CHAPTER XXII. THE EPIC OF THE CRUSADE. ON the tombstone of Count Raimon VI. the following two lines, in Provençal, were engraved : Non y a homes sus terra, per gran senhor que fos, In that is No man on earth, how great a lord he may be, can drive me from my land but for the Church.' These lines are taken from a narrative of the crusade against the Albigenses, in the langue d'oc-a work equally interesting as a contemporary source of history, and as a literary document. the latter respect alone it concerns us here, and the reader is asked to consider the preceding historic remarks mainly as a necessary elucidation of the following extracts. A few dates as to the genesis and character of the poem itself may perhaps be wel come. The Song of the Crusade against the Albigeois' is evidently written by an eye-witness of many of the events described, and was, no doubt, at its first appearance, what we should call a most successful book. Its popularity is proved by the quotation already alluded to, as also by the fact that at an early date an abridgment of its contents in prose, for more popular use, was found necessary. In spite of this, only one manuscript1 of the poem has reached our time. It was edited amongst the 'Documents inédits sur l'histoire de France,' by the well-known scholar, M. Fauriel, in 1837. The author of the poem is by no means reticent as to his identity or merits. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,' he opens his poem, after the manner of his time, 'here begins the song which Master W(illiam) made; a clerk who was brought up at Tudela, in Navarra. He is wise and valorous, as the story says, and he was much cherished by clerks and laymen. Counts and viscounts loved him, and trusted his advice, owing to the destruction which he knew and foresaw by means of geomancy, which he had studied long. And he knew that the country would be burnt and laid waste, because of the foolish belief it had adopted.' But in spite of this emphatic declaration, M. Fauriel saw reason to call in question not only the authorship, but the very existence of the wise clerk of Tudela. The pretension of proficiency in the black art boldly put forward, seemed to him a suspicious circumstance, and his doubt was confirmed by linguistic difficulties, into which we cannot enter here. These latter, however, have been conclusively 1 The great value of this MS., which is on parchment, and in perfect condition, is proved by a curious endorsement on the last page, dated 1336, to the effect that one Jordan Capella obtained on it a loan of fifteen 'livres tournois,' by no means an inconsiderable sum in those days. solved by more recent scholars, and William's posthumous fame would be securely established, but for another circumstance fatal to at least part of his claim. Fauriel already had pointed out that after about the first third of the poem-at verse 2769 later scholars have determined-a sudden change takes place in the author's opinions. Hitherto he has been a warm defender of the crusaders; the French invaders are called 'our French barons,' and the author would be thankful to any one who would hang those robbers and villains who kill the crusaders.' Folquet, the zealous Bishop of Toulouse, seems to him to have no equal in kindness' ('degus de bontat ab el no s'aparelha '); and Simon de Montfort, the great enemy of Provence, is described as a 'good cavalier, liberal and brave and kindly, sweet-tempered and open-hearted, and of good understanding.' The heretical creed the author calls, as has been said, a 'fola crezensa,' and the full measure of his wrath is emptied on its adherents. He complacently relates the cruelties cominitted against them, and objects only to the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent and guilty. the poem. But all this is changed in the second portion of The French have now become 'homicides' and 'men of the sword;' sometimes even the uncomplimentary epithet of 'taverners,' or pothousekeepers, is applied to them. Folquet is summarily alluded to as the avesque felon,' or 'wicked bishop;' and the Pope himself is reproached with his cruelty to Raimon. But the most striking con trast between the two portions of the poem becomes apparent in the judgment of Simon de Montfort's character. The author's hatred against him in the second part vents itself in bitterest invective, and is not appeased by death itself. The description of the great leader's fall in our poem is extremely vivid; it is painted with the colours of hatred. At the same time the triumph at the enemy's fall bears involuntary witness to his greatness. Simon is besieging Toulouse, the rebellious capital of the dominions lately granted to him by the Pope, and the author describes an assault made by the crusaders, and valiantly repelled by the inhabitants. Montfort, incensed at the little progress made by his troops, is complaining to his brother, who has just been hit by an arrow. There was in the city, the author continues, a machine for throwing stones, worked by women, both girls and matrons. A stone is thrown, and goes straight where it ought to go.' This ought to go' is an admirable trait of the fatalism of hatred. It hits,' the author continues, evidently gloating over the details, 'Count Simon on his helmet, with such force that his eyes and brain, and the top of his head, and his forehead, and his jaws, are knocked to pieces. And the Count falls to the ground, dead, and bleeding, and black.' The terror and grief caused by this sudden event amongst the crusaders are then briefly alluded to, but the author is again in his element when he describes the unbounded joy of the besieged, fully shared by himself. The suggestions of making a martyr and saint of Simon, in his epitaph, the author treats with the utmost scorn. 'If by killing men,' he says, ' and shedding blood, by destroying souls and consenting to murder, by trusting in false counsels and by incendiarism, by ruining the barons and shaming nobility, by fostering evil and crushing good, by the massacre of women and children, one can gain Jesus Christ in this world, then Simon must wear a crown and shine in heaven.' It is difficult to believe that the same hand which thus heaped shame on Simon's grave should have penned the eulogistic lines of the first part of the poem, particularly if one considers that the change of opinion from the particular point formerly alluded to coincides with certain metrical and dialectical variations totally overlooked by Fauriel, but since pointed out by M. Paul Meyer. The theory of there being only one author, however, has by no means been totally abandoned. Its champions explain the revolution in the poet's feeling partly from the impression made on him by the cruelties of the invaders, partly from a change in his situation during the interval of several years, which undoubtedly lies between the end of the first and the commencement of the second part of his work. Into the philological details of this interesting controversy this is not the place to enter. Suffice it to say that, all things considered, the dualistic supposition seems to be decidedly the more probable of the two, both on external and internal grounds. One or two specimens from the interesting poem |