oung gentlemen of that epoch were required
daily to learn by heart passages of his _Breviaire des nobles_. John
Lydgate studied him affectionately. His _Belle Dame sans merci_ was
translated into English by Sir Richard Ros about 1640, with an
introduction of his own; and Clement Marot and Octavien de Saint-Gelais,
writing fifty years after his death, find many fair words for the old
poet, their master and predecessor.

See Mancel, _Alain Chartier, etude bibliographique et litteraire_, 8vo
(Paris, 1849); D. Delaunay's _Etude sur Alain Chartier_ (1876), with
considerable extracts from his writings. His works were edited by A.
Duchesne (Paris, 1617). On Jean Chartier see Vallet de Viriville,
"Essais critiques sur les historiens originaux du regne de Charles
VIII," in the _Bibl. de l'Ecole des Chartes_ (July-August 1857).

CHARTISM, the name given to a movement for political reform in England,
from the so-called "People's Charter" or "National Charter," the
document in which in 1838 the scheme of reforms was embodied. The
movement itself may be traced to the latter years of the 18th century.
Checked for a while by the reaction due to the excesses of the French
Revolution, it received a fresh impetus from the awful misery that
followed the Napoleonic wars and the economic changes due to the
introduction of machinery. The Six Acts of 1819 were directed, not only
against agrarian and industrial rioting, but against the political
movement of which Sir Francis Burdett was the spokesman in the House of
Commons, which demanded manhood suffrage, the ballot, annual
parliaments, the abolition of the property qualification for members of
parliament and their payment. The movement was checked for a while by
the Reform Bill of 1832; but it was soon discovered that, though the
middle classes had been enfranchised, the economic and political
grievances of the labouring population remained unredressed. Two
separate movements now developed: one socialistic, associated with the
name of Robert Owen; the other radical, aiming at the enfranchisement of
the "masses" as the first step to the amelioration of their condition.
The latter was represented in the Working Men's Association, by which in
1838 the "People's Charter" was drawn up. It embodied exactly the same
programme as that of the radical reformers mentioned above, with the
addition of a demand for equal electoral districts.

In support of this programme a vigorous ag