Life in a Medieval City (15 page)

The regimen of the hospital is strict and simple, with emphasis on common sense. In fact, there remains a considerable fund of common sense in medieval man’s attitude toward health. Many sound health rules are contained in aphorisms and verses, one of the most famous compendiums of which is known as the Health Rule of Salerno. It is said to have been inspired by Robert of Normandy, wounded in the First Crusade, during his stay at the famous medical center. Written in Latin verse, it contained these recommendations, given here in the Elizabethan translation of Sir John Harington:

A King that cannot rule him his diet

Will hardly rule his realm in peace and quiet.

For healthy men may cheese be wholesome food,

But for the weak and sickly ’tis not good.

Use three doctors still, first Dr. Quiet,

Next Dr. Merry-man and Dr. Diet…

Wine, Women, Baths, by art of nature warme,

Us’d or abus’d do men much good or harme.

Some live to drinke new wine not fully fin’d,

But for your health we wish that you drink none,

For such to dangerous fluxes are inclin’d,

Besides the lees of wine doe breed the stone.

But such by our consent shall drink alone.

For water and small biere we make no question

Are enemies to health and good digestion;

And Horace in a verse of his rehearses,

That water-drinkers never make good verses.

9.

The Church

I know you need a short sermon and a long table. May it please God not to make the time of the mass last too long for you
.

—An Easter sermon by
ROBERT DE SORBON

C
hurches in the thirteenth century are places where people go not only to pray or visit the shrines of saints, but for secular purposes, because churches are often the only large public buildings in town. Business life often centers around a town’s principal church. In Troyes the fairs crowd the precincts of St.-Jean and St.-Rémi. In Provins the stalls of the moneychangers are set up in front of St.-Ayoul. In many towns churches are used for town meetings, guild meetings, and town council sessions.

Everywhere the church is a familiar, friendly place. It is not, however, particularly comfortable. There are no benches or pews.
¹
Some worshippers bring stools and cushions, some kneel on the straw-covered floor. The building is chilly, even in mild weather, and in the winter many of the congregation come armed with handwarmers—hollow metal spheres holding hot coals.

A bell signals the start of service. The congregation stands as the procession of priests, choir, and clerks enters singing a hymn. The melody of Gregorian chant, seeming to wander at will, actually follows strict rules in mode, rhythmic pattern, phrasing, accent, and relationship of words to music. The group sings in unison, or sometimes in an antiphon between choir and cantor or between two halves of the choir. A momentous change is just taking place, however—the birth of polyphonic music. Out of a part of the chant in which the melody is accompanied by a sustained note in the tenor, music for more than one voice part is developing. First the tenor, from a single note of indefinite length, becomes a separate melody with its own rhythm; then another voice is added; and out of this grows a “motet,” a sort of little fugue. Another important innovation is the beginning of modern notation, with rhythm indicated as well as pitch.

The singers may be accompanied by a “portative organ,” which looks like the fruit of a union between an accordion and a full-sized organ. It is suspended from the player’s neck; he operates the bellows on the back of the instrument with his left hand and the keyboard with his right. Some churches have standard organs, powerful, clumsy, and generally out of tune. The one constructed at Winchester in 980, with four hundred pipes and two manuals, produced a noise so great that everyone “stopped with his hand his gaping ears, being in no wise able to draw near and hear the sound.” Instrumental keys, introduced in the twelfth century, are so heavy and stiff that they must be played with the clenched fist. Organs have a range of three octaves, and are the first instruments to become entirely chromatic.

The Gregorian liturgy, having triumphed over several rivals, is in use throughout western Europe. In almost any church in France, England, Germany, Italy, or Spain the service is celebrated exactly as it is in Troyes. The congregation stands, kneels, and sits in accordance with the ritual; otherwise, however, it takes little active part in the service.

Few present understand Latin, but sermons are delivered in the vernacular, except when the audience is clerical. The sermon usually lasts half an hour, measured by the water clock on the altar. The priest mounts the pulpit and begins by making the sign of the cross, then gives his
thema
or text in a short Latin passage from the Gospels, which he translates for the benefit of the congregation. This he follows with a rhetorical introduction explaining his unfitness to discuss the subject (the sentiments are humble but the language is flowery) and with an invocation to the divine spirit. Then he develops his text.

Frequently he runs over the time limit in order to get in his “example.” This indispensable part of the program consists of a story, illustrative of the sermon’s text, told with dramatic flair. For a sermon on the Christian virtues, a popular example goes like this:
²

A merchant is returning from the fair, where he has sold all his merchandise and gained a large sum of money. Pausing in a city—such as Amiens or Troyes—he finds himself before a church, and goes into the chapel to pray to the Mother of God, Holy Mary, putting his purse beside him on the ground. When he rises, he forgets the purse and goes away without it.

A burgher of the city is also accustomed to visit the chapel and pray before the blessed Mother of God Our Lord, Holy Mary. He finds the purse and sees that it is sealed and locked. What is he to do? If he lets it be known that he has found it, people will cry that they have lost it. He decides to keep the purse and advertise for its owner, and he writes out a notice in big letters, saying that whoever has lost anything should come to him, and posts it on the door of his house.

Religious objects, often richly decorated, were the products of prosperous city craftsmen. Among the most beautiful of the thirteenth century are this
enamel eucharistic dove and censer
. (Metropolitan Museum of Art; Cloisters Collection, Purchase 1947 and 1950)

When the merchant has gone a good distance, he realizes that his purse is missing. Alas, all is lost! He returns to the chapel, but the purse is gone. The priest, questioned, knows nothing about it. Coming out of the chapel, the merchant finds the notice, enters the house, sees the burgher who found the purse and says to him, “Tell me who wrote those words on your door.” And the burgher pretends he knows nothing but says, “Good friend, many people come here and put up signs. What do you want? Have you lost anything?” “Lost anything!” cries the merchant. “I have lost a treasure so great that it cannot be counted.” “What have you lost, good friend?” “I lost a purse full of money, sealed with such and such a seal and such and such a lock.” Then the burgher sees that the merchant is telling the truth, so he shows him the purse and returns it to him. And when the merchant finds the burgher so honest, he thinks, “Good sir God, I am not worthy of such a treasure as I have amassed. This burgher is far worthier than I.” “Sir,” he says to the burgher, “surely the money belongs to you rather than to me, and I will give it to you, and commend you to God.” “Ah, my friend,” says the burgher, “take your money; I haven’t earned it.” “Certainly not,” says the merchant, “I will not take it.” And he leaves.

The burgher runs after him crying, “Stop thief! Stop thief!” The neighbors take up the hue and cry and catch the merchant, and ask, “What has this man done?” “He has stolen my poverty and my honesty, which I have carefully preserved up to this moment.”

The congregation thoroughly enjoys the performance, with its moral, which the priest takes care to point out.

Besides homely anecdotes, the preachers find their examples in extracts from history or legend, lives of the saints, Bible stories, contemporary events, personal memories, fables from Aesop or other fabulists, morals drawn from bestiaries or from accounts of plants, the human body, or the stars.

Oratorical devices
³
are not beneath a priest. If attention lags during the sermon, he may suddenly exclaim, “That person who is sleeping in the corner will never know the secret that I’m going to tell you!” Or when the ladies become restive during a sermon on the wickedness of women, he may address them: “Shall I speak of the good woman? I will tell you about that old lady there who has fallen asleep. For Heaven’s sake, if someone has a pin, wake her up; people who sleep during the sermon somehow manage to stay awake at table.”

The sermon is followed by the Creed, the Offertory, and the celebration of communion, which has been preceded by the Kiss of Peace. The priest kisses the Gospel, which is kissed in turn by every member of the congregation. Those who receive the sacrament come forward and stand before the altar with hands outstretched, palms touching, one knee bent slightly forward; they do not kneel. The priest celebrates communion in front of the altar with his back to the people—a recent innovation.

Communion over, the service nears its end, and the priest asks prayers for certain persons: for the Church, for Count Thibaut, his peace and prosperity, for the bishop and other priests, for the Holy Land and its defenders, for the dead, some of whom he mentions by name. He may even lower his voice and ask a blessing for an unlucky priest who has been disciplined. Everyone kneels and the prayers are recited together, with several
Paters
and
Aves
. Then the priest pronounces his final blessing, and the service is over.

Like the Christian service, worship in the synagogue retains an age-old universal form. The Almemar (the platform from which the Scriptures are read), and the ark containing the sacred scrolls stand in the center of the paved floor. Wax candles illuminate the interior. Tallow, though permitted for private use, is forbidden in the synagogue.