THE PEASANT REVOLT. tative 283 ho could devise such a system in such an age had CHAP. IV. ertainly made further steps in political progress than the represenasters against whom they rebelled. The constitution Assembly. hich they established is expressly called by a name dear o the inhabitants of the cities of those ages, a name glorious in the eyes of modern political inquirers, but a name which was, beyond all other names, a word of fear o feudal Barons and Prelates, and to those Kings who were not clear-sighted enough to see that their own interests and those of their people were the same. The peasantry of Normandy, like the citizens of Le Mans, "made a Commune." Such a constitution could hardly have been extemporized by mere peasants. We can hardly doubt that it had a groundwork in local institutions which the newly developed aristocracy were trampling under foot, and that the so-called rebels were simply defending the inheritance of their fathers. We have the tale only from the mouths of enemies; but the long list of popular grievances, and the hostile testimony to the regular order with which the rebellion was carried on, are enough to show that some very promising germs of freedom were here crushed in the bud. The liberty which these men sought to establish would have been in truth more valuable, because more fairly spread over the whole country, than the liberties won by isolated cities. But aquarum commerciis, nullo obsistente ante statuti juris obice, legibus uterentur suis. Quæ ut rata manerent, ab unoquoque cœtu furentis vulgi duo eliguntur legati, qui decreta ad mediterraneum roboranda ferrent conventum." 2 1 Roman de Rou, 6070. "Asez tost oï Richard dire Ke vilains cumune fascient." It does not necessarily follow that the word "commune" was used at the time, though I know no reason why such may not have been the case. It would be quite enough if Wace applied to the union of the peasants a name which, in his time, had become perfectly familiar, in the instinctive feeling that the earlier movement was essentially a forerunner of the later. 2 Roman de Rou, 6001-6015. CHAP. IV. the revolt was crushed with horrible cruelty1 by Rudo The revolt Count of Ivry, the Duke's uncle, himself a churl by birt Rudolf of the son of the miller who married the cast-off wife Ivry. crushed by results of the mistress of Duke William. After this, we hear no mo of peasant insurrections in Normandy, but it may we Probable be that the struggle was not wholly fruitless. Villainag in Normandy was lighter, and died out earlier, than struggle. most parts of France; and the most genuine pieces Norman jurisprudence which remain to this day, the ancient constitutions of the Channel Islands, strange an antiquated as they seem in our eyes, breathe a spirit of freedom worthy of the air of England, of Switzerland or of Norway.2 Such was the country and the people, whose history, from the beginning of the eleventh century, becomes inseparably interwoven with that of England. We will now return to our own island, and, taking up the thread of our narrative, we will go on with a more detailed account of English affairs from the beginning of those renewed Danish invasions which paved the way for the still more eventful invasion of the Norman. 1 Mark the brutal levity with which Rudolf's cruelties are dismissed by William of Jumièges (v. 2). "Qui [Rodulphus] non morans jussa, cunctos confestim legatos cum nonnullis aliis cepit, truncatisque manibus et pedibus, inutiles suis remisit, qui eos talibus compescerent, et ne deteriora paterentur suis eventibus cautos redderent. His rustici expertis, festinatò concionibus omissis, ad sua aratra sunt reversi." So Roman de Rou, where various other tortures are spoken of, vv. 6093-6118. 2 See Palgrave, iii. 44. AT CHAPTER V. THE DANISH CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.1 975-1016. THELRED the Second, the prince in whose reign England and Normandy first began to have a direct influence on each other's affairs, is the only ruler 1 Our main authorities for this period are essentially the same as those to which we have to go for our knowledge of earlier times. The English Chronicles are still our principal guide. For the present they may be quoted as one work, the differences between the different manuscripts, pointed out by Mr. Earle in the Preface to his Parallel Saxon Chronicles, not being as yet of much strictly historical importance. Florence of Worcester gives what is essentially a Latin version of the Chronicles, with frequent explanatory additions, which his carefulness and sound sense render of great value. The Charters and Laws of the reign of Ethelred are abundant, and, besides their primary value as illustrating laws and customs, the signatures constantly help us to the succession of offices and to a sort of skeleton biographies of the leading men of the time. These, the Chronicles, Laws, and Charters, form our primary authorities. The later Latin Chroniclers, from William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon onwards, occasionally supply additional facts, but their accounts are often mixed up with romantic details, and it is dangerous to trust them, except when they show signs of following authorities which are now lost. This is not uncommonly the case with both Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury. Local histories, like those of Ely, Ramsey, and Abingdon, supply occasional facts, but the same sort of cautions which apply to the secondary writers of general history apply to them in a still greater degree. We now also begin to draw some little help from foreign The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus, the Chronicles of Swend Aggesson, the various Sagas, especially the famous Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson, are very difficult to reconcile with the more authentic notices in our own Chronicles; but, among much that is doubtful and much that is clearly fabulous, they often help us to facts, and to the causes and connexions of facts, which our own writers leave obscure. The Norman writers also begin to be of some importance for the events which connect England and Normandy. For the early part of the reign of Æthelred we have no contemporary Norman writer, but the accounts in sources. |