The house for me no doubt were a house in the city square.
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads in the window there.
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear at least:
There the whole day long one's life is a perfect feast!’
R. BROWNING.
NEVER surely in a medieval town was there such a stir and strain of surging life—never were there such crowds and commotion, such mingling of business and pleasure, such throngs of notable personages from every clime and nation—as the great General Council brought together in Constance. Its sessions nominally began in the autumn of 1414; but throughout the early days of the following year princes and prelates, learned doctors and splendid knights, were still arriving, and bringing with them long trains of attendants, often numbering several hundreds. Amongst these we also may arrive in spirit, and, unseen ourselves, see what we can of the stirring drama which is being enacted there.
We must needs bring with us the knowledge of a few facts; now only ‘the dry bones ' of history, though once clothed with vigorous, palpitating flesh and blood. At this time the great schism of the Western Church had already lasted for nearly forty years. There had been at first two, latterly three, rival popes claiming the obedience of Christendom:—John XXIII at Rome, Gregory XII at Avignon, and that obstinate old man ' calling himself Benedict XIII., secure in his fortress on the Rock of Rimini. Of the three, John XXIII had the strongest title. His predecessor, Alexander V, had been solemnly elected during the General Council of Pisa, and John, at his death, had been chosen by the cardinals in his room. He was lawful pope, true head of Christendom and Vicar of Christ, even in the eyes of many who detested his character and despised his person. Detested and despised he was to an extent that makes us wonder how he could have been tolerated so long. His own secretary has drawn his portrait for us with a pen dipped in gall and wormwood. If we are to believe Thierry de Niem, the Head of Christendom was not only stained, but steeped to the lips, in every possible vice and abomination. However, we must make some allowance for the habit of coarse invective universal in those days; when even the greatest and most respectable personages reviled each other, in speech and writing, in a manner which would not now be tolerated.
All devout Roman Catholics desired ardently to make an end of the schism, and to have once more a pope whom they could obey with a clear conscience. According to the theory of the Middle Ages, the Emperor of Germany represented the civil, as the pope did the ecclesiastical, power. ‘The Head of the Holy Roman Empire,' as he was called, had a kind of sacred character; he thought himself, and was thought by others, ‘a minister ordained of God.' It must be owned that the conception was a noble one; and the man who at this epoch had won, though he had not yet received, the imperial crown, rose to the height of its dignity. Sigismund of Hungary was not a good man: he had many glaring faults, and in one memorable instance was basely false to his plighted word. Yet we are forced to admit his genuine zeal and his unwearied exertions on behalf of the unity of Christendom. He it was who forced the unwilling John XXIII to consent to the General Council, who arranged it, summoned it, presided over its deliberations. He dragged the reluctant pontiff to Constance, almost, it might be said, by force, brought him back when he fled, pressed for his deposition, urged that of his rivals. He spared no pains to detach from the antipopes, even by personal influence, the political supporters who had enabled them to keep their seats. The credit of a large share in the extinction of the schism is therefore due to Sigismund of Hungary.
But there were others of very different character who were laboring earnestly for the same end. It was an age of considerable mental activity; and, except in Italy, the best thought of the age was still ecclesiastical. The universities throughout Europe were full of stir and movement, and eager intellectual strife; though often, it is true, about words and names, and subtleties to us uninteresting, or even unintelligible. It was also an age of great ‘doctors.' Printing was not yet; and MSS, though prized and studied by the few with passionate earnestness, were not for the many. In those days the living voice was almost everything; and many noble voices were lifted up in the various centers of learning. All these voices, almost in unison, called for this General Council.
To the best thinkers of the age, the learned, the gifted, the devout, it had become but too evident that the infallible guidance Christ promised to His Church did not reside in the papal chair. The true voice of the Church could not come from the lips of a pseudo-pope, scarcely even from those of a lawful pontiff stained with every crime. Where, then, was it to be found? Where, but in her collective wisdom, in her rulers and teachers, her doctors and priests, gathered lawfully in solemn council, under the personal guidance and superintendence of the Divine Spirit? Hence the Holy Œcumenical Council came to represent a grand and noble idea, intensely believed and passionately cherished. ‘The supremacy of General Councils over the pope '—which does not perhaps appear to us a very soul-stirring formula—was in those days a doctrine that devout and earnest-minded men not only labored and struggled to establish, but for which, at need, they would have laid down their lives.
This, we have said, was the best thought of the age. Other thoughts, indeed, which were not of the age, but of all time and for all time, were vaguely beginning to stir. Here and there a solitary voice arose, like the earliest pipe of half-awakened bird' long before the sunrise. As the mystic bird of paradise, in the beautiful legend, sang to the monk Felix of the city of God, the New Jerusalem, so these voices, low and tremulous as they were, awakened in the hearts of men the dream and vision of another Church— not made of popes and cardinals and priests,' nor of councils, which might err,—but the general assembly and church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven,' and whose one infallible Head is the Lord. Himself. But even those who awakened the vision did not wholly understand it themselves. Their enemies sometimes understood it better.
Beside the great object of the extinction of the schism, there were two others which the Council proposed to itself and which, had it really accomplished them, would have been greater yet. These were the reform of the Church and the suppression of heresy. Of the latter, something may be said hereafter. The crying necessity of the former is abundantly witnessed by all the writings of the day. All righteous men, however fiercely they might contend about other things, were at one about this: they sighed and cried for the abominations that were done in the midst of their Zion, the Church. Often, in the anguish of their souls, they turned their eyes heavenwards and exclaimed, ‘Lord, how long! ' Then, turning again to the earth, they denounced, in words that scathed and burned—words so fierce and bitter as to be almost unreadable by us—the sins of popes and cardinals, of priests and prelates. If they could have said no more, at least they said no less, than holier lips had uttered before, ‘Serpents, generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?’ Men were asking everywhere what would the Great Council do to cleanse out this Augean stable.
Other matters, too, of less world-wide importance, yet intensely interesting to those engaged in them, and to many of their contemporaries, were to come before it. As it often happens, these frequently obscured the main issues, as well for the spectators as for the actors. They who walked therein 'could not see the wood for the trees.' It is only from a distance that the whole can be discerned as a whole. The man who fights in a decisive battle does not see the plan: it is well if he even sees his own antagonist clearly. Nor is the mere idler and follower of the camp likely to attain to greater illumination.
On a sunny afternoon in the first month of 1415, such an idler stood upon the steps of the Cathedral of St. Maurice, in Constance. He was very young and fair in face. His long, carefully-curled golden hair was covered by a tall hat, bearing a single plume, and encircled with golden chains fastened in front by an agrafe, upon which there was engraved a carpenter's plane, with the motto, Je is liens. His short crimson mantle had the same device wrought in gold upon it. The rest of his garb followed the prevailing fashion, being made very tight, padded at the shoulders, but elsewhere fitting accurately to the figure, and ending with a pair of crimson shoes, which had long, pointed, metal toes. A slender sword, in a dainty scabbard, hung at his side; but both sword and wearer seemed better adapted for ornament than for work, and more used to the peaceful tourney and the fencing-match than to the stern reality of war.
He was looking on, apparently well pleased, at the lively and busy scene before him. The Munster Platz was crowded, and with representatives of fully a dozen different nationalities.
Some Hungarian nobles belonging to the suite of the Kaiser, who was staying at the Leiter House near at hand, rode proudly by, as if the place belonged to them. Just after them came a frivolous coach or wagon, covered like a tent with rich silk brocade, supported upon gilded rods; and the livery of the attendant guards marked it as the equipage of Queen Barbe, the consort of Sigismund, who kept her luxurious little court at Petershausen, on the farther side of the river. The foot-passengers were quite as interesting. Amongst them were stately, handsome Greeks from the shore of the Bosphorus, come to see the great Council of the Western Church. German knights and French gentlemen jostled each other in the narrow space; while the dark, fur-trimmed robes of the doctors, and the gray, brown, and black of the monks and friars, toned down the vivid coloring of the rest. Most numerous and obtrusive of all were the gaily-accoutred serving-men, wearing the badges and colors of prelate, prince, or noble;—these moved about in the throng, pushing themselves everywhere, and equally ready to take part in a jest, a quarrel, or a show.
The fair-haired youth continued to look on with an air of amusement, until at last something happened which aroused his indignation, made his open brow contract into a frown, and his blue eyes kindle with anger. A young girl of the humbler class, belonging to the town, very neatly dressed and very modest-looking, had emerged from one of the side streets, and was trying to cross the crowded Platz, with a basket of clean linen on her arm. Three or four dark-faced, handsome, insolent Italians beset her and barred her way, one of them snatching the basket from her hand, and another making a feint of restoring it, with some rude unmannerly jest. Greatly frightened, she begged them to let her go; and they replied with insults which were bad enough, and with rough gallantry which was worse. Springing down the steps, the young Frenchman pushed his way to them through the crowd, and, not stopping to measure his strength with theirs, desired them, in his own tongue, to let the maid alone. For answer, they scoffed and jeered at him—if they did not understand his words they guessed his meaning readily. The Frenchman gave back their scorn with interest, calling them the pope's scullions and trencher-scrapers; at which one of them, who evidently understood the taunt, pulled off his embroidered glove and struck him in the face.
The youth drew his sword, and, though only with the flat, returned the blow. Instantly the deadly Italian stiletto flashed in the winter sunlight. It would have gone ill with the fair-haired lad, but for a new combatant who at that moment appeared on the scene,—a tall, muscular young man, in the dress of a student or scholar, who caught up some sort of weapon from an ironmonger's close by, and with his scholar's gown flying about him, plunged wildly into the midst of the fray. So doughty were the strokes of his strong right arm, and so quick was he in dealing them, that the braggart Italians soon had more than enough. A clever thrust or stab was one thing, a giant laying about him with an iron mace was quite another. The field was speedily cleared; and the two champions had time to bestow a glance upon each other and upon the girl they had rescued, who, pent up meanwhile against a wall, had been unable to make her escape. She was pale and trembling; but the face, partly concealed by the modest white kerchief, was fair, pure, and honest, as the faces of these good German maidens so often are. She tried, though without much success—for of course she spoke German—to thank her champions; and they, with true chivalry, saw her into a quiet street, and lifted their caps in courteous farewell. Then they stood and looked each other in the face.
The young squire was the first to speak. ‘Bravely done, scholar,' he cried, stretching out his hand. ‘I warrant me thou art a good Frenchman.'
‘Straight from Paris,' was the answer. ‘A student of the Sorbonne should know how to defend himself.'
‘And his friends,' said the other. ‘Come with me to the Golden Lion yonder, where they keep good French wine, and let us discuss our victory over a cup of it.'
‘Right willingly,' said the scholar, taking off his cap and shaking out his crisp, curling locks. But stay a moment. I must return this useful peace of iron to the honest merchant I took it from, lest he should make me pay for it. And scholars' purses are not deep.'
‘I will go with you. But, prithee, what is it? A rather uncommon sort of weapon, I think.'
‘By St. Martin, I believe it is a turnspit,' said the scholar, with a hearty laugh. ‘I did not stay to pick and choose. Well, it proved good enough to roast those cowardly Italians.'
‘What ruffians they are! With cold steel out, for any cause or for no cause at all, and before a man could say an “Ave!" No better than braggarts and bandits! They got their deserts. But I wonder the town-watch or the Elector Palatine's guard did not step in and spoil our play.'
‘Oh, they cannot be everywhere—the thing happened too quickly. But here is the shop. I shall not be a minute.'
Nevertheless, the lively scholar may have spent five in trying to tell the owner, in bad German eked out by signs, that his piece of property had come back greatly enhanced in value by the part it had played in a knightly encounter.
This accomplished, the squire led the way to the hostelry of which he had spoken. Like every spot in Constance, it was full to overflowing; but they found seats on the balcony, and were soon supplied with excellent wine from the vineyards of Beaune.
‘Have you been long here?’ asked the squire, whose apparently higher rank seemed to give him the initiative.
‘Not yet two weeks. I am waiting for my lord, who has sent me and others on before him, being himself delayed by pressing business.'
‘And who may be the lord of such a doughty champion, able to serve him as well with the sword as, no doubt, with the pen—which I suppose is the proper weapon of thy calling? '
‘Right there. I have the honor to act as secretary' (he said scribe, or scripteur) to the Chancellor of Paris.'
‘What? Do you mean the Chancellor of the Church and University of Paris?'
‘I mean the great chancellor, and the great doctor, Jean Charlier Gerson, whose renown is in all the world. There is no one else,—and there is no one like him,' said the scholar, lifting his head proudly.
Instead of raising the wine-cup to his lips to drink to the lord of his new friend, as in all courtesy he should have done, the squire pointed to the agrafe on the hat which lay beside him.
‘Dost see the badge I wear, friend?’ he said with a gathering frown.
‘Ay, I know that badge and cognizance only too well,' said the scholar. ‘I am sorry you serve the Duke of Burgundy.'
‘Spare your sorrow, my brave lad of the pen and the iron mace. Jean Sans Peurl is a good lord to me.'
‘I think not much of Jean Sans Peur,' returned the scholar boldly. ‘His right hand is stained with the blood of the Duke of Orleans, the king's brother.'
‘Well—if it is?' said the squire. ‘Suppose he did cause the assassination of his rival and enemy, to whom was he accountable for the deed, save his God and his king? Is it becoming, think you, for beggarly churchmen,—I beg your pardon, sir scholar,—for churchmen to judge in affairs of state, and to call great nobles to account for their actions? Let them mind their own business, and leave their betters alone.'
‘Are not right and justice—are not the Ten Commandments—their own business?' asked the scholar indignantly.
‘Are poor miserable wretches to be hanged every day for stealing or stabbing, or less crimes even—and is a monk of St. Francis, like that accursed Jean Petit, to stand up unreproved in the presence of the king, and to say that the Duke of Burgundy ought not to be punished at all, since murder, when it is done upon a traitor, is no sin before God or man?'
‘Thinkest thou, then, that thy chancellor played a noble part when he stood up in public to rebuke Jean Petit? That it is well done of him to come hither, with the purpose, as all men know, of getting him condemned by the Council? Mind you, sir scholar, that the offense of that same Jean Petit was merely to maintain, perhaps too zealously, the cause of that same Duke of Burgundy who had been your chancellor's first patron-and friend. Churchmen may act in that way, but not knights and gentlemen.'
‘Then I maintain, sir squire, that churchmen act well. I say it was a noble part for the chancellor to speak out for the law of God and man, and to rebuke sin, were it to cost him the best friend he ever had. And now, if the Council condemns, as it surely will, the wicked doctrine of Jean Petit—'
‘Then I say the duke—'
‘Then I say the chancellor—'
But at this point the duke's gentleman, who, to do him justice, was far less excited than the chancellor's scribe, stopped suddenly, and burst out laughing, struck with a sense of the absurdity of the position.
‘Do not let us fight with each other, just after having fought so gallantly with those Italian rascals,' he said. ' Though, if we did,' he added good-naturedly, ‘I doubt not thou wouldest have the best of it, my knight of the iron mace.'
‘You say well, sir, that we should not quarrel. But no man speaks a word in my presence against the Chancellor of Paris.'
‘That is fair enough, since you eat his bread. Likewise, no one says a word in mine against the Duke of Burgundy. I am in his service, and here upon his business. But let us talk of ourselves, not of our lords. What is thy name, brave scholar? '
‘My name is Hubert Bohun. And yours, sir squire?'
‘I am called Armand de Clairville,' returned the other lightly.
‘Armand de Clairville?’ cried Hubert, staring at him. ‘Can it be?’ Then laying his hand upon his arm, ‘Your look—your voice moved me strangely from the first. And now, your name— Armand, do you not know? Can you not remember? Did you never hear any one speak of your brother? '
Armand returned his gaze in a sort of stupefaction. At last he said in a bewildered tone:
‘My brother?—yes, I had a brother. It is like a dream to me,—I had a brother. I do not remember him at all.' Nevertheless, Armand de Clairville, I am your brother.'
‘Hubert?—you said Hubert, I think? Hubert de Clairville?’ hazarded the still bewildered Armand.
‘No; Hubert Bohun. My father, whom. I never knew, was an Englishman. But my mother—whom, child though I was, I remember well '—and his strong voice trembled with emotion—'was your mother too, Armand de Clairville.'
The brothers rushed into each other's arms, and embraced each other with all the effusion and abandonment of Frenchmen, and of Frenchmen four hundred years ago. Our modern reserve and undemonstrativeness would have found scant favor in the eyes of our ancestors. Both their love and their hatred were proclaimed with a vehemence which with us would betoken an utter lack of self-control; yet they were able to exhibit, upon occasion, the most heroic self-control.
The complete separation of the brothers, after their parting in early childhood, was the necessary accident of the age. Very few could read or write; and a letter was a serious undertaking—an event in a man's life. To write it, or get it written, was difficult, to dispatch it to its destination more difficult still. There were no regular posts, or means of communication. Especially in a country so disturbed as France, it did not need the added obstacle that the two young brothers had drifted into hostile factions to separate them completely each from the other.