century, the effect would have been to create there a powerful nation; and the Crescent never would have triumphed over the Cross in that land from which the West has drawn so much that is of the highest value in all its processes of intellectual culture.
There is a reverse to this picture of the Normans. They had some very bad qualities, for they had no higher claims to perfection than is found in the case of any other people. Mr. James Augustus St. John, speaking of the Norman princess Emma, who married the English Ethelred, says, after admitting her great personal beauty, that "her mental qualities were very far from corresponding with the charms of her person. Like all other Normans, she was greedy of gold, ambitious, selfish, voluptuous, and in an eminent degree prone to treachery."[1] This may stand for a portrait of the whole Norman race. Nor does it detract from their aristocratical spirit that they were ever fond of money, or from their chivalrous spirit that they were faithless when they supposed treachery would best promote their interests. Aristocracies are always money-seekers, and often money-grubbers; and they plunder all whom they have the power to spoil. Alieni uppetens is ever their motto, but sui profusus does always go with it. The American slavocracy were the aristocracy of this country, and they were far more "greedy of gold" than ever "Yankees" have been. Treachery is common to the chivalrous classes, and the history of chivalry is full of instances of its display by men who claimed a monopoly of honor. Our Southern "chivalry" were unfaithful to every compact they made, and it was their infidelity that brought about their fall. The dangers that now threaten the country exist only because the party vanquished in the late civil war are bent upon breaking the terms on which they were admitted to mercy. They are fond of calling themselves Normans, though we have not heard much of their Norman origin since their Hastings went against them; but in respect to treachery and cruelty, and disregard of the rights of the poor and the helpless, they are the match of all the barons of Normandy.
The Normans were often cruel, and some of their modes of punishing their defeated enemies—blinding them, and cutting off their feet and hands, and inflicting on them the most degrading of mutilations—might lead one to suppose they were of Eastern origin, were not such practices traceable to the Northmen. These practices imply a grossness of mind that is much at war with the common notion of the gentleness and cultivation of the Norman nobles. They were noted for their craft, their spirit of intrigue, and their readiness to get possession of the property of others by any and all means. The most unscrupulous modern devotee of Mammon would be ashamed of deeds that never disturbed the placid egotism of men who considered themselves the flower of humanity and the salt of the earth,—and whose estimate of themselves has seldom been called in question. The fairer side of their conduct with regard to money is visible in their sensible encouragement of "business" in all the forms which it then knew. "Annual Mercantile Fairs," says Sir F. Palgrave, "were accustomed in Normandy. Established by usage and utility, ere recognized by the law, their origin bespake a healthy energy. Foreign manufacturers were welcomed as settlers in the Burghs,—the richer the better. No grudge was entertained against the Fleming; and the material prosperity of the country and the briskness of commerce carried on in all the great towns, proves that the pack-horses could tramp along the old Roman roads with facility. Indeed, amongst the Normans the commercial spirit was indigenous.
- ↑ What Sir F. Palgrave says of the famous son of Robert Guiscard is applicable generally to the Normans: "Bohemond was affectionate and true to father, wife, and children, pleasant, affable, and courteous: yet wrapped up in selfishness, possessed by insatiate ambition and almost diabolical cruelty, proud and faithless, but in spite of all these vices so seductive as to command the admiration even of those who knew him to be a heartless demon."—History Vol. IV. p. 471.
