Evening star., 1928-02-26

| establish themselves 40 independent
| city-states; Il was in such free COM
munities that the great cathedrals rose.
and the art Of the renaissance. Even
In the village itself. there was a vigor-
Gus element Of democracy. The folk
| mote or mir. composed OF the heads
Of families. came together periodically
to manage the affairs Of the village
under the limiting su2erainty of the
lord: 1t was out Of the self-rule OF
these village communities that English
and American democracy sprang.
AS commerce grew. the influx OF
luXurics from foreign lands stimulated
production at home; people were
anxious to have surplus Of their own
goods to trade for the delightful novel;
ties from the Orient. Shops sprang up
in the towns. and began to call for
hands" Serfs escaped from tyranni-
cal lords and found employment with
| merchants and manufacturers who
helped them to hide for a year and a
day. after which their masters could
no longer claim them. This exodus
from the fields, aided by the bubonic
plague. so reduced the number Of serfs
that they were able to demand better
terms from the barons. These, through
their control of the House Of Lords In
the English Parliament, had statute
of laborcrs" passed. fixing peasant
wages and making it crime to ask
for more: but legislation has seldom
overcome the laws Of supply and de-
mand within frontiers. In 1881 the
peasants of England revolted against
this law. burnt the homes of many
barons and bishops. and destroyed the
registers that recorded the bondage of
scrfS to lords. The natural movement
to the towns was quickened, industry
rapidly grew. and serfdom was ended
in England before the close Of the
Middle Ages. In France 1t diminished
far more slowly. kept alive by the late
development of industry. and did not
quite end until the revolution: in Ger
many it fingered till 1920, and In Rus
sia till 1862.
For.the most part the rising indus
tries were carried on in homes, under
the control Of guilds. The guilds at
as town industry grew craft guilds
were formed of all the "masterwork-
men," A master" was master of an
art rather than Of men; every indus
try was then an art, as now every art
becomes an industry. No one was ad-
nitted to craft guild until he had
produced a masterpiece" The word
mister" is degenerate descendant of
this old term master: once. like the
term sir" (from seigneur, or lordD. 1t
had something more than its current
indiscriminate signification.
Those who were not yet masters were
apprentices. who often worked many
years without pay to learn their art:
some others were journeymen, who
piled their trade from town to town.
The guild collectively bough: its raw
materials and collectively sold its prod
ucts. 1t controlled prices and kept
wages remarkably high for the time: in
fifteenth century England the workmen
labored only 48 hours week: trades
like masons and carpenters made $50
a week. which would be equivalent to
brought prosperity TO large class of
industrial workers and played a high
role in the building of the Gothic ca
thedralS. Then. through continually
raising their initiation fees. through the
growing power of the merchant class.
and the hostility Of rising state, the
guilds decayed. and left the way clear
to modern capitalism.
The home not empty, as TODAY,
throbbed with industry and children.
The loom replaced the spinning wheel.
except for solitary spinsters. and the
new science of chemistry supplied dyes
for the textile art. The family still
remained the unit of production: In
the town as on the land parental
authority limited the scope and neces-
sity Of the state. children were well
coined as an economic boon. and there
fore motherhood was sacred. The
status OF woman rose as industry
lessened violence and war and brought
prosperity and peace.
The medieval conception of woman
f!uctuated between the forms of a
goddess and a devil It was influenced
by the worship OF the virgin and the
attempt OF Christianity to stress femi-
nine virtues against the masculine
qualities OF the warlike Teutons: the
passage from Norman to Gothic archi-
lecture and from such military chants
as the Chanson de Roland to the
woman-enthron!ng ecstasy Of Prorencal
verse symboliZed in the thirteenth GEN.
tury the temporary victory of the
church and the literary triumph OF
woman.
The literature OF the later Middle
Ages is full OF the praise Of noble
ladies. and accounts the love and
service of them tFrauendienst) as the
highest thing In life; but the actual
conduct Of men on the earth paid
little attention 10 the ideals of the
Troubadours. On the contrary, the
church itself gave plentiful theological
t1e f~ Nf hSf
holding her responsible for original
sin" Between Adam and Eve in
paradise" says Jacques de Vitry u240)
there was but one woman. yet she
had no rest until she had succeeded
In banishing her husband from the
garden OF delights and in condemning
Christ to the torments OF the cross"
Even the worship of the Virgin.
though 1t honored woman as the
Mother OF God and made Madonna
and Child the greatest symbol in Euro
pean art. degraded woman by inti-
mating that the only kind OF mother
hood which was not sinful was par
thcnogencs.s-a mode OF reproduction
familiar TO plant lice, but as yet
beyond the powers OF the normal wor-
an. II was the doctrine OF the
church fathers that marriage is q con-
sequence OF original sin, and that but
for this first sin God would have pro-
vided otherwise for the maintenance
OF the species. Doubtless the present
mode is as silly as any humorist could
have conceived; but only primitive
and barbarous imagination could have
foisted the responsibility for 1t on the
sex that bears all the brunt of Its
absurdity
The medieval mother, then. had TO
listen to the disparagement Of marriage
and the cxhaltation OF virginity at the
very time when she had to bear chill
dren almost 10 the limit OF her capa-
city. Men being too ignorant to keep
the death rate down. women had TO keep
the birth rate up. And the house which
she managed was not only full Of chill