Page:The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).djvu/237

Rh epoch, if we see them here arising in an individual mind, in statu nascendi, as it were.

In political speeches and in sermons, proverbs are in frequent use. Gerson, Jean de Varennes, Jean Petit, Guillaume Fillastre, Olivier Maillard, take pains to strengthen their arguments by the most common ones. “Qui de tout se tait, de tout a paix.—Chef bien peigné porte mal bacinet.—Qui commun sert, nul ne l’en paye.”

Related to the proverb, in so far as it is a crystallized form of thought, is the motto, which the declining Middle Ages cultivated with marked predilection. It differs from it in that it is not, like the proverb, a wise adage of general application, but a personal maxim or exhortation. To adopt a motto is, so to say, to choose a text for the sermon of one’s life. The motto is a symbol and a token. Marked in golden letters on every article of the wardrobe and of the equipment, it must have exercised a suggestive influence of no mean importance. The moral tone of these mottoes is mostly that of resignation, like that of the proverbs, or that of hope. The motto should be mysterious. “Quand sera ce?—Tost ou tard vienne.—Va oultre.—Autre fois mieulx.—Plus deuil que joye.” The greater number refer to love. “Aultre naray.—Vostre plaisir.—Souvienne vous.—Plus que toutes.” When of such a nature they were worn on armour and caparisons. Those engraved in rings have a more intimate note: “Mon cuer avez.—Je le desire.—Pour toujours.—Tout pour vous.”

A complement to mottoes is found in the emblem, like the knotty stick of Louis of Orleans with the motto “Je l’envie,” a gambling term meaning “I challenge,” to which Jean sans Peur replied with a plane and the words “Ic houd,” that is to say, “accepted.” Another instance is the flint-and-steel of Philip the Good. With the emblem and the motto we enter the sphere of heraldic thought, of which the psychology is yet to be written. To the men of the Middle Ages the coat of arms