Page:The English Peasant.djvu/376

 from one end to the other. Trembling and doubtful in what direction to turn the helm of State, the authorities at one moment caress the new influence and at another try to terrorize it. Marvellous edicts in favour of the weak, the mean, the miserable, alternate with a series of relentless persecutions against Christians; both lines of policy, alien to the haughty but tolerant spirit of ancient Rome, abundantly prove the truth of what I have advanced; but those who have penetrated further Into the subject affirm that there was at least one insurrection in Gaul that was distinctly Christian.

It is a horrible thing to reflect on the history of Christ's poor since His religion has been patronised by the ruling classes. Consider the way the Normans, those "born rulers," treated the peasantry. Their tyranny was so impossible to endure that the labourers began to confederate with a view to a common protection. Raoul, uncle of the young Duke of Normandy, sent out spies in every direction, and in one day arrested all the leaders. "Without any trial, without the slightest inquiry, he inflicted upon them mutilations or atrocious tortures; of some he put out the eyes, of others he cut off the hands or feet; some had their legs burned, others were impaled alive or had melted lead poured over them." And, according to a well-known passage in the "Saxon Chronicle" under the year 1137, the horrors the English poor suffered in "the castles filled with devils and evil men" equalled in atrocity the darkest crimes of which the Inquisition was ever imagined guilty.

An ancient drawing exists illustrating a legend called "The Vision of Henry I." Labouring men surround the king's bed, armed with scythes, spades, and pitchforks. The sleeper points with his bare finger upwards, as if he would indicate the only direction in which such clamourers are ever heard; but the peasants look determined. Their leader, a little man, holds up a charter; another, with a woe-begone face, dilates on the miseries they suffer; while a stolid young churl waits in the background, pitchfork in hand. A "coward conscience" has been the real cause of the long series of "reigns of terror" by which Christ's suffering poor have been kept, like trembling sheep, the perpetual prey of generation after generation of wolves.

But the oppressors, instead of repenting, thought to buy off the