§ 6. Early years of Richard the Good. 996–997

Richard the Fearless was succeeded by his son Richard, surnamed the Good, whose reign carries us beyond the limits of the present sketch into the essential and central portion of our history. Richard was a direct actor in the events which were the immediate causes of the Conquest. He was the uncle of Eadward the Confessor, the grandfather of William the Bastard; and he personally played a certain part in English affairs. I will therefore reserve his actions for their proper place in my general narrative, and I will here speak of one event only, which marks the complete developement of the influences which had been at work throughout the reign of his father. Richard succeeded to the government of a state in which the Danish tongue, Danish manners, perhaps even the old Danish religion, still lingered in particular spots, but which was now, in the face of other nations, a French state, a member, and the principal member, of the Capetian |Aristocratic feelings of Richard.| commonwealth. He had imbibed to the full all the new-born aristocratic feelings of feudal and chivalrous France. He would have none but gentlemen about him. This is perhaps the earliest use of a word so familiar both in French and in English, but which bears such different meanings in the two languages. But, whoever was a gentleman in the language of Richard’s court, it is plain that the word took in all who could pretend to any kind of kindred or affinity, legitimate or illegitimate, with the sovereign. The way in which the exclusively aristocratic household of Richard is spoken of seems to show that his conduct in this respect was felt to be something different from that of his father. Taken in connexion with what follows, it may well have been the last pound which broke |Revolt of the peasants. 997.| the camel’s back. Popular discontent broke out in the great peasant revolt to which I had occasion to allude earlier in this chapter. We may suppose that the peasantry were mainly of Celtic, Roman, or Frankish origin; that is, that they sprang from that mixture of those three elements which produced the modern French nation. But we may well believe that many a man of Scandinavian descent, many a small allodial holder who was unwilling to commend himself to a lord, threw in his lot with the insurgents. |Their regular political organization.| What is most remarkable in the story of this revolt is the regular political organization of the revolters. The systematic way in which they set to work is common enough in cities, but is exceedingly rare in rural communities. It is almost enough to place this revolt of the Norman peasantry side by side with the more famous and more fortunate revolt of the Forest Cantons against |They establish a “commune” with a representative assembly.| the encroachments of Austria. We can hardly believe what we read when we find that these rebellious villains established a regular representative parliament. The peasants of each district deputed two of their number to a general assembly, the decisions of which were to be binding on the whole body. The men who could devise such a system in such an age had certainly made further steps in political progress than the masters against whom they rebelled. The constitution which they established is expressly called by a name dear to the inhabitants of the cities of those ages, a name glorious in the eyes of modern political inquirers, but a name which was, beyond all other names, a word of fear to feudal barons and prelates, and to those Kings who were not clear-sighted enough to see that their own interests and the interests of their people were the same. The peasantry of Normandy, like the citizens of Le Mans in after times, “made a commune.” Such a constitution could hardly have been devised offhand by mere peasants. We can hardly doubt that it had a groundwork in local institutions which the newly-grown aristocracy were trampling under foot, and that the so-called rebels were simply defending the inheritance of their fathers. We have the tale only from the mouths of enemies; but the long list of popular grievances, and the testimony of enemies to the regular order with which the rebellion was carried on, are enough to show that some very promising germs of freedom were here crushed in the bud. The freedom which these men sought to establish would have been in truth more valuable, because more fairly spread over the whole country, than the liberties |The revolt crushed by Rudolf of Ivry.| won by isolated cities. But the revolt was crushed with horrible cruelty by Rudolf, Count of Ivry, the Duke’s uncle, himself a churl by birth, the son of the miller who married the cast off wife or mistress of Duke William. After this, we hear no more of peasant insurrections in Normandy, but it may well be that the struggle was not |Probable results of the struggle.| wholly fruitless. Villainage in Normandy was lighter, and died out earlier, than in most parts of France; and the most genuine pieces of Norman jurisprudence which abide to this day, the ancient constitutions of the Channel Islands, strange and antiquated as they seem in our eyes, breathe a spirit of freedom worthy of the air of England, of Switzerland, or of Norway.

Such was the country and the people, whose history, from the beginning of the eleventh century, becomes inseparably interwoven with that of England. We will now go back to our own island, and, taking up the thread of our narrative, we will go on with a more detailed account of English affairs from the beginning of those renewed Danish invasions which paved the way for the still more eventful invasion of the Norman.