DISCOVERY 



51 



Reviews of Books 



English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (XlVlh 

 Century). By J. J. Jusserand. Translated from 

 the French by LucY Toulmin Smith. (Fisher 

 Unwin, 25s.) 



It is a matter of difficulty to praise this book suffi- 

 ciently, so real and delightful is the pleasure one has in 

 reading it. It is a classic, and a classic that never bores. 

 Its author is at present the Ambassador of France at 

 Washington, and the author of notable works on Shake- 

 speare, the literary historj' of the English people and 

 on the English novel. The book under review appeared 

 in French in 1884 and in English in 1889. That seems 

 a long time ago, but age has not withered it. It 

 appears in a second edition now revised and corrected ; 

 the notes have been brought up-to-date ; new material 

 has been included ; and the whole book is beautifully 

 produced. 



It is a description of English life in the fourteenth 

 century, a period of great interest when it became certain 

 that England would be English and nothing else, when 

 the language took definite shape, the principal institu- 

 tions were founded, and the first masterpieces written. 

 It was the time of the Black Death and of the Hundred 

 Years' War. 



The author has asked himself if this common life of 

 our ancestors is possible to be discerned, possible to be 

 reconstructed. Are the lives of kings and princes alone 

 accessible to the historian through the remoteness of the 

 ages ? He is sure this is not so. To reach the heart of 

 a nation, to get into touch with the four million instead 

 of the four hundred, a patient and extended inquiry is 



the poets. For these embellish, imagine, colour, and 

 transform. Valuable as it is, their work needs a check, 

 and it is from the depositions of the records of England 

 that the real information can be obtained. In the last 



CHALXERS P.VRDOXER. 

 iBy kind permission of the Publisher.) 



necessary. But this can be done. In doing so it is 

 necessary' to break more or less completely with the old 

 liabit of taking the ideas of everyday life in the Middle 

 Ages from the descriptions, the eulogies and satires of 



A BLIND BEGGAR CHEATED OF HIS DRINK BY HIS BOY. 

 (By kind permission of the Publisher.) 



century' thousands of documents have been printed and 

 analysed — petitions, year-books full of reports of law- 

 suits, statutes, and ordinances. These are, so to speak, 

 the catacombs from which an historian can unearth and 

 sift the riches they contain. 



The book is divided into three parts. The first 

 deals with English roads and bridges, the security of 

 the roads, the ordinary traveller and the casual passer- 

 by ; the next with lay wayfarers, the herbalists, charla- 

 tans, minstrels, jugglers, messengers, and pedlars, the 

 wandering workmen, and the outlaws ; the last with 

 reUgious wayfarers, the pardoners, the wandering 

 preachers and friars, the pilgrims, and the crusaders. 



The whole is written by a man who is deeply in love 

 with the times and the men he is describing. There are 

 about seventy illustrations, some of them photographs, 

 others reproductions of drawings in old manuscripts, 

 which are distributed through the book not to give a 

 reader an occasional rest but to illuminate the topic 

 under discussion and to stimulate interest. Another 

 excellent point about this book is that by means of un- 

 obtrusive footnotes the author gives chapter and verse 

 for most of his statements. It is not only for this that 

 references are valuable, but also for the fact that at any 

 stage the interested reader is told exactly the book 

 or series of books which he can rely upon as being best 

 for further study. But footnotes and illustrations and 

 excellence in printing cannot make a book ; they can but 

 embellish it. Its charm must be ascribed to other 

 things, to the interest of the subject to every English- 

 man, and to the kindly, scholarly, and witty manner in 

 which the whole tale is told. 



One may open the book almost at any page to find 

 pleasant and interesting reading. 



" When a robber, murderer, or other evil-doer shall fly 

 into any church upon his confession of felony, the coroner 

 shall cause the adjuration to be made thus : Let the 

 felon be brought to the church door, and there be assigned 

 unto him a port, near or far off, and a time appointed 

 for him to go out of the realm, so that in going towards 

 that port he carry a cross in his hand, and that he go 



