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With a poppy or a lily bound, In my medieval hand." But to-day the Middle Ages have come to be appreciated at their true worth and by the right people. The miracle and mystery plays have been revived; Dante and Chaucer are more enthusiastically studied than ever; St. Thomas is once more in honour among thinking men; a volume of medieval Latin lyrics has had an enthusiastic welcome. This revival has been long in preparing. The eighteenth century despised medievalism, but as far back as 1814 there appeared a well-written Literary History of the Middle Ages. Strange to say (considering the date) it was by a Catholic priest, the Rev. Joseph Berington. The study of the Middle Ages was fostered by learned societies such as the Early English Texts Society, the Percy Society, the Camden Society, the Caxton Society, the Bannatyne Club, and others; in the United States by the Medieval Academy of America, the Society for the Study of Medieval Language and Literature, and by similar societies on the Continent. We have our archeological and other societies in Ireland, too, though they did not expressly envisage the Middle Ages. Then series of books were published both by the above-named societies and by publishing firms. Such were the Broadway Medieval Library, the Medium Aevum Monographs in the United States, "Books of the Middle Ages " published at Munich and edited by Friedrich von der Leyen--handsomely printed and bound, the Classiques Francais du Moyen Age, and many others. Speculum is a learned review for the study of the Middle Ages, and, as I have said, there have always been scholars from Hallam onwards who devoted themselves to this branch of study.
In 1931 a book of translations, Twenty-one Medieval Latin Poems, was edited by E. J. Martin and published by the Scholartis Press, London. A novelist, Jack Lindsay, has still more recently published a book of translations similar to Miss Waddell's under the title Medieval Latin Poets. In his preface he tells how he " discovered " the Middle Ages and their literature. You might then pass on to the Oxford Book of Medieval Verse which provides a wider selection. Medieval Pageant, edited by M. T. Reinhard (London: Dent) is a selection of medieval tales. The books I shall next suggest are by Catholic authors. For the best period of the Middle Ages I could wish you no more charming introduction than Katherine Bregy's From Dante to Jeanne d'Arc which brings out all the romance and glamour of the time. And if, after having read about it, you want to taste the literature itself, but are not yet prepared to tackle the originals in full with their archaic language and spelling, there is Dr. J. J. Walsh's excellent Golden Treasury of Medieval Literature (N.Y.: Stratford Co., 1930), where you will find the literature of the Middle Ages reflected in all its manifold richness and variety from the Song of Roland to the Imitation of Christ.
What a splendid pageant it is! And all the best of it is now available to the ordinary reader in English translations for the most part quite inexpensive. Katherine Bregy will introduce you to
Dante but I would also suggest Recall to Dante by a brilliant Irish writer, Alice Curtayne, and G. K. Chesterton has provided a Catholic introduction to Chaucer. If you have read Katherine Bregy and Dr. J. J. Walsh's Golden Treasury you will have made the acquaintance
of the Song of Roland, but you will want to read the translation of it by John O'Hagan. You will need to know something, too, about the romance of Tristram and Iseult and will then enjoy it the better
when you see it in Grand Opera.
A Catholic library ought to possess yet another remarkable medieval romance, Blanquerna (London: Jarrolds, 1926), the author of which was the Catalan writer Blessed Ramon Lull. From the same author we have The Book of the Lover and the Beloved, a spiritual treatise translated by E. Allison Peers (London, 1927) and the Book of the Beasts, which is in the genre of Reynard the Fox. The difficulty felt I think by most of us, in appreciating medieval literature lies in the fact that to appreciate it fully some knowledge of its background is needed and this we often lack. There was feudalism, for instance, with its talk of "liege lord" and "fealty", "serfdom" and "homage" and the rest. "Necessity," it has been well said, "made feudalism, the need of peoples emerging from barbarism to provide themselves with an instrument for establishing law and order." Feudalism, in its turn, made chivalry, and religion infused into chivalry the spirit which has come to be called romance. Chivalry had a code of its own, a blend of the old barbarian warrior virtues with Christian ideas of meekness and gentillesse. With it went a new ideal of womanhood and a new attitude towards woman which might be summed up in the words "chivalrous" and "courteous."
But if the mass of troubadour and minnesinger poetry was ephemeral, it is well to bear in mind that some at least of the medieval poets rendered a real service to Christianity. For they wrote for the people hymns and sacred songs about Our Lady, about the Eucharist, about the Passion of Christ, and those many quaint and devout Noels and Carols that have come down to us, thus, as M. Bossuat points out, making concrete the abstractions of dogma and translating them into popular parlance, clarifying the subtleties of ecclesiastical history, completing the instruction of the faithful and guiding their goodwill. We sometimes forget that Francis of Assisi, besides being the wonderful saint we knew him to be, was also a poet. Later ages have even dubbed him God's troubadour. Not a few of his poems, particularly his glorious Song of the Sun, have come down to us. Moreover he was an inspirer of poetry. There is a School of Franciscan poets. Frederic Ozanam studied them in his book Franciscan Poets in Italy of the Thirteenth Century, and more recently an American, Benjamin Musser, published his book Franciscan Poets (New York: Macmillan, 1933). More modest is the little anthology edited by Louis Vincent and entitled The Little Brown Company (London: Hopkinson, 1925). Perhaps the best of all these poets was Jacopone da Todi, with his exquisitely tender lyrics about our Lady and other Catholic themes. Indeed the writer of the Fioretti of St. Francis might well be rechoned among the poets. There was also much didactic and moral literature in prose. It is mostly forgotten and little wonder, for doubtless all that it said has been said again since and better said. But at least the writings of Gerson, chancellor Paris University, are worthy of attentive study. By far the most important contribution of the Middle Ages to the world's thought was the work of the great schoolmen. It is not so many years since it was the fashion among intellectuals to disdain and even deride the scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages. That attitude has been reversed. Above all St. Thomas Aquinas is once more held in honour by those without almost as much as by those within. But though the greatest, St. Thomas does not stand alone. He was preceded by Peter Lombard known as the Master of the Sentences (died 1164), a Master so esteemed that the works of later writers are largely commentaries upon his. There was also the illustrious Albertus Magnus (died 1280), a contemporary of St. Thomas (died 1274), whose works fill twenty-one folio volumes, so that Hallam thought he might pass for "the most fertile writer in the world." After St. Thomas flourished the Franciscan Doctors John Duns Scotus and St. Bonaventure. These great writers synthesised the thought and learning of the ancient world of the Fathers on the one hand and, on the other, of the pagan philosophers Aristotle, Plato, Seneca, and the rest. Even the Arabian philosophers Averroes and Avicenna were critically examined. But the Schoolmen were no mere compilers like Isidore of Seville and Vincent of Beauvail. They carred out a vast work of codification, stabilization, and, in a sense, rationalization of Christian thought. Catholic theology, though it has not ceased to progress since their day, is built on the firm foundations which they laid.
Unlike lyric poetry which arose in the courts of dukes and princes, and unlike philosophy and theology which had its origin in the schools and universities, medieval drama arose literally at the foot of the altar. At first a dramatisation of the liturgy acted by clerics wearing vestments, it gradually passed to the church porch and then to the church precincts, before entering on its career as a profane or secular entertainment. I have not space here to describe its evolution but may refer my readers to an excellent chapter (IV) in M. Bossuat's Le Moyen Age. This is what he says of the miracle and mystery plays while yet they were under the regis of the Church:
Medieval literature had also a humorous and satirical element which was apt to be scurrilous and at times far from reverent. There were, for instance, the fabliaux, stories in verse of common life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries which were at times merely merry but too often profane and coarse. One of the most popular poems of medieval times was the humorous Reynard the Fox, which is a sort of fable developed into a comic epic, or, to put it another way, a medieval Uncle Remus. Satire lurks behind the fun of Reynard the Fox. It comes out into the open in another famous Ibook, The Vision of Piers Plowman, by William Langland. Piers Plowman is an allegorical dream poem written in alliterative verse like Anglo-Saxon poetry. It deals with the life of the people in all its phases. Christopher Dawson calls it "the first authentic voice of the English people," that is of what in Communist parlance is called the proletariat to-day. In it the poet inveighs against all shams and all abuses whether in high places or in low. He has hard things to say of friars and priests, of prelates, and even of Popes. But, unlike Wicliff he never assails the Church as such: he accepts her teaching and her authority. A Catholic writer of our day even finds it possible to describe Piers Plowman as "obviously a great religious poem," though it is neither mystical nor devotional. There was, of course, a devout and a mystical side to medieval life and it found expression in literature. Much of it--sermons, pious tales, lives of saints, and devotional treatises--has come down to us only in rare manuscripts. But of late years selections have been published by, among others, Professors Carleton Brown and E. Allison Peers and Miss Helen Waddell. Those who would go deeper may study for themselves the works of the medieval mystics. The fourteenth century in particular was an age of mystics, for then flourished Blessed Henry Suso, Meister Eckhardt, Ludolf of Saxony (who meant so much to St. Ignatius Loyola), Ruysbroeck the Admirable, Tauler, St. Mechtilde, St. Gertrude, St. Bridget of Sweden, Blessed Angela of Foligno, and above all St. Catherine of Siena. England had its mystics, too, who only now are coming into their own-Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton (and his Ladder of Perfection), and Dame Juliana of Norwid, to say nothing of that very strange mystic, Margery Kempe. Nearly all of these mystics have left writings. But the most precious of all is the Imitation of Christ which the Christian world has taken to its heart for ever. Thus we owe to the Middle Ages an immense spiritual debt. If we wished to reach the mind of the Middle Ages with a view to sympathetic understanding of its literature and art, we should have to undertake studies for which few have leisure. So it is little wonder if that period has been generally misunderstood, especially by those who do not realise that the Catholic faith was the very soul of medieval culture. Even the comparatively small number of source books mentioned by M. Emile might be more than anybody but a scholar could cope with. Here is the passage:
If then I have suggested quite a number of books about medieval literature and shall suggest still more, it is because I think the average reader needs to be introduced to it, to be prepared for it, perhaps also to be stimulated into reading it. For, as I have suggested, on taking up a medieval book the modern man is apt to find himself in a region of thought and feeling remote from his own. This is true even of Catholics, though they ought and do find themselves more at home there. It is well, therefore, to have the way smoothed for us by those already well acquainted with it, and to have the background and scenery filled in for us before the actors appear on the stage. But sooner or later we must read some of the medieval books for ourselves. I suggest that an excellent beginning may be made with some of the medieval books (referred to above) in Everyman's Library (Dent). Here are some titles : As these books may be had for a half-crown each and that in nicely printed volumes, they are within the means of well-nigh everybody. If I were asked to state the distinctive characteristics of medieval literature, I should, from my own limited knowledge along with the views of specialists, tentatively sum them up under four heads -deep and simple Catholic faith, chivalry and romantic love, a taste for allegory , and what, for want of a better word, we may term a certain anti-clericalism. Of the first enough, perhaps, has already been said. If at times that simple faith ran to seed in credulity and super- stition, well, medieval man was not more credulous than the devotees of American films.
Lastly there is anti-clericalism. Hallam writes:
This is quite definitely an exaggeration, though Mr. G. C. Coulton might consider it an understatement. For there is a mass of medireval literature in which criticism of the clergy has no place what- ever. But undoubtedly it is to be found in the fabliaux, in Rutebeuf and other troubadours, in many anonymous farces and lampoons, and even in great writers like Langland and Dunbar and Chaucer , as later in Erasmus. This anti-clericalism for the most part differed wholly from modern anti-clericalism. Avowed anti- clericals of our times are nearly always anti-Catholic in reality. They hate priests and religious for being what the Church expects them to be. The medireval anti- clerical satirised them for not being such. Admittedly great abuses existed, though they were far from universal. But they were often exaggerated either from malice (as by heretics, unfrocked friars, and disreputable jongleurs) or from excess of zeal (as by Langland). And often, I think, harsh criticism of the clergy , then as now, was due to the high standard which they were expected to live up to, together with a failure to make allowances for human nature. Often, no doubt, the critic was emboldened by the knowledge that there would be no retort in kind, still less a reply by violence such as in those days might be expected from other classes of the community. Anyhow anti-clericalism is invariably a phenomenon of Catholic countries. It does not argue lack of Christian faith and practice in the bulk of their populations.
Note.-Readers may wonder why in all this there has been no mention of Ireland. It is because medieval literature as applied to Ireland would be a misnomer. The Golden Age of Irish learning and literature was over before the Middle Ages began. In the period covered by the Middle Ages, i.e., 1000 A.D. to 1500 or 1550, there was no literature in Ireland resembling in the least the literature about which I have been speaking.
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HERE was a time, not so long ago, when the epithet medieval stood
for all that was out-of-date and obsolete, for ignorance and credulity and I know not what else besides. Applied to a person or an institution it was a term of contempt. Now, at all events in the minds of educated people, all that is changed. An attitude of appreciation and even admiration has taken its place. The
change originated with the savants
the scholars, and their patient researches have
at last borne fruit. It passed from the lonely scholar to the universities and thence to men of letters like William Morris and now it is reaching the general reading public. For a time in the 'nineties of the last century it threatened to become a fad.
Gilbert laughed at it in Patience:
The Spanish equivalent of the Song of Roland is the epic of the Cid. You can read it in English in a version The Cid Campeador by an Irish author, Mr. Henry Gill, published in Dublin, or in another translation by John Ormsby. So, too, when you have read Percival and the Quest of
the Holy Grail and Malory's Morte d'Arthur, you will appreciate Wagner's Parzival and Tennyson's Idylls of the King--a highly polished version of the legends of King Arthur. Dr. Walsh will introduce you to the Troubadours and the Minnesingers and the Jongleurs, typical figures of medieval times. You can read the Romaunt of the Rose in a dainty edition published by Messrs. Dent, and the same publishers have editions of that wonderful morality play Everyman and of the Mabinogion which brings you into the world of medieval Welsh romance. Aucassin and Nicolette is another charming romance of the Middle Ages.
I fancy that the type of medieval literature least known to the average reader is the poetry of the troubadours, those Provencal lyric poets who flourished between 1100 and 1300 or so. The mere quantity of their productions is certainly impressive. Of those who flourished in the twelfth century 127 are known to us by name and of those of the thirteenth, no less than 200. Thibault, King of Navarre, and Rutebeuf are perhaps the outstanding names. But who reads them now? Their language is unintelligible to any but scholars, and such lyric qualities as they had are lost in translation. For the most part their poems are amorous ditties breathing a not very genuine love, l'amour courtois. Sometimes they are satires on those in high places, particularly the clergy, occasionally exhortations to take part in the Crusades. In the fourth volume of his great six-volume work on the troubadours (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1819) M. Raynouard prints some moral and religious pieces, but these were the exception. During the same period flourished in Germany the Minnesingers--Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide, and scores of others. Indeed round about 1254 German poetry had one of its golden ages.
Of course we must not over-idealize the Middle Ages. Human nature was human nature then as now. Passions took their course, and from time to time the untamed savage in man broke loose. But the ideal was there and the average man bowed down before it. Men at least knew what was to be expected of a Christian. And this basic Christianity is reflected in literature, even in the courteous love poetry, in the warlike epic or chanson de geste, and in the romances.
"Some ten works might, strictly speaking, do duty for all the rest. All the commentators on the Old and New Testament are summed up in the Glossa Ordinaria of Walafrid Strabo, the whole of symbolic liturgy is in the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of Durandus. The spirit and method of the ancient preachers live in the Specztlum Ecclesie of Honorius of Autun. Sacred history is all in Historia Scholastica by Peter Comester and in the Golden Legend of Jacques de Voragine, while profane history is summarised in the Speculum Historiale of Vincent de Beauvais; all that was known of the physical world is to be found in his Speculum Naturale; all that was thought about the moral and religious world is in the Summa of St. Thomas, which is abridged in Vincent's Speculum Morale. A reader familiar with the books just enumerated would have fathomed the genius of the Middle Ages." A formidable list, it must be admitted. Vincent's Speculum works out at ten folio volumes and has never been done into English. The Summa, it is true, which Mr. John Drinkwater describes as "a tremendous and enduring monument of the human mind," may be read in English, but the task of reading it is formidable, for the translation runs to twenty-two volumes. The remaining works on M. Male's list are to be found only in a few great libraries.
The ideal of romantic chiva1ry--"the love of honour and the honour of love"--the self-conscious segregation of the "gentle" folk from all the rest, not merely through gentle birth and rank and the fashion of their armour, but through their ways of thinking, their code of honour, their ideal of love, l'amour courtois, the devotion of the true knight to his lady-tfie theme of all the books of chiva1ry-captured the imagination and held it spell-bound till at the Renaissance it was replaced by new ways of thought. Unfortunately romantic chivalry, though partly imbued with the Christian spirit, was not wholly Christian in its trend. In its later phases at least there was more of Ovid in it than of the Gospel and the love it idealised - had little to do with Christian marriage.
To deal fittingly with allegory I should need more space than can be spared me at the moment. The taste for it is seen not only in poems such as the Romaunt of the Rose, immensely popular for centuries, The Pearl, and Piers Plowman, but in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture by preachers and commentators, indeed in the whole attitude to nature of the medireval moralists. They were determined to see "sermons in stones."
As we think of the Middle Ages there might well pass before our mind's eye a many-coloured pageant-jousts and tourneys, knights and fair ladies, jongleur and troubadour and minnesinger, the pilgrim train wending to Canterbury or Rome or St. James of Compostella, the crusader departing for the Holy Land, monk and anchorite, saints and schoolmen. And then the creations of poetry and romance-the knight errant, the damsel in distress, the enchanted forest, the Holy Grail, Charlemagne and his peers, Arthur and the Round Table, Roland and Lancelot and Perceval, the Cid Campeador. Was it a better world than ours, or rather than ours was but yesterday? At least the men of those days were one in faith and worship and even culture, though at times they quarrelled and fought as men will to the end. The poor I think were not so poor nor the rich so rich. There was far less comfort and convenience, but perhaps there was more joyfulness, more peaceful toil, more tranquillity of soul. Life was simpler and half the ills that afflict the modern man and woman had not been invented yet. One thing is certain: we cannot go back to life as it was lived
then: we must make the best of the world we have. But that is no reason why we should not enjoy and appreciate the literature of that past age, as we enjoy and value the literature of Greece and Rome.