to be expected from any internal attempt at reform. At the stormy
synod of Poitiers, in 1078, the papal legate, Hugh, Bishop of Die,
succeeded in obtaining the adoption of a canon which threatened with
excommunication all who should knowingly listen to the mass of a
concubinary or simoniacal priest,[616] but this seems to have met with
little response. Coercion from without was evidently requisite, and in
this case, as we have seen, Gregory did not shrink from subjecting the
church to the temporal power. In Normandy, for instance, a synod held
at Lisieux in 1055 had commanded the degradation of priests who resided
with wives or concubines. This was, of course, ineffective, and in 1072
John, Archbishop of Rouen, held a council in his cathedral city, where
he renewed that canon in terms which show how completely all orders
and dignitaries were habitually liable to its penalties.[617] The
Norman clergy were not disposed to submit quietly to this abridgement
of their accustomed privileges, and they expressed their dissent by
raising a terrible clamor and driving their archbishop from the council
with a shower of stones, from which he barely escaped alive.[618] At
length, in view of the utter failure of all ecclesiastical legislation,
the laity were called in. William the Conqueror, therefore, in 1080,
assisted the Archbishop of Rouen in holding a synod at Lillebonne,
where the stern presence of the suzerain prevented any unseemly
resistance to the adoption of most unpalatable regulations. All who
were in holy orders were forbidden, under any pretext, to keep women in
their houses, and if, when accused of disobedience, they were unable
to prove themselves innocent, their benefices were irretrievably
forfeited. If the accusation was made by the ecclesiastical officials,
the offender was to be tried by the episcopal court, but if his
parishioners or feudal superior were the complainants, he was to be
brought before a mixed tribunal, composed of the squires of his parish
and the officials of the bishop. This startling invasion of the dearest
privileges of the church was declared by William to proceed from no
desire to interfere with the jurisdiction of his bishops, but to be
a temporary expedient, rendered necessary by their negligence. Nor
was this remarkable measure the only thing that renders the synod of
Lillebonne worthy of note, for it affords us the earliest authoritative
indication of a practice which subsequently became a standing disgrace
to the church. The fifth canon declares that no priest shall be forced
to give anything to the bishop or to the officers of the diocese beyond
their lawful dues, and especially that no money shall be exacted on
account of women kept by clerks.[619] A tribute known as “cullagium”
became at times a recognized source of revenue, in consideration of
which the weaknesses of human nature were excused, and ecclesiastics
were allowed to enjoy in security the society of their concubines. We
shall see hereafter that this infamous custom continued to flourish
until the sixteenth century, despite the most strenuous and repeated
endeavors to remove so grievous a scandal.
It is probable that the expedient of mixed courts for the trial of
married and concubinary priests was not adopted without the concurrence
of Gregory, who was willing to make almost any sacrifice necessary
to accomplish his purpose. That they were organized and performed
the functions delegated to them is shown by a reference in a charter
of 1088 to one held at Caumont, which required a priest to abandon
either his wife or his church.[620] So far, indeed, was Gregory from
protesting against this violation of ecclesiastical immunities, that he
was willing even to connive at the abuses which immediately crept into
the system, and to purchase the assistance of the laity by allowing
them to lay sacrilegious hands on the temporalities of the church.
Many of the nobles who thus assisted in expelling the offending clergy
seized the tithes and retained them. The papal legate, Hugh, Bishop of
Die—better known by his subsequent primatial dignity of Lyons—proceeded
against these invaders of church property in the usual manner, and
excommunicated them as a matter of course. Gregory, however, who under
ordinary circumstances would have promptly consigned the spoilers
to the bottomless pit, now virtually took their side. He discreetly
declined to confirm the excommunication, reproved his legate for
superserviceable zeal, and ordered him in future to be more guarded and
temperate in his proceedings.[621]
Church and state—the zeal of the ecclesiastic and the avarice of the
noble—vainly united to break down the stubbornness of the Norman
priesthood, for marriage continued to be enjoyed as openly as ever. The
only effect of the attempted reform, indeed, appeared to be that when a
priest entered into matrimony he took a solemn vow never to give up his
wife, a measure prompted doubtless by the fears of the bride and her
kindred. The nuptials were public; male issue succeeded to benefices by
a recognized primogeniture, and female children received their fathers’
churches as dower, when other resources were wanting. About the
beginning of the twelfth century, three enthusiastic ascetic reformers,
the celebrated Robert d’Arbrissel, founder of Fontevrault, Bernard
Abbot of Tiron, and Vitalis of Mortain traversed Normandy and preached
with great earnestness against these abuses, the result of which was
that they nearly came to an untimely end at the hands of the indignant
pastors and their more indignant spouses. On one occasion, when Bernard
was preaching at Coutances, a married archdeacon assailed him, with a
crowd of priests and clerks, asking how he, a monk, dead to the world,
presumed to preach to the living. Bernard replied that Samson had
slain his foes with the jaw-bone of a dead ass, and then proceeded with
so moving a discourse on Samson, that the archdeacon was converted, and
interfered to save him from the mob.[622]
If William the Conqueror found his advantage in thus assisting the
hopeless reform within his duchy of Normandy, he had no hesitation
in obstructing it when his policy demanded such a course in his
subject province of Britanny. During the three and a half centuries
through which the Breton church maintained its independence of the
archiepiscopal see of Tours, its metropolis was Dol. Judhaël, who
occupied its lofty seat, not only obtained it by simony, but sullied
it by a public marriage; and when the offspring of this illicit union
reached maturity he portioned them from the property of the church.
This prolonged violation of the canons attracted the attention of
Gregory soon after his accession, and in 1076 he informed William
that he had deposed the offender. William, however, saw fit to defend
the scandal, and refused to receive Evenus, Abbot of St. Melanius,
whom Gregory had appointed as a successor.[623] Judhaël, indeed, was
no worse than his suffragans. For three generations the diocese of
Quimper was held by father, son, and grandson; while the Bishops of
Rennes, Vannes, and Nantes were openly married, and their wives enjoyed
the recognized rank of countesses, as an established right.[624] How
much improvement resulted from the efforts of Gregory and his legate
Hugh may be estimated from the description, in general terms, of the
iniquities ascribed to the Breton clergy, both secular and regular,
in the early part of the next century, by Paschal II. when granting
the pallium to Baldric, Archbishop of Dol. All classes are described
as indulging in enormities hateful to God and man, and as having no
hesitation in setting the canons at defiance. In Britanny, as in
Wales and Spain, the centralizing influence of Rome was at fault, and
priestly marriage was persevered in long after it had been abrogated
elsewhere.[625]
* * * * *
In Flanders, Count Robert the Frisian and Adela, his mother, were well
disposed to second the reformatory measures of Gregory, but, doubting
their right to eject the offenders, they applied to him, in 1076, for
instructions. His answers were unequivocal, urging them to the most
prompt and summary proceedings.[626] The spirit in which the clergy
met the attack was manifested by the incident already described, when,
in 1077, an unfortunate zealot was burned at the stake in Cambrai for
maintaining the propriety of the papal decretals. The same disposition,
though fortunately leading to less deplorable results, was exhibited
in Artois. At the instance of Adela, Robert, in 1072, had founded
the Priory of Watten, near St. Omer. Despite this powerful interest
and patronage, the house had a severe struggle for existence, as
its prior, Otfrid, lent his influence to support the reform and to
enforce the decrees of Gregory. Reproaches and curses were showered
upon the infant community, and it was openly threatened with fire and
sword, until the unfortunate brethren felt equally insecure within
their walls and abroad. At length the Countess Adela took Otfrid
with her on a pilgrimage to Rome, and there the holy man procured
from Gregory a confirmation of the privileges of his house. On his
return, he found that this instrument only made the persecution more
vehement. Accusations of all kinds were made against the priory, and
its enemies succeeded in causing the brethren to be brought for trial
before the local synod, where the production of the papal charter was
ordered. It was at once pronounced a forgery, was taken away by force,
and was retained by the Bishop, Drogo of Terouane, in spite of all
remonstrance.[627]
The opposition of the clergy was not lessened by the manner in which
the secular authorities exercised the power bestowed upon them. Count
Robert saw the advantages derivable from the position of affairs and
seems to have been resolved to turn it thoroughly to account. Among
other modes adopted was that of the “jus spolii,” by which he seized
the effects of dying ecclesiastics, turning their families out of doors
and disinheriting the heirs. These arbitrary proceedings he defended on
the ground of the incontinence of the sufferers, boldly declaring that
wicked priests were no priests—as if, groaned the indignant clerks,
sinful men were not men.[628] In 1091, the Flemish priests complained
of these acts to Urban II., and he vainly endeavored to interfere in
their behalf.[629] Finding this resource fail, they appealed to their
metropolitan, Renaud, Archbishop of Rheims, who by active measures
succeeded in putting an end to the abuse in 1092.
Amid all this the church proved powerless to enforce its laws, and
again it called upon the feudal authority for assistance—this time in
a manner by which it admitted its impotence on a question so vital.
In 1099, Manasses of Rheims held a provincial synod at St. Omer,
which instructed the Count of Flanders, Robert the Hierosolymitan, to
seize the wives of all priests who after excommunication declined to
abandon their guilty partners; and in this he was not to ask or wait
for the assent of the bishop of the diocese. The sturdy Crusader would
doubtless have carried out this order to the letter, with all its
attendant cruelty and misery, but the clergy of the province united
in remonstrances so vehement that Manasses was forced to abandon his
position. He accordingly requested Robert on no account to disturb the
married priests and their wives, or to permit his nobles to do so,
except when assistance was demanded by the bishops. He acknowledged the
injustice he had committed in overslaughing the constituted authorities
of the church, and deprecated the rapine and spoliation which so
ill-advised a proceeding might cause. At the same time he admonished
his suffragans to proceed vigorously against all who married in orders,
and to call on the seigneurial power to coerce those who should prove
contumacious.[630]
Harsh and violent as were the measures thus threatened, there appears
to have been extreme hesitation in carrying them out. A certain clerk
known as Robert of Artois committed the unpardonable indiscretion of
marrying a widow, and openly resisted all the efforts of his bishop
to reduce him to obedience. Not only his original crime, but his
subsequent contumacious rebellion would assuredly justify the severest
chastisement, yet both the secular and ecclesiastical powers of the
province seem to have been at fault, for it was found necessary to ask
the interference of no less a personage than Richard, Bishop of Albano,
then enjoying the dignity of papal legate in France. In 1104 the legate
accordingly addressed the Count of Flanders with the very moderate
request that the obstinate rebel and his abettors should be held as
excommunicate until they should reconcile themselves to their bishop.
Robert finally appealed to Rome itself, but in the end was obliged to
succumb. Similar was the case of two Artesian deacons who refused to
abandon their wives until Lambert, the bishop of Artois, excommunicated
them, when they travelled to Rome in hopes of reconciliation to the
church. Paschal II. absolved them on their taking a solemn oath upon
the Gospels to live chastely in future, and he sent them back to
Lambert with instructions to keep a careful watch upon them.[631]
These cases, which chance to remain on record, show how obstinately
the clergy held to their wives and how difficult it was to convince
them that the authorities of the church were determined to enforce
the canons. We therefore need not be surprised to find Paschal II.,
after the year 1100, writing to the clergy of Terouane, expressing his
astonishment that, in spite of so many decretals of popes and canons of
councils, they still adhered to their consorts, some of them openly and
some secretly. To remedy this, he has nothing but a repetition of the
old threat of deprivation.[632]
* * * * *
The confusion which this attempted reformation caused in France was
apparently not so aggravated as we have seen it in Germany, and yet it
was sufficiently serious. Guibert de Nogent relates that in his youth
commenced the persecution of the married priests by Rome, when a cousin
of his, a layman of flagrant and excessive licentiousness, made himself
conspicuous by his attacks on the failings of the clergy. The family
were anxious to provide for young Guibert, who was destined to the
church, and the cousin used his influence with the patron of a benefice
to oust the married incumbent and bestow the preferment on Guibert.
The priest thus forcibly ejected abandoned neither his wife nor his
functions, but relieved his mind by excommunicating every day, in the
Mass, Guibert’s mother and all her family, until the good woman’s fears
were so excited that she abandoned the prebend which she had obtained
with so much labor.[633] We can readily conceive this incident to be
a type of what was occurring in every corner of the kingdom, when, in
an age of brute force, the reverence which was the only defence of the
priesthood was partially destroyed, and the people hardly knew whether
they were to adore their pastors as representatives of God or to dread
them as the powerful ministers of evil.
* * * * *
When the religious ardor of Europe rose to the wild excitement that
culminated in the Crusades, and Pope Urban II. astutely availed himself
of the movement to place the church in possession of a stronger
influence over the minds of men than it had ever before enjoyed, it
was to no purpose that the great council of Clermont, in 1095, took
the opportunity to proclaim in the most solemn manner the necessity
of perfect purity in ministers of the altar, to denounce irrevocable
expulsion for contravention of the rule, and to forbid the children of
ecclesiastics from entering the church except as monks or canons.[634]
It was the weightiest exposition of church discipline, and was
promulgated under circumstances to give it the widest publicity and the
highest authority. Yet, within a few years, we find Gualo, Bishop of
Paris, applying to Ivo of Chartres for advice as to what ought to be
done with a canon of his church who had recently married, and Ivo in
reply recommending as a safe course that the marriage be held valid,
but that the offender be relieved of his stipend and functions.[635]
His answer, moreover, is written in a singularly undecided tone, and
an elaborate argument is presented as though the matter were still
open to discussion, although Ivo’s laborious compilations of the canon
law show that he was thoroughly familiar with the ancient discipline
which the depravity of his generation had rendered obsolete.[636]
Hardly less significant is another epistle in which Ivo calls the
attention of Daimbert, Archbishop of Sens, to the conduct of one of his
dignitaries who publicly maintained two concubines and was preparing
to marry a third. He urges Daimbert to put an end to the scandal, and
suggests that if he is unable to accomplish it single-handed, he should
summon two or three of his suffragans to his assistance.[637] Either
of these instances is a sufficient confession of the utter futility of
the ceaseless exertions which for half a century the church had been
making to enforce her discipline. Nor, perhaps, can her ill-success
be wondered at when we consider how unworthy were the hands to which
was frequently intrusted the administering of the law and the laxity
of opinion which viewed the worst transgressions with indulgence. The
archdeacons were the officials to whom was specially confided the
supervision over sacerdotal morals, and yet, when a man occupying that
responsible position, like Aldebert of Le Mans, publicly surrounded
himself with a harem, and took no shame from the resulting crowd of
offspring, so little did his conduct shock the sensibilities of the age
that he was elevated to the episcopal chair, and only the stern voice
of Ivo could be heard reproving the measureless scandal.[638]
* * * * *
Equal looseness pervaded the monastic establishments. Hildebert, Bishop
of Le Mans, made numerous fruitless attempts to restore discipline
in the celebrated abbey of Euron, the monks of which indulged in the
grossest licentiousness, and successfully defied his power until he was
obliged to appeal to the papal legate for assistance.[639] Albero of
Verdun, after fruitless attempts to reform the monastery of St. Paul,
in his episcopal city, was obliged to turn out the monks by force and
replace them with Premonstratensians, who were then in the full ardor
of their new discipline.[640] The description which Ivo of Chartres
gives of the convent of St. Fara shows a promiscuous and shameless
prostitution, on the part of the nuns of that institution, even more
degrading.[641] Instances like these could be almost indefinitely
multiplied, such as that of St. Mary of Argentueil, reformed by
Heloise, the great foundation of St. Denis, previous to the abbacy of
Suger, and that of St. Gildas de Ruys in Britanny, as described by
Abelard;[642] who, moreover, depicts the nuns of the period, in general
terms, as abandoned to the most hideous licentiousness—those who were
good-looking prostituting themselves for hire, those who were not so
fortunate hiring men to gratify their passions, while the older ones,
who had passed the age of lust, acted as procuresses.[643] Innocent
III. may therefore be absolved from the charge of exaggeration when,
in ordering the reform of the nuns of St. Agatha, he alludes to their
convent as a brothel which infected with its evil reputation the whole
country around it.[644] A contemporary chronicler records as a matter
of special wonder that John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, forced
his canons to live in cloisters according to the Rule of St. Augustin;
and he adds that, stimulated by this example, his uncle, John of
Lisieux, and his successor, Geoffrey of Chartres, attempted the same
reform, but without success.[645] It is true that some partial reform
was effected by St. Bernard, but the austerities of the new orders
founded by enthusiasts like him and St. Bruno, Robert d’Arbrissel
and St. Norbert, did not cure the ineradicable vices of the older
establishments.
* * * * *
With such examples before us, it is not difficult to believe the truth
of the denunciations with which the celebrated Raoul of Poitiers,
whose fiery zeal gained for him the distinctive appellation of Ardens,
lashed the vices of his fellows; nor can we conclude that it was mere
rhetorical amplification which led him to declare that the clergy, who
should be models for their flocks, were more shameless and abandoned
than those whose lives it was their duty to guide.[646] Peter Cantor,
indeed, deplores the superiority of the laity to the clergy as the
greatest injury that afflicted the church.[647]
The natural result of such a state of morals was the prevalence of
the hereditary principle against which the church had so long and so
perseveringly striven. How completely this came to be regarded as a
matter of course, is shown by a contemporary charter to the ancient
monastery of Bèze, by which a priest named Germain, on entering it
bestowed upon it his holding, consisting of certain specified tithes.
This deed of gift is careful to declare the assent of the sons of the
donor, showing that the title of the monastery would not have been
considered good as against the claims of Germain’s descendants had
they not joined in the conveyance.[648] Even as late as 1202 we find
Innocent III. endeavoring to put a stop to the hereditary transmission
of benefices in the bishopric of Toul, where it was practised to an
extent which showed how little impression had as yet been made by the
unceasing efforts of the last hundred and fifty years.[649]
When in the presence of so stiff-necked and evil disposed a generation,
all human efforts seemed unavailing to secure respect for the canons of
councils and decretals of popes, we need scarcely wonder if recourse
was had to the miraculous agencies which so often proved efficacious
in subduing the minds of men. Wondrous stories, accordingly, were not
wanting, to show how offended Heaven sometimes gave in this world a
foretaste of the wrath to come, awaiting those who lived in habitual
disregard of the teachings of the church. Thus Peter the Venerable
relates with much unction how a priest, who had abandoned himself to
carnal indulgences, died amid the horrors of anticipated hell-fire.
Visible to him alone, the demons chuckling around his death-bed
heated the frying-pan of burning fat in which he was incontinently
to be plunged, while a drop flying from the sputtering mass seared
him to the bone, as a dreadful material sign that his agony was not
the distempered imagining of a tortured conscience. A miracle equally
significant wrung a confession of his weakness from the Dean of Minden
in 1167.[650]
If Heaven thus miraculously manifested its anger, it was equally ready
to welcome back the repentant sinner. In the first energy of the
reforms of St. Bernard, a priest entered the abbey of Clairvaux. The
rigor of the Cistercian discipline wore out his enthusiasm; he fled
from the convent, returned to his parish, and, according to the general
custom, (“sicut multis consuetudinis est”) took to himself a concubine,
and soon saw a family increasing around him. The holy St. Bernard
chanced to pass that way and accepted the priest’s warm hospitality
without recognizing him. When the Saint was ready to depart in the
morning he found that his host was absent performing his functions
in the church, and, turning to one of the children, he sent him with
a message to his father. Though the child had been a deaf-mute from
birth, he promptly performed the errand. Roused by the miracle to a
sense of his iniquity, the apostate rushed to the Saint, threw himself
at his feet, confessed who he was, and entreated to be taken back to
the monastery. St. Bernard touched by his repentance, promised to call
for him on his return. To this the priest objected, on the ground that
he might die during the interval, but was comforted with the assurance
that if he died in such a frame of mind, he would be received by God
as a monk. When St. Bernard returned, the repentant sinner was dead.
Inquiring as to the ceremonies of his interment, he was told that the
corpse had been buried in its priestly garments; whereupon he ordered
the grave to be opened, and it was found arrayed, not in its funeral
robes, but in full Cistercian habit and tonsure, showing that God had
fulfilled the promises made in his name.[651]