The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times

The hideous figure of Peter the Hermit re-appeared above the balustrade. He leaned his head forward and contemplated the remains of the Saracen. "Well done, my children!" The monk had hardly disappeared again, when two youths of fifteen to sixteen years, brothers no doubt, and bound face to face, were thrown down from the terrace. The violence of the fall snapped the bands that held them together. The elder was killed on the spot, the younger's legs were broken. For a few moments he dragged himself on his hands, moaning piteously and seeking to approach his brother's corpse. The Crusaders pounced upon these new victims. Women, monsters in human form, pulled out their entrails, indulged in obscene and infamous mutilations upon the two corpses, and throwing into the air the bleeding parts, cried out exultingly: "Let's exterminate the infidels! God wills it!"

Twenty times did Peter the Hermit re-appear on the terrace, and twenty times were bodies thrown down over the balustrade, and torn to pieces by the crowd, drunk with bloodshed. Among these victims were five young girls and two other boys from ten to twelve years of age.

All the inhabitants of Jerusalem who were captured, even those who had paid ransom for their lives – men, women and children – all, to the number of seventy thousand human beings, were thus massacred. The extermination lasted two days and three nights, obedient to the following order of the seigneur Tancred, one of the heroes of the Crusade: "We consider it necessary to put to the sword without delay both the prisoners and those who paid ransom."

The last of the victims, cast at the mob by Peter the Hermit, were being massacred, when another band of Crusaders, running up from the other end of the street and marching towards the large square, passed by shouting: "The people of Tancred are pillaging the Mosque of Omar. * * * By all the saints of Paradise and all the devils of hell, we want our part of the booty!"

"And we stay here amusing ourselves with corpses!" cried out the butchers under Peter the Hermit's terrace. "Let's on to the mosque! To the sack! To the sack!"

Again Fergan was carried by the torrent of the crowd and arrived upon a spacious square littered with Saracen corpses, seeing that, after the assault had succeeded, the Saracens had retreated, fighting from street to street, and drawn themselves up before the mosque, where a last battle was delivered. At that place, these heroes were all killed defending the temple, the refuge of the women, the children and the old men, too feeble to fight, and who relied upon the pity and mercy of the vanquishers. Easier far had it been to excite the pity of a hungry tiger than that of the Crusaders.

Several tiers of marble stairs led down to the Mosque of Omar, whose floor was about three feet below the level of the street. Such had been the butchery indulged in by the Crusaders, and so much blood had run down into the temple, which measured more than one thousand feet in circumference, that the blood, rising above the first stairs, began to run over into the square. The interior of the Mosque of Omar offered to the eye but one vast sheet of blood, still warm, and the vapor of which rose like a light mist above an innumerable mass of corpses, here wholly, yonder only partially submerged in the red lake, where heads and members hacked from the trunk with hatchets, were seen floating at large. Of the Crusaders who entered the Mosque of Omar for pillage, some waded in blood to their waists. The warmth of the flowing blood and the site of the shocking butchery made Fergan reel with dizziness. His heart thumped against his ribs and his strength gave way. In vain he sought support against one of the porphyry columns at the facade of the mosque. He dropped down unconscious, his legs steeped in blood.

Fergan knew not how long he remained in that condition. When he regained consciousness it was night. The brightness of a large number of torches struck his eye. Religious songs, repeated in chorus by thousands of voices, fell upon his ears. Flanked by two files of soldiers, who marched in measured tread with torches in their hands, he saw a long procession pass by the temple. The procession wended its way to the Mount of Golgotha, close to the Church of the Resurrection, where stood the sepulchre of Jesus. At the head of the procession triumphantly marched the legate of the Pope, Peter the Hermit and the clergy, chanting praises to the All-powerful; after them the chiefs of the Crusaders, among them William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, clad in an old sack and smiting his breast. These were followed by the train-bands of the seigneurs, together with a multitude of soldiers, men, women, children and pilgrims, singing in chorus Laudate Creator. The crowd was so numerous that when the prelates and the chiefs of the Crusade, who headed the procession, reached the front of the Church of the Resurrection, the last ranks were still crowding upon each other in the middle of the square of the mosque. Other Crusaders marched outside of the two files of torch-bearing soldiers.

When Fergan approached the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, brilliantly lighted within, he heard loud roars of laughter mingled with maudlin imprecations. The King of the Vagabonds and his band, in company with their wenches, all drunk with wine and carnage, had taken possession of the holy place, and had begun to pillage it of its ornaments. At the center of the sanctuary stood Perrette the Ribald, her hair disheveled like a Bacchante's.

PART III.
THE COMMUNE OF LAON

CHAPTER I.
THE RISE OF THE COMMUNES

For centuries Laon had for its temporal seigneur the bishop of the diocese, and figured from the start among the foremost cities of Picardy. Since the Frankish conquest, and down to the date of the events here narrated (1112), Laon constituted a part of the special domains of the kings. Clovis made himself master of the city through the treason of Saint Remy, who baptized that crowned bandit at Rheims. Clovis' wife, Clotilde, founded in the city the collegiate church of Saint Peter, and later Brunhild built a palace there. A bishop of Laon, Adalberon, the paramour of Queen Imma, was her accomplice in the poisoning of Lothair, the father of Louis the Indolent, – a homocidal example that was soon imitated upon himself by his Queen, Blanche, another adulterous poisoner, who, through the murder committed by her, confirmed the usurpation of Hugh Capet, to the injury of the last Carlovingian king. Charles, Duke of Lorraine, the uncle of Louis the Indolent, having become through the latter's death the heritor of the crown of the Frankish kings, took possession of Laon. Hugh Capet besieged him there, and, after several assaults, succeeded in capturing the city, thanks to the connections that Adalberon, the adulterer and poisoning bishop, had preserved in the place. Since then, Laon continued as a sovereign ecclesiastical seigniory, but always under the suzerainty of the French King. In the year 1112, the date of this narrative, the reigning king was named Louis the Lusty. As obese as, but much less indolent than his father, Philip I, the excommunicated lover of the handsome Berthrade who died in 1108, Louis the Lusty did not, like his father, submit to the affronts and vexations of the feudal seigneurs; he waged war to the knife against them to the end of extending with their spoils his own domains, that then took in only Paris, Melun, Compiegne, Etampes, Orleans, Montlhery, Puiset and Corbeil. Thus, in addition to the scourge of the private wars among the seigneurs, the people bent under the affliction of the wars of the king against the seigneurs, and of the Normans against the king. The Normans, the descendants of old Rolf the Pirate, had conquered England under their duke William. But, although settled down in that ultramarine country, the Kings of England preserved in Gaul the duchy of Normandy and Gisors, and from thence dominated the territory of Vexin, almost to the gates of Paris, waging incessant war upon Louis the Lusty. Thus Gaul continued to be ravaged by bloody strifes, with none other than the people, the serfs and villeins, as the perpetual victims. The wretched agricultural plebs, decimated by the execrable craze of the Crusades, that held out despite the recapture of Jerusalem by the Turks, found itself crushed by a double burden, their decreased numbers being compelled by increased labor to provide for the needs, the prodigalities and the debaucheries of the clergy and the seigneurs.

The bourgeois and other townsmen, better organized, better able to realize their power, above all more enlightened than the serfs of the fields, had revolted in many cities against their lay or ecclesiastical seigneurs, and, by dint of daring, of energy and stubbornness, had, at the price of their own blood, regained their freedom and secured the abolition of the degrading and shameful rights that the feudal families had been long enjoying. A small number of cities, even without resorting to arms, had, by virtue of great pecuniary sacrifices, purchased their enfranchisement from the seigniorial rights, with round sums of money. Delivered from their former secular and creed servitude, the city populations celebrated with enthusiasm all the circumstances connected with their emancipation. Thus, on April 15, 1112, the bourgeois merchants and artisans of the city of Laon were in gala since early morning. From one side to the other of the streets, male and female neighbors called one another from their windows and exchanged gladsome salutations.

"Well, neighbor," said one, "the bright anniversary of the inauguration of our Commune Hall and belfry has arrived!"

"Do not mention it, neighbor; I have not slept all night! With my wife and children we were up till three o'clock in the morning burnishing up my iron casque and coat of mail. Our armed militia will add great luster to the ceremony. May God be praised for this great day!"

"And the procession of our artisans' guilds will be no less superb! Would you believe it, neighbor, that I, who during all my life of a carpenter have not, as you may imagine, ever held a needle in my hands, helped my wife to sew together the stripes of our new banner?"

"Thank God, the weather will be beautiful for the ceremony. Look how clear and brilliant the dawn is!"

"Couldn't be otherwise! Such a feast could not lack good weather. I expect that when I shall hear for the first time the peals from our communal belfry every clank will make my heart bound!"

These dialogues and many others, naive testimony of the joy of the inhabitants of Laon, took place along the length of all the streets from house to house, from the humblest to the richest. Almost all the windows, opened since the break of day, exposed to view the laughing faces of men, women and children, all actively engaged with preparations for the festivities.

The gladsome stir in almost all the quarters of the city, rendered all the more striking the gloomy and sombre and, so to say, sullen aspect of a certain number of dwellings of ancient architecture, and whose gates were, as a rule, flanked by two turrets with pointed roofs, surmounted with a weather-vane. Not a chink of these dwellings, blackish with age, was open on this morning. They belonged to the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the metropolitan church, or to noble knights, who, not owning estates large enough to live in the country, inhabited the cities, and ever sided against the bourgeois and with the lay or ecclesiastical seigneur. Accordingly, in Laon, these clergymen and knights were designated as the episcopals, while the inhabitants, who, according to the language of the day, "took the oath of the Commune," were called the communiers. The antique turrets of the dwellings of the episcopals were at once a species of fortification and a symbol of the nobility of their origin. On that morning, these dwellings, silent and shut up, seemed to denote the displeasure given to the noble episcopals by the rejoicings of the Laonese laboring classes.

CHAPTER II.
THE CHARTER OF LAON

But there were other dwellings, also flanked with turrets, besides those of the nobles. These others were gaily decorated, and the whiteness of their masonry, contrasting with the aspect of the ancient architecture of the nobles, to which they seemed to be annexes, bespoke a more recent date.

One of these establishments, thus fortified only a short time since, lay at the corner of Exchange street, the leading mercantile thoroughfare of the city. The old door, whose threshold and lintels were of stone, and at either side of which rose two white and high turrets recently built, had been thrown open at the very first break of day, and several townsmen were seen going in and out. They came for certain instructions on the ceremonies. In one of the chambers of this dwelling sat Fergan and Joan the Hunchback. It was about twelve years since they had left the Holy Land. The hair and beard of Fergan, now over forty years of age, began to betray streaks of gray. He was no longer the serf of olden days – restless, savage, tattered. His features breathed happiness and serenity. Equipped almost wholly as a soldier, he wore a jacket of iron mail and a corselet of steel. He was seated near a table at which he wrote. Joan, clad in a robe of brown wool, and wearing on her head a sober bonnet, from under which a long white veil fell upon her shoulders, looked no less blissful than her husband. On the sweet face of this brave mother, once so severely tried, the expression of profound felicity was depicted. At the request of Fergan she had just drawn from an old oaken cabinet a little iron casket, which she placed upon the table where Fergan was writing. The casket, an inheritance from Gildas the Tanner, contained several parchment scrolls, yellow with the age of centuries, besides the several relics so dear to the family of the Gallic chief Joel, and among which was the silver cross of Genevieve, together with the pilgrim's shell that Fergan had taken from Neroweg VI in the desert of Syria. Fergan had just finished transcribing on a parchment a copy of the communal charter, under which, for the last three years, the city of Laon was free and led a peaceful and flourishing existence. The quarryman wished to join the copy of that charter to the archives of the family of Joel, as a witness of the awakening spirit of freedom of his own days, and of the inexorable resolution of the people to battle against the kings, the clergymen and the seigneurs, descendants or heritors of the Frankish conquest. For the last fifteen or twenty years back, other cities besides Laon, driven to extremities by the horrors of feudalism, had, some through insurrection, others through great sacrifices of money, obtained similar charters, under shelter of which they governed themselves like republics, similar to the heroic and brilliant days of Gaul's independence, centuries before the invasions of the Romans. The copy of the communal charter of Laon, the original of which, deposited in the Mayor's office, bore the name and signature of Gaudry, bishop of the diocese of Laon, and of Louis the Lusty, King of the French, ran as follows:

CHARTER OF THE COMMUNE OF LAON

I

All men, domiciled within the walls of the city and in its suburbs, belonging to any seigneur who holds as a fief the territory which they inhabit, shall swear allegiance to this Commune.

II

Throughout the full extent of the city each shall render assistance to the other, loyally and to the best of his ability.

III

The men of this Commune shall be free holders of their goods. Neither the King, nor the Bishop, nor any other, shall be entitled to make any levy upon them, except by the judgment of their own town council.

IV

Each shall, on all occasions, observe fidelity towards those who shall have taken the oath of the Commune, and shall aid them with deed and advice.

V

Within the limits of the Commune, all the men shall mutually help one another, according to their power; and they shall in no wise, whatever it be, suffer the seigneur, Bishop or any other, to distrain any property from them, or compel them to pay imposts.

VI

Thirteen Councilmen shall be elected by the Commune. One of these councilmen shall be elected Mayor by the suffrage of all those who shall have taken the oath of the Commune.

VII

The Mayor and the Councilmen shall make oath to favor no person by reason of friendship, and to render an equitable decision in all matters, according to their powers; all others shall take the oath of obedience and to sustain with arms the decisions of the Mayor and Councilmen. When the bell of the belfry shall sound to assemble the Commune, anyone who does not attend shall pay a fine of twelve sous.

VIII

If anyone injure a man who shall have taken the oath of the Commune of Laon, a complaint being lodged with the Mayor and Councilmen, they shall, after due trial, enforce justice upon the body and property of the guilty party.

IX

If the guilty party takes refuge in a fortified castle, the Mayor and Councilmen shall notify the seigneur of the castle, or his lieutenant. If in their opinion satisfaction shall have been rendered against the guilty party, that will suffice; but if the seigneur refuses satisfaction, they shall themselves enforce justice upon the property and upon the men of said seigneur.

X

If any member of the Commune shall have entrusted his money to some one of the city, and he to whom the money has been so entrusted takes refuge in some strong castle, the seigneur having been notified, shall either return the money, or drive the debtor from his castle. If the seigneur does neither, justice shall be enforced upon his goods and his men.

XI

Whenever the Mayor and the Councilmen shall desire to fortify the city, they shall be free to do so on whatever seigneur's territory it may be.

XII

The men of the Commune shall be free to grind their corn, and bake their bread wherever they please.

XIII

If the Mayor and Councilmen of the Commune require money for the use of the city, and raise a tax, they may levy the same on the inheritances and property of the townsmen, and on the sales and profits made in the city.

XIV

No stranger, a copy-holder of any Church or seigneur, and established outside of the city and its suburbs, shall be included in the Commune without the consent of his seigneur.

XV

Whosoever shall be received in this Commune shall build a house within the space of one year, or shall purchase vineyards, or shall bring into the city moveable property, to the end that justice may be enforced, should a complaint be raised against him.

XVI

If anyone slander the Mayor in the exercise of his functions, the slanderer's house shall be demolished, or he shall pay ransom for the same, or he shall deliver himself to the mercy of the Councilmen.

XVII

No one shall molest or vex the strangers of the Commune. If any dare do so, he shall be deemed a violator of the Commune, and justice shall be enforced upon his person and his property.

XVIII

Whosoever shall have wounded with arms any one who, like himself, shall have taken the oath of the Commune, then, unless he justifies his act under oath or with witnesses, he shall lose his hand, and shall pay nine livres; six for the fortifications of the city and of the Commune, three for the ransom of his hand. If he is unable to pay, he shall leave his hand at the mercy of the Commune.

Fergan had just finished transcribing the charter, when the door of his room opened. Colombaik stepped in. A young and comely wife of eighteen years at the most accompanied him. The son of the quarryman, a fine strapping young man of twenty-two, united in the expression of his face the sweetness of his mother and the energy of his father. Like the latter, he also was clad half townsman half soldier. His casque of black steel, ribbed with shining iron, imparted a martial air to his pleasing and open countenance. He carried a heavy cross-bow on his shoulder. From his right side hung a leather holster that held the bolts needed for his weapon. His wife, Martine, only daughter of the old age of Gildas, the elder brother of Bezenecq the Rich, was of the age and endowed with the charms of Isoline, a victim like her father of the cupidity of Neroweg VI.

"Father!" Colombaik cried out joyfully upon entering the room and alluding to his war-like outfit, "in your quality of constable of our bourgeois and artisan militia, do you find me worthy of figuring in the troop? Does Colombaik, the soldier, make you forget by his martial outfit Colombaik, the townsman and tanner?"

"Thank heaven, Colombaik the soldier will not, I hope, have occasion to blot out Colombaik the tanner," put in Joan with her sweet smile, "any more than Fergan the constable will have occasion to blot out Fergan the master quarryman. You will both continue to battle, you with your beaters against the hides in the tannery, your father with his pick against the stones of his quarry. Is not that your hope and desire, dear Martine?" Joan added, turning to the wife of her son.

"Certainly, my good mother," responded Martine. "Fortunately they are far behind, those evil days when the bourgeois and artisans of Laon, in order to escape the exactions of the bishop, of the clergymen, and of the knights, often had to barricade themselves in their houses and sustain a regular siege; and when, but too often, despite their resistance, their houses were entered and they were carried to the episcopal palace, where they were tortured for ransom. What a difference, my God, since we have been living under the Commune! We now are so free, so happy!" But Martine added with a sigh: "Oh, I regret that my poor father did not live to witness the change! His last moments would not have been saddened by the uneasiness that our future gave him. Seeing the terrible acts of violence indulged in by Bishop Gaudry, together with the nobles, against the inhabitants of Laon, acts that might any day have reached us as they reached so many others among our neighbors, my father always had before him the frightful fate of my uncle Bezenecq and his poor daughter Isoline!"

"Be at ease, my dear wife," rejoined Colombaik; "those accursed days shall not return! No, no! To-day old Gaul bristles with free Communes, as three hundred years ago it bristled with feudal castles. The Communes are our fortresses! Our belfry tower is our donjon. We no longer have to fear the seigneurs!"

"Ah, Martine, my sweet child," said Joan with deep emotion to the wife of her son, "happier than we, you happy youngsters will not see your children and your husbands enduring the horrors of servitude."

"Yes, we, the bourgeois and artisans of the cities are emancipated," Fergan rejoined pensively; "but serfdom presses as cruelly now as in the past upon the serfs of the fields. I fought, for that reason, with all my power, the clause in our charter that excludes from the Commune the serfs living outside of the village, or those who do not possess money enough to build a house here. Is it not to exclude them, when the consent of their seigneurs, or a sufficient sum with which to build a house in the city is required from them, who own not even their own arms? And yet, that sole wealth of the industrious man is equal to any other." Turning then to Martine: "Oh, the father of your father and of Bezenecq spoke like a whole-souled and wise man when, years ago, while vainly inciting the townsmen to the insurrections that are to-day breaking out in so many cities of Gaul, he aimed, not at the revolt of the bourgeois and artisans merely, but also at that of the serfs. Serfs and bourgeois united would not be long in crushing the seigniories. But reduced to its own forces, the task of the bourgeoisie will be long and arduous… We must be prepared for fresh struggles…"

"And yet, father," interposed Colombaik, "since the day when, in consideration of a good round sum, the bishop renounced his seigniorial rights and sold us our freedom for cash, has he ever dared to ride the high horse against us, – he, that brutal Norman warrior, who, before the establishment of the Commune, had the eyes of townsmen put out and often killed them for the mere offense of having condemned his acts of shameful debauchery, – he, who in his own cathedral, only four years ago, killed with his own hands the unhappy Bernard des Bruyeres? No, no; despite his wickedness, Bishop Gaudry knows full well that, if, after pocketing our money as a consideration for giving his consent to our Commune, he were to try to return to his former practices, he would pay dear for his perjury. Three years of freedom have taught us to prize the sacred boon. We would know how to defend it, arms in hand, like the Communes of Cambrai, Amiens, Abbeville, Noyon, Beauvais, Rheims, and so many others."

"For all that, Colombaik," remarked Martine, "I cannot help trembling when I see Black John, that African giant, who once was the bishop's hangman, cross the streets of our city. That negro seems ever to be plotting some act of cruelty, like some savage beast, that but waits for some opportune moment to snap his chain."

"Be at ease, Martine," Colombaik answered with a smile. "The chain is solid, no less solid than that which holds that other bandit, Thiegaud, the serf of the Abbey of St. Vincent, and favorite of Bishop Gaudry, who familiarly calls him his friend 'Ysengrin,' a name given by children to the companion of the wolf. But, would you believe it, mother, that Thiegaud, a fellow stained with all imaginable crimes, that abominable reprobate, yet adores his daughter."

"Even the wild beasts love their young ones," answered Joan. "Did not Worse than a Wolf, our former seigneur, with whom your father fought when we were in Palestine, weep when he thought of his son?"

"That's true, mother; and so it is with this other wolf Thiegaud. The tenant of the little farm that your father left us, my dear Martine, was telling me yesterday that a short time ago Thiegaud's daughter came near dying, and he was almost crazed with grief. Moreover the wretch is as jealous of the chastity of his daughter as if he himself had led a clean life! The scamp tried to rob us, I am sure. When our tenant mentioned Thiegaud's name to me it was because the fellow pretended to want to buy in the name of the bishop, who is a passionate hunter, as you know, a young colt raised on our meadow."

"Take care!" said Fergan warningly. "The bishop is over head and ears in debt. If you sell the horse you will receive no money."

"I know the fine sire! I told our tenant: 'If Thiegaud pays cash for the horse, sell it to him; if not, don't.' The days are gone by when the seigneurs had the right to buy on credit, which is to say, the right to buy without ever paying. To try and compel them to pay was tantamount to placing liberty and even life in jeopardy. To-day, however, if the bishop should dare rob a communier, the Commune would enforce justice upon the episcopals, whether they willed it or not. That's the text of our charter, signed, not by the bishop only, but also by King Louis the Lusty – a signature, 'tis true, that we paid dearly for."

"We paid for it through the nose," rejoined Fergan. "That gross king chaffered and haggled for two days on a stretch. Our friend Robert the Eater was one of the communiers sent to Paris three years ago to secure our charter. What a gang of cut-throats make up that court! To start with, it was necessary to generously oil the palms of the royal councilors in order to dispose them in our favor. Louis the Lusty then wanted to have the proposed sum increased by a fourth, then by a third. Finally, over and above the redemption of his ancient rights of quarters and stabling for himself and his army, whenever he visited the city, he demanded the annual use of three houses, and if he did not avail himself of them, an equivalent of twenty livres a year, and three years in advance. You must admit, my children, that it is selling rather dear those 'rights of crown,' as they call them, monstrous rights, born of the iniquitous and bloody deeds of the conquest."

"So it is, father," answered Colombaik; "we may well say that, in selling to us for their weight in silver, what they please to call their rights, the king and his seigneurs act like highwaymen, who put the dagger to your throat and say: 'I robbed you yesterday; now give me your purse, and I shall not rob you to-morrow.'"

"It is better to yield your money than your blood," said Joan. "By dint of work and privation one may recover his savings, and one is at least freed from those fearful savages, whom I cannot think of without shuddering."

"Moreover, father," put in Martine, "it seems to me we need all the less fear the return of the tyranny of the seigneur, seeing that the king hates them as much as we, and fights them to the knife. We hear every day of his wars against the large vassals, of the battles he fights with them, and of the provinces he plucks them of."

"But, children, who profits by war? Who is it that pays the piper for the ravages it causes? The people. Yes, the King hates the seigneurs because from century to century they seized upon a large number of provinces, that one time belonged to the Frankish crown when it conquered Gaul. Yes, the King fights the seigneurs to the knife, but likewise does the butcher wage relentless war against the wolves who devour the cattle intended for the shambles. That's the reason of the hatred of Louis the Lusty and the prelates towards the lay seigneurs. Church and royalty desire to annihilate the seigneurs in order themselves to lead at will the plebs cattle, bequeathed to them by the conquest. Oh, my children, my heart is full of hope. But so long as serfs, artisans and bourgeois shall not stand united against their hereditary enemies, the future looms up before me big with new perils. Happier than our forefathers, we have initiated a holy struggle, our children will have to continue it through centuries to come."