d, on the perjured traitor, Foulques!" We
are not told--but it is probable--that the servants who did the flogging
either did not survive very long, or else were wise enough to flog very
gently. Foulques, however, died on his way back from Jerusalem.

Then there is the story of the chatelaine of the magnificent castle of
Ivri, Alberede, or Aubree, wife of Raoul, Count of Evreux, half-brother
of Richard I. She employed Lanfred, the most accomplished architect of
the time, who had built the strong castle of Ponthiviers (about 1090),
to build the castle of Ivri, stronger and more cunningly devised than
any other. When he had finished, in order that he might build no better
castle, or might not reveal the secrets of the fortifications of Ivri,
she had his head cut off. But Count Raoul was a prudent man, and took
the hint. He had Alberede executed too.

One Norman gentleman, Ascelin de Goel, having had the good luck to
capture his feudal lord, held him for ransom; and in order that he might
be encouraged to pay more, had him exposed at an open north window, in
his shirt, and poured cold water over him, that the winter winds might
freeze it. And even the mild and saintly King Robert, in his war against
the Duke of Burgundy, laid waste the country far and wide, massacred
defenceless peasants, and did not spare even monasteries and churches,
since peasants and monasteries alike were regarded as but the goods of
the duke, which it was his right to destroy.

The Church had some redress for the evils suffered. The pious and
superstitious king was tormented nearly all his life by the threats of
eternal damnation which the Church held over him. This brings us to a
consideration of the influence of the Church upon manners in general and
upon the condition of women.

Though there were many ambitious, greedy, and cruel priests; though many
of them lived in open defiance of the Church's prohibition of marriage
among the clergy,--there were several married bishops at an earlier
period, and one of these, the Bishop of Dole, actually plundered his
church to dower his daughters,--the Church as a whole unquestionably
stood for the best in manners and in morals. After Charlemagne's vain
attempts to revive popular education, what learning there was existed
only among the clergy. Though themselves forming part of the feudal
nobility and holding fiefs for which they owed military service, the
bishops, abbots, and priors almost always espoused