A CANDID FRIEND TO THE POPE (A.D.1200).
When John of Salisbury, the friend of Thomas à Becket, was sent by Henry II. to Pope Adrian in 1200, they had a confidential conversation, and the Pope said he wished he had never left the obscure retreat of the cloister for the Papal chair, as it was beset with thorns, and he asked John what people were saying of him and the Church of Rome. John says he answered thus: “What I have heard in many countries I will freely tell you. They say the Church of Rome shows herself not so much the mother of other Churches as their stepmother. Scribes and Pharisees have their seats in her, who lay grievous burdens on the shoulders of men, which themselves will not touch with one of their fingers. They domineer over the clergy without being an example to the flock; they heap together rich furniture and load their tables with gold and silver, whilst their hands are kept shut by avarice. The poor rarely find access to them unless when vanity may introduce them. They raise contributions on the Churches, and excite litigations, promote disputes between pastor and people, deeming it the best religion to procure wealth. With them everything is venal, and they may be said to imitate the devils, who, where they cease to do mischief, glory in theirbeneficence. From this charge a small number of exceptions may exist. The Pope himself is a burden to Christendom which is scarcely to be borne. The complaint is, that while the churches which the piety of our fathers erected are in ruins, and their altars neglected, he builds palaces and exhibits his person clothed not only in purple, but resplendent with gold. These things and more than these the people are heard to utter.” The Pope listened patiently. “And what is your own opinion?” asked Adrian. “Your question distresses me,” said John; “I wish neither to be a flatterer nor to give offence. I cannot presume to contradict a cardinal of your Church who says that the real source of all the evils is the fund of duplicity and avarice of its officers, and yet I know many living examples to the contrary. I will only say that your precept is better than your practice.” Adrian smiled, and observed that it was like the old apologue of the stomach and the limbs.
HOW A MONK PUBLISHED THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF AN EMPEROR (A.D.1238).
When the Emperor Frederick II., in his quarrels with the Pope, was excommunicated in 1238, and sentence was ordered to be published in all Christian countries, such was the impression of the power of the Emperor that no priest in Germany had the courage to declare it. At last a Jacobite Friar was discovered who ventured to make it known in the disguise of the following fable. “Sire,” said the friar, “there was once a lion so fierce and strong that no beast durst attack him; but one hot summer day a fly placed itself between his two eyes and bit him severely. ‘Who art thou,’ said the lion, ‘who darest to bite me?’ ‘I am a fly,’ said the other. ‘A fly,’ said the lion, ‘the most insignificant of beasts! bite on. If thou wert not so insignificant a beast, those shoulders would answer for it, but I disdain to revenge myself on thee.’ And, sire,” added the friar, “I compare your Majesty to the lion, and myself in my little condition to the fly, who pronounces upon you from our Holy Father the Apostle the sentence which you have incurred by your rebellion against the Holy Church.” “Well,” said the Emperor, “’tis true if it were not for your poor station you should certainly be made to repent this.” It was also noticed that when, in the following year, 1239, the Emperor went to Padua, he was handsomely entertained for several months by the abbot of the monastery of St. Justina; and in spite of the thunders of the Vatican hurled at the Emperor,the latter was treated with becoming courtesy, was provided with a throne and a footstool, and all the necessary appurtenances of the most exalted rank.
THE EMPEROR RETALIATING ON THE POPE (A.D.1239).
When Pope Gregory IX. in 1239 excommunicated the Emperor, the latter sent a circular letter to the King of England and his brother, beginning with the words, “Attend, ye sons of men; understand, ye nations;” and it contained these scornful sentences: “Moreover, we think him (the Pope) unworthy to be considered a vicar of Christ, a successor of Peter and regulator of the souls of Christians. We grieve at his sin and prevarication in the fact that, not content with spending money in order to gain over the nobles and chiefs of Romania to become his followers and adherents, he wasted the possessions of the Roman Church. Condole therefore, my good friend, with us as well as those dear to thee, and not only with us, but the Church which is the congregation of all faithful Christians; for its head is sick, its prince is in the midst like a roaring lion, its prophet mad and faithless, its priest polluting its sanctuary and unjustly acting against the law. We earnestly beg of you to consider the contumely heaped on us as your own injury, and to hasten to your own house with water when the fire is raging in the neighbouring houses. Without waiting for our decision or for our taking counsel of our advisers, he vomited forth against us the poison he had conceived. We for our own sake adjure you and ask your aid, and that of all of you, the magnates and princes of the whole world, not because our own strength is not sufficient to avert such injuries from ourselves, but that the whole world may know that the honour of all secular princes is touched when the person of one is offended.” The Pope replied thus: “There has risen from the sea a beast full of words of blasphemy which, formed with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a raging lion, opens its mouth in blasphemies against God’s name, and continually attacks His tabernacle and the saints who dwell in heaven,” etc., etc.
HOW THE POPE’S CLERKS EXTORTED MONEY (A.D.1241).
During 1241 Matthew Paris says the avarice of the Romans still continued unsatiated; for after the legate’s departure two of the Pope’s clerks remained in England, as if to fulfil the duty of the legate. These two were Peter, surnamed Le Rouge, and Peter de Supino—two indefatigable extortioners, who held aPapal warrant for exacting procurations, imposing interdicts, excommunicating, and extorting money by divers methods from the wretched English Church, as they stated, that the Roman Church, which was injured in manifold ways, might again breathe freely. The aforesaid Peter Le Rouge, who placed himself above the other one, conducted himself after the manner of the legate, wrote his letters to this and that abbot and prior, and the letter always ran thus: “Master Peter Le Rouge, familiar and relative of his Holiness the Pope, greeting,” etc. On such authority he continued to exact and extort procurations and various other collections. His colleague, Peter de Supino, by permission of the King, went to Ireland on the part of the Pope, and bearing a warrant from him whereby he was assisted by secular power, he with great tyranny extorted money from all the prelates of that island. This Peter in the ensuing autumn took his way to Rome, carrying with him 1,500 marks (£1,000), and having his saddle-bags well filled.
HOW THE POPE’S EXTORTIONERS WERE PURSUED (A.D.1241).
Matthew Paris says that these two clerks, Peter de Supino and Peter Le Rouge, with their saddle-bags thus well filled, proceeded under the escort of the monks of Canterbury to Dover, and suddenly and secretly set sail, for they had heard that the Pope was not expected to live. They therefore suddenly and clandestinely took flight with their booty, lest the King should hear of the Pope’s death and confiscate it. Scarcely had they entered France, when lo! Master Walter de Oera, a messenger of the Emperor, arrived in all haste, with letters of credence from the Emperor and a message from the King to detain the booty as well as the robbers if to be found in England. The messenger was indignant at not having caught them, but followed their steps, carefully watching the meanderings of the foxes, in order to report the result to the Emperor. Meanwhile the Pope’s agents, hearing that they were watched, spared not their horses, and secretly stowed away their money with relatives in secret places. The Emperor, however, ordered them and the relatives to be arrested and imprisoned, and to render a strict account of the money collected, which was committed to writing and circulated among the merchants of the chief cities and ultimately distributed. Thus these wretched ecclesiastics, who ought to have been protected under the wings of the Pope, were utterly despoiled, and the enemies of the Church more daringly oppressed them.
AERIAL MUSIC AT A BISHOP’S DEATH (A.D.1253).
Matthew Paris says that Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, died in 1253 at Buckdon, in the night of St. Denis’s day. During his life he had openly rebuked the Pope and the King; had corrected the prelates and reformed the monks; in him the priests lost a director, clerks an instructor, scholars a supporter. He had shown himself a persecutor of the incontinent, a careful examiner of the Scriptures, a despiser of the Romans. In the discharge of his Pontifical duties he was attentive, indefatigable, and worthy of veneration. That same night Faulkes, Bishop of London, then staying not far off, heard in the air above a wonderful and most agreeable kind of sound, the melody of which refreshed his ears and his heart and fixed his attention. It was a supernatural sound, like that of a great convent bell ringing a delightful tune in the air above. It at once struck the listener that his beloved and venerable brother of Lincoln was passing from this world to take his place in the kingdom of heaven, and this noise was a warning, for there was no convent near in which there was a bell of that sort and so loud. The Bishop of London inquired, and found out that at that very time the Bishop of Lincoln had departed from this world. This wonderful circumstance was told as a fact to Matthew Paris by Master John Cratchale, a confidential clerk to the bishop. On the same night also some brethren of the order of Minorites, in passing through the forest of Vauberge, having lost their way and wandering about, heard in the air sounds as of the ringing of bells, amongst which they clearly distinguished one bell of a most sweet tune, unlike anything they had ever heard before. This circumstance greatly excited their wonder, for they knew that there was no church of note near. Next morning at dawn, being directed by the foresters to the right road to Buckdon, and inquiring as they went about the reason of the solemn ringing of bells that had filled the air the night before, they were informed that at that very hour the Bishop of Lincoln had breathed forth his happy spirit.
A FOOL POSING THE THEOLOGIANS (A.D.1284).
John of Peckham, about 1284, says that a fool was once in company with some theologians at Paris, and he asked them which was better—to do what a man knows, or to learn what he does not know. Thereupon the doctors argued together for and against, and the fool, listening to their altercations, looked on,waiting for their conclusion. At last their deliverance was, that it was better to do what a man already knows than to learn what he does not know, because, as says the apostle to the Romans, “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” And Isidorus inDe Summo Bonosays, “A zealous student will be more prompt to perform what he reads than to know, for it is a less sin not to know what you desire to know than not to perform what you do know.” Then said the fool, “You are all mad, for you are working day and night only to learn what you do not know, and you do not care to act up to anything you do know.”
A HERMIT FOR A POPE (A.D.1294).
In 1294, after the cardinals had tried in vain for a year and a half to agree upon a Pope, and no one would give way to another, a sudden solution was found by their choosing a solitary monk named Peter of Morone, in the Neapolitan territory, then distinguished in the wilderness for his austerities. He seemed to outdo the famous anchorites of old. He wore haircloth with an iron cuirass, lived on bread and water and herbs. At the age of twenty, when he became an earnest monk, one day the Virgin and St. John both stood before him and chanted portions of the Psalter, and every night a celestial bell with sweetest tones aroused him to prayer. Angels often visited him, and showered roses on his head. God pointed out a great stone, under which he dug a hole in which he could neither stand nor stretch, but only crouch behind a grating, and the place abounded with lizards, serpents, and toads. Yet crowds came to see him, and hailed him as a kind of leader of a new brotherhood. Somehow a voice from heaven pointed out to the perplexed cardinals that here was a Pope ready to their hands, and he was fixed upon unanimously. A deputation went to his cell. They found he was an old man, with a long shaggy beard, sunken eyes, heavy brow, pale cheeks, and meagre limbs. But they fell on their knees before him. He thought it must be a dream. He protested he was unworthy and unfit. But the news spread, and the crowd increased and urged him on, and he could not but accept. He at first refused to put on the gorgeous Pontifical robes, but had to consent. He then went with them, riding on an ass, with a king on each side holding the bridle. Never was an election more popular, and he took the title of Celestine V. Two hundred thousand people crowded the streets as he approached, and he had to show himself now and then on a balcony and give hisbenediction. After a few months the cardinals, kings, and nobles began to think that this Pope was not to be a success. He was incapable of business. He lavished his dignities and offices, and was easily duped. He became weary of his burden. He contrived to make a cell in the palace, which shut out the sky. But this was not enough. He wanted to abdicate. This at first was thought impossible and illegal. But he did abdicate, and at once went off to his old hermitage. It was the first instance of an abdication, and all agreed that nothing became him so well as the leaving of the high office a few months after having entered upon it. All the other hermits praised this last act as one of transcendent humility enhancing his glory.
PHILIP THE FAIR RETALIATING ON THE POPE (A.D.1303).
When Philip IV. of France offended the Pope, the latter harangued his council and boasted that, as his predecessors had already deposed three kings of France, he would depose Philip like a groom. The act was done in 1303. Two supporters of the King, William of Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna, with three hundred horsemen and infantry, made their way to Anagni, where Pope Boniface VIII. then was, and beset his palace, and after a short truce set fire to the doors of the church adjacent and made their way through the flames; and the crash so alarmed the Pope that he felt his hour was come, and resolved that he would die with dignity. He put on the Papal mantle and the imperial crown of Constantine, and sat on the throne with the pastoral cross in one hand and with the keys of St. Peter in the other. The assailants, though at first awed at this sight, dragged him from the throne, struck him on the face, and forced him to parade through the town on a vicious horse, with his face to the tail. A rescue party, however, surprised the guard, and carried the Pope to the market-place, where, famishing with hunger, his wants were supplied by willing hands, and he was sufficiently restored to pronounce absolution on all but the plunderers of the church. He was then conveyed by his friends to Rome, where a frenzy fever overcame him, and he was put under restraint, dying very soon at the age of eighty-two. Some say he was poisoned; others that he refused food, and like a mad dog bit his own flesh; others that he was found with the bedclothes stuffed in his throat, and his staff lying as if it had been gnawed by him in his rage. The saying was that “he entered like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog.”
A POPE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY (A.D.1300).
Boniface VIII., at the beginning of the fourteenth century, carried Papal absolution and worldliness to its highest point. After procuring his predecessor Celestine V. to abdicate and be imprisoned and then taken off by poison, he saw a great advantage in the ushering in of 1300 as a means of satisfying his cupidity. He circulated an address that all persons visiting St. Peter’s on January 1st, 1300, would obtain an extraordinary indulgence. Crowds flocked and left their offerings. Then he issued a bull offering the fullest indulgence to all who visited the cathedral at Easter, on the condition that they truly repented and confessed their sins. Attracted by his bull, multitudes repented and were allowed to see the handkerchief of St. Veronica, as many as two hundred thousand a day. The gain to the Church was vast. This Pope persecuted his enemies with uncommon zeal. He managed to ruin the powerful family of Colonna, which had opposed his election, demolishing their castles and confiscating their estates. Philip the Fair, King of France, his equal in avarice and ambition, had taxed the clergy, and a bull was issued excommunicating all princes and nobles who dared to demand tribute from the clergy, to which Philip replied with defiance, and sent a troop to arrest the Pope, which was done, as already narrated. The mob, after a few days, at last pitied his Holiness, and turned against the French, who retired. The excitement, however, threw him into a fever, and then into insanity, in which state he died. The Florentine historian recognised the judgments of God in thus punishing a Pope who was so worldly, and further in punishing such a king as was the instrument in the hands of Providence. King Philip made a tool of his own the next Pope, and kept him in France, and in 1309 began the seventy years’ residence of the Popes in Avignon, while they lived in a state of servility to France.
WICLIFF THE REFORMER (A.D.1324-1384).
Wicliff having been early disgusted at the worthless creatures who filled all the high offices of the Church, and joined some friends in trying to restore the simplicity and self-denying zeal of Apostolic times, was soon marked out as a heretic to be watched. Pope Gregory XI., in 1377, was advised to condemn Wicliff’s doctrines, and directed that he should be imprisoned; but John of Gaunt and other powerful friends were resolved that at least a semblance of a hearing should be given to him first; and hemanaged without recanting anything to say nothing which his enemies could lay hold of. He published in 1380 his translation of the Scriptures into English. Wicliff was a determined enemy of the Mendicant Friars, as disturbing the parish priests in their more useful labours. Wicliff was cited by the Archbishop of Canterbury before a council, but an earthquake occurred at the time to interrupt this inquisition. He used to look on this earthquake council, as he called it, as a judgment of God in his favour.
THE TWO JOHN WICLIFFS (A.D.1324-1384).
It has been recently discovered, as is said by Mr. Hill in his “English Monasticism,” that there were two John Wicliffs contemporaneous and both members of Oxford University, and that the biographers of the important John Wicliff have confounded these two and their performances. The Reformer was master of Balliol College in 1361, and the other John Wicliff was a fellow of Merton in 1356 and warden of Canterbury Hall. The Reformer was born at Hipswell, one mile from Richmond in Yorkshire. In 1361 he was appointed to the rectory of Fylingham, and in 1375 to that of Lutterworth, and resigned the mastership of Balliol. His first public appearance was his reading lectures at Oxford, in which he castigated the corruptions of the Friars Mendicants of his day. He was cited before the judges for heresy, one of the judges being William of Wykeham; and John of Gaunt attended with Wicliff and somewhat resented the want of fair play towards his friend; but the proceedings were not carried out, owing to the interference of the Princess of Wales. The great work of Wicliff’s life was the first translation of the Scriptures into English. This work he lived to finish, though in all probability he was assisted in it by others. In 1384, during the celebration of Mass in his parish church at Lutterworth, Wicliff was seized with paralysis, and died on December 31st. The adherents of his opinions were known as the Lollards. In 1401 the Franciscans attacked his Bible, and persecution was carried out against the Lollards. In 1428 Wicliff’s bones, or supposed bones, were dug up and cast into the river Severn, under the vain delusion that he and his doings would never more be heard of.
THE SEVENTY YEARS’ RESIDENCE OF POPES AT AVIGNON (A.D.1309-1379).
After the death of the ambitious Pope Boniface VIII., whose contests with Philip the Fair of France killed him in 1303, andafter the death of the next Pope in eight months, the election of the next Pope again was so skilfully brought about by the leader of the French party, Cardinal Du Prat, that one was chosen who made a bargain with the French King to meet his views if elected. He was elected, and took the name of Clement V. He disappointed his Italian supporters by refusing to leave France, and in 1309 he settled at Avignon, where the Popes remained for seventy years. During all that period the Popes were noted for their servility to the French kings. Corruption grew more and more to be a second nature in all the branches of Papal government. The most worthless creatures purchased their way to the highest spiritual dignities. Extortion in collecting money, extravagant expenditure when it was collected, simony, nepotism, and debauchery ran through all the ramifications of clerical life. The disgrace reflected by this scandal made laymen and learned men question the foundations of the Popish system of government. A general murmur arose from the universities as to the degraded position in which the Popes must ever remain unless and until they should bring back the seat of government to Rome. Petrarch, then employed on Papal embassies, strongly urged this view. The leading men advocated the calling of a general council to overrule the Pope and compel him to act for the sole good of the Church. A schism then prevailed, which led to two sets of Popes being elected, who continued for forty years to keep up their intestine conflicts.
THE RIVAL POPES (A.D.1378).
The line of Popes, as already stated, continued unbroken till 1305, when, owing to their constant interference in the politics of Europe, Clement V. submitted to the King of France, and fixed his chair within the jurisdiction of a Papal vassal, Robert of Anjou, at Avignon. For seventy years this captivity lasted, and the effect was to weaken greatly the power and influence of the Church. In 1376 Catherine of Siena, then an influential saint, advised Pope Gregory XI. to return to Rome, his old metropolis. Soon a fresh difficulty arose at his death in 1378, owing to a feud between the cardinals. The majority of them being at that time French, the Roman mob burst into the palace and demanded that the new Pope should be an Italian. The cardinals yielded and elected Urban VI.; but six months later they repented and wished to substitute a Frenchman, and crowned Clement VII. There being thus two Popes in the field, the chief kingdoms were almost equally divided as to recognising the one or the other asthe real Pope. The quarrel lasted forty years, the two lines being continued for that period. At last a general council, that of Pisa in 1409, met and summoned both Popes before it, and dismissed both for contumacy. The cardinals then elected Alexander V. And there were then three Popes, each claiming exclusive authority. A second council met at Constance in 1414, and claimed to be superior to the Pope. Another election took place, and Martin V. was elected in 1417; and the line of Popes was resumed as before, but a continual pressure from without weakened the authority of the successors. The council of Basle in 1431 showed an antipapal spirit, and set up a higher power in synods and councils, thereby lowering the other power in proportion.
THE THREE POPES AT ONE TIME (A.D.1394).
When Clement VII. was told that the leading men and the University of Paris had resolved that both Popes should abdicate in order to put an end to the absurdity of the dual election, he was thrown into a fever of agitation, and died in 1394. Each cardinal then took an oath that if elected he would resign if necessary, to put an end to the schism. Benedict XIII. was elected; but no sooner was this appointment made than he gave evasive answers to all who reminded him of this condition. Another assembly of bishops by a majority of four to one resolved that both Popes should resign. But Benedict conscientiously opposed their view, and said he would rather be flayed alive than resign. In 1402 Benedict sent a mission to his rival Boniface IX., asking for a conference. But Boniface treated him as an antipope, and himself as the only Pope. Boniface, however, was so frightened at the aspect of affairs, that he contracted an illness and died in 1404. The cardinals were then implored not to proceed to another election, but they treated this advice as a jest, and elected Innocent VII. Innocent, though an old man, and though he had bound himself if elected to resign if necessary, yielded to the greed and scheming of his relatives, and put off the evil day; but he died in 1406. The cardinals were again urged not to appoint another Pope, but they said they would choose one who would resign if his rivals would resign, and they chose Gregory XII. Though Gregory was the most active in getting all the cardinals to pledge themselves to resign if chosen, he soon showed himself a mere dissembler; for though he professed to be willing to resign, his relatives, who saw the loss of many good appointments, compelled him to keep possession. These twoPopes, Benedict and Gregory, kept up appearances of meeting in conference and settling a plan of mutual and simultaneous resignations, but they both showed extraordinary ingenuity in discovering perpetual obstacles to this desired consummation, and for blaming each other for every delay. At last the Council of Pisa deposed both Popes, and the cardinals then elected Alexander V. in 1409. Both the deposed Popes claimed to be still Popes. And Alexander V., instead of carrying out the reforms that were expected, made lavish appointments to vacant offices, saying to all who complained that he was rich as a bishop, poor as a cardinal, but a beggar as Pope. He was carried off by poison in 1410.
FURTHER ACCOUNTS OF THE THREE POPES AT ONE TIME (A.D.1406-1417).
The continuance of two rival Popes in 1406 was felt to be so great a scandal that the rival sets of cardinals were bent on finding a way of reuniting the Papacy in one person. They chose Gregory XII., then eighty years of age, as a likely person to facilitate this object with the other Pope, Boniface; for they thought a person on the verge of the grave might be relied upon to consider the peace and unity of the Church his sole object. He professed well at first, and his supporters brought him to the point of trying to arrange some common plan of action, by which the rival Popes might mutually surrender in favour of a third person who should supersede both. The two rival Popes, however, were evidently averse to strip themselves of power. They played against each a series of perpetual evasions, postponements, and cross-purposes. Their progress to a common ground where they might meet and settle their affairs was a mere game of subterfuges, both the actors being over seventy years of age, and yet exhausting every artifice to ward off the final surrender, each blaming the other and both acting as consummate hypocrites. Their friends called for a general council to meet at Pisa and solve the problem. At this council a leading cardinal (afterwards himself a Pope) thus described the position of the two Popes: “You know how these two wretched men calumniate one another and disgrace themselves by invectives full of rant and fury. Each calls the other antipope, obstructionist, antichrist.” The council at last deposed both, and declared the Papal chair vacant. The cardinals bound themselves so that whichever of them should be elected Pope should keep the council open till all schism was healed. They elected Alexander V., but he proved useless, and dyingin 1410, a most dissolute monster of depravity, John XXIII. succeeded, who turned into ridicule and defeated all the schemes of reform then put forward by the best men of the time. The leaders of reform were disgusted, and desired that all the three Popes should resign, and an upright man be chosen in their place. At last the council deposed John also in 1415, and in 1417 Martin V. was elected.
THE DEPOSED POPE, JOHN XXIII. (A.D.1410).
Pope John XXIII., whose name was Cossa, was all his life a scandalous character, and more fit to be a roystering and swearing trooper than a priest. It was said that he in early life entered the service as a pirate, when Naples and Hungary were at war, and he then contracted the habit of sleeping by day and doing his work by night. He was daring and ingenious in every kind of corruption, buying and selling clerical offices, vending indulgences, imposing hateful taxes, and brutal and licentious in gratifying his lusts. His conduct was deemed so disgraceful that a general demand arose for the Council of Constance to settle the question whether a Pope or a general council be the highest authority in the Church. A meeting of eighteen thousand ecclesiastics met, and charges against John were formulated, and at last this crafty Pope agreed to the proposal that he would resign, if the other two rival Popes would resign. This resolution caused general satisfaction, though at first he refused to act on it. It was at this council that Huss was brought to his mock trial. John was charged with seventy-two offences, including nearly all the vices. He was styled a poisoner, a murderer; he had intended to sell the head of John the Baptist from the church of St. Sylvester to some Florentines for 50,000 ducats. John was at length deposed. He was stripped of the insignia of his office on May 31st, 1415, and at the same time confessed that he had never passed a day in comfort since he had put them on. He was kept in prison at Heidelberg till he made submission to a new Pope, who, out of pity, gave him the dignity of a cardinal bishop, but he died at Florence before he took possession of his see.
AN OWL ATTENDING A CHURCH COUNCIL (A.D.1412).
After John XXIII. in 1410 mounted the Papal throne through all the grades of bribery and corruption, he convoked in 1412 what he was pleased to call a reformatory council at Rome; but only a few Italian prelates attended and disposed of some trifling matters, besides a condemnation of Wicliff’s writings. What waschiefly remarkable was the advent of a congenial visitor. At the celebration of theMissa Spiritus Sancti, previous to the opening of the council, when theVeni Creator Spirituswas sung according to custom, an owl flew up suddenly, screaming with a startling hoot, into the middle of the church, and perching itself upon a beam opposite to the Pope, whence it stared him sedately in the face. The cardinals ironically whispered to each other, “Only look; can that be the Holy Ghost in the shape of an owl?” His Holiness was greatly annoyed, and turned pale, then red, and in an awkward and abrupt fashion dissolved the meeting. All who were present were, however, singularly impressed, and never forgot what was viewed by each as an evil omen. But at the next session, says Fleury, the owl took up his position again, fixing his eyes on John, who was more dismayed than before, and ordered them to drive away the bird. A singular scene then ensued, the prelates hunting the bird, which insisted on remaining, and flinging their canes at it. At last they succeeded in killing the owl as an incorrigible heretic.
THE SALE OF INDULGENCES (A.D.1411).
About 1411, after John Huss had published his disputation on indulgences, some priests were engaged in selling these to the highest bidders, when three young men of the artisan class came up and called out to the priest, “Thou liest! Master Huss has taught us better than that. We know that it is all false.” This impious taunt was at once followed up with imprisonment and a summary sentence of death. Huss, on hearing of the matter, used great exertions to save the men, and two thousand students attended him to hear him address the council in mitigation of the sentence. He took on himself the blame, if any there was. He obtained a promise that no blood should be shed, but a few hours later much of the excitement of the mob was over, and the sentence was executed. This created a still greater excitement, and as the men were viewed as martyrs, handkerchiefs were dipped in their blood and cherished as precious relics. A woman present offered white linen as a shroud for the dead bodies; and these were carried to Huss’s chapel, as those of saints, with chanted hymns through the streets, and great solemnities. The chapel was thereafter named the chapel of the Three Saints. The part taken on this popular demonstration was afterwards used as a handle by Huss’s enemies before the council at Constance, which condemned him to be burned alive, after which his ashes were cast into the Rhine, so that nothing might remain of him to pollute the earth.
A BISHOP INVITING HIS OLD MASTER (A.D.1420).
Master Alan, the celebrated doctor, but still poor, was invited to dinner by a former disciple already a bishop, who, seeing his poverty, said, “Master, I marvel not a little that your scholars are already become great men: one is an abbot, another is a bishop, another an archbishop, and you are left in ridiculous poverty.” Alan, indeed, thinking otherwise—for he had a true and right judgment as to the gradations of merit—is said to have answered thus: “You do not know,” quoth he, “what is the height of the most perfect dignity, and the true greatness of man? It is not to be a great bishop, but a good clerk. Everybody knows that by the voice of three rascally canons, to whom is given the power of election, a bishop is made; but if all the saints in Paradise and all the sensible men in the world said together in one voice before God, ‘Martin is a good clergyman,’ Martin would not on that account be a good clergyman if he remained an ignoramus.”
A SULTAN WHO ABDICATED TWICE (A.D.1451).
Sultan Amurath II., who died in 1451, was the only sultan who has twice abdicated, being a great warrior as well as learned, merciful, religious, charitable, and a patron of merit. He was a zealous Mussulman; and though the scimitar was their usual instrument of converting unbelievers, his moderation was attested by the Christians. His most striking characteristic was that, in the plenitude of his power at the age of forty, he discerned the vanity of human greatness, resigned the crown, and retired to join a society of saints and hermits in Magnesia. He there submitted to fast and pray and rotate with the dervishes. In two years, owing to a sudden invasion of Hungarians, his son and successor, as well as his former subjects, implored him to return and take command of his janizaries; and, after fighting and conquering, he a second time resigned the crown and resumed his monkish life. A second time he was recalled by another danger of the State, and again resumed the crown. He had not another opportunity of becoming a dancing dervish, as he died as Sultan at the age of forty-nine.
POPE NICHOLAS V. A GREAT COLLECTOR OF MANUSCRIPTS (A.D.1447).
When Pope Nicholas V. was elected in 1447, he had had a reputation for universal knowledge, and within the short periodof eighteen months became bishop, cardinal, and Pope. A little spare man, with a keen eye and overweening self-confidence, he soon made up his mind to proclaim a crusade against the antipope, and authorised the French King to seize his territories, though this became unnecessary, owing to the antipope’s resignation. This Pope lived in an age of great intellectual progress, and he took pleasure in inviting men of letters and scholars. He soon gratified a long-standing desire to collect manuscripts, and caused many monastic libraries to be ransacked for treasures. He added in eight years five thousand manuscripts to the Vatican library, and kept a staff of copyists and translators, and even carried out in part a new translation of the Bible. It was under his patronage that Laurence Valla, the eminent scholar, produced a treatise on the donation of Constantine, exposing the impudent forgery which had so long been palmed off by preceding Popes for the foundation of their jurisdiction over the world in general. The author, however, was astute enough to withdraw from Rome before the effect of his researches became known, for he was soon arrested by the Inquisition, and would have been burned but for the intercession of King Alfonso. The literary men whom Nicholas encouraged were given to quarrels and jealousies, and even tended towards too great an admiration of Paganism. Nicholas was also bent on rebuilding the Vatican quarter of Rome, and proceeded to act on a design of a new structure in the form of a Greek cross with a cupola; but the execution of the work had only risen a few feet above ground when the Pope died, and a yet more magnificent structure was carried out in the following century. Though these great palatial schemes were not executed, he gave his contemporaries a taste for magnificence of every kind in the services of the Church, and for mitres, vestments, altar-coverings, and gold inwoven curtains. He patronised the saintly painter Angelico, and sculptors and architects. He also had a most successful jubilee in 1450, which recouped his great expenditure, though the occurrence of a plague acted adversely. It happened that Constantinople fell a prey in Nicholas’s time to the Mohammedans, who despoiled and profaned the churches and dispersed the treasures of Greek literature. This disaster, which happened in 1453, caused much sympathy; for the Emperor Frederick was said to weep at the news and express a vague wish for a crusade, though he took no active step. At a great festival at Lille, a lady representing the Church appeared before the Duke of Burgundy seated on an elephant led by a giant, and in a versified speech invoked assistance, whichled the Duke to register a vow to succour the Church; but the enthusiasm soon died away. The Pope, however, consoled the chiefs of Christendom by issuing a bull, in which he declared the founder of Islam to be the great red dragon of the Apocalypse, and invited the princes to buy indulgences in order to raise a fund to exterminate the infidels. It was maliciously insinuated, however, that the money thus raised only went to pay for needless fortifications at Rome, and nowise to influence affairs in the East. The Pope died in 1455 before any of these great enterprises were begun. It was said that Pope Nicholas’s example stirred up the Florentine merchant Cosmo de Medicis to carry on similar researches for old manuscripts, and his grandson Lorenzo de Medicis procured from the East a further treasure of two hundred writings. The Greek language came to be publicly taught in the University of Oxford towards the end of the fifteenth century.
A FOP ELECTED POPE PAUL II. (A.D.1464).
In 1464 the choice of the cardinals for a new Pope fell on Peter Barbo, a Venetian of high descent. He had been made a cardinal at twenty-two by his uncle, and had always been noted for his elegant and foppish manners. The previous Pope, Pius II., used to call himMaria pientissima, on account of his soft and affected manner, coupled with a faculty of shedding tears at will when urging any request. He was so vain of his handsome appearance that he proposed to assume the name of Formosus, till some cardinals laughed him out of it. His love of display and theatrical show led him to spend large sums on jewels, precious stones, and millinery; and to provide means for this great end of his being, he took care to keep in his hands the income of vacant offices, and postpone the appointments. He not only clothed himself in gorgeous attire, but to heighten the dramatic effect he painted his face. One peculiarity of his was to transact all his business by night, probably owing to the artificial manner in which he presented himself, and to prevent cracks in his enamel being detected. He is said to have given an impulse to the festivities of the Roman carnival, and used to watch with congenial interest and enthusiasm the frolics of old and young during the races on the Corso, where Jews, horses, asses, and buffaloes were the performers. The cardinals, on appointing this Pope, bound him over to many urgent duties and stipulations, but he threw off these incumbrances as he would put off his cloak. He spent most of his energies in seeking and buying alliances in Germany and in selling offices. He also entertainedthe Emperor on a visit of seventeen days, and showed him all the jewels. One day Paul II. was found dead in his bed in 1471, the popular belief being that he had been killed by a devil, which he was said to carry locked up in a signet ring; and this solution was entirely satisfactory.
HOW POPE LEO X. WAS ELECTED (A.D.1513).
John de Medicis was elected Pope in 1513, and took the title of Leo X. He had been made cardinal at fourteen. He had been dissipated in his youth, and had undergone a serious surgical operation at the time of his predecessor’s death, and was carried in a horse litter to join the conclave of cardinals who were busy in measures for the election. The Cardinal de Medicis made himself so busy in canvassing that his ulcer broke, causing a noisome smell in all the cells he visited. While the cardinals obstinately supported the opposing candidates, and there appeared no hope of agreement, they were yet all satisfied that poor de Medicis had not a month to live. So it occurred to several of them that it would be as well to select him for the present, so as to stave off the discords raging, and give them a few weeks longer to complete their own arrangements and arrive at unanimity. This view led to John de Medicis being at once elected Pope, though only thirty-six years old. He soon recovered his health, and lived eight years longer, so that the old cardinals had occasion to repent of their credulity. The young Pope celebrated his coronation by lavish expenses. He insisted on being crowned on the same day that he lost the battle of Ravenna and was taken prisoner, and rode the same Turkish horse that bore him on that day. This horse was greatly valued, and carefully kept and pampered to an extreme old age. Leo X.’s head was full of the magnificence of ancient Rome, which he sought to perpetuate. His life was voluptuous; he gloried in the pleasures of the chase. He protected men of wit and learning, and kept a poet laureate to make verses and act as buffoon at the revels constantly going on. While he thundered anathemas against Luther, he did not cease in private to ridicule the whole Christian doctrine as a mere fable. It is said he died in a fit of extravagant merrymaking when he heard the news that the Emperor had defeated the French at Milan. Leo X. kept a table of extraordinary luxury. He tried experiments on the cookery of monkeys and crows and peacock sausages. He kept poets and comedians to enliven the diversions. Card-playing for heavy stakes followed the banquet. He used to scatter gold among the spectators of a game.
THE POPE TURNING PAGAN INTO CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS (A.D.1585).
Pope Sixtus V., elected in 1585, had a genius for architectural projects, and seemed anxious to make the Rome of his time rival the ancient city. He had a rage for destroying as well as for rebuilding. He was bent on turning Pagan into Christian monuments. He allowed a statue of Minerva to stand, but took away the spear of the goddess, and put a huge cross in her hand. He dedicated the column of Trajan to St. Peter, and the column of Antoninus to St. Paul. He set his heart also on erecting the obelisk before St. Peter’s, the more because he wished to see the monuments of infidelity subjected to the cross on the very spot where the Christians once suffered crucifixion. The architect, Fontana, thought it impossible; but the Pope would not listen to objections. It was an extremely difficult task to upheave the obelisk from its basis by the sacristy of the old church of St. Peter, to let it down again, transport it to another site, and there finally set it up again. It was an attempt to earn renown throughout all ages. The workmen, nine hundred in number, began by hearing Mass, confessing, and receiving the Communion. The obelisk was sheathed in straw mats and planks riveted with iron rings. There were thirty-five windlasses, each worked by two horses and ten men. The signal was given by sound of trumpet. The obelisk was raised from the site on which it had stood fifteen hundred years. A salvo was fired from the castle of St. Angelo; all the bells of the city pealed; and the workmen carried their architect in triumph round the barrier with never-ending hurrahs. Seven days afterwards the obelisk was let down with no less dexterity, and then it was conveyed on rollers to its new site, and some months elapsed before its re-erection. A force of one hundred and forty horses was used to elevate it. At three great efforts the obelisk was moved, and it sank on the backs of the four bronze lions that served to support it. The people exulted. The Pope was immensely satisfied, and set it down in his diary that he had achieved the most difficult work which the human mind could conceive. He erected a cross upon the obelisk, in which was enclosed a piece of the supposed real cross. Sixtus V. also wanted to complete the cupola of St. Peter’s, which, it was estimated, would take ten years to do; and his eyes were never wearied in watching its progress. He set six hundred men to work at once night and day, and in twenty-two months the cupola was completed. He did not, it was true, live to see the leaden casing placed on the roof. This Pope kept a memorandum bookin which every detail of his daily life was recorded; and on succeeding to the Papal throne it was noticed that his skill in finance was displayed in a profusion of complexities. He amassed great sums, and also spent great sums. One of the great sources of his profit was the sale of offices. He created offices, and then sold the nominations at a great price. He also imposed new taxes on the most laborious callings, such as those on the men who towed vessels on the river; and he taxed heavily the necessaries of life, such as wine and firewood.
THE INQUISITION AS AN INSTITUTION (A.D.1232).
Pope Gregory IX., on the plea that the bishops were overtasked, transferred in 1232 the duty of inquiring into heretics to officers specially appointed by himself. In the rules by which these inquisitors should be guided every principle of natural equity was outraged. The accused were not to be confronted with the accusers—were not even to know their names. Persons of infamous character might be received as witnesses against them. Elaborate schemes for the treacherous entrapping of victims were part of the instructions with which an inquisitor was furnished. A large share of the goods of the condemned went to the judges who condemned them; the remainder, if sometimes to the Papal Exchequer, very often went to the temporal princes who should carry out the Church’s sentence, whose cupidity it was thus sought to stimulate, and whose co-operation was thus rewarded. The guiltless children of the condemned were beggared. They could hold no office; the brand of lifelong dishonour clung to them. Even the very bones of the dead were burnt to dust and dispersed to the winds or the waves. In the latter half of the fifteenth century the Inquisition found its main occupation in the burning of Jews. Torquemada, in Spain, alone sent to the stake some eight or nine thousand.
SENTENCE OF EXECUTION BY THE INQUISITION.
Owing to the mode of execution under a sentence of the Inquisition, the populace were gratified with a view of the last agonies of the martyrs for heresy. The culprit was not, as in the later Spanish Inquisition, strangled before the lighting of the fagots, nor had the invention of gunpowder suggested the expedient of hanging a bag of that explosive around his neck to shorten his torture. An eyewitness thus describes the execution of John Huss at Constance in 1415: “He was made to stand upon acouple of fagots, and tightly bound to a thick post with ropes around the ankles, below the knee, above the knee, at the groin, the waist, and under the arms. A chain was also secured around the neck. Then it was observed that he faced the east, which was not fitting for a heretic, and he was shifted to the west. Fagots mixed with straw were piled around him to the chin. Then the Count Palatine Louis, who superintended the execution, approached with the Marshal of Constance, and asked him for the last time to recant. On his refusal they withdrew and clapped their hands, which was the signal for the executioners to light the pile. After it had burned away there followed the revolting process of utterly destroying the half-burned body, separating it in pieces, breaking up the bones, and throwing the fragments and the viscera on a fresh fire of logs.” When, as in the case of Arnold of Brescia, some of the spiritual Franciscans, Huss, Savonarola, and others, it was feared that relics of the martyr would be preserved, especial care was taken after the fire to gather the ashes and cast them into a running stream.
THE PLEASURE OF BURNING HERETICS (A.D.1239).
When the Inquisition was becoming popular, it was commonly taught that compassion for the sufferings of a heretic was not only a weakness but a sin. As well might one sympathise with Satan and his demons writhing in the endless torment of hell. The stern moralists of the age held it to be a Christian duty to find pleasure in contemplating the anguish of the sinner. Gregory the Great, five centuries before, had argued that the bliss of the elect in heaven would not be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire. Peter Lombard, the Master of Sentences, quotes St. Gregory with approbation, and enlarges upon the satisfaction which the just will feel in the ineffable misery of the damned. Even the mystic tenderness of Bonaventura does not prevent him from echoing the same terrible exultation. The schoolmen easily proved to their own satisfaction that persecution was a work of charity for the benefit of the persecuted. By a series of edicts from 1220 to 1239 a complete code of persecution was enacted. Heretics and favourers of heretics were outlawed; their property was confiscated, their heirs disinherited. Their houses were to be destroyed, never to be rebuilt. All rulers and magistrates were required to swear that they would exterminate all whom the Church might designate as heretics, under pain of forfeiture of office. All this fiendish legislation was hailed by the Churchwith acclamation. The Inquisition has sometimes been said to have been founded in 1233.
THE SPANISH INQUISITION AT WORK (A.D.1481).
In 1481 two Dominican monks were appointed to proceed to Seville and carry on the work of the Inquisition, and the Jews were hunted up with vigour and burnt in theautos-da-féof that city. In 1483 the brutal Inquisitor-General Thomas de Torquemada added further horrors. The details of these brutalities are now of no interest; but Prescott, the historian, thus sums up the situation. The proceedings of the tribunal were plainly characterised throughout by the most flagrant injustice and inhumanity to the accused. Instead of presuming his innocence until his guilt had been established, it acted on exactly the opposite principle. Instead of affording him the protection accorded by every other judicature, and especially demanded in his forlorn situation, it used the most insidious arts to circumvent and crush him. He had no remedy against malice or misapprehension on the part of his accusers or the witnesses against him, who might be his bitterest enemies, since they were never revealed to nor confronted with the prisoner, nor subjected to a cross-examination which can best expose error or wilful collusion in the evidence. Even the poor forms of justice recognised in this court might be readily dispensed with, as its proceedings were impenetrably shrouded from the public eye by the appalling oath of secrecy imposed on all, whether functionaries, witnesses, or prisoners, who entered within its precincts. The last and not the least odious feature of the whole was the connection established between the condemnation of the accused and the interests of his judges, since the confiscations which were the uniform penalties of heresy were not permitted to flow into the royal exchequer until they had first discharged the expenses, whether in the shape of salaries or otherwise, incident to the Holy Office.
TORQUEMADA’S WORK AS INQUISITOR (A.D.1483).
Torquemada, while at the head of the Inquisition in Spain, is said to have convicted about six thousand persons annually. The Roman See during his ministration made a painful traffic by the sale of dispensations, which those rich enough were willing to obtain. This monster, the author of incalculable miseries, was permitted to reach a very old age and to die quietly in his bed. Yet he lived in such constant apprehension of assassination thathe is said to have kept a reputed unicorn’s horn always on his table, which was imagined to have the power of detecting and neutralising poisons, while for the more complete protection of his person he was allowed an escort of fifty horse and two hundred foot in his progresses through the kingdom. Prescott says that this man’s zeal was of such an extravagant character that it may almost shelter itself under the name of insanity. He waged war on freedom of thought in every form. In 1490 he caused several Hebrew Bibles to be publicly burnt, and some time after more than six thousand volumes of Oriental learning, on the imputation of Judaism, sorcery, or heresy, at theautos-da-féof Salamanca, the very nursery of science.
AN “AUTO-DA-FÉ” IN SPAIN (A.D.1483).
The last scene in the dismal tragedy of a so-called trial before the Inquisition, says Prescott, was the Act of Faith (auto-da-fé)—the most imposing spectacle, probably, which has been witnessed since the ancient Roman triumph, and which was intended, somewhat profanely, to represent the terrors of the Day of Judgment. The proudest grandees of the land, on this occasion, putting on the sable livery of familiars of the Holy Office and bearing aloft its banners, condescended to act as the escort of the ministers, while the ceremony was not unfrequently countenanced by the royal presence. It should be stated, however, that neither of these acts of condescension, or more properly humiliation, was witnessed until a period posterior to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The effect was further heightened by the concourse of ecclesiastics in their sacerdotal robes, and the pompous ceremonial which the Church of Rome knows so well how to display on fitting occasions, and which was intended to consecrate, as it were, this bloody sacrifice. The most important actors in the scene were the unfortunate convicts, disgorged for the first time from the dungeons of the tribunal.
ASSASSINATION OF A SPANISH INQUISITOR (A.D.1486).
When Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1486, introduced the Inquisition into Arragon, the higher orders and the Cortes were greatly opposed to it, and sent a deputation to the Court of Rome and to Ferdinand to suspend an institution so hateful and oppressive. Both Pope and King paid no regard to the remonstrance. The Arragonese thereupon, in self-defence, formed a conspiracy for the assassination of Arbues, and subscribed a large sum to defray theexpenses. Arbues, being conscious of his unpopularity, wore under his monastic robes a suit of mail and a helmet under his hood, and his sleeping apartment was well guarded. But the conspirators managed to surprise him while at his devotions. Near midnight Arbues was on his knees before the great altar of the cathedral at Saragossa. They suddenly surrounded him; one of them wounded him in the arm with a dagger, while another dealt a fatal blow in the back of his neck. The priests, who were preparing to celebrate matins in the choir, hastened to the spot, but too late. They carried the bleeding body of the inquisitor to his apartment, but he survived only two days, and it is said he blessed the Lord that he had been permitted to seal so good a cause with his blood. This murder was soon avenged, and the bloodhounds of the tribunal tracked the murderers, after hundreds of victims were sacrificed, cut off their right hands, and hanged them; and Arbues was even honoured as a martyr, and after two centuries was, in 1664, canonised as a saint.
CARDINAL XIMENES AND QUEEN ISABELLA (A.D.1495).
Cardinal Ximenes, who had acquired great reputation for the austere life he had led, was appointed confessor to Queen Isabella in 1492, and in 1495 was appointed by her Archbishop of Toledo. He maintained all his austerities in the new situation. Under his robes of silk or fur he wore the coarse frock of St. Francis, which he used to mend with his own hands. He used no linen about his person or his bed, and slept on a miserable pallet, which was concealed under a luxurious couch. He was a rigorous reformer of the monkish fraternities, and this excited violent complaints. The general of the Franciscans, full of rage, demanded an audience of the Queen; and when challenged by her for his rudeness and for forgetting to whom he was speaking, he petulantly replied, “Yes; I know well whom I am speaking to—the Queen of Castile, a mere handful of dust, like myself!” The Queen was not moved by this insolence, but supported Ximenes in his trenchant reforms. Ximenes vehemently urged the King and Queen in 1499 to extirpate the Mohammedan religion, and he did not scruple to bribe the Moors to accept baptism, and it was said he baptised three thousand in one day. In 1502 he procured a decree enforcing baptism or exile on all Moors above fourteen. Ximenes founded the University of Alcala, which was opened in 1508. He also carried out a scheme for publishing a Bible, being the first successful attempt at a polyglot version of the Scriptures. This took fifteen years to prepare, and it was completed in 1517.Charles V. wrote a cold-blooded letter, dispensing with Ximenes’s services, and it so excited the cardinal that he was seized with fever and died at the age of eighty-one.
SOME SO-CALLED IRREPRESSIBLE HERETICS (A.D.1080).
Among all the sects of the Middle Ages, by far the most important in numbers and radical antagonism to the Church were the Cathari or the Pure, as with characteristic sectarian satisfaction they styled themselves. Albigenses they were called in Languedoc, Patarenes in North Italy, Good Men by themselves. Stretching through Central Europe to Thrace and Bulgaria, they joined hands with the Paulicians of the East, and shared in their views, which have been variously represented, and were somewhat mystical. It is difficult to understand the mighty attraction which these doctrines—partly Gnostic, partly Manichean—exercised for so long a time on the minds and hearts of many. Baxter’s estimate of the Albigenses was—Manichees with some better persons mixed. First attracting notice in the latter half of the eleventh century, the Cathari multiplied with extraordinary rapidity, so that in many districts they were during the next century more numerous than the Catholics. St. Bernard, who undertook a mission among them in 1147, describes the churches of the Catholics as without people, and the people without priests. The Cathari disappeared at the close of the thirteenth century, and then the Beghards and Beguins become prominent, who were pietists associated for works of Christian beneficence. Then some extreme Franciscans were mixed up with them, and called themselves Zealots, or Little Brethren, or Spirituals. These remonstrants drifted by degrees into open antagonists of the Church, and talked of the Pope as the mystical antichrist. Other less commendable mediæval sects were the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit. About this time all countries were hotbeds of various sects. Pope Innocent III. tried to let loose a crusading army, under Simon de Montfort, against the Cathari, and great brutalities were perpetrated, and at length the still more brutal Inquisition carried on the purposeless warfare.
WALDENSES SEEKING THE SCRIPTURES (A.D.1179).
The Waldenses may be described as representing the general craving of the better class of Christians of their time for a fuller acquaintance with the Scriptures. Peter Waldo, a rich citizen of Lyons, obtained from two friends in the priesthood a copy ofthe Gospels and a collection of the sayings of the Fathers. He sold all his goods and associated himself with others in search of a higher standard of living than was then met with. They were called the Poor Men of Lyons on one side of the Alps, the Poor Men of Lombardy on the other side. They began on the stock of their acquired knowledge of the Scriptures to preach in the streets, thus diffusing this precious knowledge. They had no intention of opposing the Church; but the bishops of the day foresaw that dangerous knowledge was likely to spread and cause trouble. In 1178 the Archbishop of Lyons forbade their preaching. They tried to get the Pope’s sanction to circulate a translation of the Scriptures. The Pope, after due inquiry, dismissed the deputation and condemned them to absolute silence. This sentence did not convince. There were German and Swiss reformers then rising up, seeking similar ends. The authorities, however, rather hunted them, sometimes as wild beasts, and always subjected them to persecution and outrage, both in France and Savoy. They retired into mountain fastnesses from their persecutors. Milton’s sonnet well immortalises and avenges “these slaughtered saints, whose bones lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold.”
A LAWYER FOR A POPE (A.D.1605).
Pope Paul V. was elected in 1605. He had been a lawyer, and excelled in that profession, and then rose successively through all the grades of ecclesiastical dignity. It was noticed how skilfully he avoided making enemies, and this characteristic marked him out for the supreme dignity. He was chosen Pope unexpectedly, but this only caused him to attribute his good fortune to a direct interposition of the Holy Ghost. He became at once exalted in his own estimation above himself and all his contemporaries as a heaven-born Vicar of Christ. He soon resolved to introduce into ecclesiastical polity the rigour, exactitude, and severity of the civil code. Other Popes signalised their elevation by some act of clemency or grace. He began by striking terror into the bystanders by a severe sentence. A poor author had written a Life of a prior Pope, and compared him to the Emperor Tiberius; but the work was unpublished, and lay only as a manuscript in the author’s desk. The matter came to the ears of this Pope, who, notwithstanding the intercession of ambassadors and princes, ordered the writer to be beheaded one morning on the bridge of St. Angelo, the crime being treated as treason. The same Pope treated as a mortal sin the practice of non-residence in a bishop. He treated decretals as laws of God, and all who disobeyedthem as blasphemers. Excommunication was freely launched against petty misdemeanants. He claimed rights of sovereignty over Venice, which for centuries had been in abeyance. He asserted indeed a universal sovereignty, and treated all mankind as sheep who had no business to criticise or question their shepherd. It has been said his overweening arrogance only made the Protestant reaction, then beginning, more prompt and decisive.