THE MILITARY ORDERS.
We have already sketched the history of the rise of monachism in the fourth century out of the groups of Egyptian eremites, and the rapid spread of the institution, under the rule of Basil, over Christendom; the adoption in the west of the new rule of Benedict in the sixth century; the rise of the reformed orders of Benedictines in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and the institution in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of a new group of orders under the milder discipline of the Augustinian rule. We come now to a class of monastics who are included under the Augustinian rule, since that rule formed the basis of their discipline, but whose striking features of difference from all other religious orders entitle them to be reckoned as a distinct class, under the designation of the Military Orders. When the history of the mendicant orders which arose in the thirteenth century has been read, it will be seen that these military orders had anticipated the active religious spirit which formed the characteristic of the friars, as opposed to the contemplative religious spirit of the monks. But that which peculiarly characterises the military orders, is their adoption of the chivalrous crusading spirit of the age in which they arose: they were half friars, half crusaders.
The order of theKnights of the Templewas founded at Jerusalem in 1118A.D., during the interval between the first and second crusades, and in the reign of Baldwin I. Hugh de Payens, and eight other brave knights, in the presence of the king and his barons, and in the hands of the Patriarch, bound themselves into a fraternity which embraced the fundamental monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity; and, inaddition, as the special object of the fraternity, they undertook the task of escorting the companies of pilgrims from the coast up to Jerusalem, and thence on the usual tour to the Holy Places. For the open country was perpetually exposed to the incursions of irregular bands of Saracen and Turkish horsemen, and death or slavery was the fate which awaited any caravan of helpless pilgrims whom the infidel descried as they swept over the plains, or whom they could waylay in the mountain passes. The new knights undertook besides to wage a continual war in defence of the Cross against the infidel. The canons of the Temple at Jerusalem gave the new fraternity a piece of ground adjoining the Temple for the site of their home, and hence they took their name of Knights of the Temple; and they gradually acquired dependent houses, which were in fact strong castles, whose ruins may still be seen, in many a strong place in Palestine. Ten years after, when Baldwin II. sent envoys to Europe to implore the aid of the Christian powers in support of his kingdom against the Saracens, Hugh de Payens was sent as one of the envoys. His order received the approval of the Council of Troyes, and of Pope Eugene III., and the patronage of St. Bernard, who became the great preacher of the second crusade; and when Hugh de Payens returned to Palestine, he was at the head of three hundred knights of the noblest houses of Europe, who had become members of the order. Endowments, too, for their support flowed in abundantly; and gradually the order established dependent houses on its estates in nearly every country of Europe. The order was introduced into England in the reign of King Stephen; at first its chief house, “the Temple,”[13]was on the south side of Holborn, London, near Southampton Buildings; afterwards it was removed to Fleet Street, where the establishment still remains, long since converted to other uses; but the original church, with its round nave, after the form of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem,[14]still continues a monument of thewealth and grandeur of the ancient knights. They had only five other houses in England, which were called Preceptories, and were dependent upon the Temple in London.
The knights wore the usual armour of the period; but while other knights wore the flowing surcoat of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, or the tight-fitting jupon of the fourteenth, or the tabard of the fifteenth, of any colour which pleased their taste, and often embroidered with their armorial bearings, the Knights of the Temple were distinguished by wearing this portion of their equipment of white, with a red cross over the breast; and over all a long flowing white mantle, with a red cross on the shoulder; they also wore the monastic tonsure. In the early fourteenth century MS. in the British Museum, Royal 1,696, at f. 335, is a representation of Eracles, Prior at Jerusalem, the Prior of the Hospital, and the Master of the Temple, sent to France to ask for succour. The illumination shows us the King of France sitting on his throne, and before him is standing a religious in mitre and crozier, who is no doubt Eracles, and another in a peculiarly shaped black robe, with a cross patee on the left shoulder, who is either Hugh de Payens the Templar, or Raymond de Puy the Hospitaller, but which it is difficult to determine. Again, in the fine fourteenthcentury MS., Nero E. 2, at f. 345 v, is a representation of the trial of the Templars: there are three of them standing before the Pope and the King of France, dressed in a grey tunic, and over that a black mantle with a red cross on the left breast, and a pointed hood over the shoulders. Folio 350 represents the Master of the Temple being burnt to death in presence of the king and nobles. Again, in the fine MS. Royal 20, c. viii., of the time of our Richard II., at f. 42 and f. 48, are representations of the same scenes. Folio 42 is a group of Templars habited in long black coat, fitting close up to the neck, like the ordinary civil robes of the time, with a pointed hood (like that with which we are familiar in the portraits of Dante), with a cross patee on the right shoulder; the hair is tonsured. At f. 45 is the burning of a group of Templars (not tonsured), and at f. 48 the burning of the Master of the Temple and another (tonsured). Their banner was of a black and white striped cloth, calledbeauseant, which word they adopted as a war-cry. The rule allowed three horses and a servant to each knight. Married knights were admitted, but there were no sisters of the order. The order was suppressed with circumstances of gross injustice and cruelty in the fourteenth century, and the bulk of their estates was given to the Hospitallers. The knight here given, from Hollar’s plate, is a prior of the order, in armour of the thirteenth century.
A Knight Templar.
TheKnights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights Hospitallers, originally were not a military order; they were founded about 1092 by the merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording hospitality to pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their chief house, which was called the Hospital, was situated at Jerusalem, over against the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and they had independent hospitals in other places in the Holy Land, which were frequented by the pilgrims. Their kindness to the sick and wounded soldiers of the first crusade made them popular, and several of the crusading princes endowed them with estates; while many of the crusaders, instead of returning home, laid down their arms, and joined the brotherhood of the Hospital. During this period of their history their habit was a plain black robe, with a linen cross upon the left breast.
At length their endowments having become greater than the needs of their hospitals required, and incited by the example of the Templars, a little before established, Raymond de Puy, the then master of the hospital, offered to King Baldwin II. to reconstruct the order on the model of the Templars. From this time the two military orders formed a powerful standing army for the defence of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
When Palestine was finally lost to the Christians, the Knights of St. John passed into the Isle of Cyprus, afterwards to the Isle of Rhodes, and, finally, to the Isle of Malta,[15]maintaining a constant warfare against the infidel, and doing good service in checking the westward progress of the Mohammedan arms. In the latter part of their history, and down to a recent period, they conferred great benefits by checking the ravages of the corsairs of North Africa on the commerce of the Mediterranean and the coast towns of Southern Europe. They patrolled the sea in war-galleys, rowed by galley-slaves, each of which carried a force of armed soldiers—inferior brethren of the order, officered by its knights. They are not even now extinct.
The order was first introduced into England in the reign of Henry I., at Clerkenwell; which continued the principal house of the order in England, and was styled the Hospital. The Hospitallers had also dependent houses, called Commanderies, on many of their English estates, to the number of fifty-three in all. The houses of the military knights in England were only cells, erected on the estates with which they had been endowed, in order to cultivate those estates for the support of the order, and to form depôts for recruits;i.e.for novices, where they might be trained, not in learning like Benedictines, or agriculture like Cistercians, or preaching like Dominicans, but in piety and in military exercises. A plan and elevation of the Commandery of Chabburn, Northumberland, are engraved in Turner’s “Domestic Architecture,” vol. iii. p. 197. The superior of the order in England sat in Parliament, and wasaccounted the first lay baron. When on military duty the knights wore the ordinary armour of the period, with a red surcoat marked with a white cross on the breast, and a red mantle with a white cross on the shoulder. Some of their churches in England possibly had circular naves, like the church of the Temple in Jerusalem; out of the four “round churches,” which remain, one belonged to the Knights of the Hospital. The chapel at Chabburn is a rectangular building. There were many sisters of the order, but only one house of them in England.
One of two earlier representations of knights of the order may be noted here. In a MS. in the Library at Ghent, of the date of our Edward IV., is a picture of John Lonstrother, prior of the order; he wears a long sleeveless gown over armour. It is engraved in the “Archælogia,” xiii. 14. The MS. Add. 18,143 in the British Museum is said in a note at the beginning of the volume to have been the missal of Phillippe de Villiers de l’Isle Adam, the famous Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 1521 to 1534. In the frontispiece is a portrait of the Grand Master in a black robe lined with fur, and a cross patee on the breast. On the opposite page is another portrait of him in a robe of different fashion, with a cross rather differently shaped. The monument of the last English Prior, Sir Thomas Tresham, in his robes as prior of the order, still remains in Rushton Church, Northants. A fine portrait of a Knight of Malta is in the National Gallery. The Hospitaller given on thepreceding page, from Hollar’s plate, is a (not very good) representation of one in the armour of the early part of the fourteenth century, with the usual knight’schapeau, instead of the mail hood or the basinet, on his head.
A Knight Hospitaller.
It will be gathered from the authorities of the costume of the Knights of the Temple and of the Hospital here noted, that when we picture to ourselves the knights on duty in the Holy Land or elsewhere, it should be in the armour of their period with the uniform surcoat of their order; but when we desire to realise their appearance as they were to be ordinarily seen, in chapel or refectory, or about their estates, or forming part of any ordinary scene of English life, it must be in the long cassock-like gown, with the cross on the shoulder, and the tonsured head, described in the above authorities, which would make their appearance resemble that of other religious persons.
Other military orders, which never extended to England, were the order ofTeutonic Knights, a fraternity similar to that of the Templars, but consisting entirely of Germans; and the order ofOur Lady of Mercy, a Spanish knightly order in imitation of that of the Trinitarians.
One other order of religious—theTrinitarians—we have reserved for this place, because while by their rule they are classed among the Augustinian orders, the object of their foundation gives them an affinity with the military orders, and their mode of pursuing that object makes their organisation and life resemble that of friars. The moral interest of their work, and its picturesque scenes and associations, lead us to give a little larger space to them than we have been able to do to most of the other orders. It is difficult for us to realise that the Mohammedan power seemed at one time not unlikely to subjugate all Europe; and that after their career of conquest had been arrested, the Mohammedan states of North Africa continued for centuries to be a scourge to the commerce of Europe, and a terror to the inhabitants of the coasts of the Mediterranean. They scoured the Great Sea with their galleys, and captured ships; they made descents on the coasts, and plundered towns and villages; and carried off the captives into slavery, and retreated in safetywith their booty, to their African harbours. It is only within quite recent times that the last of these strongholds was destroyed by an English fleet, and that the Greek and Italian feluccas have ceased to fear the Algerine pirates. We have already briefly stated how the Hospitallers, after their original service was ended by the expulsion of the Christians from the Holy Land, settled first at Cyprus, then at Rhodes, and did good service as a bulwark against the Mohammedan progress; and lastly, as Knights of Malta, acted as the police of the Mediterranean, and did their best to oppose the piracies of the Corsairs. But in spite of the vigilance and prowess of the knights, many a merchant ship was captured, many a fishing village was sacked, and many captives, men, women, and children of all ranks of society, were carried off into slavery; and their slavery was a cruel one, exaggerated by the scorn and hatred bred of antagonism in race and religion, and made ruthless by the recollection of ages of mutual injuries. The relations and friends of the unhappy captives, where they were people of wealth and influence, used every exertion to rescue those who were dear to them, and their captors were ordinarily willing to set them to ransom; but hopeless indeed was the lot of those—and they, of course, were the great majority—who had no friends rich enough to help them.
The miserable fate of these helpless ones moved the compassion of some Christ-like souls. John de Matha, born, in 1154, of noble parents in Provence, with Felix de Valois, retired to a desert place, where, at the foot of a little hill, a fountain of cold water issued forth; a white hart was accustomed to resort to this fountain, and hence it had received the name of Cervus Frigidus, represented in French by (or representing the French?) Cerfroy. There, aboutA.D.1197, these two good men—the Clarkson and Wilberforce of their time—arranged the institution of a new Order for the Redemption of Captives. The new order received the approval of the Pope Innocent III., and took its place among the recognised orders of the church. This Papal approval of their institution constituted an authorisation from the head of the church to seek alms from all Christendom in furtherance of their object. Their rules directed that one-third of their income only should be reserved for their own maintenance, one-thirdshould be given to the poor, and one-third for the special object of redeeming captives. The two philanthropists preached throughout France, collecting alms, and recruiting men who were willing to join them in their good work. In the first year they were able to send two brethren to Africa, to negotiate the redemption of a hundred and eighty-six Christian captives; next year, John himself went, and brought back a thankful company of a hundred and ten; and on a third voyage, a hundred and twenty more; and the order continued to flourish,[16]and established a house of the order in Africa, as its agent with the infidel. They were introduced into England by Sir William Lucy of Charlecote, on his return from the Crusade; who built and endowed for them Thellesford Priory in Warwickshire; and subsequently they had eleven other houses in England. St. Rhadegunda was their tutelary saint. Their habit was white, with a Greek cross of red and blue on the breast—the three colours being taken to signify the three persons of the Holy Trinity, viz., the white, the Eternal Father; the blue, which was the transverse limb of the cross, the Son; and the red, the charity of the Holy Spirit.
The order were calledTrinitarians, from their devotion to the Blessed Trinity, all their houses being so dedicated, and hence the significance of their badge; they were commonly calledMathurins, after the name of their founder; andBrethren of the Order of the Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives, from their object.
Before turning from the monks to the friars, we must devote a brief sentence to theAlien Priories. These were cells of foreign abbeys, founded upon estates which English proprietors had given to the foreign houses. After the expenses of the establishment had been defrayed, the surplus revenue, or a fixed sum in lieu of it, was remitted to the parent house abroad. There were over one hundred and twenty of them when Edward I., on the breaking out of the war with France, seized upon them,in 1285, as belonging to the enemy. Edward II. appears to have pursued the same course; and, again, Edward III., in 1337. Henry IV. only reserved to himself, in time of war, what these houses had been accustomed to pay to the foreign abbeys in time of peace. But at length they were all dissolved by act of Parliament in the second year of Henry V., and their possessions were devoted for the most part to religious and charitable uses.
THE ORDERS OF FRIARS.
We have seen how for three centuries, from the beginning of the tenth to the end of the twelfth, a series of religious orders arose, each aiming at a more successful reproduction of the monastic ideal. The thirteenth century saw the rise of a new class of religious orders, actuated by a different principle from that of monachism. The principle of monachism, we have said, was seclusion from mankind, and abstraction from worldly affairs, for the sake of religious contemplation. To this end monasteries were founded in the wilds, far from the abodes of men; and he who least often suffered his feet or his thoughts to wander beyond the cloister was so far the best monk. The principle which inspired theFriarswas that of devotion to the performance of active religious duties among mankind. Their houses were built in or near the great towns; and to the majority of the brethren the houses of the order were mere temporary resting-places, from which they issued to make their journeys through town and country, preaching in the parish churches, or from the steps of the market-crosses, and carrying their ministrations to every castle and every cottage.
“I speke of many hundred years ago,For now can no man see non elves mo;For now the great charity and prayersOf lymytours and other holy freresThat serchen every land and every streamAs thick as motis in the sunne-beam,Blessing halls, chambers, kitchens, and bowers,Cities and burghs, castles high and towers,Thorps and barns, shippons and dairies,This maketh that there been no fairies.For there as wont to walken was an elf,There walketh now the lymytour himselfIn undermeles and in morwenings,[17]And sayeth his matins and his holy things,As he goeth in his lymytacioun.”—Wife of Bath’s Tale.
They were, in fact, home missionaries; and the zeal and earnestness of their early efforts, falling upon times when such an agency was greatly needed, produced very striking results. “Till the days of Martin Luther,” says Sir James Stephen, “the church had never seen so great and effectual a reform as theirs.... Nothing in the histories of Wesley or of Whitefield can be compared with the enthusiasm which everywhere welcomed them, or with the immediate visible result of their labours.” In the character of St. Francis, notwithstanding its superstition and exaggerated asceticism, there is something specially attractive: in his intense sympathy with the sorrows and sufferings of the poor, his tender and respectful love for them as members of Christ, his heroic self-devotion to their service for Christ’s sake, in his vivid realisation of the truth that birds, beasts, and fishes are God’s creatures, and our fellow-creatures. In the work of both Francis and Dominic there is much which is worth careful study at the present day. Now, too, there is a mass of misery in our large towns huge and horrible enough to kindle the Christ-like pity of another Francis; in country as well as town there are ignorance and irreligion enough to call forth the zeal of another Dominic. In our Sisters of Mercy we see among women a wonderful rekindling of the old spirit of self-sacrifice, in a shape adapted to our time; we need not despair of seeing the same spirit rekindled among men, freed from the old superstitions and avoiding the old blunders, and setting itself to combat the gigantic evils which threaten to overwhelm both religion and social order.
Both these reformers took great pains to fit their followers for the office of preachers and teachers, sending them in large numbers to the universities, and founding colleges there for the reception of their students. With an admirable largeness of view, they did not confinetheir studies to theology, but cultivated the whole range of Science and Art, and so successful were they, that in a short time the professional chairs of the universities of Europe were almost monopolised by the learned members of the mendicant orders.[18]The constitutions required that no one should be licensed as a general preacher until he had studied theology for three years; then a provincial or general chapter examined into his character and learning; and, if these were satisfactory, gave him his commission, either limiting his ministry to a certain district (whence he was called in English alimitour, like Chaucer’s Friar Hubert), or allowing him to exercise it where he listed (when he was called alister). This authority to preach, and exercise other spiritual functions, necessarily brought the friars into collision with the parochial clergy;[19]and while a learned and good friar would do much good in parishes which were cursed with an ignorant, or slothful, or wicked pastor, on the other hand, the inferior class of friars are accused of abusing their position by setting the people against their pastors whose pulpits they usurped, and interfering injuriously with the discipline of the parishes into which they intruded. For it was not very long before the primitive purity and zeal of the mendicant orders began to deteriorate. This was inevitable; zeal and goodness cannot be perpetuated by a system; all human societies of superior pretensions gradually deteriorate, even as the Apostolic Church itself did. But there were peculiar circumstances in the system of the mendicant orders which tended to induce rapid deterioration. The profession of mendicancy tended to encourage the use of all those little paltry arts ofpopularity-hunting which injure the usefulness of a minister of religion, and lower his moral tone: the fact that an increased number of friars was a source of additional wealth to a convent, since it gave an increased number of collectors of alms for it, tended to make the convents less scrupulous as to the fitness of the men whom they admitted. So that we can believe the truth of the accusations of the old satirists, that dissolute, good-for-nothing fellows sought the friar’s frock and cowl, for the license which it gave to lead a vagabond life, and levy contributions on the charitable. Such men could easily appropriate to themselves a portion of what was given them for the convent; and they had ample opportunity, away from the control of their ecclesiastical superiors, to spend their peculations in dissolute living.[20]We may take, therefore, Chaucer’s Friar John, of the Sompnour’s Tale, as a type of a certain class of friars; but we must remember that at the same time there were many earnest, learned, and excellent men in the mendicant orders; even as Mawworm and John Wesley might flourish together in the same body.
Costumes of the Four Orders of Friars.
The convents of friars were not independent bodies, like the Benedictine and Augustinian abbeys; each order was an organised body, governed by the general of the order, and under him, by provincial priors, priors of the convents, and their subordinate officials. There are usually reckoned four orders of friars—the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustines.
“I found there freres,All the foure orders,Techynge the pepleTo profit of themselves.”Piers Ploughman, l. 115.
The four orders are pictured together in the woodcut on the preceding page from the thirteenth century MS. Harl. 1,527.
They were calledFriarsbecause, out of humility, their founders would not have them calledFatherandDominus, like the monks, but simplyBrother(Frater, Frère, Friar).
TheDominicansandFranciscansarose simultaneously at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Dominic, an Augustinian canon, a Spaniard of noble birth, was seized with a zeal for converting heretics, and having gradually associated a few ecclesiastics with himself, he at length conceived the idea of founding an order of men who should spend their lives in preaching. Simultaneously, Francis, the son of a rich Italian merchant, was inspired with a design to establish a new order of men, who should spend their lives in preaching the Gospel and doing works of charity among the people. These two men met in Rome in the year 1216A.D., and some attempt was made to induce them to unite their institutions in one; but Francis was unwilling, and the Pope sanctioned both. Both adopted the Augustinian rule, and both required not only that their followers personally should have no property, but also that they should not possess any property collectively as a body; their followers were to work for a livelihood, or to live on alms. The two orders retained something of the character of their founders: the Dominicans that of the learned, energetic, dogmatic, and stern controversialist; they were defenders of the orthodox faith, not only by argument, but by the terrors of the Inquisition, which was in their hands; even as their masteris, rightly or wrongly, said to have sanctioned the cruelties which were used against the Albigenses when his preaching had failed to convince them. The Franciscans retained something of the character of the pious, ardent, fanciful enthusiast from whom they took their name.
S. Dominic and S. Francis.
Dominic gave to his order the name of Preaching Friars; more commonly they were styled Dominicans, or, from the colour of their habits, Black Friars[21]—their habit consisting of a white tunic, fastened with a white girdle, over that a white scapulary, and over all a black mantle and hood, and shoes; the lay brethren wore a black scapulary.
The woodcut which we give on the preceding page of two friars, with their names,DominicandFrancis, inscribed over them, is taken from a representation in a MS. of the end of the thirteenth century (Sloan 346), of a legend of a vision of Dominic related in the “Legenda Aurea,” in which the Virgin Mary is deprecating the wrath of Christ, about to destroy the world for its iniquity, and presenting to him Dominic and Francis, with a promise that they will convert the world from its wickedness. The next woodcut is from Hollar’s print in the “Monasticon.” An early fifteenth century illustration of a Dominican friar, in black mantle and brown hood over a white tunic, may be found on the last page of the Harleian MS., 1,527. A fine picture of St. Dominic, by Mario Zoppo (1471-98), in the National Gallery, shows the costume admirably; he stands preaching, with book and rosary in his left hand. The Dominican nuns wore the same dress with a white veil. They had, according to the last edition of the “Monasticon,” fifty-eight houses in England.
A Dominican Friar.
The Franciscans were styled by their founder Fratri Minori—lesser brothers, Friars Minors; they were more usually called Grey Friars, from the colour of their habits, or Cordeliers, from the knotted cord which formed their characteristic girdle. Their habit was originally a grey tunic with long loose sleeves (but not quite so loose as those of the Benedictines), a knotted cord for a girdle, and a black hood; the feet always bare, or only protected by sandals. In the fifteenth century the colour of the habit was altered to a dark brown. The woodcut is from Hollar’s print. A picture of St. Francis, by Felippino Lippi (1460-1505), in the National Gallery shows the costume very clearly. Piers Ploughman describes the irregular indulgences in habit worn by less strict members of the order:—
“In cutting of his copeIs more cloth y-foldenThan was in Frauncis’ froc,When he them first made.And yet under that copeA coat hath he, furredWith foyns or with fichewsOr fur of beaver,And that is cut to the knee,And quaintly y-buttonedLest any spiritual manEspie that guile.Fraunceys bad his brethrenBarefoot to wenden.Now have they buckled shoonFor blenying [blistering] of ther heels,And hosen in harde weatherY-hamled [tied] by the ancle.”
A beautiful little picture of St. Francis receiving the stigmata may be found in a Book of Offices of the end of the fourteenth century (Harl. 2,897, f. 407 v.). Another fifteenth-century picture of the same subject is in a Book of Hours (Harl. 5,328, f. 123). Some fine sixteenth-century authorities for Franciscan costumes are in the MS. life of St. Francis (Harl. 3,229, f. 26). The principal picture represents St. Bonaventura, a saint of the order, in a gorgeous cope over his brown frock and hood, seatedwriting in his cell; through the open door is seen a corridor with doors opening off it to other cells. In the corners of the page are other pictures of St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Bernardine, and another saint, and St. Clare, foundress of the female order of Franciscans. A very good illumination of two Franciscans in grey frocks and hoods, girded with rope and barefooted, will be found in the MS. Add. 17,687 of date 1498. The Franciscan nuns, or Minoresses, or Poor Clares, as they were sometimes called, from St. Clare, the patron saint and first nun of the order, wore the same habit as the monks, only with a black veil instead of a hood. For another illustration of minoresses see MS. Royal 1,696, f. 111, v. The Franciscans were first introduced into England, at Canterbury, in the year 1223A.D., and there were sixty-five houses of the order in England, besides four of minoresses.
A Franciscan Friar.
While the Dominicans retained their unity of organisation to the last, the Franciscans divided into several branches, under the names of Minorites, Capuchins, Minims, Observants, Recollets, &c.
TheCarmelite Friarshad their origin, as their name indicates, in the East. According to their own traditions, ever since the days of Elijah, whom they claim as their founder, the rocks of Carmel have been inhabited by a succession of hermits, who have lived after the pattern of the great prophet. Their institution as an order of friars, however, dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century, when Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, gave them a rule, founded upon, but more severe than, that of St. Basil; and gave them a habit of white and red stripes, which, according to tradition, was the fashion of the wonder-working mantle of their prophet-founder. The order immediately spread into the West, and Pope Honorius III. sanctioned it, and changed the habit to a white frock over a dark brown tunic; and very soon after, the third general of the order, an Englishman, Simon Stock, added the scapulary, of the same colour as the tunic, by which they are to be distinguished from the Premonstratensian canons, whose habit is the same, except that it wants the scapulary. From the colour of the habit the popular English name for the Carmelites was the White Friars. Sir John de Vesci, an English crusader, in the early part of the thirteenth century, made the ascent of Mount Carmel,and found these religious living there, claiming to be the successors of Elijah. The romantic incident seems to have interested him, and he brought back some of them to England, and thus introduced the order here, where it became more popular than elsewhere in Europe, but it was never an influential order. They had ultimately fifty houses in England.
A Carmelite Friar.
TheAustin Friarswere founded in the middle of the thirteenth century. There were still at that time some small communities which were not enrolled among any of the great recognised orders, and a great number of hermits and solitaries, who lived under no rule at all. Pope Innocent IV. decreed that all these hermits, solitaries, and separate communities, should be incorporated into a new order, under the rule of St. Augustine, with some stricter clauses added, under the name of Ermiti Augustini, Hermits of St. Augustine, or, as they were popularly called, Austin Friars. Their exterior habit was a black gown with broad sleeves, girded with a leather belt, and black cloth hood. There were forty-five houses of them in England.
There were also some minor orders of friars, who do not need a detailed description. The Crutched (crossed) Friars, so called because they had a red cross on the back and breast of their blue habit, were introduced into England in the middle of the thirteenth century, and had ten houses here. The Friars de Pœnitentiâ, or the Friars of the Sack, were introduced a little later, and had nine houses. And there were six other friaries of obscure orders. But all these minor mendicant orders—all except the four great orders, the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Carmelites—were suppressed by the Council of Lyons,A.D.1370.
Chaucer lived in the latter half of the fourteenth century, when, aftera hundred and forty years’ existence, the orders of friars, or at least many individuals of the orders, had lost much of their primitive holiness and zeal. His avowed purpose is to satirise their abuses; so that, while we quote him largely for the life-like pictures of ancient customs and manners which he gives us, we must make allowance for the exaggerations of a satirist, and especially we must not take the faulty or vicious individuals, whom it suits his purpose to depict, as fair samples of the whole class. We have a nineteenth-century satirist of the failings and foibles of the clergy, to whom future generations will turn for illustrations of the life of cathedral towns and country parishes. We know how wrongly they would suppose that Dr. Proudie was a fair sample of nineteenth-century bishops, or Dr. Grantley of archdeacons “of the period,” or Mr. Smylie of the evangelical clergy; we know there is no real bishop, archdeacon, or incumbent among us of whom those characters, so cleverly and amusingly, and in one sense so truthfully, drawn, are anything but exaggerated likenesses. With this caution, we do not hesitate to borrow illustrations of our subject from Chaucer and other contemporary writers.
In his description of Friar Hubert, who was one of the Canterbury pilgrims, he tells us how—
“Full well beloved and familiar was heWith frankelins over all in his countrie;And eke with worthy women of the town,[22]For he had power of confession,As said himself, more than a curate,For of his order he was licenciate.Full sweetely heard he confession,And pleasant was his absolution.He was an easy man to give penanceThere as he wist to have a good pittance,For unto a poor order for to give,Is signe that a man is well y-shrive.*****His tippet was aye farsed[23]full of knivesAnd pinnés for to give to fairé wives.And certainly he had a merry note,Well could he sing and playen on a rote.[24]*****And over all there as profit should arise,Courteous he was, and lowly of service.There was no man no where so virtuous,He was the beste beggar in all his house,And gave a certain ferme for the grantNone of his brethren came in his haunt.”
As to his costume:—
“For there was he not like a cloisterer,With threadbare cope, as is a poor scholar,But he was like a master or a pope,Of double worsted was his semi-cope,[25]That round was as a bell out of the press.”
In the Sompnour’s tale the character, here merely sketched, is worked out in detail, and gives such a wonderfully life-like picture of a friar, and of his occupation, and his intercourse with the people, that we cannot do better than lay considerable extracts from it before our readers:—
“Lordings there is in Yorkshire, as I guess,A marsh country y-called Holderness,In which there went a limitour[26]aboutTo preach, and eke to beg, it is no doubt.And so befel that on a day this frereHad preached at a church in his mannére,And specially aboven every thingExcited he the people in his preachingTo trentals,[27]and to give for Goddé’s sake,Wherewith men mighten holy houses make,There as divine service is honoured,Not there as it is wasted and devoured.[28]‘Trentals,’ said he, ‘deliver from penanceTher friendés’ soules, as well old as young,Yea, when that they are speedily y-sung.Not for to hold a priest jolly and gay,He singeth not but one mass[29]of a day,Deliver out,’ quoth he, ‘anon[30]the souls.Full hard it is, with flesh-hook or with owlesTo be y-clawed, or to burn or bake:Now speed you heartily, for Christé’s sake.’And when this frere had said all his intent,Withqui cum patre[31]forth his way he went;When folk in church had given him what they lestHe went his way, no longer would he rest.”
Then he takes his way through the village with his brother friar (it seems to have been the rule for them to go in couples) and a servant after them to carry their sack, begging at every house.
“With scrippe and tipped staff, y-tucked high,In every house he gan to pore and pry;And begged meal or cheese, or ellés corn.His fellow had a staff tipped with horn,A pair of tables all of ivory,And a pointel y-polished fetisly,And wrote always the namés, as he stood,Of allé folk that gave them any good,As though that he woulde for them pray.‘Give us a bushel of wheat, or malt, or rye,A Goddé’s kichel,[32]or a trippe of cheese;Or ellés what you list, we may not chese;[33]A Godde’s halfpenny, or a mass penny,Or give us of your bran, if ye have any,A dagon[34]of your blanket, dearé dame,Our sister dear (lo! here I write your name):Bacon or beef, or such thing as you find.’A sturdy harlot[35]went them aye behind,That was their hosté’s man, and bare a sack,And what men gave them laid it on his back.And when that he was out at door, anonHe planed away the names every one,That he before had written on his tables;He served them with triffles[36]and with fables.”
At length he comes to a house in which, the goodwife beingdevôte, he has been accustomed to be hospitably received:—
“So along he went, from house to house, till heCame to a house where he was wont to beRefreshed more than in a hundred places.Sick lay the husbandman whose that the place is;Bedrid upon a couché low he lay:‘Deus hic,’ quoth he, ‘O Thomas, friend, good day’Said this frere, all courteously and soft.‘Thomas,’ quoth he, ‘God yield[37]it you, full oftHave I upon this bench fared full well,Here have I eaten many a merry meal.’And from the bench he drove away the cat,And laid adown his potent[38]and his hat,And eke his scrip, and set himself adown:His fellow was y-walked into townForth with his knave, into that hostleryWhere as he shope him thilké night to lie‘O deré master,’ quoth this sické man,‘How have ye fared since that March began?I saw you not this fourteen night and more.’‘God wot,’ quoth he, ‘laboured have I full sore;And specially for thy salvationHave I sayd many a precious orison,And for our other friendes, God them bless.I have this day been at your church at messe,And said a sermon to my simple wit.*****And there I saw our dame. Ah! where is she?’‘Yonder I trow that in the yard she be,’Saidé this man, ‘and she will come anon.’‘Eh master, welcome be ye, by St. John!’Saide this wife; ‘how fare ye heartily?’This friar ariseth up full courteously,And her embraceth in his armés narwe,[39]And kisseth her sweet, and chirketh as a sparrowWith his lippes: ‘Dame,’ quoth he, ‘right well.As he that is your servant every deal.[40]Thanked be God that you gave soul and life,Yet saw I not this day so fair a wifeIn all the churché, God so save me.’‘Yea, God amendé defaults, sire,’ quoth she:‘Algates welcome be ye, by my fay.’‘Graunt mercy, dame; that have I found alway.But of your great goodness, by your leve,I wouldé pray you that ye not you grieve,I will with Thomas speak a little throw;These curates be so negligent and slowTo searchen tenderly a conscience.In shrift, in preaching, is my diligence,And study, on Peter’s words and on Paul’s,I walk and fishen Christian menne’s souls,To yield our Lord Jesu his proper rent;To spread his word is set all mine intent.’‘Now, by your faith, dere sir,’ quoth she,‘Chide him well for Seinté Charitee.He is as angry as a pissemire,’” &c.
Whereupon the friar begins at once to scold the goodman:—
“‘O Thomas,je vous die, Thomas, Thomas,This maketh the fiend, this must be amended.Ire is a thing that high God hath defended,[41]And therefore will I speak a word or two.’‘Now, master,’ quoth the wife, ‘ere that I go,What will ye dine? I will go thereabout.’‘Now, dame,’ quoth he, ‘je vous dis sans doubte,Have I not of a capon but the liver,And of your white bread but a shiver,And after that a roasted piggé’s head(But I ne would for me no beast were dead),Then had I with you homely suffisance;I am a man of little sustenance,My spirit hath his fostering in the Bible.My body is aye so ready and so penibleTo waken, that my stomach is destroyed.I pray you, dame, that ye be not annoyed,Though I so friendly you my counsel shew.By God! I n’old[42]have told it but a few.’‘Now, sir,’ quoth she, ‘but one word ere I go.My child is dead within these weekés two,Soon after that ye went out of this town.’[43]‘His death saw I by revelation,’Said this frere, ‘at home in our dortour.[44]I dare well say that ere that half an hourAfter his death, I saw him borne to blisseIn mine vision, so God me wisse.So did our sexton and our fermerere,[45]That have been trué friars fifty year;They may now, God be thanked of his loan,Make their jubilee and walke alone.’”[46]
We do not care to continue the blasphemous lies with which he plays upon the mother’s tenderness for her dead babe. At length, addressing the sick goodman, he continues:—
“‘Thomas, Thomas, so might I ride or go,And by that lord that cleped is St. Ive,N’ere[47]thou our brother, shouldest thou not thrive,In our chapter pray we[48]day and nightTo Christ that he thee send hele and might[49]Thy body for to welden hastily.’‘God wot,’ quoth he, ‘I nothing thereof feel,So help me Christ, as I in fewé yearsHave spended upon divers manner freresFull many a pound, yet fare I never the bet.’The frere answered, ‘O Thomas, dost thou so?What need have you diverse friars to seche?What needeth him that hath a perfect leech[50]To seeken other leches in the town?Your inconstancy is your confusion.Hold ye then me, or elles our convent,To pray for you is insufficient?Thomas, that jape is not worth a mite;Your malady is for we have too lite.[51]Ah! give that convent half a quarter of oates;And give that convent four and twenty groats;And give that friar a penny and let him go;Nay, nay, Thomas, it may nothing be so;What is a farthing worth parted in twelve?’”
And so he takes up the cue the wife had given him, and reads him a long sermon on anger, quoting Seneca, and giving, for instances, Cambyses and Cyrus, and at length urges him to confession. To this—
“‘Nay,’ quoth the sick man, ‘by Saint Simon,I have been shriven this day by my curate.’******‘Give me then of thy gold to make our cloister,’”
and again he proclaims the virtues and morals of his order.
“‘For if ye lack our predication,[52]Then goth this world all to destruction.For whoso from this world would us bereave,So God me save, Thomas, by your leave,He would bereave out of this world the sun,’” &c.
And so ends with the ever-recurring burden:—
“‘Now, Thomas, help for Sainte Charitee.’This sicke man wax well nigh wood for ire,[53]He woulde that the frere had been a fire,With his false dissimulation;”
and proceeds to play a practical joke upon him, which will not bear even hinting at, but which sufficiently shows that superstition did not prevent men from taking great liberties, expressing the utmost contempt of these men. Moreover,—
“His mennie which had hearden this affray,Came leaping in and chased out the frere.”
Thus ignominiously turned out of the goodman’s house, the friar goes to the court-house of the lord of the village:—
“A sturdy pace down to the court he goth,Whereat there woned[54]a man of great honour,To whom this friar was alway confessour;This worthy man was lord of that village.This frere came, as he were in a rage,Whereas this lord sat eating at his board.*****This lord gan look, and saide, ‘Benedicite!What, frere John! what manner of world is this?I see well that something there is amiss.’”
We need only complete the picture by adding the then actors in it:—
“The lady of the house aye stille sat,Till she had herde what the friar said.”
And
“Now stood the lorde’s squire at the board,That carved his meat, and hearde every wordOf all the things of which I have you said.”
And it needs little help of the imagination to complete this contemporary picture of an English fourteenth-century village, with its lord and its well-to-do farmer, and its villagers, its village inn, its parish church and priest, and the fortnightly visit of the itinerant friars.
We have now completed our sketch of the rise of the religious orders, and of their general character; we have only to conclude this portion of our task with a brief history of their suppression in England. Henry VIII. had resolved to break with the pope; the religious orders were great upholders of the papal supremacy; the friars especially were called “the pope’s militia;” the king resolved, therefore, upon the destruction of the friars. The pretext was a reform of the religious orders. At the end of the year 1535 a royal commission undertook the visitation of all the religious houses, above one thousand three hundred in number, including their cells and hospitals. They performed their task with incredible celerity—“the king’s command was exceeding urgent;” and in ten weeks they presented their report. The small houses they reported to be full of irregularity and vice; while “in the great solemne monasteries, thanks be to God, religion was right well observed and kept up.” So the king’s decree went forth, and parliament ratified it, that all the religious houses of less than £200 annual value should be suppressed. This just caught all the friaries, and a few of the less powerful monasteries for the sake of impartiality. Perhaps the monks were not greatly moved at the destruction which had come upon their rivals; but their turn very speedily came.They were not suppressed forcibly; but they were induced to surrender. The patronage of most of the abbacies was in the king’s hands, or under his control. He induced some of the abbots by threats or cajolery, and the offer of place and pension, to surrender their monasteries into his hand; others he induced to surrender their abbatial offices only, into which he placed creatures of his own, who completed the surrender. Some few intractable abbots—like those of Reading, Glastonbury, and St. John’s, Colchester, who would do neither one nor the other—were found guilty of high treason—no difficult matter when it had been made high treason by act of Parliament to “publish in words” that the king was an “heretic, schismatic, or tyrant”—and they were disposed of by hanging, drawing, and quartering. The Hospitallers of Clerkenwell were still more difficult to deal with, and required a special act of Parliament to suppress them. Those who gave no trouble were rewarded with bishoprics, livings, and pensions; the rest were turned adrift on the wide world, to dig, or beg, or starve. We are not defending the principle of monasticism; it may be that, with the altered circumstances of the church and nation, the day of usefulness of the monasteries had passed. But we cannot restrain an expression of indignation at the shameless, reckless manner of the suppression. The commissioners suggested, and Bishop Latimer entreated in vain, that two or three monasteries should be left in every shire for religious, and learned, and charitable uses; they were all shared among the king and his courtiers. The magnificent churches were pulled down; the libraries, of inestimable value, were destroyed; the alms which the monks gave to the poor, the hospitals which they maintained for the old and impotent, the infirmaries for the sick, the schools for the people—all went in the wreck; and the tithes of parishes which were in the hands of the monasteries, were swallowed up indiscriminately—they were not men to strain at such gnats while they were swallowing camels—some three thousand parishes, including those of the most populous and important towns, were left impoverished to this day. No wonder that the fountains of religious endowment in England have been dried up ever since;—and the course of modern legislation is not calculated to set them again a-flowing.