good luck, but also lovers-in illustration of which we may quote a well-known rhyme on the subject

Whenever the cat o' the house is black,

The lasses o' lovers will have no lack.

Mr. Henderson,1 speaking of this superstition, tells us that an old north-country woman on one occasion said to a lady, "It's na wonder Jock 's lasses marry off so fast, ye ken what a braw black cat they've got." It is considered unlucky to dream of a cat, a piece of folk-lore prevalent in Germany, where if one dreams of a black cat at Christmas, it is an omen of some alarming illness during the following year. Equally unfortunate, too, is it for a cat to sneeze, this act being supposed to indicate that the family will have colds. Thus, we are informed by Mrs. Latham 2 that in Sussex, "even the most favoured cat, if heard to sneeze, is instantly shut out of doors; for should she stay to repeat the sneeze three times indoors, the whole family will have colds and coughs."

Lastly, there are many quaint traditions in which the cat holds a prominent place; and an amusing one, current in the north of England, we may quote in conclusion: A gentleman was one evening sitting cosily in his parlour, reading or meditating, when he was interrupted by the appearance of a cat, which came down the chimney and cried out, "Tell Dildrum Doldrum's dead!" He was not unnaturally startled by this strange occurrence; and when shortly after his wife entered, and he related to her what had happened, her own cat, which accompanied her, exclaimed, "Is Doldrum dead?" and immediately rushed up the chimney, and was heard of no more. the numberless conjectures stated to account for this extraordinary event, the most reasonable one appears to be that Doldrum had been king of Catland, and that Dildrum was the next heir.

T. F. THISELTON DYER.

Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, 207.

2 Folk-lore Record, 10.

615

WARFARE IN CHIVALROUS

TIMES.

HE fourteenth century, the century of Edward the Black

of France, may be fairly taken as the period in which chivalry reached its highest perfection, and in which the military type of life and character attained its noblest development. Froissart, whose picture of that period reflects its manners and thoughts with a vividness that has never been surpassed, has scarcely aught else to tell of than wars and battles and noble feats of arms; thinking that, as they alone were of interest to himself or his contemporaries, they alone would be of interest to posterity. It is to that century we naturally turn our thoughts when we would fain imagine a time when the rivalry of brave deeds gave birth to heroism of character, and the rivalry of military generosity invested even the cruelties of the battle-field with the halo of romance. Yet it is needless to go beyond Froissart himself to see how little foundation such imaginings have in fact, and how, before the calm tribunal of history, there never was a period like that handed down to us as the period of chivalry, when the motives for wars as well as the incentives of personal courage were more mercenary; when war itself was more brutally conducted; when the laws in restraint of it imposed by the voice of morality or religion were less felt; or when the consequent demoralisation was more widely spread.

Such a conclusion, inasmuch as it runs counter to so much that we have been wont to receive on trust and tradition, may fairly be put upon its trial and challenged for facts for its defence. But for such defence there is no need to travel further than Froissart himself, a witness whose evidence is beyond impeachment, and alone suffices for an estimate of warfare in days when chivalry prevailed in Europe. The following details are from that source alone.

When the Black Prince, whom afterwards Germans, Flemish, and English agreed in denominating "the mirror of knighthood," reconquered Limoges from France and sacked it, he spared neither

rank nor age nor sex, though his victims, to the number of 3,000, sought mercy from him on their knees, "veritable martyrs," as Froissart calls them, of the Prince's passion and revenge. But this cruelty was not so exceptional after all. When the English sacked Niort in Poitou, they promiscuously massacred both men and women, and so they did when, under the Earl of Derby, they sacked Poitiers; nor were the French one whit more gallant or merciful when they came with their fleet in 1377 and burned the good town of Rye. When the flower of Christian chivalry, under the king of Hungary, took the Turkish city Comecte by storm, one might have expected that the women and children should have been spared from the general massacre which ensued.

One instance of promiscuous slaughter is remarkable for the high esteem to which it sometimes raised its chief perpetrator. In the famous war between the citizens of Ghent and the Earl of Flanders there was no worse episode than when the Lord D'Anghien took the town of Grammont by storm one fine Sunday in June, and showed no mercy to man, woman, or child. Numbers of old people and women were burnt in their beds, and the town, being set on fire in more than 200 places, was reduced to ashes, even the churches included. "Fair son," said the Earl of Flanders, greeting his returning relative, "you are a valiant warrior, and, if it please God, will be a gallant one; for you have made a handsome beginning." History cannot but rejoice that the young duke's first feat of arms was also his last, and that, not many days later, he lost his life in a skirmish.

Of course, all persons found within a town taken by assault were by the rule of war liable, and all the male adults likely, to be killed. Only by a timely surrender could the besieged cherish any hope for their lives or fortunes; and even the offer of a surrender might be refused, and an unconditional submission be insisted on instead. There is no darker blot on the character of Edward III. than the savage disposition he displayed when, with respect to the brave defenders of Calais, he was only restrained from exercising his strict war-right of putting them to death by the representations made to him of the danger he might incur of an equally sanguinary retaliation in the future.

There was in general a strong feeling against making ladies prisoners of war; nor could the French ever forgive our countrymen for allowing the soldiers of the Black Prince to take prisoner the Duchess of Bourbon, mother to their king, and to obtain a ransom for her release. To the French appears to have been due whatever

advance was made in the more humane treatment of prisoners. Both the Spaniards and Germans were wont to fasten their prisoners with iron chains; but of the French Froissart says expressly: "They neither imprison their captives, nor put on them shackles and fetters, as the Germans do, in order to obtain a better ransom-curses on them for it! They are without pity or honour, and ought never to receive any quarter. The French entertained their prisoners well, and ransomed them courteously, without being too hard with them." In this spirit Bertrand du Guesclin let his English prisoners go at large on their parole for their ransom, a generosity towards their foes which the English on occasion knew how to requite.

Froissart gives one striking illustration of the greater barbarity of the Spaniards towards their prisoners, which should not be forgotten in endeavouring to form a general estimate of the character of the military type of life in the palmiest days of chivalry. In a war between Castile and Portugal, whenever the Castilians took any prisoners, they tore out their eyes, tore off their arms and legs, and in such a plight sent them back to Lisbon. It speaks highly for the conduct of the Lisboners that they did not retaliate such treatment, but allowed their prisoners every comfort they could expect in their circumstances.

It might perhaps have been expected that, little as was the respect sometimes evoked from medieval warriors on behalf of defenceless women and children, or of the crops and houses that were their food and shelter, superstition at least would have rescued churches and sacred buildings from their ruthless destruction. Even in pre-Christian warfare, temples as a rule were spared; and if the Romans under Germanicus destroyed the sacred edifices of the Marsi, it was contrary to the better traditions of Roman military precedent. Permissible as it was by the laws of war, says Polybius, to destroy an enemy's garrisons, cities, crops, or anything else by which their power might be weakened, it was the part of mere rage and madness to destroy such things as their statues or temples, by which no benefit or hurt accrued to one side or the other. But in the Middle Ages the most that can be said is that slightly stronger scruples protected churches than protected the lives of women and children. We are not told, for instance, that the Earl of Derby at Poitiers took the smallest steps to check the massacre of the latter, though, after a certain time, he forbade, under pain of death, any further destruction of houses and churches. When Louis of Spain took Guerrande by storm, it was less the slaughter of women and children than the burning of the churches which he so resented as to have twenty-four

of the principal perpetrators hung upon the spot. Even Froissart himself, when recounting the slaughter at Durham by the Scotch king David of women, children, monks, and priests, and the demolition of every house and church in the city, only expresses pity for the churches, none for those who were wont to worship in them.1

The slightest embitterment of feeling in a war removed all scruples in favour of sacred buildings. The English, for instance, at one time were so exasperated with the Scots on account of their recent offensive alliance with France, that the beautiful Melrose Abbey, spared in all previous wars between the two countries, was burnt and destroyed by the king of England and the lords of his army. So was the Abbey of Dunfermline, where the Scotch kings used to be buried; and so it fared with the rest of Scotland that the English over-ran: they "spared neither monasteries nor churches, but put all to fire and flame."

Although reason can urge no valid objection against the means of destruction employed in warfare, whether poisoned arrows or explosive bullets, there have generally been certain things excluded from the category of fair military practices, as, for example, the poisoning of an enemy's water. It is therefore curious that the gallant warriors of Froissart's day, though they refrained from poisoning water, should have had no scruples whatever about poisoning the air. Their great engines, called Sows or Muttons, could inject into a besieged town more fatal weapons than huge stones or beams of wood. When the Duke of Normandy was besieging the castle of Thun l'Évêque, he had dead horses and carrion flung into the castle to poison the air; and as it was then the middle of summer, it was not long before the garrison came to reason. The chivalry of Brabant, besieging the town of Grave, threw over the walls all the dead carrion of their army, to empoison the inhabitants by the stench. Another effective weapon was Greek fire, which, consisting of sulphur and pitch, was only extinguishable by vinegar mixed with sand, or by raw hides. The Black Prince made use of it to take the castle of Romorantin.

There is no single character of the Middle Ages round whom more memories and fancies of a noble chivalry still linger than the Black Prince. Some generous traits certainly adorned his career; but the white spots of his character, that stand out in relief of the fundamental black, are really very few and far between. The extreme terms of eulogy

1 The doubt of the historical fact does not affect the character of Froissart's judgment,