Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages, and During theRenaissance Period.
:--this subject is of thegreatest interest, not only to the man of science, but to the man of theworld also. In it, too, "we retrace not only one single period, but twoperiods quite distinct one from the other." In the first, the public andprivate customs offer a curious mixture of barbarism and civilisation. Wefind barbarian, Roman, and Christian customs and character in presence ofeach other, mixed up in the same society, and very often in the sameindividuals. Everywhere the most adverse and opposite tendencies displaythemselves. What an ardent struggle during that long period! and how full,too, of emotion is its picture! Society tends to reconstitute itself inevery aspect. She wants to create, so to say, from every side, property,authority, justice, &c., &c., in a word, everything which can establishthe basis of public life; and this new order of things must be establishedby means of the elements supplied at once by the barbarian, Roman, andChristian world--a prodigious creation, the working of which occupied thewhole of the Middle Ages. Hardly does modern society, civilised byChristianity, reach the fullness of its power, than it divides itself tofollow different paths. Ancient art and literature resuscitates becausecustom _insensibly_ takes that direction. Under that influence, everythingis modified both in private and public life. The history of the human racedoes not present a subject more vast or more interesting. It is a subjectwe have chosen to succeed our first book, and which will be followed by asimilar study on the various aspects of Religious and Military Life.
This work, devoted to the vivid and faithful description of the Mannersand Customs of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, answers fully to therequirements of contemporary times. We are, in fact, no longer contentwith the chronological narration and simple nomenclatures which formerlywere considered sufficient for education. We no longer imagine that thehistory of our institutions has less interest than that of our wars, northat the annals of the humbler classes are irrelevant to those of theprivileged orders. We go further still. What is above all sought for inhistorical works nowadays is the physiognomy, the inmost character of pastgenerations. "How did our fathers live?" is a daily question. "Whatinstitutions had they? What were their political rights? Can you notplace before us their pastimes, their hunting parties, their meals, andall sorts of scenes, sad or gay, which composed their home life? We shouldlike to follow them in public and private occupations, and to know theirmanner of living hourly, as we know our own."
In a high order of ideas, what great facts serve as a foundation to ourhistory and that of the modern world! We have first royalty, which, weakand debased under the Merovingians, rises and establishes itselfenergetically under Pepin and Charlemagne, to degenerate under Louis leDebonnaire and Charles le Chauve. After having dared a second time tofound the Empire of the Caesars, it quickly sees its sovereignty replacedby feudal rights, and all its rights usurped by the nobles, and has tostruggle for many centuries to recover its rights one by one.
Feudalism, evidently of Germanic origin, will also attract our attention,and we shall draw a rapid outline of this legislation, which, barbarian atthe onset, becomes by degrees subject to the rules of moral progress. Weshall ascertain that military service is the essence itself of the "fief,"and that thence springs feudal right. On our way we shall protest againstcivil wars, and shall welcome emancipation and the formation of thecommunes. Following the thousand details of the life of the people, weshall see the slave become serf, and the serf become peasant. We shallassist at the dispensation of justice by royalty and nobility, at thesolemn sittings of parliaments, and we shall see the complicated detailsof a strict ceremonial, which formed an integral part of the law, developthemselves before us. The counters of dealers, fairs and markets,manufactures, commerce, and industry, also merit our attention; we mustsearch deeply into corporations of workmen and tradesmen, examining theirstatutes, and initiating ourselves into their business. Fashion and dressare also a manifestation of public and private customs; for that reason wemust give them particular attention.
And to accomplish the work we have undertaken, we are lucky to have theconscientious studies of our old associates in the great work of theMiddle Ages and the Renaissance to assist us: such as those of EmileBegin, Elzear Blaze, Depping, Benjamin Guerard, Le Roux de Lincy, H.Martin, Mary-Lafon, Francisque Michel, A. Monteil, Rabutau, FerdinandSere, Horace de Viel-Castel, A. de la Villegille, Vallet de Viriville.
As in the volume of the Arts of the Middle Ages, engraving andchromo-lithography will come to our assistance by reproducing, by means ofstrict fac-similes, the rarest engravings of the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies, and the most precious miniatures of the manuscripts preservedin the principal libraries of France and Europe. Here again we have theaid of the eminent artist, M. Kellerhoven, who quite recently found meansof reproducing with so much fidelity the gems of Italian painting.
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