<h1>XIII <br/> THREE MOST READ BOOKS OF THE CENTURY.</h1>
<p>Three books were more read than any others during the Thirteenth
Century, that is, of course, apart from Holy Scriptures, which
contrary to the usually accepted notion in this matter, were
frequently the subject of study and of almost daily contact in one way
or another by all classes of people. These three books were, Reynard
the Fox, that is the series of stories of the animals in which they
are used as a cloak for a satire upon man and his ways, called often
the Animal Epic; the Golden Legend, which impressed Longfellow so much
that he spent many years making what he hoped might prove for the
modern world a bit of the self-revelation that this wonderful old
medieval book has been for its own and subsequent generations; and,
finally, the Romance of the Rose, probably the most read book during
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth and most of the Fifteenth centuries in
all the countries of Europe. Its popularity can be well appreciated
from the fact that, though Chaucer was much read, there are more than
three times as many manuscript copies of The Romance of the Rose in
existence as of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and it was one of the
earliest books to see the light in print. [Footnote 21]</p>
<p class="footnote">
[Footnote 21: It was a favorite occupation some few years ago to pick
out what were considered the ten best books. Sir John Lubbock first
suggested, that it would be an interesting thing to pick out the ten
books which, if one were to be confined for life, should be thought
the most likely to be of enduring interest. If this favorite game
were to be played with the selection limited to the authors of a
single century, it is reasonably sure that most educated people
would pick out the thirteenth century group of ten for their
exclusive reading for the rest of life, rather than any other. An
experimental list of ten books selected from the thirteenth century
writers would include the Cid, the Legends of King Arthur, the
Nibelungen Lied, the Romance of the Rose, Reynard the Fox, the
Golden Legend, the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, Parsifal or Perceval
by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Durandus's Symbolism and Dante. As will
readily be appreciated by anyone who knows literature well, these
are eminently books of enduring interest. When it is considered that
in making this list no call is made upon Icelandic Literature nor
Provençal Literature, both of which are of supreme interest, and
both reached their maturity at this time, the abounding literary
wealth of the century will be understood.]</p>
<p>It has become the fashion in recent years, to take the pains from time
to time to find out which are the most read books. The criterion of
worth thus set up is not very valuable, for unfortunately for the
increase in readers, there has not come a corresponding demand for the
best books nor for solid literature. The fact that a book has been the
best seller, or the most read for a time, usually stamps it at once as
trivial or at most as being of quite momentary interest and not at all
likely to endure. It is all the more interesting to find then, that
these three most read books of the Thirteenth Century, have not only
more than merely academic interest at the present time, but that they
are literature in the best sense of the word. They have always been
not only a means of helping people to pass the time, the sad office to
which the generality of books has been reduced in our time, but a
source of inspiration for literary men in many generations since they
first became popular. The story of Reynard the Fox is one of the most
profoundly humorous books that was ever written. Its satire was aimed
at its own time yet it is never for a moment antiquated for the modern
reader. At a time when, owing to the imperfect development of personal
rights, it would have been extremely dangerous to satirize as the
author does very freely, the rulers, the judges, the nobility, the
ecclesiastical authorities and churchmen, and practically all classes
of society, the writer, whose name has, unfortunately for the
completeness of literary history, not come down to us, succeeded in
painting all the foibles of men and pointing out all the differences
there are between men's pretensions and their actual accomplishments.
All the methods by which the cunning scoundrel could escape justice
are exploited. The various modes of escaping punishment by direct and
indirect bribery, by pretended repentance and reformation, by cunning
appeal to the selfishness of judges, are revealed with the fidelity to
detail of a modern muckraker; yet, all of it with a humanly humorous
quality which, while it takes away nothing from the completeness of
the exposure, removes most of the bitterness that probably would have
made the satire fail of its purpose. While every class in the
community of the time comes in for satirical allusions, that give us a
better idea of how closely the men and the women of the time
resembled those of our own, than is to be found in any other single
literary work that has been preserved for us from this century, or,
indeed, any other, the series of stories seemed to be scarcely more
than a collection of fables for children, and probably was read quite
unsuspectingly by those who are so unmercifully satirized in it,
though doubtless, as is usually noted in such cases, each one may have
applied the satire of the story as he saw it to his neighbor and not
to himself.</p>
<p>A recent editor has said very well of Reynard the Fox that it is one
of the most universal of books in its interest for all classes.
Critics have at all times been ready to praise and few if any have
found fault. It is one of the books that answers well to what Cardinal
Newman declared to be at least the accidental definition of a classic;
it pleases in childhood, in youth, in middle age and even in declining
years. It is because of the eternal verity of the humanity in the
book, that with so much truth Froude writing of Reynard can say: "It
is not addressed to a passing mode of folly or of profligacy, but it
touches the perennial nature of mankind, laying bare our own
sympathies, and tastes, and weaknesses, with as keen and true an edge
as when the living world of the old Suabian poet winced under its
earliest utterance."</p>
<p>The writer who traced the portraits must be counted one of the great
observers of all time. As is the case with so many creative artists of
the Thirteenth Century, though this is truer elsewhere than in
literature, the author is not known. Perhaps he thought it safer to
shroud his identity in friendly obscurity, rather than expose himself
to the risks the finding of supposed keys to his satire might
occasion. Too much credit must not be given to this explanation,
however, though some writers have made material out of it to exploit
Church intolerance, which the conditions do not justify. We are not
sure who wrote the Arthur Legends, we do not know the author of the
Cid, even all-pervasive German scholarship has not settled the problem
of the writer of the Nibelungen, and the authorship of the Dies Irae
is in doubt, though all of these would be sources of honor and praise
rather than danger. Authors had evidently not as yet become
sophisticated to the extent of seeking immortality for their
works. They even seem to have been indifferent as to whether their
names were associated with them or not. Enough for them apparently to
have had the satisfaction of doing, all else seemed futile.</p>
<p>The original of Reynard the Fox was probably written in the
Netherlands, though it may be somewhat difficult for the modern mind
to associate so much of wit and humor with the Dutchmen of the Middle
Ages. It arose there about the time that the Cid came into vogue in
Spain, the Arthur Legends were being put into shape in England, and
the Nibelungen reaching its ultimate form in Germany. Reynard thus
fills up the geographical chart of contemporary literary effort for
the Thirteenth Century, since France and Italy come in for their share
in other forms of literature, and no country is missing from the story
of successful, enduring accomplishment in letters. It was written from
so close to the heart of Nature, that it makes a most interesting gift
book even for the Twentieth Century child, and yet will be read with
probably even more pleasure by the parents. With good reason another
recent editor has thus summed up the catholicity of its appeal to all
generations:</p>
<p>"This book belongs to the rare class which is equally delightful to
children and to their elders. In this regard it may be compared to
'Gulliver's Travels,' 'Don Quixote' and 'Pilgrim's Progress.' For wit
and shrewd satire and for pure drollery both in situations and
descriptions, it is unsurpassed. The animals are not men dressed up in
the skin of beasts, but are throughout true to their characters, and
are not only strongly realized but consistently drawn, albeit in so
simple and captivating a way that the subtle art of the narrator is
quite hidden, and one is aware only of reading an absorbingly
interesting and witty tale." To have a place beside Gulliver, the old
Spanish Knight and Christian, shows the estimation in which the book
is held by those who are best acquainted with it.</p>
<p>The work is probably best known through the version of it which has
come to us from the greatest of German poets, Goethe, whose Reineke
Fuchs has perhaps had more sympathetic readers and a wider audience
than any other of Goethe's works. The very fact that so deeply
intellectual a literary man should have considered it worth his while
to devote his time to making a modern version of it, shows not only
the estimation in which he held it, but also affords excellent
testimony to its worth as literature, for Goethe, unlike most poets,
was a fine literary critic, and one who above all knew the reasons for
the esthetic faith that was in him. Animal stories in every age,
however, have been imitations of it much more than is usually
imagined. While the author probably obtained the hint for his work
from some of the old-time fables as they came to him by tradition,
though we have no reason to think that AEsop was familiar to him and
many for thinking the Greek fabulist was not, he added so much to this
simple literary mode, transformed it so thoroughly from child's
literature to world literature, that the main merit of modern animal
stories must be attributed to him. Uncle Remus and the many
compilations of this kind that have been popular in our own
generation, owe much more to the animal Epic than might be thought
possible by one not familiar with the original Thirteenth Century
work.</p>
<p>Every language has a translation of the Animal Epic and most of the
generations since have been interested and amused by the quaint
conceits, which enable the author to picture so undisguisedly, men and
women under animal garb. It discloses better than any other specimen
of the literature of the time that men and women do not change even in
the course of centuries, and that in the heart of the Middle Ages a
wise observer could see the foibles of humanity just as they exist at
the present time. Any one who thinks that evolution after seven
centuries should have changed men somewhat in their ethical aspects,
at least, made their aspirations higher and their tendencies less
commonplace, not to say less degenerative, should read one of the old
versions of Reynard the Fox and be convinced that men and women in the
Thirteenth Century were quite the same as we are familiar with them at
the present moment.</p>
<p>The second of the most read books of the century is the famous Legenda
Aurea or, as it has been called in English, the Golden Legend, written
by Jacobus de Voragine, the distinguished Dominican preacher and
writer (born during the first half of the Thirteenth Century, died
just at its close), who, after rising to the higher grades in
his own order, became the Archbishop of Genoa. His work at once sprang
into popular favor and continued to be perhaps the most widely read
book, with the exception of the Holy Scriptures, during the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth centuries. It was one of the earliest books printed in
Italy, the first edition appearing about 1570, and it is evident that
it was considered that its widespread popularity would not only
reimburse the publisher, but would help the nascent art of printing by
bringing it to the attention of a great many people. Its subject is
very different from that of the modern most read books; librarians do
not often have to supply lives of Saints nowadays, though some
similarities of material with that of books now much in demand help to
account for its vogue.</p>
<p>Jacobus de Voragine's work consisted of the lives of the greater
Saints of the Church since the time of Christ, and detailed especially
the wonderful things that happened in their lives, some of which of
course were mythical and all of them containing marvelous stories.
This gave prominence to many legends that have continued to maintain
their hold upon the popular imagination ever since. With all this
adventitious interest, however, the book contained a solid fund of
information with regard to the lives of the Saints, and besides it
taught the precious lessons of unselfishness and the care for others
of the men who had come to be greeted by the title of Saint. The work
must have done not a little to stir up the faith, enliven the charity,
and build up the characters of the people of the time, and certainly
has fewer objections than most popular reading at any period of the
world's history. For young folks the wonderful legends afforded
excellent and absolutely innocuous exercise of the functions of the
imagination quite as well as our own modern wonder books or fairy
tales, while the stories themselves presented many descriptive
portions out of which subjects for decorative purposes could readily
be obtained. It must be set down as another typical distinction of the
Thirteenth Century and an addition to its greatness, that it should
have made the Golden Legend popular and thus preserved it for future
generations, who became deeply interested in it, as in most of
the other precious heritages they received from this great original
century.</p>
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MADONNA AND CHILD (GIOV. PISANO, PADUA)</p>
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ST. CHRISTOPHER (ALTO RELIEVO, VENICE)</p>
<p>The third of the most read books of the century, The Romance of the
Rose, is not so well known except by scholars as is the Animal Epic or
perhaps even the Golden Legend. Anyone who wants to understand the
burden of the time, however, and who wishes to put himself in the mood
and the tense to comprehend not only the other literature of the era,
and in this must be included even Dante, but also the social,
educational, and even scientific movements of the period, must become
familiar with it. It has been well said that a knowledge and study of
the three most read books of the century, those which we have named,
will afford a far clearer insight into the daily life and the spirit
working within the people for whom they were written, than the annals
of the wars or political struggles that were waged during the same
period between kings and nobles. For this clearer insight a knowledge
of the Romance of the Rose is more important than of the others. It
provides a better introduction to the customs and habits, the manners
of thought and of action, the literary and educational interests of
the people of the Thirteenth Century, than any mere history, however
detailed, could. In this respect it resembles Homer who, as Froude
declares, has given us a better idea of Greek life than a whole
encyclopedia of classified information would have done. The intimate
life stories of no other periods in history are so well illustrated,
nor so readily to be comprehended, as those of Homer and the authors
of the medieval Romaunt.</p>
<p>The Romance of the Rose continued to be for more than two centuries
the most read book in Europe. Every one with any pretense to
scholarship or to literary taste in any European country considered it
necessary to be familiar with it, and without exaggeration what Lowell
once declared with regard to Don Quixote, that it would be considered
a mark of lack of culture to miss a reference to it in any country in
Europe, might well have been repeated during the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth centuries of the Romance of the Rose. It has in recent years
been put into very suitable English dress by Mr. F. S. Ellis and
published among the Temple Classics, thus placing it within easy
reach of English readers. Mr. Ellis must certainly be considered a
suitable judge of the interest there is in the work. He spent several
years in translating its two and twenty thousand six hundred and eight
lines and yet considers that few books deserve as much attention as
this typical Thirteenth Century allegory. He says:</p>
<p class="cite">
"The charge of dulness once made against this highly imaginative and
brilliant book, successive English writers, until quite recent times
have been content to accept the verdict, though Professor Morley and
others have of late ably repelled the charge. If further testimony
were necessary as to the falsity of the accusation, and the opinion
of one who has found a grateful pastime in translating it might be
considered of any weight, he would not hesitate to traverse the
attribution of dulness, and to assert that it is a poem of extreme
interest, written as to the first part with delicate fancy, sweet
appreciation of natural beauty, clear insight, and skilful
invention, while J. de Meun's continuation is distinguished by
vigor, brilliant invention, and close observation of human nature.
The Thirteenth Century lives before us."</p>
<p>The Rose is written on a lofty plane of literary value, and the fact
that it was so popular, speaks well for the taste of the times and for
the enthusiasm of the people for the more serious forms of literature.
Not that the Romance of the Rose is a very serious book itself, but if
we compare it with the popular publications which barely touch the
realities of life in the modern time, it will seem eminently serious.
In spite of the years that have elapsed since its original publication
it has not lost all its interest, even for a casual reader, and
especially for one whose principal study is mankind in its varying
environment down the ages, for it presents a very interesting picture
of men and their ways in this wonderful century. Here, as in the
stories of Reynard the Fox, one is brought face to face with the fact
that men and women have not changed and that the peccadillos of our
own generation have their history in the Middle Ages also. Take, for
instance, the question of the too great love of money which is now the
subject of so much writing and sermonizing. One might think that at
least this was modern. Here, however, is what the author of the
Romance of the Rose has to say about it:</p>
<p>Three cruel vengeances pursue<br/>
These miserable wretches who<br/>
Hoard up their worthless wealth: great toil<br/>
Is theirs to win it; then their spoil<br/>
They fear to lose; and lastly, grieve<br/>
Most bitterly that they must leave<br/>
Their hoards behind them. Cursed they die<br/>
Who living, lived but wretchedly;<br/>
For no man, if he lack of love.<br/>
Hath peace below or joy above.<br/>
If those who heap up wealth would show<br/>
Fair love to others, they would go<br/>
Through life beloved, and thus would reign<br/>
Sweet happy days. If they were fain,<br/>
Who hold so much of good to shower around<br/>
Their bounty unto those they found<br/>
In need thereof, and nobly lent<br/>
Their money, free from measurement<br/>
Of usury (yet gave it not<br/>
To idle gangrel men), I wot<br/>
That then throughout the land were seen<br/>
No pauper carl or starveling quean.<br/>
But lust of wealth doth so abase<br/>
Man's heart, that even love's sweet grace<br/>
Bows down before it; men but love<br/>
Their neighbors that their love may prove<br/>
A profit, and both bought and sold<br/>
Are friendships at the price of gold.<br/>
Nay, shameless women set to hire<br/>
Their bodies, heedless of hell-fire;<br/></p>
<p>It is after reading a passage like this in a book written in the
Thirteenth Century that one feels the full truth of that expression of
the greatest of American critics, James Russell Lowell, which so often
comes back to mind with regard to the works of this century, that to
read a classic is like reading a commentary on the morning paper. When
this principle is applied the other way, I suppose it may be
said, that when a book written in the long ago sounds as if it were
the utterance of some one aroused by the evils round him in our modern
life, then it springs from so close to the heart of nature that it is
destined to live and have an influence far beyond its own time. The
Romance of the Rose, written seven centuries ago, now promises to have
renewed youth in the awakening of interest in our Gothic ancestors and
their accomplishments, before the over-praised renaissance came to
trouble the stream of thought and writing.</p>
<p>Other passages serve to show how completely the old-time poet realized
all the abuses of the desire for wealth, and how much it makes men
waste their lives over unessentials, instead of trying to make
existence worth while for themselves and others. Here is an
arraignment of the strenuous life of business every line of which is
as true for us as it was for the poet's generation:</p>
<p>'Tis truth (though some 'twill little please)<br/>
To hear the trader knows no ease;<br/>
For ever in his soul a prey<br/>
To anxious care of how he may<br/>
Amass more wealth: this mad desire<br/>
Doth all his thought and actions fire.<br/>
Devising means whereby to stuff<br/>
His barns and coffers, for 'enough'<br/>
He ne'er can have, but hungreth yet<br/>
His neighbors' goods and gold to get.<br/>
It is as though for thirst he fain<br/>
Would quaff the volume of the Seine<br/>
At one full draught, and yet should fail<br/>
To find its waters of avail<br/>
To quench his longing. What distress,<br/>
What anguish, wrath, and bitterness<br/>
Devour the wretch! fell rage and spite<br/>
Possess his spirit day and night.<br/>
And tear his heart; the fear of want<br/>
Pursues him like a spectre gaunt.<br/>
The more he hath, a wider mouth<br/>
He opes, no draught can quench his drouth.<br/></p>
<p>The old poet pictures the happiness of the poor man by contrast, and
can in conclusion depict even more pitilessly the real poverty of
spirit of the man who "having, struggleth still to get" and never
stops to enjoy life itself by helping his fellows:</p>
<p>Light-heart and gay<br/>
Goes many a beggar by the way,<br/>
But little heeding though his back<br/>
Be bent beneath a charcoal sack.<br/>
They labor patiently and sing.<br/>
And dance, and laugh at whatso thing<br/>
Befalls, for havings care they nought.<br/>
But feed on scraps and chitlings bought<br/>
Beside St. Marcel's, and dispend<br/>
Their gains for wassail, then, straight wend<br/>
Once more to work, not grumblingly.<br/>
But light of heart as bird on tree<br/>
Winning their bread without desire<br/>
To fleece their neighbors. Nought they tire<br/>
Of this their round, but week by week<br/>
In mirth and work contentment seek;<br/>
Returning when their work is done<br/>
Once more to swill the jovial tun.<br/>
And he who what he holds esteems<br/>
Enough, is rich beyond the dreams<br/>
Of many a dreary usurer,<br/>
And lives his life-days happier far;<br/>
For nought it signifies what gains<br/>
The wretched usurer makes, the pains<br/>
Of poverty afflict him yet<br/>
Who having, struggleth still to get.<br/></p>
<p>The pictures are as true to life at the beginning of the Twentieth
Century as they were in the latter half of the Thirteenth. There are
little touches of realism in both the pictures, which show at once how
acute an observer, how full of humor his appreciation, and yet how
sympathetic a writer the author of the Romance was, and at the same
time reveal something of the sociological value of his work. It
discloses what is so easily concealed under the mask of formal
historical writing and tells us of the people rather than of the
few great ones among them, or those whom time and chance had made
leaders of men. It seems long to read but as a recent translator has
said, it represents only the file of a newspaper for eighteen months,
and while it talks of quite as trivial things as the modern newspaper,
the information is of a kind that is likely to do more good, and prove
of more satisfaction, than the passing crimes and scandals that now
occupy over-anxious readers.</p>
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CENTRAL TOWER (LINCOLN)</p>
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