"

[Footnote 14:

L'iglise de l'Arceveskie
De mensam plus riche fie
Fist abatre e fere graineur
A la Mere Nostre Seignur
Plus lunge la fist e plus lee
Plus haute e miex empaventee

R. de R., 5851.]

These downtrodden serfs, of mixed Celtic, Roman, and Frankish
parentage, had actually spoken that word of fear to every feudal
baron, a "commune." They established a regular representative
Parliament with two peasants sent from each district to a general
assembly whose decision should be binding on the whole. This was a
considerably higher political organisation than the aristocratic
household of their masters round the King. And bitterly their masters
resented such forward and unscrupulous behaviour. The Duke's uncle,
Rudolf, Count of Ivry, crushed the "revolt" with hideous cruelty, and
sent back the people's representatives maimed and useless to their
hovels. "Legatos cepit," says William of Jumieges, "truncatisque
manibus et pedibus _inutiles_ suis remisit," adding with unconscious
ferocity "his rustici expertis ad sua aratra sunt reversi." But the
germs of freedom did not die, for villenage in Normandy was lighter,
and ceased far sooner, than in the rest of France. These first
martyrs did not suffer in vain.

If you look closely at the few carvings remaining on the churches of
the tenth and eleventh centuries, you will understand the terror under
which all men were crushed as the thousandth year drew nearer, which
was believed to be the end of the world. Grimacing dumbly in their
stiffened attitudes of fear, these thin anatomies implore with
clenched uplifted hands, the death that shall save them from the
misery of their life. A world so filled with ruins might well give up
all hope on this side of the tomb. The revolt of the Norman peasants
had been crushed in blood. The first religious persecutions had begun,
in the slaying of the Manichean heretics at Orleans. The seasons in
their courses seemed to fight against humanity, for famine and
pestilence, storm and tempest swept down upon the land and the people
died in thousands of sheer starvation. The Roman Empire had crumbled
in the dust; after it fell that of Charlemagne into the abyss. The
chronicles of Raoul Glaber are full of the most gruesome details of
cannibalism, of diabolical appearances, of tortures that cannot be
named. The only refuge seemed to be within the walls of the churches,
where the shivering congregations