-
Articles/Ads
Article Untitled Article ← Page 3 of 6 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
certain spot ^ in his garden , and he would find a great treasure , and that at the end of a year he might return and intimate his further wishes . At the expiration of the year , the villan returned , and humbly and respectfully desired to become provost of the town . This wish was granted ; but the villan , elected provost , became cruel
and oppressive to all his inferiors . At the end of another year , the villan desired less respectfully of Merlin that his son , then a clerc , might become a bishop . In a few weeks , his son was elected to a vacant bishopric . At the end of a third year , the villan still less respectfully required that his daughter might be married to the Grand Provost of Aquileia , which also soon came to pass . The villan ,
now arrived at the summit of his wishes , could only be prevailed npon by the request of his wife to return and rudely say farewell to his benefactor , who reproached him with his ingratitude , and threatened him with punishment . In a short time , his daughter and son died , and his lord , engaging in war with a powerful neighbour , demanded a thousand pounds of the rich villan , and in default of
payment , seized all his property ( tout , meubles et heritage ) , leaving him only enough to buy an axe , to enable him to resume his old occupation of a wood-cutter . The story is a true picture of the age at which it was written . The villan , with all his riches , had not ceased to be a serf , and the act of tyranny by which he was reduced to poverty was , without doubt , frequently practised by the lord towards his dependent .
Such was the condition of the villan during the twelfth , thirteenth , and fourteenth centuries , living in a state of galling bondage , exposed to daily insult and oppression , and serving an alien both by birth and language ; plundered by his lord , heavily taxed by the king , and receiving in return an imperfect and precarious
security for his person or property . Virtually an outlaw , he could neither inherit or hold " lordship , " bring an action , or give testimony in a court of law . He could not educate his children or put them to a trade , unless he had previously obtained or purchased their freedom . A scholar was not admitted into a college in the universities till he had taken an oath that he was a freedman . The
same-restriction applied to holy orders . In this respect , therefore , the condition of the villan was worse than that of the colonus under the Soman law . It is in the poetry of the trouveres , the rhyming parasites of the French and Norman barons , that we see most strongly the contempt of the lords of the soil for their serfs . The chronicler Beuvil extols
Duke . Richard II . for his hatred towards the servile class : —" ' He would suffer none but knights to have employment in his house ; never was a villan , or one of rustic blood , admitted into his intimacy ; for the villan , forsooth , is always hankering after the filth in which he was bred . " The lords of the soil appear to have been extremely jealous of villans who attained to wealth or power , or intermarried with " gentle blood . " A burlesque tract of the thirteenth century , giving twenty-three characters of villans , describes the " grafted
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
certain spot ^ in his garden , and he would find a great treasure , and that at the end of a year he might return and intimate his further wishes . At the expiration of the year , the villan returned , and humbly and respectfully desired to become provost of the town . This wish was granted ; but the villan , elected provost , became cruel
and oppressive to all his inferiors . At the end of another year , the villan desired less respectfully of Merlin that his son , then a clerc , might become a bishop . In a few weeks , his son was elected to a vacant bishopric . At the end of a third year , the villan still less respectfully required that his daughter might be married to the Grand Provost of Aquileia , which also soon came to pass . The villan ,
now arrived at the summit of his wishes , could only be prevailed npon by the request of his wife to return and rudely say farewell to his benefactor , who reproached him with his ingratitude , and threatened him with punishment . In a short time , his daughter and son died , and his lord , engaging in war with a powerful neighbour , demanded a thousand pounds of the rich villan , and in default of
payment , seized all his property ( tout , meubles et heritage ) , leaving him only enough to buy an axe , to enable him to resume his old occupation of a wood-cutter . The story is a true picture of the age at which it was written . The villan , with all his riches , had not ceased to be a serf , and the act of tyranny by which he was reduced to poverty was , without doubt , frequently practised by the lord towards his dependent .
Such was the condition of the villan during the twelfth , thirteenth , and fourteenth centuries , living in a state of galling bondage , exposed to daily insult and oppression , and serving an alien both by birth and language ; plundered by his lord , heavily taxed by the king , and receiving in return an imperfect and precarious
security for his person or property . Virtually an outlaw , he could neither inherit or hold " lordship , " bring an action , or give testimony in a court of law . He could not educate his children or put them to a trade , unless he had previously obtained or purchased their freedom . A scholar was not admitted into a college in the universities till he had taken an oath that he was a freedman . The
same-restriction applied to holy orders . In this respect , therefore , the condition of the villan was worse than that of the colonus under the Soman law . It is in the poetry of the trouveres , the rhyming parasites of the French and Norman barons , that we see most strongly the contempt of the lords of the soil for their serfs . The chronicler Beuvil extols
Duke . Richard II . for his hatred towards the servile class : —" ' He would suffer none but knights to have employment in his house ; never was a villan , or one of rustic blood , admitted into his intimacy ; for the villan , forsooth , is always hankering after the filth in which he was bred . " The lords of the soil appear to have been extremely jealous of villans who attained to wealth or power , or intermarried with " gentle blood . " A burlesque tract of the thirteenth century , giving twenty-three characters of villans , describes the " grafted