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HISTORY OF THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE.
by
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, M.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Chemistry in the University of New York, Author of a
"Treatise on Human Physiology," "Civil Policy of America,"
"History of the American Civil War," &c.
REVISED EDITION, IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
New York:
Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
Franklin Square.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. THE THREE ATTACKS: NORTHERN OR MORAL;
WESTERN OR INTELLECTUAL; EASTERN OR MILITARY.
THE NORTHERN OR MORAL ATTACK ON THE ITALIAN SYSTEM, AND ITS TEMPORARY
REPULSE.
_Geographical Boundaries of Italian Christianity.--Attacks upon it._
_The Northern or moral Attack.--The Emperor of Germany insists on a
reformation in the Papacy.--Gerbert, the representative of these Ideas,
is made Pope.--They are both poisoned by the Italians._
_Commencement of the intellectual Rejection of the Italian System.--It
originates in the Arabian doctrine of the supremacy of Reason over
Authority.--The question of Transubstantiation.--Rise and development of
Scholasticism.--Mutiny among the Monks._
_Gregory VII. spontaneously accepts and enforces a Reform in the
Church.--Overcomes the Emperor of Germany.--Is on the point of
establishing a European Theocracy.--The Popes seize the military and
monetary Resources of Europe through the Crusades._
CHAPTER II.
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST--(_Continued_).
THE WESTERN OR INTELLECTUAL ATTACK ON THE ITALIAN SYSTEM.
_The intellectual Condition of Christendom contrasted with that of
Arabian Spain._
_Diffusion of Arabian intellectual Influences through France and
Sicily.--Example of Saracen Science in Alhazen, and of Philosophy in
Algazzali.--Innocent III. prepares to combat these Influences. Results
to Western Europe of the Sack of Constantinople by the Catholics._
_The spread of Mohammedan light Literature is followed by Heresy.--The
crushing of Heresy in the South of France by armed Force, the
Inquisition, mendicant Orders, auricular Confession, and Casuistry._
_The rising Sentiment is embodied in Frederick II. in Sicily.--His
Conflict with and Overthrow by the Pope.--Spread of Mutiny among the
mendicant Orders._
CHAPTER III.
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST--(_Continued_).
OVERTHROW OF THE ITALIAN SYSTEM BY THE COMBINED INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL
ATTACK.
_Progress of Irreligion among the mendicant Orders.--Publication of
heretical Books.--The Everlasting Gospel and the Comment on the
Apocalypse._
_Conflict between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII.--Outrage upon and
death of the Pope._
_The French King removes the Papacy from Rome to Avignon.--Post-mortem
Trial of the Pope for Atheism and Immorality.--Causes and Consequences
of the Atheism of the Pope._
_The Templars fall into Infidelity.--Their Trial, Conviction, and
Punishment._
_Immoralities of the Papal Court at Avignon.--Its return to
Rome.--Causes of the great Schism.--Disorganization of the Italian
System.--Decomposition of the Papacy.--Three Popes._
_The Council of Constance attempts to convert the papal Autocracy into a
constitutional Monarchy.--It murders John Huss and Jerome of
Prague.--Pontificate of Nicolas V.--End of the intellectual influence
of the Italian System._
CHAPTER IV.
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST--(_Concluded_).
EFFECT OF THE EASTERN OR MILITARY ATTACK.--GENERAL REVIEW OF THE AGE OF
FAITH.
_The Fall of Constantinople.--Its momentary Effect on the Italian
System._
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE INTELLECTUAL CONDITION IN THE AGE OF
FAITH.--_Supernaturalism and its Logic spread all over Europe.--It is
destroyed by the Jews and Arabians.--Its total Extinction._
_The Jewish Physicians.--Their Acquirements and Influence.--Their
Collision with the Imposture-medicine of Europe.--Their Effect on the
higher Classes.--Opposition to them._
_Two Impulses, the Intellectual and Moral, operating against the
Mediaeval state of Things.--Downfall of the Italian System through the
intellectual Impulse from the West and the moral from the North.--Action
of the former through Astronomy.--Origin of the moral Impulse.--Their
conjoint irresistible Effect.--Discovery of the state of Affairs in
Italy.--The Writings of Machiavelli.--What the Church had actually
done._
_Entire Movement of the Italian System determined from a consideration
of the four Revolts against it._
CHAPTER V.
APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE.
IT IS PRECEDED BY MARITIME DISCOVERY.
_Consideration of the definite Epochs of Social Life._
_Experimental Philosophy emerging in the Age of Faith._
_The Age of Reason ushered in by Maritime Discovery and the rise of
European Criticism._
MARITIME DISCOVERY.--_The three great Voyages._
COLUMBUS _discovers America_.--DE GAMA _doubles the Cape and reaches
India_.--MAGELLAN _circumnavigates the Earth.--The Material and
intellectual Results of each of these Voyages._
DIGRESSION ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF AMERICA.--_In isolated human
Societies the process of Thought and of Civilization is always the
same.--Man passes through a determinate succession of Ideas and embodies
them in determinate Institutions.--The state of Mexico and Peru proves
the influence of Law in the development of Man._
CHAPTER VI.
APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE.
IT IS PRECEDED BY THE RISE OF CRITICISM.
_Restoration of Greek Literature and Philosophy in Italy.--Development
of Modern Languages and Rise of Criticism.--Imminent Danger to Latin
Ideas._
_Invention of Printing.--It revolutionizes the Communication of
Knowledge, especially acts on Public Worship, and renders the Pulpit
secondary._
THE REFORMATION.--_Theory of Supererogation and Use of Indulgences.
--The Right of Individual Judgment asserted.--Political History
of the Origin, Culmination, and Check of the Reformation.--Its
Effects in Italy._
_Causes of the Arrest of the Reformation.--Internal Causes in
Protestantism.--External in the Policy of Rome.--The Counter-Reformation.
--Inquisition.--Jesuits.--Secession of the great Critics.--Culmination
of the Reformation in America.--Emergence of Individual Liberty of
Thought._
CHAPTER VII.
DIGRESSION ON THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND AT THE END OF THE AGE OF FAITH.
RESULTS PRODUCED BY THE AGE OF FAITH.
_Condition of England at the Suppression of the Monasteries._
_Condition of England at the close of the seventeenth
Century.--Locomotion, Literature, Libraries.--Social and private Life
of the Laity and Clergy.--Brutality in the Administration of
Law.--Profligacy of Literature.--The Theatre, its three
Phases.--Miracle, Moral, and Real Plays._
_Estimate of the Advance made in the Age of Faith.--Comparison with that
already made in the Age of Reason._
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON.
REJECTION OF AUTHORITY AND TRADITION, AND ADOPTION OF SCIENTIFIC
TRUTH.--DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE POSITION OF THE EARTH IN THE UNIVERSE.
_Ecclesiastical Attempt to enforce the_ GEOCENTRIC DOCTRINE _that the
Earth is the Centre of the Universe, and the most important Body in it_.
_The_ HELIOCENTRIC DOCTRINE _that the Sun is the Centre of the Solar
System, and the Earth a small Planet, comes gradually into Prominence_.
_Struggle between the Ecclesiastical and Astronomical Parties.--Activity
of the Inquisition.--Burning of_ BRUNO.--_Imprisonment of_ GALILEO.
INVENTION OF THE TELESCOPE.--_Complete Overthrow of the Ecclesiastical
Idea.--Rise of Physical Astronomy._--NEWTON.--_Rapid and resistless
Development of all Branches of Natural Philosophy._
_Final Establishment of the Doctrine that the Universe is under the
Dominion of mathematical, and, therefore, necessary Laws._
_Progress of Man from Anthropocentric Ideas to the Discovery of his true
Position and Insignificance in the Universe._
CHAPTER IX.
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON--(_Continued_).
HISTORY OF THE EARTH.--HER SUCCESSIVE CHANGES IN THE COURSE OF TIME.
_Oriental and Occidental Doctrines respecting the Earth in
Time.--Gradual Weakening of the latter by astronomical Facts, and the
Rise of Scientific Geology._
_Impersonal Manner in which the Problem was eventually solved, chiefly
through Facts connected with Heat._
_Proofs of limitless Duration from inorganic Facts.--Igneous and Aqueous
Rocks._
_Proofs of the same from organic Facts.--Successive Creations and
Extinctions of living Forms, and their contemporaneous Distribution._
_Evidences of a slowly declining Temperature, and, therefore, of a long
Time.--The Process of Events by Catastrophe and by Law.--Analogy of
Individual and Race Development.--Both are determined by unchangeable
Law._
_Conclusion that the Plan of the Universe indicates a Multiplicity of
Worlds in infinite Space, and a Succession of Worlds in infinite Time._
CHAPTER X.
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON--(_Continued_).
THE NATURE AND RELATIONS OF MAN.
_Position of Man according to the Heliocentric and Geocentric Theories._
OF ANIMAL LIFE.--_The transitory Nature of living Forms.--Relations of
Plants and Animals.--Animals are Aggregates of Matter expending Force
originally derived from the Sun._
THE ORGANIC SERIES.--_Man a Member of it.--His Position determined by
Anatomical and Physiological Investigation of his Nervous System.--Its
triple Form: Automatic, Instinctive, Intellectual._
_The same progressive Development is seen in individual Man, in the
entire animal Series, and in the Life of the Globe.--They are all under
the Control of an eternal, universal, irresistible Law._
_The Aim of Nature is intellectual Development, and human Institutions
must conform thereto._
_Summary of the Investigation of the Position of Man.--Production of
Inorganic and Organic Forms by the Sun.--Nature of Animals and their
Series.--Analogies and Differences between them and Man.--The Soul.--The
World._
CHAPTER XI.
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON--(_Continued_).
THE UNION OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.
_European Progress in the Acquisition of exact Knowledge.--Its
Resemblance to that of Greece._
_Discoveries respecting the Air.--Its mechanical and chemical
Properties.--Its Relation to Animals and Plants.--The Winds.
--Meteorology.--Sounds.--Acoustic Phenomena._
_Discoveries respecting the Ocean.--Physical and chemical
Phenomena.--Tides and Currents.--Clouds.--Decomposition of Water._
_Discoveries respecting other material Substances.--Progress of
Chemistry._
_Discoveries respecting Electricity, Magnetism, Light, Heat._
_Mechanical Philosophy and Inventions.--Physical Instruments.--The
Result illustrated by the Cotton Manufacture.--Steam-engine.
--Bleaching.--Canals.--Railways.--Improvements in the Construction
of Machinery.--Social Changes produced.--Its Effect on intellectual
Activity._
_The scientific Contributions of various Nations, and especially of
Italy._
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION--THE FUTURE OF EUROPE.
_Summary of the Argument presented in this Book respecting the mental
Progress of Europe._
_Intellectual Development is the Object of Individual Life.--It is also
the Result of social Progress._
_Nations arriving at Maturity instinctively attempt their own
intellectual Organization.--Example of the Manner in which this has been
done in China.--Its Imperfection.--What it has accomplished._
_The Organization of public Intellect is the End to which European
Civilization is tending._
THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. THE THREE ATTACKS: NORTHERN OR MORAL;
WESTERN OR INTELLECTUAL; EASTERN OR MILITARY.
THE NORTHERN OR MORAL ATTACK ON THE ITALIAN SYSTEM, AND ITS TEMPORARY
REPULSE.
_Geographical Boundaries of Italian Christianity._--_Attacks upon it._
_The Northern or moral Attack.--The Emperor of Germany insists on a
reformation in the Papacy.--Gerbert, the representative of these Ideas,
is made Pope.--They are both poisoned by the Italians._
_Commencement of the intellectual Rejection of the Italian System.--It
originates in the Arabian doctrine of the supremacy of Reason over
Authority.--The question of Transubstantiation.--Rise and development of
Scholasticism.--Mutiny among the Monks._
_Gregory VII. spontaneously accepts and enforces a Reform in the
Church.--Overcomes the Emperor of Germany.--Is on the point of
establishing a European Theocracy.--The Popes seize the military and
monetary Resources of Europe through the Crusades._
The realm of an idea may often be defined by geometrical lines.
[Sidenote: The geographical boundaries of Latin Christianity.] If from
Rome, as a centre, two lines be drawn, one of which passes eastward, and
touches the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, the other westward, and
crosses the Pyrenees, nearly all those Mediterranean countries lying to
the south of these lines were living, at the time of which we speak,
under the dogma, "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet;"
but the countries to the north had added to the orthodox conception of
the Holy Trinity the adoration of the Virgin, the worship of images, the
invocation of saints, and a devout attachment to relics and shrines.
[Sidenote: Forces acting upon it.] I have now to relate how these lines
were pushed forward on Europe, that to the east by military, that to the
west by intellectual force. On Rome, as on a pivot, they worked; now
opening, now closing, now threatening to curve round at their extremes
and compress paganizing Christendom in their clasp; then, through the
convulsive throes of the nations they had inclosed, receding from one
another and quivering throughout their whole length, but receding only
for an instant, to shut more closely again.
It was as if from the hot sands of Africa invisible arms were put forth,
enfolding Europe in their grasp, and trying to join their hands to give
to paganizing Christendom a fearful and mortal compression. There were
struggles and resistances, but the portentous hands clasped at last.
Historically, we call the pressure that was then made the Reformation.
Not without difficulty can we describe the convulsive struggles of
nations so as to convey a clear idea of the forces acting upon them. I
have now to devote many perhaps not uninteresting, certainly not
uninstructive, pages to these events.
In this chapter I begin that task by relating the consequences of the
state of things heretofore described--the earnestness of converted
Germany and the immoralities of the popes.
[Sidenote: The Germans insist on a reform in the papacy.] The Germans
insisted on a reformation among ecclesiastics, and that they should lead
lives in accordance with religion. This moral attack was accompanied
also by an intellectual one, arising from another source, and amounting
to a mutiny in the Church itself. In the course of centuries, and
particularly during the more recent evil times, a gradual divergence of
theology from morals had taken place, to the dissatisfaction of that
remnant of thinking men who here and there, in the solitude of
monasteries, compared the dogmas of theology with the dictates of
reason. Of those, and the number was yearly increasing, who had been
among the Arabs in Spain, not a few had become infected with a love of
philosophy.
[Sidenote: Reappearance of philosophy.] Whoever compares the tenth and
twelfth centuries together cannot fail to remark the great intellectual
advance which Europe was making. The ideas occupying the minds of
Christian men, their very turn of thought, had altogether changed. The
earnestness of the Germans, commingling with the knowledge of the
Mohammedans, could no longer be diverted from the misty clouds of
theological discussion out of which Philosophy emerged, not in the
Grecian classical vesture in which she had disappeared at Alexandria,
but in the grotesque garb of the cowled and mortified monk. She timidly
came back to the world as Scholasticism, persuading men to consider, by
the light of their own reason, that dogma which seemed to put common
sense at defiance--transubstantiation. Scarcely were her whispers heard
in the ecclesiastical ranks when a mutiny against authority arose, and
since it was necessary to combat that mutiny with its own weapons, the
Church was compelled to give her countenance to Scholastic Theology.
Lending himself to the demand for morality, and not altogether refusing
to join in the intellectual progress, a great man, Hildebrand, brought
on an ecclesiastical reform. He raised the papacy to its maximum of
power, and prepared the way for his successors to seize the material
resources of Europe through the Crusades.
[Sidenote: The three pressures upon Rome.] Such is an outline of the
events with which we have now to deal. A detailed analysis of those
events shows that there were three directions of pressure upon Rome. The
pressure from the West and that from the East were Mohammedan. Their
resultant was a pressure from the North: it was essentially Christian.
While those were foreign, this was domestic. It is almost immaterial in
what order we consider them; the manner in which I am handling the
subject leads me, however, to treat of the Northern pressure first, then
of that of the West, and on subsequent pages of that of the East.
[Sidenote: Foreign influence for reforming the papacy.] It had become
absolutely necessary that something should be done for the reformation
of the papacy. Its crimes, such as we have related in Chapter XII., Vol.
I., outraged religious men. To the master-spirit of the movement for
accomplishing this end we must closely look. He is the representative of
influences that were presently to exert a most important agency.
[Sidenote: Life of Gerbert.] In the train of the Emperor Otho III., when
he resolved to put a stop to all this wickedness, was Gerbert, a French
ecclesiastic, born in Auvergne. In his boyhood, while a scholar in the
Abbey of Avrillac, he attracted the attention of his superiors; among
others, of the Count of Barcelona, who took him to Spain. There he
became a proficient in the mathematics, astronomy, and physics of the
Mohammedan schools. [Sidenote: His Saracen education.] He spoke Arabic
with the fluency of a Saracen. His residence at Cordova, where the
khalif patronized all the learning and science of the age, and his
subsequent residence in Rome, where he found an inconceivable ignorance
and immorality, were not lost upon his future life. He established a
school at Rheims, where he taught logic, music, astronomy, explained
Virgil, Statius, Terence, and introduced what were at that time regarded
as wonders, the globe and the abacus. He laboured to persuade his
countrymen that learning is far to be preferred to the sports of the
field. He observed the stars through tubes, invented a clock, and an
organ played by steam. He composed a work on Rhetoric. Appointed Abbot
of Bobbio, he fell into a misunderstanding with his monks, and had to
retire first to Rome, and then to resume his school at Rheims. In the
political events connected with the rise of Hugh Capet, he was again
brought into prominence. [Sidenote: His reproaches against the Church.]
The speech of the Bishop of Orleans at the Council of Rheims, which was
his composition, shows us how his Mohammedan education had led him to
look upon the state of things in Christendom: "There is not one at Rome,
it is notorious, who knows enough of letters to qualify him for a
door-keeper; with what face shall he presume to teach who has never
learned?" He does not hesitate to allude to papal briberies and papal
crimes: "If King Hugh's embassadors could have bribed the pope and
Crescentius, his affairs had taken a different turn." He recounts the
disgraces and crimes of the pontiffs: how John XII. had cut off the nose
and tongue of John the Cardinal; how Boniface had strangled John XIII.;
how John XIV. had been starved to death in the dungeons of the Castle of
St. Angelo. He demands, "To such monsters, full of all infamy, void of
all knowledge, human and divine, are all the priests of God to
submit--men distinguished throughout the world for their learning and
holy lives? The pontiff who so sins against his brother--who, when
admonished, refuses to hear the voice of counsel, is as a publican and a
sinner." With a prophetic inspiration of the accusations of the
Reformation, he asks, "Is he not Anti-Christ?" He speaks of him as "the
Man of Sin," "the Mystery of Iniquity." Of Rome he says, with an
emphasis doubtless enforced by his Mohammedan experiences, "She has
already lost the allegiance of the East; Alexandria, Antioch, Africa,
and Asia are separate from her; Constantinople has broken loose from
her; the interior of Spain knows nothing of the pope." He says, "How do
your enemies say that, in deposing Arnulphus, we should have waited for
the judgment of the Roman bishop? Can they say that his judgment is
before that of God which our synod pronounced? The Prince of the Roman
bishops and of the apostles themselves proclaimed that God must be
obeyed rather than men; and Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, announced
anathema to him, though he were an angel, who should preach a doctrine
different to that which had been delivered. Because the pontiff
Marcellinus offered incense to Jupiter, must, therefore, all bishops
sacrifice?" In all this there is obviously an insurgent spirit against
the papacy, or, rather, against its iniquities.
[Sidenote: His ecclesiastical advancement.] In the progress of the
political movements Gerbert was appointed to the archbishopric of
Rheims. On this occasion, it is not without interest that we observe his
worldly wisdom. It was desirable to conciliate the clergy--perhaps it
might be done by the encouragement of marriage. He had lived in the
polygamic court of the khalif, whose family had occasionally boasted of
more than forty sons and forty daughters. Well then may he say, "I
prohibit not marriage. I condemn not second marriages. I do not blame
the eating of flesh." His election not only proved unfortunate, but, in
the tortuous policy of the times, he was removed from the exercise of
his episcopal functions and put under interdict. The speech of the Roman
legate, Leo, who presided at his condemnation, gives us an insight into
the nature of his offence, of the intention of Rome to persevere in her
ignorance and superstition, and is an amusing example of ecclesiastical
argument: "Because the vicars of Peter and their disciples will not have
for their teachers a Plato, a Virgil, a Terence, and the rest of the
herd of philosophers, who soar aloft like the birds of the air, and dive
into the depths like the fishes of the sea, ye say that they are not
worthy to be door-keepers, because they know not how to make verses.
Peter is, indeed, a door-keeper--but of heaven!" He does not deny the
systematic bribery of the pontifical government, but justifies it. "Did
not the Saviour receive gifts of the wise men?" Nor does he deny the
crimes of the pontiffs, though he protests against those who would
expose them, reminding them that "Ham was cursed for uncovering his
father's nakedness." In all this we see the beginning of that struggle
between Mohammedan learning and morals and Italian ignorance and crime,
which was at last to produce such important results for Europe.
Once more Gerbert retired to the court of the emperor. It was at the
time that Otho III. was contemplating a revolution in the empire and a
reformation of the Church. He saw how useful Gerbert might be to his
policy, and had him appointed Archbishop of Ravenna. [Sidenote: Gerbert
the pope.] On the death of Gregory V. he issued his decree for the
election of Gerbert as pope. The low-born French ecclesiastic, thus
attaining to the utmost height of human ambition, took the name of
Sylvester II.
But Rome was not willing thus to surrender her sordid interests; she
revolted. Tusculum, the disgrace of the papacy, rebelled. It required
the arms of the emperor to sustain his pontiff. For a moment it seemed
as if the Reformation might have been anticipated by many
centuries--that Christian Europe might have been spared the abominable
papal disgraces awaiting it. [Sidenote: Poisoning of the emperor and
pope.] There was a learned and upright pope, an able and youthful
emperor; but Italian revenge, in the person of Stephania, the wife of
the murdered Crescentius, blasted all these expectations. From the hand
of that outraged and noble criminal, who, with more than Roman firmness
of purpose, could deliberately barter her virtue for vengeance, the
unsuspecting emperor took the poisoned cup, and left Rome only to die.
He was but twenty-two years of age. Sylvester, also, was irretrievably
ruined by the drugs that had been stealthily mixed with his food. He
soon followed his patron to the grave. His steam organs, physical
experiments, mechanical inventions, foreign birth, and want of
orthodoxy, confirmed the awful imputation that he was a necromancer. The
mouth of every one was full of stories of mystery and magic in which
Gerbert had borne a part. Afar off in Europe, by their evening
firesides, the goblin-scared peasants whispered to one another that in
the most secret apartment of the palace at Rome there was concealed an
impish dwarf, who wore a turban, and had a ring that could make him
invisible, or give him two different bodies at the same time; that, in
the midnight hours, strange sounds had been heard, when no one was
within but the pope; that, while he was among the infidels in Spain, the
future pontiff had bartered his soul to Satan, on condition that he
would make him Christ's vicar upon earth, and now it was plain that both
parties had been true to their compact. In their privacy, hollow-eyed
monks muttered to one another under their cowls, "Homagium diabolo fecit
et male finivit."
To a degree of wickedness almost irremediable had things thus come. The
sins of the pontiffs were repeated, without any abatement, in all the
clerical ranks. Simony and concubinage prevailed to an extent that
threatened the authority of the Church over the coarsest minds.
Ecclesiastical promotion could in all directions be obtained by
purchase; in all directions there were priests boasting of illegitimate
families. [Sidenote: Commencing protest in the Church against its sins.]
But yet, in the Church itself there were men of irreproachable life,
who, like Peter Damiani, lifted up their voices against the prevailing
scandal. He it was who proved that nearly every priest in Milan had
purchased his preferment and lived with a concubine. The immoralities
thus forced upon the attention of pious men soon began to be followed by
consequences that might have been expected. It is but a step from the
condemnation of morals to the criticism of faith. The developing
intellect of Europe could no longer bear the acts or the thoughts that
it had heretofore submitted to. The dogma of transubstantiation led to
revolt.
[Sidenote: Primitive agreement of philosophy and theology.] The early
fathers delighted to point out the agreement of doctrines flowing from
the principles of Christianity with those of Greek philosophy. For long
it was asserted that a correspondence between faith and reason exists;
but by degrees as one dogma after another of a mysterious and
unintelligible kind was introduced, and matters of belief could no
longer be co-ordinated with the conclusions of the understanding, it
became necessary to force the latter into a subordinate position.
[Sidenote: Their gradual alienation.] The great political interests
involved in these questions suggested the expediency and even necessity
of compelling such a subordination by the application of civil power. In
this manner, as we have described, in the reign of Constantine the
Great, philosophical discussions of religious things came to be
discountenanced, and implicit faith in the decisions of existing
authority required. Philosophy was subjugated and enslaved by theology.
We shall now see what were the circumstances of her revolt.
In the solitude of monasteries there was every inducement for those who
had become weary of self-examination to enter on the contemplation of
the external world. Herein they found a field offering to them endless
occupation, and capable of worthily exercising their acuteness.
[Sidenote: The mutiny against theology commences among the monks.] But
it was not possible for them to take the first step without offending
against the decisions established by authority. The alternative was
stealthy proceeding or open mutiny; but before mutiny there occurs a
period of private suggestion and another of more extensive discussion.
[Sidenote: Persecution of Gotschalk,] It was thus that the German monk
Gotschalk, in the ninth century, occupied himself in the profound
problem of predestination, enduring the scourge and death in prison for
the sake of his opinion. The presence of the Saracens in Spain offered
an incessant provocation to the restless intellect of the West, now
rapidly expanding, to indulge itself in such forbidden exercises.
Arabian philosophy, unseen and silently, was diffusing itself throughout
France and Europe, and churchmen could sometimes contemplate a refuge
from their enemies among the infidel. In his extremity, Abelard himself
looked forward to a retreat among the Saracens--a protection from
ecclesiastical persecution.
[Sidenote: who sets up reason against authority.] In the conflict with
Gotschalk on the matter of predestination was already foreshadowed the
attempt to set up reason against authority. John Erigena, who was
employed by Hincmar, the Archbishop of Rheims, on that occasion, had
already made a pilgrimage to the birthplaces of Plato and Aristotle,
A.D. 825, and indulged the hope of uniting philosophy and religion in
the manner proposed by the ecclesiastics who were studying in Spain.
[Sidenote: John Erigena falls into Pantheism.] From Eastern sources John
Erigena had learned the doctrines of the eternity of matter, and even of
the creation, with which, indeed, he confounded the Deity himself. He
was, therefore, a Pantheist; accepting the Oriental ideas of emanation
and absorption not only as respects the soul of man, but likewise all
material things. In his work "On the Nature of Things," his doctrine is,
"That, as all things were originally contained in God, and proceeded
from him into the different classes by which they are now distinguished,
so shall they finally return to him and be absorbed in the source from
which they came; in other words, that as, before the world was created,
there was no being but God, and the causes of all things were in him,
so, after the end of the world, there will be no being but God, and the
causes of all things in him." This final resolution he denominated
deification, or theosis. He even questioned the eternity of hell,
saying, with the emphasis of a Saracen, "There is nothing eternal but
God." It was impossible, under such circumstances, that he should not
fall under the rebuke of the Church.
[Sidenote: The conflict begins on transubstantiation.]
Transubstantiation, as being, of the orthodox doctrines, the least
reconcilable to reason, was the first to be attacked by the new
philosophers. What was, perhaps, in the beginning, no more than a jocose
Mohammedan sarcasm, became a solemn subject of ecclesiastical
discussion. Erigena strenuously upheld the doctrine of the Stercorists,
who derived their name from their assertion that a part of the
consecrated elements are voided from the body in the manner customary
with other relics of food; a doctrine denounced by the orthodox, who
declared that the priest could "make God," and that the eucharistic
elements are not liable to digestion.
[Sidenote: Opinions of Berengar of Tours.] And now, A.D. 1050, Berengar
of Tours prominently brought forward the controversy respecting the real
presence. The question had been formularized by Radbert under the term
transubstantiation, and the opinions entertained respecting the sacred
elements greatly differed; mere fetish notions being entertained by
some, by others the most transcendental ideas. In opposition to Radbert
and the orthodox party, who asserted that those elements ceased to be
what to the senses they appeared, and actually became transformed into
the body and blood of the Saviour, Berengar held that, though there is a
real presence in them, that presence is of a spiritual nature. These
heresies were condemned by repeated councils, Berengar himself being
offered the choice of death or recantation. He wisely preferred the
latter, but more wisely resumed his offensive doctrines as soon as he
had escaped from the hands of his persecutors.[Sidenote: The pope
privately adopts them.] As might be supposed from the philosophical
indefensibility of the orthodox doctrine, Berengar's opinions, which,
indeed, issued from those of Erigena, made themselves felt in the
highest ecclesiastical regions, and, from the manner in which Gregory
VII. dealt with the heresiarch, there is reason to believe that he
himself had privately adopted the doctrines thus condemned.
[Sidenote: Peter Abelard among the insurgents.] But it is in Peter
Abelard that we find the representative of the insurgent spirit of those
times. The love of Heloisa seems in our eyes to be justified by his
extraordinary intellectual power. In his Oratory, "The Paraclete," the
doctrines of faith and the mysteries of religion were without any
restraint discussed. No subject was too profound or too sacred for his
contemplation. [Sidenote: St. Bernard attacks him.] By the powerful and
orthodox influence of St. Bernard, "a morigerous and mortified monk,"
the opinions of Abelard were brought under the rebuke of the
authorities. In vain he appealed from the Council of Sens to Rome; the
power of St. Bernard at Rome was paramount. "He makes void the whole
Christian faith by attempting to comprehend the nature of God through
human reason. He ascends up into Heaven; he goes down into hell. Nothing
can elude him, either in the height above or in the nethermost depths.
His branches spread over the whole earth. He boasts that he has
disciples in Rome itself, even in the College of Cardinals. He draws the
whole earth after him. It is time, therefore, to silence him by
apostolic authority." Such was the report of the Council of Sens to
Rome, A.D. 1140.
Perhaps it was not so much the public accusation that Abelard denied the
doctrine of the Trinity, as his assertion of the supremacy of
reason--which clearly betrayed his intention of breaking the thraldom of
authority--that insured his condemnation. It was impossible to restrict
the rising discussions within their proper sphere, or to keep them from
the perilous ground of ecclesiastical history. [Sidenote: The book "Sic
et Non."] Abelard in his work entitled "Sic et Non," sets forth the
contradictory opinions of the fathers, and exhibits their discord and
strifes on great doctrinal points, thereby insinuating how little of
unity there was in the Church. It was a work suggesting a great deal
more than it actually stated, and was inevitably calculated to draw down
upon its author the indignation of those whose interests it touched.
[Sidenote: Scholastic philosophy, rise of.] Out of the discussions
attending these events sprang the celebrated doctrines of Nominalism and
Realism, though the terms themselves seem not to have been introduced
till the end of the twelfth century. The Realists thought that the
general types of things had a real existence; the Nominalists, that they
were merely a mental abstraction expressed by a word. It was therefore
the Old Greek dispute revived. [Sidenote: Nominalism and Realism.] Of
the Nominalists, Roscelin of Compiegne, a little before A.D. 1100, was
the first distinguished advocate; his materializing views, as might be
expected, drawing upon him the reproof of the Church. In this contest,
Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted to harmonize reason in
subordination to faith, and again, by his example, demonstrated the
necessity of submitting all such questions to the decision of the human
intellect.
The development of scholastic philosophy, which dates from the time of
Erigena, was accelerated by two distinct causes: the dreadful
materialization into which, in Europe, all sacred things had fallen, and
the illustrious example of the Mohammedans, who already, by their
physical inquiries, had commenced a career destined to end in brilliant
results. [Sidenote: The Arabs in Spain promote these discussions.] The
Spanish universities were filled with ecclesiastics from many parts of
Europe. Peter the Venerable, the friend and protector of Abelard, who
had spent much time in Cordova, and not only spoke Arabic fluently, but
actually translated the Koran into Latin, mentions that, on his first
arrival in Spain, he found several learned men, even from England,
studying astronomy. The reconciliation of many of the dogmas of
authority with common sense was impossible for men of understanding.
Could the clear intellect of such a statesman as Hildebrand be for a
moment disgraced by accepting the received view of a doctrine like that
of transubstantiation? His great difficulty was to reconcile what had
been rendered orthodox by the authority of the Church with the
suggestions of reason, or even with that reverence for holy things which
is in the heart of every intelligent man. In such sentiments, we find an
explanation of the lenient dealings of that stern ecclesiastic with the
heretic Berengar. He saw that it was utterly impossible to offer any
defence of many of the materialized dogmas of the age, but then those
dogmas had been put forth as absolute truth by the Church. [Sidenote:
Rise of Scholastic Theology.] Things had come to the point at which
reason and theology must diverge; yet the Italian statesmen did not
accept this issue without an additional attempt, and, under their
permission, Scholastic Theology, which originated in the scholastic
philosophy of Erigena and his followers, sought, in the strange union of
the Holy Scriptures, the Aristotelian Philosophy, and Pantheism, to
construct a scientific basis for Christianity. Heresy was to be combated
with the weapons of the heretics, and a co-ordination of authority and
reason effected. Under such auspices scholastic philosophy pervaded the
schools, giving to some of them, as the University of Paris, a
fictitious reputation, and leading to the foundation of others in other
cities. It answered the object of its politic promoters in a double way,
for it raised around the orthodox theology an immense and impenetrable
bulwark of what seemed to be profound learning, and also diverted the
awakening mind of Western Europe to occupations which, if profitless,
were yet exciting, and without danger to the existing state of things.
In that manner was put off for a time the inevitable day in which
philosophy and theology were to be brought into mortal conflict with
each other. [Sidenote: Its advantages in the existing state of the
Church.] It was doubtless seen by Hildebrand and his followers that,
though Berengar had set the example of protesting against the principle
that the decision of a majority of voters in a council or other
collective body should ever be received as ascertaining absolute truth,
yet so great was the uncertainty of the principles on which the
scholastic philosophy was founded, so undetermined its mental exercise,
so ineffectual the results to which it could attain, that it was
unlikely for a long time to disturb the unity of doctrine in the Church.
While men were reasoning round and round again in the same vicious
circle without finding any escape, and indeed without seeking any,
delighted with the dexterity of their movements, but never considering
whether they were making any real advance, it was unnecessary to
anticipate inconvenience from their progress.
[Sidenote: The philosophical dilemma of the Church.] Here was the
difficulty. The decisions of the Church were asserted to be infallible
and irrevocable; her philosophy, if such it can be called--as must be
the case with any philosophy reposing upon a final revelation from
God--was stationary. But the awakening mind of the West was displaying,
in an unmistakable way, its propensity to advance. As one who rides an
unruly horse will sometimes divert him from a career which could not be
checked by main force by reining him round and round, and thereby
exhausting his spirit and strength, and keeping him in a narrow space,
so the wanton efforts of the mind may be guided, if they cannot be
checked. These principles of policy answered their object for a time,
until metaphysical were changed for physical discussions. Then it became
impossible to divert the onward movement, and on the first great
question arising--that of the figure and place of the earth--a question
dangerous to the last degree, since it inferentially included the
determination of the position of man in the universe, theology suffered
an irretrievable defeat. Between her and philosophy there was
thenceforth no other issue than a mortal duel.
[Sidenote: Course of Scholasticism.] Though Erigena is the true founder
of Scholasticism, Roscelin, already mentioned as renewing the question
of Platonic Universals, has been considered by some to be entitled to
that distinction. After him, William of Champeaux opened a school of
logic in Paris, A.D. 1109, and from that time the University made it a
prominent study. On the rise of the mendicant orders, Scholasticism
received a great impulse, perhaps, as has been affirmed, because its
disputations suited their illiterate state; Thomas Aquinas, the
Dominican, and Duns Scotus, the Franciscan, founding rival schools,
which wrangled for three centuries. In Italy, Scholasticism never
prevailed as it did in France and elsewhere, and at last it died away,
its uselessness, save in the political result before mentioned, having
been detected.
[Sidenote: Reaction in the papacy against these pressures.] The middle of
the eleventh century ushers in an epoch for the papacy and for Europe.
It is marked by an attempt at a moral reformation in the Church--by a
struggle for securing for the papacy independence both of the Emperors
of Germany and of the neighbouring Italian nobles--thus far the pope
being the mere officer of the emperor, and often the creature of the
surrounding nobility--by the conversion of the temporalities of the
Church, heretofore indirect, into absolute possessions, by securing
territories given "to the Church, the blessed Peter, and the Roman
republic" to the first of these beneficiaries, excluding the last.
[Sidenote: Preparation for a concentration of the papal power.] As
events proceeded, these minor affairs converged, and out of their union
arose the great conflict of the imperial and papal powers for supremacy.
The same policy which had succeeded in depriving the Roman people of any
voice in appointments of popes--which had secularized the Church in
Italy, for a while seized all the material resources of Europe through
the device of the Crusades, and nearly established a papal autocracy in
all Europe. These political events demand from us notice, since from
them arose intellectual consequences of the utmost importance.
The second Lateran Council, under Nicolas II., accomplished
the result of vesting the elective power for the papacy in the
cardinals. That was a great revolution. It was this council which
gave to Berengar his choice between death and recantation. [Sidenote:
Three parties in Italy.] There were at this period three powers
engaged in Italy--the Imperial, the Church party, and the Italian
nobles. For the sake of holding the last in check--since it was the
nearest, it required the most unremitting attention--Hildebrand had
advised the popes who were his immediate predecessors to use the
Normans, who were settled in the south of the peninsula, by whom
the lands of the nobles were devastated. Thus the difficulties of
their position led the popes to a repetition of their ancient policy;
and as they had, in old times, sought the protection of the Frankish
kings, so now they sought that of the Normans. [Sidenote: Hildebrand
becomes pope.] But in the midst of the dissensions and tumults of
the times, a great man was emerging--Hildebrand, who, with almost
superhuman self-denial, again and again abstained from making himself
pope. On the death of Alexander II. his opportunity came, and, with
acceptable force, he was raised to that dignity, A.D. 1073.
[Sidenote: Hildebrand resolves on a reform.] Scarcely was Hildebrand
Pope Gregory VII. when he vigorously proceeded to carry into effect the
policy he had been preparing during the pontificates of his
predecessors. In many respects the times were propitious. The blameless
lives of the German popes had cast a veil of oblivion over the
abominations of their Italian predecessors. Hildebrand addressed himself
to tear out every vestige of simony and concubinage with a remorseless
hand. That task must be finished before he could hope to accomplish his
grand project of an ecclesiastical autocracy in Europe, with the pope at
its head, and the clergy, both in their persons and property,
independent of the civil power. [Sidenote: Necessity of celibacy of the
clergy.] It was plain that, apart from all moral considerations, the
supremacy of Rome in such a system altogether turned on the celibacy of
the clergy. If marriage was permitted to the ecclesiastic, what was to
prevent him from handing down, as an hereditary possession, the wealth
and dignities he had obtained. In such a state of things, the central
government at Rome necessarily stood at every disadvantage against the
local interests of an individual, and still more so if many individuals
should combine together to promote, in common, similar interests. But
very different would it be if promotion must be looked for from
Rome--very different as regards the hold upon public sentiment, if such
a descent from father to son was absolutely prevented, and a career
fairly opened to all, irrespective of their station in life. To the
Church it was to the last degree important that a man should derive his
advancement from her, not from his ancestor. In the trials to which she
was perpetually exposed, there could be no doubt that by such persons
her interests would be best served.
[Sidenote: It is enforced.] In these circumstances Gregory VII. took his
course. The synod held at Rome in the first year of his pontificate
denounced the marriage of the clergy, enforcing its decree by the
doctrine that the efficacy of the sacraments altogether depended on
their being administered by hands sinless in that respect, and made all
communicants partners in the pastoral crime. [Sidenote: The pope seeks
the friendship of the Normans.] With a provident foresight of the coming
opposition, he carried out the policy he had taught his predecessors of
conciliating the Normans in the south of Italy, though he did not
hesitate to resist them, by the aid of the Countess Matilda, when they
dared to touch the possessions of the Church. It was for the sake of
this that the Norman invasion of England under William the Conqueror had
already been approved of, a consecrated standard and a ring containing a
hair from the head of St. Peter sent him, and permission given for the
replacement of Saxon bishops and other dignitaries by Normans. It was
not forgotten how great had been the gains to the papacy, three
centuries before, by changing the dynasty of the Franks; and thus the
policy of an Italian town gave a permanent impress to the history of
England. Hildebrand foresaw that the sword of the Italian-Norman would
be wanted to carry out his projected ends. He did not hesitate to
authorize the overthrow of a Saxon dynasty by the French-Norman, that he
might be more sure of the fidelity of that sword. Without the
countenance of the pope, the Norman could never have consolidated his
power, nor even held his ground in England.
[Sidenote: The conflict concerning investitures.] From these movements
of the papacy sprang the conflict with the Emperors of Germany
respecting investitures. The Bishop of Milan--who, it appears, had
perjured himself in the quarrel respecting concubinage--had been
excommunicated by Alexander II. The imperial council appointed as his
successor one Godfrey; the pope had nominated Atto. Hereupon Alexander
had summoned the emperor to appear before him on a charge of simony, and
granting investitures without his approbation. While the matter was yet
in abeyance, Alexander died; but Gregory took up the contest. A synod he
had assembled ordered that, if any one should accept investiture from a
layman, both the giver and receiver should be excommunicated. The
pretence against lay-investiture was that it was a usurpation of a papal
right, and that it led to the appointment of evil and ignorant men; the
reality was a determination to extend papal power, by making Rome the
fountain of emolument. Gregory, by his movements, had thus brought upon
himself three antagonists--the imperial power, the Italian nobles, and
the married clergy. The latter, unscrupulous and exasperated, met him
with his own weapons, not hesitating to calumniate his friendship with
the Countess Matilda. It was also suspected that they were connected
with the outrage perpetrated by the nobles that took place in Rome.
[Sidenote: Outrage on Hildebrand.] On Christmas night, A.D. 1075, in the
midst of a violent rain, while the pope was administering the communion,
a band of soldiers burst into the church, seized Gregory at the altar,
stripped and wounded him, and, haling him on horseback behind one of the
soldiers, carried him off to a stronghold, from which he was rescued by
the populace. But, without wavering for a moment, the undaunted pontiff
pressed on his conflict with the imperial power, summoning Henry to Rome
to account for his delinquencies, and threatening his excommunication if
he should not appear before an appointed day. In haste, under the
auspices of the king, a synod was assembled at Worms; charges against
the pope of licentious life, bribery, necromancy, simony, murder,
atheism, were introduced and sentence of deposition pronounced against
him. On his side, Gregory assembled the third Lateran Council, A.D.
1076, placed King Henry under interdict, absolved his subjects from
allegiance, and deposed him. [Sidenote: He defines the position of the
Church,] A series of constitutions, clearly defining the new bases of
the papal system, was published. They were to the following effect:
"That the Roman pontiff can alone be called universal; that he alone has
a right to depose bishops; that his legates have a right to preside over
all bishops in a general council; that he can depose absent prelates;
that he alone has a right to use imperial ornaments; that princes are
bound to kiss his feet, and his only; that he has a right to depose
emperors; that no synod or council summoned without his commission can
be called general; that no book can be called canonical without his
authority; that his sentence can be annulled by none, but that he may
annul the decrees of all; that the Roman Church has been, is, and will
continue to be infallible; that whoever dissents from it ceases to be a
catholic Christian, and that subjects may be absolved from their
allegiance to wicked princes." The power that could assert such
resolutions was near its culmination.
And now was manifest the superiority of the spiritual over the temporal
power. The quarrel with Henry went on, and, after a hard struggle and
many intrigues to draw the Normans over to him, that monarch was
compelled to submit, and in the depth of winter to cross the snowy Alps,
under circumstances of unparalleled hardship, to seek absolution from
his adversary. [Sidenote: and overcomes the King of Germany.] Then
ensued the scene at Canosa--a penitent in white raiment standing in the
dreary snow of three winter days, January 1077, cold and fasting at the
gate, seeking pardon and reconciliation of the inexorable pontiff; that
penitent was the King of Germany. Then ensued the dramatic scene at the
sacrament, in which the gray-haired pontiff called upon Heaven to strike
him dead on the spot if he were not innocent of the crimes of which he
had been accused, and dared the guilty monarch to do the same.
[Sidenote: Conclusions from these events.] Whoever will reflect on these
interesting events cannot fail to discern two important conclusions. The
tone of thought throughout Europe had changed within the last three
ages; ideas were entertained, doctrines originated or controverted, a
policy conceived and attempted altogether in advance of the old times.
Intellect, both among the clergy and the laity, had undergone a great
development. But the peculiar character of the papal power is also
ascertained--that it is worldly, and the result of the policy of man.
The outrage on Hildebrand shows how that power had diminished at its
centre, but the victory over Henry that it maintained its strength at a
distance. Natural forces diminish as the distance increases; this
unnatural force displayed an opposite property.
[Sidenote: Culmination of the ecclesiastical power.] Gregory had carried
his point. He had not only beaten back the Northern attack, but had
established the supremacy of the ecclesiastical over the temporal power,
and that point, with inflexible resolution, he maintained, though in its
consequences it cost Germany a civil war. But, while he was thus
unyielding in his temporal policy, there is reason to suppose that he
was not without misgivings in his theological belief. In the war between
Henry and his rival Rodolph, Gregory was compelled by policy to be at
first neutral. He occupied himself with the Eucharistic controversy.
[Sidenote: Friendship of Hildebrand and Berengar.] This was at the time
that he was associated with Berengar, who lived with him for a year. Nor
did the pope think it unworthy of himself to put forth, in excuse of the
heretic, a vision, in which the Virgin Mary had asserted the orthodoxy
of Berengar; but, as his quarrel with King Henry went on to new
excommunications and depositions, a synod of bishops presumed to condemn
him as a partisan of Berengar and a necromancer. On the election of
Gilbert of Ravenna as antipope, Gregory, without hesitation, pushed his
principles to their consequences, denouncing kingship as a wicked and
diabolical usurpation, an infraction of the equal rights of man.
[Sidenote: The German contest resumed.] Hereupon Henry determined to
destroy him or to be destroyed; and descending again into Italy, A.D.
1081, for three successive years laid siege to Rome. In vain the amorous
Matilda, with more than the devotion of an ally, endeavoured to succour
her beleaguered friend. The city surrendered to Henry at Christmas, A.D.
1084. With his antipope he entered it, receiving from his hands the
imperial crown. The Norman allies of Hildebrand at last approached in
strength. The emperor was compelled to retreat. A feeble attempt to hold
the city was made. The Normans took it by surprise, and released Gregory
from his imprisonment in the Castle of St. Angelo. An awful scene
ensued. Some conflicts between the citizens and the Normans occurred; a
battle in the streets was the consequence, and Rome was pillaged,
sacked, and fired. Streets, churches, palaces, were left a heap of
smoking ashes. The people by thousands were massacred. [Sidenote: The
Mohammedans support Hildebrand.] The Saracens, of whom there were
multitudes in the Norman army, were in the Eternal City at last, and,
horrible to be said, were there as the hired supporters of the Vicar of
Christ. Matrons, nuns, young women, were defiled. Crowds of men, women,
and children were carried off and sold as slaves. [Sidenote: Sack of
Rome, and death of the pope.] It was the treatment of a city taken by
storm. In consternation, the pontiff with his infidel deliverers retired
from the ruined capital to Salerno, and there he died, A.D. 1085.
[Sidenote: The Crusades.] He had been dead ten years, when a policy was
entered upon by the papacy which imparted to it more power than all the
exertions of Gregory. The Crusades were instituted by a French pope,
Urban II. Unpopular in Italy, perhaps by reason of his foreign birth, he
aroused his native country for the recovery of the Holy Land. He began
his career in a manner not now unusual, interfering in a quarrel between
Philip of France and his wife, taking the part of the latter, as
experience had shown it was always advisable for a pope to do. Soon,
however, he devoted his attention to something more important than these
matrimonial broils. It seems that a European crusade was first
distinctly conceived of and its value most completely comprehended by
Gerbert, to whom, doubtless, his Mohammedan experiences had suggested
it. In the first year of his pontificate, he wrote an epistle, in the
name of the Church of Jerusalem, to the Church throughout the world,
exhorting Christian soldiers to come to her relief either with arms or
money. It had been subsequently contemplated by Gregory VII. For many
years, pilgrimages to Palestine had been on the increase; a very
lucrative export trade in relics from that country had arisen; crowds
from all parts of Europe had of late made their way to Jerusalem, for
the singular purpose of being present at the great assize which the
Scriptures were supposed to prophesy would soon take place in the Valley
of Jehoshaphat. The Mohammedans had inflicted on these pious persons
much maltreatment, being unable to comprehend the purport of their
extraordinary journey, and probably perceiving a necessity of putting
some restriction upon the influx of such countless multitudes.
[Sidenote: The Council of Clermont authorizes a crusade.] Peter the
Hermit, who had witnessed the barbarities to which his Christian
brethren were exposed, and the abominations of the holy places now in
the hands of the infidel, roused Europe, by his preaching, to a frantic
state; and Urban, at the Council of Clermont, A.D. 1095, gave authority
to the Holy War. "It is the will of God," was the unanimous shout of the
council and the populace. The periodical shower of shooting stars was
seen with remarkable brilliancy on April 25th, and mistaken by the
council for a celestial monition that the Christians must precipitate
themselves in like manner on the East. From this incident we may
perceive how little there was of inspiration in these blundering and
violent ecclesiastical assemblages; the moment that they can be brought
to a scientific test their true nature is detected. As a preliminary
exercise, a ferocious persecution of the Jews of France had burst forth,
and the blood and tortures of multitudes offered a tardy expiation for
the crimes that their ancestors had committed at the Crucifixion in
Jerusalem, more than a thousand years previously.
[Sidenote: The first crusade.] It does not fall within my plan to give a
detailed description of the Crusades. It is enough to say that, though
the clergy had promised the protection of God to every one who would
thus come to his assistance--an ample reward for their pious work in
this life, and the happiness of heaven in the next--Urban's crusade
failed not only disastrously, but hideously, so far as the ignorant
rabbles, under Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless, were
concerned. Nevertheless, under the better-organized expeditions that
soon followed, Jerusalem was captured, July 15th, A.D. 1099. The long
and ghastly line of bones whitening the road through Hungary to the East
showed how different a thing it was for a peaceable and solitary
pilgrim, with his staff, and wallet, and scallop-shell, to beg his way,
and a disorderly rabble of thousands upon thousands to rush forward
without any subordination, any organization, trusting only to the
providence of God. The van of the Crusades consisted of two hundred and
seventy-five thousand men, accompanied by eight horses, and preceded by
a goat and a goose, into which some one had told them that the Holy
Ghost had entered. Driven to madness by disappointment and
famine--expecting, in their ignorance, that every town they came to must
be Jerusalem--in their extremity they laid hands on whatever they could.
Their track was marked by robbery, bloodshed, and fire. In the first
crusade more than half a million of men died. It was far more disastrous
than the Moscow retreat.
[Sidenote: Storming of Jerusalem.] But still, in a military sense, the
first crusade accomplished its object. The capture of Jerusalem, as
might be expected under such circumstances, was attended by the
perpetration of atrocities almost beyond belief. What a contrast to the
conduct of the Arabs! When the Khalif Omar took Jerusalem, A.D. 637, he
rode into the city by the side of the Patriarch Sophronius, conversing
with him on its antiquities. At the hour of prayer, he declined to
perform his devotions in the Church of the Resurrection, in which he
chanced to be, but prayed on the steps of the Church of Constantine;
"for," said he to the patriarch, "had I done so, the Musselmen in a
future age would have infringed the treaty, under colour of imitating my
example." But, in the capture by the Crusaders, the brains of young
children were dashed out against the walls; infants were thrown over the
battlements; every woman that could be seized was violated; men were
roasted at fires; some were ripped open, to see if they had swallowed
gold; the Jews were driven into their synagogue, and there burnt; a
massacre of nearly 70,000 persons took place; and the pope's legate was
seen "partaking in the triumph."
[Sidenote: Political results of the Crusades.] It had been expected by
the politicians who first projected these wars that they would heal the
divisions of the Latin and Greek churches, and give birth to a European
republic, under the spiritual presidency of the pope. In these respects
they proved a failure. It does not appear that the popes themselves
personally had ever any living faith in the result. Not one of them ever
joined a crusade; and the Church, as a corporation, took care to embark
very little money in these undertakings. But, though they did not answer
to the original intention, they gave, in an indirect way, a wonderful
stimulus to the papal power. [Sidenote: Give to Rome the control of men
and money in Europe.] Under the plausible pretences offered by them, the
pope obtained control over the person of every Christian man from the
highest to the lowest. The cross once taken, all civil control over the
Crusader ceased--he became the man of the Church. Under those pretences,
also, a right was imperceptibly acquired of raising revenue in all parts
of Europe; even the clergy might be assessed. A drain was thus
established on the resources of distant nations for an object which no
man dared to gainsay; if he adventured on any such thing, he must
encounter the odium of an infidel--an atheist. A steady stream of money
flowed into Italy. Nor was it alone by this taxation of every Christian
nation without permission of its government--this empire within every
empire--immense wealth accrued to the projectors, while the infatuation
could be kept up, by the diminished rate at which land could be
obtained. Domains were thrown into the market; there were few purchasers
except the Church. Immense domains were also given away by weak-minded
sinners, and those on the point of death, for the salvation of their
souls. Thus, all things considered, the effect of the Crusades, though
not precisely that which was expected, was of singular advantage to the
Church, giving it a commanding strength it had never before possessed.
In their resistance to the German attack the popes never hesitated at
any means. They prompted Prince Henry to revolt against their great
antagonist, his father; they intervened, not to rebuke, but to abet him,
when he threw his father into prison and deprived him of the necessaries
of life. They carried their vengeance beyond the grave. When the aged
emperor, broken in heart, escaped from their torment, and was honourably
buried by the Bishop of Liege, that prelate was forthwith excommunicated
and compelled to disinter the corpse. But crimes like these, against
which human nature revolts, meet with retribution. [Sidenote: Resistance
of Henry V.] This same Prince Henry, becoming Henry V., was forced by
circumstances to resume his father's quarrel, and to refuse to yield his
right of granting investitures. He marched upon Rome, and at the point
of the sword compelled his adversary, Pope Paschal II., to surrender all
the possessions and royalties of the Church--compelled him to crown him
emperor--not, however, until the pontiff had been subjected to the
ignominy of imprisonment, and brought into condemnation among his own
party.
[Sidenote: Bernard of Clairvaux stimulates the second crusade.] Things
seemed to be going to ruin in Rome, and such must inevitably have been
the issue, had not an extraneous influence arisen in Bernard of
Clairvaux, to whom Europe learned to look up as the beater down of
heresies, theological and political. He had been a pupil of William of
Champeaux, the vanquished rival of Abelard, and Abelard he hated with a
religious and personal hate. He was a wonder-worker. He excommunicated
the flies which infested a church--they all fell down dead and were
swept out by the basketful. He has been described as "the mellifluous
doctor, whose works are not scientific, but full of unction." He could
not tolerate the principle at the basis of Abelard's philosophy--the
assertion of the supremacy of reason. Of Arnold of Brescia--who carried
that principle to its political consequences, and declared that the
riches and power of the clergy were inconsistent with their
profession--he was the accuser and punisher. [Sidenote: Its failure.]
Bernard preached a new crusade, authenticating his power by miracles,
affirmed to be not inferior to those of our Saviour; promising to him
who should slay an unbeliever happiness in this life and Paradise in the
life to come. This second crusade was conducted by kings, and included
fanatic ladies, dressed in the armour of men; but it ended in ruin.
It was reserved for the only Englishman who ever attained to the papacy
to visit Rome with the punishment she had so often inflicted upon
others. Nicolas Breakspear--Adrian IV.--put the Eternal City under
interdict, thereby ending the republic which the partisans of Arnold of
Brescia had set up. But in this he was greatly aided by a change of
sentiment in many of the inhabitants of Rome, who had found to their
cost that it was more profitable for their city to be the centre of
Christianity than the seat of a phantom republic. [Sidenote: Murder of
Arnold of Brescia.] As an equivalent for his coronation by Adrian,
Frederick Barbarossa agreed to surrender to the Church Arnold of
Brescia. With indecent haste, the moment she had obtained possession of
her arch-enemy she put him to death--not delivering him over to the
secular arm, as the custom had been, but murdering him with her own
hand. Seven centuries have elapsed, and the blood of Arnold is still
crying from the ground for retribution. Notwithstanding a new--the
third--crusade, things went from bad to worse in the Holy Land. Saladin
had retaken Jerusalem, A.D. 1187. Barbarossa was drowned in a river in
Pisidia. Richard of England was treacherously imprisoned; nor did the
pope interfere for this brave soldier of the Cross. [Sidenote: Birth of
Frederick II.] In the meantime, the Emperors of Germany had acquired
Sicily by marriage--an incident destined to be of no little importance
in the history of Europe; for, on the death of the Emperor Henry VI. at
Messina, his son Frederick, an infant not two years old, was left to be
brought up in that island. What the consequences were we shall soon see.
[Sidenote: Review of the preceding events.] If we review the events
related in this chapter, we find that the idolatry and immorality into
which Rome had fallen had become connected with material interests
sufficiently powerful to ensure their perpetuation; that converted
Germany insisted on a reform, and therefore made a moral attack on the
Italian system, attempting to carry it into effect by civil force. This
attack was, properly speaking, purely moral, the intellectual element
accompanying it being derived from Western or Arabian influences, as
will be shown in the next chapter; and, in its resistance to this, the
papacy was not only successful, but actually was able to retaliate,
overthrowing the Emperors of Germany, and being even on the point of
establishing a European autocracy, with the pope at its head. It was in
these events that the Reformation began, though circumstances intervened
to postpone its completion to the era of Luther. Henceforth we see more
and more plainly the attitude in which the papacy, through its material
interests, was compelled to stand, as resisting all intellectual
advancement. Our subject has therefore here to be left unfinished until
we shall have described the Mohammedan influences making pressures on
the West and the East.