CHAPTER XXVII

GENERAL CONDITION OF EUROPE FROM THE VIII. TO

THE XVI. CENTURY

700–1500

Effects of Barbarian Supremacy on the Nations of Europe--Rise

of the Papal Power--Character of the Popes--Their

Vices and Crimes--The Interdict--Corrupt Practices of

Prelates and Degradation of the Papacy--Institution of

the Monastic Orders--Their Great Influence--Their Final

Degeneracy--Wealth of the Religious Houses--The Byzantine

System--Its Characteristics--Power of the Eunuchs--Splendor

of Constantinople--Destruction of Learning--Debased Condition

of the Greeks--The People of Western Europe--Tyranny of

Caste and its Effects--Feudal Oppression--Life of the

Noble--His Amusements--The Serf and his Degradation--His

Hopeless Existence--Treatment of the Jews--Prevalence of

Epidemics--Religious Festivals--General Ignorance--Scarcity

and Value of Books--Persecution of Learning--The Empire of the

Church--Its Extraordinary Vitality.

In order that the reader may thoroughly understand and properly

appreciate the moral and intellectual supremacy of the Spanish Arabs

and their prodigious advance in the domain of science and the arts,

I have thought it advisable, by way of contrast, to present to him

a short and superficial sketch of the religious, political, and

domestic conditions which prevailed in the society of contemporaneous

Europe. The extent of this vast and comprehensive subject--one which

has exhausted the erudition of many great historians, whose works of

themselves would constitute a considerable library--must, therefore,

excuse the incomplete and cursory character of this chapter; while its

importance as a standard of comparison will account for an apparent

deviation from the general plan embraced by these volumes.

The elegant luxury and refined civilization of the Romans had

disappeared amidst the universal anarchy which followed the dissolution

of their empire. The boundaries of great states and kingdoms had been

obliterated. Provinces once famed for their fertility were now the

haunts of prowling beasts and truculent barbarians. The despotic but

generally salutary government of the Cæsars had everywhere, save in

the immediate vicinity of Byzantium, been replaced by the capricious

and irregular jurisdiction of petty chieftains, whose violent passions

were restrained only by their weakness, and of marauding princes,

ambitious to destroy every vestige of that architectural magnificence

and mental culture whose monuments they despised, and whose example

they had neither the desire nor the capacity to emulate. Instead of a

smiling landscape, everywhere exhibiting the traces of agricultural

skill and laborious and patient industry, a prospect of universal

desolation met the eye of the anxious and hurrying wayfarer. Moss-grown

heaps of rubbish alone marked the site of many a once flourishing and

opulent city. The towering aqueducts,--those engineering marvels of

the ancient world,--whose majestic ruins still excite the admiration

of all mankind, were broken and fallen into decay. The peerless

temples and altars of the gods had been desecrated by the hands of

sacrilegious Goth, Hun, and Lombard. Bands of brigands, insensible to

pity, swarmed upon the highways. In the cities the equitable decisions

of the prætor had been supplanted by the extortions of ecclesiastical

fraud and barbarian insolence. The vices prevalent during the most

abandoned period of Roman licentiousness had survived, and had been

aggravated by the unfeeling cruelty of the conquerors. No scruples of

humanity or delicacy suggested the concealment of the most revolting

orgies. The streets of the Eternal City exhibited enormities whose

very mention the rules of modern propriety do not tolerate. Banquets

where the brutal propensities of the turbulent and uncouth guests were

indulged to the utmost constantly afforded provocation for bloodshed

and murder. Knowledge of letters, understanding and appreciation of the

arts, had already wholly vanished. The literary masterpieces of classic

genius remained unknown or forgotten in the insignificant collections

of scattered libraries, or had been buried under the smoking ruins of

those institutions of learning which once adorned the capitals and the

provincial cities of Greece and Italy.

By the accident of geographical position, by the adoption of familiar

political maxims, and by the incorporation into its ritual of many

ceremonies long endeared to the votaries of Paganism, the Church of

Rome had secured an influence over the minds of men which under any

other circumstances it could scarcely have acquired. The revered name

and dignity of Supreme Pontiff imparted authority to its decrees and

gave prestige to its decisions on questions of doctrine. The five

Christian emperors, from Constantine to Gratian, adopted without

alteration the attributes and wore the insignia of the sacred office

established by Numa and usurped by Augustus. The assumption of imperial

power is shown by the extent of Papal jurisdiction long sharply

defined by the ancient limits of the empire. The adoption of the Latin

idiom enabled the Church to communicate secretly with its servants in

the most distant countries; while at the same time it invested the

proceedings of its worship with a mystery which awed the ignorant and

fanatic believer. The splendid ceremonial, the imposing temples, the

elaborate vestments, the costly furniture of the altar enriched with

gold and jewels, the incense, the solemn chants, the consecration of

the Host,--all powerfully impressed the superstitious children of the

slaves of ancient mythology, in whose minds still lingered traces of

those traditions which had been received by their fathers with the

implicit faith due to the oracles of the gods.

In the course of centuries, the primitive simplicity of the Gospel and

the purity of life which distinguished the first Christians had been

lost in the complex theology, in the unseemly contests for precedence,

in the crimes and the licentiousness which distracted the society

of the Eternal City. From a simple priest, whose tenure of office

was dependent on the pleasure of his associates, the Bishop of Rome

had been exalted into a mighty sovereign, responsible only to the

powers of Heaven. The palace of the Vatican exhibited all the vices

of the most corrupt of courts. The assumption of infallibility,--an

inevitable result of the preposterous claims of the Papacy,--through

the contradictory interpretations of different individuals whose

interests were conflicting led to the most opposite conclusions, often

to results fatal to the peace and honor of the Church. The faith of the

populace was weakened. Infidelity in the priesthood became too common

to excite remark. The universal depravity was incredible and appalling.

The general demoralization resulting from the example of the clergy,

whose atheism and debauchery were proverbial, threatened the existence

of society, a catastrophe which the thorough organization of the

hierarchy alone prevented. Even in the fifteenth century Machiavelli

wrote, “The nearer a nation is to Rome the more impious are the

people.” When the German Schopp called the famous scholar, Casaubon,

an atheist, the latter retorted: “If I were an atheist I should now be

at Rome, where I have often been invited.” The effects of this superb

ecclesiastical organization were not long in manifesting themselves.

The legitimate resources of power were aided by every device of

fraud, of oppression, of imposture, of forgery. A succession of able

and unprincipled pontiffs fastened on Christendom a yoke which the

intelligence and the science of subsequent generations have not even

yet been able to entirely remove. The temporal supremacy of the Cæsars

was re-established over Europe; the dogmas of Catholicism were preached

in distant continents unknown to the ancient world; and a tyranny far

more terrible in its consequences than that experienced under the cruel

rule of Nero and Domitian was imposed upon the intellectual aspirations

of mankind.

No branch of history affords such a significant illustration of human

craft and human weakness as the story of the ambition, the intrigues,

and the vices of the Popes. In its consideration, the fact must never

be lost sight of that the Holy Father was, as a necessary consequence

of his creed, the earthly embodiment of spiritual perfection,--the

vicegerent of Almighty God. Either the admission of a single error

of judgment, or a controversy involving the most insignificant tenet

sustained by one pope and disputed by his successor, was fatal to

the claim of infallibility, which was the foundation of the entire

ecclesiastical system. The omniscience conferred by the apostolic

succession, which traced its origin to the Saviour Himself, could

never be mistaken. The example of the Supreme Pontiff, the relations

he sustained to the great officials of his court, his occupations,

his diversions, his tastes, his habits, his conversation, were of far

greater importance in the eyes of the meanest peasant of some remote

kingdom who acknowledged his mission than were the most glorious

achievements of any temporal sovereign. The possibilities for the

attainment to positions of such authority and influence as were

offered by the Roman Catholic hierarchy had been unknown to Paganism.

These opportunities enabled men of base origin, but of extraordinary

talents, to reach the chair of St. Peter, men whose faults were

overlooked or palliated by the indulgent spirit of the age on account

of the successful prosecution of their schemes and the veneration which

attached to their calling.

Thus, among the powers of the earth, highest in rank, greatest in

renown, supreme in influence, pre-eminent in infamy, was the Papacy

of Rome. The maintenance of an uniform standard of orthodoxy was

little considered by the spiritual potentate whose will was the law

of Christendom. It is well known to every student of Church history

that Jewish doctrines predominated in the early days of Christianity

and controlled the policy of its priesthood. The Pagan ideas and

ceremonies inherited from the Roman pontiffs it never laid aside. Every

form of heterodox belief was entertained at different periods by the

incumbents of the Holy See. St. Clement was an Arian; Anastasius a

Nestorian; Honorius a Monothelite; John XXII. an unconcealed atheist.

The contradictory dogmas, the acrimonious disputes, the frightful

anathemas, that resulted from the adoption of these heretical

principles of doctrine were the public reproach of the Christian

world. As the power of the Papacy increased, its possession became

more and more an object to ambitious and unscrupulous adventurers. It

was sought and obtained by arts countenanced only by the vilest of

demagogues. It was sold by one Pope to another; and, like the imperial

laurel appropriated by the Pretorian Guards, it was put up at auction

by cardinals and became the property of the most wealthy purchaser.

Some of the Holy Fathers had not taken orders; others had not even

received the sacraments of baptism and communion before being invested

with the pontifical dignity. In some instances the tiara and the mitre

were placed upon the brows of children. Neither John XII. nor Benedict

IX. had attained the age of thirteen years when intrusted with the

direction of the spiritual affairs of Christendom. An infant of five

years was consecrated Archbishop of Rheims. Another who was only ten

was placed upon the episcopal throne of Narbonne. Alonso of Aragon, the

natural son of Ferdinand the Catholic, was made Archbishop of Saragossa

at the age of six. The origin of the vicars of Christ was sometimes of

the most obscure and often of the most disgraceful character. Stephen

VII., John X., John XI., John XII., Boniface VII., Gregory VII., were

the sons of courtesans. In some instances the infamy was further

increased by the additional stigma attaching to the crime of incest.

The famous courtesan Marozia, who for the greater part of her life

disposed of the Papacy at her will, is credited with the installation

of eight Popes, all her lovers or her children, one of whom was at

once her son and grandson. The empire she acquired by her talents and

her beauty lasted almost a quarter of a century. To that epoch is

ascribed an occurrence that many writers have designated as fabulous,

but which is established by evidence far more convincing than many

events that have successfully withstood the most formidable assaults of

hostile criticism. It was long asserted by chroniclers of the orthodox

faith, and universally credited, that in the capital of Christianity,

hallowed by the glorious deaths of countless martyrs, linked with the

proud associations of the rise and progress of the spiritual power of

the Papacy, and ennobled by the most signal victories of the Church,

a monstrous prodigy had occurred. It was said that Pope John VIII.,

whose sex had hitherto been unsuspected save by those favored with her

intimacy, while returning from the celebration of a solemn festival,

at the head of a procession of cardinals and bishops and surrounded

with the glittering emblems of pontifical power and majesty, had

been seized with the throes of parturition in one of the most public

thoroughfares of Rome.

The original acceptance of and belief in this portentous catastrophe,

and its subsequent denial, form one of the most curious episodes in the

annals of the Church. For five centuries it was implicitly received as

historic truth. The life of Pope Joan long occupied a prominent place

in the biographies of the successors of St. Peter, dedicated to eminent

prelates, often to the Pontiffs themselves. The occurrence--whose

locality was marked by the statue of a woman wearing the Papal insignia

and holding a child in her arms--was minutely described in the works of

learned and respectable historians. This memorial was thrown into the

Tiber by the order of Sixtus V. Her bust, destroyed by Charles VIII.

during the French invasion of Italy, was long an ornament of one of

the churches of Sienna. Until the time of Leo X. certain ceremonies,

which cannot be described, were publicly instituted at the election of

every Pope to determine his sex. To these even the licentious Borgia

was forced to conform. John Huss, when arraigned before the Council of

Constance, amidst an unbroken silence, reproached the ecclesiastical

dignitaries assembled to condemn him, and whom the slightest heretical

assertion roused to tumultuous fury, with the imposture which had so

signally demonstrated the weakness of the vaunted inspiration of the

Papacy. More than five hundred writers, whose interests were identical

with those of the Vatican--among them chroniclers, polemic divines,

authorities on the history of the Church and its discipline, all

enthusiastic members of the Roman Catholic communion--have confirmed

the existence of a female Pope.

But, whether true or false, the disgrace consequent upon this gigantic

scandal was insignificant when compared with the moral effect of the

long series of crimes which disfigure the annals of Papal Rome. The

shameless venality of the Princes of the Church had from the most

remote times disgraced the proceedings by which was elevated to the

throne of the apostles the immaculate Vicar of God. So corrupt was the

ecclesiastical society of the capital that no Pontiff who endeavored

to live a moral life was secure for a single hour. Celestine was

poisoned at the instance of the cardinals eighteen days after receiving

the tiara. Adrian V. was poisoned in the conclave itself before his

election. The partisans of antagonistic claimants of the Papacy pursued

each other with a vindictiveness scarcely equalled by the most intense

bitterness of political faction. Each aspirant to the pontifical

dignity denounced his opponent as an anti-pope, and exhausted the rich

vocabulary of clerical invective in consigning him to the vengeance

of Heaven. The defeated candidate was subjected to every variety of

torture; to the deprivation of his nose, his eyes, his tongue; to the

suffering of confinement in noisome dungeons; to the pangs of prolonged

starvation. The temporal enemies of the Holy Father fared even worse

than his rivals for spiritual supremacy. No deed was considered too

flagitious for the removal of a dangerous and obstinate adversary.

Innocent IV. employed the trusted physician and friend of the Emperor

Frederick II. to compass his destruction. The Emperor Henry VII.

was poisoned by order of Clement V. The assassination of the Medici

under Sixtus IV. was planned by that Pope, and carried out before the

altar, the signal for attack being the elevation of the Host by the

celebrant, an archbishop. Half of the population of Rome was sacrificed

to gratify the malignity of Formosus, whose quarrels long survived him

and desolated the fairest provinces of Italy. Three years after the

establishment of the Inquisition in Spain by Gregory IX. its victims

already numbered tens of thousands.

In the variety and shrewdness of schemes for procuring money the

statesmen of no government have ever equalled the astute financiers

of the Apostolic See. In addition to the infinite number of vexatious

and cruel expedients suggested by the possession and exercise of

irresponsible power, the Popes employed means which violated every

precept of morality, but whose successful issue demonstrated the

practical wisdom which had inspired them. Simony was invariably

practised, and not infrequently defended, even by those whose manifest

duty it was to suppress it. The wealthiest candidate for the Papacy,

whose physical infirmities indicated a speedy demise, had the best

prospect for the realization of his ambition. The price of a cardinal’s

hat varied from one thousand to ten thousand florins; the pallium of

an archbishop was rated still higher in the ecclesiastical market, for

the dignity of which it was the symbol usually brought thirty thousand

ducats in gold. To meet this tax demanded at the death of every

metropolitan, the new incumbent was sometimes reduced to pledge the

furniture of the altar as security to Jewish usurers, who alone were

able to raise such exorbitant amounts; and it was a source of complaint

among the devout that Hebrew children had been seen to amuse themselves

with the utensils consecrated to pious uses, and that in the unhallowed

orgies of their fathers sacred vessels were habitually profaned which

had originally been destined to receive the body and blood of Christ.

When the exigencies of the Pontiff required it, the sacrifice of a few

cardinals afforded a safe and easy means of replenishing the Papal

treasury by the sale of the vacant dignities and by the reversion of

the estates of the victims to the domain of the Holy See. It is a

well-known fact that Alexander VI. died from drinking poisoned wine

intended for certain princes of the Church whom he had invited to share

his treacherous hospitality. Great wealth was obtained by the sale of

absolutions granted by one Pope from the anathemas of his predecessor.

This device suggested the traffic in indulgences, promising immunity

from all punishment for crime. The avarice of John XXII. prompted him

to draw up and promulgate a schedule of fines, so that by the payment

of trifling sums the culprit was completely absolved from the moral and

secular consequences of the most atrocious offences in the criminal

calendar.

In their relations with foreign courts the Popes brought to bear every

source of corruption and violence for the accomplishment of their ends.

They availed themselves of the prestige attaching to their sacred

office for the encouragement of insurrection and parricide. They openly

sold the investitures of distant kingdoms. They armed the servant

against his master, the vassal against his lord, the subject against

his king. They prohibited the education of children as inimical to the

interests of the clergy, who alone were declared worthy to enjoy the

benefits of learning. When an obnoxious enemy was to be removed, they

did not shrink from selecting instruments at whose employment honor and

piety alike revolt,--the envenomed poniard, the sacramental elements

mingled with deadly poisons and yet blessed by the ceremonies of the

officiating prelate, whose instructions impressed the unsuspicious

victim with the belief that he knelt in the very presence of God.

According to Montaigne, the Holy Father was accustomed to use during

the pontifical mass a contrivance which counteracted the effects of a

consecrated draught which might otherwise be a messenger of death.

From having been the vassals of the Emperor, the tributaries of the

Saracen Emirs, and the tools of the Kings of France, the Popes in

time arrogated to themselves imperial prerogatives; and his title

to the crown was not considered as vested in a sovereign until it

had been placed upon his brow by an ecclesiastic duly commissioned

by the Successor of St. Peter. Through the insidious influence of a

superstition, fostered by the ignorance of the time, the authority of

powerful monarchs was disputed in their capitals. Degrading penances

were imposed upon and performed by them without remonstrance. The

humiliation of the prince in the eyes of his people increased, in a

corresponding degree, the importance of the spiritual ruler who could

inflict such punishments.

By excommunication and interdict--the one cutting off an individual

from the fellowship of believers, the other aimed at an entire

community or kingdom and involving the innocent with the guilty--the

vengeance of the Church was visited upon all, of whatever rank, who

had violated her canons or interfered with her projects of ambition.

It is difficult in our age to appreciate the grave effects of

ecclesiastical fulminations which the progress of intelligence and

the development of civilization have long since deprived of their

terrors. Of excommunication, anything besides a human being might be

the subject, from a comet to rats, worms, and every kind of vermin.

The interdict was equivalent to a dreadful curse inflicted by the

vicegerent of God. With awe-inspiring ceremonies, usually performed at

midnight to increase their impressive effect, the decree of the Holy

See was solemnly proclaimed. In gloomy silence, occasionally broken

by sobs and half-stifled lamentations, the terror-stricken multitude

listened to a sentence which, in their eyes, exceeded, through the

direful consequences it entailed, the severest penalty that any

earthly tribunal could inflict. The churches were closed. The bells

were silent. The tapers burning on the altars were extinguished. The

relics were concealed. Before every house of worship where the Host

was enshrined the consecrated wafer was publicly committed to the

flames. The crucifixes of chapel and cathedral alike, enveloped in

folds of black cloth, were hidden from the reverential gaze of those

on whose heads had fallen the censure of the Almighty. All religious

ceremonies were suspended save the aspersion, which secured for the

Church the hope of another devotee, the solemnization of marriage,

and the final rites which dismissed the passing soul on the threshold

of eternity. The endearments of conjugal affection, the last blessing

of the parent, the diversions of youth, the familiar greetings of

friendship and esteem, were all prohibited. Surrounded by black-garbed

priests bearing torches, an officiating cardinal, robed in violet,--the

mourning of his order,--read the fatal edict which cut off absolutely

the only medium of communication between the sinner and his God. From

that moment the people were deprived of those welcome ministrations

which had been their pleasure and consolation from infancy; which

had directed their footsteps; which had confirmed their wavering

resolution in many an emergency; which had relieved their sufferings;

which had enhanced their happiness and furnished almost their sole

amusements. No opportunity was neglected to impress the offending

children of Rome with the awful consequences of the malediction which

the perversity of their rulers had inflicted upon them. Subjects were

absolved from their allegiance. The channels of commerce were closed.

Trade of every kind was suspended. Worshippers, whose piety urged

them, in spite of ecclesiastical menace, to frequent the portals of

the church, were rudely driven back. The use of meat was forbidden, as

in Lent; the familiar objects connected with the service of religion

disappeared; the bells, deprived of their clappers, were taken down

from the steeples; the sacred effigies of the saints were laid upon the

ground and sedulously concealed from the profane gaze of an accursed

people; the rich trappings of the shrines, the utensils of the mass,

the vestments of the priests, were collected and carried away. The

festivals which stimulated the devotion and amused the leisure of

the gay and careless multitude were discontinued; the procession,

which impressed all classes with its solemnity and magnificence, no

longer moved with barbaric pomp through the crowded streets lined with

long rows of kneeling worshippers; the voice of prayer was unheard;

marriages were celebrated in church-yards; the bodies of the dead,

denied a resting-place in consecrated ground and deprived even of the

ordinary rites of sepulture, were cast unceremoniously beyond the walls

of cities, to be devoured by unclean beasts and to poison the air with

noxious odors.

When the ban was removed, the purification of every edifice, altar,

and vessel, the reconsecration of every relic and image,--rites which

demanded heavy contributions,--evinced the foresight and thrift of the

priesthood.

Such were the frightful methods by which the Papacy, in an age of

ignorance, punished a nation for the offences of a sovereign who had

thwarted its schemes, defied its power, or incurred its enmity. In the

estimation of the credulous--and in those days all were credulous--the

interdict was not only a general curse enforced by every circumstance

which could appeal to the prejudices of the devout; it was the sudden

intercepting of the means of salvation, only attainable through the

agency of the servants of the Church. Mediæval writers have left us

affecting accounts of the universal wretchedness which the use of

this instrument of ecclesiastical tyranny produced. It rarely failed

of success, for no monarch, however bold or arbitrary, could long

withstand its power; and the mere threat of its exercise was often

sufficient to strike terror into a whole people and to peremptorily

check the well-conceived designs of ambitious royalty. The interdict

only fell into disuse after the foundation of the Inquisition, the most

effective and formidable weapon ever devised by the merciless spirit of

Papal despotism.

With the financial exhaustion induced by profuse expenditure in

every species of luxury and vice, new and ingenious expedients were

invented for the relief of the pressing necessities of the Vatican.

The institution and frequent recurrence of the Jubilee, with its

concourse of millions of fanatics, each bearing his offering to

the insatiable genius of Rome; the Crusades, which acquired for

the Papacy incalculable wealth by the conveyance of lands for a

nominal consideration and the generous contributions of pilgrims;

the Constitutions of Leo, which declared the real property of

ecclesiastical foundations to be inalienable; the Inquisition, whose

origin was more political than moral, and by whose rules one-half

of the property of the condemned was forfeited to the sovereign and

one-half to the Church, are prominent examples of the financial ability

of the Popes.

The personal characters of the infallible and inspired guides of the

Christian world cannot be delineated in the fulness of their impious

depravity. The moral supremacy assumed by them as the representatives

of celestial power was presumed to excuse the open indulgence of vices

which even the most licentious temporal potentates sedulously veiled

from the eyes of mankind. For more than two centuries the Papal court

presented an almost uninterrupted exhibition of profligacy, which

scandalized devout believers, whose imagination had invested the Holy

Father with the attributes of divinity, and excited the horror of

the few eminent and consistent Christian prelates who remained pure

amidst the general contamination. Some priests celebrated mass in a

state of intoxication. Others paraded the streets with a train of

bacchantes singing profane and licentious songs. They presented their

boon companions with the sacred vessels of the altar. Archbishops

appointed women of infamous antecedents to the superintendence of

convents. The Vatican swarmed with catamites and courtesans. Colonies

of nuns, members of the seraglios of the cardinals and the Pope,

occupied houses adjoining the sanctuary of St. Peter’s. The satellites

of the Papacy obtained the most lucrative employments by means of

unnatural blandishments and ministrations of unspeakable vileness. The

most debased ideas were entertained of the ecclesiastical functions

devolving upon the head of the Christian communion. Ministers of

religion were consecrated in stables. Cathedrals were made the theatre

of mummeries and obscene dances. Virgins were torn from the precincts

of the sanctuary and dragged to the Papal harem. In the time of John

XII. no woman was safe from indignity and outrage in the very temple

of God. Boniface IX. sold a cardinal’s hat to a profligate adventurer

named Bathalzar Cossa, who afterwards seized the tiara by force and

passed from the deck of a pirate galley to the Apostolic Throne. The

latter, under the name of John XXIII., in a few years attained a

reputation remarkable even in the annals of Papal degradation. He was

deposed by the Council of Constance after conviction of every offence

of which a depraved imagination could conceive. The infallibility of

his mission was thus impugned both by his irregular appointment and

by the intervention of his spiritual subordinates who effected his

deposition. It was an axiom of the canon law, inevitably resulting

from the original spurious grant of pontifical authority, that no

guilt or heresy of the Pope could divest him of his spiritual powers

or of the sanctity which enveloped his person as the Vicar of God. A

dire necessity alone could impel a council to violate this fundamental

principle upon which depended the prestige of the Papacy. The impiety

of the Holy Fathers was not less prominent than their defiance of

the rules of morality. Boniface VIII. openly blasphemed the name of

Christ. John XXII. ridiculed the sacraments. At the banquets of John

XII., Venus and Bacchus were in turn toasted by noisy revellers of both

sexes, the favorite associates of that Pontiff.

The admissions of Pius II., in his correspondence preserved in the

Vatican, indicate without concealment the practice of the grossest

libertinage. From the orgies of Benedict XII. dates the famous proverb,

“Bibere papaliter,” “To drink like a Pope.” Sixtus IV., who inaugurated

the custom of licensing the brothels of Rome, derived annually from

this horrible traffic the enormous sum of thirty thousand ducats.

Innocent X. sold to the starving peasantry, at an advance of a hundred

per cent., the grain he had purchased at the price he himself had

fixed. Sixtus IV. gravely decreed that the illegitimate children of

the Popes should, by reason of their birth alone, be placed on an

equality with the descendants of the princely houses of Italy. The

scandals of the court of Avignon under Clement VI. and his successors

surpassed even those which had for ages made the Eternal City a

reproach to civilization and Christianity. Of the latter, Benedict

XII. has been conspicuously held up to the execration of posterity as

the violator of the sister of Petrarch, whose connivance he attempted

to purchase with a cardinal’s hat and a purse of a thousand florins

of gold. The bull of Alexander VI., which countenanced the slaughter

of fifteen million inoffensive natives of the New World, is a fitting

climax to this revolting chronicle of crime and infamy. Well might the

indignant Cardinal Baronius exclaim, that “the Popes were monsters

who installed themselves on the throne of Christendom by simony and

murder.” Few indeed there were of the Holy Fathers who tolerated even

the suspicion of profane learning in their jurisdiction. Most of them

were the implacable enemies of every kind of knowledge. Gregory I.

burned all the copies of Livy that the most rigorous search could

disclose. Gregory VIII., scandalized by the “superstitious tales”

contained in the work of the great Roman historian, completed, as far

as human energy and malignity could effect, the destructive task of

his predecessor. In consequence, out of a hundred and forty-two books

known to have existed during the reign of these two Pontiffs, but

thirty-five have survived. Sylvester II. is said by Petrarch to have

been “Negromante, e di dottrina eccellente,” qualifications which seem

rather incongruous with the duties and the traditions of the Papacy.

Nor was the famous Gerbert the only Pope devoted to uncanonical and

prohibited investigations of the false science of the age. John XIX.

was skilled in hydromancy; John XX. was an expert in the casting of

horoscopes and in divination; Benedict IX. consulted the familiar

geniuses of the forests and the mountains; Gregory VII. possessed a

manual of enchantment, and shook clouds of sparks from his sleeves when

he pronounced the Pontifical blessing; Alexander VI. had the reputation

throughout Italy of “an abominable sorcerer.”

The spirit of infidelity and blasphemy which prevailed in the highest

ranks of the priesthood also infected the occupants of the throne.

The lives of some of the most devout sovereigns presented incredible

examples of cruelty, hypocrisy, and deceit. Ecclesiastical example

and the facility of absolution had apparently destroyed all reverence

for the precepts of the Gospel, all apprehension of Divine wrath. The

contempt often entertained by royalty for the decrees of the Almighty

is disclosed by the impious speech of Alfonso X., the Most Catholic

King, “If God had consulted me when He created the world, I would have

given Him some good advice.”

The spurious donation of Constantine, by which the first Christian

sovereign was alleged to have conveyed to Pope Sylvester I. the title

to the Western Empire, and with it the inherited authority of the

Cæsars, was supplemented in the eighth century by the Forged Decretals,

a series of epistles declared to have been promulgated by the first

Bishops of Rome, whose names and order of apostolic succession are

themselves either apocryphal or based entirely on uncertain tradition.

The inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities of the Decretals,

which afford abundant internal evidence of the ignorance of those who

composed them, and their entire want of concord on important points of

doctrine, have demonstrated beyond question their fraudulent origin.

But in an age of superstition their authority was amply sufficient to

accomplish the object for which they were invented,--the autocracy

of the Popes. The general deficiency of critical knowledge, assisted

by the reverence entertained by the masses for the decisions of the

Successor of St. Peter, caused these glaring forgeries to be accepted

with the same faith which was accorded to the precepts of the Gospel.

They conferred the most extensive and dangerous prerogatives on the

Papacy. They subjected the claims of every temporal sovereign to the

extravagant pretensions of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The right

of regal investiture was by their maxims declared to be inherent in

members of the sacerdotal order, and the title of a monarch alleged to

be imperfect until he had been crowned by a servant of the Church. By

their incorporation into the civil procedure of Europe,--for centuries

dominated by the canon law,--they established on a permanent basis the

ideas and the principles of Papal supremacy. No measure of statecraft

has ever advanced the interests of the Holy See to such an extent as

the publication of the Decretals, nor has any genuine series of laws

exercised over society a more potent influence than that imposed by

these fraudulent epistles upon subsequent legislation.

The vast ecclesiastical system, whose ramifications extended to the

most insignificant hamlets of every country in Europe and whose

jurisdiction was paramount in the domains of the most powerful

monarchs, carried with it the abuses and vices of the central

and irresponsible authority. The spiritual courts of provincial

metropolitans and bishops presented on a diminished scale the greed

and sensuality of the Vatican. The same organized simony regulated the

presentation and promotion of clerk and prelate. The same iniquitous

expedients were adopted for the augmentation of ecclesiastical

revenues. Priests and bishops lived in avowed and unblushing

concubinage. The seraglio of the Abbot of San Pelayo de Antealtaria

contained seventy concubines. Henry III., Bishop of Liege, acknowledged

the paternity of sixty-five illegitimate children. In Spain, the

metropolitans, as well as their subordinates, maintained harems

guarded by eunuchs. In Germany, sacerdotal dignitaries of the highest

rank endeavored to overturn the empire by the aid of idolaters, and

enlisted bands of robbers who plundered cities and extorted enormous

ransoms from wealthy merchants and defenceless travellers. In France,

the clergy of Verdun regularly furnished Jewish traders with Christian

children who had been emasculated for the slave-markets of Cordova and

Seville. In Italy, the sale of young and beautiful maidens to the Moors

of Sicily and Mauritania, which had invoked the indignant protest of

Charlemagne, was for many years one of the most lucrative perquisites

of the priesthood.

The laxity of morals prevalent in the hierarchy was fatal to the

preservation of ecclesiastical discipline. Priests and nuns, divesting

themselves of their sacred character, which was supposed to present

an edifying example to the laity, contended with each other for the

infamous superiority of promiscuous lewdness. The contributions of

charity, the oblations of the devout, were squandered in drunken

orgies and midnight banquets. In certain Swiss cantons a new priest

was compelled, on his arrival, to choose a concubine as a theoretical

safeguard of the honor of his female parishioners. These connections

were authorized by the laws of some countries, among them the fueros

of Castile, which permitted the sons of a celibate to inherit half

his property. The sale of licenses to entertain what were known as

“sub-introduced women” was for centuries a profitable source of

revenue to the bishops of England, and no priest was exempt from this

tax whether he wished to avail himself of its privileges or not. The

dignity of the sacred profession in France had been degraded by the

sacrilege of the Carlovingians, who appointed their favorite officers

to the richest benefices; and the antecedents and manners of these

rude veterans were, as may be supposed, but ill-adapted to the solemn

ceremonies of the altar and the confessional. Following this worthy

example, churchmen of the highest rank conferred the best livings

at their disposal on panders, lackeys, and barbers. The coarse and

unfeeling nature of the German ecclesiastics did not hesitate to

prompt the violation of every sentiment of honor in the gratification

of its brutal instincts. The holding of pluralities in England had

become an evil of national importance. Many foreign prelates had never

even visited the sees whose revenues they enjoyed. The possession of

from twenty to thirty benefices was not uncommon, and some fortunate

individuals are mentioned who held from three to four hundred.

The deplorable condition of the priesthood was largely due to the

enforcement of celibacy on the one hand, and the sale of dispensations

to violate it on the other.

The poems, the satires, and the tales which have come down to us from

the Middle Ages reveal the profligate manners of the clergy, as well as

the general contempt in which they were held by those whose consciences

were nominally in their keeping. In these amusing literary productions

the priest, the monk, and the cardinal are almost invariably objects

of ridicule. Their peculiar garb, their uncouth manners, their

lubricity, their gluttony, their avarice, are made the butt of

profane and vulgar witticisms. They are entrapped in ludicrous and

compromising situations. They are made the victims of severe practical

jokes. The language put into their mouths is a compound of obscenity

and blasphemy. A society which could countenance such scandalous

revelations must have had scanty respect for the clerical profession

and its ministers. Assemblages of eminent episcopal dignitaries fare

little better than individuals at the hands of the irreverent narrator.

Nor can we wonder that such is the case when we recall the conditions

and the accessories associated in the public mind with the Councils

of the Church. At the departure of the Papal court from Lyons, in the

thirteenth century, Cardinal Hugo, a distinguished prelate, in the

presence of an immense concourse, made the increased depravity of that

city, for which its reverend visitors were confessedly responsible,

the subject of a pleasing jest. The Holy Fathers of the famous Council

of Constance convoked to reform the priesthood, punish heresy,

and establish a more exalted standard of moral discipline for the

edification of the ungodly, beguiled the moments snatched from the

labors of pious deliberations and religious controversy in the society

of crowds of buffoons and dancers and of seven hundred courtesans. The

institution of the monastic orders not only contributed greatly to the

power of the Papacy but exercised, as well, a direct and generally a

most pernicious influence on society. An immense body of fanatics,

blindly devoted to the See of Rome, was placed at the absolute disposal

of the Pope,--invaluable allies in the bitter contests between the

Altar and the Throne. The mutual jealousies and enmities of the secular

and the regular clergy made both the more dependent on the favor of the

Supreme Pontiff. Every individual in a religious house was sworn to

inviolable secrecy concerning all that took place within its walls, a

regulation which became in subsequent times a convenient precaution for

the concealment of orgies that shunned the light of day. The assumption

of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience imparted to the monk

and the begging friar a peculiar sanctity in the eyes of the credulous

multitude. They mortified the flesh and suppressed carnal provocations

by frequent bleeding and long abstinence from food. They disclaimed

the aristocratic tastes which were a reproach to the luxurious members

of the secular priesthood. They renounced all the allurements, even

all the comforts, of life. Their physical necessities were supplied

by alms. Their fervid oratory, not confined by the pillared vaults

of churches, but which, in the open air, appealed to the imagination

and the prejudices of the ignorant, their voluntary renunciation of

the pleasures of the world, the ostentatious self-sacrifice of their

lives, made them universal favorites with the people. Men of all

classes showered gifts upon them. Women eagerly sought their services

as confessors. Their visits to the isolated villages of the simple

peasantry were hailed as harbingers of good fortune. Their abodes

offered gratuitous rest and refreshment to the belated traveller. Their

benediction attended the birth and the christening of the infants of

the poorest cottage. Their prayers brought consolation and relief to

the bedside of the earnest Christian and the repentant sinner alike. At

every fireside their temporary and accidental presence was regarded as

a blessing.

But a change soon came over the monastic orders. The temptations

of wealth, luxury, and personal enjoyment proved too strong to be

resisted. The robe of coarse cloth was metamorphosed into a mantle

of the finest fabric, trimmed with costly furs. The prior no longer

travelled alone and on foot, but rode an ambling palfrey, followed

by a train of obsequious attendants. The hermitage developed into a

stately palace, whose appointments and surroundings equalled and not

infrequently eclipsed in splendor the seats of princes. The monk became

a great landed proprietor. By purchase, by gift, by inheritance, by

forfeiture, he acquired in every country large and profitable estates.

Half of the lands of France were at one time in his possession. The

German nobility complained that monasteries had absorbed the bulk of

the real property of the empire. The visitation of Henry VIII., which

led to the suppression of the religious houses of England, revealed

the fact that the regular clergy had for centuries enjoyed the fruits

of the most productive and valuable portion of the public domain. The

peculiar character of its tenure made ecclesiastical proprietorship

the more oppressive. Its title was in mortmain, and its estates

inalienable. It could always acquire, but never relinquish, territorial

rights. The transfers of land, which constitute so important an

incentive to commercial activity in every community, were not merely

discountenanced, but were absolutely prohibited, by its selfish and

unjust regulations.

Monastic life, while nominally ascetic, presented in the more opulent

communities a picture of sybaritic indulgence. In the cloister the

refining influence of literature had, even with the gratification of

sensual appetites, modified in the monk the degrading propensities

and ferocious temper which actuated his associate, the feudal baron.

The dishes were more varied and delicate; the choicest wines took the

place of the coarse product of the brewery; and the conversation,

while fully as irreverent and licentious as that which entertained the

guests of the noble, was deprived of much of its repulsiveness by an

outward observance of decency. When overcome with too much hospitality,

the genial votary of Bacchus, instead of being left under the table,

exposed to the ridicule of his companions or the swords of brawlers,

was quietly conveyed to his cell by his more sober brethren. The

customs of the age imperatively demanded that the head of a religious

house should possess all the attributes of aristocratic birth and

gentle breeding. In the eyes of the Celt especially, symmetry of form

and dignity of carriage were indispensable characteristics of the

ruler of a monastic community. Both abbot and abbess were selected for

corporeal rather than for moral or intellectual qualifications,--for

handsome features, commanding presence, and elegant manners. Popular

opinion insensibly associated mental superiority and pious inclinations

with physical perfection; and personal deformity was supposed,

especially by the ignorant multitude, to indicate a disposition to

crime. This belief, no doubt unconsciously derived from the impressions

left by the Pagan deities of antiquity, in whose statues, models of

beauty, were embodied the unrivalled conceptions of the ancient

sculptor, demonstrates the persistent survival of time-honored

tradition and religious prejudice in the human mind.

With the unlimited opportunities for their gratification, uncanonical

practices were at first secretly indulged in and afterwards openly

tolerated. The refectory, once noted for frugality and pious

exhortation, was now the scene of gluttonous feasts and licentious

jesting. Foreign delicacies and wines of exquisite flavor appeared

daily on the table. Monks and nuns maintained unholy relations under

the same roof. Many priors had acknowledged concubines, and he who

restricted himself to a single mistress was regarded as a paragon of

ecclesiastical virtue. In contravention of every rule of their order,

monks assumed disguises and wandered over the country in search of

amorous adventures. Through their agency obnoxious relatives were

kidnapped and forced into perpetual confinement, or, if sufficient

pecuniary inducements were offered, made to disappear forever from the

knowledge of man. In England they frequently figured in disgraceful

brawls with other dissipated patrons of lupanars and taverns. The

monasteries of Spain, France, and Italy presented an even more

disgraceful picture of drunkenness, licentiousness, and disorder.

The reputation for dissolute practices sustained by the convent was

in no respect inferior to that of the monastery. The nuns notoriously

affected all the airs and graces of the most accomplished coquetry.

They arrayed themselves in rich garments covered with beautiful

embroidery, the work of their own skilful hands. Their chemises of

violet silk, their scarlet shoes, their veils of silver tissue, were

the delight of their admirers and the abomination of the pious. They

wore chains and bracelets of gold and rings set with precious gems.

They painted their faces. King Edgar publicly reproved the nuns of

his kingdom for their attire of purple and their jewels. The inmates

of Fontevrault wore the horned head-dress affected by the fashionable

ladies of the time. The spouses of Christ adopted every art to attract

the attention of the sinful passer-by. In the orgies which defiled

even the houses dedicated to divine worship their shamelessness was

proverbial. They bathed in perfect nudity with monks and deacons.

They sang bacchanalian songs. Their conversation was spiced with

blasphemous ribaldry. The universal prevalence of the evil is proved

by the frequency with which it is denounced by the Councils of the

Church. The Council of Cologne, held in 1307, was especially severe

in its reprobation of the custom by which nuns abandoned for a time

the conventual life for a career of debauchery and then resumed their

former relations with the Church, without repentance, and, what was

even worse, without remonstrance from their superiors.

For indulgence in these pleasures prohibited by the laws of God and

man, the revenues of the religious houses, although in many instances

enormous, were entirely inadequate. The extravagant demands of the Holy

See, which collected its tribute at frequent and irregular intervals,

further reduced the financial resources of the monastic treasury. The

ingenuity of the abbots was not at a loss, however, to devise means

to replenish their exhausted coffers. Noble forests, many of them

contemporaneous with the reign of the Druidical priesthood, were cut

down and sold. Chalices, patens, ciboria, and crucifixes were placed in

pawn with Jewish goldsmiths and merchants. Jewels were extracted from

votive offerings and altar ornaments and disposed of at a fraction of

their real value. These thefts of sacred articles were so serious that

inventories of the furniture and utensils of cathedrals were often

taken by the orders of primates and sovereigns, rather with a view

to discover the losses than to put a stop to a practice which under

the existing system was incurable. Absolutions, some forged, but many

genuine, bearing the Papal seal and ready to be filled up with the name

of the purchaser and the description of the offence of which he was

guilty or which he was about to commit, were at the disposal of every

criminal. The official visitors of the English abbeys discovered in the

cells of recluses who were popularly supposed to be laying up treasures

in heaven implements of the counterfeiter and quantities of spurious

coin. With the ministrations to the dying the duty of the sufferer to

the Church was unceasingly inculcated by the shrewd confessor, until

it came to be considered an act of impiety, ranked with sacrilege and

suicide, to refuse to bequeath a large share of one’s wealth to the

servants of God.

The number, riches, and influence of these ecclesiastical

establishments were enormous. At the end of the thirteenth century,

there were six hundred monasteries and convents in England, two

thousand three hundred and thirty-seven in France, and fifteen

hundred in the remaining countries of Europe. Many of these supported

communities of more than a thousand monks; that of the great Abbey

of Bangor--the largest in Great Britain--numbered three thousand.

Towns, villages, and immense tracts of arable soil, pasture, and

forest were included in their possessions. Multitudes of tenants and

vassals tilled these lands, the lion’s share of whose produce found

its way into the storehouses and granaries of the prosperous Fathers.

The religious duties of the latter did not hinder them from profiting

by the advantages of domestic and foreign trade. They bought and

sold almost every description of merchandise. The usurious rates of

interest which they obtained from necessitous borrowers extorted the

admiration of the shrewd and experienced Hebrew broker. They managed

tanneries, dealt extensively in cloth and leather, and imported many

luxuries from the Orient. The wool market of England was absolutely

controlled by them. The popular clamor aroused by this monopoly, which

dispossessed and ruined tenants by turning tillable land into pasture

and depriving large numbers of industrious people of the means of

livelihood, contributed, in no small degree, to the suppression of the

English monasteries. An inexhaustible mine of wealth was made available

by traffic in relics and the entertainment and fleecing of pilgrims.

The methods of the Holy See in the sale of sacred objects of more than

doubtful authenticity were improved upon by the cunning and audacity

of monkish charlatans. Immense quantities of bones were imported from

Italy and disposed of to the devout at fabulous prices. Most of these

sacred treasures were taken from the catacombs, where was deposited a

practically unlimited supply of Pagan and barbarian skeletons, whose

original owners never dreamed of the adoration they were destined one

day to receive on the banks of the Thames, the Seine, the Rhine, and

the Danube. When a church was to be constructed, no difficulty was

ever experienced in procuring the relics of the saint to which it

was dedicated, and the mouldering remains of some priest of Jupiter

or Venus were probably not infrequently laid, with every token of

reverence, under the altar of a magnificent cathedral, whose idolatrous

ceremonies would have presented many striking points of resemblance

with heathen rites to the frequenters of the ancient temples. Other

sacred mementos of equal virtue often presented a singular mixture of

absurdity and blasphemy. The reproductions of the crown of thorns and

the nails of the Crucifixion were infinite in number. The list included

the coals that roasted St. Lawrence, the cloth used at the Lord’s

Supper, a finger of the Holy Ghost, and some of the milk of the Mother

of God. The tail of Balaam’s ass was for a century one of the most

precious treasures of St. John Lateran at Rome. When the zeal of the

pious flagged, the genius of the monks resorted to extraordinary means

to stimulate this unprofitable apathy. The sympathies and fanaticism of

the superstitious were appealed to by processional images which could

weep and bleed. Letters were exhibited purporting to have been penned

by the divine hands of the Almighty and the Saviour. The composition

and style of these productions, it may be remarked, indicate an

extraordinary degree of illiteracy in the exalted personages to whom

their execution was profanely attributed. Many relics were supposed to

possess marvellous healing virtues, an opinion diligently propagated

by those whose interest it was to have it generally entertained.

Pilgrims crowded in enormous numbers to these shrines, whose reputation

promised speedy and certain relief from every physical infirmity. As

few came empty handed, the contents of a single reliquary were often

a more important source of revenue than all the royal demesnes of a

kingdom. In the Middle Ages the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury

was by far the richest in Christendom. It had for three hundred years

received the tribute of pilgrims from every land. Kings had placed

crowns and priceless jewels upon its altar. The great tomb of the

saint was entirely covered with plates of gold, but the precious metal

was hardly visible on account of the profusion of gems with which

it was incrusted. The value of the gold and silver obtained by its

confiscation under Henry VIII. was nearly one million pounds sterling,

and this estimate did not include the precious stones, of which no

appraisement was made. Much of this wealth had been accumulated by the

thrifty monks through the sale of water alleged to contain a portion

of the blood of St. Thomas shed at the time of his martyrdom, whose

supply, by the miraculous power of multiplication enjoyed by certain

relics, was never exhausted, and which, aided by implicit faith and

religious enthusiasm, may really have been instrumental in temporarily

relieving diseases induced by disordered functions of the nervous

system.

The power of the rulers of these populous communities was very

extensive. In most instances the abbot enjoyed not a few of the highest

privileges of the nobility. In addition to his spiritual functions,

he exercised the duties of a civil and criminal magistrate, and in

extreme cases could inflict the penalty of death. He was expected to

act as sponsor to children of royal lineage. While bound to observe

the rules of his order, his interpretation of those rules was final

and his decision absolute. In England, if entitled to wear the mitre,

he sat in the Upper House of Parliament by the side of the bishops.

Usually he was a veritable epicurean, more fond of field sports than

of his breviary, a jovial companion, a connoisseur of wines, an adorer

of women. His table, his attire, and his habits exhibited all the

fastidiousness of a sybarite. Numerous dishes, prepared by skilful

cooks, tempted his pampered tastes. The wines of his cellar were the

choicest and most expensive in the market. His garments were sometimes

of party-colored and embroidered silk, sometimes of scarlet cloth

lined with white satin. His boots, of the softest leather, fitted

his burly limbs without a wrinkle. Jewels sparkled upon his snowy

fingers. The retainers of his household were clad in gaudy liveries.

He maintained jesters and buffoons. To the noble amusement of hawking

he was so devoted, and his falcons were so excellent, that for these

reasons he often incurred the envy of his aristocratic companions and

the severe censure of his more rigid ecclesiastical superiors. Troops

of strolling players always found a welcome and munificent largess

for their exhibitions in the great hall of the abbey. In addition to

the nuns, of whom he was the especial patron, high-born ladies were

delighted to receive his amorous compliments and to partake of his

dangerous but splendid hospitality.

The inmates of the religious houses entertained far closer relations

with the great body of the population than did the secular clergy.

The original simplicity of their lives, the apparent fervor of their

devotion, acquired for them a peculiar sanctity which their subsequent

irregularities could never entirely abrogate. Unlike the secular

priesthood, whose traditions were of an aristocratic tendency, their

necessities and their ministrations brought them in intimate contact

with the lower orders of the people, who repaid their services with

fulsome idolatry. Of the two divisions of the regular clergy, the

friars, who only differed from the monks in that they subsisted on

alms, enjoyed the greater consideration. Their blessing was earnestly

solicited by the traveller on the highway. Ladies wore their rope

girdles in Lent, partly by way of penance, partly as amulets of

sovereign virtue against the machinations of evil spirits. The spurious

relics which they hawked about were supposed to be endowed with

more miraculous qualities than those retailed by the bishop in the

cathedral. Their eloquence carried with its pathetic appeals and homely

illustrations a conviction denied to the labored efforts of the most

accomplished and popular preacher.

It was not within the power of human nature to long withstand the

allurements which such opportunities for luxurious indulgence

afforded. Within less than half a century from their foundation, the

mendicant friars of St. Francis could boast of wealth equal to that

of any of the monastic orders. Their common appellation Cordelier,

derived from their hempen girdle, became a synonym of lubricity and

drunkenness. Both monks and friars enticed wives from their husbands,

and not infrequently reduced the latter to beggary. They administered

narcotics and aphrodisiacs to nuns, and pointed to their contortions

and incoherent ravings as the effects of divine inspiration. It was

an ordinary occurrence for young girls to don male attire and take up

their abode in a monastery; and a memorial of the time of Henry VII.

of England is extant in which the royal protection is solicited by the

farmers and gentry of Carnarvonshire against the dissolute practices of

the regular clergy. The profanity of the monks during the celebration

of the mass, and their offensive language in the confessional,

sometimes resulted in temporary suspension from those sacerdotal

functions. Gaming was a common amusement in which even abbesses

had been known to indulge. Whenever an abbot died the treasury was

plundered, and its contents distributed among the brethren fortunate

enough to be present.

These excesses were encouraged by the insignificant penances imposed

for their commission. Some escaped with a reprimand, especially when

the prior was known to be equally guilty. Among the English clergy,

mortal sin could be condoned for the trifling sum of six shillings

and eight pence. Bearing a crucifix through the aisles of the church

and a fine of three shillings and four pence entitled a delinquent

to absolution for incest. Fornication was expiated by an offering

of candles and the repetition of a few Paters and Aves. As in the

case of the laity, a regular schedule existed, accurately defining

the punishments to be inflicted for every degree of ecclesiastical

misconduct.

The ordinary criminal courts of judicature, through the operation

of privileges extorted from stupid and fanatical sovereigns by the

astuteness of designing churchmen and the prejudices of a superstitious

age, had no authority over a clerk until he had been condemned by a

religious tribunal. The course of prosecution, in which the sympathies

of the judges were enlisted on the side of the culprit, through the

bond of a common profession, and often by reason of participation

in similar offences, was always slow and sometimes interminable. By

these delays, and the purposely complicated process of the spiritual

courts, the civil statutes were practically nullified. The mutual

antagonism of the lay and clerical professions indirectly encouraged

the most revolting crimes. As the learning of Europe was monopolized

by the clergy, every one who was able to read was deemed a “clerk,”

and could demand the interference and protection of the ecclesiastical

authorities in case of arrest. The tonsure was also regarded as

prima-facie evidence of being in orders, and of equal efficacy in

obtaining immunity, as many of the priesthood were ignorant of letters.

By taking advantage of these privileges, so dangerous to the welfare of

society, desperate malefactors continually escaped the consequences of

their deeds; and the criminal, whose scanty learning or shaven crown

suggested a connection with the all-powerful hierarchy, was demanded

in vain by the official avengers of the outraged laws. The benefit of

clergy was carried to such extremes in England that Parliament found

it necessary on one occasion to proceed by bill of attainder against

the Bishop of Rochester’s cook, who, wearing the tonsure and assisted

by the influence of his master, had defied the criminal magistracy

and tribunals of the realm. The rendition of a trifling service, the

payment of a sum of money proportioned to the means of the applicant,

and which was often the proceeds of the crime for which absolution

was requested, relieved the highwayman and the murderer from all

apprehension of the penalties of secular justice.

Thus had the monastic orders fatally degenerated from the simplicity

and purity of their original institution. In common with the other

branches of the ecclesiastical profession, they had become infected

with every vice and steeped in every sin. They were especially noted

for their propensity to the most disgraceful offences in the calendar

of human infirmities,--to drunkenness, fornication, rape, and incest.

Men who habitually defied the canons of morality by indulgence in

such practices must necessarily have entertained but little respect

for a system which, so far from restraining, was known to secretly

encourage them. As a consequence, hypocrisy prevailed everywhere

among the ministers of the Church, from the Holy Father, surrounded

by the beauties of his seraglio, to the mendicant friar, who repaid

the services of the obsequious peasant by the plunder of his goods

and the corruption of his family. The morals of the ecclesiastic

were, as a rule, far worse than those of the layman. In Southern

France it was a custom, which precedent had almost invested with the

force of law, for a priest, after the celebration of his first mass,

to invite his clerical friends to a carousal at the nearest tavern.

Bishops read the service in bed. The lower clergy divided the solemn

office of the Eucharist into several parts, and, demanding a fee for

each, quadrupled their emoluments. A French Council, in 1317, menaced

with excommunication any magistrate who should, at sound of trumpet,

expose priests in public, with their weapons about their necks,--an

ordinary penalty for fighting and riotous conduct. The policy of the

Church considered the most flagrant injustice, the most atrocious

crime, as venial in comparison with neglect of the outward obedience

of her rules and the observance of the formalities of her ritual, such

as rare attendance at mass, blaspheming of relics, withholding of

tithes, eating meat in Lent, labor on holidays. In the prosecution

of the Templars, the articles of accusation did not regard the charge

of incontinence as important in comparison with those of atheism and

idolatry, although it was notorious that more than thirteen thousand

concubines were maintained at the expense of the priories of that Order

in Europe.

The violation of the vow of chastity was so common that only the

most outrageous indecency could excite comment, and the spiritual

authorities, whom the Church had appointed to exercise a censorship

over public morals, hesitated to perform their duties lest their own

delinquencies might thereby be exposed. It was considered not only

meritorious, but convenient, to have a clergyman for a lover, on

account of the facility of concealment and the certainty of immediate

absolution. The presence of the mistresses of bishops, priests, and

canons insulted the wives of honest nobles and burghers at coronations

and tournaments. The vicinity of abbeys and convents swarmed with the

natural children of ecclesiastics. These members of priestly households

were liberally provided for from revenues ostensibly collected for

pious uses and the propagation of religious truth. So degraded had some

of the monks become that they utilized even the House of God for the

basest purposes. Guyot de Provins, a writer of the thirteenth century

and himself the member of a monastic fraternity, relates that he had

seen Cistercians turn church-yards into pigsties and tether asses in

chapels. In addition to immoderate indulgence in the strongest of

wines, the successors of Pachomius and Antony held eating contests,

in which the palm was awarded to the brother possessing the greatest

abdominal capacity. Among these were the Glutton Masses of England,

celebrated five times a year in honor of the Virgin, when the parish

church was made the scene of the voracious exploits of the priest and

the clerks, who contended for this enviable distinction with an ardor

that often terminated in riot. Every effort to reform these depraved

communities proved futile. The abbot who attempted to correct the

vices of his flock was harassed until he was glad to relinquish his

unpromising task or abandon his charge. If he boldly attempted to

enforce his authority, he stood an excellent chance of being poisoned.

The famous Abelard narrowly escaped this fate, and the pronounced and

vindictive hostility manifested by the inmates of his abbey finally

compelled him to insure his safety by flight. Even the determined

character of Cardinal Ximenes was forced to succumb to the obstinacy

of his Franciscan brethren, whose extortions and irregular lives had

excited his horror and disgust. For seven years, William, Bishop of

Paderborn, employed in vain the authority vested in his high office to

free the monasteries of his diocese from the scandal produced by the

vices of their occupants.

Much of the corruption of the regular clergy was to be attributed to

the impostors and malefactors who found shelter and safety in their

ranks. The assumption of the tonsure alone was sufficient to insure

immunity to the most notorious outlaw. The slave, impatient under

the lash of a cruel master or apprehensive of the consequences of

inexcusable faults, acquired security and freedom in the shadow of the

towers of the abbey. The identity of the criminal and the fugitive, the

schemes of the hypocrite and the knave, were effectually disguised by

the cowl of the friar. The humane and beneficent privilege of sanctuary

was abused by the reception and shelter of every class of dangerous

and disreputable offenders against the public peace. Association with

persons of this abandoned character could not fail to be demoralizing,

even to those of the fraternity who observed their vows, and must have

still further corrupted the idle and the dissolute who had already

embraced the alluring and luxurious routine of conventual life.

The incapacity, arrogance, and debauchery of the clergy at length

grew intolerable, even to a bigoted and priest-ridden people. The

translation of the Bible by Wyclif, the teachings of John Huss and

Jerome of Prague, paved the way for the exercise of private judgment

and the privilege of independent thought. All over Europe a reaction

took place. It was least felt in Italy, where the masses had for ages

been familiar with the impostures and crimes of the Papacy. It was

most marked in England, where the grievances imposed on the laity by

their religious instructors had become insufferable, and the wealth of

the kingdom had been absorbed by the creatures of Rome. The heresies

of France for a time threatened the existence of the hierarchy, and

were only suppressed by a crusade and the diabolical energy of the

Inquisition. Reverence for every form of belief had been shaken by the

universal prevalence of sacerdotal iniquity. In Provence and Languedoc

priests were insulted by the mob and lampooned by minstrels. Their

services were rejected with contempt, their gestures were mocked,

their vices satirized with pitiless severity. The English populace,

exasperated beyond measure by their wrongs, occasionally proceeded

to acts of violence. In some towns an ecclesiastic was hardly safe

on the streets. No clerk dared to commit himself or his cause to the

verdict of a jury. A handful of worshippers was lost in the nave of the

cathedral, where thousands once had congregated. Women went unshriven

rather than trust themselves in the confessional, whose precincts,

from being the abode of religious advice and consolation, had grown

dangerous to the preservation of feminine honor. In 1746 a remonstrance

was made to the Primate of England against the participation of women

in pilgrimages, as the cities of France, Lombardy, and the Rhine

were filled with courtesans, who had abused these opportunities for

the exhibition of religious zeal. The authority of the ecclesiastical

tribunals was openly defied, their proceedings derided, their judges

insulted, their subordinate officers maltreated. In London, towards the

close of the fifteenth century, it was a serious matter to attempt to

serve a process of the Consistorial Court. The power for evil of this

once formidable engine of persecution, which had exercised an offensive

censorship over every community, had become hopelessly impaired.

Of such a character were the religious instructors of the people of

Western Christendom for five hundred years. The original austerity of

the monastic orders had disappeared. In no instance had it actually

survived the first century dating from the institution of any

ecclesiastical fraternity. With it had departed by far the greater

portion of its capacity for usefulness. The daily lives of the secular

priesthood presented disgusting examples of human depravity. Among

the laity, the rich, at least, were secure from damnation; for by a

judicious and liberal offering and the deposit of a schedule of their

sins under the altar-cloth of a compassionate saint, in a few hours the

sheet was found to be blank and the generous penitent, by the immediate

intercession of his patron, was absolved from the consequences of

his transgressions without the delay or the exposure of confession.

The foundation of a religious house was often derived from the fears

or the repentance of a wealthy and superstitious sinner. An immense

tract of unimproved land was conveyed to a colony of monks. In the

most sequestered spot, far removed from the turmoil, the vanities,

and the temptations of the world, an unpretending structure, composed

of wattled boughs and thatched with straw or rushes, was constructed.

The surrounding forest was stocked with game. A neighboring lake or

streamlet furnished a supply of fish. In many fraternities, however,

such food was forbidden, for the austerity of discipline sometimes

permitted nothing but a meagre diet of herbs and pulse washed down with

water. The obligations of their profession as well as the necessity of

sustenance required that a portion of their time should be spent in the

cultivation of the soil. A number of the brethren labored in the fields

while the others attended to the domestic and sacred duties enjoined

by their monastic vows. In some monkish abodes the voice of praise

was never silent. Relays of choristers occupied the chapel without

intermission day or night. The summons to devotion were frequent.

To preserve decorum, spies were appointed to report irregularities

of conduct within the monastery. No monk was permitted to leave its

precincts without a companion, that each might restrain the other

from the indulgence in sinful thoughts and carnal recreations. In

the cloister the recluse was constantly reminded of the requirements

and obligations of his profession by the fervent exhortations of his

superior and the enforced observance of silence, meditation, and

prayer. By self-infliction of grievous penances,--scourging, fasting,

wearing of shirts of haircloth or mail, immersion in water of icy

coldness,--worldly temptations and sensual desires were effectually

suppressed, and mind and body were devoted to the ostensible and

original objects of monachal life,--the service and the glorification

of God.

In time their modest and contracted habitations became too small to

accommodate the increasing numbers or to satisfy the ambitious zeal of

the pious brethren. The wealth derived from the assiduous cultivation

of their lands, the profits of their trade, the contributions of royal

visitors, and the generosity of their founders enabled them to erect

buildings whose imposing proportions and exquisite ornamentation are

the delight and the despair of modern architects. The church dedicated

to a certain saint was founded on the day preserved by tradition as

the date of his birth. A vigil was maintained, and when the first rays

of the sun reddened the horizon the work was commenced. As the point

where that luminary appeared was taken for the east, on account of the

constantly varying position of the sun in the heavens there are but

few ecclesiastical edifices constructed during the Middle Ages whose

walls correspond with the four cardinal points of the compass. In the

ranks of the religious brotherhoods were to be found artisans of every

description, whose professional efforts were prompted and encouraged by

the inspiring spirit of religious devotion. Such were the dimensions of

these magnificent structures that the chapels of many abbeys--such as

St. Albans, Southwell, St. Ouen, Durham, Canterbury--are now cathedral

churches of some of the richest dioceses of France and England. The

architectural splendor of Westminster is familiar to every traveller.

The buildings included in the great Cistercian Abbey of Tinterne, which

were enclosed by a wall, were distributed over thirty-four acres. The

symmetry and beauty of the Gothic temples of Normandy are unimpaired

and unrivalled after the revolutions of more than seven centuries.

The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of some sees extended over as many as

seven thousand mansi, or cottages of serfs; those who only received

the tribute of two thousand were so numerous as to be comparatively

insignificant.

All the possessions of the clergy were exempt from taxation. Tithes,

at first limited to a tenth of the products of the soil, were, by

ecclesiastical artifice and Papal rapacity, extended and made to

include the entire yield of every crop, the increase of every herb, the

labor of every artisan. Without taking into account the territorial

area in the hands of the See of Rome at the period of the Reformation,

the monastic guilds and corporations had absorbed half of the livings

of Great Britain. The revenues of some religious foundations in that

country were not less than fifty thousand pounds sterling, reckoning

voluntary donations alone. In the thirteenth century the English clergy

bore to the laity the ratio of one to four hundred in number, while

their lands amounted to thirty-three per cent. of the entire real

property of the kingdom. In Spain during the same period the proportion

of ecclesiastics was one to seven, and fifty per cent. of the landed

possessions under Christian control belonged to them. The pressing

necessities of grasping and irreverent princes, who did not scruple to

appropriate under various pretexts the riches of the ecclesiastical

order, alone prevented the eventual exclusion of the laity of Europe

from all ownership of or jurisdiction over the soil.

No religious service could be more solemn, no spectacle more

awe-inspiring, than the celebration of a Church festival in one of the

grand old abbey chapels in mediæval times. The edifice itself was the

ideal of architectural beauty. Through the elegant designs of painted

windows, the light, in iridescent hues, shone in tempered radiance

over the richly sculptured tombs of prelate and crusader and the

checkered pavement brilliant with its graceful patterns of tile and

marble mosaic. The walls of nave and transept were hung with tapestry,

embroidered sometimes with representations of scriptural events,

sometimes with the figures of departed abbots or the portraits of a

line of famous kings. The altar, before whose holy presence constantly

burned rows of waxen tapers, glittered with ornaments bestowed by

the hand of opulent piety and massive reliquaries set with priceless

gems. The resounding notes of the Gregorian chant filled the air;

the officiating monks in splendid vestments, the pomp of crucifix and

incense, added to the impressiveness of the ceremonial and imparted

to the scene a striking representation of divine worship which could

hardly be paralleled in Rome itself. Truly, in its palmy days the

monastery was an important adjunct to Papal power and grandeur!

From the consideration of the manifold vices and flagrant corruption

with which the life of monastic institutions was tainted, it becomes a

pleasure to enumerate the benefits that these establishments conferred

upon humanity. First in importance is the fact that they were the

depositories of learning during the Dark Ages. The requirements of

the sacred profession, whose dogmas they were designed to uphold and

propagate, demanded the possession of some degree of knowledge. The

standard of intelligence was far higher in the monastery than in the

chapter house of the cathedral or in the episcopal palace. Many of the

secular clergy could neither read nor write; their exposition of the

sacraments was pronounced in an incoherent jargon, and a canon who

understood grammar was an object of general wonder and respect. The

lewd and profane character of the discourses from the pulpit was often

such that it would not be tolerated for an instant by the fastidious

delicacy of a modern audience. The enjoyment of abundant leisure, the

praiseworthy impulse of accumulating information which might prove

of advantage, both in disseminating the truths of the Gospel and in

magnifying the importance of their order, actuated a certain number of

the inmates of every cloister to the transcription of books, to the

study of authors, to the illumination of missals. Some wrote poems

in Latin. Others, like Hrotswitha, the German nun of Gandersheim,

composed dramas in imitation of the classics. These literary efforts,

while often coarse in sentiment, immoral in tendency, and crude

in execution, seem prodigies of learning when we recall the dense

atmosphere of ignorance in which they were produced. In the abbey were

preserved contemporaneous records not only of all transactions in which

that institution was concerned, but also many details of affairs of

national interest, which furnished in after ages invaluable data to the

historian. In many convents there existed schools where novices as well

as the children of the peasantry could receive rudimentary instruction.

Books, among which is mentioned the Fables of Æsop, were chained to

tables in the halls for the benefit of those pupils. The great impulse

given to intellectual progress by Wyclif’s incomplete translation of

the Bible in the fourteenth century is indicated by the ludicrous

complaint of an old monkish chronicler, who lamented that “Women are

now grown more versed in the New Testament than learned clerks.”

Coincident with that auspicious event, the monopoly of letters, so long

enjoyed and perverted by the clergy, came to an end. In cases where the

interests of religion were thought to be imperilled, the monks did not

hesitate to obstruct the path of knowledge. Through their influence the

study of physics and of law was forbidden in the twelfth century to the

students of the University of Montpellier. In contradistinction to this

spirit of offensive bigotry, it must not be forgotten that the first

printing-presses used in Europe were placed in monasteries.

The seclusion of monasticism encouraged to a considerable extent the

love of the arts. In beauty of design and completeness of finish the

efforts of the Gothic architect have never been surpassed. Bookmaking

was carried to an advanced state of perfection. From unwieldy volumes

with wooden leaves, bound in leaden covers, manuscripts developed

into the exquisite specimens of calligraphic and decorative elegance

so prized by modern collectors. Some were written in gold and silver

letters on purple vellum. The illuminations--whence was derived the

first inspiration of modern painting--were often the work of years.

The bindings were of carved ivory or of the precious metals, not

infrequently enriched with jewels. Those volumes destined for the

service of the altar sometimes enclosed a reliquary and became doubly

precious, as well by reason of the sacred memento they contained as on

account of their costly materials and the labor expended upon them. The

art of the sculptor owes much to the diligence and skill displayed by

the mediæval wood-carver, whose handiwork is visible in the stalls and

altar-screens of Gothic cathedrals. The embroidered vestments wrought

by nuns during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are marvels of

ornamentation, patience, and dexterity. Constant practice in the choir

led to a considerable advance in the knowledge of poetry and music.

Nor were philosophical pursuits, despite their confessed antagonism to

the Church, altogether neglected. The name and acquirements of Pope

Sylvester II. were to his contemporaries as well as to posterity long

suggestive of a compact with the Devil and the practice of magic.

Modern science, in its indiscriminate censure of monasticism, should

not forget that the great natural philosophers of the Middle Ages,

Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, belonged to the orders of mendicant

friars, for the one was a Franciscan and the other a Dominican.

In the monastery was dispensed not only medical aid, so far as the

rudeness and ignorance of the superstitious practitioner allowed, but

also unstinted and gratuitous hospitality. The conventual establishment

was at once the hospital and the hotel of mediæval society. In the

thinly peopled districts usually selected by its founders, no

public provision was made for the relief of the sufferings of the

invalid or the necessities of the traveller, and both found within

its walls a generous and cordial greeting. Its sanctuary covered

the trembling victim of feudal oppression with the mantle of its

comfort and protection. Its towers, secure in their sacred character,

passed unscathed through the wreck of dynasties and the perils of

revolutionary violence. The substantial walls of donjon and barbican

went down under the assaults of Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Lombard,

but the abbey, defenceless save in the immunity afforded by the holy

calling of its inmates, remained unchanged amidst these scenes of

universal disorder and ruin, the depository of ancient learning, the

refuge of the remnant of those elegant social courtesies which had

survived the fall of imperial greatness, the asylum of the persecuted,

the home of the arts, the preserver of civilization in a martial and

unenlightened age.

While Rome was the centre of ecclesiastical and temporal power,

Constantinople was the undisputed seat of the refinement and culture

of Christian Europe. The transfer of the government of the Empire to

the confines of Asia had not, however, destroyed the prestige which

the Eternal City had obtained by her glorious achievements in arts, in

arms, in literature, in politics, during so many centuries. The new

capital of the Cæsars could not properly be called a Roman city. Its

population, after the first fifty years following its foundation, was

more Greek than Latin, but its most distinctive features were always

Asiatic. The ordinary idiom of its citizens was that of Ionia and

Attica. The despotism of its court, the manners of its people, bore

the pronounced stamp of the Orient. Its society was cosmopolitan, and

the relations it maintained through the channels of trade with remote

countries constantly filled its thoroughfares with picturesque and

barbaric costumes. The brutality of the West, the vices of the East,

the superstitions of Africa, the cruelty of Italy, found a congenial

home on the shores of the Bosphorus. The successors of Constantine

claimed and exercised prerogatives wholly inconsistent with the

security of the community or the principles of equity. They interposed

their authority to annul the sentences of judicial tribunals. They

inflicted frightful tortures without the warrant of law or precedent.

They imposed taxes which impoverished even the wealthiest of their

subjects. They permitted their flatterers to extort ransoms, traffic in

justice, and dispose of employments without even the decorous pretext

of concealment. The mutual hatred existing between the bloodthirsty

factions of the capital, the ancient enmity of the nobles, the jealousy

of rival princes, which had more than once caused disastrous riots,

the tumultuous fury of the rabble, induced the emperors to habitually

distrust the fidelity of those statesmen whose birth and education best

qualified them to direct the policy of a great empire. As a necessity,

therefore, eunuchs were intrusted with the management of affairs of

state and filled the responsible offices of the imperial household.

Surrounded by a crowd of dependents and flatterers, these monsters

were the fountain of all honor and the recipients of all homage; while

the sovereign of the East, shorn of his actual power, was left to

the society of monks and parasites. An excessive love of pomp and of

magnificent attire was a marked trait of the Byzantine character. The

imperial train often included more than twenty thousand servants, the

majority of whom were eunuchs. The eunuch was the most conspicuous

personage in the government, in the hierarchy, in commercial adventure,

in social amusement, in political intrigue. He discharged the functions

of a general often with credit, sometimes with consummate skill. His

secretive habits and demeanor admirably fitted him for the tortuous

paths and insidious methods of diplomatic intercourse. He was a power

in the Byzantine hierarchy. Members of his caste were exalted to high

positions in the ecclesiastical order. Some attained to the supreme

dignity of Patriarch, an office for centuries of greater importance

than that of Bishop of Rome. Others controlled the wealthiest sees

of the Eastern Church. Monastic life seemed to possess a peculiar

attraction for them, and many convents in Constantinople were peopled

exclusively by the victims of man’s deliberate cruelty. Some of these

institutions contained nearly a thousand inmates. The prominent part

taken by this odious class in establishing the standard of modern

orthodoxy, through its influence on the ladies of the imperial

household in the early days of Christianity, is familiar to every

reader of Church history. The insatiable avarice and rapacity of

the eunuch impelled him to the accumulation of wealth through the

legitimate channels of foreign commerce and domestic enterprise, as

well as by the more questionable means of servility and corruption. His

ships were known in every port of the Mediterranean. He was identified

with the largest mercantile establishments of the capital. In every

social assembly he was conspicuous, in every conspiracy his concealed

but powerful hand was felt. His equipage was the gayest, his train

the most imposing on the streets. In the circus he took precedence of

haughty patricians, whom he far eclipsed in splendor of costume. Ever

with an eye to his own aggrandizement, he whispered treason in the

ears of the nobles and instigated the rabble to revolt. The sentiments

of gratitude, of sympathy, of charity, were unknown to him. The

frightful punishments inflicted by the court on political offenders

were notoriously suggested by his malignant genius. With the loss of

his procreative power seemed to have vanished every trace of honor,

of justice, of humanity, of loyalty, of devotion. He was execrated by

the Byzantine populace, whose feelings were expressed by the current

saying, “If you have a eunuch, kill him; if you have none, buy one and

kill him!”

The government of the Byzantine Empire exhibited a curious mixture of

irresponsible power and abject dependence. The emperors displayed all

the insignia and all the arrogance of despotism, while at the same

time they were really the slaves of their parasites. The career of a

sovereign was certain to be a short one if he manifested an inclination

to independence and to the assertion of his legal prerogatives. In

the court of Constantinople poisoning was reduced to a science, and

eunuchs, astrologers, priests, and charlatans were ready instruments

of ambition and revenge. The formalities attending the intercourse of

members of the royal family and the aristocracy were so complicated as

to require a long course of study to master them. They were reduced

to a code, familiarity with whose rules was considered the greatest

accomplishment of a courtier. While this frivolous ceremonial was being

sedulously perfected, the constantly receding frontiers of the Empire

were abandoned to the encroachments of the barbarians of the Baltic and

the Caspian. The state revenues were squandered by ecclesiastics and

insatiable favorites. Rapacious tax-collectors displayed the character

and adopted the customs of licensed brigands. Their extortions

became so excessive and the distress of the people was so great that

three-fourths of the inhabitants of the monarchy were officially

inscribed upon the public registers as mendicants.