everything
that was done,
and the words that I was bid to bless them with, Be fruitful and
multiply,
because I was young, seemed done for my sake and burdened with
mystery, and I
looked upon everything that happened, the breaking of the glass,
the wearing of
special shoes, the canopy over the bridal pair, as immemorial
gestures from the
deep well of our being, not knowing then that custom is as mortal
as the flesh,
and that we may grieve for its passing as for the passing of a
friend.
"Aye, Will, so we mourn
when
we be taken from that home upon which our eyes first set. In truth
his heart
was heavy with memory for I know myself that never is that grass
so green as
that which grew beneath our feet when we were young. But as he saw
this Belaset
no more, and as he had seen her the once, what more could he say
of her? And
before he could say the little that he knew, his wife called
Gertrude, asks me
how does the world in Exeter, for she hailed from there a long
time ago. I tell
her I have never been to Exeter, have never been but in York until
I came to go
out of England.
Aye, says her husband,
it is of
York I wish now to tell you and of your ancestor there. And he
tells me again
of this Belaset to which he bids me hearken, for she was a great
usurer or
usuress and cast her sums so well she cast up great wealth for
herself which
was sent by and by to be kept in the king's chest in York. For as
you have
heard, Will, when the Jews were in the land the king ordered their
treasure
chests to be kept in each city where the Jews lived nor could the
Jews live but
where their chests were kept, so that the king had the record of
their doings
and could know whereof to lay the tax on them, and the treasure
chests were kept
by the king's lock and key, so no ruffian could come ” by it. As
the Jews were
the servants of the treasury in the realms of Christendom, the
kings kept their
treasure where they could mind it, for by his law he was the
inheritor of the
usurer's wealth when the usurer died. So the king laid his claim
to this
Belaset when, lo! the treasure was absconded with and disappeared
from the
king's realm. A like treasure appeared in York and the baron there
laid claim
to it. He said it was from that time of Aaron of York of which you
have heard.
All this while Belaset's treasure moved about from Lincoln to York
to
Fountainville Abbe and many there were who laid claim to it, the
king and the
baron and the bishops and the abbots, for the bishops said that
inasmuch as the
church disliked usury, and inasmuch as the Jew was in servitude to
the church,
the church had the right to the Jew's treasure, and the king said
that inasmuch
as he made the laws of the realm and inasmuch as the Jew was the
servant of his
treasury and the law declared that the usurer's profit went to the
crown, he
had the right to the Jew's treasure and often times, as you know,
the king and
the barons went to war with each other for the Jew's treasure as
when they
burned the Jews in York and the barons broke open their box and
King Richard
was so wrathful he put in down for a law that henceforth he would
keep the box
himself.
And what shall I tell
you, Will,
that as he went with on this tale, I saw where it would take me,
for this
Belaset was charged with the clipping of the coin, which scandal
you have heard
about, and she was hanged by the neck on the scaffold for this
with two hundred
and ninety-nine others, Jews and Christians. And this Judith, as
you shall
hear, lived this while in York with her husband's kin and when the
news was
brought her that her mother ?was hanged by the neck for the
clipping of the
king's coin, she sickened and could not be delivered of a child
until such time
as the Expulsion came, when she was brought down in labor and this
time
delivered withal, but she died in the doing of it. Her husband was
taken a
prisoner and went from the island in the Great Expulsion and the
child was
brought to Fountainville Abbey, but what became of the treasure I
know not.
My heart began to knock
within, for
so long I sought my own, that I could not be but bitter to know
that my own was
hung as a common criminal, withal two illustrious knights and a
bishop had come
to her daughter's wedding. And I would I had not found my own. Nor
was this all
the misfortune, for it seems the uncle too was hanged in that year
for the
clipping of the coin and his grandmother died from the grief of it
and is
buried in the Jew's cemetery in London. Mis ªfortune fell fast
upon these Jews
for their misdeeds for all in the realm were put in prison as a
punishment for
what this Belaset and the others did, and his own mother was put
in prison and
was delivered of her fourth child there, and this Menaheim and his
betrothed
and his father and his grandfather and that servant, Clemence who
said she
would go where they go for she would not be parted from her
mistress, were all
put into prison.
Master Menaheim could
see by my
face that I was not pleased with my past now that I had it. In
truth, I cried
out, 'What! Have I searched this long while to find that my great
grandmother
was hanged by the neck for crimes against the king, for usury and
counterfeiting coin!'
His wife, who lay
snoring on the
sand this while, roused herself at my outcry and said, 'Have you
no better
word?'
I looked at my star on
the sand.
'Nay,' I said, 'I have not. My soul is pinched with this past,'
and I began to
cry.
His wife who had little
patience
with her husband's tale had no patience at all with my sorrow. 'We
be your
kin,' she said. 'Kin come as kin come. I be of Exeter English and
speak the
English tongue as you do.'
I looked fully at her
now to see
how I would like seeing she was my nearest kin. In truth, she was
nothing much
to look at, ruddy in complexion, as her husband said she was of
Exeter, with a
wen upon her face, by the nose with a tuft of hair upon it, and
stocky in the
hips, I wondered if they all be so ruddy in that part England, or
only the Jews
be that way.
And further more and
moreover,
rousing herself more and more, she dismissed her husband's tale
and said she
would tell her own, for while she could not read nor write, her
tongue failed
her not and telling him to hold his, she told me the sad tale of
how her
husband came to fetch her as a bride and she came to London with
her dowry and
her kin when the order went out that all the Jews in the island be
put in
prison again, and so she went with her wedding party and knew not
her husband
until the king prevailed upon the Jews to pay him 20,000 silver
marks for their
release. 'Aha!' she cried out and spat upon the sand.
'What!' I said, 'spent
you your
wedding nights in prison?'
'Aye. And that was a
wicked thing
to do to a young maid. I know not if it be not more wicked to put
a young maid
freshly married in prison than to put an old one in a winekeg.
Fair I was then,
fifteen and waiting to be plucked, as fair then as am I now
fermented.'
Such misfortune I did
commiserate
with. 'I trust you found him in the hale afterwards,' I said.
'Six children I have
birthed. Each
one fell ripe from me as an apple, but one was plucked by the
monks of the
Rhine.' And here she began to weep, so fresh the memory of it was
upon her mind
though it seems that it happened a score of years ago or more. Her
husband went
to head her off from her lament, but she would not be headed off
and her ruddy
face got ruddier and her sorrow bubbled forth. 'My sweet, my
sweet,' she wept,
'I cannot find you anymore, for there is not even a grave to mark
the place
where I may come and pray for you. Our father Abraham when he
pledged his son
to God, God courteously returned him Isaac, but the Christian
returns me not my
son, and down she laid herself upon the beach and began to wail
and we began to
plead with her o come to, come to. 'What boots the tears?' I said.
'It boots not,' she
said, but gave
not up her bubbling.
'Then give over,' I said
and gave
her my skirt to blow nose in.
The waves began to dance
upon the
shore, and she sat up again to settle her misery. 'Aye,' she said,
"I know
not what boots it in this world anymore, for sometimes I would I
were back in
England, in my mother's lap among the hills and the cows and the
river I knew
in my girlhood. Give over, I say to myself, you are now a
grandmother, What
boots it to long for the hills of your youth and the cows that be
no more. I
know not where it has gone, but I would I be again with my babes
about me and I
would I be with them in the hills of Exeter where my mother could
lay her eyes
upon them and say a word to them. I would I were away to the place
where I was
born.'
'Give over,' I said
again to her,
and I shall listen to you and Master Menaheim can rest his
tongue.'
'Nay,' she said, 'he has
written it
down in his book and though I cannot read it I would that it stood
for us
twain, for he is a learned man and I have nought but the tongue in
my head. His
will is for our children both.'
Such was her strange way
that with
one hand she put him forth and with the other took him back. She
said he was a
learned man and she had no learning at all, but she corrected
everything he
said and would have it no way but her own. She urged him to
continue, but ever
he opened his mouth she had something to say. But continue he did
as a man must
do the best he can even in a storm of winds, and he began again.
'We soon left England,
my
grandfather first. For Clemence sickened with a cough and soon
after died and
my grandfather returned to Provence to bury her there. What more
shall I say?
More than any people I have known, she was a stranger in this
earth, for there
was not even a cemetery to bury her in. For which reason my
grandfather
returned with her though he it out as the reason that he would
stay no more in
England, that the English king was as bad as the French one and
knew no
government for the Jews but tax and tallage and ransom, and he
could no longer
eat food that was always moist and where the salt would not flow.
He prepared
her coffin from the wood of his lectern, and we went to the wharf
to see them
put upon the barge.
We left England
ourselves in the
following year, but saw my grandfather no more, learning that he
was buried in
Carcassonne, for his will was delivered to us in which he
conjoined upon us
these promises: Be not dreaded in thy own house, for this is the
cause of many
evils; honor your wives, withhold not honor from them, but do bit
permit them
to rule over you. Sleep not with the light of the moon on your
face, especially
if the moon is new. Give of all thy food a portion to God. Let
God's portion be
the best and give it to the poor. Keep faith with everyone, Jew
and Gentile.
Utter nothing but the truth to mankind. Sleep not overmuch but
rise with the
birds. If they can, you can. Take care of your books; guard them
against mice
and dampness. The women of our family are used to the ways of
scholars;
therefore, help them to prosecute their studies that they may
speak with their
husbands. They have no luxurious tastes and will not waste
themselves with
extravagant expenditures. Marry a woman who is beautiful in body,
and you will
want for nothing more. Be constant to her and train her character,
and if she
is beautiful many blessings will flow. Keep from scholiasts to
whom philosophy
is the handmaid of scoffing. How can I know God and that He is One
unless I
know what knowing means and what constitutes unity? Why should
these things be
left to non-Jewish philosophers? Why should Aristotle retain sole
possession of
treasures he stole from Solomon? No one really knows the true
meaning of loving
God and fearing Him unless he is acquainted with natural science
and
metaphysics. Why should I be ashamed of pursuing this knowledge?
Can one man be
skilled in everything, even a Jew in the Law? Once I had guests to
dinner and
the maid accidentally put a butter spoon into the meat dish. Not
knowing how to
correct the matter, I hastened from the table to consult a wiser
rabbi. He told
me the law and I returned home where my guests greeted me with
commendation for
my zeal. But is not the faculty of expounding the knowledge and
the unity of
God of as great weight as familiarity with the law concerning a
butter spoon? I
say nothing against those who devote themselves solely to halachic
matters, but
I would say that they also give ear to my plea, and I will pray
for their
reward in the World to Come. But if my descendants should acquire
a love for
philosophy, I caution them not to commence metaphysical studies
until the age
of twenty, and to continue in all things to read the Torah. Cast
my vote thus
if it should come to it among the scholars of Lunel. Remember to
carry my voice
there and to cast my vote without rancor.
For which reasons my
father
instructed us to bury him next to my grandfather's grave, and for
the reason
that we could not return to bury him in the Wood Street cemetery
where my
mother sleeps with her daughter. For this reason, too, I pray you,
my
descendants, raise the money to petition the king, bring him a
goodly gift with
your request, and return to remember the graves of your ancestors
that they not
be cut off from the house of Israel.
For our house escheated
to the
king, our synagogue to the Friars. We made our way to the wharf
with our
belongings, our kin and neighbors, my brothers Elie, Jehude, Mose
now
seventeen, for whom we had a wife chosen in Cologne. He would be
settled in her
father's house, who was a silversmith and so would be one too. The
musician,
Leo Cresse, Rosia Truyte the widow Manser Aaron and his wife,
Flora; our
shoijet, Anter vid Vines, his wife and children, Gamaliel Oxon,
the
stone-cutter, Jorven Sackerel, Elie le Evesk the baker, Muriel
Cresse, Aaron
Slemne in St. Olave Jewry; Abraham Matron the goldsmith, Sarra
Diei,
tradeswoman; Benedict Mayer, tanner, his wife and son, Samson
afterwards
settled in Troyes; Jacobus Bonamie permitted by the king to settle
in Paris; Elie
Braggard, Bateman Cresse from Lade Street, Benedict Muriel the
carpenter from
Milke Street; Sarra Oxon, cloth merchant, Solomon the mule seller,
Isaac Muriel
the basket weaver, and Eliezer ben Muriel the sheepherder; kinsmen
from Norwich
and elsewhere, all who walked in procession, at my mother's
wedding, and their
descendants.
Much talk and rue and
glances from
the sailors, sympathy in some and greed in others. Gertrude
weeping that her
mother stayed behind whether for good or ill, we could not know,
for many among
us believed we would return, but others spoke otherwise, and the
elderly who
remembered petitioning Henry to let us leave when we could no
longer raise the
tax, spoke bitterly: 'When N would, he would not and when we would
not, he
would.'
Aye, aye, aye, and aye.
So the talk went. Much
rue and
regrets that such and such should have been done, or such and such
should not
have been done, but the event being unprecedented in ³its scale,
our talk
brought us little comfort and no enlightenment. Gamaliel put it
down for a
memorial on my mother's tombstone: Departed, the Jews of England:
4,650.
The crowds were kept
away by the
king's army, which he commanded and watched from a distance. My
father, as
Edward's delegate, was kept in the Tower until we were all
answered for. Many
had departed from Hull and elsewhere and were gone by now. I stood
with
Gertrude, Mose, Elie and Jehude together, until my father was
permitted to join
us on the wharf. In the distance, Edward sat upon his horse,
surrounded by his
noblemen. He ventured to say goodbye, for some services my father
had done him.
'Know I bear you no
grudge, for you
have served the realm faithfully in a faithless task, but as I can
no longer
protect you, I send you out for the peace of the realm, for the
people will not
have it otherwise. The means of your service is foul corruption
and breeds
corruption, and for this we cannot thank you. Nor f or this alone
do we banish
you, but that your religion too is false to Christendom, and is a
worm that eats
up our roots. It is therefore in the interest of this realm to put
your bodies
outside our kingdom. Your souls we must leave to God.'
We stood, Gertrude and
1, my
brothers, kinsmen and friends, surrounded by the lords of this
English realm. I
write words now that harried me silently that day: 'Kings of
Christendom,
Lords, Masters and Prelates, for you are the masters of the earth
today and we
are the servants of your treasury. But not one of us here is
confused by this
earthly arrangement. We know who our true Master is.'
My father said only to
Edward: 'May
you stand at the gate to the world's treasure-house. May I hear
only well of
you, that you thrive. As England has been our home these many
centuries, we
will pray for her safety and yours.'
Mastering his grief for
this and
our mother's death, he turned and gave us his blessing. 'The God
of Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob will be with you and keep you. Think nothing of
this journey.
He will surely follow you and be with you.'
So we crossed the
channel and came
to Calais. It being a short while to Rosh Hashanah, we stayed for
Holy Days,
and as the Jews here have the custom to cast their sins into the
water on the
holiday, we stood them on the shore and said with them the words
from the
prophet, Micah. Some of our women wept to watch the waves roll
backwards to
England, but my father bid them turn to their new homes and give
thanks that we
found Jews on this shore to receive us with honey and with apples.
Soon after, we went our
separate
ways. As we could not stay in Philip's realms, we went north and
south, but for
Bonami whom Philip sent word to that he was to settle in Paris as
he had use of
him there. Rosa Truyte and Abraham Matron to Rome, where we had
afterwards good
news of them, and I betrothed my son Ephraim to his daughter.
Moscus Crispin
and his family to Galicia, Isaac Muriel and his kin to Sicily, Leo
Cresse and
his kin to Bexier whence they Sanctified the Name in the year of
the
Pastoreaux, Elisha the Carter and Mosse Bonavil to Troyes withal
the king said
no; also Benedict Mayer and his son Samson to Blois where he too
met with
others who stayed secretly. Jorvin Sackerel to Venice, and
Gamaliel and his kin
to Troyes, and afterwards to Rome. The rest north with us to Worms
and
Strassbourg, our shoijet with us to Andemach, some to Regensbourg,
other to
Cologne.
My father, Gertrude and
I to
Andernach, for we heard that Archbishop Siegfried there had much
sympathy for
Jews and upheld their rights. May the Eternal grant him the reward
of the just,
for his fame was founded on truth. While he lived, we had his
protection. In
all matters affecting our well-being he consulted us, and when our
lives were
threatened he brought us into his fortress for protection, nor
would allow a
Jew who had committed a misdemeanor be tried only by Christians.
Because he sought
justice we found
mercy, and while he lived we were safe and pursued judgment in our
own courts
and had our school and synagogue and mikveh for our women, a
cemetery, a
bakehouse and a dance hall for merriment. My second son, Ephraim,
was born
here; my first Isaac, was born upon the sea, and we lived again in
a stone
house and had a garden and a goat for its milk and a hen for her
eggs and for
the sake of the Law; three daughters, Josette, Margit and, Henne,
and two more
sons, Ephraim and Jeshua, our youngest. Mose and his wife stayed
in Cologne
where he worked and traded in silver and his wife bore him Leo and
Ali,
Bikette, Ester and Jurette. Our only dismay during this time was
that his
wife's father, with thirteen other Jews, were pawned the Margrave
in return for
debts which the king had incurred. I was confirmed by this to stay
in Andernach
and not move to Cologne, albeit one could practice medicine there
more
prosperously. I pursued my studies in Talmud, and clandestinely in
philosophy,
for my father lived with us. For the sake of peace in the
household, I pursued
these studies in silence, for I am by nature not an argumentative
man.
'What!' Gertrude said.
But Master
Menaheim paid her no mind and went his way and I could see in
truth he was not
an argumentative man.
'My father grieved for
my mother's
death. He sent word many times to Edward, asking permission to
return for a
short while 'for reasons of memory.' But Edward first responded
that he could
not answer for my father's life and he should allow more time to
pass; and then
that the time was not propitious; and then 'that it was neither
suitable nor
seemly,' and so on. My father kept my mother's ring on his lectern
and continued
to wait for a favorable response.
Other affairs called him
out. The
clouds of discord were gathering in the communities of Provence,
and many now
pressed for a ban on the study of philosophy though each community
governed
itself and was, responsible for the education of its own, and no
one wished to
trespass on these rights. But Jewish learning had decayed so far
that many who
wished to uphold the independence of communities, also wished to
lay down a
uniform code of guidance. I and my father went to the Synods. We
disagreed with
each other here and there and there and there, but not there and
here and, at
last, when it came to the issue of the ban, we separated.
Rabbis and students came
to our
house to consult him on this and on matters closer to home.
Archbishop
Siegfried was a frequent visitor too, for great souls find one
another. When
the persecutions of Rindfleisch drove the Jews from the east into
our valley,
and there was fear for our own lives because of their swelling
numbers, he took
counsel with my father, and his word among his own people did much
to calm them
so that when the tide looked to break upon us as well, he turned
it aside where
it lost itself amid other doings.
For this reason, my
descendants,
you shall keep his name for a memorial in the Book of Life, for it
is written
that the Righteous of all the nations shall enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven.
Our problems were more
often of
smaller moment. Here was a husband who wished to divorce his wife
because hair
grew upon her bosom, and though hair had grown upon her bosom when
he first
married her and though he had had six children by her, he could
abide it no
more. Here was a woman who came to our court and complained that
her husband
had deserted her for six years, in which time she had made a good
business for
herself in trading and lending money on interest, and now he
claimed his place
back as her husband. Here was ¼ a tanner who was brought to our
court by two
wives, both of whom claimed him, a small man with no prepossessing
qualities, no
learning, no bearing, not even height, yet both women claimed him
with ardor.
Here was a woman who set herself up to live apart from her
husband, and when he
brought her to court, could give no reason. As, she remained
silent under all
questioning we were perplexed as to what to do. This trial
continued for, many
months and her case became notorious. Her husband ranted and
cursed, but the
wife would say neither yea nor nay. My father wrote to others for
an opinion.
Rabbi Holtzner declared her intractable and advised that she
forfeit all claims
in the settlement. Rabbi Perez and Rabbi Hushiel came to Andernach
to give
their judgment. Rabbi Perez said that perhaps for reasons of
delicacy and honor
she not say what her reason was and that she should not be
punished for her
silence. Rabbi Hushiel said if she would not say yea or nay she
must forfeit
her right to the Ketubah, at least. Rabbi Perez contended that one
must not
confuse delicacy for intractability or be punished for wishing to
preserve the
honor of the Name. 'Perhaps the husband beat her, and she will not
say for the
sake of the Honor of God.'
'What's that!' Rabbi
Hushiel said.
'What!' Gertrude said,
and sat bolt
upright.
'What's that?' Rabbi
Hushiel said.
'That is a thing not done among our people and Rabbi Perez should
not raise he
suspicion of it.'
'I only wish to suggest
that the
woman's silence may be to her honor. Perhaps we should not coerce
her to tell
us.'
'But where there is
silence, how
can there be a decision?'
My father heard them out
and then
gave his judgment, which became known as the Law of the
Intractable Wife, and
which became a judgment for all time among our people. 'Silence
for some issues
may be deemed a more honorable defense than babble. Where a wife
no longer can
speak of her husband it may be from a surfeit of causes rather
than from the
absence of any. If the husband has developed such habits or
infirmities which
make her life intolerable, he is obliged to divorce her. They can
neither deny
their original relationship nor deny their present need to
separate but must
affirm both and go their separate ways as distant relatives. The
wife forfeits
her right to the Ketubah but receives back intact the property she
came with.'
'How like you this
ruling?'
Gertrude said to me.
I knew not the Jews had
such a
ruling,' I said, which I tell it to you, Will, that you will lay
upon your
heart all that master Menaheim said in the following.
'Where such cases
involved our own
we went our way, while Archbishop Siegfried lived and guarded our
interests.
When attacks were made upon our synagogues or our lives, he
pursued our
molesters, and in times of riot brought us into his fortress for
protection. In
the sixth year after we arrived, a Jew who lent money on interest
was attacked
and killed by his Christian debtor. Archbishop Siegfried had the
man captured
and tried by jury of Christians and Jews. Though he condemned Jew
for his usury
he pointed out that murder was not a remedy for it and he who
would borrow
knowingly from a usurer was no less guilty than he who lent
knowingly, that
Christians could not be quit of their debts to Jews by murdering
them. For this
reason, we had much cause for sorrow when he died. Afterwards, his
successor
transferred us to the Archbishop of Cologne who pawned our income
to
Constantine von Lysolfskirchen.
Even though we went our
way but
according to the laws lived in the towns, there were many cases of
injury and
assault and battery between Jew and Christian. Here a man claimed
that a Jew's
cart had overturned in the street and killed his pig and h Èe
claimed damage
for the pig; and the Jew claimed that a stone from the man's well
lay in the
path of his cart and he claimed damage for the cart. Here a
Christian claimed
that a Jew made the harness for his horse and that the harness was
not made
properly and that he fell from the horse and broke his leg and he
claimed
damage for his leg and the harness; and here a Jew claimed that he
had hired a
mason to build his house and the chimney had fallen in and the
house had caught
on fire. While Archbishop Siegfried lived, he consulted us on all
such issues
and required a Jewish witness in cases involving a Jewish
defendant.
At this time, there were
two cases
that acquired such fame that bishops and clergymen and rabbis from
the Rhine
valley gathered to hear them, and the citizens of Andemach were
pleased by the
prosperity this brought them. One was the case of the Jewess,
Matilda, who
objected to her husband's occupation as an innkeeper, for she said
it made a
servant of her and she had nought but cooking and cleaning to do
and she wished
to go about the town like her neighbors. She made her complaint
known to her
Christian neighbor, whose house she would frequently visit and in
whose company
she was wont to about in town. In time she left her husband, and
her Christian
neighbor took her in, but the neighbor asked a priest what to do
for she knew
not how to feed her. This priest, Egbert, zealous for his faith,
took the
Jewess to Cologne and put her in the Domus Conversos. The husband
made
complaint to my father that his wife had been abducted. My father
learned of
her whereabouts and went to Cologne to examine her, and brought
back the news
that the wife had left her husband's house willingly. The
Christian neighbor
swore that this was so, that the woman had come to her house at
twilight, of
her own will, but that she herself had sought the priest for she
did not know
how to feed her, and did not wish offend. The priest was examined
and said that
he had explained all in plain terms to the Jewess, who had agreed
to go with
him to Cologne and undergo conversion. As she was a simple woman,
his terms,
though plain, were not plain enough for her. In time, she repented
of her
decision and as she was instructed in Latin by the nuns who cared
for her,
which language she could not understand, she tired and asked to be
returned to
her husband. As he was a Cohen by descent, he was loath to take
her back, for
though she swore that nought but grass and salt had passed her
lips, he
suspected her purity and, moreover, her chastity, for the
reputation of the
neighbor was known to all. She was examined by three rabbis for
her chastity,
and by the Archbishop and the bishop as to whether she was now a
Christian. The
nuns swore that as she had not yet been baptized, they served her
from separate
plates and neither mixed their linen nor their wine with hers.
Archbishop
Siegfried deferred the matter to my father. After a time, my
father agreed that
he was satisfied with respect to her chastity, but the priest
Egbert was not
satisfied on any account and caused us much trouble, for he gave
out that the
woman had become a Christian and that we had abducted her back,
for which
reason some Christians burned down her husband's inn and he, no
longer being an
innkeeper, his wife no longer had this complaint against him.
While Archbishop
Siegfried lived,
our people began to go about in fine clothes again and took to
playing cards
among themselves and even with their Christian neighbors. They
raged for
adornment, particularly the women, so that we took alarm for the
harm it might
cause us. Heretofore, because of the decree that all Jewish men
above the age
of twelve should dress in black but that our Jewish women, because
of their
weakness could dress in colors, there was now a saying abroad that
our Jewish
men were akin to the coal burner's mule but our women to the
Pope's horse. They
even put off wearing the badge, for the priests in Andenach looked
the other
way. We passed decrees that our women must yield their jewels and
their silks,
but many more would not than would, my wife among them. And others
who had come
to our valley from Spain, said they would return to Spain where
they could wear
all the jewelry they wished to.
We issued stricter laws
regarding
the dress of our women, but so much they came under the influence
of Italy and
Spain where even the Christian women go about bejeweled as birds,
as I saw on
my journey there, wearing silks and sashes and gold chains and
strings of
pearls and headgear as I cannot say how they sit upon their heads,
that it was
no use. So much our women loved these new fashions, that they
defied us openly
and caused us ¤much harm. My wife flung off her judicious clothes
and went
abroad with her neighbors in jewels and pearls and even to
synagogue dressed
ever more in stranger attire so that we knew them not from one
year to the
next. And worse on Purim, when the young men also threw away
caution and took
off their black clothes and went about in masks and even carried
swords and
daggers.
Rabbi Perez and Rabbi
Hushiel made
their views known to my father, and my father made them known to
Archbishop
Siegfried that he must take measures to restrain our women, for
they no longer
would be restrained by us, and on holidays filled the streets with
their
headgear and bejeweled clothes, causing many to gape at them.
Master Menaheim was
interrupted by
his wife, for she would not give over that it was a sinful thing
to go dressed
in finery. 'I do not like green and it was all the law would
allow.'
In truth, it did not
suit her, for
she was green in color, but whether it was from mold or nature I
could not say.
'What shall I say?'
Master Menaheim
said, 'the time of Archbishop Siegfried was coming to an end, when
we would be
transferred to the imperial fief, but we knew it not and reckoned
it not. Our
women went abroad in any manner they wished, and my father sat in
judgment, and
they ignored his judgment.
Came that year a clamor
from our
people that there was no meat to be had and none could say why. An
investigation was made, and our shoijet was brought before the
court, whereupon
he threw himself on our mercy and asked permission to leave his
work. He
complained that of late his heart troubled him when he slaughtered
the animals.
He told the court how one afternoon when he had gone to the barn
to take out a
calf for slaughtering this calf's mother had let out a terrible
moo. So
terrible it was he heard the voice of Rachmana holding back his
arm even as it
had held back the arm of Abraham from slaughtering Isaac. At
first, the shoijet
said, he ignored the Voice and led the calf away, though its
mother continued
to moo so that he heard it now in his sleep all the time and could
not sleep
anymore. When he brought the calf into the slaughtering house she
lay her head
in his lap and began to cry. His arm became paralyzed. He could
not do his work
anymore and begged to be retired.
There was an uproar in
the court
when my father commanded him to go back. Rabbi Perez said it was
unjust to
demand that a man do the work of slaughtering when he would not.
Rabbi Hushiel
said it was work which only one of strong heart must do, and as
this shoijet
was no longer fit, he should be retired. My father said, 'No, he
and he alone
is fit, for his heart is filled with mercy and dread.' He reminded
the court of
Rabbi Gaon's judgment, that the animal was not created by God in
order that
evil should be inflicted upon it, but for the sake of good.
Animals that do
harm, snakes and scorpions and such, may be killed. Living
creatures that do
not harm us and that are not needed for food should not be killed
but allowed
to go their way. If suffering comes upon the shoijet for his deeds
this is the
chastisement of love that God sends upon His chosen. For this
reason, the
shoijet must go back: to find the path between necessity and
mercy, for another
may not search for it.'
Thus, my youthful deed
was judged,
and I was found guilty. Praised be he who judged me. May he be
received with
honor upon the Mountain of the Lord.
We lived in peace with
our Gentile
neighbors, but my father's health began to fail, being now in his
seventieth
year. Still, he prepared himself to journey Montpellier, to make
his voice
heard in the debate. Rabbi Asher had asked for a convocation to
consider means
of reconciling our divisions. No one wished to see again the time
when Rabbi
Jonah Gerundi denounced Maimonides to the Inquisition in
Montpellier, who afterwards
repented of having been an informer and died, with the name of the
sage on his
lips. Now Abba Mari pressed for a ban against the teaching of
philosophy, and
Rabbi ibn Adret of Barcelona, who had taken up the cause so
reluctantly,
fearing to impose his rule on another community, was now being
censured for
having done this. But Jew, Christian and Moslem alike feared this
new learning.
Pristine though it was at its source, in half a century it had
assumed such
diverse shapes that rabbis were heard to preach sermons from the
pulpit how the
five sons of Leah prefigured the five senses, that Manasseh and
Ephraim were to
be understood as the principles of practice and theory, and that
the twelve
tribes were the twelve constellations, astrology having spread so
far. The land
was covered with prancing preachers who went about with these
ideas, giving
them out with a pleased air as if they alone had just received
enlightenment.
The Council of Vienne interdicted the writings of the Arab
philosopher,
Averroes and the Church even questioned Aquinas and all who spun
their web from
Averroes' teachings.
Cursed is the teacher
who spawns
such poor disciples as the niggards who appeared on the earth in
three
generations since Maimonides died, and under the guise of his
banner unleashed
their buried hatred for the teachings of Moses and went about with
twinkling
eyes and brazen clothes, new cut beards and whippish tongues, and
mouthed these
mouthings in our yeshivas.
One such had the
misfortune to be a
guest at our home. Learned, very learned he was, for he told us
so. The Garden
of Eden was another name for science and philosophy, which he
preached was the
true Paradise of Man, for as Aristotle said that mankind wishes to
know it
cannot be but that Paradise is the fulfillment of this craving.
Eve was not
forbidden to eat of the apple but forbidden to overindulge!
'Aye,' said Gertrude to
my father, 'I
have ever forborne with her disobedience, for I took it to be a
sign of
intelligence and needed not the philosopher to tell me.'
My father waved her down
but showed
no other sign of impatience. Indeed, he appeared to have fallen
into a trance
from which he emerged slowly.
'In that case,' he said,
'we must
know how big a bite Eve took.' He motioned to me. 'Bring me the
Bible there and
let us see if the size is given, for my memory fails me. We must
know if she
bit to the core and swallowed the pips. 'I do hope so,' Gertrude
said. 'Or
whether she spit them out one by one or altogether,' my father
said. 'We must
know if when she gave Adam to eat he took the same size bite.'
Not likely,' Gertrude
said.
'His teaching is worse
than the
Gentiles for the Jews,' my father hissed after our guest left,
'for they at
least believe that God created the world and that the righteous
shall inherit
His kingdom. But these who preach that God is a first cause cannot
preach love,
for what love can there be in a first cause?'
He rose from his sickbed
and asked
permission to journey to Montpellier. Earlier, he had said nothing
against Maimonides,
but now his words made me anxious. 'There is no help but to tear
out the
disease by its roots, and 'Greek philosophy is a jar of honey with
a dragon
wrapped around it.'
We embarked from
Andernach in the
month of Nisan. He was tired and anxious and spent the journey
walking back and
forth between his seat and the ships rail. "How shall we hold it
all
together?' he asked.
On board were traders
and
merchants, two from who were members of the Hanseatic League,
lately come from
London where they kept a warehouse in the Steelyard. We conversed
but forbore
personal inquiries. London, they said, 'was now over-run with
Lombards,
Cahorsins, and Florentines and a plague of usury had descended
upon the people
there.'
"The king will be
crushed by
their interest rates alone,' one said.
'Or will crush his
people,' the
other said, 'for he raises such a tax on the wool that grumbling
is
everywhere.'
'Where are you from?'
the other
asked.
'Andemach,' I replied.
'Aye,' one said readily,
'the city
is the only place for free men. The only abundant crop that can
grow on land is
taxes.'
We came to Koblenz where
the Rhine
crosses Moselle. Everyone but the traders went to the rail to look
at the
landscape. 'Shtadlach machen frei,' they laughed after us. We
gazed at the
castles on the banks. I reflect now, from my present vantage point
beneath the
river, on a difference in motion. The view beneath the river is
wholly strange
to me, but above it took us many days to pass between Koblenz and
Bingen, for
we must stop and pay a toll at almost every castle. Now, I travel
otherwise,
according to another law.
At Wiesbaden and Speyer
came on
board Rabbi Hushiel and Rabbi Perez, whom we expected. They were
already filled
with arguments for Montpellier, and we had no more pleasure in the
trip.
'There must be not only
a ban,'
Rabbi Hushiel said, 'but reform, for the Sepharad live as the
Moors do. They no
longer speak or read Hebrew, and they take more than one wife.
They only do not
make graven images or eat pork, for the Moslems do not let them.'
'And those who live
among the
Christians,' Rabbi Perez said, 'obey our laws in this respect but
in no other,
except that they do not eat pork. But I will say nothing about the
wine that
they drink.'
My father put his elbow
on the
ship's rail and rested head in the palm of his hand. I thought he
was tired,
but he said, 'Come, let us say a berakhot for this valley.'
Came aboard at Karlsruhe
two of
those preachers who sit in the forests as the Franciscans do and
praise
poverty, but these lay tefillin and wear their prayer shawls and
preach, 'In
the kingdom of God there are no taxes.' They saw by our clothes
that we were
co-religionists and approached â to preach to us or to quarrel.
'Away,' Rabbi Hushiel
said, but one
cannot drive them away once they have made up their minds to
preach to you.
'Come with us to
Palestine,' they
said. 'For shame to live among the foreign dominations who suck
your souls out
with their taxes.'
'These are like the
others,' Rabbi
Perez said in a low ice, meaning the Franciscans, 'for they too
worship poverty
and the bees and the rabbits.'
'Nay,' one said angrily,
his eyes
glaring from under his shawl, 'we worship the Eternal, but
practice poverty for
His sake.'
'There is no sin in
wealth, I my
father said. 'It is no offense to God to be prosperous. Job was
prosperous, and
God restored him to his prosperity after his sufferings.'
'True,' one said, 'but
where there
is wealth without wisdom there is wickedness. Job prospered, but
Job a
righteous man. Prosperity without righteousness is a great evil.
With
righteousness, it is the union of heaven and earth. In
Christendom, none can
heal the division between wealth and righteousness, for he who
would be wise
and just must be poor to be wise and just, and he who has wealth
wishes for
power and dominion over others. Go, rabbi, be poor and cure
Christendom of her
wickedness.'
'To be sure,' the other
said, 'what
is a Jew's prosperity worth in Christendom? Here if he has wealth
his life is
threatened. Come, what do you say, Rabbi? Can you tell me
otherwise? Do you not
see what your wealth builds here? Castles and fortresses and
walls. You make
the kings and the barons and the bishops wealthy. All your wealth
of coin and
spirit and learning is for the Gentile. And when they have taken
everything,
they will cancel the debt and drive you out.'
Such dismal talk, I
thought then,
and tried to cheer myself by looking at the passing landscape. 'We
have been in
this place a thousand years,' I said. Winds from the valley filled
my nostrils.
I smelled the vines of my ancestors.
They laughed coarsely.
'Aye, and steadily,
steadily,
steadily driven from its land so that you can no longer tend the
vine.
Steadily, steadily, steadily,' they chanted.
'Come, tell me,' one
said, 'these
castles? Whose money paid for them? And when the priest preaches
against you
and raises a mob, you must knock on the door of the castle like a
beggar and
ask for protection, and often enough pay for it again. Who owns
the castle,
Rabbi, you or the lord? You own nothing but your feet. If a Jew
owns land, it
is taken from him because the Church cannot tax the land owned by
a Jew.'
'Steadily, steadily,
steadily," the other one cackled, 'you will have no land to stand
upon,
but plenty of payments to make.'
'Come, come with us to
Palestine.
Leave Christendom the Christians. Come with us to Palestine.'
'Let us keep our taxes
for our
own,' the other one said, 'for our brides and our poor. In
Christendom, we are
taxed for the k Éing and the crown, the lords, the bishops, the
cardinals and
the popes.'
'Come with us and build
up the vine
again.'
'Come, come with us. In
Palestine,
'eretz macht frei. Shtadlach machen nicht frei fer der yid.'
'Come with us, for how
can the Jew
drink holy wine if he cannot raise his own vines?'
'Come with us. In
Palestine, in the
Kingdom of God there are no coins with foreign seals.'
'No graven images.'
'No war.'
'No profanity.'
'Only the air and the
sky and the
spirit of God.'
'Come with us, for there
we shall
not only be holy, we shall be free, and we shall be holy and free
together.
Come with us. In the forest, in the vine, in the desert, in the
mountain, in
Palestine there is nothing to fear.'
Came aboard then at
Strassbourg a
band of knights and their squires bound for Aigues-Mortes to meet
with the
Crusaders there. Some were in armor, some were not. But as the
noonday sun reached
its height and the day grew warm, those in armor gre ¨w cross.
'Sdone,' one
knight said, but his cheerful squire leaped to his side to undo
his master's
vizier and breastplate, the metal already hot to the touch, and we
moved away
adroitly as the vermin and the lice came out of their secret
feasting places.
The squire cleaned and scratched his knight, while the other
squires did
likewise, and undid their knights' buckles and armors and all
scratched
remorselessly.
'S'done,' the first
knight said
again.
'Not so, m'lord,' his
squire
soothed him. 'We shall be at Aigues-Mortes shortly.'
'Where are you bound
for?" one
of the traders asked.
'The Holy Land,' the
squire said.
The trader clicked his
tongue,
whether from courtesy or not, I could not say. His friend ventured
neither a
click of the tongue nor a nod of the head, but one of the
preachers said, 'We
go there too.'
The knights looked at
him. 'Without
armor or horse or banner?'
'We have our prayer
shawls,' he
said.
The knights were amused.
'Les
juives,' they laughed. One took his sword out with a flourish and
said, 'Do you
not know that this can run through your prayer shawl and your
heart? You'll
never take the Holy Land without a sword.'
Rabbi Hushiel turned
away and
whispered to us, 'I know not what my sin is that I should live to
hear such
talk.'
'The door to the bridal
chamber is
without protection,' Rabbi Perez said. 'Anyone enters at will.'
'What's that?' the cross
knight
said.
'It is only their manner
of
speaking,' his squire said to him in a conciliatory voice so that
we gazed at
him, but he avoided our eyes.
We disembarked at Basel.
Rabbi
Perez and Rabbi Hushiel went with us to Montpellier. The preachers
stayed on
board to Kostanze with the knights. 'We go with you,' they said to
them, 'right
behind your swords,' and us they bid goodbye.'
'What do you think?' my
father
asked me. Before I could answer, Rabbi Hushiel said wrathfully,
'Mockers,
scavengers, mumars. They live apart in the forest and pray without
a minyan.'
We were soon in the
mountains and
the air was cold. My father drew his cloak about him and began to
lag behind.
'Do not wait for me,' he said, 'I shall never leave this place,
for my grave spot
is here.'
The words of the aged
who know
their death is near are remembered too late.
We arrived in
Montpellier in the
month of Elul. Came also ibn Adret from Barcelona, Abba Mari ben
Moses who
afterwards collected our words, the poet Jedaiah Bedersi, Rabbi
Meir from
Perpignan, Menaheim ben Solomon, the great Talmudist; David
Maimoni, the
grandson of Maimonides, Bonifas Vidal, Rabbi Solomon de Lunel,
Isaac ben
Abraham of Avignon, Solomon ben Joseph of Marseilles, Todros ben
Kalonymus of
Narbonne, rabbis and sages from our academies in Baghdad,
Damascus, Spain and
Provence. Came we in that month and that year and that place to
set our course
for the future. While Maimonides lived no word was said against
him. Now it was
said that he had denied the resurrection of the flesh and had
argued only for
the immortality of the soul. In the heat of the argument, my
father's strength
returned.
'As we are so shall be
in the
Eternal Kingdom. He Who created life out of nothing is not limited
in any
manner by His triumphs over nature.'
David Maimoni rose to
defend his
grandfather, afterwards his defense was written in a book called
The Wars of
the Lord. 'Come, Rabbi,' he said, 'you say that in The World To
Come man will
keep his corporeal nature and will retain his Being, for Being to
be Being it
must corporeal. But we say also that God is Being, and yet we do
not say He is
corporeal, for we know that that which is corporeal is finite and
limited. But
if, in your view, God is not corporeal, then He has no Being. You
would not
wish to say this, for we know He has Being and is not corporeal.
It is in this
manner we speak of the soul in The World To Come, that it will be
closer to the
nature of God and further from the nature of man, for if it
retains the nature
of man, with all his appetites and senses what use is The World To
Come? We
cannot take the Bible literally. There are those who say, like
Saul ben David,
that God sits on a throne but is separated from our world by a
curtain. Does
God then sit behind a mehitzah like our wives?
'For my part,' Abba Mari
said, 'I
cannot see the use of The World To Come if man does not keep his
corporeal
nature. I have heard that in the Moslem heaven they eat delicacies
and recline
on silk cushions. I cannot see what the point of a soul without a
body would
be. It may fulfill some law of logic, but I doubt if it is useful
or gives
pleasure, and if The World To Come has neither pleasure nor
delight, I must ask
what the use of it is?'
'The use of it!' my
father said
wrathfully. 'The use of it is nothing more than contemplation! It
is a Greek
word made out of facts and figures and numbers where you may count
to infinity.
That is your sole delight in this World To Come.'
David Maimoni jumped to
his feet.
If you believe in the corporeality of the spirit then God too is
corporeal, as
the Bible says, He reached out His hand, He spoke, and He is
Father, as He is
called. What then is your quarrel with Christianity? If God can
suspend the
laws nature, then He can have a son if He wills so.'
My father was not
perturbed, for
what arguments had he not heard by this time? For every yes there
is a no. He
rose to his feet. 'Truly,' he said, 'as the prophet has said, Thy
sons, O Zion
against thy sons O Greece. God may suspend and contradict the laws
of nature,
but does not suspend or contradict His own nature, which is
unity,' and with
that he sat down with an air of triumph.
'Forebear, forebear, the
charge of
heresy,' David Maimoni shouted.
'Are you threatening
us?' Abba Mari
laughed. 'Are we to live in everlasting fear of the Inquisition.
They at least
know how to deal with their heretics. They put twigs in their hair
and set them
on fire.'
'Forebear yourself,' my
father
said, and pulled down into his seat.
Rabbi ibn Adret rose. I
applauded
silently, for he was a man of many virtues, tactful and tolerant,
though in the
end he helped cause the very thing he feared and drove the
Ashkenazi and
Sephardi apart. 'Rabbis, sages, poets, academicians, Talmudists,
Cabbalists, it
is a wonder we survive our arguments. Let it not be said that what
the world
could not do to us, we did to ourselves, that where the sword did
not slay us,
our tongues did. There can be no proscription against the works of
Maimonides.
What have we to fear? Pope Nicholas himself defended his writings.
Maimonides
himself instructed us how to proceed with his learning. He warned
against the
instruction in philosophy and metaphysics to the young, and we
shall follow his
advice and his example who himself was learned in the Talmud
before he was
learned in Aristotle and Averroes.'
If the study of
metaphysics is
dangerous,' Abba Mari said, 'an old fool may die of it as well as
a young one.
I tell you, Aristotle would have made a good Jew had he been
present at the
crossing of the Red Sea, for when he heard the chariots behind him
and saw the
mountains of water on either side he himself would have grasped
God's Saving
Hand. I would I had been beside him to say, What! Are you
stretching forth your
hand to grasp the Saving Stretch forth your hand and grasp the
first cause and
see if it can lift you over the waves.'
'We are not engaged in
denials or
proscriptions,' Rabbi lbn Adret said, 'but in a search for
procedure, not what
not to study, but how best to study what we must.'
'Nowhere are secular
studies
proscribed in Torah or Talmud,' the exilarch of Baghdad said.
'Only those studies
which touch on
medicine and healing are permitted,' my father said.
'Which must needs be the
earth
itself,' Bedersi said, 'for what is more in need of healing?'
Rabbi ben Solomon rose
and said
that for his part he had no quarrel with philosophy or secular
studies, it was
philosophy and science which quarreled with him and wished to
gainsay his view
of matters. 'Saadia ben Joseph of Sura was an eminent rationalist
who did much
to further the study of science, yet he held that the flesh was
resurrected,
and before him and after him were others the same. There is no
contradiction
between science and the Divine Will. But those who say there is
Divine Will do
so because they wish to make science pre-eminent. They do not like
to believe
that God can suspend the laws of nature because they want to
believe that the
laws of nature are at the will of man and not at the will of God.'
'Unjust!' Rabbi Solomon
of Lunel
cried out. 'We are not men of vicious temperament. We are
searching for truth.'
'Aye, truth!' Rabbi ibn
Adret said,
'truth is a roaring lion, but peace is a lamb. Ä'
'Meshiach will come when
peace and
truth lie down together,' my father said.
'Pray Israel be free of
foreign
domination at that time and that the prophecies will be
fulfilled,' Abba a Mari
said.
'Why,' my father cried
out to David
Maimoni, 'why do you believe that God can create the world and can
create the
soul for everlasting life, but that He cannot resurrect the body
for The World
To Come. Man wishes to know? What more does he wish to know, if he
knows God?'
The poet Bedersi leaped
to his
feet. 'We have construed an argument here where there is none, for
what man
does not have need of both faith and reason? What learning can
dislodge the
faith of the Jew who knows that God alone created the heavens and
the earth?
Has the psalmist not said, The earth is the Lords. How then am I
separated from
God if I study His works. Without reason and science, faith
becomes a dream
dreaming itself, without study of the earth, without history and
knowledge of
what we do and what is done theology, becomes a casuistical
illusion, an
argument against others. We stand perilously balanced between
faith which can
become superstition and knowledge which can become arrogance. Yet
some glory we
have created here in Provence. We have been here a thousand ears,
in which time
we have cultivated the vine, Torah and science, and reared up
academies and
sages, and a great philosopher. The heart of this people cannot be
turned from
the love of science and literature, while their body and soul are
kept
together. If Joshua himself were to demand it, they would not obey
him. For
they feel that they wage war in defense of Maimonides, and for
holy teaching
they will sacrifice their fortunes, their future generations, and
their very
lives, for as they are God-fearers so are they world lovers. I
pray you, Rabbi
Adret, you have kept the mountains of Seir and Kedar from falling
upon us in
Spain, heal our divisions, for is not our fate precarious enough
in this world
without further aggravation of it from ourselves.'
I would, my descendants,
you take
this one's voice for a legacy, for shortly the academies here were
shut and his
tongue was nailed to the door. Provence! What shall I say of you?
Thrice you
tore out my father's heart, nor would slake your desire for him
until we
yielded him to your grave.
We went home, weary with
argument.
Some good accomplished. No ban was passed against Maimonides or
astronomy or
medicine. The anti-Maimunist wrath was restricted to a ban on
astrology and
allegory. Came we then to Blois on Rosh Hashanah and greeted our
kinsmen from
England, Samson now grown so fearsomely he caused us to wonder.
Solomon the
mule-seller suffered some misfortune, for his wife ran away; Isaac
Muriel and
his son Eliezer and Benedict Muriel the carpenter, who ˜se wife
had borne him
eleven children, to his wonderment; and we went together to pray
and to usher
in the New Year, and afterwards to say Kaddish at the grave of my
ancestor
Pulchinella who had found favor with the Count Theobald, to our
great
misfortune, martyred with the proselyte, Justa, and Hannah who
gave her seven
sons, and sleeps now with these in the Eternal Dust.
Joy and news on our
arrival, and
grief at our departure. But we could not tarry longer, for my
father wished to
return by way of the Moselle Valley, which lengthened our journey.
Came we then
to Troyes and fasted with Gamaliel the stonecutter, Elisha the
carter, Elie le
Evesk and Mosse Bonavil the locksmith, and said our prayers in the
house of
Elisha. Afterwards, as we broke our fast, he told us of rumors to
be heard that
the king would imprison his Jews. 'Gamaliel leaves for Italy, for
he says it is
a wise rabbit who runs when he hears the hunter's horn. What do
you think,
Rabbi? What have you heard in your travels?'
Prophet! Poet! It was a
year later
in the month of Ab our yeshivas and academies were closed down,
our synagogues
were closed down, our graves were torn out and the sages of
Montpellier slept
in the dust.
'Have I made the journey
for this!'
my father exploded. Heard what! What rumor'! hat pestilence We
have been in
this valley a thousand years.'
'As we were in England
from the
time of William Elisha said.
'Do not vex him,' I said
to Elisha,
and motioned with my eyes that he regard my father's years.
'It is but a rumor,'
Elisha said,
all will go well.'
'Aye,' my father said as
we took
our leave the next morning, 'I promise you that.' Then we went
together,
Gamaliel, his wife and children, Elisha and his family, Mosse
Bonavil, Elie le
Evesk and his eldest son, to the grave of Rashi to say Kaddish. My
father
gathered us there, Gamaliel and his wife and children, Elisha and
his family
and the others, and said the prayer: "The generation in which
Rashi lived
was neither orphaned nor exiled. We shall redeem our people,
generation by
generation."
The women and children
stayed by
the gate when we departed. Gamaliel and the others accompanied us
one the road
for a while, until some warmth we felt from the, sun. The morning
was brisk, a
sign of. winter in the sky. The leather of my father's boots were
stiff, and he
walked carefully. Loath to part, our friends stayed with us a
little more and a
little more on the road, until part we must. 'Take care. Be well,'
Elisha said.
'I promise you we shall
be,' my
father said, and embraced him. 'You who greeted us in the dawn, we
shall see
God in the flesh together. I promise your Elisha, I shall greet
you in the
World To Come, and we shall feast together in Eternity.
He left u ®s three laws
for a
legacy, which I would have you abide: the first concerning the
woman of
silence, which you remember, the second which brought the shoijet
honor but no
joy; and the third which caused us calamity.
A case arose soon after
we
returned, involving a Jew and a Christian girl. As this concerned
a woodcutter
Who had taken up with a nun, it caused us great harm and
notoriety, and brought
great prosperity to the citizens of Andemach. The woodcutter was a
youth by the
name of Jacob Sisbert, who was now more than eighteen. Had he been
married by
this time, as our law prescribes, harm would not have come to us.
He lived in
the forest with his elderly grandmother and had no other kin. He
delivered wood
to the nunnery there, and in the course of things took up with a
novice who had
just arrived, a maid of fifteen. The infraction was very serious,
involving the
possibility of death for the novice and the woodcutter. Ô
Furthermore, it was
against the law for a Jew to live outside the town and none could
say how he
and his grandmother had come to be in the forest. All he would
allow, when
examined by our courts and by the civil authorities, was that he
had always
lived in the forest and had not heard of the law which required
Jews to live
within the walls of the city. My father, noting the Jew's age said
it was no
use attempting to keep people lawful if they were permitted to
stay unmarried past
the age of eighteen. An inquiry was made as to why he was still
unmarried, why
his presence was not known by the Jewish community, how had this
happened? How
had they been left to themselves?
Their Christian
neighbors said
likewise that they had always lived there. His father had been
killed by a
crusader, his mother had died of plague, he had been an orphan
almost from
birth. His grandmother was old and blind and lived in this hut and
as she loved
this unsafe patch of ground, cared to go nowhere else. In this
way, she had
raised him as best she could, tilling a piece of earth and having
an apple tree
and a goat. The youth owned no tallith and my father forebore
asking him if he
had been called to the Law. He knew his letters and the Sh'ma. His
grandmother
knew the Torah by heart and he had had portions of it from her.
Her Christian
neighbors came to the door of the hut and told us it was no use to
speak with
her for she was not only blind, but lately deaf as well. They had
told the
grandson to take her to Andemach where she would be among her own,
but she
would not go. He could not force her, so he stayed with her
because somebody
must.' The novice said she would convert and marry him and live in
the hut in
the woods with them. The boy was accused of Judaizing. Riots broke
out. My
brother's house was set fire to. The Dominican Friar, Rudolf am
Main, headed an
inquiry in Cologne and the youth was brought before the
Inquisition. Archbishop
Siegfried contended that Friar Main had no jurisdiction, for there
was no case
of heresy here. The Dominican friar said he suspected Archbishop
Siegfried's,
loyalties. The scandal of it spread throughout the valley and
traders and
travelers, visitors, pilgrims and pedlars of every sort came to
Andemach.
Seeing no way to resolve
the issue,
for the novice swore that Jacob had never Judaized to her but that
she freely
resolved to become a Jewess, to marry him and live in his hut, and
our Jewish
community pleaded with my father not to convert her. The wealthy
burgher, Aaron
Heilman, came with a delegation. 'See here,' Rabbi, you know as
well as I do
this is not a case of someone wishing to become a Jew, to worship
the Eternal,
praised be His name. The woodcutter, Jacob, is a likely looking
lad. I would
never urge you to shut the gates against a convert, but I tell you
frankly that
if you do not prevent her conversion, you will cause great harm
here. I bear
this message from the community.'
Came Archbishop
Siegfried with the
same message. 'Prevent it. You know as well as I do what the issue
is, here.'
My father's lips went
white and
dry. 'All this while they have not been dissuaded from their
course to marry by
threats and punishment. As I would not have him convert to marry
her, I must
allow her to convert to marry him. I would he remain a Jew.'
He ailed from this issue
and the
noise it stirred up. He feared his day was soon to end and wrote
to Edward
again for permission to return to the place of his birth 'for
reasons of
sentiment.' Much delay in response, causing him anxiety, and in
the end his
request was denied, 'for reasons touching the realm's good.'
In the end, Archbishop
Siegfried
excommunicated the nun and my father prepared her for conversion
and married
them. Riots broke out. Our house was torched and my son, Isaac,
taken from our
home. Some boys stoned the old woman's hut. Her neighbors drove
them off and
pleaded with us to remove her as they could not protect her any
longer. The
poor woman was speechless with terror and clung to the very
lintel. As she would
not go willingly, we took her by force.
Nor could Archbishop
Siegfried help
us in the matter of our son, for we could find him nowhere. I went
with my
father to the synagogue where he wrapped me in the mantle of the
martyr and
prayed with the congregation who came to weep with me:
Thy son is once more
sold
Redeem him, Lord God,
Father of Mercies,
Redeem 'My son
In mercy we pray,
My son, my son, my son,
Thy grief is mine
Ruach Hakodesh
And he urged that we
never shut the
door against the returning apostate or the convert, that we
shoulder the
dangers and receive all who would come to the House of Israel, and
he went home
and lay himself down and died.
Mose and 1, accompanied
by his son Leo,
and Ephraim, now my eldest son, took his body to Carcassonne as he
instructed
us to do: Wash me clean, remove my shoes, comb my hair as in my
lifetime, that
I may go cleanly to my Eternal resting place, as I went every
Sabbath to the
synagogue.
We received permission
from the
bishops to come this way, albeit there were no homes to stop in,
and made our
way as best we could. We entered the city by the Porte de l'aube,
his coffin in
a wagon drawn by a horse, and followed the path lined by the
acacia trees.
Everything was as Clemence and my mother had told us. Everything
was and at the
same time was not. This was our land by song and story, everything
was familiar
to the memory and new to the senses. In the countryside the
peasants worked in
the fields. The sweet odor from the earth that my mother used to
walk upon so
filled my nostrils, that I saw her kneeling there under a tree
nearby, talking
to our hen as she did in our garden when she came to feed her.
Such an
impression of the living from the dead I have never received
again.
Mose nudged my arm and
we went up
the path and found my grandfather's grave. Terrible sorrow and
joy, again. He
had written on his tombstone: I lay buried here in my embroidered
sarbel, in
the clothes I went to synagogue. In death as in life I go to Ha
Shem in so that
He shall not mistake me for another. I would He know me as I was.
Mose, who was always
instructing me
in the ways of the world and held me for a naif, Mose wept. We
spoke in low
voices, though there was no one about but ourselves and the
gravedigger we had
arranged to Leo and Ephraim looked at us with restrained faces,
for we were
separated by our memories. For this reason, I was constrained to
set down my
father's will, to make clear the matter of their inheritance:
Do good to all men, evil
to none,
even to the non-Jew, even to an enemy who has pursued you with
hate. Do not
avail yourself of the opportunity of revenge; load your adversary
with favors.
Refuse no kind deed to anyone, even a non-Jew, even an enemy. If
your foe seeks
your harm, prevent it, but do not injure him beyond the point of
preventing
harm to yourself. If an opportunity presents itself to serve your
enemy, thank
God for it. Make yourselves wings like eagles to succor him and
remind him not of
his injuries to you. Eat and drink only what is necessary. Be
content with your
lot. Give your wives and sons and daughters always to wear nice,
clean clothes,
but not extravagant clothes. Do not adopt non-Jewish fashions of
dress and
never change the fashions of your fathers. Never make a vow or
swear. Let your
word be your word. If your word is not your word, a vow will not
make it so.
Keep your homes clean and tidy, for disease can be bred indoors as
well as out.
Study the Torah, for all that is noble of thought is in it. Keep
your fast days
for yourself and your feasts for the poor. Judge every man
charitably, find the
favorable explanation for his actions. Avoid gossip, slander,
hypocrisy and
false ×hood. Daughters must respect their husbands, and their
husbands must
honor their wives more than themselves. I earnestly entreat my
children never
to gamble except on the Festivals, and their wives may gamble on
the New moon,
but without money. Most strongly I beg that my sons' wives never
be without work
to do, for the work of a woman's hands is like the spider's web, a
house for
her family. Give no cause for resentment to the non-Jew, for there
is none
among them who has not his hour, and their wrath is implacable and
lasts
forever. Avoid listening to love songs which excite the passion.
If God has
bestowed on you the gift of a sweet voice, use it in praising Him
and not each
other. If thou aspire to authorship, revise thy works carefully,
for error
creeps in everywhere, even as mold. Be careful as to grammatical
accuracy in
conjugations and genders, for a man's mistakes are quoted against
him. Endeavor
to cultivate a concise and elegant style; attempt no rhymes unless
your
versification be perfect. Honor thyself and thy household, keep
the festivals
for a blessing and the Torah for the honor of God.
We buried my father as
he
requested, in his synagogue clothes, with my mother's ring on his
finger, and
we wrote on his stone as he instructed us to do: My dearest wife,
it has been
my greatest misfortune to have outlived you. Neither fame nor
honor has taken
your place. May the Eternal unite us in His kingdom through this
air and this
earth and His will. Moses Menaheim now lies forever with his wife,
Florria
Sara, in the Eternal Embrace and in the earth that was dear to
her.
We tarried in
Carcassonne to find
the grave of Clemence but could not, and so returned in grief and
to grief, for
in this year Archbishop Siegfried died and his Jews were
transferred to the
imperial treasury in Cologne, and we too. So it was: Mose's fate
and my
family's became one. The Jews of Andemach passed first under the
rule of
Archbishop Wichold and then under the rule of Archbishop Henry.
Some of our
privileges were reaffirmed, but others were dismissed. The Cologne
burgher,
Johann Stolle, took a Jew from Archbishop Henry and held him
captive and the
Jew died in captivity. Though Stolle was rebuked for this, he was
not punished,
and some Christians were made bold because of this. Moreover,
Archbishop Henry
was always in debt and encouraged moneylending among us to ensure
the payment
of our taxes to him. Against my advice, Mose increased his trade
in coin. Here
a Jew was stoned in the marketplace, there a Jew's house was set
on fire and
his box was stolen. Rebuke from the Pope and encouragement from
his bishops for
such actions went hand in hand. Criminals were not apprehended,
for the
Archbishop feared to be kidnapped by them and wished to appease
them. He wished
also to ingratiate himself with the Pope's decrees against usurers
and he
wished also that hi s debts be paid. In this disorder, each man
chose his own
path.
Our son, Jeshua, was
born to us
during this time and we heard soon after that Philip recalled the
Jews to his
realm. As he could not read the debtors notes which they had
written in Hebrew,
which he now claimed, and there was no one left in the realm to
read the
language, he must have his Jews back to read the notes and collect
the debts,
in return for which he promised them a third of their money. So
they were let
back in.
My son, Ephraim, soon a
bridegroom,
I went with him and Jeshua to Rome in the year of the Shepherd's
uprising, to
meet his betrothed, the daughter of Abraham Matron, and to arrange
for their
wedding. I also had news of Solomon ibn Alfaqui, settled in Rome
since the year
of the Jubilee. The Castilian Cortes had passed a decree
forbidding Arabs and
Jews to own land. His family had lost their estates and when King
Sancho died Solomon
lost his influence at the court. He went to Granada, but the wars
between Seir
and Kedar continuing he went to Rome and settled among poets. I
heard from
Abraham that he was made much of in Rome and that his reputation
for verse
grew. I understood he was affable and his style much improved
though given, as
many as others of the day, to imitating Dante and writing of
journeys to heaven
and hell.
We embarked from
Andemach after the
Passover. A good season. My son, Ephraim, a bearded groom, a
reader in the
congregation. I went with him to meet his bride. A good journey we
had. The
ship had three masts and nine sails and a fair wind. The land
green on both
sides, I traced the places to Ephraim and Jeshua where
Judah-he-Hassid founded
yeshivas in the valley, and where Rabbi Tam founded yeshivas in
the forest and
spread learning throughout the Rhineland as Rabbi Natroni Gaon had
spread
learning among the Sepharad. And pointed out the city of Rabbi
Baruch ben Meir,
the Immortal Light, and the Hassids who went into the Schwarzwald
and practiced
poverty and would not pay their taxes to foreign dominations, and
down the
river and through the valleys of the Rhineland traced the places
where we sleep
in the Eternal Dust.
We stood by the boat's
rail,
Jeshua, Ephraim, and myself, whose voice was growing old, while
Jeshua's was
still honeyed. I wrapped him in my cloak, but his chatter made my
thoughts
stray: Isaac, my son, we shall not say kaddish for you, nor take
our portion in
the World To Come until you can feast with us at the Eternal
banquet table.
We came to a place in
the Moselle
Valley where Bateman Cresse was, and found there a company of
Jews. As it was
Shavuoth, we stayed and rejoiced with them, and the whole company
walked with
us afterwards upon the road with branches and song, as they said
it Æ was the
journey of the bridegroom.
What shall I say of
this, my
descendants! Lay the psalmist's words upon your hearts: Grief
tarries for the
night, but joy cometh in the morning. There is nothing the Eternal
has given
you that you cannot recover from. Lay this thought close to your
hearts and let
your thoughts leap over the burning land.
We went by foot across
the
mountains. Such was the glory before us I bid my sons say a
berakhot for the
beauty of the earth. We removed our cloaks and cut ourselves
walking sticks and
came soon to Rome.
Abraham had six
daughters and gazed
fondly at Ephraim. For my son's part, his heart was satisfied for
the girl,
Hinda Flora, was good to look at. Abraham had prospered and we
undertook for
Ephraim to stay with him for a year and learn the trade. After
which we would
be together in Andemach for the wedding, and they would live with
us.
Gamaliel Oxon now in
Rome with his
family and his cousin, Sarah Oxon, who had become a lively and
prosperous
tradeswoman. Moscus Crispin, the armourer, came from Florence with
his family,
and Rosa Truyte, the widow, who also thrived at a trade with a
Gentile partner.
We embraced fervently. As Moscus' daughter was to be married to
Gamaliel's son
in a month's time, we were prevailed to stay, and having stayed
thus long, we stayed
through the Holy Days, dividing our attendance amongst the
synagogues, so as
not to give offense.
Of a great city there is
no end of
what to see. Our own sages travelled from Palestine to Rome in the
time of
Caesar to ransom the Jewish slaves and bring learning to those who
stayed
behind. Did not Rabbi Judah comment on the great works and
monuments of the
city.
'For me there is much
work here,'
Gamaliel said.
I walked beside him and
saw that
here everyone dressed alike, one could not tell Jew from Gentile,
and I felt
awkward in my apparel. 'But where there are many monuments, there
are many
taxes,' I said.
'True, Rabbi,' Gamaliel
said, 'but
there is little work for a stonecutter among our people elsewhere.
Here there
are three synagogues that need repair, one built in the time of
Caesar, the
floor has been worn by the floods of the river and the roof leans
perilously
forward. In Provence, my chisel knew only the touch of the
tombstone. Here
there is work for Gamaliel Oxon, for our stones here are very
old.'
We passed under the
shadow of a
Roman arch. 'What shall happen to our presence in Europe?' I said,
'if we
cannot build monuments.'
'Here am I,' Gamaliel
said, 'for
history is written in stone, and I shall write what I can.'
We came to the Colosseum
and walked
alongside it, I amazed to see such painted faces upon the women,
Jew as well as
Gentile, and such fashions that I wondered how they were permitted
to go about
in them.'
'Give over,' Gertrude
said
suddenly, 'I would I had gone with you.'
'To see such outlandish
things!'
Master Menaheim said.
Aye, she said sadly, a
bit of
purple, a bit of red, for my part it is lovelier than a monument.
I would
rather have the cloth than the stone, for all stone is gray, more
gray or less
gray, but gray it is, and I have had enough gray.'
I brought her back a
piece of
cremona weave,' her husband said, 'which I had from Rosa Truyte
who kept a
bench near the river and plied a trade there with her Gentile
partner, a
widowed woman with a lame child.'
'It was but large enough
for a
shawl,' Gertrude complained.
'It was large enough for
a cloak,'
Master Menaheim said.
'Aye, but I cut it in
twain so that
Henne should have some.'
'Enough,' I said myself
then, for I
wished Master Menaheim to continue with his tale of Rome and
seeing I was kin I
silenced her, and so he continued.
'The popes now in
Avignon, the city
lost some splendor but I went about in the company of Solomon ibn
Alfaqui to
see Yehiel Academy and our other schools and the places where our
forebears buried
themselves in catacombs, and the illustrious society amongst which
Solomon now
dwelled. Many of our scholars from Provence and the Sepharad now
in Rome, one
never looked far for learned company or for wine. Philosophers and
physicians,
translators from Arabic and Latin, tutors to King Robert of
Naples,
grammarians, exegetes and the poet, Immanuel ben Salomon who drew
a circle
about him of those who wrote like Dante. The pen of the poet,
Immanuel, was
dipped in many inks, albeit he knew how to write a sonnet in
Hebrew.
As Rabbi Judah said: 'He
who wishes
to see the world in a single place must go to Rome. Here I met
Leon Romano and
Benjamin ben Judah Bozecco, the great grammarian; Judah Siciliano
al-Shalari
who had written a rhyming dictionary; the eminent physician,
Benjamin Anau,
Jehiel Moses, Isaac ben Mordecai, the physician to Pope Boniface;
Immanuel's
cousin, Judah ben Moses ben Daniel, who taught Hebrew and the
Bible to King
Robert of Naples, and translated the philosophers Aquinas and
Magnus into
Hebrew; and Kalonymus, whom King Robert of Naples had brought from
Provence to
be his own translator.
Such was the company
here that I
said with Rabbi Judah, Jerusalem for our home and Rome in our
exile.
Solomon had rooms before
the Porta
Portese in Trastevere. He still cut his beard in the Spanish style
and carried
his sword and wrapped himself in the air Castile. But like a cloak
no longer in
fashion, it betrayed him.
I came often to his home
and met
his poet friends, Gentile and Jew, and two who had known Dante. In
this circle,
all were treated alike, but the bent of the writing was satirical.
Everything
was judged by scorn and laughter, the quarrels among scholars, the
ways of our
women, even the teachings in our schools. I was disturbed by this
new mode, but
Solomon regarded my concern as unworldly, and pronounced his
judgment in a way
that irritated me.
Yet Jeshua was much
taken with him
and, Solomon, perceiving he was admired, lavished tales on him and
took him
about in the city, as a personal charge.
On Tashlikh we went to
the river,
as the Jews here have the custom to do, and cast in our sins.
Jeshua was much
taken with this, though afterwards the Jews in Andemach began to
do likewise,
gathering on the river and reading from the prophet, Micah.
After our fast, I bid
Ephraim
goodbye. He, with Gods help, to prosper and be well in Rome, I and
Jeshua to
Fiesole. Rosa Truyte and her partner came with us as far as
Arezzo, for they
were bound for the fair in Casalmaggiore. We went by horse and
foot, the
weather fair, her companion also a gossip, as all women are, and
much to say
about everything, the priests and the monks and the popes and the
moneylenders
and the Lombards and women's clothes and the new decrees and the
discomforts of
travel, but she was mindful of our customs and put up for the
Sabbath and ate
no pork in our presence.
May the blessing of
Eternal Life be
with them both, but the two women wearied me. I know not how they
conversed
with each other for neither finished a sentence or a thought. 'I
had a piece of
bolt from Ancona,' one would say, and the other, 'Twas no match
for the goods
that came from Marseilles.' And the first, 'Aye, for the weave was
weak and the
colors poor.' 'Aye, true,' the other would say, though neither had
seen the
other's cloth. It gave me much to think about the need for
learning.
We bid farewell at
Fiesole. They to
Casalmaggiore, and Jeshua and I to stay at the home of Moscus
Crispin who had
preceded us after his son's wedding and was now at home to greet
us. Twelve
families here with a shoijet, and David Derbie who had come hither
in search of
work soon after we parted in Calais, for cloth was abundant here.
Much pleasure
I had in seeing him again, now a father of eight, though hi ³s
wife was a small
woman.
They lived in the
countryside, for
they could not lease uses in Florence or Fiesole, but trade was
permitted to them.
We prepared for the Festival of Booths. It was their custom here
to go from
booth to booth on the first and the seventh nights, for they kept
the holiday
as a remembrance of the pilgrims who went up to Jerusalem on the
Succoth, and
for the pilgrimage out from Egypt. As there were but twelve
families, they went
all together, and their way was made sweet with cakes and wine in
each booth.
So fair the weather, we
were loath
to leave, and a rumor of massacres by way of our return.
'When shall we see each
other
again?' they cried.
'We shall stay in Venice
until the
rumor has passed, for Jorvin Sackerel the silversmith is there,
and Benedict
Muriel and his kin. We shall not lack for a home or safety.' We
embraced, and
Jeshua and I went our way.
Jeshua was much taken
with the
ships and the traders, in Venice, and the cloth merchants and
crusaders in
armor to be seen everywhere, going and coming from the Holy Land,
and merchants
from the Orient with spices and silks and paper so thin we
wondered at it, and
coins from everywhere and in everyone's hands so that even women
sat at benches
along the canals and lent money on interest, and hollered their
rates out loud.
'The whole world comes
here for
coins,' Jorvin said 'the pope's collectors and the baron's
stewards, who borrow
on their crops. Every man in armor you see here has borrowed money
for his
breastplate or pawned his breastplate for a horse or put up his
land as
collateral.' We stopped by a bench where a moneylender weighed
florins in a
scale for a crusader. 'All the tributaries of Europe flow into
these canals,'
Jorvin said.
'And we shall be caught
in their
nets?' I asked.
'We shall be caught,'
Jorvin said,
'for the Christian will not forgive us for h ºis greed.'
'And you, Jorvin? How is
it with
you in Venice?'
'I am safe. The Jew
cannot compete
here, with the cardinals and crusaders, Lombards and Florentines.
Our rates are
fixed too low. Our violations cannot be disguised, but these go to
church on
Sunday and hear the story of how Jesus drove the moneychangers
from the Temple
and come here on Monday and in front of the church they prayed in
yesterday,
bellow their rates and weigh coin by the pound, for they believe
the
moneychangers in the Temple were the Jews, and not themselves.
They weigh out
one plus one and come out with a holy three. But I am a
silversmith and a
candlestick maker. As long as men light candles, I have my work to
do.'
We stayed through the
Festival of
Lights, Jeshua much taken with their custom here. We went in
Jorvin's boat with
his wife, at night, and stopped by the homes of friends who held
out lanterns
for us to light and greeted us with song and sweet Ðmeats. And
went with
Benedict Muriel on the second night with his kin, with Isaac, on
the third
night and with Eliezer on the fourth night, until thee eighth
night, when every
Jewish home was hung with eight lights and their boats on the
canals also hung
with eight lights, and so lights to be seen everywhere, in the
reflection of
the water.
But at last, I decided
we must
start back, though it was winter, for the Pastoreaux who roamed
the countryside
would surely put up for the winter, so it seemed best to me that
Jeshua and I
go now. Spring, as the proverb says, brings flowers and war, and
better an icy
road than a robber or a crusader.
Our way was difficult
for the
rivers were frozen and no passage to be had upon them. Jeshua did
not mind
these difficulties, for everything was an adventure to him, and he
was filled
with questions about the world and too many about Solomon ibn
Alfaqui: Why he
wore a jewel on his breast and why he carried a sword when we
could not, and so
on and so on. I did not want to talk against Solomon, but I did
not care for
Jeshua's interest in him. I thought of the many attempts one makes
to master
the world, and found my council in silence, like the woman who had
come before
my father. I buried my multitudinous arguments with the world and
my worries
for my son beneath my tongue, for which I was afterwards glad that
I had said
no word against Solomon. I learned later that he had returned to
Castile. He
sent me a letter in which he quoted the poet, ibn Sason: 'And the
man Moses
went forth with joy and all the Jews in the Kingdom of Castile
rejoiced and
were glad because of the goodness the Lord had shown to Israel.' I
heard
afterwards that he had gone to Palestine, where he perished
beneath a
crusader's sword. He was my friend and my enemy. He made my spirit
restless
with myself and restless with my son. More than any woman one may
desire, more
than a song that comes bursting from the past, more than the hope
for wealth or
fame, is this temptation to be like him. He was my friend and
enemy, a
satirist, a courtier, and a Jew.
We went towards the Jura
Mountains,
hoping to escape the bands of shepherds we heard rumors of. Many
Jews were on
the road with us now, fleeing to Paris where there was safety.
Uncommonly, the
winter roads filled with wanderers and, as the shepherds had
stirred up hate
against us, many huts were shut and food hard to come by. But the
Eternal has
planted His Righteousness along every road and where six huts were
shut, one
was open. And though there was famine in the land, which had
stirred the
Shepherds to revolt, the righteous stayed and came at night and
brought us
bread and onions.
We slept on the ground,
wrapped in
our cloaks, in barns when we could. One night I heard unwholesome
footsteps. I
woke Jeshua quietly and motioned to him to say nothing but follow
me quietly.
We found a path into the mountain and took it, for we saw that the
shepherds
were lighting fires in the villages.
'Come, Jeshua,' I said,
'we go
unarmed in the world. Let us climb into the mountain. You will
mind the words I
say to you, for they are your portion in this world. There is a
place in the
kingdom of the spirit where the righteous of all nations meet. You
shall know
them because they go unarmed in their spirit. You shall know them
because you
will have nothing to fear from them. If you feel fear, you will
know you are in
the presence of an unrighteous person. But take you anywhere,
Jeshua, among
Christians or Saracens, and you will find righteousness if they do
not make you
afraid, for Isaiah laid it down as a law of the righteous life
that none shall
make you afraid.'
As it was dawn, I bid
him kneel and
pray with me.
Ribbono ha-'olomin
Lord of all worlds
Not trusting in our own merits do we pray before you,
But trusting in Thy great mercy.
What are we,
What our life,
What our love,
What our devotion,
What our help.
What our strength,
What our might,
What should we say of Thee,
Lord our God,
Father of Mercies,
Shield and Redeemer,
Heroes are nothing before Thee
Nor men of great name,
Wise men are without knowledge;
We have no other wisdom but this,
No world but Your world,
And go as servants for Thy sake.
It was Tu b'shvat and I
bade Jeshua
take a twig and plant it in the earth, though the ground was still
frozen. Once
my mother had planted such a twig in our garden, because her
cousin had brought
it from Carcassonne. We derided her for it. Dead it was for three
years. Then
one day a small bit of green, no bigger than an ant, appeared on
it. She
carried my brother out in her arms to look at it. What is death? I
asked, and
who can now what carries life within it.
With God's help, we came
to Paris
on the Feast of Esther and found there our good friend, Jacob
Bonamie,
prospering and in good health. He lived under the protection of
the king and in
a stone house, so we found refuge there. Came there also in that
year Benedict
Mayer, the tanner, Elie le Evesk the baker, and his family, now
with seven
grandchildren, and Mosse Bonavil, locksmith, all who had fled to
Paris. Lived
here also Elie Braggard, the cloth merchant, a widower with three
daughters,
one married and with child, one a tradeswoman, and one a weaver.
Went we all to
the synagogue on the Feast of Esther, with candles and
noisemakers, and all the
Jews came into the streets with costumes and baskets of apples and
chose for
themselves a queen and a king and Haman and Mordecai, and though
we heard
rumors that the shepherds were outside the city gates, as the
Bishop promised
he would protect us, we continued with our celebration and all
through the
night the children ran through the streets in their masks and
costumes, with
songs and with shouts, Am Chai Israel, and Jeshua ran with them.
When the roads were
clear and there
were no more rumors, we bid our friends goodbye, with sadness and
with promises
to come to Andernach for Ephraim's wedding. So Jeshua and I made
our way home
and arrived before the Passover.
Soon afterwards
Archbishop Henry
prevailed upon us to raise eight thousand marks to help him redeem
his cities
of Rees, Xanten and Kempen. In return he decreed for us the
Privilege of 1321, assuring
us protection and safe conduct in all his domains for ten years.
Against my
warnings, Jehude and Leo now lent money on interest to raise the
sums. But as
we were permitted to stay in Andemach and none threatened our
streets or our
homes, we were content and thrived. My daughter Margit married and
gave birth
to twins and I received for our schul a great ram's horn from
Jacob Bonami
which Jeshu blew on the Holy Days, to the astonishment of the
congregation. We
must soon choose a bride for you, I thought, and began to look
about. Abraham
Matron will come with Ephraim and Hinda Flora, and his other
daughters and will
cast eyes upon you. We will see what the year has done with his
daughters. And
we began to watch for the river to thaw and for Ephraim and Hinda
Flora and the
bridal party to appear upon it.
It was Jeshua who
brought us the
news that they had arrived. "They're here,' he shouted, running up
from
the over. 'I see a ship and everyone we know is upon it.'
Gertrude and I ran down
to the
wharf. Yes, it was Ephraim and Hinda Flora and Abraham and his
wife and his
other five daughters. Came with him Gamaliel Oxon and his family
and Sara Oxon
and Rosa Truyte. Came with them Leo Cresse, our musician, and
Moscus Crispin
and his family, and Jorvin Sackerel who brought candlesticks as a
wedding gift.
And came with them Benedict Muriel the carpenter and all his kin,
and Davie
Derbie the dyer. As we had word from Jacob Bonamie that he would
be with us, we
waited for him. Mosse Bonamie and Massa ben Yssac, now settled in
Paris with
their families, came with Elie le Evesk and Bateman Cresse. So
huge a gathering
there was, some stayed at the inn of our innkeeper, Aaron Slemne.
Some stayed
in our house, some stayed with Jehude and Leo and Mose in Cologne.
Came finally
Solomon the mule-seller on the day of the wedding, and we all
walked in
procession alongside the bridal pair and brought them into the
shul with
blessing and with song. And Ephraim said the words of that time,
'I shall work
for thee, Hinda Flora, honor, support and maintain thee in
accordance with the
custom Jewish husbands. I shall go with thee, Hinda Flora, cording
to the ways
of the world which the Eternal has implanted in us.'
Amen, amen, and amen.
And she sang to him the
song of the
bride.
She goeth out to meet
thee
Look thou and listen and hear her cry,
She is calling in the fullness of her heart,
In her warbling throat,
In her fainting soul
And we set a crown upon
them and
Gertrude gave Hinda Flora an egg to eat from our hen every day
until she was
with child, and Jeshua was betrothed to Abraham's second daughter,
Henne
married Rabbi Hushiel's son and went to live in Dusseldorf, and my
daughter
Jurette married a trader in cloth and went to live in Rouen.
And again, in 1342, we
bought up
the archbishop's debts and were able to renew the Privilege of
Protection and
safe conduct for another ten years. We negotiated for the release
of Rabbi
Peshe, who had been captured by Baron Strohnne and held for
ransom. I too now
lent money on interest and we raised in these years, I and my son,
Jeshua, and
Rabbi Hushiel's son and Rabbi Pesha himself and his congregation
and the Jews
of Dusseldorf and Essen and Cologne, and the whole of the Rhine
Valley, we
raised the remarkable sum of 20,000 marks which we sent through
the banker
Vivaud, to the Dauphin as a gift from his Jews of France, to
remove the edict
of expulsion which threatened them again.
'Aha!' Gertrude
exclaimed. 'Aha!
and aha! Have I not declared this number to be the sum of all
evil. Are we not
the Lord's treasure?' And she would not be quieted, though her
husband spoke
sternly to her, that her bubbling said nothing. Sank he then upon
his knees and
began to pray in such a way as I had not heard even in church.
'Danim-efshar
mi-she-i-efsher. With
memory I was enlightened. For this law which used to puzzle my
father -- to
deduce the possible from the impossible -- I was given the
privilege to prove.
We raised the sum from the dust, again and again. We raised the
sum for
cathedrals and crusades, for Jewish prisoners and Christian wars.
We raised the
sums for Christian territories bought and sold and bought again.
We raised the
sums for our people in exile, we raised the sums for our people in
Palestine,
we raised the sums for our prisoners and our slaves, our poor and
our brides,
and ransomed them one by one.
The Jews of Dusseldorf
and Essen
and Cologne pressed on me and chose me to advise them in the
clamor that rose
all about us, as the news of the plague came to us from Rome and
Florence and
Venice and the news of the massacres spread through the valley. We
met with
bishops and barons. The Council of Vienne assured us that we would
be
protected, Pope Clement issued decrees that our lives were not to
be
threatened, and we were taken from our homes and our synagogues
and Jeshua, my
son, Jeshua whom I had gone into the mountain with, Jeshua, my
son, was
martyred before my eyes and his dying body searched by perfidious
hands for
coins.
On the twenty-fifth day
in the year
4,708, our winekeg fell below the surface of the river. The small
hole that had
been mine for a view of the world was now darkened completely, and
we were
utterly disconsolate. We ascended through darkness with our Siddur
and our à
candlesticks and candles, as our oppressors buried us with these.
In darkness,
we sat on the bottom of the river, rocking with the motion of the
water. It was
dark and we were separated from time. I could not know when to say
my prayers
but did not leave off praying. Blessed art Thou Who rescued Noah.
Blessed art
Thou Who saved a gourd, and would Thou do less for man? Saw I then
a piece of
light as small as the head of a pin where the staves were not
fastened
properly, and laid my eye it, and saw with amazement a whole world
of life
beneath the life I had known. Fish and plants of every size and
shape drifting
in the universal water, some with eyes that searched my own and
bumped against
the winekeg. Others with lights in their head, swimming busily,
and I saw that
these fish swam all about us and feared nothing. A shaft of light
fell beneath
the water, the very depths where we sat, and I surmised that this
was the shaft
of sunlight from the dawn. My heart was lifted. Blessed art Thou
Who rescues
and restores worlds. Blessed art Thou Who rescued Noah and through
Noah the
whole of creation.
Soon I knew when night
was upon the
earth, for the light disappeared. As it reappeared and disappeared
with
regularity, I could tell day from night. The fish themselves
drifted in this
light as the birds move with the air and come with the dawn. And I
blessed the
Creator, for I saw that there was no place in the universe,
neither among the
stars nor the shells, that He had not created with orderliness,
and I bid
Gertrude light the candles, for by my calculation it was the
Sabbath night.
'What boots tears,' I said. 'Come, light the candles.'
'You are mad,' she said.
'Rebono
shel lolam, rescue me from my husband, at least. He likes it here,
but I do
not. He has gone mad.'
Since our space was so
small and we
could not escape each other, we had no choice but to master
ourselves. 'What
boots it not to light the candles?' I asked. 'Either way, we must
sit here.'
'Aye, I she said
bitterly, 'our
space grows ever smaller and smaller.' And as she saw that there
were few choices
in calamity, she lit the candles as much as to hope she still had
the power to
do so.
So we remained on the
floor of the
river with the other creatures the Eternal had put into our world,
and came to
know them as they came to know us, and came to see that each had
its appointed
way. 'One and Eternal, I prayed, 'with what love you have created
every corner
of the world that I, living in my small part of it, could not know
until now.
Blessed art Thou Who has created the world wherein there is no
place that is
not fit for Your creatures and for blessing. Blessed art Thou Who
multiplies
berakhot and has brought me here. I see how difficult it is to
encompass you in
the human world where your Unity is torn apart. I see now that
however natural
our life appeared among humankind, it was unnatural, and however
unnatural I
had first thought this existence beneath the river to be, that it
abides by the
laws of Your universe. One and Eternal, may it be Your will to
give us what You
have given these fish, for how can it be that You would deny us
the order and
the light and the reasonableness which You have given Your lowest
creatures.'
"With that, my own dear
Will,
his tale came to an end. He said he had no more to say to me, and
as his wife
was hungry and he had kept her long enough, they must be gone. So
they went
their way, he in his tunic as he had it still about him and she,
my kinswoman,
in a moldy skirt and cap, hobbled beside him. And there was
nothing left more
on the beach but my star and my cat. A fearful emptiness seized me
for the
sudden loneliness. For though he left me his book, I could not
read it and
could only wonder at its letters.
The tide came and took
up the
winekeg. I went after to retrieve it and was caught by a wave, as
my own hunger
had weakened me, and I was dragged beneath the waters. But I saw
not the glory
he spoke of, but dark and mold and fish with sharp teeth in their
heads and no
kindly lights, but sharks of which you have heard and other
creatures that I
found not reasonable at all. Much parchment and papers and
documents went by,
swirling papers and books wherein the ink was purple from fungus
and glad I was
then that I could not read, for I would never have come to the end
of it. And
so many caverns and caves and chambers of archives and catacombs
of wills and
registers and rolles and letters and cartes and declarations, so
many sums that
I knew not whether I was beneath water or paper, for I saw no fish
anymore, for
could not live in so shameful a matter as I saw with my own eyes,
such
copulation that for shame I cannot tell it to you, not alone one
book atop
another but at times three books atop one, or four books
altogether jostling
and copulating such as would strain the spine of a human. So there
were halls
and halls of them, and in every hall such shameful acts took place
and scribes
sat there behind their desks and recked not what was happening but
looked
boldly upon it all and wrote their own news sheets that were
carried everywhere
by the falcons, and the news sheets and the books said the same
message, for
they could not come to the end of it: That the Jews had killed the
Lord Jesus
and trafficked in usury.
I was afraid for my
kinswoman,
Belaset, and fled with my cat and my star, I fled and it seems I
fled as I fled
before, for the animals of the world fled with me: the hare and
the rabbit, the
fox and the field mouse, for the land beneath us was burning
again. I fled and
the animals fled with me, for wherever we put down the foot the
land sprang
into flames. There was no place for foot or hoof, but galloping,
galloping,
roar and rumble fleeing. Everything with the breath of life in it
was hunted
and harried and fled. There was nought but a thread to guide me
through the
mountains of Seir and Kedar. So narrow the passage there was no
room for an ant
to pass through, and I passed as a worm through the passageway, I
passed
through the passageway through the mountains, as Moses through the
Red Sea.
And came then with the
fear upon me
and my cat on my shoulder, to this door with one word upon it:
EUROPE.
I cannot go back,' I
cried, and
banged on the door to open. 'I cannot go back for the land is
burning. Let me
pass through to safety.'
The door opened, but
there was my
mother as she was in life, not drowned in the river as I thought,
but in the
flesh in the sea, and still in the court as ever it was her custom
to be when
she was in the land.
'Mother,' I cried and
ran forward
to meet her, but she was ever the same, confused and daft and knew
her own, or
what to say, for if she said one thing they said another and if
she said the
other they said the first. There was no end to their eternal
wrath, but she
must, stand trial forever. And her jury was ever betwixt and
between and first
said one thing and then another and If the people said this, the
scholars said
that, and if the scholars went one way, the people went another,
for they said
and unsaid and said and unsaid that their God was the prince of
peace and judge
not and love your neighbor, and with the other tongue they called
this God the
prince of death and slew the Saracen for his disbelief and forgave
not but sent
the sinner to eternal hell where, as the poet said, was no hope at
all.
The pain of the place
was too much
for me, a God that would punish eternally. 'Come away, come away,'
I called to
my mother, but she could not hear me for the murmuring tongues
which did such
shameful things that I cannot tell you. Each tongue had a say what
the other
tongue unsaid, and so they said and unsaid and said and unsaid and
ever and
again the tongues twisted and flicked, so that many of their
sayings fell out
together and went hand in hand though they said opposite things
and opposite
sayings copulated and gave birth to sayings the sayings knew not.
And with it
all there was nought to say to any of it, for the sayings were
nought in
themselves, but the power was all, though these would that their
sayings
mattered, but I saw that they carried swords in secret places and
would that
the judge believed their sayings so that their tongues licked his
ears in a
shameful manner. And this judge was none but her own husband who
himself could
not move for the tongues that gave him such pleasure.
'Come away, come away,'
I wept, but
she could not, for she wished her husband to love her. 'He cannot
love
you" I cried, 'Mother, my dear, he cannot love you, for you have
taxed him
with the tax of life.'
Then the waters of the
world flowed
into my lungs so that I struggled and clutched my cat, for neither
of us could
live in this sea any longer. Froth and churning, the waters roared
upwards and
spit me back upon the shore. I was not gone but a minute, though
it seemed like
a lifetime, for it passed before me as before one who is drowning.
I wept for
my mother, for I could not save her, I wept for my mother beneath
the sea, I
wept for my mother who was but a simple woman, and however she
said her say she
remained in the stranger's land. I wept for my mother and I wept
for my
kinswomen, Hannah and Gertrude and Pulchinella, for the one lost
seven and the
other lost two and the third brought forth her child in flames.
I wept till I could hold
no more
with my weeping when a voice called me by my name, 'Miriam my
own,' in my own
tongue. And this voice came not from the mountain, Will, as you
once taught me,
but out from the midst of the sea in which I floundered.
'Why quake you?' the
voice asked
me, and I could not but guess that this was the voice of God, or I
was daft,
for there was nought but air about me. 'What!' I said, 'can you
speak my
tongue?'
'Surely,' He said, "and
why do
you weep?'
'If you can speak my
tongue, you
know why I weep.'
The voice laughed and
said back to
me, 'Aye, but do you know why you weep, for you have wept for many
things in my
book.'
'Aye,' I said, "but I
weep now
because I cannot save my mother. She is damned eternally by your
judgment.'
'Not by mine,' He said.
'What!' I said. 'Is it
not by your
hand that my mother died and did you not say that death is the
wages of sin,
and my mother could not help but sin seeing she knew not the way
to light.'
'Nay, not by my Hand,'
He said,
"for I gave no such law that death is the wages of sin. For all my
creatures die in their time, the fox and the hare and the rabbit,
and they know
not sin. Though man sins, he shares with my creatures the
universal of birth
and death. As I gave not birth for a wage of goodness, so I gave
not death as a
wage for sin. Man pays for his sins but not by my laws of birth
and death.'
'What!' I said, 'what
then of
eternal hell?' I asked with wonder, for it seemed I had just been
there.
'There Is none with me.'
'My mother then is not
doomed
forever?'
'Not in my domain. You
have written
it down yourself in your book and you have forgotten it. My
judgment is for
four generations, but my mercy is forever. Did I not make a
covenant with you,
and will I destroy what is mine? Man destroys what is his.
Self-destruction is
with man, not with Me. Did I not create, and will I then uncreate?
Will I
unravel the world I raveled up? I made my covenant with man, but
man makes not
his covenant with earth. I made my covenant with the beasts of the
field and
with the fowls of the heavens, even with the creeping things of
the ground, but
man keeps not his habitation and unlike my other creatures, fouls
his own nest.
I made my covenant with creation, but man makes his covenant with
destruction.
I make my covenant with all the living. Did I not save the gourd
because it was
mine when Jonah would destroy the whole of Nineveh for its sins.
He judged, but
I saved.'
'But see how the plague
rages,' I
wept, and 'you stay not your Hand.'
'The plague will pass,
but man will
not. I will stay my hand for the sake of my covenant, but man
stays not his hand
ever. You have forgotten the lesson I gave to the psalmist. There
is but one
remedy for adversity, which Moses gave you when he showed you the
two paths and
bid you choose the path of life. And this path the psalmist chose
when he went
through the valley of death. Feared he not death? He feared it
much, but he
said, to honor Me, that he feared it not and in this way he
overcame his fear.
This is the hard law, Miriam, that man must walk through the
valley of death,
let them say what they will and debate until doomsday. There is no
passage for
man but through the mountains, there is no passage but through the
night, there
is no passage but through the wilderness of thought and world and
deed, and man
has no choice but to go, whether he take the passage for blessing
or curse. All
this Aristotle knew, but he knew not the blessing. If life heal
you not,
Miriam, will death or philosophy? Though I have numbered your sins
and have
judged you, I am the God of life and my mercy is forever. Man's
contrition is but
a gift of the moment, and not an everlasting remedy. Only my mercy
is an
everlasting remedy. All this you have written down yourself in
your book, but
you have forgotten the names by which you were wont to call me.
God and restorer of
worlds
God of nature and of creation
God of justice
God of righteousness
God of mercy,
Without beginning and without end
Who was not created and cannot be
destroyed
God of time and of eternity
Who binds and keeps the centuries.
Now call you me god, and
I like not
this name. For as the name is little you have made me little, and
you, reck not
this evil. Moses was wise, for he asked me first, what shall I
call you? And I
would that you show me this courtesy. I speak with you in your own
tongue, call
me my name in mine: Rachman, Ha Shem, Adonoi, and Eloheynu. These
names I like
and not god nor senor nor mister nor what. Memory is mine forever
and I
remember my names. I remember and wait to be called. I am the God
of life and
all creatures, the hare and the fox and the rabbit, the wolf and
the mutter and
her whelps. Fear not the prince of death, Miriam, for I am the God
of life. My
judgment is for the hour, but my mercy is forever. I am the source
of life and
all its keeping. All this you have written yourself, and I abide
by your word,
but you have forgotten it. I alone remember. It is an ancient
wisdom. Therefore,
I say it in an old tongue. There is no more.'
Fell I then upon the
beach where I
stood and wept, 'Your servant, Lord!'
'Nay,' He said, 'my
handmaiden,
Miriam,' and raised me up, and departed.
There was no more, as He
said, and
I took up my cat and my star and went my way, for I saw I must now
go, back to
you to give you my get. For this reason, Will, I have returned,
for I mean to
leave and not be left. For I may now be judged in the Jew's court,
even as
Archbishop Siegfried said, and there is no law in their court that
my mother
must be punished forever.
"Nay, Miriam," Will
said,
"have you told me this long tale for this end that we are now to
part?'
"Aye, husband, I have,
for I
would that you understand, my heart for its rancor and its love,
for I would
live with you in amity, though apart. I want not your guilt nor
your sorrow,
but I would that I walk my path alone and bid you do the same.
Ever and again
you â would not let me go, but would have me as you wanted me, in
your image,
whether I would or no, and I had no will of my own anymore. I
would judge
myself now and judge my God with my own wisdom, for though you say
your God is
the God of love yet is punishment with him eternally, and though
judgment and
righteousness be with my God, mercy is with Him forever. This
perplexity which
held me captive I have unraveled from the confusion of sayings and
tongues, for
by my book His judgment is but for four generations, for the
keeping of man's
memory, and not for eternity, and by this law is my mother free,
for it is four
generations and more from Belaset."
"What!" Will said,
"would add to your sins such heresy?"
"Nay, husband, I cannot
be an
heretic and I cannot be apostate, for you sent me away and
declared me
unredeemable."
"Nay, Miriam, I meant
you no
harm, but that your ways have always angered me."
"Aye, husband, I do
believe
you, but you hit me on the side of my head and rai sed a bump
there, and I would
end my mutterings, but go my way, for as Jesus was crucified in
the flesh so I
have been crucified in my spirit and comes now my season of
resurrection. I
will go my way and we must part, but I would that we harvest what
goodness
there has been between us. I would we go in memory of what love
there has been
and not in memory of the enmity we must lay to rest, for we cannot
with it
anymore. Oh! love, even to the charnel house comes spring and
green memories of
good times when you came knocking at my door with the glint in
your eyes and
called to me, Mistress Maree, your goat strays yonder in the
fields, and I
walked with you in the grass for company's sake."
Here ended Miriam's
testimony. She
left Southwerke within a fortnight, seized with longing to return
to her
birthplace. The plague struck her down on the road between
Peterborough and
Lincoln, near a small town called Crantham, not far from the
Witham River. She
was seized with violent pains in her chest, fever and dizziness.
There was no
one close by and the ground was still hard, but she lay herself
down upon it as
she had lain in the forests of Europe and went to sleep in the
Eternal Dust.
Will returned to Bodmin
by the
beginning of February. The gates were shut, and no one came to
open them for
him. He had seen enough on his return trip to feel foreboding for
Bodmin
demesne. Though it was Lenten season, the fields were abandoned, a
sure sign of
coming famine. There were other signs as well. The cattle in the
fields,
domesticated for a millennium, were now left to stray by
themselves and had
become skeletal, niggardly in flesh wandering haphazardly, mooing
weakly to be
milked. But the keepers were gone. The villages were deserted. The
mills and
the baking houses were idle. There were not enough people left to
grind, to
bake, to plow à. In plague time, the balance between population
and land is
reversed. The problem is one of underpopulation, not enough hands
to do the
work of sustenance. Sometimes Will saw a peasant in the field,
salvaging what
he could, but most often he saw the plow standing idle, a dismal
sight to a
rural man.
One disease breeds
another. Man
becomes infected and cannot tend to his fields. The fields go to
waste and
cannot support the cattle. The cattle sicken and become unfit for
consumption.
Where there is not enough to eat, suspicion and hostility thrive.
Morality and
personality are unstable and human nature undergoes a change.
The plague by now had
spread north
and inland, to Malvern, Leicester, Coventry, and Stratford, most
often carried
there by those who fled the coastal areas, and by the flocks of
sheep they took
with them. The infected rats which carried the fleas stayed in the
coastal
areas.
The penetration Into the
interior
was made by those who fled the plague. The advice from the
University of Paris
to flee was only temporarily useful, or useful for those who could
escape
everyone else. Abbot Roland, who was in York by the middle of
February, heard
of deaths In Coventry, and by the time Will returned to Cornwall
the whole of
Exeter had become infected. Taunton and Launceston were deserted.
The holidays
were not celebrated this year, neither St. Distaff's Day nor Plow
Monday nor
Candlemas.
Will stopped at the
Launceston Inn.
There was no one about but the innkeeper's wife who had survived
everyone else
and faced the future with a wholesome wrath. She screeched at
Will,
"Christ be dead if I beat not the devil in this game. I will give
him no
more breath, for I have buried seven from this plague and there be
none to bury
me. I'd as lief curse God and go to hell and be done with it than
not be buried
properly and rot upon this earth with the sheep."
Will asked for Claryce.
"Ha!" the innkeeper's
wife said, "I warrant she has pulled the devil's tale by now." She
gave Will a piece of bread and bid him be gone, "for there be
nothing left
to eat here," she said and sat down in front of her fireplace and
stared
gloomily into the fire, now and then poking it harshly with a
piece of Iron.
Common clay endured the
plague as
well as uncommon clay; acts of charity and kindness were found as
often among
the illiterate and the vulgar as anywhere else, and the Black
Death is the
story of the endurance of these.
Will arrived at Bodmin
gate at
Vespers, but no bells rang. No bells had rung in the countryside
for weeks. The
Bishops of Winchester had given orders to cease all bellringing
because
"it attracted unnecessary attention, pilgrims and others,
rabble-rousers
about the countryside, who were tempted in loose times to come
against the monks."
For Medieval man, for whom the passing of every hour had been a
communal and audible
experience, the silence told him that his connection with
religious time was
broken.
Abbot Denis' monastery
had been
attacked again, the larder broken into, every scrap and morsel of
food, its
chief relics, the gold on its altars, the enamel crucifix, and
movables of
every kind taken, and his monks fled in panic for fear of
starvation or murder
at the hands of others. They had come battering at the gate of
Bodmin itself
for help.
"Christ help them,"
Prior
Godfrey said, and gave orders to barricade the gates and silence
the bells. For
three days and nights they were besieged by Abbot Denise monks who
sat outside
the gate and said incantations against those inside. Sons of
Belial! God help
them if he would open the gate to such as these.
Brother Ralph and
Brother Walter
kept watch from the Calefactory and sent Brother Namlis out every
hour to make
sure the barricade was holding. The howling and the cursing were
nerve
smashing, but even ˆtually the voices grew fainter, though no one
knew if they
had gone away or had perished outside the gate, and no one cared
or was brave
enough to go outside to see.
There was such thievery
abroad
these days, of relics from churches and monasteries, lootings of
altars and
sacred vessels, no stranger could be trusted past the monastery
gate.
Thus, Will halloed and
halloed, but
no one answered him. What! he thought, will he not be let back
into his own
monastery? Who sent him out? Had he not risked his life and walked
to London
and back through plaguey villages, and not a drop of cheer this
Christmas, only
to be shut out now! Hallo! Hallo! Bang! Shut! Closed! And night
coming on. Cold
Cornwall night full of freezing rain. The first drop already hit
him on his
collarbone. Ping! A drop of slithering cold that found its way
down his neck.
Ping!
'Damnye," he called out.
Human discomfort
struggled with the
speculation that everyone inside was dead. He looked about for
something he
could use as a battering ram, but everything that could be burned
or made to
serve in some way had long ago been taken by whoever had passed
this way before
him.
"Damnye! Open!" Will
cried again. Did they mean to betray him? Had they sent him out,
not to let him
back in for fear that he was contaminated? Dark thoughts crossed
his mind, too
dismal to think. "Damnye, let me in. It is nought but Will back
from
London. Have you not a heart for your own brother?"
At last, a shuffle of
footsteps,
though no voice accompanied it. Then a pause, then nothing more.
"Christ
rot your bones. Open up, I say. This be Will, and I be freezing.
Have you lost
your heart as well as your tongue?"
The gate was opened,
half a crack
at first, hardly, enough for an eyeball. The man carried no
candle. There was
no moon in the sky, no light to see by, no voice from this
brother, nothing to
trust a man by. Maybe it wasn't his own on the other side? Well,
what of it, he
cannot freeze outside. He put his shoulder to the gate and pushed,
but the
barricade would not yield. "I am Will," he cried, "mean you to
leave me out here?"
The barricade was pulled
back at
once. There in the cold darkness, as Will could make out by his
hump, was
Brother Namlis. And was ever a man more desperate for speech than
he was,
cautious of what dead bodies might, have come to rest against the
gate, judging
that it was only Will and Will alone, yet fearing to embrace him.
Conflicting
emotions seized him with the misery od speechlessness. He could
not tell him:
Brother John was gone, Prior Godfrey was gone, Brother Walter was
gone, and
Brother Ralph could not cease his grieving. He growled and cried
in huge
gulping sounds, so that Will surmised many things.
"Curse a world where a
man
cannot Û embrace his friend. Curse a world where he cannot say
hello."
Vexation overcame him, and he began to cry too. As soon as Brother
Namlis saw
this, he stopped crying, for he would not have Will suffer on his
account, and
joy overcame him as he realized it was Will indeed who stood
before him.
"Christ strike me if I
will
not love the man that opened this gate for me," Will said, and
embraced
Brother Namlis. "Enough weeping, for I must have warmth and food
or my
parts will cease forthwith." He ran for the refectory, leaving
Brother Namlis
to barricade the gate again, after him.
Will saw at a glance how
matters
stood. Brother Harald sat in Prior Godfrey's place. Brother
Walter's place was
empty. Brother John's place empty too.
"Welcome," Brother
Harald
said, without much change in his accustomed tone. 'I will not ask
you how does
the world, for you can see by our state that we know ourselves how
it
does."
The death of Brother
Walter had
stricken Brother Ralph's tongue. He who in former times would have
been the
first to come forward with, "What news? How does it in the outer
world?" was silent. He greeted Will for formality's sake, though
the kiss
of peace had been dispensed with, and he did not care what news
Will brought
from London or anywhere else. Brother Benedict, Will learned, was
still alive.
Whether the cancer kept the plague from him could not be said, but
"his
hold on is wonderful," Brother Harald reported. Brother 'Harald
was now
Prior Harald, as Bishop Grandisson had decreed when word was sent
to him that
Prior Godfrey was dead. It had been feared, but only by Brother
Harald, that
Bishop Grandisson would appoint a prior from somewhere else.
Bishop Grandisson
had considered this, but there were no priors or abbots to spare.
In one
monastery, a boy of fifteen had assumed the office, for lack of
anyone else.
Brother Harald suffered from a want of charity, but nothing else.
Bishop
Grandisson, after a night of counsel with himself, taking
everything into
consideration -- the man, the emergency, the times, the plague,
the political
disquiet, the lack of other capable men, sent word of his sorrow
for Prior
Godfrey's death, and his commendation that Brother Harald be
elevated to the
position of prior.
Bodmin Priory might not
have
survived the time of the dissolution but for this fortunate
change. Prior
Harald took immediate steps to provide against the imminent
collapse of the
monastery. He it was who gave the order that the bells not be
rung. He it was
who laid down the rule against the opening of the gate. He set in
motion an
inventory of every possession in Bodmin, what was left of food,
mead, tallow,
fish, wood, clothes, fur, and meted out accordingly.
The plague increased his
efficiency. It whetted his appetite for administrative action. He
was not a
brooder, and he did not bother with inquiries into God's motive,
or the causes
of the plague, or its relationship to the sinful nature of man. He
did not feel
curiosity about any of these matters. Plague was plague, like
cancer was
cancer, or a chill was a chill. No one asked God's motives when a
chill struck
him, or a fit of sneezing. Why should anyone see more meaning in
one disease
than another. He had no patience with speculations, only with
measures.
The plague distracted
him from his
own internal disease, his hypochondria. From the moment he had
become prior and
took matters into his own hands, he had ceased to have these fits.
In fact, he
almost forgot them by now. After his first hectic week of undoing
Prior Godfrey's
mismanagement he remembered that he had not had an attack in days.
As he could
not account for why he had suffered from them all his life, he
could not
account for their sudden disappearance, and he felt only momentary
alarm that
they might return. He could not "resolve" to combat them as he
could
resolve to combat inefficiency. This he knew from the past. They
had always
outwitted and defeated every resolution he had made. They were
wholly
mysterious, for him the one true mystery in life. But he had lived
long enough
to outlive them, and soon even this last fear that they might
return was not
remembered. For him the plague was a godsend. Prior Harald's
personality
concluded itself, and when his time came he died in peace.
His plan had been to
outlive the
plague, to conserve the energies of Bodmin, to shut themselves
into the priory
and stay until the plague was gone. If they remained inside the
walls and
husbanded carefully, they might pass safely through the winter. He
gave orders
for the brethren to say their prayers in their own cells to save
the cost of
candlelight in the cathedral. They kept to their schedule of
praying at Matins,
Prime and Tierce; and scrupulous care was given to every detail of
food,
clothing, hay, wood, and wax.
Prior Harald told Will
to have his
supper and sleep, and that he would hear his re ìport on how
matters stood in
the morning.
Will learned before the
night was
out that they did not stand well with Bodmin Priory, for St.
Petroke's bones,
the precious relic of Bodmin's founding saint and its primary
source of wealth
and collateral for emergencies, had been stolen from its resting
place, from
the very vault that had been dug for it in front of the cathedral
Brother Ralph relented
from his
silence bit by bit and by nightfall, somewhere between Compline
and Matins,
told Will how it had happened: The alarm had been given by Brother
Thomas who,
in a fitful nightmare, had wandered from his bed into the church
and had
startled the masked thieves in the act of it. One went at him with
a sword, but
fortunately for Brother Thomas' early training in the Scots army,
he
sidestepped quickly. His assailant was caught off balance, giving
Brother
Thomas time to flee to the dormitory and give the alarm.
The relic could have
been saved had
he been believed, or had he believed himself.
But so accustomed were they to his nightly fits that,
though he wept and
cursed and swore that it was so, that his very life had been
attacked, no one
believed him. Prior Godfrey was still alive and heard the tumult
and feeling a
want of courage if he did not go to curb it, put on his cape and
slippers and
made his way to the dormitory. First, he lectured Brother Thomas
on breaking
his vow of silence. "It matters not that you say your tongue wags
by
itself in your sleep. The spirit of Christ cannot go from you when
your eyes be
shut."
Brother Thomas wept from
vexation.
Brother Harald, as he still was then, perceived that it was Prior
Godfrey's
tongue that wagged unnecessarily, and advised that they quickly
and see how
matters stood.
It was frosty and no one
cared to
cross from the dorter to the church on a fool's errand, so that
Brother Thomas'
life stood in danger should he be proven wrong. For a moment he
surmised the
gamble, and the thought that he à had been carried away by a dream
made him
hesitate. He had been carried away before. It was his nature to be
carried away
by dreams of violence. Once, he had fled from his bed, claiming it
was on fire.
Yet, he had been so certain only a moment before! And now he was
not certain at
all. Why was he always tormented, thus in the middle of the night!
They then surmised how
matters
stood with him. "Get you to bed," Prior Godfrey screeched at him.
"Christ keep you in purgatory for a millennium if you break your
vow again
this night."
So they knew nothing of
the matter
until early Mass. Where the slab of neatly fitting stone had been
black hole.
Brother Harald was the first to enter the cathedral that morning,
the first to
notice that the stone was missing from its place. He struck his
forehead and
rushed forward. But for what? He knew that no one would remove the
stone except
to remove the relic, for stone qua stone had not a shilling's
worth to it. But
man's intelligence has little control over his instincts. Momentum
carried
Brother Harald forward, though he knew St. Petroke's bones were
gone. But
before he could stare into the dismally empty hole, something else
arrested his
attention. "Christ slice Brother Thomas' tongue for once and all."
The rubies, the jewels of blood, were missing from the stigmata of
the
Majestatis.
Brother Thomas fled. He
took to his
bed and claimed he had the plague. For three days no one came near
him for fear
it might be true, and by the time they decided it wasn't true the
shock of
their losses had diminished, and Brother Thomas felt at liberty to
come into
the refectory to get some food.
"He looks never the
worst for
fasting three days,' Brother Ralph said.
Now that Will was back,
his spirits
lifted a little. "God help you if you go again from us," he said.
"There is no place to
go," Will said. "But who is it that did this thieving?"
Brother Ralph's tongue
became
salubrious as the night wore on. There were many suspects, but
after a little
debate it was decided it was either Bishop Roundsleigh, Abbot
Denis' monks, or
that Walt of Landsend.
"It is not Walt," Will
said, "for I fell in with him and he died of the plague along the
way to
London."
Brother Ralph was now
recovered
enough to be impressed by this piece of news. "Some good there is
in the
plague," he said.
Will forbore and did not
answer
him.
In the morning, after
their meager
breakfast, he came to Prior Harald's room as he was bid. The fire
was roaring
in the fireplace and billows of smoke curled from it. The
tapestries of the
hunting scenes were now hung over the window to keep out the
winter air and the
chills. The heat inside the room was remarkable. St. George was
overcome by it.
Prior Harald had the
accounting
books open before him on the lectern. "I trust your trip to London
was
rewarding," he said.
"If you mean met I with
the
usurers, I did as I was told."
Prior Harald had none of
Prior
Godfrey's rhetorical flourish, but so bald a statement of the
matter took even
him aback. He sniveled his disapproval through smoke clogged
nostrils and said
through severely dry lips, "I know not what usurers you speak of,
seeing I
had it from Prior Godfrey that he sent you to the wool merchant."
"Oh. aye," Will said
edgily, forgetting his vow of obedience, and not minding an
argument, "he
m ay be a woolman as he shears the wool from the sheep's back but
he be a
renderer as I could see plainly by the coins on his table."
"Usury is forbidden
churchmen
and Christian alike," Prior Harald said, in the tone proper to his
new
status, "and if you call this usury you lend yourself to the
devil's
tongue and you may be sure the devil will pay b Wack this loan
with
interest."
Prior Harald did not
care about the
ethics involved in the problem, for he knew what it must take to
keep Bodmin
Priory from sinking into irreparable condition, but he did care
about a
peasant's comeuppance and a novice's impudence. If he did not call
it usury, it
was not for Will to wax sardonic and call it what Prior Harald
said it was not.
Prior Harald represented the church now, and the church
represented the truth,
and Prior Harald always hewed to form.
"Read you the letter
Prior
Godfrey sent?" he asked. Will said he had not. "Then you know not
the
terms on which the request was made."
Will had nothing to
respond to
this, but said, reluctantly working his way into apology, "it but
seemed
to me that he usured by his manner."
"Oh, aye," Prior Harald
said, "and this is the whole of your judgment?" He waved his and,
dismissing the issue with a generous gesture. "Let us see the
answer the
woolman gave you and be done with it."
Will took off the pouch
and emptied
its contents on the table.
Prior Harald looked at
the coins
for only a moment, and he said, "Plague take him that he has no
mercy on
the Church." He took each coin, bit it, held it in his hands to
test its
weight, then separated three counterfeit coins and marked their
identification
in his book. He put all the coins together on the table again and
swirled them
about to see how similar or dissimilar they looked. "Can mark the
clipped
coin?" he asked.
"I cannot," Will said.
Prior Harald dexterously
drew them
out from the others and held one up for Will between his thumb and
forefinger.
"Mark how the cross is clipped. Thought you not to watch closely
what he
put in the pouch?"
"I have no skill with
coins
and never did I see one such as this."
Prior Harald mixed them
up again on
the table. "See now if you can mark it and improve your skill."
Will looked closely and
saw little.
He had seen but a few dozen coins in all his life. "That one with
the long
cross upon it," he said, without confidence. But he was right, and
Prior
Harald was pleased, for there was in him the instinct of the
teacher as well as
the administrator, and ignorance offended him as much as
inefficiency.
"Aye," he said, "that one," pleased too at his own skills
in detecting fraud, a necessary virtue in high places and for a
man of the
world. "We cannot let the matter rest. They must go back."
"No," Will said quickly
and to his amazement, "I will not return to London this season."
"You will not disobey
your
prior."
"Let the plague abate a
little
and I will think upon it."
"Know you not what
treasures
have been stolen from Bodmin? We Πcannot pledge collateral now
less we pledge
the grounds themselves."
Will felt something
harden in him.
The feeling oppressed him. He had not given up the world, as
others had,
because he feared it or disliked it or had belittled its value. He
had given up
something which he had a great longing for. It seemed to him he
had changed his
mode of living, but little else, for everything else went on as
before except
for the pleasure of living. The conditions which had seemed so
cogent to make
him go in search of spiritual salvation had dissolved like mist,
and what
remained were problems of plague and debt and how to keep Bodmin
Priory from
falling into ruin.
Prior Harald had an
intuition that
if he sent Will out again, he might not return. "We will think
upon the
matter," he said, and shuffled the coins together.
Will left and went to
the
Calefactory room to warm himself. Brother Thomas, Brother Ralph
and Brother
Namlis were already there, waiting for the Chapter reading to
begin.
'Well?" Brother Ralph
whispered.
'It seems I knew not
that I brought
back three coins that were clipped," Will said.
'Trust that one to
know,"
Brother Ralph said.
"Devil take him,"
Brother
Thomas said, "you be not the man for such mean work."
"Aye, but I care not to
be a
fool," Will said bitterly.
"It matters not,"
Brother
Ralph said, "whether the woolman fleeced the prior or the prior
fleeced
the woolman, for they milk the same sheep."
"How come you to be so
worldly
wise?" Will said.
Brother Ralph accepted
the
compliment without embarrassment. "I have been in monastery all my
life.
Now tell us, Will, how does the world in London, for I must
confess to you I
have had it on my mind the whole night to ask you, met you with
whores?"
Brother Namlis bent
forward.
"No," Brother Thomas
said
hastily, "yo ’u will not talk on such a matter!"
"I know he met not with
dice," Brother Ralph said, "for never did I see him dice, but I
only
meant that seeing how he was married aforetime, mayhap a fit
seized him for his
former life, for they say that a man who has once been married
cannot cease his
burning."
Brother Ralph was a
wonder in what
he knew of the human race, and Will expressed his admiration. "How
come
you to know so much?"
"I have ever kept my
ears
open," Brother Ralph said with pride. "If a man hears nothing but
prayers and pater nosters all day, though it may do his soul much
good and
bring him into heaven, it will bring him no account of the world."
Brother Namlis longed to
say
something here, but could not. It seemed to him that Brother Ralph
did not know
as much about the world as he thought if he thought that only
married men could
not cease their burning. Brother Ralph was a braggart and an
ignorant tattler.
All his tales had to do with gaming and dicing and what the bishop
said to the
prior, and never at all about whores. Brother Namlis did not care
what the
bishop said to the prior. He wanted to hear what Moll said to Mae,
for the talk
of women struck him as more wonderful than the talk of prelates.
He tapped Will
on the shoulder and gesticulated and grimaced.
"What would you?" Will
said.
"He would hear of the
whores," Brother Ralph said.
"Nay," Will said,
feigning astonishment, but Brother Namlis nodded his head
vigorously.
"What!" Will said,
"it cannot be," but Brother Namlis nodded his head still more
vigorously.
"Forebear," Will said,
"to speak of fornication is a sin." Then he burst out laughing.
"But God help me if it be not a worse sin not to regale a friend
in such
times as these and as I live the brothels and the taverns be all
that is left
in London where a man may meet a fellow µman. I must confess the
fit seized me.
Aye, it seized me fore and aft, going and coming, for something
there is about
a road that brings such loneliness to the traveler that makes the
bed beckon
him."
Was there ever such a
storyteller
full of self-justification. The plague raged outside, but here in
the
Calefactory the fire crackled and Will told of his adventures, or
misadventures, as the case might be, in Southwerke.
"Heigh ho, she says to
me at
the door. What! Is this not a stewehouse? I asked.
'Aye, yea, and many be
the hens and
the cocks that be stewed here,' she said. see you swing a full
pouch ready for
the pecking.'
'Aye,' I said, 'double
full,' and
with that she lowers the bar to the door and what was naked up
above I see is
but the anteroom to what lay below. Full bosomed was she
everywhere and her
pouch jingled merrily, so keen she was for the coin she unties my
pouch swiftly
and whistles at the wealth. 'I have a harlot here what waits for
you,' she
says, and takes me by the hand and leads me to a room dark and
full of wondrous
smells with a couch and one such as Samson had his full of was
lying naked
there upon it, so that I laughed, 'Be you Delilah,' for I felt my
strength go
from me at this wondrous sight.
'Aye,' she said in such
a voice
that my hair and other parts stood straight up.
Brother Thomas put his
fingers in
ears to hear no more. "This is the devil's tale," he said.
"Aye, it is," Will said
dolefully, "for she betrayed me, not once, not twice, but ever and
again,
so that my strength went from me with her dalliance."
"What!" Brother Ralph
exploded, 'did you not enter her?"
"No," Will said, caught
in a cross of emotions, embarrassment, and relief.
"What!" Brother Ralph
exploded
again.
"Aye," Will laughed
sheepishly, "I could not, for as she was a Jewess she would not
have me
sin with her but would save me."
Brother Namlis fell off
the bench
and somersaulted on the floor, rolling over his hump, but Brother
Thomas took this
grimly and made the sign of the cross on his chest.
"Nay, it cannot be,"
Brother Ralph exploded yet again. "It cannot be, there be no Jews
left in
England.'
"Aye, there be," Will
said, "one or two, I believe. Like fleas upon a dog you cannot,
get them
all out."
"And she would not have
you
enter her?" Brother Ralph asked.
"Nay, she would save
me,"
Will said, "and ever as I made to go in, she took out her star and
pinned
it where it stopped me."
Brother Namlis
somersaulted again.
This was better than outright fornication. Hey, diddle diddle.
Brother Ralph,
more sober, said, "Dice be a better vice for all I can see, for
any man
who has a will may have a throw at it."
Will felt better and
better about
his mishaps. "Bless me," he roared with laughter, "if it weren't
the woolman that clipped the coins but the whore that dallied with
my
pouch."
"As for that," Brother
Ralph said, "you will never know, for there be many who know how
to clip
the coin and practice counterfeit."
"Aye," Will said,
"aye, for I was with such more outside Southwerke, the next night,
on
hallowed ground itself, that never in my life saw I such things as
happened
there."
Brother Thomas put his
fingers in
his ears again.
"You did not see
fornication
on hallowed ground?" Brother Ralph said.
"As ever I live. Between
two
bears that they caught there, one a female and one a male which
they set upon
each other, and set them up in a tug of war to pull them apart
with streaming
and laughing to see which was the stronger and would hold on the
longer, the
male or the female bear in heat, and they would not let these
beasts do their
coupling but beat them with rocks and sticks in the act of it
until the beasts
fell dead upon the ground with roaring and vexation."
It was enough. Brother
Namlis did
not wish to hear anymore and moved away to the other side of the
fireplace.
"Aye, " Will said, the
cheer gone from him too, "I am right sorry my feet took me in this
path
that my eyes did see such Christian manners. Came this evil priest
with a cross
hung with a vulture upon it and set his candle down upon a
tombstone there.
'Death and doom and plague and rot,' he sings, and strikes a stone
and loosens
it from the earth like a rotting tooth. 'Strike, strike, the
others shout and
pull at the stone till it gives way and they rush forward to lift
out the
buried treasure.
Bless me, I think, if I
be not
fallen in with graverobbers, and fear to open my mouth. This
priest walked
about with his crucifix in his hands and raises up the vulture.
The air is
filled with a terrible smell and the dead come out of their
graves, and the
stones are overthrown and the dead lifted out for their rings and
their things
of baubles and jewels. They roll from their winding sheets, bones
and sinews
and buried treasures that so foul an odor flew from their graves
that one there
cried out in alarm, 'Enough! Stop ¹ the dead from coming back,
stop the
miracles afore we die of suffocation!'
Then came this preacher
again and
led us all in procession and I could not but fall in with them,
round and round
the open graves, round and round the messy dead, ever faster
totentanz, past
the booths of miracles 'God rescue us,' we cried and relics and
amulets and
salves. 'God rescue us from plague and famine.'
'Life, life,' the dead
cried back,
'give us some wind, some sun, a bit of green that grows in the
spring.' Then
one jumped upon this platform. Newly dead he was, as we could see.
'Give us
back our lives,' he wept, 'give us back the earth or we shall come
and take it
back.'
'Revolt, revolt,' the
others
shouted, 'give us back our lives.'
'Who is more oppressed
than us?'
their leader shouted.
'None,' they answered
back. 'Give us
back our lives,' and the hallowed ground became a battlefield, a
tournament.
Came the knights and friars, preachers, bishops Ê, swordsman,
teachers,
trumpeters, and hunting dogs.
'The wonder tournament
of the
world,' the preacher said, and cracked his whip. Came the Knight
of Utmost
Reflection galloping across the hallowed ground, his banner
unfurled for all to
see his motto:
Mirror, mirror on the
wall
Which God be the fairest
Of them all,
The Father, the Son, or the Saracen's Allah,
Lord Jesu Christ or the Jew's Jaweh
'Well, what say you,'
the preacher
said, and all began to preach their sermons, but the priests
carried swords
where their tongues should be and cut as they spoke so that their
very words
drew blood. Then they put all their good deeds in a scale they had
with them,
the deeds of the saints and the martyrs, the hermits and paupers,
and a few bad
deeds they reckoned they had like false modesty. The scale tilted
first to the
good and a cheer went up, then it tilted to the bad, and the
priests cut the
scales in fear of the judgment and the mess ran out over the
earth, and we fled
in fear of drowning.
'The weights have been
tampered
with,' someone cried.
'The scale has been
tipped,'
someone said.
'Gamblers, false
weighers,
deceivers of weights and measures are among us.'
This priest jumped up
again, with a
bull pizzle in his hand. 'This way to the carnival,' he said,
'there are scales
a plenty to be judged and to be weighed.'
And all about the
hallowed ground,
in the twinkling of an eye, were carnival booths and arks and
merry games, all
tended by the dead. jugglers, actors, mimers, masques, booths
where miracles
were sold, relics of cloth and blood and skin, the teeth of saints
and the
hairs of martyrs, for the things of the dead have great power. And
we went
about and about from booth to booth until the early dawn, for
every relic was
fairer than the other, set in jeweled cases with gold and enamel,
ivory and
pearls I did not see upon the living, wondrous containers for a
drop of blood.
In each booth was a treasure box guarded by a dead who collected
the payments,
coin upon coin-upon coin upon coin, so that the treasure boxes
overflowed with
the longing of the living to be saved.
'Where go the coins?' I
whispered
to one there. 'Our souls go to heaven, but where go the coins?'
'They go also to
heaven,' he said,
'to buy the pearly gates. Lay up, lay up thy treasure. Canst not
see who is the
Eternal Banker?'
We looked up and saw no
less than
Christ behind the pearly gates and an endless stream of the living
come to
deposit their merits into The Bank of Souls.
'Iron rusts, but not the
soul,' the
preacher said. 'Lay up, lay up thy treasure in
heaven,' and cracked his whip again, and before our eyes
transformed himself
from preacher to knight, to merchant and woolman, for he was
whatever he wished
to be and could play two parts at once, Judas or Jesus.
'Behold the nature of
the
universe,' he said, 'and behold the universe of nature. Who has
slain more, God
or man?'
And we be §held the
afterworld in
more terror than we thought, for the animals here sat in judgment
upon us, the
slain and the hunted, the tortured and the maimed judged us and
rode in
chariots and hunted man.
'Forever,' the preacher
said, and
at once came forth that notorious Seigneur de Venous and the
thirty horses he
burned to entertain his guests. These sat in judgment upon him and
passed this
sentence: the worst crime done for the sake of amusement, Seigneur
de Venous,
who sleeps in the hallowed ground of the Christian, we resurrect
you now in
your color of cruelty. What punishment in the afterworld can mark
your cruel
passage in the above world, cruel to us who were burned to amuse
you.'
And the horses began to
weep in
memory of this deed. So fearful the sound was of their crying
through the halls
of the afterworld, the living could not bear it. The horses wept
from the grave
of man's doing. What punishment will give us back our lives, our
glossy coats,
the wind in our mane? Oh! life! That we were burned to make your
company laugh.
Eternity is impotent, wretched, bankrupt. There is nothing it can
draw upon to
match your passage upon the earth. You did what no God would do,
Seigneur de
Venous, and we are dead forever. Not mercy or memory can give us
back the wind
in our mane. God gave us lif e and you gave Us death, Seigneur de
Venous. We
died while your company laughed.
'Gone!' the preacher
shrieked and
drew the curtain across this sight. 'Gone!' The law has perished
from the
priest and vision has perished from the prophet. Comes now the
plague of
covetousness, and the plague of greed, the plague of simony, the
plague of
ignorance and the plague of confusion, bearing false witness and
making false
judgments, slandering with eye and tongue and hint and rumor.
Would that the Roman
had nailed the slandering tongue to the cross and not the man
called Jesus!'
'Open the graves and let the dead back in,' someone cried, 'have
we not enough
of our own plagues?'
'Ha! It is too soon,'
the preacher
said, 'for the sermon has but begun.' And he blew upon a horn so
loud that even
the dead quaked and almost trampled us beneath them.
'Make way,' someone
cried.
'Give us room, someone
said.
'Put the dead back in
their
graves.'
'Aye, back, for they are
trampling
us beneath them.'
'We will not go back,'
the dead
said, and their bones flew at us. 'There is nought left in the
graves but earth
and dirt,' they cried. 'You have stolen our rings, you have stolen
our
treasure. Gravediggers, graverobbers, you have buried the living
with the dead.
They moan beside us in the Eternal Dust and will not let us rest.
Their flesh
smells of life, their hair of grass, their mouths of milk. Our
graves are empty
but for their cries.'
'Son of man,' the
preacher howled,
'son of Man and son of God, the dead are restless and cannot
sleep. Their bones
migrate through the earth like birds and their souls travel with
the worm. Son
of man,' he said and kicked the ground with his boot, 'I call this
earth our
heaven and hell, for our judgment is here.'
"Forebear, Will,"
Brother
Ralph said, "methinks this preacher is a heretic."
"Aye," Will said, somber
again. His mouth was dry, without spittle. Panic seized him for a
moment, but
it passed. Prior Harald stood on the threshold to the room. "I see
you had
more cheer on this trip than was thought," he said. But he did not
wait
for an answer, or even to lecture further. Other things were on
his m ind. He
cancelled the reading for the morning and beckoned Will to follow
him. "It
matters not the clipped coins," he said, deciding to be diplomatic
and
resigned to the problem. "We will bury what we have in the
treasure box.
The plague will pass, let it rage as it will. All evil comes to a
halt sooner
or later, and we will lay up for the days ahead." He bid Will
fetch a
spade and a shovel and follow him into the rose garden. "In a dark
time,
be like the mole. We will bury these coins with the treasure we
have kept these
many years, and with Christ's help may yet help ourselves."
They went into the rose
garden and
he showed Will the place where Bodmin Priory's treasure box was
kept. Though
the ground was frozen, it did not take Will long to dig the hole
which Prior
Harald requested, but the hole was empty.
"Mayhap it is the wrong
place," Will said.
It is not the wrong
place,"
Prior Harald said with unaccustomed shrillness, sounding more like
Prior
Godfrey than like himself, for their old enemy had made a
laughingstock of
them. "It is the very place this treasure has been kept for
centuries."
Will's bitterness came
from another
source, his curiosity, and he asked, "What treasure be that, for
methought
the whole of Bodmin's treasure was with St. Petrokes bones."
Prior Harald gazed at
Will with the
impatient contempt of one forced to deal with fools in times of
crisis. His
suspicion of Will's lack of perspicacity deepened. The plague be
cursed that he
must do with novices! "What treasure!" he said with undisguised
contempt, and answered rashly, "The treasure we had from the Jews
when
they were in England which we buried here for the bitter day."
Will did not feel so
much
enlightened as confirmed in his disappointment. Prior Harald's
voice was
demeaning, wrapping him in the guilt of the problem, when Will
felt befuddled
and called upon to do something about the missing treasure, though
Christ knows
if he had ever laid eyes upon it!
"What can be done?" he
asked ineptly.
"Put back the earth. It
is of
no use to bury these coins here, for what the thief has taken once
he can take
again."
Will filled up the hole.
Prior Harald
returned to his room with the coins from the woolman and Will went
to the
Calefactory room, feeling improperly blamed for Bodmin's troubles,
and blaming
Bodmin for his own.
Brother Ralph as usual
surmised
what had happened, but he did not come right out and say so but
let Will warm
his hands first while he sat there with a knowing look on his
face. Finally, he
said, "I warrant it was Bishop Roundsleigh who has been busy these
many
days." Will shrugged his shoulders disconsolately, and Brother
Ralph wagged
his head. "It matters not, for if it be not one knave then it be
two. Gone
is gone, whether it be by one or by a thousand."
"His son be gone now
too," Will said, with a spice of vindictiveness to his voice.
"Much
good it may do him to have St. Petroke's bones and the prior's
treasure."
Such a despondency hung over all of them that Will added, "Let be,
seeing
memory bears grief in an evil time."
Brother Ralph accepted
the advice
but had one last word. "Without doubt to that, but I trust the
message of
his son's death has been brought to him by now, for we posted a
breviator after
Abbot Roland's party who mu ¯st have come to York by now."
Unknown to Brother
Ralph, however,
no messenger had been sent. Prior Godfrey had considered sending
one but delayed
until it was too late. By the time Abbot Roland md his party
arrived in York,
the plague had spread as far as the Scottish border. Dorset,
Somerset, all of
Exeter, Southampton, Hampshire, Bristol, up and down both sides of
the coast,
on the English Channel and on the Bristol Channel, the plague had
broken out in
such numbers that England began to look and sound and smell like
Europe.
Abbot Roland had left
Fountainville
for the end of the journey, for sentimental rather than for
diplomatic reasons.
They went first to Baron Roundsleigh's manor who, he felt,
welcomed them with
an alarming gusto in the panoply of his bishop's dress. Baron
Roundsleigh had
seen fit to remove himself from his manor in Cornwall to Ns manor
on the river
Swale in York, where he was Bishop of the Church. Blessed with
long legs and a
large frame, a healthy constitution exercised in the hunt, a
joyful appetite,
the exuberance of the warrior, the horseman and the huntsman, he
filled the
altar space at the end of the nave with an energy that is the envy
of religion.
More devoted priests might turn wan in the pursuit of the
hereafter. Bishop
Roundsleigh grew ruddier and stouter in pursuit of this world.
Whether he went
to battle with a mace or to the hunt with hounds, as long as he
was astride a
horse, the world f or him was faultless. He might have said the
same for being
astride a woman, except that she breathed in his face and
occasionally spoke,
while his horse never did.
Bishop Roundsleigh was
famous for
his appetites. All of them. Foxes, boars, rabbits and village
wives scattered
at the sound of his horse. He had two score of illegitimate
children whom he
had given to the Church. Except that his legitimate heir, John,
had become a
cockless monk a Ònd that he had arthritis in his thumb, the world
was as
complete a place as he could wish for. He was the bane of
clergymen and
priests, a thoroughly sinful, happy man, a lecher, a glutton, a
wencher, a
dicer. Some might regard the death of his son still unknown to
him, as
providential. Baron Roundsleigh would be apt to regard his death
as less
grievous than the desertion of the family line.
Abbot Roland perceived
that in his
host he had met the climax of his experiences in this undertaking.
Bishop
Roundsleigh saw fit to dine him in the great hall of Leigh Castle
on boar and
venison and badly skinned rabbit while he rehearsed the details of
how he had
hunted down each animal on his table. "Now, this fellow," he said,
jabbing the poorly skinned rabbit, it got himself trampled upon
before I put my
sword to his ribs. Nary a hole in him. But this one," he jabbed
the boar
who, though thoroughly dead and resting in deserved peace, grinned
at the tale
of his own dying, "this one was a cool and cunning fellow, running
never
in one straight line but in such a path that the dogs got dizzy
and the horses
confused. Christ love a clever boar for a good hunt," he said
piously, for
he never set out on the hunt without sprinkling his horse and
hounds with holy
water, and a prayer to Hubert of Liege.
His wife and mischievous
other
ladies kept silent at the table while he spoke, but spoke plenty
when he was
silent, making up with a voluble chatter what they lacked for in
leisurely
conversation. Their voices added cackle to the fire, in front of
which stood two
small boys, turning the spit and going blind from the smoke.
The table was set with
wonderful
plate, pewter and silver and carved cups, each with an endearing
name and
credited with its worth as collateral. On the wall hung two famous
tapestries
of The Hunt, with spaniels and peregrines and falcons abounding.
"Pat," Bishop
Roundsleigh
¾said, "ye might as well or the dogs will get it."
Abbot Roland hesitated
before the
forlorn dimensions of his stomach. "Your generosity is wondrous,"
he
said.
Monks, villains, Jews
and prelates,
Christ pickle them in their own wine, Bishop Roundsleigh thought,
for he
sniffed a flavor to the phrase which pricked his spirits. "Trust
me,"
he said to Abbot Roland later in the warming room, in spite of the
fact that he
disliked his guest's runty look and elegant language. He bid Abbot
Roland lift
his robes high and let the heat have its way. "'Twill do your
bones good
to say nothing of your cock."
Abbot Roland was content
to rub his
hands in front of the fireplace, but the bishop lowered his
breeches and warmed
himself into heaven.
"The winds of Scotland
blow
late this year," he said. 'Trust me, I shall abide by Clement's
wishes as
behooves its bishop."
Abbot Roland was duly
grateful and
did not forget the requirements of courtesy. "I trust you will
bear no
hardship for this decision," he said.
Bishop Roundsleigh
roared with
laughter and hitched up his breeches. "What! No, no! I will bear
no
hardship. The future is with weaving. Devil take Edward for taking
wool out of
England. And if I can skin that cockless prior who has yet to see
the backside
of a woman, trust me I shall do my duty to the pope."
"Yes," Abbot Roland said
and remarked to himself how political wisdom is expressed in
unexpected
formulas. He had surmised Bishop Roundsleigh's sympathies while
crossing his
demesne. Fulling mills had been erected along the river. Peasants
could be seen
weaving in the doorways of their cottages. Abbot Roland had
learned that
independent sheep owners were on the manor grounds, diverting
sacks of wool for
the weavers. Wonderful indeed, Abbot Roland thought, that it
should be Bishop
Roundsleigh who could see that the future of English wool lay with
manufacture.
"No," Bishop Roundsleigh
said to him again in the morning as he saw the party to their
carriage. Edward
should be left to manage his own affairs. If he wished to wage
war, let him pay
for it out of his private purse.
"No," he shouted after
them, "£2 on the sack is as good in my pocket as the king's. Joy
and peace
be with the pope and Christ keep you on this journey and may the
cockless
lechers who have fleeced the wool from my good sheep lust for
weavers which
they cannot have."
Only Abbot Roland did
not flinch before
this speech, but waved his thanks and blessing, and bid his
servant drive as
fast as he could.
"We are succeeding," his
secretary said, his face pale.
"In a manner of
speaking," Abbot Roland said.
They travelled east,
crossing the
valley between the Swale and the Ur. It was a short journey and
they came to
Fountainville by Vespers. Abbot Roland asked the servant to stop
the horse. He
wished to look at the building before approaching it. "I'd best
enjoy now
what I can of it," he said. They caught the rueful note, for there
are few
things an old ecclesiastical scholar, who has spent years in
church
administration, can return to without feeling that he has betrayed
himself.
Fountainville looked as
he
remembered it: reverential against the twilight sky. The
spaciousness of the
architecture, the stones built in their symbolic style conveyed
the solemnity
of their purpose, to house the guardians of mankind. He leaned
across and
touched Philip's knee to draw his attention to the belfries in the
distance, from
whose perch a crowd of birds flew up, as they had done every
evening when he
had lived there and had watched them ascend from the ground
without warning,
their impulses secret to mankind.
They were outside the
gatehouse.
The servant presented papers to the gatekeeper which were written
in Latin and
which the gatekeeper could not read, but which he studied
carefully. After
descending from the carriage, Abbot Roland paused at the fountain,
then made
his way to the Chapter Room where Abbot Benedict, who had
succeeded Abbot
Thomas, waited for him.
Abbot Roland would not
offend his
spirit with personal regrets that a new abbot sat in Abbot Thomas'
chair, but
he could not avail himself of kind feelings for him, and he was
not sure
whether the fault was his or Abbot Benedict's supercilious manner.
Abbot Roland
suddenly found it difficult for him to master his anger and made a
mental note
that he should retire from missions after this one. Aging was not
having the
mellowing effect upon him reported of others.
Abbot Benedict had his
steward
bring warm wine and bread, which they took in the Calefactory, for
the weather
was still cold and winter clouds in the sky.
"We are quite far
north,"
Abbot Benedict said.
'This is my native
land,"
Abbot Roland reminded him. Indeed?" Abbot Benedict said.
"I spent my novitiate
here
with Abbot Thomas."
"Indeed, I should
welcome you
then as an old member."
"You were not here when
I
left."
"No, I came from
Rievaulx.
When Abbot Thomas died, matters were in such disorder it was
thought unwise to
choose his successor from his monastery."
"Disorder!"
"His accounts had fallen
into
arrears. His tax collectors were unstable." Abbot Benedict did not
expect
Abbot Roland, who had been away for thirty-five years, to know
what a disorganized
state Fountainville was in when Abbot Thomas died. He had been
sick for two
years, during which time his reeve cheated him mercilessly, the
fees for the
use of the mill found their way into the miller's pocket, the
rents found their
way into the collector's pocket, and the bailiff pocketed the
money on every
third sack of wool. "Typical behavior," Abbot Benedict said,
"when the lord of the manor cannot perform his functions. Mankind
needs
watching."
"He must have been very
ill," Abbot Roland said.
"He was no longer an
able
administrator."
Abbot Roland looked
away. Abbot
Benedict surmised that he had piqued him. "Forgive me," he said,
"I should not like to tamper with your memory of him."
"My memory," Abbot
Roland
said, "is undisturbed." He bid Abbot Benedict goodnight and went
to
his room but found it difficult to sleep. A thousand pieces of
argument
assailed him. In the end, he decided that Abbot Thomas must have
been sicker
than he had admitted to being. He had lost his grasp on his world
and he, his
disciple, should have returned to help him Better a life spent
here than
anywhere else.
He was not fit to
converse with
Abbot Benedict in the morning. He prepared his arguments for the
evening and
spent the day in a personal indulgence he rarely permitted
himself. For all his
debilities, he was a great lover of the world, of air and sky and
clouds, and
walked through the fields, filling his eyes and breath with these
and with the
flocks of birds ascending with their hidden motives for the air.
Even the
habits of the worm entranced him. He paused before everything
living and
enquired after its motion: the charge of the animal mother and her
lightning
reversals of cruelty and protection, a fly, a wasp, a spider.
Where others
swatted at an insect, he stopped and watched it. Where others
hurried with
messages and pronouncements, each one of which was believed
capable of changing
the world, he amused himself with letters written to the dead.
Mankind fretted
that he wasted his great intellect. Requests were made of him
constantly to
write a summa on this and a summa on that. "Leave us more," they
shouted, "more wisdom, more thoughts, more ideas on the nature of
sin." He left very little, and who knows what Abbot Thomas did
with the
letters that came to him. Nor do we know how Abbot Roland came to
be, fighting
bodily aches daily, content if he spent a day without a headache,
patient with
bureaucratic blunder, gross error and violence. How did he avoid
cynicism where
others ate it?
Perhaps it was only by a
hair's
turn in his constitution that he responded to the immanently
living with
greater attentiveness than he did to the ideological and the
theological.
Certainly ' y, this was one of the secrets of his constitution:
his vigilant
balance between "sympatico" and intellectual formulations, and the
reason he left so little behind. It was not given to Abbot Roland
to solve
anything or to be remembered by later centuries for his
philosophy, but only
before his night fell to trace the origins of his soul to a loving
servant, a
wise teacher, and a close friend, which he now acknowledged with
the brief and
piercing amplitude of the dying, had been God's special gifts to
him, and to
leave in return for these the memory of his presence.
His feet got damp from
the fields
and he returned to the monastery by way of the fountain and the
cemetery. He
wandered through the Scriptorium and found his former caracel, his
place, even
his old quill. All day he haunted spiritual trails which, in the
evening, led
to Abbot Benedict.
"We have two thousand
sheep," he told Abbot Roland. 'When I arrived here, Fountainville
was in
debt. From the revenue on the wool, I was able to cancel these
debts, restore
the cloister floor, the ceiling in the refectory. So many repairs
must always
be made. You cherish the glory of Fountainville. Wisdom suggests
that I not
change the means of maintaining it."
Afterwards, Abbot Roland
went to
visit the grave of Abbot Thomas again. He did not feel, in this
cemetery which
housed the remains of centuries, that he was in a place of death,
but of the
living where the margin between the visible and the invisible was
erased.
'Advise," he said conversationally to Brother Thomas, "you who
sent
me away from this place we both loved." That he had gone and had
now come
back, that he had lived for thirty-five years among strangers,
away from the
friend and place he loved, struck him as most strange. For unknown
reasons,
one's life always does: how it was that we started from here, how
we became
involved with affairs that always take a surprising turn, how we
evolved for
better or worse than we expected to, how certain people died whom
we thought
would outlive us and how all this changed the landscape we thought
would never
change; how we thought our generation was the summit of time and
history, and
how aging taught us humility and reversed the order of the
importance of
things.
The February sky was too
dark and
too cold. His chest hurt. His knees stiffened, suddenly and
completely. He was
so familiar with his infirmities, he was struck by the strangeness
of these new
pains, afflictions around the heart and the tongue and the loins.
"You do
see," he said to Brother Thomas, "that my entire body bids me
stay.
My knees will not unhinge my legs will not move." The symptoms
were
perplexing, an array of aches he had not yet experienced. He took
Its psalter
out and tried to pray, but his tongue thickened i ×n his mouth and
his mouth
became like a small cage into which this animal, his tongue, could
not find
room for itself. An organ he had lived with all his life, the size
and shape of
which he took for granted, became an enemy in his mouth. It
swelled ludicrously
and drained him of moisture. He thought of the arguments he must
present to
Abbot Benedict, the arguments he must present to the world. Europe
was dying!
and he could not master his tongue. Thirst conquered his mind. He
could think
of nothing but water, but he could not form the word for it. His
body formed
it. It cried for water. His tongue would not let him shout for
help. He panted,
he raved, he screamed for water. His psalter dropped from his
hands. He
crouched to the ground to look for it. His chest burned with the
movement. Yes,
he understood. Yes, yes, yes. It had come. The universal disease.
Europe could
not be saved. He crouched, looking for his psalter. His mind
groped for an
image of ã faith, to beat back the nihilism that sprang from the
ground.
A servant came running
with Philip.
They had become alarmed by his long absence. The servant grasped
Philip's arm.
With a feeble gesture, Abbot Roland waved them away. Blood and
water ran from
his mouth and eyes.
Philip freed his arm,
but the
servant grasped it again. "Do as he bids," he said. "It is the
plague and he knows it."
"Go for water," Philip
said. He pushed the servant to hurry. "Do as I say, instantly."
The
servant turned and ran, but he did not come back.
"Human charity is dead,"
Guy de Chauliac had written from Paris that summer. In the
chronicles that deal
with the plague, there are records of a few acts of mercy: a group
of friars
who jumped into the pits with the dying to bring them water,
priests who
administered the last rites at risk to themselves; but on the
whole, the
chronicles record few of these acts. In 1349, Christian Europe
suffered an
irreparable affliction in its soul, one among several in its
history: It is
told that when St. Roche, patron saint of the plague-stricken, lay
dying of the
plague, he crawled beneath a tree and the only living thing that
would approach
him was his dog, Gothard, who licked the fever from his face.
Abbot Roland could not
solicit this
much help from his servant. Philip cursed the man and ran himself
to the
kitchen for water, but when he returned with it, Abbot Roland was
on his back,
his eyes were already glazed, and his chest rattled. Philip put
drops of water
on his lips. Abbot Roland tried to speak, to grasp his crucifix
where it had
fallen on the ground. Philip found it and put it in Its hands.
Abbot Roland
wished to thank him, but his tongue pressed on his larynx and his
vocal cords.
A frivolous worry assailed him. What would happen to Philip? He
knocked on
Philip's chest and tried to say something, but it was difficult,
difficult.
Philip bent his ear to hear. Oh, it was dangerous, dangerous to do
this. Better
for Philip to go away, but he did not. Imperial messages locked
themselves into
Abbot Roland's' eyes, inarticulate messages from servant and
teacher to friend,
which broke his dying brain into fragments of affection.
Some men, being very
good, are
nevertheless of their generation, like Noah and Bishop Grandisson.
We cannot
ask more of them than that they "save their times." But some men,
being very good, go beyond their generation. They have an insight
about the
universe which becomes a spiritual legacy. No one can explain how
they come by
it. "Innate holiness" will do for an explanation. It is said that
when St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, died in 1200, the Jews of
England put ashes
on their heads and ran alongside his casket.
Some compared Abbot
Roland to St.
Bernard, others to Bishop Hugh of Lincoln. The latter comparison
is the right
one for, like Bishop Hugh, it is not known where Abbot Roland's
bones are, since
his body was removed immediately after his death and buried
outside the
monastery walls, most likely in a common grave with other victims
of the
plague. Everything disappeared except his spirit.
Little more can be said
of Philip.
Numbed from the cold, he returned and told Abbot Rolland's servant
and
secretary what had happened. He himself looked dazed and feverish,
and the
others moved discretely away from him. But Philip was not yet
sick, only
overcome with grief, and he went to his room to be alone.
Abbot Benedict came soon
after and
told Philip that though it grieved him to do it, he had arranged
for a carter
to remove the body. He scarcely crossed the threshold into the
room, and kept
his hands folded at his waist. He regarded Philip from this
distance, with as
much consideration as the times and the crisis and the manifold
difficulties of
the moment, could allow for. "We must bow to God's will. I shall
give
orders to mark the place of burial so that his bones may be
removed hereafter
when the times have improved," and he left, the sound of his
footstep and
the swish of his habit on the stone floor growing fainter down the
hallway.
The thought had crossed
Philip's
mind often, that Abbot Roland must die one day. The thought would
occur to him
walking alone in the cloister or coming into the cathedral at
Primes, that one
day a new abbot must take Abbot Roland's place, and he would be
among strangers
again. He lay on his bed, convulsed with the image of Abbot
Roland's death.
Once or twice he heard a footstep outside his door, but it only
paused and soon
went away. Others were sent to check on him in the same way. No
one opened the
door and made inquiry. His absence at breakfast and throughout the
day was
noted and put down to the disease of the times. No one knew what
to do about
it. Someone knocked again, later in the day and asked if he was
all right.
Phili p said that he was, and that he would say his prayers in his
room. The
enquirer went away and told Abbot Benedict, "He is grieving."
Abbot
Benedict had nothing to say to this. He did not know either what
to do about
Philip, for his history followed him about, and the times
suggested nothing
better than caution. The enquirer was sent again, from time to
time. Philip
heard him pause outside his door.
The pattern continued
for two days:
remote courtesy on one side and a stubborn resistance on the
other. There was
not enough in the poise and caution of those around him, to
deflect the inner
motion of his soul which now broke through the wall he had built
around it. He
succumbed to it like a fateful infatuation, experiencing the
destruction of his
resistance with cunning and delirium. Its voices came back to
speak to him,
fearfully low at first, indistinguishable, but then louder,
humming and
singing, whispering in languages which he » was astonished and
delighted to
recognize. At first, he responded with sardonic silence, as if
punishing the
lost voices, and testing his discipline to resist them, but no one
at
Fountainville offered him a better alternative, and little by
little, a jerk of
his head, a nod of his chin, a small parting of his lips to frame
a vowel, a
gesture of his hands in response no longer seemed unnatural, and
the voices, in
turn, broke through with a consuming reality. He had held them at
bay for so
long, had held the little pieces of himself together with one
thing and
another, it was a relief to let go and let the invasion have its
way. When he
left Fountainville, he looked out through the windows of his eyes
on a world
which could no longer displace his inner one, and he knew that he
should not
tell anyone about it. He went back and forth between the two
worlds with
facility and if he became momentarily lost between them, no one
took notice. It
was not unusual to see people wandering about, dazed. The effects
of the plague
broke down the personality structure of many. Some were thrown
into an
antipathy that took years to wear away, others became violent
persecutors and
joined in massacres, some became religious fanatics, and others
deserted their
religion altogether and became atheists. Reversals of habits and
traits and
character were not uncommon.
Philip left
Fountainville on the
third day and took the road from York to London. Still in monk's
habit, nothing
about him suggested that the outer world had become obsolete to
him. He met
others along the roads and made the proper responses. A sharp-eyed
person would
have observed that his lips were too dry, that the spittle on them
looked old
and yellow as if he hadn't wiped it away for days, that there were
signs of
plague on him except that he did not seem to b ·e in pain, and
that his smile
was too wily, as if he had a secret, and his air disembodied, when
within was a
turbulence that drove him miles and miles each day, sounds and
voices and
smells, grimaces, sighs, yawns and sneezes, gestures of daily
existence which
wrought a human design compelling and natural to him so that he
felt nothing
morbid about it. On the contrary, its ordinary commonplaceness was
surprising
and amusing, and overwhelmed his immediate past, the one he had
occupied
spatially and monastically, the one which had declared this
ordinary world
strange and had found it sinister when it was merely commonplace.
He found food as others
did and in
a week's time had passed through Lincoln and was in Peterborough.
He then knew
where he was going.
It was near the end of
February.
Though the air was still cold, the songs of the birds were
different. Sky and
light and sounds were re-assembling themselves. Only he looked up
to t ¦ake
note of this phenomenon, for unlike the others on this road, he
had never seen
the seasons change here, though he followed the route his father
had told him
about when he had journeyed from London for the first time to
attend a wedding
in Lincoln.
Philip recalled his
early readings
about converts and apostates, Jews who had converted to
Christianity and had
converted back to Judaism, Jews who had converted to Christianity
and had
become hostile to Judaism, Jews who had converted to Christianity
and were
afterwards suspected of Judaizing, Jews who had converted to
Christianity and
then had lapsed into strange heresies that fi t no pattern. Who
could account
for the variations, and if one were looking for truth, how could
one find it in
any one person's actions? He himself was not sure what his journey
would prove.
Whatever he proved about himself, what would he prove about the
world?
It was not Abbot
Roland's death
which had made the journey imperative. His death had made it
possible. Almost
from the time they had come ashore, Philip sensed that he would do
this. Nor
would he have said it had anything to do with religious truths as
he had been
taught to regard them.
No one enquired into the
purpose of
his wandering. Where so many wandered, no one enquired into
anyone's wandering.
If he wandered in the past, he wore monk's clothes and a large
silver cross and
carried a psalter and seemed to wander in the present. They could
only tell by
his clothes to what station or time he belonged. Had he changed
his clothes,
had he put on the required star, they would have perceived that he
wandered in
a different time, though he occupied the same space with other
Europeans. And
because they would have perceived him to be in a different time,
they would
have thought of him as someone who was not European, because
Europe was
Christendom. Though he o ²ccupied European space, as a Jew he did
not occupy
European time, for the Jew kept his own calendar, his own history,
his own
eschatology, his own prophecies, his own portents and signs of
God's way. Be
reverent and wary of calendars. They are the root cause of wars.
Philip came to the
outside of
London and entered the city through the North Gate. It was three
weeks since he
had left York. The crisis in London had passed. That is the
chronicles register
the peak of the plague in the city to have been about
Christmastime, but few
there noticed that the crisis had passed. Famine and grief and
disorientation
were still paramount.
He passed through
Isenmongre Lane
and St. Olave Jewry and passed by the synagogue in Cateton Street,
now called
St. Laurence in Jewry, and came to the stone house in Huggin Lane,
long since
escheated to the real m. There was a red cross on the door, but he
ignored it.
What was important was that he had found the house on the spot
where he had
expected to find it, where prophecy and dream and household
anecdote said it
would be, and he did not know which of these forces had propelled
him to this
place. What was important was that he had found the house, exactly
where he had
expected to find it, and its existence was not an arbitrary matter
of his
memory, of half dream or half legend, Its existence was fact and
history, and
his memory of it was not eccentric, but belonged to the nature of
the world. He
swooned with joy. He remembered through what others had told him,
and they now
remembered through him: how they had waited on the wharf for his
grandfather to
be released from the Tower, how his father had stood with his
brothers and his
wife, how the king had addressed them, mounted on his horse and
surrounded by
his noblemen; how his mother had spent her wedding night in
prison, how ¾ he
had been born on the passage to the continent, how one Gamaliel
Oxon had carved
a memorial on his grandmothers tombstone; how his grandmother had
walked in
procession with his grandfather's kin through these streets, under
the canopy,
to be his bride.
Sweat broke out on his
forehead and
almost immediately his back and chest were pierced with pain.
Loneliness, as
painful as the disease, afflicted him. The neighborhood was, after
all,
unfamiliar to him. What was he doing here? He stumbled about, as
if the land
were a heaving ocean, following a curious gleam, a marker in his
brain. He left
Huggin Lane and found his way to the Wood St. Cemetery. Two
centuries of Jewish
dead lay there. He himself was in acute physical pain and near
death by the
time he found the graves he was looking for:
Hinda Jurette
Born in Carcassonne, 4,560
Died in London, 4,647
Florria-Sara
granddaughter of Rabbi Simon ben Meir of Narbonne
wife of Rabbi Moses Mena ¡heim, Presbyter of London
Pulchellina, her
daughter,
age 3 weeks, died 4,650, together with her mother
Chill and fever gripped
him. A fog
rose before his eyes. He brushed the unholy dizziness away and
traced with
satisfaction Gamaliel's inscription on his grandmother's
tombstone: Departed,
the Jews of England: 4,650.
He bore no seed. The
honor of his
kin had ravaged him. Afterwards, he disappeared. Neither the
chronicles of St.
Bernard nor of any other monastery mention him again, nor is it
known who
buried him or where. He took no part in European affairs of any
kind, nor is
there mention of his remarkable voice anywhere.
The news of Abbot
Roland's death
was brought to Bodmin Priory by the breviator of Fountainville,
who was sent by
Abbot Benedict who deemed this information important enough to
risk the
journey. Abbot Benedict knew that Harald of York was now prior of
Bodmin, and
he felt he ought not to withhold this news.
There are times when the
death of a
great name evokes a communal ceremony of response. Heads of states
attend the
burial, and an atmosphere of reflectiveness settles over
civilization. There
are times when an era appears to end with the passing of a
particular person,
who seems to take with him the whole of his generation into the
grave. This was
not one of these times. There is no one death that was singled out
to signify
the era. Petrarch's Laura died in the plague, but it is not for
this that she
is remembered, but because the death of a poet's mistress is
romantic, and the
atrocious pain, the ugly disfigurement of vomiting and shrieking,
is forgotten
in her name. For the rest, the subject matter is repellant. Where
death was the
communal experience of everyone no one's death could symbolize it.
Death itself
symbolized the age. And death itself, the manner of its dying,
whether by war
or disease, or famine or the attrition of withering energies, is
as much a part
of a civilization as its way of life.
No one came to the gate
at Bodmin
Priory to open it for the breviator from Fountainville. No one
heard him knock,
for since Will's arrival, no one kept watch at the gate at all,
there being no
reasons, as Prior Harald said, to let anyone in or anyone out.
These measures
were not harsh under the circumstances where contagious villages
were torched,
inhabitants and all. Will and Brother Namlis and Brother Thomas
and Brother
Ralph felt, huddled together in the Calefactory through the long
winter months,
like the family of Noah adrift in a world where everyone else had
died. This
monastery, this room with sufficient logs in it to bum for several
months, God
willing spring come early this year, and just sufficient food and
tallow to
last a few more weeks, was their ark of safety.
The breviator tired of
knocking on
the gate and went away. Abbot Benedict waited for a response from
Bodmin Priory
as to what arrangements should be made for Abbot Roland's final
burial. Abbot
Roland's servant and secretary waited too, several weeks for the
breviator to
return, but he did not, and soon after a monk in the monastery of
Fountainville
was stricken with plague.
Night came, and Will and
Brother
Thomas and Brother Ralph and Brother Namlis ate a meager supper.
Prior Harald
read to them from the Psalter, but they were not called to prayers
at Matins
for it was too costly to burn a candle during the night. Prior
Harald bade them
say their prayers in the dorter. They covered themselves with fur
blankets and
kept their fur slippers on, for the fire would not be lit in the
Calefactory
room tomorrow until past midday.
Brother Ralph was
relieved that
Will had returned, for neither Brother Namlis nor Brother Thomas
nor Brother
Benedict were fit company in such a time, so empty was Brother
Walter's cot
next to his, so empty was the dorter now, and the places in the
refectory. None
could dismiss the thoughts from their minds that they might wake
in the morning
and find another brethren stricken, or two, or even all, and
himself alone. The
thought terrified Brother Thomas so that he prayed to fall asleep
quickly, for
his nightmares seemed preferable to such thoughts. Every five
minutes, it
seemed to him he could not breathe and he wanted to cry out that
he had the
plague, but then it would seem to him that it was Brother Ralph's
breath which
labored unnaturally, and he felt as if the air with all the
contaminants known
to man was settling in the room and crawling through his nostrils.
He was warm and could
not sleep and
threw off his fur blanket. Brother Ralph perceived this
immediately and sat
upright. "You be sick," he said.
'Nay," Brother Thomas
said,
"I be but warm. I tell you truthfully, fear will give a man a
fever sooner
than the plague," and he laughed spritely.
Brother Ralph lay down
again,
uneasily. Devil take Brother Thomas, he thought, for the m an was
so
constituted one could never tell what part was rational and what
part was not.
But he could no longer sleep himself. He himself felt unnaturally
warm. His
ears were burning. There were unwholesome noises in the room,
coughs and
rattles and whatnots. Finally, he threw his blanket off and got
out of his cot.
He wrapped a cloak around his shoulders and went to Brother
Benedict's bed. A
hissing sound issued from his mouth, though his eyes were still
open and stared
into the dark room, passing over Brother Ralph's face as he bent
to listen to
his chest. Brother Ralph wished to flee, but he did not. Brother
Benedict was
dying of cancer, not of plague. This was a reassuring thought.
Will got up from his bed
too and
hastened to Brother Benedict's cot. Brother Benedict's eyes moved
again,
passing with an intense gaze over Will's face. Will divined what
it meant, and
groped in the darkness until he found Brother Benedict's crucifix
and put it in
his hands. Brother Benedict's eyes closed, and the thread of his
life was cut.
Will wrapped himself in
his cape
and went to inform Prior Harald, who gave orders that Brother
Benedict could be
buried in the cemetery on the grounds, since he had not died of
plague. Will
sat with the body with throughout t the night and said prayers f
or Brother
Benedict's soul. No one else slept either, tormented by a sense of
guilty
relief. Husbanding resources, it was reckoned a blessing that
Brother Benedict
had not died of plague, a sign of God's recognition for his piety.
Only Brother
Thomas felt there was no distinction. Death was death and it was
all terrible,
massive and irrevocable. Faith in eternity might extend the
boundary of life,
but still a finished life seemed to undergo a transformation.
Christian man
mourned the death of his fellowman, as elephants mourn and sea
porpoises and
whales mourn, sensing that, in spite of philosophy and theology,
their kind has
gone from them, and that an irreversible act has occurred.
Underneath the
layers of faith, Brother Thomas confronted this truth head on
every night and
was convinced of the power of death.
Of the remaining
brethren, only his
death came as a release from his nightly terrors. He had not known
a single
dreamless night in twenty-five years, he had fought with devils
and winged
things and all manner of and devilish imaginary beasts, with
mournful
determination to live another day and fight another night. At
last, he was
freed into a dreamless sleep.
He died a week after
Brother
Benedict was buried in the cemetery where the stone statue of
Gabriel keeps
watch over the community of the dead. Harried dreams had tormented
him all
night long after Brother Benedict's burial. He dreamed that
Brother Benedict's
hands were re-emerging from his coffin, unlocking the lid and
fluttering in the
night. He moaned and tossed and called out for five nights,
keeping the others
awake. Brother Ralph grimly pulled his fur blanket over his ears.
"I dareye, I dareye,"
Brother Thomas cried out with indignation, and jumped from his cot
to fight.
"I dareye. Come, now. What! Wouldst harm a Scotsman! What!"
On the sixth night, his
bed was
quiet.
Will was the first to
wake about
three a.m. and realize that Brother Thomas' dialogue with the
devil had come to
an end. He felt no fear that someone in the cot next to his had
just died of
the plague, only depression at the uncustomary quiet. No one had
woken on this
night to curse Brother Thomas. Every night he had waken them with
his fits and
his muttering. Now he slept through his last dream.
Will heard Brother
Namlis sobbing.
"Nay," Will said, for
want of something to say, "I warrant he went peacefully and shall
not be
haunted anymore. I will tell Prior Harald," and he wrapped his
cloak about
him.
The floors were chilly
and
unpleasantly damp, but Will was beyond sorrow or reaction. Like
others, he
followed the reflex to bury the dead unreflectively and brought
the message of
Brother Thomas' death to Prior Harald, only to inquire where to
bury him and
returned with the message that they must carry the body out
immediately and
bury it in the field outside the priory, and take Brother Thomas'
clothes and
his cot and all his belongings, even his psalter, on the wagon and
transport it
outside the gate to the field and bury the body there and burn
everything else.
That Prior Harald knew
how to go
about such matters was a blessing. Will relayed these orders to
Brother Ralph
and Brother Namlis, but Brother Namlis would not stop crying, and
Brother Ralph
lost his temper and became quarrelsome.
"Let be," he said,
"we need not your sorrow to make matters worse.
They carried Brother
Thomas' body
out on his cot, so that they would not have to touch the body.
Will brought the
wagon round to the door of the dorter and fetched spades and
shovels and
candles. He opened the gate and they made their way out down the
dark road to a
field, halfway distant to the village, which was being used as a
burying
ground. Others were there as well, digging graves by candlelight,
some because
they I not want it known there was plague in their house, others
because they
wanted the body out of the house as quickly as possible and would
not wait
until the morning. Fires were set all about the field where the
clothes and
effects of the plague victims were being burned. In some places,
they were
forced to burn, the bodies themselves where there was no more
burial ground
left.
Billows of smoke rose
from the air
in the cold night. Only the sounds of shovels and spades were
heard. Sometimes
a hasty prayer. There was no weeping except for that of a young
girl recently
married. Mainly hushed statements of hurried directions, as if
those who were
there were engaged in a disrespectable business. Brother Namlis
and Brother
Ralph and Will returned by mid-morning, chilled and hungry. A cold
dew was on
the ground. A cold March rain fell. No one looked at their wagon
as it went by.
Other wagons passed, carrying other dead, and the work of burying
went on for
weeks.
They went to the
lavatory and
scrubbed carefully. Brother Namlis did not cry anymore and was
desultory and
depressed. He could not speak, but a grim acknowledgement that
more was to come
was in his eyes, plainly to be read. Brother Namlis did not
require much to be
happy, often enough a modicum of warm friendship; and the thought
that Brother
Ralph and Will might be stricken and leave him alone with Prior
Harald seemed
the worst of fates for him. They went to the refectory and each
fetched his own
food, bread and bear and cheese. It was not the proper hour for
their meal, but
since they had missed their breakfast, Prior Harald gave them
permission to eat
now. He joined them in the refectory and told them to set their
thoughts in the
best spirit they could, "for it will not pass better if we are
overtaken
by our fears." He told them he would increase their rations so
that hunger
would not weaken them and bade them prepare the fields for the
spring planting.
All week he kept them at
this work
and imposed the routine of prayer and study and labor as much as
he could, so
that they began to feel almost grateful for his presence, and
escaped the
anarchy of desperation that seized so many other monasteries.
Prior Harald had
fought the fear of death so long, his inexplicable own self-born
terror, that
the plague seemed, by comparison, a small evil to him. It only
marshalled his
resolve not to be done in by an evil that came from somewhere else
when he had
not been done in by an evil which came from within himself. He
made Brother
Ralph and Brother Namlis and Will clean and scrub the dorter. They
tossed out
the old hay and found new hay still in stock and laid it on the
floors. Though
their supply of wood was low, Prior Harald was generous in keeping
the fire
going.
These little comforts
were valuable
in building into them the expectancy of life and that they would
endure, and
only Prior Harald, who took the trouble to count what was left in
the larder or
the stockroom, knew that they were racing with time. But he felt
that each day
by itself had to claim its victory over the powers of defeat. He
would let the
future account for itself; he would account for the present. The
others were
content to let him make these decisions and perceived him now in a
different
light. If they still felt little affection for him, affection
itself seemed an
unnecessary emotion. He held them together, and this sufficed.
His death traversed the
manner of
his living. He was a man of little sympathy for others, little
tolerance for
frailty, but his loyalty for Bodmin Priory was certain. Two weeks
after Brother
Thomas' death, he woke one morning in the early dawn, and knew he
had been stricken.
The fire in the fireplace had gone out. An unbearable chill
afflicted him, with
sweat and shivering and pains in his chest. He rose, almost
immediately, and
went to his lectern and worked on the accounting books for as long
as he could
stand on his feet.
When the others missed
him by
midday, Will went to his door and enquired timidly. Prior Harald
answered the
knock in a firm voice and said he was busy with much work this
day. The
brethren should take their meals and prayers without him," and
asked Will
to come back at Vespers.
They speculated the
whole day about
the meaning of this, but Will did as he was told and came back in
the evening.
He found Prior Harald in bed, sweating profusely, his tongue
already so swollen
he could barely speak, but he acknowledged that he was grateful
Will had come
back. Struggling over the gross size of his tongue he told him
where the coins
were and that he must now take charge, novice though he be. He bid
him inform
Bishop Grandisson of the plight of the priory, then he bid him
leave.
"I cannot," Will said,
to
his surprise. Some law took charge over him, which bound him to
this man. He
sat down abruptly on a chair and stayed throughout the night and
the next day,
and wet Prior Harald's lips when he could, and went to tell the
others when
there was no more to do.
They buried Prior Harald
in the
cemetery on the priory grounds, for it seemed not to matter
anymore where the
dead were buried, and no one cared to make the trip to the burying
field again.
Within and without was all the same. They burned his clothes and
his personal
things, his bed sheets and covers, but left the room intact,
except that they
let St. George fly free.
Will and Brother Namlis
walked with
Brother Ralph to the gate, who would make the journey to Exeter
and deliver the
message of Prior Harald's death to Bishop Grandisson.
"It is my grievous
duty,"
Will had written, "to tell you that our new prior has been taken
away as
well as the others, and all but three from Bodmin Priory are now
gone. We beg you
to appoint us someone to guide our lives, for we have been left as
orphans in a
dark night."
"And did you not tell
him that
St. Petroke's bones and the treasure has been stolen?" Brother
Ralph
asked. "I know not if the coins we have from the woolman will pay
our
debts now that the treasure that was buried is gone."
Will had not thought
about this
problem. There was no doubt that the money they had borrowed would
not cover
the cost of putting Bodmin back on a secure foundation. The priory
would only
go into further debt. Like a sinking boat, the water was filling
up faster than
the sailors could bail it out. For Will, in his present state of
mind, the
problem seemed insurmountable, not merely an administrative one as
Prior Harald
might have considered it but, as one might say, in the very nature
of things of
how men acted and behaved.
They walked across the
hard, rutty
ground to the gate, Will thinking of what else to say to Brother
Ralph. It was
a curious consolation he finally offered, making do with things as
they now
were. "It matters not," he said, "for we but wasted the Jew's
treasure."
It was unpleasant for
Brother
Namlis and Will to part from Brother Ralph, but it was necessary
for him to go.
The extremity of their condition had to be made known to the
proper authority.
"We have been left as orphans in a dark night."
The message is recorded
in the
register of Bishop Grandisson for the date of March 17, 1349. On
March 19,
Bishop Grandisson wrote to the Prior of Launceston to appoint a
member of th
Ãat house to the office of prior at Bodmin and on March 22 the
mandate for the
induction of the new prior was issued. On this date, it was known
that there
were two surviving brethren still at Bodmin Priory.
Brother Namlis and Will
walked back
from the gate. The cold March rain fell again. It fell all that
week and
softened the ground. They spent almost the whole Of this time in
the
Calefactory. Will wished Brother Namlis very well, but it was
hard, in such circumstances,
to put up with a man who could not speak, and little by little he
too lapsed
into silence. They sat, desperately, in front of the fire and
tried to keep the
routine of prayer and mealtimes. Brother Namlis was unhappy with
the idea of
new monks coming to stay at Bodmin. He did not want a new prior.
He would even
settle for Prior Harald. He would settle too for Brother Thomas
and Brother
Claude. He wanted the world back as it was. He stayed close to the
fire and
fell to dreaming over his life spent here, the sights and sounds
of all the
monks who had passed through the halls, the visitors, the
pilgrims, the gossip,
the wicked rumors, the tricks and small betrayals and trips to the
market. How
had it all passed away?
On the fifth day, he was
stricken
and suffered frightfully for three and a half days. Not terror or
fear or
regret or sorrow at the passing of life, but wicked pain wrapped
his body, and
fever dragged him into a delirium where he heard the voices of
everyone he had
ever known, the laundresses and the pudding wives and his mother,
and with his
tongueless mouth struggled to answer them.
Will sat by his side and
kept moist
towels on his lips and forehead and packed his chilled body in fur
blankets and
chafed his hands and his toes and believed his heart would break
irremediably.
"Could you not have left him, at least?" he argued with the dark
powers. Deep, terrible sounds of distorted cries came from Brother
Namlis,
until Will finally prayed for him to die quickly. "Devil take you
and be
done with it," he said. Brother Namlis parched lips curled back
over his
yellow teeth.
He had never had a harsh
thought
against any living thing, and fought desperately for his life,
minute by
minute, and hour by hour, groaning on his cot. In his last hour,
whatever there
was of charity and goodness in the world, Will gave to him as he
closed his
eyes. He wrapped his body in his blanket and carried it in his
arms to the
cemetery. The rain had stopped, and the ground was ready. He lay
Brother Namlis
down on it and began to dig the grave. He dug it with love and
with fury, and
bade Brother Namlis mind how well he dug it, and when it was
finished, he lay
him in it. "Sleep, good monk," he wept, "thou didst fulfill all
thy vows."
"Who?" Petrarch had
written, "who in future generations will believe what we have
endured?" Only the chronicles remain as a memorial to the time.
"This plague laid low
equally
Jew, Christian and Saracen, together it carried off confessor and
penitent. In
many places it did not leave even a fifth part of the people. It
struck the
whole world with terror. Such a plague has not been seen, or heard
of, or
recorded, before this time, for it is thought so great a multitude
of people
were not overwhelmed by the waters of the deluge, which happened
in the days of
Noah."
"And the multitude of
the
people who died in the years 1348 and 1349 was so large that
nothing like it
was ever heard of, read of, or witnessed in past ages."
"What more?" Boccaccio
asked, "what more can be said save that such and so great the
cruelty of
heaven, and, in part, peradventure, that of men.
Cornwall was stricken
with the
force of the plague between November 1348 and February 1349, but
it continued
to rage in Cornwall until May of that year, while Will waited for
Brother Ralph
to return. He kept himself busy and distracted by reading Brother
Bernard's
accounts in the Scriptorium, and entered his own record of those
who had died,
where they had been buried, what he knew of Bodmin's financial
condition, the
value of its relic and treasures, and kept a record of the weather
and the
progress of the plague.
"This pestilence," he
wrote, "has deprived our villages and cities, our castles and
towns of
human inhabitants, so that there is scarcely found a man to dwell
therein, and
only am alive here, having lately buried our last brethren. This
pestilence is
so contagious that whosoever touches the skin of the dead is
immediately
infected. Many have died of boils and abscesses and pustules on
their skin and
under the armpits, as I have seen myself. Others have been driven
frantic with
pain in their head and could be seen wandering on the roads, and
others to be
spitting blood. I, waiting for death, have written these things
lest the
writing perish with the writer and the work with the workman. I
leave parchment
for continuing this work, if haply any of the race of Adam escape
this
pestilence and return here and continue this work which I have
commenced."
Will died shortly after
this, for
his chronicle was found years later with a notation in Latin, in
another hand:
"Here it seems the writer died."
We, the descendants of
this
generation, know what Will could not have known: that life
continued. Its
continuance was commented upon in a statement in a chronicle from
Limburg, which
no historian or theologian can improve upon:
"After this, when the
plague,
the flagellant pilgrimages, the pilgrimages to Rome, and the
slaughtering of
the Jews, were over, the world once more began to live and joy
returned to it,
and people began to make new clothes." Amen, and amen.