adventurous life outside; but he was obliged to return. It was there that he shut himself up in times of peril.
“ When the holder of a fief left his castle in quest of war and adventures, his wife stayed behind.... She remained in the castle as mistress, as chatelaine, representing her husband, entrusted, during his absence, with the defence of the honor of the fief. This lofty and almost sovereign position, in the very bosom of domestic life, often endowed the women of the feudal period with a dignity, a courage, a worth, a splendor, that have never been their portion elsewhere; and, without the least doubt, it powerfully contributed to their moral development and to the general improvement of their condition. ” In fact, according to the Germanic idea, woman was not destined solely to keep the house and spin the wool, as the Roman precept inculcated, but she was the faithful companion of man, through all the chances of life, in his military expeditions as well as under the family roof.
While the conquering race was thus creating for itself, and for itself alone, a social state suited to its instincts, its virtues and its defects, what was the condition of the conquered people?
We have already remarked that the municipalities survived the general breaking-up which followed the various invasions of the Franks, and for several centuries preserved at least a semblance of the old institutions, together with a certain measure of independence, which was, however, dearly disputed, and was in constant jeopardy. When finally, toward the eleventh century, evidences of stability appeared, history records the beginning of a sort of resurrection, an uplifting of the conquered race, which was destined to encounter many obstacles and to suffer more than one defeat, but which was never again wholly arrested.
When the holders of fiefs were definitely settled, when they had begun to organize their affairs on the basis of a more sedentary existence, abandoning the idea of living exclusively by plundering depredations, an autochthonous population might be seen grouping itself about the castles, and, under their protection, devoting itself to the cultivation of the soil. Agricultural labor being resumed with some regularity and partial security, a certain degree of comfort resulted therefrom which created more extended and varied wants; commerce and manufacturing began once more to thrive, and gave an added importance to these rural communities. From these sprang the burgs; hence in part also arose the communes, which must not be confounded with the ancient cities, for the communes appeared with and through feudalism.
The prosperity of these small communes became a source of wealth to the proprietors of the domain which sheltered them, and so they obtained certain privileges, which, without taking them out of the feudal domination, without conferring upon them genuine independence, nevertheless had as an aim and result to attract the population thither and increase the wealth. And, in its turn, this growth of population and wealth secured more valuable favors and more extended concessions.
By the side of the old municipalities which had survived the invasion of the barbarians, genuine cities grew up; these were of inferior importance to begin with, but, owing to the development caused by commercial and industrial prosperity, they at length constituted considerable centres of population, and embraced a numerous and rich bourgeoisie. New towns and ancient cities alike, more independent than the burgs of which we have just spoken, at an early period showed themselves boldly belligerent, and they engaged in relentless warfare against the neighboring suzerains, whether cleric or lay, who sought to impose a too heavy yoke upon them.
The history of the struggles, mingled with many reverses, which the communes, towns or cities of Laon, Rheims, Vézelay, Soissons, Sens, Amiens and so many others engaged in, is well known, and we need not recount their history here. After the twelfth century, nearly all these struggles ended disastrously; some at first successfully resisted their immediate suzerains and extorted treaties and privileges from them; others were crushed out in bloodshed and conflagration. But they were at last doomed to pass under the royal authority, which had been constantly strengthening and had long aimed at the suppression of every rival power and the subordination of all feudal dominion, and which, in this bitter contest, was able to rally to its aid all the forces existing in the old population, — the sworn enemy of feudalism.
We have reviewed the changes which the civil society of the conquering and the conquered peoples underwent, from the
fifth to the eleventh century; it remains for us to indicate the transformations which took place in the religious society during the same period.
[ To be continued. ]
ETRUSCAN ART. 1 — II. I
T is a characteristic of people who possess the
sentiment of grandeur, to endeavor to affirm their power and perpetuate the remembrance of it in works which, without being imperishable, since nothing can be imperishable in this world, can yet stand the biting tooth of centuries and the triumphs of ages. The best sustained effort of a nation in the domain of art always consists in assuring to itself this kind of survival, to mark with an indelible trace the moment when its genius was in full flower, and it is for this that architecture will always be, par excellence, the national art, because it is the very one which best lends itself to satisfy this ambition, and can bring to bear upon a masterly and durable work the collective effort of an entire people. There are the Parthenon and the Temple of Augustus which, under different forms, still present to-day a wholly palpable image of the grandeur of Rome and of Greece. Nothing of Etruscan work analogous to these remains to us, probably because the Etruscans never conceived anything which could survive a catastrophe. It is not necessary to have read Volney, to know that Palmyra was an immense city, peopled with palaces, temples and colonnades. We meet everywhere in Southern Italy and in Greece ruins which speak to us of Magna Græcia, of the age of Augustus, and of the exquisite genius of the Grecian Republics. Neither the sands of the desert nor political storms have ruined the pyramids of Egypt. There remains nothing visible at this time at places where formerly were Memphis, Thebes, Babylon, Nineveh; but tradition has preserved to us in the matter of these cities the impression of monumental grandeur which, even at so great a distance, still touches our imaginations.
One of the reasons, moreover, why the Etruscans did not have architecture that was truly monumental in character is the manner in which they were compelled to understand municipal life; and it is this very reason which brought it about that it is in military architecture only that they have accomplished anything worthy of remark. In a spirit of defence (and this is a thing which helps to prove that they formed one cohesive race) they chose by preference, for the sites of their cities, lofty places, isolated and in the neighborhood of water-courses. Often, almost always, they found themselves ill at ease in narrow and confined places. Air was lacking. It was with difficulty that they could bring themselves to build their houses within the city’s walls; and this is why, in spite of the respect they have for their dead, they ordinarily relegated the necropolis outside the walls of the city, exposing it thus to devastation and profanation. Perhaps the nature of their religion did not demand a vast scenic environment, and this would explain the absence of great temples in their towns. This last point, which may, after all, be only a supposition in the light of the present state of knowledge, deserves to be investigated to the bottom.
In any case, the general knowledge which we possess from this time forth on Etruscan art permits a classification of their works, and this classification M. Martha has, for the first time, worked out in a rational and intelligent fashion. I will, therefore, follow his method, and I will purposely include ceramics and mortuary jewelry, which in a secondary manner can interest those who are particularly occupied with architecture, although these categories are connected on certain sides with the general line of Etruscan art.
In the first place, there are the tombs, which must be studied if one desire to acquire a notion of antiquity. What one first remarks is that the Etruscans have not always practised inhumation to the exclusion of incineration. The most ancient tombs which we know are those, called a pozzo [well], of the Villanovan epoch, because it 1 Continued from No. 794, page 167.
“ When the holder of a fief left his castle in quest of war and adventures, his wife stayed behind.... She remained in the castle as mistress, as chatelaine, representing her husband, entrusted, during his absence, with the defence of the honor of the fief. This lofty and almost sovereign position, in the very bosom of domestic life, often endowed the women of the feudal period with a dignity, a courage, a worth, a splendor, that have never been their portion elsewhere; and, without the least doubt, it powerfully contributed to their moral development and to the general improvement of their condition. ” In fact, according to the Germanic idea, woman was not destined solely to keep the house and spin the wool, as the Roman precept inculcated, but she was the faithful companion of man, through all the chances of life, in his military expeditions as well as under the family roof.
While the conquering race was thus creating for itself, and for itself alone, a social state suited to its instincts, its virtues and its defects, what was the condition of the conquered people?
We have already remarked that the municipalities survived the general breaking-up which followed the various invasions of the Franks, and for several centuries preserved at least a semblance of the old institutions, together with a certain measure of independence, which was, however, dearly disputed, and was in constant jeopardy. When finally, toward the eleventh century, evidences of stability appeared, history records the beginning of a sort of resurrection, an uplifting of the conquered race, which was destined to encounter many obstacles and to suffer more than one defeat, but which was never again wholly arrested.
When the holders of fiefs were definitely settled, when they had begun to organize their affairs on the basis of a more sedentary existence, abandoning the idea of living exclusively by plundering depredations, an autochthonous population might be seen grouping itself about the castles, and, under their protection, devoting itself to the cultivation of the soil. Agricultural labor being resumed with some regularity and partial security, a certain degree of comfort resulted therefrom which created more extended and varied wants; commerce and manufacturing began once more to thrive, and gave an added importance to these rural communities. From these sprang the burgs; hence in part also arose the communes, which must not be confounded with the ancient cities, for the communes appeared with and through feudalism.
The prosperity of these small communes became a source of wealth to the proprietors of the domain which sheltered them, and so they obtained certain privileges, which, without taking them out of the feudal domination, without conferring upon them genuine independence, nevertheless had as an aim and result to attract the population thither and increase the wealth. And, in its turn, this growth of population and wealth secured more valuable favors and more extended concessions.
By the side of the old municipalities which had survived the invasion of the barbarians, genuine cities grew up; these were of inferior importance to begin with, but, owing to the development caused by commercial and industrial prosperity, they at length constituted considerable centres of population, and embraced a numerous and rich bourgeoisie. New towns and ancient cities alike, more independent than the burgs of which we have just spoken, at an early period showed themselves boldly belligerent, and they engaged in relentless warfare against the neighboring suzerains, whether cleric or lay, who sought to impose a too heavy yoke upon them.
The history of the struggles, mingled with many reverses, which the communes, towns or cities of Laon, Rheims, Vézelay, Soissons, Sens, Amiens and so many others engaged in, is well known, and we need not recount their history here. After the twelfth century, nearly all these struggles ended disastrously; some at first successfully resisted their immediate suzerains and extorted treaties and privileges from them; others were crushed out in bloodshed and conflagration. But they were at last doomed to pass under the royal authority, which had been constantly strengthening and had long aimed at the suppression of every rival power and the subordination of all feudal dominion, and which, in this bitter contest, was able to rally to its aid all the forces existing in the old population, — the sworn enemy of feudalism.
We have reviewed the changes which the civil society of the conquering and the conquered peoples underwent, from the
fifth to the eleventh century; it remains for us to indicate the transformations which took place in the religious society during the same period.
[ To be continued. ]
ETRUSCAN ART. 1 — II. I
T is a characteristic of people who possess the
sentiment of grandeur, to endeavor to affirm their power and perpetuate the remembrance of it in works which, without being imperishable, since nothing can be imperishable in this world, can yet stand the biting tooth of centuries and the triumphs of ages. The best sustained effort of a nation in the domain of art always consists in assuring to itself this kind of survival, to mark with an indelible trace the moment when its genius was in full flower, and it is for this that architecture will always be, par excellence, the national art, because it is the very one which best lends itself to satisfy this ambition, and can bring to bear upon a masterly and durable work the collective effort of an entire people. There are the Parthenon and the Temple of Augustus which, under different forms, still present to-day a wholly palpable image of the grandeur of Rome and of Greece. Nothing of Etruscan work analogous to these remains to us, probably because the Etruscans never conceived anything which could survive a catastrophe. It is not necessary to have read Volney, to know that Palmyra was an immense city, peopled with palaces, temples and colonnades. We meet everywhere in Southern Italy and in Greece ruins which speak to us of Magna Græcia, of the age of Augustus, and of the exquisite genius of the Grecian Republics. Neither the sands of the desert nor political storms have ruined the pyramids of Egypt. There remains nothing visible at this time at places where formerly were Memphis, Thebes, Babylon, Nineveh; but tradition has preserved to us in the matter of these cities the impression of monumental grandeur which, even at so great a distance, still touches our imaginations.
One of the reasons, moreover, why the Etruscans did not have architecture that was truly monumental in character is the manner in which they were compelled to understand municipal life; and it is this very reason which brought it about that it is in military architecture only that they have accomplished anything worthy of remark. In a spirit of defence (and this is a thing which helps to prove that they formed one cohesive race) they chose by preference, for the sites of their cities, lofty places, isolated and in the neighborhood of water-courses. Often, almost always, they found themselves ill at ease in narrow and confined places. Air was lacking. It was with difficulty that they could bring themselves to build their houses within the city’s walls; and this is why, in spite of the respect they have for their dead, they ordinarily relegated the necropolis outside the walls of the city, exposing it thus to devastation and profanation. Perhaps the nature of their religion did not demand a vast scenic environment, and this would explain the absence of great temples in their towns. This last point, which may, after all, be only a supposition in the light of the present state of knowledge, deserves to be investigated to the bottom.
In any case, the general knowledge which we possess from this time forth on Etruscan art permits a classification of their works, and this classification M. Martha has, for the first time, worked out in a rational and intelligent fashion. I will, therefore, follow his method, and I will purposely include ceramics and mortuary jewelry, which in a secondary manner can interest those who are particularly occupied with architecture, although these categories are connected on certain sides with the general line of Etruscan art.
In the first place, there are the tombs, which must be studied if one desire to acquire a notion of antiquity. What one first remarks is that the Etruscans have not always practised inhumation to the exclusion of incineration. The most ancient tombs which we know are those, called a pozzo [well], of the Villanovan epoch, because it 1 Continued from No. 794, page 167.