<h1>XIV <br/> SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE.</h1>
<p>It would be unpardonable to allow the notion to be entertained that it
was only in poetry that the writers of the Thirteenth Century
succeeded in creating works of enduring influence. Some of the prose
writings of the time are deeply interesting for many reasons. Modern
prose was in its formative period, and the evolution of style, as of
other things in the making, is proverbially worthy of more serious
study than even the developed result. The prose writings of the
Thirteenth Century were mainly done in Latin, but that was not for
lack of command over the vernacular tongues, as we shall see, but
because this was practically a universal language. This century had
among other advantages that subsequent ages have striven for
unsuccessfully, our own most of all, a common medium of expression for
all scholars at least. There are, however, the beginnings of Prose in
all the modern languages and it is easy to understand that the Latin
of the time had a great influence on the vernacular and that the modes
of expression which had become familiar in the learned tongue, were
naturally transferred to the vulgar speech, as it was called, whenever
accuracy of thought and nicety of expression invited such
transmutation.</p>
<p>With regard to the Latin of the period it is the custom of many
presumably well-educated men to sniff a little and say deprecatingly,
that after all much cannot be expected from the writers of the time,
since they were dependent on medieval or scholastic Latin for the
expression of their ideas. This criticism is supposed to do away with
any idea of the possibility of there having been a praiseworthy prose
style, at this time in the Middle Ages. In the chapter on the Latin
Hymns, we call attention to the fact that this same mode of criticism
was supposed to preclude all possibility of rhymed Latin, as worthy to
occupy a prominent place in literature. The widespread
encouragement of this false impression has, as a matter of fact, led
to a neglect of these wonderful poems, though they may in the opinion
of competent critics, even be considered as representing the true
genius of the Latin language and its powers of poetic expression
better than the Greek poetic modes, which were adopted by the Romans,
but which, with the possible exception of their two greatest poets,
never seem to have acquired that spontaneity that would characterize a
native outburst of lingual vitality.</p>
<p>As for the philosophic writers of the century that great period holds
in this, as in other departments, the position of the palmiest time of
the Middle Ages. To it belongs Alexander Hales, the Doctor
Irrefragabilis who disputes with Aquinas the prize for the best
example of the Summa Theologiae; Bonaventure the Mystic, and writer of
beautiful hymns; Roger Bacon, the natural philosopher; Vincent of
Beauvais, the encyclopedist. While of the four, greatest of all,
Albertus Magnus, the "Dumb Ox of Cologne," was born seven years before
its opening, his life lasted over four-fifths of it; that of Aquinas
covered its second and third quarters; Occam himself, though his main
exertions lie beyond this century, was probably born before Aquinas
died; while John Duns Scotus hardly outlived the century's close by a
decade. Raymond Lully, one of the most characteristic figures of
Scholasticism and of the medieval period (with his "great art" of
automatic philosophy), who died in 1315, was born as early as 1235.
Peter the Spaniard, Pope and author of the Summulae Logicales, the
grammar of formal logic for ages as well of several medieval treatises
that have attracted renewed attention in our day, died in 1277.</p>
<p>With regard to what was accomplished in philosophic and theologic
prose, examples will be found in the chapter on St. Thomas Aquinas,
which prove beyond all doubt the utter simplicity, the directness, and
the power of the prose of the Thirteenth Century. In the medical works
of the time there was less directness, but always a simplicity that
made them commendable. In general, university writers were influenced
by the scholastic methods and we find it reflected constantly in their
works. In the minds of many people this would be enough at once
to condemn it. It will usually be found, however, as we have noted
before, that those who are readiest to condemn scholastic writing know
nothing about it, or so little that their opinion is not worth
considering. Usually they have whatever knowledge they think they
possess, at second hand. Sometimes all that they have read of
scholastic philosophy are some particularly obscure passages on
abstruse subjects, selected by some prejudiced historian, in order to
show how impossible was the philosophic writing of these centuries of
the later Middle Ages.</p>
<p>There are other opinions, however, that are of quite different
significance and value. We shall quote but one of them, written by
Professor Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh, who in his volume
on the Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (the Twelfth
and Thirteenth centuries) of his Periods of European Literature, has
shown how sympathetically the prose writing of the Thirteenth Century
may appeal even to a scholarly modern, whose main interests have been
all his life in literature. Far from thinking that prose was spoiled
by scholasticism. Prof. Saintsbury considers that scholasticism was
the fortunate training school in which all the possibilities of modern
prose were brought out and naturally introduced into the budding
languages of the time. He says:</p>
<p class="cite">
"However this may be" (whether the science of the Nineteenth Century
after an equal interval will be of any more positive value, whether
it will not have even less comparative interest than that which
appertains to the scholasticism of the Thirteenth Century) "the
claim modest, and even meager as it may seem to some, which has been
here once more put forward for this scholasticism—the claim of a
far-reaching educative influence in mere language, in mere system of
arrangement and expression, will remain valid. If at the outset of
the career of modern languages, men had thought with the looseness
of modern thought, had indulged in the haphazard slovenliness of
modern logic, had popularized theology and vulgarized rhetoric, as
we have seen both popularized and vulgarized since, we should indeed
have been in evil case. It used to be thought clever to moralize and
to felicitate mankind over the rejection of the stays, the fetters,
the prison in which its thought was medievally kept. The
justice or the injustice, the taste or the vulgarity of these
moralizings, of these felicitations, may not concern us here. But in
expression, as distinguished from thought, the value of the
discipline to which these youthful languages was subjected is not
likely now to be denied by any scholar who has paid attention to the
subject. It would have been perhaps a pity if thought had not gone
through other phases; it would certainly have been a pity if the
tongues had been subjected to the fullest influence of Latin
constraint. But that the more lawless of them benefited by that
constraint there can be no doubt whatever. The influence of form
which the best Latin hymns of the Middle Ages exercised in poetry,
the influence in vocabulary and in logical arrangement which
scholasticism exercised in prose are beyond dispute: and even those
who will not pardon literature, whatever its historic and educative
importance be, for being something less than masterly in itself,
will find it difficult to maintain the exclusion of the Cur Deus
Homo, and impossible to refuse admission to the Dies Irae."</p>
<p>Besides this philosophic and scientific prose, there were two forms of
writing of which this century presents a copious number of examples.
These are the chronicles and biographies of the time and the stories
of travelers and explorers. These latter we have treated in a separate
chapter. The chronicles of the time deserve to be studied with patient
attention by anyone who wishes to know the prose writers of the
century and the character of the men of that time and their outlook on
life. It is usually considered that chroniclers are rather tiresome
old fogies who talk much and say very little, who accept all sorts of
legends on insufficient authority and who like to fill up their pages
with wonderful things regardless of their truth. In this regard it
must not be forgotten that in times almost within the memory of men
still alive, Herodotus now looked upon deservedly as the Father of
History and one of the great historical writers of all time, was
considered to have a place among these chroniclers, and his works were
ranked scarcely higher, except for the purity of their Greek style.</p>
<p>The first of the great chroniclers in a modern tongue was the famous
Geoffrey de Villehardouin, who was not only a writer of, but an
actor in the scenes which he describes. He was enrolled among the
elite of French Chivalry, in that Crusade at the beginning of the
Thirteenth Century, which resulted in the foundation of the
Greco-Latin Empire. His book entitled "The Conquest of
Constantinople," includes the story of the expedition during the years
from 1198 to 1207. Modern war correspondents have seldom succeeded in
giving a more vivid picture of the events of which they were witnesses
than this first French chronicler of the Thirteenth Century. It is
evident that the work was composed with the idea that it should be
recited, as had been the old poetic Chansons de Geste, in the castles
of the nobles and before assemblages of the people, perhaps on fair
days and other times when they were gathered together. The consequence
is that it is written in a lively straightforward style with direct
appeals to its auditors.</p>
<p>It contains not a few passages of highly poetic description which show
that the chronicler was himself a literary man of no mean order and
probably well versed in the effusions of the old poets of this
country. His description of the fleet of the Crusaders as it was about
to set sail for the East and then his description of its arrival
before the imposing walls of the Imperial City, are the best examples
of this, and have not been surpassed even by modern writers on similar
topics.</p>
<p>Though the French writer was beyond all doubt not familiar with the
Grecian writers and knew nothing of Xenophon, there is a constant
reminder of the Greek historian in his work. Xenophon's simple
directness, his thorough-going sincerity, the impression he produces
of absolute good faith and confidence in the completeness of the
picture, so that one feels that one has been present almost at many of
the scenes described, are all to be encountered in his medieval
successor. Villehardouin went far ahead of his predecessors, the
chroniclers of foregoing centuries, in his careful devotion to truth.
A French writer has declared that to Villehardouin must be ascribed
the foundation of historical probity. None of his facts, stated as
such, has ever been impugned, and though his long speeches must
necessarily have been his own composition, there seems no doubt that
they contain the ideas which had been expressed on various occasions,
and besides were composed with due reference to the character of
the speaker and convey something of his special style of expression.</p>
<p>Prof. Saintsbury in his article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on
Villehardouin, sums up very strikingly the place that this first great
vernacular historian's book must occupy.</p>
<p>He says: "It is not impertinent, and at the same time an excuse for
what has been already said, to repeat that Villehardouin's book, brief
as it is, is in reality one of the capital books of literature, not
merely for its merit, but because it is the most authentic and the
most striking embodiment in the contemporary literature of the
sentiments which determined the action of a great and important period
of history. There are but very few books which hold this position, and
Villehardouin's is one of them. If every other contemporary record of
the crusades perished, we should still be able by aid of this to
understand and realize what the mental attitude of crusaders, of
Teutonic Knights, and the rest was, and without this we should lack
the earliest, the most undoubtedly genuine, and the most
characteristic of all such records. The very inconsistency with which
Villehardouin is chargeable, the absence of compunction with which he
relates the changing of a sacred religious pilgrimage into something
by no means unlike a mere filibustering raid on a great scale, add a
charm to the book. For, religious as it is, it is entirely free from
the very slightest touch of hypocrisy or, indeed, of
self-consciousness of any kind. The famous description of the
Crusades, <i>gesta Dei per Francos</i>, was evidently to Villehardouin a
plain matter-of-fact description and it no more occurred to him to
doubt the divine favor being extended to the expeditions against
Alexius or Theodore than to doubt that it was shown to expeditions
against Saracens and Turks."</p>
<SPAN name="opp226">{opp226}</SPAN>
<p class="image">
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PONTE ALLE GRAZIE (FLORENCE, LAPO)</p>
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PORTA ROMANA GATE, (FLORENCE, N. PISANO)</p>
<p>It was especially in the exploitation of biographical material that
the Thirteenth Century chroniclers were at their best. Any one who
recalls Carlyle's unstinted admiration of Jocelyn of Brakelonds' life
of Abbot Sampson in his essays Past and Present, will be sure that at
least one writer in England had succeeded in pleasing so difficult a
critic in this rather thorny mode of literary expression. It is easy
to say too much or too little about the virtues and the vices of a man
whose biography one has chosen to write. Jocelyn's simple,
straightforward story would seem to fulfill the best canons of
modern criticism in this respect. Probably no more vivid picture of a
man and his ways was ever given until Boswell's Johnson. Nor was the
English chronicler alone in this respect. The Sieur de Joinville's
biographical studies of the life of Louis IX. furnish another example
of this literary mode at its best, and modern writers of biography
could not do better than go back to read these intimate pictures of
the life of a great king, which are not flattered nor overdrawn but
give us the man as he actually was.</p>
<p>The English biographic chronicler of the olden time could picture
exciting scenes without any waste of words. A specimen of his work
will serve to show the merit of his style. After reading it one is not
likely to be surprised that Carlyle should have so taken the
Chronicler to heart nor been so enthusiastic in his praise. It is the
very type of that impressionism in style that has once more in the
course of time become the fad of our own day.</p>
<p class="cite">
"The abbot was informed that the church of Woolpit was vacant,
Walter of Coutances being chosen to the bishopric of Lincoln. He
presently convened the prior and great part of the convent, and
taking up his story thus began: 'You well know what trouble I had in
respect of the church of Woolpit; and in order that it should be
obtained for your exclusive use I journeyed to Rome at your
instance, in the time of the schism between Pope Alexander and
Octavian. I passed through Italy at that time when all clerks
bearing letters of our lord the Pope Alexander were taken. Some were
imprisoned, some hanged, and some, with nose and lips cut off, sent
forward to the pope, to his shame and confusion. I, however,
pretended to be Scotch; and putting on the garb of a Scotchman, and
the gesture of one, I often brandished my staff, in the way they use
that weapon called, a gaveloc, at those who mocked me, using
threatening language, after the manner of the Scotch. To those that
met and questioned me as to who I was, I answered nothing, but,
"Ride ride Rome, turne Cantwereberei." This did I to conceal myself
and my errand, and that I should get to Rome safer in the guise of a
Scotchman.
<br/><br/>
"'Having obtained letters from the pope, even as I wished, on my
return I passed by a certain castle, as my way led me from the
city; and behold the officers thereof came about me, laying hold
upon me, and saying, "This vagabond who makes himself out to be a
Scotchman is either a spy or bears letters from the false pope
Alexander." And while they examined my ragged clothes, and my boots,
and my breeches, and even the old shoes which I carried over my
shoulders, after the fashion of the Scotch, I thrust my hand into
the little wallet which I carried, wherein was contained the letter
of our lord the pope, placed under a little cup I had for drinking.
The Lord God and St. Edmund so permitting, I drew out both the
letter and the cup together, so that, extending my arm aloft, I held
the letter underneath the cup. They could see the cup plain enough,
but they did not see the letter; and so I got clear out of their
hands, in the name of the Lord. Whatever money I had about me they
took away; therefore I had to beg from door to door, without any
payment, until I arrived in England.'"</p>
<p>Another excellent example of the biographic prose of the century,
though this is the vernacular, is Joinville's life of St. Louis,
without doubt one of the precious biographical treasures of all times.
It contains a vivid portrait of Louis IX., made by a man who knew him
well personally, took part with him in some of the important actions
of the book, and in general was an active personage in the affairs of
the time. Those who think that rapid picturesque description such as
vividly recalls deeds of battle was reserved for the modern war
correspondent, should read certain portions of Joinville's book. As an
example we have ventured to quote the page on which the seneschal
historian himself recounts the role which he played in the famous
battle of Mansourah, at which, with the Count de Soissons and Pierre
de Neuville, he defended a small bridge against the enemy under a hail
of arrows.</p>
<p>He says: "Before us there were two sergeants of the king, one of whom
was named William de Boon and the other John of Gamaches. Against
these the Turks who had placed themselves between the river and the
little tributary, led a whole mob of villains on foot, who hurled at
them clods of turf or whatever came to hand. Never could they make
them recoil upon us, however. As a last resort the Turks sent forward
a foot soldier who three times launched Greek fire at them. Once
William de Boon received the pot of green fire upon his buckler. If
the fire had touched anything on him he would have been entirely
burned up. We at the rear were all covered by arrows which had missed
the Sergeants. It happened that I found a waistcoat which had been
stuffed by one of the Saracens. I turned the open side of it towards
me and made a shield out of the vest which rendered me great service,
for I was wounded by their arrows in only five places though my horse
was wounded in fifteen. One of my own men brought me a banner with my
arms and a lance. Every time then that we saw that they were pressing
the Royal Sergeants we charged upon them and they fled. The good Count
Soissons, from the point at which we were, joked with me and said
'Senechal, let us hoot out this rabble, for by the headdress of God
(this was his favorite oath) we shall talk over this day you and I
many a time in our ladies' halls.'"</p>
<p>We have said that the writing of the Thirteenth Century must have been
done to a great extent for the sake of the women of the time, and that
its very existence was a proof that the women possessed a degree of
culture, that might not be realized from the few details that have
been preserved to us of their education and habits of life. In this
last passage of Joinville we have the proof of this, since evidently
the telling of the stories of these days of battle was done mainly in
order that the women folks might have their share in the excitement of
the campaign, and might be enabled vividly to appreciate what the
dangers had been and how gloriously their lords had triumphed. At
every period of the world's history it was true that literature was
mainly made for women and that some of the best portions of it always
concerned them very closely.</p>
<p>We have purposely left till last, the greatest of the chroniclers of
the Thirteenth Century, Matthew Paris, the Author of the Historia
Major, who owes his surname doubtless to the fact that he was educated
at the University of Paris. Instead of trying to tell anything about
him from our own slight personal knowledge, we prefer to quote the
passage from Green's History of the English People, in which one of
the greatest of our modern English historians pays such a magnificent
tribute to his colleague of the earlier times:</p>
<p class="cite">
"The story of this period of misrule has been preserved for us by an
annalist whose pages glow with the new outburst of patriotic feeling
which this common expression of the people and the clergy had
produced. Matthew Paris is the greatest, as he is in reality the
last of our monastic historians. The school of St. Albans survived
indeed till a far later time, but the writers dwindle into mere
annalists whose view is bounded by the Abbey precincts, and whose
work is as colorless as it is jejune. In Matthew the breadth and
precision of the narrative, the copiousness of his information on
topics whether national or European, the general fairness and
justice of his comments, are only surpassed by the patriotic fire
and enthusiasm of the whole. He had succeeded Roger of Wendover as
Chronicler of St. Albans; and the Greater Chronicle, with the
abridgement of it which has long passed under the name of Matthew of
Westminster, a "History of the English," and the "Lives of the
Earlier Abbots," were only a few among the voluminous works which
attest his prodigious industry. He was an eminent artist as well as
a historian, and many of the manuscripts which are preserved are
illustrated by his own hand. A large circle of
correspondents—bishops like Grosseteste, ministers like Hubert de
Burgh, officials like Alexander de Swinford—furnished him with
minute accounts of political and ecclesiastical proceedings.
Pilgrims from the East and Papal agents brought news of foreign
events to his scriptorium at St. Albans. He had access to and quotes
largely from state documents, charters, and exchequer rolls. The
frequency of the royal visits to the abbey brought him a store of
political intelligence and Henry himself contributed to the great
chronicle which has preserved with so terrible a faithfulness the
memory of his weakness and misgovernment. On one solemn feast-day
the King recognized Matthew, and bidding him sit on the middle step
between the floor and the throne, begged him to write the story of
the day's proceedings. While on a visit to St. Albans he invited him
to his table and chamber, and enumerated by name two hundred and
fifty of the English barons for his information. But all this royal
patronage has left little mark on his work. "<i>The case,</i>" as he
says, "<i>of historical writers is hard, for if they tell the truth
they provoke men, and if they write what is false they offend God.</i>"
With all the fullness of the school of court historians, such
as Benedict or Hoveden, Matthew Paris combines an independence and
patriotism which is strange to their pages. He denounces with the
same unsparing energy the oppression of the Papacy and the King. His
point of view is neither that of a courtier nor of a Churchman, but
of an Englishman, and the new national tone of his chronicle is but
an echo of the national sentiment which at last bound nobles and
yeomen and Churchmen together into an English people."</p>
<p>We of the Twentieth Century are a people of information and
encyclopedias rather than of literature, so that we shall surely
appreciate one important specimen of the prose writing of the
Thirteenth Century since it comprises the first modern encyclopedia.
Its author was the famous Vincent of Beauvais. Vincent consulted all
the authors, sacred and profane, that he could possibly lay hands on,
and the number of them was indeed prodigious. It has often been said
by men supposed to be authorities in history, that the historians of
the Middle Ages had at their disposition only a small number of books,
and that above all they were not familiar with the older historians.
While this was true as regards the Greek, it was not for the Latin
historical writers. Vincent of Beauvais has quotations from Caesar's
De Bello Gallico, from Sallust's Catiline and Jugurtha, from Quintus
Curtius, from Suetonius and from Valerius Maximus and finally from
Justin's Abridgement of Trogus Pompeius.</p>
<p>Vincent had the advantage of having at his disposition the numerous
libraries of the monasteries throughout France, the extent of which,
usually unrealized in modern times, will be appreciated from our
special chapter on the subject. Besides he consulted the documents in
the chapter houses of the Cathedrals especially those of Paris, of
Rouen, of Laon, of Beauvais and of Bayeux, which were particularly
rich in collections of documents. It might be thought that these
libraries and archives would be closely guarded. Far from being closed
to writers from the outer world they were accessible to all to such an
extent, indeed, that a number of them are mentioned by Vincent as
public institutions.</p>
<p>His method of collecting his information is interesting, because it
shows the system employed by him is practically that which has
obtained down to our own day. He made use for his immense
investigation of a whole army of young assistants, most of whom were
furnished him by his own order, the Dominicans. He makes special
mention in a number of places of quotations due to their
collaboration. The costliness of maintaining such a system would have
made the completion of the work absolutely impossible were it not for
the liberality of King Louis IX., who generously offered to defray the
expenses of the composition. Vincent has acknowledged this by
declaring in his prefatorial letter to the King that, "you have always
liberally given assistance even to the work of gathering the
materials."</p>
<SPAN name="opp232">{opp232}</SPAN>
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ST. CATHERINE'S (LÜBECK)</p>
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CHURCH AND CLOISTERS, SAN ANTONIO (PADUA)</p>
<p>Vincent's method of writing is quite as interesting as his method of
compilation of facts. The great Dominican was not satisfied with being
merely a source of information. The philosophy of history has received
its greatest Christian contribution from St. Augustine's City of God.
In this an attempt was made to trace the meaning and causal sequence
of events as well as their mere external connection and place in time.
In a lesser medieval way Vincent tried deliberately to imitate this
and besides writing history attempted to trace the philosophy of it.
For him, as for the great French philosophic historian Bossuet in his
Universal History five centuries later, everything runs its provided
race from the creation to the redemption and then on toward the
consummation of the world. He describes at first the commencements of
the Church from the time of Abel, through its progress under the
Patriarchs, the Prophets, Judges, Kings, and leaders of the people,
down to the Birth of Christ. He traces the history of the Apostles and
of the first Disciples, though he makes it a point to find place for
the famous deeds of the great men of Pagan antiquity. He notes the
commencement of Empires and Kingdoms, their glory, their decadence,
their ruin, and the Sovereigns who made them illustrious in peace and
war. There was much that was defective in the details of history as
they were traced by Vincent, much that was lacking in completeness,
but the intention was evidently the best, and patience and labor were
devoted to the sources of history at his command. Perhaps never
more than at the present moment have we been in a position to realize
that history at its best can be so full of defects even after further
centuries of consultation of documents and printed materials, that we
are not likely to be in the mood to blame this first modern historian
very much. As for the other portions of his encyclopedia, biographic,
literary and scientific, they were not only freely consulted by his
contemporaries and successors, but we find traces of their influence
in the writings and also in the decorative work of the next two
centuries. We have already spoken of the use of his book in the
provision of subjects for the ornamentation of Cathedrals and the same
thing might be said of edifices of other kinds.</p>
<p>Nor must it be thought that Vincent has only a historic or
ecclesiastical interest. Dr. Julius Pagel, in his Chapter on Medicine
in the Middle Ages in Puschmann's Hand-Book of the History of
Medicine, [Footnote 22] says, "that there were three writers whose
works were even more popular than those of Albertus Magnus. These
three were Bartholomew, the Englishman; Thomas, of Cantimprato, and
Vincent, of Beauvais, the last of whom must be considered as one of
the most important contributors to the generalization of scientific
knowledge, not alone in the Thirteenth but in the immediately
succeeding centuries. His most important work was really an
encyclopedia of the knowledge of his time. It was called the Greater
Triple Mirror and there is no doubt that it reflected the knowledge of
his period. He had the true scientific spirit and constantly cites the
authorities from whom his information was derived. He cites hundreds
of authors and there is scarcely a subject that he does not touch on.
One book of his work is concerned with human anatomy, and the
concluding portion of it is an abbreviation of history carried down to
the year 1250."</p>
<p class="footnote">
[Footnote 22: Puschmann. Hand-Buch der Geschichte der Medizin, Jena,
Fischer, 1902.]</p>
<p>It might be considered that such a compend of information would be
very dry-as-dust reading and that it would be fragmentary in character
and little likely to be attractive except to a serious student. Dr.
Pagel's opinion does not agree with this <i>a priori</i> impression. He
says with regard to it: "The language is clear, readily
intelligible, and the information is conveyed usually in an excellent,
simple style. Through the introduction of interesting similes the
contents do not lack a certain taking quality, so that the reading of
the work easily becomes absorbing." This is, I suppose, almost the
last thing that might be expected of a scientific teacher in the
Thirteenth Century, because, after all, Vincent of Beauvais must be
considered as one of the schoolmen, and they are supposed to be
eminently arid, but evidently, if we are to trust this testimony of a
modern German physician, only by those who have not taken the trouble
to read them.</p>
<p>One of the most important works of Thirteenth Century prose is the
well-known Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (Significance of the Divine
Offices) written by William Durandus, the Bishop of Mende, in France,
whose tomb and its inscription in the handsome old Gothic Cathedral of
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in Rome, shares with the body of St.
Catherine of Sienna the honor of attracting so many visitors. The book
has been translated into English under the title. The Symbolism of
Churches and Church Ornaments, and has been very widely read. It was
very popular in the Thirteenth Century, and the best possible idea of
its subsequent reputation can be gathered from the fact, that the
Rationale was the first work from the pen of an uninspired writer to
be accorded the privilege of being printed. The Editio Princeps, a
real first edition of supreme value, appeared from the press of John
Fust in 1459. The only other books that had been printed at that time
were the Psalters of 1457 and 1459. This edition is, of course, of the
most extreme rarity. According to the English translators of Durandus
the beauty of the typography has seldom been exceeded.</p>
<p>The style of Durandus has been praised very much by the critics of
succeeding centuries for its straightforwardness, simplicity and
brevity. Most of these qualities it evidently owes to the hours spent
by its author in the reading of Holy Scriptures. Durandus fashioned
his style so much on the sacred writings that most of his book
possesses something of the impressive character of the Bible itself.
The impression derived from it is that of reading a book on a
religious subject written in an eminently suitable tone and
spirit. Most of this impression must be attributed without doubt to
the fact, that Durandus has not only formed his style on the
Scriptures, but has actually incorporated Scriptural expressions in
his writings to such an extent as to make them mostly a scriptural
composition. This, far from being a fault, appears quite appropriate
in his book because of its subject and the method of treatment. A
quotation from the proeme (as it is in the quaint spelling of the
English translation) will give the best idea of this.</p>
<p class="cite">
"All things, as pertain to offices and matters ecclesiastical, be
full of divine significations and mysterious, and overflow with
celestial sweetness; if so be that a man be diligent in his study of
them, and know how to draw HONEY FROM THE ROCK, AND OIL FROM THE
HARDEST STONE. But who KNOWETH THE ORDINANCES OF HEAVEN, OR CAN FIX
THE REASONS THEREOF UPON THE EARTH? for he that prieth into their
majesty, is overwhelmed by the glory of them. Of a truth THE WELL IS
DEEP, AND I HAVE NOTHING TO DRAW WITH: unless he giveth it unto me
WHO GIVETH TO ALL MEN LIBERALLY, AND UPBRAIDETH NOT: so that WHILE I
JOURNEY THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS I may DRAW WATER WITH JOY OUT OF THE
WELLS OF SALVATION. Wherefore albeit of the things handed down from
our forefathers, capable we are not to explain all, yet if among
them there be any thing which is done without reason it should be
forthwith put away. Wherefore, I, WILLIAM, by the alone tender mercy
of God, Bishop of the Holy Church which is in Mende, will knock
diligently at the door, if so be that THE KEY OF DAVID will open
unto me: that the King may BRING ME INTO HIS TREASURE? and shew unto
me the heavenly pattern which was shewed unto Moses in the mount: so
that I may learn those things which pertain to Rites Ecclesiastical
whereof they teach and what they signify: and that I may be able
plainly to reveal and make manifest the reasons of them, by HIS
help, WHO HATH ORDAINED STRENGTH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES AND
SUCKLINGS: WHOSE SPIRITS BLOWETH WHERE IT LISTETH: DIVIDING TO
EACH SEVERALLY AS IT WILL to the praise and glory of the Trinity."</p>
<p>This passage alone of Durandus would serve as an excellent refutation
of the old-time Protestant tradition, fortunately now dying out though
not as yet entirely eradicated, which stated so emphatically that the
Bible was not allowed to be read before Luther's time.</p>
<p>Those who wish to obtain a good idea of Durandus' style and the way he
presents his material, can obtain it very well from his chapter on
Bells, the first two paragraphs of which we venture to quote. They
will be found quite as full of interesting information in their way as
any modern writer might have brought together, and have the dignity
and simplicity of the best modern prose.</p>
<p class="cite">
"Bells are brazen vessels, and were first invented in Nola, a city
of Campania. Wherefore the larger bells are called Campanae, from
Campania the district, and the smaller Nolae, from Nola the town.
<br/><br/>
"You must know that bells, by the sound of which the people
assembleth together to the church to hear, and the Clergy to preach,
IN THE MORNING THE MERCY OF GOD AND HIS POWER BY NIGHT do signify
the silver trumpets, by which under the Old Law the people was
called together unto sacrifice. (Of these trumpets we shall speak in
our Sixth Book.) For just as the watchmen in a camp rouse one
another by trumpets, so do the Ministers of the Church excite each
other by the sound of bells to watch the livelong night against the
plots of the Devil. Wherefore our brazen bells are more sonorous
than the trumpets of the Old Law, because then GOD was known in
Judea only, but now in the whole earth. They be also more durable:
For they signify that the teaching of the New Testament will be more
lasting than the trumpets and sacrifices of the Old Law, namely,
even unto the end of the world.
<br/><br/>
"Again bells do signify preachers, who ought after the likeness of a
bell to exhort the faithful unto faith: the which was typified in
that the LORD commanded Moses to make a vestment for the High Priest
who entered into the Holy of Holies. Also the cavity of the bell
denoteth the mouth of the preacher, according to the saying of
the Apostle, I AM BECOME AS SOUNDING BRASS ON A TINKLING CYMBAL."</p>
<p>Of course there are what we would be apt to consider exaggerations of
symbolic meanings and far-fetched explanations and references, but
this was of the taste of the time and has not in subsequent centuries
been so beyond the canons of good taste as at present. Durandus goes
on to tell that the hardness of the metal of the bell signifies
fortitude in the mind of the preacher, that the wood of the frame on
which the bell hangeth doth signify the wood of our Lord's Cross, that
the rope by which the bell is strung is humility and also showeth the
measure of life, that the ring in the length of the rope is the crown
of reward for perseverance unto the end, and then proceeds to show why
and how often the bells are rung and what the significance of each
ringing is. He explains why the bells are silent for three days before
Easter and also during times of interdict, and gives as the
justification for this last the quotation from the Prophet "I WILL
MAKE THY TONGUE CLEAVE TO THE ROOF OF THY MOUTH FOR THEY ARE A
REBELLIOUS HOUSE."</p>
<p>Even these few specimens of the prose of the Thirteenth Century, will
serve to show that the writers of the period could express themselves
with a vigor and directness which have made their books interesting
reading for generations long after their time, and which stamp their
authors as worthy of a period that found enduring and adequate modes
of expression for every form of thought and feeling.</p>
<p class="image">
<ANTIMG alt="" src="images/i237.jpg" border=1><br/>
STONE CARVING (PARIS)</p>
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