18 LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY. 987-996 the sturdy resistance of the Temporality to the dictation of the Clergy, an era in our Constitutional history. For when the Archbishop of 1235 20 Hen. III., the Prelates in the Par liament of Merton refuse to laws of the Realm. and Barons Canterbury, and his Bishops and Suffragans, and the Earls and Baronage of England, were aschange the sembled in the famous Parliament of Merton, and the law was settled upon various important points requiring amendment, all the Bishops thereupon instanced the Earls and Barons, that they would consent that all such as were born afore matrimony, should be legitimate, as well as they that be born after matrimony, as to the succession of inheritance, forasmuch as the Church accepted their legitimation.-And then did all the Earls and Barons reply with one thundering voice, they would not change the laws of England, which hitherto had been used and approved.-"Nolumus leges Angliæ mutare, quæ usitata sunt et approbata." Richard and marry But, in Normandy, the way was open for canonically, removing the canonical difficulties in this particular case. Richard forthwith assented to the legitimated. suggestion made by the Priesthood. A mar whereby their children are riage between him and Guenora was celebrated before the altar: and, according to a symbolical usage which still obtains in Scotland, all the children of the hitherto unsanctified union were sheltered beneath the flowing mantle of the matronly bride. Robert, the disqualification thus removed, was forthwith seated on the Archiepiscopal throne. Hugh, Robert's predecessor, was so far decent as to be a Priest in RICHARD SANS-PEUR'S CHARACTER. 19 garb. Robert did not make even any pretence 987-996 to the clerical character. He married a wife, and obtained in due time the County of Evreux : -and from him, as after mentioned, came the Devreux family. Sans-peur's § 10. Great were Richard Sans-peur's na- Richard tural gifts, manifest and manifold his pleasant natural gifts. qualities; urbane, and fairly right-minded as a Sovereign, or seeking to be so. Happy with the hawk on his wrist, or the leash in his fist; kind, though his kindness did not always restrain him from cruelty. Jovial with the Jougleur, popular with the Priest, singularly had the education bestowed by his father's forethought profited to him, adapting him for the peculiar condition, presented by the political as well as the social state of Normandy.-Richard Sanspeur, first of the name, must be contemplated as the last Duke of Danish Normandy, whilst his son Richard, the second bearing that name, is the first Duke of Norman Normandy; the State holding the highest position in the political Hierarchy of the French Monarchy. A man is as many times a man as he knows many languages, quoth Charles-leQuint,-speaking to us in the old books of moral apophthegms and wise saws, now discarded from the educational series, perhaps not much for the better.-There are, at all events, those who begin privately to suspect, for they dare not speak out,-that the lessons upon stocks and stones are not quite so fruitful as the study RICHARD SANS-PEUR'S CHARACTER. 20 987-996 of mankind and man. Diffusion and cultivation of the French The saying of Charles-leQuint is, however, true or untrue, according to the recipient's capacity. If the student be wise, linguistic knowledge becomes a sure encrease of wisdom to him; if unwise, he is rendered a polyglot of folly. Equally was the second Richard versed in or Romance the venerable dialect of his ancestors, and in Normandy. the Romane speech, now vernacular, though the language in Cordiality between the Houses of Rollo. need of the first qualification had become less urgent. Men could speak Norsk, but Norsk was not much spoken; and the pleasant language emphatically called "French" or the Langue d'oc, developed in various idioms, had ripened into consistency. The primitial specimens of the Norman Langue d'oil, eldest amongst the Romane modes of speech applied to literary purposes, are, as is almost invariable in similar examples, versions of the Holy Scriptures. The Cambridge Psalter, and the Parisian Codex of the Book of Kings, both in the Norman dialect,-contend for antiquity. Textually, these curious relics cannot date before the eleventh century, but the regularity of their grammatical construction testifies a lengthened antecedent period of cultivation. Very powerfully did this diffusion of the Capet and of French ethos co-operate in consolidating Normandy with the other regions of FrancoGallia. The new dynasties of Rollo and of the Beccajo had become thoroughly allied. The grudges of the Carlovingian era were sent RICHARD SANS-PEUR'S LIBERALITY. 21 to sleep, and the entente cordiale between the 987-996 two Houses, which had subsisted since the day when the young Richard "commended" himself to Hugh le-Grand, and submitted to his marriage with Emma, continued undisturbed. Sans-peur first amongst Dukes who money. Richard Sans-peur, the prosperous Sovereign Richard of a prosperous land, was the first among the the Norman Norman Dukes who struck money; and the coined "Sol Rouennois," ranks amongst the rarest of the tiny treasures coveted by the French Numismatist. Rapidly did the hammered coin circulate. No rigid Raoul Torta stood by the Duke's side to check the expenditure. Each of Richard's Esquires received, day by day, nine of these sweetly ringing pieces of silver. § 11. Richard Sans-peur being profuse in all ways, he bestowed a large portion of his wealth in re-endowing the decayed and dilapidated Monastic foundations, which, for the most part, had sunk into a miserable state of degradation, poverty, and dissoluteness. But a healthier spirit was reviving, and Fecamp, Richard's birthplace, became peculiarly the object of his care. Fecamp Richard It chanced, that when standing on the lofty rebuilt by perron of the tall Ducal Palace, he looked down Sans-peur. upon the mean, decayed, and neglected Church, the memorial of his poor father's pitiful vacillations and it seemed to him a scandal, that the proud Mansion which Guillaume Longueépée had reared, should affront the lowly House of Prayer. And he bethought himself of the Mason. 987-996 that he would rebuild the Church with decent magnificence. The details of the transaction are reported by Dudo de Saint Quentin with much particularity. The terms employed in the original text are remarkable, as shewing the distinctness of the Masonic calling, and the The choice talent and skill which the Craft demanded. The diligent inquiry for a competent architect, made by the Duke's directions, proves that qualified masters of the science were rare.-The selected Brother carefully surveyed the surrounding country; nor did he commence his work until he had ascertained that the hills furnished quarries of gypsum and good limestone also. Precious are these first explicit notices elucidating Neustrian architecture in Norman times. The only information we possess concerning the raising of a building in Normandy before the Normans came there, relates to Saint Ouen, in the old, old days of the Merovingian Clothaire. We are told that the edifice was constructed of well squared masonry, and by a Gothic hand -"miro opere, quadris lapidibus, Gothica manu” -the "Goth" being unquestionably a Master mason from Lombardy or the Exarchate. The existing Abbatial Church of Fecamp, erected subsequently to Richard's age, still stands conspicuous as the most extensive in Normandy; and, towards the east end, the fabric probably retraces the lines of the original strucThe elegance ture. The costly new Basilica was splendid; building. adorned by lofty towers, beautifully finished of the new |