Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/132

 NORMANDY

106

NORMANDY

century in Normandy was marked by tlio produc- tion of important works, oliicf of wtiicli was tlic " Ro- man do Kou" of Robert or rather Richard Wacc (ll-7r>),acanoiiof Ravoux. In this, which consists of nearly 17,(100 hnes and was continvied liy Benoit dc Sainte-^Ior(■, Wace relates the history of the dukes of Normandy down to the battle of Tinchcbray. Men- tion mu.st also be made of the great I'^rencli poem which the Norman Ambroise wrf)te somewhat prior to 119t5 on the Jerusalem pilgrimage of Richard Co'iir de Lion. As early as the twelfth century Xonnandy was an important commercial centre, tluillaumc de Neubrig wrote that liouen was one of the most cele- brated cities of Europe and that the Seine brought thither the commercial products of many countries. The "Etablissements de Rouen" in which was drawn up the "custom" adopted by Rouen, were copied not only by the other Norman towns but by the cities with which Rouen maintained constant commercial inter- course, e. g. Angouleme, Bayonne, Cognac, St. Jean d'.\ngely, Niort, Poitiers, La Rochelle, Saintes, and Tours. The ghilde of Rouen, a powerful commercial association, possessed in England from the time of Edward the Confessor the port of Dunegate, now Dungeness, near London, and its merchandise entered London free.

Once in the power of the Capetians, Normandy be- came an important strategical point in the struggle against the English, masters of Poitou and Guyenne in the south of Erance. Norman sailors were enrolled by Philip VI of France for a naval campaign against England in 1340 which resulted in the defeat of Ecluse. Under John II the Good, the States of Nor- mandy, angered by the ravages committed by Edward III of England on his landing in the province, voted (1348-50) subsidies for the conquest of England. The Valois dynasty w;vs in great danger when Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, who possessed important lands in Normandy, succeeded in 13.56 in detaching from John II of France a number of Norman barons. John II appraising the danger came suddenly to Rouen, put several barons to death, and took Chcarlcs the Bad prisoner. Shortly afterwards Normandy was one of the provinces of France most faithful to the Dauphin Charles, the future Charles V, and the hope the English entertained in 13.59 of seeing Nor- mandj' ceded to them by the Preliminaries of London was not ratified by the treaty of Br^tigny (1300); Normandy remained French. The \'ictories of Charles V consolidated the prestige of the Valois in this prov- ince. In 1386 Normandy furnished 13S7 vessels for an exjjedition against England never executed. In 1418 the campaign of Henry V in Normandy was for a long time paralyzed by the resistance of Rouen, which finally capitulated in 1419, and in 1420 all Nor- mandy became again almost English.

The Duke of Clarence, brother of Henry V of Eng- land, wa-s made lieutenant-general in the province. Henry VI and the Duke of Bedford founded a uni- versity at Caen which had faculties of canon and civil law, to which Charles VII in 14.50 added those of the- ologj', medicine, and arts. This last attempt at Eng- lish domination in Normandy was marked by the execution at Rouen of Blessed Joan of Arc. English rule, however, was undermined by incessant conspir- acie.s, especially on the part of the people of Rouen, and by revolts in 143.5-36. The revolt of Val de Vire is famous and was the origin of an entire ballad liter- ature, called " Vaux de Vire", in which the poet Ohver Basselin excelled. These songs, which later became bacchic or amorous in character, and which subse- quently developed into the popular drama known as "Vaudeville", were in the beginning chiefly of an historical nature recounting the invasion of Normandy by the English. Profiting by the public opinion of which the " Vaux de Vire" gave evidence, the Consta- ble de Richemont opposed the English on Norman ter-

ritory. His long and arduous cfTorts in 1449-50 made Normandy once more a French province. Thence- forth the possession of Normandy by France was considered so essential to the security of the king- dom that, Charles the Bold, for a time victorious over Louis XI, in order to weaken the latter, exacted in 146.5 that Normandy should be held by Duke Charles de Berry, the king's brother and leader of those in revolt against him; two years later Louis XI took Normandy from his brother and caused the States General of Tours to proclaim in 1468 that Nor- mandy could for no reason whatever be dismembered from the domain of the crown. The ducal ring wjis broken in the presence of the great judicial court called the Echiquier (Exchequer) and the title of Duke of Normandy was never to be borne again except by Louis XVII, the son of Louis XVI.

The Norman school of architecture from the thir- teenth to the fifteenth century produced superb Gothic edifices, chiefly characterized by the height of their spires and bell-towers. Throughout the Middle Ages Normandy, greatly influenced by St. Bernard and the Cistercians, was distinguished for its venera- tion of the Blessed Virgin. It was under her pro- tection that William the Conqueror placed his expedi- tion to England. One of the most ancient mural paintings in France is in the chapel of the Hospice St. Julien at Petit-Quevilly, formerly the manor chapel of one of the early dukes of Normandy, por- traying the Annunciation, the Birth of Christ, and the Blessed Virgin suckfing the Infant Jesus during the flight into Egypt. As early as the twelfth century Robert or rather Richard Wace wrote the history of Mary and that of the establishment of the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Norman students at Paris placed themselves under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception which thus became the "feast of the Normans"; this appellation does not seem to date beyond the thirteenth century. During the modern period the Normans have been distin- guished for their commercial expeditions by sea and their voyages of discovery. As early as 1366 the Nor- mans had established markets on the coast of Africa and it was from Caux that Jean de Bethencourt set out in 1402 for the conquest of the Canaries. He opened up to Vasco da Gama the route to the Cape of Good Hope and to Christopher Columbus that to America. Two of his chaplains, Pierre Bontier and Jean le Verrier, gave an account of his expedition in a manuscript known as "Le Canarien", edited in 1874. Jean Ango, born at Dieppe about the end of the fifteenth century, acquired as a ship-owner a fortune exceeding that of many princes of his time. The Portuguese having in time of peace, seized (1530) a ship which belonged to him, he sent a flotilla to blockade Lisbon and ravage the Portuguese coast. The ambassador sent by the King of Portugal to Francis I to negotiate the matter, was referred to the citizen of Dieppe. Ango was powerful enough to assist the armaments of Francis I against England. He died in 1551.

Jean Parmentier (1494-1543), another navigator and a native of Dieppe, was, it is held, the first Frenchman to take ships to Brazil; to him is also as- cribed the honour of having discovered Sumatra in 1529. Poet as well as sailor, he wrote in ver.se (1536) a "Description Nouvelle des Merveillesde ce monde". The foundation by Francis I in 1517 of the "French City" which afterwards became Havre de Grace, shows the importance which French royalty attached to the Norman coa.st. Normandy's maritime com- merce was much developed by Henry II and Cath- erine de Medicis. They granted to the port of Rouen a sort of monopoly for the importation of spices and drugs arriving by way of the Atlantic, and when they came to Rouen in 1.550 the merchants of that town contrived to give to the nearby wood the appearance