The Story of Chartres

on, near Epernon, to Notre-Dame de Chartres. The deed of gift was long preserved, and ran in these terms :? ' I, Rollo, Duke of Normandy, give to the Brethren af the Church Notre-Dame de Chartres my Castle of Malmaison, which I have won with my sword, and with my sword I will guarantee it to them, as let this knife be witness.' A knife in the Middle Ages was a symbol of putting in possession. It was a fitting symbol for the stecle de fer, that century of moral and material disorder and disaster in which the country was now involved. For France was now falling into the iron grip of feudalism. It is the age of castles. As the power of the central authority weakens, the power of the great vassals, dukes, counts, bishops and abbots becomes established as absolute in their fiefs. But during the period of disorder, from which the feudal regime emerged triumphant, the serf had waged with hismaster the same struggle that the vassal was waging with his lords and the lord with the King. The result was similar in all cases. Usurpation of servile tenures accompanied that of liberal tenures, and, territorial appropriation having taken place in every rank of society, it was as difficult to dispossess a serf of his manse as a seigneur of his benefice. The serf, therefore, emerged from the condition of almost absolute slavery in which he was at the time of the fall of the Western Empire, and from the condition of servitude that had been his up to the end of the r...