CHAPTER IV

WOMEN IN THE AGE OF SAINT LOUIS

While romance has preserved many memories, and history not a few facts, of Eleanor of Guienne, the records concerning two other notable women, her contemporaries, are very scanty. Whatever her faults, Eleanor was a great and commanding personality, one that could not be overlooked because, whether for good or ill, she was always powerful. The two unhappy queens of Philippe Auguste, Ingeburge de Danemark and Agnes de Meranie, though they were the innocent causes of much distress in France, are yet hardly known to us as personalities.

The first queen of Philippe Auguste was Isabelle de Hainault; after her death he sought the hand of a Danish princess, Ingeburge, sister of Knut IV. The marriage was one contracted for political reasons; Philippe was at the time engaged in his lifelong struggle against the power of the Plantagenets, and desired an ally against Richard Coeur de Lion. At Amiens, on Assumption eve, 1193, Ingeburge was married to the King of France; the next day she was crowned Queen of France by the Archbishop of Rheims. During the ceremony, says a chronicler of Aix, "the King, looking on the Princess, began to conceive a horror of her; he trembled, he grew pale, he was so greatly troubled in spirit that he could hardly contain himself till the end of the ceremony." For some unknown reason the fair stranger seems to have awakened in him unconquerable repugnance; and from that moment he began to devise means of getting rid of her.

Ingeburge, according to the testimony of those who had no special reason to favor her but every reason to justify the king, was of a gentle disposition, sensible, affectionate, and endowed with considerable beauty of the type usually associated with Danish women. She was a defenceless stranger, not even acquainted with the French language, and there were but few in France to champion her cause in the painful complications that followed. Philippe's aversion could by no means be accounted for; in the Middle Ages what could not be accounted for, if of evil nature, was the work of the devil or of his vicegerents on earth, the witches; so it was promptly reported that the King of France was bewitched, though it is not exactly apparent that the real force of the enchantment fell upon him it was Ingeburge who suffered.

Philippe began proceedings to obtain an annulment of the marriage, which, he asseverated, had never been consummated. This was denied by Ingeburge, and we are inclined to take her word rather than that of the unscrupulous king, who, though a successful ruler, was not at all averse to falsehood where falsehood served his turn. The pair separated almost at once, and Philippe tried by ill treatment to make Ingeburge consent to a legal separation. After three months of the utmost unhappiness the young queen had the shame of hearing her marriage declared null and void. The council which rendered this decision consisted wholly of French prelates, presided over by the very Archbishop of Rheims who had pronounced the nuptial benediction over the pair. Ingeburge was at Compiègne, where the council met, and was present at the session at which her marriage was annulled on the frivolous pretext of a kinship, not between Philippe and Ingeburge for even the ingenuity of mediaeval genealogy could not trace out that but between the late Queen Isabella and Ingeburge. The unfortunate Danish lady could not understand what these priests were saying in the strange tongue of the land to which she had come to be a queen; when the purport of the proceedings was explained to her through an interpreter, she exclaimed, in tears: "Male France! Male France! Rome! Rome!"

DOMESTIC INTERIOR IN FRANCE, TWELFTH CENTURY
From a water-color by S. Baron, after a description by Viollet-le-Duc

The decorated fireplace, between two windows, was wide enough to hold logs eight or ten feet long. Two large benches were at right angles, one with a movable back, the other being double-seated. The table was fixed to the floor, the master's chair being elevated, other diners sat on stools. The tablecloth was used for wiping fingers and lips. The buffet, with cups and goblets on top, was used as to-day. Generally, the beds were narrow and displayed great luxury: the wood was carved, incrusted, or painted; the coverlets had fringes and embroideries; curtains formed an alcove, and a night lamp was hung at the foot. The room contained an oratory.

In the rear were the kitchen, etc, and on the upper floors were sleeping and other chambers.

She did indeed appeal from "wicked France" to Rome, and the appeal was not without ultimate good effect. In the meantime she refused to prejudice her cause by returning to Denmark, and the heartless Philippe confined her, almost as a criminal, in a convent at Cisoing, in the Tournois; he did not even have the decency or the humanity to provide suitably for her actual needs.

The appeal to Rome was pushed by Ingeburge's brother, Knut IV., and the Pope, Celestine III., at length granted the appeal, on March 13, 1196, reversing the decree of the council of Compiègne. The papal power was then in very weak hands, and it was fear of offending the great King of France that had occasioned the long delay in rendering justice to Ingeburge. That something more than a mere papal decree would be needed to subdue Philippe was apparent when, in June, 1196, he married Agnes de Meranie, the lovely daughter of a German prince who, under the title of Duke of Meranie, ruled the Tyrol, Istria, and a part of Bohemia. The papal menaces had not deterred the king from this insolent act of disobedience; and Pope Celestine made no attempt to coerce him by resort to more rigorous measures. Ingeburge continued to live in confinement, while Philippe enjoyed the love of his new wife, against whom no one could lay the guilt of her husband's licentious conduct.

In January, 1198, Pope Celestine was succeeded by Innocent III., one of the greatest of the occupants of the chair of St. Peter. He was of an inflexible character, not to be turned aside by any considerations of policy or of humanity from what he conceived to be his duty; and his duty it was, and his right, according to his idea, to dominate the world and the kings thereof. When the friends of Ingeburge called her case to his attention, Pope Innocent wrote letter after letter of remonstrance to Philippe Auguste, "the eldest son of the Church," summoning him to return to the paths of duty and relinquish his "concubine", Agnes de Meranie. He urged Philippe's spiritual adviser to bring him to reason by pious exhortation. All else failing, he sent Cardinal Pierre of Capua as a special legate, with injunctions to present the Church's ultimatum to the king: he must either take Ingeburge back at once, with all honor, as his lawful consort, or the entire kingdom would be put under interdict. The legate pleaded and threatened in vain; after a year of exasperating evasion the king was still not obedient. The legate at last summoned a council and pronounced the interdict, all the prelates receiving stringent orders to observe it under pain of suspension. From December, 1199, to September, 1200, France was under a general interdict.

In the case of Bertha and Robert, the ecclesiastical censures had affected only the guilty couple; in the case of Bertrade and Philippe I., only the places inhabited by them had been smitten. But the Church had now grown stronger; now the whole kingdom was to suffer because of the recalcitrant king. Everywhere religious services ceased, for the clergy were in sympathy with or afraid of the vigorous statesman now in the papal chair. The churches were closed, the altars dismantled, the crosses reversed, the bells silent, as during the solemn days in memory of Christ's Passion. The accustomed religious exercises ceased; but that was only a small part of the horror, for no more sacraments, save extreme unction and baptism of infants, could be celebrated. There were no marriages: when the king wished to marry his son to the young Blanche de Castille he was obliged to go into Normandy, into English territory, to have the ceremony performed. There were no more funerals, for the Pope forbade burials, whether in hallowed or in unhallowed ground: the air was filled with the pestilential stench from unburied corpses. The voice of the people rose in wrath against their impious king; it was he who was bringing all this woe upon the land. Philippe and Agnes lived on, she happy in the love of her king, and in her children, Philippe and Marie, he stubbornly resistant. He deprived bishops of their sees and sequestered their goods; he punished even laymen for daring to take the side of the Pope. But at last he must yield, for his people would endure no more.

Ingeburge was taken back as wife and queen, being at last released from the chateau of Etampes where she had been confined. But the king, deeply in love with Agnes, declared that this recognition of Ingeburge was only provisional, since he meant to appeal once more to Rome for an annulment of the marriage. The fair Agnes, the victim of these unfortunate circumstances, did not long survive the separation from Philippe, whose passionate love she returned. A few weeks later she died at Poissi, giving birth to a short-lived son named Tristan, the pledge of his mother's sorrows. She had given Philippe two children before this, and, though her union with the king had been stigmatized as immoral by the Church, the Pope recognized the legitimacy of the offspring in November, 1201. It was her son Philippe, surnamed Hurepel, who became Count de Boulogne, and played no pleasing rôle under Blanche de Castille.

The death of Agnes de Meranie did not tend to soften Philippe's feelings toward Ingeburge. She was imprisoned anew, and treated with every indignity that could be devised, short of calling down again the wrath of Pope Innocent. For eleven years she was treated in this way, and was constantly urged, by entreaties and threats, to take the veil, while Philippe was continuing his efforts to have the marriage annulled. In 1212, however, Philippe had need of the friendship of Rome. Ingeburge was again taken from her prison at Etampes and received at court: the victory of the Pope was complete, as far as the letter of the law was concerned. There was never any love between the royal pair, and could not be; for between them stood the sad ghost of Agnes de Meranie to incite Ingeburge to jealousy and Philippe to fresh aversion.

Ingeburge could never have been happy with Philippe, though he treated her more considerately and fairly during the last years of his life. When her husband died, in 1223, and his son Louis VIII. came to the throne, Ingeburge was nearer peace than she had been since she left her native land. We hear, henceforth, almost nothing of her; there was no role for a dowager queen, especially one who was a foreigner associated with most distressing events for France. We do find her name as one of the notabilities in the solemn procession which, on August 2, 1224, went from the cathedral of Notre Dame to the Abbey of St. Antoine, to ask of the Lord of Hosts for a victory for the arms of Louis VIII. at Rochelle. Now and again her name occurs in the accounts of the royal household while that careful economist, Blanche de Castille, is governing France. She is called "la reine d'Orléans," because she lived at Orléans, part of the domain reserved to her as Queen Dowager. Here she lived quietly, and let us hope not unhappily, till her death in 1237. She lived in the midst of great events in which she could take no part; and only her sorrows have preserved for us this fragment of her story.

Before we begin the history of the greatest queen France had yet seen, Blanche de Castille, it might be well to note some of the changes in social conditions since the age of the early Capetians. These changes were, fortunately, all in the direction of amelioration; for the civilization of France, of Europe, was taking long strides during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and an advance in civilization involves an improvement in the condition of women. Historians usually look at the matter from the point of view of man; it must be our endeavor to treat of social conditions and their causes rather from the point of view of woman.

Glancing at the history of France for a moment, it is easy enough to distinguish certain causes or motive forces in the advance in civilization. Because it is usually quite overlooked, we shall name first the influence of contact with that very society of Provence which France was bending her energies to bring to utter ruin. Unquestionably the trouvères of northern France owed something of their art to the troubadours of southern France, even if the former were more than mere imitators. The softening effect of the musical and literary arts professed by these poets need not be dwelt upon, but we might remark that it was to the ladies of France, in most cases, that the trouvères sang, and that this conversion of the bard, singing the glories of his chief, into the minstrel, still singing of battles but also of fair ladies and for the ears of fair ladies, is a fact not lacking significance. Woman was no longer the mere toy of the warrior; it is no longer Aude, barely mentioned in the Chanson de Roland, but Nicolette, that fairest, sweetest of the mediæval heroines of romance, who is of more interest than Aucassin in the story. And this little chantefable, as it is aptly called, of Aucassin et Nicolette, is so nearly Provençal that Provence has claimed it; it lies on the borderland between the manner of the troubadours and that of the trouvères. A woman is here distinctly a heroine, no longer a mere foil to the hero; and the lovely little tale is manifestly intended to please an audience of ladies as well as of knights.

We have spoken of this Provençal influence and sought to illustrate what may be the method of its working, through the minstrel in the lady's bower, but we do not care to lay too much stress upon it, because it may not be entirely distinct from a still greater and kindred influence. When the hosts of Peter the Hermit, crazed with religious fanaticism such as the world sees but once in a great while, straggled back from their crusade it might have been thought that they brought with them nothing but the memory of their sufferings, or the precious memory of those holy places they had journeyed so far and endured so much to see. But their crusade had been a success; they had won the holy places from the infidel, and after they had achieved their success they had had time to look about them upon the new civilization with which they found themselves in contact. When they come back to their homes they bring enthusiastic memories of the glories of the East, and soon the spirit of sheer adventure replaces, almost insensibly, religious feeling, and crusade follows crusade, till we find one that does not even pretend to go to Palestine, but devotes itself to the conquest of Constantinople, full of riches and luxuries undreamed of in France. When Geoffrey Villehardouin gives a glowing description of the magnificence of Constantinople we see that already there is appreciation of things that the first crusaders would have scorned or ruthlessly destroyed. The influence of the Crusades in introducing higher standards of domestic comfort, greater luxury, greater refinement, has been too often dwelt upon to need further notice here.

The cause of woman and of civilization was helped in another way by the Crusades. While the warlike barons found a vent for their surplus fighting blood in smiting the infidel and robbing the Greek, there was peace at home, for private wars and feuds ceased. The barons, moreover, needed money to continue their sojourn in the army of Christ; and we hear that in the splendor of the preparations for that Crusade in which Eleanor took part the nobles of France vied with each other till they were almost ruined. To get this money they sold freedom to their slaves, immunity from vexatious feudal rights to their serfs, privileges and charters to their burgesses. While they themselves were spending their money and acquiring expensive tastes and refined ideas in contact with the Greeks and Saracens, their subjects were acquiring a greater degree of freedom, and their king, if he were a wise one, was consolidating his kingdom and girding up his loins for more effective resistance to their turbulence. The strength of the monarchy increased as the power of the independent baronage decreased, and the strength of the monarchy meant greater tranquillity, greater respect for law, and the fostering of conditions favorable to the growth of commerce.

Manners were still rough and cruel, for the Crusades had not tamed the ferocity of the European heroes. We hear that, when Saladin refused to pay the enormous ransom demanded for the town of Acre, Richard Coeur de Lion put to death the two thousand six hundred captives whom he held as hostages, and the Duke of Burgundy did likewise with his captives. But in France there was getting to be less and less opportunity for the display of wanton cruelty toward the lower orders of society. The seigneur still believed in the truth of the old proverb:

(Stroke a villain, and he will sting you; sting a villain, and he will stroke you); but the number of serfs was constantly diminishing. The great communal movement emancipated the bourgeois of the towns; whole villages bought their freedom; the monarchy favored enfranchisement and gave the example in freeing serfs here and there, till, in 1315, all the serfs of the royal domain were set free, and the great doctrine was proclaimed: Selon le droit de nature, chacun doit nattre franc--"according to the law of nature, everyone should be born free."

The general improvement in conditions affected more visibly the bourgeois class. We find, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that the members of this class are beginning to build large, solid houses of stone, with ogival windows, and sometimes with lofty towers and crenelated battlements. As a class they become richer and obtain recognition. When Philippe Auguste contemplated paving some of the streets of Paris--they had been mere roads of mud--he sent for the rich citizens to ask their assistance. One of these, Richard de Poissi, is said to have contributed eleven thousand marks in silver. Then the guilds of the tradesmen become wealthy and exercise considerable political power. It is in the reign of Saint Louis that the trade guilds of Paris become so numerous that Etienne Boileau compiles a Livre des métiers, containing the statutes of the greater number of them.

In the dress of all classes above the abjectly poor there was a tendency toward greater show, vainly repressed during part of the thirteenth century, but continuing to increase even under repression. The standard costume during the whole period of the Crusades was indeed plain, and very similar for men and for women. On their heads ordinary women wore only a sort of coif, or the cowl attached to the long robe or gown, though there were a few ladies of fashion who scandalized the community by wearing tall, pointed bonnets, sometimes cone-shaped, sometimes with two horns, and with a veil hanging from the tip to form a sort of wimple. The chief article in the dress of both sexes was the garment called a cotte-hardie, consisting of a long robe reaching to the feet and confined at the waist by a girdle. The sleeves of the cotte-hardie were, among sober-minded dames, rather close fitting and plain; fashion had them made absurdly large, flaring at the wrist to many times the dimensions of the upper part, and sometimes so long as not only to cover the whole hand, but to trail upon the ground. Over the cotte-hardie was worn the surcot, a sort of tunic, shorter than the undergarment, and either without sleeves or with elbow sleeves. On grand occasions a handsome mantle was worn, but the use of this was generally restricted to noble ladies. The shoes were usually simple, lacing higher on the leg than what we now call shoes; sometimes, however, they were made of gaily colored leathers, richly embroidered, or even of cloth of gold, damask, or the like. The days of high heels had not yet come, and women's shoes seem never to have been quite so outrageous as those long pointed shoes worn by the dandies of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

It was at the other end of the costume, the headgear, that women displayed their extravagance. Fearfully and wonderfully were the headdresses made, judging from the pictures in manuscripts and from the indignation of the satirists. The modest bonnet sprouted horns of alarming shape and proportions. "When ladies come to festivals," says a thirteenth century satirist, "they look at each other's heads, and carry bosses like horned beasts; if any one is without horns, she becomes an object of derision." Not content with having betrayed man by her flirtation with Lucifer in Eden, Eve must now wear on her head the very mark of the beast. No text served as the basis for sermons with more frequency or more delight than one attacking the horns of the ladies. One preacher advised his hearers to cry out: Hurte, bélier!--"Beware the ram!" when one of these horned monsters approached, and promised ten days' absolution to those who would do so. "By the faith I owe Saint Mathurin," exclaims the monkish satirist, "they make themselves horned with platted hemp or linen, and so counterfeit dumb beasts; they carry great masses of other people's hair on their heads." The author of the Romance of the Rose describes with great unction the gorget, or neckcloth, hanging from the horns and twisted two or three times around the neck. These horns, he says, are evidently designed to wound the men. "I know not whether they call those things that sustain their horns gibbets or corbels,... but I venture to say Saint Elizabeth did not get to heaven by wearing such things. Moreover, they are a great encumbrance (owing to the hair piled up, etc.), for between the gorget and the temple and horns there is quite enough room for a rat to pass, or the biggest weasel 'twixt here and Arras."

Neither ridicule nor threats of eternal damnation, however, made any impression on the daughters of Eve, and the horns continued to adorn their fair heads. The other parts of the costume, as we have said, were usually simple. The robe, or cotte-hardie, and the surcot were generally of plain cloth of solid color; but as wealth increased, the use of expensive materials became more and more common, and silk, cloth of gold, and velvet appeared on various parts of the dress, as well as a profusion of jewels. A short passage from the description of the costume of the queen in Philippe de Beaumanoir's La Manekine may serve to show the utmost that imagination could devise in the way of dress, for, of course, the costume of the heroines of romance is always some degrees more elegant than that to which the fair readers are accustomed.

"The queen arose early in the morning, well dressed and richly jewelled. (Her costume) was laced with a thick gold thread, with two big rubies to every finger's breadth: no matter how dark the skies, one could see clearly by the light of these jewels. She clothed her beautiful body in a robe of cloth of gold, with fur sewn all about it. So fine was the cloth of her girdle that I can scarcely describe it. There were upon it many little platines of gold linked together with emeralds beautiful and costly, and one sapphire there was in the clasp, worth full a hundred marks in silver. Upon her breast she wore a brooch of gold set with many precious stones. Over her shoulders and about her neck she had fastened a mantle of cloth of gold, no man ever saw more beautiful. Her furs were no common, moth-eaten things, but sable, which makes people look beautiful. At her girdle she wore a purse, in all the world there is none more elegant. Upon her head rested a crown whose like was not to be found; for one gazed at it in wonder and admiration of the beautiful stones in it, stones of many virtues: emeralds, sapphires, rubies, jacinths,... never was a more beautiful one seen."

Though the number of jewels is probably magnified, the essential features of the costume correspond to what a lady of fashion would have liked to wear in the year 1250. The mantle, being regarded as suitable for full dress occasions, was much ornamented. In the Roman de la Violette (about 1225) we find this description of a lady's mantle: "She wore a mantle greener than the leaves and trimmed with ermine. Upon it were embroidered little golden flowerets, cunningly worked; each one had attached to it, so hidden as to be invisible, a little bell. When the wind blew against the mantle, sweetly sounded the bells. I give you my word that nor harp nor rote nor vielle ever gave forth so sweet a sound as these silver chimes."

Not all ladies, of course, were so gorgeously attired, and even among the noble ladies of the land the delicacy of manners did not always match the elegance of the attire. To get some idea of what a fine lady did, we may look at some of the things she is warned against doing in a sort of book on deportment, of the thirteenth century, --Robert de Blois's Chastiement des dames.

(Ladies will think but little of this book if they are not improved by it; therefore will I politely teach the ladies how they should conduct themselves, in their goings, in their comings, in silence, and when talking.) This last item, he remarks, requires much care. "Do not talk too much," he continues, "especially do not boast of your love affairs; and do not be too free in your conduct with men when playing games, lest they be encouraged to take liberties with you. When you go to church, take good care not to trot or run, but walk straight, and do not go too far in advance of the company you are with. Do not let your glances rove here and there, but look straight ahead of you; and salute courteously everyone you meet, for courtesy costs little. Let no man put his hand upon your breast, or touch you at all, or kiss you; for such familiarities are dangerous and unbecoming, save with the one man whom you love. Of this lover, too, you must not talk too much, nor must you glance often at men, or accept presents from them. Beware of exposing your body out of vanity, and do not undress in the presence of men. You must not dispute and get in the habit of scolding, nor must you swear. Above all, eschew eating greedily at the table, and getting drunk, for this latter practice is fraught with danger to you. Unless your face is ugly or deformed, do not cover it in the presence of gentlemen, who like to look at the beautiful." One can guess that this rule was rigidly obeyed; those succeeding touch upon matters still more delicate. "If your breath is bad, take care not to breathe in people's faces, and eat aniseed, fennel, and cummin for breakfast. Keep your hands clean, cut your nails so that they be not permitted to grow beyond the tip of the finger and harbor dirt. It is not polite to gaze into a house when you are passing, for people may do many things in their houses that they would not have seen; it would be well, therefore, when you go into another person's house, to pause a moment on the sill and cough or speak loud, so that they may know you are coming."

Before we give Robert de Blois's directions for table manners it may be well to say a few words about the table. Among the common people the table itself was little more than a rude board on trestles, with benches or stools along the side and with places scooped out to hold the portion of food allotted to each person. Among the more well-to-do classes, however, the table was a more ornamental piece of furniture. The benches or stools still remained, but the rest was more civilized. The food, consisting of vegetables, roast fowls, boiled meats, and fish was served in large earthenware platters. There were no forks, but spoons and fingers were freely used as well as knives, each guest frequently using his own knife or dagger. As the guests had to help themselves, often with their fingers, out of the common serving platters, there was some reason in the ceremony which preceded each meal; this was the washing of hands, for which the trumpeter sounded a call. Every gentleman had the right to faire corner l'eau, as it was called, that is, to have his trumpeter sound the call for washing hands. When this call sounded the pages of the establishment bore the ewer to the ladies, and servants of less pretension did likewise for the gentlemen. Napkins were provided for drying one's hands after this, but the time had not yet come when there were regular table napkins; instead, each wiped his hands or mouth upon the tablecloth, and his knife upon a piece of bread. The company sat at the table in couples, a gentleman and a lady together. This means more than may be apparent at first sight, for one must remember that there was usually but one drinking cup for each couple and that they ate from a common plate. The plate, as we ventured to call it, was regularly a large piece of bread, flat and round, which served to hold the food and absorb the gravy. At the end of the meal this bread, called pain tranchoir, was given to the poor, with the other scraps from the table. It took a careful hostess properly to pair off the couples, for it must have been very embarrassing for either lady or gentleman to have to manger à la même écuelle (eat out of the same porringer) and drink out of the same cup with one personally distasteful. In the romance of Perceforest we find the description of a banquet where there were eight hundred knights, "and there was not a one who did not have lady or maiden to eat from his porringer." There was great profusion if not great delicacy upon the table; we shall content ourselves with echoing what Philippe de Beaumanoir says: "If I undertook to describe the dishes they had I should stop here forever.... Each had as much as he wished and whatever he wished: meats, fowls, venison, or fish cooked in many styles."

LADIES HUNTING
After the painting by Henri Génois

Sometimes brawls followed the too free use of wine, as one romance tells us "you might see them throw at each other cheeses, and big quartern-loaves, and hunks of meat, and sharp steel knives." But sometimes the ladies strolled off into the gardens and played games--blindman's-buff, or frog-in-the-middle, or the like--or sang to the harp, or sewed. A great deal of time, indeed, was spent out of doors, not only in the gentler field sports, such as hawking, in which ladies participated, but also in the mere routine of daily life. In the romances many a scene of revelry as well as of love making takes place under the trees; and the ladies are not always idling away their time, either; for we find them spinning, embroidering, or at least making garlands of flowers.

Upon a table so appointed and served we can understand that some of the cautions of Robert de Blois to the ladies would be most useful. "In eating you must avoid much laughing or talking. If you eat with another (out of the same écuelle), turn the nicest bits to him, and do not pick out the finest and largest for yourself, which is not good manners. Moreover, no one should try to devour a choice bit which is too large or too hot, for fear of choking or burning herself.... Each time you drink, wipe your mouth well, that no grease may go into the wine, which is very unpleasant to the person who drinks after you. But when you wipe your mouth after drinking, do not wipe your eyes or nose with the tablecloth, and take care not to get your hands too greasy or let your mouth spill too much." The really well-bred lady, then, must be like Chaucer's Prioress:

One might almost fancy that old Dan Chaucer, the first humorist of modern times, was copying from and slyly poking fun at our friend Robert de Blois and his fine lady.

(When they had eaten, they washed their hands; then the minstrels began, each doing that which he could do best.) The tables cleared, the guests, the ladies not excepted, watched the tricks of the jugglers and tumblers, listened to the minstrels, or told tales, nearly all of which were horribly coarse. Sometimes brawls followed the too free use of wine, as one romance tells us "you might see them throw at each other cheeses, and big quartern-loaves, and hunks of meat, and sharp steel knives." But sometimes the ladies strolled off into the gardens and played games--blindman's-buff, or frog-in-the-middle, or the like--or sang to the harp, or sewed. A great deal of time, indeed, was spent out of doors, not only in the gentler field sports, such as hawking, in which ladies participated, but also in the mere routine of daily life. In the romances many a scene of revelry as well as of love making takes place under the trees; and the ladies are not always idling away their time, either; for we find them spinning, embroidering, or at least making garlands of flowers. We have a pretty picture in the Roman de la Violette of a burgher's daughter "who sat in her father's chamber, working a stole and amice in silk, with care and skill, and embroidering upon her work many a little cross and star, singing the while this spinning song (chanson à toile)."

With all this romance and poetry there went a freedom of intercourse between the sexes that not infrequently led to serious immorality. Not only did the ladies play rather rough games and listen to very vulgar stories with the men, but they received visits from men in their bed-chambers, tête-à-tête. More surprising still, ladies sometimes visited men in this way, without its being considered a serious breach of etiquette, as one can see in the fashionable romance of Jean de Dammartin et Blonde d'Oxford. The ladies, when they really fell in love, did not attempt to conceal the passion from any feeling of shame or delicacy; nay, they were commonly very forward, and became ardent suitors sometimes, with less of restraint in word and deed than was shown by the chivalrous knight under similar circumstances. Indeed, the knight had need to be a veritable Joseph to withstand temptation, if there were many scenes in real life like that described, for example, in the romance of Amis et Amiles, where the good knight is pursued by a demoiselle who positively insists on loving him.

The hours of the lady's day were regulated, we may suppose, by the proverb which says:

(Rising at five, dining at nine, supping at five, sleeping at nine, makes one live to ninety-and-nine.) Sometimes, instead of rising at five and dining at nine, it is rising at six and dining at ten, supping at six and to bed by ten; but we are not, in this case, promised the ninety-and-nine years of life. Dinner between nine and ten, and other meals at suitable hours, seems to have been the rule in France even until the sixteenth century. Breakfast was a very uncertain meal (think of breakfast before a nine o'clock dinner!), but supper was almost as elaborate as dinner. As candles and lamps were very expensive, being regarded as almost a luxury, there was some reason in the early hours for meals. For the same reason, in summer, when there were no fires to supply light, most people went to bed as soon as it grew dark. The lady of the house is told, in a French housekeeper's book of the fourteenth century, to see that the candles are not wasted. She must go around to see that all fires are out and the house properly closed and that the servants are in bed. These latter are to place the candle allowed them on the floor, at a safe distance from the bed, and the lady must take care "to teach them to put out their candle with the mouth, or with the hand before getting in bed, and not by throwing their chemises over it"--servants, mistress, and all, be it remembered, slept naked.

The kind of life we have been describing, the washing of hands, the plentiful food, the wine, the amusements, the rich costumes--all these are things belonging to the lady. The woman of the poorer classes, the laboring woman, had no such comforts; lucky was she, indeed, if she had enough of coarse food and coarse clothing for herself and children. The mediaeval moralists noted the inequality of the classes, and one of them compares the fare of the rich, which we have mentioned, with that of the poor: "There was not one among them, great or small, who did not have a fine appetite for dry (black) bread, and garlic, and salt; nor did they eat anything else with these, neither mutton, nor beef, nor a bit of goose or young spring chicken. And after the meal they took up the basin with both hands, and drank water." Having attempted to give some idea of the life of a lady of the time, we may now turn to the life of Blanche de Castille, the first lady of France in the second quarter of the thirteenth century. For the first time we shall find a woman whose history will include a large part of the history of France during her period. As a late biographer, Elie Berger, Histoire de Blanche de Castille, says: "Her life, during a great part of the thirteenth century, is the life of France itself, the France to which she gave peace; her history is the history of the power of the throne, of the monarchy, outside of which there was then no France, no patrie."

CHAPTER V

BLANCHE DE CASTILLE AS REGENT OF FRANCE

IN a preceding chapter we saw how old Queen Eleanor was despatched into Spain to bring her granddaughter, Blanche de Castille, as a bride for Louis of France, and how Eleanor fell ill on the way, and handed over her charge to Elie de Malmort, Archbishop of Bordeaux. The child whom Eleanor was bringing back as a sacrifice to peace between John and Philippe Auguste was then but a little over twelve years of age. Blanche was born in the early part of the year 1188, at Palencia. Her father, a good man and a brave warrior, was Alphonso VIII., surnamed the Noble, King of Castille; and her mother was Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry II. and Eleanor of Guienne. Fortunately, this latter lady seems to have inherited none of the bad traits of her mother and namesake; at least contemporary accounts call her "chaste, noble, and of good counsel." The family of the young Princess Blanche was large and of illustrious connections. We need not note those of the direct Plantagenet line, which are sufficiently familiar, but on her father's side we may mention her eldest sister, Berengère, who, married to her cousin, the King of Leon, had been forced to separate from him in spite of their love, in spite of their children, in spite of important reasons of state. Queen Berengère was of a character, it appears, very much like that of her sister, and there was much love between the two. Another sister, but a year older than Blanche, married Alphonso of Portugal, whose brother was that Count Ferrand de Flandre defeated at Bouvines by Philippe Auguste and kept in captivity for many years. Of this sister a curious story is told.

It appears that, in the negotiations between John and Philippe Auguste, the name of the Princess of Castille who should become the wife of Prince Louis had not been specified. The King of Castille had two unmarried daughters, Urraque and Blanche. When the ambassadors of France came, accompanied by Queen Eleanor, the two princesses were brought before them. They chose Urraque, as the elder and the more beautiful; but when they heard her name they protested that would never do, it was too hard for the people of France to learn to pronounce; and so the choice fell upon Blanche.

After being conducted to Normandy, where was the court of her uncle, John, the little princess was married immediately. The treaty for whose ratification and observance she was a sort of pledge was signed on May 22, 1200. John ceded nearly all that Philippe could ask, and bestowed twenty thousand marks sterling upon the young husband. The next day the ceremony was performed at Portmort, on the right bank of the Seine, by the Archbishop of Bordeaux, in the presence of a great assemblage of barons and ecclesiastics. The young prince and his bride could not be married on French soil by reason of the interdict then in force against his father for repudiating Ingeburge; hence the choice of Norman soil and of such an out of the way place. The prince, aged only twelve years and six months, proceeded with Blanche direct to Paris. There is no record of the usual festivities accompanying a royal marriage, despite the accounts of some modern historians, who claim that there were grand tourneys, and that Louis was wounded in one of them.

In one so young as Blanche it is useless to look for the traits of the grown woman; we might conjecture much, but it would be in the light of after events. To those about her at this time Blanche seemed a beautiful girl, deserving of the flattering play upon words which her name suggested. She was la princesse candide not only in looks but in conduct, and won the devoted love of her boy husband, who seems to have been himself of a lovable disposition. It was at his request that Hugh of Lincoln, at that time in great repute, visited Blanche, whom he found in tears and managed to console. But the times were troublous, and we may well suppose that there was little chance for the fostering of quiet domestic virtues when one had been forced to marry merely for reasons of state. It is rumored, though not positively confirmed, that the crafty King of France made use of his young daughter-in-law to solicit from King John another slice of Normandy, which John dared not refuse. Whether this be true or not, it is at least certain that neither immediately nor ultimately did the marriage of Blanche de Castille help the English Plantagenets. For John quarrelled with Alphonso, Blanche's father, and the two were at war with intervals of truce, between 1204 and 1208, the subject of dispute being Gascony. Blanche naturally sided with her father rather than with her uncle, and when she bore heirs who might inherit the crown of France, made stronger by the accession of the Norman lands which had been taken from John and given to her husband, it is easy to see that her sympathies would be with her adopted country.

Blanche's first child a daughter, who lived but a short time, and whose name is not known was born in 1205. On September 9, 1209, she gave birth to a son, hailed as the heir to the crown, and named Philippe, in honor of his grandfather. But this child, too, lived only a few years, dying when between eight and nine. In the interval, on January 26, 1213, Blanche had borne twins, Alphonse and Jean, who did not live long. Other domestic joys and sorrows were coming to the young princess. Her father won a great victory over the Moors, at Las Navas de Tolosa, July 16, 1212, and her sister Berengère wrote her the glad news: "It is my pleasure to inform you of joyful news; thanks be to God, from whom all good comes, our king, our lord, our father has vanquished on the field of battle the Emir Almounmenim, by which, I think, he has won very great honor; for until this time it has never happened that a king of Morocco has been defeated in a pitched battle." Within two years after this the gallant Alphonso was dead, and one month later his wife Eleanor followed him to the tomb.

Father and mother had thus both been taken from Blanche, while she was far from them, in a strange land. But her new country was winning a hold upon her heart; in the war then waging between her Uncle John and her father-in-law, all her interests and all her affection were on the side of France. And now another son was born, on Saint Mark's day, April 25, 1215, at the royal residence of Poissy. The child was named Louis, and his birth seems to have created but little interest, as was natural, since the older brother, Philippe, was still living. But this child became the famous Saint Louis, and pious legends must needs gather around his birth and his infancy: it was at the special intervention of Saint Dominique, whose prayers Blanche had asked, that this son was born; then, at the time of his birth, the pious queen learned that, out of consideration for her, the bells of the church of Poissy had been silenced, so she had herself removed, though then in childbed. The piety of Blanche was sincere but never exaggerated; it is easy to see in such a legend the art of those who thought it fitting that a saint, even before birth, should allow nothing to interfere with the services of the church. In like manner Blanche's extreme jealousy in regard to her baby is a fiction that has been often repeated. Louis was given to a nurse, Marie la Picarde, and there is no truth in the story which represents Blanche as snatching him from the breast of one of her ladies and forcing the infant to disgorge the milk of the stranger.

The little Louis was not two years old when the English barons, in revolt against John, called his father to their aid and promised him the throne of England, to which he had no claim except through Blanche. Louis went to England, in spite of the anathemas of the Pope against all who dared oppose John. Successful at first against the English king, the French prince began to suffer serious reverses when the hated John was succeeded by his son, Henry, against whom the English barons had no just cause of complaint. Philippe Auguste had been from the beginning too politic to lend his son open assistance, or even to sanction his enterprise. The task of collecting and sending him reinforcements devolved upon Blanche. For the first time the full energy of her character is displayed. A chronicler, almost contemporary, records an alleged interview between her and Philippe Auguste, who, deaf to his son's entreaties for help, had declared that he would do nothing, and that he did not care to risk excommunication. "When Madame Blanche (it is by this title that she is referred to even when queen) heard of this she came to the king and said: 'Would you let my lord, your son, perish thus in a strange land? Sire, for God's sake, remember that he is to reign after you; send him what he needs, at least the revenues of his own patrimony.' 'Certes,' said the king, 'I will do nothing, Blanche.' 'Nothing, sire?' 'No, truly.' 'In God's name, then,' replied Blanche, 'I know what I will do.' 'And what will you do?' 'By the holy Mother of God, I have beautiful children by my husband; I will put them in pledge, and well I know some who will lend me on their security.' Then she rushed madly from the king's presence; and he, when he saw her go, believed that she had spoken but the truth. He had her called back, and said to her: 'Blanche, I will give you of my treasure as much as you would have; do whatever you wish with it; but rest assured that I myself will send him nothing.' 'Sire,' said Madame Blanche, 'you say well.' And then the great treasure was given to her, and she sent it to her lord."

The details of this conversation may not be absolutely accurate, but the facts seem to have been correctly recorded. Blanche went to Calais and there established headquarters for collecting provisions, munitions, and a small army for her husband. She despatched an expedition to his aid, the army being under command of Robert de Courtenay, the fleet under that of the famous pirate and freebooter Eustache le Moine. But the fleet was destroyed by the English off Sandwich, August 24, 1217, and there was no other course open to Louis than to make the best terms he could with Henry III. and return to France. Blanche had displayed an energy that elicited the admiration of her contemporaries, but for the next few years she had no part in the larger events of history.

Domestic duties, domestic sorrows, indeed, must have absorbed a good deal of the energy of this devoted wife and mother. In September, 1216, her son Robert had been born. In 1218 she lost Philippe, her oldest son. Three other children came in rapid succession: John (1219); Alphonse (1220); Philippe Dagobert (1222). Of these only Alphonse was destined to live to manhood. The anxious mother, having lost so many of her children, would make vows for their recovery when any of them fell ill. Fearing that she might have forgotten to fulfil some of these vows, often made under stress of anguish, she sought and obtained from the Pope (1220) permission to perform charities in place of trying to fulfil her vows in all cases.

In her native land, too, there were events to claim her attention. Her brother, Henry, having been accidentally killed after a short reign, Queen Berengère was the next heiress; but she refused the crown for herself, placing it upon the head of her son, Ferdinand III., whom she continued to counsel and assist very much as Blanche was later to counsel her son. It is reported that the discontented subjects of Ferdinand offered the crown to Blanche. Whether this be true or not, she would never have taken sides against her sister Berengère.

On July 14, 1223, the great King Philippe Auguste died, and on August 6th Queen Blanche and King Louis VIII. were crowned with solemn ceremonial. The Abbot of Saint-Remi, escorted by two hundred knights, brought the sacred ampulla to the cathedral of Rheims, and the archbishop anointed the royal pair. The king's sword was borne in the procession by his half-brother, Philippe Hurepel, son of Agnes de Meranie and Philippe Auguste. There were great festivities, lasting eight days, and the new king and queen manumitted serfs and showed mercy upon prisoners and captives. Queen Blanche still remains in the background during the brief reign of Louis VIII.; but we may note that she used her influence to secure the liberation of Ferrand de Portugal, Count of Flanders, who had been in captivity since the battle of Bouvines. Released from prison in 1227, Ferrand lived to become one of Blanche's most steadfast and useful allies.

Louis VIII. died in November, 1226, leaving Blanche with eight children to care for; in addition to those already mentioned there were Isabelle, Etienne, and Charles, all born since the accession of Louis. The king, who had forced the submission of Languedoc during the expedition on which he died, made his barons swear to be true to his son Louis. Realizing that his devoted wife could not reach him before his death, he provided as best he could for her. With perfect confidence in her, a confidence fully justified by the event, he declared that Prince Louis, his heir, as well as the whole kingdom and all the rest of his children should be under the tutelage of Queen Blanche until they came of age; to this important portion of the king's will some of the great barons and high church dignitaries were witnesses.

Blanche and her husband had loved each other tenderly and faithfully, and at first the widowed queen was looked upon with compassion. She was on her way to Louis's bedside, the younger children in a carriage and Prince Louis riding ahead, when she was met by the news of his death. Her grief was pitiable; but her sense of duty toward her children and her realization of the difficulties and dangers of her position gave her courage. She was not the kind of woman to succumb under grief for the loss of a well-loved husband or anxiety at finding herself obliged to govern a kingdom whose king was yet a boy.

At first the old retainers of Louis were around her and faithful to her. She was politic enough to win the support of the only prince of the blood, Philippe, surnamed Hurepel, on account of the great mat of shaggy hair he had inherited from his father, Philippe Auguste. Ferrand, Count of Flanders, was her friend, and she could rely upon the support of most of the clergy, and especially upon that of the papal legate, Romain Frangipani, Cardinal of Saint Angelo. Her surest allies, however, were the immediate servants of the crown: the chancellor, Guerin, who was unfortunately not to live long; Archambaud de Bourbon, Count Amaury de Montfort, the chamberlain, Barthélémy de Roye, and the noble constable, Mathieu de Montmorency. With the aid of such friends, Blanche began her duties as regent.

How long this regency was to last, how long it really did last, are matters not altogether easy to determine. In the first place, there were precedents, in the royal line as well as in feudal annals, for considering the age of majority as fourteen years; but there seems to have been authority equally as good for holding to the age of twenty-one. Louis was in his twelfth year when his father died. Blanche continued to act as regent for about ten years, and there was no protest based on the pretext that the young king should have been considered a major at fourteen years.

As soon as possible, Blanche had Louis crowned, a ceremony which did not imply that he was to be considered out of her tutelage, but which did give him a certain amount of prestige and consequent protection. The coronation, which took place on November 29, 1226, at Rheims, was but poorly attended by the nobles. Already there was discontent, and the great house of Dreux, led by the crafty and unscrupulous Pierre Mauclerc, Count of Brittany, was at the head of the disaffected. Count Thibaud de Champagne, son of Blanche's first cousin, would have come to the coronation, but Blanche ordered the gates of Rheims closed against him; for it was currently rumored, though the rumor was entirely without justification, that Louis VIII. had died very suddenly because of poison administered by Thibaud. But, with or without the presence of the great barons, Louis IX. was crowned, and Blanche made for herself and her son such friends as she could.

In England Henry III., always restive under the thought of the losses sustained by his father in France, was continually scheming to regain the lost territories. He formed alliances with some of the chief lords of Poitou, entered into negotiations for the hand of Yolande, daughter of Pierre Mauclerc, and made abortive, but nevertheless startling, preparations for a descent upon the coast of France. His allies among the discontented French nobility took up arms, inspired in part by the jealous Isabelle d'Angoulème, who had been the queen of John Lackland and was now Countess of Marche. Blanche promptly summoned the ban royal to assemble at Tours, whither she went with Louis in February, 1227. Count Thibaud de Champagne had been in treaty with the rebels and was marching with his forces as if to join them in Poitou. Tradition says that he was diverted by a secret message from Blanche; at any rate, he suddenly turned in his march and came to Tours, did homage to the boy king, and was graciously received by the queen regent. The defection of Thibaud upset the plans of the rebels, who quarrelled among themselves. Many of them came, one by one, to submit to Louis IX., and hostilities were suspended between the French and Richard of Cornwall, brother and representative of Henry III.

During the truce which followed, Blanche was enabled to prosecute the unfinished war in Languedoc against Raymond VII. of Toulouse and the Albigensian heretics. One is surprised to find that certain churches in France refused at first to grant the king subsidies to conduct this crusade, and that it was only by the vigorous measures of Cardinal Remain that they were at length compelled to yield.

The turbulent barons could not endure being governed by a woman. If Blanche had been a weak ruler the indignity of bearing her rule would have been atoned for by the laxity of that rule; but she was strong, and could control the barons, who accordingly hated her. Pierre Mauclerc and his party declared that France was not meant to be ruled by a foreign woman; they called her "Dame Hersent," like the she-wolf in the Roman du Renart; they circulated odious calumnies against her. The most noteworthy of these calumnies is that which connected her name with that of Thibaud de Champagne as an adulteress. They said that Blanche had been his paramour even during the life of her husband; nay, that she had connived at the murder of her husband, poisoned by Thibaud. They alleged that she was, moreover, secretly sending the royal treasure into Spain; that she was so vile that one lover did not suffice; that she had illicit relations with Cardinal Remain. It is needless to say that there is no foundation for these tales; they are the tax that a good woman paid for being at the same time great.

The malcontents plotted to separate the king from his mother, and determined to carry him off by force. Blanche and Louis were near Orléans when warned of the danger. Hastening toward Paris, they were forced to take refuge in the strong castle of Montlhéry, for the rebels were assembled in force at Corbeil, between them and Paris. Blanche appealed to the citizens of Paris to safeguard the king's approach. There could not have been a better testimonial to the popularity of the royal family and, incidentally, to the good government enjoyed under Blanche than the response made by these bourgeois. The militia of the surrounding country having been gathered in Paris, the combined forces of the city and country marched to Montlhéry, deploying along the route. Long after this Saint Louis used to tell Joinville of his triumphal entry: "He told me," says this chronicler, "that from Montlhéry, the road was filled with men with arms and men without arms, up to the gates of Paris, and that all shouted and called upon the Lord to grant him long and happy life, and to guard and protect him against his enemies." The nobles were balked, and retired from Corbeil.

The barons, though temporarily disheartened, were by no means reduced to peaceful submission. England was still in a threatening attitude; while the long and relentless war against the Albigenses was dragging on, with success now on this side, now on that. Blanche had need to fortify herself as wisely as she could. She sought the support of the bourgeois. The citizens of Limoges and of Saint-Junien in the Limousin, in charters granted in 1228, swore fealty to the queen as well as to the king. Cardinal Remain, at Blanche's instance, came back to France as legate; she found his advice, and the prestige of the papal authority, of material assistance. After some negotiation, the truce with England was renewed for a year, from July, 1228, to July, 1229.

Philippe Hurepel, who had been faithful for a time to the interests of his sister-in-law and her son, displayed discontent, and now went over to the side of the rebels. It is said that he even had an eye on the throne, and that the barons had some notion of trying to set up Enguerrand de Coucy as king that Coucy who was the head of the house with the famous motto: