MR. WRIGHT'S LITERATURE AND SUPERSTITIONS OP THE MIDDLE AGES.
Tams two volumes contain a number of articles, which Mr. Wright has published at intervals in different periodicals, on topics connected with archaeological literature and popular superstition ; and they form a much better book than is usually the case with similar reprints. The author's thorough knowledge of his subjects enables him to take a deeper and more comprehensive view than the writers who read up for the purpose ; and the staidness, characteristic of the antiquarian, imparts to the lucubrations more of the gravity and solidity of the essay than of the flashiness of the " article." The space to which Mr. Wright was limited seems occasionally to have induced a curtness, if not a super- ficiality in treating of certain well-known topics ; but on the whole, the necessary brevity of a periodical has perhaps been advantageous, by com- pelling the writer to take general views, and preventing him from pur- suing special points with a minuteness which would only interest an anti- quarian student. We suspect that the essays are more popular in their character than they might have been had Mr. Wright in the first instance set about them with a view to their production for a book.
The subjects treated of are twenty in number ; and, revised and arranged in order, the more important essays present a clear and sufficient view of the Literature and Popular Superstitions of England during the Middle Ages. The book opens with accounts of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo- Norman Poetry ; followed by a review of the Chansons de Geste, or his- torioo-romantic poems of the middle ages, which, though at a fearfully long interval, formed to those ages that poetical substitute for real his- tory which the epics of Greece and Rome did to classical antiquity. The Anglo-Latin Poets of the Twelfth Century is a valuable paper, not merely as a notice with specimens of some able and curious writers, but as giving the reader a truer insight into the mental activity and classical acquire- ments of scholars, in a time which we are apt to consider as sunk in the grossest ignorance. The Adventures of Hereward the Saxon—who long resisted William the Conqueror ; the Story of Eustace the Monk—an adventurer and freebooter of the reign of John ; and the History of Falk Fitz Warine—a nobleman of the same disturbed reign, and one of those noble outlaws for whom the people of England displayed such sympathy —are three interesting specimens of romantic biography, in which the credulity of the age has adorned a basis of facts with the wild and its superstition with the wonderful. The Conquest of Ireland by the Anglo- Normans is a narrative chiefly drawn from a manuscript history in Nor- man French verse, preserved in the library at Lambeth Palace, written by a contemporary poet, who derived his facts from a person engaged in the expedition; and, though agreeing in the main with other accounts, his narrative exhibits some curious traits of the character and manners of the conquerors and conquered.
These articles, with a notice of the Cycle of Robin Hood Ballads, form the most connected view of subjects directly referring to old Eng- lish literature and history. The Poetry of History rather opens than exhausts the carious question of the extent to which a popular story, adopted by poets for artistic,a1 effect, has (taken for granted) contributed to falsify even the most critical history. The History and Transmission of Popular Stories is an ingenious endeavour to trace the manner in which one nation has been indebted to another for an addition to its stores, as soon as literature began generally to attract popular attention in the mouths of minstrels and jongleurs, and of the manner in which a tale was often altered in everything but its main structure, to meet the ideas of the people they addressed. In Mr. Wright's opinion, the litera- ture of Western Europe was deeply indebted to the East; the medium being the various " literary men" who accompanied the Crusading armies. In the Fabliaux of those ages he finds many things which under all their disguises he traces to the Arabian Nights. Our old friend the Hunchback appears to have been a very popular theme. Here we have him transformed into a scamp of a sacristan, and " adapted," as the
phrase is, to the manners, humours, and experiences of the Christians.
" In the early French versions of the story, a monk occupies the place of the hunchback, and the catastrophe arises out of an affair of gallantry. The first is entitled .Du Segretaine Hans. The sacristan attempts to seduce the wife of a burgher; to whose house he is allured, and he is there immediately slain by the husband. The latter, to avoid discovery, carries the body through the postern of the abbey by which the monk had issued, and places him on a seat in one of the out-houses. Soon afterwards, the prior of the abbey comes to the place with a candle; and, supposing the sacristan to be asleep, attempts to rouse him with a blow; and the body falls to the ground. The prior now finds that he is dead; and it being known that he had quarrelled with the sacristan the day before, he fears that he may be accused of murder. In this dilemma, he recollects that the sacristan had been observed to pay especial attention to the burgher's wife; and he carries him back to the door of the house in which he had been murdered. The Sher, hearing a noise at the door, opens it; and is thrown down by the weight of the body, which falls upon him. His wife, alarmed by her husband's cries, hastens to the spot with a light; and they are terrified to find the corpse returned. By the advice of the lady, the burgher carries it to the dunghill of a farmer who lived at some distance from his house, in order to bury it there. It happened that the fanner had cured a flitch of bacon, which he had left hanging in his pantry. A. thief had succeeded in • it out of the house, and had buried it in a sack under the surface of the dung , intending to fetch it away in the night. The burgher, finding the sack, took out the bacon and carried it home, leaving the body of the corpulent sacristan in its place. Meanwhile, the thief was gambling with his companions in a tavern, and they proposed to sup on a portion of the stolen bacon. The thief hastened to the dunghill, found the sack, and bore it in triumph to the tavern; • but when the maid proceeded to empty it of its contents, the first object which presented itself was a pair of boots; and they then found that their booty had undergone a singular transformation. Unable to account for the change, they determined to make the farmer bear the consequences; and the clever thief who stole it carried the monk back, introduced himself into the house by stealth, and banged the body up on the same hook which had held the bacon. In the morning the farmer awoke before daylight, hungry, and ill at ease; and while his wife was making a fire, he went in the dark to cut a slice of the bacon for their breakfast; but, handling it roughly, the beam, being rotten, gave way, and the weighty mass fell upon him. A light was now obtained, and they dis- • Chasenn 11 crie wilecomme. The use of this latter word (acekonte) proves thejabliau to have been written in England. covered a monk instead of a flitch, and recognized him for the sacristan of the neighbouring abbey. It would appear that his reputation was none of the best; and in order to get rid of him, they mounted the body on one of the farmer's horses, in an upright position, and fixed an old rusty spear in his hand. The horse being let loose, terrified at the shouts of the farmer and his wife, rushes through the court of the abbey, overthrowing. the sub-prior and others in its way; and finally rolls exhausted into a neighbouring ditch, from which it is raised by the monks; who, finding their sacristan dead, suppose that he had become mad,that he had stolen the farmer's horse, and that he had been killed by the fall. The incidents in this story vary much from that of the Hunchback, although the out- line is identical; but is not improbable that other versions of the same story were once current in the East, and the fabliau may owe less to the imagination of that Western jongleur than at first glance we are led to suppose."
Of the other subjects some are common to several nations,—as an in- quiry into the story of Friar Rush ; or limited to a particular subject,— as the review of Cousin's edition of Abelard's philosophical works, which gives a brief but sufficient account of the tenets of the once celebrate' Nominalists and Realists. Others are a. shade wider from the main- topics,—as Grimm's German Mythology, the Popular Superstitions of Modern Greece. Old English Political Songs, Proverbs and Popular Sayings, and English Fairies, are not treated with a fulness or even a. satisfactoriness corresponding to the subjects, and to the fact that they each, especially the Fairy Mythology, been popularly handled already, though Mr. Wright looks at them with a more learned eye. The notices of a new edition of Dunlop's History of Fiction and of the Scottish poet Dunbar contain inforniation on their individual subjects ; but they are somewhat special, looking.at the extensive field of the other. essays.
They, however, are ,tisefal ; and the who% book will be found at-. tractive and informing, though often as much in suggesting as in satis- fying. On several subjects Mr. Wright has rather given a whet than a meal, and none of them can be considered complete or exhaustive. He shows something definite and striking, but much more evidently remains unseen. The public-spirited exertions of the French antiquarians, the exertions (not at all public-spirited, bat disfigured by a spirit of mono- poly, though useful to a limited extent) of the somewhat exclusive coteries and clubs of this country, and the rich store of manuscripts in our de- positories, offer ample materials for a full history of the literature and superstitions—in short, of the mind of England, both learned and popular, during the dark and middle ages. If this were properly done, with a learned spirit but in a popular and picturesque manner, allowing the substance if not the form of the original writers to appear quite as often as the narrative and remarks of the historian, we should have an attractive and a standard work, which would extend our knowledge and possibly lessen our vanity. Throughout the greater part of that period, we should trace considerable learning and mental activity in the scholar, according to the means and requirements of the time ; and as soon as literature became popular though oral, we should see in the litt4rateurs of those • days no smelt fertility in the invention of incidents to improve and modify their stories, if they did not create them ; great keenness of mind to seize upon the vices and weaknesses of the age, and no little vigour and boldness in satirizing them; with a public as well prepared as any other to relish their hits, though not quite so capable as ours to give prompt effect to an exposure of abuses. But no great genius arose among the minstrels and jongleurs to give a permanent form and an enduring life to their• tales and fabliaux, or to the superstitious stories of the prieithood,— unless, indeed, we take Dante, Boccacio, and Chaucer, as the universal representatives of those classes. Very many of their productions have perished altogether ; but great numbers are still preserved, either in rare books or in manuscripts. Both, however, are alike inaccessible to the general reader. If he had them, he could not understand their language ; and if he could, their coarse particulars and their obsolete mode would repel him. What is wanted is to have the leading facts and the de-- dactions of the subject presented in a narrative, freely intermingled. with specimens preserving the manner and spirit of the originals, but throwing off their bulk and dross. The knowledgeand the literary skill for such a task are possessed by Mr. Wright : whether he has that com- bination of the penetrative and the comprehensive which is necessary to
the poet or historian, we cannot say. •
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