DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH
[Sidenote: Number of the Sacraments.]
It was during the period covered by this volume that some of the most
characteristic doctrines of the Roman Church were developed. In this
development the whole sacramental system of the Church comes under
consideration. The word "sacramentum" in the sense of a holy mark or
sign (_sacrum signum_) was used with a very wide meaning as
denoting anything "by which under the cover of corporeal things the
divine wisdom secretly works salvation." Hugh of St. Victor, writing
in the first half of the twelfth century, distinguishes three kinds of
sacraments--those necessary for salvation, namely, baptism and the
reception of the Body and Blood of Christ; those for sanctification,
such as holy water, ashes, and such-like; and those instituted for the
purpose of preparing the means of the necessary sacraments, that is,
holy orders and the dedication of churches. Elsewhere he chooses out
rather more definitely seven remedies against original or actual sin,
namely, baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction,
marriage, and holy orders; and after the twelfth century the Church
gradually restricted the use of the word Sacrament to these seven.
There was much disputing among the schoolmen on the need of
institution by Christ Himself. Peter Lombard, and after him
Bonaventura, denied this necessity; Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas
asserted it. But how account for extreme unction and confirmation?
This is St. Thomas' explanation. "Some sacraments which are of greater
difficulty for belief Christ himself made known; but others He
reserved to be made known by the Apostles. For sacraments belong to
the fundamentals of the law and so their institution belongs to the
law-giver. Christ made known only such sacraments as He Himself could
partake. But He could not receive either penance or extreme unction
because he was sinless. The institution of a new sacrament belongs to
the power of excellence which is competent for Christ alone: so that
it must be said that Christ instituted such a sacrament as
confirmation not by making it known, but by promising it."
[Sidenote: The Eucharist.]
Of these seven sacraments the one round which the whole doctrine and
discipline of the Church increasingly centred was, of course, the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist. The view generally
held in the Church was that of St. Augustine, which finds a place in
the homilies of Aelfric and in the controversial work of Ratramnus of
Corbie (died 868). According to this view, Christ is present in the
consecrated elements of the sacrament really but spiritually. "The
body of Christ," says Ratramnus, "which died and rose again and has
become immortal, does not now die: it is eternal and cannot suffer."
But the tendency of the Middle Ages was to materialise all conceptions
however spiritual; and Ratramnus had written to controvert Paschasius
Radbertus, Abbot of New Corbie, who had applied these materialistic
views to the Eucharist. "Although," he asserts, "the form of bread and
wine may remain, yet after consecration it is nothing else but the
flesh and blood of Christ, none other than the flesh which was born of
Mary and suffered on the cross and rose from the sepulchre." During
the two succeeding centuries this theory of the corporeal presence
gained so much vogue in the Church that when Berengar of Tours taught
in the cathedral school of his native city the doctrine of Ratramnus,
he was condemned unheard at a Synod at Rome in 1050. But he gained the
favour of Hildebrand, who was then at Tours in 1054 as papal legate,
and was content with the admission "panem atque vinum altaris post
consecrationem esse corpus et sanguis Christi"; and relying on his
protection Berengar went to Rome (1059). Here, however, his opponents
forced him to sign a confession in conformity with the materialistic
view. His repudiation of this as soon as he got away from Rome began a
long controversy, the champion on the materialistic side being
Lanfranc, then a monk of Bee in Normandy, to whom Berengar had
originally addressed himself. Lanfranc held the position that the
consecrated elements are "ineffably, incomprehensibly, wonderfully by
the operation of power from on high, turned into the essence of the
Lord's Body." In 1075 the matter was discussed at the Synod of
Poictiers, and Berengar was in danger of his life. Again Pope Gregory,
as he had now become, tried to stand his friend, and at a Synod at
Rome in 1078 to get from Berengar a confession of faith in general
terms. But the violence of Berengar's enemies made compromise or
ambiguity impossible. Again Berengar repudiated the forced confession;
and Gregory only obtained peace for him until his death in 1088, by
threatening with anathema any who molested him. Berengar's objections
to the doctrine of Paschasius were shared by all the mystics, who held
a more spiritual belief. Thus, St. Bernard distinguishes between the
visible sign and the invisible grace which God attaches to the sign;
and Rupert of Deutz declares that for him who has no faith there is
nothing of the sacrifice, nothing except the visible form of the bread
and wine.
[Sidenote: Transubstantiation.]
But apart from these writers the trend of opinion and inclination told
entirely in favour of the materialistic school of thought. To the
ordinary folk the miraculous aspect of the doctrine was a positive
recommendation to acceptance. And the word Transubstantiation, even
though it did not necessarily imply a materialistic change,
undoubtedly became associated in men's minds with that idea. As early
as the middle of the ninth century Haimo of Halberstadt had said that
the substance of the bread and wine (that is, the nature of bread and
wine) is changed substantially into another substance (that is, into
flesh and blood). But the word "transubstantiate" is used first by
Stephen, Bishop of Autun (1113-29), who explains "This is My Body" as
"The bread which I have received I have transubstantiated into My
Body." Sanction was first given for the use of the word in the Lateran
Council of 1215. In the confession of faith drawn up by that Council
it is asserted that "there is one Universal Church of the Faithful,
outside of which no one at all has salvation: in which Jesus Himself
is at once priest and sacrifice, whose Body and Blood are truly
received in the sacrament of the altar under the form of bread and
wine, the bread being transubstantiated by the divine power into the
Body and the wine into the Blood, in order that for the accomplishment
of the mystery of the unity we may receive of His what He has received
of ours. And this as being a sacrament no one can perform except a
priest who shall have been duly ordained according to the Keys of the
Church, which Jesus Christ Himself granted to the Apostles and their
successors."
[Sidenote: Resulting Changes.]
This "mystery of the unity" became, on the one side, the subject of a
long and intricate controversy on the method by which the change in
the elements was effected, while on the other side it lent itself to
much mystical meditation. Of neither of these is there space to give
illustration; but the hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas, which is familiar to
English readers under the form of "Now, my tongue, the mystery
telling," blends the two sides with astonishing success. It is a
mistake to describe the view of the sacrament thus sanctioned by the
Church as either more "advanced" or "higher" than the older view. It
was merely more elaborate, and as being such it led on to certain
definite results or changes in custom.
Thus, in the first place, hitherto children had partaken of the
sacrament. This had come partly from the teaching of the need of the
sacrament for salvation, partly from the early custom of administering
communion directly after baptism. The fear of profanation now caused
the gradual discontinuance of children's communions, and in the middle
of the thirteenth century they were definitely forbidden.
[Sidenote: Refusal of cup to laity.]
A far more important change, and for a similar reason, was the refusal
of the cup to the laity. St. Anselm is responsible for the dictum
(afterwards accepted by the whole Church) that "Christ is consumed
entire in either element"; from this came the inference that there was
no need for the administration of both. The heaviness of a single
chalice made the danger of spilling its contents so great that several
chalices were used. This, however, only increased the chances, and
various methods were adopted with a view to minimising the difficulty.
Sometimes a reed was used; later on, bread dipped in wine was
administered, as was already usual in the case of sick persons or
children; or even unconsecrated wine was given. Some of these methods
came under papal condemnation; and the withdrawal of the cup found
powerful apologists in Alexander of Hales and Thomas Aquinas. But the
administration of both elements continued to be fairly common until
far on into the thirteenth century.
[Sidenote: Adoration of the sacrament.]
A third result of the new views is to be seen in the extension of the
doctrine and practice of adoration of the sacrament. The rite of
elevation existed in the Greek Church at least as early as the seventh
century, but was not adopted by the Latins until four centuries later.
In either case, however, it was only regarded as an act symbolical of
the exaltation of Christ. But following on the sanction of the
doctrine of transubstantiation by the Lateran Council, Honorius III in
1217 decreed that "every priest should frequently instruct his people
that when in the celebration of the Mass the saving Host is elevated
every one should bend reverently, doing the same thing when the priest
carries it to the sick." A logical outcome of this was the foundation
of the festival of Corpus Christi for the special celebration of the
sacramental mystery. This was first introduced in the bishopric of
Liège in response to the vision of a certain nun. Urban IV, who had
been a canon of Liège, adopted it for the whole Church in 1264, but it
only became general after Clement V had incorporated Urban's ordinance
as part of the Canon Law in the Clementines (1311).
While there was a growing elaboration of the sacramental rite, the
laity in many parts of Europe came from slackness less frequently to
receive communion. As early as Bede, in England, though not in Rome,
communions were very infrequent. English and French Synods tried to
insist on communion three times a year, but could not enforce the
rule. Innocent III, in the fourth Lateran Council, with a view to
compel confession, prescribes once a year. "Every one of the
faithful," runs the canon of the Council, "of either sex, after he has
come to years of discretion, is to confess faithfully by himself all
his sins at least once a year to his own priest, and is to be careful
to fulfil according to his power the penance enjoined on him,
receiving with reverence the sacrament of the Eucharist at least at
Easter."
Finally, the discussion of this theory of transubstantiation led to
the development of a special view of the doctrine of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice. Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas call the sacrament a
representation of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. But to
Albertus Magnus it is not merely a Representation, but a True
Sacrifice, that is, "an Oblation of the thing offered by the hands of
the priests," and St. Thomas elsewhere declares that the perfection of
the sacrament consists not in its use by the faithful, but in the
consecration of the element, that is to say, that the main point was
the act of the priest. The prevalence of this view appears to have
encouraged the idea in the laity that a mere attendance at the service
was in itself so meritorious as almost to dispense with the need of
communion, except once a year and on the death-bed. Similarly, private
Masses for the dead were instituted, chantry chapels were founded for
the celebration of them, and priests were appointed for the sole
purpose of serving the altar of the chapel.
[Sidenote: Confession.]
Nor was the development of this sacramental system the only method by
which the importance of the priesthood became enhanced. The whole
penitential system of the Church was gradually perverted. Originally
those convicted of open sin who submitted to penance were publicly
readmitted to the Church after confessing their sin and making some
form of atonement. People were encouraged to confess their sins to
their bishop or priest even when their sins were not open and
notorious. This was especially enjoined in the case of mortal sin. But
it was for a long time a matter of discussion whether this confession
to a priest was an indispensable preliminary to forgiveness. Peter
Lombard marks another view. God alone remits or retains sins, but to
the priests he assigns the power, not of forgiveness, but of declaring
men to be bound or loosed from their sins. He adds that even though
sinners have been forgiven by God, yet they must be loosed by the
priest's judgment in the face of the Church. In this ambiguous
position of the priest laymen were even entrusted with the power of
hearing a confession if no priest was available. But in the twelfth
century, as we have seen, confession was often reckoned among the
sacraments; and at the Lateran Council Innocent III enjoined an annual
confession to the parish priest. Before long the precatory form of
absolution is replaced by the indicative form by which the priest
declared the sinner absolved. Thomas Aquinas lays it down that "the
grace which is given in the sacraments descends from the head to the
members: and so he alone is minister of the sacraments in which grace
is given who has a true ministry over Christ's body; and this belongs
to the priest alone who can consecrate the Eucharist. And so when
grace is conferred in the sacrament of penance, the priest alone is
the minister of this sacrament; and so to him alone is to be made the
sacramental confession which ought to be made to a minister of the
Church." There was no room here for confession to laymen, although
Thomas himself allows that in cases of necessity such confession has a
kind of sacramental character which would be supplemented by Christ
Himself as the high priest.
[Sidenote: Indulgences.]
The increasing stress laid upon private confession not only led to the
decay of the public procedure, but also brought about some dangerous
developments in the penitential system of the Church. This had already
become very largely a matter of fixed pecuniary compensations for
moral offences; so that the new system of compulsory confession was
able to recommend itself to the people through the adaptation of the
old mechanical standards by the confessors to each individual case.
Far more important was the extension given to the system of
indulgences. These had their origin in the remission of part of an
imposed penance on condition of attendance at particular churches on
certain anniversaries, it being understood that the penitent would
present offerings to the Church. Abailard complains that on ceremonial
occasions when large offerings are expected, bishops issue such
indulgences for a third or fourth part of the penance as if they had
done it out of love instead of from the utmost greed. And they boast
of it, claiming that it is done by the power of St. Peter and the
Apostles, when it is God who said to them "Whosesoever sins ye remit,"
etc. Thus all bishops took it upon themselves to issue indulgences for
the furtherance of particular objects. But in its claim to subordinate
the episcopal power to its own, the Papacy began to grant indulgences
which were not limited to time or circumstance. Gregory VI in 1044
made promises to all who helped in the restoration of Roman churches;
but Gregory VII promised absolution to all who fought for Rudolf of
Suabia against Henry IV; while Urban II in the widest manner offered
plenary indulgence, that is, remission of all penances imposed, in the
case of any who would take part in the Crusade. This offer in whole or
in part was constantly renewed in order to raise an army for the East.
[Sidenote: Effect on populace.]
It was of course presupposed by those in authority in the cases of
these indulgences that, confession having been made, the temporal
penalties to be undergone either here or in purgatory were thus
remitted. But preachers in their eagerness to raise troops asserted
that those guilty of the foulest crimes obtained pardon from the
moment when they assumed the cross, and were assured of salvation in
the event of death. Consequently the people in their ignorance
overlooked the conditions attached and regarded these indulgences as
promises of eternal pardon. It is not wonderful that men released from
social restraints of a more or less stable society should have
developed in their new abode the licence which made crusaders a byword
in the West.
[Sidenote: Papal indulgences.]
So far the Popes had endeavoured to supersede the bishops in the issue
of indulgences by entering into rivalry with them. But the power was
used by the bishops in such detailed ways as perhaps seriously to
interfere with the offerings which should reach the Papacy or be
applied to important projects. Innocent III, therefore, at the great
Lateran Council limited the episcopal power to the grant of an
indulgence for one year at the consecration of a church and for forty
days at the anniversary. Unfortunately this did not mean the
suppression of trifling reasons for the multiplication of indulgence.
The whole system was a convenient method of adding to the revenues of
Rome, and no occasion seemed too small for the exercise of the papal
power of dispensation. Urban IV granted an indulgence to all who
should listen to the same sermon as the King of France. The Crusades
were the great occasion and excuse for the development of this system,
and it certainly reached its nadir when Gregory IX showed himself
ready in return for a pecuniary penance to absolve men from the vows
which they had perhaps been unwillingly forced to take by his own
agents for going on crusade. Equally disgraceful was the establishment
of the year of Jubilee in 1300 by Boniface VIII, when plenary
indulgence of the most comprehensive kind was offered to all who
within the year should in the proper spirit visit the tombs of St.
Peter and St. Paul at Rome.
[Sidenote: Treasury of merits.]
But how came the Pope to be in possession of this power of remitting
the penalties for sin? The schoolmen of the thirteenth century supply
the answer. Alexander of Hales and Albert the Great invented the
theory and Thomas Aquinas completed it. According to their teaching,
the saints, by their works of penance and by their unmerited
sufferings patiently borne, have done in this world more than was
necessary for their own salvation. These superabundant merits,
together with those of Christ, which are infinite, are far more than
enough to fulfil all the penalties due for their evil deeds from the
living. The idea of unity in the mystical body enables the
shortcomings of one man to be atoned for by the merits of another. The
superabundant merits of the saints are a treasury for use by the whole
Church, and are distributed by the head of the Church, that is, the
Pope. Furthermore, to St. Thomas is due the idea that the contents of
this treasury were equally available for the benefit of souls in
purgatory, for whom the Church was already accustomed to make
intercession.
[Sidenote: Canonisation of saints.]
It was to our Lord Himself that the theologians attributed all merit;
but in the popular mind the merits of the saints took an ever more
important place, since the Church seemed to make the priesthood a
barrier against, rather than a channel for, the flow of God's mercy to
man; but popular feeling sought to find intercessors before the throne
of grace in the holy men and women of the faith. For a long time it
was the bishops who decided the title to saintship. But in 993 Pope
John XV, in a Council at Rome and in response to a request of the
Bishop of Augsburg, ordered that a former bishop of that see should be
venerated as a saint. This was the process afterwards called
Canonisation, which involved the insertion of a name in the Canon or
list, and gave it currency not merely in a single diocese, but
throughout western Christendom. In 1170 Alexander III claimed such
recognition as the exclusive right of Rome. But despite this
assumption of authority, popular feeling very often dictated to the
Pope whom he should admit into the list. Death followed by miracles at
the tomb, and sometimes the building of an elaborate shrine with an
altar, forced the Pope to grant the claims of a popular favourite.
[Sidenote: Miracles and relics.]
A rapid increase in the number of applications for such official
recognition would be the result of any widely popular movement. Such
was the effect of the Crusades in the twelfth century, and of the
foundation of the Mendicant Orders in the thirteenth. And the
multiplication of saints meant an increase in the number of relics and
an ever-growing belief in the miraculous. Miracles frequently took
place in connection with living persons of saintly life. Abailard
scornfully pointed out that some of the attempts made by Norbert or
Bernard to work miraculous cures were quite unsuccessful, while in
successful cases medicine as well as prayers had been employed. But
such rationalism was beyond the grasp of an ignorant age, and
collections of stories of miracles, such as remain to us in the
"Golden Legends" of Jacob de Voragine, a Dominican of the thirteenth
century, fed the popular belief. Miracles so commemorated often
occurred in connection with relics; and the traffic in relics and so
styled "pious" frauds, not to say the forcible means used to procure
reputed relics of authentic or supposititious saints, forms a curious
if a discreditable feature in mediæval history. An occasional protest
was uttered against the manner in which credit was often obtained for
relics of more than doubtful authenticity; but the manufacture of them
was easy and profitable, and pilgrims returning from Palestine could
palm off anything upon the credulity of a willing and ignorant
populace. The growth of a legend in connection with relics is fitly
illustrated by the history of the eleven thousand Virgins of Köln.
Martyrologies of the ninth century celebrate the martyrdom of eleven
virgins in the city of Köln. Perhaps these were described as XI. M.
Virgines, and the letter which denoted martyrs was mistaken for the
Roman numeral for one thousand, and so the number of virgins was
ultimately swollen to eleven thousand. A legend, possibly working on
an old one, was invented by a writer of the twelfth century that these
virgins were martyred by the Huns in the fifth century. In the middle
of that century, when heresy was rife at Köln, a number of bones of
persons of both sexes were found near Köln, and the authenticity of
the relics was put beyond dispute by the revelations vouchsafed to
Saint Elizabeth, Abbess of Schönau, to whom the matter was referred.
Even though she did give a date for the event which was historically
impossible, the confirmatory evidence of the Premonstratensian Abbot
Richard nearly thirty years later put the matter beyond the doubt of
any pious Christian. But the interest of these unsavoury remains of
anonymous men and women, however saintly, pales before certain relics
of our Lord's life on earth which gained currency. Of these the most
famous were the Veronica, a cloth on which Christ, on His way to
Calvary, was supposed to have left the impress of His face, and a
vessel of a green colour which was identified with the holy grail, the
cup which our Lord used at the Last Supper. Of garments purporting to
be the seamless coat of Christ there were a considerable number shown
in different places; but the most famous to this day remains the Holy
Coat of Treves, which, in Dr. Robertson's caustic words, "the Empress
Helena (the mother of Constantine) was said to have presented to an
imaginary archbishop of her pretended birthplace, Treves." During the
First Crusade the army before Antioch was only spurred on to the
efforts which resulted in the capture of the city, by the opportune
discovery of the Holy Lance with which the Roman soldier had pierced
Christ's side while He hung upon the cross.
[Sidenote: Adoration of the Virgin.]
The great increase in the whole intercessory machinery of the Church
culminated in the adoration of the Virgin Mary. The extravagant
expression of this devotion was widespread. For the many it found vent
in the language of popular hymns. Among the monks the Cistercians were
under her special protection, and all their churches were dedicated to
her. Of the learned men Peter Damiani in the eleventh century, St.
Bernard and St. Bonaventura in the two succeeding centuries
respectively, especially helped in various ways to crystallise her
position in the Church. As a result of the efforts of her devotees
Saturdays and the vigils of all feast days came to be kept in her
honour; the salutation "_Ave Maria gratia plena_" with certain
additions was prescribed to be taught to the people, together with the
Lord's Prayer and the Creed. In the thirteenth century its frequent
repetition resulted in the invention of the Rosary, a string of beads
by which the number of repetitions could be counted. The religion of
Mary soon showed signs of development as a parallel religion to that
of Christ. She is styled the Queen of Heaven; her office, composed by
Peter Damiani, was ordered by Urban II to be recited on Saturday; and
a Marian Psalter and a Marian Bible were actually composed; while in
place of the _didia_ or reverence offered to the saints, there
was claimed for the Virgin a higher step, a _hyperdulia_, which
St. Thomas places between _dulia_ and the latria or adoration
paid to Christ.
[Sidenote: The immaculate conception.]
A final stage in possible developments was reached in the twelfth
century in the institution of a feast in honour of the conception of
the Blessed Virgin. Hitherto it had been supposed by Christian
writers, notably by St. Anselm, that the Mother of the Lord had been
conceived as others. Towards the middle of the twelfth century some
Canons of Lyons evolved the theory that she was conceived already
sinless in her mother's womb. St. Bernard strenuously opposed this
notion of her immaculate conception, pointing out that the supposition
involved in the theory could not logically stop with the Virgin
herself, but must be applied to her parents and so to each of their
ancestors in turn in an endless series. Nor was St. Bernard alone in
his objection: indeed, nearly all the chief theologians of the
thirteenth century, including Thomas Aquinas, declared that there was
no warrant of Scripture for the theory. But notwithstanding this
criticism, the festival won its way to recognition. Those who kept it,
however, declared that it was merely the conception which they
celebrated; and St. Thomas interpreting this to denote the
sanctification, was of opinion that such a celebration was not to be
entirely reprobated. It was Duns Scotus who first among the schoolmen
defended the theory of the immaculate conception, but in moderate
language; and his Franciscan followers, who at a General Council of
the Order in 1263 had admitted the festival among some other new
occasions to be observed, in the course of the fourteenth century
adopted it as a distinctive doctrine.