too plainly the danger with which Europe was menaced, and the popes
endeavoured to impress it upon the kings and their subjects. Pius II.,
who had distinguished himself by his erudition and his writings, was
considered to be the most talented man of his day, and in a council
held at Mantua in 1459 did his utmost to hurry on the preparations
for the crusade. After five years’ hard work, he collected a fleet at
Ancona, and was about to set sail, when he was struck down by a mortal
illness. His successors continued the work which he had begun; but,
though the Christians obtained successes over the Turks which promised
well for the undertaking, their compatriots failed to respond to the
appeals of the pope, who saw that Italy was seriously threatened with
invasion. It was under these critical circumstances that the choice of
the cardinals fell upon a man of extraordinary energy, Roderick Borgia,
who took the name of Alexander VI. He was charged with crimes which
ought to have been laid at the door of members of his family, and he
struggled against the oppressive spoliation to which the great Roman
families had subjected the city, setting courageously to work in order
to reconstitute the temporal power of the Holy See. Pius III., chosen
as his successor, died a month after he was elected.
The Cardinal of Rovero was then nominated unanimously, and took the
title of Julius II. In pursuance of the idea of Italian independence,
this warlike pontiff carried on an obstinate struggle against Louis
XII., with the view of retaking several towns of Italy which had once
belonged to the States of the Church. Unintimidated either by the
armies of Louis XII., or by the threats of the councils convoked under
the protectorate of the King of France and the Emperor of Germany,
he himself assembled a council at Rome, and this inflexible old man,
after having brought about wise measures of reform which all Europe
applauded, cited the king and the members of his parliament to come
and answer for their revolt against the Holy See. But Julius II., worn
out by his exertions, died in 1513. His successor, Leo X., who had
effected a reconciliation with Louis XII., was obliged to head the
Italian league against Francis I. An understanding had been brought
about after the battle of Marignano, and the Pragmatic Sanction, which
had been the pretext of so many disputes since the days of Philippe le
Bel, was given up and replaced by a concordat concluded in 1516 between
France and the Holy See. Leo X., continuing the Italian policy of his
predecessor, also kept in view the idea of a crusade against the Turks;
but this great work of the papacy was only realised half-a-century
later under the pontificate of Pius V. The faithful were aroused by
his voice; Cyprus had fallen into the hands of the Mussulmans, and the
whole of Europe was in imminent peril. The cost of the expedition was
divided between the King of Spain, Venice, and the pope; fifty thousand
infantry and four thousand cavalry were got together, and the command
of the fleet was given to Don John of Austria. It encountered
the Turkish fleet, which consisted of two hundred and twenty-four
vessels, in the Gulf of Lepanto, on October 7th, 1571. The infidels
were annihilated, losing twenty-five thousand men and ten thousand
prisoners, while fifteen thousand Christians whom they had chained to
their galleys were set at liberty (Fig. 215). Catholic Europe breathed
once more, and in its gratitude attributed this prodigious victory to
the protection of the Virgin, to whom the faithful told their beads at
the hour at which the battle took place, and the memory of this event
was perpetuated by a yearly fête on the first Sunday in October.
[Illustration: Fig. 216.--A Sitting of the Council of Trent
in 1555.--From a Painting by Titian, in the Louvre (Sixteenth
Century).]
[Illustration: Fig. 215.--Iron shield presented to Don John
of Austria by Pius V., in recognition of his services to
Christendom by the victory at Lepanto (1571), with an inscription
signifying, “Christ has won the victory; it is He who reigns and
governs.”--From the “Armeria Real” (Madrid), published by M. Ach.
Jubinal.]
[Illustration: Fig. 217.--The Triumph of Christ.--From an
engraving of the early part of the Seventeenth Century,
reproduced from a composition attributed to Titian.]
Led away from our subject in order to relate an account of the struggle
against the then indomitable Islam power, we omitted to mention
another event which was the second greatest achievement of the popes
in the sixteenth century, namely, the Council of Trent (Fig. 216). The
progress made by Protestantism led to the convocation of a general
council, which was to pronounce as to all the disputed points of
doctrine, and to effect the indispensable and long-looked-for reforms
in ecclesiastical discipline. The town of Trent was selected as the
place of meeting, because its situation between Italy and Germany made
it so easy of access for those who were expected to attend. Although
the holding of this council was mutually agreed on by Pope Paul III.
and the Emperor Charles V., in concert with the other Christian
princes, the opening was deferred until 1545, and it lasted with
frequent adjournments until 1563, when Pius IV. was pope. No council
ever dealt with so many topics, both of dogma and of discipline.
The abuses which had been pointed out by many Catholic divines were
abolished even before the Protestants could draw attention to them. The
catalogue of holy books which were received as canonical was inserted
in one of the first decrees of the council; and it was there declared,
that the interpretation of these sacred works should be given by the
Church, to whom alone it belonged to decide what was the true meaning
of Scripture. The questions at issue were then gone into minutely;
original sin, the justification of the sinner, the seven sacraments,
the mass, purgatory, indulgences, the worship of saints, &c. The
twenty-fifth and last session was held on the 3rd of December, 1563.
But the hopes of conciliation to which this assembly gave rise were
not realised, and the Protestant Churches rejected the decisions of
the Fathers of the Council of Trent, whose authority they refused to
recognise. The unity of the Christian republic, which had been the work
of the Middle Ages, was destroyed, and a new era brought with it new
duties for the head of the Catholic Church.
[Illustration: Fig. 218.--Leaden Bull with which Pope Boniface
VIII. sealed his letters; on it are seen the names of Boniface
VIII., and of St. Peter and St. Paul, with their effigies
(Thirteenth Century).--French National Archives.]
THE SECULAR CLERGY.
The Minor and the Major Orders in the Early Centuries of the
Church.--Establishment of Tithes originally voluntary, and
afterwards obligatory.--Influence of the Bishops.--Supremacy
of the See of Rome.--Form of Episcopal Oath in the Early
Centuries.--Reform of Abuses by the Councils.--Remarkable
sayings of Charlemagne and Hincmar.--Public Education created by
the Church.--The Establishment of the Communes favoured by the
Bishops.--The Beaumont Law.--Struggle with the Bourgeoisie in
the Fifteenth Century.--The Council of Trent.--Institution of
Seminaries.
[Illustration: Fig. 219.--The Chanter or Psalmist, Minor
Order.--G. Durand’s “Rationale.”]
Near the close of the ninth century, Anastasius the Librarian wrote,
at Rome, an Ecclesiastical History, from which we learn that the
hierarchical order of the functionaries in the primitive Church was
composed as follows: the doorkeeper (Fig. 220), the reader, the
exorcist (Fig. 221), the acolyte, the sub-deacon, the keeper of the
confessions of the martyrs, the deacon, the priest, the bishop. To
these were afterwards added the chanters or psalmists, entitled
_confessors_, because their function was to confess the name
of God by celebrating His praises. The interpreter-linguists, the
copyists, and the notaries, who figure in the Greek as well as in the
Roman Church down to the fourth or fifth century, ranked with the order
of confessors and that of clerks.
In the early days of Christianity the bishop in each diocese
consecrated to the service of religion, after the manner of St. Paul,
those who were represented to him as being the most worthy, or whom he
himself deemed fitting. The aspirant to the major orders sometimes rose
very slowly, however meritorious he might be; thus Latinus, Bishop of
Brescia, who died towards the close of the third century, had been,
as his epitaph recorded, simple exorcist for twelve years, priest for
fifteen, and bishop for three years and seven months. There were,
however, some rapid and almost immediate promotions, called _per
saltum_, because they jumped, as it were, from one grade to another;
but these were made under exceptional circumstances.
[Illustration: Fig. 220.--The Doorkeeper, Minor Order. Fig.
221.--The Exorcist, Minor Order.
Miniature from the “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum” of William
Durand (Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century), in the Library of
M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot.]
At first the Christians had not any clergymen, properly so called;
priests, however, ministered in each locality, for we read that St.
Paul appointed Titus “to ordain elders in every city” (Titus i. 5). But
in most cases, during the first centuries, the bishop alone ministered
in his episcopal city, particularly in the East (Fig. 222).
[Illustration: Fig. 222.--The Good Shepherd, whose head appears
as if crowned with seven stars, carrying the lost sheep upon his
shoulders; around him are collected the seven faithful sheep.
On one side Jonah is being vomited out by the great fish; on
the other he is lying beneath the gourd; above him are the dove
and Noah’s Ark. The old man with a crown, with his hand raised
above the clouds, and the woman with a crescent on the forehead,
personify the sun and the moon.--Funereal lamp in baked clay
of the Third Century, found in the Catacombs. In the Christian
Museum of the Vatican.]
After the fourth century we find that, in the East as at Rome, there
were other churches in the large towns besides the cathedral; the
functions of the clergymen, or _cardinals_, who ministered in them
were confined to giving the people religious instruction, and to keep
the bishop informed of everything relating to the government of the
church. Down to the fifth century, the administration of the sacraments
and the celebration of the holy communion took place in the cathedral
only. Pope St. Marcellus founded, in the fourth century, twenty-five
_titles_ or parishes in Rome, in order to afford greater
facilities for the preparatory instruction by which the sacraments
of baptism and penance were preceded. But in the fifth century, when
the cathedrals were found too small to hold all the congregation, it
became the custom to distribute, in the _titles_ or parishes of
the city, the holy eucharist which the bishop sent by the hands of
deacons to the titulary clergy. The bishops also delegated to their
clergy the power of receiving the reconciliation of the penitents in
cases of necessity, of admitting heretics in danger of death (but
only in the bishop’s absence), and of pronouncing excommunications in
their parishes, by virtue of a sentence delivered by the bishop. The
clergyman also visited the sick, administered the sacrament of extreme
unction, blessed the private dwelling-places, and himself selected
the staff for his church. At last, in the sixth century, clergymen
celebrated, in the quarters or _titles_ wherein they ministered,
the entire liturgy of the holy communion, and from the seventh century
they were empowered to diminish or to increase, as they thought proper,
in accordance with the revenues of the parish, the number of the
clerks, choristers, and the various subordinate officers. In compliance
with the wishes of the faithful, the bishop would often authorise the
clergy to celebrate two masses upon the same day, one to take place
of necessity in the parish church, the other perhaps in some oratory
attached to the parish (Fig. 223).
[Illustration: Fig. 223.--The celebration of Mass in an
Oratory.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in a Manuscript of the Ninth
Century, from an Engraving belonging to M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot.]
Independently of the offerings made by the faithful, the churches,
which already possessed landed property, after the conversion of
Constantine found their domains increasing in value. The barbarian
chiefs who became converts to Christianity outrivalled each other in
their liberality towards the clergy. Tithes, the regular payment of
which was only proposed towards the close of the fifth century, were
soon made compulsory, more especially in the countries subject to the
Franks. It is incorrect that tithes were not made obligatory until the
time of Charlemagne; all he did was to ensure their collection, and to
impose them upon the newly-converted under threat of excommunication.
In conformity with a decree issued by Pope Gelasius, he ordained that
the produce of the tithe should be equally divided amongst the bishop,
the priests, the fabrics in each diocese, and the poor--that is to say,
the hospitals. These establishments were administered and provided with
religious services by the charity of the clergy; thus the increase of
ecclesiastical wealth turned to the profit of the needy.
By the name of _presbyters_ (from a Greek word equivalent to the
Latin words _seniores_, sages, and _sacerdotes_, sacred men)
were designated the functionaries who stood in the second rank of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy. From this term was afterwards derived that
of _priest_. At first there was no fixed age for admission to the
priesthood; but at the end of the fourth century Pope St. Syricius
decided that a clerk, promoted to be a deacon at thirty, should not
become a priest for at least five years.
The Emperor Justinian prohibited a deacon from being promoted to
the priesthood until he had attained the age of thirty-five; but in
Gaul, Spain, and Germany the minimum age was thirty, and as soon as
the people had given their sanction to the ordination of a deacon,
the election took place. The functions of deacons are from the first
clearly indicated by what they did, for in the first century Philip,
one of the seven deacon-cardinals chosen by the Apostles, preached the
Gospel and baptized. At the end of the third century we find in Spain
that St. Vincent, only a deacon, took Bishop Valerian’s place when
he felt himself unable to minister the word. Moreover, St. Stephen,
the first of the deacons and martyrs, was also preaching, within a
few months of the death of Jesus Christ, when he was dragged from the
sanctuary to be stoned. The deacons, therefore, performed liturgical
functions, but their ordinary duty was to preside at the tables of the
Christian communion.
The tumular epigraph on the catacombs of Rome exhibits a curious
list of the various special duties allotted to the priests, as well
as to the deacons, besides the service of the altar: here we find
a priest doctor; a priest guardian, overseer, possibly our inn
or lodging-keeper (_mansionarius_); again, we find a deacon
archivist, or keeper of the archives (_scrinarius_), a priest
schoolmaster (_magister ludi_), &c.
In the first three centuries of the Church, holy orders were conferred
not only in the basilicas and in the catacombs, but also in private
oratories; some few recluses were even ordained in their own cells.
From the reign of Constantine, it was decided by the councils that the
laying on of hands upon the clerks to raise them to deacons, or upon
deacons to raise them to the priesthood, should always take place in
public (_coram populo_) and at fixed periods. The epoch chosen was
at first the calends of December, afterwards extended to each of the
four seasons.
[Illustration: Fig. 224.--The Ecclesiastical Tonsure.--Miniature
from the “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum” of William Durand
(Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century), Library of M. Ambroise
Firmin-Didot.]
The iconography of the officers of the sanctuary nearly always
represents the bishop as seated upon an elevated chair, laying hands
upon clerks of a gradually descending order; the priest raising his
arms and spreading them out to give the benediction; the deacon,
bearing a cross or a book of the Gospels, or perhaps both, as he is
portrayed in an ancient mosaic in St. Lawrence-without-the-walls, at
Rome. It must also be noted that the deacons and the priests, as well
as the clerks of a lower order, are represented as beardless and with
short-cut hair.
In the sixth century, the tonsure or _clerical crown_, was
universally adopted by the Church. It was a mark of dignity which
distinguished the clerks from the monks and the rest of the faithful;
laymen wore their hair more or less long with a proportionate amount
of beard, and the monks cut their hair almost as close as if shorn.
The primitive Church had created the office of acolyte, whose duty
consisted in accompanying the bishops, the priests, and even the
deacons. Under the pontificate of Cornelius (251), there were forty-two
of these assistants. The Eastern Church also had its acolytes, but
did not accord them the importance which they had in the city of the
popes, where they formed three classes: the _palatines_, who
assisted the sovereign pontiff in the basilica of the Lateran; the
_stationaries_, who aided him in the churches where the stations
took place; the _regionaries_, who assisted the deacons in each of
the regions or parishes.
The political power of the bishops was founded in Gaul at the beginning
of the sixth century (Fig. 225), and down to the end of the first
dynasty they were the real organizers of the French monarchy. Converted
to Christianity after the battle of Tolbiac, and baptized by St.
Remigius, Clovis became the protector of the Gallo-Roman Church. The
Clergy then enjoyed a legitimate influence, as is justly remarked by a
grave historian: “The barbarians, accustomed to carry all before them
by the weight of arms, could not be subdued by a force or civilised
by a literature which they despised or failed to understand; but
the clergy, surrounded by that pomp which has so great an influence
over uncultivated imaginations, combated them with simple and plain
doctrines, with a vigorous and united hierarchy, and with a faith
which, needing no subtle reasonings, imposes only the duty of belief,
and leans for support upon a morality the sanctity of which they could
not but feel, even while violating it. Was it not most fortunate that
there should have been an order capable of arresting the universal
disorder? Unarmed priests mingled with these savage hordes and inspired
them, by means of baptism, with some notions of humanity; they taught
them to hold their hands, showing them that they whom they were about
to strike was a brother.
[Illustration: Fig. 225.--The Legend of St. Martin.--From a
piece of tapestry of the Thirteenth Century, in the Louvre (No.
1117).--1. St. Martin sharing his cloak with a poor man.--2.
He sees in a dream Jesus Christ clad with this half of his
cloak.--3. The saint’s baptism, the priest sprinkling him with
water, and God blessing him.--4. He brings to life a catechumen,
who had died without being baptized, in his monastery at Ligugé,
near Poitiers.--5. At the same place he recalls to life a slave,
who is first represented as hung from a gibbet, and afterwards
standing on the ground and giving him thanks.--6. St. Martin
consecrated Bishop of Tours in 371.--7. He evokes the spectre of
a pretended martyr, held in veneration about Tours, and when it
appears and avows that it had been executed for its crimes, the
chapel is demolished.--8. He gives his tunic to a poor man.--9.
He brings to life the son of a peasant in a heathen village near
Chartres.--10. He drives out the evil spirit from the body of a
mad cow.--11. Seeing on the banks of a river some birds watching
to catch fish, he bids them fly away, saying, “Here we see the
type of the enemies of our salvation, always on the watch to
seize our souls.”--12. Death of St. Martin. His soul, in the form
of a child, is being borne off to heaven by two angels.]
“The bishops carried out, with as much dignity as benevolence, their
sublime mission of sympathizing with the people and those who were
oppressed; having a paternal solicitude for their flock, they placed
themselves face to face with conquerors, whom they knew how to pacify
and to conciliate. The veneration with which they were surrounded and
the holiness of their lives earned them the respect even of Attila and
Genseric.
They were entrusted with the embassies, and they administered in the
room of magistrates, whose power had been crushed. Epiphanius, Bishop
of Pavia, was sent to the Burgundian kings Gundibald and Godegesil, to
procure the release of a number of Italian prisoners, whom he brought
back with him in triumph. When the Ligurians were ravaged by the
incursions of the Transalpines, the king remitted, at the prayer of the
bishop, one-third of the indemnity. St. Cæsarius, Bishop of Arles, sold
the patens and chalices to ransom the prisoners. Euspicius, Bishop
of Sergiopolis, upon the Euphrates, paid Chosroës for the ransom of
twelve thousand prisoners. St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, gave away even
his own tunic by way of charity; ‘so that,’ to use the language of an
artless chronicler, ‘he was often shivering with cold, while those upon
whom he had bestowed his favours were warm.’”
The bishops were sometimes obliged to exercise the duties of royalty.
Honorius, of Novara, when Theodoric and Odoacer were at war, fortified,
in order to give shelter to his flock, a certain number of places
similar to those in which the military were garrisoned. Nicetius,
Bishop of Trèves, “an apostolic man, in his progress through the
country, constructed, like a good shepherd that he was, a fold to
protect his flock; he surrounded the hill with thirty towers, which
shut it in on all sides, and an edifice rose where hitherto a forest
had cast its shadow.”
During the reigns of the last of the Merovingians and the first of the
Carlovingians, the jurisconsults and the magistrates were generally
bishops or plain priests, whose venerable character, in addition to
their knowledge and wisdom, had caused them to be designated to fulfil
these high functions. Dagobert, when about to draw up the Capitularies
which were to govern the Germans, the Thuringians, the Burgundians,
the Neustrians, the Ripuairians, and the Romans, entrusted the work to
four ecclesiastical doctors, and consequently the disposition of this
new code was remarkably tolerant,--“for,” said these pious legislators,
“there is no sin so grave, but that the culprit’s life may be spared,
if he will but hold God in fear and the saints in respect, seeing
that the Lord hath said, ‘He who pardons shall himself be forgiven,
but he who pardoneth not shall obtain no mercy.’” In cases where the
crime seemed of a nature to deserve no clemency, the law remitted the
culprit to be judged by the bishop or a priest delegated by him, whose
tribunal, standing in the midst of a church, was from that very fact
inviolable, and placed under the tutelary protection of religion. The
royal decree added, “When the culprit shall take refuge in a church,
let no one dare to drag him out with violence; if he has already
crossed the threshold of the sanctuary, let the bishop or curate of
that church be sent for, and if they refuse to deliver him up, it is to
them that the pursuers shall look for his punishment.”
[Illustration: Fig. 226.--Consecration of St. Remigius, Bishop
of Rheims.--Fac-simile of an Engraving of the “Rheims Tapestry,”
in the cathedral of that city, published by M. Ach. Jubinal.
(Sixteenth Century.)]