[Illustration: Fig. 334.–Member of the Brotherhood of Death, whose duty it was to accompany those sentenced to death.–From Cesare Vecellio.]
“If any workman shall practise in a foreign land any art or craft to the detriment of the Republic, he shall be ordered to return to his country; and should he not obey, all his nearest relatives shall be imprisoned, in order that his affection for them may bring him to obedience. Should he still persist in his disobedience, secret measures shall be taken to put him to death, wherever he may be.
“If a Venetian noble reveal to the tribunal propositions which have been made to him by some foreign ambassador, the agent, excepting it should be the ambassador himself, shall be immediately carried off and drowned.
“If a patrician having committed any misdeed shall take refuge under the protection of a foreign ambassador, he shall be put to death forthwith.
“If any noble in full senate take upon himself to question the authority of the Council of Ten, and persist in attacking it, he shall be allowed to speak without interruption; immediately afterwards he shall be arrested, and instructions as to his trial shall be given, so that he may be judged by the ordinary tribunals; and, if this does not succeed in preventing his proceedings, he shall be put to death secretly.
“In case of a complaint against one of the heads of the Council of Ten, the instructions shall be made secretly, and, in case of sentence of death, poison shall be the agent selected.
“Should any dissatisfied noble speak ill of the Government, he shall first be forbidden to appear in the councils and public places for two years. Should he not obey, or should he repeat the offence after the two years, he shall be drowned as incorrigible….” &c.
One can easily understand that in order to carry out these laws the most careful measures were taken to organize a system of espionage. The nobles were subjected to a rigorous supervision; the privacy of letters was not respected; an ambassador was never lost sight of, and his smallest acts were narrowly watched. Any one who dared to throw obstacles in the way of the spies employed by the Council of Ten, was put on the rack, and “made afterwards to receive the punishment which the State inquisitors might consider befitting.” Whole pages of the secret statutes bear witness that lying and fraud formed the basis of all the diplomatic relations of the Venetian Government. Nevertheless the Council of Ten, which was solely instituted with the view of watching over the safety of the Republic, could not inter-meddle in civil cases, and its members were forbidden to hold any sort of communication with foreigners.
[Illustration: Figs. 335 and 336.–Chiefs of Sbirri, in the Secret Service of the Council of Ten.–From Cesare Vecellio.]
The list of names of Venetian nobles and distinguished persons who became victims to the suspicions tyranny of the Council of Ten, and of the State inquisitors, would be very long and of little interest. We may mention a few, however. We find that in 1385, Peter Justiniani, and, in 1388, Stephen Monalesco, were punished for holding secret transactions with the Lord of Padua; in 1413, John Nogarola, for having tried to set fire to Verona; in 1471, Borromeo Memo, for having uttered defamatory speeches against the Podestat of Padua. Not only was this Borromeo Memo punished, but three witnesses of the crime which was imputed to him were condemned to a year’s imprisonment and three years’ banishment, for not having denounced the deed “between evening and morning.” In 1457 we find the Council of Ten attacking the Doge himself, by requiring the abdication of Francis Foscari. A century earlier it had caused the Doge, Marino Faliero, who was convicted of having taken part in a plot to destroy the influence of the nobility, to be executed on the very staircase of the ducal palace, where allegiance to the Republic was usually sworn.
[Illustration: Fig. 337.–Doge of Venice. Costume before the Sixteenth Century. From Cesare Vecellio.]
[Illustration: Fig. 338.–Doge of Venice in Ceremonial Costume of the Sixteenth Century. From Cesare Vecellio.]
Like the Holy Vehme, the Council of Ten compromised its authority by the abuse of power. In 1540, unknown to the Senate, and in spite of the well-prescribed limit of its authority, it concluded a treaty with the Turkish Sultan, Soliman II. The Senate at first concealed its indignation at this abuse of power, but, in 1582, it took measures so as considerably to restrain the powers of the Council of Ten, which, from that date, only existed in name.
[Illustration: Fig. 339.–Seal of the Free Count Heinrich Beckmann, of Medebach. (1520–1533).]
Punishments.
Refinements of Penal Cruelty.–Tortures for different Purposes.–Water, Screw-boards, and the Rack.–The Executioner.–Female Executioners.–Tortures.–Amende Honorable.–Torture of Fire, Real and Feigned.–Auto-da-fe.–Red-hot Brazier or Basin.–Beheading.–Quartering.–Wheel.–Garotte.–Hanging.–The Whip.–The Pillory.–The
Arquebuse.–Tickling.–Flaying.–Drowning.–Imprisonment.–Regulations of Prisons.–The Iron Cage.–The Leads of Venice.
“It is very sad,” says the learned M. de Villegille, “to observe the infinite variety of tortures which have existed since the beginning of the world. It is, in fact, difficult to realise the amount of ingenuity exercised by men in inventing new tortures, in order to give themselves the satisfaction of seeing their fellow-creatures agonizing in the most awful sufferings.”
In entering upon the subject of ancient modes of punishment, we must first speak of the torture, which, according to the received phrase, might be either _previous_ or _preparatory: previous_, when it consisted of a torture which the condemned had to endure previous to capital punishment; and _preparatory_, when it was applied in order to elicit from the culprit an avowal of his crime, or of that of his accomplices. It was also called _ordinary_, or _extraordinary_, according to the duration or violence with which it was inflicted. In some cases the torture lasted five or six consecutive hours; in others, it rarely exceeded an hour. Hippolyte de Marsillis, the learned and venerable jurisconsult of Bologna, who lived at the beginning of the fifteenth century, mentions fourteen ways of inflicting torture. The compression of the limbs by special instruments, or by ropes only; injection of water, vinegar, or oil, into the body of the accused; application of hot pitch, and starvation, were the processes most in use. Other means, which were more or less applied according to the fancy of the magistrate and the tormentor or executioner, were remarkable for their singular atrocities. For instance, placing hot eggs under the arm-pits; introducing dice between the skin and flesh; tying lighted candles to the fingers, so that they might be consumed simultaneously with the wax; letting water trickle drop by drop from a great height on the stomach; and also the custom, which was, according to writers on criminal matters, an indescribable torture, of watering the feet with salt water and allowing goats to lick them. However, every country had special customs as to the manner of applying torture.
In France, too, the torture varied according to the provinces, or rather according to the parliaments. For instance, in Brittany the culprit, tied in an iron chair, was gradually brought near a blazing furnace. In Normandy, one thumb was squeezed in a screw in the ordinary, and both thumbs in the extraordinary torture. At Autun, after high boots made of spongy leather had been placed on the culprit’s feet, he was tied on to a table near a large fire, and a quantity of boiling water was poured on the boots, which penetrated the leather, ate away the flesh, and even dissolved the bones of the victim.
At Orleans, for the ordinary torture the accused was stripped half naked, and his hands were tightly tied behind his back, with a ring fixed between them. Then by means of a rope fastened to this ring, they raised the poor man, who had a weight of one hundred and eighty pounds attached to his feet, a certain height from the ground. For the extraordinary torture, which then took the name of _estrapade_, they raised the victim, with two hundred and fifty pounds attached to his feet, to the ceiling by means of a capstan; he was then allowed to fall several times successively by jerks to the level of the ground, by which means his arms and legs were completely dislocated (Fig. 340).
At Avignon, the ordinary torture consisted in hanging the accused by the wrists, with a heavy iron ball at each foot; for the extraordinary torture, which was then much in use in Italy under the name of _veglia_, the body was stretched horizontally by means of ropes passing through rings riveted into the wall, and attached to the four limbs, the only support given to the culprit being the point of a stake cut in a diamond shape, which just touched the end of the back-bone. A doctor and a surgeon were always present, feeling the pulse at the temples of the patient, so as to be able to judge of the moment when he could not any longer bear the pain.
[Illustration: Fig. 340.–The Estrapade, or Question Extraordinary.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Work of J. Millaeus, “Praxis Criminis Persequendi.” folio, Paris, 1541.]
[Illustration: Fig. 341.–The Water Torture.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in J. Damhoudere’s “Praxis Rerum Criminalium:” in 4to, Antwerp, 1556.]
At that moment he was untied, hot fomentations were used to revive him, restoratives were administered, and, as soon as he had recovered a little strength, he was again put to the torture, which went on thus for six consecutive hours.
In Paris, for a long time, the _water torture_ was in use; this was the most easily borne, and the least dangerous. A person undergoing it was tied to a board which was supported horizontally on two trestles. By means of a horn, acting as a funnel, and whilst his nose was being pinched, so as to force him to swallow, they slowly poured four _coquemars_ (about nine pints) of water into his mouth; this was for the ordinary torture. For the extraordinary, double that quantity was poured in (Fig. 341). When the torture was ended, the victim was untied, “and taken to be warmed in the kitchen,” says the old text.
At a later period, the _brodequins_ were preferred. For this torture, the victim was placed in a sitting posture on a massive bench, with strong narrow boards fixed inside and outside of each leg, which were tightly bound together with strong rope; wedges were then driven in between the centre boards with a mallet; four wedges in the ordinary and eight in the extraordinary torture. Not unfrequently during the latter operation the bones of the legs were literally burst.
The _brodequins_ which were often used for ordinary torture were stockings of parchment, into which it was easy enough to get the feet when it was wet, but which, on being held near the fire, shrunk so considerably that it caused insufferable agony to the wearer.
Whatever manner of torture was applied, the accused, before undergoing it, was forced to remain eight or ten hours without eating. Damhoudere, in his famous technical work, called “Practique et Enchiridion des Causes Criminelles” (1544), also recommends that the hair should be carefully shaved from the bodies of persons about to undergo examination by torture, for fear of their concealing some countercharm which would render them insensible to bodily pain. The same author also recommends, as a rule, when there are several persons “to be placed on the rack” for the same deed, to begin with those from whom it would be most probable that confession would be first extorted. Thus, for instance, when a man and a woman were to suffer one after the other, he recommended that the woman be first tortured, as being the weaker of the two; when a father and son were concerned, the son should be tortured in presence of the father, “who naturally fears more for his son than for himself.” We thereby see that the judges were adepts in the art of adding moral to physical tortures. The barbarous custom of punishment by torture was on several occasions condemned by the Church. As early as 866, we find, from Pope Nicholas V.’s letter to the Bulgarians, that their custom of torturing the accused was considered contrary to divine as well as to human law: “For,” says he, “a confession should be voluntary, and not forced. By means of the torture, an innocent man may suffer to the utmost without making any avowal; and, in such a case, what a crime for the judge! Or the person may be subdued by pain, and may acknowledge himself guilty, although he be not so, which throws an equally great sin upon the judge.”
[Illustration: Fig. 342.–Type of Executioner in the Decapitation of John the Baptist (Thirteenth Century).–Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Psalm-book of St. Louis. Manuscript preserved in the Musee des Souverains.]
After having endured the _previous_ torture, the different phases of which were carried out by special tormentors or executioners, the condemned was at last handed over to the _maistre des haultes oeuvres_–that is to say, the _executioner_–whose special mission was that of sending culprits to another world (Fig. 342).
[Illustration: Fig. 343.–Swiss Grand Provost (Fifteenth Century).–From a Painting in the “Danse des Morts” of Basle, engraved by Merian.]
The executioner did not hold the same position in all countries. For whereas in France, Italy, and Spain, a certain amount of odium was attached to this terrible craft, in Germany, on the contrary, successfully carrying out a certain number of capital sentences was rewarded by titles and the privileges of nobility (Fig. 343). At Reutlingen, in Suabia, the last of the councillors admitted into the tribunal had to carry out the sentence with his own hand. In Franconia, this painful duty fell upon the councillor who had last taken a wife.
In France, the executioner, otherwise called the _King’s Sworn Tormentor,_ was the lowest of the officers of justice. His letters of appointment, which he received from the King, had, nevertheless, to be registered in Parliament; but, after having put the seal on them, it is said that the chancellor threw them under the table, in token of contempt. The executioner was generally forbidden to live within the precincts of the city, unless it was on the grounds where the pillory was situated; and, in some cases, so that he might not be mistaken amongst the people, he was forced to wear a particular coat, either of red or yellow. On the other hand, his duties ensured him certain privileges. In Paris, he possessed the right of _havage_, which consisted in taking all that he could hold in his hand from every load of grain which was brought into market; however, in order that the grain might be preserved from ignominious contact, he levied his tax with a wooden spoon. He enjoyed many similar rights over most articles of consumption, independently of benefiting by several taxes or fines, such as the toll on the Petit-Pont, the tax on foreign traders, on boats arriving with fish, on dealers in herrings, watercress, &c.; and the fine of five sous which was levied on stray pigs (see previous chapter), &c. And, lastly, besides the personal property of the condemned, he received the rents from the shops and stalls surrounding the pillory, in which the retail fish trade was carried on.
It appears that, in consequence of the receipts from these various duties forming a considerable source of revenue, the prestige of wealth by degrees dissipated the unfavourable impressions traditionally attached to the duties of executioner. At least, we have authority for supposing this, when, for instance, in 1418, we see the Paris executioner, who was then captain of the bourgeois militia, coming in that capacity to touch the hand of the Duke of Burgundy, on the occasion of his solemn entry into Paris with Queen Isabel of Bavaria. We may add that popular belief generally ascribed to the executioner a certain practical knowledge of medicine, which was supposed inherent in the profession itself; and the acquaintance with certain methods of cure unknown to doctors, was attributed to him; people went to buy from him the fat of culprits who had been hung, which was supposed to be a marvellous panacea. We may also remark that, in our day, the proficiency of the executioner in setting dislocated limbs is still proverbial in many countries.
[Illustration: Fig. 344.–Amende Honorable before the Tribunal.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in J. Damhoudere’s “Praxis Rerum Criminalium:” in 4to, Antwerp, 1556.]
More than once during the thirteenth century the duties of the executioner were performed by women, but only in those cases in which their own sex was concerned; for it is expressly stated in an order of St. Louis, that persons convicted of blasphemy shall be beaten with birch rods, “the men by men, and the women by women only, without the presence of men.” This, however, was not long tolerated, for we know that a period soon arrived when women were exempted from a duty so little adapted to their physical weakness and moral sensitiveness.
The learned writer on criminal cases, Josse Damhoudere, whom we have already mentioned, and whom we shall take as our special guide in the enumeration of the various tortures, specifies thirteen ways in which the executioner “carries out his executions,” and places them in the following order:–“Fire”–“the sword”–“mechanical force”–“quartering”–“the wheel”–“the fork”–“the gibbet”–“drawing”–“spiking”–“cutting off the ears”–“dismembering”–“flogging or beating”–and the “pillory.”
[Illustration: Fig. 345.–The Punishment by Fire.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.]
But before entering upon the details of this revolting subject, we must state that, whatever punishment was inflicted upon a culprit, it was very rare that its execution had not been preceded by the _amende honorable_, which, in certain cases, constituted a distinct punishment, but which generally was but the prelude to the torture itself. The _amende honorable_ which was called _simple_ or _short_, took place without the assistance of the executioner in the council chamber, where the condemned, bareheaded and kneeling, had to state that “he had falsely said or done something against the authority of the King or the honour of some person” (Fig. 344). For the _amende honorable in figuris_–that is to say, in public–the condemned, in his shirt, barefooted, the rope round his neck, followed by the executioner, and holding in his hand a wax taper, with a weight, which was definitely specified in the sentence which had been passed upon him, but which was generally of two or four pounds, prostrated himself at the door of a church, where in a loud voice he had to confess his sin, and to beg the pardon of God and man.
When a criminal had been condemned to be burnt, a stake was erected on the spot specially designed for the execution, and round it a pile was prepared, composed of alternate layers of straw and wood, and rising to about the height of a man. Care was taken to leave a free space round the stake for the victim, and also a passage by which to lead him to it. Having been stripped of his clothes, and dressed in a shirt smeared with sulphur, he had to walk to the centre of the pile through a narrow opening, and was then tightly bound to the stake with ropes and chains. After this, faggots and straw were thrown into the empty space through which he had passed to the stake, until he was entirely covered by them; the pile was then fired on all sides at once (Fig. 345).
Sometimes, the sentence was that the culprit should only be delivered to the flames after having been previously strangled. In this case, the dead corpse was then immediately placed where the victim would otherwise have been placed alive, and the punishment lost much of its horror. It often happened that the executioner, in order to shorten the sufferings of the condemned, whilst he prepared the pile, placed a large and pointed iron bar amongst the faggots and opposite the stake breast high, so that, directly the fire was lighted, the bar was quickly pushed against the victim, giving a mortal blow to the unfortunate wretch, who would otherwise have been slowly devoured by the flames. If, according to the wording of the sentence, the ashes of the criminal were to be scattered to the winds, as soon as it was possible to approach the centre of the burning pile, a few ashes were taken in a shovel and sprinkled in the air.
They were not satisfied with burning the living, they also delivered to the flames the bodies of those who had died a natural death before their execution could be carried out, as if an anticipated death should not be allowed to save them from the punishment which they had deserved. It also happened in certain cases, where a person’s guilt was only proved after his decease, that his body was disinterred, and carried to the stake to be burnt.
The punishment by fire was always inflicted in cases of heresy, or blasphemy. The Spanish Inquisition made such a constant and cruel use of it, that the expression _auto-da-fe_ (act of faith), strangely perverted from its original meaning, was the only one employed to denote the punishment itself. In France, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, fifty-nine Templars were burned at the same time for the crimes of heresy and witchcraft. And three years later, on the 18th March, 1314, Jacques Molay, and a few other dignitaries of the Order of the Templars, also perished in the flames at the extremity of the island of Notre Dame, on the very spot where the equestrian statue of Henry IV. now stands.
Every one is acquainted with the fact that judges were found iniquitous enough to condemn Joan of Arc to death by fire as a witch and a heretic. Her execution, which took place in the market-place of Rouen, is remarkable from a circumstance which is little known, and which had never taken place on any other occasion. When it was supposed that the fire which surrounded the young heroine on all sides had reached her and no doubt suffocated her, although sufficient time had not elapsed for it to consume her body, a part of the blazing wood was withdrawn, “in order to remove any doubts from the people,” and when the crowd had satisfied themselves by seeing her in the middle of the pile, “chained to the post and quite dead, the executioner replaced the fire….” It should be stated in reference to this point, that Joan having been accused of witchcraft, there was a general belief among the people that the flames would be harmless to her, and that she would be seen emerging from her pile unscathed.
The sentence of punishment by fire did not absolutely imply death at the stake, for there was a punishment of this description which was specially reserved for base coiners, and which consisted in hurling the criminals into a cauldron of scalding water or oil.
We must include in the category of punishment by fire certain penalties, which were, so to speak, but the preliminaries of a more severe punishment, such as the sulphur-fire, in which the hands of parricides, or of criminals accused of high treason, were burned. We must also add various punishments which, if they did not involve death, were none the less cruel, such as the red-hot brazier, _bassin ardent_, which was passed backwards and forwards before the eyes of the culprit, until they were destroyed by the scorching heat; and the process of branding various marks on the flesh, as an ineffaceable stigma, the use of which has been continued to the present day.
In certain countries decapitation was performed with an axe; but in France, it was carried out usually by means of a two-handed sword or glave of justice, which was furnished to the executioner for that purpose (Fig. 346). We find it recorded that in 1476, sixty sous parisis were paid to the executioner of Paris “for having bought a large _espee a feuille_,” used for beheading the condemned, and “for having the old sword done up, which was damaged, and had become notched whilst carrying out the sentence of justice upon Messire Louis de Luxembourg.”
[Illustration: Fig. 346.–Beheading.–Fac-simile of a Miniature on Wood in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.]
Originally, decapitation was indiscriminately inflicted on all criminals condemned to death; at a later period, however, it became the particular privilege of the nobility, who submitted to it without any feeling of degradation. The victim–unless the sentence prescribed that he should be blindfolded as an ignominious aggravation of the penalty–was allowed to choose whether he would have his eyes covered or not. He knelt down on the scaffold, placed his head on the block, and gave himself up to the executioner (Fig. 347). The skill of the executioner was generally such that the head was almost invariably severed from the body at the first blow. Nevertheless, skill and practice at times failed, for cases are on record where as many as eleven blows were dealt, and at times it happened that the sword broke. It was no doubt the desire to avoid this mischance that led to the invention of the mechanical instrument, now known under the name of the _guillotine_, which is merely an improvement on a complicated machine which was much more ancient than is generally supposed. As early as the sixteenth century the modern guillotine already existed in Scotland under the name of the _Maiden_, and English historians relate that Lord Morton, regent of Scotland during the minority of James VI., had it constructed after a model of a similar machine, which had long been in use at Halifax, in Yorkshire. They add, and popular tradition also has invented an analogous tale in France, that this Lord Morton, who was the inventor or the first to introduce this kind of punishment, was himself the first to experience it. The guillotine is, besides, very accurately described in the “Chronicles of Jean d’Auton,” in an account of an execution which took place at Genoa at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Two German engravings, executed about 1550 by Pencz and Aldegrever, also represent an instrument of death almost identical with the guillotine; and the same instrument is to be found on a bas-relief of that period, which is still existing in one of the halls of the Tribunal of Luneburg, in Hanover.
[Illustration: Decapitation of Guillaume de Pommiers.
[Illustration: Fig. 347.–Public Executions.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Latin Work of J. Millaeus, “Praxis Criminis Persequendi:” small folio, Parisis, Simon de Colines, 1541.]
And his Confessor, at Bordeaux in 1377, by order of the King of England’s Lieutenant. _Froissart’s Chronicles._ No. 2644, Bibl. nat’le de Paris.]
Possibly the invention of such a machine was prompted by the desire to curtail the physical sufferings of the victim, instead of prolonging them, as under the ancient system. It is, however, difficult to believe that the mediaeval judges were actuated by any humane feelings, when we find that, in order to reconcile a respect for _propriety_ with a due compliance with the ends of justice, the punishment of burying alive was resorted to for women, who could not with decency be hung up to the gibbets. In 1460, a woman named Perette, accused of theft and of receiving stolen goods, was condemned by the Provost of Paris to be “buried alive before the gallows,” and the sentence was literally carried out.
_Quartering_ may in truth be considered the most horrible penalty invented by judicial cruelty. This punishment really dates from the remotest ages, but it was scarcely ever inflicted in more modern times, except on regicides, who were looked upon as having committed the worst of crimes. In almost all cases, the victim had previously to undergo various accessory tortures: sometimes his right hand was cut off, and the mutilated stump was burnt in a cauldron of sulphur; sometimes his arms, thighs, or breasts were lacerated with red-hot pincers, and hot oil, pitch, or molten lead was poured into the wounds.
[Illustration: Fig. 348.–Demons applying the Torture of the Wheel.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Grand Kalendrier ou Compost des Bergers:” small folio, Troyes, Nicholas le Rouge, 1529.]
After these horrible preliminaries, a rope was attached to each of the limbs of the criminal, one being bound round each leg from the foot to the knee, and round each arm from the wrist to the elbow. These ropes were then fastened to four bars, to each of which a strong horse was harnessed, as if for towing a barge. These horses were first made to give short jerks; and when the agony had elicited heart-rending cries from the unfortunate man, who felt his limbs being dislocated without being broken, the four horses were all suddenly urged on with the whip in different directions, and thus all the limbs were strained at one moment. If the tendons and ligaments still resisted the combined efforts of the four horses, the executioner assisted, and made several cuts with a hatchet on each joint. When at last–for this horrible torture often lasted several hours–each horse had drawn out a limb, they were collected and placed near the hideous trunk, which often still showed signs of life, and the whole were burned together. Sometimes the sentence was, that the body should be hung to the gibbet, and that the limbs should be displayed on the gates of the town, or sent to four principal towns in the extremities of the kingdom. When this was done, “an inscription was placed on each of the limbs, which stated the reason of its being thus exposed.”
The _wheel_ is the name applied to a torture of very ancient origin, but which was applied during the Middle Ages to quite a different torture from that used in olden times. The modern instrument might indeed have been called the cross, for it only served for the public exhibition of the body of the criminal whose limbs had been previously broken alive. This torture, which does not date earlier than the days of Francis I., is thus described:–The victim was first tied on his back to two joists forming a St. Andrew’s cross, each of his limbs being stretched out on its arms. Two places were hollowed out under each limb, about a foot apart, in order that the joints alone might touch the wood. The executioner then dealt a heavy blow over each hollow with a square iron bar, about two inches broad and rounded at the handle, thus breaking each limb in two places. To the eight blows required for this, the executioner generally added two or three on the chest, which were called _coups de grace_, and which ended this horrible execution. It was only after death that the broken body was placed on a wheel, which was turned round on a pivot. Sometimes, however, the sentence ordered that the condemned should be strangled before being broken, which was done in such cases by the instantaneous twist of a rope round the neck.
Strangling, thus carried out, was called _garotting_. This method is still in use in Spain, and is specially reserved for the nobility. The victim is seated on a scaffold, his head leaning against a beam and his neck grasped by an iron collar, which the executioner suddenly tightens from behind by means of a screw.
For several centuries, and down to the Revolution, hanging was the most common mode of execution in France; consequently, in every town, and almost in every village, there was a permanent gibbet, which, owing to the custom of leaving the bodies to hang till they crumbled into dust, was very rarely without having some corpses or skeletons attached to it. These gibbets, which were called _fourches patibulaires_ or _justices_, because they represented the authority of the law, were generally composed of pillars of stone, joined at their summit by wooden traverses, to which the bodies of criminals were tied by ropes or chains. The gallows, the pillars of which varied in number according to the will of the authorities, were always placed by the side of frequented roads, and on an eminence.
[Illustration: Fig. 349.–The Gibbet of Montfaucon.–From an Engraving of the Topography of Paris, in the Collection of Engravings of the National Library.]
According to prescribed rule, the gallows of Paris, which played such an important part in the political as well as the criminal history of that city, were erected on a height north of the town, near the high road leading into Germany. Montfaucon, originally the name of the hill, soon became that of the gallows itself. This celebrated place of execution consisted of a heavy mass of masonry, composed of ten or twelve layers of rough stones, and formed an enclosure of forty feet by twenty-five or thirty. At the upper part there was a platform, which was reached by a stone staircase, the entrance to which was closed by a massive door (Fig. 349). On three sides of this platform rested sixteen square pillars, about thirty feet high, made of blocks of stone a foot thick. These pillars were joined to one another by double bars of wood, which were fastened into them, and bore iron chains three feet and a half long, to which the criminals were suspended. Underneath, half-way between these and the platform, other bars were placed for the same purpose. Long and solid ladders riveted to the pillars enabled the executioner and his assistants to lead up criminals, or to carry up corpses destined to be hung there. Lastly, the centre of the structure was occupied by a deep pit, the hideous receptacle of the decaying remains of the criminals.
One can easily imagine the strange and melancholy aspect of this monumental gibbet if one thinks of the number of corpses continually attached to it, and which were feasted upon by thousands of crows. On one occasion only it was necessary to replace _fifty-two_ chains, which were useless; and the accounts of the city of Paris prove that the expense of executions was more heavy than that of the maintenance of the gibbet, a fact easy to be understood if one recalls to mind the frequency of capital sentences during the Middle Ages. Montfaucon was used not only for executions, but also for exposing corpses which were brought there from various places of execution in every part of the country. The mutilated remains of criminals who had been boiled, quartered, or beheaded, were also hung there, enclosed in sacks of leather or wickerwork. They often remained hanging for a considerable time, as in the case of Pierre des Essarts, who had been beheaded in 1413, and whose remains were handed over to his family for Christian burial after having hung on Montfaucon for three years.
The criminal condemned to be hanged was generally taken to the place of execution sitting or standing in a waggon, with his back to the horses, his confessor by his side, and the executioner behind him. He bore three ropes round his neck; two the size of the little finger, and called _tortouses_, each of which had a slip-knot; the third, called the _jet_, was only used to pull the victim off the ladder, and so to launch him into eternity (Fig. 350). When the cart arrived at the foot of the gallows, the executioner first ascended the ladder backwards, drawing the culprit after him by means of the ropes, and forcing him to keep pace with him; on arriving at the top, he quickly fastened the two _tortouses_ to the arm of the gibbet, and by a jerk of his knee he turned the culprit off the ladder, still holding the _jet_ in his own hand. He then placed his feet on the tied hands of the condemned, and suspending himself by his hands to the gibbet, he finished off his victim by repeated jerks, thus ensuring complete strangulation.
When the words “shall be hung until death doth ensue” are to be found in a sentence, it must not be supposed that they were used merely as a form, for in certain cases the judge ordered that the sentence should be only carried out as far as would prove to the culprit the awful sensation of hanging. In such cases, the victim was simply suspended by ropes passing under the arm-pits, a kind of exhibition which was not free from danger when it was too prolonged, for the weight of the body so tightened the rope round the chest that the circulation might be stopped. Many culprits, after hanging thus an hour, when brought down, were dead, or only survived this painful process a short time.
[Illustration: Fig. 350.–Hanging to Music. (A Minstrel condemned to the Gallows obtained permission that one of his companions should accompany him to his execution, and play his favourite instrument on the ladder of the Gallows.)–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in Michault’s “Doctrinal du Temps Present:” small folio, goth., Bruges, about 1490.]
We have seen elsewhere (chapter on _Privileges and Rights, Feudal and Municipal_) that, when the criminal passed before the convent of the _Filles-Dieu_, the nuns of that establishment were bound to bring him out a glass of wine and three pieces of bread, and this was called _le dernier morceau des patients._ It was hardly ever refused, and an immense crowd assisted at this sad meal. After this the procession went forward, and on arriving near the gallows, another halt was made at the foot of a stone cross, in order that the culprit might receive the religions exhortations of his confessor. The moment the execution was over, the confessor and the officers of justice returned to the Chatelet, where a repast provided by the town awaited them.
[Illustration: Fig. 351.–View of the Pillory in the Market-place of Paris in the Sixteenth Century, after a Drawing by an unknown Artist of 1670.]
Sometimes the criminals, in consequence of a peculiar wording of the sentence, were taken to Montfaucon, whether dead or alive, on a ladder fastened behind a cart. This was an aggravation of the penalty, which was called _trainer sur la claie_.
The penalty of the lash was inflicted in two ways: first, under the _custode_, that is to say within the prison, and by the hand of the gaoler himself, in which case it was simply a correction; and secondly, in public, when its administration became ignominious as well as painful. In the latter case the criminal was paraded about the town, stripped to the waist, and at each crossway he received a certain number of blows on the shoulders, given by the public executioner with a cane or a knotted rope.
When it was only required to stamp a culprit with infamy he was put into the _pillory_, which was generally a kind of scaffold furnished with chains and iron collars, and bearing on its front the arms of the feudal lord. In Paris, this name was given to a round isolated tower built in the centre of the market. The tower was sixty feet high, and had large openings in its thick walls, and a horizontal wheel was provided, which was capable of turning on a pivot. This wheel was pierced with several holes, made so as to hold the hands and head of the culprit, who, on passing and repassing before the eyes of the crowd, came in full view, and was subjected to their hootings (Fig. 351). The pillories were always situated in the most frequented places, such as markets, crossways, &c.
Notwithstanding the long and dreadful enumeration we have just made of mediaeval punishments, we are far from having exhausted the subject; for we have not spoken of several more or less atrocious punishments, which were in use at various times and in various countries; such as the _Pain of the Cross_, specially employed against the Jews; the _Arquebusade_, which was well adapted for carrying out prompt justice on soldiers; the _Chatouillement_, which resulted in death after the most intense tortures; the _Pal_ (Fig. 352), _flaying alive_, and, lastly, _drowning_, a kind of death frequently employed in France. Hence the common expression, _gens de sac et de corde_, which was derived from the sack into which persons were tied who were condemned to die by immersion…. But we will now turn away from these horrible scenes, and consider the several methods of penal sequestration and prison arrangements.
It is unnecessary to state that in barbarous times the cruel and pitiless feeling which induced legislators to increase the horrors of tortures, also contributed to the aggravation of the fate of prisoners. Each administrator of the law had his private gaol, which was entirely under his will and control (Fig. 353). Law or custom did not prescribe any fixed rules for the internal government of prisons. There can be little doubt, however, that these prisons were as small as they were unhealthy, if we may judge from that in the Rue de la Tannerie, which was the property of the provost, the merchants, and the aldermen of Paris in 1383. Although this dungeon was only eleven feet long by seven feet wide, from ten to twenty prisoners were often immured in it at the same time.
[Illustration: Fig. 352.–Empalement.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.]
Paris alone contained twenty-five or thirty special prisons, without counting the _vade in pace_ of the various religious communities. The most important were the Grand Chatelet, the Petit Chatelet, the Bastille, the Conciergerie, and the For-l’Eveque, the ancient seat of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of Paris. Nearly all these places of confinement contained subterranean cells, which were almost entirely deprived of air and light. As examples of these may be mentioned the _Chartres basses_ of the Petit Chatelet, where, under the reign of Charles VI., it was proved that no man could pass an entire day without being suffocated; and the fearful cells excavated thirty feet below the surface of the earth, in the gaol of the Abbey of Saint Germain des Pres, the roof of which was so low that a man of middle height could not stand up in them, and where the straw of the prisoners’ beds floated upon the stagnant water which had oozed through the walls.
[Illustration: Fig. 353.–The Provost’s Prison.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in J. Damhoudere’s “Praxis Rerum Civilium.”]
The Grand Chatelet was one of the most ancient prisons of Paris, and probably the one which held the greatest number of prisoners. By a curious and arbitrary custom, prisoners were compelled to pay a gaol fee on entering and going out of this prison, which varied according to their rank, and which was established by a law of the year 1425. We learn from this enactment the names by which the various places of confinement composing this spacious municipal prison were known. A prisoner who was confined in the _Beauvoir, La Mate_ or _La Salle_, had the right of “having a bed brought from his own house,” and only had to pay the _droit de place_ to the gaoler; any one who was placed in the _Boucherie_, in the _Beaumont_, or in the _Griseche_, “which are closed prisons,” had to pay four deniers “_pour place_;” any one who was confined in the _Beauvais_, “lies on mats or on layers of rushes or straw” (_gist sur nates ou sur couche de feurre ou de paille_); if he preferred, he might be placed _au Puis_, in the _Gourdaine_, in the _Bercueil_, or in the _Oubliette_, where he did not pay more than in the _Fosse_. For this, no doubt, the smallest charge was made. Sometimes, however, the prisoner was left between two doors (“_entre deux huis_”), and he then paid much less than he would in the _Barbarie_ or in the _Gloriette_. The exact meaning of these curious names is no longer intelligible to us, notwithstanding the terror which they formerly created, but their very strangeness gives us reason to suppose that the prison system was at that time subjected to the most odious refinement of the basest cruelty.
From various reliable sources we learn that there was a place in the Grand Chatelet, called the _Chausse d’Hypocras_, in which the prisoners had their feet continually in water, and where they could neither stand up nor lie down; and a cell, called _Fin d’aise_, which was a horrible receptacle of filth, vermin, and reptiles; as to the _Fosse_, no staircase being attached to it, the prisoners were lowered down into it by means of a rope and pulley.
By the law of 1425, the gaoler was not permitted to put more than _two or three_ persons in the same bed. He was bound to give “bread and water” to the poor prisoners who had no means of subsistence; and, lastly, he was enjoined “to keep the large stone basin, which was on the pavement, full of water, so that prisoners might get it whenever they wished.” In order to defray his expenses, he levied on the prisoners various charges for attendance and for bedding, and he was authorised to detain in prison any person who failed to pay him. The power of compelling payment of these charges continued even after a judge’s order for the release of a prisoner had been issued.
[Illustration: Fig. 354.–The Bastille.–From an ancient Engraving of the Topography of Paris, in the Collection of Engravings of the National Library.]
The subterranean cells of the Bastille (Fig. 354) did not differ much from those of the Chatelet. There were several, the bottoms of which were formed like a sugar-loaf upside down, thus neither allowing the prisoner to stand up, nor even to adopt a tolerable position sitting or lying down. It was in these that King Louis XI., who seemed to have a partiality for filthy dungeons, placed the two young sons of the Duke de Nemours (beheaded in 1477), ordering, besides, that they should be taken out twice a week and beaten with birch rods, and, as a supreme measure of atrocity, he had one of their teeth extracted every three months. It was Louis XI., too, who, in 1476, ordered the famous _iron cage_, to be erected in one of the towers of the Bastille, in which Guillaume, Bishop of Verdun, was incarcerated for fourteen years.
The Chateau de Loches also possessed one of these cages, which received the name of _Cage de Balue_, because the Cardinal Jean de la Balue was imprisoned in it. Philippe de Commines, in his “Memoires,” declares that he himself had a taste of it for eight months. Before the invention of cages, Louis XI. ordered very heavy chains to be made, which were fastened to the feet of the prisoners, and attached to large iron balls, called, according to Commines, the King’s little daughters (_les fillettes du roy_).
[Illustration: Fig. 355.–Movable Iron Cage.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster, in folio, Basle, 1552.]
The prison known by the name of The Leads of Venice is of so notorious a character that its mere mention is sufficient, without its being necessary for us to describe it. To the subject of voluntary seclusions, to which certain pious persons submitted themselves as acts of extreme religious devotion, it will only be necessary to allude here, and to remark that there are examples of this confinement having been ordered by legal authority. In 1485, Renee de Vermandois, the widow of a squire, had been condemned to be burnt for adultery and for murdering her husband; but, on letters of remission from the King, Parliament commuted the sentence pronounced by the Provost of Paris, and ordered that Renee de Vermandois should be “shut up within the walls of the cemetery of the Saints-Innocents, in a small house, built at her expense, that she might therein do penance and end her days.” In conformity with this sentence, the culprit having been conducted with much pomp to the cell which had been prepared for her, the door was locked by means of two keys, one of which remained in the hands of the churchwarden (_marguillier_) of the Church of the Innocents, and the other was deposited at the office of the Parliament. The prisoner received her food from public charity, and it is said that she became an object of veneration and respect by the whole town.
[Illustration: Fig. 356.–Cat-o’-nine-tails.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster.]
Jews.
Dispersion of the Jews.–Jewish Quarters in the Mediaeval Towns.–The _Ghetto_ of Rome.–Ancient Prague.–The _Giudecca_ of Venice.–Condition of the Jews.–Animosity of the People against them–Severity and vexatious Treatment of the Sovereigns.–The Jews of Lincoln.–The Jews of Blois.–Mission of the _Pastoureaux_.–Extermination of the Jews.–The Price at which the Jews purchased Indulgences.–Marks set upon them.–Wealth, Knowledge, Industry, and Financial Aptitude of the Jews.–Regulations respecting Usury as practised by the Jews.–Attachment of the Jews to their Religion.
A painful and gloomy history commences for the Jewish race from the day when the Romans seized upon Jerusalem and expelled its unfortunate inhabitants, a race so essentially homogeneous, strong, patient, and religious, and dating its origin from the remotest period of the patriarchal ages. The Jews, proud of the title of “the People of God,” were scattered, proscribed, and received universal reprobation (Fig. 357), notwithstanding that their annals, collected under divine inspiration by Moses and the sacred writers, had furnished a glorious prologue to the annals of all modern nations, and had given to the world the holy and divine history of Christ, who, by establishing the Gospel, was to become the regenerator of the whole human family.
Their Temple is destroyed, and the crowd which had once pressed beneath its portico as the flock of the living God has become a miserable tribe, restless and unquiet in the present, but full of hope as regards the future. The Jewish _nation_ exists nowhere, nevertheless, the Jewish _people_ are to be found everywhere. They are wanderers upon the face of the earth, continually pursued, threatened, and persecuted. It would seem as if the existence of the offspring of Israel is perpetuated simply to present to Christian eyes a clear and awful warning of the Divine vengeance, a special, and at the same time an overwhelming example of the vicissitudes which God alone can determine in the life of a people.
[Illustration: Fig. 357.–Expulsion of the Jews in the Reign of the Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 135): “How Heraclius turned the Jews out of Jerusalem.”–Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Histoire des Empereurs,” Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library of the Arsenal, Paris.]
M. Depping, an historian of this race so long accursed, after having been for centuries blessed and favoured by God, says, “A Jewish community in an European town during the Middle Ages resembled a colony on an island or on a distant coast. Isolated from the rest of the population, it generally occupied a district or street which was separated from the town or borough. The Jews, like a troop of lepers, were thrust away and huddled together into the most uncomfortable and most unhealthy quarter of the city, as miserable as it vas disgusting. There, in ill-constructed houses, this poor and numerous population was amassed; in some cases high walls enclosed the small and dark narrow streets of the quarter occupied by this branded race, which prevented its extension, though, at the same time, it often protected the inhabitants from the fury of the populace.”
In order to form a just appreciation of what the Jewish quarters were like in the mediaeval towns, one must visit the _Ghetto_ of Rome or ancient Prague. The latter place especially has, in all respects, preserved its antique appearance. We must picture to ourselves a large enclosure of wretched houses, irregularly built, divided by small streets with no attempt at uniformity. The principal thoroughfare is lined with stalls, in which are sold not only old clothes, furniture, and utensils, but also new and glittering articles. The inhabitants of this enclosure can, without crossing its limits, procure everything necessary to material life. This quarter contains the old synagogue, a square building begrimed with the dirt of ages, and so covered with dirt and moss that the stone of which it is built is scarcely visible. The building, which is as mournful as a prison, has only narrow loopholes by way of windows, and a door so low that one must stoop to enter it. A dark passage leads to the interior, into which air and light can scarcely penetrate. A few lamps contend with the darkness, and lighted fires serve to modify a little the icy temperature of this cellar. Here and there pillars seem to support a roof which is too high and too darkened for the eye of the visitor to distinguish. On the sides are dark and damp recesses, where women assist at the celebration of worship, which is always carried on, according to ancient custom, with much wailing and strange gestures of the body. The book of the law which is in use is no less venerable than the edifice in which it is contained. It appears that this synagogue has never undergone the slightest repairs or changes for many centuries. The successive generations who have prayed in this ancient temple rest under thousands of sepulchral stones, in a cemetery which is of the same date as the synagogue, and is about a league in circumference.
Paris has never possessed, properly speaking, a regular _Jewish quarter_; it is true that the Israelites settled down in the neighbourhood of the markets, and in certain narrow streets, which at some period or other took the name of _Juiverie_ or _Vieille Juiverie (Old Jewry_); but they were never distinct from the rest of the population; they only had a separate cemetery, at the bottom or rather on the slope of the hill of Sainte-Genevieve. On the other hand, most of the towns of France and of Europe had their _Jewry_. In certain countries, the colonies of Jews enjoyed a share of immunities and protections, thus rendering their life a little less precarious, and their occupations of a rather more settled character.
In Spain and in Portugal, the Jews, in consequence of their having been on several occasions useful to the kings of those two countries, were allowed to carry on their trade, and to engage in money speculations, outside their own quarters; a few were elevated to positions of responsibility, and some were even tolerated at court.
In the southern towns of France, which they enriched by commerce and taxes, and where they formed considerable communities, the Jews enjoyed the protection of the nobles. We find them in Languedoc and Provence buying and selling property like Christians, a privilege which was not permitted to them elsewhere: this is proved by charters of contracts made during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which bear the signature of certain Jews in Hebrew characters. On Papal lands, at Avignon, at Carpentras, and at Cavaillon, they had _bailes_, or consuls of their nation. The Jews of Rousillon during the Spanish rule (fifteenth century) were governed by two syndics and a scribe, elected by the community. The latter levied the taxes due to the King of Aragon. In Burgundy they cultivated the vines, which was rather singular, for the Jews generally preferred towns where they could form groups more compact, and more capable of mutual assistance. The name of _Sabath_, given to a vineyard in the neighbourhood of Macon, still points out the position of their synagogue. The hamlet of _Mouys_, a dependency of the communes of Prissey, owes its name to a rich Israelite, Moses, who had received that land as an indemnity for money lent to the Count Gerfroy de Macon, which the latter had been unable to repay. In Vienna, where the Israelites had a special quarter, still called _the Jews’_
[Illustration: Fig. 358.–Jews taking the Blood from Christian Children, for their Mystic Rites.–From a Pen-and-ink Drawing, illuminated, in the Book of the Cabala of Abraham the Jew (Library of the Arsenal, Paris).]
_Square_, a special judge named by the duke was set over them. Exempted from the city rates, they paid a special poil tax, and they contributed, but on the same footing as Christian vassals, to extraordinary rates, war taxes, and travelling expenses of the nobles, &c. This community even became so rich that it eventually held mortgages on the greater part of the houses of the town.
In Venice also, the Jews had their quarter–the _Giudecca_–which is still one of the darkest in the town; but they did not much care about such trifling inconveniences, as the republic allowed them to bank, that is, to lend money at interest; and although they were driven out on several occasions, they always found means to return and recommence their operations. When they were authorised to establish themselves in the towns of the Adriatic, their presence did not fail to annoy the Christian merchants, whose rivals they were; but neither in Venice nor in the Italian republics had they to fear court intrigues, nor the hatred of corporations of trades, which were so powerful in France and in Germany.
It was in the north of Europe that the animosity against the Jews was greatest. The Christian population continually threatened the Jewish quarters, which public opinion pointed to as haunts and sinks of iniquity. The Jews were believed to be much more amenable to the doctrines of the Talmud than to the laws of Moses. However secret they may have kept their learning, a portion of its tenets transpired, which was supposed to inculcate the right to pillage and murder Christians; and it is to the vague knowledge of these odious prescriptions of the Talmud that we must attribute the readiness with which the most atrocious accusations against the Jews were always welcomed.
Besides this, the public mind in those days of bigotry was naturally filled with a deep antipathy against the Jewish deicides. When monks and priests came annually in Holy week to relate from the pulpit to their hearers the revolting details of the Passion, resentment was kindled in the hearts of the Christians against the descendants of the judges and executioners of the Saviour. And when, on going out of the churches, excited by the sermons they had just heard, the faithful saw in pictures, in the cemeteries, and elsewhere, representations of the mystery of the death of our Saviour, in which the Jews played so odious a part, there was scarcely a spectator who did not feel an increased hatred against the condemned race. Hence it was that in many towns, even when the authorities did not compel them to do so, the Israelites found it prudent to shut themselves up in their own quarter, and even in their own houses, during the whole of Passion week; for, in consequence of the public feeling roused during those days of mourning and penance, a false rumour was quite sufficient to give the people a pretext for offering violence to the Jews.
In fact, from the earliest days of Christianity, a certain number of accusations were always being made, sometimes in one country, sometimes in another, against the Israelites, which always ended in bringing down the same misfortunes on their heads. The most common, and most easily credited report, was that which attributed to them the murder of some Christian child, said to be sacrificed in Passion week in token of their hatred of Christ; and in the event of this terrible accusation being once uttered, and maintained by popular opinion, it never failed to spread with remarkable swiftness. In such cases, popular fury, not being on all occasions satisfied with the tardiness of judicial forms, vented itself upon the first Jews who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of their enemies. As soon as the disturbance was heard the Jewish quarter was closed; fathers and mothers barricaded themselves in with their children, concealed whatever riches they possessed, and listened tremblingly to the clamour of the multitude which was about to besiege them.
[Illustration: Fig. 359.–Secret Meeting of the Jews at the Rabbi’s House.–Fac-simile of a Miniature of the “Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine,” Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.]
In 1255, in Lincoln, the report was suddenly spread that a child of the name of Hughes had been enticed into the Jewish quarter, and there scourged, crucified, and pierced with lances, in the presence of all the Israelites of the district, who were convoked and assembled to take part in this horrible barbarity. The King and Queen of England, on their return from a journey to Scotland, arrived in Lincoln at the very time when the inhabitants were so much agitated by this mysterious announcement. The people called for vengeance. An order was issued to the bailiffs and officers of the King to deliver the murderer into the hands of justice, and the quarter in which the Jews had shut themselves up, so as to avoid the public animosity, was immediately invaded by armed men. The rabbi, in whose house the child was supposed to have been tortured, was seized, and at once condemned to be tied to the tail of a horse, and dragged through the streets of the town. After this, his mangled body, which was only half dead, was hung (Fig. 359). Many of the Jews ran away and hid themselves in all parts of the kingdom, and those who had the misfortune to be caught were thrown into chains and led to London. Orders were given in the provinces to imprison all the Israelites who were accused or even suspected of having taken any part, whether actively or indirectly, in the murder of the Lincoln child; and suspicion made rapid strides in those days. In a short space of time, eighteen Israelites in London shared the fate of the rabbi of their community in Lincoln. Some Dominican monks, who were charitable and courageous enough to interfere in favour of the wretched prisoners, brought down odium on their own heads, and were accused of having allowed themselves to be corrupted by the money of the Jews. Seventy-one prisoners were retained in the dungeons of London, and seemed inevitably fated to die, when the king’s brother, Richard, came to their aid, by asserting his right over all the Jews of the kingdom–a right which the King had pledged to him for a loan of 5,000 silver marks. The unfortunate prisoners were therefore saved, thanks to Richard’s desire to protect his securities. History does not tell what their liberty cost them; but we must hope that a sense of justice alone guided the English prince, and that the Jews found other means besides money by which to show their gratitude.
There is scarcely a country in Europe which cannot recount similar tales. In 1171, we find the murder of a child at Orleans, or Blois, causing capital punishment to be inflicted on several Jews. Imputations of this horrible character were continually renewed during the Middle Ages, and were of very ancient origin; for we hear of them in the times of Honorius and Theodosius the younger; we find them reproduced with equal vehemence in 1475 at Trent, where a furious mob was excited against the Jews, who were accused of having destroyed a child twenty-nine months old named Simon. The tale of the martyrdom of this child was circulated widely, and woodcut representations of it were freely distributed, which necessarily increased, especially in Germany, the horror which was aroused in the minds of Christians against the accursed nation (Fig. 361).
[Illustration: Fig. 360.–The Infant Richard crucified by the Jews, at Pontoise.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut, with Figures by Wohlgemuth, in the “Liber Chronicarum Mundi:” large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]
[Illustration: Fig. 361.–Martyrdom of Simon at Trent.–Fac-simile, reduced, of a Woodcut of Wohlgemuth, in the “Liber Chronicarum Mundi:” large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]
The Jews gave cause for other accusations calculated to keep up this hatred; such as the desecration of the consecrated host, the mutilation of the crucifix. Tradition informs us of a miracle which took place in Paris in 1290, in the Rue des Jardins, when a Jew dared to mutilate and boil a consecrated host. This miracle was commemorated by the erection of a chapel on the spot, which was afterwards replaced by the church and convent of the Billettes. In 1370, the people of Brussels were startled in consequence of the statements of a Jewess, who accused her co-religionists of having made her carry a pyx full of stolen hosts to the Jews of Cologne, for the purpose of submitting them to the most horrible profanations. The woman added, that the Jews having pierced these hosts with sticks and knives, such a quantity of blood poured from them that the culprits were struck with terror, and concealed themselves in their quarter. The Jews were all imprisoned, tortured, and burnt alive (Fig. 362). In order to perpetuate the memory of the miracle of the bleeding hosts, an annual procession took place, which was the origin of the great kermesse, or annual fair.
In the event of any unforeseen misfortune, or any great catastrophe occurring amongst Christians, the odium was frequently cast on the Jews. If the Crusaders met with reverses in Asia, fanatics formed themselves into bands, who, under the name of _Pastoureaux_, spread over the country, killing and robbing not only the Jews, but many Christians also. In the event of any general sickness, and especially during the prevalence of epidemics, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the water of fountains and pits, and the people massacred them in consequence. Thousands perished in this way when the black plague made ravages in Europe in the fourteenth century. The sovereigns, who were tardy in suppressing these sanguinary proceedings, never thought of indemnifying the Jewish families which so unjustly suffered.
[Illustration: Fig. 362.–The Jews of Cologne burnt alive.–From a Woodcut in the “Liber Chronicarum Mundi:” large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]
In fact, it was then most religiously believed that, by despising and holding the Jewish nation under the yoke, banished as it was from Judaea for the murder of Jesus Christ, the will of the Almighty was being carried out, so much so that the greater number of kings and princes looked upon themselves as absolute masters over the Jews who lived under their protection. All feudal lords spoke with scorn of _their Jews_; they allowed them to establish themselves on their lands, but on the condition that as they became the subjects and property of their lord, the latter should draw his best income from them.
We have shown by an instance borrowed from the history of England that the Jews were often mortgaged by the kings like land. This was not all, for the Jews who inhabited Great Britain during the reign of Henry III., in the middle of the thirteenth century, were not only obliged to acknowledge, by voluntarily contributing large sums of money, the service the King’s brother had rendered them in clearing them from the imputation of having had any participation in the murder of the child Richard, but the loan on mortgage, for which they were the material and passive security, became the cause of odious extortions from them. The King had pledged them to the Earl of Cornwall for 5,000 marks, but they themselves had to repay the royal loan by means of enormous taxes. When they had succeeded in cancelling the King’s debt to his brother, that necessitous monarch again mortgaged them, but on this occasion to his son Edward. Soon after, the son having rebelled against his father, the latter took back his Jews, and having assembled six elders from each of their communities, he told them that he required 20,000 silver marks, and ordered them to pay him that sum at two stated periods. The payments were rigorously exacted; those who were behind-hand were imprisoned, and the debtor who was in arrear for the second payment was sued for the whole sum. On the King’s death his successor continued the same system of tyranny against the Jews. In 1279 they were charged with having issued counterfeit coin, and on this vague or imaginary accusation two hundred and eighty men and women were put to death in London alone. In the counties there were also numerous executions, and many innocent persons were thrown into dungeons; and, at last, in 1290 King Edward, who wished to enrich himself by taking possession of their properties, banished the Jews from his kingdom. A short time before this, the English people had offered to pay an annual fine to the King on condition of his expelling the Jews from the country; but the Jews outbid them, and thus obtained the repeal of the edict of banishment. However, on this last occasion there was no mercy shown, and the Jews, sixteen thousand in number, were expelled from England, and the King seized upon their goods.
At the same period Philippe le Bel of France gave the example of this system of persecuting the Jews, but, instead of confiscating all their goods, he was satisfied with taking one-fifth; his subjects, therefore, almost accused him of generosity.
[Illustration: Fig. 363.–Jewish Conspiracy in France.–From a Miniature in the “Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine” (Imperial Library, Paris).]
The Jews often took the precaution of purchasing certain rights and franchises from their sovereign or from the feudal lord under whose sway they lived; but generally these were one-sided bargains, for not being protected by common rights, and only forming a very small part of the population, they could nowhere depend upon promises or privileges which had been made to them, even though they had purchased them with their own money.
To the uncertainty and annoyance of a life which was continually being threatened, was added a number of vexatious and personal insults, even in ordinary times, and when they enjoyed a kind of normal tolerance. They were almost everywhere obliged to wear a visible mark on their dress, such as a patch of gaudy colour attached to the shoulder or chest, in order to prevent their being mistaken for Christians. By this or some other means they were continually subject to insults from the people, and only succeeded in ridding themselves of it by paying the most enormous fines. Nothing was spared to humiliate and insult them. At Toulouse they were forced to send a representative to the cathedral on every Good Friday, that he might there publicly receive a box on the ears. At Beziers, during Passion week, the mob assumed the right of attacking the Jews’ houses with stones. The Jews bought off this right in 1160 by paying a certain sum to the Vicomte de Beziers, and by promising an annual poll-tax to him and to his successors. A Jew, passing on the road of Etampes, beneath the tower of Montlhery, had to pay an obole; if he had in his possession a Hebrew book, he paid four deniers; and, if he carried his lamp with him, two oboles. At Chateauneuf-sur-Loire a Jew on passing had to pay twelve deniers and a Jewess six. It has been said that there were various ancient rates levied upon Jews, in which they were treated like cattle, but this requires authentication. During the Carnival in Rome they were forced to run in the lists, amidst the jeers of the populace. This public outrage was stopped at a subsequent period by a tax of 300 ecus, which a deputation from the Ghetto presented on their knees to the magistrates of the city, at the same time thanking them for their protection.
When Pope Martin IV. arrived at the Council of Constance, in 1417, the Jewish community, which was as numerous as it was powerful in that old city, came in great state to present him with the book of the law (Fig. 364). The holy father received the Jews kindly, and prayed God to open their eyes and bring them back into the bosom of his church. We know, too, how charitable the popes were to the Jews.
In the face of the distressing position they occupied, it may be asked what powerful motive induced the Jews to live amongst nations who almost invariably treated them as enemies, and to remain at the mercy of sovereigns whose sole object was to oppress, plunder, and subject them to all kinds of vexations? To understand this it is sufficient to remember that, in their peculiar aptness for earning and hoarding money, they found, or at least hoped to find, a means of compensation whereby they might be led to forget the servitude to which they were subjected.
There existed amongst them, and especially in the southern countries, some very learned men, who devoted themselves principally to medicine; and in order to avoid having to struggle against insuperable prejudice, they were careful to disguise their nationality and religion in the exercise of that art.
[Illustration: Fig. 364.–The Jewish Procession going to meet the Pope at the Council of Constance, in 1417.–After a Miniature in the Manuscript Chronicle of Ulrie de Reichental, in the Library of the Mansion-house of Basle, in Switzerland.]
They pretended, in order not to arouse the suspicion of their patients, to be practitioners from Lombardy or Spain, or even from Arabia; whether they were really clever, or only made a pretence of being so, in an art which was then very much a compound of quackery and imposture, it is difficult to say, but they acquired wealth as well as renown in its practice. But there was another science, to the study of which they applied themselves with the utmost ardour and perseverance, and for which they possessed in a marvellous degree the necessary qualities to insure success, and that science was the science of finance. In matters having reference to the recovering of arrears of taxes, to contracts for the sale of goods and produce of industry, to turning a royalty to account, to making hazardous commercial enterprises lucrative, or to the accumulating of large sums of money for the use of sovereigns or poor nobles, the Jews were always at hand, and might invariably be reckoned upon. They created capital, for they always had funds to dispose of, even in the midst of the most terrible public calamities, and, when all other means were exhausted, when all expedients for filling empty purses had been resorted to without success, the Jews were called in. Often, in consequence of the envy which they excited from being known to possess hoards of gold, they were exposed to many dangers, which they nevertheless faced, buoying themselves up with the insatiable love of gain.
Few Christians in the Middle Ages were given to speculation, and they were especially ignorant of financial matters, as demanding interest on loans was almost always looked upon as usury, and, consequently, such dealings were stigmatized as disgraceful. The Jews were far from sharing these high-minded scruples, and they took advantage of the ignorance of Christians by devoting themselves as much as possible to enterprises and speculations, which were at all times the distinguishing occupation of their race. For this reason we find the Jews, who were engaged in the export trade from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, doing a most excellent business, even in the commercial towns of the Mediterranean. We can, to a certain extent, in speaking of the intercourse of the Jews with the Christians of the Middle Ages, apply what Lady Montague remarked as late as 1717, when comparing the Jews of Turkey with the Mussulmans: “The former,” she says, “have monopolized all the commerce of the empire, thanks to the close ties which exist amongst them, and to the laziness and want of industry of the Turks. No bargain is made without their connivance. They are the physicians and stewards of all the nobility. It is easy to conceive the unity which this gives to a nation which never despises the smallest profits. They have found means of rendering themselves so useful, that they are certain of protection at court, whoever the ruling minister may be. Many of them are enormously rich, but they are careful to make but little outward display, although living in the greatest possible luxury.”
[Illustration: Fig. 365.–Costume of an Italian Jew of the Fourteenth Century.–From a Painting by Sano di Pietro, preserved in the Academy of the Fine Arts, at Sienna.]
[Illustration: The Jews’ Passover.
Fac-simile of a miniature from a missel of fifteenth century ornamented with paintings of the School of Van Eyck. Bibl. de l’Arsenal, Th. lat., no 199.]
The condition of the Jews in the East was never so precarious nor so difficult as it was in the West. From the Councils of Paris, in 615, down to the end of the fifteenth century, the nobles and the civil and ecclesiastical authorities excluded the Jews from administrative positions; but it continually happened that a positive want of money, against which the Jews were ever ready to provide, caused a repeal or modification of these arbitrary measures. Moreover, Christians did not feel any scruple in parting with their most valued treasures, and giving them as pledges to the Jews for a loan of money when they were in need of it. This plan of lending on pledge, or usury, belonged specially to the Jews in Europe during the Middle Ages, and was both the cause of their prosperity and of their misfortune. Of their prosperity, because they cleverly contrived to become possessors of all the coin; and of their misfortune, because their usurious demands became so detrimental to the public welfare, and were often exacted with such unscrupulous severity, that people not unfrequently became exasperated, and acts of violence were committed, which as often fell upon the innocent as upon the guilty. The greater number of the acts of banishment were those for which no other motive was assigned, or, at all events, no other pretext was made, than the usury practised by these strangers in the provinces and in the towns in which they were permitted to reside. When the Christians heard that these rapacious guests had harshly pressed and entirely stripped certain poor debtors, when they learned that the debtors, ruined by usury, were still kept prisoners in the house of their pitiless creditors, general indignation often manifested itself by personal attacks. This feeling was frequently shared by the authorities themselves, who, instead of dispensing equal justice to the strangers and to the citizens, according to the spirit of the law, often decided with partiality, and even with resentment, and in some cases abandoned the Jews to the fury of the people.
The people’s feelings of hatred against the sordid avarice of the Jews was continually kept up by ballads which were sung, and legends which were related, in the public streets of the cities and in the cottages of the villages–ballads and legends in which usurers were depicted in hideous colours (Fig. 366). The most celebrated of these popular compositions was evidently that which must have furnished the idea to Shakespeare of the _Merchant of Venice_, for in this old English drama mention is made of a bargain struck between a Jew and a Christian, who borrows money of him, on condition that, if he cannot refund it on a certain day, the lender shall have the right of cutting a pound of flesh from his body. All the evil which the people said and thought of the Jews during the Middle Ages seems concentrated in the Shylock of the English poet.
The rate of interest for loans was, nevertheless, everywhere settled by law, and at all times. This rate varied according to the scarcity of gold, and was always high enough to give a very ample profit to the lenders, although they too often required a very much higher rate. In truth, the small security offered by those borrowing, and the arbitrary manner in which debts were at times cancelled, increased the risks of the lender and the normal difficulties of obtaining a loan. We find everywhere, in all ancient legislations, a mass of rules on the rate of pecuniary interest to be allowed to the Jews.
[Illustration: Fig. 366.–Legend of the Jew calling the Devil from a Vessel of Blood.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in Boaistuau’s “Histoires Prodigieuses:” in 4to, Paris, Annet Briere, 1560.]
In some countries, especially in England, precautionary measures were taken for regulating the compacts entered into between Christians and Jews. One of the departments of the Exchequer received the register of these compacts, which thus acquired a legal value. However, it was not unfrequent for the kings of England to grant, of their own free will, letters of release to persons owing money to Jews; and these letters, which were often equivalent to the cancelling of the entire debt, were even at times actually purchased from the sovereign. Mention of sums received by the royal treasury for the liberation of debtors, or for enabling them to recover their mortgaged lands without payment, may still be found in the registers of the Exchequer of London; at the same time, Jews, on the other hand, also paid the King large sums, in order that he might allow justice to take its course against powerful debtors who were in arrear, and who could not be induced to pay. We thus see that if the Jews practised usury, the Christians, and especially kings and powerful nobles, defrauded the Jews in every way, and were too often disposed to sell to them the smallest concessions at a great price. Indeed, Christians often went so far as to persecute them, in order to obtain the greatest possible amount from them; and the Jews of the Middle Ages put up with anything provided they could enrich themselves.
[Illustration: Fig. 367.–View and Plan of Jerusalem.–Fac-simile of a Woodout in the “Liber Chronicarum Mundi” large folio, Nuremberg, 1493.]
It must not be supposed, however, that, great as were their capabilities, the Jews exclusively devoted themselves to financial matters. When they were permitted to trade they were well satisfied to become artisans or agriculturists. In Spain they proved themselves most industrious, and that kingdom suffered a great loss in consequence of their being expelled from it. In whatever country they established themselves, the Jews carried on most of the mechanical and manual industries with cleverness and success; but they could not hope to become landed proprietors in countries where they were in such bad odour, and where the possession of land, far from offering them any security, could not fail to excite the envy of their enemies.
If, as is the case, Oriental people are of a serious turn of mind, it is easy to understand that the Jews should have been still more so, since they were always objects of hatred and abhorrence. We find a touching allegory in the Talmud. Each time that a human being is created God orders his angels to bring a soul before his throne, and orders this soul to go and inhabit the body which is about to be born on earth. The soul is grieved, and supplicates the Supreme Being to spare it that painful trial, in which it only sees sorrow and affliction. This allegory may be suitably applied to a people who have only to expect contempt, mistrust, and hatred, everywhere. The Israelites, therefore, clung enthusiastically to the hope of the advent of a Messiah who should bring back to them the happy days of the land of promise, and they looked upon their absence from Palestine as only a passing exile. “But,” the Christians said to them, “this Messiah has long since come.” “Alas!” they answered, “if He had appeared on earth should we still be miserable?” Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, preached three sermons to undeceive the Jews, by endeavouring to prove to them that their Messiah was no other than Jesus Christ; but he preached to the winds, for the Jews remained obstinately attached to their illusion that the Messiah was yet to come.
In any case, the Jews, who mixed up the mysteries and absurdities of the Talmud with the ancient laws and numerous rules of the religion of their ancestors, found in the practice of their national customs, and in the celebration of their mysterious ceremonies, the sweetest emotions, especially when they could devote themselves to them in the peaceful retirement of the Ghetto; for, in all the countries in which they lived scattered and isolated amongst Christians, they were careful to conceal their worship and to conduct their ceremonial as secretly as possible.
The clergy, in striving to convert the Jews, repeatedly had conferences with the rabbis of a controversial character, which often led to quarrels, and aggravated the lot of the Jewish community. If Catholic proselystism succeeded in completely detaching a few individuals or a few families from the Israelitish creed, these ardent converts rekindled the horror of the people against their former co-religionists by revealing some of the precepts of the Talmud. Sometimes the conversion of whole masses of Jews was effected, but this happened much less through conviction on their part than through the fear of exile, plunder, or execution.
These pretended conversions, however, did not always protect them from danger. In Spain the Inquisition kept a close watch on converted Jews, and, if they were not true to their new faith, severe punishment was inflicted upon them. In 1506, the inhabitants of Abrantes, a town of Portugal, massacred all the baptized Jews. Manoel, a king of Portugal, forbad the converts from selling their goods and leaving his dominions. The Church excluded them from ecclesiastical dignities, and, when they succeeded in obtaining civil employments, they were received with distrust. In France the Parliaments tried, with a show of justice, to prevent converted Jews from being reproached for their former condition; but Louis XII., during his pressing wants, did not scruple to exact a special tax from them. And, in 1611, we again find that they were unjustly denounced, and under the form of a _Remonstrance to the King and the Parliament of Provence, on account of the great family alliances of the new converts_, an appeal was made for the most cruel reprisals against this unfortunate race, “which deserved only to be banished and their goods confiscated.”
[Illustration: Fig. 368.–Jewish Ceremony before the Ark.–Fac-simile of a woodcut printed at Troyes.]
Gipsies, Tramps, Beggars, and Cours des Miracles.
First Appearance of Gipsies in the West.–Gipsies in Paris.–Manners and Customs of these Wandering Tribes.–Tricks of Captain Charles.–Gipsies expelled by Royal Edict.–Language of Gipsies.–The Kingdom of Slang.–The Great Coesre, Chief of the Vagrants; his Vassals and Subjects.–Divisions of the Slang People; its Decay and the Causes thereof.–Cours des Miracles.–The Camp of Rognes.–Cunning Language, or Slang.–Foreign Rogues, Thieves, and Pickpockets.
In the year 1417 the inhabitants of the countries situated near the mouth of the Elbe were disturbed by the arrival of strangers, whose manners and appearance were far from pre-possessing. These strange travellers took a course thence towards the Teutonic Hanse, starting from Luneburg: they subsequently proceeded to Hamburg, and then, going from east to west along the Baltic, they visited the free towns of Lubeck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, and Greifswald.
These new visitors, known in Europe under the names of _Zingari, Cigani, Gipsies, Gitanos, Egyptians_, or _Bohemians_, but who, in their own language, called themselves _Romi_, or _gens maries_, numbered about three hundred men and women, besides the children, who were very numerous. They divided themselves into seven bands, all of which followed the same track. Very dirty, excessively ugly, and remarkable for their dark complexions, these people had for their leaders a duke and a count, as they were called, who were superbly dressed, and to whom they acknowledged allegiance. Some of them rode on horseback, whilst others went on foot. The women and children travelled on beasts of burden and in waggons (Fig. 369). If we are to believe their own story, their wandering life was caused by their return to Paganism after having been previously converted to the Christian faith, and, as a punishment for their sin, they were to continue their adventurous course for a period of seven years. They showed letters of recommendation from various princes, among others from Sigismund, King of the Romans, and these letters, whether authentic or false, procured for them a welcome wherever they went. They encamped in the fields at night, because the habit they indulged in of stealing everything for which they had a fancy, caused them to fear being disturbed in the towns. It was not long, however, before many of them were arrested and put to death for theft, when the rest speedily decamped.
[Illustration: Fig. 369.–Gipsies on the March.–Fifteenth Century Piece of old Tapestry in the Chateau d’Effiat, contributed by M.A. Jubinal.]
In the course of the following year we find them at Meissen, in Saxony, whence they were driven out on account of the robberies and disturbances they committed; and then in Switzerland, where they passed through the countries of the Grisons, the cantons of Appenzell, and Zurich, stopping in Argovie. Chroniclers who mention them at that time speak of their chief, Michel, as Duke of Egypt, and relate that these strangers, calling themselves Egyptians, pretended that they were driven from their country by the Sultan of Turkey, and condemned to wander for seven years in want and misery. These chroniclers add that they were very honest people, who scrupulously followed all the practices of the Christian religion; that they were poorly clad, but that they had gold and silver in abundance; that they lived well, and paid for everything they had; and that, at the end of seven years, they went away to return home, as they said. However, whether because a considerable number remained on the road, or because they had been reinforced by others of the same tribe during the year, a troop of fifty men, accompanied by a number of hideous women and filthy children, made their appearance in the neighbourhood of Augsburg. These vagabonds gave out that they were exiles from Lower Egypt, and pretended to know the art of predicting coming events. It was soon found out that they were much less versed in divination and in the occult sciences than in the arts of plundering, roguery, and cheating.
In the following year a similar horde, calling themselves Saracens, appeared at Sisteron, in Provence; and on the 18th. of July, 1422, a chronicler of Bologna mentions the arrival in that town of a troop of foreigners, commanded by a certain Andre, Duke of Egypt, and composed of at least one hundred persons, including women and children. They encamped inside and outside the gate _di Galiera_, with the exception of the duke, who lodged at the inn _del Re_. During the fifteen days which they spent at Bologna a number of the people of the town went to see them, and especially to see “the wife of the duke,” who, it was said, knew how to foretell future events, and to tell what was to happen to people, what their fortunes would be, the number of their children, if they were good or bad, and many other things (Fig. 370). Few men, however, left the house of the so-called Duke of Egypt without having their purses stolen, and but few women escaped without having the skirts of their dresses cut. The Egyptian women walked about the town in groups of six or seven, and whilst some were talking to the townspeople, telling them their fortunes, or bartering in shops, one of their number would lay her hands on anything which was within reach. So many robberies were committed in this way, that the magistrates of the town and the ecclesiastical authorities forbad the inhabitants from visiting the Egyptians’ camp, or from having any intercourse with them, under penalty of excommunication and of a fine of fifty livres. Besides this, by a strange application of the laws of retaliation, those who had been robbed by these foreigners were permitted to rob them to the extent of the value of the things stolen. In consequence of this, the Bolognians entered a stable in which several of the Egyptians’ horses were kept, and took out one of the finest of them. In order to recover him the Egyptians agreed to restore what they had taken, and the restitution was made. But perceiving that they could no longer do any good for themselves in this province, they struck their tents and started for Rome, to which city they said they were bound to go, not only in order to accomplish a pilgrimage imposed upon them by the Sultan, who had expelled them from their own land, but especially to obtain letters of absolution from the Holy Father.
[Illustration: Fig. 370.–Gipsies Fortune-telling.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.]
In 1422 the band left Italy, and we find them at Basle and in Suabia. Then, besides the imperial passports, of which they had up to that time alone boasted, they pretended to have in their possession bulls which they stated that they had obtained from the Pope. They also modified their original tale, and stated that they were descendants of the Egyptians who refused hospitality to the Holy Virgin and to St. Joseph during their flight into Egypt: they also declared that, in consequence of this crime, God had doomed their race to perpetual misery and exile.
Five years later we find them in the neighbourhood of Paris. “The Sunday after the middle of August,” says “The Journal of a Bourgeois of Paris,” “there came to Paris twelve so-called pilgrims, that is to say, a duke, a count, and ten men, all on horseback; they said that they were very good Christians, and that they came from Lower Egypt; … and on the 29th of August, the anniversary of the beheading of St. John, the rest of the band made their appearance. These, however, were not allowed to enter Paris, but, by order of the provost, were lodged in the Chapel of St. Denis. They did not number more than one hundred and twenty, including women and children. They stated that, when they left their own country, they numbered from a thousand to twelve hundred, but that the rest had died on the road….. Whilst they were at the chapel never was such a concourse of people collected, even at the blessing of the fair of Landit, as went from Paris, St. Denis, and elsewhere, to see these strangers. Almost all of them had their ears pierced, and in each one or two silver rings, which in their country, they said, was a mark of nobility. The men were very swarthy, with curly hair; the women were very ugly, and extremely dark, with long black hair, like a horse’s tail; their only garment being an old rug tied round the shoulder by a strip of cloth or a bit of rope (Fig. 371). Amongst them were several fortune-tellers, who, by looking into people’s hands, told them what had happened or what was to happen to them, and by this means often did a good deal to sow discord in families. What was worse, either by magic, by Satanic agency, or by sleight of hand, they managed to empty people’s purses whilst talking to them…. So, at least, every one said. At last accounts respecting them reached the ears of the Bishop of Paris. He went to them with a Franciscan friar, called Le Petit Jacobin, who, by the bishop’s order, delivered an earnest address to them, and excommunicated all those who had anything to do with them, or who had their fortunes told. He further advised the gipsies to go away, and, on the festival of Notre-Dame, they departed for Pontoise.”
[Illustration: Fig. 371.–A Gipsy Family.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.]
Here, again, the gipsies somewhat varied their story. They said that they were originally Christians; but that, in consequence of an invasion by the Saracens, they had been forced to renounce their religion; that, at a subsequent period, powerful monarchs had come to free them from the yoke of the infidels, and had decreed that, as a punishment to them for having renounced the Christian faith, they should not be allowed to return to their country before they had obtained permission from the Pope. They stated that the Holy Father, to whom they had gone to confess their sins, had then ordered them to wander about the world for seven years, without sleeping in beds, at the same time giving direction to every bishop and every priest whom they met to offer them ten livres; a direction which the abbots and bishops were in no hurry to obey. These strange pilgrims stated that they had been only five years on the road when they arrived in Paris.
Enough has been said to show that, although the object of their long pilgrimage was ostensibly a pious one, the Egyptians or gipsies were not very slow in giving to the people whom they visited a true estimate of their questionable honesty, and we do not think it would be particularly interesting to follow step by step the track of this odious band, which from this period made its appearance sometimes in one country and sometimes in another, not only in the north but in the south, and especially in the centre of Europe. Suffice it to say that their quarrels with the authorities, or the inhabitants of the countries which had the misfortune to be periodically visited by them, have left numerous traces in history.
On the 7th of November, 1453, from sixty to eighty gipsies, coming from Courtisolles, arrived at the entrance of the town of Cheppe, near Chalons-sur-Marne. The strangers, many of whom carried “javelins, darts, and other implements of war,” having asked for hospitality, the mayor of the town informed them “that it was not long since some of the same company, or others very like them, had been lodged in the town, and had been guilty of various acts of theft.” The gipsies persisted in their demands, the indignation of the people was aroused, and they were soon obliged to resume their journey. During their unwilling retreat, they were pursued by many of the inhabitants of the town, one of whom killed a gipsy named Martin de la Barre: the murderer, however, obtained the King’s pardon.
In 1532, at Pleinpalais, a suburb of Geneva, some rascals from among a band of gipsies, consisting of upwards of three hundred in number, fell upon several of the officers who were stationed to prevent their entering the town. The citizens hurried up to the scene of disturbance. The gipsies retired to the monastery of the Augustin friars, in which they fortified themselves: the bourgeois besieged them, and would have committed summary justice on them, but the authorities interfered, and some twenty of the vagrants were arrested, but they sued for mercy, and were discharged.
[Illustration: Fig. 372.–Gipsy Encampment.–Fac-simile of a Copper-plate by Callot.]
In 1632, the inhabitants of Viarme, in the Department of Lot-et-Garonne, made an onslaught upon a troop of gipsies who wanted to take up their quarters in that town. The whole of them were killed, with the exception of their chief, who was taken prisoner and brought before the Parliament of Bordeaux, and ordered to be hung. Twenty-one years before this, the mayor and magistrates of Bordeaux gave orders to the soldiers of the watch to arrest a gipsy chief, who, having shut himself up in the tower of Veyrines, at Merignac, ransacked the surrounding country. On the 21st of July, 1622, the same magistrates ordered the gipsies to leave the parish of Eysines within twenty-four hours, under penalty of the lash.
It was not often that the gipsies used violence or openly resisted authority; they more frequently had recourse to artifice and cunning in order to attain their end. A certain Captain Charles acquired a great reputation amongst them for the clever trickeries which he continually conceived, and which his troop undertook to carry out. A chronicler of the time says, that by means of certain herbs which he gave to a half-starved horse, he made him into a fat and sleek animal; the horse was then sold at one of the neighbouring fairs or markets, but the purchaser detected the fraud within a week, for the horse soon became thin again, and usually sickened and died.
Tallemant des Reaux relates that, on one occasion, Captain Charles and his attendants took up their quarters in a village, the cure of which being rich and parsimonious, was much disliked by his parishioners. The cure never left his house, and the gipsies could not, therefore, get an opportunity to rob him. In this difficulty, they pretended that one of them had committed a crime, and had been condemned to be hung a quarter of a league from the village, where they betook themselves with all their goods. The man, at the foot of the gibbet, asked for a confessor, and they went to fetch the cure. He, at first, refused to go, but his parishioners compelled him. During his absence some gipsies entered his house, took five hundred ecus from his strong box, and quickly rejoined the troop. As soon as the rascal saw them returning, he said that he appealed to the king of _la petite Egypte_, upon which the captain exclaimed, “Ah! the traitor! I expected he would appeal.” Immediately they packed up, secured the prisoner, and were far enough away from the scene before the cure re-entered his house.
Tallemant relates another good trick. Near Roye, in Picardy, a gipsy who had stolen a sheep offered it to a butcher for one hundred sous (about sixty francs of our money), but the butcher declined to give more than four livres for it. The butcher then went away; whereupon the gipsy pulled the sheep from a sack into which he had put it, and substituted for it a child belonging to his tribe. He then ran after the butcher, and said, “Give me five livres, and you shall have the sack into the bargain.” The butcher paid him the money, and went away. When he got home he opened the sack, and was much astonished when he saw a little boy jump out of it, who, in an instant, caught up the sack and ran off. “Never was a poor man so thoroughly hoaxed as this butcher,” says Tallemant des Reaux.
The gipsies had thousands of other tricks in stock as good as the ones we have just related, in proof of which we have but to refer to the testimony of one of their own tribe, who, under the name of Pechon de Ruby, published, towards the close of the sixteenth century, “La Vie Genereuse des Mattois, Guex, Bohemiens, et Cagoux.” “When they want to leave a place where they have been stopping, they set out in an opposite direction to that in which they are going, and after travelling about half a league they take their right course. They possess the best and most accurate maps, in which are laid down not only all the towns, villages, and rivers, but also the houses of the gentry and others; and they fix upon places of rendezvous every ten days, at twenty leagues from the point from whence they set out…. The captain hands over to each of the chiefs three or four families to take charge of, and these small bands take different cross-roads towards the place of rendezvous. Those who are well armed and mounted he sends off with a good almanac, on which are marked all the fairs, and they continually change their dress and their horses. When they take up their quarters in any village they steal very little in its immediate vicinity, but in the neighbouring parishes they rob and plunder in the most daring manner. If they find a sum of money they give notice to the captain, and make a rapid flight from the place. They coin counterfeit money, and put it into circulation. They play at all sorts of games; they buy all sorts of horses; whether sound or unsound, provided they can manage to pay for them in their own base coin. When they buy food they pay for it in good money the first time, as they are held in such distrust; but, when they are about to leave a neighbourhood, they again buy something, for which they tender false coin, receiving the change in good money. In harvest time all doors are shut against them; nevertheless they contrive, by means of picklocks and other instruments, to effect an entrance into houses, when they steal linen, cloaks, silver, and any other movable article which they can lay their hands on. They give a strict account of everything to their captain, who takes his share of all they get, except of what they earn by fortune-telling. They are very clever at making a good bargain; when they know of a rich merchant being in the place, they disguise themselves, enter into communications with him, and swindle him, … after which they change their clothes, have their horses shod the reverse way, and the shoes covered with some soft material lest they should be heard, and gallop away.”
[Illustration: Fig. 373.–The Gipsy who used to wash his Hands in Molten Lead.–Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Histoires Merveilleuses” of Pierre Boaistuau: in 4to, 1560.]
In the “Histoire Generale des Larrons” we read that the vagabonds called gipsies sometimes played tricks with goblets, sometimes danced on the tight-rope, turned double-somersaults, and performed other feats (Fig. 373), which proves that these adventurers adopted all kinds of methods of gaining a livelihood, highway robbery not excepted. We must not, therefore, be surprised if in almost all countries very severe police measures were taken against this dangerous race, though we must admit that these measures sometimes partook of a barbarous character.
After having forbidden them, with a threat of six years at the galleys, to sojourn in Spain, Charles V. ordered them to leave Flanders under penalty of death. In 1545, a gipsy who had infringed the sentence of banishment was condemned by the Court of Utrecht to be flogged till the blood appeared, to have his nostrils slit, his hair removed, his beard shaved off, and to be banished for life. “We can form some idea,” says the German historian Grellman, “of the miserable condition of the gipsies from the following facts: many of them, and especially the women, have been burned by their own request, in order to end their miserable state of existence; and we can give the case of a gipsy who, having been arrested, flogged, and conducted to the frontier, with the threat that if he reappeared in the country he would be hanged, resolutely returned after three successive and similar threats, at three different places, and implored that the capital sentence might be carried out, in order that he might be released from a life of such misery. These unfortunate people,” continues the historian, “were not even looked upon as human beings, for, during a hunting party, consisting of members of a small German court, the huntsmen had no scruple whatever in killing a gipsy woman who was suckling her child, just as they would have done any wild beast which came in their way.”
M. Francisque Michel says, “Amongst the questions which arise from a consideration of the existence of this remarkable people, is one which, although neglected, is nevertheless of considerable interest, namely, how, with a strange language, unlike any used in Europe, the gipsies could make themselves understood by the people amongst whom they made their appearance for the first time: newly arrived in the west, they could have none of those interpreters who are only to be found amongst a long-established people, and who have political and commercial intercourse with other nations. Where, then, did the gipsies obtain interpreters? The answer seems to us to be clear. Receiving into their ranks all those whom crime, the fear of punishment, an uneasy conscience, or the charm of a roaming life, continually threw in their path, they made use of them either to find their way into countries of which they were ignorant, or to commit robberies which would otherwise have been impracticable. Themselves adepts in all sorts of bad practices, they were not slow to form an alliance with profligate characters who sometimes worked in concert with them, and sometimes alone, and who always framed the model for their own organization from that of the gipsies.”
[Illustration: Fig. 374.–Orphans, _Callots_, and the Family of the Grand Coesre.–From painted Hangings and Tapestry from the Town of Rheims, executed during the Fifteenth Century.]
This alliance–governed by statutes, the honour of compiling which has been given to a certain Ragot, who styled himself captain–was composed of _matois_, or sharpers; of _mercelots_, or hawkers, who were very little better than the former; of _gueux_, or dishonest beggars, and of a host of other swindlers, constituting the order or hierarchy of the _Argot_, or Slang people. Their chief was called the _Grand Coesre_, “a vagabond broken to all the tricks of his trade,” says M. Francisque Michel, and who frequently ended his days on the rack or the gibbet. History has furnished us with the story of a “miserable cripple” who used to sit in a wooden bowl, and who, after having been Grand Coesre for three years, was broken alive on the wheel at Bordeaux for his crimes. He was called _Roi de Tunes_ (Tunis), and was drawn about by two large dogs. One of his successors, the Grand Coesre surnamed Anacreon, who suffered from the same infirmity, namely, that of a cripple, rode about Paris on a donkey begging. He generally held his court on the Port-au-Foin, where he sat on his throne dressed in a mantle made of a thousand pieces. The Grand Coesre had a lieutenant in each province called _cagou_, whose business it was to initiate apprentices in the secrets of the craft, and who looked after, in different localities, those whom the chief had entrusted to his care. He gave an account of the property he received in thus exercising his stewardship, and of the money as well as of the clothing which he took from the _Argotiers_ who refused to recognise his authority. As a remuneration for their duties, the cagoux were exempt from all tribute to their chief; they received their share of the property taken from persons whom they had ordered to be robbed, and they were free to beg in any way they pleased. After the cagoux came the _archisuppots_, who, being recruited from the lowest dregs of the clergy and others who had been in a better position, were, so to speak, the teachers of the law. To them was intrusted the duty of instructing the less experienced rogues, and of determining the language of Slang; and, as a reward for their good and loyal services, they had the right of begging without paying any fees to their chiefs.
[Illustration: Fig. 375.–The Blind and the Poor Sick of St. John.–From painted Hangings and Tapestry in the Town of Rheims, executed during the Fifteenth Century.]
The Grand Coesre levied a tax of twenty-four sous per annum upon the young rogues, who went about the streets pretending to shed tears (Fig. 374), as “helpless orphans,” in order to excite public sympathy. The _marcandiers_ had to pay an ecu; they were tramps clothed in a tolerably good doublet, who passed themselves off as merchants ruined by war, by fire, or by having been robbed on the highway. The _malingreux_ had to pay forty sous; they were covered with sores, most of which were self-inflicted, or they pretended to have swellings of some kind, and stated that they were about to undertake a pilgrimage to St. Meen, in Brittany, in order to be cured. The _pietres_, or lame rogues, paid half an ecu, and walked with crutches. The _sabouleux_, who were commonly called the _poor sick of St. John_, were in the habit of frequenting fairs and markets, or the vicinity of churches; there, smeared with blood and appearing as if foaming at the mouth by means of a piece of soap they had placed in it, they struggled on the ground as if in a fit, and in this way realised a considerable amount of alms. These consequently paid the largest fees to the Coesre (Fig. 375).
[Illustration: Fig. 376.–The _Ruffes_ and the _Millards_.–From painted Hangings and Tapestry of Rheims, executed about the Fifteenth Century.]
Besides these, there were the _callots_, who were either affected with a scurfy disease or pretended to be so, and who were contributors to the civil list of their chief to the amount of sevens sous; as also the _coquillards_, or pretended pilgrims of St. James or St. Michael; and the _hubins_, who, according to the forged certificate which they carried with them, were going to, or returning from, St. Hubert, after having been bitten by a mad dog. The _polissons_ paid two ecus to the Coesre, but they earned a considerable amount, especially in winter; for benevolent people, touched with their destitution and half-nakedness, gave them sometimes a doublet, sometimes a shirt, or some other article of clothing, which of course they immediately sold. The _francs mitoux_, who were never taxed above five sous, were sickly members of the fraternity, or at all events pretended to be such; they tied their arms above the elbow so as to stop the pulse, and fell down apparently fainting on the public footpaths. We must also mention the _ruffes_ and the _millards_, who went into the country in groups begging (Fig. 376). The _capons_ were cut-purses, who hardly ever left the towns, and who laid hands on everything within their reach. The _courtauds de boutanche_ pretended to be workmen, and were to be met with everywhere with the tools of their craft on their back, though they never used them. The _convertis_ pretended to have been impressed by the exhortations of some excellent preacher, and made a public profession of faith; they afterwards stationed themselves at church doors, as recently converted Catholics, and in this way received liberal contributions.
Lastly, we must mention the _drilles_, the _narquois_, or the people of the _petite flambe_, who for the most part were old pensioners, and who begged in the streets from house to house, with their swords at their sides (Fig. 377). These, who at times lived a racketing and luxurious life, at last rebelled against the Grand Coesre, and would no longer be reckoned among his subjects–a step which gave a considerable shock to the Argotic monarchy.
[Illustration: Fig. 377.–The _Drille_ or _Narquois_.–From painted Hangings from the Town of Rheims (Fifteenth Century).]
[Illustration: Fig. 378.–Perspective View of Paris in 1607.–Fac-simile of a Copper-plate by Leonard Gaultier. (Collection of M. Guenebault, Paris.)]
There was another cause which greatly contributed to diminish the power as well as the prestige of this eccentric sovereign, and this was, that the cut-purses, the night-prowlers and wood-thieves, not finding sufficient means of livelihood in their own department, and seeing that the Argotiers, on the contrary, were always in a more luxurious position, tried to amalgamate robbery with mendicity, which raised an outcry amongst these sections of their community. The archisuppots and the cagoux at first declined such an alliance, but eventually they were obliged to admit all, with the exception of the wood-thieves, who were altogether excluded. In the seventeenth century, therefore, in order to become a thorough Argotier, it was necessary not only to solicit alms like any mere beggar, but also to possess the dexterity of the cut-purse and the thief. These arts were to be learned in the places which served as the habitual rendezvous of the very dregs of society, and which were generally known as the _Cours des Miracles_. These houses, or rather resorts, had been so called, if we are to believe a writer of the early part of the seventeenth century, “Because rogues … and others, who have all day been cripples, maimed, dropsical, and beset with every sort of bodily ailment, come home at night, carrying under their arms a sirloin of beef, a joint of veal, or a leg of mutton, not forgetting to hang a bottle of wine to their belt, and, on entering the court, they throw aside their crutches, resume their healthy and lusty appearance, and, in imitation of the ancient Bacchanalian revelries, dance all kinds of dances with their trophies in their hands, whilst the host is preparing their suppers. Can there be a greater _miracle_ than is to be seen in this court, where the maimed walk upright?”
[Illustration: Fig. 379.–_Cour des Miracles_ of Paris. Talebot the Hunchback, a celebrated Scamp during the Seventeenth Century.–From an old Engraving in the Collection of Engravings in the National Library of Paris.]
In Paris there were several _Cours des Miracles_, but the most celebrated was that which, from the time of Sauval, the singular historian of the “Antiquities of Paris,” to the middle of the seventeenth century, preserved this generic name _par excellence_, and which exists to this day (Fig. 379). He says, “It is a place of considerable size, and is in an unhealthy, muddy, and irregular blind alley. Formerly it was situated on the outskirts of Paris, now it is in one of the worst built, dirtiest, and most out-of-the-way quarters of the town, between the Rue Montorgueil, the convent of the Filles-Dieu, and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Sauveur. To get there one must wander through narrow, close, and by-streets; and in order to enter it, one must descend a somewhat winding and rugged declivity. In this place I found a mud house, half buried, very shaky from old age and rottenness, and only eight metres square; but in which, nevertheless, some fifty families are living, who have the charge of a large number of children, many of whom are stolen or illegitimate…. I was assured that upwards of five hundred large families occupy that and other houses adjoining…. Large as this court is, it was formerly even bigger…. Here, without any care for the future, every one enjoys the present; and eats in the evening what he has earned during the day with so much trouble, and often with so many blows; for it is one of the fundamental rules of the Cour des Miracles never to lay by anything for the morrow. Every one who lives there indulges in the utmost licentiousness; both religion and law are utterly ignored…. It is true that outwardly they appear to acknowledge a God; for they have set up in a niche an image of God the Father, which they have stolen from some church, and before which they come daily to offer up certain prayers; but this is only because they superstitiously imagine that by this means they are released from the necessity of performing the duties of Christians to their pastor and their parish, and are even absolved from the sin of entering a church for the purpose of robbery and purse-cutting.”
Paris, the capital of the kingdom of rogues, was not the only town which possessed a Cour des Miracles, for we find here and there, especially at Lyons and Bordeaux, some traces of these privileged resorts of rogues and thieves, which then flourished under the sceptre of the Grand Coesre. Sauval states, on the testimony of people worthy of credit, that at Sainte-Anne d’Auray, the most holy place of pilgrimage in Brittany, under the superintendence of the order of reformed Carmelite friars, there was a large field called the _Rogue’s Field_. This was covered with mud huts; and here the Grand Coesre resorted annually on the principal solemn festivals, with his officers and subjects, in order “to hold his council of state,” that is to say, in order to settle and arrange respecting robbery. At these _state_ meetings, which were not always held at Sainte-Anne d’Auray, all the subjects of the Grand Coesre were present, and paid homage to their lord and master. Some came and paid him the tribute which was required of them by the statutes of the craft; others rendered him an account of what they had done, and what they had earned during the year. When they had executed their work badly, he ordered them to be punished, either corporally or pecuniarily, according to the gravity of their offences. When he had not himself properly governed his people, he was dethroned, and a successor was appointed by acclamation.
[Illustration: Fig. 380.–Beggar playing the Fiddle, and his Wife accompanying him with the Bones.–From an old Engraving of the Seventeenth Century.]
At these assemblies, as well as in the Cours des Miracles, French was not spoken, but a strange and artificial language was used called _jargon_, _langue matoise, narquois_, &c. This language, which is still in use under the name of _argot_, or slang, had for the most part been borrowed from the jargon or slang of the lower orders. To a considerable extent, according to the learned philologist of this mysterious language, M. Francisque Michel, it was composed of French words lengthened or abbreviated; of proverbial expressions; of words expressing the symbols of things instead of the things themselves; of terms either intentionally or unintentionally altered from their true meaning; and of words which resembled other words in sound, but which had not the same signification. Thus, for mouth, they said _pantiere_, from _pain_ (bread), which they put into it; the arms were _lyans_ (binders); an ox was a _cornant_ (horned); a purse, a _fouille_, or _fouillouse_; a cock, a _horloge_, or timepiece; the legs, _des quilles_ (nine-pins); a sou, a _rond_, or round thing; the eyes, _des luisants_ (sparklers), &c. In jargon several words were also taken from the ancient language of the gipsies, which testifies to the part which these vagabonds played in the formation of the Argotic community. For example, a shirt was called _lime_; a chambermaid, _limogere;_ sheets, _limans_–words all derived from the gipsy word _lima_, a shirt: they called an ecu, a _rusquin_ or _rougesme_, from _rujia_, the common word for money; a rich man, _rupin_; a house, _turne_; a knife, _chourin_, from _rup, turna_, and _chori_, which, in the gipsy tongue, mean respectively silver, castle, and knife.
From what we have related about rogues and the Cours des Miracles, one might perhaps be tempted to suppose that France was specially privileged; but it was not so, for Italy was far worse in this respect. The rogues were called by the Italians _bianti_, or _ceretani_, and were subdivided into more than forty classes, the various characteristics of which have been described by a certain Rafael Frianoro. It is not necessary to state that the analogue of more than one of these classes is to be found in the short description we have given of the Argotic kingdom in France. We will therefore only mention those which were more especially Italian. It must not be forgotten that in the southern countries, where religions superstition was more marked than elsewhere, the numerous family of rogues had no difficulty in practising every description of imposture, inasmuch as they trusted to the various manifestations of religions feeling to effect their purposes. Thus the _affrati_, in order to obtain more alms and offerings, went about in the garb of monks and priests, even saying mass, and pretending that it was the first time they had exercised their sacred office. So the _morghigeri_ walked behind a donkey, carrying a bell and a lamp, with their string of beads in their hands, and asking how they were to pay for the bell, which they were always “just going to buy.” The _felsi_ pretended that they were divinely inspired and endowed with the gift of second sight, and announced that there were hidden treasures in certain houses under the guardianship of evil spirits. They asserted that these treasures could not be discovered without danger, except by means of fastings and offerings, which they and their brethren could alone make, in consideration of which they entered into a bargain, and received a certain sum of money from the owners. The _accatosi_ deserve mention on account of the cleverness with which they contrived to assume the appearance of captives recently escaped from slavery. Shaking the chains with which they said they had been bound, jabbering unintelligible words, telling heart-rending tales of their sufferings and privations, and showing the marks of blows which they had received, they went on their knees, begging for money that they might buy off their brethren or their friends, whom they said they had left in the hands of the Saracens or the Turks, We must