Dissension among the leaders of the crusaders.
The first real allies that the crusaders met with were the Christian Armenians, who brought them aid after their terrible march through Asia Minor. With their help Baldwin got possession of Edessa, of which he made himself prince. The chiefs induced the great body of the crusaders to postpone the march on Jerusalem, and a year was spent in taking the rich and important city of Antioch. A bitter strife then broke out, especially between the Norman Bohemond and the count of Toulouse, as to who should have the conquered town. After the most unworthy conduct on both sides, Bohemond won, and Raymond set to work to conquer a principality for himself on the coast about Tripoli.
Map of the Crusaders' States in SyriaMap of the Crusaders' States in Syria
Capture of Jerusalem.
In the spring of 1099 about twenty thousand warriors finally moved upon Jerusalem. They found the city well walled and in the midst of a desolate region where neither food nor water, nor the materials to construct the apparatus necessary for the capture of the town, were to be found, The opportune arrival at Jaffa of galleys from Genoa furnished the besiegers with supplies, and, in spite of all the difficulties, the place was taken in a couple of months. The crusaders, with their customary barbarity, massacred the inhabitants. Godfrey of Bouillon was chosen ruler of Jerusalem and took the modest title of"Defender of the Holy Sepulcher." He soon died and was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, who left Edessa in 1100 to take up the task of extending the bounds of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Founding of Latin kingdoms in Syria.
It will be observed that the "Franks," as the Mohammedans called all the western folk, had established the centers of four principalities. These were Edessa, Antioch, the region about Tripoli conquered by Raymond, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The last was speedily increased by Baldwin; with the help of the mariners from Venice and Genoa, he succeeded in getting possession of Acre, Sidon, and a number of coast towns.
The news of these Christian victories quickly reached the West, and in 1101 tens of thousands of new crusaders started eastward. Most of them were lost or dispersed in passing through Asia Minor, and few reached their destination. The original conquerors were consequently left to hold the land against the Saracens and to organize their conquests as best they could.
The permanent hold of the Franks upon the eastern borders of the Mediterranean depended upon the strength of the colonies which their various princes were able to establish. It is impossible to learn how many pilgrims from the West made their permanent homes in the new Latin principalities. Certainly the greater part of those who visited Palestine returned home after fulfilling their vow to kneel at the Holy Sepulcher. Still the princes could rely upon a certain number of soldiers who would be willing to stay and fight the Mohammedans. The Turks, moreover, were so busy fighting one another that they showed less energy than might have been expected in attempting to drive the Franks from the narrow strip of territory—some five hundred miles long and fifty wide—which they had conquered.
The Hospitalers.
75.A noteworthy outcome of the crusading movement was the foundation of several curious orders—the Hospitalers, theTemplars, and the Teutonic Knights—which combined the dominant interests of the time, those of the monk and the soldier. They permitted a man to be both at once; the knight might wear a monkish cowl over his coat of mail. The Hospitalers grew out of a monastic association that was formed before the First Crusade for the succor of the poor and sick among the pilgrims. Later the society admitted noble knights to its membership and became a military order, while continuing its care for the sick. This charitable association, like the earlier monasteries, received generous gifts of land in western Europe and built and controlled many fortified monasteries in the Holy Land itself. After the evacuation of Syria in the thirteenth century, the Hospitalers moved their headquarters to the island of Rhodes, and later to Malta. The order still exists and it is considered a distinction to this day to have the privilege of wearing its emblem, the cross of Malta.
Costume of the Hospitalers, showing the Form of the Cross of Malta.Costume of the Hospitalers, showing the Form of the Cross of Malta.
The Templars.
Before the Hospitalers were transformed into a military order, a little group of French knights banded together in 1119 to defend pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem from the attacks of the infidel. They were assigned quarters in the king's palace at Jerusalem on the site of the former Temple of Solomon; hence the name, Templars, which they were destined to render famous. The "poor soldiers of the Temple" were enthusiastically approved by the Church. They wore a white cloak adorned with a red cross, and were under a very strict monastic rule which bound them by the vows of obedience, poverty, and celibacy. The fame of the order spread throughout Europe, and the mostexalted, even dukes and princes, were ready to renounce the world and serve Christ under its black and white banner, with the legend,Non nobis, Domine.
The order was aristocratic from the first, and it soon became incredibly rich and independent. It had its collectors in all parts of Europe, who dispatched the "alms" they received to the Grand Master at Jerusalem. Towns, churches, and estates were given to the order, as well as vast sums of money. The king of Aragon proposed to bestow upon it a third of his kingdom. The pope showered privileges upon the Templars. They were exempted from tithes and taxes, and were brought under his immediate jurisdiction; they were released from feudal obligations, and bishops were forbidden to excommunicate them.
Abolition of the order of Templars.
No wonder they grew insolent and aroused the jealousy and hate of princes and prelates alike. Even Innocent III violently upbraided them for admitting to their order wicked men, who then enjoyed all the privileges of churchmen. Early in the fourteenth century, through the combined efforts of the pope and Philip the Fair of France, the order was brought to a terrible end. Its members were accused of the most abominable practices,—such as heresy, the worship of idols, and the systematic insulting of Christ and his religion. Many distinguished Templars were burned for heresy, others perished miserably in dungeons. The order was abolished and its property confiscated.
The Teutonic Knights conquer the Prussians.
As for the third great order, that of the Teutonic Knights, their greatest importance lies in their conquest, after the Crusades were over, of the heathen Prussians. Through their efforts a new Christian state was formed on the shores of the Baltic, in which the important cities of Königsberg and Dantzig grew up.
The Second Crusade.
76.Fifty years after the preaching of the First Crusade, the fall of Edessa (1144), an important outpost of the Christians in the East, led to a second great expedition. This wasforwarded by no less a person than St. Bernard, who went about using his unrivaled eloquence to induce volunteers to take the cross. In a fierce hymn of battle he cried to the Knights Templars: "The Christian who slays the unbeliever in the Holy War is sure of his reward, the more sure if he himself be slain. The Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is glorified." The king of France readily consented to take the cross, but the emperor, Conrad III, appears to have yielded only after St. Bernard had preached before him and given a vivid picture of the terrors of the Judgment Day.
In regard to the less distinguished recruits, the historian, Otto of Freising, tells us that so many thieves and robbers hastened to take the cross that every one recognized in their enthusiasm the hand of God. St. Bernard himself, the chief promoter of the expedition, gives a most unflattering description of the "soldiers of Christ." "In that countless multitude you will find few except the utterly wicked and impious, the sacrilegious, homicides, and perjurers, whose departure is a double gain. Europe rejoices to lose them and Palestine to gain them; they are useful in both ways, in their absence from here and their presence there." It is quite unnecessary to describe the movements and fate of the crusaders; suffice it to say that, from a military standpoint, the so-called Second Crusade was a miserable failure.
The Third Crusade.
Forty years later, in 1187, Jerusalem was taken by Saladin, the most heroic and distinguished of all the Saracen rulers. The loss of the Holy City led to the most famous of all the military expeditions to the Holy Land, in which Frederick Barbarossa, Richard the Lion-Hearted of England, and his political rival, Philip Augustus of France, all took part. The accounts of the enterprise show that while the several Christian leaders hated one another heartily enough, the Christians and Saracens were coming to respect one another.We find examples of the most courtly relations between the representatives of the opposing religions. In 1192 Richard concluded a truce with Saladin, by the terms of which the Christian pilgrims were allowed to visit the holy places with safety and comfort.[131]
The Fourth and subsequent Crusades.
In the thirteenth century the crusaders began to direct their expeditions toward Egypt as the center of the Saracen power. The first of these was diverted in an extraordinary manner by the Venetians, who induced the crusaders to conquer Constantinople for their benefit. The further expeditions of Frederick II and St. Louis need not be described. Jerusalem was irrevocably lost in 1244, and although the possibility of recovering the city was long considered, the Crusades may be said to have come to a close before the end of the thirteenth century.
Ruins of a Fortress of the Hospitalers in the Holy LandRuins of a Fortress of the Hospitalers in the Holy Land
Settlements of the Italian merchants.
77.For one class at least, the Holy Land had great and permanent charms, namely, the Italian merchants, especially those from Genoa, Venice, and Pisa. It was through their early interest and supplies from their ships, that the conquest of the Holy Land had been rendered possible. The merchants were always careful to see that they were well paid for their services. When they aided in the successful siege of a townthey arranged that a definite quarter should be assigned to them in the captured place, where they might have their market, docks, church, and all that was necessary for a permanent center for their commerce. This district belonged to the town to which the merchants belonged. Venice even sent governors to live in the quarters assigned to its citizens in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Marseilles also had independent quarters in Jerusalem, and Genoa had its share in the county of Tripoli.
Oriental luxury introduced into Europe.
This new commerce had a most important influence in bringing the West into permanent relations with the Orient. Eastern products from India and elsewhere—silks, spices, camphor, musk, pearls, and ivory—were brought by the Mohammedans from the East to the commercial towns of Palestine and Syria; then, through the Italian merchants, they found their way into France and Germany, suggesting ideas of luxury hitherto scarcely dreamed of by the still half-barbarous Franks.
Tomb of a CrusaderTomb of a Crusader
Results of the Crusades.
Some of the results of the Crusades upon western Europe must already be obvious, even from this very brief account. Thousands and thousands of Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen had traveled to the Orient by land and by sea. Most of them came from hamlets or castles where they could never have learned much of the great world beyond the confines of their native village or province. They suddenly found themselves in great cities and in the midst of unfamiliar peoples and customs. This could not fail to make themthink and give them new ideas to carry home. The Crusade took the place of a liberal education. The crusaders came into contact with those who knew more than they did, above all the Arabs, and brought back with them new notions of comfort and luxury.
Yet in attempting to estimate the debt of the West to the Crusades it should be remembered that many of the new things may well have come from Constantinople, or through the Saracens of Sicily and Spain, quite independently of the armed incursions into Syria.[132]Moreover, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries towns were rapidly growing up in Europe, trade and manufactures were extending, and the universities were being founded. It would be absurd to suppose that without the Crusades this progress would not have taken place. So we may conclude that the distant expeditions and the contact with strange and more highly civilized peoples did no more than hasten the improvement which was already perceptible before Urban made his ever-memorable address at Clermont.[133]
General Reading.—A somewhat fuller account of the Crusades will be found inEmerton,Mediæval Europe, Chapter XI. Their results are discussed inAdams,Civilization, Chapter XI. Professor Munro has published a number of very interesting documents inTranslations and Reprints, Vol. I, Nos. 2, 4 (Letters of the Crusaders), and Vol. III, No. 1 (The Fourth Crusade). See also hisMediæval History, Chapter XI, on the Crusades.ArcherandKingsford,The Crusades(G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50), is probably the best modern work in English.
General Reading.—A somewhat fuller account of the Crusades will be found inEmerton,Mediæval Europe, Chapter XI. Their results are discussed inAdams,Civilization, Chapter XI. Professor Munro has published a number of very interesting documents inTranslations and Reprints, Vol. I, Nos. 2, 4 (Letters of the Crusaders), and Vol. III, No. 1 (The Fourth Crusade). See also hisMediæval History, Chapter XI, on the Crusades.ArcherandKingsford,The Crusades(G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50), is probably the best modern work in English.
78.In the preceding pages it has been necessary to refer constantly to the Church and the clergy. Indeed, without them mediæval history would become almost a blank, for the Church was incomparably the most important institution of the time and its officers were the soul of nearly every great enterprise. In the earlier chapters, the rise of the Church and of its head, the pope, has been reviewed, as well as the work of the monks as they spread over Europe. We must now consider the mediæval Church as a completed institution at the height of its power in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Ways in which the mediæval church differed from modern churches.
We have already had abundant proofs that the mediæval Church was very different from modern churches, whether Catholic or Protestant.
Membership in the mediæval church compulsory.
1. In the first place, every one was required to belong to it, just as we all must belong to the state to-day. One was not born into the Church, it is true, but he was ordinarily baptized into it before he had any opinion in the matter. All western Europe formed a single religious association, from which it was a crime to revolt. To refuse allegiance to the Church, or to question its authority or teachings, was reputed treason against God and was punishable with death.
The wealth of the Church.
The tithe.
2. The mediæval Church did not rely for its support, as churches usually must to-day, upon the voluntary contributions of its members. It enjoyed, in addition to the revenue from its vast tracts of lands and a great variety offees, the income from a regular tax, thetithe. Those upon whom this fell were forced to pay it, just as we all must now pay taxes imposed by the government.
Resemblance of the Church to a state.
3. It is obvious, moreover, that the mediæval Church was not merely a religious body, as churches are to-day. Of course it maintained places of worship, conducted devotional exercises, and cultivated the spiritual life; but it did far more. It was, in a way, a state, for it had an elaborate system of law, and its own courts, in which it tried many cases which are now settled in our ordinary tribunals.[134]It had also its prisons, to which it might sentence offenders to lifelong detention.
Unity of organization in the Church.
4. The Church not only performed the functions of a state; it had the organization of a state. Unlike the Protestant ministers of to-day, all churchmen and religious associations of mediæval Europe were under one supreme head, who made laws for all and controlled every church officer, wherever he might be, whether in Italy or Germany, Spain or Ireland. The whole Church had one official language, Latin, in which all communications were dispatched and in which its services were everywhere conducted.
The mediæval Church a monarchy in its form of government.
79.The mediæval Church may, therefore, properly be called a monarchy in its government. The pope was its all-powerful and absolute head and concentrated in his person its entire spiritual and disciplinary authority. He was the supreme lawgiver. No council of the Church, no matter how large andimportant, could make laws against his will, for its decrees, to be valid, required his sanction.
Dispensations.
The pope might, moreover, set aside or abrogate any law of the Church, no matter how ancient, so long as it was not ordained by the Scriptures or by Nature. He might, for good reasons, make exceptions to all merely human laws; as, for instance, permit cousins to marry, or free a monk from his vows. Such exceptions were known asdispensations.
The pope the supreme judge of Christendom.
The pope was not merely the supreme lawgiver; he was the supreme judge. As a distinguished legal writer has said, the whole of western Europe was subject to the jurisdiction of one tribunal of last resort, the pope's court at Rome. Any one, whether clergyman or layman, in any part of Europe, could appeal to him at any stage in the trial of a large class of cases. Obviously this system had serious drawbacks. Grave injustice might be done by carrying to Rome a case which ought to have been settled in Edinburgh or Cologne, where the facts were best known. The rich, moreover, always had the advantage, as they alone could afford to bring suits before so distant a court.
The control of the pope over the clergy at large.
The control of the pope over the clergy scattered throughout Christendom was secured in several ways. A newly elected archbishop might not venture to perform any of the duties of his office until he had taken an oath of fidelity and obedience to the pope and received from him thepallium, the archbishop's badge of office. This was a narrow woolen scarf made by the nuns of the convent of St. Agnes at Rome. Bishops and abbots were also required to have their election duly confirmed by the pope. He claimed, too, the right to settle the very frequent disputed elections of church officials. He might even set aside both of the rival candidates and fill the office himself, as did Innocent III when he forced the monks of Canterbury, after a double election, to choose Stephen Langton.
Since the time of Gregory VII the pope had claimed the right to depose and transfer bishops at will. The control of Rome over all parts of the Christian Church was further increased by the legates. These papal emissaries were intrusted with great powers. Their haughty mien often enough offended the prelates and rulers to whom they brought home the authority of the pope,—as, for instance, when the legate Pandulf grandly absolved all the subjects of King John of England, before his very face, from their oath of fealty to him.
The Roman Curia.
The task assumed by the pope of governing the whole western world naturally made it necessary to create a large body of officials at Rome in order to transact all the multiform business and prepare and transmit the innumerable legal documents.[135]The cardinals and the pope's officials constituted what was called the papal Curia, or court.
Sources of the pope's income.
To carry on his government and meet the expenses of palace and retinue, the pope had need of a vast income. This he secured from various sources. Heavy fees were exacted from those who brought suits to his court for decision. The archbishops were expected to make generous contributions on receiving their palliums, and the bishops and abbots upon their confirmation. In the thirteenth century the pope began to fill many benefices throughout Europe himself, and customarily received half the first year's revenues from those whom he appointed. For several centuries before the Protestants finally threw off their allegiance to the popes, there was widespread complaint on the part of both clergy and laymen that the fees and taxes levied by the Curia were excessive.
Ecclesiastical Map of France in the Middle AgesEcclesiastical Map of France in the Middle Ages
The archbishops.
80.Next in order below the head of the Church were the archbishops. An archbishop was a bishop whose power extended beyond the boundaries of his own diocese and who exercised a certain control over all the bishops within hisprovince.[136]One of the chief prerogatives of the archbishop was the right to summon the bishops of his province to meet in a provincial council. His court received appeals from the bishops' courts. Except, however, for the distinction of his title and the fact that he generally lived in an important cityand often had vast political influence, the archbishop was not very much more powerful, as an officer of the Church, than the other bishops.
The Costume of a Bishop, showing Miter and Crosier. From a manuscript of the twelfth century.The Costume of a Bishop, showing Miter and Crosier. From a manuscript of the twelfth century.
The importance of the bishops.
There is perhaps no class of persons in mediæval times whose position it is so necessary to understand as that of the bishops. They were regarded as the successors of the apostles, whose powers were held to be divinely transmitted to them. They represented the Church Universal in their respective dioceses, under the supreme headship of their "elder brother," the Bishop of Rome, the successor of the chief of the apostles. Their insignia of office, the miter and crosier, are familiar to every one. Each bishop had his especial church, which was called a cathedral, and usually surpassed the other churches of the diocese in size and beauty.
Duties of a Bishop.
Only a bishop could ordain new members of the clergy or degrade the old. He alone could consecrate churches oranoint kings. He alone could perform the sacrament of confirmation, though as priest he might administer any of the other sacraments.[137]Aside from his purely religious duties, he was the overseer of all the churchmen in his diocese, including the monks.[138]He held a court where a great variety of suits were tried. If he were a conscientious prelate, he traveled about his diocese visiting the parish churches and the monasteries to see if the priests did their duty and the monks behaved themselves properly.
The bishop's temporal duties.
In addition to the oversight of his diocese, it was the bishop's business to see to the lands and other possessions which belonged to the bishopric. He had, moreover, to perform those governmental duties which the king, especially in Germany, had thrown upon him, and he was conspicuous among the monarch's counselors. Lastly, the bishop was usually a feudal lord, with the obligations that that implied. He might have vassals and subvassals, and often was himself a vassal, not only of the king but also of some neighboring lord. As one reads through the archives of a bishopric, it is hard to tell whether the bishop should be called, first and foremost, a churchman or a feudal lord. In short, the duties of the bishop were as manifold as those of the mediæval Church itself.
Election of the bishops.
The reforms of Gregory VII had resulted in placing the choice of the bishop in the hands of the cathedralchapter,[139]that is, the body of clergy connected with the cathedral church. But this did not prevent the king from suggesting thecandidate, since the chapter did not venture to proceed to an election without procuring a license from the king. Otherwise he might have refused to invest the person they chose with the lands and political prerogatives attached to the office.
Canterbury CathedralCanterbury Cathedral
The parish priest and his duties.
The lowest division of the Church was the parish. This had definite limits, although the parishioners might vary in number from a few families to a considerable village or an important district of a town. At the head of the parish was the parish priest, who conducted services in the parish church and absolved, baptized, married, and buried his parishioners. The priests were supposed to be supported by the lands belonging to the parish church and by the tithes. But both of these sources of income were often in the hands of laymen or of a neighboring monastery, while the priest received themerest pittance, scarcely sufficient to keep soul and body together.
The parish church was the center of village life and the priest was the natural guardian of the community. It was his business, for example, to see that no undesirable persons lurked in the village,—heretics, sorcerers, or lepers. It will be observed that the priest, besides attending to the morals of his flock, was expected to see to their bodily welfare by preventing the presence of those afflicted with the only infectious disease against which precautions were taken in the Middle Ages.[140]
Other sources of the Church's power.
81.The unexampled authority of the mediæval Church is, however, only partially explained by its wonderful organization. To understand the hold which it had upon mankind, we must consider the exalted position of the clergy and the teachings of the Church in regard to salvation, of which it claimed to be the exclusive agent.
The exalted position of the clergy.
The clergy were set apart from the laity in several ways. The higher orders—bishop, priest, deacon, and sub-deacon—were required to remain unmarried, and in this way were freed from the cares and interests of family life. The Church held, moreover, that the higher clergy, when they had been properly ordained, received through their ordination a mysterious imprint, the "indelible character," so that they could never become simple laymen again, even if they ceased to perform their duties altogether or were cast out of the Church for crime. Above all, the clergy alone could administer thesacramentsupon which the salvation of every individual soul depended.
Peter Lombard'sSentences.
Although the Church believed that all the sacraments were established by Christ, it was not until the middle of the twelfth century that they were clearly described. Peter Lombard (d. 1164), a teacher of theology at Paris, prepared a manual of the doctrines of the Church as he found them in the Scriptures and in the writings of the church fathers, especially Augustine. TheseSentences(Latin,sententiæ, opinions) of Peter Lombard were very influential, for they appeared at a time when there was a new interest in theology, particularly at Paris, where a great university was growing up.[141]
The seven sacraments.
It was Peter Lombard who first distinctly formulated the doctrine of the seven sacraments. His teachings did not claim, of course, to be more than an orderly statement and reconciliation of the various opinions which he found in the Scriptures and the church fathers; but his interpretations and definitions constituted a new basis for mediæval theology. Before his time the wordsacramentum(that is, something sacred, a mystery) was applied to a variety of sacred things, for example, baptism, the cross, Lent, holy water, etc. But Peter Lombard states that there are seven sacraments, to wit: baptism, confirmation, extreme unction, marriage, penance, ordination, and the Lord's Supper. Through these sacraments all righteousness either has its beginning, or when begun is increased, or if lost is regained. They are essential to salvation, and no one can be saved except through them.[142]
Baptism.
Confirmation.
Extreme unction.
Marriage.
Penance.
Ordination.
The Lord's Supper, or Holy Eucharist.
By means of the sacraments the Church accompanied the faithful through life. By baptism all the sin due to Adam's fall was washed away; through that door alone could a soul enter the spiritual life. With the holy oil and the balsam,typifying the fragrance of righteousness, which were rubbed upon the forehead of the boy or girl at confirmation by the bishop, the young were strengthened so that they might boldly confess the name of the Lord. If the believer fell perilously ill, the priest anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord and by this sacrament of extreme unction expelled all vestiges of former sin and refreshed the spirit of the dying. Through the priest alone might marriage be sanctified; and when the bonds were once legally contracted they might never be sundered. If evil desire, which baptism lessened but did not remove, led the Christian into deadly sin, as it constantly did, the Church, through the sacrament of penance, reconciled him once more with God and saved him from the jaws of hell. For the priest, through the sacrament of ordination, received the most exalted prerogative of forgiving sins. He enjoyed, too, the awful power and privilege of performing the miracle of the Mass,—of offering up Christ anew for the remission of the sinner's guilt.
The sacrament of penance.
82.The sacrament of penance is, with the Mass, of especial historical importance. When a bishop ordained a priest, he said to him: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven them: whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." In this way the priest was intrusted with the keys of the kingdom of heaven. There was no hope of salvation for one who had fallen into mortal sin unless he received—or at least desired and sought—the absolution of the priest. To one who scorned the priest's ministrations the most sincere and prayerful repentance could not by itself bring forgiveness in the eyes of the Church. Before the priest could utter the solemn "I absolve thee from thy sins," the sinner must have duly confessed his sins and have expressed his vehement detestation of them and his firm resolve never more to offend. It is clear that the priest could not pronounce judgment unless he had been told the nature of the case. Nor would he be justified inabsolving an offender who was not truly sorry for what he had done. Confession and penitence were, therefore, necessary preliminaries to absolution.[143]
Penance and purgatory.
Absolution did not free the contrite sinner from all the results of his sin. It cleared the soul of the deadly guilt which would otherwise have been punished by everlasting suffering, but did not exempt the penitent from temporal penalties. These might be imposed by the priest in this world or suffered after death in the fires of purgatory, which cleansed the soul and prepared it for heaven.
Nature of penance.
The punishment prescribed by the priest was calledpenance. This took a great variety of forms. It might consist in fasting, repeating prayers, visiting holy places, or abstaining from one's ordinary amusements. A journey to the Holy Land was regarded as taking the place of all penance. Instead, however, of requiring the penitent actually to perform the fasts, pilgrimages, or other sacrifices imposed as penance by the priest, the Church early permitted him to change his penance into a contribution, to be applied to some pious enterprise, like building a church or bridge, or caring for the poor and sick.
The Mass.
Transubstantiation.
The priest not only forgave sin; he was also empowered to perform the stupendous miracle of the Mass. The early Christians had celebrated the Lord's Supper or Holy Eucharist in various ways and entertained various conceptions of its nature and significance. Gradually the idea came to be universally accepted that by the consecration of the bread and the wine the whole substance of the bread was converted into the substance of the body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into his blood. This change was termedtransubstantiation. The Church believed, further, that in this sacrament Christ was offered up anew, as he had been on the cross,as a sacrifice to God. This sacrifice might be performed for the sins of the absent as well as of the present, and for the dead as well as for the living. Moreover, Christ was to be worshiped under the form of the bread, orhost(Latin,hostia, sacrifice), with the highest form of adoration. The host was to be borne about in solemn procession when God was to be especially propitiated, as in the case of a famine or plague.
Consequences of conceiving the Mass as a sacrifice.
This conception of the Mass as a sacrifice had some important practical consequences. It became the most exalted of the functions of the priest and the very center of the Church's services. Besides the public masses for the people, private ones were constantly celebrated for the benefit of individuals, especially of the dead. Foundations were created, the income of which went to support priests for the single purpose of saying daily masses for the repose of the soul of the donor or those of the members of his family. It was also a common practice to bestow gifts upon churches and monasteries on condition that annual or more frequent masses should be said for the giver.
The dominant position of the clergy and the sources of their power.
Excommunication and interdict.
83.The sublime prerogatives of the Church, together with its unrivaled organization and vast wealth, combined to make its officers, the clergy, the most powerful social class of the Middle Ages. They held the keys of heaven and without their aid no one could hope to enter in. By excommunication they could not only cast an offender out of the Church, but also forbid his fellow-men to associate with him, since he was accursed and consigned to Satan. By means of theinterdictthey could suspend the consolations of religion in a whole city or country by closing the church doors and prohibiting all public services.[144]
Their monopoly of the advantages of education.
The influence of the clergy was greatly enhanced by the fact that they alone were educated. For six or seven centuries after the overthrow of the Roman government in the West,very few outside of the clergy ever dreamed of studying or even of learning to read and write. Even in the thirteenth century an offender who wished to prove that he belonged to the clergy, in order that he might be tried by a church court, had only to show that he could read a single line; for it was assumed by the judges that no one unconnected with the Church could read at all.[145]
It was therefore inevitable that almost all the books should be written by priests and monks and that the clergy should become the ruling power in all intellectual, artistic, and literary matters,—the chief guardians and promoters of civilization. Moreover, the civil government was forced to rely upon churchmen to write out the public documents and proclamations. The priests and monks held the pen for the king. Representatives of the clergy sat in the king's councils and acted as his ministers; in fact, the conduct of the government largely devolved upon them.[146]
Offices in the Church open to all classes.
The offices in the Church were open to all ranks of men, and many of the popes themselves sprang from the humblest classes. The Church thus constantly recruited its ranks with fresh blood. No one held an office simply because his father had held it before him, as was the case in the civil government.
Lea's description of the mediæval Church.
The man who entered the service of the Church "was released from the distraction of family cares and the seduction of family ties. The Church was his country and his home and its interests were his own. The moral, intellectual, and physical forces, which throughout the laity were divided between the claims of patriotism, the selfish struggle for advancement, the provision for wife and children, were in the Church consecrated to a common end, in the success of which all might hope to share,while all were assured of the necessities of existence, and were relieved of anxiety as to the future." The Church was thus "an army encamped on the soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere, subject to the most efficient discipline, animated with a common purpose, every soldier panoplied with inviolability and armed with the tremendous weapons which slew the soul" (Lea).
General Reading.—Cutts,Parish Priests and their People(E. & J.B. Young, $3.00).Prévost,L'Église et les Campagnes au Moyen Âge(Paris, $1.50).
General Reading.—Cutts,Parish Priests and their People(E. & J.B. Young, $3.00).Prévost,L'Église et les Campagnes au Moyen Âge(Paris, $1.50).
The question of the character of the mediæval clergy.
84.It is natural to ask whether the commanders of the great army which made up the Church proved valiant leaders in the eternal warfare against evil. Did they, on the whole, resist the temptations which their almost limitless power and wealth constantly placed in their way? Did they use their vast resources to advance the cause of the Great Leader whose humble followers and servants they claimed to be? Or were they, on the contrary, selfish and corrupt, turning the teachings of the Church to their own advantage, and discrediting its doctrines in the eyes of the people by flagrant maladministration and personal wickedness?