S44 



ON THE MIDDLE OR DARK AGEte. 



the commencement of the eleventh century began to flourish very nume^* 

 rously ; and by the complimentary and licentious gayety of their incondite 

 rhymes, to obtain an establishment in almost every court of Europe. 



The times, indeed, were well calculated to promote their object ; for 

 there is, perhaps, hardly a vice that can be enumerated in the whole cata- 

 logue of moral evil that did not at this era of ignorance brutalize the hu- 

 man heart ; and even the devotees themselves consisted, for the most part, 

 of worn-out profligates, who had no longer the power of indulging their 

 sensual gratifications. Such, among others, was William IX., count of 

 Poictou, who was one of the earliest Provencal Poets, and is equally 

 celebrated for the unbridled debauchery of his earlier life, and the sancti- 

 itionious pretensions of his old age. Who at first founded an abbey for 

 women of pleasure, and afterwards converted it into a nunnery for the 

 chaste and the pious ; and who, on being rebuked and excommunicated 

 in the midst of his infamous career, by his own bishop, seized him by the 

 hair, and was on the point of despatching him, but suddenly stopped short 

 and exclaimed, " No — I have that hatred of thee, thou shalt never enter 

 heaven through the assistance of my hand." " Nec coelum unquam in- 

 trabis mcce manus ministerio."* 



Respecting another court and people in the neighbourhood of Poictou, 

 we are told by an excellent contemporary writer, that all the men of rank 

 were so blinded by avarice^ that it might truly be said of them in the words 

 of Juvenal, 



Unde habeas, quserit uemo, sed oportet habere, t 

 None car'd what way he gam'd, so gain were his. 



^' The more they discoursed about right, the greater their enormities. 

 Those who were called justiciaries, were the head of all injustice. The 

 sheriff's and magistrates, whose immediate duty was justice and judgment, 

 were more atrocious than the very thieves and robbers ; and were more 

 cruel than even the cruellest of other men I The king himself, when he 

 had leased his domains as dear as was possible, transferred them imme- 

 diately to another that offered him more ; and then again to another, neg- 

 lecting always his former agreement ; and still labouring for bargains that 

 were greater and, more profitable."! 



I have observed that in the midst of this long and gloomy night a few 

 bright and splendid stars shot occasionally a solitary gleam athwart the 

 horizon ; and, in one or two corners of it, a radiance at times poured forth 

 like the dawn of the morning. Several of the Arabian caliphs, as soon as 

 the first paroxysm of their violence was exhausted, returned to that general 

 love of literature which had immemorially been characteristic of their 

 country. And hence, wlien Europe was plunged into its thickest mid- 

 night, the eastern and western caHphats, or courts of Bagdad and Cordova, 

 (by far the most illustrious in Saracenic history) evinced a lustre and a 

 liberality that were nowhere else to be met with, and opened asylums to 

 the learned of every country. § " It was then," says Abulfeda, who was 

 himself one of the brightest gems that adorned the former court, " it was 

 then that men of learning were esteemed luminaries that dispel darkness, 

 lords of human kind, destitute of whom>, the world becomes brutalized."II 

 And from the account of the Arabic manuscripts of the escurial, drawn up 



* Malmesbury, p. 96. fol. ed. 1596. t Juv. xir. 207. t Harris, ii. 515o 

 5 Leo Afric. De Vir, illustr. apud Arab. Bibl. H Abulphar. Pynast. p. 160 



