_Orl._ Whom ambles Time withal?
_Ros._ With a priest that lacks Latin; for he sleeps easily,
because he cannot study, lacking the burden of lean and wasteful
learning.--_As You Like It_.
During the 7th and 8th centuries the state of letters throughout
Christian Europe was so low that very few of the bishops could compose
their own discourses, and some of those Church dignitaries thought it no
shame to publicly acknowledge their inability to write their own names.
Numerous instances occur in the Acts of the Councils of Ephesus and
Chalcedon of an inscription in these words: "I, ----, have subscribed
by the hand of ----, because I cannot write"; and such a bishop having
thus confessed that he could not write, there followed: "I, ----, whose
name is underwritten, have therefore subscribed for him."
Alfred the Great--who was twelve years of age before a tutor could be
found competent to teach him the alphabet--complained, towards the close
of the 9th century, that "from the Humber to the Thames there was not a
priest who understood the liturgy in his mother-tongue, or could
translate the easiest piece of Latin"; and a correspondent of Abelard,
about the middle of the 12th century, complimenting him upon a resort to
him of pupils from all countries, says that "even Britain, distant as
she is, sends her savages to be instructed by you."
Henri Etienne, in the Introduction to his Apology for Herodotus,[148]
says that "the most brutish and blockish ignorance was to be found in
friars' cowls, especially mass-mongering priests, which we are the less
to wonder at, considering that which Menot twits them in the teeth
withal, that instead of books there was nothing to be found in their
chambers but a sword, or a long-bow, or a cross-bow, or some such
weapon. But how could they send _ad ordos_ such ignorant asses? You must
note, sir, that they which examined them were as wise as woodcocks
themselves, and therefore judged of them as penmen of pikemen and blind
men of colours. Or were it that they had so much learning in their
budgets as that they could make a shift to know their inefficiency, yet
to pleasure those that recommended them they suffered them to pass. One
is famous among the rest, who being asked by the bishop sitting at the
table: 'Es tu dignus?' answered, 'No, my Lord, but I shall dine anon
with your men.' For he thought that _dignus_ (that is, worthy) signified
to dine."
[148] This is a work distinct from Henri Etienne's _Apologia
pour Herodote_. An English translation of it was
published at London in 1807, and at Edinburgh in 1808,
under the title of "_A World of Wonders_; or, an
Introduction to a Treatise touching the Conformitie of
Ancient and Modern Wonders; or, a Preparative Treatise
to the Apology for Herodotus," etc. For this book (the
"Introduction") Etienne had to quit France, fearing the
wrath of the clerics. His _Apologie pour Herodote_ has
not been rendered into English--and why not, it would be
hard to say.
Etienne gives another example, which, however, belongs rather to the
class of simpleton stories: A young man going to the bishop for
admission into holy orders, to test his _learning_, was asked by the
prelate, "Who was the father of the Four Sons of Aymon?"[149] and not
knowing what answer to make, this promising candidate was refused as
inefficient. Returning home, and explaining why he had not been
ordained, his father told him that he must be an ass if he could not
tell who was the father of the four sons of Aymon. "See, I pray thee,"
quoth he, "yonder is Great John, the smith, who has four sons; if a man
should ask thee who was their father, wouldst thou not say it was Great
John, the smith?" "Yes," said the brilliant youth; "now I understand
it." Thereupon he went again before the bishop, and being asked a second
time, "Who was the father of the Four Sons of Aymon?" he promptly
replied: "Great John, the smith."[150]
[149] One of the Charlemagne Romances, translated by Caxton
from the French, and printed by him about the year 1489,
under the title of _The Right Pleasaunt and Goodly
Historie of the Four Sonnes of Aymon_. It has been
reprinted for the Early English Text Society, ably
edited by Miss Octavia Richardson.
[150] A slightly different version is found in _A Hundred Mery
Talys_, No. lxix, "Of the franklyns sonne that cam to
take orders." The bishop says that Noah had three sons,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth;--who was the father of Japheth?
When the "scholar" returns home and tells his father how
he had been puzzled by the bishop, he endeavours to
enlighten his son thus: "Here is Colle, my dog, that
hath three whelps; must not these three whelps have
Colle for their sire?" Going back to the bishop, he
informs his lordship that the father of Japheth was
"Colle, my father's dogge."
The same author asks who but the churchmen of those days of ignorance
corrupted and perverted the text of the New Testament? Thus, in the
parable of the lost piece of money, _evertit domum_, "she overturned the
house," was substituted for _everrit domum_, "she _swept_ the house."
And in the Acts of the Apostles, where Saul (or Paul) is described as
being let down from the house on the wall of Damascus in a basket, for
_demissus per sportam_ was substituted _demissus per portam_, a
correction which called forth a rather witty Latin epigram to this
effect:
This way the other day did pass
As jolly a carpenter as ever was;
So strangely skilful in his trade,
That of a _basket_ a _door_ he made.
Among the many curious anecdotes told in illustration of the gross
ignorance of the higher orders of the clergy in medieval times the two
following are not the least amusing:
About the year 1330 Louis Beaumont was bishop of Durham. He was an
extremely illiterate French nobleman, so incapable of reading that he
could not, although he had studied them, read the bulls announced to the
people at his consecration. During that ceremony the word
"metropoliticæ" occurred. The bishop paused, and tried in vain to repeat
it, and at last remarked: "Suppose that said." Then he came to
"enigmate," which also puzzled him. "By St. Louis!" he exclaimed in
indignation, "it could be no gentleman who wrote that stuff!"
Our second anecdote is probably more generally known: Andrew Forman, who
was bishop of Moray and papal legate for Scotland, at an entertainment
given by him at Rome to the Pope and cardinals, blundered so in his
Latinity when he said grace that his Holiness and the cardinals lost
their gravity. The disconcerted bishop concluded his blessing by giving
"a' the fause carles to the de'il," to which the company, not
understanding his Scotch Latinity, said "Amen!"
When such was the condition of the bishops, it is not surprising to find
that few of the ordinary priests were acquainted with even the rudiments
of the Latin tongue, and they consequently mumbled over masses which
they did not understand. A rector of a parish, we are told, going to law
with his parishioners about paving the church, cited these words,
_Paveant illi, non paveam ego_, which, ascribing them to St. Peter, he
thus construed: "They are to pave the church, not I"--and this was
allowed to be good law by a judge who was himself an ecclesiastic.
We have an amusing example of the ignorance of the lower orders of
churchmen during the "dark ages" in No. xii of _A Hundred Mery Talys_,
as follows: "The archdekyn of Essex, that had ben longe in auctorite, in
a tyme of vysytacyon, whan all the prestys apperyd before hym, called
aside iii. of the yonge prestys which were acusyd that th[e]y could not
wel say theyr dyvyne service, and askyd of them, when they sayd mas,
whether they sayd corpus meus or corpum meum. The fyrst prest sayde that
he sayd corpus meus. The second sayd that he sayd corpum meum. And than
he asked of the thyrd how he sayde; whyche answered and sayd thus: Sir,
because it is so great a dout, and dyvers men be in dyvers opynyons,
therfore, because I wolde be sure I wolde not offende, whan I come to
the place I leve it clene out and say nothynge therfore. Wherfore the
bysshoppe than openly rebuked them all thre. But dyvers that were
present thought more defaut in hym, because he hym selfe beforetyme had
admytted them to be prestys." And assuredly they were right in so
thinking, and the worthy archdeacon (or bishop, as he is also styled),
who had probably passed the three young men "for value received" from
their fathers, should have refrained from publicly examining them
afterwards.
The covetousness and irreverence of the churchmen in former times are
well exemplified in another tale given in the same old jest-book, No.
lxxi, which, with spelling modernised, goes thus: "Sometime there
dwelled a priest in Stratford-on-Avon, of small learning, which
undevoutly sang mass and oftentimes twice on one day. So it happened on
a time, after his second mass was done in short space, not a mile from
Stratford there met him divers merchantmen, which would have heard mass,
and desired him to sing mass and he should have a groat, which answered
them and said: 'Sirs, I will say mass no more this day; but I will say
you two gospels for one groat, and that is dog-cheap for a mass in any
place in England.'" The story-teller does not inform us whether the
pious merchants accepted of the business-like compromise offered by
"Mass John."
Hagiolatry was quite as much in vogue among the priesthood in medieval
times as mariolatry has since been the special characteristic of the
Romish Church, to the subordination (one might almost say, the
suppression) of the only true object of worship; in proof of which, here
is a droll anecdote from another early English collection, _Mery Tales,
Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant to be readde_ (No.
cxix): "A friar, preaching to the people, extolled Saint Francis above
[all] confessors, doctors, virgins, martyrs, prophets--yea, and above
one more than prophets, John the Baptist, and finally above the
seraphical order of angels; and still he said, 'Yet let us go higher.'
So when he could go no farther, except he should put Christ out of his
place, which the good man was half afraid to do, he said aloud, 'And yet
we have found no fit place for him.' And, staying a little while, he
cried out at last, saying, 'Where shall we place the holy father?' A
froward fellow standing among the audience,[151] said, 'If thou canst
find none other, then set him here in my place, for I am weary,' and so
he went his way."--This "froward fellow's" unexpected reply will
doubtless remind the reader of the old man's remark in the mosque, about
the "calling of Noah," _ante_, pp. 66, 67.[152]
[151] There were no pews in the churches in those "good old
times."
[152] _Apropos_ of saint-worship, quaint old Thomas Fuller
relates a droll story in his _Church History_, ed. 1655,
p. 278: A countryman who had lived many years in the
Hercinian woods, in Germany, at last came into a
populous city, demanding of the people therein, what God
they did worship. They answered him, that they
worshipped Jesus Christ. Whereupon the wild wood-man
asked the names of the several churches in the city,
which were all called by sundry saints, to whom they
were consecrated. "It is strange," said he, "that you
should worship Jesus Christ, and he not have a temple in
all the city dedicated to him."
Probably not less than one third of the jests current in Europe in the
16th century turned on the ignorance of the Romish clergy--such, for
instance, as that of the illiterate priest who, finding _salta per tria_
(skip over three leaves) written at the foot of a page in his mass-book,
deliberately jumped down three of the steps before the altar, to the
great astonishment of the congregation; or that of another who, finding
the title of the day's service indicated only by the abbreviation _Re._,
read the mass of the Requiem instead of the service of the Resurrection;
or that of yet another, who being so illiterate as to be unable to
pronounce readily the long words in his ritual always omitted them, and
pronounced the word Jesus, which he said was much more devotional.
There is a diverting tale of a foolish curé of Brou, which is well
worthy of reproduction, in _Les Contes; ou, les Nouvelles Récréations et
Joyeux Devis_, by Bonaventure des Periers--one of the best story-books
of the 16th century (Bonaventure succeeded the celebrated poet Clement
Marot as _valet-de-chambre_ to Margaret, queen of Navarre):
It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her way to Châteaudun
to keep there the festival of Easter, passed through Brou on Good
Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning, and, wishing to hear service,
she went into the church. When the curé came to the Passion he said it
in his own peculiar manner, and made the whole church ring when he said,
"_Quem, quæritis_?" But when it came to the reply, "_Jesum,
Nazarenum_,"[153] he spoke as low as he possibly could, and in this
manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout and, for
a woman, well-informed, in the Holy Scriptures [the reader will
understand this was early in the 16th century], and attentive to
ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised at this mode of chanting,
and wished that she had never entered the church. She had a mind to
speak to the curé, and tell him what she thought of it, and for this
purpose sent for him to come to her after service. When he was come,
"Monsieur le Curé," she said to him, "I don't know where you have
learned to officiate on a day like this, when the people ought to be all
humility. But to hear you perform the service is enough to drive away
anybody's devotion." "How so, madame?" said the curé. "How so?"
responded the lady. "You have said a Passion contrary to all rules of
decency. When our Lord speaks you cry as if you were in the town-hall,
and when it is Caiaphas, or Pilate, or the Jews, you speak softly like a
young bride. Is this becoming in one like you? Are you fit to be a curé?
If you had what you deserve, you would be turned out of your benefice,
and then you would be made to know your fault." When the curé had very
attentively listened to the good lady, "Is this what you have to say to
me, madame?" said he. "By my soul! it is very true what you say, and the
truth is, there are many people who talk of things which they do not
understand. Madame, I believe I know my office as well as another, and
beg all the world to know that God is as well served in this parish
according to its condition as in any place within a hundred leagues of
it. I know very well that the other curés chant the Passion quite
differently. I could easily chant it like them if I would; but they
don't understand their business at all. I should like to know if it
becomes those rogues of Jews to speak as loud as our Lord? No, no,
madame; rest assured that in my parish it is my will that God be master,
and he shall be as long as I live, and let others do in their parishes
according to their understanding."
[153] "Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come
upon him, went forth, and said unto them, 'Whom seek
ye?' They answered him, 'Jesus of Nazareth.'"--_Gospel
of S. John_, xviii, 4, 5.
This is another of Des Periers' comical tales at the expense of the
clerical orders: There was a priest of a village who was as proud as
might be because he had seen a little more than his Cato. And this made
him set up his feathers and talk very grand, using words that filled his
mouth in order to make people think him a great doctor. Even at
confession he made use of terms which astonished the poor people. One
day he was confessing a poor working man, of whom he asked: "Here, now,
my friend, tell me, art thou not ambitious?" The poor man said, "No,"
thinking this was a word which belonged to great lords, and almost
repented of having come to confess to this priest; for he had already
heard that he was such a great clerk and that he spoke so grandly that
nobody understood him, which he knew by the word _ambitious_; for
although he might have heard it somewhere, yet he knew not at all what
it meant. The priest went on to ask: "Art thou not a gourmand?" Said the
labourer, who understood as little as before: "No." "Art thou not
superbe" [proud]? "No." "Art thou not iracund" [passionate]? "No." The
priest, seeing the man always answer, "No," was somewhat surprised. "Art
thou not concupiscent?" "No." "And what are thou, then?" said the
priest. "I am," said he, "a mason--here's my trowel."
* * * * *
Readers acquainted with the _fabliaux_ of the minstrels (the Trouvères)
of Northern France know that those light-hearted gentry very often
launched their satirical shafts at the churchmen of their day. One of
the _fabliaux_ in Barbazan's collection relates how a doltish,
thick-headed priest was officiating in his church on Good Friday, and
when about to read the service for that day he discovered that he had
lost his book-mark ("_mais il ot perdu ses festuz_.")[154] Then he began
to go back and turn over the leaves, but until Ascension Day he found
not the Passion service. And the assembled peasants fretted and
complained that he made them fast too long, since it was time for the
festival. "Had he but said them the service," interjects the _fableur_,
"should I make you a longer story?" So much did they grumble on all
sides, that the priest began on them and fell to saying very rapidly,
first in a loud and then in a low tone of voice, "_Dixit Dominus Domino
meo_" (the Lord said unto my Lord); "but," says the _fableur_, "I cannot
find here any sequel." The priest having read the text as chance might
lead him, read the vespers for Sunday;--and you must know he travailed
hard, that the offerings should be worth something to him. Then he fell
to crying, "Barabbas!"--no crier could have cried a ban so loud as he
cried to them; and everyone began to confess his sins aloud (i.e.,
struck up "_mea culpa_") and cried, "Mercy!" The priest, who read on the
sequence of his Psalter, once more began to cry out, saying, "Crucify
him!" So that both men and women prayed God that he would defend them
from torment. But it sorely vexed the clerk, who said to the priest,
"Make an end"; but he answered, "Make no end, friend, till 'unto the
marvellous works'"--referring to a passage in the Psalter. The clerk
then said that a long Passion service boots nothing, and that it is
never a gain to keep the people too long. And as soon as the offerings
of the people were collected he finished the Passion.--"By this tale,"
adds the _raconteur_, "I would show you how--by the faith of Saint
Paul!--it as well befits a fool to talk folly and sottishness as it
becomes a wise man to speak wisely. And he is a fool who believes me
not."[155]--A commentary, this, which recalls the old English saying,
that "it is as great marvel to see a woman weep as to see a goose go
barefoot."
[154] _Festueum_, the split straw so used in the Middle Ages.
[155] See Méon's edition of Barbazan's _Fabliaux et Contes_,
ed. 1808, tome ii, p. 442, and a prose _extrait_ in Le
Grand d'Aussy's collection, ed. 1781, tome iv, p. 101,
"Du Prêtre qui dit la Passion."
* * * * *
They were bold fellows, those Trouvères. Not content with making the
ignorance and the gross vices of the clerical orders the subjects of
their _fabliaux_, they did not scruple to ridicule their superstitious
teachings, as witness the satire on saint-worship, entitled "Du vilain
[i.e., peasant] qui conquist Paradis par plait," the substance of which
is as follows: A poor peasant dies suddenly, and his soul escapes at a
moment when neither angel nor demon was on the watch, so that, unclaimed
and left to his own discretion, the peasant follows St. Peter, who
happened to be on his way to Paradise, and enters the gate with him
unperceived. When the saint finds that the soul of such a low person has
found its way into Paradise he is angry, and rudely orders the peasant
out. But the latter accuses St. Peter of denying his Saviour, and,
conscience-stricken, the gate-keeper of heaven applies to St. Thomas,
who undertakes to drive away the intruder. The peasant, however,
disconcerts St. Thomas by reminding him of his disbelief, and St. Paul,
who comes next, fares no better--he had persecuted the saints. At length
Christ hears of what had occurred, and comes himself. The Saviour
listens benignantly to the poor soul's pleading, and ends by forgiving
the peasant his sins, and allowing him to remain in Paradise.[156]
[156] See Méon's Barbazan, 1808, tome iv, p. 114; also Le
Grand, 1781, tome ii, p. 190: "Du Vilain qui gagna
Paradis en plaidant."
* * * * *
There exists a very singular English burlesque of the unprofitable
sermons of the preaching friars in the Middle Ages, which is worthy of
Rabelais himself, and of which this is a modernised extract:
_Mollificant olera durissima crusta._--"Friends, this is to say to your
ignorant understanding, that hot plants and hard crusts make soft hard
plants. The help and the grace of the gray goose that goes on the green,
and the wisdom of the water wind-mill, with the good grace of a gallon
pitcher, and all the salt sausages that be sodden in Norfolk upon
Saturday, be with us now at our beginning, and help us in our ending,
and quit you of bliss and both your eyes, that never shall have ending.
Amen. My dear curst creatures, there was once a wife whose name was
Catherine Fyste, and she was crafty in court, and well could carve.
Hence she sent after the four Synods of Rome to know why, wherefore, and
for what cause that Alleluja was closed before the cup came once round.
Why, believest thou not, forsooth, that there stood once a cock on St.
Paul's steeple-top, and drew up the strapples of his breech? How provest
thou that tale? By all the four doctors of Wynberryhills--that is to
say, Vertas, Gadatryne, Trumpas, and Dadyltrymsert--the which four
doctors say there was once an old wife had a cock to her son, and he
looked out of an old dove-cot, and warned and charged that no man should
be so hardy either to ride or go on St. Paul's steeple-top unless he
rode on a three-footed stool, or else that he brought with him a warrant
of his neck"--and so on, in this fantastical style.
* * * * *
The meaning of the phrase "benefit of clergy" is not perhaps very
generally understood. The phrase had its origin in those days of
intellectual darkness, when the state of letters was so low that anyone
found guilty in a court of justice of a crime which was punishable with
death, if he could prove himself able to read a verse in a Latin Bible
he was pardoned, as being a man of learning, and therefore likely to be
useful to the state; but if he could not read he was sure to be hanged.
This privilege, it is said, was granted to all offences, excepting high
treason and sacrilege, till after the year 1350. At first it was
extended not only to the clergy but to any person that could read, who,
however, had to vow that he would enter into holy orders; but with the
increase of learning this "benefit to clergy" was restricted by several
Acts of Parliament, and it was finally abolished only so late as the
reign of George IV.
In _Pasquils Jests and Mother Bunches Merriments_, a book of _facetiæ_
very popular in the 16th century, a story is told of a criminal at the
Oxford Assizes who "prayed his clergy," and a Bible was accordingly
handed to him that he might read a verse. He could not read a word,
however, which a scholar who chanced to be present observing, he stood
behind him and prompted him with the verse he was to read; but coming
towards the end, the man's thumb happened to cover the remaining words,
and so the scholar, in a low voice, said: "Take away thy thumb," which
words the man, supposing them to form part of the verse he was reading,
repeated aloud, "Take away thy thumb"--whereupon the judge ordered him
to be taken away and hanged. And in Taylor's _Wit and Mirth_ (1630): "A
fellow having his book [that is, having read a verse in the Bible] at
the sessions, was burnt in the hand, and was commanded to say: 'May God
save the King.' 'The King!' said he, 'God save my grandam, that taught
me to read; I am sure I had been hanged else.'"
The verse in the Bible which a criminal was required to read, in order
to entitle him to the "benefit of clergy" (the beginning of the 51st
Psalm, "Miserere mei"), was called the "neck-verse," because his doing
so saved his neck from the gallows. It is sometimes jestingly alluded to
in old plays. For example, in Massinger's _Great Duke of Florence_, Act
iii, sc. 1:
_Cataminta_.--How the fool stares!
_Fiorinda_.--And looks as if he were conning his neck-verse;
and in the same dramatist's play of _The Picture_:
Twang it perfectly,
As if it were your neck-verse.
In the anonymous _Pleasant Comedy of Patient Grissell_ (1603), Act ii,
sc. 1, we find this custom again referred to:
_Farnese_.--Ha, hah! Emulo not write and read?
_Rice_.--Not a letter, an you would hang him.
_Urcenze_.--Then he'll never be saved by his book.
In Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, the moss-trooper, William of
Deloraine, assures the lady, who had warned him not to look into what he
should receive from the Monk of St. Mary's Aisle, "be it scroll or be it
book," that
"Letter nor line know I never a one,
Were't my neck-verse at Haribee"--
the place where such Border rascals were usually executed.
It was formerly the custom to sing a psalm at the gallows before a
criminal was "turned off." And there is a good story, in Zachary Gray's
notes to _Hudibras_, told of one of the chaplains of the famous
Montrose; how, being condemned in Scotland to die for attending his
master in some of his expeditions, and being upon the ladder and ordered
to select a psalm to be sung, expecting a reprieve, he named the 119th
Psalm, with which the officer attending the execution complied (the
Scottish Presbyterians were great psalm-singers in those days), and it
was well for him he did so, for they had sung it half through before the
reprieve came. Any other psalm would certainly have hanged him! Cotton,
in his _Virgil Travestie_, thus alludes to the custom of psalm-singing
at the foot of the gallows:
Ready, when Dido gave the word,
To be advanced into the halter,
Without the benefit on's Psalter.
* * * * *
Then 'cause she would, to part the sweeter,
A portion have of Hopkins' metre,
As people use at execution,
For the decorum of conclusion,
Being too sad to sing, she says.[157]
[157] _Scarronides; or, Virgil Travestie_, etc., by Charles
Cotton, Book iv. _Poetical Works_, 5th edition, London,
1765, pp. 122, 140.
If the clergy in medieval times had, as they are said to have had, all
the learning among themselves, what a blessed state of ignorance must
the laity have been in! And so, indeed, it appears, for there is extant
an old Act of Parliament which provides that a nobleman shall be
entitled to the "benefit of clergy," even though he could not read. And
another law sets forth that "the command of the sheriff to his officer
by word of mouth, and without writing is good; for it may be that
neither the sheriff nor his officer can write or read!" Many charters
are preserved to which persons of great dignity, even kings, have
affixed the sign of the cross, because they were not able to write their
names, and hence the term of _signing_, instead of subscribing. In this
respect a ten-year-old Board School boy in these "double-distilled" days
is vastly superior to the most renowned of the "barons bold."