EMORY UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF the donors of the Iverson L. Graves Collection THE LIFE AND TIMES OF Bertrand du Guesclin. U/of//a. a// //. CUJ-C f'/ PL THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN: A History of the Fourteenth Century. BY D. F. JAMISON, OF SOUTH CAROLINA. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. CHARLESTON: JOHN RUSSELL. MDCCCLXIV. Entered according to the Act of Congress of the Confederate States of America, BY JOHN RUSSELL, In the District Court for the District of South Carolina. TO W. GILMORE SIMMSy ESQ.y LL.D. MY DEAR SIR, In looking abroad for one to whom I might inscribe this volume, I know of no one to whom I can more worthily dedicate it than to you—to you, my nearest neighbour and one of my oldest friends; to you, who first suggested the work as one suited to my capacity, my tastes, and to what little learning I possessed ; who watched over its progress with scarcely less interest than if it had been your own; and who cheered me on, through the years of labour it has cost me, to its final completion now. To me it will be a pleasing reflection, that we, who have lived under the same sky, who have looked to heaven for the same refreshing rains, and for its grateful sunshine; that we, who have so long interchanged our thoughts on ques­ tions of deep interest, and who have sympathized in each others' joys and sorrows,—should have our names associated in the minds of men, when we shall no longer be affected either by their praise or their censure. " Inque sepulchro, Si non urna, tamen junget nos littera. Si non Ossibus ossa meis, at nomen nomine tangam." Ever most truly yours, D. F- JAMISON. BuRWOOD, Feb. I'jth, 1862. ' •• " " "Tl '• " •• •• " " " ' ADFER TISEMENT. HAVE attempted to rescue from oblivion the name of a man whose deeds are now almost unknown to the English, whom he opposed in a life-long conflict, and are regarded somewhat in the light of a myth by a large body of the French people, whom he defended ; whose fame, during a great portion of the fourteenth century, was only inferior, if it was inferior, to that of Edward III. of England and his heroic son the Black Prince. Coming forth from the wild forests of Brittany, with no advantages of education or birth, for he was the son of a poor and obscure knight, he became the leader of a band of adventurers, during the wars between John de Montfort and Charles de Blois for the succession to the duchy of Brittany; and, by dint of personal prowess, courage, and sagacity, he first extended his reputation throughout his native province, and then, attracting the notice of the king of France by his daring courage at the siege of Melun and his triumphant victory at Cocherel, he led the Free Com­ panies into Spain, dethroned Peter the Cruel, and placed Henry of Trastamara on the throne of Castille; when, return­ ing to his own country, he was created constable over the viii Advertisement. highest heads in the realm, and, by his prudence, firmness, and military skill, gradually drove the English out of all their extended possessions in France, until little was left to them but the city of Bordeaux in the south and Calais in the north. Such were the achievements of Bertrand du Guesclin. To the high qualities of mind and heart, which insured success, were added the virtues of generosity, good faith, and loyalty, which secured esteem; and no one of his time was more regarded in life or more regretted in death. It seemed to me, therefore, a worthy object to sweep from his memory the dust in which time was fast enveloping it, and preserve, for our own and subsequent years, the records of a life that derived its chief lustre from the stern virtues of the man, without those external advantages of fortune on which we commonly set so high a value. No period of the past has appeared to me more interest­ ing and instructive than that portion of mediaeval history which is embraced within the limits of this work. It was a period of transition from one state of civiHzation to another, when the old elements of society began to give way: to be replaced by new forms, or to be charged with new functions. It was the period when the feudal system, which had at­ tained its utmost vigour during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, with its traditions, its isolation, and real power, was forced to yield to the increasing authority of the prince, the growing influence of the communes and of men acting in masses. It was the period when the Crusades, which had precipitated one continent upon another for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, was little more than a re­ miniscence, and when the enthusiasm of Europe could no longer be aroused to arras at the bidding of the church; Advertisement. ix and when the head of that church, which had for centuries exercised a sway so potent over the Germanic nations after they had been transplanted on the Roman soil—driven from Rome, by schism and the factions of Italy, to "seventy years of captivity " at Avignon—was scarcely respected by sove­ reigns, and little reverenced by the people. It was the period when the institution of chivalry, which had so long exerted its humanizing influences over the individual man, and softened the manners of a barbarous age—with all its romance, its tournaments, and pageants—began to decline ; and when woman, who had been too much idolized before marriage and too secluded after it, came to exert a more wholesome influence on society, because it was more diffused. It was the period when, by the discovery of gunpowder, the lance and battle-axe began to give place to cannon and the matchlock, and when a standing military force came to be substituted for the hasty levies of the feudal militia; and it was the period when romantic literature disappeared with the songs of the troubadours; when, during the reigns of Edward III. of England and Charles the Wise of France, the Latin language became less extensively used in the pre­ paration of state papers and the preservation of historical records ; and when Chaucer in the first-named country, and Froissart in the last, employed their native tongues to give forth to the people the effusions of poetry, and to chronicle the passing events of the times. It was my design to introduce the work which is now offered to the public by a brief sketch of the state of Europe, from the commencement to the middle of the fourteenth cen­ tury; and, particularly, to show the general character of feudal­ ism, its influence on society and manners by the isolation of the X Advertisement. individual man, by its destruction of all political unity, its segregation of the people into a multitude of small sove­ reignties, and in the entire absence of a controlling head or central government—that the feudal epoch, which may be comprised between the reigns of Hugh Capet and Philippe de Valois in France, was marked by private wars, as distin­ guished from national, between one feudal lord and another, for the increase of power and the extension of territory, and by the Crusades which terminated with it; and in what manner feudalism gave way before the increasing influence of the throne and the communities; but neither the circum­ stances of the times nor my own situation permitted me to carry out this purpose. The original draft of the work was completed—after seven or eight years of assiduous labour, during the intervals of leisure from other and engrossing employments—a little more than two years ago; and I had set riiyself to the task of re-writing the whole, of which not above one hundred and twenty pages of manuscript were completed, when the work was suspended by my public duties, in the month of Decem­ ber, i860. About the ist of June of the following year I resumed the revision, which was finished just one year ago, about the gloomiest period of the great struggle between the South and the North, when Fort Donelson fell and Nashville was occupied by our enemies. Amidst the distractions of passing events, I attempted to write the introduction which I had designed ; but the times to me were then too sad to inquire into the history of the past—the present absorbed all my thoughts; and now, if the prospect is less gloomy than before, I have no leisure from my public engagements to carry out my design. Advertisement. xi After completing the revision, I placed the MS. in my escritoir, to await more peaceable and happy times ; and the work would not now have seen the light, but for the kind offers of one whom I am happy to call my friend—of Theodore D. Wagner, Esq., a distinguished member of the patriotic and princely house of John Fraser and Co. of Charleston, and Fraser, Trenholm, and Co. of Liverpool. I am aware that I incur two serious risks in trusting the work to the chances of capture by an ever-vigilant enemy now blockading our harbour, and infesting the seas between this port and the place of its destination, as well as in trust­ ing the proofs of its publication to any other eye than my own. This risk is especially great, as, with few exceptions, it will be found that I have used none but original materials in the composition of the work; and, as the references in the notes, with which I have taken especial pains, are to autho­ rities in old French and Spanish of the fourteenth century, mediseval Latin, and occasionally in Gascon, the author must incur the hazard of many errors in the publication.