BOOK II.
LANFRANC THE SCHOLAR.
CHAPTER I.
Four meals a day, nor those sparing, were not deemed too extravagant
an interpretation of the daily bread for which the Saxon prayed. Four
meals a day, from earl to ceorl! "Happy times!" may sigh the
descendant of the last, if he read these pages; partly so they were
for the ceorl, but not in all things, for never sweet is the food, and
never gladdening is the drink, of servitude. Inebriety, the vice of
the warlike nations of the North, had not, perhaps, been the pre-
eminent excess of the earlier Saxons, while yet the active and fiery
Britons, and the subsequent petty wars between the kings of the
Heptarchy, enforced on hardy warriors the safety of temperance; but
the example of the Danes had been fatal. Those giants of the sea,
like all who pass from great vicissitudes of toil and repose, from the
tempest to the haven, snatched with full hands every pleasure in their
reach. With much that tended permanently to elevate the character of
the Saxon, they imparted much for a time to degrade it. The Anglian
learned to feast to repletion, and drink to delirium. But such were
not the vices of the court of the Confessor. Brought up from his
youth in the cloister-camp of the Normans, what he loved in their
manners was the abstemious sobriety, and the ceremonial religion,
which distinguished those sons of the Scandinavian from all other
kindred tribes.
The Norman position in France, indeed, in much resembled that of the
Spartan in Greece. He had forced a settlement with scanty numbers in
the midst of a subjugated and sullen population, surrounded by jealous
and formidable foes. Hence sobriety was a condition of his being, and
the policy of the chief lent a willing ear to the lessons of the
preacher. Like the Spartan, every Norman of pure race was free and
noble; and this consciousness inspired not only that remarkable
dignity of mien which Spartan and Norman alike possessed, but also
that fastidious self-respect which would have revolted from exhibiting
a spectacle of debasement to inferiors. And, lastly, as the paucity
of their original numbers, the perils that beset, and the good fortune
that attended them, served to render the Spartans the most religious
of all the Greeks in their dependence on the Divine aid; so, perhaps,
to the same causes may be traced the proverbial piety of the
ceremonial Normans; they carried into their new creed something of
feudal loyalty to their spiritual protectors; did homage to the Virgin
for the lands that she vouchsafed to bestow, and recognised in St.
Michael the chief who conducted their armies.
After hearing the complin vespers in the temporary chapel fitted up in
that unfinished abbey of Westminster, which occupied the site of the
temple of Apollo [53], the King and his guests repaired to their
evening meal in the great hall of the palace. Below the dais were
ranged three long tables for the knights in William's train, and that
flower of the Saxon nobility who, fond, like all youth, of change and
imitation, thronged the court of their Normanised saint, and scorned
the rude patriotism of their fathers. But hearts truly English were
not there. Yea, many of Godwin's noblest foes sighed for the English-
hearted Earl, banished by Norman guile on behalf of English law.
At the oval table on the dais the guests were select and chosen. At
the right hand of the King sat William; at the left Odo of Bayeux.
Over these three stretched a canopy of cloth of gold; the chairs on
which each sate were of metal, richly gilded over, and the arms carved
in elaborate arabesques. At this table too was the King's nephew, the
Earl of Hereford, and, in right of kinsmanship to the Duke, the
Norman's beloved baron and grand seneschal, William Fitzosborne, who,
though in Normandy even he sate not at the Duke's table, was, as
related to his lord, invited by Edward to his own. No other guests
were admitted to this board, so that, save Edward, all were Norman.
The dishes were of gold and silver, the cups inlaid with jewels.
Before each guest was a knife, with hilt adorned by precious stones,
and a napkin fringed with silver. The meats were not placed on the
table, but served upon small spits, and between every course a basin
of perfumed water was borne round by high-born pages. No dame graced
the festival; for she who should have presided--she, matchless for
beauty without pride, piety without asceticism, and learning without
pedantry--she, the pale rose of England, loved daughter of Godwin, and
loathed wife of Edward, had shared in the fall of her kindred, and had
been sent by the meek King, or his fierce counsellors, to an abbey in
Hampshire, with the taunt "that it was not meet that the child and
sister should enjoy state and pomp, while the sire and brethren ate
the bread of the stranger in banishment and disgrace."
But, hungry as were the guests, it was not the custom of that holy
court to fall to without due religious ceremonial. The rage for
psalm-singing was then at its height in England; psalmody had excluded
almost every other description of vocal music; and it is even said
that great festivals on certain occasions were preluded by no less an
effort of lungs and memory than the entire songs bequeathed to us by
King David! This day, however, Hugoline, Edward's Norman chamberlain,
had been pleased to abridge the length of the prolix grace, and the
company were let off; to Edward's surprise and displeasure, with the
curt and unseemly preparation of only nine psalms and one special hymn
in honour of some obscure saint to whom the day was dedicated. This
performed, the guests resumed their seats, Edward murmuring an apology
to William for the strange omission of his chamberlain, and saying
thrice to himself, "Naught, naught--very naught."
The mirth languished at the royal table, despite some gay efforts from
Rolf, and some hollow attempts at light-hearted cheerfulness from the
great Duke, whose eyes, wandering down the table, were endeavouring to
distinguish Saxon from Norman, and count how many of the first might
already be reckoned in the train of his friends. But at the long
tables below, as the feast thickened, and ale, mead, pigment, morat,
and wine circled round, the tongue of the Saxon was loosed, and the
Norman knight lost somewhat of his superb gravity. It was just as
what a Danish poet called the "sun of the night," (in other words, the
fierce warmth of the wine,) had attained its meridian glow, that some
slight disturbance at the doors of the hall, without which waited a
dense crowd of the poor on whom the fragments of the feast were
afterwards to be bestowed, was followed by the entrance of two
strangers, for whom the officers appointed to marshal the
entertainment made room at the foot of one of the tables. Both these
new-comers were clad with extreme plainness; one in a dress, though
not quite monastic, that of an ecclesiastic of low degree; the other
in a long grey mantle and loose gonna, the train of which last was
tucked into a broad leathern belt, leaving bare the leggings, which
showed limbs of great bulk and sinew, and which were stained by the
dust and mire of travel. The first mentioned was slight and small of
person; the last was of the height and port of the sons of Anak. The
countenance of neither could be perceived, for both had let fall the
hood, worn by civilians as by priests out of doors, more than half way
over their faces.
A murmur of great surprise, disdain, and resentment, at the intrusion
of strangers so attired circulated round the neighbourhood in which
they had been placed, checked for a moment by a certain air of respect
which the officer had shown towards both, but especially the taller;
but breaking out with greater vivacity from the faint restraint, as
the tall man unceremoniously stretched across the board, drew towards
himself an immense flagon, which (agreeably to the custom of arranging
the feast in "messes" of four) had been specially appropriated to Ulf
the Dane, Godrith the Saxon, and two young Norman knights akin to the
puissant Lord of Grantmesnil,--and having offered it to his comrade,
who shook his head, drained it with a gusto that seemed to bespeak him
at least no Norman, and wiped his lips boorishly with the sleeve of
his huge arm.
"Dainty sir," said one of those Norman knights, William Mallet, of the
house of Mallet de Graville [54], as he moved as far from the gigantic
intruder as the space on the settle would permit, "forgive the
observation that you have damaged my mantle, you have grazed my foot,
and you have drunk my wine. And vouchsafe, if it so please you, the
face of the man who hath done this triple wrong to William Mallet de
Graville."
A kind of laugh--for laugh absolute it was not--rattled under the cowl
of the tall stranger, as he drew it still closer over his face, with a
hand that might have spanned the breast of his interrogator, and he
made a gesture as if he did not understand the question addressed to
him.
Therewith the Norman knight, bending with demure courtesy across the
board to Godrith the Saxon, said:
"Pardex [55], but this fair guest and seigneur seemeth to me, noble
Godree (whose name I fear my lips do but rudely enounce) of Saxon line
and language; our Romance tongue he knoweth not. Pray you, is it the
Saxon custom to enter a king's hall so garbed, and drink a knight's
wine so mutely?"
Godrith, a young Saxon of considerable rank, but one of the most
sedulous of the imitators of the foreign fashions, coloured high at
the irony in the knight's speech, and turning rudely to the huge
guest, who was now causing immense fragments of pasty to vanish under
the cavernous cowl, he said in his native tongue, though with a lisp
as if unfamiliar to him--
"If thou beest Saxon, shame us not with thy ceorlish manners; crave
pardon of this Norman thegn, who will doubtless yield it to thee in
pity. Uncover thy face--and--"
Here the Saxon's rebuke was interrupted; for one of the servitors just
then approaching Godrith's side with a spit, elegantly caparisoned
with some score of plump larks, the unmannerly giant stretched out his
arm within an inch of the Saxon's startled nose, and possessed himself
of larks, broche, and all. He drew off two, which he placed on his
friend's platter, despite all dissuasive gesticulations, and deposited
the rest upon his own. The young banqueters gazed upon the spectacle
in wrath too full for words.
At last spoke Mallet de Graville, with an envious eye upon the larks--
for though a Norman was not gluttonous, he was epicurean--"Certes, and
foi de chevalier! a man must go into strange parts if he wish to see
monsters; but we are fortunate people," (and he turned to his Norman
friend, Aymer, Quen [56] or Count, D'Evreux,) "that we have discovered
Polyphemus without going so far as Ulysses;" and pointing to the
hooded giant, he quoted, appropriately enough,
"Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."
The giant continued to devour his larks, as complacently as the ogre
to whom he was likened might have devoured the Greeks in his cave.
But his fellow intruder seemed agitated by the sound of the Latin; he
lifted up his head suddenly, and showed lips glistening with white
even teeth, and curved into an approving smile, while he said: "Bene,
me fili! bene, lepidissime, poetae verba, in militis ore, non indecora
sonant." [57]
The young Norman stared at the speaker, and replied, in the same tone
of grave affectation: "Courteous sir! the approbation of an
ecclesiastic so eminent as I take you to be, from the modesty with
which you conceal your greatness, cannot fail to draw upon me the envy
of my English friends; who are accustomed to swear in verba magistri,
only for verba they learnedly substitute vina."
"You are pleasant, Sire Mallet," said Godrith, reddening; "but I know
well that Latin is only fit for monks and shavelings; and little enow
even they have to boast of."
The Norman's lip curled in disdain. "Latin!--O, Godree, bien aime!--
Latin is the tongue of Caesars and senators, fortes conquerors and
preux chevaliers. Knowest thou not that Duke William the dauntless at
eight years old had the Comments of Julius Caesar by heart?--and that
it is his saying, that 'a king without letters is a crowned ass?' [58]
When the king is an ass, asinine are his subjects. Wherefore go to
school, speak respectfully of thy betters, the monks and shavelings,
who with us are often brave captains and sage councillors,--and learn
that a full head makes a weighty hand."
"Thy name, young knight?" said the ecclesiastic, in Norman French,
though with a slight foreign accent.
"I can give it thee," said the giant, speaking aloud for the first
time, in the same language, and in a rough voice, which a quick ear
might have detected as disguised,--"I can describe to thee name,
birth, and quality. By name, this youth is Guillaume Mallet,
sometimes styled De Graville, because our Norman gentilhommes,
forsooth, must always now have a 'de' tacked to their names;
nevertheless he hath no other right to the seigneurie of Graville,
which appertains to the head of his house, than may be conferred by an
old tower on one corner of the demesnes so designated, with lands that
would feed one horse and two villeins--if they were not in pawn to a
Jew for moneys to buy velvet mantelines and a chain of gold. By
birth, he comes from Mallet [59], a bold Norwegian in the fleet of Rou
the Sea-king; his mother was a Frank woman, from whom he inherits his
best possessions--videlicet, a shrewd wit, and a railing tongue. His
qualities are abstinence, for he eateth nowhere save at the cost of
another--some Latin, for he was meant for a monk, because he seemed
too slight of frame for a warrior--some courage, for in spite of his
frame he slew three Burgundians with his own hand; and Duke William,
among their foolish acts, spoilt a friar sans tache, by making a
knight sans terre; and for the rest--"
"And for the rest," interrupted the Sire de Graville, turning white
with wrath, but speaking in a low repressed voice, "were it not that
Duke William sate yonder, thou shouldst have six inches of cold steel
in thy huge carcase to digest thy stolen dinner, and silence thy
unmannerly tongue.--"
"For the rest," continued the giant indifferently, and as if he had
not heard the interruption; "for the rest, he only resembles Achilles,
in being impiger iracundus. Big men can quote Latin as well as little
ones, Messire Mallet the beau clerc!"
Mallet's hand was on his dagger; and his eye dilated like that of the
panther before he springs; but fortunately, at that moment, the deep
sonorous voice of William, accustomed to send its sounds down the
ranks of an army, rolled clear through the assemblage, though pitched
little above its ordinary key:--
"Fair is your feast, and bright your wine, Sir King and brother mine!
But I miss here what king and knight hold as the salt of the feast and
the perfume to the wine: the lay of the minstrel. Beshrew me, but
both Saxon and Norman are of kindred stock, and love to hear in hall
and bower the deeds of their northern fathers. Crave I therefore from
your gleemen, or harpers, some song of the olden time!"
A murmur of applause went through the Norman part of the assembly; the
Saxons looked up; and some of the more practised courtiers sighed
wearily, for they knew well what ditties alone were in favour with the
saintly Edward.
The low voice of the King in reply was not heard, but those habituated
to read his countenance in its very faint varieties of expression,
might have seen that it conveyed reproof; and its purport soon became
practically known, when a lugubrious prelude was heard from a quarter
of the hall, in which sate certain ghost-like musicians in white
robes--white as winding-sheets; and forthwith a dolorous and dirgelike
voice chaunted a long and most tedious recital of the miracles and
martyrdom of some early saint. So monotonous was the chaunt, that its
effect soon became visible in a general drowsiness. And when Edward,
who alone listened with attentive delight, turned towards the close to
gather sympathising admiration from his distinguished guests, he saw
his nephew yawning as if his jaw were dislocated--the Bishop of
Bayeux, with his well-ringed fingers interlaced and resting on his
stomach, fast asleep--Fitzosborne's half-shaven head balancing to and
fro with many an uneasy start--and, William, wide awake indeed, but
with eyes fixed on vacant space, and his soul far away from the
gridiron to which (all other saints be praised!) the saint of the
ballad had at last happily arrived.
"A comforting and salutary recital, Count William," said the King.
The Duke started from his reverie, and bowed his head: then said,
rather abruptly, "Is not yon blazon that of King Alfred?"
"Yea. Wherefore?"
"Hem! Matilda of Flanders is in direct descent from Alfred: it is a
name and a line the Saxons yet honour!"
"Surely, yes; Alfred was a great man, and reformed the Psalmster,"
replied Edward.
The dirge ceased, but so benumbing had been its effect, that the
torpor it created did not subside with the cause. There was a dead
and funereal silence throughout the spacious hall, when suddenly,
loudly, mightily, as the blast of the trumpet upon the hush of the
grave, rose a single voice. All started--all turned--all looked to
one direction; and they saw that the great voice pealed from the
farthest end of the hall. From under his gown the gigantic stranger
had drawn a small three-stringed instrument--somewhat resembling the
modern lute--and thus he sang,--
THE BALLAD OF ROU. [60]
I.
From Blois to Senlis, wave by wave, roll'd on the Norman flood,
And Frank on Frank went drifting down the weltering tide of blood;
There was not left in all the land a castle wall to fire,
And not a wife but wailed a lord, a child but mourned a sire.
To Charles the king, the mitred monks, the mailed barons flew,
While, shaking earth, behind them strode the thunder march of Rou.
II.
"O King," then cried those barons bold, "in vain are mace and mail,
We fall before the Norman axe, as corn before the hail."
"And vainly," cried the pious monks, "by Mary's shrine we kneel,
For prayers, like arrows, glance aside, against the Norman teel."
The barons groaned, the shavelings wept, while near and nearer drew,
As death-birds round their scented feast, the raven flags of Rou.
III.
Then said King Charles, "Where thousands fail, what king can stand
alone,
The strength of kings is in the men that gather round the throne.
When war dismays my barons bold, 'tis time for war to cease;
When Heaven forsakes my pious monks, the will of Heaven is peace.
Go forth, my monks, with mass and rood the Norman camp unto,
And to the fold, with shepherd crook, entice this grisly Rou."
IV.
"I'll give him all the ocean coast, from Michael Mount to Eure,
And Gille, my child, shall be his bride, to bind him fast and sure:
Let him but kiss the Christian cross, and sheathe the heathen sword,
And hold the lands I cannot keep, a fief from Charles his lord."
Forth went the pastors of the Church, the Shepherd's work to do,
And wrap the golden fleece around the tiger loins of Rou.
V.
Psalm-chanting came the shaven monks, within the camp of dread;
Amidst his warriors, Norman Rou stood taller by the head.
Out spoke the Frank Archbishop then, a priest devout and sage,
"When peace and plenty wait thy word, what need of war and rage?
Why waste a land as fair as aught beneath the arch of blue,
Which might be thine to sow and reap?"--Thus saith the King to Rou.
VI.
"'I'll give thee all the ocean coast, from Michael Mount to Eure,
And Gille, my fairest child, as bride, to bind thee fast and sure;
If then but kneel to Christ our God, and sheathe thy paynim sword,
And hold thy land, the Church's son, a fief from Charles thy lord."
The Norman on his warriors looked--to counsel they withdrew;
The saints took pity on the Franks, and moved the soul of Rou.
VII.
So back he strode and thus he spoke, to that Archbishop meek:
"I take the land thy king bestows from Eure to Michael-peak,
I take the maid, or foul or fair, a bargain with the toast,
And for thy creed, a sea-king's gods are those that give the most.
So hie thee back, and tell thy chief to make his proffer true,
And he shall find a docile son, and ye a saint in Rou."
VIII.
So o'er the border stream of Epte came Rou the Norman, where,
Begirt with barons, sat the King, enthroned at green St. Clair;
He placed his hand in Charles's hand,--loud shouted all the throng,
But tears were in King Charles's eyes--the grip of Rou was strong.
"Now kiss the foot," the Bishop said, "that homage still is due;"
Then dark the frown and stern the smile of that grim convert, Rou.
IX.
He takes the foot, as if the foot to slavish lips to bring;
The Normans scowl; he tilts the throne, and backwards falls the
King.
Loud laugh the joyous Norman men--pale stare the Franks aghast;
And Rou lifts up his head as from the wind springs up the mast;
"I said I would adore a God, but not a mortal too;
The foot that fled before a foe let cowards kiss!" said Rou.
No words can express the excitement which this rough minstrelsy--
marred as it is by our poor translation from the Romance-tongue in
which it was chanted--produced amongst the Norman guests; less
perhaps, indeed, the song itself, than the recognition of the
minstrel; and as he closed, from more than a hundred voices came the
loud murmur, only subdued from a shout by the royal presence,
"Taillefer, our Norman Taillefer!"
"By our joint saint, Peter, my cousin the King," exclaimed William,
after a frank cordial laugh; "Well I wot, no tongue less free than my
warrior minstrel's could have so shocked our ears. Excuse his bold
theme, for the sake of his bold heart, I pray thee; and since I know
well" (here the Duke's face grew grave and anxious) "that nought save
urgent and weighty news from my stormy realm could have brought over
this rhyming petrel, permit the officer behind me to lead hither a
bird, I fear, of omen as well as of song."
"Whatever pleases thee, pleases me," said Edward, drily; and he gave
the order to the attendant. In a few moments, up the space in the
hall, between either table, came the large stride of the famous
minstrel, preceded by the officer and followed by the ecclesiastic.
The hoods of both were now thrown back, and discovered countenances in
strange contrast, but each equally worthy of the attention it
provoked. The face of the minstrel was open and sunny as the day; and
that of the priest, dark and close as night. Thick curls of deep
auburn (the most common colour for the locks of the Norman) wreathed
in careless disorder round Taillefer's massive unwrinkled brow. His
eye, of light hazel, was bold and joyous; mirth, though sarcastic and
sly, mantled round his lips. His whole presence was at once engaging
and heroic.
On the other hand, the priest's cheek was dark and sallow; his
features singularly delicate and refined; his forehead high, but
somewhat narrow, and crossed with lines of thought; his mien composed,
modest, but not without calm self-confidence. Amongst that assembly
of soldiers, noiseless, self-collected, and conscious of his
surpassing power over swords and mail, moved the SCHOLAR.
William's keen eye rested on the priest with some surprise, not
unmixed with pride and ire; but first addressing Taillefer, who now
gained the foot of the dais, he said, with a familiarity almost fond:
"Now, by're Lady, if thou bringest not ill news, thy gay face, man, is
pleasanter to mine eyes that thy rough song to my ears. Kneel,
Taillefer, kneel to King Edward, and with more address, rogue, than
our unlucky countryman to King Charles."
But Edward, as ill-liking the form of the giant as the subject of his
lay, said, pushing back his seat as far as he could:
"Nay, nay, we excuse thee, we excuse thee, tall man." Nevertheless,
the minstrel still knelt, and so, with a look of profound humility,
did the priest. Then both slowly rose, and at a sign from the Duke,
passed to the other side of the table, standing behind Fitzosborne's
chair.
"Clerk," said William, eying deliberately the sallow face of the
ecclesiastic; "I know thee of old; and if the Church have sent me an
envoy, per la resplendar De, it should have sent me at least an
abbot."
"Hein, hein!" said Taillefer, bluntly, "vex not my bon camarade,
Count of the Normans. Gramercy, thou wilt welcome him, peradventure,
better than me; for the singer tells but of discord, and the sage may
restore the harmony."
"Ha!" said the Duke, and the frown fell so dark over his eyes that the
last seemed only visible by two sparks of fire. "I guess, my proud
Vavasours are mutinous. Retire, thou and thy comrade. Await me in my
chamber. The feast shall not flag in London because the wind blows a
gale in Rouen."
The two envoys, since so they seemed, bowed in silence and withdrew.
"Nought of ill-tidings, I trust," said Edward, who had not listened to
the whispered communications that had passed between the Duke and his
subjects. "No schism in thy Church? The clerk seemed a peaceful man,
and a humble."
"An there were schism in my Church," said the fiery Duke, "my brother
of Bayeux would settle it by arguments as close as the gap between
cord and throttle."
"Ah! thou art, doubtless, well read in the canons, holy Odo!" said the
King, turning to the bishop with more respect than he had yet evinced
towards that gentle prelate.
"Canons, yes, Seigneur, I draw them up myself for my flock conformably
with such interpretations of the Roman Church as suit best with the
Norman realm: and woe to deacon, monk, or abbot, who chooses to
misconstrue them." [61]
The bishop looked so truculent and menacing, while his fancy thus
conjured up the possibility of heretical dissent, that Edward shrank
from him as he had done from Taillefer; and in a few minutes after, on
exchange of signals between himself and the Duke, who, impatient to
escape, was too stately to testify that desire, the retirement of the
royal party broke up the banquet; save, indeed, that a few of the
elder Saxons, and more incorrigible Danes, still steadily kept their
seats, and were finally dislodged from their later settlements on the
stone floors, to find themselves, at dawn, carefully propped in a row
against the outer walls of the palace, with their patient attendants,
holding links, and gazing on their masters with stolid envy, if not of
the repose at least of the drugs that had caused it.
