CHAPTER VIII.

HENRY I.

[Years after Christ, 1033-1060.]

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KNIGHT ARRAYED FOR A TOURNAMENT

HENRY, who was a very insignificant character, was about twenty years old when his father died. His mother endeavored to excite a revolt against him, for the purpose of placing her youngest son on the throne.

Henry, without attempting any defense, mounted his horse, and with a few young companions, rode post-haste into Normandy, to claim the protection of the duke, Robert the Magnificent. Robert immediately marched to Paris, and obliged Constance and the nobles, who had joined her party, to sue for peace. Constance retired into a convent, and soon afterward died. Henry satisfied his brother's ambition by bestowing on him Burgundy, and rewarded the services Robert had rendered him, by annexing to Normandy Pontoise, Gisors, and some other places.

In 1035, Robert being oppressed with the remembrance of his crimes, and especially with that of the fatal banquet at Falaise, determined to relieve his mind, and, as he believed, to wipe away his sins, by going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Feeling assured that he should never return, he arranged his affairs, as well as he could, before his departure. He had one only son, who was illegitimate, and his greatest anxiety was about this child; he wished to make him his successor, but he feared that the stain attached to his birth would defeat his intentions. He, however, took every possible precaution to secure them. He made his nobles swear fealty to the child, and left him under the guardianship of Alain, duke of Bretagne. This boy was afterward William the Conqueror -so celebrated in English history. Robert died, as he had anticipated, in the Holy Land. When the news of his death reached Normandy, Mauger and his brother Henry tried to set aside the claims of the young William; but these were so well defended by Alain, and so heartily espoused by the king, that the endeavors of his adversaries proved unavailing. When at length William became old enough to undertake the conduct of his own affairs he showed those great abilities, and that daring yet calculating ambition, which so much distinguished him in after-life. The king of France, when he saw the enterprising disposition of the young duke, repented of the part he had formerly taken in his favor, and joined with Mauger and his other enemies. But William was now too strong to be shaken; he maintained his power over Normandy, and increased in dignity and reputation.

Henry I. is said to have been three times married. In marrying his third wife, Anne, who was daughter of the czar of Muscovy, he at all events kept clear of the evils which his father had incurred by marrying within the prohibited degrees, since the very name and country of Muscovy was at that time almost unknown in France. Anne of Russia proved a very quiet, harmless queen; she endowed a convent; and is, if I mistake not, enrolled in the list of the French saints. As for Henry, he became every year of his life more and more contemptible, and seems almost to have been overlooked and forgotten by the historians of this period. He died in 1060, leaving three sons, by Anne of Muscovy:

(1.) Philip, who succeeded him. (2.) Robert, died young. (3.) Hugh, count of Vermandois.

During this reign some of the great nobles arrived at a deof power which eclipsed that of the king. The counts of

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Toulouse, of Flanders, and of Anjou, were among the most powerful. The count of Champagne and Blois, son of Bertha (king Robert's first wife), was another very distinguished nobleman. In 1037 he fought a bloody battle at Bar-le-duc* with his cousin, the emperor Conrad, for the succession to the territories of their grandfather, Conrad the Pacific, whose son had lately died without children. The count of Champagne was slain; he left two sons: the eldest inherited the earldom of Champagne, and the youngest succeeded to that of Blois, and was the ancestor of our king Stephen.

During a long period the affairs of the Gallican church had been in great disorder. Many of the monks had broken their vows of celibacy, and had quitted their convents. The benefices of the church were sold to the highest bidder, and frequently fell into the hands of laymen. This abuse was not confined to France, it extended to Italy, where even the papal crown was put up to sale, and was at one time placed on the head of a boy of ten years old, who was made pope by the name of Benedict IX. The necessity of a reform in the ecclesiastical order became every day more and more apparent. At last, in 1048, the emperor Henry III. raised to the papal throne Bruno, a man of known sanctity. He took the name of Leo IX. Immediately after his election he came to Rheims and convened a council, at which all the prelates of France were summoned to appear, and those who were proved to have been guilty of simony were deprived of their benefices.

The corruptions in the church gave rise to many sects of heretics. Among the fancies of one of these sects was that of uniting the practice of frequent fasting with an entire abstinence from animal food. The consequence of this spare diet was a peculiar pallid complexion, which was considered as such a certain symbol of the sect, that we are told that even good Catholics who were so unlucky as to have pale faces were liable to the danger of being dragged to the stake, and burnt as heretics.

In 1042, Edward, surnamed the Confessor, was recalled from his exile in Normandy, to take possession of the throne of England, then vacant by the death of Harold Harefoot, the son of Canute.

* In the western part of the province of Lorraine, near the frontiers of Champagne.

CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER VIII.

Richard. The reign of Henry I. is not nearly so entertai ing as the reign of Robert.

Mrs. Markham. It is certainly barren of great or brilliant events, but it was nevertheless a very important period to the French nation; and during the reign of this king the people made more rapid strides toward improvement than they had ever done before.

George. It must have been the people's own doing then, for the king did not seem endued with much spirit of improve

ment.

Mrs. M. You, George, who are so fond of talking of knights and of knight-errantry, will be delighted to hear that this improvement of the people was in a great measure owing to the institution of chivalry, which arose about this period The spirit of chivalry is, as you know, high-minded and honorable, and it had the effect of elevating the national character of the French from the hardness and brutality of barbarism Though no doubt frequently carried to a romantic and absurd extreme, yet it gave the first impulse to that true, gentlemanly feeling which forms the charm and excellence of all well-bred society.

Richard. I wonder how chivalry was first thought of.

Mrs. M. Some antiquaries assert that traces of it can be found in the primitive customs of the Franks; and that when their youths were first presented with manly weapons they were made to swear that they would use them valiantly, and would never disgrace their tribe; but the more common opinion is, that the origin of chivalry is of much later date, and that it arose in the beginning of the eleventh century, from the piety of certain nobles, who, desirous to give a religious tendency to the profession of arms, consecrated their swords to the service of God, and took a solemn oath to use them only in the cause of the weak and of the oppressed. And this is supposed to have lighted the spark of that chivalrous flame which spread like wild-fire from one end of Europe to the other.

With regard to the ceremonial part of chivalry, we hardly know its precise original; but as some of the laws and regulations are very singular, you may be glad to have them described. When a nobleman (for only men of noble birth could be admitted into the order) was to be made a knight, the ceremony began by placing him in a bath, as if to express that in

presenting himself for knighthood, he presented himself washed from his sins. When he left the bath he was clothed first in a white tunic, then in a crimson vest, and lastly, in a sable coat of mail; each of which ceremonies had its symbolical meaning. The white tunic signified the purity of the life which he was now vowing to lead; the crimson vest, the blood he would be called on to shed; and the black armor was an emblem of death, for which he was always to be prepared. His dress was then completed by a belt, which was intended as the symbol of chastity, and by a pair of spurs, which were to denote his readiness to hasten wherever duty called him. Lastly his sword was girded on, and this part of the ceremony was accompanied by an exhortation to be brave and loyal. The whole then concluded by a stroke on the shoulder from the flat of a sword; and this was always given by one who was already a knight, and was meant as a sort of impressive memento which should infix strongly on the mind of the new knight the solemn engagements he had en tered into.

George. The being a knight was a much more serious thing than I had supposed. I think those rough old barons must have found it rather difficult to become accomplished knights all at once.

Mrs. M. When chivalry was thoroughly established, almost every youth of high birth was early trained to knighthood, by being domesticated in the castle of some great lord, where he was instructed in all the observances of chivalry.

Mary. Then were there schools and schoolmasters in these castles?

Mrs. M. The education of boys was conducted very differently then from what it is now. The young nobles had little to do with books, and instead of learning lessons, had to learn how to take care of their horses, and how to clean their arms; and their business was to attend upon the lord of the castle, as if they had been his servants.

George. I suppose they only pretended to be his servants just for form's sake.

Mrs. M. I can assure you it was not at all for mere form's sake. These youths of quality had to execute many domestic services in the families in which they resided. They assisted their lord when he dressed, they waited on him and his lady at table, they attended him when he rode out, and, in short, obeyed him in every thing.