Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/122

 I02 Hi ft or y of Dojnejitc Manners fpeaking, the law of the land was a mere nominal inftitution. He was in general proud, very tyrannical, and often barbaroufly cruel. A type of the feudal baron in his worft point of view is prefented to us in the charafter of the celebrated Robert de Belefme, who fucceeded his father Roger de Montgomery in the earldom of Shroplliire, and of whom Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in his time, tells us, " He was a very Pluto, Megaera, Cerberus, or anything that you can conceive ftill more horrible. He preferred the flaughter of his captives to their ranfom. He tore out the eyes of his own children, when in fport they hid their faces under his cloak. He impaled perfons of both fexes on flakes. To butcher men in the moft horrible manner was to him an agreeable feaft." Of a contemporary feudal chieftain in France, the fame writer tells us, " When any one, by fraud or force, fell into his hands, the captive might truly fay, 'The pains of hell compalTed me round.' Homicide was his paffion and his glory. He imprifoned his own countefs, an unheard-of outrage ; and, cruel and lewd at once, v/hile he fubjefted her to fetters and torture by day, to extort money, he forced her to cohabit with him by night, in order to mock her. Each night his brutal followers dragged her from her prifon to his bed, each morning they carried her from his chamber back to her prifon. Amicably addreffing any one who approached him, he would plunge a fword into his fide, laughing the while ; and for this purpofe he carried his fword naked under his cloak more frequently than Iheathed. Men feared him, bowed down to him, and worfliipped him." Women of rank are met with in the hiftories of this period who equalled thefe barons in violence and cruelty ; and the relations between the fexes were marked by little delicacy or courtefy. William the Conqueror beat his wife even before they were married. The ariftocratic clafs in general lived a life of idlenefs, which would have been infupportable without fome fcenes of extraordinary excitement, and they not only indulged eagerly in hunting, but they continually fallied forth in parties to plunder. They looked upon the mercantile clafs efpecially as objeAs of hoftility ; and, as they could feldom overcome them in their towns, they waylaid them on the public roads, deprived them of their goods and money, and carried them to their caftles, where they tortured