might not reveal the secrets of the fortifications of Ivri, she had his head cut off. But Count Raoul was a prudent man, and took the hint. He had Albérède executed too.

One Norman gentleman, Ascelin de Goël, having had the good luck to capture his feudal lord, held him for ransom; and in order that he might be encouraged to pay more, had him exposed at an open north window, in his shirt, and poured cold water over him, that the winter winds might freeze it. And even the mild and saintly King Robert, in his war against the Duke of Burgundy, laid waste the country far and wide, massacred defenceless peasants, and did not spare even monasteries and churches, since peasants and monasteries alike were regarded as but the goods of the duke, which it was his right to destroy.

The Church had some redress for the evils suffered. The pious and superstitious king was tormented nearly all his life by the threats of eternal damnation which the Church held over him. This brings us to a consideration of the influence of the Church upon manners in general and upon the condition of women.

Though there were many ambitious, greedy, and cruel priests; though many of them lived in open defiance of the Church's prohibition of marriage among the clergy,--there were several married bishops at an earlier period, and one of these, the Bishop of Dole, actually plundered his church to dower his daughters,--the Church as a whole unquestionably stood for the best in manners and in morals. After Charlemagne's vain attempts to revive popular education, what learning there was existed only among the clergy. Though themselves forming part of the feudal nobility and holding fiefs for which they owed military service, the bishops, abbots, and priors almost always espoused the cause of the weak and the oppressed. Within the precincts of the church the poor fugitive from violence done in the name of justice was offered sanctuary, and the right of sanctuary was usually respected.

Within the walls of the monastery women were offered safety. There were many, of course, who might choose the quiet and the comparative ease of the cloister life from motives little better than worldly, and others who might enter with sentiments of romantic devoutness which it is hard for most of us to appreciate in this day; and both were doubtless satisfied with what they found in the convent. But there were many others who had been forced into a life absolutely distasteful to them and alien to their temperaments. How many of these withered away in discontent! how many revolted more actively and led lives that brought reproach and disgrace upon the Church! Among the earliest of the satires against social abuses we find those against hypocritical, avaricious, gluttonous, or licentious monks and nuns; and the stream of satire runs throughout the Middle Ages. Monks live in the pays de Cocagne, to gain admittance to which one had to wallow seven years in filth; monks and nuns are in Rabelais's Abbé de Thélème, and en leur reigle n'estoit que ceste clause: fais ce que vouldra; and monks and nuns again play anything but edifying roles in the fabliaux and their successors, the short tales such as one finds in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles.

Monasteries for women abounded all over France, most of them under some form of the Benedictine rule. Within their own monasteries women could govern themselves, though the whole convent was usually dependent upon male ecclesiastical control, either attached to a neighboring monastery, or under the jurisdiction of a bishop. In the great double monastic community of Fontevrault, established about noo by Robert d'Arbrissel, women were exalted above men; the nuns sang and prayed, the monks worked, and the entire establishment was under the guidance of the abbess.

The abbess or prioress occupied a position of responsibility and dignity not unlike that of the chatelaine. She too had the control of a large domestic establishment, and she was responsible not only for religious discipline but for the temporal provision for her nuns. The abbess had the power of a bishop within the limits of her convent, and bore a crosier as the sign of her rank. She might even hold some feudal tenure in the name of her convent. She drew revenues from her holdings and was in every sense the executive head of her house. At first--always under some of the stricter rules--the abbess carried on business outside the convent through some male agent. Greater freedom undoubtedly prevailed at times, however, and the rule against her leaving the convent was ignored. She was in some cases appointed, but usually elected from among the nuns, though cases are found, of course, where the abbess was the mere creature of some powerful lay or ecclesiastical authority. To become abbess of a nunnery was not considered beneath even a princess of the blood; and in some convents probably the same caste distinctions were observed as prevailed outside, and the nuns were nothing more than elegant retired ladies of birth and fashion.

The abbess appointed her subordinates, who varied in number and rank according to the power of the convent. There was generally a sub-prioress, second in authority to the abbess, and certain minor executive officers, whose duties were nevertheless important, such as the chaplain, the sexton, and the cellaress. The chaplain was in most cases a monk chosen to celebrate Mass for the nuns, since women were not allowed to become actual priests; but in some cases the officer called the chaplain was a nun, whether or not she could officiate in all capacities. The sexton was a nun whose duties were to ring the bells for services, to keep in order the chapel, the altar, and the sacred vessels, and sometimes to act as a treasurer. The most interesting of these officers, however, and the one whose position must have been really most trying, was the cellaress. It was she who had general supervision of the commissariat. She was usually chosen upon the advice, if not by the election, of the whole community, and it was especially important that she should be a tactful person and a judicious manager. As housekeeper of the establishment, she had to control the servants and to satisfy the nuns. In providing food and drink for the household, she had to manage receipts and disbursements of considerable amounts. Very frequently a farm was attached to the nunnery, or there were several farms whose produce was to be used for the support of the institution. For whatever was bought or sold the cellaress had to make an accounting. With the proceeds of her sales or of the rent of the farms under her control, or with the money allowed her, she had to buy such provisions as were needed: grain, flesh, fish,--usually a very large item, especially in the Lenten season,--condiments, such as preserved fruits, spices, salt, etc., and, where the rule did not utterly forbid it, wine or ale. Of these details we shall speak more fully in connection with the rules for a model nunnery which Abélard wrote for Héloïse and upon which she based her government of the famous monastery of the Paraclete.

DROIT DU SEIGNEUR
After the painting by Lucien Mélingue

As feudalism meant oppression verging on slavery for Jacques Bonhomme, the peasant, his wife Jeanne could hardly have been in better case. With peasant marriages the seigneur could interfere even more tyrannically than with those of his feudal wards. In some places the bride and groom owed to the seigneur certain gifts called mets de mariage.... and that most infamous right known as the droit du seigneur was claimed, and we find a writer even as late as the seventeenth century recording the fact that the husband was sometimes required to purchase his bride's exemption from this right.

Aside from the protection they afforded to