for retaining these important papers, and the inquiry was mainly
directed to the proceedings of Aymon in France. If, as it was said,
he had gone thither to abjure Calvinism and betray his brethren, he
deserved reprimand, but if, on the other hand, he had penetrated the
camp of the enemy to defy it, and to witness a good confession in
the heart of the foe, he deserved a crown. Clement, to display Aymon
in his true colours, acting on the advice of the Minister, sent
copies of Aymon's letters. It was not thought that the good faith
of the French administration would be doubted. Aymon swore that the
letters were not his own, but that they had been fabricated by the
Government; and he offered to stake his head on the truth of what he
said. At the same time he dared De Torcy to produce the originals.
He had guessed aright: he knew exactly how far he could go. The
Dutch court actually questioned the good faith of these copies, and
demanded the originals. This, as Aymon had expected, was taken by De
Torcy as an insult, and all further communication on the subject
was abruptly stopped. It was a clever move of Aymon. He inverted by
one bold stroke the relative positions of himself and his accuser:
the judges at the Hague required M. de Torcy to re-establish his own
honour before proceeding with the question of Aymon's culpability.
In short, they supposed that one of the Ministers of the Crown, for
the sake of ruining a Protestant refugee, had deliberately committed
forgery.
The matter was dropped. After a while Aymon published translations
of some of the MSS. in his possession, and those who had expected
great results were disappointed. In the meantime poor Clement died,
heart-broken at the losses of the library committed to his care.
At last the Dutch Government, after the publication of Aymon's book,
and after renewed negotiation, restored the "Council of Jerusalem"
to the Bibliothèque du Roi. It still bears traces of the mutilations
and additions of Aymon.
In 1710, the imposter published the letters of Prospero S. Croce,
which he said he had copied in the Vatican, but which he had in fact
stolen from the Royal Library. In 1716 he published other stolen
papers. Clement was succeeded by the Abbé de Targny, who made vain
attempts to recover the lost treasures. The Abbé Bignon succeeded
De Targny, and he discovered fresh losses. Aymon had stolen Arabic
books as well as Greek and Italian MSS. There was no chance of
recovering the lost works through the courts of law, and Bignon
contented himself with writing to Holland, England, and Germany to
inquire whether any of the MSS. had been bought there.
The Baron von Stocks wrote to say that he had purchased some leaves
of the Epistles of S. Paul, some pages of the S. Denis Bible, and an
Arabic volume from Aymon for a hundred florins, and that he would
return them to the library for that sum. They were recovered in
March, 1720.
About the same time Mr. Bentley, librarian to the King of England,
announced that some more of the pages from the Epistles of S. Paul
were in Lord Harley's library; and that the Duke of Sunderland had
purchased various MSS. at the Hague from Aymon. In giving this
information to the Abbé Bignon, Mr. Bentley entreated him not to
mention the source of his information. M. de Bozé thereupon resolved
to visit England and endeavour to recover the MSS. But he was
detained by various causes.
In 1729, Earl Middleton offered, on the part of Lord Harley, to
return the thirty-four leaves of the Epistles in his possession,
asking only in return an acknowledgment sealed with the grand seal.
Cardinal Fleury, finding that the Royal signature could hardly be
employed for such a purpose, wrote in the King's name a letter to
the Earl of Oxford of a flattering nature, and the lost MSS. were
restored in September, 1729.
Those in the Sunderland collection have not, I believe, been
returned.
And what became of Aymon? In 1718 he inhabited the Chateau of
Riswyck. Thence he sent to the brothers Wetstein, publishers at
Amsterdam, the proofs of his edition of the letters of Visconti.
It appeared in 1719 in two 12mo volumes, under the title "Lettres,
Anecdotes, et Mémoires historiques du nonce Visconti, Cardinel
Préconisé et Ministre Secret de Pie IV. et de ses créatures." The
date of his death is not known.
Authority: Hauréau, J. Singularités Historiques et Litéraires.
Paris, 1881.
The Patarines of Milan.
I.
In the eleventh century, nearly all the clergy in the north of Italy
were married.[7] It was the same in Sicily, and it had been the same
in Rome,[8] but there the authority and presence of the Popes had
sufficed to convert open marriage into secret concubinage.
[7] "Cuncti fere cum publicis uxoribus ... ducebant vitam." "Et
ipsi, ut cernitur, sicut laici, palam uxores ducunt."--_Andr.
Strum. "Vit. Arialdi."_ "Quis clericorum non esset uxoratus vel
concubinarius?"--_Andr. Strum. "Vit. S. Joan. Gualberti."_
[8] "Coeperunt ipsi presbyteri et diacones laicorum more uxores
ducere suscepsosque filios hæredes relinquere. Nonnulli etiam
episcoporum verecund â omni contemptâ, cum uxoribus domo simul in
unâ habitare."--_Victor Papa "in Dialog."_
But concubinage did not in those times mean exactly what it means
now. A _concubina_ was an _uxor_ in an inferior degree; the woman
was married in both cases with the ring and religious rite, but the
children of the concubine could not inherit legally the possessions
of their father. When priests were without wives, concubines were
tolerated wives without the legal status of wives, lest on the death
of the priest his children should claim and alienate to their own
use property belonging to the Church. In noble and royal families
it was sometimes the same, lest estates should be dismembered. On
the death of a wife, her place was occupied by a concubine, and
the sons of the latter could not dispute inheritance with the sons
of the former. Nor did the Church look sternly on the concubine.
In the first Toledian Council a canon was passed with regard to
communicating those who had one wife or one concubine;--such were
not to be excluded from the Lord's Table,[9] so long only as each
man had but one wife or concubine, and the union was perpetual.
[9] "Qui unius mulieris, aut uxoris, aut concubinæ (ut ei
placuerit) sit conjunctione contentus."--1st Conc. of Toledo,
can. 17. "Hæ quippe, licet nec uxoribus, nec Reginarum decore
et privilegiis gaudebant, erant tamen veræ uxores," say the
Bollandist Fathers, and add, that it is a vulgar error "Concubinæ
appellationem solis iis tribuere, quæ corporis sui usum uni viro
commodant, nullo interim legitimo nexu devinctæ."--Acta SS., Jun.
T. L. p. 178.
But, though concubinage was universal among the clergy in Italy, at
Milan the priests openly, boldly claimed for their wives a position
as honourable as could be accorded them; and they asserted without
fear of contradiction that their privilege had received the sanction
of the great Ambrose himself. Married bishops had been common, and
saintly married prelates not unknown. St. Severus of Ravenna had a
wife and daughter, and though the late biographer asserts that he
lived with his wife as with a sister after he became a bishop, this
statement is probably made to get over an awkward fact.[10] When he
was about to die, he went to the tomb where his wife and daughter
lay, and had the stone removed. Then he addressed them thus--"My
dear ones, with whom I lived so long in love, make room for me, for
this is my grave, and in death we shall not be divided." Thereupon
he descended into the grave, laid himself between his wife and
daughter, and died. St. Heribert, Archbishop of Milan, had been a
married man with a wife esteemed for her virtues.[11]
[10] It is the same with St. Gregory, Nyssen, Baronius, Alban,
Butler, and other modern Hagiographers make this assertion
boldly, but there is not a shadow of evidence, in any ancient
authorities for his life, that this was the case.
[11] "Hic Archiepiscopus habuit uxorem nobilem mulierem; quæ
donavit dotem suam monasterii S. Dionysii, quæ usque hodie Uxoria
dicitur."--_Calvaneus Fiamma, sub ann. 1040._
By all accounts, friendly and hostile, the Lombard priests were
married openly, legally, with religious rite, exchange of ring, and
notarial deed. There was no shame felt, no supposition entertained
that such was an offence.[12]
[12] "Nec vos terreat," writes St. Peter Damiani to the wives of
the clergy "quod forte, non dicam fidei, sed perfidiæ vos annulus
subarrhavit; quod rata et monimenta dotalia notarius quasi
matrimonii jure conscripserit: quod juramentum ad confirmandam
quodammodo conjugii copulam utrinque processit. Ignorantes quia
pro uniuscujusque fugaci voluptate concubitus mlle annorum
negotiantur incendium."
How was this inveterate custom to be broken through? How the open,
honest marriage to be perverted into clandestine union? For to
abolish it wholly was beyond the power of the Popes and Councils. It
was in vain to appeal to the bishops, they sympathised with their
clergy. It was in vain to invoke the secular arm; the emperors,
the podestas, supported the parish-priests in their contumacious
adherence to immemorial privilege.
To carry through the reform on which they were bent, to utterly
abolish the marriage of the clergy, the appeal must be made to the
people.
In Milan this was practicable, for the laity, at least the lower
rabble, were deeply tinged with Patarinism, and bore a grudge
against the clergy, who had been foremost in bringing the luckless
heretics to the rack and the flames; and one of the most cherished
doctrines of the Patarines was the unlawfulness of marriage. What
if this anti-connubial prejudice could be enlisted by the strict
reformers of the Church, and turned to expend its fury on the clergy
who refused to listen to the expostulations of the Holy Father?
The Patarines, whom the Popes were about to enlist in their cause
against the Ambrosian clergy, already swarmed in Italy. Of their
origin and tenets we must say a word.
It is a curious fact that, instead of Paganism affecting
Christianity in the earliest ages of the Church, it was Christianity
which affected Paganism, and that not the Greek and Roman idolatry,
which was rotten through and through, but the far subtler and more
mystical heathenism of Syria, Egypt, Persia, and Mesopotamia.
The numerous Gnostic sects, so called from their claim to be the
possessors of the true _gnosis_, or knowledge of wisdom, were not,
save in the rarest cases, of Christian origin. They were Pagan
philosophical schools which had adopted and incorporated various
Christian ideas. They worked up Biblical names and notions into the
strange new creeds they devised, and, according as they blended
more or less of Christian teaching with their own, they drew to
themselves disciples of various tempers. Manes, who flourished in
the middle of the third century, a temporary and nominal convert
to the Gospel, blended some of these elder Gnostic systems with
the Persian doctrines of Zoroaster, added to a somewhat larger
element of Christianity than his predecessors had chosen to adopt.
His doctrines spread and gained an extensive and lasting hold on
the minds of men, suppressed repeatedly, but never disappearing
wholly, adopting fresh names, emerging in new countries, exhibiting
an irrepressible vitality, which confounded the Popes and Churchmen
from the third to the tenth centuries.
The tradition of Western Manicheism breaks off about the sixth
century; but in the East, under the name of Paulicians, the
adherents of Manichean doctrines endured savage persecutions during
two whole centuries, and spread, as they fled from the sword and
stake in the East, over Europe, entering it in two streams--one by
Bulgaria, Servia, and Croatia, to break out in the wild fanaticism
of the Taborites under Zisca of the Flail; the other, by way of the
sea, inundating northern Italy and Provence. In Piedmont it obtained
the name of Patarinism; in Provence, of Albigensianism.
With Oriental Manicheism, the Patarines and Albigenses of the West
held that there were two co-equal conflicting principles of good and
evil; that matter was eternal, and waged everlasting war against
spirit. Their moral life was strict and severe. They fasted, dressed
in coarse clothing, and hardly, reluctantly suffered marriage to the
weaker, inferior disciples. It was absolutely forbidden to those
who were, or esteemed themselves to be, perfect.
Already, in Milan, St Heribert, the married archbishop, had kindled
fires, and cast these denouncers of wedlock into them. In 1031 the
heretics held the castle of Montforte, in the diocese of Asti. They
were questioned: they declared themselves ready to witness to their
faith by their blood. They esteemed virginity, and lived in chastity
with their wives, never touched meat, and prayed incessantly. They
had their goods in common. Their castle stood a siege. It was at
length captured by the Archbishop. In the market-place were raised
a cross on one side, a blazing pyre on the other. The Patarines
were brought forth, commanded to cast themselves before the cross,
confess themselves to be heretics, or plunge into the flames. A few
knelt to the cross; the greater number covered their faces, rushed
into the fire, and were consumed.[13]
[13] Landulf Sen. ii. c. 27.
St. Augustine, in his book on Heresies, had already described these
heretics. He, who had been involved in the fascinating wiles of
Manicheism, could not be ignorant of them. He calls them Paternians,
or Venustians, and says that they regarded the flesh as the work of
the devil--that is, of the evil principle, because made of matter.
In the eleventh century, in Lombardy, they are called Patarines,
Patrins, or Cathari. Muratori says that they derived their name
from the part of the town of Milan in which they swarmed, near the
Contrada di Patari; but it is more probable that the quarter was
called after them.
In 1074 Gregory VII. in solemn conclave will bless them altogether,
by name, as the champions of the Holy See, and of the Truth; in
1179 Alexander III. will anathematise them altogether, as heretics
meet to be burned. Frederick II., when seeking reconciliation with
Honorius III. and Gregory IX., will be never weary of offering
hecatombs of Patarines, in token of his orthodoxy.
Ariald, a native of Cuzago, a village near Milan, of ignoble birth,
in deacon's orders, was chosen for the dangerous expedient of
enlisting the Patarine heretics against the orthodox but relaxed
clergy of that city. Milan, said a proverb, was famous for its
clergy; Ravenna for its churches. In morals, in learning, in exact
observance of their religious duties, the clergy of Milan were
prominent among the priests of Lombardy. But they were all married.
The Popes could expect no support from the Archbishop, Guido
Vavasour; none from the Emperor Henry IV., then a child. Ariald
was a woman-hater from infancy, deeply tinged with Patarinism. We
are told that even as a little boy the sight of his sisters was
odious to him.[14] He began to preach in Milan in 1057, and the
populace was at once set on fire[15] by his sermons. They applauded
vociferously his declaration that the married clergy were no longer
to be treated as priests, but as "the enemies of God, and the
deceivers of souls."
[14] For authorities we have Andrew of Vallombrosa, _d._ A.D.
1170, a disciple of Ariald. He was a native of Parma. He
afterwards went to Florence, where he was mixed up with the riots
occasioned by St. John Gualberto in 1063. He joined the Order of
Vallombrosa, and became Abbot of Strumi. At least, I judge, and
so do the Bollandists, that Andrew of Vallombrosa and Andrew of
Strumi are the same.
[15] "Plebs fere universa sic est accensa."
Then up rose from among the mob a clerk named Landulf, a man of
loud voice and vehement gesture, and offered to join Ariald in his
crusade. The crowd, or, at least, a part of it, enthusiastically
cheered; another part of the audience, disapproving, deeming it an
explosion of long-suppressed Manicheism, which would meet with stern
repression, thought it prudent to withdraw.
A layman of fortune, named Nazarius, offered his substance to
advance the cause, and his house as a harbour for its apostles.
The sermon was followed by a tumult. The whole city was in an
uproar, and the married clergy were threatened or maltreated by
the mob. Guido Vavasour de Velati, the Archbishop, was obliged
to interfere. He summoned Ariald and Landulf before him, and
remonstrated. "It is unseemly for a priest to denounce priests. It
is impolitic for him to stir up tumult against his brethren. Let
not brothers condemn brothers, for whose salvation Christ died."
Then turning to Landulf, "Why do not you return to your own wife and
children whom you have deserted, and live with them as heretofore,
and set an example of peace and order? Cast the beam out of thine
own eye, before thou pluckest motes out of the eyes of thy brethren.
If they have done wrong, reprove them privately, but do not storm
against them before all the people." He concluded by affirming the
lawfulness of priests marrying, and insisted on the cessation of
the contest.[16] Ariald obstinately refused to desist. "Private
expostulation is in vain. As for obstinate disorders you apply fire
and steel, so for this abuse we must have recourse to desperate
remedies."
[16] "Hæc cum Guido placide dixisset; eo finem orationis dixerit,
ut sacerdotibus fas esset dicere uxores ducere."--_Alicatus,
"Vit. Arialdi."_
He left the Archbishop to renew his appeals to the people. But
dreading lest Guido should use force to restrain him, Ariald invoked
the support of Anselm de Badagio, Bishop of Lucca, and received
promise of his countenance and advocacy at Rome.
Guido Vavasour had succeeded the married Archbishop Heribert in
1040. His election had not satisfied the people, who had chosen,
and proposed for consecration, four priests, one of whom the nobles
were expected to select. But the nobles rejected the popular
candidates, and set up in their place Guido Vavasour, and his
nomination was ratified by the Emperor and by the Pope. He was
afterwards, as we shall see, charged with having bribed Henry III.
to give him the See, but was acquitted of the charge, which was
denounced as unfounded by Leo IX. in 1059. The people, in token
of their resentment, refused to be present at the first mass he
sang. "He is a country bumpkin," said they. "Faugh! he smells of
the cow-house."[17] Consequently there was simmering discontent
against the Archbishop for Ariald to work upon; he could unite the
lower people, whose wishes had been disregarded by the nobles, with
the Patarines, who had been haled before ecclesiastical courts for
their heresy, in one common insurrection against the clergy and the
pontiff.
[17] Arnulf., Gesta Archiepisc. Mediol. ap. Pertz, x. p. 17.
According to Landulf the elder, a strong partisan of the Archbishop,
another element of discontent was united to those above enumerated.
The clergy of Milan had oppressed the country people. The Church had
estates outside of Milan, vine and olive yards and corn-fields. The
clergy had been harsh in exacting feudal rights and legal dues.
Ariald, as a native of a country village, knew the temper of the
peasants, and their readiness to resent these extortions. Ariald
worked upon the country-folk; Landulf, rich and noble, and eloquent
in speech, on the town rabble; and the two mobs united against the
common enemy.
Anselm de Badagio, priest and popular preacher at Milan, had been
mixed up with Landulf and Ariald in the controversy relative to
clerical marriage; but to stop his mouth the Archbishop had given
him the bishopric of Lucca, in 1057, and had supplied his place
as preacher at Milan by seven deacons. Landulf the elder relates
that these deacons preached with such success that Anselm, in a
fit of jealousy, returned to Milan to listen to their sermons, and
scornfully exclaimed, "They may become preachers, but they must
first put away their wives."
According to the same authority, Ariald bore a grudge against the
Archbishop for having had occasion to rebuke him on account of some
irregularity of which he had been guilty. But Landulf the elder is
not to be trusted implicitly; he is as bigoted on one side as is
Andrew of Strumi on the other.
In the meantime the priests and their wives were exposed to every
sort of violence, and "a great horror fell on the Ambrosian clergy."
The poor women were torn from their husbands, and driven from the
city; the priests who refused to be separated from their companions
were interdicted from the altar.[18]
[18] "Sic ab eodem populo sunt persecuta et deleta (clericorum
connubia) ut nullus existeret quin aut cogeretur tantum nefas
dimittere, vel ad altare non accedere."--_Andr. Strum._
Landulf was sent to Rome to report progress, and obtain confirmation
of the proceedings of the party from the Pope. He reached Piacenza,
but was unable to proceed farther; he was knocked down, and finding
the way barred by the enemies of his party, returned to Milan.
Ariald then started, and eluding his adversaries, arrived safely at
Rome. He presented himself before Pope Stephen X., who was under the
influence of Hildebrand, and, therefore, disposed to receive him
with favour. Stephen bade him return to Milan, prosecute the holy
war, and, if need be, shed his blood in the sacred cause.
The appeal to Rome was necessary, as the Archbishop and a large
party of the citizens, together with all the clergy, had denounced
Ariald and Landulf as Patarines. The fact was notorious that the
secret and suspected Manichees in Milan were now holding up their
heads and defying those who had hitherto controlled them. The
Manichees suddenly found that from proscribed heretics they had
been exalted into champions of orthodoxy. It was a satisfactory
change for those who had been persecuted to become persecutors, and
turn their former tyrants into victims. But now, to the confusion
and dismay of the clergy, they found themselves betrayed by the
Pope, and at the mercy of those who had old wrongs to resent.
Fortified with the blessing of the Pope on his work, his orthodoxy
triumphantly established by the supreme authority, Ariald rushed
back to Milan, accompanied by papal legates to protect him,
and proclaim his mission as divine. He was unmeasured in his
denunciations. Dissension fast ripened into civil war. Ariald, at
the head of a roaring mob, swept the clergy together into a church,
and producing a paper which bound all of them by oath to put away
their wives, endeavoured to enforce their subscription.
A priest, maddened to resentment, struck the demagogue in the mouth.
This was the signal for a general tumult. The adherents of Ariald
rushed through the streets, the alarm bells pealed, the populace
gathered from all quarters, and a general hunting down of the
married clergy ensued.
"How can the blind lead the blind?" preached Landulf Cotta. "Let
these Simoniacs, these Nicolaitans be despised. You who wish to have
salvation from the Lord, drive them from their functions; esteem
their sacrifices as dogs' dung (_canina stercora_)! Confiscate their
goods, and every one of you take what he likes![19] We can imagine
the results of such license given to the lowest rabble. The nobles,
over-awed, dared not interfere.
[19] Arnulf., _Gesta Ep. Mediol._ ap. Pertz, x. p. 18. It is
necessary not to confound Landulf Cotta, the demagogue, with
Landulf the elder, the historian, and Landulf the younger, the
disciple and biographer of Ariald.
Nor were the clergy of the city alone exposed to this popular
persecution. The preachers roved round the country, creating riots
everywhere. This led to retaliation, but retaliation of a feeble,
harmless sort. A chapel built by Ariald on his paternal estate was
pulled down; and the married clergy resentfully talked of barking
his chestnut trees and breaking down his vines, but thought better
of it, and refrained.
A more serious attempt at revenge was the act of a private
individual. Landulf Cotta was praying in a church, when a priest
aimed at him with a sword, but without seriously hurting him. A
cripple at the church door caught the flying would-be assassin; a
crowd assembled, and Landulf with difficulty extricated the priest
alive from their hands.
Ariald and Cotta now began to denounce those who had bought their
cures of souls, or had paid fees on their institution to them. They
stimulated the people to put down simony, as they had put down
concubinage. "Cursed is he that withholdeth his hand from blood!"
was the fiery peroration of a sermon on this subject by Ariald.