Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 194 of 529 · 20 per page

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Food was the prisoner’s own responsibility, though the bishop was supposed to provide bread and water in the case of poverty. The secular authorities did not like these crowded prisons, being terrified of gaol fever and plague, and thus burned many more people than the Church authorized. The system was saved from utter horror only by the usual medieval frailties: corruption, inertia, and sheer administrative incompetence. Where the system was employed against an entire community, as in Languedoc, it evoked resistance. There were riots, murders, the destruction of records. Many countries would not admit the Inquisition at all. In Spain, however, it became a state instrument, almost a national institution, like bullfighting, a mystery to foreigners but popular among the natives. It is surprising how often admirable, if eccentric, individuals were burned, not only without public protest but with general approval. Thus the fourteenth-century breakaway movement of Franciscans, the fraticelli, who opposed clerical property and reasserted the apostolic practices of their founder, were hunted and burned all over Europe but especially in their native Umbria and the Mark of Ancona; the crowds who watched them destroyed were apathetic or inclined to believe antinomianism was rightly punished. In the Middle Ages, the ruthless and confident exercise of authority could nearly always swing a majority behind it. And the victims of the flames usually died screaming in pain and terror, thus appearing to confirm the justice of the proceedings. The total Christian society of the Middle Ages was based on an intense belief in the supernatural. It tended to live on its nerves. Lacking any kind of system for determining the truth scientifically and objectively, society was often bewildered. Today’s heterodoxy might become tomorrow’s orthodoxy; and vice versa. The enthusiasm of faith so easily toppled over into hysteria, and so became violently destructive. Inside every saint there appeared a heretic struggling to get out; and the converse. One man’s Christ was another man’s Antichrist. The official Church was conventional, orderly, hierarchical, committed to defend Society as it existed, with all its disparities and grievances. But there was also, as it were, an anti-Church, rebellious, egalitarian, revolutionary, which rejected society and its values and threatened to smash it to bits. It had its own tradition of revolutionary prophecy, inherited from the Jews, and continued into Christianity through the Book of Revelation, which acquired its place in the canon because it was believed to have been written by St John. Millenarianism had been, in the earliest days, almost the official political theory of the Church. But the eschatological moment had receded, and when Christianity became the state religion of the empire, millenarianism was frowned upon. Augustine, the ideologist of the official church, presented Revelation in his City of God as a mere spiritual allegory; the millenium had already begun with Christ and had been realized in the shape of the Church itself. But this did not end the argument, as he had hoped.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Oh husband, I’ve never had such a fright in all my life. Some young man or other came running into the house, with Messer Lambertuccio in pursuit, brandishing a dagger. He burst into my room, the door of which happened to be open, and trembling from head to foot, he said: “Madam, for God’s sake save me from being killed and expiring in your arms” I stood up, and I was just about to ask him who he was and what it was all about when Messer Lambertuccio came charging up the stairs, shouting: “Blackguard, where are you?” I stood in the doorway to prevent him coming any further, and when he saw that I didn’t want him to enter the room, he had the decency not to insist. And after a long rigmarole, he went rushing off down the stairs, as you saw for yourself.’ ‘You did the right thing, my dear,’ said the husband. ‘It would have been a very serious matter for us if anyone had been murdered under our own roof. And it was highly improper of Messer Lambertuccio to pursue a man who had taken refuge within these walls.’ He then asked what had become of the young man, and his wife replied: ‘I have no idea where he can have hidden himself.’ So her husband called out: ‘Where are you? Come on out, you’re quite safe.’ Having overheard everything, Leonetto emerged from his hiding place with an expression of terror all over his features, which was not very surprising considering that he had indeed been frightened out of his wits, and the husband said to him: ‘What is your business with Messer Lambertuccio?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the young man, ‘I have no business with him whatsoever, and that is why I firmly believe that he is out of his mind, or that he mistook me for somebody else, for no sooner did he see me, a little way down the road, than he drew his dagger and said: “Say your prayers, you blackguard” Without stopping to ask him the reason, I took to my heels and ran in here, where thanks to God and to this kind lady, I escaped from his clutches.’ Then the nobleman said: ‘Come now, don’t be afraid; I shall see you to your doorstep safe and sound, and then you can have some inquiries made, and discover what it is all about.’ After they had all had supper together, the husband conveyed the young man back to Florence on horseback, and saw him to his own front door. Later that evening, in accordance with instructions he had received from the lady, Leonetto spoke privately with Messer Lambertuccio, and so arranged matters that even though many more words were spoken on the subject, the nobleman never came to know of the trick that his wife had played upon him.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I only mentioned it for your own good, and once again I advise you to stay at home today, or at any rate to keep well away from those woods of ours.’ ‘Very well,’ said the woman, ‘I’ll do as you say.’ But then she began to think to herself: ‘Here’s a crafty fellow! Do you see how he tries to frighten me out of going near the woods today? He’s doubtless made an appointment there with some strumpet or other, and doesn’t want me to find him. Ah, he’d do well for himself at a supper for the blind, but knowing him as I do, I should be a great fool to take him at his word. He certainly won’t get away with this. I shall find out what business takes him to those woods, even if I have to wait there the whole day.’ No sooner had she reached the end of these deliberations than her husband left the house, whereupon she too left the house by a separate door and made her way to the woods without a moment’s delay, keeping out of sight as much as possible. On entering the woods, she concealed herself in the thickest part she could find, and kept a sharp lookout on all sides so that she could see if anyone was coming. Nothing was further removed from her thoughts than the prospect of seeing any wolves, but all of a sudden, whilst she was standing there in the way we have described, a wolf of terrifying size leapt out from a nearby thicket; on seeing which, she scarcely had time to exclaim ‘Lord, deliver me!’ before the wolf hurled itself at her throat, seized her firmly in its jaws, and began to carry her off as though she were a new-born lamb. So tightly was the wolf holding on to her throat that she was unable to scream for help, nor was there anything else she could do; and hence the wolf, as it bore her away, would assuredly have strangled her but for the fact that it ran towards some shepherds, who yelled at the beast and forced it to release her. The poor, unfortunate woman was recognized by the shepherds, who carried her back to her house, and after long and intensive treatment at the hands of various physicians, she recovered. Her recovery was not complete, however, for the whole of her throat and a part of her face were so badly disfigured that whereas she was formerly a beautiful woman, she was thenceforth deformed and utterly loath-some to look upon. Hence she was ashamed to show herself in public, and shed many a bitter tear for her petulant ways and her refusal to give credence, when it would have cost her nothing, to her husband’s prophetic dream.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I wanted him to think I was just fucking fine. But I did feel sick. Also scared. Would this be my second strike? Would they send me to jail? I just wanted to be left alone. I felt that if the cop left me alone, I could pull my car over to the side and rest a little longer and I’d be okay. I didn’t want anyone seeing me like this in my nightgown. “You can call my sister,” I said. I gave him my sister Annika’s number. I didn’t tell him that she lived in California. He left her a voicemail saying I had gotten sick on the road and asking if she could come pick me up. She was going to be confused. “Anyone else we can call?” he asked. “I’ll be okay,” I said. “I’m much better now.” “I’m going to have to ask that you pull your car over on that next side street and park it there. You can gather up your doughnuts and I’ll give you a ride home.” “Fine,” I said. “You know where I live.” 4. Then came the obsession. I started reading my weekly horoscopes and his (Sagittarius), parsing every word for a sign that the universe was going to bring us back together. If there was nothing about love I would read a different horoscope. I would read them until I found one that suited me—until it said this was my lucky day or week or month. I consulted a psychic, an old woman in Tempe who worked in the back of a Mediterranean restaurant. She said that I needed to focus on me, do work on myself and my “blocks” and more would be revealed. She suggested a powder made of quartz crystal to put in my bath. She said it would serve as a clearing of negativity. I bought it for $250 and soaked in it. Nothing happened. So I called more psychics. I realized how much time I had spent with Jamie. Or maybe not how much time I’d spent with him, but how much time I spent alone but knowing, at least, that he was there. It was different now, being totally alone, with no one person in the back of my mind—that little figure, like a cushion. I’d never had many friends in Phoenix to begin with. There was Rochelle, a professor of anthropology, who had introduced me to Jamie. Rochelle had been married since before I met her. Mid-forties with wiry, pubic-looking hair that she kept cut very short, in a style I secretly called “the Brillo,” she wore no makeup and was deeply okay with herself.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  and indeed total religious conformity, was necessary, efficacious, and wholly justified. He admitted he had changed his mind on this point. He wrote to a Donatist friend that he had seen his own town, originally Donatist, ‘brought over to the Catholic unity by fear of the imperial edicts’. That had convinced him. In fact heretics in their hearts welcomed persecution: they would say ‘fear made us become earnest to examine the truth. . . the stimulus of fear startled us from our negligence’. And then, this was Christ’s own way. Had not he, ‘by great violence’, ‘coerced’ Paul into Christianity? Was not this the meaning of the text from Luke, 14:23: ‘Compel them to come in’? It was Augustine who first drew attention to this, and a number of other convenient texts, to be paraded through the centuries by the Christian apologists of force. He also had the inquisitorial emphasis: ‘The necessity for harshness is greater in the investigation, than in the infliction, of punishment’; and again: ‘. . . it is generally necessary to use more rigour in making inquisition, so that when the crime has been brought to light, there may be scope for displaying clemency.’ For the first time, too, he used the analogy with the State, indeed appealed to the orthodoxy of the State, in necessary and perpetual alliance with the Church in the extirpation of dissidents. The Church unearthed, the State castigated. The key word was disciplina – very frequent in his writings. If discipline were removed, there would be chaos: ‘Take away the barriers created by the laws, and men’s brazen capacity to do harm, their urge to self- indulgence, would rage to the full. No king in his kingdom, no general with his troops, no husband with his wife, no father with his son, could attempt to put a stop, by any threats or punishments, to the freedom and the sheer, sweet taste of sinning.’ Here, first articulated, is the appeal of the persecuting Church to all the authoritarian elements in society, indeed in human nature. Nor did Augustine operate solely at the intellectual level. He was a leading bishop, working actively with the State in the enforcement of imperial uniformity. We have a vignette of him at Carthage in 399, when imperial agents arrived to close down pagan shrines, preaching to excited mobs: ‘Down with the Roman gods!’ Perhaps more sinister is Augustine’s contact with authoritarian elements in Spain, already a centre of Christian rigorism and orthodox violence. There, in 385, the Bishop of Avila, Priscillian, a notable ascetic and preacher, had been accused of gnosticism, Manicheism and moral depravity, had been indicted under the imperial law of witchcraft, tried at Bordeaux, and brought to the imperial court at Trier. There, under torture, he and his companions confessed they had studied obscene doctrines, held meetings with

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  the Moslems the inhabited earth? They have made Asia, which is a third of the world, their homeland. . . . They have also forcibly held Africa, the second portion of the world, for over 200 years. There remains Europe, the third continent. How small a portion of it is inhabited by us Christians.’ Of course, he added, ‘in one sense the whole world is exile for the Christian’ but in another ‘the whole world is his country’. In any case, he concluded, ‘in this land’ – meaning Christian Europe – ‘you can scarcely feed the inhabitants. That is why you use up its goods and excite endless wars among yourselves.’ The crusades were thus to some extent a weird halfway house between the tribal movements of the fourth and fifth centuries and the mass trans-atlantic migration of the poor in the nineteenth. According to Anna Comnena, the Byzantine court was alarmed to hear that ‘all the West and all the barbarian tribes from beyond the Adriatic as far as the Pillars of Hercules were moving in a body through Europe towards Asia, bringing whole families with them.’ This was not true. But the numbers were large, particularly in the first two generations of the crusading movement. Peter the Hermit led a mob of 20,000 men, women and children, including, one presumes, many families carrying all their worldly goods with them. Most of these people were very poor; they had been unable to obtain land on any lease, or agricultural work during an acute and prolonged labour surplus; they intended to settle. So, of course, did the most determined of the knights. Most of them had no money or lands. Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, who emerged as the leader of the First Crusade, claimed descent from Charlemagne, but he held his duchy as an office not a fief, and may have been in danger of dismissal: hence his crusade. Apart from Raymond of Toulouse, all the crusaders who settled in the Holy Land were poor men; the rich, like Stephen of Blois, or the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne, returned to Europe as quickly as they honourably could. From the start, then, the crusades were marked by depredations and violence which were as much racial as religious in origin. Mass-gatherings of Christians for any purpose invariably constituted a danger to Jewish communities in European cities. Local rulers nearly always tried to protect them, for their own selfish financial reasons; but they were powerless to control the vast crusading bands. To Christian crusaders, in particular, the Jews were hateful: they were believed to have helped the Roman pagans to persecute the early Christians, and they had assisted the Islamic conquests. 3 Men like Godfrey de Bouillon terrorized Jewish communities into

• From The Decameron (1353)

  A few days later, Ferondo called at the abbey, and no sooner did the Abbot see him than he decided to pack him off to Purgatory. So he sought out a wondrous powder which had been given him in the East by a mighty prince, who maintained that it was the one used by the Old Man of the Mountain 3 whenever he wanted to send people to his paradise in their sleep or bring them back again. The prince had further assured him that by varying the dose, one could render people unconscious for longer or shorter periods, during which they slept so profoundly that nobody would ever guess that they were still alive. Without letting Ferondo see what he was doing, the Abbot measured out a quantity sufficient to put him to sleep for three days, poured it into a glass of somewhat cloudy wine, and gave it to him to drink whilst they were still in his cell. He then led him off to the cloister, where he and several of his monks began to amuse themselves at Ferondo’s expense and make fun of his imbecilities. Before very long, however, the powder began to take effect, and Ferondo, being suddenly overcome by a powerful sensation of drowsiness, fell asleep where he was standing and collapsed to the ground unconscious. The Abbot, feigning consternation at this occurrence, got someone to loosen his clothing, sent for cold water and had it sprinkled over Ferondo’s face, and ordered various other remedies to be applied, as though he were intent on restoring the life and feeling of which he had been deprived by his stomach- wind or whatever else it was that had felled him. But on seeing that he failed to come round despite all their efforts, and on testing his pulse and finding it had stopped, the Abbot and his monks unanimously concluded that he must be dead. So somebody was sent to inform his wife and kinsfolk, and they all came rushing to the scene. And when his wife and kinswomen had finished weeping, the Abbot caused him to be laid to rest in a tomb, in the clothes he was wearing. Ferondo and his wife had a little boy, and when she returned home, she told the child that she intended to stay there for the rest of her days. Thus she remained in Ferondo’s house, and applied herself to the task of looking after the child and administering the fortune left behind by her husband. Meanwhile, the Abbot quietly rose from his bed in the middle of the night, and with the assistance of a Bolognese monk whom he trusted implicitly and who had arrived that same day from Bologna, he dragged Ferondo from the tomb and moved him into a vault, totally devoid of any light, which served as a place of confinement for monks who had broken their vows.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You are to know, dear ladies, that Manfred,1 who was crowned King of Sicily after the death of the Emperor Frederick II, held few of his courtiers in higher esteem man a gentleman of Naples called Arrighetto Capece, who had a beautiful and noble wife, also Neapolitan, called Madonna Beritola Caracciolo.2 Arrighetto was in fact governing the island, when news reached him that King Charles I had defeated and killed Manfred at Benevento, and that the whole kingdom had gone over to the conqueror. Knowing that the Sicilians could never be trusted for long, and not wishing to become a subject of his master’s enemy, he prepared to flee. But his plans were discovered by the Sicilians, who promptly took him prisoner and delivered him over to King Charles along with many other friends and servants of King Manfred. And shortly afterwards, the island itself was surrendered. In the face of all this upheaval, not knowing what had become of Arrighetto, frightened by what had happened and fearing a possible attempt on her own honour, Madonna Beritola abandoned everything she possessed, and though pregnant and reduced to poverty, she fled by ship to Lipari with her son, Giusfredi, who was about eight years old. There she gave birth to a second son, whom she called The Outcast, and having hired a nurse, she embarked with all three on a tiny ship bound for Naples, with the intention of rejoining her family. But her plans misfired, for the ship was driven by strong winds to the island of Ponza,3 where they put in to a little bay and began to await more favourable weather for their voyage. Like the others, Madonna Beritola went ashore there, and she sought out a deserted and remote spot on the island where, in complete solitude, she could give vent to her sorrow for the loss of her husband. This became a daily ritual of hers, until one day, as she was busy sorrowing, it happened that a pirate-galley arrived, taking the crew and everyone else unawares, and departed again after capturing the ship and all hands. Having completed her daily lament, Madonna Beritola, following her usual practice, returned to the shore to look for her children. On finding nobody in sight she was at first perplexed, and then, suddenly suspecting what had happened, she cast her eyes seaward and saw the galley, not yet very far distant, with the little ship in tow. Realizing all too clearly that she had now lost her children as well as her husband, and finding herself abandoned there, alone and destitute, without the slightest notion of how she was going to find them again, she fell in a dead faint on to the sand with the names of her husband and children on her lips.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘They have done wrong, and well deserve to be punished, but not by you; for although wrongdoing requires a punishment, good deeds require a reward, to say nothing of pardon and clemency. Do you realize who these people are that you are so eager to put to death at the stake?’ The King replied that he did not know them, whereupon Ruggieri said: ‘Then I shall make it my business to tell you, so that you will see how unwise it is for you to let yourself be carried away by your anger. The young man is the son of Landolfo of Procida, blood-brother to Messer Gianni of Procida, through whose efforts you became King and master of this island. The girl is the daughter of Marin Bòlgaro, without whose power and influence Ischia would be lost to you tomorrow.7 What is more, these two youngsters have long been in love with one another, and it was not out of any disrespect towards your royal highness, but rather through being constrained by their love, that they committed this sin of theirs – if sin is a suitable word to describe the things young people do in the cause of love. Why, then, should you wish to have them put to death, when you ought to be entertaining them right royally and bestowing precious gifts upon them?’ On realizing that Ruggieri must be speaking the truth, the King was not only filled with horror over what he was proposing to do, but bitterly regretted the action he had already taken. So he promptly sent word that the two young lovers were to be released from the stake and brought into his presence. These orders were carried out, and after inquiring fully into their condition, the King decided that he must make amends, through largesse and hospitality, for the indignity he had caused them to suffer. He therefore had them newly clothed in courtly attire, and arranged, by their mutual consent, for Gianni and the girl to be married. And finally he sent them back, well content and laden with magnificent presents, to the place from which they had come. There they were received with tremendous rejoicing, and long thereafter lived in joy and happiness together. SEVENTH STORYTeodoro falls in love with Violante, the daughter of his master, Messer Amerigo. He gets her with child, and is sentenced to die on the gallows. But whilst he is being whipped along the road to his execution, he is recognized by his father and set at liberty, after which he and Violante become husband and wife. All the ladies were on tenterhooks, anxiously wondering whether the two lovers would be burnt, and on learning that they had escaped, they all rejoiced and offered thanks to God. Then, having heard the end of the story, the queen entrusted the telling of the next to Lauretta, who cheerfully began as follows:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  told you. And if you find I am telling the truth, I beg you to listen no further to these vicious perjurers. Please don’t let me be tortured and put to death.’ Meanwhile, with the matter proceeding along these lines, word had reached Marchese and Stecchi that the judge was giving him a rough handling and had already put him on the strappado. ‘We have made a fine mess of things,’ they said, shaking with fright. ‘We have taken him out of the frying-pan, and dropped him straight in the fire.’ 3 Being determined to leave no stone unturned, they tracked down their landlord, and explained to him what had happened. The landlord, who was highly amused at their tale, took them to see a man called Sandro Agolanti, a Florentine living in Treviso who had considerable influence with the ruler of the city. Having acquainted him with all the facts, the landlord joined the other two in pleading with him to intervene on Martellino’s behalf. Sandro laughed heartily, then he went off to see the prince, and persuaded him to send for Martellino. The men who were sent to fetch him found him still standing in front of the judge, wearing nothing but a shirt, and trembling all over with fear and dismay because the judge would not listen to anything that was said in his defence. Indeed, since he happened to have some sort of grudge against Florentines, he was quite determined to have him hanged, and stubbornly refused to hand him over until he was compelled to do so. When Martellino came before the ruler, he gave him a full account of what had happened, and begged him as a supreme favour to let him go about his business; for until he was safely back in Florence, he would always feel that he had a noose round his neck. The ruler went into fits of laughter to hear of such remarkable goings on and ordered each of them to be provided with a new suit of clothes. Thus all three emerged from this dreadful ordeal better than they ever expected, and returned home safe and sound.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The next day, the wind changed quarter, and the two ships hoisted their sails and set a westerly course. For the whole of that day they made good progress, but in the evening a gale began to blow, producing very heavy seas and separating the two carracks from each other. By a stroke of ill-luck, the ship in which the wretched, destitute Landolfo was travelling was driven by the force of the gale on to the coast of the island of Cephalonia, where she ran aground with a tremendous crash, split wide open, and like a piece of glass being flung against a wall, was smashed to smithereens. As is usually the case when this happens, the sea was rapidly littered with an assortment of floating planks, chests and merchandise. And although it was pitch dark and there was a heavy swell, the poor wretches who had survived the wreck, or those of them who could swim, began to cling to whatever object happened to float across their path. One of their number was poor Landolfo, who had in fact been calling out all day for death to come and take him, for he felt he would rather die than return home poverty-stricken. But now that he was staring death in the face, he was frightened by the prospect, and like the others he too clung to the first spar that came within his reach, in the hope that by remaining afloat for a little longer, God might somehow come to his rescue. Settling himself astride the spar as best he could, he clung on till daybreak, meanwhile being tossed hither and thither by sea and wind. When dawn came, he cast his eyes around him, but all he could see was clouds and water, and a chest floating on the sea’s surface. To his great consternation, this chest floated every so often into his vicinity, causing him to fear lest it should collide into him and do him an injury. So whenever it came too near, he summoned up the meagre strength he still possessed, and pushed it away as best he could with his hands.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Whether because of having had a tiring day or because he had eaten food containing a lot of salt or because of some peculiarity of his constitution, Ruggieri, whilst he was waiting in the bedroom for his mistress, suddenly felt enormously thirsty. And catching sight of the bottle of medicine which the doctor had left on the window-ledge, he mistook it for drinking water, raised it to his lips, and drank it down to the last drop. Almost at once he was filled with a feeling of great drowsiness, and shortly afterwards he fell fast asleep. At the earliest opportunity, the lady came up to the bedroom, and on finding Ruggieri asleep she began to prod him and whisper to him to get up. But it was no use; he neither answered nor moved a muscle. And so the lady, growing somewhat impatient, gave him a more violent shove, saying: ‘Get up, lazybones. If you wanted to sleep, you should have gone to your own house to do it instead of coming round here.’ The lady’s shove toppled Ruggieri from the chest on which he was lying, and he fell to the floor, showing no more sign of life than if he were a corpse. The lady was rather frightened, and she began to try and raise him, then shook him more vigorously and tweaked his nose and pulled his beard. But it was all to no purpose: he was sleeping like a log. The lady now began to fear that he was dead, and in her panic she started pinching him viciously and holding a lighted candle against his skin, but it was no use. And hence, being no physician herself even though she was married to one, she was quite convinced that he must be dead. Since there was nothing in the world that she loved so much, her distress can readily be imagined. Not daring to make any noise, she began to weep in silence over his body and lament her ghastly misfortune. After a while, however, being afraid that she might lose her reputation on top of losing her lover, the lady saw that she must immediately devise some means for getting his body out of the house. Having no idea how she should go about it, she called out softly to her maid, showed her the dilemma she was in, and asked her what they ought to do. The maid was greatly astonished, and she too began shaking and pinching him, but when she saw that he was without any feeling, she agreed with her mistress that he really was dead, and said that he would have to be put out of the house. ‘But where on earth can we leave him,’ inquired the lady, ‘so as to prevent people suspecting, when he is discovered in the morning, that this was the house from which he was taken?’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When Andreuccio saw that he had nearly reached the top of the well, he let go the rope and threw himself on to the rim, clinging to it with both hands. On seeing this apparition, the officers were filled with sudden panic, and without a word they dropped the rope and began to run as fast as their legs would carry them. Andreuccio stared at them in blank amazement, and if he hadn’t held on tightly, he would have fallen to the bottom, perhaps being killed or doing himself serious injury. However, he clambered out, and when he saw these weapons, he grew even more perplexed, for he knew they had not been left there by his companions. Bewailing his misfortune, and fearing lest anything worse should befall him, he decided to leave all these things where they were and clear off. So away he went without having the slightest idea where he was going. As he was walking along, he came across his two companions, who were on their way back to the well to haul him out. They could hardly believe their eyes when they saw him coming, and they asked him who had helped him out. Andreuccio said he didn’t know and gave them a detailed account of how it had happened, describing what he had found lying beside the well. Putting two and two together, they had a good laugh and told him why they had run away, and explained who it was that had hauled him out of the well. And without wasting any more words, the night already being half spent, they made their way to the cathedral, which they entered without any difficulty. On reaching the tomb, which was very big and made of marble, they got out their tools and lifted the enormously heavy lid, propping it up so that there was just enough room for a man to squeeze his way inside. When this operation was complete, one of them said: ‘Who’s going in?’ ‘I’m not,’ said the other. ‘And I’m not, either,’ said the first. ‘How about Andreuccio?’ ‘I won’t do it,’ said Andreuccio, whereupon both the others rounded on him saying: ‘What do you mean, you won’t do it? If you don’t damned well get in there quickly, we’ll give you such a hammering over the pate with these iron bars that we’ll kill you stone dead.’

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  them exactly and economically. Material was brought from Lombardy, but more from England. Alcuin used the resources of the English monasteries and cathedral schools which, with their direct links with Rome, had become clearing-houses for manuscripts. ‘Reliable’ versions from Rome reached Canterbury, Jarrow, York and Malmesbury, and were there copied for the use of English missionaries abroad, and for export to Frankish centres. The point about the Codex Amiatinus which Ceolfrid took to Rome was not only its beauty but its accuracy. Other important English manuscripts were sent to monastic libraries in Corbie, Tours, St Denis, Utrecht, Echternach, Mainz, Lorsch, Amorbach, Wirzburg, Salzburg, Reichenau and of course Fulda. There they were recopied. Along with biblical and devotional texts went a small number of manuscripts of secular books, which had been recommended by Cassiodorus as useful to spiritual purposes, and also his advice on the careful copying of manuscripts, the technique for spotting possible emendations, and rules for spelling, binding and keeping of books. This last work was embodied in a circular to all religious houses, written presumably by Alcuin and despatched by Charlemagne’s chancery, urging on them the need to cultivate letters as the proper introduction to the scriptures. Another general letter sent out by Alcuin and Charlemagne noted that the king had set up a task-force to ‘correct with all possible care’ the entire Bible ‘degraded through the ignorance of copyists’. Alcuin was in charge of this effort: and it was the great codex embodying the results which, as we have seen, was handed to his master in Rome on Christmas Day 800. In a way, the revised and amended Bible of Alcuin sums up, not unfairly, the limitations of Dark Age Christian culture – a conscientious, and in the circumstances heroic, effort to recover as much as possible, and as accurately as possible, the understanding of the past; but an almost total absence of the desire to reach out for new frontiers. These Dark Age scholars believed that God had imposed definite limits on what knowledge man might acquire in this world without sin. In accepting these limits they were motivated by fear, as well as by respect for the past. They were, indeed, fearful and superstitious men. The Christian Church of Alcuin in the late eighth century was still, in certain basic essentials, recognisably the same as the Church of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, around AD 50–60. But in certain other respects it was very different. If Christianity had been ‘imperialized’ in the fourth century, it was to some extent ‘barbarianized’ in the West, during the three centuries beginning about 500. Nothing exactly new was created; but certain elements already present in

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Tiber reaches the walls, if the Nile failes to rise to the fields, if the sky doesn’t move, or the earth does, if there is famine or plague, the cry is at once: “The Christians, to the Lion!”’ Prejudice was much stronger in the central and western Mediterranean than in the east, but certain rumours were current everywhere. The doctrine of the eucharist, under which ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’ were eaten, was understood to mean the practice of cannibalism. The ‘kiss of peace’ at Sunday services was also misinterpreted. Clement of Alexandria complained: ‘There are those that do nothing but make the churches resound with a kiss, not having love itself within. This practice, the shameless use of the kiss, which ought to be mystic, has occasioned foul suspicions and evil reports.’ There was a reference to incest. The wilder Christians sects – later branded as heretics – naturally attracted more attention from critics and Roman officials. Writing from Bythinia in Asia Minor, a worried local governor, Pliny the Younger, asked for detailed instruction from the Emperor Trajan (98–117). Christianity, he reported, was spreading from the towns to the countryside. The temples were empty and it was becoming difficult to sell the meat from sacrificed animals. He was under local pressure to execute Christians. What was their crime? Should they be charged with incest and cannibalism, their reputed offences? If they remained contumacious then it was clear they had to be executed, but what if they recanted? Some admitted they had been Christians but denied their faith and cursed Christ. They made offerings to the emperor and the gods. But they also denied that Christians practised enormities. They did not eat murdered children: just food. And they had suspended their secret rites following an edict against religious societies. He had tortured two deaconesses, but found nothing but ‘squalid superstition’. Severity undoubtedly brought people back to the temples. What should he do now? Trajan advised moderation. There should be no general inquisition. Anonymous informers should be ignored. Accusations from responsible folk should be properly investigated. No Christian should be punished if he made sacrifices. This was the line usually followed by Roman governments. If they were strong and secure they were less inclined to yield to prejudice. Undisavowed Christianity remained a capital offence, but government did not, as a rule, force Christians into the choice between avowal and apostasy. It left them alone. One reason why the Church strove for uniformity, and so against heresy, was that non-orthodox practices tended to attract more attention and therefore hostility. ‘Prophesying’, the great

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When he saw what was happening, the Count was far more concerned about the envious proclivities of the courtiers than reassured by his own clear conscience in the matter; and for this reason he feared that the lady’s wicked lies would carry greater conviction than his own protestations of innocence. He therefore hurried out of the room, got quickly away from the palace, and fled to his own house, whence, without pausing for further reflection, he took horse with his children and set off at breakneck speed in the direction of Calais. The lady’s caterwauling brought several people running, and when they saw her and heard what she was shouting about, they were convinced she was telling the truth, more especially because they now assumed that the Count had long been exploiting his charm and his elegant ways for no other purpose. There followed a wild rush to the Count’s residence, with the intention of placing him under arrest. But on finding that he was not at home, they ransacked the whole of the premises and then razed them to the ground. When the story, embroidered with various obscenities, reached the King and his son in the field, they were greatly distressed, and condemned the Count and his descendants to perpetual exile, promising huge rewards for his capture, dead or alive. Meanwhile the Count, full of misgivings for having turned his innocence into apparent guilt by his hurried departure, arrived at Calais with his children, having succeeded in concealing his identity and escaping recognition. He then crossed rapidly to England, and proceeded, raggedly dressed, towards London. But before entering the city, he talked at great length with the two little children, laying great stress on two points in particular: first, that they must patiently support the state of poverty into which, through no fault of their own, Fortune had cast them along with their father; and second, that if they valued their lives, they must always be on their guard against telling anyone where they had come from or who their father was. The boy, who was called Louis, was about nine years old, whilst the girl, whose name was Violante,2 was about seven, and considering their tender age, they paid the closest possible attention to their father’s instructions, as they were later to prove. In order to make their task easier, the Count decided it would be necessary to change their names, and this he did, calling the boy Perrot and the girl Jeannette. And on arriving, poorly dressed, in London, they began to go round begging for alms, in the manner of the French vagrants that we see here in Italy.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Oh, for the love of God, have mercy!’ she said. ‘Don’t allow yourself to murder someone who never did you any harm, just for the sake of obeying an order. As God is my witness, I have never given my husband the slightest cause for taking my life. But leaving that aside, you have it within your power to satisfy your master without offending God or laying a finger upon me. All you have to do is to take these outer garments I am wearing and leave me a cloak and a doublet. You can then return to our lord and master with the clothes and tell him you have killed me. And I swear to you, upon the life you will have granted me, that I will disappear and go away somewhere so that neither he nor you nor the people of these parts will ever hear of me again.’ The retainer was by no means eager to kill her, and was easily moved to compassion. And so, having taken the clothes, he gave her a tattered old doublet of his and a cloak to put on, left her some money she was carrying, and begged her to disappear entirely from those parts. He then abandoned her in the valley on foot and returned to his master, informing him that not only had his orders been carried out, but he had left her dead body surrounded by a pack of wolves. Some time afterwards, Bernabò returned to Genoa, but once the story had leaked out, he never succeeded in living it down. The lady, abandoned and forlorn, disguised herself as best she could, and when it was dark she went to a nearby cottage, where she obtained some things from an old woman and altered the doublet, shortening it to make it fit. She also converted her shift into a pair of knee-length breeches, cut her hair, and having transformed her appearance completely so that she now looked like a sailor, she made her way down to the coast, where she happened to encounter the master of a ship lying some distance offshore, a Catalan gentleman called Señor En Cararch, who had come ashore at Albenga3 to take on supplies of fresh water. Engaging him in conversation, she persuaded him to sign her on as his cabin-boy, calling herself Sicurano da Finale, and once they had gone aboard, the gentleman supplied her with some smarter clothes to wear. And she served him so well and so efficiently that he grew very attached to her.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Leonetto, being no less terrified of the man than she was herself, hid behind the bed, and she told her maid to go and let Messer Lambertuccio in. This she did, and having ridden into the courtyard, he dismounted, tethered his palfrey to a ring, and came up the stairs. The lady came to meet him, smiling, at the head of the stairs, and having bidden him a cheerful welcome she asked him the nature of his business. He embraced and kissed her, and said: ‘My dearest, I heard that your husband was away, so I’ve come to keep you company for a while.’ And without further preliminaries, they went into the bedroom, and Messer Lambertuccio, having locked the door, proceeded to bend her to his pleasure. But whilst he was thus tarrying with the lady, to her utter amazement her husband happened to return. No sooner did the maid espy him approaching the villa, than she ran at once to her mistress’s bedroom and said: ‘It’s the master, he’s coming back, ma’am. He’ll be down there in the yard by now, I should think.’ Finding herself with two men in the house, and knowing it was impossible to conceal the second because his horse was standing in the yard, the lady thought her hour had come. However, with extraordinary presence of mind she leapt out of bed and said to Messer Lambertuccio: ‘Sir, if you love me in the slightest degree, and wish to save my life, do as I shall tell you. Take out your dagger, wave it about in your hand, and charge down the stairs like a madman, breathing fire and slaughter, and shouting: “I vow to God I’ll catch up with him yet!” If my husband should try to stop you or ask you any questions, keep repeating these same words. And when you reach your horse, leap into the saddle and ride away without stopping for an instant.’ Messer Lambertuccio willingly agreed to do it, and having drawn his dagger, his face all flushed from his recent exertions, as well as from his anger at the husband’s return, he carried out the lady’s instructions to the letter. The husband, having already dismounted, was puzzling over the palfrey in the courtyard, and was just about to mount the stairs, when he saw Lambertuccio descending. And being taken aback by his words and the wild expression on his face, he said: ‘What is the meaning of this, sir?’ But Messer Lambertuccio, having inserted his foot in the stirrup and vaulted into the saddle, uttered not a word, except: ‘I swear to God I’ll get him, wherever he may be!’ And away he rode. On mounting the staircase, the nobleman found his wife at the top, looking all distressed and terrified, and he said to her: ‘What is going on? What has got into Messer Lambertuccio? For whom are these threats of his intended?’ Retreating towards the bedroom so that Leonetto would overhear, the lady replied:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The two gallants immediately rushed to her assistance, and with the aid of honeyed words and extravagant promises, few of which she understood, they attempted to pacify her. What she was bemoaning was not so much the loss of Marato as her own sorry plight, and so after she had listened to a stream of fine talk, repeated twice over, she seemed considerably less distraught. The two brothers then got down to a private discussion to decide which of them was to take her off to bed. Each man claimed priority over the other, and having failed to reach any agreement on the matter they began to argue fiercely between themselves. Nor did their quarrel stop with the exchange of verbal abuse. Losing their tempers, they reached for their knives and hurled themselves furiously upon one another, and before the ship’s crew could separate the pair, they had both inflicted a number of stab-wounds, from which one man died instantly whilst the other emerged with serious injuries to various parts of his body. The lady was sorely distressed by all this, for she could see that she was now alone on the ship with nobody to turn to for help or advice, and she was greatly afraid lest the relatives and companions of the two men should vent their rage upon her. However, partly because of the injured man’s pleas on her behalf, partly because they soon arrived at Corinth, the danger to her person was short-lived. On their arrival, she disembarked with the injured man, and went to live with him at an inn, whence the story of her great beauty spread rapidly through the city, eventually reaching the ears of the Prince of Morea,8 who was living in Corinth at that time. He therefore demanded to see her, and on discovering her to be more beautiful than she had been reported, he immediately fell so ardently in love with her that he could think of nothing else. When he learnt about the circumstances of her arrival in the city, he saw no reason why he should not be able to have her. And indeed, once the wounded man’s relatives discovered that the Prince was putting out inquiries, they promptly sent her off to him without asking any questions. The Prince was highly delighted, but so also was the lady, who considered that she had now escaped from a most dangerous situation. On finding that she was endowed with stately manners as well as beauty, the Prince calculated, since he could obtain no other clue to her identity, that she must be a woman of gentle birth, and his love for her was accordingly redoubled. And not only did he keep her in splendid style, but he treated her as though she were his wife rather than his mistress.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And so saying, they seized him and dragged him away; then they took him by the hair, tore every stitch of clothing from his back, and started to punch and to kick him. In fact, everybody within sight was bearing down upon him, or so it seemed to Martellino. ‘Mercy, for the love of God!’ he cried, defending himself as best he could. But it was of no use, for more and more people were piling on top of him every minute. When Marchese and Stecchi saw what was happening, they began to have serious misgivings. Fearing for their own safety, they dared not go to Martellino’s assistance, but on the contrary they yelled ‘Kill him!’ as loudly as anybody else, at the same time trying to devise some way of rescuing him from the hands of the mob. And he would certainly have been killed but for a quick piece of thinking on the part of Marchese, who made his way as swiftly as possible to the captain in charge of the watch, drawn up in strength outside the church, and said to him: ‘For God’s sake, come quickly! There’s a villain over here who has cut my purse, and robbed me of a hundred gold florins at the very least. Arrest him! Please don’t let him run off with my money!’ On hearing this, a dozen or more of the officers rushed over to the place where poor Martellino was having his brains beaten out, and after forcing their way through the crowd with enormous difficulty, they removed him all bruised and battered from their clutches, and hauled him off to the magistrate’s palace. A number of people followed him all the way, still angry with him for hoodwinking them, and when they heard he had been arrested as a cutpurse, they too began to claim that he had stolen their purses, thinking this as fair a way as any of making life unpleasant for him. The magistrate, who was of a harsh disposition, no sooner heard these accusations than he took him aside and began to interrogate him on the matter. But Martellino gave him facetious answers, as though quite unconcerned at his arrest. This upset the judge, who had him fastened to the strappado, and ordered him to be given a series of good hard blows, with the intention of extracting a confession from him before having him hanged. When they let him down, and the judge asked him whether the accusations brought against him were true, he replied, since a straight denial would have been useless: ‘Sir, I am ready to confess the truth. But make each of my accusers say when and where I cut his purse, and I will tell you whether or not I did it.’