CHAPTER XXIX.

ST. BENEDICT.

PART I. A.D. 480-529.

Let us now look again at the monks. Their way of life was at first

devised as a means of either practising repentance for sin, or rising to

such a height of holiness as was supposed to be beyond the reach of

persons busied in the affairs of this world. But in course of time a

change took place. As the life of monks grew more common, it grew less

strict; indeed, it would seem that whenever any way of life which

professes to be very strict becomes common, its strictness will pretty

surely be lessened, or given up altogether. People at first turned monks

because they felt that such means of holy living as they had been used

to did not make them so good as they ought to be, and because they hoped

to do better in this new kind of life. But when the monkish life was no

longer new, monks neglected its rules, just as those before them had

neglected the rules which holy Scripture and the Church had laid down

for all Christians.

In the unhappy days which had now come on, the monasteries of the west

had in great measure escaped the evils of war and conquest which laid

waste everything around them. The barbarians, who overwhelmed the

empire, generally respected them; and now the life of monks, instead of

being chosen for its hardships, as it had been at first, came to be

regarded as the easiest and the safest life of all. It was sought after

as one which would free people from the dangers to which they would be

liable if they remained in the world, and took the common share in the

world's risks and troubles.

Another important matter was this--that monkery had taken its rise in

Egypt and in Syria, where the climate and the habits of the people were

very different from those of the western countries. And a great part of

the monkish rules were fitted only for the particular circumstances and

character of the eastern nations;--for instance, they could do with less

food than the people of the west, so that a writer of the fifth century

said, "A large appetite is gluttony in the Greeks, but in the Gauls it

is nature." Again, the Egyptians and the Syrians, in their hot climate,

did not need active employment in the same way as the western nations

do, in order to keep their minds and their bodies healthful. They could

spend their hours and their days in calmly thinking of spiritual things,

or of nothing at all, in a way which the more active mind of Europeans

cannot bear. And again, many rules as to dress, which are suitable for

one sort of climate, are quite unfit for a different sort.

Now the earlier rules for monks had been drawn up either in the east or

after eastern patterns. And although, when they were brought into the

west, people for a time obeyed them as well as they could, it was found

that they would not obey them any longer when the first heat of zeal for

monkery had passed away. Hence it followed, that, throughout the

monasteries of the west, there was a general neglect of the rules by

which they professed to be governed; and it was high time that there

should be some reformation.

A reformer arose in the sixth century. This was Benedict, who was born

near Nursia, in Italy, in the year 480. At the age of twelve he was sent

to school at Rome, under the care of a nurse, as seems to have been

usual in those days. He worked hard at his studies, but the bad

behaviour of the other boys and young men at Rome so shocked him, that,

when he had been there two years, he resolved to bear it no longer. He

therefore suddenly ran away from the city, and, after his nurse had gone

a considerable distance with him, he left her, and made his way into a

rough and lonely country near Subiaco, where he took up his abode in a

cave. Here he was found out by a monk of a neighbouring house, named

Romanus, who used daily to save part of his own allowance of food, and

to carry it to his young friend. The cave opened from the face of a

lofty rock, and the way that Romanus took of conveying the food to

Benedict was by letting it down at the end of a string from the top of

the rock.

Benedict had lived in this manner for three years when he was discovered

by some shepherds, who at first took him for some wild animal; but they

soon found that he was something very different. He taught them and

others to whom they made his abode known, and his character came to be

so much respected in the neighbourhood that he was chosen abbot of a

monastery. He warned the monks that they would probably not like him,

but they were resolved to have him nevertheless. Their habits, however,

were so bad, that Benedict felt himself obliged to check them rather

sharply; and the monks then attempted to get rid of him by mixing poison

in his drink. But he found out their wicked design, and the only reproof

which he gave them was by reminding them how he had warned them not to

make him their abbot. With this he left them to themselves, and went

quietly back to his cave.

His name now grew more and more famous. Great multitudes of people

flocked to see him, and even persons of high rank sent their sons to be

trained under him. He built twelve monasteries, each for an abbot and

twelve monks. But there was a spiteful monk, named Florentius, who would

not allow him any peace so long as they were near each other; so

Benedict thought it best to give way, and in 528 he left Subiaco, with

some companions, and, after some wanderings, arrived at Mount Cassino.

There he found that the country people still worshipped some of the old

heathen gods, and that there was a grove which was held sacred to these

gods. But he set boldly to work, and, notwithstanding all that could be

done to oppose him, he cut down the grove, destroyed the idols, and

built a little chapel, from which in time grew up a great and famous

monastery, which still exists. And at Mount Cassino he drew up his Rule

in the year 529; so that the beginning of the monks of St. Benedict was

in the very same year in which heathen philosophy came to its end by the

closing of the schools of Athens.[53]

[53] See page 143.

PART II. A.D. 529-543.

Benedict had seen the mischief which arose from too great strictness of

rules. He saw how it led to open disobedience and carelessness in some,

and to hypocritical pretence in others; and therefore he meant to guard

against these faults by making his rule milder than those of the East.

It was to be such that Europeans might keep it without danger to their

health, and he allowed it to be varied according to the circumstances of

the different countries in which it might be established.

Every Benedictine monastery was to be under an abbot, who was to be

chosen by the monks. The brethren were to obey the abbot in everything,

while the abbot was charged not to be haughty or tyrannical in using his

authority. Next to the abbot there might either be a _provost_, or

(which Benedict liked better) there might be a number of _elders_ or

_deans_, who were to help and advise the abbot in the government of his

monastery. Any one who wished to join the order was to undergo trial for

a year before admission. Those who were admitted into it were required

to give in a written vow that they would continue in it, that they would

amend their lives, and that they would obey those who were set over

them. Every monk was obliged to give up all his property to the order;

nobody was allowed to have anything of his own, but all things were

common to the brethren. The monks might not receive any presents or

letters, even from their nearest relations, without the abbot's

knowledge and leave, and if a present were sent for one of them, the

abbot had the power to keep it from him, and to give it to any other

monk.

It was one important part of the rule that the monks should have

sufficient employment provided, for them. They were to get up at two

o'clock in the morning; they were to attend eight services a day, or, if

they happened to be at a distance from their monastery, they were to

observe the hours of the services by prayer; and they were to work seven

hours. Portions of time were allowed for learning psalms by heart, and

for reading the Scriptures, lives of holy men, and other edifying books.

At meals the monks were not to talk, but some book was to be read aloud

to them. Their food was to be plain and simple; no flesh was allowed,

except to the sick. But all such matters were to be settled by the

abbot, according to the climate and the season, to the age, the health,

and the employment of the monks. Their dress was to be coarse, but was

to be varied according to circumstances. They were to sleep by ten or

twenty in a room, each in a separate bed, and without taking off their

clothes. A dean was to have the care of each room, and a light was to be

kept burning in each. No talking was to be allowed after the last

service of the day.

The monks were never to go beyond the monastery without leave, and, in

order that there might be little occasion for their going out, it was to

contain within its walls the garden, the well, the mill, the bakehouse,

and other such necessary things. The abbot was to set every monk his

work; if it were found that any one was inclined to pride himself on his

skill in any art or trade, he was not to be allowed to practise it, but

was obliged to take up some other employment.

Benedict died in 543, and by that time his order had made its way into

France, Spain, and Sicily. It soon drew into itself all the monks of the

west, and was divided into a number of branches, which all looked up to

Benedict as their founder; and, although it would be a sad mistake to

wish for any revival of monkery in our own days, we ought, in justice,

to see and to acknowledge that through God's providence these monks

became the means of great benefits to mankind. Not only were their

services important for the maintenance of the Gospel where it was

already planted, and for the spreading of it among the heathen, but they

cleared forests, brought waste lands into tillage, and did much to

civilize the rude nations among whom they laboured. After a time,

learning began to be cultivated among them, and during the troubled ages

which followed, it found a refuge in the monasteries. The monks taught

the young; they copied the Scriptures and other ancient books (for

printing was as yet unknown); they wrote histories of their times, and

other books of their own. To them, indeed, it is that we are mainly

indebted for preserving the knowledge of the past through many

centuries.

CHAPTER XXX.

END OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

PART I.

We must not suppose that the conversion of the western barbarians was of

any very perfect kind. They mixed up a great deal of their own barbarism

with their Christianity, and, besides this, they took up many of the

vices of the old and worn-out nations, whose countries they had

conquered and occupied. Much heathen superstition lingered among them:

it was even a common saying in Spain, that "if a man has to pass between

heathen altars and God's Church, it is no harm if he pay his respects to

both." The clergy were very wealthy and prosperous, but did not venture

to interfere with the vices of the great and powerful; or, if they did,

it was at their peril. For instance, when a bishop of Rouen had offended

the Frankish queen Fredegund, she caused him to be murdered in his own

cathedral, at the most solemn service of Easter-day.

Religion became a protection to crime; murderers were allowed to take

refuge in churches, and might not be dragged out until after an oath had

been made that their lives should be safe. It had been the ancient

custom of the Germans to let all crimes be atoned for by the payment of

money: if, for example, a person had killed another, he had no more to

do than to pay a certain sum to the dead man's relations. And this way

of making up for misdeeds was now brought into the Church; it was

thought that men might make satisfaction for their sins by paying money,

and that the effect would be the same if others paid for them after

their death. We may understand how this worked, from another story of

queen Fredegund, who seems to have been a perfect monster of wickedness.

She set two of her pages to murder a king, named Sigebert; and, by way

of encouraging them, she said that she would honour them highly, if they

came off with their lives; but that, if they were slain, she would lay

out a great deal of money in alms for the good of their souls!

As might naturally have been expected among such people, it came to be

very commonly thought that the observance of outward worship and

ceremonies was all that religion required. Pretended miracles were

wrought in great numbers, for the purpose of imposing on the ignorant;

and all, from the king downwards, were then ignorant enough to be

deceived by them. The superstitions which had begun in the fourth

century[54] continued to grow on the Church; such as the reverence paid

to saints, and especially to the Blessed Virgin, so that people allowed

them a part of the honour which ought to have been kept for God alone.

Among other such corruptions were the reverence for the _relics_ of

saints (that is, for parts of their bodies, or for things which had

belonged to them), and the religious honour paid to images and pictures.

These and other evils increased more and more, until, at length, they

could be borne no longer, and, in many countries, they caused the great

religious change which is called the _Reformation_.

[54] See page 90.

But nearly a thousand years had to pass before the time of the

Reformation; and, in the meanwhile, although much was amiss in the

Christianity which prevailed, it yet was the means of blessing and of

salvation. And there were never wanting good men who, although there

were many defects and errors in their opinions, firmly held and clearly

taught the necessity of a real living faith in Christ, and of a

thoroughly earnest endeavour to obey God's holy will.

PART II.

The state of Italy towards the end of the sixth century was very

wretched. Vast numbers of its people had perished in the course of the

wars by which Justinian's generals had wrested the country from the

Goths, and had again united it to the empire;[55] multitudes of others

had been destroyed by famine and pestilence. The Lombards, who had

crossed the Alps in the year 568, had obliged the emperors to yield the

north, and part of the middle of Italy, to them; and they continually

threatened the portions which still remained to the empire. No help

against them was to be got from Constantinople; and the governors whom

the emperors sent to manage their Italian dominions, instead of

directing and leading the people to resist the Lombards, only hindered

them from taking their defence into their own hands.

[55] Page 142.

The land was left uncultivated, partly through the loss of inhabitants,

and partly because those who remained were disheartened by the miseries

of the time. They had not the spirit to bestow their labour on it, when

there was almost a certainty that their crops would be destroyed or

carried off by the Lombard invaders; and the soil, when left to itself,

had in many places become so unwholesome, that it was not fit to live

on. Italy had in former times been so thickly peopled, that it had been

necessary to get supplies of corn from Sicily and from Africa. But now

such foreign supplies were wanted for a very different reason--that the

inhabitants of Italy could not, or did not, grow corn for themselves.

The city of Rome had suffered from storms, and from repeated floods of

the river Tiber, which did a great deal of damage to its buildings, and

sometimes washed away or spoiled the stores of corn which were laid up

in the granaries. The people were kept in terror by the Lombards, who

often advanced to their very walls, so that it was unsafe to venture

beyond the gates.

The condition of the Church too was very deplorable. The troubles of the

times had produced a general decay of morals and order both among the

clergy and among the people. The Lombards were Arians, and religious

enmity was added to the other causes of dislike between them and the

Romans. In Istria, there was a division which had begun after the fifth

general council,[56] and which kept the Church of that country separate

from the communion of Rome for a hundred and fifty years. The sunken

condition of Christianity in Gaul (or France) has been described in the

beginning of this chapter. Spain was just recovered from Arianism,[57]

but there was much to be done before the Catholic faith could be

considered as firmly established there. In Africa, the old sect of the

Donatists began again to lift up its head, and took courage from the

confusions of the time to vex the Church. The Churches of the east were

torn by quarrels as to Eutychianism and Nestorianism. And the patriarchs

of Constantinople seemed likely, with the help of the emperor's favour,

to be dangerous rivals to the popes of Rome.

[56] Page 145.

[57] Page 134.

Such was the state of things when Gregory the Great became pope or

bishop of Rome, in the year 590.

CHAPTER XXXI.

ST. GREGORY THE GREAT.

A.D. 540-604.

PART I.

Gregory was born at Rome, of a noble and wealthy family, in the year

540. In his youth he engaged in public business, and he rose to be

praetor of Rome, which was one of the chief offices under the government.

In this office he was much beloved and respected by the people. But

about the age of thirty-five, a great change took place in his life. He

resolved to forsake the pursuit of worldly honours, and spent all his

wealth in founding seven monasteries. He gave up his family house at

Rome to begin a monastery, in which he became at first a simple monk,

and was afterwards chosen abbot. A pope, named Pelagius, showed him

great favour, by making him his secretary, and employing him for some

years as a sort of ambassador at the emperor's court at Constantinople.

And when Pelagius was carried off by a plague, in the year 589, the

nobles, the clergy, and the people of Rome all agreed in choosing

Gregory to succeed him.

Gregory was afraid to undertake the office. It was necessary that the

emperor should consent to his appointment; and he wrote to beg that the

emperor would refuse his consent. But the governor of Rome stopped the

letter, and all the other attempts which Gregory made to escape the

honour intended for him were baffled; so that in the end he was obliged

to submit, and was consecrated as bishop of Rome in September, 590.

Gregory felt all the difficulties of his new place. He compares his

Church to an old ship, shattered by winds and waves, decayed in its

timbers, full of leaks, and in continual danger of going to wreck. The

vast quantity and variety of business which he went through appears to

us from the collection of his letters, of which about eight hundred and

fifty still remain. We see from these how he strove to strengthen his

Church in all quarters, and what steps he took for the government of it.

Some of the letters are addressed to emperors and kings, and treat about

the greatest affairs of Church or State. And then all at once we find

him passing from such high matters to direct that some poor tenant on

one of his estates should be excused from paying a part of his rent, or

that relief should be given to some widow or orphan who had written from

a distance to ask his help.

The bishops of Rome had by degrees become very rich. They had estates,

not only in Italy and Sicily, but in Africa, in France, and even in

Asia. And the people who managed these estates were employed by Gregory

to carry on his other business in the same countries, and to report the

state of the Church to him from all quarters. Very little of his large

income was spent on himself. We may have some notion of the plain way in

which the great bishop lived from one of his letters to the steward of

his estates in Sicily. "You have sent me," says Gregory, "one wretched

horse, and five good asses. I cannot ride the horse because he is

wretched; nor the good beasts, because they are but asses." He lived

chiefly in the company of monks and clergy, employing himself in study

with them. And, in the midst of all the business which took up his time,

he wrote a number of books, of which some are very valuable. He was also

famous as a preacher. Among his sermons are a set of twenty-two on the

prophet Ezekiel, which he had meant to carry further. But he was obliged

to break off by the attacks of the Lombards, as he told his people in

the end of the last sermon--"Let no one blame me," he says, "if after

this discourse I stop, since, as you all see, our troubles are

multiplied on us. On every side we are surrounded with swords; on every

side we dread the danger of death which is close at hand. Some come back

to us with their hands cut off; we hear of some as being taken

prisoners, and of others as slain. I am forced to with-hold my tongue

from expounding, since my soul is weary of my life (_Job_ x. 1). How can

I, who am forced daily to drink bitter things, draw forth sweet things

to you? What remains for us, but that in the chastisement which we are

suffering because of our misdeeds, we should give thanks with weeping to

Him who made us, and who hath bestowed on us the spirit of adoption

(_Rom._ viii. 15)--to Him who sometimes nourisheth His children with

bread, and sometimes correcteth them with a scourge--who, by benefits

and by sufferings alike, is training us for an eternal inheritance?"

Gregory laboured zealously in improving the education of the clergy, and

in reforming such disorders as he found in his Church. He founded a

school for singing, and established a new way of chanting, which from

him has the name of the _Gregorian Chant_, and is used to this day. We

are told that the whip with which he used to correct his choristers was

kept at Rome as a relic for hundreds of years.

His charities were very great. On the first day of every month he gave

out large quantities of provisions to the people of Rome. The old

nobility had suffered so much by the wars, and by the loss of their

estates in countries which had been torn from them by the barbarians,

that many of them were glad to come in for a share of the good pope's

bounty. Every day he sent relief to a number of poor persons in all

parts of the city; and he used to send dishes from his own table to

those whom he knew to be in distress, but ashamed to ask for assistance.

Once when a poor man was found dead in the streets, Gregory denied

himself the holy communion for some days, because it seemed to him that

he must be in some measure to blame. He used to receive strangers and

wanderers at his own table, out of regard for our Lord's

words--"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my

brethren, ye have done it unto me" (_St. Matt._ xxv. 40).

PART II.

Having thus seen something of Gregory's life at home, we must now look

at his proceedings in other quarters.

He had a sharp dispute with a bishop of Constantinople, on account of

the title of _Universal Bishop_, which the patriarchs of the eastern

capital had for some time taken to themselves. When we hear such a

title, we may naturally fancy that it signified a claim to authority

over the whole Church on earth. But, as it was then used, it really had

no such meaning. The Greeks were fond of lofty and sounding titles,

which seemed to mean much more than they were really understood to mean.

This fondness appears in the titles of the emperors and of the officers

of their empire, and it was by it that the patriarchs were led to style

themselves "Universal Bishop." If the title had been intended as a claim

to authority over all Churches, it could only have been given to one

person at a time; but we find that the emperor Justinian gave it to the

bishops both of Constantinople and of Rome, and that he styled each of

them "Head of all the Churches;" and, whatever the patriarchs of

Constantinople may have meant by it, they certainly did not make any

claim to authority over Rome or the western Church.

But there was an old jealousy between the sees of Rome and

Constantinople, ever since the time when the second general council in

381 gave the bishop of Constantinople the second place of honour in the

whole Church.[58] This jealousy had grown greater in late times, when

there was no very kindly feeling between the emperors and their Italian

subjects, and when it seemed not impossible that the bishop of the new

capital, backed by the emperor, might even try to dispute the first

place with the bishop of Rome. And Gregory, who did not understand the

Greek language, or how little the Greeks meant by their fine titles, was

ready to take offence at the name of "Universal Bishop." So, when a

bishop of Constantinople, John the Faster, styled himself so on an

important occasion, Gregory objected strongly;--he wrote to John, to the

emperor, and to the bishops of Alexandria and of Antioch, declaring that

the title was proud and foolish, that it came from the devil, and was a

token of Antichrist's approach, and that it was unfit for any Christian

bishop to use. The emperor, however, would not help him against the

patriarch. John would not yield, and the other eastern patriarchs

(partly from a wish to be at peace, and partly because the words did not

seem offensive to them, as they did to Gregory), were little disposed to

take up his quarrel. After a time, another emperor, who had special

reasons for wishing to stand well with Gregory, forbade the successor of

John to call himself "Universal;" but the title was soon restored by the

emperors to the bishops of Constantinople, although not until after the

death of Gregory. The most curious part of the story, however, is

this--that Gregory's successors in the popedom have taken up the very

title which he condemned so strongly; and that, instead of using it in

the harmless meaning which it had in the east, they have intended it as

a claim to power over the whole Church,--that claim of which the very

notion filled Gregory with such horror and indignation, and which he

declared to be unfit for any bishop whatever to make.

[58] See page 84.

PART III.

Gregory did much to bring over the Lombards from their Arianism, and he

succeeded in part, although the work was not completed until after his

time. He also laboured earnestly to revive the Church in France and in

other countries. But instead of dwelling on these things, I shall

content myself with telling of the chief work which he did in spreading

the Gospel; and it is one which very much concerns ourselves.

In those days slavery was common throughout all the known world, and,

although the Gospel had wrought a great improvement in the treatment of

slaves, by making the masters feel that they and their slaves were

brethren in Christ, it yet had not forbidden slavery. But there was a

feeling of pity for those who fell into this sad condition by the

chances of war or otherwise. It was a common act of charity for good

Christians to redeem captives and to set them at liberty. This, indeed,

was thought so holy a work, and so agreeable to the words of

Scripture--"I will have mercy, and not sacrifice" (_Hos._ vi. 6; _St.

Matt._ ix. 13), that bishops often broke up and sold even the

consecrated plate of their churches in order that they might get the

means of ransoming captives whom they heard of. And, although slavery

was still allowed by the laws of Christian kingdoms, those laws took

care that Christian slaves should not be under Jews, or masters of any

other than their own religion.

Gregory, then, while he was yet a monk, went one day into the market at

Rome, just after the arrival of some merchants with a large cargo of

slaves for sale. Some of these poor creatures, perhaps, had been taken

in war; others had probably been sold by their own parents for the sake

of the price which they fetched; for we are told that this shocking

practice was not uncommon among some of the ruder nations. As Gregory

looked at them, his eyes fell on some boys with whose appearance he was

greatly struck. Their skin was fair, unlike the dark complexions of the

Italians and other southern nations whom he had been used to see. Their

features were beautiful, and they had long light flowing hair. He asked

the merchants from what land these boys had been brought. "From

Britain," they said; and they told him that the bright complexion which

he admired so much was common among the people of that island. Perhaps

Gregory had never thought of Britain before. It was nearly two hundred

years since the Roman troops had been withdrawn from it, and its

inhabitants had been left to themselves. And since that time the pagan

Saxons had overrun it; the Romans had lost the countries which lay

between them and it; and Britain had quite disappeared from their

knowledge. Gregory, therefore, was obliged to ask whether the people

were Christians or heathens, and he was told that they were still

heathens. The good monk sighed deeply. "Alas, and woe!" said he, "that

people with such faces of light should belong to the author of darkness,

and that so goodly an outward favour should be void of inward grace." He

asked what was the name of their nation, and was told that they were

_Angles_. "It is well," he said, "for they have _angels'_ faces, and

such as they ought to be joint-heirs with the angels in heaven.--What is

the name of the province from which they come?" He was told that it was

Deira (a Saxon kingdom, which stretched along the eastern side of

Britain, from the Humber to the Tyne). The name of Deira sounded to

Gregory's ears like two Latin words, which mean "from wrath." "Well,

again," he said, "they are delivered _from the wrath_ of God, and are

called to the mercy of Christ.--What is the name of the king of that

country?" "Aella," was the answer. "Alleluiah!" (_Praise to God!_)

exclaimed Gregory; "the praises of God their maker ought to be sung in

that kingdom."

He went at once to the pope, and asked leave to go as a missionary to

the heathens of Britain. But, although the pope consented, the people of

Rome were so much attached to Gregory that they would not allow him to

set out, and he was obliged to give up the plan. Yet he did not forget

the heathens of Britain; and when he became pope, although he could not

himself go to them, he was able to send others for the work of their

conversion.

An opening had been made by the marriage of Ethelbert, king of Kent, the

Saxon kingdom which lay nearest to the continent, with Bertha, daughter

of Charibert, a Frankish king, whose capital was Paris (A.D. 570). As

Charibert and his family were Christians, it had been agreed that the

young queen should be allowed freely to practise her religion, and a

French bishop, named Luidhard, came to England with her, and acted as

her chaplain. Ethelbert by degrees became much more powerful than he was

at the time of his marriage, and in 593 he was chosen Bretwalda, which

was the title given to the chief of the Saxon kings. This office gave

him much influence over most of the other kingdoms; so that, if his

favour could be gained, it was likely to be of very great advantage for

recommending the Gospel to others. But Ethelbert was still a heathen,

after having been married to Bertha about five-and-twenty years,

although we may well suppose that she had sometimes spoken to him of her

religion, and had tried to bring him over to it. And perhaps Bertha may

have had a share in sending Gregory the reports which he mentions, that

the Saxons in England were ready to receive the Gospel, and in begging

him to take pity on them.

PART IV.

In the year 596 Gregory sent off a party of monks as missionaries to the

English Saxons. The head of them was Augustine, who had been provost

(that is, the highest person after the abbot)[59] of the monastery to

which the pope himself had formerly belonged. And, at the same time,

Gregory directed the manager of his estates in France to buy up a number

of captive Saxon youths, and to place them in monasteries, that they

might learn the Christian faith, and might afterwards become

missionaries to their own countrymen.

[59] See page 150.

When Augustine and his brethren had got as for as the south of France,

they heard many terrible stories of the English, so they took fright at

the thought of going among such savages, whose very language was unknown

to them; and Augustine went back to Rome to beg that they might be

allowed to give up their undertaking. But Gregory would not consent to

this. He encouraged them to go on, and he gave Augustine letters to some

French kings and bishops, desiring them to assist the missionaries, and

to supply them with interpreters who understood the language of the

Saxons. Augustine, therefore, returned to the place where he had left

his companions. They made their way across France, and in 597 he landed,

with about forty monks, in the Isle of Thanet.

Ethelbert lived at Canterbury, the capital of the Kentish kingdom, at no

great distance from the place where the missionaries had landed. On

receiving notice of their arrival, he sent to desire that they would

remain where they were until he should visit them; and within a few days

he went to them. The meeting was held in the open air; for Ethelbert had

a superstitious fear that they might do him some mischief by magical

arts, if he were to trust himself under a roof with them. The

missionaries advanced in procession, with a silver cross borne before

them, and displaying a picture of the crucified Saviour; and, as they

slowly moved onwards, they chanted a prayer for their own salvation and

that of the people to whom they had been sent. Ethelbert received them

courteously, and desired them to sit down; and then Augustine made a

speech, telling the king that they were come to preach the word of life

to him and to his subjects. "These are indeed fair words and promises

which you bring with you," said Ethelbert; "but, because they are new

and uncertain, I cannot at once take up with them, and leave the faith

which I and all my people have so long observed. But as you have come

from far, and as I think you wish to give us a share in things which you

believe to be true and most profitable, we will not show you unkindness,

but rather will receive you hospitably, and not hinder you from

converting as many as you can to your religion."

He then granted them a lodging in his capital, and ordered that they

should be supplied with all that they might need. As they drew near to

Canterbury, they again displayed the silver cross, and the banner on

which the Saviour was painted; and they entered the city in procession,

chanting a litany which Gregory had made for the people of Rome, during

the great plague which carried off pope Pelagius.

A little way outside the city they found a small church, which had been

built in the days of the old British Christianity, and in which Luidhard

had since held his service for Queen Bertha and the Christians of her

court. It was called by the name of St. Martin; for even before the

Saxon invasion his name had become so famous that many churches were

called after it; and we may well believe that Queen Bertha, on arriving

from France, was glad to find that the church in which she was to

worship had long ago been named in honour of the great saint of her own

land. There Augustine and his brethren now held their service; and the

sight of their holy, gentle, and self-denying lives soon drew many to

receive their instructions. Ethelbert himself was baptized on

Whitsunday, 597, and, although he would not force his people to profess

the Gospel, he declared himself desirous of their conversion.

Gregory had desired Augustine, if he met with success in the beginning

of his mission, to return from Britain into France and be consecrated as

a bishop. He now obeyed this direction, and was consecrated at Arles;

and without any delay he again crossed the sea, and renewed his labours

among the Saxons. Such was his progress in the work of conversion, that

at Christmas of the year in which he first landed in Britain ten

thousand persons were baptized in one day. Four years later, Gregory

made him an archbishop; and he sent him a fresh body of clergy to help

him, with a large supply of books, vestments, and other things for the

service of the Church. He also gave him instructions how to proceed, so

as to advance the true faith without giving needless offence to the

prejudices of the heathen.

Augustine's chief difficulties, indeed, were not with the Saxons, but

with the clergy of the ancient British Church, whom he could not succeed

in bringing to an agreement. We must not lay the blame wholly on either

side; if the Britons were somewhat jealous and obstinate, Augustine

seems to have taken too much upon himself in his way of dealing with

them. But, whatever his faults may have been, we are bound to hold his

memory in honour for the zealous and successful labours by which the

Gospel was a second time introduced into the southern part of this

island. Before his death, in 604, he had established a second bishop for

Kent, in the city of Rochester, and one at London, which was then the

capital of the kingdom of Essex. And by degrees, partly by the followers

of St. Augustine, and partly by the Scotch monks of Icolumbkill,[60] all

the Saxon kingdoms of England were converted to the Christian faith.

[60] See page 139.

In the same year with Augustine, Gregory also died, after long and

severe illness, which obliged him for years to keep his bed, but could

not check his activity in watching over the interests of religion.

Gregory had intended that Augustine should be archbishop of London,

because in the old Roman days London had been the chief city of Britain;

and it might seem natural that the chief bishop of our Church should now

take his title from the capital of all England. But when Gregory sent

forth his missionaries he did not know that England had been divided by

the Saxons into several kingdoms. In consequence of this division of the

country, Augustine, instead of becoming archbishop of London, fixed

himself in the capital of Kent, the first kingdom which he converted,

and then the most powerful of all. Hence it is that his successors, the

primates of all England, to this day, are not archbishops of London but

of Canterbury.

And, although Canterbury be not now a very large town, it is a very

interesting place, and is full of memorials of its first archbishop. The

noble cathedral, called Christ Church, stands in the same place with an

ancient Roman-British church which Augustine recovered from heathen uses

and consecrated in honour of the Saviour. Close to it are the remains of

the archbishop's palace, built on the same ground with the palace of

Ethelbert, which he gave up to the missionaries. A little church of St.

Martin still stands on a rising ground outside the city, on the spot

where Bertha and Luidhard had worshipped before the arrival of

Augustine, and where he and his brethren celebrated their earliest

services. And, although it has been rebuilt since then, we may still see

in its walls a number of bricks which by their appearance are known to

be Roman,--the very same materials of which the little church was built

at first, while the Romans were yet in Britain, fourteen centuries and a

half ago; nay, it is even supposed that some part of the masonry is

Roman too. Between St. Martin's and the cathedral lay the great

monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul, which Augustine began to build. He

died before it was finished; but, as soon as it was ready, his body was

removed to it, and in it Queen Bertha and her husband were afterwards

buried. After a time the name of the monastery was changed to St.

Augustine's, and for hundreds of years it was the chief monastery of all

England. The Reformation in the sixteenth century put an end to

monasteries; and the buildings of St. Augustine's went through many

changes, until in the year 1844 the place was turned to a purpose

similar to that which Augustine and Gregory had at heart when they

undertook the conversion of England; for it is now a college for

training missionaries. And, as Gregory wished that Saxon boys should be

brought up with a view to converting their countrymen, so there are now

at St. Augustine's College young men from distant heathen nations,

receiving an education which may fit them hereafter to become

missionaries of the Church of England to their brethren.[61] Nor is the

good Gregory forgotten in the city which owes so much to him; for within

the last few years a beautiful little church called by his name has

been built, close to the college of St. Augustine.

[61] Among those who were at the College when this volume was first

printed was Kalli, the Esquimaux, of whom an account has since been

written by the Rev. T. B. Murray, and published by the Society for

Promoting Christian Knowledge. He afterwards went to the diocese of

Newfoundland, where he died of consumption.

Here this little book must close. It ends with the replanting of the

Gospel in our own land. And, if hereafter the story should be carried

further, some of its brightest pages will be filled by the labours of

the missionaries who went forth from England to preach the faith of

Christ in Germany and the adjoining countries.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

MAHOMETANISM--IMAGE-WORSHIP.

A.D. 612-794.

Within a few years after the death of Gregory the Great, a new religion

was set up by an Arabian named Mahomet, who seems to have been honest,

although mistaken, at first, but grew less honest as he went on, and as

he became more successful and powerful. His religion was made up partly

from the Jewish, partly from the Christian, and partly from other

religions which he found around him; but he gave out that it had been

taught him by visions and revelations from heaven, and these pretended

revelations were gathered into a book called the Koran, which serves

Mahomet's followers for their Bible. This new religion was called

_Islam_, which means submission to the will of God; and the sum of it

was declared to be that "there is but one God, and Mahomet is his

prophet."

One point in the new religion was, that every faithful Mahometan (or

Mussulman, as they were called) was required once in his life to go on

pilgrimage to Mecca, a city which was Mahomet's birthplace, and was

considered to be especially holy; and to this day it is visited every

year by great companies of pilgrims. Another remarkable thing was, that

he commanded his followers to spread their religion by force; and this

was done with such success, that within about sixty years after

Mahomet's death they had conquered Syria and the Holy Land, Egypt,

Persia, parts of Asia Minor, and all the north of Africa. A little

later, they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and got possession of

Spain, where their kingdom of Granada lasted until 1492, nearly eight

hundred years. In the countries which the Mussulmans subdued, Christians

were allowed to live and to keep up their religion; but they had to pay

a heavy tribute, and to bear great hardships and disgraces at the hands

of the conquerors.

I have mentioned that before Gregory the Great's time almost all Europe

had been overrun by the rude nations of the north.[62] Learning nearly

died out, and what remained of it was kept up by the monks and clergy

only. There is but little to tell of the history of those times; for,

although in the Greek empire there were great disputes about some

doctrines and practices, these matters were such as you would not care

to know about, nor would you be much the wiser if you did know.

[62] See Part I., chap XXIII.

I may, however, mention that one of these disputes was about images, to

which the Christians of those ages, and especially the Greeks, had come

by degrees to pay a sort of reverence which St. Augustine and other

fathers of older days would have looked on with horror. It had become

usual to fall down before images, to pray to them, to kiss them, to burn

lights and incense in their honour, to adorn them with gold, silver, and

precious stones, to lay the hand on them in taking oaths, and even to

use them as godfathers or godmothers for children in baptism. Those who

defend the use of images would tell us that the honour is not given to

them, but to Almighty God, to the Saviour, and to the saints, through

the images. But when we find, for instance, that people paid more honour

to one image of the blessed Virgin than to another, and that they

supposed their prayers to have a greater hope of being heard when they

were said before one image than when they were said before another, we

cannot help thinking that they believed the images themselves to have

some particular virtue in them.

There were, then, some of the Greek emperors who tried to put down the

superstitious regard for images; and they were the more set on this

because the Mahometans, who abhorred images, reproached the Christians

for using them. These emperors, wishing to do away with the grounds for

such reproaches, caused the figures of stone or metal to be broken, and

the sacred pictures to be smeared over; and they persecuted very cruelly

those who were foremost in defending them. Then came other emperors who

were in favour of images; or widowed empresses, who governed during the

boyhood of their sons, and took up the cause of images with great zeal;

and thus the friends and the enemies of images succeeded each other by

turns on the throne, so that the battle was fought, backwards and

forwards, for a long time, until at length an agreement was come to

which has ever since continued in the Greek Church. By this agreement,

it was settled that the figures made by carving in stone or wood, or by

casting metal into a mould, should be forbidden, but that the use of

religious pictures (which were also called by the name of images) should

be allowed. Hence it is said that the Greeks may not worship anything of

which one can take the tip of the nose between his finger and his thumb.

But in the Latin Church the carved or molten images are still allowed;

and among the poorer and less educated people there is a great deal of

superstition connected with them.

CHAPTER II.

THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND.

A.D. 604-734.

While the light of the Gospel was darkened by the Mahometan conquests in

some parts of the world where it had once shone brightly, it was

spreading widely among the nations which had got possession of western

Europe. In England, the successors of St. Augustine converted a large

part of the Anglo-Saxons by their preaching, and much was also done by

missionaries from the island of Iona, on the west of Scotland. There, as

we have seen,[63] an Irish abbot, named Columba, had settled with some

companions about the year 565, and from Iona their teaching had been

carried all over the northern part of Britain. These missionaries from

Iona to England found a home in the island of Lindisfarne, on the

Northumbrian coast, which was given up to them by Oswald, king of

Northumbria, and from them got the name of Holy Island. Oswald himself

had been converted while an exile in Scotland; and, as he had learnt the

language of the country there, he often helped the missionaries in their

labours by interpreting what they said into the language of his own

subjects who listened to them. The Scottish missionaries carried their

labours even as far south as the river Thames; and their modest and

humble ways gained the respect and love of the people so much that, as

we are told by the Venerable Bede, wherever one of them appeared, he was

joyfully received as the servant of God. Even those who met them on the

road used eagerly to ask their blessing, and, whenever one of them came

to any village, the inhabitants flocked to hear from him the message of

the Gospel.

[63] Part I., p. 139.

But these Scottish missionaries differed in some respects from the

clergy who were connected with St. Augustine; and after a time a great

meeting was held at Whitby, in Yorkshire, to settle the questions

between them and the Roman Church. We must not suppose that these

differences were of any real importance; for they were only about such

small matters as the reckoning of the day on which Easter should be

kept, and the way in which the hair of the clergy should be clipped or

shaven. But, although these were mere trifles, the two parties were each

so set on their own ways that no agreement could be come to; and the

end was, that the Scottish missionaries went back to their own country,

and did no more work for spreading the Gospel in England, although after

a while the Scottish clergy, and those of Ireland too, were persuaded to

shave their hair and to reckon their Easter in the same way as the other

clergy of the West.

In those dark times some of the most learned and famous men were English

monks. Among them I shall mention only Bede, who is commonly called the

Venerable, and to whose care we owe almost all our knowledge of the

early history of the Church in this land. Bede was born about the year

673, near Jarrow, in Northumberland, and at the age of seven he entered

the monastery of Jarrow, where the rest of his life was spent. He tells

us of himself that he made it his pleasure every day "either to learn or

to teach or to write something;" and, after having written many precious

books during his quiet life in his cell at Jarrow, he died on the eve of

Ascension-day in the year 734, just as he had finished a translation of

St. John's Gospel.

CHAPTER III.

ST. BONIFACE.

A.D. 680-755.

Although the Church of Ireland was in a somewhat rough state at home,

many of its clergy undertook missionary work on the Continent; and by

them and others much was done for the conversion of various tribes in

Germany and in the Netherlands. But the most famous missionary of those

times was an Englishman named Winfrid, who is styled the Apostle of

Germany.

Winfrid was born near Crediton, in Devonshire, about the year 680. He

became a monk at an early age, and perhaps it was then that he took the

name of Boniface, by which he is best known. He might probably have

risen to a high place in the church of his own country if he had wished

to do so; but he was filled with a glowing desire to preach the Gospel

to the heathen. He therefore refused all the tempting offers which were

made to him at home, crossed the sea, and began to labour in Friesland

and about the lower part of the Rhine. For three years he assisted

another famous English missionary, Willibrord, bishop of Utrecht, who

wished to make Boniface his successor; but Boniface thought that he was

bound rather to labour in some country where his work was more needed;

so, leaving Willibrord, he went into Hessia, where he made and baptized

many thousands of converts. The pope, Gregory the Second, on hearing of

this success, invited him to Rome, consecrated him as a bishop, and sent

him back with letters recommending him to the princes and people of the

countries in which his work was to lie. (A.D. 723.)

The government of the Franks was then in a very odd state. There were

kings over them; but these kings, instead of carrying on the government

for themselves, and leading their nation in war, were shut up in their

palaces, except that once in the year they were brought out in a cart

drawn by bullocks to appear at the national assemblies. These poor

"do-nothings" (as the kings of the old French race are called) were

without any strength or spirit. From their way of life, they allowed

their hair to grow without being shorn; and the Greeks, who lived far

away from them, and knew of them only by hearsay, believed, not only

that their hair was long, but that it grew down their backs like the

bristles of a hog. And, while the kings had sunk into this pitiable

state, the real work of the kingly office was done, and the kingly power

was really enjoyed, by great officers who were called mayors of the

palace.

At the time which I am speaking of, the mayor of the palace was Charles,

who was afterwards known by the name of Martel, or _The Hammer_. Charles

had done a great service to Christendom by defeating a vast army of

Mahometans, who had forced their way from Spain into the heart of

France, and driving the remains of them back across the Pyrenees. It is

said that they lost 375,000 men in the battle which they fought with

Charles near Poitiers (A.D. 732); and, although this number is no doubt

beyond the truth, it is certain that the infidels were so much weakened

that they never ventured to attempt any more conquests in western

Europe. But, although Charles had thus done very great things for the

Christian world, it would seem that he himself did not care much for

religion; and, although he gave Boniface a letter of protection, he did

not help or encourage him greatly in his missionary labours. But

Boniface was resolved to carry on bravely what he believed to be God's

work. He preached in Hessia and Thuringia, and made many thousands of

converts. He built churches and monasteries, and brought over from

England large numbers of clergy to help him in preaching and in the

Christian training of his converts, for which purpose he also obtained

supplies of books from his own country. He founded bishoprics, and held

councils of clergy and laymen for the settlement of the Church's

affairs. Finding that the Hessians paid reverence to an old oak-tree,

which was sacred to one of their gods, he resolved to cut it down. The

heathens stood around, looking fiercely at him, cursing and threatening

him, and expecting to see him and his companions struck dead by the

vengeance of their gods. But when he had only just begun to attack the

oak we are told that a great wind suddenly arose, and struck it so that

it fell to the ground in four pieces. The people, seeing this, took it

for a sign from heaven, and consented to give up their old idolatry; and

Boniface turned the wood of the huge old oak to use by building a chapel

with it.

In some places Boniface found a strange mixture of heathen superstitions

with Christianity, and he did all that he could to root them out. He had

also much trouble with missionaries from Ireland, whose notions of

Christian doctrine and practice differed in some things from his; and

perhaps he did not always treat them with so much of wisdom and

gentleness as might have been wished. But after all he was right in

thinking that the sight of more than one kind of Christian religion,

different from each other and opposed to each other, must puzzle the

heathen and hinder their conversion; so that we can understand his

jealousy of those Irish missionaries, even if we cannot wholly approve

of it.

In reward of his labours and success, Boniface was made an archbishop by

Pope Gregory III. in 732; and, although at first he was not fixed in any

one place, he soon brought the German Church into such a state of order

that it seemed to be time for choosing some city as the seat of its

chief bishop, just as the chief bishop of England was settled at

Canterbury. Boniface himself wished to fix himself at Cologne; but at

that very time the bishop of Mentz got into trouble by killing a Saxon,

who, in a former war, had killed the bishop's father. Although it had

been quite a common thing in those rough days for bishops to take a part

in fighting, Boniface and his councils had made rules forbidding such

things, as unbecoming the ministers of peace; and the case of the bishop

of Mentz, coming just after those rules had been made, could not well be

passed over. The bishop, therefore, was obliged to give up his see; and

Mentz was chosen to be the place where Boniface should be fixed as

archbishop and primate of Germany, having under him five bishops, and

all the nations which had received the Gospel through his preaching.

When Boniface had grown old, he felt himself again drawn to Frisia,

where, as we have seen,[64] he had laboured in his early life; and at

the age of seventy-five he left his archbishopric, with all that invited

him to spend his last days there in quiet and honour, that he might once

more go forth as a missionary to the barbarous Frieslanders. Among them

he preached with much success; but on Whitsun eve, 755, while he was

expecting a great number of his converts to meet, that they might

receive confirmation from him, he and his companions were attacked by

an armed party of heathens, and the whole of the missionaries, fifty-two

in number, were martyred. But although Boniface thus ended his active

and useful life by martyrdom at the hands of those whom he wished to

bring into the way of salvation, his work was carried on by other

missionaries, and the conversion of the Frisians was completed within no

long time. Boniface's body was carried up the Rhine, and was buried at

Fulda, a monastery which he had founded amidst the loneliness of a vast

forest; and there the tomb of the "Apostle of the Germans" was visited

with reverence for centuries.

[64] Page 174.

CHAPTER IV.

PIPIN AND CHARLES THE GREAT.

A.D. 741-814.

PART I.

Towards the end of St. Boniface's life, a great change took place in the

government of the Franks. Pipin, who had succeeded his father, Charles

Martel, as mayor of the palace, grew tired of being called a servant

while he was really the master; and the French sent to ask the pope,

whose name was Zacharias, whether the man who really had the kingly

power ought not also to have the title of king. Zacharias, who had been

greatly obliged to the Franks for helping him against his enemies the

Lombards, answered them in the way that they seemed to wish and to

expect; and accordingly they chose Pipin as their king. And while,

according to the custom in such cases, Pipin was lifted up on a shield

and displayed to the people, while he was anointed and crowned, the last

of the poor old race of "do-nothing" kings was forced to let his long

hair be shorn until he looked like a monk, and was then shut up in a

monastery for the rest of his days.

Pipin afterwards went into Italy for the help of the pope, and bestowed

on the Roman Church a large tract of country which he had taken from the

Lombards. And this _donation_ (as it was called) or gift, was the first

land which the popes possessed in such a way that they were counted as

the sovereigns of it.

Pipin died in 768, and was succeeded by his son Charles, who is commonly

called Charlemagne (or Charles the Great). Under Charles the connexion

between the Franks and the Popes became still closer than before; and

when Charles put down the Lombard kingdom in Italy (A.D. 774), the popes

came in for part of the spoil.

But the most remarkable effect of this connexion was at a later time,

when Pope Leo III. had been attacked in a Roman street by some

conspirators, who tried to blind him and to cut out his tongue. But they

were not able to do their work thoroughly, and Leo recovered the use

both of his tongue and of his eyes. He then went into Germany to ask

Charles to help him against his enemies; and on his return to Rome he

was followed by Charles. There, on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, when a vast

congregation was assembled in the great church of St. Peter, the pope

suddenly placed a golden crown on the king's head, while the people

shouted, "Long life and victory to our emperor, Charles!" So now, after

a long time, an emperor was set up again in the West; and, although

these new emperors were German, they all styled themselves emperors of

the Romans. The popes afterwards pretended that they had a right to

bestow the empire as they liked, and that Leo had taken it from the

Greeks, and given it to the Germans. But this was quite untrue. Charles

seems to have made up his mind to be emperor, but he was very angry with

the pope for giving him the crown by surprise, instead of letting him

take his own way about it; and, if he had been left to himself, he would

have taken care to manage the matter so that the pope should not appear

to do anything more than to crown him in form after he had been chosen

by the Roman people.

PART II.

Charles was really a great man, although he had very serious faults, and

did many blameable things. He carried his conquests so far that the

Greeks had a proverb, "Have the Frank for thy friend, but not for thy

neighbour,"--meaning that the Franks were likely to try to make their

neighbours' lands their own. He thought it his duty to spread the

Christian faith by force, if it could not be done in a gentler way; and

thus, when he had conquered the Saxons in Germany, he made them be

baptized and pay tithes to the Church. But I need hardly say that

people's belief is not to be forced in this way; and many of those who

submitted to be baptized at the conqueror's command had no belief in the

Gospel, and no understanding of it. There is a story told of some who

came to be baptized over and over again for the sake of the white

dresses which were given to them at their baptism; and when one of these

had once got a dress which was coarser than usual, he declared that such

a sack was fitter for a swineherd than for a warrior, and that he would

have nothing to do with it or with the Christian religion. The Saxons

gave Charles a great deal of trouble, for his war with them lasted no

less than thirty-three years; and at one time he was so much provoked by

their frequent revolts that he had the cruelty to put 4,500 Saxon

prisoners to death.

But there are better things to be told of Charles. He took very great

pains to restore learning, which had long been in a state of decay. He

invited learned men from Italy and from England to settle in his

kingdom; and of all these, the most famous was a Northumbrian named

Alcuin. Alcuin gave him wise and good advice as to the best way of

treating the Saxons in order to bring them to the faith; and when

Charles was on his way to Rome, just before he was crowned as emperor,

Alcuin presented him with a large Latin Bible, written expressly for his

use; for we must remember that printing was not invented until more than

six hundred years later, so that all books in Charles's days were

_manuscript_ (or written by hand). Some people have believed that an

ancient manuscript Bible which is now to be seen in the great library at

Paris is the very one which Alcuin gave to Charles.

We are told that when Charles found himself at a loss for help in

educating his people, he said to Alcuin that he wished he might have

twelve such learned clerks as Jerome and Augustine; and that Alcuin

answered, "The Maker of heaven and earth has had only two such; and are

you so unreasonable as to wish for twelve?"

Alcuin was made master of the palace school, which moved about wherever

the court was, and in which the pupils were Charles's own children and

the sons of his chief nobles; and besides this, care was taken for the

education of the clergy and of the people in general. Charles himself

tried very hard to learn reading and writing when he was already in

middle age; but although he became able to read, and used to keep little

tablets under his pillow, in order that he might practise writing while

lying awake in bed, he never was able to write easily. Many curious

stories are told of the way in which he overlooked the service in his

chapel, where he desired that everything should be done as well as

possible. He would point with his finger or with his staff at any person

whom he wished to read in chapel, and when he wished any one to stop he

coughed; and it was expected that at these signals each person would

begin or stop at once, although it might be in the middle of a sentence.

During this time the question of images, which I have already

mentioned,[65] came up again in the Greek Church. A council was held in

787 at Nicaea, where the first general council had met in the time of

Constantine, more than four centuries and a half before;[66] and in this

second Nicene council images were approved of. In the West, the popes

were also for them; but they were condemned in a council at Frankfort,

and a book was written against them in the name of Charles. It is

supposed that this book was mostly the work of Alcuin, but that Charles,

besides allowing it to go forth with his name and authority, had really

himself had a share in making it.

[65] Page 170.

[66] See Part I., chap. XI.

Charles the Great died in the year 814. A short time before his death,

he sent for his son Lewis, and in the great church at Aix-la-Chapelle,

which was Charles's favourite place of abode, he took from the altar a

golden crown, and with his own hands placed it on the head of Lewis. By

this he meant to show that he did not believe the empire to depend on

the pope's will, but considered it to be given to himself and his

successors by God alone.

CHAPTER V.

DECAY OF CHARLES THE GREAT'S EMPIRE.

A.D. 814-887.

Lewis, the son of Charles the Great, was a prince who had very much of

good in him, so that he is commonly called the Pious. But he was of weak

character, and his reign was full of troubles, mostly caused by the

ambition of his own sons, who were helped by a strong party among the

clergy, and even by Pope Gregory the Fourth. At one time he was obliged

to undergo public penance, and some years later he was deprived of his

kingdom and empire, although these acts caused such a shock to the

feelings of men that he found friends who helped him to recover his

power. And after his death (A.D. 840) his children and grandchildren

continued to quarrel among themselves as long as any of them lived.

Besides these quarrels among their princes, the Franks were troubled at

this time by enemies of many kinds.

First of all I may mention the Northmen, who poured down by sea on the

coasts of the more civilized nations. These were the same who in our

English history are called Danes, with whom the great Alfred had a long

struggle, and who afterwards, under Canute, got possession of our

country for a time. They had light vessels,--_serpents_, as they were

called,--which could sail up rivers; and so they carried fire and sword

up every river whose opening invited them, making their way to places so

far off the sea as Mentz, on the Rhine; Treves, on the Moselle; Paris,

on the Seine; and even Auxerre, on the Yonne. They often sacked the

wealthy trading cities which lay open to their attacks; they sailed on

to Spain, plundered Lisbon, passed the Straits of Gibraltar, and laid

waste the coasts of Italy.

After a time they grew bolder, and would leave their vessels on the

rivers, while they struck across the country to plunder places which

were known to be wealthy. They made fortified camps, often on the

islands of the great rivers, and did all the mischief they could within

a large circle around them. These Northmen were bitter enemies of

Christianity, and many of them had lost their homes because they or

their fathers would not be converted at Charlemagne's bidding; so that

they had a special pleasure in turning their fury against churches and

monasteries. Wherever they came, the monks ran off and tried to save

themselves, leaving their wealth as a prey to the strangers. People were

afraid to till the land, lest these enemies should destroy the fruits of

their labours. Famines became common; wolves were allowed to multiply

and to prey without check; and such were the distress and fear caused by

the invaders, that a prayer for the deliverance "from the fury of the

Northmen" was added to the service-books of the Frankish church.

Another set of enemies were the Mahometan Saracens, who got possession

of the great islands of the Mediterranean and laid waste its coasts. It

is said that some of them sailed up the Tiber and carried off the altar

which covered the body of St. Peter. One party of Saracens settled on

the banks of a river about halfway between Rome and Naples; others in

the neighbourhood of Nice, and on that part of the Alps which is now

called the Great St. Bernard; and they robbed pilgrims and merchants,

whom they made to pay dearly for being let off with their lives.

Europe also suffered much from the Hungarians, a very rude, heathen

people, who about the year 900 poured into it from Asia. We are told

that they hardly looked human, that they lived like beasts, that they

ate men's flesh and drank their blood. They rode on small active horses,

so that the heavy-armed cavalry of the Franks could not overtake them;

and if they ran away before their enemies, they used to stop from time

to time, and let fly their arrows backwards. From the Elbe to the very

south of Italy these barbarians filled Europe with bloodshed and with

terror.

The Northmen at length made themselves so much feared in France, that

King Charles III., who was called the Simple, gave up to them, in 911, a

part of his kingdom, which from them got the name of Normandy. There

they settled down to a very different sort of life from their old habits

of piracy and plunder, so that before long the Normans were ahead of all

the other inhabitants of France; and from Normandy, as I need hardly

say, it was that William the Conqueror and his warriors came to gain

possession of England.

The princes of Charles the Great's family, by their quarrels, broke up

his empire altogether; and nobody had anything like the power of an

emperor until Otho I., who became king of Germany in 936, and was

crowned emperor at Rome in 962.

CHAPTER VI.

STATE OF THE PAPACY.

A.D. 891-1046.

All this time the papacy was in a very sad condition. Popes were set up

and put down continually, and some of them were put to death by their

enemies. The body of one pope named Formosus, after it had been some

years in the grave, was taken up by order of one of his successors

(Stephen VI.), was dressed out in the full robes of office, and placed

in the papal chair; and then the dead pope was tried and condemned for

some offence against the laws of the Church. It was declared that the

clergy whom he had ordained were not to be reckoned as clergy; his

corpse was stripped of the papal robes; the fingers which he had been

accustomed to raise in blessing were cut off; and the body, after having

been dragged about the city, was thrown into the Tiber (A.D. 896).

Otho the Great, who has been mentioned as emperor, turned out a young

pope, John XII., who was charged with all sorts of bad conduct (A.D.

963); and that emperor's grandson, Otho III., put in two popes, one

after another (A.D. 996, 999). The second of these popes was a very

learned and clever Frenchman, named Gerbert, who as pope took the name

of Sylvester II. He had studied under the Arabs in Spain (for in some

kinds of learning the Arabs were then far beyond the Christians); and it

was he who first taught Christians to use the Arabic figures (such as 1,

2, and 3) instead of the Roman letters or figures (such as I., II., and

III.). He also made a famous clock; and on account of his skill in such

things people supposed him to be a sorcerer, and told strange stories

about him. Thus it is said that he made a brazen head, which answered

"Yes" and "No" to questions. Gerbert asked his head where he should

die, and supposed from the answer that it was to be in the city of

Jerusalem. But one day as he was at service in one of the Roman churches

which is called "Holy Cross in Jerusalem," he was taken very ill; and

then he understood that that church was the Jerusalem in which he was to

die. We need not believe such stories; but yet it is well to know about

them, because they show what people were disposed to believe in the time

when the stories were made.

The troubles of the papacy continued, and at one time there were no

fewer than three popes, each of whom had one of the three chief churches

of Rome, and gave himself out for the only true pope. But this state of

things was such a scandal that the emperor, Henry III., was invited from

Germany to put an end to it, and for this purpose he held a council at

Sutri, not far from Rome, in 1046. Two of the popes were set aside, and

the third, Gregory VI., who was the best of the three, was drawn to

confess that he had given money to get his office, because he wished to

use the power of the papacy to bring about some kind of reform. But on

this he was told that he had been guilty of simony--a sin which takes

its name from Simon the sorcerer, in the Acts of the Apostles (ch.

viii.), and which means the buying of spiritual things with money. This

had never struck Gregory before; but when told of it by the council he

had no choice but to lay aside his papal robes, and the emperor put one

of his own German bishops into the papacy.

CHAPTER VII.

MISSIONS OF THE NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES.

It will be pleasanter to tell you something about the missions of those

times; for a great deal of missionary work was then carried on.

(1.) The Bulgarians, who had come from Asia in the end of the seventh

century, and had settled in the country which still takes its name from

them, were converted by missionaries of the Greek Church. It is said

that, when some beginning of the work had been made, and the king

himself had been baptized by the patriarch of Constantinople (A.D. 861),

the king asked the Greek emperor to send him a painter to adorn the

walls of his palace; and that a monk named Methodius was sent

accordingly, for in those times monks were the only persons who

practised such arts as painting. The king desired him to paint a hall in

the palace with subjects of a terrible kind, by which he meant that the

pictures should be taken from the perils of hunting. But, instead of

such subjects, Methodius painted the last judgment, as being the most

terrible of all things; and the king, on seeing the picture of hell with

its torments, and being told that such would be the future place of the

heathen, was so terrified that he gave up the idols which he had kept

until then, and that many of his subjects were also moved to seek

admission into the Church.

Although the conversion of Bulgaria had been the work of Greek

missionaries, the popes afterwards sent some of their clergy into the

country, and claimed it as belonging to them; and this was one of the

chief causes why the Greek and the Latin churches separated from each

other, so that they have never since been really reconciled.

(2.) It is not certain whether the painter Methodius was the same with a

monk of that name, who, with his brother, named Cyril, brought about the

conversion of Moravia (A.D. 863). These missionaries went about their

work in a different way from what was common; for it had been usual for

the Greek clergy to use the Greek language, and for the Western clergy

to use the Latin, in their church-service and in other things relating

to religion; but instead of this, Cyril and Methodius learnt the

language of the country, and translated the church-services, with parts

of the holy Scriptures, into it, so that all might be understood by the

natives. In Moravia, too, there was a quarrel between the Greek and the

Latin clergy; but, although the popes usually insisted that the services

of the Church should be either in Latin or in Greek (because these were

two of the languages which were written over the Saviour's cross), they

were so much pleased with the success of Cyril and Methodius, that they

allowed the service of the Moravian Church to be still in the language

of the country.

(3.) Soon after the conversion of the Moravians, the duke of Bohemia

paid a visit to their king, Swatopluk, who received him with great

honour, but at dinner set him and his followers to sit on the floor, as

being heathens. Methodius, who was at the king's table, spoke to the

duke, and said that he was sorry to see so great a prince obliged to

feed as if he were a swineherd. "What should I gain by becoming a

Christian?" he replied; and when Methodius told him that the change

would raise him above all kings and princes, he and his thirty followers

were baptized.

A story of the same kind is told as to the conversion of the

Carinthians, which was brought about in the end of the eighth century by

a missionary named Ingo, who asked Christian slaves to eat at his own

table, while he caused food to be set outside the door for their heathen

masters, as if they had been dogs. This led the Carinthian nobles to ask

questions; and in consequence of what they heard they were baptized, and

their example was followed by their people generally.

The second bishop of Prague, the chief city of Bohemia, Adalbert, is

famous as having gone on a mission to the heathens of Prussia, by whom

he was martyred on the shore of the Frische Haff in 997.

(4.) In the north of Germany, in Denmark, and in Sweden, Anskar, who had

been a monk at Corbey, on the Weser, laboured for thirty-nine years with

earnest devotion and with great success (A.D. 826-865). In addition to

preaching the Gospel of salvation, he did much in such charitable works

as the building of hospitals and the redemption of captives; and he

persuaded the chief men of the country north of the Elbe to give up

their trade in slaves, which had been a source of great profit to them,

but which Anskar taught them to regard as contrary to the Christian

religion. Anskar was made archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen, and is

styled "The Apostle of the North." But he had to suffer many dangers and

reverses in his endeavours to do good. At one time, when Hamburg was

burnt by the Northmen, he lost his church, his monastery, his library,

and other property; but he only said, with the patriarch Job, "The Lord

gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!"

Then he set to work again, without being discouraged by what had

befallen him, and he even made a friend of the heathen king who had led

the attack on Hamburg. Anskar died in the year 865. It is told that when

some of his friends were talking of miracles which he was supposed to

have done, he said, "If I were worthy in my Lord's sight, I would ask of

Him to grant me one miracle--that He would make me a good man!"

(5.) The Russians were visited by missionaries from Greece, from Rome,

and from Germany, so that for a time they wavered between the different

forms of the Christian religion which were offered to them; but at

length they decided for the Greek Church. When their great prince (who,

at his baptism, took the name of Basil) had been converted (A.D. 988) he

ordered that the idol of the chief god who had been worshipped by the

Russians should be dragged at a horse's tail through the streets of the

capital, Kieff, and should be thrown into the river Dnieper. Many of the

people burst into tears at the sight; but when they were told that the

prince wished them to be baptized, they said that a change of religion

must be good if their prince recommended it; and they were baptized in

great numbers. "Some," we are told, "stood in the water up to their

necks, others up to their breasts, holding their young children in their

arms; and the priests read the prayers from the bank of the river,

naming at once whole companies by the same name."

(6.) I might give an account of the spreading of the Gospel in Poland,

Hungary, and other countries; but let us keep ourselves to the north of

Europe. Although Anskar had given up his whole life to missionary work

among the nations near the Baltic Sea, there was still much to be done,

and sometimes conversion was carried on in ways which to us seem very

strange. As an instance of this, I may give some account of a Norwegian

king named Olave, the son of Tryggve.

Olave was at first a heathen, and had long been a famous sea-rover, when

he was converted and baptized in one of the Scilly islands (A.D. 994).

He took up his new religion with a great desire to spread it among his

people, and he went about from one part of Norway to another, everywhere

destroying temples and idols, and requiring the people to be baptized

whether they were willing or not. At one place he found eighty heathens,

who were supposed to be wizards. He first tried to convert them in the

morning when they were sober, and again in the evening when they were

enjoying themselves over their horns of ale; and as he could not

persuade them, whether they were sober or drunk, he burnt their temple

over their heads. All the eighty perished except one, who made his

escape; and this man afterwards fell into the king's hands, and was

thrown into the sea.

At another time, Olave fell in with a young man named Endrid, who agreed

to become a Christian if any one whom the king might appoint should beat

him in diving, in archery, and in sword-play. Olave himself undertook

the match, and got the better of Endrid in all the trials; and then

Endrid gave in, and allowed himself to be converted and baptized. These

were strange ways of spreading the Gospel; but they seem to have had

their effect on the rough men of the North.

At last, Olave was attacked by some of his heathen neighbours, and was

beaten in a great sea-fight (A.D. 1000). It was generally believed that

he had perished in the sea; but there is a story of a Norwegian pilgrim

who, nearly fifty years later, lost his way among the sands of Egypt,

and lighted on a lonely monastery, with an old man of his own country as

its abbot. The abbot put many questions to him, and asked him to carry

home a girdle and a sword, and to give them with a message to a warrior

who had fought bravely beside King Olave in his last battle; and on

receiving them the old warrior was assured that the Egyptian abbot could

be no other than his royal master, who had been so long supposed to be

dead.

Somewhat later than Olave the son of Tryggve (A.D. 1015) Norway had

another king Olave, who was very zealous for the spreading of the Gospel

among his people, and, like the elder Olave, was willing to do so by

force if he could not manage the matter otherwise. On his visiting a

place called Dalen, a bishop named Grimkil, who accompanied him, set

forth the Christian doctrine; but the heathens answered that their own

god was better than the God of the Christians, because he could be seen.

The king spent the greater part of the night in prayer, and next morning

at daybreak the idol of the northern god Thor was brought forward by his

worshippers. Olave pointed to the rising sun, as being a witness to the

glory of its Maker; and, while the heathens were gazing on its

brightness, a tall soldier, to whom the king had given his orders

beforehand, lifted up his club and dashed the idol to pieces. A swarm of

loathsome creatures, which had lived within the idol's huge body, and

had fattened on the food and drink which were offered to it, rushed

forth, as in the case of the image of Serapis, hundreds of years

before;[67] whereupon the men of Dalen were convinced of the falsehood

of their old religion, and consented to be baptized. King Olave was at

length killed in battle against his heathen subjects (A.D. 1030), and

his memory is regarded as that of a saint.

[67] See Part I., chap. XVI.

(7.) From Norway the Gospel made its way to the Norwegian settlements in

Iceland, and even in Greenland, where it long flourished, until, in the

middle of the fifteenth century, ice gathered on the shores so as to

make it impossible to land on them. About the same time a great plague,

which was called the Black Death, carried off a large part of the

settlers, and the rest were so few and so weak that they were easily

killed by the natives.

It seems to be certain that some of the Norwegians from Greenland

discovered a part of the American continent, although no traces of them

remained there when the country was again discovered by Europeans,

hundreds of years later.

CHAPTER VIII.

POPE GREGORY THE SEVENTH.

PART I.

In the times of which I have been lately speaking, the power of the

popes had grown far beyond what it was in the days of Gregory the Great.

I have told you Gregory was very much displeased because a patriarch of

Constantinople had styled himself _Universal Bishop_.[68] But since that

time the popes had taken to calling themselves by this very title, and

they meant a great deal more by it than the patriarchs of Constantinople

had meant; for people in the East are fond of big words, so that, when a

patriarch called himself _Universal Bishop_, he did not mean anything in

particular, but merely to give himself a title which would sound

grandly. And thus, although he claimed to be universal, he would have

allowed the bishops of Rome to be universal too. But when the popes

called themselves _Universal Bishops_, they meant that they were bishops

of the whole church, and that all other bishops were under them.

[68] Part I., p. 159.

They had friends, too, who were ready to say anything to raise their

power and greatness. Thus, about the year 800, when the popes had begun

to get some land of their own, through the gifts of Pipin and

Charlemagne,[69] a story was got up that the first Christian emperor,

Constantine, when he built his city of Constantinople, and went to live

in the East, made over Rome to the pope, and gave him also all Italy,

with other countries of the West, and the right of wearing a golden

crown. And this story of Constantine's gift (or _donation_, as it was

called), although it was quite false, was commonly believed in those

days of ignorance.

[69] See p. 178.

About fifty years later another monstrous falsehood was put forth, which

helped the popes greatly. Somebody, who took the name of Isidore, a

famous Spanish bishop who had been dead more than two hundred years,

made a collection of Church law and of popes' letters; and he mixed up

with the true letters a quantity which he had himself forged, but which

pretended to have been written by bishops of Rome from the very time of

the Apostles. And in these letters it was made to appear that the pope

had been appointed by our Lord Himself to be head of the whole Church,

and to govern it as he liked; and that the popes had always used this

power from the beginning. This collection of laws is known by the name

of the _False Decretals_; but nobody in those times had any notion that

they were false, and so they were believed by every one, and the pope

got all that they claimed for him.

But in course of time the popes would not be contented even with this.

In former ages nobody could be made pope without the emperor's consent,

and we have seen how Otho the Great, his grandson, Otho III., and

afterwards Henry III., had thought that they might call popes to account

for their conduct; how these emperors brought some popes before councils

for trial, and turned them out of their office when they misbehaved.[70]

But just after Henry III., as we have read, had got rid of three popes

at once, a great change began, which was meant to set the popes above

the emperors. The chief mover in this change was Hildebrand, who is said

to have been the son of a carpenter in a little Tuscan town, and was

born between the years 1010 and 1020.

[70] Pp. 184, 185.

PART II.

Hildebrand became a monk of the strictest kind, and soon showed a

wonderful power of swaying the minds of other men. Thus, when a German

named Bruno, bishop of Toul, had been chosen as pope by Henry III., to

whom he was related, and as he was on his way to Rome that he might take

possession of his office, his thoughts were entirely changed by some

talk with Hildebrand, whom he happened to meet. Hildebrand told him that

popes, instead of being appointed by emperors, ought to be freely chosen

by the Roman clergy and people; and thereupon Bruno, putting off his

fine robes, went on to Rome in company with Hildebrand, whose lessons he

listened to all the way, so that he took up the monk's notions as to all

matters which concerned the Church. On arriving at Rome, he told the

Romans that he did not consider himself to be pope on account of the

emperor's favour, but that if they should think fit to choose him he was

willing to be pope. On this he was elected by them with great joy, and

took the name of Leo IX. (A.D. 1048). But, although Leo was called pope,

it was Hildebrand who really took the management of everything.

When Leo died (A.D. 1054), the Romans wished to put Hildebrand into his

place; but he did not yet feel himself ready to take the papacy, and

instead of this he contrived to get one after another of his party

elected, until at length, after having really directed everything for no

less than five-and-twenty years, and under the names of five popes in

succession, he allowed himself to be chosen in 1073, and styled himself

Gregory VII.

The empire was then in a very sad state. Henry III. had died in 1056,

leaving a boy less than six years old to succeed him; and this poor boy,

who became Henry IV., was very badly used by those who were about him.

One day, as he was on an island in the river Rhine, Hanno, archbishop of

Cologne, gave him such an account of a beautiful new boat which had been

built for the archbishop, that the young prince naturally wished to see

it; and as soon as he was safe on board, Hanno carried him off to

Cologne, away from his mother, the empress Agnes. Thus the poor young

Henry was in the hands of people who meant no good by him; and, although

he was naturally a bright, clever, amiable lad, they did what they could

to spoil him, and to make him unfit for his office, by educating him

badly, and by throwing in his way temptations to which he was only too

ready to yield. And when they had done this, and he had made himself

hated by many of his people on account of his misbehaviour, the very

persons who had done the most to cause his faults took advantage of

them, and tried to get rid of him as king of Germany and emperor. In the

meantime Hildebrand (or Gregory, as we must now call him) and his

friends had been well pleased to look on the troubles of Germany; for

they hoped to turn the discontent of the Germans to their own purpose.

Gregory had higher notions as to the papacy than any one who had gone

before him. He thought that all power of every kind belonged to the

pope; that kings had their authority from him; that all kingdoms were

held under him as the chief lord; that popes were as much greater than

kings or emperors as the sun is greater than the moon; that popes could

make or unmake kings just as they pleased; and although he had asked the

emperor to confirm his election, as had been usual, he was resolved that

such a thing should never again be asked of an emperor by any pope in

the time to come.

PART III.