[1] i.e. Garin le Loherin (q.v.), or Garin of Lorraine.
[2] Elster (_Beiträge_) says that the poem is the work of two poets:
the first part by a Thuringian wandering minstrel, the second--which
differs in style and dialect--by a Bavarian official.
[3] Based on material borrowed from the _Sächsische Weltchronik_
(formerly called _Repgowische Chronik_ from its dubious assignment to
Eime von Repgow), the oldest prose chronicle of the world in German
(c. 1248 or 1260).
LOIN (through O. Fr. _loigne_ or _logne_, mod. _longe_, from Lat.
_lumbus_), that part of the body in an animal which lies between the
upper part of the hip-bone and the last of the false ribs on either side
of the back-bone, hence in the plural the general term for the lower
part of the human body at the junction with the legs, covered by the
loin-cloth, the almost universal garment among primitive peoples. There
are also figurative uses of the word, chiefly biblical, due to the loins
being the supposed seat of male vigour and power of generation. Apart
from these uses the word is a butcher's term for a joint of meat cut
from this part of the body. The upper part of a loin of beef is known as
the "surloin" (Fr. _surlonge_, i.e. upper loin). This has been commonly
corrupted into "sirloin," and a legend invented, to account for the
name, of a king, James I. or Charles II., knighting a prime joint of
beef "Sir Loin" in pleasure at its excellence. A double surloin,
undivided at the back-bone, is known as a "baron of beef," probably from
an expansion of the legend of the "Sir Loin."
LOIRE, the longest river of France, rising in the Gerbier de Jonc in the
department of Ardèche, at a height of 4500 ft. and flowing north and
west to the Atlantic. After a course of 18 m. in Ardèche it enters
Haute-Loire, in which it follows a picturesque channel along the foot
of basaltic rocks, through narrow gorges and small plains. At Vorey,
where it is joined by the Arzon, it becomes navigable for rafts. Four
miles below its entrance into the department of Loire, at La Noirie,
river navigation is officially reckoned to begin, and breaking through
the gorges of Saint Victor, the Loire enters the wide and swampy plain
of Forez, after which it again penetrates the hills and flows out into
the plain of Roanne. As in Haute-Loire, it is joined by a large number
of streams, the most important being the Coise on the right and the
Lignon du Nord or du Forez and the Aix on the left. Below Roanne the
Loire is accompanied on its left bank by a canal to Digoin (35 m.) in
Saône-et-Loire, thence by the so-called "lateral canal of the Loire" to
Briare in Loiret (122 m.). Owing to the extreme irregularity of the
river in different seasons these canals form the only certain navigable
way. At Digoin the Loire receives the Arroux, and gives off the canal du
Centre (which utilizes the valley of the Bourbince) to Chalon-sur-Saône.
At this point its northerly course begins to be interrupted by the
mountains of Morvan, and flowing north-west it enters the department of
Nièvre. Just beyond Nevers it is joined by the Allier; this river rises
30 m. S.W. of the Loire in the department of Lozère, and following an
almost parallel course has at the confluence a volume equal to
two-thirds of that of the main stream. Above Nevers the Loire is joined
by the Aron, along which the canal du Nivernais proceeds northward, and
the Nièvre, and below the confluence of the Allier gives off the canal
du Berry to Bourges and the navigable part of the Cher. About this point
the valley becomes more ample and at Briare (in Loiret) the river leaves
the highlands and flows between the plateaus of Gatinais and the Beauce
on the right and the Sologne on the left. In Loiret it gives off the
canal de Briare northward to the Seine and itself bends north-west to
Orléans, whence the canal d'Orléans, following the little river Cens,
communicates with the Briare canal. At Orléans the river changes its
north-westerly for a south-westerly course. A striking peculiarity of
the affluents of the Loire in Loiret and the three subsequent
departments is that they frequently flow in a parallel channel to the
main stream and in the same valley. Passing Blois in Loir-et-Cher, the
Loire enters Indre-et-Loire and receives on the right the Cisse, and,
after passing Tours, the three important left-hand tributaries of the
Cher, Indre and the Vienne. At the confluence of the Vienne the Loire
enters Maine-et-Loire, in its course through which department it is
frequently divided by long sandy islands fringed with osiers and
willows; while upon arriving at Les Ponts-de-Cé it is split into several
distinct branches. The principal tributaries are: left, the Thouet at
Saumur, the Layon and the Evre; right: the Authion, and, most important
tributary of all, the Maine, formed by the junction of the rivers
Mayenne, Sarthe and Loir. Through Loire-Inférieure the river is studded
with islands until below Nantes, where the largest of them, called
Belle-Ile, is found. It receives the Erdre on the right at Nantes and on
the opposite shore the Sèvre-Nantaise, and farther on the canalized
Achenau on the left and the navigable Etier de Méan on the right near
Saint Nazaire. Below Nantes, between which point and La Martinière
(below Pellerin) the channel is embanked, the river is known as the
Loire Maritime and widens out between marshy shores, passing Paimboeuf
on the left and finally Saint-Nazaire, where it is 1½ m. broad. The
length of the channel of the Loire is about 625 m.; its drainage area is
46,700 sq. m. A lateral canal (built in 1881-1892 at a cost of about
£1,000,000) known as the Maritime Canal of the Loire between Le Carnet
and La Martinière enables large ships to ascend to Nantes. It is 9½ m.
long, and 19½ (capable of being increased to 24) ft. deep. At each end
is a lock 405 ft. long by 59 ft. wide. The canal de Nantes à Brest
connects this city with Brest.
The Loire is navigable only in a very limited sense. During the
drought of summer thin and feeble streams thread their way between the
sandbanks of the channel; while at other times a stupendous flood
submerges wide reaches of land. In the middle part of its course the
Loire traverses the western portion of the undulating Paris basin,
with its Tertiary marls, sands and clays, and the alluvium carried
off from these renders its lower channel inconstant; the rest of the
drainage area is occupied by crystalline rocks, over the hard surface
of which the water, undiminished by absorption, flows rapidly into the
streams. When the flood waters of two or more tributaries arrive at
the same time serious inundations result. Attempts to control the
river must have begun at a very early date, and by the close of the
middle ages the bed between Orléans and Angers was enclosed by dykes
10 to 13 ft. high. In 1783 a double line of dykes or _turcies_ 23 ft.
high was completed from Bec d'Allier downwards. The channel was,
however, so much narrowed that the embankments are almost certain to
give way as soon as the water rises 16 ft. (the average rise is about
14, and in 1846 and 1856 it was more than 22). In modern times
embankments, aided by dredging operations extending over a large
number of years, have ensured a depth of 18 ft. in the channel between
La Martinière and Nantes. Several towns have constructed special works
to defend themselves against the floods; Tours, the most exposed of
all, is surrounded by a circular dyke.
Various schemes for the systematic regulation of the Loire have been
discussed. It has been proposed to construct in the upper valleys of
the several affluents a number of gigantic dams or reservoirs from
which the water, stored during flood, could be let off into the river
as required. A dam of this kind (built in 1711) at the village of
Pinay, about 18 m. above Roanne, and capable of retaining from 350 to
450 million cub. ft. of water, has greatly diminished the force of the
floods at Roanne, and maintained the comparative equilibrium of the
current during the dry season. Three other dams of modern construction
are also in existence, one near Firminy, the other two near St
Étienne.
LOIRE, a department of central France, made up in 1793 of the old
district of Forez and portions of Beaujolais and Lyonnais, all formerly
included in the province of Lyonnais. Pop. (1906) 643,943. Area 1853 sq.
m. It is bounded N. by the department of Saône-et-Loire, E. by those of
Rhône and Isère, S. by Ardèche and Haute-Loire, and W. by Puy-de-Dôme and
Allier. From 1790 to 1793 it constituted, along with that of Rhône, a
single department (Rhône-et-Loire). It takes its name from the river
which bisects it from south to north. The Rhone skirts the S.E. of the
department, about one-eighth of which belongs to its basin. After
crossing the southern border the Loire runs through wild gorges, passing
the picturesque crag crowned by the old fortress of St Paul-en-Cornillon.
At St Rambert it issues into the broad plain of Fotez, flows north as far
as its confluence with the Aix where the plain ends, and then again
traverses gorges till it enters the less extensive plain of Roanne in the
extreme north of the department. These two plains, the beds of ancient
lakes, are enclosed east and west by chains of mountains running parallel
with the river. In the west are the Forez mountains, which separate the
Loire basin from that of the Allier; their highest point (Pierre sur
Haute, 5381 ft.) is 12 m. W. of Montbrison. They sink gradually towards
the north, and are successively called Bois Noirs (4239 ft.), from their
woods, and Monts de la Madeleine (3822 to 1640 ft.). In the east the
Rhone and Loire basins are separated, by Mont Pilat (4705 ft.) at the
north extremity of the Cévennes, and by the hills of Lyonnais, Tarare,
Beaujolais and Charolais, none of which rise higher than 3294 ft. Of the
affluents of the Loire the most important are the Lignon du Nord, the
beautiful valley of which has been called "La Suisse Forezienne," and the
Aix on the left, and on the right the Ondaine (on which stand the
industrial towns of Chambon-Feugerolles and Firminy), the Furens and the
Rhin. The Gier forms a navigable channel to the Rhone at Givors, and has
on its banks the industrial towns of St Chamond and Rive-de-Gier. From
Mont Pilat descends the Déôme, in the valley of which are the workshops
of Annonay (q.v.). The climate on the heights is cold and healthy, it is
unwholesome in the marshy plain of Forez, mild in the valley of the
Rhone. The annual rainfall varies from 39 to 48 in. on the Forez
mountains, but only reaches 20 to 24 in. in the vicinity of Montbrison.
The plains of Forez and Roanne are the two most important agricultural
districts, but the total production of grain within the department is
insufficient for the requirements of the population. The pasture lands
of the plain of Forez, the western portion of which is irrigated by
the canal of Forez, support a large number of live stock. Good
pasturage is also found on the higher levels of the Forez mountains,
on the north-eastern plateaus, where oxen of the famous Charolais
breed are raised, and on the uplands generally. Wheat and rye are the
leading cereal crops; oats come next in importance, barley and colza
occupying a relatively small area. The vine is cultivated in the
valley of the Rhone, on the lower slopes of the Forez mountains and on
the hills west of the plain of Roanne. The forests of Mont Pilat and
the Forez chain yield good-sized pines and wood for mining purposes.
The so-called Lyons chestnuts are to a large extent obtained from
Forez; the woods and pasture lands of Mont Pilat yield medicinal
plants, such as mint. Poultry-rearing and bee-keeping are considerable
industries. The department is rich in mineral springs, the waters of
St Galmier, Sail-sous-Couzan, St Romain-le-Puy and St Alban being
largely exported. The chief wealth of the department lies in the coal
deposits of the basin of St Étienne (q.v.), the second in importance
in France, quarrying is also active. Metal-working industries are
centred in the S.E. of the department, where are the great
manufacturing towns of St Étienne, Rive-de-Gier, St Chamond and
Firminy. At St Étienne there is a national factory of arms, in which
as many as 10,000 have been employed; apart from other factories of
the same kind carried on by private individuals, the production of
hardware, locks, edge-tools, common cutlery, chain cables for the
mines, files, rails, &c., occupies thousands of hands. Cast steel is
largely manufactured, and the workshops of the department supply the
heaviest constructions required in naval architecture, as well as war
material and machinery of every description. The glass industry is
carried on at Rive-de-Gier and St Galmier. St Étienne and St Chamond
are centres for the fabrication of silk ribbons, elastic ribbons and
laces, and the dressing of raw silks. Between 50,000 and 60,000 people
are employed in the last-named industries. The arrondissement of
Roanne manufactures cotton stuffs, muslins and the like. That of
Montbrison produces table linen. The department has numerous
dye-works, flour-mills, paper works, tanyards, brick-works,
silk-spinning works and hat factories. It is served by the Paris-Lyon
railway, Roanne being the junction of important lines from Paris to
Lyons and St Étienne. Within the department the Loire is hardly used
for commercial navigation; the chief waterways are the canal from
Roanne to Digoin (13 m. in the department), that from Givors to
Rive-de-Gier (7 m.) and the Rhone (7 m.).
Loire comprises three arrondissements--St Étienne, Montbrison and
Roanne--with 31 cantons and 335 communes. It falls within the region of
the XIII. army corps and the _diocèse_ and _académie_ (educational
circumscription) of Lyons, where also is its court of appeal. St Étienne
is the capital, other leading towns being Roanne, Montbrison,
Rive-de-Gier, St Chamond, Firminy and Le Chambon, all separately
noticed. St Bonnet-le-Château, besides old houses, has a church of the
15th and 16th centuries, containing paintings of the 15th century; St
Rambert and St Romain-le-Puy have priory churches of the 11th and 12th
centuries; and at Charlieu there are remains of a Benedictine abbey
founded in the 9th century, including a porch decorated with fine
Romanesque carving.
LOIRE-INFÉRIEURE, a maritime department of western France, made up in
1790 of a portion of Brittany on the right and of the district of Retz
on the left of the Loire, and bounded W. by the ocean, N. by Morbihan
and Ille-et-Vilaine, E. by Maine-et-Loire and S. by Vendée. Pop. (1906)
666,748. Area 2694 sq. m. The surface is very flat, and the highest
point, in the north on the borders of Ille-et-Vilaine, reaches only 377
ft. The line of hillocks skirting the right bank of the Loire, and known
as the _sillon de Bretagne_, scarcely exceeds 250 ft.; below Savenay
they recede from the river, and meadows give place to peat bogs. North
of St Nazaire and Grande Brière, measuring 9 m. by 6, and rising hardly
10 ft. above the sea-level, still supplies old trees which can be used
for joiners' work. A few scattered villages occur on the more elevated
spots, but communication is effected chiefly by the canals which
intersect it. The district south of the Loire lies equally low; its most
salient feature is the lake of Grandlieu, covering 27 sq. m., and
surrounded by low and marshy ground, but so shallow (6½ ft. at most)
that drainage would be comparatively easy. The Loire (q.v.) has a course
of 70 m. within the department. On the left bank a canal stretches for 9
m. between Pellerin, where the dikes which protect the Loire valley from
inundation terminate, and Paimboeuf, and vessels drawing 17 or 18 ft.
can reach Nantes. The principal towns on the river within the department
are Ancenis, Nantes and St Nazaire (one of the most important commercial
ports of France) on the right, and Paimboeuf on the left. The chief
affluents are, on the right the Erdre and on the left the Sèvre, both
debouching at Nantes. The Erdre in its lower course broadens in places
into lakes which give it the appearance of a large river. Four miles
below Nort it coalesces with the canal from Nantes to Brest. The Sèvre
is hemmed in by picturesque hills; at the point where it enters the
department it flows past the beautiful town of Clisson with its imposing
castle of the 13th century. Apart from the Loire, the only navigable
channel of importance within the department is the Nantes and Brest
canal, fed by the Isac, a tributary of the Vilaine, which separates
Loire-Inférieure from Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan. The climate is
humid, mild and equable. At Nantes the mean annual temperature is 54.7°
Fahr., and there are one hundred and twenty-two rainy days, the annual
rainfall being 25.6 in.
Horse and cattle raising prospers, being carried on chiefly in the
west of the department and in the Loire valley. Good butter and cheese
are produced. Poultry also is reared, and there is a good deal of
bee-keeping. Wheat, oats, buckwheat and potatoes are produced in great
abundance; leguminous plants are also largely cultivated, especially
near Nantes. Wine, cider and forage crops are the chief remaining
agricultural products. The woods are of oak in the interior and pine
on the coast. The department has deposits of tin, lead and iron. N.W.
of Ancenis coal is obtained from a bed which is a prolongation of that
of Anjou. The salt marshes, about 6000 acres in all, occur for the
most part between the mouth of the Vilaine and the Loire, and on the
Bay of Bourgneuf, and salt-refining, of which Guérande is the centre,
is an important industry. The granite of the sea-coast and of the
Loire up to Nantes is quarried for large blocks. Steam-engines are
built for the government at Indret, a few miles below Nantes; the
forges of Basse-Indre are in good repute for the quality of their
iron; and the production of the lead-smelting works at Couëron amounts
to several millions of francs annually. There are also considerable
foundries at Nantes, Chantenay, close to Nantes, and St Nazaire, and
shipbuilding yards at Nantes and St Nazaire. Among other industries
may be mentioned the preparation of pickles and preserved meats at
Nantes, the curing of sardines at Le Croisic and in the neighbouring
communes, the manufacture of sugar, brushes, tobacco, macaroni and
similar foods, soap and chemicals at Nantes, and of paper, sugar and
soap at Chantenay. Fishing is prosecuted along the entire coast,
particularly at Le Croisic. Among the seaside resorts Le Croisic,
Pornichet and Pornic, where there are megalithic monuments, may be
mentioned. The department is traversed by the railways of the state,
the Orléans company and the Western company. The department is divided
into five arrondissements--Nantes, Ancenis, Châteaubriant, Paimboeuf
and St Nazaire--45 cantons and 219 communes. It has its appeal court
at Rennes, which is also the centre of the _académie_ (educational
division) to which it belongs.
The principal places are Nantes, the capital, St Nazaire and
Châteaubriant, which receive separate treatment. On the west coast the
town of Batz, and the neighbouring villages, situated on the peninsula
of Batz, are inhabited by a small community possessed of a distinct
costume and dialect, and claiming descent from a Saxon or Scandinavian
stock. Its members are employed for the most part in the salt marshes
N.E. of the town. Guérande has well-preserved ramparts and gates of the
15th century, a church dating from the 12th to the 16th centuries, and
other old buildings. At St Philbert-de-Grandlieu there is a church,
rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries, but preserving remains of a
previous edifice belonging at least to the beginning of the 11th
century.
LOIRET, a department of central France, made up of the three districts
of the ancient province of Orléanais--Orléanais proper, Gâtinais and
Dunois--together with portions of those of Île-de-France and Berry. It
is bounded N. by Seine-et-Oise, N.E. by Seine-et-Marne, E. by Yonne, S.
by Nièvre and Cher, S.W. and W. by Loir-et-Cher and N.W. by
Eure-et-Loir. Area, 2629 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 364,999. The name is
borrowed from the Loiret, a stream which issues from the ground some
miles to the south of Orléans, and after a course of about 7 m. falls
into the Loire; its large volume gives rise to the belief that it is a
subterranean branch of that river. The Loire traverses the south of the
department by a broad valley which, though frequently devastated by
disastrous floods, is famed for its rich tilled lands, its castles, its
towns and its vine-clad slopes. To the north of the Loire are the
Gâtinais (capital Montargis) and the Beauce; the former district is so
named from its _gâtines_ or wildernesses, of which saffron is, along
with honey, the most noteworthy product; the Beauce (q.v.), a monotonous
tract of corn-fields without either tree or river, has been called the
granary of France. Between the Beauce and the Loire is the extensive
forest of Orléans, which is slowly disappearing before the advances of
agriculture. South of the Loire is the Sologne, long barren and
unhealthy from the impermeability of its subsoil, but now much improved
in both respects by means of pine plantation and draining and manuring
operations. The highest point (on the borders of Cher) is 900 ft. above
sea-level, and the lowest (on the borders of Seine-et-Marne) is 220 ft.
The watershed on the plateau of Orléans between the basins of the Seine
and Loire, which divide Loiret almost equally between them, is almost
imperceptible. The lateral canal of the Loire from Roanne stops at
Briare; from the latter town a canal (canal de Briare) connects with the
Seine by the Loing valley, which is joined by the Orléans canal below
Montargis. The only important tributary of the Loire within the
department is the Loiret; the Loing, a tributary of the Seine, has a
course of 40 m. from south to north, and is accompanied first by the
Briare canal and afterwards by that of the Loing. The Essonne, another
important affluent of the Seine, leaving Loiret below Malesherbes, takes
its rise on the plateau of Orléans, as also does its tributary the
Juine. The department has the climate of the Sequanian region, the mean
temperature being a little above that of Paris; the rainfall varies from
18.5 to 27.5 in., according to the district, that of the exposed Beauce
being lower than that of the well-wooded Sologne. Hailstorms cause much
destruction in the Loire valley and the neighbouring regions.
The department is essentially agricultural in character. A large
number of sheep, cattle, horses and pigs are reared; poultry,
especially geese, and bees are plentiful. The yield of wheat and oats
is in excess of the consumption; rye, barley, meslin, potatoes,
beetroot, colza and forage plants are also cultivated. Wine in
abundance, but of inferior quality, is grown on the hills of the Loire
valley. Buckwheat supports bees by its flowers, and poultry by its
seeds. Saffron is another source of profit. The woods consist of oak,
elm, birch and pine; fruit trees thrive in the department, and Orléans
is a great centre of nursery gardens. The industries are brick and
tile making, and the manufacture of faience, for which Gien is one of
the most important centres in France. The Briare manufacture of
porcelain buttons and pearls employs many workmen. Flour-mills are
very numerous. There are iron and copper foundries, which, with
agricultural implement making, bell-founding and the manufacture of
pins, nails and files, represent the chief metal-working industries.
The production of hosiery, wool-spinning and various forms of wool
manufacture are also engaged in. A large quantity of the wine grown is
made into vinegar (vinaigre d'Orléans). The tanneries produce
excellent leather; and paper-making, sugar-refining, wax-bleaching and
the manufacture of caoutchouc complete the list of industries. The
four arrondissements are those of Orléans, Gien, Montargis and
Pithiviers, with 31 cantons and 349 communes. The department forms
part of the _académie_ (educational division) of Paris.
Besides Orléans, the capital, the more noteworthy places, Gien,
Montargis, Beaugency, Pithiviers, Briare and St Benoît-sur-Loire, are
separately noticed. Outside these towns notable examples of architecture
are found in the churches of Cléry (15th century), of Ferrières (13th
and 14th centuries), of Puiseaux (12th and 13th centuries) and Meung
(12th century). At Germigny-des-Prés there is a church built originally
at the beginning of the 9th century and rebuilt in the 19th century, on
the old plan and to some extent with the old materials. Yèvre-le-Châtel
has an interesting château of the 13th century, and Sully-sur-Loire the
fine medieval château rebuilt at the beginning of the 17th century by
Maximilien de Béthune, duke of Sully, the famous minister of Henry IV.
There are remains of a Gallo-Roman town (perhaps the ancient
_Vellaunodunum_) at Triguères and of a Roman amphitheatre near Montbouy.
LOIR-ET-CHER, a department of central France, formed in 1790 from a
small portion of Touraine, the Perche, but chiefly from the Dunois,
Vendômois and Blésois, portions of Orléanais. It is bounded N. by
Eure-et-Loir, N.E. by Loiret, S.E. by Cher, S. by Indre, S.W. by
Indre-et-Loire and N.W. by Sarthe. Pop. (1906) 276,019. Area, 2479 sq.
m. The department takes its name from the Loir and the Cher by which it
is traversed in the north and south respectively. The Loir rises on the
eastern border of the Perche and joins the Maine after a course of 195
m.; the Cher rises on the Central Plateau near Aubusson, and reaches the
Loire after a course of 219 m. The Loire flows through the department
from north-east to south-west, and divides it into two nearly equal
portions. To the south-east is the district of the Sologne, to the
north-west the rich wheat-growing country of the Beauce (q.v.) which
stretches to the Loir. Beyond that river lies the Perche. The surface of
this region, which contains the highest altitude in the department (840
ft.), is varied by hills, valleys, hedged fields and orchards. The
Sologne was formerly a region of forests, of which those in the
neighbourhood of Chambord are the last remains. Its soil, once barren
and marshy, has been considerably improved by draining and
afforestation, though pools are still very numerous. The district is
much frequented by sportsmen. The Cher and Loir traverse pleasant
valleys, occasionally bounded by walls of tufa in which dwellings have
been excavated, as at Les Roches in the Loir valley; the stone, hardened
by exposure to the air, is also used for building purposes. The Loire
and, with the help of the Berry canal, the Cher are navigable. The chief
remaining rivers of the department are the Beuvron, which flows into the
Loire on the left, and the Sauldre, a right-hand affluent of the Cher.
The climate is temperate and mild, though that of the Beauce tends to
dryness and that of the Sologne to dampness. The mean annual temperature
is between 52° and 53° F.
The department is primarily agricultural, yielding abundance of wheat
and oats. Besides these the chief products are rye, wheat and
potatoes. Vines thrive on the valley slopes, the vineyards falling
into four groups--those of the Cher, which yield fine red wines, the
Sologne, the Blésois and the Vendômois. In the valleys fruit-trees and
nursery gardens are numerous; the asparagus of Romorantin and Vendôme
is well-known. The Sologne supplies pine and birch for fuel, and there
are extensive forests around Blois and on both sides of the Loir.
Pasture is of good quality in the valleys. Sheep are the chief stock;
the Perche breed of horses is much sought after for its combination of
lightness and strength. Bee-farming is of some importance in the
Sologne. Formerly the speciality of Loir-et-Cher was the production of
gun-flints. Stone-quarries are numerous. The chief industries are the
cloth-manufacture of Romorantin, and leather-dressing and glove-making
at Vendôme; and lime-burning, flour-milling, distilling, saw-milling,
paper-making and the manufacture of "sabots" and boots and shoes,
hosiery and linen goods, are carried on. The department is served
chiefly by the Orléans railway.
The arrondissements are those of Blois, Romorantin and Vendôme, with 24
cantons and 297 communes. Loir-et-Cher forms part of the educational
division (_académie_) of Paris. Its court of appeal and the headquarters
of the V. army corps, to the regions of which it belongs, are at
Orléans. Blois, the capital, Vendôme, Romorantin and Chambord are
noticed separately. In addition to those of Blois and Chambord there are
numerous fine châteaux in the department, of which that of Montrichard
with its donjon of the 11th century, that of Chaumont dating from the
15th and 16th centuries, and that of Cheverny (17th century) in the late
Renaissance style are the most important. Those at St Aignan, Lassay,
Lavardin and Cellettes may also be mentioned. Churches wholly or in part
of Romanesque architecture are found at Faverolles, Selles-sur-Cher, St
Aignan and Suèvres. The village of Trôo is built close to ancient tumuli
and has an interesting church of the 12th century, and among other
remains those of a lazar-house of the Romanesque period. At Pontlevoy
are the church, consisting of a fine choir in the Gothic style, and the
buildings of a Benedictine abbey. At La Poissonnière (near Montoire) is
a small Renaissance manor-house, in which Ronsard was born in 1524.
LOISY, ALFRED FIRMIN (1857- ), French Catholic theologian, was born at
Ambrières in French Lorraine of parents who, descended from a long line
of resident peasantry, tilled there the soil themselves. The physically
delicate boy was put into the ecclesiastical school of St Dizier, without
any intention of a clerical career; but he decided for the priesthood,
and in 1874 entered the Grand Seminaire of Chalons-sur-Marne. Mgr
Meignan, then bishop of Chalons, afterwards cardinal and archbishop of
Tours, ordained him priest in 1879. After being _curé_ successively of
two villages in that diocese, Loisy went in May 1881, to study and take a
theological degree, to the Institut Catholique in Paris. Here he was
influenced, as to biblical languages and textual criticism, by the
learned and loyal-minded Abbé Paulin Martin, and as to a vivid
consciousness of the true nature, gravity and urgency of the biblical
problems and an Attic sense of form by the historical intuition and the
mordant irony of Abbé Louis Duchesne. At the governmental institutions,
Professors Oppert and Halévy helped further to train him. He took his
theological degree in March 1890, by the oral defence of forty Latin
scholastic theses and by a French dissertation, _Histoire du canon de
l'ancien testament_, published as his first book in that year.
Professor now at the Institut Catholique, he published successively his
lectures: _Histoire du canon du N.T._ (1891); _Histoire critique du
texte et des versions de la Bible_ (1892); and _Les Évangiles
synoptiques_ (1893, 1894). The two latter works appeared successively in
the bi-monthly _L'Enseignement biblique_, a periodical written
throughout and published by himself. But already, on the occasion of the
death of Ernest Renan, October 1892, the attempts made to clear up the
main principles and results of biblical science, first by Mgr d'Hulst,
rector of the Institut Catholique, in his article "La Question biblique"
(_Le Correspondant_, Jan. 25th, 1893), and then by Loisy himself, in his
paper "La Question biblique et l'inspiration des Écritures"
(_L'Enseignement biblique_, Nov.-Dec. 1893), promptly led to serious
trouble. The latter article was immediately followed by Loisy's
dismissal, without further explanation, from the Institut Catholique.
And a few days later Pope Leo XIII. published his encyclical
_Providentissimus Deus_, which indeed directly condemned not Abbé
Loisy's but Mgr d'Hulst's position, yet rendered the continued
publication of consistently critical work so difficult that Loisy
himself suppressed his _Enseignement_ at the end of 1893. Five further
instalments of his _Synoptiques_ were published after this, bringing the
work down to the Confession of Peter inclusively.
Loisy next became chaplain to a Dominican convent and girls' school at
Neuilly-sur-Seine (Oct. 1894-Oct. 1899), and here matured his apologetic
method, resuming in 1898 the publication of longer articles, under the
pseudonyms of Desprès and Firmin in the _Revue du clergé français_, and
of Jacques Simon in the lay _Revue d'histoire et de littérature
religieuses_. In the former review, a striking paper upon development of
doctrine (Dec. 1st, 1898) headed a series of studies apparently taken
from an already extant large apologetic work. In October 1899 he
resigned his chaplaincy for reasons of health, and settled at Bellevue,
somewhat farther away from Paris. His notable paper, "La Religion
d'Israël" (_Revue du clergé français_, Oct. 15th, 1900), the first of a
series intended to correct and replace Renan's presentation of that
great subject, was promptly censured by Cardinal Richard, archbishop of
Paris; and though scholarly and zealous ecclesiastics, such as the
Jesuit Père Durand and Monseigneur Mignot, archbishop of Albi, defended
the general method and several conclusions of the article, the aged
cardinal never rested henceforward till he had secured a papal
condemnation also. At the end of 1900 Loisy secured a government
lectureship at the École des Hautes Études Pratiques, and delivered
there in succession courses on the Babylonian myths and the first
chapters of Genesis; the Gospel parables; the narrative of the ministry
in the synoptic Gospels; and the Passion narratives in the same. The
first course was published in the _Revue d'histoire et de littérature
religieuses_; and here also appeared instalments of his commentary on St
John's Gospel, his critically important _Notes sur la Genèse_, and a
_Chronique biblique_ unmatched in its mastery of its numberless subjects
and its fearless yet delicate penetration.
It was, however, two less erudite little books that brought him a
European literary reputation and the culmination of his ecclesiastical
troubles. _L'Évangile et l'église_ appeared in November 1902 (Eng.
trans., 1903). Its introduction and six chapters present with rare
lucidity the earliest conceptions of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Son of
God, the Church, Christian dogma and Catholic worship; and together form
a severely critico-historical yet strongly Catholic answer to Harnack's
still largely pietistic _Wesen des Christentums_. It develops throughout
the principles that "what is essential in Jesus' Gospel is what occupies
the first and largest place in His authentic teaching, the ideas for
which He fought and died, and not only that idea which we may consider
to be still a living force to day"; that "it is supremely arbitrary to
decree that Christianity must be essentially what the Gospel did not
borrow from Judaism, as though what the Gospel owes to Judaism were
necessarily of secondary worth"; that "whether we trust or distrust
tradition, we know Christ only by means of, athwart and within the
Christian tradition"; that "the _essence of Christianity_ resides in the
fulness and totality of its life"; and that "the adaptation of the
Gospel to the changing conditions of humanity is to-day a more pressing
need than ever." The second edition was enlarged by a preliminary
chapter on the sources of the Gospels, and by a third section for the
Son of God chapter. The little book promptly aroused widespread
interest, some cordial sympathy and much vehement opposition; whilst its
large companion the _Études évangéliques_, containing the course on the
parables and four sections of his coming commentary on the Fourth
Gospel, passed almost unnoticed. On the 21st of January 1903 Cardinal
Richard publicly condemned the book, as not furnished with an
_imprimatur_, and as calculated gravely to trouble the faith of the
faithful in the fundamental Catholic dogmas. On the 2nd of February
Loisy wrote to the archbishop: "I condemn, as a matter of course, all
the errors which men have been able to deduce from my book, by placing
themselves in interpreting it at a point of view entirely different from
that which I had to occupy in composing it." The pope refused to
interfere directly, and the nuncio, Mgr Lorenzelli, failed in securing
more than ten public adhesions to the cardinal's condemnation from among
the eighty bishops of France.
Pope Leo had indeed, in a letter to the Franciscan minister-general
(November 1898), and in an encyclical to the French clergy (September
1899), vigorously emphasized the traditionalist principles of his
encyclical _Providentissimus_ of 1893; he had even, much to his prompt
regret, signed the unfortunate decree of the Roman Inquisition, January
1897, prohibiting all doubt as to the authenticity of the "Three
Heavenly witnesses" passage, 1 John v. 7, a text which, in the wake of a
line of scholars from Erasmus downwards, Abbé Paulin Martin had, in
1887, exhaustively shown to be no older than the end of the 4th century
A.D. Yet in October 1902 he established a "Commission for the Progress
of Biblical Studies," preponderantly composed of seriously critical
scholars; and even one month before his death he still refused to sign a
condemnation of Loisy's _Études évangéliques_.
Cardinal Sarto became Pope Pius X. on the 4th of August 1903. On the 1st
of October Loisy published three new books, _Autour d'un petit livre_,
_Le Quatrième Évangile_ and _Le Discours sur la Montagne_. _Autour_
consists of seven letters, on the origin and aim of _L'Évangile et
l'Église_; on the biblical question; the criticism of the Gospels; the
Divinity of Christ; the Church's foundation and authority; the origin
and authority of dogma, and on the institution of the sacraments. The
second and third, addressed respectively to a cardinal (Perraud) and a
bishop (Le Camus), are polemical or ironical in tone; the others are all
written to friends in a warm, expansive mood; the fourth letter
especially, appropriated to Mgr Mignot, attains a grand elevation of
thought and depth of mystical conviction. _Le Quatrième Évangile_, one
thousand large pages long, is possibly over-confident in its detailed
application of the allegorical method; yet it constitutes a rarely
perfect sympathetic reproduction of a great mystical believer's
imperishable intuitions. _Le Discours sur la Montagne_ is a fragment of
a coming enlarged commentary on the synoptic Gospels. On the 23rd of
December the pope ordered the publication of a decree of the
Congregation of the Index, incorporating a decree of the Inquisition,
condemning Loisy's _Religion d'Israël_, _L'Évangile et l'Église_,
_Études évangéliques_, _Autour d'un petit livre_ and _Le Quatrième
Évangile_. The pope's secretary of state had on the 19th December, in a
letter to Cardinal Richard, recounted the causes of the condemnation in
the identical terms used by the latter himself when condemning the
_Religion d'Israël_ three years before. On the 12th of January 1904
Loisy wrote to Cardinal Merry del Val that he received the condemnation
with respect, and condemned whatever might be reprehensible in his
books, whilst reserving the rights of his conscience and his opinions as
an historian, opinions doubtless imperfect, as no one was more ready to
admit than himself, but which were the only form under which he was able
to represent to himself the history of the Bible and of religion. Since
the Holy See was not satisfied, Loisy sent three further declarations to
Rome; the last, despatched on the 17th of March, was addressed to the
pope himself, and remained unanswered. And at the end of March Loisy
gave up his lectureship, as he declared, "on his own initiative, in view
of the pacification of minds in the Catholic Church." In the July
following he moved into a little house, built for him by his pupil and
friend, the Assyriologist François Thureau Dangin, within the latter's
park at Garnay, by Dreux. Here he continued his important reviews,
notably in the _Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuses_, and
published _Morceaux d'exégèse_ (1906), six further sections of his
synoptic commentary. In April 1907 he returned to his native Lorraine,
to Ceffonds by Montier-en-Der, and to his relatives there.
Five recent Roman decisions are doubtless aimed primarily at Loisy's
teaching. The Biblical Commission, soon enlarged so as to swamp the
original critical members, and which had become the simple mouthpiece of
its presiding cardinals, issued two decrees. The first, on the 27th of
June 1906, affirmed, with some significant but unworkable reservations,
the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; and the second (29th of May
1907) strenuously maintained the Apostolic Zebedean authorship of the
fourth Gospel, and the strictly historical character of the events and
speeches recorded therein. The Inquisition, by its decree _Lamentabili
sane_ (2nd of July 1907), condemned sixty-five propositions concerning
the Church's _magisterium_; biblical inspiration and interpretation; the
synoptic and fourth Gospels; revelation and dogma; Christ's divinity,
human knowledge and resurrection; and the historical origin and growth
of the Sacraments, the Church and the Creed. And some forty of these
propositions represent, more or less accurately, certain sentences or
ideas of Loisy, when torn from their context and their reasons. The
encyclical _Pascendi Dominici Gregis_ (Sept. 6th, 1907), probably the
longest and most argumentative papal utterance extant, also aims
primarily at Loisy, although here the vehemently scholastic redactor's
determination to piece together a strictly coherent, complete a priori
system of "Modernism" and his self-imposed restriction to medieval
categories of thought as the vehicles for describing essentially modern
discoveries and requirements of mind, make the identification of precise
authors and passages very difficult. And on the 21st of November 1907 a
papal _motu proprio_ declared all the decisions of the Biblical
Commission, past and future, to be as binding upon the conscience as
decrees of the Roman Congregations.
Yet even all this did not deter Loisy from publishing three further
books. _Les Évangiles synoptiques_, two large 8vo volumes of 1009 and
798 pages, appeared "chez l'auteur, à Ceffonds, Montier-en-Der,
Haute-Marne," in January 1908. An incisive introduction discusses the
ecclesiastical tradition, modern criticism; the second, the first and
the third Gospels; the evangelical tradition; the career and the
teaching of Jesus; and the literary form, the tradition of the text and
the previous commentaries. The commentary gives also a careful
translation of the texts. Loisy recognizes two eye-witness documents, as
utilized by all three synoptists, while Matthew and Luke have also
incorporated Mark. His chief peculiarity consists in clearly tracing a
strong Pauline influence, especially in Mark, which there remodels
certain sayings and actions as these were first registered by the
eye-witness documents. These doctrinal interpretations introduce the
economy of blinding the Jews into the parabolic teaching; the
declaration as to the redemptive character of the Passion into the
sayings; the sacramental, institutional words into the account of the
Last Supper, originally, a solemnly simple Messianic meal; and the
formal night-trial before Caiaphas into the original Passion-story with
its informal, morning decision by Caiaphas, and its one solemn
condemnation of Jesus, by Pilate. Mark's narratives of the sepulture by
Joseph of Arimathea and of the empty tomb are taken as posterior to St
Paul; the narratives of the infancy in Matthew and Luke as later still.
Yet the great bulk of the sayings remain substantially authentic; if the
historicity of certain words and acts is here refused with unusual
assurance, that of other sayings and deeds is established with stronger
proofs; and the redemptive conception of the Passion and the sacramental
interpretation of the Last Supper are found to spring up promptly and
legitimately from our Lord's work and words, to saturate the Pauline and
Johannine writings, and even to constitute an element of all three
synoptic Gospels.
_Simples Réflexions sur le décret Lamentabili et sur l'encyclique
Pascendi_, 12mo, 277 pages, was published from Ceffonds a few days after
the commentary. Each proposition of the decree is carefully tracked to
its probable source, and is often found to modify the latter's meaning.
And the study of the encyclical concludes: "Time is the great teacher
... we would do wrong to despair either of our civilization or of the
Church."
The Church authorities were this time not slow to act. On the 14th of
February Mgr Amette, the new archbishop of Paris, prohibited his
diocesans to read or defend the two books, which "attack and deny
several fundamental dogmas of Christianity," under pain of
excommunication. The abbé again declared "it is impossible for me
honestly and sincerely to make the act of absolute retractation and
submission exacted by the sovereign pontiff." And the Holy Office, on
the 7th of March, pronounced the major excommunication against him. At
the end of March Loisy published _Quelques Lettres_ (December
1903-February 1908), which conclude: "At bottom I have remained in my
last writings on the same line as in the earlier ones. I have aimed at
establishing principally the historical position of the various
questions, and secondarily the necessity for reforming more or less the
traditional concepts."
Three chief causes appear jointly to have produced M. Loisy's very
absolute condemnation. Any frank recognition of the abbé's even general
principles involves the abandonment of the identification of theology
with scholasticism or even with specifically ancient thought in general.
The abbé's central position, that our Lord himself held the
proximateness of His second coming, involves the loss by churchmen of
the prestige of directly divine power, since Church and Sacraments,
though still the true fruits and vehicles of his life, death and spirit,
cannot thus be immediately founded by the earthly Jesus himself. And the
Church policy, as old as the times of Constantine, to crush utterly the
man who brings more problems and pressure than the bulk of traditional
Christians can, at the time, either digest or resist with a fair
discrimination, seemed to the authorities the one means to save the very
difficult situation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Autobiographical passages in M. Loisy's _Autour d'un
petit livre_ (Paris, 1903), pp. xv. xvi. 1, 2, 157, 218. A full
account of his literary activity and ecclesiastical troubles will be
found in Abbé Albert Houtin's _La Question biblique au XIX^e siècle_
(Paris, 2nd ed., 1902) and _La Question biblique au XX^e siècle_
(Paris, 1906), but the latter especially is largely unfair to the
conservatives and sadly lacking in religious feeling. The following
articles and booklets concerning M. Loisy and the questions raised by
him are specially remarkable. France: Père Durand, S.J., _Études
religieuses_ (Paris, Nov. 1901) frankly describes the condition of
ecclesiastical biblical studies; Monseigneur Mignot, archbishop of
Albi, _Lettres sur les études ecclésiastiques 1900-1901_ (collected
ed., Paris, 1908) and "Critique et tradition" in _Le Correspondant_
(Paris, 10th January 1904), the utterances of a finely trained
judgment; Mgr Le Camus, bishop of La Rochelle, _Fausse Exégèse,
mauvaise théologie_ (Paris, 1902), a timid, mostly rhetorical,
scholar's protest; Père Lagrange, a Dominican who has done much for
the spread of Old Testament criticism, _La Méthode historique, surtout
à propos de l'Ancien Testament_ (Paris, 1903) and _Éclaircissement_ to
same (ibid. 1903); P. Lagrange, Mgr P. Batiffol, P. Portalié, S.J.,
"Autour des fondements de la Foi" in the _Bulletin de litt. eccl.
Toulouse_ (Paris, December 1903, January 1904), very suggestive
papers; Professor Maurice Blondel's "Histoire et dogma," in _La
Quinzaine_ (Paris January 16, February 16, 1904), F. de Hugel's "Du
Christ éternel et des christologies successives" (ibid. June 1, 1904),
the Abbé J. Wehrle's "Le Christ et la conscience catholique" (ibid.
August 16, 1904) and F. de Hügel's "Correspondance" (ibid. Sept. 16,
1904) discuss the relations between faith and the affirmation of
phenomenal happenings; Paul Sabatier, "Les Derniers Ouvrages de l'Abbé
Loisy," in the _Revue chrétienne_ (Dôle, 1904) and Paul Desjardins'
_Catholicisme et critique_ (Paris, 1905), a Broad Church Protestant's
and a moralist agnostic's delicate appreciations; a revue of _Les
Évangiles synoptiques_ by the Abbé Mangenot, in _Revue du Clergé
français_ (Feb. 15, 1908) containing some interesting discriminations;
a revue by L. in the _Revue biblique_ (1908), pp. 608-620, a mixture
of unfair insinuation, powerful criticism and discriminating
admissions; and a paper by G. P. B. and Jacques Chevalier in the
_Annales de philosophie chrétienne_ (Paris, Jan. 1909) seeks to trace
and to refute certain philosophical presuppositions at work in the
book's treatment, especially of the Miracles, the Resurrection and the
Institution of the Church. Italy: "Lettres Romaines" in _Annales de
philosophie chrétienne_ (Paris, January-March 1904), an Italian
theologian's fearless defence of Loisy's main New Testament positions;
Rev. P. Louis Billot S.J., _De sacra traditione_ (Freiburg i. Br.
1905), the ablest of the scholastic criticisms of the historical
method by a highly influential French professor of theology, now many
years in Rome; _Quello che vogliamo_ (Rome, 1907, Eng. trans., What we
want, by A. L. Lilley, London, 1907), and _Il Programma dei
Modernisti_ (ibid. 1908), Eng. trans., _The Programme of Modernism_
ed. by Lilley (London, eloquent 1098), pleadings by Italian priest,
substantially on M. Loisy's lines; "L'Abate Loisy e il Problema dei
Vangeli Sinottici," four long papers signed "H." in _Il Rinnovamento_
(Milan, 1908, 1909) are candid and circumspect. Germany: Professor E.
Troeltsch, "Was heisst Wesen des Christentums?" 6 arts. in _Die
christliche Welt_ (Leipzig, autumn 1903), a profound criticism of M.
Loisy's developmental defence of Catholicism; Professor Harnack's
review of _L'Évangile et l'Église_ in the _Theol. Literatur-Zeitung_
(Leipzig, 23rd January 1904) is generous and interesting; Professor H.
J. Holtzmann's "Urchristentum u. Reform-Katholizismus," in the _Prot.
Monatshefte_, vii. 5 (Berlin, 1903), "Der Fall Loisy," ibid. ix. 1,
and his review of "Les Évangiles synoptiques" in _Das zwanzigste
Jahrhundert_ (Munich, May 3, 1908) are full of facts and of deep
thought; Fr. F. von Hummelauer, _Exegetisches zur Inspirationsfrage_
(Freiburg i. Br. 1904) is a favourable specimen of present-day German
Roman Catholic scholarship. America: Professor C. A. Briggs, "The Case
of the Abbé Loisy," _Expositor_ (London, April 1905), and C. A. Briggs
and F. von Hügel, _The Papal Commission and the Pentateuch_ (London,
1907) discuss Rome's attitude towards biblical science. England: The
Rev. T. A. Lacey's _Harnack and Loisy_, with introduction by Viscount
Halifax (London, 1904); "The Encyclical and M. Loisy" (_Church Times_,
Feb. 20, 1908); "Recent Roman Catholic Biblical Criticism" (_The Times
Literary Supplement_ for January 15th, 22nd, 29th, 1904), and "The
Synoptic Gospels" (review in _The Times Literary Supplement_, March
26, 1908) are interesting pronouncements respectively of two
Tractarian High Churchmen and of a disciple of Canon Sanday. Professor
Percy Gardner's paper in the _Hibbert Journal_, vol. i. (1903) p. 603,
is the work of a Puritan-minded, cultured Broad Church layman.
(F. v. H.)
LOJA (formerly written _Loxa_), a town of southern Spain, in the
province of Granada, on the Granada-Algeciras railway. Pop. (1900)
19,143. The narrow and irregular streets of Loja wind up the sides of a
steep hill surmounted by a Moorish citadel; many of the older buildings,
including a fine Moorish bridge, were destroyed by an earthquake in
December 1884, although two churches of the early 16th century remained
intact. An iron bridge spans the river Genil, which flows past the town
on the north, forcing a passage through the mountains which encircle the
fertile and beautiful Vega of Granada. This passage would have afforded
easy access to the territory still held by the Moors in the last half of
the 15th century, had not Loja been strongly fortified; and the place
was thus of great military importance, ranking with the neighbouring
town of Alhama as one of the keys of Granada. Its manufactures consist
chiefly of coarse woollens, silk, paper and leather. Salt is obtained in
the neighbourhood.
Loja, which, has sometimes been identified with the ancient _Ilipula_,
or with the _Lacibi_ (_Lacibis_) of Pliny and Ptolemy, first clearly
emerges in the Arab chronicles of the year 890. It was taken by
Ferdinand III. in 1226, but was soon afterwards abandoned, and was not
finally recaptured until the 28th of May, 1486, when it surrendered to
Ferdinand and Isabella after a siege.
LOKEREN, an important industrial town of Belgium between Ghent and
Antwerp (in East Flanders on the Durme). Pop. (1904) 21,869. It lies at
the southern point of the district called Pays de Waes, which in the
early part of the 19th century was only sandy moorland, but is now the
most highly cultivated and thickly populated tract in Belgium. The
church of St Laurence is of some interest.
LOKOJA, a town of Nigeria, at the junction of the Niger and Benue
rivers, founded in 1860 by the British consul, W. B. Baikie, and
subsequently the military centre of the Royal Niger Company. It is in
the province of Kabba, 250 m. from the mouth of the Niger, and is of
considerable commercial importance (see NIGERIA and KABBA).
LOLLARDS, the name given to the English followers of John Wycliffe; they
were the adherents of a religious movement which was widespread in the
end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries, and to some extent
maintained itself on to the Reformation. The name is of uncertain
origin; some derive it from _lolium_, tares, quoting Chaucer (_C.T._,
Shipman's Prologue):--
"This Loller heer wil prechen us somwhat ...
He wolde sowen som difficultee
Or springen cokkel in our clene corn";
but the most generally received explanation derives the words from
_lollen_ or _lullen_, to sing softly. The word is much older than its
English use; there were Lollards in the Netherlands at the beginning of
the 14th century, who were akin to the Fratricelli, Beghards and other
sectaries of the recusant Franciscan type. The earliest official use of
the name in England occurs in 1387 in a mandate of the bishop of
Worcester against five "poor preachers," _nomine seu ritu Lollardorum
confoederatos_. It is probable that the name was given to the followers
of Wycliffe because they resembled those offshoots from the great
Franciscan movement which had disowned the pope's authority and set
before themselves the ideal of _Evangelical poverty_.
The 14th century, so full of varied religious life, made it manifest
that the two different ideas of a life of separation from the world
which in earlier times had lived on side by side within the medieval
church were irreconcilable. The church chose to abide by the idea of
Hildebrand and to reject that of Francis of Assisi; and the revolt of
Ockham and the Franciscans, of the Beghards and other spiritual
fraternities, of Wycliffe and the Lollards, were all protests against
that decision. Gradually there came to be facing each other a great
political Christendom, whose rulers were statesmen, with aims and policy
of a worldly type, and a religious Christendom, full of the ideas of
separation from the world by self-sacrifice and of participation in the
benefits of Christ's work by an ascetic imitation. The war between the
two ideals was fought out in almost every country in Europe in the 14th
century. In England Wycliffe's whole life was spent in the struggle, and
he bequeathed his work to the Lollards. The main practical thought with
Wycliffe was that the church, if true to her divine mission, must aid
men to live that life of evangelical poverty by which they could be
separate from the world and imitate Christ, and if the church ceased to
be true to her mission she ceased to be a church. Wycliffe was a
metaphysician and a theologian, and had to invent a metaphysical
theory--the theory of _Dominium_--to enable him to transfer, in a way
satisfactory to himself, the powers and privileges of the church to his
company of poor Christians; but his followers were content to allege
that a church which held large landed possessions, collected tithes
greedily and took money from starving peasants for baptizing, burying
and praying, could not be the church of Christ and his apostles.
Lollardy was most flourishing and most dangerous to the ecclesiastical
organization of England during the ten years after Wycliffe's death. It
had spread so rapidly and grown so popular that a hostile chronicler
could say that almost every second man was a Lollard. Wycliffe left
three intimate disciples:--Nicolas Hereford, a doctor of theology of
Oxford, who had helped his master to translate the Bible into English;
John Ashton, also a fellow of an Oxford college; and John Purvey,
Wycliffe's colleague at Lutterworth, and a co-translator of the Bible,
with these were associated more or less intimately, in the first age of
Lollardy, John Parker, the strange ascetic William Smith, the restless
fanatic Swynderly, Richard Waytstract and Crompe. Wycliffe had organized
in Lutterworth an association for sending the gospel through all
England, a company of poor preachers somewhat after the Wesleyan method
of modern times. "To be poor without mendicancy, to unite the flexible
unity, the swift obedience of an order, with free and constant mingling
among the poor, such was the ideal of Wycliffe's 'poor priests'" (cf.
Shirley, _Fasc. Ziz._ p. xl.), and, although proscribed, these "poor
preachers" with portions of their master's translation of the Bible in
their hand to guide them, preached all over England. In 1382, two years
before the death of Wycliffe, the archbishop of Canterbury got the
Lollard opinions condemned by convocation, and, having been promised
royal support, he began the long conflict of the church with the
followers of Wycliffe. He was able to coerce the authorities of the
university of Oxford, and to drive out of it the leading Wycliffite
teachers, but he was unable to stifle Oxford sympathies or to prevent
the banished teachers preaching throughout the country. Many of the
nobles, like Lords Montacute and Salisbury, supported the poor
preachers, took them as private chaplains, and protected them against
clerical interference. Country gentlemen like Sir Thomas Latimer of
Braybrooke and Sir Richard Stury protected them, while merchants and
burgesses supported them with money. When Richard II. issued an
ordinance (July 1382) ordering every bishop to arrest all Lollards, the
Commons compelled him to withdraw it. Thus protected, the "poor
preachers" won masses of the people to their opinions, and Leicester,
London and the west of England became their headquarters.
The organization must have been strong in numbers, but only those who
were seized for heresy are known by name, and it is only from the
indictments of their accusers that their opinions can be gathered. The
preachers were picturesque figures in long russet dress down to the
heels, who, staff in hand, preached in the mother tongue to the people
in churches and graveyards, in squares, streets and houses, in gardens
and pleasure grounds, and then talked privately with those who had been
impressed. The Lollard literature was very widely circulated--books by
Wycliffe and Hereford and tracts and broadsides--in spite of many edicts
proscribing it. In 1395 the Lollards grew so strong that they petitioned
parliament through Sir Thomas Latimer and Sir R. Stury to reform the
church on Lollardist methods. It is said that the Lollard Conclusions
printed by Canon Shirley (p. 360) contain the substance of this
petition. If so, parliament was told that temporal possessions ruin the
church and drive out the Christian graces of faith, hope and charity;
that the priesthood of the church in communion with Rome was not the
priesthood Christ gave to his apostles; that the monk's vow of celibacy
had for its consequence unnatural lust, and should not be imposed; that
transubstantiation was a feigned miracle, and led people to idolatry;
that prayers made over wine, bread, water, oil, salt, wax, incense,
altars of stone, church walls, vestments, mitres, crosses, staves, were
magical and should not be allowed; that kings should possess the _jus
episcopale_, and bring good government into the church; that no special
prayers should be made for the dead; that auricular confession made to
the clergy, and declared to be necessary for salvation, was the root of
clerical arrogance and the cause of indulgences and other abuses in
pardoning sin; that all wars were against the principles of the New
Testament, and were but murdering and plundering the poor to win glory
for kings; that the vows of chastity laid upon nuns led to child murder;
that many of the trades practised in the commonwealth, such as those of
goldsmiths and armourers, were unnecessary and led to luxury and waste.
These Conclusions really contain the sum of Wycliffite teaching; and, if
we add that the principal duty of priests is to preach, and that the
worship of images, the going on pilgrimages and the use of gold and
silver chalices in divine service are sinful (_The Peasants' Rising and
the Lollards_, p. 47), they include almost all the heresies charged in
the indictments against individual Lollards down to the middle of the
15th century. The king, who had hitherto seemed anxious to repress the
action of the clergy against the Lollards, spoke strongly against the
petition and its promoters, and Lollardy never again had the power in
England which it wielded up to this year.
If the formal statements of Lollard creed are to be got from these
Conclusions, the popular view of their controversy with the church may
be gathered from the ballads preserved in the _Political Poems and Songs
relating to English History_, published in 1859 by Thomas Wright for the
Master of the Rolls series, and in the Piers Ploughman poems. _Piers
Ploughman's Creed_ (see LANGLAND) was probably written about 1394, when
Lollardy was at its greatest strength; the ploughman of the _Creed_ is a
man gifted with sense enough to see through the tricks of the friars,
and with such religious knowledge as can be got from the creed, and from
Wycliffe's version of the Gospels. The poet gives us a "portrait of the
fat friar with his double chin shaking about as big as a goose's egg,
and the ploughman with his hood full of holes, his mittens made of
patches, and his poor wife going barefoot on the ice so that her blood
followed" (_Early English Text Society_, vol. xxx., pref., p. 16); and
one can easily see why farmers and peasants turned from the friars to
the poor preachers. The _Ploughman's Complaint_ tells the same tale. It
paints popes, cardinals, prelates, rectors, monks and friars, who call
themselves followers of Peter and keepers of the gates of heaven and
hell, and pale poverty-stricken people, cotless and landless, who have
to pay the fat clergy for spiritual assistance, and asks if these are
Peter's priests. "I trowe Peter took no money, for no sinners that he
sold.... Peter was never so great a fole, to leave his key with such a
losell."
In 1399 the Lancastrian Henry IV. overthrew the Plantagenet Richard II.,
and one of the most active partisans of the new monarch was Arundel,
archbishop of Canterbury and the most determined opponent of Lollardy.
Richard II. had aided the clergy to suppress Lollardy without much
success. The new dynasty supported the church in a similar way and not
more successfully. The strength of the anti-clerical party lay in the
House of Commons, in which the representatives of the shires took the
leading part. Twice the Commons petitioned the crown to seize the
temporalities of the church and apply them to such national purposes as
relief of taxation, maintenance of the poor and the support of new lords
and knights. Their anti-clerical policy was not continuous, however. The
court party and the clergy proposed statutes for the suppression of
heresy, and twice at least secured the concurrence of the Commons. One
of these was the well-known statute _De heretico comburendo_ passed in
1401.
In the earlier stages of Lollardy, when the court and the clergy managed
to bring Lollards before ecclesiastical tribunals backed by the civil
power, the accused generally recanted and showed no disposition to
endure martyrdom for their opinions. They became bolder in the beginning
of the 15th century, William Sawtrey (Chartris), caught and condemned,
refused to recant and was burnt at St Paul's Cross (March 1401), and
other martyrdoms followed. The victims usually belonged to the lower
classes. In 1410 John Badby, an artisan, was sent to the stake. His
execution was memorable from the part taken in it by the prince of
Wales, who himself tried to reason the Lollard out of his convictions.
But nothing said would make Badby confess that "Christ sitting at supper
did give to His disciples His living body to eat." The Lollards, far
from daunted, abated no effort to make good their ground, and united a
struggle for social and political liberty to the hatred felt by the
peasants towards the Romish clergy. Jak Upland (John Countryman) took
the place of Piers Ploughman, and upbraided the clergy, and especially
the friars, for their wealth and luxury. Wycliffe had published the rule
of St Francis, and had pointed out in a commentary upon the rule how far
friars had departed from the maxims of their founder, and had persecuted
the _Spirituales_ (the Fratricelli, Beghards, Lollards of the
Netherlands) for keeping them to the letter (cf. Matthews, _English
Works of Wyclif hitherto unprinted_, Early Eng. Text Soc., vol. lxxiv.,
1880). Jak Upland put all this into rude nervous English verse:
"Freer, what charitie is this
To fain that whoso liveth after your order
Liveth most perfectlie,
And next followeth the state of the Apostles
In povertie and pennance:
And yet the wisest and greatest clerkes of you
Wend or send or procure to the court of Rome,
... and to be assoiled of the vow of povertie."
The archbishop, having the power of the throne behind him, attacked that
stronghold of Lollardy the university of Oxford. In 1406 a document
appeared purporting to be the testimony of the university in favour of
Wycliffe; its genuineness was disputed at the time, and when quoted by
Huss at the council of Constance it was repudiated by the English
delegates. The archbishop treated Oxford as if it had issued the
document, and procured the issue of severe regulations in order to purge
the university of heresy. In 1408 Arundel in convocation proposed and
carried the famous _Constitutiones Thomae Arundel_ intended to put down
Wycliffite preachers and teaching. They provided amongst other things
that no one was to be allowed to preach without a bishop's licence, that
preachers preaching to the laity were not to rebuke the sins of the
clergy, and that Lollard books and the translation of the Bible were to
be searched for and destroyed.