PETER THE VENERABLE REPLIES TO BERNARD.
Peter the Venerable replied to St. Bernard and defended the Cluniacs. He retorts that the white dress of the Cistercians was too significant of pride, while the black dress of Cluny was bettersuited to the grave and sad. The severity of the Cistercian discipline was excessive, and only drove monks out of the order. The use of furs and materials for dress and bedding and the relaxation of fastings were properly made to suit the diversities of climate. Moreover, as coats of skins were given to Adam and Eve, not for pride, but for shame, the use of furs might well serve to remind us that we were exiles from our heavenly country. If the Cluniacs had lands, they were at least more indulgent to their tenants; if they had serfs, this was because these could not be separated from the lands. If the Cluniacs had castles, these were generally turned into houses of prayer; if they had tolls, they were reminded that St. Matthew came from the class of toll-collectors; if they had tithes, they at least had forsaken all earthly possessions before entering the order, and gave an ample equivalent in the prayers and tears and alms which the monks used for the benefit of the public. It was not necessary for the monks to work at manual labour when they had ample employment in spiritual concerns and priestly exercises. The washing of feet on receiving pilgrims and strangers always involved a great waste of time. Though the Cluniacs were blamed for having no bishops, this was sufficiently explained from their being under the Bishop of Rome.
THE SCHOOLMEN AND DOCTORS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
The subtle and ingenious schoolmen and doctors of the Middle Ages were too often only “madly vain of dubious lore.” One doctor of Paris, named Simon Churnai, having acquired great fame in 1202 by his defence of the doctrine of the Trinity, was so conceited as to say, “Oh, poor Jesus! how greatly have I confirmed and exalted Your position! If I had chosen to attack it, I could have destroyed it by much stronger reasons and objections!” Peter Lombard, friend of St. Bernard, and author of the popular work entitled “The Sentences,” ventured to discuss such problems as the following: When the angels were made, and how; whether they be all equal in essence, wisdom, and freewill; whether they were created perfect and happy, or the reverse; whether the demons differ in rank among themselves; whether they all live in hell, or out of it; whether the good angels can sin, or the bad act virtuously; whether they have bodies; and whether every person has or has not a good angel to preserve him and a bad one to destroy him. The most famous of the doctors had their favourite adjectives, as in the following list:—
THE DEATHBED OF AN ABBOT (A.D.1137).
Warin, abbot of St. Evroult, after serving God under the monastic rule for forty-three years, one day in June 1137 was observed to sing Mass with great devotion in the morning, when they buried the corpse of a soldier. In the course of the day he took to his bed, and lay dangerously ill for five days, during which the sick man heard Mass daily, and said an office which he had regularly performed himself for the thirty years of his priesthood. Seeing now that he was going the way of all flesh, he earnestly sought theviaticumfor the great journey, and prepared to present himself to the Most High King of Sabaoth by confessing his sins with tears in his eyes, earnest and constant prayer, the holy unction, and the life-giving participation of the Lord’s body. At last, strengthened with these great aids, he departed on June 21st; and having performed all that belonged to a faithful champion of Christ, and commended himself and his spiritual sons to the Lord God, fell asleep in the fifteenth day of his government. The sorrowing brethren all joined in paying the last offices to their lamented father, and he was buried in the chapter by the side of the tomb of Abbot Osbern. A white stone was placed over his grave; and, adds Orderic, “for the love I bore to my old and dear associate, and afterwards my spiritual father, I composed an epitaph to be engraved upon it.”
ECSTATIC VISIONS OF SISTER HILDEGARD (A.D.1147).
When Pope Eugenius was visiting Albero, Archbishop of Treves, in 1147, with whom he remained three months, he was consulted and asked for an opinion as to the prophecies of Hildegard, head of a monastic sisterhood at St. Disibod’s, in the diocese of Mentz. Hildegard, born in 1098, had from her childhood been subject to fits of ecstasy, during which it was said that, though ignorant of Latin, she uttered oracles in that language,and these were eagerly heard, recorded, and circulated. With the power of prophecy she was credited with the power of working miracles. She came to be consulted on all manner of subjects by emperors, kings, and popes. Her tone in addressing the highest personage was like that of a true prophetess—one of pronounced superiority. She denounced the corruptness of the monks and clergy with a vigour which delighted their enemies. Even St. Bernard, when in Germany, became interested in the position of Hildegard, and it was at his instance that the Pope examined the subject, and gave her his approval and sanctioned a design she entertained of building a convent in a spot on St. Rupert’s Hill, near Bingen, which had been revealed to her in a vision. Another ecstatic visionary about the same period was Elizabeth of Schonau, who used in her trances to utter oracles in Latin, and to relate her interviews with angels and the Queen of Heaven; and both Hildegard and she attained the honour of saintship. A little later, about 1190, Joachim, a Calabrian, though not a prophet, attained the dignity of a seer, and was consulted by popes and princes.
THE SAFEST WAY OF TRAVELLING TO ROME (A.D.1172).
Abbot Sampson of Edmundsbury used to relate this: “In my earlier days as a monk I journeyed to Rome on the business of this convent, and I passed through Italy at that time when all clerks bearing letters of our lord the Pope Alexander were taken, and some were imprisoned, and some hanged, and some with nose and lips cut off were sent back to the Pope to his shame and confusion. I, however, pretended to be a Scotchman; and putting on the garb of a Scotchman, I often shook my staff in the manner they use that weapon, which they call a pike, at those that mocked me, uttering fierce language after the manner of the Scotch. To those who met and questioned me as to who I was, I answered nothing but ‘Ride, Rome, turn Canterbury.’ This I did to conceal myself and my errand, and that I should get to Rome safer under the guise of a Scotchman. Having obtained letters from the Pope even as I wished, on my return I passed by a certain castle, and was taking my way from the city, and behold the officers thereof came about me, laying hold upon me and saying, ‘This vagabond, who makes himself out to be a Scotchman, is either a spy or bears letters from the false Pope Alexander.’ And while they examined my ragged clothes, my leggings, my breeches, and even the old shoes which I carried over my shoulders, after the fashion of the Scotch, I thrust myhand into the little wallet which I carried, wherein was contained the writing of our lord the Pope, close by a little mug I had for drinking. And the Lord God and St. Edmund permitting, I drew out that writing, together with the mug, so that, extending my arm aloft, I kept the writ underneath the mug. They could see the mug plainly enough, but they did not notice the writ; and so I got clean out of their hands in the name of the Lord. Whatever money I had about me, they took away; therefore I was obliged to beg from door to door, being at no danger until I arrived in England.”
PORTRAIT OF ABBOT SAMPSON OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY (A.D.1182).
Sampson, abbot of Edmundsbury (Bury St. Edmunds), was thus sketched by his faithful chronicler Jocelyn of Brakeland: “The Abbot Sampson was of middle stature, nearly bald, having a face neither round nor yet long, a prominent nose, thick lips, clear and very piercing eyes, ears of the quickest hearing, lofty eyebrows and often shaved, and he soon became hoarse from a brief exposure to cold. On the day of his election he was forty-seven years old, and had been a monk seventeen years, having a few grey hairs in a reddish beard, with a few grey in a black head of hair, which somewhat curled, but within fourteen years after his election it all became white as snow; a man remarkably temperate, never slothful, well able and willing to ride or walk, till old age gained upon him and moderated such inclination; who on hearing the news of the cross being captive, and the loss of Jerusalem, began to use under-garments of horsehair, and a horsehair shirt, and to abstain from flesh and flesh meats; nevertheless, he desired that meats should be placed before him while at the table for the increase of the alms-dish. Sweet milk, honey, and suchlike things he ate with greater appetite than other food. He abhorred liars, drunkards, and chatterers; for virtue ever is consistent with itself and rejects contraries. He also much condemned persons given to murmur at their meat and drink, and particularly monks who were dissatisfied therewith, himself adhering to the uniform course he had practised when a monk. He had likewise the good quality, that he never changed the dish you set before him. Once when I, then a novice, happened to serve in the refectory, it came into my head to ascertain if this were true, and I thought I would place before him a mess which would have displeased any other but him. Yet he never noticed it. An eloquent man both in French and Latin, but intent more on the substance of what he said than on the manner of saying it.”
MONKS OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY REBUILDING THEIR ALTAR.
One night Abbot Sampson of St. Edmundsbury dreamt that St. Edmund complained to him that his altar required rebuilding, and that the shrine orloculus, in which the saint lay buried, must be transferred. Sampson took care to carry out this monition, and Jocelyn the chronicler relates the imposing ceremony thus: “The festival of St. Edmund now approaching, the marble blocks are polished, and all things are in readiness for lifting of the shrine to its new place. A fast of three days was held by all the people, and the abbot appointed the time and way for the work. Coming therefore that night to matins, we found the great shrine raised upon the altar, but empty, covered all over with white doeskin leather, fixed to the wood with silver nails. Praises being sung, we all proceeded with our disciplines. These finished, the abbot and some others with him are clothed in their albs, and approaching reverently set about uncovering theloculus. There was an outer cloth of linen inwrapping theloculus, and all within this was a cloth of silk, and then another linen cloth, and then a third; and so at last theloculuswas uncovered and seen resting on a little tray of wood, that the bottom of it might not be injured by the stone. Over the breast of the martyr there lay fixed to the surface of theloculusa golden angel about the length of a human foot, holding in one hand a golden sword and in the other a banner. Lifting theloculusand body therefrom, they carried it to the altar, and I reached out my sinful hand to help in carrying, though the abbot had commanded that none should approach except called. And theloculuswas placed in the shrine, and the shrine for the present closed. We all thought that the abbot would show theloculusto the people, and bring out the sacred body again at a certain period of the festival. But in this we were wofully mistaken. Our lord the abbot spoke privily with the sacristan and Walter, the doctor, and order was taken that twelve of the brethren should be appointed against midnight who were strong to carry the shrine. I, alas! was not of the twelve. The abbot then said that it was among his prayers to look once upon the body of his patron, and that he wished the sacristan and doctor to be with him. The convent, therefore, being all asleep, these twelve, clothed in their albs, with the abbot, assembled at the altar; and when the lid was unfastened, all except the two forenamed associates were ordered to withdraw. The abbot and they two were alone privileged to look in. The head lay united to the body, a little raised with a small pillow. But theabbot looking close, found now a silk cloth veiling the whole body, and then a linen cloth of wondrous whiteness, and upon the head was spread a small linen cloth, and then another small and most fine silk cloth, as if it were the veil of a nun. These coverings being lifted off, they found now the sacred body all wrapt in linen, and so at length the lineaments of the same appeared. But here the abbot stopped, saying he durst not proceed further or look at the sacred flesh naked. Taking the head between his hands, he thus spake, groaning, ‘Glorious master, holy Edmund, blessed be the hour when thou wert born. Glorious martyr, turn it not to my perdition that I have so dared to touch thee, miserable and sinful that I am; thou knowest my devoted love and my secret thought.’ And proceeding, he touched the eyes and the nose, which was very massive and prominent, and then he touched the breast and arms; and raising the left arm, he touched the fingers, and placed his own fingers between the sacred fingers. And proceeding, he found the feet standing stiff up, like the feet of a man dead yesterday; and he touched the toes and counted them. And now it was agreed that the other brethren should be called forward to see the miracles, and accordingly those ten now advanced, and along with them six others, who had stolen in without the abbot’s assent; and all these saw the sacred body, but Thurstan was the only one of them who put forth his hand and touched the saint’s knees and feet. And that there might be abundance of witnesses, one of our brethren, John of Dice, sitting on the roof of the church with the servants of the vestry, and looking through, clearly saw all these things. The body was then lifted to its place in the shrine, and the panels of theloculusrefixed. When we assembled to sing matins, and understood what had been done, grief took hold of all that had not seen these things, each saying to himself, ‘Alas! I was misled.’ Matins over, the abbot called the convent to the great altar, and briefly recounting the matter, explained that it had not been in his power, nor was it permissible or fit to invite us all to the sight of such things. At hearing of which we all wept, and with tears sangTe Deum laudamus, and hastened to toll the bells in the choir.”
AN ABBOT HARASSED WITH THE CARES OF HIS HIGH OFFICE (A.D.1182).
When Sampson was abbot of St. Edmundsbury, Jocelyn, his chronicler, writes: “On one occasion I said, ‘My lord, I heard thee this night wakeful and sighing heavily, contrary to thyusual wont;’ and he answered, ‘No wonder: thou art partaker of my good things—in meat and drink, in riding abroad, and suchlike; but you have little need to care concerning the conduct of the house and household of the saints and arduous businesses of the pastoral cares, which harass me and make my spirit to groan and be heavy.’ Whereto I, lifting up my hands to Heaven, made answer, ‘From such anxiety, almighty and most merciful Lord, deliver me!’ I have heard the abbot say that, if he could have been as he was before he became a monk, and could have had five or six marks of rent wherewith he could have been supported in the schools, he never would have been monk or abbot. On another occasion, he said with an oath that, if he could have foreseen what and how great a charge it had been to govern the abbey, he would have been master of the almonry and keeper of the books, rather than abbot and lord. And yet who will credit this? Scarcely myself, and not even myself, unless from being constantly with him by day and night for six years I had had the opportunity of becoming fully conversant with the worthiness of his life and the rule of his wisdom.”
THE MONKS ANNOYED AT THE VISIT OF THE POPE’S LEGATE.
The worthy chronicler of St. Edmundsbury, Jocelyn, thus relates the sensation caused in his convent: “In 1176 there came intelligence to Hugh, the abbot, that Richard, the Archbishop of Canterbury, purposed coming to make a visitation of our church, by virtue of his authority as legate; and thereupon the abbot, after consultation, sent to Rome and sought a privilege of exemption from the power of the aforesaid legate. On the messenger’s return from Rome, there was not the means of discharging what he had promised to our lord the Pope and the cardinals, unless indeed, under the special circumstances of the case, the cross which was over the high altar, the Virgin Mary, and the St. John, which Stigund, the archbishop, had adorned with a vast quantity of gold and silver, and had given to St. Edmund, could be made use of for this purpose. There were certain of our convent who, being on terms of intimacy with the abbot, said that the shrine of St. Edmund itself ought to be stripped, as the means of obtaining such privileges, these persons not considering the great peril that would ensue from obtaining ever so valuable a privilege by such means as this, for there would be no means of calling to account any abbot who might waste the possessions of the Church and despoil the convent.”
DEATHBED OF A REPENTANT PRINCESS IN 1199.
Joanna, daughter of Henry II. of England, and a favourite sister of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, and, like him, fond of the clang of trumpets and the martial music of armies, went to Syria, encouraging the Crusaders, and afterwards married Earl Raimond of Toulouse. She died at the age of thirty-four; and though neglectful of the monks in her busy days, she repented and wished she had joined the nuns. A monk thus describes her deathbed: “Trusting to the truth and mercy of the Most High, who will give a penny to him who works only at the eleventh hour, as well as to those who have laboured from the first, she greatly desired to assume a religious habit, and commanded the prioress of Fontevraud to be summoned by letters and messengers; but when distance delayed her coming, feeling her end approaching, she said to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was then present, ‘My good lord, father, have pity on me, and fulfil my earnest desire; furnish my body with the arms of religion to fight my adversary, that my spirit may be restored more pure and free to its Creator; for I know and believe that, if I might be joined in body to the order of Fontevraud, I should escape eternal punishment.’ But the archbishop, trembling, said that this could not be lawfully done without her husband’s consent; but when he saw her constancy and the Spirit of God speaking in her, moved by pity and conquered by her prayers, he with his own hand consecrated and gave her the sacred veil, her mother and the abbot of Tarpigny with other monks being present, and offered her to God and the order of Fontevraud. She now, rejoicing and unmindful of her pangs, declared she saw in a vision the glorious Mother of God; and as the abbot told us, she cast her veil at the enemy, saying, ‘I am a sister and a nun of Fontevraud: thus strengthened, I fear thee not.’” The royal nun died very soon, and was buried in the monastery.
A MONK STEALING ST. ANTONY’S PSALM BOOK (A.D.1200).
It is related by Ribadeneira, in his Life of St. Antony of Padua, that a certain Franciscan novice, throwing off his habit, ran away from the monastery in which the saint lived, and took away with him a psalm book written with St. Antony’s own hand and explained with marginal notes, which the saint often used when he privately expounded the Scriptures to the friars. As soon as St. Antony perceived his book to be stolen, he fell down on his knees and earnestly entreated God to restore him his bookagain. In the meantime, the apostate thief having his book with him, as he prepared to swim over the river, met the devil, who with a drawn sword in his hand commanded him to go back again immediately, and restore to St. Antony the book he had stolen from him, threatening to kill him in case of noncompliance. The devil gave his order with so dreadful an aspect, that the thief, being astonished, returned immediately to the monastery, restored the saint his book, and continued in a religious course ever after. Hence it became a saying, that St. Antony is implored to restore lost goods.
A MONK FOR A KING (A.D.1226).
St. Louis, King of France, in 1226, had been bred up a monk by a strong-minded and austere mother, Queen Blanche. The young King took naturally to all the austerities. He wore coarse sackcloth next his skin, ate fruit once a year, never laughed or changed his raiment on Fridays. In his girdle he wore an ivory case of iron chain scourges, and every Friday locked his door on himself and his confessor, who then used these incitements to piety over his bleeding shoulders. He would walk with bare feet to distant churches; or sometimes, to disguise his devotion, wore sandals without soles. He constantly washed the feet of beggars. He invited the poor and sick to his table. He not only gave alms but even a brotherly kiss to lepers. He heard Masses twice or thrice a day. As he rode, his chaplain chanted or recited the offices. When challenged for these constantly repeated exercises, he would say, “If I spent twice as much time in dice and hawking, should I be so rebuked?” A woman, one day as he sat in court, exclaimed, “Fie! you are not King of France; you are only a king of friars, of priests, and of clerks. It is a great pity you ever were King of France; you should be turned out of your kingship.” He would not allow his officers to chastise this free speech, but answered, “Too true! It has pleased the Lord to make me king; it had been well if it had been some one who had better ruled the realm.” And he ordered some money to be given to the woman. The King was altogether ignorant of polite letters. He read only his Latin Bible and the Fathers. He loved everybody except Jews, heretics, and infidels. He once thought of abdicating and becoming a real monk. He joined the Crusades because he knew God would fight His own battles. His expedition took three years to complete, and it was a disastrous failure. He was defeated and made a prisoner, but he bore it all like a monk, and his people ransomed him.
ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY (A.D.1231).
Elizabeth, daughter of a King of Hungary, and who died in 1231, was destined from a baby to be married to Ludwig, a son of the Landgrave of Thuringia, and the two as children were rocked to sleep in the same cradle. When she was fifteen they were married, and she developed a strong instinct to help the poor and sick, and always kept up a place of refuge for them. Five years after her marriage an inquisitor named Conrad became her confessor, and being of a brutal and malignant disposition, became so arrogant and domineering that her life was made miserable by his dictation and arbitrary orders. His cruel treatment of many so-called heretics ultimately roused the spirit of some nobles, who waylaid him; and when the miserable wretch begged his life, they told him he should meet with the same mercy he had shown to others, and cut him down. Ludwig went to join the Crusaders, and he afterwards died abroad; and during his absence his brothers dispossessed Elizabeth and turned her adrift with her three children, and for a time she had scarcely the means to live except on charity. Her former subjects were also afraid to shelter her, and she had often to spin for a livelihood. Amid all her own troubles she did not cease to help the poor; and when some friends came to her assistance with funds, it was always her first thought to give away all her means and even her clothes in charity. Her father at last hearing of her misfortunes, offered her a home; but she refused to leave the place where her husband had lived. Conrad, her confessor, brutally thwarted her in all her charitable schemes. At last her health gave way, and she lay on her deathbed. A little bird perched on her window-sill and sang so cheerfully that she could not choose but to sing also. She soon, however, sank, at the age of twenty-four, and her body was richly enshrined in the church dedicated to her at Marburg, where her relics were prized and attracted many pilgrims. It was after her death that the brutal Conrad was murdered. She is the patron saint of all charities.
A SICK NUN CAUSING A PANIC AMONG THE SARACENS (A.D.1253).
St. Clara, who flourished in 1253, was a devout follower of St. Francis of Assisi, and though highly born gave her life up to exercises of self-mortification. In her nunnery of San Damiano it happened once that the Saracens were about to attack the city of Assisi, and she was on a bed of sickness, when roused by thecries of the sisterhood. She caused herself to be borne to the point of danger, preceded by the Host. She flung herself before the sacred symbol and said, “My God, suffer not these feeble ones to fall a prey to barbarians without pity. I cannot protect them. I place them in Thy hands.” She thought she heard an answer, “I will preserve them.” She further entreated, “Lord, have mercy on this city, which has sustained us with its alms.” Again she felt sensible that she heard the words, “It shall not suffer. Be of good courage.” It was noticed that a sudden panic then fell on the Saracens. They had already climbed the walls; they jumped down outside, withdrew their ladders, and deserted Assisi, leaving it unhurt. Everybody then said it was St. Clara’s doing; the holy nun had saved them.
MORBID FANCIES OF ST. NICOLAS, THE STARVED MONK (A.D.1305).
St. Nicolas of Tolentino, who died in 1305, was in his youth so impressed by a sermon on self-mortification that he resolved to embrace a religious life. He showed great aptitude for fasting, even at the growing age of fifteen, and the superior of the monastery warned him against carrying it too far and wearing himself to a skeleton; for, after all, the torture of the body was not necessary to salvation. But Nicolas hesitated; and going to church, he fell into a trance and saw a vision, which told him to remain at Tolentino. He had great delight in the spiritual exercises of Mass. At the altar his face shone with rapture and tears streamed from his eyes. He became a fervid preacher, but he also took so little food that his mind was a prey to thick-coming fancies. The cats racing over the tiles of his cottage and squalling in the night, and the rats gnawing pieces of mortar and scampering behind the wainscot, seemed to him to be an army of fiends let loose and envious of his prayers. Through his open window one night a great bat upset his candle, but he blew the extinguished candle so long that it rekindled, and this was deemed by all the neighbours quite a miraculous revival. The devil one day was said to have beaten him with a club at cockcrow, but went off without the stick, and this is still preserved as a trophy in the convent. Nicolas was ill from exhaustion, and was ordered some meat. But when a roasted partridge, hot and steaming with rich gravy, was brought to him, he looked with horror, as if he was asked to commit a mortal sin. With folded hands and tearful eyes he implored his superior to excuse him; and when he received consent not to touch the tempting bird, he made the sign of the cross over it. All at once the bird, shocked at hisindifference, rose in the dish, collected its scattered materials, resumed its feathers, and flew out of the window with a whir. One day an old lady baked Nicolas some nice loaves, which he ate, and got well. In memory of the wonderful event little loaves are baked and blessed and given to the sick to this day on the feast of St. Nicolas of Tolentino.
THE MONASTERIES OF MOUNT ATHOS.
The peninsula of Mount Athos is about forty miles long and four miles wide, and abounds in ridges and valleys of the finest scenery of rock and wood, with twenty monasteries situated on the best spots. These are either hermit villages or convents of the ordinary kind; but they enjoy an organisation under what is called a Holy Synod, consisting of representatives, though before 1500 the supreme government was intrusted to a single governor or first man. Mount Athos, at the seaward end, rises seven thousand feet high. Every part of the promontory is covered with vegetation, and its position in the waters keeps the forests fresh and green when all the neighbouring mainlands are burnt up by the summer and autumnal heats. The origin of the monasteries is lost in the early ages, and for at least a thousand years the hermits have been known to occupy these places. Most of these monasteries possess ancient manuscripts and relics of the early saints. Nearly every convent on Athos possesses a portion of the true cross. Among the relics distributed are found a piece of the Blessed Virgin, which is a narrow strip of some red material sewn with gold thread and ornamented with pearls; the gifts of the three kings, gold, incense, and myrrh; a drop of the blood of St. John the Baptist; part of the skull of St. Bartholomew; a hand and a foot of St. Mary Magdalene; the left hand of St. Anne; part of the head of St. Stephen Protomartyr; relics of St. Andrew and St. Luke; a piece of our Lord’s coat; the jaw of St. Stephen; the head of St. James the Less; three of our Lord’s hairs; a leg of St. Simon Stylites. No instrumental music of any kind is permitted in the Eastern Church; but sometimes a sort of voice accompaniment of one note, like the drone of a bagpipe, keeps up a low murmuring sound whilst the other voices are engaged upon the tune.
THE MONKS OF LA TRAPPE (A.D.1122).
The convent of La Trappe had been founded in 1122, but about the year 1663 the monks had dwindled to seven. De Rancé, whohad been many years a wealthy prodigal and sensualist, entered La Trappe, which had an evil repute for loose living. He became abbot and began reforms; and though threatened with assassination, he introduced a system of rigorous self-denial and asceticism worthy of the hermits of the Thebaid. By degrees his numbers increased. The monks, though living in the same house, were strangers to each other. Each one followed to the choir, the garden, or the refectory the feet that were moving before him, but he never raised his eyes to discover to whom the feet belonged. There were some who passed the entire year of their novitiate without lifting up their eyes, and who, after that long period, could not tell how the ceiling of their cells was constructed, or whether they had any ceilings at all. There is mention made of one whose whole anxiety was for an only brother whom he left leading a scandalous and disorderly life in the world. This monk never passed a day without shedding tears and praying for the grace of repentance to that lost brother. On his dying-bed he had one request to make to his abbot, which was, that there might be a continuance of his prayers for this brother. De Rancé retired for a moment, and returned with one of the most useful and valued members of the brotherhood. When the cowl which concealed his features was removed, the dying monk recognised the lost brother for whom he had so often wept and prayed. De Rancé was a valued friend of Bossuet, the greatest orator of his age, and received his visits. During the last six years of his life he sat in an easy-chair almost without changing his position. He died in 1700, and was deemed the first anchorite of his time.
THE CERTOSA MONASTERY AT PAVIA (A.D.1396).
The Certosa of Pavia is the most splendid monastery in the world, and is called the monastery of the Blessed Virgin of Grace. It was founded in 1396 by the first Duke of Milan, as an atonement for guilt and to relieve his conscience of the murder of his uncle and brother-in-law. On the general suppression of convents it became a national monument. The architect was Bernardo da Venezia, and he so contrived the building that from whatever side it was viewed the perspective lines were admirably disposed. Sculptures and paintings in profusion decorate the interior. Rich bronze gates divide the nave of the chapel from the transept. The most rare and costly materials were used in the structure, and the bas-reliefs are exquisite. There are many fine pictures of saints, setting forth various legends in sacred art.
ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA, NUN (A.D.1347).
St. Catherine was born at Siena in 1347. She was of great beauty and had a genius for virginity; and though her parents wished her, at the age of twelve, to engage herself in marriage, she resisted, and thereby brought on herself systematic tyranny and insult. At the age of fifteen she began to live on herbs, to wear haircloth, and an iron girdle armed with spikes. At eighteen she entered a nunnery and underwent with zeal a series of mortifications. She devoted herself to nursing the infected and to delivering exhortations, so that people flocked to see and hear her. When the furious factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines raged, and the Pope sent an army to subdue Florence, the inhabitants implored her to mediate, and she went, attended with great pomp of ambassadors, to the Pope, on whom she made a great impression. She was then looked up to as a sort of ambassadress in many critical State affairs, and attained high honour in all her undertakings. She had ecstasies and wonderful visions, and was deemed of sublime virtue and self-denial. She died in Rome, aged thirty-three, and was buried there, her skull being taken to the Dominican church at Siena, and she was canonised in 1461. Next to Mary Magdalene she is the most popular of all the female saints; and owing to her great learning and to her refuting the philosophers of Paganism, she is deemed a Christian Minerva. In one of her ecstasies she said the Virgin appeared to her and introduced the Saviour, who put a ring on her finger. One legend says a wheel with spikes was used to put her to death, but fire came from heaven and broke the wheel in pieces and killed the executioners. The saint and her wheel were painted by many of the great painters, and so was her marriage to the Saviour.
THE MONKS OF LUCCA AND THEIR DEMON PREACHER (A.D.1320).
In the fourteenth century the Franciscan monks of Lucca found that, however industrious they were in begging, the inhabitants had gradually ceased to contribute alms to the money-box, and they were on the point of starvation. The richest man of the place drove them from his gate and called them idle vagabonds, who wanted to live at their neighbours’ expense. The courage of the friars drooped; they saw their tables laid out daily for dinner, but not a morsel of bread. They thought of selling the silver vessels or leaving the locality. The abbot felt or feigned patience, courage, and resignation, and counselled them to trust in the Lord; but in their inmost hearts they all feltdespair, and the devil triumphed at their approaching ruin. At this desperate juncture the Archangel Michael descended and caught an emissary of the devil as he was gloating over his prey, and condemned that emissary to do service to the monks, in spite of his evil nature. The devil gnashed his teeth and swore he would do nothing for the brood of St. Francis, his arch-foe. But Michael told the fiend that he had nothing to do but obey. So the fiend, sorely against his will, assumed the guise of a friar of higher degree, got into conversation with the abbot, and hearing of the drooping fortunes of the house, said he would compel the public to serve them and restore their comfort. The abbot looked again and again at this mysterious friend, whose bearing and confident airs made a profound impression, and asked his name, which the visitor said was “Obligatus.” So Obligatus entered the monastery, set to work, harangued the people in byways and comers, and his extraordinary eloquence soon worked an immediate change in the situation. The people were spellbound, and poured their contributions into the alms-boxes. The fame of the unwilling preacher filled all the country round, so that the monastery flourished and became too small, and then he prevailed on the people to build a second house. A rich man of the place fell sick unto death and sent for the eloquent friar, but at last he died impenitent; and this event greatly rejoiced the disguised saint, for Obligatus felt the devil within him so strong that he broke out into raptures. The secret of the demon friar was then disclosed. He tore off his friar’s habit, declared that his truce with St. Francis was ended, that he had done his work, and Francis had conquered. The friar then vanished disgusted and enraged, and was never more heard of. But the monastery flourished ever after.
THOMAS À KEMPIS AND THE BROTHERS OF COMMON LIFE (A.D.1450).
Thomas à Kempis, the author of the “Imitatio Christi,” an inspired handbook of all that is best in monkish life, was born in 1380 at Kempen, in the diocese of Cologne. At the age of thirteen he went and joined the Brothers of Common Life, a small company or cloister founded by Gerard Groot and Florentius at Deventer, and seven years later he entered the convent of St. Agnes at Zwolle, where he filled several offices, and died in 1471, aged ninety. His book was first printed in 1471, and soon became the delight of all the best monks, as truly representing their higher life. Father Lamennais said of this book that “there is something celestial in its simplicity. One would almost imagine itwas written by one of those pure spirits who have seen God face to face, who had come expressly to explain His ways and to reveal His secrets. One is profoundly moved at this aspect of that soft light which nourishes the soul and fortifies and animates without troubling it.” Mr. Kettlewell also well says, “It shows how the life of a Christian in ordinary circumstances may be made lovely by the cultivation of the spiritual life; how a lowly life may become sublime and heavenly.” In appearance Thomas had a broad forehead and thoughtful face and bright eyes. The Brothers of Common Life were employed not only in writing out Scripture, which was to them a great means of support, but in manual labour of a homely kind. Thomas in his studious hours contrived to extract the sweetness out of all the best writings of those who lived before him. Thomas’s idea of a cloister is quoted by Mr. Kettlewell, his biographer, and gives this charming picture: “A well-founded cloister, separated from the tumult of the world, adorned with many brethren and with sacred books, is acceptable to God and to His saints. Such a place, it is piously believed, is pleasing to all that love God and take a delight in hearing the things of God; because the cloister is the castle of the Supreme King, and the palace of the Celestial Emperor, prepared for the dwelling of religious persons where they may faithfully serve God. For this is none other, as we read and sing, than the house of God in which to pray, the court of God to offer praise, the choir of God to sing unto Him, the altar of God whereon to celebrate, the gate of God whereby to enter heaven, the ladder of God to rise above the clouds. As a noble city is preserved with walls and gates and bars, so also is the monastery of the religious with many devout brethren, with sacred books, and with learned men. It is decorated with gems and precious stones to the praise of God and to the honour of all his saints, who now rejoice in heaven with Him, because they followed in the footsteps of His passion on earth.”
ST. PETER OF ALCANTARA, THE SELF-CONCENTRATED MONK (A.D.1530).
At Estremadura, in Spain, St. Peter, a law student and son of the governor, born in 1499, early embraced the religious life, and was eager to crucify the flesh with its affections. He never lifted his eyes from the ground, and could not tell whether his cell had a ceiling or bare rafters. He had charge of the refectory for six months, and allowed his brethren to go without apples and pomegranates because he would not lift his eyes to see whether there were any ripe for table. He did not know bysight one of the friars who had lived for years with him in the same house. He lay in a small cell not long enough to stretch his body in at full length. He wore only one garment, and that was a serge habit made like a short cloak with tight leggings. When it was torn he carefully removed the tattered portion underneath, lest he should be in the enjoyment of the double cloth. One day he was visited by a stranger, and Peter had been washing his only garment, and while it was drying in the sun he was of course not presentable to company. In his devotions he roared and howled so loudly that strangers thought he was insane, though the devout described him as only struggling manfully with the devil. To hear one of these performances was said to be far more impressive than any sermon of his contemporaries. One hot day, going to visit a nobleman, he dismounted from his ass and fell asleep, and the ass took the opportunity of trespassing and eating up the vegetables in a poor woman’s garden. On seeing the mischief done, she tugged at Peter’s cloak, which caused him to fall over and cut his head on a stone. The nobleman coming up at this point, was about to slay the woman for this rudeness, but Peter interceded for her, and begged his lordship rather to pay for the damage done by the ass, and this was done. Peter lived for forty-seven years in a perpetual penance, and was highly esteemed for the spirit he showed in so trampling the world under his feet. He had the look of a gnarled root of oak, rugged and eccentric, yet when he opened his mouth he was most affable and showed an excellent understanding. He died preaching to and admonishing the friars.
THE ECSTATIC VISIONS OF ST. THERESA (A.D.1550).
St. Theresa astounded all her contemporaries with her numerous visions and high-flown devotional works. She was thought in her youth to be too much given to gossip; and when grown up, her confessors were told so many wonderful things that they plainly assured her these were mere delusions of the devil. She thus related one of these visions: “One day, when our Lord was communing with me, I gazed at His great beauty, and the sweetness with which He uttered His words with His most lovely and Divine mouth, sometimes also with sternness. I had a great desire to observe the colour of His eyes, and their shape and size, that I might give a description of them; but I have never been able to behold them, nor have I succeeded in gaining my point, as the vision has usually faded. And though sometimes I see He looks at me with compassion, yet the sight is so overpoweringthat the soul is not able to endure it, but remains in so high a rapture that, in order to enjoy Him the more completely, this beautiful apparition disappears altogether. When I am in trouble, He has shown me His wounds as He hung on the cross or was in the garden. One day, as I was holding the cross in my hand which was at the end of my rosary, He took it into His hand, and when He returned it to me it consisted of four great stones incomparably more precious than diamonds,” etc., etc. St. Theresa founded no less than sixteen convents in Spain, and she died at the age of sixty-seven, in 1582, in an ecstasy such as she had so often had during her lifetime; and the nuns who attended on her said they saw our Lord waiting at the foot of her bed with saints to carry her to realms of bliss. She had joined with her nuns in the penitential psalms and litany, and she then lay in a trance for her last fourteen hours in the posture in which the blessed Magdalene is commonly drawn by painters, holding a crucifix firmly in her hands, so that the nuns could not remove it till after her death. They all noticed her lips moving and a glow of heavenly hope on her face. Her body was so sacred that parts of it were dispersed throughout the Christian world.
THE EMPEROR MONK ENTERS A MONASTERY (A.D.1557).
The Emperor Charles V. having for twenty years looked forward to the step he was now taking, took leave of many of his old servants, and on February 2nd, 1537, was placed in his litter, and with a company of fifty-two retainers, besides his household of sixty, crossing the leafless forest, halted at the gates of Yuste, the Jeromite convent in Estremadura in Spain. There the bells were ringing a peal of welcome, and the prior was waiting to receive his imperial guest, who, on alighting, was placed in a chair and carried to the door of the church. At the threshold he was met by the whole brotherhood in procession, chanting theTe Deumto the music of the organ. The altars and the aisle were brilliantly lighted up with tapers and decked with their richest frontals, hangings, and plate. Borne through the pomp to the steps of the high altar, Charles knelt down and returned thanks to God for the happy termination of his journey, and joined in the vesper service of the feast of St. Blas. This ended, the prior stepped forward with a congratulatory speech, in which, to the scandal of the courtiers, he addressed the Emperor as “your paternity,” until some friar with more presence of mind and regard to the situation whispered that the proper style was “your majesty.” The orator next presented his Jeromites to their new brother,each kissing his hand and receiving a fraternal embrace. Some of the friars bestowed on his gouty fingers so cordial a squeeze that the pain compelled him to withdraw the hand and say, “Pray, don’t, father; it hurts me.” During this ceremony the retiring halberdiers who had escorted their master to the journey’s close stood round with tears and lamentations as they took leave and felt their occupation gone. Sounds of mourning at the final parting were heard as the Emperor was conducted to an inspection of the convent, and then to supper, and then to a repose which had so long been the dream of his life.
THE EMPEROR MONK’S DRESS AND FURNITURE.
The Emperor monk’s dress was always black and very old. He had an old arm-chair with wheels and cushions. Some of the apartments had some rich tapestry wrought with figures, landscapes, and flowers. His usual black dress was such another as that painted by Titian in the fine portrait wherein the Emperor sits before us, pale, thoughtful, and dignified, in the Belvidere palace at Vienna. He still had an old cap to save his best velvet one in case of a shower. He had a few rings and bracelets, medals and buttons, collars and badges, some crucifixes of gold and silver, various charms (such as the bezoar-stone against the plague, and gold rings from England against cramp), a morsel of the true cross and other relics, three or four pocket watches, and several dozen pairs of spectacles. He had a few well-chosen pictures worthy of the patron and friend of Titian, a composition on the subject of the Trinity, and three pictures of Our Lady by that great master. He had three cased miniatures of the Empress painted in her youthful beauty, also some family portraits of near relatives. Over the high altar of the convent and in sight of his own bed he had placed that celebrated composition called the Glory of Titian, a picture of the Last Judgment, in which Charles, his wife, and their royal children were represented in the master’s grandest style as conducted by angels into life eternal. Also another masterpiece of the great Venetian—St. Jerome praying in his cavern with a sweet landscape in the distance—was an altar-piece in the Emperor’s private oratory.
THE EMPEROR MONK’S APARTMENTS.
The Emperor’s house or palace, as the friars loved to call it, in Yuste was such as many a country notary would call comfortable. It had a simple front of two storeys to the garden and thenoontide sun. Each of the eight rooms had an ample fireplace, such as a chilly invalid of Flemish habits required. Charles inhabited the upper rooms, and slept in one which had a window commanding the high altar. From the window on the opposite side of the corridor, where his cabinet stood, the eye ranged over a cluster of rounded knolls, clad in walnut and chestnut, in which the mountain died gently away into the broad bosom of the Vera. A summer-house peered above the mulberry tops at the lower end of the garden, and a hermitage of Our Lady of Solitude about a mile distant hung upon a rocky height which rose like an isle out of the sea of forest. Immediately below the windows the garden sloped gently to the Vera, shaded here and there with the massive foliage of the fig, or the feathery boughs of the almond, and breathing perfume from tall orange trees, cuttings of which some of the friars in after-days tried in vain to keep alive at the bleak Escurial. The garden was easily reached from the western porch or gallery by an inclined path, which had been constructed to save the gouty monarch the pain and fatigue of going up and down stairs. This porch, which was much more spacious than the eastern, was his favourite seat when filled with the warmth of the declining day. A short alley of cypress led from the parterre to the principal gate of the garden, and beyond was the luxuriant forest, and close in the foreground a magnificent walnut tree.
THE EMPEROR MONK’S DETESTATION OF HERETICS.
While the Emperor monk was at Yuste, he retained all his fiery zeal against heretics, and notice of any successful capture of an impious Lutheran was welcome news when forwarded to him. He always in his letters entreated his daughter, the Princess Regent, to lose no time and spare no pains to uproot the new and dangerous doctrines. He used to say to his confessor, “Father, if anything could drag me from this retreat, it would be to aid in chastising these heretics. I have written to the Inquisition to burn them all, for none of them will ever become true Catholics or are worthy to live.” He would have their crime treated in a short and summary manner, like sedition or rebellion. The King, his son (he said), had executed sharp and speedy justice upon many heretics, and even upon bishops in England. Upon news arriving about any hunt after heretics, he used to converse with his confessor and the prior on a subject that lay so near his heart. He told them that, in looking back on the early religious troubles of his reign, it was ever his regret that he didnot put Luther to death when he had him in his power. He had spared him, he said, on account of his pledged word, but he now saw that he greatly erred in preferring the obligation of a promise to the higher duty of avenging upon that arch-heretic his offences against God. Had Luther been removed the plague might have been stayed. He had some consolation, however, in recollecting how steadily he had refused to hear the points at issue between the Church and the schismatics argued in his presence.
THE EMPEROR MONK’S INTEREST IN CLOCKMAKING.
The Emperor Charles, while a monk, often visited in spare hours the workshop of Torriano, who had long been at work on an elaborate astronomical timepiece, which was to tell the month and year and the movements of the planets. He had revolved the plan for twenty years, and the making of it actually occupied three and a half years. Of wheels it contained eighteen hundred; the material of the case was gilt bronze, and round. The clock was two feet in diameter, rather less in height, and with a tapering top, ending in a tower containing the bell and hammer. The Emperor helped the inscription by adding to the name of Torriano “The Prince of Clockmakers,” and caused his own portrait to be engraved on the back. Torriano also made for the Emperor a smaller clock in a crystal case, which allowed the whole working of the machinery to be seen. The same artist constructed a self-acting mill, which, though small enough to be concealed in a friar’s sleeve, could grind two pecks of corn in a day; also the figure of a lady who danced on the table to the sound of her own tambourine. Other puppets were attributed to the artist: minute men and horses, which fought, pranced, and blew tiny trumpets; and birds which flew about the room, as if alive,—toys which at first scared the prior and his monks out of their wits, and made them think the artificer a wizard. Besides these sedentary amusements, the Emperor had also his pet birds, his wolf-hounds, and even sometimes was unmonkish enough to stroll to the forest with his gun, and pop at the wood-pigeons on the chestnut trees.
THE EMPEROR MONK’S CONFESSOR.
Regla, the son of a poor Aragonese peasant, and who was taken into the convent of St. Yuste at the age of thirty-six, and became a devoted son and rigid disciplinarian, was selected by theEmperor Charles V. as his confessor. The recipient of so great an honour felt unworthy to take charge of His Majesty’s conscience. But Charles told him to take courage, adding, “I have had five learned divines, who have been busy with my conscience for three years past in Flanders, and all with which you will have to concern yourself will be my life in Yuste.” The meek confessor soon gained the good opinion of the Emperor, and obtained the great boon of being allowed to be seated in the royal presence—an act of condescension which greatly scandalised the loyal Quixada, the major-domo, who regarded it as an indignity that a poor friar should be placed on a level with his august sovereign. The monk felt the awkwardness—for it was the practice to keep up the same high state at Yuste in the Emperor’s presence—and he fell on his knees and besought the Emperor to allow him to stand in his presence; “for when any one enters the room,” said the friar, “it makes me feel like a criminal on the scaffold dressed in hissan benito.” “Be in no trouble about that,” said Charles to him: “you are my father confessor; I am glad that people should find you sitting when they come into the room, and it does not displease me that you should change countenance sometimes at being found so.” After the confessor assisted Charles in his morning devotions, the latter usually went and watched Torriano, the mechanician, who was always busy with some mechanical invention and with improving the watches and clocks which so interested the Emperor.
THE EMPEROR MONK’S CHOIR.
At the convent of Yuste the Emperor Charles had with him a little organ with a silver case and of exquisite tone, which had long been kept at the Escurial, and which was also the companion of his journeys and the solace of his evenings when encamped before Tunis. The choir at Yuste, in order to gratify the Emperor’s love of music, had been reinforced with fifteen friars, chosen from different monasteries for their fine voices and skill in the art. The Emperor took a lively interest in the management of the choir and organ, and from the window of his bedroom his voice might often be heard accompanying the chant of the friars. His ear never failed to detect a false note and the mouth from which it came. A singing-master from Plasencia, being one day in the church, ventured to join in the service, but he had not sung many bars when orders came down from the palace to keep silence. Guerrero, a “chapel-master” of Seville, having composed and presented to the Emperor a book of masses andmotets, one of the former was selected for performance at Yuste. When it was ended, the imperial critic remarked to his confessor which were the stolen passages skilfully appropriated from the best masters and their works and names.
NOT A MONK AT DINNER-TIME.
The Emperor Charles V., though all his life looking forward to being a monk, did not understand a monkish dinner. After a year’s sojourn in Yuste, his physician considered His Majesty well enough to leave off his sarsaparilla and liquorice water. Then, as usual, Charles ate voraciously. His dinner began with a large dish of cherries or strawberries, smothered in cream and sugar; then came a highly-seasoned pasty; and next the principal dish of the repast, which was frequently a ham, or some preparation of rashers—the Emperor being very fond of the bacon products of Estremadura. “His Majesty,” said the doctor, “will not hear of changing his diet or mode of living, trusting too much to the force of habit, and forgetting the consequences to bodies like his, full of bad humours.” His hands occasionally troubled him, and his fingers were sometimes ulcerated. But his chief complaint was of the heat and itching in his legs at night, which he endeavoured to relieve by sleeping with them uncovered—a measure whereby temporary ease was purchased at the expense of a chill which crept into the upper part of his body, in spite of blankets and eiderdown quilts. Then came threatenings of gout, attempts to cure by cold bathing, perpetual itching, and other symptoms, which gradually enfeebled him. It was said that His Majesty’s cook was driven out of his wits to invent new dishes for table, and that he believed there was nothing left but to serve up a fricassée of watches.
THE EMPEROR MONK CELEBRATES HIS OWN FUNERAL.
The Emperor used, when any of his friends died, to do honour to their memory by causing their obsequies to be performed by the friars, and each on a different day. At last he asked his confessor whether he might not now perform his own funeral, and so do for himself what would soon have to be done for him by others. “Would it not be good for my soul?” asked the Emperor. And the monk replied that certainly it would, for pious works done during life were far more efficacious than when they were postponed till after death. Preparations were therefore at once set on foot. A catafalque was erected, and next daythe celebrated service was actually performed. The high altar, the catafalque, and the whole church shone with a blaze of wax lights; the friars were all in their places at the altars and in the choir, and the household of the Emperor attended in deep mourning. The pious monarch himself (says his biographer) was there, attired in sable weeds and bearing a taper to see himself interred and to celebrate his own obsequies. While they were singing the solemn mass for the dead, he came forward and gave his taper into the hands of the officiating priest, in token of his desire to yield his soul into the hands of his Maker. High above, over the kneeling throng, the gorgeous vestments, the flowers, the curling incense, and the glittering altar, the same idea shone forth on that splendid canvas whereon Titian had pictured Charles kneeling on the threshold of the heavenly mansions prepared for the blessed. The funeral rites ended, the Emperor dined, but he ate little; and feeling a violent pain in his head, he lay down, and next day he told his confessor that the funeral of the day before had done him good. He died six weeks later.
FUNERAL SERMON ON THE EMPEROR MONK.
When the Emperor Charles V. died, a monk at Yuste, his chamberlain said of him that he was the greatest man that ever lived, or ever would live, in the world. In his last moments he said, “The time is come; bring me the candle and the crucifix.” These cherished relics he had long kept for this supreme hour, and he died with his eyes fixed on the crucifix. His body was embalmed and laid in a coffin in front of the high altar. The eloquent preacher Villalva preached a funeral sermon so impassioned, that the hearers declared that it made their flesh creep and their hair stand on end. Sixteen years later messengers went to remove the body to the mausoleum at the Escurial. The monks bewailed the loss of so precious a deposit, and one of them took occasion to preach an affecting sermon, in which he thus apostrophised the dead monarch: “Although you are but a lifeless corpse, the garment of the spirit which has long enjoyed, as we believe, the glory of God, we thank your Cæsarean majesty for the grace which you have bestowed on Yuste and on our order. In a year and eight months passed in this solitude we are well assured that you have gained more renown than in the whole of your long reign. History, indeed, will never forget your great achievements, but in the end of your life you surpassed them all. Grief for losing you, who so loved us, chokes my utterance; for I know that when you are gone, although we who are now aliveare your devoted servants and chaplains, a time will come when even in this place your memory will be regarded no more than if you had never dwelt within our walls.” This last allusion was prophetic; for in 1849, when Mr. Stirling visited Yuste, he found it in ruins, and all save the great walnut tree told only of mouldering decay. O’Campo, the chronicler of the Emperor Charles V., had undertaken to write his history; but having begun at Noah’s flood was, after forty years’ labour, surprised by death while narrating the exploits of the Scipios,B.C.183.
SOME BISHOPS, KINGS, POPES, AND INQUISITORS.
THEORY OF THE UNITY OF THE CLERGY.
The clergy, including the monks and friars, were one throughout Latin Christendom. Whatever antagonism, feud, hatred, and estrangement might rise between rival prelates, rival priests, rival orders, whatever irreconcilable jealousy there might be between the seculars and regulars, yet the caste seldom betrayed the interest of the caste. The clergy in general were first the subjects of the Pope, then the subjects of their temporal sovereign. The Pope came to be acknowledged over the whole of Christendom as the guardian, and in some respects the suzerain, of Church property all over the world. He was at least a more impartial judge than their rival or antagonist—the civil ruler. The universal fraternity of the monastic orders and of the friars was even more intimate than the bond between the clergy. The wandering friars found everywhere a home. Their all-comprehending fraternisation had the power and some of the mystery, without the suspicion and hatred, which attaches to secret societies. It was a perpetual campaign, set in motion and still moving on with simultaneous impulse from one or from several centres, but with a single aim and object—the aggrandisement of the society, with all the results for evil or for good.
THE SUPREMACY OF THE POPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
Milman says: “The essential inherent supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power was in the time of Innocent III. (1198-1216) an integral part of Christianity. Splendid indeed it was, as harmonising with man’s natural sentiment of order. The unity of the vast Christian republic was an imposing conception, which, even now that history has shown its hopeless impossibility, still infatuates lofty minds: its impossibility, since it demands forits head not merely that infallibility in doctrine so boldly claimed in later times, but absolute impeccability in every one of its possessors; more than impeccability—an all-commanding, indefeasible, unquestionable majesty of virtue, holiness, and wisdom. Without this it is a baseless tyranny, a senseless usurpation. In those days it struck in with the whole feudal system, which was of strict gradation and subordination; to the hierarchy of Church and State was equally wanting the crown, the sovereign Liege Lord. The Crusades had made the Pope not merely the spiritual but in some sort the military suzerain of Europe. He had the power of summoning all Christendom to his banner; the raising of the cross, the standard of the Pope, was throughout Europe a general and compulsory levy. The vast subventions raised for the Holy Land were to a certain extent at the disposal of the Pope. An immense financial system grew up. Papal collectors were in every land; Papal bankers in every capital to transmit these subsidies. He claimed to be supreme judge of all the ecclesiastical courts in every country, and to approve and degrade bishops, to grant dispensations, and to found new orders and direct canonisations. This claim of supremacy made lawless kings tremble, and in this way did some good. Nothing could be more sublime than the notion of a great supreme religious power, the representative of God’s eternal and immutable justice upon earth, absolutely above all passion or interest, interposing with the commanding voice of authority in the quarrels of kings and nations, persuading peace by the unimpeachable impartiality of its judgments, and even invested with power to enforce its unerring decrees. But the sublimity of the notion depends on the arbiter’s absolute exemption from the unextinguishable weaknesses of human nature. If the tribunal commands not unquestioning respect, if there be the slightest just suspicion of partiality, if it goes beyond its lawful province, if it has no power of compelling obedience, it adds but another element to the general confusion; it is a partisan enlisted on one side or the other, not a mediator conciliating conflicting interests or overawing the collision of factions. Yet such was the Papal power in these times: often, no doubt, on the side of justice and humanity—too often on the other; looking to the interests of the Church alone, assumed, but assumed without ground, to be the same as those of Christendom and mankind, the representative of fallible man rather than of the infallible God. Ten years of strife and civil war in Germany were traced, if not to the direct instigation, to the inflexible obstinacy of Pope Innocent III.”
THE ELECTION OF POPES.
Under the first Christian princes the chair of St. Peter, like the throne of other bishops, was submitted to a popular election, and constant tumults attended these, owing to the vague and unsettled views of the voters. The voters were the clergy, the nobility, the heads of monasteries, and the common people, who all voted indiscriminately by the show of hands or counting of heads. In 1179 Pope Alexander III. abolished the popular mode of election, and assigned the sole right of election to the College of Cardinals, or two-thirds of their number. The number of cardinals seldom exceeded twenty-five, till the reign of Leo X. (1513). By this mode of election a double choice had only occurred once in six hundred years after Alexander III. In 1274 Gregory X., by his bull, fixed a short interval for filling up the vacancy. Nine days were allowed for the obsequies of the deceased Pope and the arrival of the absent cardinals. On the tenth day these are each sequestered with one domestic in a common apartment, or conclave, without any separation of walls or curtains. A small window is reserved for the introduction of necessaries; but the door is locked on both sides and guarded by the magistrates of the city, so as to exclude all correspondence with the world. If the election is not accomplished in three days, the tables are restricted to a single dish at dinner and supper. After the eighth day the food is reduced to a scanty allowance of bread, water, and wine. During the vacancy the cardinals are prohibited from touching the revenues or government of the Church, and all agreements between the electors are null and void. It is said that the cardinals have three modes of election: (1) by scrutiny; (2) by compromise; (3) by inspiration. By the first mode three of a committee take the vote of each elector in secret, and two-thirds carry the election. By the second mode each on oath pledges himself to agree to whatever candidate three others selected from the whole may select. By the third method, when all agree without a dissentient on one name, this is deemed to be by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Or if two-thirds unanimously salute one candidate as Pope, this is called an election by adoration.
ORIGIN AND DRESS OF CARDINALS.
The name of cardinal was merely a synonym for presbyter and deacon, and came to be given specially to those rectors or presbyters whom the Pope made use of in the government of the Churches in Rome. Till the end of the tenth century these cardinals wereof lower rank than the bishops who met in Church councils. The rectors of the seven Churches which were situated nearest to Rome and helped the Pope in celebrations of the liturgy began at first to be called Roman bishops, and in the eleventh century cardinal bishops of the Lateran Church, as being assistants in Divine service in the Lateran Church. By degrees these began to obtain precedence over other bishops. In 1059 they were allowed to have the chief voice in electing the Pope, and their authority was continually increasing, and in the twelfth century the election of a Pope was taken away from the people and clergy of Rome and vested in the cardinals exclusively. After that the cardinals used to be called the “Pope’s holy senate,” “princes of the world,” and “judges of the earth,” taking precedence of all other bishops. In the fourteenth century the number of cardinals was fixed by Urban VI. and directed not to exceed twenty; in another century they became twenty-four; in 1514 they reached thirty-nine, and in 1535 reached to forty, and then to seventy. They began in the thirteenth century to wear a purple dress and a red hat, which in shape was like a very small cap, with scarcely any brim. A silk mitre of damascene work and a red hood followed.
PAUL OF SAMOSATA, THE DEGRADED BISHOP (A.D.260).
When the severity of persecution relaxed in the first three centuries, the effect was seen in the growing vice of unprincipled persons assuming the Christian religion and using it as a cloak for licentiousness. One Paul of Samosata was made Bishop of Antioch in 260, and contrived to make the service of the Church a lucrative profession. He extorted frequent contributions from the faithful, and appropriated to his own use much of the public revenue. His pride and luxury soon made him odious. Crowds of suppliants and petitioners frequented his house for evil ends. When he harangued his people from the pulpit, he affected the figurative style and theatrical gestures of an Asiatic sophist, whilst the cathedral resounded with the loudest and most extravagant acclamations in the praise of his Divine eloquence. He was arrogant, rigid, and inexorable to his enemies; but he relaxed the discipline and lavished the treasure of the Church on his dependent clergy, who were, like himself, given up to dissipation. Some errors of his as to the Trinity excited the indignation of the other bishops. They often met and obtained promises and treaties; but eighty of them of their own authority took on themselves at last to excommunicate him; and as they did so somewhat irregularly, it took four years to turn him out of possession.The Emperor Aurelian was appealed to; and after hearing both sides, he resolved to execute the sentence of the other bishops, and to expel Paul from the possession of his see.