All was still, and nothing moved, save only the great cloud which rolled up and onward, with fold on fold from the black horizon. Outside no bird flew, and there came no rustling from the woods, norĪny of the homely sounds of Nature. They crept into the churches where the trembling people were blessed and shriven by the trembling priests. A gloom fell upon all the land, and men stood with theirĮyes upon the strange cloud and a heaviness upon their hearts. In the shadow of that strange cloud the leaves drooped in the trees, the birds ceased their calling, and the cattle and the sheep gathered cowering under the hedges. Swithin, a strange thing came upon England, for out of the east there drifted a monstrous cloud, purple and piled, heavy with evil, climbing slowly up the
In the month of July of the year 1348, between the feasts of St.
If I have been unable to combine and transfer their effect, the fault is mine. "Edward III," Wright's "Domestic Manners." With these and many others I have lived for months. "Chaucer's England," Cust's "Scenes of the Middle Ages," Husserand's "Wayfaring Life," Ward's "Canterbury Pilgrims " Cornish's "Chivalry," Hastings' "British Archer," Strutt's "Sports," Johnes Froissart, Hargrove's "Archery," Longman's Albans," "The Chronicle of Jocelyn of Brokeland," "The Old Road," Hewitt's "Ancient Armour," Coussan's "Heraldry," Boutell's "Arms," Browne's Rietstap's "Armorial General," De la Borderie's "Histoire de Bretagne," Dame Berner's "Boke of St. I see La Croix's "Middle Ages," Oman's "Art of War," I look round my study table and I survey those which lie with me at the moment, before I happily disperse them forever. For good or bad, many books have gone to the building of this one.
It was a raw, rude England, full of elemental passions, and redeemed only by elemental virtues. The fantastic graces of Chivalry lay upon the surface of life, but beneath it was a half-savage population, fierce andĪnimal, with little ruth or mercy.
There is no incident in the text for which very good warrant may not be given. In matters of cruelty, was very different.
It was a sterner age, and men's code of morality, especially It is useless, however, to draw the Twentieth Century and label it the Fourteenth. I am aware that there are incidents which may strike the modern reader as brutal and repellent. Their talk, and to infuse here and there such a dash of the archaic as may indicate their fashion of speech. The most which the chronicles can do is to catch the cadence and style of The English of the original Piers Plowman text, which would be considerably more obscure than their superiors' French if the two were now reproduced or imitated. In the year 1350 the upper classes still spoke Norman-French, though they were just beginning to condescend to English. The matter of diction is always a question of taste and discretion in a historical reproduction. For the rest, it is as accurate as a good deal of research and hard work could make it. I hope so small a divergence may seem a venial error after so many centuries. Narrative in order to preserve the continuity and evenness of the story. Events have been transposed to the extent of some few months in this INTRODUCTION Dame History is so austere a lady that if one, has been so ill-advised as to take a liberty with her, one should hasten to make amends by repentance and confession. O browser não suporta frames incorporadas ou está actualmente configurado para não mostrar frames incorporadas.