THE MEDIÆVAL CHURCH AT ITS HEIGHT
78. In the preceding pages it has been necessary to refer constantly to
the Church and the clergy. Indeed, without them mediæval history would
become almost a blank, for the Church was incomparably the most
important institution of the time and its officers were the soul of
nearly every great enterprise. In the earlier chapters, the rise of the
Church and of its head, the pope, has been reviewed, as well as the work
of the monks as they spread over Europe. We must now consider the
mediæval Church as a completed institution at the height of its power in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
[Sidenote: Ways in which the mediæval church differed from modern
churches.]
We have already had abundant proofs that the mediæval Church was very
different from modern churches, whether Catholic or Protestant.
[Sidenote: Membership in the mediæval church compulsory.]
1. In the first place, every one was required to belong to it, just as
we all must belong to the state to-day. One was not born into the
Church, it is true, but he was ordinarily baptized into it before he had
any opinion in the matter. All western Europe formed a single religious
association, from which it was a crime to revolt. To refuse allegiance
to the Church, or to question its authority or teachings, was reputed
treason against God and was punishable with death.
[Sidenote: The wealth of the Church.]
[Sidenote: The tithe.]
2. The mediæval Church did not rely for its support, as churches usually
must to-day, upon the voluntary contributions of its members. It
enjoyed, in addition to the revenue from its vast tracts of lands and a
great variety of fees, the income from a regular tax, the _tithe_.
Those upon whom this fell were forced to pay it, just as we all must now
pay taxes imposed by the government.
[Sidenote: Resemblance of the Church to a state.]
3. It is obvious, moreover, that the mediæval Church was not merely a
religious body, as churches are to-day. Of course it maintained places
of worship, conducted devotional exercises, and cultivated the spiritual
life; but it did far more. It was, in a way, a state, for it had an
elaborate system of law, and its own courts, in which it tried many
cases which are now settled in our ordinary tribunals.[134] It had also
its prisons, to which it might sentence offenders to lifelong detention.
[Sidenote: Unity of organization in the Church.]
4. The Church not only performed the functions of a state; it had the
organization of a state. Unlike the Protestant ministers of to-day, all
churchmen and religious associations of mediæval Europe were under one
supreme head, who made laws for all and controlled every church officer,
wherever he might be, whether in Italy or Germany, Spain or Ireland. The
whole Church had one official language, Latin, in which all
communications were dispatched and in which its services were everywhere
conducted.
[Sidenote: The mediæval Church a monarchy in its form of government.]
79. The mediæval Church may, therefore, properly be called a monarchy in
its government. The pope was its all-powerful and absolute head and
concentrated in his person its entire spiritual and disciplinary
authority. He was the supreme lawgiver. No council of the Church, no
matter how large and important, could make laws against his will, for
its decrees, to be valid, required his sanction.
[Sidenote: Dispensations.]
The pope might, moreover, set aside or abrogate any law of the Church,
no matter how ancient, so long as it was not ordained by the Scriptures
or by Nature. He might, for good reasons, make exceptions to all merely
human laws; as, for instance, permit cousins to marry, or free a monk
from his vows. Such exceptions were known as _dispensations_.
[Sidenote: The pope the supreme judge of Christendom.]
The pope was not merely the supreme lawgiver; he was the supreme judge.
As a distinguished legal writer has said, the whole of western Europe
was subject to the jurisdiction of one tribunal of last resort, the
pope's court at Rome. Any one, whether clergyman or layman, in any part
of Europe, could appeal to him at any stage in the trial of a large
class of cases. Obviously this system had serious drawbacks. Grave
injustice might be done by carrying to Rome a case which ought to have
been settled in Edinburgh or Cologne, where the facts were best known.
The rich, moreover, always had the advantage, as they alone could afford
to bring suits before so distant a court.
[Sidenote: The control of the pope over the clergy at large.]
The control of the pope over the clergy scattered throughout Christendom
was secured in several ways. A newly elected archbishop might not
venture to perform any of the duties of his office until he had taken an
oath of fidelity and obedience to the pope and received from him the
_pallium_, the archbishop's badge of office. This was a narrow woolen
scarf made by the nuns of the convent of St. Agnes at Rome. Bishops and
abbots were also required to have their election duly confirmed by the
pope. He claimed, too, the right to settle the very frequent disputed
elections of church officials. He might even set aside both of the rival
candidates and fill the office himself, as did Innocent III when he
forced the monks of Canterbury, after a double election, to choose
Stephen Langton.
Since the time of Gregory VII the pope had claimed the right to depose
and transfer bishops at will. The control of Rome over all parts of the
Christian Church was further increased by the legates. These papal
emissaries were intrusted with great powers. Their haughty mien often
enough offended the prelates and rulers to whom they brought home the
authority of the pope,--as, for instance, when the legate Pandulf
grandly absolved all the subjects of King John of England, before his
very face, from their oath of fealty to him.
[Sidenote: The Roman Curia.]
The task assumed by the pope of governing the whole western world
naturally made it necessary to create a large body of officials at Rome
in order to transact all the multiform business and prepare and transmit
the innumerable legal documents.[135] The cardinals and the pope's
officials constituted what was called the papal Curia, or court.
[Sidenote: Sources of the pope's income.]
To carry on his government and meet the expenses of palace and retinue,
the pope had need of a vast income. This he secured from various
sources. Heavy fees were exacted from those who brought suits to his
court for decision. The archbishops were expected to make generous
contributions on receiving their palliums, and the bishops and abbots
upon their confirmation. In the thirteenth century the pope began to
fill many benefices throughout Europe himself, and customarily received
half the first year's revenues from those whom he appointed. For several
centuries before the Protestants finally threw off their allegiance to
the popes, there was widespread complaint on the part of both clergy and
laymen that the fees and taxes levied by the Curia were excessive.
[Illustration: Ecclesiastical Map of France in the Middle Ages]
[Sidenote: The archbishops.]
80. Next in order below the head of the Church were the archbishops. An
archbishop was a bishop whose power extended beyond the boundaries of
his own diocese and who exercised a certain control over all the bishops
within his _province_.[136] One of the chief prerogatives of the
archbishop was the right to summon the bishops of his province to meet
in a provincial council. His court received appeals from the bishops'
courts. Except, however, for the distinction of his title and the fact
that he generally lived in an important city and often had vast
political influence, the archbishop was not very much more powerful, as
an officer of the Church, than the other bishops.
[Illustration: The Costume of a Bishop, showing Miter and Crosier. From
a manuscript of the twelfth century.]
[Sidenote: The importance of the bishops.]
There is perhaps no class of persons in mediæval times whose position it
is so necessary to understand as that of the bishops. They were regarded
as the successors of the apostles, whose powers were held to be divinely
transmitted to them. They represented the Church Universal in their
respective dioceses, under the supreme headship of their "elder
brother," the Bishop of Rome, the successor of the chief of the
apostles. Their insignia of office, the miter and crosier, are familiar
to every one. Each bishop had his especial church, which was called a
cathedral, and usually surpassed the other churches of the diocese in
size and beauty.
[Sidenote: Duties of a Bishop.]
Only a bishop could ordain new members of the clergy or degrade the old.
He alone could consecrate churches or anoint kings. He alone could
perform the sacrament of confirmation, though as priest he might
administer any of the other sacraments.[137] Aside from his purely
religious duties, he was the overseer of all the churchmen in his
diocese, including the monks.[138] He held a court where a great variety
of suits were tried. If he were a conscientious prelate, he traveled
about his diocese visiting the parish churches and the monasteries to
see if the priests did their duty and the monks behaved themselves
properly.
[Sidenote: The bishop's temporal duties.]
In addition to the oversight of his diocese, it was the bishop's
business to see to the lands and other possessions which belonged to the
bishopric. He had, moreover, to perform those governmental duties which
the king, especially in Germany, had thrown upon him, and he was
conspicuous among the monarch's counselors. Lastly, the bishop was
usually a feudal lord, with the obligations that that implied. He might
have vassals and subvassals, and often was himself a vassal, not only of
the king but also of some neighboring lord. As one reads through the
archives of a bishopric, it is hard to tell whether the bishop should be
called, first and foremost, a churchman or a feudal lord. In short, the
duties of the bishop were as manifold as those of the mediæval Church
itself.
[Sidenote: Election of the bishops.]
The reforms of Gregory VII had resulted in placing the choice of the
bishop in the hands of the cathedral _chapter_,[139] that is, the body
of clergy connected with the cathedral church. But this did not prevent
the king from suggesting the candidate, since the chapter did not
venture to proceed to an election without procuring a license from the
king. Otherwise he might have refused to invest the person they chose
with the lands and political prerogatives attached to the office.
[Illustration: Canterbury Cathedral]
[Sidenote: The parish priest and his duties.]
The lowest division of the Church was the parish. This had definite
limits, although the parishioners might vary in number from a few
families to a considerable village or an important district of a town.
At the head of the parish was the parish priest, who conducted services
in the parish church and absolved, baptized, married, and buried his
parishioners. The priests were supposed to be supported by the lands
belonging to the parish church and by the tithes. But both of these
sources of income were often in the hands of laymen or of a neighboring
monastery, while the priest received the merest pittance, scarcely
sufficient to keep soul and body together.
The parish church was the center of village life and the priest was the
natural guardian of the community. It was his business, for example, to
see that no undesirable persons lurked in the village,--heretics,
sorcerers, or lepers. It will be observed that the priest, besides
attending to the morals of his flock, was expected to see to their
bodily welfare by preventing the presence of those afflicted with the
only infectious disease against which precautions were taken in the
Middle Ages.[140]
[Sidenote: Other sources of the Church's power.]
81. The unexampled authority of the mediæval Church is, however, only
partially explained by its wonderful organization. To understand the
hold which it had upon mankind, we must consider the exalted position of
the clergy and the teachings of the Church in regard to salvation, of
which it claimed to be the exclusive agent.
[Sidenote: The exalted position of the clergy.]
The clergy were set apart from the laity in several ways. The higher
orders--bishop, priest, deacon, and sub-deacon--were required to remain
unmarried, and in this way were freed from the cares and interests of
family life. The Church held, moreover, that the higher clergy, when
they had been properly ordained, received through their ordination a
mysterious imprint, the "indelible character," so that they could never
become simple laymen again, even if they ceased to perform their duties
altogether or were cast out of the Church for crime. Above all, the
clergy alone could administer the _sacraments_ upon which the salvation
of every individual soul depended.
[Sidenote: Peter Lombard's _Sentences_.]
Although the Church believed that all the sacraments were established by
Christ, it was not until the middle of the twelfth century that they
were clearly described. Peter Lombard (d. 1164), a teacher of theology
at Paris, prepared a manual of the doctrines of the Church as he found
them in the Scriptures and in the writings of the church fathers,
especially Augustine. These _Sentences_ (Latin, _sententiæ_, opinions)
of Peter Lombard were very influential, for they appeared at a time when
there was a new interest in theology, particularly at Paris, where a
great university was growing up.[141]
[Sidenote: The seven sacraments.]
It was Peter Lombard who first distinctly formulated the doctrine of the
seven sacraments. His teachings did not claim, of course, to be more
than an orderly statement and reconciliation of the various opinions
which he found in the Scriptures and the church fathers; but his
interpretations and definitions constituted a new basis for mediæval
theology. Before his time the word _sacramentum_ (that is, something
sacred, a mystery) was applied to a variety of sacred things, for
example, baptism, the cross, Lent, holy water, etc. But Peter Lombard
states that there are seven sacraments, to wit: baptism, confirmation,
extreme unction, marriage, penance, ordination, and the Lord's Supper.
Through these sacraments all righteousness either has its beginning, or
when begun is increased, or if lost is regained. They are essential to
salvation, and no one can be saved except through them.[142]
[Sidenote: Baptism.]
[Sidenote: Confirmation.]
[Sidenote: Extreme unction.]
[Sidenote: Marriage.]
[Sidenote: Penance.]
[Sidenote: Ordination.]
[Sidenote: The Lord's Supper, or Holy Eucharist.]
By means of the sacraments the Church accompanied the faithful through
life. By baptism all the sin due to Adam's fall was washed away; through
that door alone could a soul enter the spiritual life. With the holy oil
and the balsam, typifying the fragrance of righteousness, which were
rubbed upon the forehead of the boy or girl at confirmation by the
bishop, the young were strengthened so that they might boldly confess
the name of the Lord. If the believer fell perilously ill, the priest
anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord and by this sacrament of
extreme unction expelled all vestiges of former sin and refreshed the
spirit of the dying. Through the priest alone might marriage be
sanctified; and when the bonds were once legally contracted they might
never be sundered. If evil desire, which baptism lessened but did not
remove, led the Christian into deadly sin, as it constantly did, the
Church, through the sacrament of penance, reconciled him once more with
God and saved him from the jaws of hell. For the priest, through the
sacrament of ordination, received the most exalted prerogative of
forgiving sins. He enjoyed, too, the awful power and privilege of
performing the miracle of the Mass,--of offering up Christ anew for the
remission of the sinner's guilt.
[Sidenote: The sacrament of penance.]
82. The sacrament of penance is, with the Mass, of especial historical
importance. When a bishop ordained a priest, he said to him: "Receive ye
the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven them:
whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." In this way the priest
was intrusted with the keys of the kingdom of heaven. There was no hope
of salvation for one who had fallen into mortal sin unless he
received--or at least desired and sought--the absolution of the priest.
To one who scorned the priest's ministrations the most sincere and
prayerful repentance could not by itself bring forgiveness in the eyes
of the Church. Before the priest could utter the solemn "I absolve thee
from thy sins," the sinner must have duly confessed his sins and have
expressed his vehement detestation of them and his firm resolve never
more to offend. It is clear that the priest could not pronounce judgment
unless he had been told the nature of the case. Nor would he be
justified in absolving an offender who was not truly sorry for what he
had done. Confession and penitence were, therefore, necessary
preliminaries to absolution.[143]
[Sidenote: Penance and purgatory.]
Absolution did not free the contrite sinner from all the results of his
sin. It cleared the soul of the deadly guilt which would otherwise have
been punished by everlasting suffering, but did not exempt the penitent
from temporal penalties. These might be imposed by the priest in this
world or suffered after death in the fires of purgatory, which cleansed
the soul and prepared it for heaven.
[Sidenote: Nature of penance.]
The punishment prescribed by the priest was called _penance_. This took
a great variety of forms. It might consist in fasting, repeating
prayers, visiting holy places, or abstaining from one's ordinary
amusements. A journey to the Holy Land was regarded as taking the place
of all penance. Instead, however, of requiring the penitent actually to
perform the fasts, pilgrimages, or other sacrifices imposed as penance
by the priest, the Church early permitted him to change his penance into
a contribution, to be applied to some pious enterprise, like building a
church or bridge, or caring for the poor and sick.
[Sidenote: The Mass.]
[Sidenote: Transubstantiation.]
The priest not only forgave sin; he was also empowered to perform the
stupendous miracle of the Mass. The early Christians had celebrated the
Lord's Supper or Holy Eucharist in various ways and entertained various
conceptions of its nature and significance. Gradually the idea came to
be universally accepted that by the consecration of the bread and the
wine the whole substance of the bread was converted into the substance
of the body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into his
blood. This change was termed _transubstantiation_. The Church believed,
further, that in this sacrament Christ was offered up anew, as he had
been on the cross, as a sacrifice to God. This sacrifice might be
performed for the sins of the absent as well as of the present, and for
the dead as well as for the living. Moreover, Christ was to be worshiped
under the form of the bread, or _host_ (Latin, _hostia_, sacrifice),
with the highest form of adoration. The host was to be borne about in
solemn procession when God was to be especially propitiated, as in the
case of a famine or plague.
[Sidenote: Consequences of conceiving the Mass as a sacrifice.]
This conception of the Mass as a sacrifice had some important practical
consequences. It became the most exalted of the functions of the priest
and the very center of the Church's services. Besides the public masses
for the people, private ones were constantly celebrated for the benefit
of individuals, especially of the dead. Foundations were created, the
income of which went to support priests for the single purpose of saying
daily masses for the repose of the soul of the donor or those of the
members of his family. It was also a common practice to bestow gifts
upon churches and monasteries on condition that annual or more frequent
masses should be said for the giver.
[Sidenote: The dominant position of the clergy and the sources of their
power.]
[Sidenote: Excommunication and interdict.]
83. The sublime prerogatives of the Church, together with its unrivaled
organization and vast wealth, combined to make its officers, the clergy,
the most powerful social class of the Middle Ages. They held the keys of
heaven and without their aid no one could hope to enter in. By
excommunication they could not only cast an offender out of the Church,
but also forbid his fellow-men to associate with him, since he was
accursed and consigned to Satan. By means of the _interdict_ they could
suspend the consolations of religion in a whole city or country by
closing the church doors and prohibiting all public services.[144]
[Sidenote: Their monopoly of the advantages of education.]
The influence of the clergy was greatly enhanced by the fact that they
alone were educated. For six or seven centuries after the overthrow of
the Roman government in the West, very few outside of the clergy ever
dreamed of studying or even of learning to read and write. Even in the
thirteenth century an offender who wished to prove that he belonged to
the clergy, in order that he might be tried by a church court, had only
to show that he could read a single line; for it was assumed by the
judges that no one unconnected with the Church could read at all.[145]
It was therefore inevitable that almost all the books should be written
by priests and monks and that the clergy should become the ruling power
in all intellectual, artistic, and literary matters,--the chief
guardians and promoters of civilization. Moreover, the civil government
was forced to rely upon churchmen to write out the public documents and
proclamations. The priests and monks held the pen for the king.
Representatives of the clergy sat in the king's councils and acted as
his ministers; in fact, the conduct of the government largely devolved
upon them.[146]
[Sidenote: Offices in the Church open to all classes.]
The offices in the Church were open to all ranks of men, and many of the
popes themselves sprang from the humblest classes. The Church thus
constantly recruited its ranks with fresh blood. No one held an office
simply because his father had held it before him, as was the case in the
civil government.
[Sidenote: Lea's description of the mediæval Church.]
The man who entered the service of the Church "was released from the
distraction of family cares and the seduction of family ties. The Church
was his country and his home and its interests were his own. The moral,
intellectual, and physical forces, which throughout the laity were
divided between the claims of patriotism, the selfish struggle for
advancement, the provision for wife and children, were in the Church
consecrated to a common end, in the success of which all might hope to
share, while all were assured of the necessities of existence, and were
relieved of anxiety as to the future." The Church was thus "an army
encamped on the soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere,
subject to the most efficient discipline, animated with a common
purpose, every soldier panoplied with inviolability and armed with the
tremendous weapons which slew the soul" (Lea).
General Reading.--CUTTS, _Parish Priests and their People_ (E. &
J.B. Young, $3.00). PRÉVOST, _L'Église et les Campagnes au Moyen
Âge_ (Paris, $1.50).