§ 115A. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
OF THE PEOPLE.
Preaching in the vernacular was carried on mainly by the Brothers
of the Common Life, the mystics, and several heretical sects, _e.g._
Waldensians, Wiclifites, Hussites, etc.; and stimulated by their
example, others began to follow the same practice. The so called
_Biblia pauperum_ set forth in pictures the New Testament history
with its Old Testament types and prophecies; _Bible Histories_ made
known among the people the Scripture stories in a connected form; and,
after the introduction of printing, the German _Plenaries_ helped also
to spread the knowledge of God’s word by renderings for private use of
the principal parts of the service. For the instruction of the people
in faith and morals a whole series of _Catechisms_ was constructed
after a gradually developed type. The “Dance of Death” in its various
forms reminded of the vanity of all earthly pleasures. The spirit of
the Reformation was shown during this period in the large number of
hymns written in the vernacular. Church music too received a powerful
impulse.
§ 115.1. =Fasts and Festivals.=--New =Mary Festivals= were
introduced: _F. præsentationis M._ on 21st Nov. (Lev. xii. 5-8),
_F. visitationis M._ (Luke i. 39-51), on 2nd July. In the
15th century we meet with the festivals of the Seven Pains of
Mary, _F. Spasmi M._, on Friday or Saturday before Palm Sunday.
Dominic instituted a rosary festival, _F. rosarii M._, on 1st
Oct., and its general observance was enjoined by Gregory XIII.
in A.D. 1571.--The =Veneration of Ann= (§ 57, 2) was introduced
into Germany in the second half of the 15th century, but soon
rose to a height almost equal to that of Mary.--The =Fasts= of
the early Church (§ 56, 7) had, even during the previous period,
been greatly relaxed. Now the most special fast days were mere
days of abstinence from flesh, while most lavish meals of fish
and farinaceous food were indulged in. Papal and episcopal
dispensations from fasting were also freely given.
§ 115.2. =Preaching= (§ 104, 1).--To aid and encourage preaching
in the language of the people, unskilled preachers were supplied
with _Vocabularia prædicantium_. Surgant, a priest of Basel,
wrote, in the end of the 15th century, a treatise on homiletics
and catechetics most useful for his age, _Manuale Curatorum_.
In it he showed how Latin sermons might be rendered into the
tongue of the people, and urged the duty of hearing sermons.
The mendicants were the chief preachers, especially the mystics
of the preaching orders, during the 14th century (§ 114), and
the Augustinians, particularly their German Observants, during
the 15th (§ 112, 5), and next to them, the Franciscans.--The
most zealous preacher of his age was the Spanish Dominican
=Vincent Ferrér=. In A.D. 1397 he began his unprecedentedly
successful preaching tours through Spain, France, Italy, England,
Scotland, and Ireland. He died in A.D. 1419. He laboured with
special ardour for the conversion of the Jews, of whom he is
said to have baptized 35,000. Wherever he went he was venerated
as a saint, received with respect by the clergy and prelates,
highly honoured by kings and princes, consulted by rich and
poor regarding temporal and spiritual things. He was canonized
by Calixtus III. in A.D. 1455. Certain Flagellants (§ 116, 3)
whom he met in his travels followed him, scourging themselves
and singing his penitential songs, but he stopped this when
objected to by the Council of Constance. His sermons dealt
with the realities of actual life, and called all classes
to repent of their sins. Of a similar spirit was the Italian
Dominican =Barletta=, who died in A.D. 1480, whose burlesque
and scathing satire rendered him the most popular preacher
of the day. In his footsteps went the Frenchmen =Maillard=
and =Menot=, both Franciscans, and the German priest of
Strassburg, =Geiler of Kaisersberg=, quite equal to them in
quaint terseness of expression and biting wit. All these were
preeminently distinguished for moral earnestness and profound
spirituality.[339]
§ 115.3. =The _Biblia Pauperum_.=--The typological
interpretation of the Old Testament history received a fixed
and permanent form in the illustrations introduced into the
service books and pictures printed on the altars, walls, and
windows of churches, etc., during the 12th century. A set of
seventeen such picture groups was found at Vienna, of which the
middle panels represent the New Testament history, _sub gracia_,
above it an Old Testament type from the period _ante legem_, and
under it one from the period _sub lege_. This picture series was
completed by the =Biblia pauperum=, so called from the saying
of Gregory I., that pictures were the poor man’s Bible. Many of
the extant MSS., all depending on a common source, date from the
14th and 15th centuries. The illustrations of the New Testament
are in the middle, and round about are pictures of the four
prophets, with volumes in their hands, on which the appropriate
Old Testament prophecies are written. On right and left are Old
Testament types. The multiplication of copies of this work by
woodcuts and types was one of the first uses to which printing
was put.[340]
§ 115.4. =The Bible in the Vernacular.=--The need of
=translations of the Bible= into the language of the people,
specially urged by the Waldensians and Albigensians, was now
widely insisted upon by those of reformatory tendencies (§ 119).
On the introduction of printing, about A.D. 1450, an opportunity
was afforded of rapidly circulating translations already made
in most of the European languages. Before Luther, there were
fourteen printed editions of the Bible in High and five in Low
German. The translations, made from the Vulgate, were in all
practically the same. The translators are unknown. The diction
is for the most part clumsy, and the sense often scarcely
intelligible. Translations had been made in England by the
Wiclifites, and in Bohemia by the Hussites. In France, various
renderings of separate books of Scripture were circulated,
and a complete French Bible was issued by the confessor of
Charles VIII., Jean de Rely, at Paris, in A.D. 1487. Two
Italian Bibles were published in Venice, in A.D. 1471, one by
the Camaldulite abbot Malherbi, closely following the Vulgate;
the other by the humanist Bruccioli, which often falls back
on the original text. The latter was highly valued by Italian
exiles of the Reformation age. In Spain a Carthusian, Ferreri,
attempted a translation, which was printed at Valencia in
A.D. 1478. More popular however than these translations were the
=Bible Histories=, _i.e._ free renderings, sometimes contracted,
sometimes expanded, of the historical books, especially these
of the Old Testament. From A.D. 1470 large and frequent editions
were published of the German =Plenaries=, containing at first
only the gospels and epistles, afterwards also the Service of
the Mass, for all Sundays and festivals and saints’ days, with
explanations and directions.
§ 115.5. =Catechisms and Prayer Books.=--Next to preaching,
the chief opportunity for imparting religious instruction was
confession. Later catechisms drew largely upon the baptismal
and confessional services. In the 13th and 14th centuries the
decalogue was added, and afterwards the seven deadly sins and
the seven principal virtues. Pictures were used to impress
the main points on the minds of the people and the youth.
The catechetical literature of this period, both in guides
for priests and manuals for the people, was written in the
vernacular.--During the 15th century there were also numerous
so-called _Artes moriendi_, showing how to die well, in which
often earnest piety appeared side by side with the grossest
superstition. There were also many prayer books, _Hortuli animæ_,
published, in which the worship of Mary and the saints often
overshadowed that of God and Christ, and an extravagant belief
in indulgences led to a mechanical view of prayer that was
thoroughly pagan.
§ 115.6. =The Dance of Death.=--The fantastic humour of the
Middle Ages found dramatic and spectacular expression in the
Dance of Death, in which all classes, from the pope and princes
to the beggars, in turn converse with death. It was introduced
into Germany and France in the beginning of the 14th century,
with the view of raising men out of the pleasures and troubles
of life. It was called in France the Dance of the Maccabees,
because first introduced at that festival. Pictures and verbal
descriptions of the Dance of Death were made on walls and
doors of churches, around MSS. and woodcuts, where death was
generally represented as a skeleton. Hans Holbein the Younger
gave the finishing touch to these representations in his
_Imagines Mortis_, the originals of which are in St. Petersburg.
In this masterpiece, the idea of a dancing pair is set aside,
and in its place forty pictures, afterwards increased to
fifty-eight, full of humour and moral earnestness, pourtray
the power of death in the earthly life.[341]
§ 115.7. =Hymnology= (§ 104, 10).--The =Latin Church poetry= of
the 14th and 15th centuries was far beneath that of the 12th and
13th. Only the mystics, _e.g._ Thomas à Kempis, still composed
some beautiful hymns. We have now however the beginnings of
=German= and =Bohemian= hymnology. The German flagellators sang
German hymns (§ 116, 3), and so obtained much popular favour.
The Hussite movement of the 15th century gave a great impulse
to church song. Huss himself earnestly urged the practice of
congregational singing in the language of the people, and himself
composed Bohemian hymns. The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren
were specially productive in this department (§ 119, 8). In
many churches, at least on high festivals, German hymns were
sung, and in some even at the celebration of mass and other parts
of public worship. The spiritual songs of this period were of
four kinds: some half German, half Latin; others translations of
Latin hymns and sequences; others, original German compositions
by monks and minstrels; and adaptations of secular songs to
spiritual purposes. In the latter case the original melodies
were also retained. Popular forms and melodies for sacred songs
were now secured, and these were subsequently appropriated by
the Reformers of the 16th century.
§ 115.8. =Church Music= (§ 104, 11).--Great improvements were
made in organs by the invention of pedals, etc. =Church music=
was also greatly developed by the introduction of harmony and
counterpoint. The Dutch were pre-eminent in this department.
Ockenheim, founder of the second Dutch school of music, at
the end of the 15th century, was the inventor of the canon
and the fugue. The greatest composer of this school was
Jodocus Pratensis, about A.D. 1500, and next to him may be
named the German, Adam of Fulda.
§ 115.9. =Legendary Relics.=--The legend of angels having
transferred the house of Mary from Nazareth, in A.D. 1291,
to Tersato in Dalmatia, in A.D. 1294 to Reccanati, and finally,
in A.D. 1295, to Loretto in Ancona, arose in the 14th century,
in connection with the fall of Acre (§ 94, 6) and the overthrow
of the last remnants of the kingdom of Jerusalem. When and how
the legend arose of the _Scala santa_ at Rome being the marble
steps of Pilate’s prætorium, brought there by St. Helena, is
unknown.--Even Frederick the Wise, at an enormous cost, brought
together 1,010 sacred relics into his new chapel at Wittenberg,
a mere look at which secured indulgence for 100 years. In a
catalogue of relics in the churches of St. Maurice and Mary
Magdalene at Halle, published in A D. 1520, are mentioned a
piece of earth, from a field of Damascus, of which God made
the first man; a piece from a field at Hebron, where Adam
repented; a piece of the body of Isaac; twenty-five fragments
of the burning bush of Horeb; specimens of the wilderness
manna; six drops of the Virgin’s milk; the finger of the
Baptist that pointed to the Lamb of God; the finger of Thomas
that touched the wounds of Jesus; a bit of the altar at which
John read mass for the Virgin; the stone with which Stephen was
killed; a great piece of Paul’s skull; the hose of St. Thomas
of Canterbury; the baret of St. Francis, etc. The collection
consisted of 8,933 articles, and could afford indulgence
for 39,245,100 years and 220 days! Benefit was to be had by
contributions to the church, which went into the pocket of the
elector-archbishop, Albert of Mainz. The craze for =pilgrimages=
was also rife among all classes, old and young, high and low.
Signs and wonders and newly discovered relics were regarded
as consecrating new places of pilgrimage, and the stories of
pilgrims raised the fame of these resorts more and more. In
A.D. 1500 Düren, by the possession of a relic of Ann, stolen
from Mainz, rapidly rose to first rank. The people of Mainz
sought through the pope to recover this valuable property,
but he decided in favour of Düren, because God had meanwhile
sanctioned the transfer by working many miracles of healing.
§ 115B. NATIONAL LITERATURE AND ECCLESIASTICAL ART.
Toward the close of the 13th century, and throughout the 14th,
a national literature, in prose and poetry, sprang up in Italy, which
in several respects has close relations to the history of the church.
The three Florentines, Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, boldly burst
through the barriers of traditional usage, which had made Latin the
only vehicle for literature and science, and became the creators of
a beautiful Italian style; while their example powerfully influenced
their own countrymen, and those of other western nations, during the
immediately succeeding ages. The exclusive use of the Latin language
had produced a uniform hierarchical spirit, and was a restraint to
the anti-hierarchical movements of the age after independent national
development in church and State. The breaking down of this barrier to
progress was an important step. But all the three great men of letters
whom we have named were also highly distinguished for their classical
culture. They introduced the study of the ancient classics, and were
thus the precursors of the humanists. They also presented a united
front against the corruptions of the church, against hierarchical
pretensions, the greed and moral debasement of the papacy, as well
as against the moral and intellectual degradation of the clergy
and the monks. Petrarch and Boccaccio too warred against the
depraved scholasticism. The Augustan age of German national poetry
was contemporary with the age of the Hohenstaufens. It consisted
in popular songs, these often of a sacred character. During the
14th century the sacred drama reached the highest point of its
development, especially in Germany, England, France, and Spain. The
spirit of the Renaissance, which during the 15th century dominated
Italian art, made itself felt also in the domain of ecclesiastical
architecture and painting.
§ 115.10. =The Italian National Literature.=[342]--=Dante
Alighieri=, born at Florence in A.D. 1265, was in A.D. 1302
banished as a Ghibelline from his native city, and died an
exile at Ravenna, in A.D. 1321. His boyish love for Beatrice,
which after her early death continued to fill his soul to
the end of his life, gave him an impulse to a “New Life,”
and proved the unfailing source of his poetic inspiration. His
studies at Bologna, Padua, and Paris made him an enthusiastic
admirer of Thomas, but alongside of his scholastic culture
there lay the quick perception of the beautiful, combined with
a lively imagination. He was thus able to deal with the burning
questions of his day in one of the greatest poetic masterpieces
of any age, people, or tongue. His _Divina Commedia_ describes
a vision in which the poet is led, first by the hand of
Virgil, as the representative of human wisdom, through Hell
and Purgatory, then by Beatrice, whose place at times is taken
by the German Matilda (§ 107, 2), and finally by St. Bernard,
as representatives of revealed religion, through Paradise and
the several heavens up to the empyræum, the eternal residence
of the triune God. The poet presents his readers with a
description of what he saw, and reports his conversations
with his guides and the souls of more important personages,
most of them shortly before deceased, in which the problems of
philosophy, theology, and politics are discussed. His political
views, of which he treats _ex professo_ in the three books of
his _De monarchia_, are derived from Aquinas’ theory of the
State, but breathe a strong Italian Ghibelline patriotism, so
that he places not only Boniface VIII. but also Frederick II.
in Hell. In the struggle between the empire and the papacy
he stands decidedly on the side of the former. With profound
sorrow he bewails the corruption of the church in its head and
members, but holds firmly by its confession of faith. And while
lashing vigorously the corruptions of monkery, he eulogizes
the heavenliness of the lives of Francis and Dominic.[343]
=Petrarch=, who died in A.D. 1374, broke away completely from
scholasticism, and turned with enthusiasm to classical studies.
He combated superstition, _e.g._ astrology, but also contends
against the unbelief of his age, and in his letters and poems
lashes with merciless severity the immorality of the papacy
and the secularization of the church.[344] In =Boccaccio=
again, who died in A.D. 1375, antipathy to scholasticism,
monkery, and the hierarchy had reached its utmost stage. He
has no anger and denunciation, but only contempt, reproach,
and wit to shoot against them. He also makes light of the
moral requirements of Christianity and the church, especially
the seventh commandment. But in later years he manifested
deep penitence for the lascivious writing of his youth, to
which he had given reckless and shameless expression in his
“Decameron.”
§ 115.11. =The German National Literature.=--The German
prose style was greatly ennobled by the mystics (§ 114), and
the highest development of German satire against the hierarchy,
clergy, and monks was reached by Sebastian Brant, of Strassburg,
who wrote in A.D. 1494 his “Ship of Fools.” Among popular
preachers John Tauler held the first rank (§ 114, 2). In
Strassburg, Geiler of Kaisersberg distinguished himself as
an original preacher. His sermons were full of biting wit,
keen sarcasm, and humorous expressions, but also of profound
earnestness and withering exposures of the sins of the clergy
and monks. His best known work is a series of sermons on Brant’s
“Ship of Fools,” published in A.D. 1498.
§ 115.12. =The Sacred Drama= (§ 105, 5).--The poetic merit of
most of the German mysteries performed at high festivals is not
great. The Laments of Mary however often rose to true poetic
heights. Comedy and burlesque too found place especially in
connection with Judas, or the exchangers, or the unconverted
Magdalene. A priest, Theodoric Schernberg, wrote a play on the
fall and repentance of the popess Johanna (§ 82, 6). On Shrove
Tuesday plays were performed, in which the clergy and monks
were held up to ridicule. Hans Roseuplüt of Nuremberg, about
A.D. 1450, was the most famous writer of German Shrovetide
plays. In France, about the end of the 14th century, a society
of young people of the upper rank was formed, called _Enfans
sans souci_, whose _Sotties_, buffooneries, in which the church
was ridiculed, were in high repute in the cities and at the
court. Their most distinguished poet was Pierre Gringoire, who,
in the beginning of the 16th century, in the French _Chasse
du Cerf des Cerfs_, parodied the _Servus servorum_ (§ 46, 10),
and the church is represented as the old befooled mother. The
numerous Italian mysteries were produced mainly by the gifted
and cultured sons of Tuscany, who had already developed their
native tongue into a beautiful and flexible language. In Spain,
during the 15th century, the _Autos_, partly as Christmas plays
and partly as sacramental or passion plays, were based on the
ancient mysteries, and in form inclined more to the allegorical
moralities.
§ 115.13. =Architecture and Painting= (§ 104, 12, 14)--=Gothic
architecture= was the prevailing style in the churches of
Germany, France, and England. In Italy, the humanist movement
(§ 120, 1) led to the imitation of ancient classical models,
and thus the Renaissance style was introduced, which flourished
for 300 years. Its real creator was the Florentine Bruneleschi,
who won imperishable renown by the grand cupola of the cathedral
of Florence. Bramante, died A.D. 1514, marks the transition
from the earlier Renaissance of the 15th century to the later
of the 16th, at the summit of which stands Michael Angelo,
A.D. 1474-1564. After a plan of Bramante Julius II., in
A.D. 1506, began the magnificent reconstruction of St. Peter’s
at Rome, the execution of which in its gigantic proportions
occupied the reigns of twenty popes. It was completed under
Urban VIII., in A.D. 1636. This great building, in consequence
of the traffic in indulgences, entered on to defray its cost,
became the occasion of the loss to the papacy of the half
of western Christendom.--Sacred =Statuary=, in the hands of
Ghiberti, died A.D. 1455, and Michael Angelo, reached the
highest stage of excellence.--Of =Painting=, the Augustan
age of which was the 15th century, there were properly four
schools. Giotto, who died in A.D. 1336, was founder of the
Florentine school, which was specially distinguished by its
delineations of sacred history. To it belonged the Dominican
Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, who painted only as he prayed,
Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, and Michael Angelo. Then
there was the Lombard or Venetian School, at the head of
which stands Giovanni Bellini, died A.D. 1516, which turned
away from the church and applied itself with its fresh living
colouring to the depicting of earthly ideals. Its most eminent
representatives were Correggio, died A.D. 1534, and Titian,
died A.D. 1576. In the Umbrian school, again, the spirit of
St. Francis continued still to breathe. Its greatest master
was Raphael of Urbino, the noblest and most renowned of all
Christian painters, distinguished also as an architect. The
German school had its ablest representatives in the brothers
Hubert and John van Eyk, Albert Dürer, and Hans Holbein the
Elder.--Continuation § 149, 15.
§ 116. POPULAR MOVEMENTS.
In consequence of the shameful debasement of the papacy and the
deep corruption of the clergy and monks, the influence of the church
on the moral and religious culture of the people, in spite of the
ardent zeal of the homilists and catechists, was upon the whole much
less than formerly. Reverence for the church as it stood was indeed
tottering, but was not yet completely overthrown. The religious
enthusiasm of earlier times was fading away, but occasional phenomena
still continued to arise, like St. Bridget and St. Catharine of Siena
(§ 112, 4, 8), Claus of Flüe, and the Maid of Orleans. But in order
to elevate a John of Nepomuk into a recognised national saint, it
was necessary to produce forged legendary stories in post-Reformation
times. The market-place tricks of John of Capistrano (§ 112, 3) were
of such a kind, that even the papal curia only after a century and a
half had passed could venture to adorn him with the halo of saintship.
The ever-increasing nuisance of the sale of indulgences smothered
religious earnestness and crushed all religious spirit out of the
people. But earnestness showed itself again in the reactions of the
Beghards and Lollards, or in the explosions of the Flagellants, and
spirituality often found rich nourishment in the preaching of the
mystics. One current issuing from the widespread Friends of God
passed deep into the heart of the German people; another, springing
probably from the same source, but with a quite different tendency,
appears in the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit. On the other
hand, superstition also prevailed, and was all the more dangerous
the more it parted with its poetic and naïve character (§ 117, 4).
Toward the end of that period however a new era dawned in social
life, as well as in national literature. Knighthood paled before
gunpowder. The establishment of civic corporations developed a sense
of freedom, and introduced a healthy understanding and appreciation
of civil liberty. The printing of books began the dissemination of
knowledge, and the discovery of America opened to view a new world
for trade, colonization, and the spread of Christianity. To the
pious heart of the discoverer the extension of Christ’s kingdom
proved the most powerful motive to his continued exertions, and
from the treasures of the new world he hoped also to obtain the
means for conquering again the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Land.
§ 116.1. =Two National Saints.=--=John of Nepomuk=, of
Pomuk in Bohemia, was from A.D. 1380 pastor, then canon,
archiepiscopal secretary, and vicar-general of Prague. King
Wenzel had him seized, cruelly tortured, and flung over the
bridge into the Moldau, because, so runs the legend, he as
confessor of the queen sturdily refused to betray the secrets
of the confessional, but really because he had roused the king’s
anger to the uttermost in a violent controversy between the
king’s archbishop, John of Jenzenstein, and the chapter over
their election and consecration of an abbot. The confession
legend appears first in an Austrian writer of A.D. 1451,
who gives it distinctly as a tradition. It is evidently
connected with the Taborite rejection of the Catholic doctrine
of auricular confession (§ 119, 7). If it be accepted as true,
then, seeing that all the older chroniclers ascribe the cruel
treatment of this prelate to the share he took in the abbot’s
election, it will be necessary to assume two victims of the
king’s wrath instead of one. The John Nepomuk of the legend,
and the confessor of the queen, was tortured by the king’s
command in A.D. 1383; the other, who figures in the old
chronicles as archiepiscopal vicar-general, and is simply
called John, was tortured in A.D. 1393, and then thrown over
the bridge into the Moldau. This latter story appears first
in a Bohemian chronicle of A.D. 1541. In the 17th century the
Jesuits, in order to deprive the heretical national saint and
martyr John Huss of his supremacy by bringing forward another
genuine Bohemian, but also a thoroughly Catholic saint, gave
currency to the legend, adorned with many additional stories
of miracles. Benedict XIII. (§ 164, 1) was just the pope
to aid such a device by sanctioning, as he did in A.D. 1729,
the canonization of a purely fictitious saint-confessor John
Nepomuk. He is patron saint of bridges, whose image in Bohemia,
and other strictly Catholic lands, is met with at almost
every bridge, and is reverenced as the protector from unjust
accusations, as well as the dispenser of rain in seasons
of great drought. Although no mention is made of the story
about the confessional in the letter of complaint to Rome
by Archbishop Jenzenstein, Catholic historians still insist
that the confessor’s steadfastness was the real cause, the
election of the abbot the ostensible cause, of the martyrdom
of A.D. 1393.[345] The need of strengthening the position
of the Romish church, in face of the progress of the Swiss
Reformation of the 16th century, led also to the elevation
of the recluse, =Nicolaus [Nicolas] of Flüe= upon the pedestal
of a Swiss national saint. Esteemed even before his birth a
saint by reason of signs and wonders, “Brother Claus,” after
a long, active life in the world, in his 50th year, the father
of ten children, forsook house and home, with the approval
of his wife, abstained from all nourishment save that of the
sacrament, and died, after spending nineteen years in the
wilderness, in A.D. 1487. During this period he was the trusted
adviser of all classes upon public and private affairs. He
is specially famous as having saved Switzerland, by appearing
personally at the Diet of Stanz, in A.D. 1481, stopping
the conflict between cities and provinces, which threatened
to break up the confederation and bring about civil war, and
suggesting the peaceable compromise of the “Agreement of Stanz.”
That Brother Claus did assist in securing harmony is a well
established fact, but it is also demonstrable that he was not
personally present at Stanz. He was beatified by Clement X.
in A.D. 1671, but notwithstanding repeated endeavours by his
admirers, he has not yet been canonized.
§ 116.2. =The Maid of Orleans, A.D. 1428-1431.=--Joan of Arc
was the daughter of a peasant in the village of Domremy, in
Champagne. Even in her thirteenth year she thought she saw
a peculiar brightness and heard a heavenly voice exhorting
her to chastity and piety. She now bound herself by a vow to
perpetual virginity. Afterwards the heavenly voices became more
frequent, and the brightness took the shape of the archangel
Michael, St. Catharine, and other saints, who saluted her as
saviour of her fatherland. France was, under the imbecile king
Charles VI., and still more after his death, rent by the rival
parties of the Armagnacs and Burgundians. The former fought for
the rights of the dauphin Charles VII.; the latter supported his
mother Isabella and the English king Henry V., who was succeeded
in A.D. 1422 by his son Henry VI., then only nine months old.
Joan was the enthusiastic supporter of the dauphin. He found
himself in A.D. 1428 in the greatest straits. The last bulwark
of his might, the city of Orleans, was besieged by the English,
and seemed near its fall. Then her voices commanded Joan to
relieve Orleans, and to accompany the dauphin to his coronation
at Rheims. She now published her call, which had been hitherto
kept secret, overcame all difficulties, was recognised as
a messenger of heaven, assumed the male attire of a soldier,
and placed herself at the head of an enthusiastic crowd. Great
success attended the movements of this girl of seventeen years.
In the latter campaigns of the war she became the prisoner of
Burgundy, who delivered her over to the English. At Rouen she
was subjected to an ecclesiastical tribunal, which after four
months’ investigation condemned her to the stake as a heretic
and sorceress. In view of the fire, her courage failed. Yielding
to the persuasion of her confessor, she acknowledged her guilt,
and had her sentence commuted to that of imprisonment for life.
But eight days later she was led forth to the stake. Her rude
keepers had taken away her female attire, and forced her to wear
again male garments, and this act to which she was compelled was
made a charge against her. She died courageously and piously in
A.D. 1431. At the demand of her family, which had been ennobled,
a revision of the process against her was made in A.D. 1450, when
she was pronounced innocent, and the charges against her false.
The endeavour of Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, in A.D. 1876,
in the name of Catholic France, to have her canonized, was not
responded to by the papal curia. The infallible church, that
had burnt her as a witch in A.D. 1431, could scarcely give her
a place among its saints, even after 450 years had gone.
§ 116.3. =Lollards, Flagellants, and Dancers.=--During a plague
at Antwerp in A.D. 1300 the =Lollards= made their appearance,
nursing the sick and burying the dead. They spread rapidly
over the Netherlands and the bordering German provinces. Like
the Beghards however, and for the same reasons, they soon fell
under suspicion of heresy, and were subjected to the persecution
of the Inquisition, until Gregory XI., in A.D. 1347, again
granted them toleration. But the name Lollard still continued
to be associated with heresy or hypocrisy (§ 119, 1).[346]
The =Flagellant= fraternities, which had sprung up in the
12th century (§ 106, 4), greatly increased during this period,
and reached their height during the 14th century. Their
influence was greatest during the visitation of the Black
Death, A.D. 1348-1350, which cost Europe many millions of
lives. Issuing from Hungary, rushing forth with the force of
an avalanche, and massing in great numbers on the upper Rhine,
they spread over all Germany, Belgium and Holland, Switzerland,
England, and Sweden. Entrance into France was refused them
at the bidding of the Avignon pope Clement VI. In long rows
of penitents, with uncovered head, screaming forth their
penitential songs, and with tears streaming down their cheeks,
they rushed about lashing their bare backs. They also from
city to city and from village to village read aloud a letter
of warning, said to have been written by Christ, and brought
to the Patriarch of Jerusalem by an angel. This paroxysm
lasted for three years. In Lombardy, in A.D. 1399, when famine,
pestilence, the Turkish war, and expectation of the end of the
world inclined men to such extravagances, the Flagellants made
their appearance again, dressed in white robes, and so called
_Bianchi_, _Albati_. Princes, scholars, and popes, universities
and councils sought to check this silly fanaticism, but were
not able to suppress it. Many Flagellants were also heretical
in their views, spoke of the hierarchy as antichrist, withdrew
from the worship of the church, declared the bloody baptism of
the scourge the only true sacrament, and died at the stake of
the Inquisition.--The =Dancers=, _Chorisantes_, were a sect
closely related to the Flagellants, but their fanaticism seemed
more of a pathological than of a religious order. Half naked
and crowned with leaves they rushed along the streets and into
houses, dancing in a wild, tumultuous manner. They made a great
noise in the Rhine Provinces in A.D. 1374 and in A.D. 1418. They
were regarded as demoniacs and cured by calling upon St. Vitus.
§ 116.4. =The Friends of God.=--During the 14th century many
detachments of mystic sects spread through all Southern Germany,
and even from the Netherlands to Hungary and Italy. A powerful
religious awakening, with an undertone of contemplative mysticism,
was now experienced in the castles of the knights, in the shops
of artisans, and in the stalls of traders, as well as in the
Beguine houses, the monasteries, and nunneries of the Dominicans
and other monkish orders. A great free association was then
called forth under the name of “Friends of God” (John xv. 15),
whose members maintained personal and epistolary correspondence
with one another. The headquarters of this movement were
Cologne, Strassburg, and Basel. Its preachers and supporters
were mostly Dominicans. They drew their intellectual and
spiritual nourishment from the writings of the German mystics.
They repudiated all sectarian intentions, carefully observed
the rites and ceremonies and attended on the worship of the
church, and accepted all its dogmas. But all the greater on
this account was their sorrow over the deep decay of religious
and moral life, and their lamentations over the corruption
of the clergy and hierarchy. Fantastic visionary conceptions,
however, derived from the domain of mysticism, were by no means
rare among them.
§ 116.5. =Pantheistic Libertine Societies.=--A demoniacally
inspired counterpart to the fraternity of the “Friends of God” is
found in the sect of the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit.
This sect, derived for the most part from the artisan class,
may be regarded as carrying out to a consistent development the
views of Amalrich of Bena (§ 108, 4). We meet with these in the
beginning of the 14th century wandering about, missionarising
and agitating in all parts of Southern Germany as well as in
Switzerland, while they were particularly numerous in the Rhine
Provinces, where Cologne and Strassburg were their main resorts.
Often associating with strolling Beghards (§ 98, 12) they
are frequently confounded with these. They were communistic
libertine pantheists. Every pious man is a Christ, in whom God
becomes man. Whatever is done in love is pure. The perfect are
free from the law, and cannot sin. The church with her sacraments
and institutions is a thorough cheat; purgatory, heaven, and
hell are mere figments, the marriage bond contrary to nature,
all property is common good, and theft of it allowable. Their
secret services ended with immoral orgies. The Inquisition
exterminated the sect by sword and stake.--The Adamites in
Austria in A.D. 1312 and the Turlupines in the Isle of France
showed similar tendencies. In the beginning of the 15th century
they reappeared as _Homines intelligentiæ_ at Brussels. In
A.D. 1421 the Hussite leader Ziska rooted out the Bohemian
Adamites or Picards, who went naked after the pattern of
paradise, and had a community of wives. Picard is just a
modification of the heretical designation Beghard. They gained
a footing in several villages, and built an establishment on a
small island in a tributary of the Moldau, from which they made
excursions into the surrounding districts, until Ziska put an
end to them by conquering the island in A.D. 1421.
§ 117. CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
The reckless and shameless sale of indulgences often made the
exercise of church discipline impossible, and the discreditable
conduct of the mendicant monks destroyed all respect for the
confessional. The scandalous misuse of the ban and interdict had shorn
these of much of their terror. Frightful curses were pronounced at Rome
every Maundy Thursday against heretics by the solemn reading of the
bull _In Cœna Domini_. The Inquisition was still abundantly occupied
with persecuting and burning numerous heretics, and at the end of our
period Innocent VIII. carried to the utmost extreme the persecution and
burning of witches.
§ 117.1. =Indulgences.=--The scholastic theory of indulgences
(§ 106, 2) was authoritatively proclaimed by Clement VI. in
A.D. 1343. The reforming councils of the 15th century wished
only to prevent them being misused, for the purpose of filling
the papal treasury. Sixtus IV., in A.D. 1477, declared that
it was allowable to take money for indulgences for the dead,
and that their souls might be freed from purgatory. The pert
question, why the pope would not rather free all souls at
once by the exercise of his sovereign power, was answered
by the assertion that the church, in accordance with Divine
righteousness, could dispense its grace only _discrete et cum
moderamine_. The institution of the jubilee gave a great impulse
to the sale of indulgences. In A.D. 1300 Boniface VIII., at the
bidding of an old man, proclaimed a complete indulgence for one
hundred years to all Christians who would do penance for fifteen
days in the churches of the apostles at Rome, and by this means
gathered from day to day 200,000 pilgrims within the walls of
the Holy City. Later popes made a jubilee every fiftieth year,
then every thirty-third, and finally every twenty-fifth. Instead
of appearing personally at Rome, it was enough to pay the cost
of such a journey. The nepotism and extravagance of the popes
had left an empty exchequer, which this sale of indulgences
was intended to fill. The war with the Turks and the building
of St. Peter’s gave occasion to repeated indulgence crusades.
Traffickers in indulgences in the most barefaced way cried
up the quality of their wares; the conditions of repentance
and purpose of reformation were scarcely so much as named.
Indulgences were even granted beforehand for sins that were
contemplated.
§ 117.2. =The Inquisition=, since A.D. 1232 under the direction
of the Dominicans (§ 109, 2), spread through all European
countries during the 14th century. While the papal court resided
at Avignon the Inquisition was at its height in =France=, where
Waldensians and Albigensians, Beghards and Lollards, Fraticelli
and Fanatical Spiritualists, were brought in crowds to the stake
and subjected to the most cruel tortures. Bernard Delicieux, a
Franciscan, raised his voice, A.D. 1300-1320, against the inhuman
cruelty of the inquisitors, and with noble independence and
heroic bravery appealed to king and pope against the merciless
sacrifice of so many victims. He was shut up for life in a
dark dungeon, and fed on bread and water.--In =Germany=, where,
from the murder of Conrad of Marburg in A.D. 1233 (§ 109, 3),
for almost a century and a half we find no trace of a regularly
constituted Inquisition, it made its appearance again in
A.D. 1368. During that year Urban V. issued a bull, by which
he required that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of
Germany should support with their counsel and influence the two
inquisitors who were searching out the heretical Beghards and
Beguines (§ 116, 5), and place their prisons at the disposal
of the Holy Office, which had still no prison of its own. His
successor, Gregory XI., in A.D. 1372 increased the number of
inquisitors in Germany to five, one in each of the archdioceses
of Mainz, Cologne, Salzburg, Magdeburg, and Bremen; while his
successor, Boniface IX., in A.D. 1399 added a sixth for North
Germany. But these papal bulls would probably, owing to the
disinclination of the Germans to the Inquisition, like the
attempts of Gregory IX., never have been put in force, had not
Charles IV. (§ 110, 4, 5) taken up the matter with an ardent
zeal that even went beyond the intentions of Urban and Gregory.
During his second journey to Rome, in A.D. 1369, he issued
from Lucca four imperial decrees, and in A.D. 1378 from Treves
a fifth, by which he granted to the Inquisition throughout
Germany all the rights, powers, and privileges which it had
anywhere, and required that all civil and ecclesiastical
authorities, under pain of severest penalties and confiscation
of all their goods, should support the Inquisition in its search
for heretics and in its discovery and burning of all religious
writings in the vulgar tongue composed and circulated by laymen
or semi-laymen.--The =Spanish Inquisition= was re-established
under Ferdinand and Isabella in A.D. 1480, and thoroughly
organized by the grand-inquisitor Torquemada, A.D. 1483-1499.
One of the first inquisitors appointed by him in A.D. 1484 was
an Augustinian, Pedro Arbires, who amid the most unrelenting
cruelties performed the duties of his office with such zeal,
that in sixteen months many hundreds had perished at the stake;
but his fanatical career was ended by his murder at the altar
in A.D. 1485. Not only the two who did the deed, but also all
their relatives and friends, to the number of two hundred,
suspected of complicity in a plot, were burned, while the
“martyr” himself was beatified by Alexander VII. in A.D. 1661,
and canonized by Pius IX. in A.D. 1867. This terrible tribunal
further undertook the persecution of the hated Moors and Jews
who had been baptized under compulsion (§ 95, 2, 3), which
through numerous confiscations greatly enriched the national
exchequer of Spain. This institution reached its highest
point under the grand-inquisitor the Cardinal Francis Ximenes,
A.D. 1507-1517, under whom 2,536 persons were burnt alive
and 1,368 in effigy. The _auto da fès_, which ended at the
stake, were conducted with a horrible pomp. Even those who were
acquitted of the charge of heresy were compelled for a long
time to wear the _san benito_, an armless robe with a red cross
marked on it before and behind. According to Llorente, who had
been general secretary of the Inquisition at Madrid, the Spanish
inquisition, down to its suppression by Joseph Buonaparte in
A.D. 1808, had executed in person 31,912, burned in effigy
17,659, and subjected to severe punishments 291,456.[347]
§ 117.3. =The Bull “_In Cœna Domini_.”=--It was customary
to repeat from time to time the more important decrees of
excommunication, to show that they were still valid. In this
way the famous bull _In Cœna Domini_ was gradually constructed.
The earliest sketch of it was given by Urban V., who died in
A.D. 1370, and it was published in its final form by Urban VIII.
in A.D. 1627. It contains a summary of all the rights of the
Roman hierarchy, with anathemas against all opposing claims,
not only on the part of secular princes and laymen, but also of
antipapal councils, and concludes with a solemn excommunication
of all heretics, to which Paul V. in A.D. 1610 added Lutherans,
Zwinglians, and Calvinists, together with all their sympathisers.
Pius V., in A.D. 1567, in a new redaction insisted that it should
be read yearly in the Catholic churches of all lands, but could
not get this carried out, especially in France and Germany. In
A.D. 1770 Clement XIV. forbade its being read.
§ 117.4. =Prosecution of Witches.=--Down to the beginning of
the 13th century many churchmen had spoken against the popular
superstition regarding sorcery, witchcraft, and compacts with the
devil, and a whole series of provincial councils had pronounced
such belief to be heathenish, sinful, and heretical. Even in
Gratian’s decretal (§ 99, 5) there was a canon which required
the clergy to teach the people that witchcraft was a delusion,
and belief in it incompatible with the Christian faith. But
upon the establishment of the Inquisition in the beginning of
the 13th century witchcraft came more and more to occupy the
attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. Heresy and sorcery
were now regarded as correlates, like two agencies resting on
and serviceable to the demoniacal powers, and were therefore
treated in the same way as offences to be punished with
torture and the stake. The Dominicans, as administrators of
the Inquisition, were the most zealous defenders of the belief
in witchcraft, whereas the Franciscans generally spoke of it
simply as foolish, heathenish, and heretical. Thomas Aquinas
included it in his theological system, and Eymerich in his
_Directorium Inquisitorium_ (§ 109, 2). Yet witch prosecutions
were only occasional incidents during the 14th and 15th centuries,
especially in Germany, where clergy and people were adverse
to them. But it was quite otherwise after Innocent VIII., on
3rd December, 1484, by his bull _Summis desiderantes affectibus_,
complaining of previous laxity, called attention to the spread
of witchcraft in the country, and appointed two inquisitors,
Sprenger and Institor, to secure its extermination. These
administered their office with such zeal and success, that
in A.D. 1489 at Cologne they were able, as the result of their
experiences, to publish under the title _Malleus maleficarum_
a complete code for witch prosecutions. From the confessions
wrung from their victims by torture and suggestive questions,
they obtained a full, dogmatic system of compacts and intrigues
with the devil, of _Succubis_ and _Incubis_, of witch ointment,
broomsticks, and ovenforks, of witches’ sabbaths, Walpurgis
nights, and flights up chimneys. Soon this illusion spread
like an epidemic, and thousands throughout Germany and all
other Catholic countries, mostly old women, but also some young
maidens, were subjected to the most horrible tortures, and after
confession had been extorted, to death by fire. The _Malleus_
accounted for the fact that women and very rarely men were found
engaged in such proceedings, by this statement: _Dicitur enim
femina a feret minus, quia semper minorem habet et servat fidem,
et hoc ex natura._--The Reformation of the 16th century made
no change in these horrible proceedings, which rather rose to
a height during the 17th century. Theologians of all confessions
believed in the possibility and reality of compacts with the
devil, and regarded this to be as essential to an orthodox creed
as belief in the devil’s existence. The jurists and civil judges
in Protestant and Catholic countries were no less narrow-minded
and superstitious than the theologians. Among Catholics the
most celebrated defenders of the witch prosecutions were Jean
Bodin (§ 148, 3), Peter Binsfeld, and the Jesuit Mart. Delrio
(§ 149, 11). Among Protestant vindicators of these prosecutions
may be named the Heidelberg physician Thomas Erastus (§ 144, 1),
James I. of England, and the famous criminal lawyer Carpzov of
Leipzig. Noble men however were not wanting on both sides who
were shrewd and sensible enough to oppose such crude conceptions.
In the 16th century we have the physician Weier, who wrote his
_De præstigiis dæmonorum_ in A.D. 1563, and in the 17th the
Jesuits Tanner and Spee (§ 149, 11; 156, 3), and the Dutch
Protestant Bekker (§ 160, 5). The writings of the Halle jurist
Thomasius in A.D. 1701, 1704, were the first to tell powerfully
in favour of liberal views. In A.D. 1749 a nun of seventy
years old was burnt at Würzburg as a witch. In A.D. 1754 a
girl of thirteen and in A.D. 1756 one of fourteen years were
put to death at Landshut as suspected of witchcraft. In German
Switzerland a servant girl at Glarus in A.D. 1782 was the last
victim. In bigoted Catholic countries the delusion lasted longer,
but prosecutions were seldomer carried the length of judicial
murder. In Mexico however, the Alcade Ignacio Castello of
San Jacobo on 20th August, 1877, “with consent of the whole
population,” burnt five witches alive. Altogether since the
issue of the bull of Innocent there have been certainly no less
than 300,000 women brought to the stake as witches.