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Gift of

REV. WILLIAM H. OWEN

IB^J[

HISTORY OF
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

.»-

A HISTORY

CHEISTIAN CHUKCH.

WITH FOUR MAPS CONSTRUCTED FOR THIS WORK
BY A. KEITH JOHNSTON.

by
CHARLES HARDWICK, M.A.
FORMERLY FELLOW OF ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, AND ARCHDEACON OF ELY.

EDITED BY
W. STUBBS, D.D.
BISHOP OF OXFORD.

Hon&on :
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YOEK.
1894.
[All Rights reserved.]

First Edition, 1853. Second, 1861. Third (revised by Professor Stubbs),
1872. Reprinted 1874, 1877, 1883, 1894.

14-

^53 Kg

TO
THE MASTER AND FELLOWS
OF
ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE,
®bts Volume
IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED
AS A MEMORIAL OF HAPPY YEARS SPENT IN
TDEIB SOCIETY.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THIS EDITION.
In the preparation of the present Edition no further
alterations have been made than seemed necessary in
order to maintain the character of the Book. With this
view I have carefully revised both text and notes, re-writing
several of the latter and one or two passages of the former,
on which recent research has shed new light. All the
alterations are corrections of matters of fact, dates and the
like ; and the doctrinal, historical and generally speculative
views of the lamented Author have been preserved intact
whether or no they happened to be my own.
WILLIAM STUBBS.

Kettel Hall, Oxford,
May 4, 1872.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

Although this volume has been written for the series
of Theological Manuals projected by the present Pub
lishers five years ago, it claims to be regarded as an in
tegral and independent treatise on the Mediaeval Church.
I have begun with Gregory the Great, because it is
admitted on all hands that his pontificate became a turn
ing-point, not only in the fortunes of the Western tribes
and nations, but of Christendom at large. A kindred
reason has suggested the propriety of pausing at the
year 1520, — the year when Luther, having been extruded
from those Churches that adhered to the communion of
the pope, established a provisional form of government
and opened a fresh era in the history of Europe. All
the intermediate portion is, ecclesiastically speaking, the
Middle Age.
The ground-plan of this treatise coincides in many
points with one adopted at the close of the last century
in the colossal work of Schrockh, and since that time by
others of his thoughtful countrymen; but in arranging
the materials I have frequently pursued a very different

Preface to

course. The reader will decide upon the merit of these
changes, or, in other words, he will determine whether
they have added to the present volume aught of clearness
and coherence.
With regard to the opinions (or, as some of our Ger
manic neighbours would have said, the stand-point) of
the author, I am willing to avow distinctly that I always
construe history with the specific prepossessions of an
Englishman, and, what is more, with those which of ne
cessity belong to members of* the English Church. I
hope, however, that although the judgment passed on
facts may, here and there, have been unconsciously dis
coloured, owing to the prejudices of the mind by which
they are observed, the facts themselves have never once
been seriously distorted, garbled, or suppressed.
It is perhaps superfluous to remark, that I have
uniformly profited by the researches of my predecessors,
ancient, modern, Roman, and Reformed. Of these I may
particularize Baronius1, and, still more, Raynaldus (his
continuator), Fleury2, Schrockh3, Gieseler4, Neander6, Dol-

1 Baronius : best edition, including the Continuation of Baynaldus,
and the Critica of Pagi, in 38 volumes, Lucse, 1738.
2 Fleury : in 36 volumes, si Bruxelles, 1713 sq. The Continuation
(after 1414) is by Fabre.
3 Schrockh: in 43 volumes, Leipzig, 1768 — 1808.
4 Gieseler: translated in Clarke's Theological Library ; 5 volumes,
Edinburgh, 1846—1855.
5 Neander: translated in Bonn's Standard Library : 9 volumes.

the First Edition.

linger1, and Capefigue2. Others will be noticed as occasion
offers in the progress of the work. But more considerable
help was yielded by the numerous writers, whether Eng
lish or Continental, who have dedicated single treatises
to some peculiar branch of this inquiry. I must add,
however, that I do not pay a servile deference to any of
the second-hand authorities ; while in those portions of
the history that bear upon the Church of England, nearly
all the statements I have made are drawn directly from
the sources.
One may scarcely hope that in a subject where the
topics to be handled are so vast, so various, and so com
plicated, errors will not be detected by the learned and
sagacious critic. As my wish is to compile a useful and
a truthful hand-book, every hint which he may furnish,
tending to remove its blemishes, will be most thankfully
received.

1 Dollinger: translated by Cox, 4 volumes.
2 Capefigue: in 2 volumes, & Paris, 1852.
Excepting where a given work has not been printed more than once,
which happens frequently among the great historical collections (e.g. those
of Twysden, Petrie, Bouquet, or Pertz), the particular edition, here made
use of, has been specified in the notes.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

A few words will explain the circumstances under
which the Second Edition of a portion of the late Arch
deacon Hardwick's Work has been prepared for the press
by another hand. The Author had made preparations
for a revised edition of this volume. These additions
and alterations have been inserted in their place.
The editor has verified a large proportion of the
original references. A few additional references are also
given, e.g. to the Chronicles anal Memorials of Great
Britain and Ireland, now in course of publication under
the sanction of the Master of the Rolls, and to Dean
Milman's History of Latin Christianity; and some others,
which it is hoped will make the work more useful to the
Students, for whom this Series of Theological Manuals
is mainly intended.

CONTENTS.

FIRST PERIOD.
FROM GREGORY THE GREAT TO THE DEATH OF
CHARLEMAGNE.

590-814.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
j 1. Growth of the Church.
In England  ... 6
In Germany and parts adjacent . . 16
In Eastern Asia ........ 26
In Africa .... .... 28
2. Limitation of the Church.
Muhammedanism  29
CHAPTER II.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OP THE CHURCH.
1. Internal Organization  34
2. Relations to the Civil Power . . . 49
CHAPTER III.
STATE OP RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND CONTROVERSIES,
Western Church ... 56
Eastern Church . . . . .64
The Paulicians. .  78
CHAPTER IV.
STATE OF INTELLIGENCE AND PIETY ... 85

Contents.

SECOND PERIOD.
FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE TO POPE GREGORY VII.
814—1073.
CHAPTER V. PAGE
§ 1. Growth of the Church.
In the Scandinavian kingdoms  100
Among the Slavic or Slavonian races . . . . Ill
Moravian Church . . . . . ib.
Bohemian. Church . . . 114
Polish Church ... ... 116
Wendish Chur.ch . . .117
Kussian Church ... .119
Bulgarian Church .... 121
Other Slavonic Churches .... 124
Hungarians  . 126
In Central Asia  128
§ 2. Limitation of the Church.
Bavages of the Northmen . . ... 130
Persecutions in Spain . . . . 132
CHAPTER VI.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OP THE CHURCH.
§ 1. Internal Organization .... . . 134
§ 2. Relations to the Civil Power . . .... 149
CHAPTER VII.
STATE OF RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND CONTROVERSIES.
Western Church . .  156
Eastern Church , . ... 176
Separation of East and West . . . 181
Eastern and Western Sects . . . 187
CHAPTER VIII.
STATE OF INTELLIGENCE AND PIETY . . 191

Contents. xv

THIRD PERIOD.
FROM GREGORY VII. UNTIL THE TRANSFER OF THE
PAPAL SEE TO AVIGNON.
1073—1305.
CHAPTER IX. PAGE
§ 1. Growth of the Church
Among the Finns  . 206
In Pomerania  . 207
Among the Wends  . 209
Lieflanders and other tribes . . 212
Prussians .... .214
§ 2. Vicissitudes of the Church in other regions.
Eastern Asia  . . 217
Spain and Northern Africa . . 219
Among the Jews  220
CHAPTER X.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OP THE CHURCH.
§ 1. Internal Organization . . . . . 221
§ 2. Relations to the Civil Power .... . 243
CHAPTER XL
STATE OF RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND CONTFOVERSIES.
Western Church . . . ... 257
Eastern Church ... . . . 272
Relations of the East and West . ... 276
Eastern and Western Sects . . . 282
Bogomiles ... . . ib.
Cathari and Albigenses . . 286
Petrobrusians .... . . 290
Waldenses or Vaudois . . . 291
* Apostolicals . . . . . 294
CHAPTER XII.
STATE OF INTELLIGENCE AND PIETY . . 296

XVI

Contents.

FOURTH PERIOD.
FROM THE TRANSFER OF THE PAPAL SEE TO AVIGNON UNTIL
THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF LUTHER.
1305-1520.
CHAPTER XIII. PAGE
Growth of the Church.
Among the Lithuanians  312
Samaites and Lapps . ... 314
Kumanians . . • ib.
In the Canaries and Western Africa . . . 315
In America  316
Compulsory Conversion of Muhammedans and Jews . 318
CHAPTER XIV.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OP THE CHURCH.
The Papacy  321
Other Branches of the Hierarchy . . . 340
CHAPTER XV.
STATE OF RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND CONTROVERSIES.
Western Church  351
Eastern Church . ... . . 362
Relations of East and West ¦ . . . 364
Reformatory Efforts  371
Wycliffites  874
Hussites  . . 400
CHAPTER XVI.
STATE OP INTELLIGENCE AND PIETY . . 414

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A HISTOEY

OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

^isefrri IJmntr.

THE period of the Church's life, to be considered in the
following pages, will exhibit a variety of features with
which the student has been familiarized already in the
history of earlier times.
The foremost article of faith, the Incarnation of our
Lord, after a long struggle with Rationalism on the one
side and Spiritualism on the other, was finally elucidated
and established at the Council of Chalcedon (451) : and
although we shall hereafter notice sundry forms of mis
belief on this and kindred tenets, they are frequently no
more than reproductions or recurring phases of the past. It
should also be observed, that not a few of the characteristics
of the Church in her ritual, constitution, and relations to
the civil power, had been permanently fixed at the opening
of this period ; and most of the external changes afterwards
effected are the natural fruit of principles that had long
been ripening within. The same is true in a considerable
measure of the mediaeval Church-writers. Generally speak
ing, they trod in the steps of their immediate predecessors,
epitomizing what they had no longer the ability to equal,
and, with bright exceptions in St Bernard and some of
the' leading schoolmen, showing little or no depth and
originality of thought.
It is true the degree of intelligence was different at
**M. A. B

introduc tion.

tive same
ness in
the aspect
of the
Church.

History of the Christian Church.

INTRODUC TION.
Decay of
intelligenceand of
piety.

Growth of
the papal
power in
the West.

Eastern Church
different
from the
Western.

different points of the Middle Ages, and varied also in the
several branches of the Church. Perhaps the lowest point
for western Christendom at large was the sixth and two
following centuries, when society, everywhere depressed
by the recent inroads of barbarians, had not been able to
rally from its languor and to mould its chaotic elements
afresh. To this, among other causes, we may assign the
deterioration of piety as well as of arts and letters, which
is painfully prominent in the records of that period : and
to the same source is due the admixture of unchristian
feelings and ideas that had been blended with the life of
the Mediaeval Church, clouding the sense of personal re
sponsibility, or giving birth to a servile and Judaizing
spirit, that continued, more or less, to keep its hold upon
the faithful till the dawn of the Reformation.
Synchronizing with the decay of literature, the dege
neracy of taste, and an obscuration of the deeper verities
of the Gospel, is the growth of the Papal monarchy,
whose towering pretensions are in sight through the whole
of the present period. It may have served, indeed, as a
centralizing agent, to facilitate the fusion of discordant
races ; it may have proved itself in times of anarchy and
ignorance a powerful instrument, and in some sort may
have balanced the encroachments of the civil power. Yet
on the whole its effect was deadening and disastrous : it
weakened the bonds of ecclesiastical discipline by screening
the mendicant and monastic orders from the jurisdiction
of the bishops : it perpetuated the use of Latin Service-
books when the mass of the people could no longer under
stand them : it crippled the spirit of national independence
as well as the growth of individual freedom: while its pride
and venality excited a bitter disaffection to the Church,
and opened a way for the deep convulsions at the middle
of the sixteenth century.
But this remark, as well as the former on the altered
phases of society, must be confined to the Western or
Latin Church, which was in close communion with the
popes. In the Eastern, where the like disturbing powers
had operated less, the aspect of religion was comparatively
smooth. Islamism, which curtailed it on all sides, but was
incapable of mingling with it, did not waken in its mem
bers a more primitive devotion, nor inject a fresh stock of

Mediceval Period.

energy and health : it had already entered, in the seventh
century, upon the calm and protracted period of decline
which is continuing at the present day.
Yet, notwithstanding the stagnant uniformity in the
general spirit of the age, a change had been gradually
effected in the limits of the Christian kingdom. True to
the promise of the Lord, the Church of God multiplied in
all quarters, putting forth a number of new branches in the
East and in the West, and, in spite of the dimness of the
times, bearing witness to its heavenly origin and strength.
As it had already triumphed over the systems of Greece
and Rome, and had saved from the wreck of ancient
civilization whatever they possessed of the beautiful and
true, it now set out on a different mission, to raise the
uncultured natures of the North1, and to guide the Saxon,
the Scandinavian, and eventually the Slave, into the fold
of the Good Shepherd.
1 All Science and art, all social culture, and the greatest political and
national movements, received their impulse from the Church, and were
guided and ruled by her spirit, however imperfect the form may have
been under which Christianity then existed.

Proofs of

energy m
the whole.

b2

jfinsi |mrir of % 3PMe %p.

THE CHRISTIAN CHTJRCH FROM GREGORY THE
GREAT TO THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE.

590—814.

ENGLISH CHUBCH.

Romanmission to
the Anglo-
Saxons,a.d. 596.

CHAPTER I.

§ l. GROWTH OF THE CHUBCH.

IN ENGLAND.
Steps had been already taken for the evangelizing of
the Goths in Germany, the Burgundians and Franks in
Gaul, and the Picts1 in Scotland ; in all which provinces
the labours of the missionary had been very largely blessed.
But a race of men, who were destined above others to
aid in converting the rest of Europe, was now added to
the Christian body. The Anglo-Saxons had been settled
on the ruins of the British Church for at least a century
and a half, when a mission, formed by Gregory the Great2,
appeared in the isle of Thanet. It was headed by his
friend Augustine, a Roman abbot, whose companions were
nearly forty in number3. Although the Germanic tribes
were bordering on the British Christians4, whom they had
driven to the west, and had extended their conquests as
1 Columba, after labouring 32 years, breathed his last at the time
when the Boman missionaries landed (Annates Cambria, in Monument.
Britann. p. 831; see also his life by Adamnan, ed. Beeves, Dublin, 1857,
pp. 228 — 230, 310; and in Canisius, Lectiones Antiques, v. pt. n. p. 559).
2 The pious design had been conceived many years before, while
Gregory was abbot of a monastery in Borne. Beda, Hist. Ecc. n. 1 : and
from his own letters we learn that intelligence had reached bim of a
desire on the part of the English themselves for conversion to the
Christian faith. Lib. vi. ep. 58, 59.
3 'Ut ferunt, ferme quadraginta.' Bed. i. 25. They were at first
deterred by the hopelessness of the undertaking, and only reassured by
an earnest letter from the Boman bishop: Gregor. Ep. lib. vi. ep. 51.
4 Though much depressed, the British Church, was far from extin
guished. Bede (a warm friend of the Boman missionaries) mentions
'septem Brittonum episcopi et plures viri doctissimi,' n. 2; and the
monastery of Bancornaburg (ZJan^or-ys-Coed), under its abbot Dinoot,
was large and nourishing. This applies of course only to the Western
side of the island.

Growth of the Chwrch.

far as the Church that was already planted in the north1
by a mission from the sister island, they had lost very
little of their zeal for Woden, Tiw, and Fricge2. It is
not indeed unlikely that some of them may have gained
a slight knowledge of the Gospel from their numerous
Keltic slaves ; yet the only Christian of importance in Kent
on the landing of Augustine was the Frankish queen of
iEthelberht, whom he espoused on condition of allowing
her the free use of her religion8. The system, therefore,
which the Roman missionaries founded was entirely of
extraneous growth, was built on the Roman model of the
period ; and as it differed4 not a little from that of the British
1 Bed. in. 4; v. 9. Saxon Chron. ad an. 565. Ninias, 'the apostle
of the southern Picts' (between the Firth of Forth and the Grampians),
had been educated at Borne, and died early in the fifth century. His see
was at 'Candida Casa' (in Sax. Chron. Hwiterne). It afterwards came
into the hands of the 'Angles' (Bed. in. 4). Columba and his successors
had their original establishment among the northern Picts (the Gael) at
Hycolumbcille, or Iona,
2 For an account of their mythology see Turner, Anglo-Saxons,
Append, bk. ii. c. m., and Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 327 — 445.
3 In her retinue was a Frankish bishop, Liudhard, who officiated in
the church of St Martin near Canterbury, preserved from the time of the
Bomans. Bed. i. 25, 26.
4 The first point of difference was in the reckoning of Easter. The
British and Irish were not indeed Quarto-decimani (Bed. in. 4): they
uniformly solemnized that festival on a Sunday, but in some years (owing
to their use of the cycle which up to 458 had been employed at Borne) on
a Sunday different from that observed by the rest of the Church. (Bed.
n. 2. 19 ; Ideler, Chronol. n. 275 seq. Councils and Ecclesiastical Docu
ments, ed. Haddan and Stubbs, i. 152, 153.) The second was in the
administering of baptism, the exact point of which is uncertain. It
appears however that the defect was not the omission of Chrism or Con
firmation, which although disused in the Irish Church at a later period
(Ep. Lanfr. Opp. ed. Bened. p. 320), are mentioned in St Patrick's letter
to Coroticus. It is more probable that the practice was that of single
immersion. (Kunstmann, Pbnitent. Bucher der Angelsachs. p. 2. Coun
cils and Eccl. Doc. i. 153.) Other points which emerged later than
Augustine's time were the form of clerical tonsure (TJssher, Antiq. Brit.
477), a practice of consecrating bishops by a single bishop (Counc. and
Eccl. Doc. 1. 155), peculiar ritual at ordination (ibid.), and consecration
of churches. The question of the Marriage of the Clergy, which is some
times alleged as a disputed one, does not seem to have arisen ; nor is there
any reason to suppose that the state of opinion respecting it was at this
moment in Britain at all different from that of the other Western
Churches. The real question that prevented union was no doubt Au
gustine's claim to superiority. (See below, pp. 8, 9.) Augustine con
sented to waive the other differences for the present, if three points were
conceded: 'Quia in multis quidem nostra consuetudini, imo universalis
ecclesise, contraria geritis : et tamen si in tribus his mihi obtemperare
vultis, ut pascha suo tempore oelebretis ; ut ministerium baptizandi, quo

ENGLISH
CHURCH.

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 590

ENGLISH
CHURCH.
First steps
of the
Romanmission.

meat with
the British
Church :
a.d. 603.

and the Irish Churches, its advancement could not fail to
place it in collision with those bodies.
The field of Augustine's earlier labours was the king
dom of Kent. Softened by a Christian consort, the king
was himself baptized; and in his chief city (Durovernum
=Canterbury), Augustine was acknowledged as archbishop
of the English, being consecrated in 597, by Virgilius of
Aries1. This fact was announced to Gregoiy the Great by
two members of the mission, Laurentius and Peter2, who
bore a detailed account of its success ; and Gregory3 was
able to inform an Eastern correspondent, that on Christ
mas-day, 597, no less than ten thousand ' Angli' had been
baptized by their brother-bishop. Still, in spite of this
glowing picture, the conversion of the people was after
wards retarded : numbers of them, only half-weaned from
paganism, relapsing to their former state4. As the sphere
of the Roman mission widened, the unfriendly posture
of the native Christians would be more and more per
plexing. A conference6 was accordingly procured by the
help of iEthelberht, with the hope of disarming this
hostility and of gaining the cooperation of the British :
but the haughty manner of Augustine, threatening an
invasion of their freedom, was the signal for a harsh and
spirited resistance ; they instantly rejected his proposals,
and declared that nothing should induce them to accept
him as their archbishop6. A similar divergency of usages,
Deo renascimur, juxta morem sanctas Bomanse et apostolicse eGclesias
compleatis ; ut genti Anglorum una nobiscum verbum Domini praedicetis,
cffitera quae agitis, quamvis moribus nostris contraria, aequanimiter cuncta
tolerabimus.' Bed. n. 2.
1 Bed. i. 27, and Pagi, Critic, ad an. 596, § 5.
2 Djid. They carried also a string of questions from Augustine, touch
ing matters in which he was himself at a loss. The answers of Gregory
are preserved in Bede, ib.
3 Gregor. Epist. lib. vni. ep. 30. Bede attributes the success of the
missionaries to the 'simplicitatem innocentis vita; ac dulcedinem doc-
trinae eorum ccelestis,' i. 26, though Augustine is said to have wrought
miracles (i. 31 : cf. Greg. Epist. vm. 30).
4 e. g. in Kent itself, Eadbald, the next king, restored the heathen
worship. 6 Bed. n. 2 : cf. Palgrave, Engl. Common, i. 238 seq.
8 'At illi nil horum se facturos neque ilium pro archiepiscopo habituros
esse respondebant. ' Bed. ibid. A very spirited protest, granting that the
Britons owed to the Boman bishop, in common with all Christians, the
deference of love, but denying that any other obedience was due to him,
is ascribed to Dinoot abbot of Bangor, who is mentioned by Bede on this

Growth of the Church.

—814]combined with this independent spirit, had produced a
similar estrangement in the Irish missionaries, who were
stationed in the north of Britain. Laurentius1, the suc
cessor of Augustine at Canterbury, with Mellitus of Lon
don and Justus of Rochester, endeavoured to secure their
friendship, about 605, complaining that a prelate of their
communion (Daganus) would not even eat bread with the
Anglo-Roman party : but this, like the former application
to the Britons, was at present void of fruit.
Meanwhile the two bands of workmen were proceed
ing in their labours, and though parted from each other
felt the blessing of the Lord. At the death of Augustine2,
the English Church had been organized in Kent and
brought into close communion with the Roman ; the pope,
however, leaving its founder at liberty to select a ritual
for it from the Gallican and other ' uses 3,' instead of
copying the Roman rules entirely. On the accession of
Eadbald, the son of iEthelberht, in 616, the prospects of
the Church were darkened by the restoration of the pagan
worship: and only when Laurentius was on the point of
giving up the mission in despair4, did the king retrace
his steps, and bow the knee to Christ.
A similar reverse occurred in the neighbouring state
of Essex. Its king, Sseberht, was the nephew of iEthel-
berht of Kent : he had received the Gospel6 early from
same occasion. See Spelman's Goncil. i. 108. But although the authen
ticity of the document in which this is contained has been accepted by
some critics (Lappenberg, Hist, of England, ed. Thorpe, i. 135), it is
generally regarded as .apocryphal, and exists only in very late MSS.
(Councils, &c. i. 122, 142.) A passage in Bede (n. 20) proves that the
feeling of repugnance on the part of the Britons grew up into bitter
hatred: 'Quippe cum usque hodie moris sit Brittonum fidem religio-
nemque Anglorum pro nihilo habere, neque in aliquo eis magis com-
municare quam paganis.'
1 Bed. ii. 4. The form of address is remarkable: 'Dominis carissimis,
fratribus episcopis, vel abbatibus per universam Scottiam.'
2 a.d. 604 or 605. This date, though very important, cannot be
accurately ascertained. See Smith's note on Bed. Hist. Eccl. n. 3.
Wharton, Ang. Sac. n. 89 — 91.
3 'Non enim pro locis res, sed pro bonis rebus loca amanda sunt.
Ex singulis ergo quibusque ecclesiis, quffi pia, qu83 religiosa, quaa recta
sunt elige, et hac quasi in fasciculum collecta, apud Anglorum mentes in
consuetudinem depone.' Bed. i. 27.
4 Bed. u. 6: cf. Neander, Church Hist. v. 24, note.
5 Bed. n. 3. Gregory had designed London as the seat of the southern
metropolitan, Epist. lib. xi. ep. 65 : but Boniface V. in 625, confirmed the
selection pf Canterbury. Wilkins, Concil. I. 32.

ENGLISHCHURCH.

the Irish
mission aries.

Progress of
the Gospel
in Kent.

Conver
sion of
Essex.

IO

Growth of the Church.

[a. d. 590

the hands of the Roman missionaries and established
a bishopric in London, his chief city. On his death,
however, in 616, his sons, who had clung to their heathen
habits, made light of the Christian faith, and the refusal
of the bishop (Mellitus) to give them a share of the
Eucharistic bread was followed by his expulsion1 from their
kingdom. A gloomy interval succeeded, the faith either
languishing in secret, or being utterly subverted2, till the
reign of Sigeberht the Good (653 — 660). His friendship
with Oswiu, king of Northumbria, led the way to his
own conversion, while on a visit to that court3. He was
baptized by Finan, one of the Irish missionaries, and
took back with him Cedd4 and others, by whom the whole
kingdom of Essex was at length added to the Church.
In Wessex, the Christian faith was planted by Birinus6,
sent over by pope Honorius in 634. He succeeded in con
verting Cynegils, the king, and was bishop of Dorcic
(Dorchester) till 649 or 650 ; but much of his success may
be attributed to a visit of Oswald, king of Northumbria,
whose brother Oswiu (also of the Irish school) did further
service to the Wessex-mission5. The successor of Cynegils,
Cenwealh, a pagan, was driven from the throne in 643,
but afterwards converted at the court of East Anglia.
He was distinguished by his Christian zeal. On his
1 Bed. ii. 5.
2 Bed. m. 22. Justus, through the influence of Eadbald, was restored
to Bochester, from which he had retired (Bed. n. 5) , but the pagan inhabit
ants of London would not receive their bishop Mellitus (Ibid. n. 6). In
the following year (619) he succeeded Laurentius at Canterbury, and was
in his turn succeeded by Justus in 624 (n. 7, 8).
3 Bed. m. 22 ; Florent. Wigorn. Chronicon ad an. 653.
4 Afterwards consecrated by Finan and two other Irish prelates as
bishop of the East-Saxons. Bed. in. 22. A short relapse ensued on the
death of Sigeberht, but the new faith was permanently restored by the
zeal of bishop Jaruman. Bed. in. 30.
5 Bed. in. 7.
6 Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 192. Through the influence of Oswiu, a
Gaul named Agilbert, who had 'spent not a little time in Ireland legenda-
rum gratia Scripturarum,' was chosen to succeed Birinus (Bed. in. 7), but
his imperfect knowledge of the English language displeasing the king, he
returned into France. His successor was an Anglo-Saxon, Wini (664) ;
but he also incurred the displeasure of the king, and migrating to London
(666) was placed in that see by the king of Mercia. His post was filled
for a time by Leutherius, nephew of Agilbert, who was consecrated in
670, by Theodore, the seventh archbishop of Canterbury. Bed. ibid.
The first Anglo-Saxon raised to the episcopal dignity appears to have
been Ithamar of Bochester: Florent. Wigorn. Chron. ad an. 644.

—814]

Growth of the Church.

n

restoration, therefore, the extension of the faith was a
primary concern, and Wessex, destined to become the
leader of the English race, continued from that time
faithful to the Church.
Sussex, like its neighbour Kent, was converted by
the Roman party. The task had been reserved for a
native of Northumbria, Wilfrith, who combined with his
devotion to the pope the earnestness and prudence which
are needed for the work of the evangelist. Banished from
his diocese in the north of England1, he was able in five
years (681 — 686) to organize the church of the South-
Saxons, who had previously resisted the appeals of a
small Irish mission2. The king, indeed, iEthelwealh, was
a Christian already, having been baptized in Mercia, but
paganism still kept its hold upon his people, in whose
hearts it had found its last entrenchment.
The conversion of East Anglia was early attempted by
the Roman Mission. Rsedwald, the king, had been in
structed at the court of iEthelberht of Kent, but after
wards, through the influence of his wife and friends, the
strength of his faith relaxed3. The assassination of his
son (Eorpwald) in 628, was a further check to the pro
gress of the Gospel, which, at the instance of the king
of Northumbria, he had cordially embraced : and for three
years it was almost everywhere suppressed4. At the end
of this interval, however, his brother, Sigeberht, who had
been Christianized in Gaul, was able to restore it; and
with the aid of Felix5, a native of Burgundy, the see of
Dumnoc (Dunwich) was founded for the prelate of East
Anglia. But the completion of their Work is due to the
efforts of an Irish monk, named Fursey6, whose missionary
i Bed. rv. 13.
2 Ibid. They had » 'monasteriolum' at a place named Bosanham.
Wilfrith's monastery or mission station was at Selsey.
3 Bed. n. 15. To satisfy both parties he reared the altar of Christ at
the side of the ancient 'arula ad victimas daemoniorum.'
R He received his mission from Honorius, the fifth archbishop of
Canterbury, and presided over the see of Dunwich 17 years. Bed. ib.
Under his advice Sigeberht founded a school on the plan of those he had
seen in Gaul: 'Scholam.in qua pueri Uteris erudixentur  eisque pseda-
gogos ac magistros juxta morem Cantuariorum praebente.' Bed. in. 18.
« in. 19. The date of his arrival in England was 633. Bede gives a
glowing picture of his sanctity and zeal.

ENGLISHCHURCH.

Conversion
of Sussex.

Conversion
of East
Anglia.

12

Growth of the Church.

[A. D. 590

ENGLISHCHURCH.

Conversion
of North
umbria.

tours, extending over a period of fifteen years, are said to
have produced a marvellous effect on the heathen and the
faithful. The kingdom of Northumbria consisted of two parts,
Deira (from the Humber to the Tees), and Bemicia (from
the Tees to the Clyde). They were forcibly united at
the opening of this period, under the sway of an enemy
to the Christian faith. ' His defeat led the way to the
accession of Eadwine, who on mounting his paternal throne
at York (616), was permitted to annex the kingdom of
Bernicia. His second wife was a daughter of ^Ethelberht
of Kent, whom he espoused in 625 ; but notwithstanding
a residence among the British clergy1, he was still dis
affected to the Gospel. Several circumstances had con
spired, however, to impress it on his mind2, and in 627,
through the influence of PauHnus, who had accompanied
his queen to Northumbria, he was baptized with a con
course of his people3. His death followed in 633, Penda,
king of Mercia, the last champion of the English pagans,
ravaging the whole of his dominions and subverting every
trophy of the Gospel4. But the arms of his kinsman
Oswald, made a way for its permanent revival in the
course of the year 635 ; and since Oswald had been trained
by the Irish missionaries6, he sent to their principal station
at Iona for clergy to evangelize his people, himself acting
as interpreter. Aidan was the chief of this band of teach
ers, and from his see in Lindisfarne (or Holy Island) he
guided all the movements of the mission6. He expired
1 See Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxons, I. 145.
* Bed. n. 9 — 12. Among other predisposing causes was a letter from
Boniface V. (625), accompanied by a present, and the ' benedictio pro-
tectoris vestri B. Petri apostolorum principis,' but his conversion did not
occur till two years later.
3 See the very interesting circumstances in Bed. n. 12. Coin was the
last of the pagan high-priests. The scene was at Godmundham, in the
East Biding of Yorkshire. So great was the success of Paulinus in
Deira, that on one occasion he was employed for thirty-six days in bap
tizing on one spot. Bed. n. 14.
4 Bed. n. 20. Paulinus, with the widowed queen, sought refuge in
Kent. He succeeded to the see of Bochester.
6 ' Misit ad majores natu Scottorum, inter quos exulans baptismatis
sacramenta  consecutus erat.' Bed. m. 3.
6 Bed. in. 3. His field of labour extended as far as Scotland, em
bracing York, abandoned by Paulinus. York did not regain its archie-
piscopal rank till 735. Saxon Chron. ad an. The archbishops of York

A~

-814]

Growth of the Church.

13

in 651, after an episcopate of seventeen years, the admira
tion of his Roman rivals1. His mantle fell on Finan, who
lived to see religion everywhere established in the northern
parts of Britain, and died in 661 or 662.
To him also Mercia was indebted for its first bishop
Diuma, in 655. His master Oswiu, king of Northumbria,
having signalized himself by the overthrow of Penda, was
finally supreme in Middle England as well as in the north,
and urgent in promoting the conversion of the natives.
Addicted in his earlier years to the principles of his in
structors, he established a religious system of the Irish
cast, and three of the Mercian prelates in succession owed
their orders to the Irish Church2.
The planting, therefore, of the Gospel in the Anglo-
Saxon provinces of Britain was the work of two rival
bands, (1) the Roman, aided by their converts and some
teachers out of Gaul, (2) the Irish, whom the conduct of
Augustine and his party had estranged from their com
munion. If we may judge from the area of their field
of action, it is plain that the Irish were the larger body :
but a host of conspiring causes3 gradually resulted in the
spread and ascendancy of Roman modes of thought.
The ritual and other differences, obtaining in the various
kingdoms, came painfully to light on the intermarriage of
the princes; and it was an occasion of this sort4 that
subsequently claimed to exercise metropolitan jurisdiction in the whole
of Scotland: see Spotswood, Hist, of Ch. of Scotland (Lond. 1677), pp. 34,
36, 38. From this claim the Scottish church was released by the popes,
who towards the end of the 12th century made the bishops immediately
subject to Borne. The see of St Andrew's was not made archiepiscopal
until 1472.
1 'Haec autem dissonantia paschalis observantiae, vivente iEdano,
patienter ab omnibus tolerabatur, qui patenter intellexerant, quia etsi
pascha contra morem eorum [i. e. the Irish party], qui ipsum miserant,
facere non potuit, opera tamen fidei, pietatis et dilectionis, juxta morem
omnibus Sanctis consuetum, diligenter exequi curavit.' Bed. in. 25.
2 Bed. 111. 21.
8 e. g. The political predominance of Wessex, which had been entirely
Bomanized by Birinus and his followers, the activity, organization, and
superior intelligence of the Boman missionaries (such as Wilfrith), the
apostolical descent of the Boman church (one of the sedes apostolicce), and
the prestige it had borrowed from the' Boman empire.
4 Bed. m. 25: 'Unde nonnunquam contigisse fertur illis temporibus,
ut bis in anno uno pascha eelebraretur. Et cum rex pascha Dominicum
solutis jejuniis faceret, tunc regina cum suis persistens adhuc in jejunio
diem Palmarum celebraret.'

ENGLISH CHURCH.

Conversion
of Mercia.

Predominance of
the Roman
element in
the Christi
anity of

'4

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 590

served in no small measure to shape all the after-fortunes
of the Church in the northern parts of Britain. The queen
of Oswiu, the Northumbrian, was a daughter of Eadwine
and brought up in Kent; with Ealhfrith his son1, the co-
regent, she was warm in her attachment to the customs
of the south. Oswiu, on the other hand, continued in
communion with the Irish, over whom he had placed the
energetic Colman as the third bishop of Lindisfarne. The
controversy waxing hot in 664, Colman was invited by
the king to a synod at Streoneshealh (the Whitby of the
Danes), to meet the objections of an advocate of Rome,
in the person of the rising Wilfrith2. The end was, that
Oswiu and his people3, persuaded by the agents of the
queen, and dazzled by the halo which encircled (as they
dreamt) the throne of the 'chief apostle,' went over to
the Roman party; while the clergy, who were slow in
complying with the changes of the court, withdrew from
thft Rfipn°- "f c.orrflifvr. into Ireland4. ^ —
But it wasnoT^rl1' the tw*w-tjf^Archbishop Theodore
(668 — 690) that the fusion of the English Christians was
complete6. The two leading rulers, of Northumbria and

Conferena
at Whitby
664.

Withdraw
al of the
Irish Clergy.
Influence of
Theodore.

Kent, agreed in procuring his appointment6, and advancing
his designs in the other kingdoms. By the aid of a Roman
1 Eddius, Vit. S. Wilfridi, c. vn. apud Gale, Scriptores, xv. p. 54.
2 Bed. m. 25.
8 The king was afraid lest St Peter should finally exclude him from
heaven; and after his decision in behalf of Wilfrith, 'faverunt adsidentes
quique sive adstantes, majores cum mediocribus.' Ibid. The balance of
argument however, it is but fair to state, was on the side- of Wilfrith.
4 Bed. m. 26. For the after-life of Colman, see Bed. rv. 4. Others,
however, like Bishop Cedd the brother of St Chad, conformed to the
Boman customs. Ibid. The next bishop of Lindisfarne, Tuda, had been
educated in the south of Ireland, where the Boman Easter had been
adopted as early as 634. Bed. m. 26. cf. m. 3 (p. 175, a, in Monument.
Britan.). This conformity was afterwards increased by the labours of
Adamnan (687 — 704), v. 15. The Picts accepted the Boman Easter in
710, the monks of Iona in 716; the tonsure was received by the former in
710 and by the latter in 718. The Britons of Wales conformed later,
between 755 and 809. (Councils, &c. i. 203, n. 106.)'
6 Bed. iv. 2: 'Isque primus erat in archiepiscopis,cui omms^nj lorum
ecclesia manus dare consentiret.'
6 Deusdedit died July 14, 664, and after a vacancy of two or three
years Oswiu and Ecgberht sent a 'presbyter, Wigheard, elected by the
church of Canterbury, for consecration at the Boman see. Wigheard
died at Borne ; and after some correspondence with the two chief kings of
England, Vitalian sent, at their request (Bed. m. 29; rv. i), a prelate for
the vacant see.

/;

—814]

Growth of the Church.

15

colleague and through the exertions (often conflicting with
his own) of the ever-active Wilfrith, he was able to reduce
the Irish school to insignificance 1 ; and while giving to
the Church a high degree of culture, he was unwittingly
binding it more closely in allegiance to the popes2. At
his death the island had been Romanized, according to
the import of the term in the seventh century : but the
freer spirit of the Early Church still lingered in the north.
When, for example, an attempt was made to enforce the
mandates of the pope, as distinguished from his fatherly
advice, it met with a vigorous repulse3 from *two succes-
1 So far as culture goes Theodore was not in opposition to the Irish ;
they attended his schools in large numbers (Aldhelm, Epist. 4; ed.
Giles, p. 94) : but in reference to discipline he directed that the imper
fection in the orders of persons ordained by Scottish or British bishops
should be remedied by imposition of hands of a Catholic bishop;
churches consecrated by them are to be purified and "confirmed;" they
are not to receive the Eucharist or Chrism without expressing their wish
to be united with the church ; and if any doubt about their baptism, they
may be baptized. Theod. Poenit. 11. c. 9. (Councils, &a. in. 197.)
2 Bed. iv. 2. He was seconded in 673 by a synod held at Hertford;
WilMns, Concil. 1. 41. Councils Sea. in. 118. The English sees at the
close of the present period were the following : Province of Canterbury —
(1) Lichfield, (2) Leicester, (3) Lindsey (Sidnacester), (4) Worcester,
(5) Hereford, (6) Sherborne, (7) Winchester, (8) Elmham, (9) Dunwich,
(10) London, (11) Bochester, (12) Selsey. Province of York— (1) Hexham,
(2) Lindisfarne, (3) Whithern. Kemble, Anglo-Saxons, n. 361, 362. At
a later period some of these perished altogether, as Hexham, Whithern
and Dunwich; while others were formed, as Durham in succession to
Lindisfarne, Dorchester for Lincoln, and in Wessex, Eamsbury (Hrasf-
nesbyrig=ecclesia Corvinensis) for Wilts, Wells for Somerset, Crediton
for Devonshire, and during some time, St Germans and perhaps Bodmin
for Cornwall. It was only in the 12th century that the whole Cambrian
Church was brought under the jurisdiction of the see of Canterbury:
Williams, Eccl. Hist, of the Cymry, pp. 162, 163; Lond. 1844. Councils,
&a. ed. Haddan and Stubbs, vol. 1. pp. 302 sq.
3 When Wilfrith, on his deposition from his see, brought his griev
ance to the pope, the sentence in his favour in 679 was so far from
reversing the decision at home, that on his return Ecgfrith of Northum
bria threw him into prison, and afterwards banished him. Bed. rv. 12,
13. Aldfrith, on a like occasion, having readmitted him into the king
dom, was no less opposed to his Bomanizing conduct. Having made a
fresh appeal to Bome, and obtained from John VI. a favourable sentence
(in 704, see Vit. S. Wilfrid, v. 48 — 52), the bearers of it to the king were
addressed in the following terms: 'Se quidem legatorum personis, quod
essent et vita graves et aspectu honorabiles, honorem ut parentibus
deferre, caeterum assensum legationi omnino abnuere, quod esset contra
rationem homini jam bis a toto Anglorum concilio damnato propter qua-
libet apostolica scripta communicare.' A compromise, however, was
effected at his death, and Wilfrith was transferred to another see.
W. Malmesb. Gesta Pontiff, ed. Hamilton, p. 239. It should be remem-

ENGLISH CHURCH.

Disregard
of the
papalclaims.

i6

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 590

ENGLISHCHURCH.

Influence of Ireland
in the cause
of missions.

Labours of
Columba-
nus 590 —
615;

sive kings, assisted by their clergy, who thus stand at
the head of a line of champions in the cause of English
freedom.

IN GERMANY AND PARTS ADJACENT.
Although the cross had long been planted, here and
there1, in the heart of the German forests, as well as in
the cities which had owned the Roman sway, it was
not till the present period that religion could obtain a
lasting basis^and could organize the German Church. The
founding of the work was due to foreign immigration.
Ireland was at this time conspicuous for its light2 : it was
full of conventual houses, where the learning of the west
had taken refuge, and from which, as from missionary
schools, the Gospel was transmitted far and near.
The leader of the earliest band who issued to the
succour of the continent of Europe, was the ardent Co-
lumbanus3, (reared in the Irish monastery of Bangor).
With twelve young men, as his companions, he crossed
over into Gaul, at the close of the sixth century; but the
strictness of his Rule4 having rendered him obnoxious to
the native clergy, and at length to the Burgundian court5,
he was compelled to migrate into Switzerland (610),
working first in the neighbourhood of Zurich and next at
bered that in this struggle Theodore took a most active part against
Wilfrith, and whilst he could hardly be expected to declare his contempt
of Borne, maintained the independence of the Church as much as did
the kings.
1 See an interesting account of the labours of Severinus and other
solitaries in Neander, C. H. v. 34, seq. Bohn's ed.
2 ' Hibernia quo catervatim istinc lectores classibus advecti confluunt:'
a saying of Aldhelm, the contemporary of Theodore ; Epist. ad Eahfri-
dum, Opp. p. 94, ed. Giles: Ussher's Epist. Hibern. p. 27; Opp. iv. 451,
ed. Elrington. ' Antiquo tempore,' says Alcuin at the end of the next
century, ' doctissimi solebant magistri de Hibernia, Britanniam, Galliam,
Italiam venire et multos per ecclesias Christi fecisse profectus.' Ep.
ocxxi. (Al. ccxxv.) Opp. i. 285.
3 See a life of him by Jonas, a monk of his foundation at Bobbio, in
Mabillon, Acta Sanct. Ord. Benedict, saec. n. pp. 2 — 26.
4 Among his other works in Biblioth. Patrum, ed. Galland, torn, xn.;
cf. Neander, C. H. v. 41, 42. The XVI. Instructions of Columbanus are
well worth reading.
5 Three great settlements had grown out of his labours in Gaul, the
monasteries of Luxeuil, Fontaine (Fontanae) and Anegray; besides the
impulse he had given to religion generally.

A'

—814]

Growth of the Church.

17

Bregenz. From thence in 613 he was driven over the
Italian frontier, and founded the monastery of Bobbio,
where he died in 615. Columbanus was attached to the
customs of his mother-church, and the struggle we have
noticed in the case of England was repeated in his life
time. The freedom of his language to the Roman bishops1
is a proof that he paid no homage to their see, though
his final residence in Italy appears to have somewhat
modified his tone. He had a noble fellow-worker in his
countryman, Gallus2, the founder of the monastery of St
Gall, who, with a perfect knowledge of the native dialects,
promoted the conversion of the Swiss and Swabians,
till 640.
Yet these were only drops in a long stream of missions
that was now bearing on its bosom, far and near, the
elements of future greatness and the tidings of salvation.
At the end of the series of evangelists, contributed from
Ireland, one of the more conspicuous was Kilian3(650 — 689),
who may be regarded as the apostle of Franconia, or at
least as the second founder of its faith. The centre of
his labours was at Wiirzburg, where some traces of the
Irish culture are surviving at this day4.
Meanwhile the ardour of the native Christians was
enlisted in the spreading of the German Church. Thus,
a Frankish synod, about 613, wakened to a sense of duty
by the earnest Columbanus, made an effort to evangelize the
neighbouring heathen5. Emmeran, a prelate out of Aqui-

1 See one to Gregory the Great, Gregor. Epist. lib. ix. ep. 127. A
more important testimony is supplied by his fifth letter, ad Bonifacium
IV., where he administers some salutary warnings to the Church of
Borne: cf. W. G. Todd's Church of St Patrick, pp. 118 sq. Lond. 1844.
In one passage he admits that a church, instructed by St Peter and St
Paul, and honoured by their tombs, is worthy of all deference; but he
reserves the first rank for the church of Jerusalem : Boma orbis terrarum
caput est ecclesiarum, salva loci Dominica resnrrectionis singulari pra-
rogativa. § 10.
2 The Life of Gallus, in its oldest form, is printed in the Monument.
German. Histor. torn. n. 5 — 31, ed. Pertz: cf. Neander, v. 47 — 49.
3 See a Life of him in Canisius, Lect. Antiq. in. pt. 1. pp. 175 — 179,
ed. Basnage ; also a Passio SS. Kiliani et Sociorum ejus, ibid. 180 — 182.
Kilian applied to the pope for his sanction of the undertaking.
4 Lappenberg, Ang.-Sax. i. 183.
5 They made choice of Abbot Eustasius, the successor of Columbanus
at Luxeuil, for the director of the mission. See his Life by Jonas, the
monk of Bobbio, in Mabillon's Acta Sanct. Ord. Benedict, sffic. n. pp.
M. A. C

GERMAN
CHURCH.

and of Gal
lus 590—
640.

Kilian in
Franconia.

Native mis
sions :

18

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 590

Eligius,A mandus,
and others,
in the
Nether lands.

Englishmissions to
Friesland,
and the
neighbourhood.

tania1, and Ruprecht2 of Worms, left their sees in the
seventh century to share in the holy conquest now ad
vancing on all sides. By them, and the Frank Corbinian,
the foundations of a church were laid, not only in Bavaria,
but also on the banks of the Danube as far as Pannonia.
A multitude of sources were thus opened for the speedy
propagation of the faith in the whole of southern Germany.
In the north, where the pagan system3 had a firmer
hold upon the people, the promoters of the Gospel were
continually resisted. Notwithstanding, zealous bishops
like Eligius4 won their way in the midst of the savage
Frieslanders, whose empire at the opening of this period
had extended also to the Netherlands. There, it is true,
religion had been planted long before, but the inroads of
those heathen tribes had left scarcely any vestige of the
Church. The sword of Dagobert I., who wrested many
districts from their grasp, had made a way for the recon
version of Batavia (628 — 638), while missionaries out of
England afterwards engaged to soften and evangelize the
barbarous invaders. Ground was already broken by the
enterprising Wilfrith6, who, in his flight from his diocese
in 678, was driven to the coast of Friesland, where he
seems to have reaped a harvest of conversions.
His work was resumed by Willebrord6, an Englishman,
116 — 123: one also of Agil, a companion of Eustasius, ib. pp. 316 — 326,
cf. Neander, C. H. v. 51—53.
1 Life in Canisius, Led. Antiq. in. pt. 1. pp. 94 sq., though from its
date (the tenth or eleventh century) it is not trustworthy throughout.
2 The oldest account of him is printed in Kleinmayrn's Nachrichten
von Juvavia (the ancient Salzburg). A Life also of Corbinian may be
seen in Meichelbeck's Hist. Frising. (Freising), torn, i, pp. 1 sq. ed. 1724.
3 For a good account of Paganism in those regions, see Mone's Ge-
schichte des Heidenthums innordlichen Europa, Leipzig, 1823; and 3.
Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, Gottingen, 1844.
4 Or St Eloy (born 588, died 659), appointed, in 641, bishop of Tour-
nay and Noyon. See an interesting Life of him by a pupil, in D'Achery's
Spicilegium, torn. n. p. 76, and Dr Maitland's Dark Ages, pp. 101 sq. Eli
gius was preceded by Amandus, ordained (630) without a diocese (episco-
pus regionarius) to labour in tie neighbourhood of Ghent and Antwerp,
but appointed in 648 to the see of Mastricht (Trajectum), where he died
in 679. Life in Mabillon's Acta Bened. sac. n. 679 — 706. Contempo
rary with him was Audomar (St Omer), out of the Irish monastery at
Luxeuil, who preached from the neighbourhood of Boulogne as far as
the Scheldt.
6 Florent. Wigorn. ad an. 677: Eddius, Vit. Wilf. c. xxvi — xxvin.
6 His Life was written by Alcuin; Opp. torn. n. 183: but a still older
account of his labours is in Bede, Hist. Ecc. v. 10 sq.

—814]

Growth of the Church.

19

who, though a student for twelve years in Ireland1, was
marked, like the other Anglo-Saxons of the period, by the
warmth of his devotion to the Roman see2. The field of
his principal success was the neighbourhood of Wilteburg
(Trajectum=Utrecht), where he died, after a long episco
pate, in 739 or 741. He is said to have been assisted in
his labours by Wulfram3, bishop of Sens, who migrated
with some attendants into Friesland ; and the work was
enlarged by a native, Wursing4, as well as by other pupils
of Willebrord; one of whom, Swithberht5, in the life-time
of his master, appears to have penetrated even into Prussia.
But meanwhile a fresh actor had come forward in the
same hopeful cause. This was a Devonshire-man, Winfrith,
who, under the title Bonifacius6, is known as the apostle
of Thuringia, and of some of the neighbouring districts.
He was to Germany what Theodore had been to England,
binding all the members of the Church together, and im
parting to it new stability and life. Crossing over into
Friesland (716), he joined himself to Willebrord at Utrecht;
but, retreating, for some cause or other, to his native
country, he remained in his cloister at Nursling two years.
He then went to Rome, commended7 to the pope by Daniel
of Winchester, and in 719 was formally deputed8 by Gre-
1 ' Ibique duodecim annis inter eximios simul pias religionis et sacrae
. lectionis magistros, futurus multorum populorum praedicator erudiebatur.'
Vit. S. Willebrord. lib. i. c. 4.
2 He visited the pope in 692, ' ut cum ejus licentia et benedictione
desideratum evangelizandi gentibus opus iniret.' Bed. v. 11. In 696 he
was sent by Pepin of Heristal, who as mayor of the palace of AustraBia
had subdued some of the Frieslanders, to be ordained, by the pope, arch
bishop of that region. Ibid.; cf. Annates Xantenses (in Pertz), a.d. 694.
3 Life in the Acta Sanctorum for March 20, ed. Bolland.
4 See the interesting account of him in the Vit. S. Liudgeri, c. 1 — 4 :
Monum. German, ed. Pertz, n. 405, 406.
6 Bed. v. 11. He also mentions (c. 10) a mission of two English bro
thers, Niger Hewald and Albus Hewald, who perished in their attempt to
evangelize the foreign Saxons (provinciam antiquorum Saxonum).
6 The best Life of him is that by a presbyter, Willibald: Pertz 's Monu-
menta, n. 334 seq. JaffeV Monumenta Moguntina, pp. 422 — 471. Cf.
Bonifacius der Apostel der Deutschen, by Seilers, Mainz, 1845.
1 Vit. § 14.
8 Bonifacii Epist. n. ; i. 26. ed. Giles. But notwithstanding his pro
found respect for the papal chair, his independent spirit more than once
breaks out in the course of his correspondence. Thus in 742 he quotes
the tradition of his native land, as reckoned from Augustine, against a
reported decision of the ruling pope, Ep. xlix. p. 103; and it is clear
from the same letter (p. 105) that he did not allow the right of any pope
to dispense with the ' decreta canonum.' c 2

GERMAN
CHURCH.
' T i
Willebrord
(692—
741).

Wulfram.Wursing.
Swithberht.

labours of
Winfrith
or Bonifa
cius :

20

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 590

GERMAN
CHURCH.
in Fries
land :

in Thurin-
gla:

gory II. 'to inquire into the state of the savage Germans'
eastward of the Rhine. The first fruits of his zeal were
gathered in Thuringia; but news out of Friesland drew
him thither, and he taught for three years in conjunction
with Willebrord1. His next missionary station (722) was
at Amoneburg, in Upper Hessia, chosen with the hope
of converting the Hessians, and after them the Saxons.
Summoned by the pope, who had heard of his success, he
undertook a second journey to Rome (723), where, together
with the name of Bonifacius2, he received ordination as
a missionary bishop, and made himself, by oath, the vassal
of the Roman Church. He was thus armed with a new
authority; and, seconded in many cases by the civil power3,
was able to extend the sphere of his operations, and to
bear down all opponents, whether heathen, or disciples of
the freer Christian school4, that had its birth in Ireland. At
the same time he was constant in imparting, to the utmost
of his power, the salutary doctrines of the Gospel. Famed
for his preaching5, his diffusion of the Scriptures6, and his
zeal in the founding of monastic schools, which he fed by
a number of auxiliaries7 from England, his work could
not fail to prosper in a neighbourhood which was the field
of his missionary zeal for no less than fifteen years. In
1 Vit. § 16.
2 §21.
3 ' Tuo eonamine et Caroli principis,' was the language of pope Gre
gory III. to Boniface (Oct. 29, 739); Bonifacii Opp. ed. Giles, i. 97; yet
the power of Charles Martel was not uniformly on the side of the mis
sionaries'. It was only under Pepin and Carloman that Boniface could
feel himself supreme.
4 Neander discovers traces of this early protestantism in the records of
his preaching: e. g. in a letter of Gregory III. to the bishops of Bavaria
and Alemannia, after urging them to adopt the Boman uses, as taught
by Boniface, he warned them to reject ' et gentilitatis ritum et doctrinam,
vel venientium Britonum, vel falsorum sacerdotum, et hsereticorum, aut
undecunque sint.' Bonifacii Opp. l. 96: cf. Neander, v. 67 (and note).
Neander's notion of the freedom of the Irish school is somewhat vision
ary. It can hardly be denied that the accusations brought against these
teachers by Boniface are countenanced by the half mystic half sensuous
views of religion which appear in the best authenticated legends of the
ancient Irish. Boniface himself (Ep. xn.) draws a gloomy picture of the
state of the clergy and deplores his inability to hold communion with
them. 5 ' Evangelica etiam doctrina adeo praeeipuus extitit, ut apostolorum
tempora in ejus prasdicatione laudares.' Annates Xantenses, a.d. 752.
0 Epp. xvm, xix. Opp. i. 52, 53.
1 Willibald, Vit. S. Bonifac. § 23.

—814]

Growth of the Cliurch.

21

738 he is said to have baptized a hundred thousand na
tives1. A third visit to Rome (738) resulted in his mission
to Bavaria, where he laboured in the twofold task of
organizing the Church, and counteracting a large class of
teachers, who, here as in Thuringia, were opposed to ' the
tradition of the Roman see2.' With the sanction of the
duke of Bavaria, his territory was distributed afresh into
the dioceses of Salzburg, Regensburg (Ratisbon), Freis-
ing, and Passau3: and the death of Charles Martel4,
which followed soon after the return of Boniface (741),
allowed him to advance more freely with his centralizing
projects. In 742, the founding of the bishoprics6 of Wiirz-
burg, Erfurt, and Buraburg (in Hessia), to which Eich-
stadt may be added, conduced to the same result. He
was now also urged by Carloman to revive the action
of the Frankish synods, which had long been discon
tinued6: and presiding at the first of them (744), in his
capacity of papal vicar7, he took the lead in promoting
what he deemed 'a reformation of the Church8.' One of
1 Such was the report that had reached Gregory III. Oct. 29, 739 :
Bonif. Opp. i. 96. His felling of an oak, which had long been sacred to
Thor, made a very deep impression, Vit. Bonif. § 22, 23.
2 Bonif. Ep. xlvi: Opp. i. 97.. He found only one bishop in the whole
province, and of him (Vivilo) the pope speaks but dubiously: 'Hie si
aliquid excedit contra canonicam regulam, doce et corrige eum juxta Bo-
manas ecclesiae traditionem, quam a nobis accepisti.' Ibid. The follow
ing is the account given by WiUibald (§ 28) of the state of religion there :
' Veraaque fidei et religionis sacramenta renovavit, et destructores eccle-
siarum populique perversores abigebat. Quorum alii pridem falso se
episcopatus gradu prffitulerunt, alii etiam presbyteratus se officio deputa-
bant, alii haec atque alia innumerabilia fingentes, magna ex parte popu-
lum seduxerunt:' cf. Annates Xantenses, ad an. 752, and Aventinus, An
nates Boiorum, 254, ed. Gundling.
3 Vit. Bonifac. § 28.
4 He had patronized what Boniface describes as the ' false,' ' errone
ous,' ' schismatical priests' (?) the old Frankish clergy. See e.g. Bonif.
Epist. xn ; but they were now driven from the court at the instance of
pope Zacharias: lb. Ep. xlviii: cf. Ep. nv. p. 116; lx. p. 127.
5 Ep. xlix. p. 101; Vit. § 31.
6 Ep. xlix. p. 102.
7 He had received the pallium as early as 732, Vit. § 23, but was still
without a fixed see.
8 The aim of pope Zacharias in advocating a yearly synod may be seen
in Bonif. Ep. xliv. In a letter addressed (Nov. 5, 743) to Boniface him
self (Ep. lv.), he speaks of his anxiety 'pro adunatione et reformatione
ecclesiarum Christi,' and charges his vicar 'ut quse repereris, contra Chris-
tianam religionem vel canonum instituta, ibidem detineri, ad normam
rectitudinis studeas ref ormare. ' See also a remarkable letter of Boniface
(a.d. 748) to Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury (Ep. lxiii.), where he

GERMAN
CHURCH.

in Bava
ria:

founds several bishoprics.

Revival of
Synods in
the Frank
ish Church.

22

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 590

GERMAN
CHURCH.

Contro
versy witl
Adelbertand Cle
ment.

Later acts
of Boni
face (744
-755).

the leaders of the school whom Boniface had strongly
reprehended was a Frankish bishop, A-delbert1, belonging
to the anti-Roman party. He was revered by the people
as a saint, though much that is imputed to him savours
of the mystic, and betokens an ill-regulated mind. On the
suit of his rival, Boniface, who had secured his condemna
tion2 at Soissons (744), he was excommunicated3 bjr a
Roman synod in 745, together with a fellow-bishop, Cle
ment. The latter had been trained in the schools of
Ireland, his native country, and had there imbibed an
extensive knowledge of the Scriptures; but the tone of
his theology, so far as we can judge, was sceptical and
indevout4. The silencing of these opponents left the missionary
course of Boniface almost wholly unobstructed : but his own
anxieties increased as he was verging to his end. Disap
pointed in the hope of placing his metropolitical chair at
Cologne (744), where he would have been near to his Fri
sian converts, he was,, on the deposition5 of Gewillieb, con
strained6 to accept the archbishopric of Mentz (Moguntia).
He there found a more definite field of duty in 748. One
of the latest acts in his eventful life was the part he took
(752) in favour of Pepin, who superseded his imbecile
master, Childeric III. Boniface, at the instance of the
Pope, administered the rite of unction. The measures he
urges the necessity of a reformation in England. His letter has been
regarded as leading the way to the reforms of the synod of Clovesho of
747 ; but it must have been written after that council was held. (Coun
cils, &c. in. 383.) Wilkins, Concil. i. 94.
1 Willib. Vit. Bonif. § 29 : also an account in a second Life of Boni
face in Pertz, n. 354; Bonif. Opp. n. 40 — 46: cf. Walch, Hist, der Ket-
zereyen, x. 46 sq.
2 Pagi, ad an. 744, §§ vn, vin.
3 Zacharias, two years later, was induced in spite of Boniface to
reopen the question, and summoned both Adelbert and Clement to his own
court at Borne, but the issue is not known exactly. Neander, C. H v
77—86. 4 ' Per suam stultitiam sanctorum patrum scripta respuit, vel omnia
synodalia acta parvi pendit, etc' Bonif. Opp. n. 46. Among other
errors he is said to have taught ' multa horribilla de prasdestinatione Dei
contraria fidei catholicas.' Ep. lvii. p. 123. Boniface found other
adversaries in two Irishmen, Samson (Ep. lxxi. p. 171) and "Virgilius, or
Feargal (Ibid. pp. 172 sq.): but the latter was acquitted by the pope
and died bishop of Salzburg: cf. Todd's Church of St Patrick, pp. 59 sq
6 Pertz, n. 354.
6 See the Letter of Zacharias, Bonif. Epist. lxxi. p. 174.

—814]

Growth of the Church.

23

had taken to secure his conquests were now rapidly com
pleted, and in 755 he set out, with a large band of fellow-
workmen, for the scene of his early enterprise in Fries
land; where, after preaching to the heathen tribes with
eminent success, he died as a martyr at the age of seventy-
five1. A man with his strength of character, his learning; and
his saintly life, could not fail to have attracted a number
of disciples. One of them, Gregory2, as abbot of Utrecht,
was at the head of a missionary-college, and at the same
time assiduous in his efforts to promote the conversion of
the Frieslanders. Another of the more remarkable was
the abbot Sturm3, who had been also trained under the
eye of Boniface, and stationed in a monastery at Fulda,
of which he was himself the romantic founder4. Aided by
no less than four thousand inmates, he was able to dis
seminate the arts, and augment the conveniences of fife,
while he softened the ferocious spirit of his neighbours.
With some casual exceptions6, the evangelizing of the
German tribes was hitherto conducted on pacificatory prin
ciples6, like those which had prompted and consolidated
the first missions of the Church. A fresh plan, however,
was now adopted in dealing with the rude and warlike
Saxons7 (from the Baltic to the confines of Thuringia and
1 Willibald. Vit. Bonif. §§ 33—37. The day of his death was June 5;
the place, on the banks of the Bordne (Bordau), not far from Dokkum.
His remains with those of his fellow-martyrs, being rescued by the Chris
tians, were interred at Fulda, his favourite monastery.
2 A Life of him was written by his pupil Liudger, in Act. Sanct. Ord.
Bened. sale. in. p. ii. 319 sq. The way in which he was fascinated by the
zealous missionary is most strikingly narrated. Though not a pupil of
Boniface, Willibald, the early English traveller, was ordained by him in
739 ; and after a short mission to Thuringia, was consecrated bishop of
Eichstadt, one of the dioceses formed by Boniface. See the interesting
Life of Willibald, by a nun of Heidenheim, in Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened.
saec. in. p. ii. 365 sq.
3 Life by his pupil, Eigil, in Pertz's Monument. Germ. n. 365 sq.
4 Ibid. p. 367.
6 e.g. The case of Amandus in Belgium, who procured an order from
the Frankish monarch, compelling all persons to submit to baptism.
Boniface also invoked the 'patrocinium principis Francorum;' but his
aim was to quell irregularities among the clergy and religious orders.
Epist. xn. p. 39.
6 See the excellent advice given to Boniface by Daniel of Winchester.
Bonif. Ep. xiv.
7 Boniface had been already urged to undertake this mission in the
years 723, 733; Epp. ix, xxvm; and even earlier (690—740) some im-

Gregory of
Utrecht
d. 784.

Sturm of
Fuldad. 779-

24

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 590

Compulso
ry conver
sion of
the Old-
Saxons

by Alcuin,
but in vain.

Hessia), who had forced their ancient idolatry once more
across the Rhine. Fierce as they were in their hatred of
the Gospel, the repugnance would be naturally embittered
by the medium through which it was presented to their
notice: for they viewed it, in the hands of a Frankish
teacher, as an agent for promoting their political depres
sion. He came in the wake of invading hosts, by which
Charlemagne was endeavouring to effect their subjugation
(772—804) : and although numbers of them did accept the
ritual of the Church, it was unquestionably in many cases
by compulsion1. Alcuin, at the impulse of his Christian
feelings, would have fain placed a check2 on the rigour of
the Franks. But his protests were unheeded ; Charle
magne still persisting in his plan of breaking the indomi
table spirit of the Saxons by forcing the conversion of the
vanquished, and establishing himself on the basis of the
Church3. A long and bloody war, attended by an edict4
of the Frankish court, which made the rejection of the
Gospel a capital offence, resulted in the permanent dis
arming of the Saxons and their annexation to the Western
Church5. A way was in the mean time opened for the
pression had been made on the Saxons by the labours of Lebwin, a
Yorkshire monk. See his Life in Pertz, n. 361 sq.
11 Congregato iam (? turn) grandi exercitu [a.d. 772], invocato Christi
nomine, Saxoniam profectus est, adsumtis universis saeerdotibus, abba-
tibus, presbyteris, et omnibus orthodoxis atque fidei cultoribus, ut gentem
quae ab initio mundi daemonum vinculis fuerit obligata, doctrinis sacris
mite et suave Christi jugum credendo subire fecissent. Quo cum rex
pervenisset, partim bellis, partim suasionibus, partim etiam muneribus,
maxima ex parte gentem illam ad fidem Christi convertit.' Vit. Sturmi,
1. e. p. 376: cf. Alcuin. Ep. in. ad Colcum Lectorem in Scotia: Opp. i. 6.
2 Epist. xxxvn. (A1.XLH.) ad Megenfridum\(a privy- councillor of Charle
magne). Of many striking passages this may be a sample: 'Fides quo-
que, sicut sanctus ait Augustinus, res est voluntaria, non necessaria.
Attrahi poterit homo in fidem, non cogi. Cogi poteris ad Baptismum,
sed non proficit fidei. Nisi infantilis aetas aliorum peccatis obnoxia alio-
rum confessione salvari poterit. PerfectaB aatatis vir pro se respondeat,
quid credat aut quid cupiat. Et si fallaciter fidem profitetur, veraciter
salutem non habebit. Unde et prajdieatores paganorum populum paci-
ficis verbis et prudentibus fidem doeere debent.' Opp. i. 50; see also his
letter (Ep. lxxx, Al. xcv.) written to Charlemagne himself : i. 117.
8 The chief ecclesiastical establishments were at Osnabruck, Minister
Paderborn, Verden, Minden, and Seligenstadt. The last see was after
wards transferred to Halberstadt.
4 See the Capitulare de Partibus Saxonia, I. 251, in Baluze's Capitul.
Reg. Fran., Paris, 1677: and cf. Schrockh's Kirchen-Geschichte. xix
264 sq.
0 Einhard. Vit. Karoli Magn. c. 7; apud Pertz, n. 447.

—814]

Growth of the Church.

25

deeper planting of the Gospel, by means of the numerous
schools and churches founded by the Franks, and still
more by the holy and commanding character of members
of the Saxon mission. Such were Sturm, Willehad, and
Liudger. The first, whom we have seen already, spent the
evening of his days in this field of labour1. The second
(Willehad) was a native of Northumbria2, whom the hope
ful letters of the English missionaries had excited to cast
in his lot among them. He set out for Friesland with
the sanction of the Northumbrian king and the blessing
of a synod3. Banished from the neighbourhood of Gr6-
ningen, which had been already stained by the blood of
Boniface, he found shelter at the court of Charlemagne,
who sent him (780) to aid in the missions then attempting
to evangelize the Saxons. In 787, after an eventful term
of suffering and success, he was raised to the episcopal dig
nity, his chair being placed at Wigmodia (Bremen) : but
a sudden illness cut him off two years later, while engaged
in a visitation-tour.
Liudger4 was a noble Frieslander, who had. been trained
in the school of Utrecht, and afterwards by Alcuin at York.
For a long time distinguished as a missionary to his own
people, and afterwards as the apostle of Heligoland, which
Willebrord quitted in despair, he was sent by Charlemagne,
on the subjugation of the Saxons, to Miinster, where he
toiled in the spirit of a true evangelist5 till 809.
A fresh accession to the Church was the tribe of the
Carentani, who had settled in the early part of the seventh
century in Styria and Carinthia. The Gospel reached
them through Bavarian channels, first6 at the instance of
1 Vit. Sturm, ubi sup.
2 A Life of- him, written by Anskar, bishop of Bremen (middle of the
iiinth century), is printed in Pertz, n. 378 sq.
3 Ibid. § 1.
4 For a Life of Liudger by his second successor, Altfnd, see Pertz, n.
403 sq. He is said to have left York ' bene instructus, habens secum
copiam librorum.' lib. I. § 12.
s 'Itaque more solito cum omni aviditate et sollicitudme rudibus Sax-
onum populis studebat in doctrina prodesse, erutisque idolatrias spinis,
verbum Dei diligenter per loca singula serere, ecclesias construere, et per
eas singulos ordinare presbyteros, quos verbi Dei cooperatores sibi ipsi
nutriverat.' Ibid. § 20. We are told in the following paragraph that he
had hitherto declined the 'pontificalem gradum.' His reluctance, how
ever, was at length overcome by Hildebold, archbishop of Cologne.
6 See the Life of Virgilius in Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened. iv. 279 sq. The

GERMAN
CHURCH.
Fresh mea
sures for
<7ie conver
sion of the
Saxons,and other
northerntribes. Willehad
d. 789.

Liudgerd. 809.

The Gospel
in Styria
and Carin
thia. (?) 766-
800.

26

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 590

GERMAN
CHURCH.

Mission to
the Avares
in Hun
gary.

796.

Missionary
zeal of the
Nestorians.

Virgilius of Salzburg, and afterwards of Arno, his second
successor. Arno, on ordaining a ' missionar}' bishop ' for
these parts (800), intended, if possible, to make his way
as far as the neighbouring Slavonians1.
He had been also employed by Charlemagne, whose
sceptre was now stretching over Hungary2, to organize
a mission for the barbarous Avares3. In 796, one of
their chiefs, Tudun, having been baptized at the Frankish
court4, his return was viewed as a propitious moment for
planting further outposts of the Church in the same distant
regions. But it seems that the mission was not worked
with corresponding vigour'. IN EASTERN ASIA.
The zeal and perseverance that were shewn in the
converting of the German tribes had been confined in this
period to the bosom of the Western Church. Owing
partly to domestic troubles, but still more to their lack
of expansiveness and health, the churches of the East
were now feeble and inactive. At the death of Justinian I.
(565) they seem to have abandoned the propagation of
the Gospel to those numerous offshoots from the patri
archate of Antioch, who continued to reject the council
Carinthian chieftain had allowed his son to be educated as a Christian at
the court of Bavaria. This, on his accession to the throne, paved the way
for the evangelizing of his subjects.
1 See the treatise of a priest of Salzburg (written at the close of the
ninth century), De Conversione Bojariorum et Carentanorum, in Script.
Rerum Boic. ed. Oefele, i. 280 sq.: also a Life of Rupert (first bishop of
Salzburg) in Canisius, Lect. Antiq. m. pt. n. p. 343.
2 Einhardi Fuldenses Annates, a.d. 788, 791 : apud Pertz, i. 350.
3 See Pray's Annal. Vet. Hunnorum, Avar, et Hungar. 269 sq., ed.
Vindobon. 1761.
4 Einhard, a.d. 796. A second case occurred in 805. Ibid. The pro
jected mission to the Avares or Huns drew many excellent remarks from
Alcuin, who was fearful lest the policy pursued in the case of the Saxons
should be repeated there. In a letter to Charlemagne (796), Ep. xxvni.
(Al. xxxni.) he says, ' Sed nunc prasvideat sapientissima et Deo placabilis
devotio vestra populo novello presdicatores, moribus honestis, scientia
sacrae fidei edoctos, et evangelicis prasceptis imbutos,' etc. He recom
mends, as a model for the missionary, St Augustine's treatise De Cate-
chizandis Rudibus: Opp. i. 37, 38. The same care and tenderness are
impressed on archbishop Arno in Ep. xxx, xxxi, lxxii, (Al. xxxrv, xxxv,
lxxxvii; Opp. i. 39, 40,105), his eye being still fixed on the recent failure
in the missions to the Saxons.
5 Alcuin, Ep. xcn. (Al. cvm.) p. 135.

—814]

Growth of the Church.

27

of Ephesus, under the name of Nestorians1 or Chaldeeans.
Most of them, on their expulsion from the Roman empire,
had found a shelter with their fellow-Christians in Persia,
to whom they were united by a common misbelief. Here
they obtained an exclusive toleration, though it did not
altogether screen them from the rancour of the heathen
natives2. From the sixth to the eleventh century, when
the power of the Nestorians may be said to have cul
minated, they were peculiarly distinguished by their mis
sionary spirit3. The head of their system, known as the
catholicos, and subsequently (498) as the patriarch, pre
sided over churches in Chaldsea, Persia, Media, Mesopo
tamia, and in districts far beyond the Tigris, in Bactriana
and India. His see4 was originally at Seleucia, and after
wards at Bagdad and Babylon, where he might have vied
even with the Western pontiffs in a plenitude of power:
for the bounds of his patriarchate embraced no less than
twenty-five metropolitans5, nearly all of whom were located
in the various countries they had rescued from the yoke of
paganism6. Timotheus', who was the Nestorian patriarch
from 778 to 820, may be mentioned as the warmest advo
cate of missions. He sent out a large band of monks from
the convent of Beth-abe in Mesopotamia, to evangelize
the Tatar tribes, who roved in the neighbourhood of the
Caspian sea: and some of them penetrated as far as
India8 and China9, either planting or reviving in those
1 They repudiated this title (J. S. Asseman, Biblioth. Orientalis, torn.
in. pt. n. pp. 75, 76) ; but retained the terminology, and, with few excep
tions, the heretical tenets, condemned by the Church at largo. See
Palmer's Treatise on the Church, i. 319, 320, 3rd edit.
2 Asseman, ubi sup. pt. i. p. 109, pt. n. c. v. § 2. This section gives an
account of their condition under the successive Persian kLigs, from 488
to 640, when the country was invaded by the Muhammedans.
3 Ibid, part n. p. 81. They were materially assisted by the favour of
the caliph, who had numbers of them always in his service.
4 Ibid. ' pp. 622 sq. The see was eventually transferred to Mosul,
p. 626. 6 Neale's Hist, of Eastern Church, Introd. I. 143. A * Notitia' of all
the sees is given in Asseman, pp. 705 sq.
6 They were also conspicuous for their love of learning. Their great
school was at Nisibis, which rose out of the ruins of the school of Edessa
(destroyed about 490) ; Asseman, torn. in. pt. ii. pp. 428, 927. A whole
chapter (xv.) is devoted to similar institutions.
7 Ibid, part i. pp. 158 sq.
8 On the earlier traces of Christianity in India, see Neander, C. H. in.
164 sq.
9 David is mentioned as a bishop ordained for China by the patriarch

ASIATIC
MISSIONS.

Vast area
of their
settlements.

Timotheus;
and the
missions to
India and
China.

28

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 590

ASIATIC
MISSIONS.

Further
influence of the Nes
torians in
EasternAsia.

The Gospel
planted in
Nubia by
the Jacob
ites.

distant parts a knowledge of the Gospel. Two of the
episcopal members of the mission, Cardag and Jaballaha,
transmitted a report of their success to the Nestorian pa
triarch, who urged them to perpetuate the impression
they had made by ordaining other bishops to succeed
them1. It was also in this period, though the date is not
exactly ascertainable2, that a distinguished Syrian, Mar-
Thomas (it would seem a merchant3), prevailed on the
community of Christians, already stationed on the coast
of Malabar4, to place themselves under the jurisdiction of
the Nestorian catholicos. By this step he led the way to
a further propagation of the Nestorian creed : and in the
ninth century6 two bishops of that communion, Sapor and
Peroscs, are said to have planted the cross to the south
west of Cochin in the kingdom of Diamper.
IN AFRICA.
The only progress to be noted in this corner of the
Christian kingdom, is due to the sect of the Alexandrian
Jacobites (Monophysites), who had already in the life
time of Justinian found admission into Nubia6. In the
Timotheus ; Asseman, ibid, part n. p. 82. It is by no means improbable
that the Gospel had reached this country at a still earlier date. (See De
Guignes, Untersuchung iiber die im Iten Jahrhunderte in Sina sich auf-
haltenden Christen, ed. Greifswald, 1769.) Among other evidence is a
Syro-Chinese inscription, brought to light by the Jesuit missionaries in
1625, and purporting to belong to 782 (in Mosheim, Hist. Eccl. Tartaro-
rum, App. in. and elsewhere). According to it, Olopuen, a Nestorian
priest, visited China in 635 from the western frontier of the country. See
Kesson's Cross and Dragon (Christianity in China), pp. 16 sq. Lond.
1854. 1 The lack of a third prelate to assist in the consecration of the new
bishops was to be supplied by a copy of the Gospels. Asseman, ubi sup.
2 Ibid, part in. p. 443 : Neale, Eastern Church, Introd. i. 146.
3 This, however, is denied by Asseman, p. 444, who concludes his argu
ment as follows : ' Habemus itaque Thomam non Armenum mercatorem,
neque infra sextum Christi seculum, sed circa annum 800, sub Timotheo
Nestorianorum patriarcha a Jaballaha et Kardago Ghilanae et Dailamas
metropolitis ex monacho coenobii Beth-Abensis ordinatum episcopum
atque in vicinam Indiam missum.'
4 Cf. Neander, in. 166: Lassen, Ind. Alterthum, n. 1101, 1102; Bonn,
1852. The present Christians of Malabar boast of their descent from
this Mar-Thomas.
6 Asseman, ubi sup. p. 442.
6 Ibid. torn. n. p. 330 : cf. Letronne's Christianisme en Egypte, en
Nubie, et en Abyssinie, a Paris, 1832. The Christian priest-kings of

—814]

Growth of the Church.

29

patriarchate (686 — 688) of Isaac (a Jacobite) there is further
proof of the connexion between that country and Alex
andria; Isaac interposing his authority to settle a dispute
between the emperor of Ethiopia and the king of Nubia1.
There is also an interesting notice of an application2 made
by a priest from India to Simon, successor of Isaac
(689—700), requesting at his hands episcopal consecration ;
but whether India proper or Ethiopia is here meant, has
been much disputed3.

§ 2. LIMITATION OF THE CHURCH.
The countries which had formed the cradle of the Church
and the scene of its earlier triumphs, were now destined
to behold its obscuration and extinction. Persia, for
example, after wresting many Christian provinces out of
the hands of the Eastern emperor (604—621), among others
those of Palestine and Egypt, set on foot a most bloody
persecution. All, whom the sword of Kesra (Chosrbes)
had spared, were forced into union with the hated Nes
torians4. But the tempest, though terrific, was of short
duration; Heraclius being able (621-628) to repair his
losses, and to heal the distractions of the Church.
Jerusalem, however, had been scarcely rescued from
the Persians, when a message5 was dispatched to the
Eastern emperor, inviting him to join the Moslems, and to
recognize their prophet. Born6 at Mecca in 569 or 570,
Nubia turned Muhammedans only in the 14th century: Lepsius, Disco
veries in Egypt, &c. p. 259, Lond. 1852.
1 Benaudot, Hist. Pair. A lexand. p. 178.
2 Ibid. pp. 184 sq. Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, n. 454.
3 See Asseman, ubi sup. 451 sq. — It is needless to dwell on the efforts
made in this period for the conversion of the Jews, in the west by the
governments of Spain, and in the east by the Emperor Leo, the Isaurian ;
for their measures were nearly always coercive, and on that account abor
tive. See a chapter on the subject in Schrockh, xix. 298 — 326.
4 Theophanes, Chronographia, pp. 199 sq., inter Scriptores Byzantin.
ed. Venet. 1729. At p. 213 c, ibid, is the following entry: 'E.vdyica£s Se
toi)s XpiGTiavoi/s yeve'fdat. els tt\v tov 'Beo-roptov 8pt]GKelav wpbs rb ir\?i%ai
top paaXia [i. e. the emperor]. This seems to have been the policy of
the Persians throughout in tolerating the Nestorian body.
6 Ockley, Hist, of the Saracens, p. 51, ed. Bohn.
6 See Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, and, for his religious system, Sale's
Koran, with the Preliminary Discourse, and Forster's Mahometauism
Unveiled, Lond. 1829. Other views may be obtained from Weil's Mu-

AFRICAN
MISSIONS.

Invasion
of the
Eastern Church
from Per
sia.

Rise of
Muham-medanism.

so

Limitation of the Church.

tA.D. 590

MUIIAM-
MEDANISM.

Materials
out of
which it

Its essen
tial errors
and im
pieties.

of the stock of Ishmael, Muhammed1 seems in early life
to have been possessed by the persuasion that he was an
agent in the hands of God to purify the creed of his
fellow-countrymen. The texture of his mind was mystical,
inclining him to solitude and earnest contemplation 2: but
the spirit of enthusiasm, thus fostered and inflamed, was
afterwards corrupted by the lust of worldly power'. Some
of the more intelligent around him were monotheists
already, having clung to the tenets of their father Ishmael ;
but others, a large section of the Arab tribes, were sunk in
idolatry and superstition4. We learn also that on the rise
of Islamism many Jews had been long settled in Arabia,
where they gained some political importance5; and that
heralds of the Gospel on its earliest promulgation made
very numerous converts; though the Christians at this time
were for the most part Jacobites6, who had come from
the neighbouring lands in quest of an asylum. It is clear,
therefore, that materials were at hand out of which to
construct a composite religion like that now established
by Muhammed; and when he ventured to unfold his visions
to the world in 611, it was easy to discern in their leading
features a distorted copy of the Bible'. While Islamism
was the foe of all creature- worship, while it preached with
an emphasis peculiar to itself the absolute dependency of
hammed der Prophet, ed. Stuttgart, 1843, and Dblliuger's Muhammed's
Religion nach ihrer inneren Entwickelung , etc., ed. Begensburg, 1838. The
last writer looks upon Muhammedanism as a kind of preparation for the
Gospel in the southern and eastern world. Mohler's work, On the Rela
tion of Islam to the Gospel, has been translated by Menge; Calcutta,
1847. 1 = MaxovuZQ, from which the common form Mahomet was derived.
2 He retired for a month every year into a mountain-cavern, abandon
ing his mercantile employments. It was not till his fortieth year (609)
that the archangel Gabriel (according to his statement) announced to
him his mission from on high. Abulfeda, quoted in Ockley's Saracens,
p. 11. According to the second writer, Muhammed was assisted in com
piling the Koran by a Persian Jew and a Nestorian monk. His own
followers maintain that it was shewn to him at once by the archangel,
though published only in detached portions during the next 23 years.
3 Cf. Maurice's Religions of the World, pp. 18, 19, 2nd edit. Others
would regard Muhammed as an impostor from the first; e.g. White in his
Bampton Lectures for 1784, passim.
4 Sale's Preliminary Discourse, pp. 24 sq.
6 Ibid. p. 28.
6 pp. 29, 31. The Nestorians also had one bishop. DJid.
1 Traces also of a Gnostic element have been found in the Koran.
Neander, C. H. v. 118.

-814]

Limitation of the Church.

31

man and the unity and infinite sublimity of God, its teach
ing even there was meagre and one-sided: it was a harsh
and retrogressive movement; it lost sight of what must
ever be the essence of the Gospel, the Divinity and In
carnation of the Saviour, the original nobility of man, and
his gradual restoration to the likeness of his Maker. It
was, in fact, no more than the Socinianism or Deism of
Arabia. Clouding over all the attributes of love, Mu
hammed could perceive in the Almighty nothing more
than a high and arbitrary Will, or a vast and tremendous
Power, — views which had their natural result in fatalism,
and in fostering a servile dread or weakening the moral
instincts1. His own tribe, the Koreish of Mecca, startled2
by his novel doctrine, were at first successful in resisting
the pretensions of 'the prophet;' but his flight (i.e. the
Hejrah, July 16, 622), while it served as an epoch in the
annals of his followers, entailed a terrific evil on the world.
It imparted to the system of Muhammed, hitherto pacific 3,
all its fierce and its persecuting spirit. On his arrival
at Medina, where he acted in the twofold character of
prince and prophet, he was able to enlarge the circle of
his influence, and to organize a sect of religious warriors, —
so gigantic, that in the tenth year of the Hejrah every part
of his native land, including Mecca4, trembled at his word.
His death followed in 632, but the ardour he had roused
descended to the caliphs, and increased with the number of
his converts. Dropping all their ancient feuds, exulting in
1 The way in which Islamism was regarded by the Church, in the
eighth century, appears from a Dialogue between a Christian and a
Moslem, ascribed to John of Damascus or to his disciple, Theodore
Abukara: in Biblioth. Patrum, ed. Galland, xin. 272 sq., and (somewhat
differently) in Biblioth. Patrum Parisiens. xi. 431 sq. We there learn
that the points insisted on against Muhammed were the Divinity of
Christ, and the freedom of the human will.
2 Sale, ib. p. 58.
3 He was at first tolerant of other systems (Koran, ch. n. v.), but he
now opened what was called 'the holy war,' for the purpose of exter
minating all idolaters, and of making Jews and Christians tributary to
the crescent. Ib. c. ix. lxvii : Ockley, p. 32. These ends were con
tinually kept in view by the Moslem conquerors. See Milman, Latin
Christianity, Bk. iv. ch. I.
4 He took this stronghold of his enemies in 630, and by way of con
ciliating the Arabs he adopted their national sanctuary (the Kaaba) as
the chief temple of Islamism. Ockley, p. 18. This was not the only
stroke of policy by which he circumvented the more superstitious of his
countrymen.

MTTTTAM-
MEDANI3M.

Flight of
Muham-

and his
appeal to
force in
propagat ing his re
ligion.

32

Limitation of the Church.

[a.d. 590

MUHAM-
MEDANISM.Probablereasons of
its predo
minance in
the Chris
tian dis
tricts.

Its rapid
and exten
sive con-

The desola
tion of the
Christian

a fresh and energizing faith, or maddened by the sensual
visions of the future, the adherents of the crescent fought
their way through all the neighbouring states. Though
some of their progress may be due to the corruption and
distractions of the Church1, and more to their simple or
accommodating tenets, very much was effected by their
craft in dealing with the Christian body. It was the aim
of the caliph, by conciliating the heretical communities,
Nestorian and Monophysite especially, to use them as his
agents in diminishing the number of the Catholics, who,
firm in their allegiance to the emperor, were branded with
the name of Melchites2. Joining thus the devices of the
politician with the fire of the enthusiast, the fortunes of
Islamism rapidly advanced. Its second caliph, Omar, took
Jerusalem in 637, and was master of the whole of Syria
in 639. Egypt was annexed in 640. Persia bowed its
head beneath the crescent in 651. Under the Ommiades
(caliphs of Damascus), Islamism had subdued the northern
coast of Africa (707), and in 711 it had been established
everywhere in Spain, with the exception of a small Gothic
kingdom in the mountains : while the Byzantine metropolis
itself was made to shudder (669, 717) at the sight of the
Moslem armies. Restless even at the foot of the Pyrenees,
they spread into France as far as the Loire; but in 732
were finally repulsed and humbled by the arms of Charles
Martel. In 734 they threatened to extend their ravages
to the interior of Italy; and after they had occupied many
of the neighbouring islands, Rome3 was with difficulty
rescued from their grasp in 849.
However much of good eventually resulted from the
Saracenic conquests, they were fatal to the present welfare
1 ' The sense of a Divine, Almighty Will, to which all human wills were
to be bowed, had evaporated amidst the worship of images, amidst moral
corruptions, philosophical theories, religious controversies.' Maurice,
Religions of the World, p. 23. Overcoloured as this statement is, it is
too near the truth: (cf. the language of the emperor Heraclius in 633,
when the Moslems were now advancing upon Syria : Ockley's Saracens,
p. 95). 2 In Egypt, for example, the Jacobites were the more numerous body,
and though not wholly exempted from persecution were for the most part
favoured by the Moslems. Neale, Eastern Church, 'Alexandria,' n. 72.
The Nestorians in like manner were protected by the caliphs of Bagdad,
who owed to them much of their taste for literature. Schrockh, xix.
396 sq.
3 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, v. 209 sq. ed. Milman.

—814]

Limitation of the Church.

33

of religion and the progress of the Church. Though tend
ing to promote the interest of letters1 in a period when
the other kingdoms of the world were comparatively dark,
they have desolated many a region where the Gospel was
supreme, and obliterated all the traces of its earliest pro
pagation. At the time when Boniface2 and his companions
were engaged in evangelizing the Teutonic tribes, they
heard that the famous churches of the East, the special
husbandry of Christ and His Apostles, were the prey of
the antichristian armies of Muhammed. The defenceless
patriarchates3 of Jerusalem, of Antioch, and Alexandria,
deprived of their rightful pastors, and curtailed on every
side, are moving illustrations of the general ruin; and
out of four hundred sees that once shed a salutary light
on Africa, four only were surviving in the eleventh cen
tury4. The rest had been absorbed into the vortex of
Islamism. 1 Abulfeda, Annates Mostemici, torn. n. pp. 73 sq. Leipz. 1754. See a
chapter on the 'Literature of the Arabians' in Sismondi's Literature of
the South of Europe, i. 48 sq. The Moslems of Spain began to endow
schools about 736 : Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes en Espana, i. 110,
Barcelona, 1844. On the literary taste of Alhakem (a.d. 964 sq.) see ii.
14—16. 2 He speaks with alarm of the Saracenic invasions in Ep. xxxn.
The 'tribulatio Saracenorum' was in like manner present to the mind of
Zacharias, in 745, when he contemplated the growth of the Church
among the Frisians : Mansi, xn. 336.
3 The patriarchs were driven into the Greek empire. In Alexandria
the Church was partially restored by the election of Cosmas in 727
(Neale, ibid. n. 107); but none of the Eastern Churches have to this day
recovered from the blow inflicted by Islamism. In the fifth century they
contained as many as 800 bishoprics.
* Wiltsch, Atlas Sacer, p. 12, Gothas, 1843.

MUHAM-
MEDANISM. Church in
Africa and
in the East

M. A.

D

( 34 )

[a.d. 590

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
The trans
mission of
the episco
pal power
and privi
leges.

CHAPTER II.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVEBNMENT OF THE CHBISTIAN
CHUBCH.

§ 1. INTERNAL ORGANIZATION.
The model that was followed from the first in the
organizing of the Christian body, had continued to pass
over to the churches newly planted. Active members
of a mission, if not consecrated in the outset1 of their
course, were advanced to the rank of bishops when their
labours had succeeded2. With a staff of inferior clergy,
who were taken very often in this age from some of the
monastic orders, they were foremost in dispensing all the
means of grace as well as in the closer supervision of
their flocks. While acting3 as the champions of the
wronged, the guardians of the foundling and the minor,
and of all who were either destitute or unprotected, they
were placed in more intimate relations to the clergy, who
had learned to regard their bishop as the centre of all
rightful action, and the source of the authority deposited
in them.
1 Under the title 'episcopus regionarius:' see above, p. 18, n. 4; p. 25.
Birinus had at first no see: Bed. in. 7.
2 The case of Liudger (p. 25, n. 5) is a solitary exception ; but even he
was obliged to conform.
3 e.g. Codex Justin, lib. i. tit. rv. De Episcopali Audientia, §§ 22 — 24,
27, 28, 30, 33. The sphere of their duties was extended (560) to the
oversight of the administration of justice : Clotarii Constitutio Generalis,
§ vi, in the Capitul. Regum Francorum, ed. Baluze, i. 7. The following
extract from Canon xviii. of the Council of Toledo (a.d. 589) is a further
instance of this power: 'Sint enim prospectores episcopi, secundum
regiam admonitionem, qualiter judices cum populis agant: ut aut ipsos
praemonitos corrigant, aut insolentias eorum auditibus principis inno-'
tescant. Quodsi correptos emendare nequiverint, et ab ecclesia et a
communione suspendant.'

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

35

But the acts of the diocesan, if arbitrary and Unlawful,
might be checked by appealing to another bishop, whom
the canons of the Church, in union with the civil power,
had raised to superior eminence of rank. This was the
metropolitan or primate1, who presided in a synod of pro
vincial bishops, regulated their election, authorized their
consecration, had the power of revising their decision, or
of carrying it for judgment to a conclave of his brother-
prelates ; and lastly, among other rights inherent in the
primate, he was the public organ of communication with
the State, — the channel for enforcing its enactments or
distributing its bounty.
It is true that as the metropolitan constitution of the
Church had grown out of the political divisions of the
empire2, it had also felt the shock by which the empire
was subverted ; and that, compared with its vigour in the
former period, it was now very often inefficient, if not
altogether in abeyance. Prelates of remoter dioceses, which
they were engaged in reclaiming from the heathen, not
unfrequently regarded the appointment of a primate as a
clog on the freedom of their action. This3 was peculiarly
apparent in the Franks ; nor is it hard to discern in their
impatience of control a link in the chain of causes which
was tending to consolidate the empire of the pope. They
bowed to his legates and supported his pretensions, to evade
what they deemed a vassalage at home.
Yet, in spite of the wide-spread disaffection to the
government of primates, it was able, here and there, to
perpetuate its hold, and even to secure a footing in the
newly founded churches. When Boniface was brought
into collision with the bishop of Cologne4, he strenuously
1 See Bingham, Book n. ch. xvi. §§ 12 sq. and authorities there.
2 This statement may be seen expanded at great length in Crakan-
thorp's Defensio Eccl. Anglican, ch. xxn. §§ 64 sq.
3 Cf. Neander, v. 88 sq. 153, 154. The provincial synods, which were
calculated to become the strongest agent of the metropolitans, had been
discontinued in France for no less than eighty years : see the letter of
Boniface, above, p. 21.
4 Ep. xciv. a.d. 753: 'Et modo vult Coloniensis episcopus sedem
supradicti.Willibrordi pradicatoriB [i. e. Utrecht] sibi contrahere, ut non
sit episcopalis sedes, subjecta Romano pontifici, prasdicans gentem Fre-
sonum. Cui respondebam, ut credidi, quod majus et potius fieri debeat
prasceptum apostolicas sedis, et ordinatio Sergii papas, et legatio venerandi
pradicatoris Willibrordi, ut et fiat sedes episcopalis subjecta Bomano
D2

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
How affect
ed by the
metropolitan consti
tution of
some Churches.

The decline
of metropo
litans at
this period.

Its effect on
the growth
of the pa
pal power.

36

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 590

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
Metropolitans esta
blished in
the recently
convenedcountries;but with a
Roman
izing bias.

resented every act of interference in the spirit of the
Frankish prelates : but in other parts he laboured from
the first to organize the metropolitan system, and to use
it as the special instrument of Rome. In his view1 every
prelate of a district should be placed in a close dependence
on the metropolitan, and the metropolitan in subservience
to the pope, on whom the correction of the evils, that
might baffle a domestic synod, should be finally devolved.
After manifold obstructions2, the design of Boniface was
partly carried out. A council at Soissons3 (744) enabled
him to fix one metropolitan at Rheims, and a second in
the town of Sens. Mentz was awarded to himself; and
at the close of the century two others, Arno of Salzburg
and Hildebold of Cologne, were added to the list of
primates. In England4 also we have seen that the Roman
mission were in favour of the same arrangement, choosing
for their purpose Canterbury5 and York6, but the dignity
pontifici praedicans gentem Fresonum, quia magna pars illorum adhuc
pagana est ; quam destructas ecclesiolas fundamenta diruta. et a paganis
conculcata, et per negligentiam episcoporum derelicta. Sed ipse non
consentit.' 1 'Decrevimus autem in nostro synodali conventu, et confessi sumus
fidem catholicam, et unitatem, et subjectionem Romana ecclesia, fine
tenus vitas nostras, velle servare : sancto Petro et vicario ejus velle sub-
jici : synodum per omnes annos congregare : metropolitans pallia ab ilia
sede quarere, etc. . . . Decrevimus, ut metropolitanus qui sit pallio sub-
limatus, hortetur easterns, et admoneat, et investiget, quis sit inter eos
curiosus de salute populi, quisve negligens servus Dei . . . Statuimus
quod proprium sit metropolitano, juxta eanonum statuta, subjeetorum sibi
episcoporum investigare mores et sollicitudinem circa populos, quales
sint . . . Sic enim, ni fallor, omnes episcopi debent metropolitano, et ipse
Romano pontifici, si quid de corrigendis populis apud eos impossibile est,
notum facere, et sic alieni fient a sanguine animarum perditarum.' Ep.
lxiii. a.d. 748 (addressed to Cuthbert, archbp. of Canterbury).
2 'De eo autem, quod jam praeterito tempore de archiepiscopis et de
palliis a Romana ecclesia petendis, juxta promissa Francorum, sanctitati
vestrae notum feci, indulgentiam apostolicas sedis flagito: quia quod
promiserunt tardantes non impleverunt, et adhuc differtur et ventilatur
quid inde perficere voluerint, ignoratur, sed mea voluntate impleta est
promissio : ' Ep. lxxv. (to pope Zacharias, a.d. 751) : cf. Neander C H
v. 89. 3 Labbe, vi. 1552.
* It is remarkable that in Ireland there were no metropolitans or
none at least who wore the pallium, till 1151. (E. Hoveden, ad annum.)
But neither was there any diocesan system.
5 See above, p. 9, note 5. The primacy of Canterbury, which had
been endangered by Offa's erection of an archiepiscopal see at Lichfield
was recognized by Leo in., and settled in a provincial synod 803'
Wilkins, i. 166. '

-814]

Constitution of the Church.

37

intended for the latter was a long while in abeyance. In
all cases it was now the custom to create a metropolitan
by sending him the pall or pallium, as a decorative badge.
At first1 it implied that all, thus distinguished by the pope,
were prelates in communion with the Roman see: but in
after-times it grew into a symbol of dependence.
Much, however, as the papacy had gained by these
centralizing changes, it was equally indebted to the con
quests of Islamism. While they tended to unite the
Christians of the west, they shook the dominion of the
Eastern patriarchs ; and three of these we must regard as
virtually dethroned2. They all, in the former period of the
Church, had exercised a constant check on the pretensions
of the pope ; for like him3 they had extensive powers and
were invested with precedence over other bishops : in pro
portion, therefore, as the sphere of their influence was
narrowed, that of the larger patriarchates would be suffered
to increase ; and the struggle for priority of place among
them would be confined to the Roman and Byzantine sees.
The envy and ambition of these pontiffs led the way to
a multitude of «vils ; and resulted, at the close of the
6 See above, p. 12, note 6. St Gregory directed that the metro
politans of England should receive consecration from each other: but
until York had regained its archiepiscopal rank in 735, the prelate-elect
of Canterbury was sometimes consecrated in Gaul, and sometimes by a
conclave of his own suffragans. Kemble, n. 381.
1 One of the earliest instances of such a grant from the pope is that
of Cassarius, bishop of Aries, to whom Symmachus is said to have per
mitted (513) 'speciali privilegio, pallii usum.' Vit. S. Casar. in the Acta
Sanctorum, August, vi. 71. For another example of nearly the same
date, see a letter of Symmachus to Theodore, archbishop of Lorch, in
Ludewig, Scriptores Rerum German, n. 352: but Jaffe', Regest. Pontif.
Roman. (Berolini, 1851), places it among the 'Literas Spurias.' In the
Eastern Church all bishops, as such, had worn a pallium (auotpopiov) :
Pertsch, De origine, usu, et auctoritate pallii archiepiscopalis, pp. 91 sq.
Helmst. 1754: Neale's History of Eastern Church, Introd. p. 312. In
the west also, after it came into use, it was given to simple bishops as
well as to primates. Pertsch, ib. 134 sq.
2 It is true the Nestorians and Jacobites kept up the patriarchal
system (see Asseman, Biblioth. Orient, torn. in. part ii. pp. 643 sq., and
Neale's Eastern Church, n. 98 sq., where the forms of election are
given in the two cases respectively) : but as they were not in communion
with the Church at large, they had no weight in counteracting the en
croachments of the popes.
3 The Boman patriarchate was originally small, confined to the ten
provinces of middle and southern Italy and Sicily. See De Marca, Con
cordia Sacerd. et Imperii, lib. i. c. 7.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
The grant
of the
pallium. The papal
power ad
vanced by
the Sara
cenic con
quests.

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d. 590

between
Rome and
Byzantium.

The title of
' (Ecumeni
cal patri
arch.'

following period, in a deep and irreparable schism between
the Greek and the Latin Christians. It is true there
had long been a feeling of respect (in some, it may be,
allied to veneration) for the Church that was thought to
have been planted by St Peter in the mother-city of the
world1. This feeling was diffused in countries very far
from the Italian pale ; it was shared even in the Eastern
patriarchates, where the many were disposed to grant a
primacy of order to the sister-church of Rome. But when
the court with its prestige had been transplanted from
the west, Constantinople was exalted to a parity of rank2,
and laboured to secure its prominent position.
An example of the contest is supplied at the close of
the sixth century. John the Faster (6 vricnevTr]<;) , pa
triarch of Constantinople, had begun3 (about 587) to make
use of the title ' OEcumenical bishop,' in accordance with
the pompous language of Justinian4. This was peculiarly
offensive to the Roman prelate, Gregory the Great (590 — •
604J, who instantly denounced5 the conduct of his rival.
1 e. g. Valentin, in. a.d. 455: 'cum igitur sedis apostolicas primatum
B. Petri meritum, qui est princeps sacerdotalis coronas, et Bomanas dig-
nitas civitatis, sacras etiam synodi firmarit auctoritas 'etc.: ad ealc. Cod.
Theodosian. torn. vi. p. 12 : cf. the language of Columbanus, above, p. 17,
note 1.
2 See Concil. Constantinop. a.d. 381, can. m.: Concil. Chalcedon, a.d.
451, can. xxviii, which confirms the decision of the earlier council: t4
laa irpefffieia aw^vecaav t$ ttjs vias^ibp-ns ayiurraWif dpbvy, k.t.\., on the
ground that Constantinople was the seat of the empire. The Council
in Trullo (691) repeated the decree in still clearer terms: can. xxxvi:
tGiv tauv airoKaiovaav irpe&flduv rfj rrpea^vripq. /3a<riXZfii 'Pii/vy. These
canons were signed by the emperor and the four Eastern patriarchs : the
pope, however, obstinately refused, and some of the decisions were
afterwards reversed by synods in the west. In the'Codex of Justinian,
lib. I. tit. ii. c. 24, the Church of Constantinople is entitled traaCbv ran
a\\wi> Kecpakrj ; but he used the same language in regard to the Church of
Borne. Ibid. lib. i. tit. i. c. 7, and elsewhere. The incursion of the
Lombards into Italy (568) weakened the connexion between the empire
and the popes, and left them more at liberty to follow out their central
izing projects. Even then, however, the obstructions they encountered
were not few. The archbishop of Aquileia and the Istrian prelates had
suspended all communion with the court of Borne in the controversy on
the Three Chapters, and were not reconciled till 698: see J. F. B. M. de
Bubeis, Monimenta Ecclesia Aquilejensis, ed. 1740, and Gieseler, n. 129.
3 It is clear from Gregor. Ep. v. 18, that Pelagius II., his predecessor,
was offended ' propter nef andum elationis vocabulum. '
4 Cf . Codex, lib. i. tit. i. 7 : Novell, in. v. and elsewhere.
6 See, among others, a letter addressed to John himself (595), v. 18,
and one of the same date to the emperor Maurice, v. 20,

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

39

For his own part also he was ready to disclaim an appella
tion of that nature1, on the ground that it detracted from
the honour of his colleagues. Yet in spite of these dis
claimers, it is obvious that to him, far more than any
of his predecessors, the foundation of the papal monarchy
is due2.- He seems to have1 been possessed by an idea8
that the source of all authority for every province of
the Church was lodged, by some special grant, in the
successors of St Peter: and the vigour of his mind4,
united with his many Christian virtues, had enabled
him to propagate his tenets fax and near, not only in
the ancient Roman dioceses, but in every province of
the west. In contrast with the misery at home5, a field
of increasing glory was presented to his view in the
mission to the Anglo-Saxons, the conversion of the Arian
Visigoths in Spain6, and the respect with which his coun-
1 a.d. 598, in a letter to Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, who, in
the style of the Eastern Church, had called Gregory ' universalis episco-
pus.' Gregor. Ep. vm. 30. It continued, however, to be given to the
see of Constantinople, and Phocas, the murderer of Maurice, who
ascended the imperial throne in 602, rewarded the countenance he had
received from the pope (cf. Gregor. Epist. xm. 31), by advocating his
pretensions to supremacy: 'Hie (Phocas), rogante papa Bonifacio, sta-
tuit sedem Bomanas et Apostolicas ecclesias caput esse omnium ecclesia-
rum, quia ecclesia Constantinopolitana primam se omnium ecclesiarum
scribebat.' Beda, Chronicon, a.d. 614. The communication of the Bo
man prelates with the court was kept up by an agent (apocrisiarius) at
Constantinople. Gregory the Great and two of his immediate successors
had each held this office in their earlier years.
2 ' Upon the whole, the papal authority had made no decisive progress
in France, or perhaps anywhere beyond Italy, till the pontificate of Gre
gory I.' Hallam, Middle Ages, ch. vn: i. 519; ed. 1841. For a minute
account of its inroads and possessions at the beginning of the seventh
century, see Wiltsch's Handbuch der Kirchlichen Geographic und Sta-
tistik, I. 67 sq. Berlin, 1846.
3 'De Constantinopolitana ecclesia,' he asks, Epist. ix. 12, 'quis earn
dubitet sedi apostolicas esse subjectam?' — but this might imply no more
than the priority of Borne as one of the sedes apostolica : see the whole
of his letter to Eulogius (vn. 40), where he seems to argue as if Antioch
and Alexandria, which had also been indebted to St Peter, stood on a
level with the Boman church.
4 This was shewn by his letters, of which 840 have been preserved,
and by his theological Treatises.
6 Gibbon, ch. xlv: iv. 267, ed. Milman.
6 In a letter to Bechared, king of the Visigoths, a.d. 599, Epist. rx.
122, he praiseB the zeal of that monarch in reclaiming 'all the nation of
the Goths' from the heresy of Arius, and forwards a pallium to Leander,
bishop of Seville, at his own request. Ibid. ix. 121. In 701 — 710, how
ever, Witiza the king endeavoured to restore the independence of the

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
Progress of
the papal
power un
der Gregory
the Great.

40

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 590

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
'  «  '
His succes

ses were accepted by the Frankish kings and prelates1.
He was followed in a quick succession by Sabinian (604),
Bonifacius III. (607), Bonifacius IV. (608), Deusdedit
(615), Bonifacius V. (619), Honorius I. (625), Severinus
(638 X), John IV. (640), Theodore I. (642), Martin I. (649),
Eugenius I. (654), Vitalian (657), Adeodatus (672), Donus
(676), Agatho2 (678), Leo II. (682), Benedict II. (683 ?),
John8 V. (685), Conon (686), Sergius I. (687), John VI.
(701), John VII. (705), Sisinnius (708), Constantine I.
(708), Gregory4 II. (715), — whose advocate in forwarding
the papal power was Boniface, the Englishman, — Gregory5
III. (731), Zacharias (741), Stephen II. (752), Stephen6
Spanish Church, and forbade all appeals to a 'foreign' bishop; but the
conquests of the Saracens soon after put an end to this freer movement.
For a careful statement of the evidence respecting Witiza, see Gieseler,
II. 189 sq.
1 e. g. Gregor. Epist. xi. 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 69. In the last,
dated like the others, 601, he asks leave of Brunechild, the FrankiBh
queen, to send a legate into Gaul, with the hope of restraining such priests
as lived 'impudice ac nequiter.' This intercourse was, however, weak
ened during the political disturbances of the seventh century, and only
re-established under Pepin and Carloman. Gieseler, n. 187.
3 In apologizing for his delay in sending legates to the Council of Con
stantinople (680), he thus speaks of the growth of his dominion in the
west : ' Primum quidem, quod numerosa multitudo nostrorum usque ad
oceani regiones extenditur, cujus itineris longinquitas in multi temporis
cursum protelatur: sperabamus deinde de Britannia Theodorum, archie-
piscopum et philosophum, ad nostram humilitatem conjungere : et max-
ime quia in medio gentium, tarn Longobardorum, quamque Sclavorum,
necnon Francorum, Gallorum, et Gothorum, atque Britannorum, plurimi
confamulorum nostrorum esse noscuntur.' Mansi, n. 294.
3 It is remarkable that this pope and six of his immediate successors
were either Greeks or Syrians, which is to be ascribed to the want of
theological scholars in Borne, or still more to the influence of the Byzan
tine court. Dollinger, C. H. in. 110.
4 The following passage from a letter to the emperor Leo (729) is very
remarkable : ' Nos viam ingredimur in extremas occidentis regiones ver
sus illos, qui sanctum baptisma efflagitant. Cum enim illuc episeopos
misissem et sanctae ecclesias nostras clericos, nondum adducti sunt, ut
capita sua inclinarent et baptizarentur, eorum principes, quod exoptent,
ut eorum sim susceptor (e/ii em^nrovvres yevtardai airwv dvdSoxov). Hao
de causa nos ad viam, Dei benignitate, accingimus, ne forte damnationis
et incurias nostras rationem reddamus.' Mansi, xn. 981. Another speci
men of his extravagant language occurs, ibid. 971: toV ayiov IHrpov al
iratrai pairiXctat rrjs Siaeias Oebv Myeiov txpvm.
5 In a letter to the English bishops (cir. 731) he informs them that he
had constituted Tatwin, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all Britain
and his vicar. Wilkins, I. 81. But the genuineness of the letter is
questionable. See Councils, &e. in. 312.
6 At his prayer (755) the Franks were induced to rescue his possessions

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

41

III. (753), Paul I. (757), Constantine II. (767), Philip (768),
Stephen IV. (768), Hadrian I. (772), Leo III. (795—816).
But although we may trace encroachments in the conduct
of these prelates, and a growing boldness in their tone,
especially in Gregory II. and in Zacharias, it was not
until the papacy1 of Hadrian I. that a claim to the pastor
ship of all the Christian Church was fully brought to
light. The Eastern patriarchates, it is true, continued to
resist this arrogant demand as firmly and successfully as
ever : but it gained a more general acceptance in the west.
This will be found especially in regions now brought over
to the Gospel, and in tribes of Teutonic blood. A large
portion of the extant rescripts2 issued at this period were
directed to the rulers of the Church of England. While
they shew us how profoundly she was moved by senti
ments of gratitude and veneration3, they bear witness also
to the servile spirit of her children, notwithstanding4 some
from the Lombards (Scriptores Franc, ed. Duchesne, m. 707), and in this
way Italy was lost to the enfeebled emperors of the east, who could no
longer keep it in their grasp. The crowning of Charlemagne (Dec. 25,
800) with the imperial diadem, in the church of St Peter, gave fresh
vigour to the inroads of the popes. He added also to their landed pro
perty, and made them temporal princes : on which see Hadrian's letter
to him (777) ubi sup. 766 ; Neander, v. 168 ; and De Marca, De Concordia,
lib. in. c. 12.
1 'It cannot, I think, be said, that any material acquisitions of eccle
siastical power were obtained by the successors of Gregory (the Great) for
nearly one hundred and fifty years.' Hal lam, Middle Ages, I. 520. Ha
drian I., however, says distinctly (782): 'Sedes apostolica caput totius
mundi et omnium Dei ecclesiarum,' Codex Carolin. ed. Cenni, i. 389:
' Cujus sollicitudo, delegata Divinitus, cunctis debetur ecclesiis :' and other
similar expressions are quoted by Neander, v. 166, 167 (notes). On the
circulation of the pseudo-Isidore Decretals (at the close of the eighth
century) these notions were apparently supported by a continuous chain
of testimony reaching up to the Apostles. Ibid. vi. 2 — 8.
2 See the useful index of Jaffa" (Berlin, 1851) entitled Regesta Pontificum
Romanorum. 3 This led to the foundation of an English college at Borne entitled
' Schola Saxonum.' See Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxons, i. 205 — 207. It was
afterwards converted into a hospital ' Xenodochium Sancti Spiritus,' for
the entertainment of English pilgrims who, from 720 to the close of the
century, were very numerous. Bed. Hist. Eccl. v. 7 : Chronicon, in Mo
nument. Hist. Briton, p. 101 A. Others, like the youthful monarch Cead-
w'alla (689), and his successor Ine (725), took up their permanent abode
in Bome, ' ad limina beatorum apostolorum.' Bed. Hist. Eccl. v. 7.
4 See Wilfrith's case, above, p. 15, n. 3. Alcuin, also, led astray by a
spurious document (Ep. xon, al. ovni, Opp. i. 134, cf. Neand. v. 168),
arrived in the year 800 at the conclusion, that the see of Bome was
' judiciariam, non judicandam ;' and in 796 he addressed the pope (Ep.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Further
increase of
the papal
power: its esta
blishment
among the
Anglo-Saxons :

42

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d. 590

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

and the
Germans.

The grow
ing consi
deration of
the Monks.

occasional assertions of their freedom. And the same must
be conceded in the case of Germany, as soon as the Irish
school was silenced and subverted. In the council1 at
which Boniface presided (742), in his character of Roman
legate, he was able to anticipate the fervent wishes of his
master. Every scheme he then propounded for the organ
izing of the German Church was based on subjection
to the popes. This tendency indeed was balanced for a
while by the action of the royal power ; but as soon as
the diadem of Charlemagne had descended to his weaker
and more pliant' offspring, the aggressive spirit of the
papacy unfolded all its might.
A second feature in the changes of this period was the
growing reputation of the monks. Being now not un-
frequently admitted into orders, and distinguished for their
missionary zeal, their swarming numbers, their superior
learning, and the strictness of their mode of life, they won
the applauses of the multitude as well as of the courts2,
eclipsing the parochial clergy, and evading the exactions
of the bishops. It is true, they were subject in most
countries3 to the censures of their own diocesans, but
in the course of the seventh century they strove to be
exempted from this rule, which had sometimes grown ex
ceedingly oppressive4; and the favour they enjoyed at
Rome" enabled many convents of the west to realize.
xx, al. xxiv, Opp. I. 30) in the following terms : ' Sanctissime Pater, pon-
tifex a Deo electus, Vicarius apostolorum, hasres patrum, princeps eccle-
sias, unius immaculatas columbas nutritor,' etc.; though much of this
language is to be regarded as empty rhetoric.
1 Ep. lxiii. Carloman, who prompted this synodal action, withdrew
from his court in 748, ' ad limina beatorum apostolorum pervenit,' and
assumed the monastic habit. Annates Laurissenses Minor, in Pertz, t
115. 2 In England alone nearly thirty kings and queens retired into con
vents or reclusion during the seventh and eighth centuries. Dollinger,
n. 58. And the same, though to a less extent, is true of other countries.
Schrockh, xx. 10—12. The monastic life was the realization of the ideal
of the mediaBval mind. Buckingham, Bible in the Middle Ages, p. 82.
3 There was an exception in the case of Africa, where some of the con
vents placed themselves under the protection of distant bishops. Concil.
ed. Mansi, ym. 648. In the seventh century exemptions had commenced
in the patriarchate of Constantinople. They were denoted by the erec
tion, at the cloister, of a patriarchal cross. Dollinger, n. 285.
4 On the despotic powers of the bishops at this period and the oppo
sition (conjurationes) they provoked, Bee Guizot, Hist, of Civilization,
Sc, n. 55 sq., 94 sq., ed. Lond. 1846. The conjurationes of the monks
were perhaps akin to the olerical \ gilds' in England. Alfred's Works, 1. 445.

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

43

their wishes1. They were made to contribute in this
way to the fixing of the papal power. The Rules2 of
Columbanus, Isidore, and Csesarius of Aries, like the older
systems of St Basil, Cassian, and the rest, were gradually
supplanted in the Western churches by the order of St
Benedict. He was a native of Umbria, and in 529 es
tablished the great model-abbey ol Monte" Cass!^T°Tlis
chief~aim was to mitigate the harshness and monotony
that characterized the Eastern systems, though in one re
spect he made his institute more rigid, — by the vow,
which, after a noviciate of one year, he claimed of every
person who retreated to his cloisters. It was not, however,
till some time after his death (543) that the order was
extensively adopted : but in the course of two hundred
years it was everywhere diffused in Gaul, in Italy, and
Spain ; and it followed in the track of Benedictine monks
who laboured in Great Britain and the northern parts of
Europe3. Much as this order, by its union and its growing
6 See Gregor. I., Epist. vni. 15, addressed (598) to the bishop of
Bavenna. A Boman Synod (601) .drew up constitutions in their favour ;
there is also a decree attributed to a Boman Council of 610 allowing
monks in priests' orders to execute all priestly functions ; but this is pro
bably spuriouB. (Councils, &c. m. 63, 64.) Cf. Council of Seville (618)
can. 10, 11; Epist. Johan. IV. apud Labb. Concil. v. 1773.
1 The early and less questionable exemptions simply relieve the monks
from the interference of bishops in the economical management of the
monasteries. This privilege is greatly expanded in the forged documents
of a later period; a ludicrous instance is that of Medeshamstede, in
which the pope is made to appoint the abbot his legate for all England.
Wilkins, I. 48.
2 See L. Holstein's Codex Regularum Monasticarum, etc. 1759, and
Heylot's Histoire des Ordres Religieux, etc. ed. 1792. Monasticism
retained its variety of form in the Eastern patriarchates. For some idea
of its spirit in those regions, see Moschus (Johan.), Aeiaap (compiled
about 610) in Auctarium Biblioth. Patrum Ducaanum, Paris, 1624, torn.
n. 1057 sq. The numerous conventual establishments of the Nestorians
are described in Asseman, Biblioth. Orient, torn, n part ii. The Jacob
ites at this period introduced monasticism into Ethiopia, where 'the
sons of Teklahaimanot' are said to have equalled the Benedictines of the
west. Neale, n. 74.
3 It has been questioned whether the early monasticism of the Anglo-
Saxon Church was purely Benedictine. On the whole it seems most pro
bable that Augustine and the Kentish mission introduced the modified or
lax practice then in vogue at Bome, and that even this was modified still
further by the association of secular priests with monks in the episcopal
and missionary settlements. As the character of the church became less
distinctly missionary, and as the reforms of the Benedictine rule followed
one another, the monks became more strict and separated from the secu-

INTEENAL
ORGANIZA TION.
The im
portance of the Be
nedictine order.

44

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d. 590

Institutionof collegi
ate Canons.

numbers, interfered with the freedom of the local churches,
and facilitated the. incursions of the popes, it must not
withstanding be regarded as a patron of the arts1, and
as contributing to fan the embers of religion2.
The corruptions which prevailed in the eighth century
among the major and the minor clerics, as distinguished
from the monks, appear to have suggested the idea of
binding them together by a rule, analogous to those obtain
ing in the convents. The design is attributed to Chrodegang,
a pious bishop of Metz (742—766), who founded3 what was
known as the order of cathedral or collegiate ' canons.' It
is clear that the members of his chapter differed little from
the Benedictine monks, except in their enjoyment of some
personal estate, arising from a periodical division of the
funds of the cathedral. They used a common dormitory
and refectory; at fixed (or 'canonical') hours they met in
the church for worship, and in the chapter-house to hear
the exhortations of the bishop. Chrodegang's institute
was sanctioned, with some changes, at the council of Aix-
la-Chapelle (816), and was copied4 very soon in other
countries.
lar clergy (e. g. under Benedict Biscop and later under Boniface) but also
diminished in numbers and influence, until at the date of the Danish
invasion pure monasticism was nearly extinct. That invasion destroyed
the remains of the primitive system, and the English monachism of the
tenth century was a new institution. In Germany it was otherwise;
Willebrord, Boniface, and most of the German missionaries were also
Benedictines. It was natural, therefore, that the German synods should
insist upon conformity to the institute under which they had themselves
been trained. Helyot, n. 58.
1 The impulse in this direction appears to have been communicated
by Cassiodorus. See his treatises 'De institutione Divinarum litterarum'
and 'De artibus ac disciplinis liberalium litterarum' (Opp. Bothomagi,
1679) , both of which were much esteemed by the mediasval monks.
2 See Mabillon's Acta Sanctorum Ordin. Benedict, passim. The Bene
dictines and their offshoots were peculiarly devoted to the study of the
Bible : see, for instance, the Antiquiores Consuetudines Cluniacensis Mo-
nasterii, in D'Achery, I. 650, (ed. 1723), where we find the order of read
ing the whole Bible once a year.
3 Chrodogangi Regula Sincera, apud Mansi, Concil. xrv. 313. Strictly
speaking, Chrodegang was not the author of the rule. It was akin to
the canonical institute of St Augustine: Helyot, n. 64 sq. Canonesses
also are first mentioned at the Council of Chalons-sur-Saone (813):
Ib. n. 59.
4 Ib. p. 68. Paul Warnefrid (Gesta Episc. Mettensium ; Pertz, ii. 268)
has left a contemporary account of Chrodegang and his active life. Char
lemagne was so pleased with the new institute that he wanted all the
clergy to be either monks or canons. Capitular. a.d. 789, c. 75 (Baluze,

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

45

But in addition to the city clergy, whom it was thus
attempted to reduce more fully under the inspection of the
bishop, every diocese included many others, who officiated
in rural districts. These were the seculars, comprising (1)
the parish-priests1 and their assistants; (2) the roving or
itinerant clergy2, who had no proper cure and no fixed em
ployment; (3) a large band of chaplains3, who obeyed all
the movements of the court, or were attached to the castles
of the gentry. To correct excesses in these quarters, and
to mitigate the evils, on the part of laymen, that grew
out of their abuse4 of the right of patronage, it was need
ful that the prelates should secure a closer supervision of
their flocks. An order had indeed been given at the end5
I. 239). There are traces of an attempt to introduce portions of the
system into England as early as 813; Councils, &c, in. 575; Kemble,
Cod. Dipt, cc : monastic institutions being then on the wane. But nei
ther the discipline nor the name of canons was really planted here before
the 11th century and then the rule of Chrodegang was almost universally
rejected. 1 See Bingham, bk. ix. ch. vin. In most other countries the division
into parishes was very ancient, but in England the introduction of the
system is a matter of great obscurity. The monastic stations founded by
the original missionaries seem to have long supplied the wants of the
people. The original parish priest would be the minister of the village
community or chaplain of the lord of a franchise, and the parish in most
cases would coincide with the territory of the community or franchise.
In Bede's letter to Egbert traces of an incipient system of the kind may
be found. The process in a thinly populated and unsettled country was
naturally slower than on the continent where it was only necessary to
adopt the ancient local divisions. Theodore has been named as the
founder of the parochial system, but it was probably growing up gra
dually from his time to that of Alfred.
2 These had grown up through a relaxation of the ancient laws which
provided that no clergyman should be ordained except to a particular
church. Charlemagne laboured to abate the evils that had flowed from
their disorderly proceedings. Capitular. a.d. 789: ib. a.d. 794. The
former, among other things, decrees 'ut in diebus festis vel Dominicis,
omnes ad ecclesiam veniant, et non invitent presbyteros ad domos suas ad
missas faciendas, ' c. 9.
3 The trouble they created for the bishops may be gathered from
the 14th canon of the Council of Chalons (649). The principal chaplain
of the court (archicapellanus) became a kind of 'minister of religion'
for the whole kingdom: see Planck, Geschichte der Kirchenverfassung,
n. 147. 4 e. g. Bonifacii Opp. n. 22: 'Ut laici presbyteros non ejiciant de
ecclesiis, nee mittere prassumant sine consensu episcoporum suorum : ut
laici omnino non audeant munera exigere a presbyteris, propter com-
mendationem ecclesiae cuique presbytero.' This prohibition was renewed
(813) at Aries, c. 5.
5 Concil. Bracarense m. (of Braga, 572) can. l.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
The secular
clergy.

46

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 590

visitations.Archdeacons, and
rural chap
ters.
Synods.

Their main
objects at

of the former period (572) that the bishop should inspect
his diocese in person every year. This practice was con
tinued in the following centuries1; and the effect of it was
extended by the larger powers of the archdeacon2, and
the rise of many rural chapters3 (or associations of adjoin
ing parishes).
But the organization of the Church is due still more to
the influence of Synods4, which had long been in the
Western Church the ordinary courts for determining all
controverted questions. The proceedings of the synods5 of
this epoch, with exceptions to be noticed in the following
chapter, did not turn habitually on points of doctrine, but
related to the conduct of the clergy or the people, the
external welfare of the Church, and the wider propagation
of the Gospel. They forbad all ministrations of a cleric
who was unacquainted6 with the language of the country ;
they insisted on a more extensive knowledge of the Bible7;

1 e. g. Bonifacii Epist. lxiii. p. 141: Synod of Clovesho, 747, can. in.;
Wilkins, i. 95. In the Frankish empire these visitations were connected
with the establishment of sends (? synodi), or spiritual courts : see Neander,
v. 148, 149. The bishops in all cases attempted to extirpate the numerous
remains of heathenism as well as open vices.
2 Bingham, bk. n. ch. xxi. § 9: Neander, v. 152, 153. In some of the
recently converted districts there was a great lack both of presbyters and
bishops. See the excellent letter of Bede to archbp. Ecgberht (734),
where he urges the necessity of further subdivision in that prelate's field
of labour. As the power of the archdeacon was enlarged, the chorepiscopi
were all abolished. Giesler, n. 249.
3 The ' capitula ruralia ' were presided over by archpresbyters, or, in
more modern language, rural deans : see Ducange, sub voce, and Dansey's
Hora Decanica Rurales, 2nd edit.
4 See above, p. 36, and cf. Guizot, Civilization, Led. xin. In Spain
the synods were chiefly national, and, in defect of such, provincial coun
cils were to be assembled every year. See Council of Toledo (633), c. 3 :
Merida (666), c. 7. The former of these gives directions touching the
mode in which the synods should be held, can. 4. In England, under
Theodore and subsequently, it was usual to hold provincial synods, at
least in the southern province, though not, as he directed, twice a-year.
Kemble, n. 367.
5 See an abstract of their acts, chronologically arranged, in Guizot,
Append, to Vol. n. For specimens, at length, see those of Clovesho
(747), and Cealchythe (787): Wilkins, i. 94 sq.; 145 sq. The object of
the annual synod is thus stated by pope Zacharias (Bonif. Epist. xlviii.):
'ad pertractandum de unitate ecclesise, ut si quid adversi accident
radicibus amputetur, et Dei ecclesia maneat inconcussa.'
6 e. g. Bonifacii Statuta, § xxvn : Opp. n. 24: cf. Charlemagne, Capi-
tul. a.d. 813, §14; I. 505.
7 e. g. Council of Toledo (633), c. 25 : (653), o. 8 : of Aries (813), c. 25.

-814]

Constitution of the Church.

47

they prescribed the routine of public worship1, and endea
voured to produce a greater uniformity2; in short, they
were the legislative and judicial organs of the Church;
although their movements might be checked and overruled
by the voice of superior councils, by the arbitrary measures
of the. State, or, at times, in the churches of the west, by
the fiats of the Roman court.
The marriage of the clergy proper3, interdicted^though
it were by emperors and kings, by western synods, and
emphatically by the popes, was not generally suppressed
in the seventh century. In the eastern patriarchates, a
council held at Constantinople, 691, (the Council in Trullo),
while forbidding4 second marriages of priests or deacons,
and reflecting on all marriages contracted after ordination,
is opposed to the canons of the west. It vindicates5 the
right of married clergymen to live as before with their
proper consorts, on the ground that the holy ordinance of
matrimony would be otherwise dishonoured. In the Latin
Church, however, where the Trullan regulations were not
all adopted, we observe a more stringent tone in the
synodal decisions6; and when Boniface had been suc
cessful in his German mission, he expended not a little
of his ardour in discrediting the married clergy7. This
1 e. g. Council of Rome (595), c. 1, prescribing what parts of the service
shall be chanted, and what read.
2 e. g. Toledo (675), c. 3, ordering all bishops of the province to con
form to the ritual of the metropolitan church; as an older canon of
Toledo (633), c. 2, directed that the same order of prayer and psalmody
should be observed throughout the kingdom.
3 This distinction is important : for a multitude of persons now sub
mitted to the tonsure without passing to the higher orders of the Church.
See Guizot, Sect. xin. p. 38.
4 Can. in : Mansi, xi. 941.
5 Can. xin.
6 e. g. Council of Toledo (653) can. v. vi. vn. It seems that Witiza,
the reforming king of Spain, in the eighth century, rescinded the decrees
relating to the celibacy of clerics. Gieseler, n. 191, note.
' The following is the language of his patron Zacharias: 'Qui cle-
rici etiam ab uxoribus abstinere debeant, ex concilio Africano, cap.
xxxvn. ita continentur : Prasterea cum de clericorum quorundam (quam-
vis erga proprias uxores) incontinentia referretur, placuit episcopos et
presbyteros seu diaconos, secundum propria statuta, etiam ab uxori
bus continere: quod nisi fecerint, ab ecclesiastico officio removeantur.
Casteros autem clericos ad id non cogi, sed secundum uniuscujusque
ecclesia? consuetudinem observari debere.' Bonif. Ep. lxv: Opp.
155.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Marriage
of the
clergy.

48

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d. 590

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Income of
the clergy.

antipathy was shared by his countrymen at home1: yet, in
spite of the admonitions of the bishop, and the legislation
of the Witan (or state-council), very many of the English
seculars, like those of other lands, continued to bring up
the issue of their marriage2.
With regard to the income of the clergy, it accrued as
before from the endowments of their churches, and the
voluntary offerings of the faithful3. The revenues thus
obtained were thrown into a common stock, which it was
usual, in the Roman church4 and others, to distribute in
four portions; of which one was allotted to the poor, a
second to the parish priests, a third to the fabric and
expenses of the church, and the remnant to the bishop
of the diocese. The administration6 of the property was
left entirely in his hands.
Another source of church-revenue were the tithes, which,
although they had been claimed on moral grounds at a
far earlier date6, were not uniformly paid by Christians
of the west until the close of the sixth century'. A special
law of Charlemagne", 779, enforced the payment on all
subjects of the empire, and his neighbours for the most
part followed his example9. Like the voluntary offer-
1 There are however hardly any references to clerical marriages in the
genuine Anglo-Saxon laws or canons of this period.
2 See Kemble, n. 444 sq., where the chain of testimony is shewn to be
almost unbroken.
3 The French clergy at the end of this period had become extremely
rich. See Guerard, Cartulaire de I'Eglise de Notre Dame de Paris, Pref.
p. xxxvii; Paris, 1850.
4 Bed. i. 27. In Spain, and perhaps elsewhere, the bishop had a third
of the revenues: see Council of Braga (560), can. vn; of Toledo (633),
can. xxxin.
6 Council of Orleans (511), can. xrv. xv: cf. Guizot, Led. xni. p. 53.
The Council of Braga (675) complains of the injustice and extortion of
some of the bishops.
6 Bingham, bk. v. ch. v.
7 The councils of Tours (567) and of Mdcon (585) endeavoured to pro
cure a more regular payment.
8 Capitular. a.d. 779, c. vn. The severity with which this law had
been enforced was regretted by the gentle Alcuin: see Epist. lxxx. (al.
xcv.) ad Domnum Regem: Opp. I. 117. In Ep. lxxii. (al. lxxxvii. Opp. I.
105) he gives the following advice to Arno : ' Esto prasdicator pietatis, non
decimarum exactor.'
9 The history of tithe in England has been complicated both by con
troversial misstatements and by the existence of the antedated or fabri
cated penitential literature. The establishment of the right grew up
here in very much the same course as on the continent. (1) Setting

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

49

ings which preceded them, the tithes were intended for
the clergy and the poor; the bishop of the diocese at
first prescribing the allotments, even where he was not
himself entitled to a portion.

§2. RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO THE CIVIL
POWER.
The Church has been hitherto regarded as an independ
ent corporation, organized entirely on a model of its own,
expanding with the vigour it inherited from heaven, and
governed, in the name of its holy Founder, by the prelates
who derived authority from Him. But after the imperial
coinage bore the impress of religion, and the sovereigns of
the east and west were 'patrons' of the Church, its history
involved another class of questions : it had entered into an
alliance with the State, and, as a natural result, its path
was in future to be shaped according to the new relations.
This alliance did not lead, as it might have done, to an
absorption of the secular into the sacerdotal power, nor to
a complete amalgamation of the civil and ecclesiastical tri
bunals : yet its strength was often injured by the action of
opposing forces, either by the Church aspiring to become the
mistress of the State, or by the State encroaching on the pro
vince of the Church and suppressing her inherent rights.
The former of these tendencies predominated in the west, the
latter in the east. The one was diverging into Romanism;
aside the statements of the spurious penitentials, it is clear from the
genuine penitential of Theodore, that the duty of giving tithe to sacred
purposes was regarded by him as part of the common law of the church ;
Posnit. n. c. ii. § 8 ; c. xiv. §§ 9, 10. The same was the opinion of the
early lawyers who refer the introduction of the custom to St Augustine.
Leges Eadw. capp. vii, viii. Thorpe, i. 445. (2) The legatine Council of
787, whose decrees were accepted as binding by the kings and witan of
Mercia and Northumbria, and probably by the witan of Wessex also,
enacts in the seventeenth canon, "ut omnes studeant de omnibus quae
possident decimas dare:" and on this is perhaps based the statement
that Offa gave a tithe of all his property to the church. Beyond this
canon there is no extant enactment declaring the legal obligation of
tithe ; but it appears as an established law in the time of Edward the
Elder; Thorpe, i. 171. " If any man withhold tithes let him pay lahslit
among the Danes, wite with the English." On the story of Ethelwulfs '
gift of tithe, see Councils, &c. in. 637.
M. A. E

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

General
characterof the alli
ance be
tween Church
and State.

So

Constitution of the Church.

[A. D. 590

KELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.
Romanism and
Byzanti-
nism.

Deferenceof the West-
em kings
to the eccle
siastics, in
questions of
doctrine.

the other, to dictation of the civil power in adjudging con
troversies of the faith, — or, in a word, to Byzantinism.
It is true that the claims of the Roman pontiffs, who
evoked the aggressive spirit of the Church, were not urged
at the present epoch as they were in after-ages. Till the
middle of the eighth century Rome was itself dependent on
the Eastern empire1, and its voice in all civil questions2 was
proportionately humble. On the contrary it will be found
that the court of Byzantium was unwilling to abandon
the despotic powers that had been wielded by Justinian.
All theEastern patriarchs, and not unfrequently the Roman3,
were its immediate nominees ; it laid claim to a quasi-sacer
dotal4 character, and, as we shall see at large, affected to
decide in religious controversies of the very gravest kind.
The Western princes, who, until the time of Charlemagne,
stood far lower in their mental training, were accustomed
to defer entirely6 to the wisdom of the synods, if the faith
of the Church was thought to be imperilled : and in cases
even where the kings, the bishops, and the nobles were com-
1 Gibbon, iv. 479, ed. Milman.
2 Thus Gregory II., one of the stoutest champions of the papacy,
writes to the Emperor Leo (729): 'Scis sanctas ecclesias dogmata non im-
peratorum esse, sed pontificum: idcirco ecclesiis praepositi sunt-pontifices
a reipublica negotiis abstinentes, et imperatores ergo similiter ab ecclesi-
asticis abstineant, et quas sibi commissa sunt, capessant.' Mansi, Concil.
xn. 969 : cf . ibid. 977, where he admits that the bishops have no right
' introspiciendi in palatium, ac dignitates regias def erendi.'
3 See Schrockh, xix. 408 sq. But in the case of the Boman bishop
there was generally some kind of election, though it was seldom bona fide.
Gregory the Great, like many of his successors, seems to have owed his
elevation to his former appointment, as 'apocrisiarius' at the court of
Byzantium. He was consecrated by the command of the emperor
Maurice, after his election by 'the clergy, senate, and Boman people.'
Johan. Diacon. Vit. Gregor. I. 39, in Gregor. Opp. ed. Bened. rv. 36:
Gregor. Turonensis, Hist. Franc, lib. x. 1. Some idea of the excitement
caused by these popular elections may be derived from the example of
Sergius I. (687), who is said to have been chosen 'a primatibus judicum,
et exercitu Bomanas militias, vel cleri seditiosi parte plurima, et praesertim
sacerdotum atque civium multitudine.' Two other candidates, Paschalis
and Theodorus, were elected by different factions. Vit. Sergii, in Vignolii
Lib. Pontif. I. 303, 304, ed. Bom. 1724.
4 'Imperator sum et sacerdos' was the claim of the emperor Leo
(729): Mansi, Concil. xn. 975. One of the charges brought against Ana-
stasius, a disciple of Maximus, in the Monothelete controversy, was that
he refused to recognize the emperor as a priest, and as possessed of
spiritual jurisdiction. Maximi Opp. i. 30: ed. Combefis.
6 Cf. Guizot, as above, n. 30. The precedents in which the royal
power was most freely exercised have been collected in the great work
entitled Preuves des Libertez de VEglise Gallicane.

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

51

bined in one assembly — an arrangement not unusual in the
Frankish empire1 and continuing in England till the Norman
Conquest2 — there was still a disposition to refer not a few
of the civil questions8 that emerged to the ultimate decision
of the prelates.
It was different, however, in respect of a second class of
questions, where the temporal and ecclesiastical provinces
appear to interpenetrate each other. We shall there find
the -Church compelled to surrender a large portion of her
ancient rights. A prominent example is supplied in the
filling up of vacant sees. "The bishop was at first elected, as
a rule4, by the voices of the clergy and the people ; but in
the Frankish empire, as well as in other parts, this custom
had been suffered to die out, amid the social changes of
the times. The arbitrary will of barbaric princes, such as
Clovis, Chilperic, and Charles Martel, was able to annihilate
the canons of the Church. They viewed the bishoprics as
a sort of ministerial benefice6, and as investing their posses
sors with political importance : it is not surprising, therefore,
if we find a series of such kings bestowing them at random
on the favourites of the court. These lax and iniquitous
proceedings6 were not, however, always unresisted by the
clergy. Several councils7, in succession, tried in vain to
1 See the list of persons present at the Councils, in Labbe, or Mansi :
and cf. Caroli Magni Capitul. lib. vi. c. 111.
3 Ancient Laws, <&c, ed. Thorpe, 1. 495. Before that time the bishop
took his place at the side of the ealdorman in the county-court (scir-
gemot). Kemhle, n. 385.
3 For an abstract of the varied duties of a bishop at this period, see
Ancient Laws, tfce. 11. 310 sq.
4 The exceptions, under the old Boman empire, were the bishoprics
of the more important cities, which in the east and west alike had been
generally filled by the royal nominees. Neander, v. 127.
5 Gieseler, 11. 153. Hence the demand of military services, which
some of the bishops rendered in person. Gewillieb (above, p. 22) is a
striking instance of this usage, though it was less common in the eighth
than in the former centuries. Charlemagne (in 801) absolutely forbade
all priests from taking part in a battle. Mansi, xin. 1054.
6 Gregor. Turon. Hist. Francor. vi. 39 : ' Cum multi munera offerrent,'
etc. De S. Patrum Vit. c. 3. de S. Gallo: 'Jam tunc germen illud
iniquum cosperat pullulare, ut sacerdotium aut venderetur a regibus aut
compararetur a clericis.' Cf . Neander, v. 127 sq. ; Gieseler, 11. 154, n. 9.
The abuse had been manifested also in Spain, where the council of Bar
celona (599) forbade the elevation of laymen to bishoprics 'aut per sacra
regalia, aut per consensionem eleri vel plebis:' can. 3: Mansi, x. 482 sq.
Gregory mentions a case of this sort in Hist. Francor. vni. 22.
7 e. g. that of Auvergne (533), c. 2; that of Paris (557), c. 8. The
E 2

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Points in
which the
civil power
encroached.

Discontinuance of
episcopal
elections.

52

Constitution of the Church. [a. P. 590

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.
Efforts to
revive the
older sys
tem:

favoured in some
measure by
the Carol-
ingian
princes:

stem the growing evil. They were seconded by Gregory
the Great1, and in 615, a synod held at Paris had the
courage to reiterate the ancient regulations. It declared5
that all episcopal elections which have been made without
the consent of the metropolitan and bishops of the province,
and of the clergy and people of the city, or which have
been made by violence, cabal, or bribery, are henceforth
null and void. This canon was at length confirmed by
Clothaire II., but not until he had so modified its meaning
as to be left in possession of a veto, if not of larger powers3.
It was afterwards repeated in 624 or 625 at Rheims, with
the addition4, ' that no one shall be consecrated bishop of a
see, unless he belong to the same district, have been chosen
by the people and the bishops of the province, and have
been approved by a metropolitan synod.' Under Charle
magne, and the rest of the Carolingian princes, who were
anxious to revive the canons of the Early Church, those
efforts of the Frankish prelates to regain their independence
were more uniformly carried out. The freedom of episco
pal elections was, at least in words, conceded5, and the
Church was not unwilling in her turn to grant a cor-
firmatory power to the sovereign6. It resulted, therefore,
that a prelate, after his election, could not officiate in his

latter employs the following language, after directing that the elections
should be made by ' the people and the clergy : ' ' Quodsi per ordinationem
regiam honoris istius culmen pervadere aliquis nimia temeritate praesum-
serit, a comprovincialibus loci ipsius episcopus recipi nuUatenus mereatur,
quern indebite ordinatum agnoscunt.'
1 e. g. Epist. (a.d. 601) xi. 59, 60, 61, 63.
2 Can. i: Labb. v. 1650.
" His proviso runs as follows: 'Episcopo deeedente in loco ipsius,
qui a metropolitano ordinari debet cum provincialibus a clero et populo
eligatur: et si persona condigna fuerit, per ordinationem principis ordi-
netur: vel certe si de palatio eligitur, per meritum personas et doctrines,
ordinetur.' Ibid. 1653.
4 Can. in ; xxv.
5 e. g. Capitul. Aquisgranense (a.d. 803), c. 2: 'Ut sancta ecclesia
suo liberius potiretur honore, adsensum ordini ecclesiastico prasbuimus,
ut episcopi per electionem cleri et populi, secundum statuta canonum, de
propria diocesi, remota personarum et munerum acceptione, ob vitas
meritum et sapientias donum, eligantur,' etc.
6 Something like this had been already conceded in the council of
Orleans (549), c. 10; where the election is appointed to be made cum
voluntate regis: cf. above, note 3. 'The contest between election and
royal nomination was often reproduced: but in every case the necessity
of [the royal] confirmation was acknowledged.' Guizot, n. 81.

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

53

sacred calling till he had received the approbation of the
secular authority. But, as we shall see hereafter, even
where the princes were most friendly to the Church, they
were loth to be deprived of so strong an engine as the
privilege of naming bishops must have placed within their
grasp. They seem indeed to have employed it, in some
special cases, with the open acquiescence of the clergy; for
a canon of the council at Toledo1, 681, enacted, with con
ditions, that a primate was at liberty to consecrate those
persons whom the king should appoint to the vacant sees :
and in England, where the clergy, and the people also,
had a voice in the royal council (in the ' witena gemot '),
the nomination of a prelate by that body, though in theory
an act of the sovereign himself, approximated to the primi
tive election2.
A second point in which the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities might have come into collision was the gather
ing of church-assemblies. In the former period, general
councils had been summoned by the kings, while the pro
vincial and diocesan were held at the pleasure of the bishops.
But distinctions of this kind were no longer kept in view,
at least in the administration of the newly-planted churches.
Numbers of the earliest and most active converts, both in
Germany and in England, were connected with the royal
households ; and in this way it would naturally occur that
measures which related to the organizing of the Church
would emanate directly from the king. His power was
in fact exhibited not only in the founding of episcopal
sees, but in a general supervision of the clergy, and in
the convocation of assemblies whether legislative or ju
dicial. In those countries, synods (as already noted) were
most frequently combined with the civil diets ; though the
prelates, under Charlemagne, held their sessions in a sepa
rate chamber3 ; and even where they met to determine a
1 c. vi : Labb. vi. 1221.
a See Kemble, Saxons in England, n. 377, where it is also shewn that
English prelates were sometimes both appointed and displaced by a mere
act of the royal will, and that bishoprics were frequently bestowed on
royal chaplains. It is clear however from Alcuin's letters to the clergy
of York, and from other sources, that in the latter days of the Heptarchy
the right of election was recognized and really exercised by the clergy.
3 e. g. this was the usage at the council of Mentz (813) : cf . Capital.
A.D. 811, c. 4; i. 478, ed. Baluze.

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

but royal
nomina tions still
common.

Right of
calling
Synods

exercisedby

54'

Constitution of the Church. [a. d. 590

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Mutualconfidence
of the civil
and eccle
siastical

Effects of
this on

doctrinal question, they were acting, for the most part, in
obedience to the royal will1.
It is indeed remarkable, that so long as kings were
esteemed the real patrons of the Church2, she felt no wish
to define exactly her relations to the civil power : the two
authorities, in some way parallel and independent, laboured
to enforce obedience to each other3. This was manifested
more especially in Charlemagne and the Anglo-Saxon
princes, who seem to have maintained, with few exceptions,
a most friendly bearing to the Church, and to have every
where infused a mutual confidence into the courts, the
bishops, and the people.
Gifted in this manner with peculiar powers4 in virtue of .
their close alliance with the State, the clergy, and especially
the prelates, were enabled to exert a salutary influence on
the daily temper of the kings, and on the administration
of the laws. Their frequent intercessions in behalf of
criminals, and the asylums6 opened in their churches for
1 ' Orta quasstione de sancta Trinitate, et de sanctorum imaginibus,
inter orientalem et occidentalem ecclesiam, id est, Bomanos et Grascos,
rex Pippinus [a.d. 767], conventu in Gentiliaco villa congregato, synodum
de ipsa quasstione habuit.' Einhardi Annates: Pertz. i. 145. In like
manner, numerous councils were convoked by Charlemagne ('jussu ejus').
Ibid. i. 38, 87, 181, 196, 200.
2 Alcuin, writing to Charlemagne (799) a letter (Ep. lxxx. al. xcv. ) in
many ways remarkable, thus speaks of his relation to the Church: 'Ecce!
in te solo tota salus ecclesiarum Christi inclinata recumbit. Tu vindex
scelerum, tu rector errantium. tu consolator mosrentium, tu exaltatio
bonorum.' Opp. i. 117. He had just been deploring the evils of the.
times, and especially the insurrection of the Bomans against Leo III.:
cf. Annates Lauresham.; Pertz, I. 38. There can indeed be no doubt
respecting the extent of the royal prerogative, as it was wielded by the
hands of Charlemagne. Though he exempted the clergy more than ever
from the jurisdiction of the civil courts (Capit. a.d. 801, c. 1) he retained
the highest judicial power in all civil causes, even where the litigants
were bishops (Capit. a.d. 812, c. 1). By means of the missi (two extra
ordinary judges, a bishop, and a count), he was able to keep a continual
check on the administration both of ecclesiastical and of civil officers:
Capitul. in., a.d. 789, c. ii. and elsewhere: cf. Gieseler, n. 241 sq. -. Gui
zot, n. 319, 320.
3 'L'Eglise e'tait tellement identified avec l'e'tat, qu'il y avait alors
plutflt confusion que rivalite' entre eux.' Guerard, Cartulaire de VEgiise
de Notre Dame, Pref. p. xxi. Cf. Banke, Reformation, i. 6, 7 ; Lond. 1845.
4 How multifarious were the rights and duties of the bishops may be
seen from the Anglo-Saxon Institutes of Eccl. Polity; Thorpe, n. 312 sq.
Doubtless one result of their position was to secularize their spirit ; and
of this Alcuin frequently complains: e. g. 'Pastores curas turbant sasou-
lares, qui Deo vacare debuerunt : ' Ep. oxn. (al. oli.) Opp. i. 163,
6 The abuses of the right of sanctuary were checked by the inter-

—814]

Constitution of the Church.

55

the persecuted and the friendless, were effectual in subduing
the austerity of justice, and impressing on a rude, impetuous
and revengeful age the sacredness of human life. A singular
effect of the alliance now cemented in the west, between
the Church and civil power, was the drafting of a large body
of the serfs into the ranks of the working clergy. It was
usual for the free-men of a country to assist in the military
service ; but as all were exempted who had taken orders,
many persons were now anxious to be numbered with the
clerics, for the sake of evading the injunction of the State.
A law was accordingly passed, forbidding any free-man to
become a priest (or even to retire into a convent), until
he had secured the acquiescence of the king1. It happened
as an immediate consequence, that prelates2 were con
strained to levy their recruits from a different class of men ;
and as the serfs were almost everywhere enfranchised as
a step to Ordination, this enactment of the civil power
was tending in a high degree to humanize and to ennoble
the most abject of our race3.
position of the civil law. Thus the Capitulare of Charlemagne, a.d. 779,
cap. 6, forbids any bishop or abbot to give shelter to a thief or murderer.
In England, however, if the criminal took refuge in a church enjoying
the privilege of asylum, a law of Ine (688 — 725) provided that his life
should be spared, but that he should make the legal 'bot,' or satisfac
tion, § 5 ; Thorpe, I. 104.
1 See can. 4 of the council of Orleans (511): Baluzii Capitular, n. 386.
In 805, Capitul. c. 15, the law is extended to all free-men ' qui ad ser-
vitium Dei se tradere volunt,' i.e. who wish to become either clerics or
monks. 2 In the rule for canons, sanctioned by the council at Aix-la-Chapelle
(816) it is stated that many of the prelates selected their clergy exclusively
from the serfs (can. cxix.), and did so in defiance of the laws requiring
them to be manumitted before ordination: e. g. Council of Toledo (633),
can. lxxiv. The object was to keep them more entirely under the lash
of episcopal discipline (severissimis verberibus) : Mansi, xiv. 230.
3 See Neander's remarks on this point, and on the general feelings of
the Church with regard to slavery: v. 133 — 139. Another remarkable
instance of the change produced by Christianity is seen in the Anglo-
Saxon Institutes, &c, ed. Thorpe, n. 314, where the lord is enjoined to
protect his thralls, on the ground that ' they and those that are free are
equally dear to God, who bought us all with equal value.' Perhaps no
feature of the Middle Ages is more striking than the influence of the
Church in teaching the equality of men, and opening a way to preferment
for the humblest of her members. Any one might be received into a
monastery: he could then be ordained, and if possessing superior qualifi
cations might advance to the very highest eminence in Church and State.
In this manner some of the evils, arising out of the hereditary character
of feudalism, were largely counteracted; and the Church became the
champion and promoter of popular rights.

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

How the
relations of
Church
and. State
affected

[590

WESTERN CHURCH.

Veneration
for the
Holy Scrip
tures.

CHAPTER III.
ON THE STATE OF EELIGIOUS DOCTEINE AND
CONTEOVEESIES.

WESTERN CHURCH.
A FEW of the minor discrepancies1 in the lists of the
Scripture-canon had come over to the present period ;
but in every quarter of the Church a cordial veneration
for the teaching of the Bible had continued as of old. It
was the treasury of supernatural wisdom and the fountain
of religious truth. A personal investigation of it was
accordingly required2 in those who had learned to read,
although the number of such persons at this epoch would
be relatively small ; while ignorance or meagre knowledge
of its pages was regarded as a bar to holy orders3.
1 See Schrockh. xx. 191 sq. and Bp. Cosin, Hist, of the Canon, ch.
ix. x.
2 Thus the English canons of Clovesho (747), after complaining that
too many ' rather pursued the amusements of this present unstable life
than the assiduous study of the Holy Scripture,' proceed as follows:
' Therefore let the boys be confined and trained up in the schools to the
law of sacred knowledge, that being by this means well-learned, they may
become in all respects useful to the Church of God.' English Canons,
ed. JohnBon, i. 246, Oxf. 1850. Cf. the language of Aldhelm, in Whar
ton's Anglia Sacra, n. 5 (Opp. ed. Giles, p. 334) ; and De Laudibus Vir-
ginitatis, § 4, p. 4. One of the motives of Charlemagne in forwarding
the restoration of letters was a fear lest the prevailing ignorance should
lead to misconceptions of the Bible: 'ne sicut minor in scribendo erat
prudentia, ita quoque et multo minor in eis, quam recte esse debuisset,
esset sanctarum Scripturarum ad intelligendum sapientia.' Capitul. ed.
Baluze, i. 201.
3 e.g. Council of Toledo (633), can. xxv; Aries (813), can. i. Alcuin
(797) thus exhorts the people of his native land (Ep. lix. al. Lxxrv. Opp.
i. 78) : ' Primo omnium qui in ecclesia Christi Deo deserviunt, discant
diligenter, quomodo Deo placeant, quomodo fidem catholicam, quam
primum doctores nostri in eis fundaverunt, obtinere firmiter et prasdicare
valeant; quia ignorantia Scripturarum ignorantia Dei es<...Adducite
vobis doctores et magistros Sancta Scriptura, ne sit inopia apud vos
Verbi Dei, etc' In confuting misbelievers, it was usual to insist on that

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

57

From their mode of interpreting the Scriptures, it is
plain that the Latin doctors sympathized with St Augus
tine, and were generally disposed to follow in his steps.
Of his more eminent disciples we have one in the Roman
bishop, Gregory the Great, who forms the transition-
link in our descent from the early to the mediaeval schools
of thought. He had imbibed the predominating spirit
of the west: he clung to the authoritative language of
the councils with implicit and unreasoning belief1. His
writings, therefore, stand in some way contrasted with
the subtler and more independent labours of the Eastern
theologians, where, especially in men like John of Da
mascus2, we may trace a continual effort to establish the
traditions of the past on dialectic grounds. So far, indeed,
was Gregory the Great from prying into speculative
matters, that he seems to have confined himself exclusively
to one (the more practical) aspect of the Augustinian
system3. Like his master, he was strongly conscious of
the vast and all-holy attributes of God, the depth and
malignity of evil, and the moral impotence of man un-
interpretation of the Scriptures, which accorded with the teaching of the
Fathers; e. g. ' Tantum Divina voluit providentia, ut rescriberetur in
evangelicas celsitudinis auctoritatem, sanctorumque patrum probabilibus
Uteris, quantum ad nostram sufficere salutem censuit. Ulis utamur
nominibus de Christo, quae in veteri novoque Testamento inveniuntur
scripta. Sufficiat nobis apostolicas auctoritatis doctrina, et catholieorum
Patrum longo tempore explorata fides.' Alcuin, adv. Elipandum, lib. iv.
c. 14; Opp. I. 914.
1 Thus at his consecration, he wrote a synodal letter to the other
patriarchs (591) testifying his reverence for the Oecumenical councils.
Mansi, ix. 1041. Several Spanish Councils (e.g. Toledo, 653) did the
same: and the English synod of Cealchythe (787) particularizes the
Nicene and six General Councils. Wilkins, i. 146.— The only case in
which the Western Church appears to vary from this rule relates to the
important clause Filioque, added to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed.
The addition can be clearly traced to Spain (Council of Toledo, 589:
Mansi, ix. 981). It excited the displeasure of the Greeks about 767 (see
Annates Lauriss. ad an. : Pertz, i. 144); but the dispute did not come to
a head till 809. The clause was everywhere inserted (in the west) at the
bidding of Pope Nicholas I. (867) : Mansi, xv. 355. See Neale's Eastern
Church, ' Introd.' pp. 1147 sqq. The defenders of it relied on the 'Athan-
asian Creed,' now quite current in the Latin Church. Waterland, Hist.
of Athan. Creed, ch. vi.
2 Scholasticism properly so called, had its starting-point in him. See
below on the ' Eastern Church.'
3 Neander, C. H. v. 197 sq. whose criticism on Gregory the Great is
generous and just. The influence exercised by Gregory on the govern
ment of the Church has been pointed out already : see p. 39.

WESTERN CHURCH.

Theology of
Gregory the
Great.

The prac
tical bent
of his
teaching.

58

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.t>. 590

WESTERN CHURCH.

The errors
he was in
strumental
in spread
ing.

quickened by the Blessed Spirit ; yet was careful to explain
at large the power of self-determination, or the freedom of
the human will1. He urged on all around him2, and
especially on those who were occupied in teaching3, their
own need of internal holiness and purity of conscience.
Although placing a peculiar stress on the liturgic element
of worship4, and on a stern and ascetic training of the
body, he was far from losing sight of the essence of reli
gion, or from exalting human merit into rivalry with
Christ's5. The work that presents him to our view in a
less favourable light, is made up of a series of Dialogues,
in which he has betrayed an excessive credulity. It is
there also that the doctrine of a purgatorial fire, which
had been long6 floating in the western churches, gained
a fuller and more definite expression. It is principally
based upon the evidence of disembodied spirits' ; and as
their pains are said to have been mitigated by the ' obla
tion of the salutary host'8, the views which men took
1 ' Quia praeveniente Divina gratia in operatione bona, nostrum liberum
arbitrium sequitur, nosmetipsos liberare dicimur, qui liberanti nos Do
mino consentimus,' etc. Moralia in Job. lib. xxrv. § 24. This work, in
thirty-five books, consists of a practico-allegorical exposition of the book
of Job, and furnishes a clear view of Gregory's ethical system. He wrote
also twenty-two Homilies on Ezekiel, and forty Homilies on the Gospels.
a e.g. Moralia, lib. xix. § 38.
3 See his Regula Pastoralis, which is a fine proof of his ministerial
earnestness, and was largely circulated in the west.
4 His Liber Sacramentorum (or Sacramentary) was adopted in the
countries which received their Christianity from Bome, and has been sub
stantially preserved ever since. For an account of the liturgical changes
due to him, see Palmer's Orlgines Liturg. i. 113 sq., 126 sq., 4th edit. :
Fleury's Histoire Eccles. liv. xxxvi. § 146.
6 Homil. in Evangel, xxxiv. : ' Habete ergo fiduciam, fratres mei, de
misericordia Conditoris nostri, cogitate quas facite, recogitate quas fecistis.
Largitatem supernae pietatis aspicite, et ad misericordem Judicem, dum
adhuc expectat, cum lachrymis venite. Considerantes namque quod
Justus sit, peccata vestra nolite negligere : considerantes vero quod pius
sit, nolite desperare. Prabet apud Deum homini fiduciam Deus homo.
Est nobis spes magna pcenitentibus, quia Advocatus noster factus est
Judex noster.' Opp. I. 1611. ed. Bened.
6 See Schrockh, xvn. 332 sq. Neander iv. 442, 443. St Augustine
viewed the doctrine of a purgatory in the mediasval sense as somewhat
doubtful: ' Incredibile non est, et utrum ita sit, quasri potest.' Ibid.
7 Dialog, lib. iv. c. 35, 39, 46, 51, 55. It should be stated that some
writers have questioned the genuineness of this treatise ; but Mabillon
(Act. Sanct. Ordin. Benedict, torn. i. § 2) and the Benedictine editor of
Gregory's Works, appear to have the better of the argument.
* Ibid. c. 55 : ' Si culpa? [i.e. leves culpae, c. 39] post mortem insolu-

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

59

henceforward of the sacrament itself would be distorted
in the same proportion.
Gregory was succeeded in the west by Isidore of Seville
(Hispalensis), who died in 636. He was a large and
intelligent contributor to the literature of Spain. In ad
dition to his other writings, he has left a minute descrip
tion of the Mozarabic (or Old Spanish) liturgy1; but his
chief treatise in the sphere of dogmatical theology con
sists of a train of thoughts2 on Christian faith and practice.
They are drawn, however, in most cases, from the fertile
works of St Augustine, and from the Moralia of Gregory
the Great.
In England3 one of the ripest scholars4 that the Roman
mission to the Anglo-Saxon had produced was the Vene
rable Beda (Bede). At the age of seven years he found
his way into the monastery of Jarrow6, in whose cloisters
biles non sunt, multum solet animas etiam post mortem sacra oblatio
hostias salutaris adjuvare,' etc.
1 De Officiis Ecclesiastic-is : cf. Palmer's Origines Litur. i. 172 sq.
2 De summo Bono or Sententiarum Libri Tres. Isidore was followed
in this line by Tajo of Saragossa and Ildefonsus of Toledo. On the
canonB attributed to him, see Blondel's Pseudo-Isidorus, and above,
p. 41, n. 1, &c.
3 Famed as were the 'magistri e Scotia' (Ireland), and high as that
country stood in literary merits, it produced no distinguished writer at
this period. Columbanus (see above, p. 16) is the solitary theologian:
for Adamnan (d. 704) though perhaps of Irish extraction, composed no
more than a treatise de Situ Terra Sancta, and a Life of St Columba.
4 Others were Bp. Aldhelm (656 — 709), chiefly known by his poem
and prose treatise De Laude Virginitatis, (Opp. ed. Giles, Oxon. 1844) ;
Eddius, the biographer of Wilfrith; Boniface, the missionary, author of
fifteen popular Sermons, and the Letters so often quoted in the last
chapter. To this number we may add Archbp. Theodore (668 — 690),
whose mission into England was the opening of a new era in the cultiva
tion of all kinds of learning (Bed. Hist. Eccl. iv. 2), and whose Peniten
tial furnishes an important collection of disciplinary canons. Of this
famous work there were many imitations at an early period, and under
its name some later treatises of a much more extensive character passed
current. It is given in its genuine form by Wasserschleben, in Die Bus-
sordnungen der Abendlandischen Kirche, Halle, 1851; and in the Councils
and Ecclesiastical Documents, ed. Haddan and Stubbs, in. 176 sq. The
book published under the title in the Ancient Laws, by Thorpe, is a work
of much later date and of Frankish origin. A still older example of the
class is a work of John the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople (585 — 593) ,
published in the Appendix of the Hist, de Disciplina Pcenitent. by Mori-
nus, Paris, 1651. Compare also the Liber Gilda de Poznitentia, which is
still earlier. Councils, &a. i. 119.
6 This was the foundation of Benedict Biscop, who aided more than
any other person in the civilizing of the north of England. His last anx-

WESTERN CHURCH.

Isidore of
Seville. (595-636).

Venerable
Beds.
(672-735).

6o

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 590

WESTERN CHURCH.

Ecgberht (? 678-
766). .

he continued till his death, absorbed by the offices of
tranquil worship, or engaged in collecting and communi
cating knowledge. So ardent was his thirst for learning,
that it urged him into almost every field of mediaeval
study ; but he has himself informed us, that he found a
special satisfaction in the pages of the Bible1. His ex
pository works, comprising Sermons and Commentaries,
evince a knowledge both of Greek and Hebrew; in their
style and spirit, and in much also of their material, they
resemble the more ancient writings of the Fathers, and
especially of St Augustine2.
A bosom-friend of Beda, who transmitted the impression
he had made on the whole of the Western Church, was
Ecgberht, archbishop of York, where he founded a noble
school and library3, and was distinguished for his pa
tronage of letters4. In the crowd6 of enthusiastic pupils,
whom his talents had attracted to the north of England,
was a native of his mother-city, Alcuin or Albinus, who
was destined to become the master-spirit of the age.
iety was for his books, ' bibliothecam quam de Eoma nobilissimam copio-
sissimamque advexerat.' See Beda's Life of him in Vit. Abbatum Uuire-
muth., (at the end of the Hist. Eccl. ed. Hussey), pp. 316 — 325.
1  ' eunctumque ex eo tempus vitas in ejusdem monasterii habita-
tione peragens, omnem meditandis Scripturis operam dedi, atque inter
observantiam disciplines regularis et quotidianam cantandi in ecclesia
curam, semper aut discere aut doeere, aut scribere dulce habui.' Hist. Eccl.
v. 24. Nothing can be more simple and pathetic than the narrative
which a disciple (Cuthbert) has left us of his last hours. See Wright's
Biogr. Brit. Literar. i. 267, 268. He had only just completed a transla
tion of St John's Gospel into Anglo-Saxon, when he died, in the midst of
his weeping scholars, with a ' Gloria Patri' on his lips.
2 This connexion is most obvious in the Commentaria in omnes Epis-
tolas S. Pauli. The other works of a decidedly theological cast are, Ex-
planatio in Pentateuchum et Libros Regum; in Samuelem; in Psalmos, in
Esdram, Tobiam, Job, Proverbia, et Cantica; in Quatuor Evangelia, et
Acta Apostolorum; in Epistolas Catholicas et Apocalypsin; besides a
number of Sermones de Tempore, and others.
3 See an account of its contents in Wright's Biograph. Liter. I.
pp. 37, 38.
4 His own genuine works are, a Dialogus Ecclesiastica Institutions
(in Latin) and a Penitential published first in its integrity by Wasser-
schleben in his " Bussordnungen " and in the Councils, <£c. in. 416 sq.
The penitential works commonly ascribed to him, printed in Thorpe and
Wilkins, are of much later date and foreign origin.
6 'Erat siquidem ei ex nobilium filiis grex scholasticorum, quorum
quidam artis grammaticas rudimentis, alii disciplinis erudiebantnr
artium jam liberalium, nonnulli Divinarum Scripturarum, etc. Vit.
Alcuini, a. n. composed in 829, and prefixed to his Works.

-814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

61

His fame having reached the court of Charlemagne, he
was pressed to take part in the projects of that monarch
for securing a more healthy action in the members of the
Frankish church. Directing the scholastic institutions,
prompting or tempering the royal counsels, foremost in
the work of domestic reformation, and conspicuous for the
breadth and clearness of his views with regard to the
management of missions1, Alcuin carried to his grave the
admiration of his fellow-countrymen, and of the whole of
western Europe. His theology, as it survives in his ex
pository works2, is like that of Gregory and Beda, with
whose writings he had been familiar from his youth: it
bears the common Augustinian impress. He has left,
however, certain systematic treatises3 on fundamental
truths of revelation, as well as on absorbing questions of
the day : and in these he has exhibited, not only his entire
acceptance of the teaching of the past, but an acute and
well-balanced mind.
From Alcuin we pass over to a controversy in which
he bore a leading part, — the controversy known as the
Adoptionist, but in reality a phase of Nestorianism revived4.
It is the one formidable tempest5 of this period which had
its birth-place in the Western Church. The authors of it
were two Spanish prelates (in the latter half of the eighth
century), Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgel (a town
of Catalonia), who, as it would seem, in their anxiety to
1 See above, pp. 24, 26.
2 These are, Questions and Answers on the Book of Genesis, Commen
taries on the Penitential Psalms, the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, St
John's Gospel, and three Epistles of St Paul.
3 The chief are DeFide Trinitatis (a body of Divinity), De Processione
Spiritus Sancti (defending the Western view of it), and his contributions
to the Adoptionist controversy (see below, pp. 62 — 64).
4 ' Ecce pars quasdam mundi hasreticas pravitatis veneno inf ecta est,
asserens Christum Jesum Deo Patri verum non esse Filium, nee proprium,
sed adoptivum: et Nestoriana haresis ab oriente...longum postliminium
reviviscens, latitando fugit in occidentem'... Alcuin, Libellus adv.Haresin
Felicis, § 2. It is not clear, however, that the authors of the movement
were acquainted with the writings of the Nestorian school. For a com
plete history of it, see J. C. F. Walch, Hist. Adoptianorum; Neander, v.
216—233; and Dorner, Lehre von der Person Christi, n. 306—329;
Berlin, 1853.
6 For minor struggles in England and Germany, see above pp. 8, 22,
23. It is clear also from Alcuin, (Epist. coxxi. al. oexxv. Opp. 1. 285),
that other classes of dissentients ('adversaries Apostolicas doctrinas')
were not wanting.

WESTERN CHURCH.

Alcuin (?735-
804)

Rise of the
Adoption-

62

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies- [a. d. 590

WESTERN CHURCH.

its essential
resemblance to Neslo-
rianism.

make the truth of the Incarnation less offensive to Mu-
hammedans1, maintained2 that our blessed Lord, as man,
was the proper son of David ; or, in other words, that in
respect of His humanity, He was only the adoptive Son
of God ('Deus nuncupativus et adoptivUs Films'). In
support of their position3, Felix, the more learned mis
believer, ventured to reoccupy the ground of the Nestorian,
though their arguments were put in a somewhat different
form. They seized on the expressions of the Bible which
unfolded the subordinate relations of the Son, in His me
diatorial work ; and while admitting, that, as God, He was
truly and eternally begotten of the Father4, they inferred
that the humanity of Christ was so dissociable from the
Godhead as to be no more than a Temple for the Logos5,
— no more than a creature chosen to become the organ
of the Lord, in a way not essentially unlike6 the adoption
of all Christians as the family and instruments of God.
The creed of Felix did not recognize in the Incarnate
Saviour any true assumption of man's nature into fellow
ship with the Divine : he was accordingly most scrupulous
in his distinction of the predicates belonging unto each ;
and even went so far as to impute the prayers, the suffer
ings, and the death of Christ to a necessity inherent in
His manhood7, and not to a voluntary condescension of
the Godhead with which humanity was made indissolubly
1 Neander, ibid. p. 219.
2 ...'dicentes, Deum esse verum, qui ex Deo natus est, et Deum nun-
cupativum, hominem ilium, qui de Virgine f actus est.' Alcuin, adv.
Elipand. lib. iv. c. 5. They made an appeal to older authorities (see the
Epist. Etipandi ad Albinum; Alcuin, Opp. n. 868 sq.), especially to the
language of the Mozarabic (old Spanish) Liturgy, then in use, where the
term ' adoption ' is employed to denote the assumption of our nature into
unity with God. Alcuin reproached Elipandus with substituting ' adop-
tivi' for 'assumpti.'
3 The main authorities are to be found in the works of Alcuin, (1)
Libellus adversus Haresin Felicis Episcopi, (2) Contra Felicem Urgelli-
tanum Episcopum; to which may be added, (3) the treatise quoted in
the last note.
4 ' Deum Dei Filium ante omnia tempora sine initio ex Patre geni-
turn, non adoptione sed genere, neque gratia sed natura, etc'
5 Alcuin, contra Felicem, lib. vn. c. 2.
" He compared the adoption of Christ with that of Christians, ad
mitting, however, that the relation constituted in the former case was
higher in degree ('exeellentius'). Alcuin, contra Felicem, lib. n. c. 15, sq.,
and especially the language of Felix himself, lib. rv. c. 2.
7 Ibid. lib. vn. c. 15.

'¦ — 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

63

one. Adoptionism, in other words, if carried to its logical
results, would have resolved the connexion that subsisted
in the two-fold natures of our Lord into a moral and
extrinsic union: it was fatal, therefore, to a truth which,
of all others, will be found to lie the nearest to the core of
Christianity, — the Incarnation of the Saviour.
After lighting up a controversy in the Spanish church1,
Adoptionism extended into Gothia (the adjacent parts
of France), where it had soon to encounter a decisive
overthrow. It was examined, at the wish of Charlemagne,
by the synod of Ratisbon2 (792), where Felix, as belonging
to the Frankish empire, had been summoned to appear.
On witnessing the condemnation of his tenets, he re
nounced them on the spot, and, as a penance, was sent
to the court of Rome3 to repeat his abjuration. But no
sooner was he lodged, on his return, in the Saracenic
provinces of Spain, than he relapsed into his former errors4.
Elipandus5 in the mean time represented the injustice of
the recent acts, and earnestly desired the emperor to call
another synod. His request led the way to the convoking
of a more numerous council in 794, at Frankfort6, where
the verdict of the former synod was confirmed. Soon
after this decision, Alcuin, who was personally known to
Felix, opened a more friendly7 correspondence with the
champions of the system there exploded; and although

1 Two ecclesiastics were its chief antagonists, Etherius, bishop of
Osma, and Beatus, a priest. The latter had employed himself in ex
pounding the Apocalypse, and was the author of the fragment Adversus
Elipandum, in Canisius, Lect. Antiq. 11. 279—375, ed. Basnage. Elipan
dus, on the other side, denounced his antagonism as the work of Anti
christ. Ibid. 310.
2 Cf. Schrockh, xx. 465, 466, respecting the accounts of earlier pro
ceedings. 3 Pertz, 1. 179. In the following year (793) the pope (Hadrian I.)
wrote a letter to the Spanish clergy, threatening to proceed against
Elipandus. Mansi, xin. 865.
4 Alcuin, adv. Elipand. lib. 1. c. 16.
5 See Epist. Episcop. Hispan. ad Carolum Magn. in Alcuin. Opp. n.
567. 8 A Boman Council (799) appears to have affirmed the last decision.
Labb. vn. 1150. Pagi, however, places this Boman Council earlier, ad
an. 792: Mansi, xin. 857.
7 'Cui [i. e. Felici] in has adveniens partes caritatis calamo epistolam
exhortatoriam, ut se catholicas jungeret unitati, dirigere curavi.' Adv.
Elipand. lib. 1. c. 16. The letter alluded to is in his Works, 1. 783.

WESTERN CHURCH.

Opposition
to Adop
tionism.

Its condem
nation,

6A

WESTERN CHURCH.

and sup
pression.

EASTERN CHURCH.

Monotheh-tism:

Us nature.

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 590
by Elipandus, who did not live in the Frankish empire,
all his arguments were met with bitterness and scorn,
upon the other he was able to produce at least a transi
tory change1. They had a long interview in the synod
held at Aix-la-Chapelle, 799, when Felix, vanquished for
awhile by his opponent, promised to abandon the delusion,
and in future to be guided by the teaching of the Church.
But as few of the prelates were induced to rely upon this
promise, they delivered him, with the approval of the
emperor, into the custody of Leidrad, archbishop of Lyons.
At his death, which occurred in 816, it was plain from
an extant paper that he still adhered to his former creed
on almost every point2. It fell, however, into silence and
oblivion ere its vacillating author had been taken from
the scene of conflict. EASTERN CHURCH.
As the heresy of Nestorius had been reawakened in
the Latin Church, that of Eutyches (or the Monophysite)
recurred, in the opening of the present period (633 — 680),
to engage the more speculative doctors of the East. It was
held, notwithstanding the definitions of Chalcedon, that
our belief in the union of Two Natures in the Person ot
the Son of God involves, as one of its consequences, our
belief in His singleness of will and operation. In the
reasoning of this party, known as the Monotheletes", the
actions of our Lord, both human and Divine, must be
ascribed to a single energy within Him (ivipyeta ®eav-
hpiKrj) ; they were said to spring from the Logos only,
as the one proper source, although the human element
in Christ was not verbally denied, but viewed as the
passive agent of His Godhead4. It resulted, therefore, that
1 Alcuin was assisted by a committee of inquiry, whom Charlemagne
sent on two occasions into the districts (chiefly Languedoc), where
Adoptionism had gained a footing. Epist. xcn. al. cvni. p. 136. He
had also a coadjutor in Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, who wrote two
Treatises, Sacrosyllabus and Adversus Felicem, in refutation of Adop
tionism: Opp. Venet. 1737.
2 See the Liber adv. Dogma Felicis, by Agobard, who succeeded
Leidrad as archbishop of Lyons : Agobardi Opp. ed. Baluze, 1666.
3 =Movo6e\i]Tcu, a name which was not given to them till the follow
ing century.
4 See the Fragments of Theodore of Pharan in Mansi, xi. 567 sq.
He asserts that in our Lord etvai pdav Mpyeiav ravrns Se rexvirnv koJ

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

65

the current usage of distinguishing between the natures
of our Lord was founded on no difference or duahty in
Him, but on abstractions of the human mind.
The author of this heresy was an Arabian bishop,
Theodore of Pharan, who brought over to his views no
less a personage than Sergius, the patriarch of the Byzantine
capital. He was supported also by the emperor, Heraclius,
who thought he could discover in the school of Theodore
an apt and auspicious medium for disarming the hostility
of the Monophysites, and winning back the Armenian pro
vinces, which by their help had been transferred to the
rule of Persia. At his desire a Formulary was composed,
which in the hands of the pliant Cyrus1, formerly of Phasis,
but now translated to the see of Alexandria (630), effected
a reunion of the Monophysites, or Jacobites, with the
Melchites, or the Church (633), It was cemented by nine
Articles of concord2, in the seventh of which the heresy
of Theodore was formally acknowledged. A monk of Pales
tine, Sophronius, happening to be then at Alexandria,
foresaw the disastrous issues of the compromise, and set
out immediately for Constantinople to unburden his dismay
to the patriarch in person. Though the protests he there
entered were unheeded, he was placed in the following
year, by his election to the patriarchal chair of Jerusalem,
in a more commanding station. Sergius, now (as it would
seem) afraid of his opposition, attempted to enlist the
influence of the Roman bishop on the side of the Mono-
theletes, and in that he was eminently successful. The
surviving letters of Honorius (634) leave no doubt as to
onaiovpybv rbv Qeov, 6'pyavov Se rrjv avdpuirorriTa. The difficulty
of the Monotheletes, as we see most plainly in the case of Honorius,
bishop of Bome, was in admitting that a two-fold will could subsist, in
one and the same subject, without conflict and opposition. They placed
great stress on a phrase fua~ (or, as others read, Kaivfi) ffeavSpiKjj irepyelq.,
which occurs in the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius (Ibid. 565). On
the vast influence exercised by this author in stimulating the dialectico-
mystical tendencies of the East, see Neander, v. 234 sq.; and Dorner,
Lehre von der Person Christi, 2r Theil, 196 sq.
1 He at first seems to have hesitated, but his scruples were removed
by Sergius. Cyri Epist. ad. Sergium, Mansi, xi. 561.
2 Mansi, xi. 563. In the 7th Art. it was stated: tov airov £va 'Kpiarov
Kal vlov ivepyovvra ra deoirpeirrj Kal dvBpdmva p.if ffeavSpiKJ) hepykq.. The
Monophysites, who were numerous and powerful in Egypt, looked upon
the concordat as a triumph : while not a few of the Melchites quitted the
communion of Cyrus. Neale, Eastern Church, n. 63.
M. A. F

EASTERN
CHURCH.

The author
of it.

Its growth
promoted by political
influence.

The com
promise with the
Jacobites in Egypt.

Resistanceof Sophro
nius.

66

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 590

EASTERNCHURCH.

Publication
of the
Ecthesis,638.

Opposed in
the Western
Church.

his approval of the policy adopted by the Eastern emperor,
and signify his full agreement with the novelties of
Sergius1. They produced, however, no effect on the patri
arch of Jerusalem, who strenuously maintained his ground2
until 637, when the cloud of Islamism which had gathered
over Syria shut him out from all further notice. In 638,
the emperor, assisted as before, put forth an expository
edict3 ("E/edWw TJ79 TrL<nea><;), in which it is peremptorily
ordered, that while the doctrine of one Person must be
held in accordance with conciliar definitions, nothing more
is to be said or published on the single or the two-fold
mode of operation {jiiav rj Bvo ivepyelas). But in respect
of the second point, it ventured to determine that there
is in Christ one only will, and that the teaching of the
other school leads necessarily to the idea of two antagonistic
wills (Svo Kal ravra evavria OeXtf/jtara), — an assumption,
it will be remarked, as arbitrary as it is unfounded. The
appearance of this edict, though it roused no active op
position either at the seat of power, or in the patriarchate
of Alexandria, was differently regarded by the Christians
of the west. At Rome, a successor of Honorius, John IV.,
deliberately rejected the imperial edict, first4, in a synod
(641), and next in the letters he addressed to Constantine6,
the son of Heraclius, and to Pyrrhus6, who now occupied
the chair of Sergius. Still their edict kept its ground

1 ' Unam voluntatem f atemur Domini nostri Jesu Christi :' Mansi, xi.
539. 'Utrum autem propter opera Divinitatis et humanitatis una, an
geminas operationes debeant derivatas dici vel intelligi, ad nos ista perti-
nere non debent: relinquentes ea grammaticis, qui solent parvulis ex-
quisita derivando nomina venditare. ' Ib. 542 : cf . a second letter of the
same kind, ib. 579. He even explains away the text, 'Father, not My
will, but Thine be done,' as if it were spoken merely for the instruction
of the faithful, and was no index of the human will of Christ. On these
accounts the name of Honorius was placed among those whom the sixth
general Council (680) anathematized. Some Bomanists have attempted
to evade or deny this fact: but see, among others, Bossuet, Defensio
Declar. Cleri Gallicani, n. 128.
2 See his ypd/j-aara ivdpoviarucd (a ciroular issued when he entered
on his office), in Act. xi. of the OScumenioal Council (680) : Mansi, xi.
462 sq.
3 Mansi, x. 992. It is borrowed, in some parts word for word, from
an epistle of Sergius to Honorius of Bome ; i bid. xi. 529.
4 Theophanes, Chronograph, i. 508: ed. Bonn.
6 Mansi, x. 682.
6 Ib. xi. 9.

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

67

in spite of the denunciations of the west1, and Paul, who
succeeded Pyrrhus2 in 642, adhered in like manner to the
Monothelete opinions.
But they had soon to encounter a severe antagonist
in Maximus, the Confessor (? 580—655), one of the most
eminent writers of the period, and distinguished by a clear
and profound perception of the true humanity of Christ3.
Originally an important personage at court, he had after
wards embraced the monastic life, and risen to the post
of hegumenos, or abbot, of Chrysopolis (on the Asiatic side
of the Bosphorus). But as he was opposed to the ruling
party in his view of Monotheletism, he retreated into
Africa, where his erudition and acuteness4 were employed
in making converts; and in 649 we find him at the Lateran,
enkindling the zeal of pope Martin I.
In the previous year (648), the emperor Constans II.,
anxious to restore tranquillity and order, had determined
to withdraw the 'Ecthesis' and to replace it by another
edict of a less dogmatic character, entitled ' Type of the
Faith' (Two? t^j Trio-Terns). It forbad5 all kinds of dis
putations on the willing and the working of our Lord,
and that under heavy penalties ; confining the dissentients,
whether lay or clerical, within the terms of the older
councils of the Church. But, politic as it might seem,
this measure was peculiarly offensive to the champions
of the truth. In their eyes it was harsh, one-sided, and
despotic ; and, still more, was calculated to engender dis
belief with regard to a cardinal point of their religion6.
In the west, therefore, Martin I. immediately convoked
1 Thus, Theodore, bishop of Bome, after a long correspondence with
the Monotheletes, undertakes (648) to deprive the Byzantine patriarch.
Vit. Theodor. in Vignolii Lib. Pontif. i. 257.
2 Pyrrhus abdicated on account of Mb unpopularity, fled into Africa,
abjured his Monothelete opinions (645) at Bome, but speedily fell into
them afresh and recovered his see in 654.
3 Cf. Neand. v. 250 — 254. Some of his works are collected by Com-
befis in 2 vols. Par. 1675. For an aocount of the rest, see Smith's Biogr.
Did. 4 See his Disputatio cum Pyrrha : Opp. II. 159 — 195.
6 Mansi, x. 1029...8etnr(j;Qp,eii...pi.ii dSeiav fy*1" T5*5 dW-fiXovs dirb tou
nrapbvros irepl evbs $e\ijaaTos tf aids ivepyelas, rj Svo ivepyei&v Kal 56o deXnpd-
twp, olavStf-trore irpo<p^peiv dpxpia^rtrrjffiv, Spiv re, Kai (piXovendav.
6 See Epist. Abbat. et Monachor. in Synodo Lateran. apud Mansi x.
904. These were Oriental monks and abbots who had fled to Bome for
an asylum.
f2

EASTERN
CHURCH.

the Confes-

PublicationoftheTyye.

68

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 590

EASTERNCHURCH.

Conduct of
Martin I.

His attain
der, and

Fate of
Maximus.

a synod (649), which condemned the heresy of the Mono-
theletes as well as the 'Ecthesis' and 'Type,' and anathe
matized1 its principal abettors, Theodore of Pharan, Ser
gius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, and Paul, at that time patriarch of
Constantinople. Though the emperor was not personally
touched by the fulminations of this council, the proceed
ings had aroused his deepest indignation. He instructed
the Byzantine exarch (his governor in Italy) to enforce
compliance with the 'Type,' and ultimately (653) to pro
ceed to the attainder of the pope, who had made himself
obnoxious to the charge of high treason. The command
was punctually obeyed ; and on June 17, 653, Martin was
transported to the seat of government, like an ordinary
criminal. He did not reach Constantinople till Sept. 17,
654. At his trial he was loaded with indignities, and
finally banished to the Crimea, where he died in the
following year2. A still heavier doom awaited Maximus3
and two of his disciples : they were at first sent into
Thrace ; but on refusing to accept the ' Type' were dragged
back to Constantinople, anathematized in a synod over
which Peter, the new patriarch, presided, and after scourg
ing, mutilation, and a public mockery were banished (662)
into the Caucasus, among the Lazians. Maximus survived
only a few days, and with him all the zeal of the eastern
Duotheletes appears to have been extinguished4.
In the next ten years we meet with few if any traces
1 Ibid. x. 1158. The fourteenth canon will illustrate their view of
the controversy: ' Si quis secundum scelerosos hasreticos cum una volun-
tate et una operatione, quas ab hasreticis impie confitetur, et duas volun-
tates pariterque et operationes, hoc est, Divinam et humanam, quae in
ipso Christo Deo in unitate salvantur, et a Sanctis patribus orthodoxe in
ipso prasdicantur, denegat et respuit, condemnatus sit.' The encyclic
letters of the pope and synod contain the following violent expressions :
'Impios hasreticos cum omnibus pravissimis dogmatibus eorum et im-
piam ecthesin vel impiissimum typum et omnes, qui eos vel quidquam
de his, quas exposita sunt in eis, suscipiunt aut defendunt, seu verba pro
eis faciunt in scripto, anathematizavimus.' Ibid. 1175: cf. Martin's
letter to the emperor, giving him an account of the proceedings, p. 790.
2 See the Commemoratio and other documents in Mansi, x. 853.
3 See the Life of Maximus and other ancient documents prefixed to
the edition of his works by Combefis.
4 The new pope Eugenius, appointed by the exarch, is said to have
trodden in the steps of Honorius: at least his agents (apocrisiarii) at
Constantinople, had subscribed the ' Type ' and had persuaded Maximus
to yield. Vitalian also (657 — 672) acquiesced, or made no public stand
against the court. Schrockh, xx. 435, 436.

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

&9

of resistance in that quarter, though it is probable that in
the Latin Church the disaffection to the ' Type' was silently
increasing1. Constans left the throne to Constantine Po-
gonatus (668 — 685), who does not seem to have ever been
devotedly attached to the reigning school of doctrine.
On the contrary a letter2 which he wrote to Donus, bishop
of Rome, 678, expressed an earnest wish to heal the dis
tractions of the Church by summoning a general council.
On the arrival of the letter Donus was no more, but it came
into the hands of Agatho his successor, who immediately
adopted the suggestion, and, convening an assembly of the
western bishops3 to deliberate upon it, sent a deputation of
them to Constantinople. He also contributed materially
to the successful issue of the council, by his full and lucid
exposition of the controverted truth4. The sessions, which
were eighteen in number, lasted from the 7th November,
680, to the 16th September, 681, the emperor himself
presiding not unfrequently in person. After a minute and
somewhat critical review of the authorities which had been
alleged on either side, Monotheletism was left with an
almost solitary champion6 in the person of Macarius, pa
triarch of Antioch, who for adhering to his old opinions
was eventually deposed by his brother-prelates (March 7,
681). A definition of the true faith6 and an anathema
1 In the year 677, the communion between the Churches of Bome and
Constantinople was entirely suspended, Theodore the Byzantine patriarch
proposing to strike the name of Vitalian, as well as of the other Boman
bishops after Honorius, from the diptychs, or sacred catalogues of the
Church. Ibid.
2 Constant, ep. ad Donum in Act. Cone. vi. QScumenic. Mansi, xi. 195.
3 Held at Borne, March 27, 680; Mansi, xl 185: cf. Eddius, Vit.
Wilfrid, c. 51.
4 He wrote to the emperor in his own name and that of the synod,
containing 125 delegates : Mansi, xi. 286. He cites passages from the
Gospels which prove the co-operation in our Lord of the human and
Divine wills: dwelling among others on S. Matth. xxvi. 39, which his
predecessor Honorius had explained away. The letter was read in the
4th session of the ensuing council.
5 At the opening of the synod, George I., patriarch of Constantinople,
took his side, but afterwards declared himself a convert to the opposite
party. In the 15th session, Polychronius, a fanatical monk of Thrace,
endeavoured to establish the truth of Monotheletism by raising a dead
man to life, but after whispering some time in the ear of the corpse, he
confessed his inability to work the miracle. He was accordingly deposed
from the priesthood. The same penalty was inflicted on a Syrian priest
at the following session (Aug. 9).
8 Mansi, xi. 631 — 637. ..rb dvBpiimvov airrov Btikryia BewOev oix ivnpiSn,

EASTERN
CHURCH.
Reaction in
the Eastern
Church.

The convo
cation of
the Sixth
QHcumeni-
calCouncil, 680.

70

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d.

590

EASTERN CHURCH.

Its deci
sion.

Attempts to
revive Mo
nothele tism.

It survives
among the

pronounced on all who were infected with the heresy of
the Monotheletes (Honorius1 in the number) brought the
sittings of the council to a close, and renewed the com
munion of the Greek and Latin Churches. Their solution
of the controversy was as follows: that in Christ 'there
are two natural wills and two natural operations, without
division, without change or conversion, with nothing like
antagonism, and nothing like confusion,' — yet they were
careful to add a precautionary clause, to the effect that the
human will could not come into collision with the Divine,
but was in all things subject to it.
Their definitions, though confirmed anew by the voice of
the Trullan Council2 (691), did not immediately suppress
the Monothelete discussions. On the contrary, a later em
peror, Bardanes, or Philippicus3, commanded the erasure
of the recent creed from the Acts of the General Councils,
and proceeded (711) with the help of a creature of the
court, whom he placed in the see of Constantinople, to
revive the exploded errors. But his own dethronement
in 713 put an end to the agitation.
A small remnant of Monotheletes continued to subsist
for ages in the fastnesses of Lebanon. These were the
ataaarai Sk p.S,X\oi>...Sio Si <bv<riKds ivepyelas dSiaipirui, drpi-irnas, duepi-
vtuis, curiryx'irws tV airip rip KvpLip ¦quCbi>,..So£d$oij.a>. There is some varia
tion in the statements as to the number of bishops present. The sub
scriptions do not exceed one hundred.
1 See above, p. 66, n. 1. Attempts had been made to vindicate the
orthodoxy of Honorius (e. g. by Maximus, Mansi, x. 687) , and his acqui
escence in the creed of Sergius had been studiously passed over in the
proceedings of the Boman synods, but here at Constantinople the clause
Kal 'Ovibpiov rbv yevbp.evov irdirav -HJs irpea[ivr£pas 'Fibp.T]S, k.t.X. was thrice
added to the list of the anathematized. Mansi, xi. 556, 622, 656. Leo II.,
in notifying his acceptance or confirmation of the council (682), adds a
clause to the same effect : he anathematized ' et Honorium L, qui hanc
apostolicam ecclesiam non apostolicas traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed
profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est.' Lb. xi.
731. The case of Honorius has occupied a considerable place in recent
controversy, in connexion with the action of the Vatican Council of
1869—70 on Papal ^fallibility.
2 Mansi, xi. 921. On the displeasure which this council had excited
in the west, see above, p. 88, u. 2 ; p. 47 ; p. 51 ; and cf. Gieseler, n. 178 sq.
3 Theophanes, Chronograph. 319 sq. ed. Paris: Combefis, Hist. Hares.
Monothel. § n. 201 sq. Paris, 1648. PhilippicuB, with the same object,
ordered the removal of a picture ('imaginem, quam Grasei votaream
vocant, sex continentem sanctas et universales synodos ') froin St Peter's
church at Bome; but his mandate was rejected by Constantine I. (712):
Vit. Constantin. in Vignolii Lib. Pontif. u. 10,

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

71

Maronites1, the followers of a civil and ecclesiastical chief
tain, John Marun, who is said to have flourished in the
seventh or eighth century. It is not clearly2 ascertained
at what time the Monothelete opinions were accepted by
this tribe, but we learn that somewhat earlier than 1182
about forty thousand of them recognized the jurisdiction
of the Latin patriarch of Antioch, and passed over to the
Church of Rome3.
It has been mentioned that the task of vindicating
orthodoxy at this period had been consigned in no small
degree to Maximus. But his works are not all devoted
to polemics4. He was the representative of a tendency to
dialecticism, which had been long prevailing in the Greek
communion. Both his learning and his spirit were trans
mitted to another student, John of Damascus (fl. 740),
who has left behind him logical investigations of nearly all
the earlier controversies, and of the Monothelete5 among
the rest. His work, entitled" An Accurate Exposition of
the Orthodox Faith, is tinctured with the Aristotelian
philosophy, and exercised an important influence on the
culture of the Eastern churches from that day to our own.
It was in truth the starting-point of their scholastic sys
tem, although the materials out of which it grew were
borrowed in most cases from the Fathers, and especially
from Gregory of Nazianzus.
But the pen of Damascenus did not dwell entirely on this
class of theological discussions : it invested a less specu-
1 See the Biblioth. Orientalis of J. S. Asseman (himself descended
from this body), torn. 1. 487 sq., and a different account in Combefis,
Hist. Hares. Monothel. , p. 460 : cf . also Gibbon, iv. 383—385, ed. Mil-
man. 2 John of Damascus (Libellus de Vera Sententia, c. 8: Opp. 1. 395,
ed. Le Quien) already (cir. 750) numbers them among the heretics. He
also describes a Monophysite addition to the Trisagion (Ibid. p. 485) by
the term 'M.apwvl^Hv.
3 Schrockh, xx. 455. The chief authority for this statement is Wil
liam of Tyre ; but at a later period Abulpharagius (who died 1286) speaks
of the Maronites as still a sect of the Monotheletes. Ibid.
4 See a review of his theological system in Neander, v. 236 sq.
5 Uepl tu>i> iv rip Xpurrip 56o BeXnp.driai' ml ivepyemv Kal Xonrav faffi-
K&v ISiuadriav.
6 "EkSoo-is aVpi/3^5 ttjs 6p8o86£ov irlo-rews. On his system of religious
doctrine, see Schrockh, xx. 230 — 329: Bitter, Geschichte der Christi. Phi
losophic, n. 553; Dorner, Lehre von der Person Christi, 11. 257 sq. ; and,
for a list of his multifarious writings, Smith's Biograph. Dictionary.

EASTERN CHURCH.
Maronites of Syria.

The Theo-
logy of
Maximus;

and John
of Damas
cus.

72

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.d. 590

EASTERN
CHURCH.
Rise of the
Iconoclast
ic contro-

Conduct of
Leo the
Isaurian.

lative theme with all the subtleties and nice distinc
tions of the schools1. This was the question of image-
worship2, which in the reigns of Leo the Isaurian, and
his successors (726 — 842), convulsed every province of
the Church. It was already an established custom to
make use of images and pictures, with the view of ex
citing the devotion of the people, or of instructing the
more simple and unlettered; but the Western Church,
at least until the close of the sixth century, had not pro
ceeded further than this point3- A different feeling was
however common in the Eastern, where the softer and
more sensuous Greek was frequently betrayed into a
blind and superstitious veneration for the images and pic
tures of the saints4. It was, accordingly, at the seat of
the Byzantine empire that a series of reactions now com
menced. Leo, the Isaurian, of a rough and martial temper, was
the first of the Iconoclastic princes. Influenced5, it is
said, by the invectives of Muhammedans and Jews, who
had stigmatized the use of images as absolute idolatry,
1 In his discourses, Jipbs robs SiafiaXXovras ris dytas ehcivas: Opp. I.
305 sq. He viewed the Iconoclastic movement as an attack upon the
essence of the Gospel ; and the dread of idolatry as a falling back into
Judaism, or even into Manichasism. Cf. Milman, Latin Christianity,
n. 107. 2 It is a great misfortune that the surviving authorities are nearly all
on one side, — in favour of image-worship. The council by which it was
established, in their fifth session, commanded that all the writings of the
Iconoclastic party should be destroyed. On this account the records of
the opposition made by an earlier synod (754) have to be collected from
the Acts of the Council of Nicasa, and from the Libri Carolini; on which
see below.
3 e. g. the very remarkable letters of Gregory the Great to Serenus,
bishop of Marseilles (599) ; Epist. lib. ix. ep. 105 : ' et quidem zelum vos,
ne quid manufactum adorari posset, habuisse laudavimus, sed frangere
easdem imagines non debuisse judicamus : idcirco enim pictura in eccle-
siis adhibetur, ut hi, qui litteras nesciunt, saltern in parietibus videndo
legant, quas legere in codicibus non valent :' cf. lib. xi. ep. 13.
4 See the instances adduced by Neander, v. 277, 278.
6 One of his advisers was Constantino, bishop of Nacolia: another
was of senatorial rank, named Beser, who had passed some time in cap
tivity among the Saracens. See Mendham's Seventh General Council,
Introd. pp. xii — xiv. Other attempts to explain the antipathy of Leo
may be found in Schlosser's Geschichte der bilder-sturmenden Kaiser,
pp. 161 sq. Frankf. 1812: cf. Mansi, xn. 959. It is not unlikely that a
wish to reabsorb the Muhammedans into the Church was one of the
leading motives.

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

73

he ordered1 (726), that the custom of kneeling before them
should in future be abandoned. The resistance of the aged
patriarch2, Germanus, and a fiery circular3 from John of
Damascus, who was now residing in a convent at Jerusa
lem, incited Leo to more stringent measures. He accord
ingly put forth4 a second edict (729 or 730) in which images
and pictures were proscribed, and doomed to unsparing
demolition. It extended to all kinds of material represen
tations, with the sole exception of the cross5. The speedy
execution of this peremptory order drove Germanus from
the helm of the Oriental Church, and forced into the vacant
place his secretary Anastasius, a devoted servant of the
court. The rest of the non-conforming clergy were now
silenced or ejected : but the cause of image-worship,
hopeless though it seemed, had still a most vehement
defender in John of Damascus, whom the terrors of the
empire could not reach.
The shock which this controversy had occasioned in the
east was rapidly transmitted far and near. The Roman
bishop, Gregory II., nominally subject to Byzantium, bade
defiance to the royal edict (? 730), in a letter full of scorn
and sarcasm6 : and, in order to elude the vengeance of the
1 The edicts on image-worship are collected in Goldastus, Imperialia
decreta de cultu Imaginum, ed. Francof. 1608.
2 Mansi, xin. 99 : cf. his Liber de Synodis, etc. in Spicilegium Roma-
num, vn. 99 sq. Bom. 1842. For the probable nature of his interview
with Leo at the opening of the controversy, see Neander, v. 281 — 283.
He seems to have first struck out the distinction of a relative worship
(Tpoo-Kvp-nati axeriK-q), as addressed to the images of Christ: and affirms
that with regard to the Virgin and the saints no worship (Xarpeia) is due
to them, much less to material representations of them. It is plain,
however, that the idea of giving some honour to the pictures of the saints
(e.g. praying and placing lights before them) had been worked into his
creed, and to abandon it appeared equivalent to a renunciation of the
Gospel. 3 See the first of his Orations, above referred to ; p. 78, n. 3.
4 Goldastus, ubi sup. note 1 : cf. Theophanes, Chronograph, pp. 336,
343. 6 On removing an image of our Lord from a niche in the imperial
palace, he erected the symbol of the cross in its place. See Analecta
Graca, ed. Benedict, i. 415.
6 Mansi, xn. 959 sq.: cf. his letter to Germanus, Ibid. xin. 91. His
successor, Gregory III., held a council at Bome (Nov. 1, 731), in which it
was decreed, ' ut si quia deinceps sacrarum imaginum depositor atque
destructor et profanator, vel blasphemus exstiterit, sit 3xtorris a Corpore
et Sanguine Jesu. Christi, vel totius ecclesiss unitate et compage.' Vit.
Gregor. III., in Vignol. Lib. Pontif. n. 43, 44.

Triumphof the Ico-

of Gregory
II.

74

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 590

EASTERNCHURCH.
Proceed ings of
Constan-
tine Copro-

Council of
Constanti
nople^ '54.

exarch, threw himself for help into the arms of the Lom
bards. At the death of Leo, 741, his policy was vigorously
carried out by Constantine (Copronymus), his son : but
it is plain that a large section of the people, and especially
the monks1, were ardently attached to the interdicted
usage. It must also be confessed that, in the acts of
Constantine, still more than in the life-time of his father,
we may notice an extreme but salutary dread of super
stition in alliance with fanatical dislike of art, and a fierce
and persecuting spirit2. Having quelled an insurrection
which the image-worshippers excited in his absence3 (743),
he determined to convoke a synod in the hope of bringing
the dispute to an amicable issue, or at least of fortifying
the position of the Iconoclastic party. It assembled in 754
at Constantinople, and was composed of three hundred
and thirty-eight bishops of Europe and Anatolia4. The
deliberations were continued for the space of six months,
and led to a unanimous decision5. It declared that the
1 TrepitxaoTipics Si royv rip povaxiKtp da-Kovuiviav rdyfian deoffz^eardrtav
dvSp&v. Germanus, de Synodis, etc. ubi sup. p. 61. The majority of
the artists at this period were inmates of religious houses, and as their
craft was endangered by the measures of the court, nearly all of them
were found in the ranks of the recusants. They were loud in denouncing
Constantine as a blasphemer and a renegade: which would naturally
inflame the hatred he already bore to monachism in general. See a good
picture of the state of feeling in the life of the monk Stephen (of the
grotto of Auxentius), in the Analeda Graca, ubi sup. : and cf. Neander,
v. 303 sq.
2 The impiety and profligacy of Constantine may have been very
much over-coloured by the monastic chroniclers, c. g. Theophanes, 346
sq., but his cruelty it is impossible to question: see the evidence in
Schlosser, Geschichte der bilderstiirm. Kaiser, pp. 228 — 234.
3 It was headed by his brother-in-law, Artavasdes; Theophanes, p. 347.
4 None of the patriarchs were present at this council. The see of
Constantinople was vacant : the heads of the churches of Antioch, Alex
andria, and Jerusalem were subject to the Saracens, and were deterred
by the jealousy of their masters from public communication with the
Christians of the empire ; while the Church of Bome was invaded by the
Lombards, and devoted to the use of images. Constantine H. (767)
informs Pepin of France ' qualis fervor sanctarum imaginum orientalibus
in partibus cunctis Christianis immineat.' Hist. Franc. Scriptores, ed.
Duchesne, in. 825. A Boman council (769) under Stephen IV. con
firmed the ' veneration of images.' Mansi, xn. 720. It is clear also that
the proceedings at Constantinople (754) were repudiated by the patriarch
of Jerusalem (Mansi, xn. 1135), who was joined by the patriarchs of
Antioch and Alexandria. The president of the council was Theodosius,
metropolitan of Ephesus.
0 Mansi, xin. 205.

-814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

75

worshipping (Trpocr/cvvelv Kal crefieaOai) of images and pic
tures was a relapse into idolatry, excited by the malice of
the Tempter ; and that consequently emperors were bound,
in imitation of the Apostolic practice, to destroy every
vestige of the evil1. At the same time, not a single
prelate manifested any wish to vary from the standard
language of the Church2. They opened the proceedings
by acknowledging the doctrine of the Six General Coun
cils, and abjuring every phase of misbelief which had there
been examined and condemned.
A long and triumphant reign (741 — 775) enabled Con
stantine to carry out the wishes of his party: and his
successor, Leo IV"., surnamed Chazarus (775—780), though
more lenient than his father, steadily enforced the oath3
which had been issued by that king against the wor
shipping of images and pictures. Leo was espoused to
the artful and unscrupulous Irene, who at his decease
administered the business of the State in the name of
Constantine VI., her minor son. She had been educated
in a family opposed to the Iconoclasts, and was tinged
with the superstition of the age : no sooner, therefore,
was she mistress of the empire, than her leanings to the
monks were frequently betrayed in her distribution of the
church-preferment. It was not, however, until the sixth
year of her administration, that she ventured to proceed
more freely. Hitherto the soldiers, who revered the me
mory of Constantine and took the side of the Iconoclasts,
had operated as a formidable check upon her zeal: but

EASTERN
CHURCH.
Its deci-

Aceessionof Leo I V.

The em-
presslrene:

her zeal in
behalf of
images.

1 pnjKiri ToXp.&'v dvBponrov tov olovS-fiirore iwirvSeieiv to toiovtov direj3ii Kal
dvixnav imrifievua. Mansi, xin. 328. Their prohibitions extended not
only to all kinds of images composed ' by the pagan and accursed art ' of
the painter, but even to the figures (hitherto preserved) upon the sacred
vestments and church-plate (Mansi, ib. 332); although to check any
further outbreaks of individual fanaticism, it was now ordered that the
permission of the patriarch, or of the emperor, should be procured to
warrant alterations in the ecclesiastical ornaments.
2 They even pronounced an anathema on all who do not confess rrp)
denrapBkvov 'M.aplav Kvplws Kal dX-rjBus BeoroKov, VTepripav re elvai Tdirns
oparrjs Kal dopdrov Krl<rews ; and on all who do not ask for the prayers of
her, and of the other saints. Mansi, xm. 345, 348.
3 It seems to have been administered to every citizen of Constanti
nople, if not in all quarters of the empire : of. Neander, v. 307, 308. Leo,
however, permitted numbers of the exiled monks to shew themselves in
public, and thus laid a train for the explosion that ensued.

76

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 590

EASTERN CHURCH.

Second Council of
Niccea, 787.

and decree.

the election of Tarasius1 to the patriarchal chair enabled
her to make arrangements for the convocation of a synod,
which she trusted would reverse the policy adopted in
the former reigns. The Roman bishop, Hadrian I., most
cordially invited by Irene, sent a deputation of the Western
clergy to assist her ; but the efforts of Tarasius, who was
anxious to secure a like concurrence on the part of the
Oriental patriarchates2, were not equally successful. Very
many of the delegates assembled at Constantinople, Aug. 1,
786 ; but, owing to an insurrection3 of the military, their
proceedings were suspended for a year. They next met
at Nicsea in Bithynia, to the number of about three
hundred and fifty prelates, and immediately resumed their
labours (Sept. 24, 787). In less than a month the business
of the Synod was completed : and as soon as their ' de
finition' had been formally proclaimed (Oct. 23) in the
royal city, images were almost universally restored. A
multitude of bishops, who had been hitherto distinguished
as Iconoclasts, alarmed in some cases by the evidence4 in
favour of the use of images, or anxious to retain their
mitres and their incomes, signed a humble recantation5
of the tenets now exploded. The decision6 of the Council
1 His predecessor Paul, on the point of death, retired into a monas
tery. Tarasius was secretary to the emperor, and the irregularity of his
election, together with his use of the title 'CEcumenical patriarch,' scan
dalized the Boman bishop Hadrian I. (Mansi, xn. 1056, 1077): but in
consideration of his zeal for images, the anger of the pope was speedily
disarmed. See a Life of Tarasius by his pupil, in the Acta Sanctorum,
Febr. torn. in. pp. 576 sq.
2 The messengers of Tarasius, on reaching Palestine, were informed
by some monks whom they met with, that the Moslem authorities would
not tolerate a general council, and that it would be fruitless to proceed
any further on their errand: but in order that they might secure at least
a show of representatives, they brought back two Palestinian monks, with
the style and title of Legates of the East. On this account, the synod
has no claim to be called (Ecumenical; cf. Palmer, Treatise on the Church,
n. 151, 152 ; 3rd edit.
3 Mansi, xn. 990 sq.
4 The inaccuracy of the quotations from the older writers, as betrayed
in the proceedings of the Nicene Council, and the utter want of criticism
evinced by the prelates in adducing spurious works, are painfully astound
ing : e. g. the story of a miraculous image at Berytus was attributed to
the great Athanasius, and urged as an authority : cf . Mendham, Seventh
General Council, Introd. pp. lii. sq.
6 Cf. Neander, v. 318—320.
6 Mansi, xin. 377. The wpoo-Kivnins would include the offering of
lights and incense (6viuap.drt>>v Kal ipihriav rrpoaaymyipi) as well as bowing

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

77

ran as follows : it enjoined that ' bowing and an honour
able adoration {aa'rraafj.bv Kal Tip/qTtKr)v irpoaicvvna-iv)
should be offered to all sacred images ; but this external
and inferior worship must not be confounded with the
true and supreme worship (ttjv Kara iriartv r)fia>v a\nOtvr)v
Tuirpetav) which belongs exclusively to God.'
In the time of Irene and her son, as also of Nicephorus I.
and Michael Rhangabe, this decision of the council was
unsparingly enforced ; although an insurrection of Icono
clasts in 812 bore witness to their strength and formidable
numbers1. But a milder and more lasting opposition took
its rise in the west of Europe. It appears, that soon
after the conclusion of the synod, Charlemagne had re
ceived from Rome a Latin version of the 'Acts,' which
was transmitted for the sake of gaining his concurrence2.
Startled by the language of the Eastern prelates, he de
termined, with the aid of his clerical advisers3, to compose
an elaborate reply. It came out under the title Libri
Carolini*. In the course of one hundred and twenty
chapters, he examined and confuted all the arguments on
which the Council of Nicaea rested. But in spite of an
occasional display of bitterness in criticizing his opponents,
he was far from a heated partizan. He occupied a kind
of middle place5; and while strenuously denouncing the
impieties connected with the worshipping of pictures, did
down and prostration. The degree of reverence is the same as many of
the Iconoclasts were not unwilling to bestow on the sign of the cross and
on the volume of the Gospels (rip riiirip. rod riuiov Kal faoiroiov aravpov Kal
rois dylois euayyeXtois Kal rots Xonrots lepois dvaBijaaai).
1 For an account of the reaction, under Leo the Armenian, and the
final triumph of the image-party in 842, see the following period : ' State
of religious doctrine,' &c, in the 'Eastern Church.'
2 It appears that the question was already mooted at Gentilly in 767,
under Pepin, but the verdict of that synod is not known. Labb. vi. 1703.
Cf. above, p. 54, n. 1.
3 One of the principal was most probably Alcuin: Lorenz, Alcuins
Leben, p. 132 ; Neander, v. 324, note.
4 In Goldastus, Imperialia Decreta de Cultu Imaginum, pp. 67 sq.
Neander (v. 325 — 335) has left a careful analysis of the Libri Carolini.
5 e. g. 'Adorationem soli Deo debitam imaginibus impertire aut seg-
nitias est, si utcunque agitur, aut insanias, vel potius infidelitatis, si
pertinaciter defenditur:' lib. in. c. 24. 'Imagines vero, omni sui cultura
et adoratione seclusa, utrum in basilicis propter memoriam rerum gest-
arum et ornamentum sint, an etiam non sint, nullum fidei catholicas
adferre poterunt prasjudicium ; quippe cum ad peragenda nostras salutis
mysteria nullum penitus officium habere noscantur:' lib. n. c. 21.

EASTERNCHURCH.

Opposition
to image-
worship in
the West.

The Libri
Carolini.

78

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 590

THE PAULI-
CIANS.

Council of
Frankfort, 794:

and acqui
escence of
the English
Church.

Rise of
Paulician-ism.

not fall into the track of the fanatical Iconoclasts, who
were proscribing all the imitative arts as the invention
of the Devil. His treatise very soon elicited an answer1
from Pope Hadrian I., which, as it fell innocuous on him
self, made no impression on the bishops of the empire.
They assembled at Frankfort (794), to the number of three
hundred, and determined in the presence of the papal
legates, that the recent council of the Greeks had no claim
whatever on their notice2 ; adding, that all acts of worship,
such as many were not indisposed to offer to the images
of saints, invaded the prerogatives of God. And as the
English Church3 appears to have united with the Frankish
in the passing of this memorable protest, very few of the
Western Christians, those of Italy excepted, were com
mitted to the fatal principles established at Nicsea.
THE PAULICIANS.
But while the strength of the Christian Church was
tried to the utmost in the midst of domestic conflicts,
she had also to encounter a fresh form of thought which
threatened her dominion in the East. This was the creed
of the Paulicians4. Like the other mediaeval sects, they
1 Mansi, xin. 759.
2 Mansi, xin. 909. The following is the entry of Einhard, AnnaleSj.
a.d. 794 (Pertz, i. 181): 'Synodus etiam, quas ante paucos annos in Con-
stantinopoli sub Herena (Irene) et Constantino filio ejus congregata, et ab
ipsis non solum septima, verum etiam universalis est appellata, ut nee
septima nee universalis haberetur .dicereturve, quasi supervacua in totum
ab omnibus abdicata est.'
3 Simeon of Durham, following a contemporaneous authority, (Scrip-
tores x. col. Ill, ed. Twysden), thus describes the correspondence between
Charlemagne and the English: 'Anno 792, Karolus rex Francorum misit
synodalem librum ad Britanniam, sibi a Constantinopoli directum, in quo
libro (heu! proh dolor I) multa inconvenientia, et veras fidei contraria
reperientes; maxime, quod pene omnium orientalium doctorum, non
minus quam trecentorum, vel eo amplius, episcoporum unanimi assertions
confirmantum imagines adorare debere; quod omnino ecclesia Dei exe-
cratur. Contra quod scripsit Albinus [i.e. Alcuin] epistolam ex authori-
tate Divinarum scripturarum mirabilitcr afurmatam ; illamque cum eodem
libro et persona episcoporum, ac principum nostrorum, regi Francorum
attulit.' Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 667 : cf. Twysden's Vindication, pp. 206 sq.,
new edit.
4 HavXiKiavol, otherwise called liavXiavlrai. Some have looked upon
the name IlavXiKiapot as equivalent to HavXoiiadvvai (Photius, adversus
recentiores Manichaos, lib. i. c. 2: in J. C. Wolf's Anecdota Graca, torn.
i. and n. ed. Hamb. 1722); arguing that the founders of the sect were

— 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

79

were distinguished by their opposition to the whole of the
ecclesiastical system, and not merely to peculiar articles
of faith. They seem to have been an offshoot from the
Marcionites, who lingered1 in the regions of Armenia
Prima, where the founder of Paulicianism appeared at the
middle of the seventh century (657 — 684).
His former name was Constantine, but at the outset
of his mission in behalf of what he deemed the genuine
teaching of St Paul, he chose the expressive title of
' Sylvanus.' Though addicted to the study of the sacred
volume, and especially the writings of the great Apostle,
whom his predecessor, Marcion, held in equal honour,
he was notwithstanding governed all his life-time by the
principles of dualism, in which it is likely he was reared.
He argued that the Maker of the human body and the
Lord of the sensible creation, was to be distinguished from
the perfect God, the Author of the world of spirits2. In
his view, matter, as the agent of the Demiurgus, was the
source, of every evil ; while the soul of man, originally
wedded to Divinity itself, had been seduced into union
with the body, where she dwelt in a doleful prison3. Her
deliverance out of this enthralment was the work of the
two Manichasans, Paul and John, sons of Callinice : but there are strong
reasons for doubting the truth of this account. See the Essay of Gieseler
in the Theolog. Studien und Kritiken for 1829, Heft i. pp. 79 sq. He
maintains that the name Paulician (UavXiKoi leading to HavXiKiavoi) was
given to them on account of the exclusive value they attached to the
writings of St Paul. Neander also has shewn that their tenets were not,
strictly speaking, Manichaan, but are to be classed under the phase of
Gnosticism put forth by Marcion and his party : v. 337 sq. The oldest
treatise on the heresy of the Paulicians is an Oration of John of Ozun,
patriarch of the Armenians (718—729): Opp. ed. Venet. 1834. But the
fullest statement of their errors is to be found in the work of Photius
(above cited), and the Historia Manichaorum of Peter Siculus (about
800), ed. Ingolstadt, 1604, and elsewhere.
1 Neander, v. 339.
2 XlptSrov p.iv ydp ityri rb Kar' avroiis yvtbptffaa rb S6o dpxds ouoXoyeiv,
vavnpbv Bebv Kal dyaBbv Kal a\Xov etval roOSe tov kSo-uov rrainr-rpi koX i%ovaia-
ariji>, Irepov Si rot uiXXovros, k.t.X. Pet. Siculus, ubi sup. pp. 16 sq.
Photius, ubi sup. lib. ii. c. 3, 5.
3 See the investigation of Neander on this point, v. 356 sq. They
had a firm belief in the possibility of redemption, which they rested on
the known affinity subsisting between God and their spirits: OvSi ydp
ou5' ovtu KareKpdrriaeii ovSi rac iKbvrav -rrpoSeSuKbroii/ iavrobs rijs 'I'vxV* o
ixBpbs, as p.-nSap.y jrpds anSealav 8Xws t^s dXijBelas alyX-nv robs iaKono-pivovs
iirio-rpi<petrBat., in o ayaBos 9«5s r\v del Kat iari ko.1 'iarai.. Photius,
lib. n. c. 3.

THE PAULI
CIANS.
Itsfounder.

Glaring in
stances of
misbelief

8o

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 590

THE PAULI
CIANS.

Views of
the Sacra-

of the
Scriptures i

Redeemer. He descended from the presence of the
Highest God, invested with a heavenly body1; for, as
matter was essentially corrupt, the Saviour did not take
our human nature, but was born of His Virgin Mother
only in appearance2. A denial of the Incarnation led the
way to other forms of blasphemy and misbelief. It was
held by the Paulicians that the sufferings of Christ were
equally unreal, that in virtue of His higher nature He
was incapable of death, and that His cross in particular
was nothing more than a sign of malediction3. Firm in
a belief that matter is the seat of evil, they rejected all
the outward means of grace, and more especially the Sa
craments. They held that the Baptism4 which our Lord
intended was a baptism only of the Spirit, resting on
the passage where He pointed to Himself as the one
' living water.' The Communion, in like manner, was
divested of its symbols5 and its meaning ; for, according
to the creed of the Paulicians, it is not the material
elements but only Christian doctrines that can possibly
become the vehicle of God in communicating blessings to
the soul.
Assigning a peculiar value to the writings of St Paul,
the followers of Constantine rejected the epistles of St
Peter6, whom they branded as a traitor to the Gospel, and
1 pir/Si i£ airy* yewnBrjvai T&v 'Kipiov, dXX' ovpavoBev to auaa Kare-
veyKeiv. Pet. Sicul. ibid. : cf . Photius, lib. I. c. 7.
2 ws Sid o-uX-ijvos. They even spoke of the Virgin as scarcely fit to be
numbered with the good and virtuous; adding that she bore sons to
Joseph after the birth of our Saviour : Pet. Sicul. p. 18.
3 It was called KaKotipytav fpyavov Kal bird dphv Kelpxvov. Photius, lib.
i. c. 7: cf. Pet. Sicul. ibid. Yet it appears that some at least of the
Paulicians made use of a wooden cross with superstitious objects. Phot.
lib. i. c. 9.
4 Photius, ibid. Some of them however had their children baptized
(Neander, v. 363), perhaps with an idea that the' sacrament would benefit
the body.
6  Xiyovres, 8n ovk ijv tLpros Kal dtvos, Sv b Kvptos iSiSov tois uadnrais
avrov iirl rou Seiirvov, dXXd <rvp.@o\iKGis rd fyf)p.ara avroG avrots iSiSov, las
dprov Kal alvov. Pet. Sicul. ibid.
6 Tas Svo KaBoXiKds...TliTpov tov •n-piarairoarbXov ov S4xovrai, direxBas
rpbs avrov SiaKeluevoi, k.t.X. Pet. Siculus, ubi sup. cf. Photius, lib. I. c. 8.
They rejected also the writings of the Old Testament (ttjv olavovv filpXov
iraXaidv), regarding them as the production of a system which was under
the dominion of the Demiurgas. Of the writings of the New Testament
they seem to have adopted four Gospels (laying stress, however, on that
according to St Luke), fourteen Epistles of St Paul (of which one was

¦ — 814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

as the head of the Judaizing party in the Church. This
anti-Jewish feeling, everywhere apparent, made them
anxious to revive (as they supposed) an apostolic ministry,
to simplify the ritual of the Church, and disentangle the
surviving elements of Christianity from numerous after
growths of error. Thus they styled themselves the ' Ca
tholics' and ' Christians' proper, as distinguished from the
' Romans,' or professors of the state-religion1. They would
tolerate no difference of class or order, such as that sub
sisting in the Church between the clergy and the laity.
Their ministers2 were simply teachers, standing in a close
relation to the Holy Spirit, and at first peculiarly awa
kened by His impulse.
How far the Paulicians had been guilty of the grosser
violations3 of the moral law imputed to them by oppo
nents, it is difficult to ascertain precisely : but one prin
ciple on which they acted in the time of persecution is an
argument against their purity of conscience. They were
ready to disguise their tenets, under pressure, and resorted
even to the worship and communion of the Church in order
to escape the eye of the police, and to propagate their
system with impunity.
The founder of it, Constantine (Sylvanus), after labour
ing to spread it in Armenia for a long term of years, was
stoned to death, at the instigation of the emperor, by
some of his own disciples (684). The officer, who was
entrusted with this duty, Symeon (Titus), afterwards
passed over to the sect, and occupied the place of Con-
addressed to the Laodiceans), the Epistles of St James, St John, and St
Jude, and the Acts of the Apostles. Ibid, and cf. Neander, v. 368 sq.
1 KaBoXiKty Si ixKXnolav rh iavrwv KaXovvi avviSpia. Photius, lib. i. c.
9 : cf . lib. i. c. 6. Another of their titles was that of xputtottoXitou. See
the Anathemas published in Tollius, Insignia Itinerarii Italici, p. 122.
2 They rejected not only the name lepeis but Trpeafiirepoi also, as
savouring of Judaism. Pet. Sicul. p. 20. At the head of their ministerial
system were, (1) apostles or prophets, (2) teachers and pastors (SiSdaKoKoi
and iroiuhes), (3) itinerant messengers of the truth associated with the
prophets (trvviKoriuot), (4) vordpioi, perhaps scribes, or copyists of religious
records. Neander, v. 365. The same dread of Judaism induced them to
relinquish the current title vaol (temples), and to call their places of
assembly 'oratories' (irpoaevxal). Photius, lib. i. c. 9.
3 This feature of their system is dwelt upon by John of Ozun, a con
temporary (above, p. 79, note) : and he is supported by the other writers.
On the other hand, see Neander, v. 366 sq. : Gieseler, Theol. Studien und
Kritiken for 1829, pp. 120 sq.
M. A. G

THE FAULI-
CIANS.
of the mi-
nist/ry and
ritual of
the Church.

Their mo
ral system.

Fate of
Constan
tine, the
founder.

82

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 590

THE PAULI
CIANS.

His suc
cessors.
Schism among the
Paulicians.

Conduct of
Gegncesius.

Fresh seces
sion at his
death.

Decline of
Paulician-
ism.

stantine until the year 690 ; when a further inquisition,
prompted by Justinian II., ended in a fresh proscription,
and brought Symeon, with a multitude of others, to the
stake. He was followed in the second generation by
GegniBsius (Timothy), whose claim to be regarded as the
single leader of the party (circ. 715), on the ground that
the influence of the Holy Spirit, who had rested on his
father, was exclusively transmitted unto him, provoked
a secession from his standard. The dissentients took the
side of Theodore, his brother, who affirmed that an equal
ministerial gift had come to him directly from on high1.
The growth of the Paulicians now demanding the attention
of the government, Gegnsesius, in 717, was summoned to
Constantinople, and interrogated by the patriarch concern
ing his behaviour and his creed. By means of equivocal
expressions2, intermingled with anathemas on all who
varied from the teaching of the Church, he was able to
secure the interest of Leo the Isaurian, and took back with
him a letter of protection for himself and his adherents.
Migrating across the frontier, he established his metropolis
within the territories of the Caliph, at the town of Mana-
nalis (near Samosata), and died about the year 745.
Another schism arose, dividing the Paulicians into bitter
factions, one of whom, preserving their allegiance to the
son of Gegnaesius, fell a prey to the armies of the Moslems.
The pretender, Joseph (or Epaphroditus), menaced by a
like incursion, fixed his chair in Pisidia ; and the sect of
the Paulicians in his life-time was diffused over many
parts of Asia Minor.
Joseph was succeeded (circ. 750) by the cynical or
(it may be) the immoral Baanes (6 pvTrapos), under whom
the delusion seems to have been rapidly declining : but
it now attracted a more able and exalted leader, Sergius3
1 Photius, lib. i. c. 18.
2 See Neander'B remarks on this interview, ibid. 344. As it is plain
that the Paulicians were strongly opposed to image-worship, and as their
abhorrence of this practice was the first point of attraction for their con
verts, many of whom had been Iconoclasts (John of Ozun, Oratio, pp. 76,
89), we may conjecture that the emperor Leo, the antagonist of images,
was on that account more lenient to Gegnassius and his party.
3 Pet. Siculus, ibid. p. 54. The case of Sergius shews that although
the reading of the Bible was not positively interdicted, it was usual for
the laity to shrink from this personal investigation of the mysteries of the;
faith, and for the clergy in some cases to encourage the delusion.

¦^814] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

^

(or Tychicus), a native of Galatia, and the second founder
of Paulicianism. Assiduous in his study of the writings
of St Paul, to whom, as he imagined, Christian truth had
been almost exclusively revealed, he clung notwithstand
ing to the dualistic errors, which had marked the anterior
stages of his sect ; and while surpassing all his predecessors
in the moral duties of religion1, he indulged an extrava
gance of speech that bordered upon self-idolatry2. His
efforts to extend his influence were untiring ; in the course
of four-and-thirty years, he traversed every part of Asia
Minor3, and enjoying many glimpses of imperial favour
in the reign of Nicephorus I.4, succeeded in imparting to
the sect a far more stable frame-work.
But this interval of calm was short. The progress of a
noxious error, pictured in the strongest colours to the
mind of Leo the Armenian, was sufficient to arouse his
vengeance : he despatched inquisitors5 into the misbe
lieving districts, with the hope of eradicating all who
shewed no symptom of repentance. A number of them
fled afresh into the territories of the Caliph ; the emir of
Melitene granting them a small asylum in the town of
Argaum, from which place, in defiance of the wish of
Sergius6, who was himself a refugee, they made incursions
into the border provinces of the empire. At the death7 of
1 The following is the testimony of an implacable opponent: Kal
Taireivbv rfdos Kal 5el-iit>ffeo)s KareoxnuaTiapiivos rpbTos Kal ijuepbr-ns ov robs
oIkcIovs viroaatvovaa p\ovov, d\\A Kal robs Tpaxorepov SiaKeiuivovs iiToXeat-
mvtrd re Kal avXayayovaa. Photius, lib. I. c. 22 : cf. Pet. Sicul. p. 58.
2 He was understood to argue as if he were the Paraclete, or Holy
Ghost (Photius, lib. I. p. Ill); but it may be that his object was to repre
sent himself as, in a higher sense, the organ of the Spirit, for the restora
tion of the Gospel. He spoke of himself, however, as 'the shining light,'
' the light-giving star,' ' the good shepherd,' &c. Ibid. p. 98.
3 'Airb avaroXwv Kal piixP1 Svap.t3v, Kal pofipd Kal votov tSpapwv K-qpiffatav
to evayyiXiov rov Xpitrrov, rots ipais yovaai flaprjaas. Extract from one of
his letters, in Pet. Sicul. p. 60.
4 Theophanes, Chron. p. 413, ed. Paris. He granted them a plenary
toleration in Phrygia and Lycaonia. We learn from the same authority,
that in the following reign many persons at Constantinople (though they
proved a minority) resisted all attempts to punish heretics with death :
p. 419. 5 The cruelty of these officials roused the spirit of the sufferers, who cut
them off at Cynoschora in Armenia. Pet. Sicul. p. 66.
6 Ibid. p. 62.
' He was assassinated by a zealot of Nicopolis : cf . Gieseler, in Studien
und Kritiken for 1829, p. 100.
G2

THE PAULI
CIANS.

der Ser-

Persecutions of the
Paulicians.

84

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 590

Their sup
pression in
the East.

their leader in 835, the constitution of the system under
went a rapid change : a band of his assistants1 (crwe/e&jj/itot)
were at first exalted to supremacy of power ; but as soon
as the persecuting spirit2 was rekindled in the breast of
the empress Theodora (circ. 844), the sect was converted
into a political association, and soon after grew notorious
for its lawlessness and rapine. At the head of it was a
soldier, Karbeas, who in alliance with the Saracens and
many of the rival schools of Paulicians (drawn by a
common misery together), was enabled to sustain himself
in a line of fortresses upon the confines of Armenia, and to
scourge the adjacent province3. His dominion was, how
ever, broken, and well-nigh extinguished under Basil I.4
(867 — 886) ; though some of the phases of Paulicianism
were constantly revived among the sects of the following
period. 1 Pet. Sicul. pp. 70 sq.
2 A hundred thousand men are said to have been hanged, beheaded,
or drowned. Constantini Porphyrog. Continuator, lib. iv. c. 16; inter
Scriptores Byzant. p. 103, ed. Paris.
3 Ibid. c. 23, 24, 25.
4 In 969 a remnant of them were transported from the eastern dis
tricts to Philippopolis in Thrace by the emperor John Tzimisces. From
thence they were able to extend themselves into other parts of Europe ;
but it is remarkable that some of their posterity are still found in the
place to which they were transported. Neander, vi. 341: cf. Gibbon,
v. 281 — 283; ed. Milman; and Spencer's Travels in European Turkey,
n. 353.

—814]

( 85 )

CHAPTER IV.
ON THE STATE OF INTELLIGENCE AND PIETY.

THE standard of intelligence continued, on the whole,
to be higher in the East than in the West ; and more
especially in districts where the Moslems were repulsed, it
was subjected to fewer fluctuations. The religious spirit
of the people, in like manner, underwent but little change,
and, with the sole exception of the controversy on the use
of pictures, which had stimulated every class of the com
munity and made them take a side, their piety was
generally confined to dreamy contemplation, or expressed
in a calm routine of worship1, tinctured more or less with
superstition2. In the discipline and ritual of the Church
it is easy to remark the same kind of uniformity; the
Trullan Council (691), by a series of one hundred and two
canons3, having furnished all the Eastern patriarchates
with a code of discipline, which has been constantly in
force from that day to our own.
Of the west, as already noticed4, Ireland was the bright
est spot in the beginning of this period. Under Theodore5,
1 Theodore, himself a Greek of Tarsus, informs us that the Greeks,
lay and clerical, were ordered to communicate every Sunday (Pcenitent.
lib. i. c. 12, Councils &c. hi. 186) : and Beda (Epist. ad Ecgberctum, § 9)
implies that in the east at large ('totum Orientem') it was not unusual for
the pious to receive the sacrament every day.
2 Pictures seem to have been perverted by the Oriental, as relics were
in the Latin churches. Many of them had the reputation of working
miraculous cures; and the 'Legends' of the period are full of instances
establishing the almost universal spread of this and of similar delusions.
3 Concil. Quinisext., Mansi, xi. 935 — 988: see above, p. 47.
4 Above, p. 16, n. 2: pp. 19, 22.
5 Above, pp. 14, 59, n. 4. Beda seems to have gathered into himself
all the learning of the Irish, Frank and English churches, and to have
transmitted it through the Northumbrian schools to Alcuin, who in turn
transplanted it into France just as the northern invasions threatened to
extinguish it here.

MEANS OP
GRACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

Permanent
form of

the East.

Variations
in the light
of the

86

State of Intelligence and Piety.

[A.D. 590

MEANS OF
GRACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

and from his death to the invasions of the Northmen, much
of the illumination still proceeding from the sister-island
is reflected in the schools of Britain, where ' the ministers
of God were earnest both in preaching and in learning ;'
and which acted as a ' seminary of religion,' whither pupils
now resorted 'from foreign countries seeking after wis
dom1.' It was different in the Frankish and Burgundian
provinces of Gaul, in which literature had been suffered to
degenerate by the barbarous Merovingian kings. The
flourishing schools of the Roman municipia had entirely
disappeared2, and their place was but inadequately filled
by monastic and cathedral institutions, now set apart
almost exclusively for the education of the clerics and the
members of religious orders. Charlemagne, aided more
especially by Alcuin', and other learned foreigners and
natives, opened a fresh era in the history of letters ; and
the whole of his mighty empire underwent a salutary
change. He laboured to revive religion by the agency of
sounder learning4, and in order to secure this end esta
blished a variety of schools, — the palatine, parochial, mo
nastic, and cathedral5.
But we should remember that the northern tribes, who
1 The remark of King Alfred (Preface to his translation of Gregory's
Pastoral), on contrasting the decay of learning after the barbaric inroads
of the Danes. Beda (rv. 2) mentions that, after the coming of Theodore,
all who wished to be instructed in sacred literature 'haberent in promptu
magistros qui docerent.'
2 See Guizot's Sixteenth Lecture, where he shews that from the sixth
to the eighth century the surviving literature of France is exclusively
religious. 'Ante ipsum enim dominum regem Cardura, in Gallia nullum
studium fuerat liberalium artium.' Annal. Lauriss. a.d. 787; Pertz, i.
171. The state of learning in Italy itself was little better, owing to the
savage spirit of the Lombards. Hallam, Literature of Europe, pt. l
ch. i. § 8.
3 Above, p. 61. Some of the other more distinguished foreigners
were Peter Pisanus, Paul Warnefrid, and Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia,
Leidrad, archbishop of Lyons (a native of Noricum), and Theodulph,
bishop of Orleans, of Gothic parentage. Angilbert, the prime minister of
Pepin and secretary of Charlemagne, was a native Frenchman, and a
great promoter of schools and learning.
4 See above, p. 56, u. 2.
5 The best account of these institutions may be seen in Keuffel, Hist.
Originis ac Progr. Schol. inter Ghristianos, pp. 161 sq. The trivium and
quadrivium, elements of the ' seven liberal arts,' made part of the educa
tion given in the schools of Charlemagne. Theodulph, bishop of Orleans
(Capitulare, c. 20: Mansi, xm. 993 sq.), established village schools ('per
villas et vicos') for all classes of the people.

—814]

State of Intelligence and Piety.

87

broke up the empire of the Caesars and were now planted
on its ruins, not unfrequently retained their native dialects
as well as a crowd of pagan customs and ideas1. Some
of them, indeed, the Visigoths, the Franks, the Burgun
dians, and the Lombards, gradually forgot their mother-
tongue, and at the end of the ninth century had thrown
it off entirely2. But a number of their northern kinsmen
did not follow their example. This variety of languages,
combining with the remnants of barbaric life, would every
where impose an arduous task upon the clergy of the west ;
yet few of them, it must be owned, were equal to their
duty3: and the ill-advised adoption of the Latin language4
as the vehicle of public worship (though at first it might
have proved convenient here and there) contributed to
thwart the influence of the pastor and retarded the im
provement of his flock. It is true that considerable good
resulted from the energy of individual prelates, who in
sisted on the need of clergy able to instruct their people
in the elements of Christian knowledge5, and to preach
1 e. g. numerous traces of this lingering heathenism have been col
lected in Kemble's Saxons, vol 1. App. f : cf. Gieseler, 11. 160 — 162.
2 Palgrave, Hist, of Normandy, 1. 64.
3 See above, pp. 46, 56. The Capitulare ad parochia sua Sacerdotes
of Theodulph, bishop of Orleans (786 — 821), while it displays somewhat
elevated views of the pastoral office, indicates a sad deficiency in the
knowledge of the general body of ecclesiastics. In like manner it was
necessary to make the following decree at the English synod of Clovesho
(747) : ' That priests who know it not should learn to construe and ex
plain in our own tongue the Creed and Lord's Prayer and the sacred
words which are solemnly pronounced at the celebration of the mass, and
in the office of baptism,' etc. Johnson, English Canons, 1. 247; ed. Oxf.
1850. The literary qualifications needed in all ecclesiastics are enu
merated in the Capitular of 802, apud Pertz, in. 107.
4 The same feeling of respect for the usages of Bome induced the
Frankish and English churches to adopt her psalmody and choral ser
vice. See Neander, v. 175, 176. The mission of John, 'the archchanter,'
and the establishment of the 'cursus Bomanus' iu England (679), are
described by Beda, Hist. Eccl. rv. 18. The Scottish (Irish) rites, how
ever, had not been entirely superseded in the north of England at the
close of the eighth century. MaskeU's Ancient Liturgy, Pref. p. liv. In
Ireland they retained their old supremacy until the arrival of the English,
when the Anglican ritual was ordered to be observed 'in omnibus partibus
ecclesiffl,' by the synod of Cashel (1172), c. 7; Wilkins, 1. 473.
5 CI the preceding note 3. Beda (ep. ad Ecgberdum, § 3): 'In qua
videlicet prasdicatione populis exbibenda, hoc prse caeteris omni instantia
procurandum arbitror, ut fidem catholicam quas apostolico symbolo con-
tinetur, et Dominicam orationem quam sancti Evangelii nos Scripture
edocet, omnium qui ad tuum regimen pertinent, memorias radicibus infi-

MEANS OF
GRACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.
Evil grow
ing out of
the variety
of Ian-

A tternpts to
mitigatethese evils.

88

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MEANS OF
GRACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

in the language of the country. Thus, in England it was
ordered1 that the priests shall often invite the people to
meet on the Lord's day and other festivals 'to hear the
word of God and to be often present at the sacraments of
the masses and at preaching of sermons': and the rigorous
observance2 of the Lord's day in particular would give them
opportunities of profiting by the injunction. It was urged
anew in the reign of Charlemagne ; e.g. at the Council of
Mentz3 (813), and in the same year at Aries, where the
clergy are directed to preach on festivals and Sundays,
not only in the cities, but in country parishes4.
The growing education of the people would enable a far
greater number of them to peruse the holy Scripture ; nor
did any wish exist at present to discourage such a study5.
gere cures. Et quidem omnes qui Latinam linguam lectionis usu didice-
runt, etiam hasc optime didicisse certissimum est : sed idiotas, hoc est,
eos qui proprias tantum linguas notitiam habent, hsec ipsa sua lingua
dicere, ac sedulo decantare facito.' The same is frequently enjoined
elsewhere, e. g. Council of Mentz, 813, can. 45 : Mansi, xiv. 74. A short
form of abjuration of idolatry and declaration of Christian faith, in the
vernacular language, is preserved among the works of Boniface: n.'16,
ed. Giles.
1 Council of Clovesho, 747, can. 14. Johnson's English Canons i. 249.
Chrodegang of Metz directed that the Word of salvation should be
preached at least twice a month, though expressing a desire that sermons
might be still more frequent : Regula, c. 44 ; Mansi, xiv. 337.
2 The Penitential of Theodore (lib. i. c. 11, lib. n. c. 8) is most strin
gent on this head: cf. a law of King Ine against Sunday working (Thorpe,
I. 104; Johnson, I. 132), and one of the 'Laws of the Northumbrian
Priests ' (§ 55) against Sunday traffic and journeying of all kinds (Thorpe,
n. 298, Johnson, i. 379). See Schrockh, xx. 315, 316, for the views
entertained by John of Damascus on the nature of the Lord's day. It is
plain from the prohibitions of the Councils (e.g. of Chalons, 649, c. xix.)
that the church-inclosure was at times converted, into an arena of Sunday
merriment and dissipation.
3 Can. xxv : ' Juxta quod intelligere vulgus possit.'
4 Can. x: 'Etiam in omnibus parochiis.' It was added in the Council
of Tours (813), c. xvn., that preachers should translate their sermons
either into Romana rustica or Theotisca (Deutsch), 'quo facilius cuncti
possint intelligere quas dicuntur.' Charlemagne had already published a
collection of discourses (Homiliarinm), which had been compiled by Paul
Warnefrid (Diaconus), from the sermons of the Latin Fathers. See
Banke's article in the Studien und Kritiken, 1855, 21" Heft, pp. 382 sq.
5 See e.g. the passages above quoted, p. 56, and a still finer one
translated into Anglo-Saxon, and preserved in Soames' Bampton Lectures,
92, 93 : cf. also the language of Bdefonsus of Saragossa, in Baluze's Mis
cellanea, vi. 59. Alcuin, writing to the emperor (circ. 800), thus alludes
to a query put to him by a layman who was conversant with the Scrip
tures; 'Vere et valde gratiim habeo, laicos quandoque ad evangelicas
effloruisse quasstiones, dum quendam audivi virum prudentem aliquando

—814]

State of Intelligence and Piety.

89

It was, however, long restricted by the scarcity of books,
and still more by the want of vernacular translations;
though the latter had begun to be remedied, at least in
some scanty measure, by the English and the German1
Churches. TJlfilas, the father of this kind of literature,
was followed, after a long interval, by the illustrious Beda,
who, if he did not render the whole Bible2 into Anglo-
Saxon, certainly completed the Gospel of St John3.
Aldhelm, who died in 709, is said to have made a version
of the Psalms4 ; and we may infer from the treasures of
vernacular literature handed down by the scholars of the
period next ensuing, that not a few analogous productions
were destroyed in the conflict with the Danes.
But a more fascinating species of instruction was sup
plied in the 'Lives of Saints5.' The number of these
works, surviving at the present day, is actually prodigious6;
and the influence they exerted on the mediaeval mind was
dicere, clericorum esse evangelium discere, non laicorum,' etc. Epist.
cxxrv. (al. clxiii.) Opp. 1. 180. It has been observed, that in the cata
logues of mediasval libraries, copies of the Holy Scriptures constitute the
greater number of the volumes. Palgrave, Hist, of Normandy, 1. 63.
The subject has been examined also by Mr Buckingham, in his Bible in
the Middle Ages, Lond. 1853.
1 The influence exerted by Christianity on the old-German Language
lias been recently investigated by Von Baumer, Einwirkung des Christen-
thums auf die althochdeutsche Sprache, Stuttgart, 1845, where transla
tions, glosses, and other fragments of vernacular piety have been dis
cussed. But many of these specimens belong to the following period.
2 See Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, 1. 203; and Gilly's Introd. to
the Romaunt Version of the Gospel according to St John (Lond. 1848),
pp. xi. sq.
3 'Evangelium quoque Johannis, quod difficultate sui mentes legen-
tium exercet his diebus, lingua interpretatus Anglica, condescendit minus
imbutis Latina.' Wil. Malmesbur. de Gestis Regum, lib. 1. p. 89, ed.
Hardy. 4 Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit. 1. 222. There was also a large stock of
Anglo-Saxon religious poetry, of which Casdmon's Metrical Paraphrase of
Parts of the Holy Scriptures (ed. Thorpe, 1832) is a very striking type.
Casdmon died about 680. He was desired by the abbess Hilda of Whitby
to transfer into verse the whole of the sacred history. Wright's Biog.
Brit. Lit. 1. 195. The interesting Anglo-Saxon Ritual, published, in
1839, by the Surtees Society, is one of a large class of interlinear transla
tions, and may be assigned to the commencement of the ninth century :
Stevenson's Preface, p. x.
6 Gregory of Tours, who died 593, in a series of publications of this
class, gave an impulse to the wonder-loving spirit of the age.
6 See a calculation in Guizot's Seventeenth Lecture, based on the
materials still surviving in the Acta Sanctorum.

MEANS OF
GRACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.
Vernacu
lar trans
lations of
the Bible.

Lives of
Saints :

90

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 590

MEANS OF
GRACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.
their gene
ral charac
ter.

How conge
nial to the
spirit of the

deep and universal. While they fed almost every stream
of superstition, and excited an unhealthy craving for the
marvellous and the romantic, they were nearly always
tending, in their moral, to enlist the affections of the
reader on the side of gentleness and virtue ; more especi
ally by setting forth the necessity of patience, and extolling
the heroic energy of faith. One class of these biographies
deserves a high amount of credit : they are written by
some friend or pupil of their subject; they are natural
and life-like pictures of the times, preserving an instruc
tive portrait of the missionary, the recluse, the bishop, or
the man of business; yet in many cases the acts and
sufferings of the mediaeval saint have no claim to a place
in the sphere of history, or else they have been so wan
tonly embellished by the fancy of the author, that we can
disentangle very few of the particles of truth from an
interminable mass of fiction. As these 'Lives' were cir
culated freely in the language of the people1, they would
constitute important items in the fire-side readings of the
age ; and so warm was the response they found in men
of every grade, that notwithstanding feeble efforts to re
form them2, or at least to elimiuate a few of the more
monstrous and absurd, they kept their hold on Christen
dom at large, and are subsisting even now in the creations
of the mediaeval artist3.
Keeping pace with this expansion in the field of
1 An interesting specimen (Anglo-Saxon) has been edited with a trans
lation by C. W. Goodwin (Lond. 1848). The subject of it is St Guthlac.
a hermit of Crowland (written about 750, by a monk named Felix). There
are many others preserved in our MSS. repositories.
2 This had been attempted as early as the time of pope Gelasius (496);
Mansi, viii. 149 : but the taste for legendary compositions went on in
creasing. Much of the increase in the number of the 'saints' is due to
the liberty whicji every district seems to have enjoyed of enlarging its
own calendar at pleasure. There is no instance of a canonization by the
pope until the case of Swibert (about 800) ; and that has been disputed
(Twysden, Vindication of the Church of England, p. 219, new ed.). Ac
cording to Gieseler, n. 421, the earliest was Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg,
in 993. Charlemagne, who was anxious to withstand the superstitions of
his age (e. g, baptizing of bells, the ' sortes sanctorum,' etc.), published a
capitulary (789, c. 76), De pseudographiis et dubiis narrationibus ; and in
the capitulary of Frankfort (794, c. 40) is the following injunction: 'ut
nulli novi sandi colantur, aut invocentur, nee memorise eorum per vias
[i. e. wayside chapels] erigantur ; sed ii soli in ecclesia venerandi sint,
qui ex auctoritate passionum aut vita merito electi sunt.'
3 Didron's Christian Iconography, I. 192.

—314]

State of Intelligence and Piety.

9i

hagiology, the reverence which had long been cherished
for the veritable saints continued to increase in every
province of the Church ; and even to resemble, here and
there, a lower kind of worship. None of the more en
lightened, it is true, have failed to distinguish1 very clearly
in their works between the honour of regard and imitation
to be offered to the saint, and the supremacy of love and
homage which is due to God alone: but in the mind of
unreflecting peasants such distinctions were obliterated
more and more, and numbers of the saints, apocryphal as
well as true, had come to be regarded in the light of tutelar
divinities2. At the head of a catalogue of saints, on whom
a special veneration3 was bestowed, is the blessed Virgin
Mary ; the exaggerations of this honour, which peep out
in the earlier times, assuming more unchristian phases,
in proportion as the worship of the Church was contracting
a more sensuous tone. The synod held at Mentz4, 813,
in drawing up a list of feast-days, has included one for the
' Purification of St Mary5,' handed down from better ages ;

1 e. g. Isidor. Hispalens. De Eccles. Officiis, lib. 1. c. 34. Beda speaks
of the transformation of the Pantheon at Bome into the Church of the
Virgin and all Martyrs: 'ut, ubi quondam omnium non deorum sed
dasmoniorum cultus agebatur, ibi deinceps omnium fieret memoria sanc
torum.' Chronicon, a.d. 614; Monum. Hist. Britan. p. 97.
2 Neander, v, 182, 183. But notwithstanding a large number of ex
amples in this country where the saints are spoken of as ' intercessors '
with God, they are scarcely ever at this period addressed directly, the
petition being that 'God would make them intercessors in our behalf.'
Soames, Bampton Led. p. 195, and notes. The passage sometimes quoted
from Theodore, which speaks of more objectionable formulas as then ac
tually existing in the Litany of the Church : ' Christe, audi nos ; ac deinde,
Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis; neque dieitur, Christe, ora pro nobis, et
Sancta Maria, vel Sancte Petre, audi nos; sed, Christe, audi nos; Fili
Dei, te rogamus, audi nos,' is spurious. Alcuin's apostrophe to S. Wille
brord, if genuine, reads very like a prayer. Opp. n. 195.
3 See Bdefonsus, De Illibata Virginitate B. Virginis, in Biblioth.
Patr. vn. 432 sq. ed. Colon. 1618; and, for the Eastern church, John of
Damascus, Sermo in Annunciat. Domina nostra Qcotokov: Opp. n. 835 sq.
4 Can. 36. Mansi, xiv. 73. At the same council four great fasts are
mentioned: the first week in March, the second week in June, the third
week in September, and the last full week in December before Christmas-
day; at all which seasons public litanies and masses were to be so
lemnized at nine o'clock, on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.
* Also called Festum Symeonis, and Festum Symeonis et Hanna. In
the Greek Church, where the honour is directed chiefly to our Lord, the
title of the corresponding feast is ioprrj T-rjs bwairamrjs. Beda has a
Homily upon it in the course of the festivals; Opp. vn. 327: and Ba-

CORRUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Exaggera tion of the
honour due
to saints.

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CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Festival of-
theAssump- tion of the

Other festi
vals now
generally observed in
the Western
Church.

but in that list is also found the festival of the Assumption
of the Virgin (August 15th), which communicated a far
stronger impulse to the creature-worship of the masses. It
grew1 out of a spurious legend methodized by Gregory of
Tours, in which it was affirmed that the original Apostles,
on assembling at the death-bed of the Virgin, saw her
carried by a band of angels into heaven.
The other festivals2, excluding Sundays, now appointed
or continued in the Frankish church, relate to the Na
tivity, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, and the Ascension
of the Lord, the feast (or 'dedication') of St Michael3,
the martyrdoms ('natales') of St Peter and St Paul, of
St Remigius, St Martin, St Andrew, and the nativity of
St John the Baptist4 : to which number, ancient festivals
of saints and martyrs, who were buried in each diocese,
together with the feasts of dedication for the several
churches, were appended by the same authority. To this
period also it is usual to assign the institution of the fes
tival in honour of 'All Saints,' which, notwithstanding,
had been long observed upon the octave of Whitsunday
by the Christians of the East. It was ranked as a pro
vincial celebration in the time of Boniface IV., when he
was allowed to convert the famous Pantheon to the ser-

ronius, Annal. ad an. 544, informs us that Gelasius laid the foundation
for its observance when he abolished the lupercalia.
1 The various conjectures of the Fathers on the subject of the Vir
gin's end, have been stated at length by Gieseler, n. 313, n. 12. The
apocryphal writing Transitus S. Maria, from which Gregory of Tours
(De gloria Martyrum, lib. i. o. 4) derived the story now in circulation,
had been placed by pope Gelasius among the interdicted books : above,
p. 90, n. 2. Another festival, the Birth of the Virgin (Sept. 8), is dated
also from this period.
2 Concil. Mogunt. as above. The services of Easter and Whitsunday
are to be continued for a whole week; and that of Christmas for four
days. 3 Not adopted in the East till the 12th century; Guerike, Manual of
Antiq. of the Church, p. 195, ed. Morrison.
4 In a second and an earlier list (Capitular, lib. I. c. 158), the feasts
of St Stephen, St John the Evangelist, and the Holy Innocents, are also
included : while with regard to the Assumption, it is added, ' De adsump-
tione S. Marias interrogandum relinquimus.' It is plain that this doubt
continued to exist in the Anglo-Saxon Church. See the extract from a
vernacular sermon in Soames' Bampton Led. pp. 226, 227. The 13th
canon of Clovesho (747) orders, in the case of England, that the 'nativi
ties' of saints should be observed according to the Boman martyrology :
Johnson, I. 249.

—814]

State of Intelligence and Piety.

93

vice of the Gospel ; and the usage thus adopted in the
Roman dioceses was extended to the whole of the Western
Church by Gregory IV. in 835 \
The state of feeling with regard to relics2, which grew
out of an excessive veneration for the saints, was rapidly
assuming the extravagance and folly that have marked
its later stages.
The deplorable abuse of the imitative arts has been
noticed in the rise and progress of the image-controversy.
We there saw that the evil was resisted3 for a time in
the Frankish and the English Churches, while it gained
a still firmer hold on other parts of Christendom, and
threatened to subside into absolute idolatry.
The disposition to erect and beautify religious houses,
which prevailed in the east and west alike, is often to be
traced to purely Christian feelings4: not unfrequently, how
ever, it proceeded from a mingled and less worthy motive,
1 Guerike, p. 181. The following is the language of Alcuin (799)
respecting the institution of this festival, and the mode in which it
should be kept: ' Quod ut fieri digne possit a nobis, lumen verum, quod
uluminat omnem hominem, Christus Jesus, illuminet corda nostra, et
pax Dei, quas exsuperat omnem sensum, per intercessionem omnium
Sanctorum Ejus, custodiat ea usque in diem asternitatis. Hanc solemni-
tatem sanctissimam tribus diebus jejunando, orando, missas canendo, et
eleemosynas dando per invicem, sincera devotione prsecedamus.' Ep.
lxxvi. (al. xci.); Opp. i. 113.
2 e. g. Theodor. Penitential, lib. n. c. 1: 'Eeliquias tamen sanctorum
venerandas sunt. Si potest fieri, candela ardeat ibi per singulas noctes.
Si autem paupertas loci non sinit, non nocet eis.' It was customary in
the Frankish empire for chaplains to carry the relics of St Martin and
others at the head of their armies ('patrocinia vel pignora sanctorum'):
cf. Schrockh, xx. 127, 131 : and the same feeling led the persecuted
Spaniard to discover the potent relics of St James (between 791 and 842)
in the person afterwards called St James of Compostella: Acta Sanct.
Jul. torn. vi. p. 37. Even Alcuin (Homil. de Natali S. Willebrord., Opp.
n. 195) believed that the saintly missionary might continue to work
miracles on earth, through the special grace of God.
3 See above, p. 78. The same kind of exaggerated veneration was
bestowed on the real or imaginary fragments of the cross ; and in 631 the
Emperor Heraclius, on defeating the Persians (above, p. 29), and recover
ing the precious relic from their hands, established a festival in honour
of it, called aravpuo-ifios ypiipa (Sept. 14), adopted soon afterwards at
Bome, under the designation, Festum exaltationis crucis: see Liber
Pontif. ed. Vignol. i. 310.
4 e. g. Einhard. Vit. Karoli Magn. c. 26 : Pertz, n. 457. In a capitu
lary, 811. (Mansi, xm. 1073), addressed to the prelates of the empire, the
emperor tells them that, however good » work is the building of fine
churches, the true ornament is to be found in the life of the worshippers
('prasferendus est asdificiis bonorum niorum ornatus et culmen').

COBBUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Relics.

Images.

Religious
founda tions.

94

State of Intelligence and Piety. [A.D. 590

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Pilgri
mages.

Practicalresults of

from the impulses of servile fear, and from a wish in the
soul of the promoter to disarm the awakened vengeance
of his Judge1. Another form in which these errors came
to light was the habit of performing pilgrimages to some
holy spot or country, where men dreamed of a nearer
presence of the Lord, or some special intercession of the
saints. A multitude of English devotees2 betook them
selves to Rome: and while it may be granted that excur
sions of this kind were often beneficial to the arts and
letters of the country3, no one has denied that many of
the pilgrims, more especially the female portion, fell a
prey to the laxity of morals which the custom almost
everywhere induced. The less intelligent appear to have
expected that a pilgrimage would help them on their
way to heaven, apart from any influence it might have
in stimulating the devotions of the pious : but this fallacy
was strenuously confuted by the leading doctors of the age4.
It has been shewn already5 that the notion of a pur-
1 The form of bequest often runs as follows; 'Pro animas nostras
remedio et salute : ' 'ut non inveniat in nobis ultrix flamma quod devoret,
sed Domini pietas quod coronet.' See other forms of the same class in
Schrockh, xx. 110, 111. However such expressions should not be ana
lyzed too critically: clearly they were not intended as expositions of
doctrine or creed, and pious forms in every age are liable to be misused.
2 See above, p. 41, n. 3. Boniface was constrained to deprecate the
frequency of pilgrimages, on the ground that they were often fatal to the
virtue of the females : ' Perpaucas enim sunt civitates in Longobardia, vel
in Francia, aut in Gallia, in qua non sit adultera vel meretrix generis
Anglorum: quod scandalum est, et turpitudo totius ecclesias vestee:'
Ep. lxiii; Opp. i. 146.
3 This was certainly the case in men like Benedict Biscop, of whom
Beda has remarked, ' Toties mare transiit, numquam, ut est consuetudinis
quibusdam, vacuus et inutilis rediit, sed nunc librorum copiam sanctorum,
nunc reliquiarum beatorum martyrum Christi munus venerabile detulit,
nunc architectos ecclesias fabricandse, nunc vitrifactores ad fenestras ejus
decorandas ac muniendas, nunc cantandi et in ecclesia per totum annum
mmistrandi secum magistros adduxit, etc' Homil. in Natal. Benedict.,
Opp. vn. 334.
4 Thus the 45th canon of the Council of Chalons (813) condemns all
the pilgrimages undertaken in an irreverent spirit, with the hope of
securing a remission of past sins, where no actual reformation was
desired: but it is no less ready to commend such journeys when accom
panied by true devotion ('orationibus insistendo, eleemosynas largiendo,
vitam emendando, mores componendo ') : cf. Alcuin, Epist. cxlvii. (aL
cxcvi.) Opp. i. 208.
6 Above, pp. 58, 59. Stories, like that which is told of Fursey, the
Irish monk (Bed. Hist. Eccl. in. 19), would deepen the popular belief in
a purgatorial fire.

—814]

State of Intelligence and Piety.

95

gatorial fire, to expiate the minor sins ('leves culpae') which
still adhered to the departed, had been definitely formed
under Gregory the Great, and from him was transmitted
to the Christians of the West. This notion, while it threw
a deeper gloom upon the spirits of the living, led the
way to propitiatory acts intended to relieve the sufferings
of the dead. It prompted feelings and ideas widely dif
fering from those which circulated in the earlier Church1: for
there, when the oblations were presented in the name of a
departed worthy, they commemorated one already in a state
of rest, though sympathizing with his brethren in the flesh,
and expecting the completion of his triumph. The result
of those mediaeval masses for the dead2 was to occasion
a plurality of altars3 in the churches, to commence the
pernicious rite of celebrating the Eucharist without a con
gregation ('missse privatae,' or 'solitariEe'), and to reduce

1 Cf. Bp. Taylor's Dissuasive, bk. n. § 2: Works, vi. 545 sq., ed.
Eden.; Schrockh, xx. 175 sq. — With regard to the doctrine of the Eu
charist, considered as a sacrificial act, commemorating the Great Sacri
fice, and as the means of feeding upon Christ by faith, more will be
observed in the following period, when the views of the Church at large
began to be more technically stated. That the dogma of a physical
transubstantiation of the elements was not held in the 7th century, is
clear from Isidor. Hispalensis, De Eccles. OJficiis, lib. i. c. 18: Bde-
fonsus, De Cognitione Baptismi (in Baluze's Miscellanea, vi. 99). The
current doctrine of the Greek Church is to be sought in a work of
Anastasius (a learned monk of Mount Sinai, at the close of the seventh
century) entitled 'OSvyos, seu Dux via adversus Acephalos, c. 23, ed.
Ingolstadt, 1606 ; and in John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa, lib. iv.
c. 13 : Opp. 1. 267 sq. It was already common for the Easterns to make
use of the terms perafioXy, p-eracroixelains, pterairolrjiris, although neither
then, nor at the present day, was it intended to express a 'physical'
change in the substance of the elements after consecration, but a change
which they define as 'sacramental and mystical.' Palmer, Treatise on
the Church, 11. 167, 3rd edit.: cf. L'Arroque, Hist, of the Eucharist,
c. xi. xn.
2 The usages and modes of thought in reference to them may be
gathered from the following passage : 'Nonnulli solent interrogare, si pro
omnibus regeneratis liceat sacrificium Mediatoris offerre, quamvis flagitio-
sissime viventibus, et in malis operibus perseverantibus? De hac quass
tione varia expositio Patrum invenitur.' The point is finally determined
thus: 'Blic saltern de minimis nihil quisque purgationis obtinebit, nisi
bonis hoc actibus, in hac adhuc vita positus, ut illic obtineat, promerea-
tur.' It occurs in the long Penitential falsely ascribed to Theodore,
Thorpe, 11. 53. In the East (Council in Trullo, can. 83) it was necessary
to condemn a custom of administering the communion to the dead.
3 See Capitular, a.d. 805, 1. u. 6 (Pertz, in. 132), 'De Altaribus, ut
non superrlua sint in Ecclesiis.'

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
the doc
trine of
purgatory. Masses for
the dead.

Private
masses.

96

State of Intelligence and Piety. [A.D. 590

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

General
system of
church-

in many parts the number of communicants1: but scandals
of this kind, like many others then emerging to the sur
face of the Church, were warmly counteracted by the
better class of prelates2.
The establishment of these propitiatory masses for the
dead, itself an effect of the novel dogmas which had flowed
from the belief in purgatory, had contributed to work
still further changes in the system of church-penance. It
is true that the writers of this period lay great stress on
the renovation of the heart as the index of a genuine
contrition3; they recoil from the idea that alms, or any
outward act, can be accepted as an expiation for man's
sin, so long as the disposition of the sinner is unchanged4;
yet the efforts5 which were made by a series of active
prelates to discriminate minutely between heavier and
lighter sins, and to allot in each single case the just
amount of penance, in proportion to the magnitude of
1 See above, p. 85, n. 1. In the Western Church, where a negleet.of
the Eucharist was not followed by excommunication (Theodor. Pcenit. lib.
i. e. 12), it was necessary to exhort the laity to a more frequent participa
tion: e. g. Council of Clovesho (747), can. 23: Johnson, i. 253, 254. The
Council of Chalons (813), can. 47, orders all Christians to communicate
on Maundy-Thursday: Mansi, xrv. 103.
2 e. g. Solitary masses are condemned by the Council of Mentz (813),
can. 43 ; and by Theodulph, bishop of Orleans, Capitulare ad Sacerdotes,
c. vn ; Johnson, i. 456 : cf . ibid. 419.
3 The Council of Chalons, above cited (813), is full of cheering
thoughts on this point as on many others. Its language was, ' Neque
enim pensanda est posnitentia quantitate temporis, sed ardore mentis et
mortificatione corporis. Cor autem contritum et humiliatum Deus non
spernit:' can. 34. In can. 38 it repudiates what was known as 'libelli
posnitentiales' (certificates of penance irregularly acquitting the offender),
' quorum sunt certi errores, incerti auctores.'
4 e.g. The emphatic language of the synod of Clovesho; can. 26, 27;
Johnson, i. 255 — 259. Twelve means and conditions of forgiveness are
recited in the so-called Penitential of Cummeanus; Wasserschleben,
Bussordnungen, p. 304. The fanatical austerity with which conditions of
this class were sometimes carried out, resulted in a kind of oriental self-
destruction, and induced the Frankish emperor to pass a special law
(Capitul. 789, u. 77, ed. Baluze, i. 239) forbidding all such penitents to
shew themselves in public. A milder form of the same feeling is betrayed
in the 10th canon of Toledo (683), where we learn that it was not uncom
mon for persons (even prelates) in a time of dangerous illness to submit
themselves to public penance, for the greater security, although their
conscience did not accuse them of any special sin.
5 See above, p. 59, n. 4. Another contribution to the series was made
at the opening of the ninth century by Halitgar, bishop of Cambray
(Cameracensis), printed in Canisius, Led. Antiq. ed. Basnage, torn. n.
part ii. pp. 87 sq.

-814]

State of Intelligence and Piety.

97

the offence1, are dark and distressing proofs of the cor
ruptions then prevailing in the Church, no less than of
the servile spirit that was influencing her teachers. In
the case of overt sins, where public satisfaction was re
quired, the form of it was generally determined by the
bishop when he came on his visitation -tour2; but all of
fences of a private nature, though not uniformly3, were
most frequently confessed in secret to a priest, who, vary
ing from the ancient practice, instantly conceded absolu
tion4, — with the tacit understanding, in all cases, that the
penance he directed would be afterwards performed.
Yet, far as the actual system of the Church, in this
and other features, had diverged from apostolic usage ;
largely as alloy had now been fused into the gold,
and thickly as the tares were mingling with the wheat
implanted by the heavenly Sower, — there is ample testi
mony in the canons of reforming synods, and still more
in the exalted lives of men like Aidan, Gregory, Eligius,
Liudger, Bede, and Alcuin, or of John the Almoner, of
Maximus and others in the East, to certify us that reli-
1 See especially Halitgar's Penitential and the compilation which has
been published, wrongly of course, under the name of Egbert, Thorpe, n.
129 — 239. One of the worst features of this system, as it is here ex
pounded, was the redemption, or commutation, of penances by means of
money-payments, e.g. Cummeanus, apud Wasserschleben, p. 464: cf.
Canons enacted under Edgar; Thorpe, n. 284 — 288: see the sect. 'Of
satisfaction for sin,' in the Penitential Canons (963); Johnson, i. 440.
It led to the transferring of the civil ' bots,' or compensations, to the
higher province of religion, and could hardly fail to foster the pernicious
thought that it was possible in many cases to buy off the displeasure of
the Lord; although an inference like this was strongly censured in the
26th canon of Clovesho; and in one 'Enacted under Edgar,' § 19, it is
added that the penitent, however wealthy, ' must supplicate for himself,
with true love of God.' Cf. Bedas Ep. ad Ecgberdum, § 11 (p. 343, ed.
Hussey). 2 See above, p. 46, n. 1: and Capitular, n., a.d. 813, c. 1.
3 Theodor. Pcenit. lib. i. cap. 12. § 7. " Confessio autem Deo soli
agatur licebit si necesse est ;" it is added " et hoc, necessarium, in quibus-
dam codicibus non est;" and so in fact it stands in Cummeanus, xiv. 13.
The statements of Theodulph of Orleans (Capit. c. 30: Mansi, xin. 1002),
and of the Council of Chalons, above cited, c. 33, are still clearer proofs
that confession to a priest was not generally regarded as essential to for
giveness of sins.
4 Thus Boniface in his Statuta (Opp. n. 22 — 25) enjoins, c. 31 : 'Curet
unusquisque presbyter statim post acceptam confessionem poenitentium,
singulos data oratione reconciliari.'
M. A. H

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Confession
and satis
faction.

Tokens of
vitalitywithin the
Church.

98

State of 'Intelligence and Piety, [a.d. 590 — 814

gion was not mastered by the powers of darkness, but
that, on the contrary, the Spirit of her Lord and Saviour
was still breathing in the Christian Church, and training
men for heaven.

j&anfo |)rartr of J|t UtMIe Jges.
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE DEATH OF
CHARLEMAGNE TO GREGORY VII.
814—1073.

h2

( ioo )

[A.D. 814

DANISH AND
SWEDISH CHUBCH.

First steps
in the con
version of
the North
ern na
tions.

CHAPTER V.

§1. GROWTH OF THE CHURCH.
IN THE SCANDINAVIAN KINGDOMS.
The age in which the hardy Northmen were descending
on the rest of Europe and preparing to involve their fortunes
in the politics of neighbouring countries, was distinguished
by the earliest missionary efforts to engraft them on the
Christian Church. This project is attributable in some
measure to the enterprising Liudger, but his zeal, after
reaping a small harvest of conversions1, was restrained by
an order of the Frankish monarch2.
In the evening of his reign, however, when the Saxons
were all conquered, Charlemagne, it is said, was purposing
to found an archbishopric at Hamburg, with a view to the
further planting of the Gospel in the Scandinavian king
doms3. The completion of this noble scheme had beeu
reserved for his successor, Louis the Pious, who by the
1 See above, p. 25. The Englishman, Willehad, also (p. 26) preached
as early as 780 to the Ditmarsi, in the neighbourhood of Hamburg. The
best modern account of the propagation of the Gospel in these regions is
Miinter's Kirchengeschichte von Danem. und Norweg. Leipz. 1823 : cf. also
Kruse's S. Anschar, Altona, 1823.
2 ' Euit autem cupiens anxie gratia docendi Northmannos adire, sed
rex Karolus nullatenus assensum prasbuit.' Vit. S. Liudger. apud Pertz,
n. 414. 3 .... ' Unde prasdicatio verbi Dei finitimis fieret populis, Sueonum,
Danorum, Norweorum, Farrias, Gronlandan, Islandan, Scridivindan,
Slavorum, necnon omnium septentrionalium et orientalium nationum
quocumque modo nominatarum, qui paganicis adhuc erroribus involvun-
tur.' Vit. S. Rimbert. c. 1 : Ibid. n. 765.

-1073]

Growth of the Church.

IOI

succours he despatched1 to Harald, king of Jutland, made a
way for the introduction of the Christian faith. A mission
was at first directed" by the earnest and experienced Ebbo,
archbishop of Rheims. He carried a commendatory letter3
from pope Paschal I. (circ. 822), and was attended by the
learned Halitgar4, bishop of Cambray. Their labours were
rewarded 5, more especially in Jutland ; and in 826 the king
himself, together with his consort and a retinue of Danes,
was solemnly baptized at Mentz6 in the presence of the
emperor, his patron. Harald now returned to his native
country, and was anxious to engage the help of some
active prelate, who would give himself entirely to the work
of organizing missions for the other parts of Denmark.
These important functions were devolved on Anskar'
(Ansgar), who was destined to be afterwards called the
'Apostle of the North.' He was born in the diocese of
Amiens, 801, and educated at Corbey, an adjoining monas
tery, under Adalhard8, the grandson of Charles Martel,
and Paschasius Radbert, a professor of theology. In 822
Anskar was removed to a new foundation9, lately planted
by the monks of Corbey, in Westphalia, on the banks of
the Weser. He there acted as the head of a thriving
school10 and preached among the natives, until, at the re
quest of Louis, he was added to the suite of the Danish
monarch. Like his predecessor, Ebbo, he is said to have

1 Annates Fuldens. a.d. 815; Pertz, I. 356.
2 Vit. S. Anskarii, c. 13: Ibid. n. 699.
3 Lappenberg's Hamburg. Urkundenbuch, i. 9; ed. 1842.
4 See p. 96, n. 5.
5 Annates Fuldens. a.d. 822: Pertz, i. 357. The starting-point of
their operations was at Welanao, the modern Miinsterdorff, near Itzehoe,
in Holstein. 6 Ibid. a.d. 826; p. 359; cf. the contemporary Carmina of Ermoldus
Nigellus, ' in honorem Hludowici,' reprinted in Pertz, n. 467 sq.
7 The interesting Life of Anskar is the work of Bimbert and another
of his pupils, and was composed before the year 876. It is reprinted in
Pertz, Monum. Germ. n. 689—725.
8 See Palgrave, Hist, of Normandy, i. 169, 209.
9 Called the new Corbey or Corvey. The abbot (Vit. Anskar. c. 7)
for a time was Count Wala, brother of Adalhard, who was separated
from his wife and thrust into that position by an order of the jealous
Louis. See the rhetorical accounts of Adalhard and Wala, by Pas
chasius Badbert, in Pertz, n. 524 — 569; and Eadberti Opp. 1507, ed.
Migne. 10 Vit. c. 6.

DANISH AND
SWEDISH CHURCH

Mission of
Ebbo into
Jutland.

The mis
sionary life
of Anskar,
826-865.

102

Growth of the Church.

[A. D. 814

DANISH AND
SWEDISH CHURCH.

His first
visit to
Denmark :

and Swe
den:

partial suc
cess of the

been armed with a commendatory letter1 from pope Eu
genius II. He departed from his cloister in 826 or 827,
accompanied by a single coadjutor, Autbert, who assisted
him in the foundation of a school in Nordalbingia, on the
borders of Schleswig. Here they educated a small band of
native youths whom they had rausomed out of slavery2.
But their proceedings were suspended for a time by a
rebellion of the pagan Danes, who, in 828, were able to
expel the king, and all whom they suspected of alliance
with the Franks.
A second field, however, was soon opened to the
diligence of Anskar. Guided by the will of Louis, and
surrendering the Danish mission to another monk named
Gislemar3, he migrated in 831 to Sweden, where, as he
had been informed, a multitude of persons were now
anxious to embrace the Gospel4. His companion was a
brother-monk of Corbey, Witmar; and the missionaries,
rescued ODiy with their lives from an attack of northern
pirates, landed on the coast of Sweden at Biorka5, near the
ancient capital, Sigtuna. Here they gained permission from
the king to enter on their labours, and were welcomed
more especially by Christian captives6, whom the Swedes
had carried off from the adjoining districts. After making
1 Lappenberg, Hamburg. XJrkundenbuch, i. 29. Pope Gregory IV.
(about 834) is said to have confirmed the appointment of Anskar as ' pri
mum Nordalbingorum archiepiscopum,' and to have comTinissinnp.fi him
and his successors as the papal legates ' in omnibus circumquaque genti-
bus Danorum, Sueonum, Noruehorum, Farrie, etc. ;' but this document,
if not altogether spurious, is at least interpolated. Jaffe', Reg est. Pontif.
Roman, p. 228: cf. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geographic, § 252, n. 8. Some of
the language here employed agrees with expressions in the Life of S.
Rimbert, cited above, p. 100, n. 3.
2 'Ipsi quoque Divino inspirati amore ad promulgandam devotionis
suas religionem coeperunt euriose pueros quasrere, quos emerent, et ad
Dei servitium educarent,' etc. Vit. S. Anskar. c. 8. Autbert died two
years after.
3 ' Patrem [? the prior] devotissimum Gislemarum, fide et operibus
bonis probatum, etc' Ibid. c. 10.
4 Ibid. c. 9. They seem to have heard of Christianity by means of
the traffic carried on between Dorstede (Wyk te Duerstede) and some of
the Swedish ports : cf . c. 27. Aoout 830 they sent envoys to the court
of Louis the Pious requesting a supply of regular instructors, c. 9. The
chronology adopted in this narrative is that of Dahlmann, the last editor
of the Life of Anskar. With regard to earlier traces of the Gospel see
Schrockh, xxi. 320.
5 Vit. a. 11, and the note in Pertz, u. 697.
8 Ibid.

-1073]

Growth of the Church.

103

one

important convert, Herigar (or Hergeir), a distin
guished Swedish noble, messengers were sent to Louis
with the tidings of success; and Anskar, in 832 or 833,
was raised to the archbishopric of Hamburg1, which had
been selected as the centre of the northern missions. He
soon afterwards betook himself to Rome, and as the guest
of Gregory IV. was bound more closely in allegiance
to the pope, and flattered by the present of a pall2. With
the desire of strengthening the work of Anskar, Ebbo,
whom we saw already forwarding the Gospel in the
north, deputed his own missionary office to his nephew
Gauzbert3, who henceforward (with the name of Simon)
was especially directed to evangelize the Swedes.
For some time very little was effected by the holy
zeal of Anskar. An opponent of the Christian faith,
the persecuting Horic (Erich), was the single lord of
Denmark ; and the efforts of the missionary, who was
planted on the frontier of the kingdom, were confined
to the redemption and religious training of a multitude
of youthful slaves. In 837 the see of Hamburg also was
invaded by the northern pirates (Vikings), who demolished4
all the outward fabric of religion. While the bishop with
a few necessitous attendants wandered to and fro among
the ruins of his diocese, a fresh disaster had occurred in
Sweden (837), where the heathen population rose in arms
against the missionaries, and expelled them from the
country5. 1 .... ' cui subjaceret universa Nordalbingorum ecclesia, et ad quam
pertineret omnium regionum aquilonalium potestas ad constituendos
episcopos, sive presbyteros in illas partes pro Christi nomine destinan-
dos.' Ibid. c. 12 : cf. Capitular, ed. Baluze, 1. 681. Anskar was conse
crated by Drogo, archbishop of Metz, and ' archicapellanus '; Ebbo and
others assisting.
2 Ibid. u. 13 : but cf. above, p. 102, n. 1.
3 Ibid. c. 14: . . . . ' ad partes veniens Sueonum, honorifice et a rege
et a populo susceptus est, cospitque cum benevolentia et unanimitate om
nium ecclesiam inibi fabricare, et publico evangelium fidei prasdicare.'
Funds for the mission were provided in this case, and in that of Anskar,
by the gift of a monastery from the crown.
4 ' Ibi ecclesia miro opere magisterio domni episcopi constructa, una
cum claustra monasterii mirifice composita, igni succensa est. Ibi bib-
lioteca [i. e. the copy of the Bible], quam serenissimus jam memoratus
imperator eidem patri nostro contulerat, optime conscripta, una cum
pluribus aliis libris igni disperiit. ' Vit. S. Anskar. c. 16.
6 Ibid. v. 17. Ebbo was now entangled in the political troubles of the

DANISH AND
SWEDISHCHURCH.
Anskar,archbishopof Ham
burg.

Interrup tion of his
labours.

io4

Growth of the Church.

[AD. 814

DANISH AND
SWEDISHCHURCH.
Farther
progress of
the mission.

Horic fa
vourable to
the Chris
tians.

But a brighter epoch was approaching. Anskar, at
the end of seven years, was able to regain his hold on
the affections of the Swedes. In 844 he persuaded
Ardgar1, an anchoret in holy orders, to direct the
movements of the sinking mission ; and in 849 his own
hands were considerably strengthened by annexing to his
archbishopric the larger see of Bremen2, which was vacant
by the death of Leuderic in 847. His elevation is to be
ascribed to the interest of Louis the Germanic, but the
union of the sees was afterwards confirmed3 by a rescript
of pope Nicholas I. (864). Relieved in this way from
the embarrassment occasioned by his want of funds, he
gave himself entirely to the wider planting of the faith.
His progress was facilitated by disarming, if not absolutely
winning over4, the impetuous Horic, king of Jutland;
and a number of the Danish Christians, who had long
been worshipping in secret, publicly avowed and exercised
their faith5. The mission now expanded freely on all
sides. It was at this juncture that the Swedes, on the return
of the hermit Ardgar, were in want of an authorized instruc
tor ; and accordingly the great apostle of the North-men,
empire ; but a short time before his death he gave utterance to a firm
belief that Christianity would ere long penetrate the furthest corner of
the north : . . . . 'si aliquando propter peccata quodammodo impeditum
fuerit, quod nos in illis coepimus gentibus, non tamen umquam penitus
extinguetur, sed fructificabit in Dei gratia et prosperabitur, usque quo
perveniat nomen Domini ad fines orbis terras. ' Ibid. c. 34.
1 Ibid. c. 19, 20; where an account is given of the zeal and fortitude
displayed by Herigar and other Christians while the mission was sus
pended. Ardgar ultimately returned to his hermitage (? 850).
2 Anskar hesitated in the first instance (Vit. c. 22), but was over
powered by the king and the Council of Mentz (? 847). It appears that
the see of Hamburg was now reduced, by the desolations of the North
men, to four 'baptismal churches.' Ibid. : cf. Giesebrecht's Wendische
Geschichte, i. 161; Berlin, 1843: Pagi, ad an. 858, §§ 3 sq.
3 Lappenberg, Hamburg. Urkund. i. 25. The see of Bremen had been
formerly subject to the primate of Cologne, but was by this act trans
ferred to Hamburg.
4 'Ille quoque omnia, quas ei ex Divina intimabat scriptura, benigne
audiebat, et bona prorsus ae vere salutaria esse laudabat, seque his
plurimum delectari ac libenter Christi gratiam velle promereri.' Vit.
Anskar., c. 24.
5 ' Multi namque ibi antea erant Christiani, qui vel in Dorstado vel
in Hammaburg baptizati fuerant, quorum quidam primores ipsius vici
habebantur, et gaudebant faciiltatem sibi datam Christianitatem suam
observandi.' Ibid.

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

105

girding up his loins afresh, and taking with him Erimbert1,
a priest, set out for the court of Olof, king of Sweden2,
where he hoped to secure a footing for the Gospel. He
was aided by a timely nomination as ambassador of Louis
the Germanic, and had also the protection of an envoy
from the friendly court of Jutland. After hesitating for
some time, it was decided by the Swedish nobles that
the future toleration of the Christian faith should be
determined by appealing to the heathen lots 3; which pro
videntially accorded with the earnest prayers of Anskar4.
He now left his colleague, Erimbert, in Sweden, and re
visited his diocese5 (circ. 854). Another storm was black
ening the horizon of the Danish Church ; the king of
Jutland, who had been a patron of the mission, was sup
planted by a second Horic, under whom assemblies of
the Christian population had been strongly interdicted ;
but a kindlier spirit was ere long infused into the royal
counsels ; and when Anskar sank beneath his burdens
in 865, he left a flourishing community behind him both
in Schleswig and in Jutland.
He was followed in the see of Hamburg-Bremen
(865-888) by a prelate of congenial temper. This was
Rimbert6, his biographer and pupil. But the widening
irruptions of the pagan Northmen7 counteracted all the
efforts of the missionary, and uprooted many ancient in-

1 It was on this person that Gauzbert, who had been expelled from
Sweden, now devolved his missionary office. Ibid. c. 25, 30.
2 The interview is recorded at length, ibid. c. 26.
* For an account of the northern mythology, see the references
above, p. 18, n. 3, to which Mallet's Northern Antiquities may be added.
4 'Exeuntes igitur more ipsorum in campum, miserunt sortes: ceci-
ditque sors, quod Dei voluntate Christiana religio ibi fundaretur.' Vit.
Anskar., c. 27.
5 Ibid. c. 28.
6 See the Life of Rimbert (Pertz, n. 765 — 775), written either by a
cleric of the diocese of Bremen, or by a monk of Corbey, soon after his
death. ' Some of them effected a landing in Belgium as early as 820, but
were repelled (Palgrave, Hist, of Normandy, i. 255). The Danish inva
sions of England, and the Norwegian invasions of Ireland and Scotland,
began at the close of the preceding century. Alcuin already speaks of
the 'populus paganus' in 797; Epist. mx. : al. lxxiv. Opp. I. 78 : cf.
Worsaae's Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland,
passim. They ravaged every part of France and won a permanent
settlement in Neustria about 911. Palgrave, I. 671 sq.

DANISH AND
SWEDISH
CHURCH.

Anskar' s
fresh visit
to Sweden:

its happy
issue.

Fresh re
verse in
Denmark :
soon termi-

Renewal of
the troubles
of the
Church.

io6

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

DANISH AND
SWEDISH CHURCH.

Favourable
policy of
Harald.

Establish
ment of

stitutions in the other Christian provinces of Europe.
Rimbert was succeeded by Adalgar1, but the sphere of
his labours was still more contracted by the inroads of
the Slaves and the Hungarians2. At the opening of the
tenth century the throne of Denmark had been filled by
a usurper, Gurm, who shewed a bitter hatred to the
Church : but in 934, his violence was checked by Henry I.
of Germany, who wrested Schleswig from his grasp, and
planted there a colony of Christians3. The next king of
Denmark, Harald Blaatand, in a long reign of fifty years
(941 — 991) was favourable4 to the propagation of the
Gospel ; and Adaldag, the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen,
actively proceeded in the organizing of the Danish Church.
This work, however, was again suspended through the
violent reaction of the pagans5, headed by the faithless
son of Harald, Sveno (Svend), who, on his accession to
the throne, immediately expelled the clergy, and was
afterwards the scourge of England6. There, indeed, his fury
was at length exchanged for something like repentance7;
and his son, the distinguished Cnut (Canute the Great,
1014 — 1035), was assiduous in despatching missionaries8
1 Lappenberg, Hamburg. Urkund. i. 43.
2 Adam. Bremensis (who wrote about 1075), Hist. Eccles. lib. i
c. 32 sq.
3 Ibid. lib. i. c. 48—50, and Schrockh, xxi. 344 sq. The new arch
bishop of Hamburg-Bremen, Unni, availed himself of this favourable
turn in the fortunes of the Church, and renewed the mission to the
heathen. One of the petty kings of South Jutland, Frodo, is said to
have been baptized by Unni; and this led to the establishment of
bishoprics at Schleswig, Eipen, and Aarhus. See Council of Ingelheim,
a.d. 948; and the conflicting account of Adam of Bremen, lib. n. c. 2.
Not long after bishoprics were planted at Odensee, in the island of
Funen ; at Boskild, in Zealand, as well as at Lund and Dalby. Wiltsch,
Kirch. Geograph. i. 389.
4 Bespecting his conversion, see the story of Wittekind, a monk of
Corbey, in the Scriptores Rerum German, ed. Meibom. i. 660; and cf
Neander, v. 397, 398.
6 Adam. Bremensis, Hist. Eccl. lib. n. c. 15 sq.
6 Ibid. c. 28, 36 : see below, on the 'Limitation of the Church.'
7 He is even said to have laboured in behalf of the religion he had
formerly betrayed and persecuted. Saxo Grammaticus, Hist. Danorum,
lib. x. pp. 186 — 188, ed. Stephan.
8 Bishops and priests are said to have been ordained for this purpose
by iEthelnoth, the archbishop of Canterbury. Adam. Bremen, lib. n.
c. 36 sq. Miinter, Kirchengesch. von Ddnemark, i. 322. The zeal of Cnut
was stimulated at the remembrance of the wrongs inflicted on the Church
at large by his persecuting father : and the same motive, mingled with

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

107

to evangelize his Scandinavian subjects, until Denmark,
as a nation, paid her homage unto Christ1.
In Sweden, where the elements of strife resembled
those of Denmark, little progress had been made in the
diffusion of the Gospel2, since the happier days of Anskar.
Many seeds, however, planted by his care and watered
by the visits of his scholar, Rimbert, still continued to
bear fruit. The mission was resumed3 in 930 by Unni,
archbishop of Hamburg ; and some other neighbouring
prelates joined him in his work. The reign of Olaf Skot-
konung, commencing with the eleventh century, was
marked by a more vigorous advancement on all sides. He
was baptized about 1008, and afterwards secured the help
of English clergymen, as Sigefrith, Rodulf, Sigeward, and
others, who expended all their strength in building up the
Scandinavian Churches4. The first bishopric of Sweden5
was now placed at Skara, in West-Gothland, where the
Christians more especially abounded ; and the policy of
future kings, excepting Svend, the latest champion of

excessive reverence for the pope, impelled him to set out on a pilgrimage
to Bome (in 1027) : Anglo-Sax. Chron. ad an. 1031 : cf. Lappenberg,
Anglo-Saxon Kings, 11. 211 sq.
1 The nephew of Cnut, Sveno Estrithson, who succeeded to the crown
of Denmark in 1047, cooperated with Adalbert, the archbishop of Ham
burg-Bremen, in propagating the Gospel in the northern islands and
elsewhere (Adam. Bremen, lib. iv. c. 16) ; but in Friesland, on the coast
of Schleswig, as well as in the corners of North Jutland and of Schonen,
paganism subsisted for a century or more.
" Adam. Bremen, lib. 1. c. 51.
3 Ibid. lib. n. c. 2, c. 16. There were still, however, many heathen,
or but half-converted Christians, even in the north of Sweden : cf.
Schrockh, xxi. 361, 362. Among the upper Swedes the pagan system
lingered till the middle of the 12th century.
4 Adam. Bremen, lib. n. c. 38, 40, 44. Some of these English mis
sionaries (e. g. Wulfrith), by their violent attacks on paganism, aroused
the vengeance of the Swedes.
6 It was filled by an Englishman named Turgot, but his orders were
derived from the archbishop of Hamburg, Unwan. Other Swedish
bishoprics were soon afterwards founded at Lincb'ping, Wexib", Upsala,
Strengnaes, and Westerahs. Jealousies appear to have arisen between
the later prelates of Hamburg-Bremen and the kings of neighbouring
states (Adam. Bremen, lib. in. c. 15 — 17) : but the difference was adjusted
for a while in the time of archbishop Adalbert, who was (1068) acknow
ledged as the primate of twelve dioceses (Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geograph.
i. 390), and also as a kind of Scandinavian pontiff. In 1104, however,
the more northern bishops were subordinated to the metropolitan of
Lund. Miinter, Kircheng. n. 76.

DANISH AND
SWEDISH CHURCH.
religion under Cnut
the Great.
Fresh ef
forts to con
vert the
Swedes :
triumphant under Olaf
Skotko- nung.

ro8

Growth of the Church.

[A. D. 814

NOR
WEGIAN
CHURCH.

Christian
ity even
tually su
preme.Plantingof the Gos
pel in Nor
way :

idolatry1, contributed to swell their numbers. In 1075
the public services of Thor and Udin were all absolutely
interdicted by a royal order, and the cause of Christianity
henceforth was everywhere triumphant.
The first entrance of the Gospel into Norway was
effected also through an English channel. Hacon (Hagen)
is said to have been educated2 at the court of iEthelstan
(924 — 941) ; and on his return to his native country, where
he made himself supreme, he laboured, with the aid of
priests from England, to displace the pagan worship3.
His endeavours soon aroused the hatred of his subjects,
who accordingly compelled him to take part in their
sacrificial rites4, and murdered the promoters of the Chris
tian religion. On his death, which was embittered by the
thought of his criminal compliance with idolatry, the
Northmen were subdued by Harald Blaatand, king of
Denmark (962), who, in order to revive a knowledge of the
Gospel, had recourse to oppression and the sword. His
measures were reversed soon after by the equal violence
of Hacon jarl, an implacable opponent of the truth5. It
was, however, introduced afresh by Olaf Tryggvason
(995 — 1000), who had been converted while engaged in
foreign travel6, and was finally baptized in the Scilly
Islands7. Anxious to diffuse the blessings of the Gospel,
1 The pagan party were exasperated by the efforts of Adelward (a
bishop sent from Bremen, 1064) to subvert their ancient temple at
Upsala. Adam. Bremen, lib. in. c. 17 ; lib. rv. c. 44. This attempt
was prudently resisted by the Christian monarch, Stenkil ; but his son
Inge (1067), who yielded to the over-zealous missionaries, was expelled
by the heathen under Svend, and restored only by the help of his
Danish neighbours.
2 This is the account of the Scandinavian Chroniclers : see the
evidence on both sides in Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, n. 105, 106.
3 See Miinter, as above ; Torfasus, Hist. Norvegica, Pars n. pp. 215
sq. ed. Hafnias, 1711 ; and, for the most ancient authority, the Heim-
skringla (Hist, of Norwegian Kings), by Snorro Sturleson, who died
in 1241. 4 He finally consented to eat horse-flesh, after drinking in honour
of Odin, Thor, and Bragi [? Fricge]. Torfasus, Pars n. pp. 219 sq.
6 Ibid. 237 sq. He had been himself a Christian in the previous
reign, but had apostatized on his accession to the throne.
6 He had travelled in Greece, Bussia, England, and the north of
Germany. In the last-mentioned country, he fell in with Thangbrand,
a soldier-like priest of Bremen, who appears to have turned his thoughts
to the consideration of the Gospel.
7 He had landed there while engaged in a piratical expedition. Some

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

109

he took with him into Norway (977) an ecclesiastic of
the name of Thangbrand, but their efforts were too often
thwarted by the violence with which their teaching was
accompanied. The jarls, who governed Norway as the
envoys from the courts of Denmark and Sweden, after
Olaf was deposed (1000), extended toleration to the Chris
tians, and as soon as the foreign yoke was broken by the
valour of Olaf the Holy (1017 — 1033), every stronghold1
of the pagan system was unsparingly demolished, and the
Gospel, partly by instruction2, but still more by dint of
arms3, was planted on the ruins.
Iceland, which was destined to enjoy the highest re
putation as a seat of mediseval learning, had been colonized
by the Norwegians in 870. But the tidings of the Gospel
did not reach it, or at least made no distinct impression4,
till a Saxon prelate, Friedrich, influenced by the reasons
of a native chieftain, who had roved the German seas,
attempted to secure a footing in 981. He was, however,
fiercely counteracted by the scalds (or pagan minstrels) :
and after labouring to little purpose, for a period of five
years, he gave up the mission in despair. A fresh attempt
time before, in conjunction with Svend of Denmark, he had ravaged all
the southern coasts. Lappenberg, 11. 157, 158. He was afterwards
confirmed in England, which he promised not to visit for the future as
an enemy (Saxon Chron. a.d. 994).
1 See, among other instances, the account of the destruction of a co
lossal 'Thor' in the province of Dalen: Neander, v. 410, 411.
2 In this he was assisted by the founding of schools, and by the
labours of ecclesiastics out of England (see above, p. 106, n. 8), some of
whom passed forward into Sweden. The Norwegian sees of Nidaros
(Drontheim), Opslo, Bergen, Hammer, and Stavanger, were not or
ganized until the following period (Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geogr. 11. 96) : but
Olaf was the founder of the mother-church of Drontheim. Nominally
all the Scandinavian churches were still subject to the archbishopric of
Hamburg, but it seems from a rescript of pope Alexander II. (1061),
that it was customary for the Norwegian bishops to be consecrated either
in England or in France. Lappenberg, Hamburg. Urkund. 1. 84 : Mansi,
xix. 942 sq.
3 The sufferings of the heathen party predisposed them to assist the
English monarch, Cnut, 1028, in dethroning Olaf (Lappenb. n. 215,
216) ; but the fortunes of the Church were unaffected by this conquest.
4 We learn from Miinter's Geschichte (as above), 1. 520, that when
the Northmen landed, they found some traces of an older Christianity
which had been planted in Iceland by the agency of Irish missionaries :
cf. Neander, v. 412, note. One of the fullest histories of the Icelandic
Church is that by Finnur Joensen (Finus Johannasus), Hist. Eccles.
Islandia, Hafnias, 1772 — 1775.

ICELANDIC CHURCH.
finally suc
cessful.

The conver
sion of Ice
land.

no

Growth of the Church.

TA.D. 814

OTHER
NORTHERN
CHURCHES.

The Gospel
in Green
land;

in the Ork
ney, Shet-

was made by Olaf Tryggvasdn, the king of Norway, who
persuaded Stefner, a young Christian Icelander (996), to
carry back the Gospel to his fellow-countrymen. His
labours also were resisted, as were those of the royal
chaplain and ambassador, the military Thangbrand (997
— 999). But the progress of religion in the mother-country
rapidly abated the objections of the colonists, and as early
as 1000 laws were enacted1 by the native legislatures
favourable to the ultimate supremacy of the Gospel. While
a number of the ancient practices were suffered to remain
in secret, it was now determined that all Icelanders should
be baptized, and that the public rites of paganism should
in future be abolished. A numerous class of natives, as
we may suppose, continued to hand down the hereditary
rites2; but through the teaching of new bands of mission
aries3, chiefly English and Irish, they were gradually con
verted and confirmed.
. A fresh accession to the Churches of the North was
the distant Greenland, also partly colonized from Norway,
at the end of the tenth century. Its apostle was an Ice
lander, Leif, who entered on his work in 999 : and in 1055
the community of Christians had been fully organized by
the appointment of a bishop4.
At the same time Christianity was carried to the
1 This step was facilitated by winning over (some say, with the
help of a bribe) the chief-priest Thorgeir, who was also supervisor of the
legislative acts : Schrockh, xxi. 389.
2 Some revolting customs, e. g. the exposing of infants, lingered for
a while, notwithstanding the attempt of Olaf, king of Norway (1019 —
1033), to suppress them : Neander, v. 419.
3 One of the most conspicuous was Bernhard, an Englishman, sent
into Iceland by Olaf the Holy. In 1056 the first diocesan bishop, Isleif,
was placed at Skaalholt (Adam of Bremen, De Situ Dania, c. 228).
He was consecrated by Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen. Another see was
founded in 1105 at Holum. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geogr. n. 96, n. 8.
4 This was bishop Albert, sent by Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen.
Miinter, i. -555 sq. : cf. the bull of Victor II. (1055) confirming the
privileges of the archbishop of Hamburg, in Lappenberg, Hamburg,
Urkund. i. 77, and Adam of Bremen, De Situ Dania, c. 244. The last
glimpse of this ancient Church of Greenland is seen in 1408. Beligion
seems to have expired soon after with the swarm of Icelandic and
Norwegian settlers, who gave place to the present Esquimaux. In 1733,
the Moravians made a fresh attempt to introduce the Gospel into
Greenland. —There is an interesting tradition (Miinter, i. 561) of a
Saxon or Irish missionary, who is said to have crossed from Greenland
into North-America, in 1059, and there to have died a martyr.

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

in

Orkney, Shetland, and the Faroe Islands, which were
peopled mainly by Norwegians1. In the former cases the
success of Olaf Tryggvasdn was due in no small measure
to the force of arms2; and even in the Faroe Islands,
where at first he was able to proceed more calmly, through
the medium of an earnest native, Sigmund3, not a few of
his efforts were coercive. But the work was afterwards re
sumed, in a better spirit, by succeeding kings of Norway4.

AMONG THE SLAVIC OR SLAVONIAN RACES.
This large and important family of men5, extending
eastward from the Elbe to the Don, and southward from
the Baltic to the Adriatic (with a few exceptions6 in
Croatia and Carinthia), had continued, till the present
period, strangers to the Gospel. The exertions made by
Arno, the archbishop of Salzburg (800), were repeated in
the time of Louis the Pious, by Urolf, the archbishop of
Lorch7 (Laureacum).
It was through this channel that the earliest missions
were established in Moravia. But the nation was still
generally addicted to the pagan worship, when two
learned and experienced brothers, monks of the Greek
communion, entered on the same arena. These were
Cyril8 (Constantine) and Methodius9, who had already
1 Worsaae, Danes and Norwegians, &c. pp. 220, 221.
2 See Torfasus, Orcades, Havnias, 1697 : Miinter, i. 548.
3 Torfasus, De rebus gestis Fareyensium, Havn. 1695 ; Neander, v. 421.
1 On the conversion of the Northmen who settled in Christian
countries, see below, § 2, 'Limitation of the Church.'
5 The origin and antiquities of these races have been thoroughly
investigated by Shafarik, Slawische Alterthiimer, Leipzig, 1843.
6 See above, p. 26.
7 Also called the bishop of Passau, the two sees having been united
since the year 699 (Wiltsch, i. 376) ; but the primate of Lorch disappears
for a century, and then, after a long struggle with the archbishops of
Salzburg, dies out entirely (Ibid. 379) : cf. Gieseler, ii. 452, n. 1.
8 Cyril, in 848, was sent by the emperor Michael to instruct the
Chazari (also a Slavonian tribe), who bordered on the Greek possessions
in the Crimea. (Asseman, Kalendar. Universa Ecclesia, in. 13 sq. ed.
Bom. 1755.) Some of the natives embraced Christianity, but others
were perverted by the Jews and Moslems.
' It is possible that the Methodius here mentioned is the same

MORAVIAN CHURCH.
land, and
Faroe Is
lands.

Propagation of
Christianity among
the Slaves.

Conversion
of Mora
via.

112

Growth of the Church.

[A.D.814

MORAVIAN CHURCH.

Jealousiesbetween the
Greek and
German

Labours of
Methodius.

been successful in a different field of labour. They arrived
in Moravia, 861 or 862, and by the use of the native
tongue in public worship, and the dissemination of the
Scriptures1, were enabled very soon to gather in a harvest
of conversions. But the jealousy which had been re
awakened at this time between the Greek and Latin
Churches, added to a host of diplomatic reasons on the
part of the Moravian princes, made it necessary for the
leaders of the mission to secure an understanding with
the Western pontiff, who was anxious on his part to cul
tivate their friendship. Cyril and Methodius went to Rome
in 867 ; and the former either dying on the journey or
(as others say) retiring to a convent, his companion was
now chosen by the pope, and consecrated metropolitan of
Pannonia and Moravia2. He immediately resumed his
labours (868) in this new capacity. Soon after, the political
disturbance, which commenced with the year 870, impelled
him to seek refuge in the neighbouring district of Moravia,
where the German spirit was supreme, and where a mission
had been planted from the see of Salzburg3- As Metho-
person who was instrumental in the conversion of Bulgaria. See below,
p. 122 : and cf. Schrockh, xxi. 409 sq. There is, however, great diversity
in the accounts of these two eminent missionaries. The most critical
are the work of Asseman, quoted in the previous note, and two publica
tions of Dobrowsky, Cyrill und Methodius der Slaven Apostel, Prag, 1823,
and M'dhr. Legende von Cyrill und Method. , Prag, 1826 : cf . also the
Bussian version in Nestor's Annates, ed. Schlozer, c. x. ; torn. in.
pp. 149 sq.
1 Whether Cyril actually invented the Slavonic writing, or remodelled
some existing alphabet, has been disputed ; but there is no doubt as to
his translation of the Scriptures into the language of the people:
Neander, v. 434, 435. The following is the account given of their mis
sionary labours : ' Cceperunt itaque ad id quod venerant peragendum
studiose insistere, et parvulos eorum literas edocere, officia ecclesiastica
instruere, et ad correptionem diversorum errorum, quos in populo illo
repererant, falcem eloquiorum suorum inducere.' Vit. Gonstantini, § 7 :
in Acta Sanctorum, Mart. torn. n. pp. 19 sq.
2 This statement is derived from the title of a letter addressed by
John VIII. to Methodius (879), in Boczek, Codex Diplomaticus et Epi-
stolaris Moravia (Olomuc. 1836), i. 29 : cf. an earlier letter of the same
pontiff (circ. 874) to Louis the Germanic. Ibid. ±. 34. It appears also
from a rescript ' ad Salonitanos clericos ' (Mansi, xvn. 129), that Metho
dius had certain 'episcopi regionarii' under him. His see was Welehrad,
the capital of the ancient kingdom of Moravia. Potthast, Bibl. Hist.
n. 371. 3 See the anonymous account of a priest of Salzburg (quoted in
p. 26, n. 1). As late as 865, the archbishop of Salzburg consecrated
several churches in this district.

-1073]

Growth of the Church.

1 1.3

dius was devoted all his life-time to the creed and ritual of
the Greeks, and constantly made use of the Slavonic lan
guage, he excited the displeasure1 of his German fellow-
workers, who, as soon as they found their influence on
the wane, did not hesitate to brand him as a traitor to
the faith. In 879 he responded to a summons of the
pope2, whom he convinced (880) of his orthodoxy3, as well
as of the propriety of using the vernacular language4 in
the public worship of the Church; and in the following
year he was reinstated in his sphere of duty, and invested
with still larger powers. But meanwhile a serious misun
derstanding had grown up between him and the Moravian
king, Swatopluk, who succeeded Wratislav, his uncle (870
—894). Other influential persons5 in like manner threw
their strength into the German faction, and Methodius,
while proceeding with his missionary work in the same
earnest spirit as before, was under the necessity of vin
dicating himself a second time from the calumnies of his
1 Ibid  'usquedum quidam Grascus Methodius nomine, noviter
inventis Slavinis Uteris, linguam Latinam doctrinamque Romanam, atque
literas auctorabiles Latinas philosophice superducens, vilescere fecit
cuncto populo ex parte missas et evangelia, ecclesiasticumque officium
illorum, qui hoc Latin e celebraverunt. Quod ille [i. e. Bichbald, the
head of the Salzburg mission] ferre non valens, sedem repetivit Ju-
vaviensem.' 2 Above, p. 112, n. 2, and in Mansi, xvn. 133. The drift of the
summons was, ' ut veraciter cognoscamus doctrinam tuam :' cf . Epist. ad
Zuventapu de Moravna (? Morawa, in Pannonia), in Boczek, ubi sup.
3 'Nos autem ilium in omnibus ecclesiasticis doctrinis et utilitatibus
orthodoxum et proficuum esse reperientes, vobis iterum ad regendam
commissam sibi ecclesiam Dei remisimus,' etc. Ep. ad Sphentopulcum
comitem; Mansi, xvn. 181. Neander (v. 438) infers that the Greek
mode of stating the Procession of the Holy Ghost was also conceded by
this pope.
4 'Literas denique Sclavonicas a Constantino quondam philosopho
repertas, quibus Deo laudes debite resonent, jure laudamus, et in eadem
lingua Christi Domini nostri prasconia et opera ut enarrentur, jubemus...
Nee sanas fidei vel doctrinas aliquid obstat, sive missas in eadem Scla-
vonica lingua canere, sive sacrum Evangelium, vel lectiones Divinas noyi
et veteris Testamenti bene translatas et interpretatas legere, aut alia
horarum officia omnia psallere.' Ibid. The injunction, therefore, was,
that in all the Moravian Churches the Gospel should be first read in
Latin and then in Slavonic (' sicut in quibusdam ecclesiis fieri videtur ').
5 e.g. The bishop of Neitra, Wiching (a German), whom the papal
rescript, above quoted, n. 4, had subordinated to Methodius : see the
letter of the same pope (881), Boczek, ubi sup. i. 44: Asseman, Kalend.
Univers. Eccl. in. 159 sq.
M. A, I

MORAVIAN CHURCH.

Fresh mis
under
standing
with the
German
party.

U4

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

BOHEMIAN CHURCH.

Destructionof Mora
vian inde
pendence.

The Gospel
in Bohe-

opponents. He set out for Rome in 881 ; but as there is
no certain trace 1 of him after this date, it has been inferred
that he did not survive the journey. His Slavonic co
adjutors are said to have been subsequently banished
from Moravia2; and although a strong reaction was pro
duced by the ensuing reign of Moimar, who was able to
dissociate the Moravian Church entirely from the inter
meddling of the German3, all his projects were defeated
in 908, when the armies of adjacent countries, more
especially Bohemians and Hungarians, trampled on his
crown. For nearly thirty years the progress of the Gospel
in Moravia was retarded by these struggles; and when
Moravian Christians reappear on the page of history,
they are subject to the bishops of Bohemia. Afterwards
a see was established at Olmiitz4.
The first seeds of religion had been scattered in Bo
hemia by the same active hand5. Its duke, Borziwoi, was
converted by Methodius6 (circ. 871), while on a visit to
the court of the Moravian king, Swatopluk, who was at
that time bis superior lord. On his return to his own
dominions, he took with him a Moravian priest, by whom
his wife, Ludmilla7, afterwards conspicuous in devotion, was
admitted to the Christian fold. But heathenism8, in spite
1 See Dobrowsky, Cyrill und Methodius, pp. 115 sq.
2 Ibid.
3 On the jealousy excited by these controversies, see the remonstrance
of Theotmar, archbp. of Salzburg, and of Hatto, arehbp. of Mentz,
aldressed to pope John IX. (900—901) : Mansi, xvm. 203, 205. They
view the independence of the Moravians as a violation of the rights of
the bishop of Passau, and of the German Church at large, from whom,
as it is "alleged, the conversion of Moravia had proceeded.
4 See Wiltsch, i. 361, 363. Some place the foundation of this see at
the year 1062.
6 The following entry in the Fuldenses Annates, a.d. 845,. will take
us back somewhat further : ' Hludowicus 14 ex ducibus Boemanorum cum
hominibus suis Christianam religionem desiderantes suscepit, et in
octavis Theophanias baptizari jussit.' Pertz, i. 364.
6 This point is not quite established, but the evidence in favour of
it is considerable. Dobrowsky, Cyrill und Method, p. 106 : Mdhr.
Legende, p. 114 : cf. Neander, v. 442, note.
7 See one Life of Ludmilla, addressed to bishop Adalbert of Prague,
about 985, in Acta Sanctorum, Sept. torn. v. 354, and a second in
Dobner's contribution to the Abhandlungen der bohmisch. Geseltschaft der
Wissenschoften, for 1786, pp. 417 sq. But neither of these legends is of
much historical value.
8 At the head of this party was Dragomir or Drahomira, wife of
Wratislav, who is charged with the assassination of Ludmilla.

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

"5

of her untiring efforts and the piety of Wratislav her
son, maintained its rule in almost every district of
Bohemia ; and the struggle was prolonged into the reign
of her grandson Wenzeslav1 (928-936), who seems to have
inherited her faith and saintliness of life. He was mur
dered at the instigation of his pagan brother, Boleslav
the Cruel, and for many years the little band of Christians
had to brave a most bitter persecution. In 950, Boleslav
was conquered by the armies of Germany, under Otho I. ;
which paved a way to the establishment and wider propa
gation of the truth. Still more was effected by the sterner
policy of Boleslav the Pious (967—999); in whose reign
also a more definite organization was imparted to the
whole of the Bohemian Church by founding the bishopric of
Prague2. It was filled in 983 by a learned German, Adal
bert (or Wojtech). Noted for the warmth of his missionary
zeal3, he laboured, with the aid of Boleslav, to drive out
the surviving elements of paganism, by circulating a more
stringent code of disciplinary injunctions4. The impru
dent haste and harshness of his measures, added to the
national dislike of everything Germanic, soon compelled
him to resign his post, when he retreated to a convent.
In 994, he was ordered to resume his duties by the voice
of the Roman synod5, and reluctantly obeying the injunc
tion he returned into Bohemia ; but the jealous spirit he
had stirred in the Slavonian populace erelong ejected him
afresh. His policy however was triumphantly established
1 Seetheii/e of Wenzeslav (Wenceslaus) ; Acta Sandor. Sept. vn. 825.
* Wiltsch, i. 361, 363, n. 22 : but the rescript attributed to John
XIII., confirming the foundation of the bishopric, is spurious. Jaffg,
Regesta Pontif. p. 947. The first prelate was Diethmar, a monk of
Magdeburg : see Cosmas Pragensis, who wrote a Bohemian Chronicle
about 1100 : torn. i. pp. 1993 sq. in Mencken. Script. Rer. Germanic.
3 He finally died a martyr in 997, while seeking to convert the
Prussians, in the neighbourhood of Dantzig. See a Life of Adalbert in
Pertz, vi. 574. He had also laboured in a mission to the Hungarians,
see below, p. 127. The efforts of Adalbert in behalf of the ferocious
Prussians were repeated by Bruno, the court-chaplain of Otho III. : but
he too perished in 1008, together with eighteen of his companions. Act.
Sanct. Ord. Benedict, viii. 79 sq.
4 Among other things he combated polygamy, clerical concubinage,
arbitrary divorces, the traffic in Christian slaves which was largely carried
on by Jews, &o. See the Life of Adalbert, as above : and cf. Schrockh,
xxi. 440, 441.
6 See both the Lives of him, in Pertz, vi. 589, 602. 12

BOHEMIAN CHURCH.

A dalbert,
archbishopof Prague :

his expul
sion.

n6

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

POLISH
CHURCH.

of the Ger
man spirit.
The Gospel
in Poland.

Adoptionof coercive
measures.

in the time of Severus1 a later primate (1030—1067); for
although the Slavo-Latin ritual2, as imported from Moravia,
was still cherished here and there, it gradually retired
before the influence of the Roman or Germanic uses.
As the Gospel had passed over from Moravia to Bo
hemia, so the latter was the instrument of God for planting
it among the kindred tribes of Poland. Their dominion
at this period was extending northward to the Netze, and
embraced all the modern province of Silesia. In 966, the
Polish duke3, Mjesko or Miecislav, who had married a
Bohemian princess (Dambrowka), was converted to the
Christian faith; and many of the courtiers following his
example were baptized on the same occasion. But his
violent suppression of the pagan worship (967), as in cases
we have seen already, could not fail to produce an ob
stinate resistance4 on the part of the uninstructed. In
the following reigns, when Poland for a time was freed
from the superiority of the empire, this obnoxious policy
continued; and the slightest violation of the canons of
1 Schrockh, xxi. 442 sq.
2 One of the conditions mentioned in the rescript which relates to
the founding of the see of Prague is to the effect that Divine service shall
in future be performed ' non secundum ritus aut sedam Bulgaria gentis,
vel Ruzia aut Sclavonica lingua, sed magis sequens instituta et decreta
apostolica,' &c. Boczek, Codex Diplomaticus Morav. i. 86. But spurious
though this rescript is, a multitude of better proofs assure us that the
question here suggested was a source of much dispute. See the account
of a struggle between the Latin and Slavonic services at the convent of
Sasawa, in Mencken. Script. Rer. German, in. 1782 sq. After a vehement
letter of Gregory VII. (1080) to Wratislav, duke of Bohemia, prohibiting
the use of the Slavonic ritual (Mansi, xx. 296), the monks who adhered to
the use of it were (in 1097) expelled, and their service-books destroyed
(Mencken, in. 1788). In some parts of Bohemia, the vernacular ritual was
revived, or kept its ground; and one convent in the suburbs of Prague
retains it at this day. Gieseler, n. 458, n. 17.
3 See Thietmar (or Ditmar), Chronicon, lib. iv. c. 35: in Pertz, v.
783, and the Polish historian, Martinus Gallus (who wrote about 1130),
lib. i. c. 5, ed. Bandtke, 1824: cf. Schroekh, xxi. 491 sq., where the traces
of a somewhat older Christianity have been collected.
4 Accordingly we find that the Gospel had made little progress in 980 :
Schrockh, xxi. 496. For some time there was but one Polish bishopric,
that of Posen, founded (it is said) by the Emperor Otho I. in 970, and
subordinated to the metropolitan of Magdeburg. When Poland, in the
following century, became an independent kingdom, the archbishopric of
Gnesen took the lead of other sees (including Colberg, Cracow, and Wra-
tislavia or Breslau) which wore founded. Wiltsch, i. 395 — 397 : cf.
Schrockh, xxi. 497 sq. A council was held in Poland (1000) by the Em
peror Otho III. Mansi, xix. 267.

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

117

the Church was punished by the civil power1. A fresh
impulse was communicated to the progress of religion by
the reign2 of Casimir I. (1034—1058), who was previously
an inmate either of the Benedictine house at Clugny, or
of a German convent at Braunweiler. By him all the
ritual of the Church, that had hitherto retained a portion
of the impress it derived from the Christians of Moravia
and Bohemia8, was brought into more general agreement
with the liturgies and customs of the West4.
In addition to the tribes already folded in the Christian
Church, were others also of Slavonic blood, most commonly
entitled Wends. They had settled in the districts border
ing the Elbe, the Oder, and the Saale, and were already
vassals of the German empire. Like the northern Saxons
of the former period, they were men of a fierce and in
domitable spirit, who regarded the persuasions of the
missionary as designed to perpetuate their bondage. This
political repugnance to his visits was increased by his im
perfect knowledge of the Slavic dialects5; and as their
nationality was more and more endangered by the heavy
yoke6 of their oppressors, they were constantly attempting
to regain their independence, and extinguish the few glim
merings of truth that had been forced into their minds.
Accordingly, the progress of religion in these districts had
been slow and superficial; but the death of their conqueror,
Henry I., in 936, was followed by a different mode of treat-

1 e.g. ' Quicunque post septuagesimam carnem manducasse inveni
tur, abscisis dentibus graviter punitur. Lex namque divina in his regio-
nibus noviter exorta potestate tali, melius quam jejunio ab episcopis
instituto, corroboratur ¦.' Thietmar, Chron. lib. viii. c. 2.
2 The strange circumstances connected with his elevation are related
in Martinus Gallus, Chronicon, as above; and Cromer, de Rebus Polono-
rum, lib. iv. p. 50, ed. Colon.
3 See Frieae, Kirchengeschichte des Konigreichs Poland, 1. 61 sq. , Bres-
lau, 1786.
4 As early as 1012, the king of Poland, Boleslav, betrays a strong
leaning to the Church of Bome (Thietmar, Chronic, lib. vi. c. 56), and
many of his successors carried this feeling of deference much further.
6 See a striking exemplification of this in Thietmar's Chronicon, lib. 11.
c. 23 (Pertz, v. 755).
6 ' Quibus mens pronior est ad pensiones vectigalium quam ad con-
versionem gentilium,' was the censure passed upon the German conquerors
by the then king of Denmark. Neander, v. 446, note. The same is the
complaint of the Chronicler Helmold (lib. 1. c. 21). ' Semper proniores
sunt tributis augmentandis, quam animabus Domino conquirendis.'

WENDISH CHURCH.

A ttempts to
introduce the Gospel
amor.g the
Wends.

n8

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

WEN DISH
CHURCH.
Founda tion of
several bi
shoprics.

ment, and a somewhat larger measure of success. Desirous
of promoting their conversion, Otho I. founded many
bishoprics1 among the Wends, and placed them under the
direction of a better class of men,— of missionaries who had
been distinguished by their skill in other fields of labour.
In 946 a prelate of this kind was sent to Havelberg;
another to Aldenburg, in 948 ; a third to Brandenburg, in
949. Those of Meissen (Misna), Cizi, and Merseburg
followed in 968, and in that, or in the previous year, the
organization of the Wendish Church was finished by erect
ing the metropolitical see of Magdeburg, according to a
plan propounded by the council of Ravenna2 (967). The
first primate, Adalbert, had been educated in the monastery
of Treves, and is said to have been chosen several years
before to plant a fruitless mission in a distant tribe of
Slaves3. His present work also was thwarted by a general
insurrection of the heathen Wends, assisted by unstable
soldiers of the Cross. Impatient of the German rule, or
maddened by some special grievances occurring at the time,
they ravaged4 all the neighbouring districts, more especially
the seats of missionary enterprise; and though the leader of
the movement, Mistewoi, a Christian, afterwards deplored
his furious onslaught, it was long ere the wounds he had
inflicted on the Church were altogether healed.
A salutary change is dated from the reign of his holy
grandson, Gottschalk, who is famous in the German annals
1 Wiltsch, i. 394, 395. The bishopric of Cizi (Zeiz) was in 1029
transferred to Naumburg; that of Aldenburg (Oldenburg) was transferred
to Ltibeck in 1163, and was from the first a suffragan of the archbishopric
of Hamburg-Bremen, and not, like the rest, of Magdeburg. It seems to
have been afterwards divided, and two other bishoprics established, for
a time, at Batzeburg and Mecklenburg. See the Chronicon Slavorum by
Helmold, a missionary at Bosov, about 1150, in Leibnitz's Scriptores
Brunsv. n. 537 sq.
2 Mansi, xvni. 501 — 503 ; cf. Schrockh, xxi. 482 sq. One object of
the Emperor in urging the foundation of this new archbishopric appears
to have been a wish to abridge the inordinate power of the see of Mentz.
The pall was sent to the new German primate in 968. Mansi, xix. 5.
3 It is generally supposed that the Slavonic tribe in question was
that of the Russians; but Neander (v. 447, 452) argues that the Slavo
nians in the isle of Riigen were intended by the chroniclers.
4 See Helmold, as above, lib. i. c. 14 sq., Giesebrecht's Wendische
Geschichten (from 730 to 1182), i. 257; Berlin, 1843. When Mistewoi
professed himself a Christian, after his repentance, he was compelled to
retire from the scene of his impiety, and died at Bardevik. Helmoli
ibid. c. 16.

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

119

as the founder of the Wendish empire (1047). He was
trained in a Christian school at Luneburg, and the military
ardour he had shewn at an earlier period was eventually di
rected to the propagation of the Gospel1 . Aided by an ample
staff of clerics, whom he drew more especially from the
archbishopric of Bremen2, he proceeded with unwavering
zeal in the conversion of his people. Yet so strongly were
they wedded to their heathen rites, that after labouring
among them twenty years he fell a victim to his Christian
fervour (1066), dying3, with a number of his chief assistants,
in the midst of revolting tortures. From this period the
reaction in behalf of paganism went on rapidly increasing,
until few4, if any, traces of the mission were left.
Meanwhile, another family of Slaves, united by a line
of Scandinavian5 princes, were engrafted on the Eastern
Church. The Russians had now gradually expanded from
the neighbourhood of Moscow, on one side to the Baltic, on
the other to the Euxine Sea. Their predatory and com
mercial habits brought them pointedly before the notice of
the emperors and prelates of the East, and efforts seem to

1 He is even said to have preached, or expounded, the Gospel to his
subjects : ' Sane magnas devotionis vir dicitur tanto religionis Diviuas
exarsisse studio, ut sermonem exhortationis ad populum frequenter in
ecclesia ipse fecerit, ea scilicet, qua ab episcopis vel presbyteris mystice
dicebantur, cupiens Slavicis verbis reddere planiora.' Helmold, ibid.
c. 20. 2 Bremen, as the point of departure for the northern missions, seems
to have been a rallying-place for all kinds of unfortunate ecclesiastics :
' Confluebant ergo in curiam ejus [i. e. of Adalbert, or Albrecht, the arch
bishop] multi sacerdotes et religiosi, plerique etiam episcopi, qui sedibus
suis exturbati mensas ejus erant participes, quorum sarcina ipse allevari
cupiens transmisit eos in latitudinem gentium.' Ibid. c. 22 : cf. Adam of
Bremen, Hist. Eccl. c. 142.
3 The place of his death was Leutzen. The last victim was the aged
bishop of Mecklenburg, who, after he had been dragged through the chief
cities of the Wendish kingdom, was sacrificed to the war-god, Badegast,
whose temple stood at Bethre. Helmold, ibid. c. 23.
4 Beligion seems to have been kept alive in some measure among
the Sorbi (between the Elbe and the Saale), through the zealous efforts of
Benno, bishop of Meissen (1066—1106). See a Life of him in Mencken.
Script. Rer. German. 11. 1857 sq. But in other districts what is stated
by the Chroniclers will too generally apply : ' Slavi seryitutis jugum
armata manu submoverunt, tantaque animi obstinantia libertatem de-
fendere nisi sunt, ut prius maluerint mori quam Christianitatis titulum
resumere, auttributa solvere Saxonum principibus.' Helmold. ibid. c. 25.
6 Cf. Milman's note on Gibbon, v. 304. Buric, the father of this
dynasty, became the king of Bussia in 862.

RUSSIAN
CHURCH.

The zeal
and mar
tyrdom of
king Golts-
chalk.

Extirpation of the
Gospel.Conversion
of the Rus
sians;

120

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

RUSSIAN
CHURCH.

tlieir depen
dence on
the Church
of Constan
tinople.

have been made as early as 866 to evangelize1 the warlike
tribes that bordered on the Greek dominions. It is proba
ble that sundry germs of Christianity2 were carried home
already by invaders, who at this and later times had prowled
upon the Bosphorus ; and in 945 we see distincter traces of
the progress of the Gospel, more especially in Kieff3. But
the baptism4 of the princess Olga, who is reverenced as
the ' Helena ' of Russian Christianity, was the commence
ment of a brighter period in the triumphs of the faith
(circ. 955). Her son, indeed, Sviatoslav I. (955-972) resisted
all her gentle efforts to embrace him in the Christian fold;
but the suggestions she instilled into the heart of Vladimir,
her grandson, led the way, after many painful struggles5,
to his public recognition of the Gospel (circ. 980). On his
marriage with the sister of the Byzantine emperor, the
Church of Russia was more intimately bound to the orthodox
1 Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople (Epist. n. p. 58, ed. Mont
ague : cf. Pagi, in Baronii Annates, a.d. 861), in writing against the pre
tensions of the Boman see (866) exults in the conversion of the Bussians,
by the agency of Eastern missionaries : but his statement is extravagant
and overcoloured. See Mouravieff's Hist, of the Church of Russia p. 8,
translated by Blackmore, Oxf. 1842. An attempt has been made by
the archimandrite Macarius, Hist, of Christianity in Russia before
St Vladimir (St Petersb. 1846), to establish a tradition of the middle ages
that St Andrew preached the Gospel in Eussia.
2 In a catalogue of sees subject to Constantinople, there is mention
of a metropolitan of Bussia as early as 891 (Mouravieff, as above, p. 9) :
yet many of these earlier accounts are not trustworthy throughout.
The great authority is Nestor, a monk of Kieff, who wrote in the eleventh
century. His Chronicle has been edited in part, with a valuable com
mentary, by Schlbzer, Gottingen, 1802 — 1809.
3 In a treaty between king Igor and the Byzantine court (945), there
is an allusion to Bussian (Varangian) converts and to a church dedicated
in honour of the prophet Elias, at Kieff, the ancient capital of the
empire. Nestor, Annal. iv. 95 sq. ed. Schiozer. Kieff became an epi
scopal see in 988. Wiltsch, i. 429.
4 This took place at Constantinople, whither she repaired in order to
obtain a knowledge of the truth. The emperor Constantine Porphyro-
genitus was her godfather. Nestor, v. 58 sq. There is some reason for
supposing that she made an application to Otho I., in 959 or 960, re
questing him to lend assistance in promoting the extension of the faith :
see above, p. 118, n. 3; and cf. Schrockh, xxi. 515 — 617.
6 At first he was like his father, ardently devoted to the pagan wor
ship : he was solicited in succession by Muhammedan and Jewish mis
sionaries from Bulgaria and adjacent parts (Mouravieff, pp. 10, 11) ; and
then, after oscillating (it is said) between the Greek and Boman rites,
determined to accept the former. See a fragment, De Conversione Rvs-
sorum, published by Banduri, in the Imperium Orientate, n. 62 sq. and
Neander's note, v. 453. He was finally baptized at Cherson (on the

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

121

communion of the East1; and missionaries from Constanti
nople ardently engaged in softening and evangelizing the
remoter districts of the kingdom. Aided by the royal
bounty, they erected schools and churches in the leading
towns, and making use of the Slavonic Bible and other
Service-books, which were translated to their hands by
Cyril and Methodius2, they obtained a ready entrance to
the native population, and the Church, as an effect of their
judicious zeal, expanded freely on all sides. In the time3 of
Leontius, metropolitan of Kieff, the formation of a number
of episcopal sees4 presented a substantial basis for the
future conquests of the truth ; and under two immediate
successors of Vladimir (1019—1077), their empire was
Christianized completely. But the fierce irruption of the
Mongols (1223), resulting as it did in their occupation of
the country till 1462, was fatal to the health and progress
of the Russian state ; although the unity of purpose now
imparted to it by religion enabled it to wrestle with the
infidels, and finally to drive them out.
Another tribe, in part at least if not entirely, of Slavonic
origin5 was now united to the Eastern Church. It was the
tribe of the Bulgarians, who were driven by the onward
march of population to the southern borders of the Danube,
where they founded a considerable state in Dardania,
Macedonia, and Epirus. While a party of their ruder
kinsmen on the Volga were embracing the Koran6, a wish
Dnieper), where a bishopric was already planted, and on his return to
Kieff proceeded to destroy the monuments of heathenism, particularly
the images of Peroun, the god of thunder : Mouravieff, pp. 13, 14.
1 This was still further shewn by the adoption of the Greek canon-
law, as well as of the Constantinopolitan service-books, &c. Mouravieff,
pp. 17, 357. Greeks, in like manner, were employed in constructing the
first Bussian churches (Ibid. 161), and introducing the choral music of
Constantinople (Ibid. p. 22).
2 See above, p. 112; Mouravieff, p. 8.
3 Ibid. p. 16. The next king, Yaroslaf, added greatly to the number
of the schools and churches, and even translated many books of devotion,
p. 20. He was also the chief founder of the Bussian convents, which
adopted the Bule of the Studium monastery at Constantinople. Ibid. p.
24. 4 e.g. ofNovogorod, of Bostoff, Chernigoff, Vladimir, and Belgorod.
During the oppression of the Mongols, which lasted two hundred years,
the metropolitieal chair was transferred to Vladimir, and finally in 1320
to Moscow. 5 Gibbon, v. 290, 291, ed. Milman : Schrockh, xxi. 399.
6 The Caliph, Muktedir, sent missionaries among them in 921, at the

BULGARIAN CHURCH.

The Gospel
among the
Bulga-

122

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

BULGARIAN CHURCH.

Quarrel be
tween the
Roman and
Byzantine
patriarchs.

had been inspired into the others for instruction in the
doctrine of the Gospel. In 811 many hordes of the Bul
garians, after vanquishing Nicephorus I., pursued their
devastations to the city of Adrianople, and among the other
captives carried off its bishop and a multitude of Chris
tians. In this way it is likely that the seeds of truth1 were
scattered in Bulgaria. Somewhat later, Constantine, a
captive monk, endeavoured to mature them, and his hands
were strengthened by a princess of the country, who was
educated as a Christian at Constantinople, whither she had
been transported in the wars. By her suggestions, and a
spirit-stiring picture of the day of judgment, furnished to
her by a Grecian monk and artist, her brother, Bogoris2,
the Bulgarian king, (in 863 or 864) was drawn to listen to
her creed; and as the agency by which he had been won
proceeded from the Eastern Church, the patriarch of Con
stantinople, Photius, entered on the task of training him
more fully in the rudiments of truth, and of planting it
among his subjects3. But he seems at first to have been
dissatisfied with the ground on which he stood : and
either from a wish to obviate the lack of an efficient
clergy, and the jangling and uncertainty produced by
rival missions4, or from a lower and political dislike to
be involved in more intimate relations with the court of
Byzantium, he soon afterwards betook himself for counsel
to the Christians of the West. In 866 or 867 an embassy
was sent to Ratisbon, invoking the assistance of Louis the
Germanic5, and either then, or a short time earlier, envoys

request of their own chieftain, to complete their training in the system
of Muhammed : cf . a Bussian work quoted by Gieseler, n. 486, n. 2.
1 See the continuation of Theophanes, in the Scriptores Byzantin. ed.
Venet. p. 100.
2 Ibid. lib. rv. c. 13 — 15 : cf. Neander, v. 433, 434. It seems doubtful
whether the present artist, whose name is Methodius, was identical with
the missionary of that name, whom we have seen above, p. 112.
Bogoris after his baptism was called Michael, the Greek emperor
Michael III. standing as his godfather, by proxy.
3 Photii Epist. i.; ed. Lond. 1651.
4 It seems, from the letter of Nicholas I. (below, p. 123,- n. 1), that mis
sionaries of different nations were labouring in Bulgaria, and propounding
different doctrines, so that the people hardly knew whom to believe:
' multi ex diversis locis Christiani advenerint, qui prout voluntas eorum
existit multa et varia loqiiuntur, id est, Grasci, Armeni, et ex casteris
locis:' c. 106.
5 Annates Fuldens. a.d. 866 (Pertz, i. 379): 'Legati Bulgarum Bades-

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

123

were directed to the pope. Accordingly, in the following
year, two Italian bishops1 set out for Bulgaria, bearing
with them a long series of directions and decisions from
the pen of Nicholas I. As we shall see at large hereafter,
this new act of intervention in the bounds of a diocese
already occupied by others added fuel to the flames of
jealousy and envy, which had long been growing up be
tween the pontiffs of the Greek and Latin Churches. As
at an earlier period, they were not slow in exchanging
fulminations2; during which the capricious author of the
storm went over to the side of Photius and immediately3
ponam ad regem venerunt, dicentes regem illorum cum populo non
modico ad Christum esse conversum, simulque petentes, ut rex idoneos
prasdicatores Christianas religionis ad eos mittere non differret.' The
king appointed a bishop together with a staff 'of priests and deacons, who
might undertake the mission, but on arriving at Bome they found that
the pope had already sent auxiliaries enough for the occasion. Ibid. a.d.
867: cf. Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, 1. 99 sq.
1 Vit. Nicolai, in Vignol. Lib. Pontif. in. 210, 211. In 867 other
missionaries, priests, and bishops, were dispatched to Bulgaria (Ibid. pp.
212, 213), 'ut, quia ipsum Formosum [the archbishop-designate of Jus-
tiniana Prima in Bulgaria] plebem dimittere sibi creditam non oportebat
episcopum, ex his presbyteris ad archiepiscopatum eligatur, et sedi conse-
crandus apostolicas mittatur.' The copious answer of Nicholas to the
questions of the Bulgarian envoys will be found in Mansi, xv. 401 sq.
Among other passages of this memorable document there is an emphatic
condemnation of compulsory conversions, such as Bogoris appears to
have attempted: c. 41.
2 See the encyclical epistle of Photius to the Oriental patriarchs, in
his Epist. ed. Lond. 1651, pp. 47 sq. The following is a specimen of his
vehement language: Koi yap Si), Kal dirb r&v rijs'lraXlas pep&v avvoSiK-h
Tts iiriffToXrj xpbs -fifids dvaireipolTyKev, afipip-oiv iyK\vp.driav yip.ovaa, ariva
Kard tov oUelov avriSv iiriaKoirov ol ryv 'IraXlav oIkovvtcs p.erd iroXXrjs Kara-
Kp aews Kal opKiav uvpLvv Steiriuipavro, p.-q irapiSeiv avroiis ovruis oUrpois
dWvpLivovs, Kal bird rnXiKaOrys (iapeias iriefruivovs rvpavviSos, Kal robs
lepariKobs vop/)vs vPpi{op.ivovs, Kal irdvras 8effp.ob$ iKKXnalas dvarpeiropivovs,
p. 59. The emperors of the East supported Photius, and when their
letters were forwarded by Bogoris to Bome, the pope in his turn (867)
issued an encyclical epistle to Hincmar archbishop of Bheims and the
other archbishops and bishops of Franee, denouncing the Greek Church
on various grounds, (see below on the 'Schism between the Eastern and
Western Churches,') and especially the envy of the Byzantine patriarch
because the king of Bulgaria had sought 'a sede B. Petri institutores et
doctrinam.' Mansi, xv. 355.
3 'Magna sub velocitate ' is the language of Hadrian H. (869), when
he laboured to re-establish his jurisdiction in Bulgaria. Vignol. Lib.
Pontif. in. 253: but the Boman missionaries were immediately expelled.
A fragment of a letter written by the pope to Ignatius, patriarch of Con
stantinople, on the consecration of the Greek archbishop of Bulgaria is
preserved in Mansi, xvi. 414, and in xvn. 62, 67, 68, 129, 131, 136, are
letters from John VIII., in which he laboured to convict the Eastern

BULGARIAN CHURCH.

124

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

OTHER
SLAVONIC
CHURCHES.

Bulgaria
finally an-
nextd to the
Eastern Church.
PaHial
conversionof the
Chazars.

Conversion
of the
Croats

compelled the Roman mission to withdraw. The Church
of Bulgaria was now organized afresh, according to the
Eastern model, and continued for a while dependent on the
see of Constantinople 1.
The Chazars, who dwelt in the vicinity of the Crimea,
on the borders of the Eastern empire, followed the example
of Bulgaria ; though the preachers of the Gospel had to
struggle with a host of proselyting Jews, as well as with
the propagandists of Islamism 2. About 850, some inquiring
members of this tribe implored the emperor (Michael III.)
to send a well-instructed missionary among them ; and the
agent chosen for that work was Constantine (or Cyril),
afterwards conspicuous for his zeal in building up the
Churches of Moravia and Bohemia3. Many of the natives,
touched by his glowing sermons, were converted to the
truth, and permanently associated with the see of Con
stantinople. Still, as late as 921, their leading chieftain
was a Jew, and others were addicted to the system of
Muhammed 4.
The Chrobatians or Croats, who had emigrated in
the seventh century from Poland to the region5 bounded
by the Adriatic and the Saave, were Christianized, in
part, at the commencement of this period. It is said6
"mperors and prelates of a breach of duty in withdrawing the Bulgarians
from the papal jurisdiction. In the first of this series of remonstrances
he warns king Michael (Bogoris) of the errors of the Greeks, and
adds: 'Mihi credite, non gloriam ex vobis, vel honorem, aut censum
expectantes, non patrias regimen et reipublicas moderamen adipisci
cupimus; sed diceceseos ejusdem regionis curam et dispositionem resu-
mere volumus.'
1 Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, i. 104.
2 See the Life of Constantine (Cyril) above referred to, p. 112: 'Caza-
rorum legati venerunt, orantes ac supplictntes, ut dignaretur [addressing
the emperor Michael, circ. 850] mittere ad illos aliquem eruditum virum,
qui eos fidem catholicam veraciter edoceret, adjicientes inter castera,
quoniam nunc Judasi ad fidem suam, modo Saraceni ad suam, nos con-
vertere e contrario moliuntur.' § 1.
3 Above, pp. 111—116.
4 The chief authority for this statement is a Muhammedan ambas
sador, who travelled in these regions, 921, and reported that he found as
manv Moslems as Christians, besides Jews and idolaters. See Frahn, in
the MSmoires de t'Academie de St Pdersbourg (1822), tome viii. 598 sq.;
and Gieseler, n. 486, n. 3.
5 They were, in part, separated from the Adriatic by the narrow king
dom of Dalmatia, peopled chiefly by the Slaves, and subject at the opening
of this period to the Boman patriarch: Wiltsch, i. 399.
6 Dollinger, in. 22, 23. Croatia was included in the ecclesiastical

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

125

that a Roman mission was dispatched among them, at the
wish of their chieftain, Porga, which resulted in their
subsequent connexion with the pontiffs of the West.
Here also may be noted the conversion of some kindred
tribes who were impelled into the interior of Hellas1. They
were gradually brought under the Byzantine yoke, and,
after the Bulgarians had embraced the offers of the Gospel,
they attended to the exhortations of the missionaries sent
among them by the emperor Basil (circ. 870).
The evangelizing of the larger tribe of Servians, who
inhabited the numerous mountain-ridges stretching from
the Danube to the shores of the Adriatic, was not equally
felicitous and lasting. Through their nominal dependence
on Byzantium2, many of them were already gathered to
the Christian Church, but when they were enabled to
regain their freedom in 827, they seem to have refused
allegiance8 to the creed of their former masters. Sub
sequently, however, the victorious arms of Basil (circ. 870)
made a way to the re-admission of a band of Christian
teachers furnished from Constantinople. Through their
efforts, aided by vernacular translations4, a considerable
change was speedily produced; and early in the tenth
century we read5 that an important staff of native clergy
were ordained for the Servian Church by the Slavonic
bishop of Nona (in Dalmatia). From their geographical
position on the border-land between the Eastern and the
Western Empire, the inhabitants of Servia could retain
a kind of spiritual6 as well as civil independence; but

province of Dioclea, and though subject for a time, at the close of the
ninth century, to the see of Constantinople, it was afterwards (1067) em
braced anew in the jurisdiction of the pope. Wiltsch, 1. 399, 400.
1 Fallmerayer, Geschichte der Halbinsel Morea wahrend des Mittelal-
ters, 1. 230 sq. In like manner nearly all the Mainotes, the descendants
of the ancient Greeks, who had retreated to the rocky fastnesses in the
neighbourhood of mount Taygetus, embraced the Gospel at this period.
Ibid. 1. 137. Constantine Porphyrogen. De Administrat. Imper. § 50
(ed. Bekker, p. 224) speaks of the obstinacy with which they had clung to
the pagan worship of the Greeks.
2 Eanke, Hist, of Servia, Lond. 1853, pp. 2, 3.
3 Dollinger, in. 23.
4 Eanke, p. 3.
6 Ibid.
> The patriarch of Constantinople granted them the privilege of always
electing their archbishop (of TJschize) from their own national clergy.

OTHER
SLAVONIC
CHURCHES.
and other
Slavic tribes.

The Gospel
among the
Servians.

Their eccle
siastical
position.

126

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

HUNGA RIAN
CHURCH.

Inroads of
the Mag
yars.

their leanings on the whole were to the Church of Con
stantinople.

AMONG THE HUNGARIANS.
The one serious obstacle remaining to the spread and
perpetuity of truth in every part of Eastern Europe were
the settlements of the Hungarians (Magyars). Descended
from a Tatar or a Finnish tribe1, they fell upon the
province of Pannonia at the close of the ninth century
(circ. 885), and, after breathing for a while among their
permanent possessions, hurried onward like a stream of fire,
to desolate the plains of Italy, and terrify the nations
westward of the Rhine2. The triumphs3 of the German
princes, Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great (934, 955),
eventually delivered Christendom, and shut the Magyars
within their present boundaries upon the Danube. There
they mingled with the early settlers (the Avars4), and others
whom they carried off as captives from the neighbouring
Slavonic tribes5.
Ibid. p. 7. At other times they seem to have been in communication
with the court of Bome, which was continually repeating its claims to
jurisdiction over all the Illyrian dioceses (see e. g. a letter of John VIH.
to the bishop-elect of Nona (879), urging him not to receive consecration
from any but the pope himself. Mansi, xvn. 124). Gregory VEL was
the first who saluted the Grand Shupane of Servia by the title of 'king;'
but the attempts to win him over to the Latin Church were always made
in vain : Eanke, p. 5.
1 Gibbon, v. 294 sq. ; ed. Milman. The best modern history of them
is MaiUth's Geschichte der Magyaren, Wien, 1828. It is not improbable
that the religious system of the heathen Magyars was borrowed from the
Persians. It was dualistic, and the evil principle was named Armanyos
(=Ahriman). Dolling, in. 33.
2 Gibbon, v. 300. 'Oh! save and deliver us from the arrows of the
Hungarians,' was the cry of the persecuted Christians, who were mas
sacred by thousands.
3 Gibbon, ibid. pp. 302, 303.
4 A mission had been organized for them by Charlemagne, who had
nominally ruled the whole of modern Hungary (see above, p. 26) ; but, as
we gather from a rescript of Benedict VII. (974), dividing Pannonia be
tween the archbishops of Salzburg and Lorch (Laureacum), the province
of the latter had been heathenized afresh (' ex viciniorum frequenti popu-
latione barbarorum deserta et in sohtudinem redacta'); Boezek, Codex
Diplom. Moruv., i. 93 : Mansi, xix. 52 sq.
6 This appears from a report afterwards sent to the pope in 974 re
specting the extension of the Gospel in Hungary. Mansi, xix. 49 sq.,

—1073]

Growth of the Church.

127

At this propitious moment a few seeds of Christianity
were introduced among them by the baptism1 of two
'Turkish' (or Hungarian) chiefs at Constantinople (948).
One of these, however, Bulosudes, speedily relapsed into
his former superstitions : and the other, Gylas, though
assisted by a prelate2 who accompanied him on his return,
was not able to produce any powerful impression. The
espousing of his daughter3 to Geisa, the Hungarian
duke (972—997), was more conducive to the propagation
of the faith. But her husband, though eventually baptized,
was still wavering in his convictions, when the German
influence, now established by the victory of Otho (955),
was employed in the conversion of the humbled Magyars.
As early as 970 missions had been organized by prelates
on the German border, none of whom were more assiduous
in the work than Piligrin of Passau4. It is not, however,
till the reign of Stephen (Waik), the first ' king ' of Hun
gary (997 — 1038), that the evangelizing of his subjects can
be shewn to be complete. Distinguished from his child
hood5 by the interest he took in all that concerned the
welfare of religion, he attracted a large band of monks
and clerics from adjoining dioceses8, and endeavoured to
enlarge the borders of the Christian fold. Religious houses,

and as above, n. 4. From the same source we learn that many of these
captives were already Christians, which facilitated the conversion of their
masters. 1 Cedrenus, Hist. Compend. in the Scriptores Byzant., ed. Paris, 636 :
cf. Mailath, as above, 1. 23 sq.
2 A Constantinopolitan monk, named Hierotheos. Ibid.
8 See the somewhat conflicting evidence in Schrockh, xxi. 530. Thiet
mar (Ditmar), Chronic, lib. vm. c. 3 (Pertz, v. 862), gives the following
account of the impiety of Geisa: 'Hie Deo omnipotenti variisque deorum
illusionibus immolans, cum ab antistite suo ob hoc aecusaretur, divitem
se et ad haso facienda satis potentem affirmavit.'
4 See p. 126, n. 5. Among other missionaries whom he sent was a
Swiss monk of Einsiedeln, who was afterwards bishop of Batisbon. But
his labours were indifferently received (Life of Wolfgang, in Mabillon,
Acta Sanct. Ord. Bened., Sasc. v. p. 817). The same field attracted Adal
bert of Prague, on his expulsion from Bohemia: see above, p. 115, and
cf. Mailath, Gesch. der Mugyaren, i. 31.
6 Life of Stephen (written about 1100 by an Hungarian bishop), in
Schwandtner, Scriptor. Rer. Hangar. 1. 416 sq.
8 'Audita fama boni rectoris, multi ex terris aliis oanonici et monachi
ad ipsum quasi ad patrem confluebant. ' Life of (two Polish monks)
Zoerard and Benedict, by a contemporary bishop, in the Acta Sanctorum,
Jul., torn. iv. p. 326.

HUNGA RIAN
CHURCH
First seeds
of Christi
anity in
Hungary.

Triumph
of the
Gospel.

128

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 814

The Hun
garian Church de
pendent on
ilue Roman.

Continu
ance of the
Nestorian

schools, and churches started up on every side1, and Hun
gary was now distributed, like other countries, into parishes
and sees, and placed under the archbishopric of Gran2
(Strigonium). More than once, however, Stephen had
recourse to the arm of the civil power in advancing the
dominion of the faith, especially in 1003, when he had
made himself supreme in Transylvania and in one portion
of Wallachia3. The effect of this unchristian element in
his proceedings was a terrible revulsion at his death in
favour of paganism4.
Instead of cleaving to the Churches of the East, by
which the Gospel was at first imparted to them, the Hun
garians, under Stephen more especially, were drawn into
the closest union with the popes. He married a Bava
rian princess, sister of the emperor Henry II., and his
policy was always to preserve an amicable bearing in
relation to the German empire. By the interest of
Otho III.5, he was advanced to the dignity of king, that
honour being formally conferred upon him in 10006 by
Silvester II. A more lasting symbol of dependence on
the West is found in the general use of Latin as the
medium for the worship of the Church, and even as the
language of the courts of justice7.
IN CENTRAL ASIA.
The missionary zeal we have remarked8 in the Nes
torian body, as distinguished from the other Christians of
1 See the Life of Stephen, as above, pp. 417 sq.
2 Wiltseh, i. 398, 399.
3 Life of Stephen, ibid.; cf. Neander, v. 460.
* He was aided, for some years, by his son Emmerich (Henry), who,
however, died before him in 1032 ; and afterwards on two occasions (1045
and 1060) a desperate attempt was made to re-establish paganism by
force. See the Hungarian Chronicle, in Schwandtner's Scriptores Rer.
Hungar. i. 105, 113 sq.
6 ' Imperatoris autem gratia et hortatu, gener Heinrici, ducis Ba-
wariorum, Waic [= Stephen] in regno suimet episeopales cathedras
faciens, coronam et benedictionem accepit.' Thietmar (Ditmar) Chr
lib. iv.' c. 38 (Pertz, v. 784).
6 Fejer, Codex Diplomaticus Hungaria (Budas, 1829) , i. 274 : cf . Life
of Stephen, as above, p. 417. But considerable doubts have been ex
pressed as to the genuineness of this papal rescript : see Gieseler, n. 463
Schrockh, xxi. 544 sq.
7 Dollinger, m. 35, 36.
8 See above, pp. 26—28.

-1073]

Limitation of the Church.

1 29

the East, continued to the present period, when it gained
its highest point. Protected by the favour of the caliphs1,
the disciples of the Nestorian school were able, after
strengthening the Churches they had planted in their an
cient seats, to propagate a knowledge of the Gospel in
the distant hordes of Scythia. A Tatar or a Turkish
chieftain2, bordering on China, with his subjects to the
number of two hundred thousand, was converted at the
close of the tenth century ; and this would naturally con
duce to the formation of ulterior projects in behalf of the
adjacent tribes of Turkistan3. It seems that from the
date of the conversion here recorded, Christianity main ¦
tained a stable footing in those quarters till it fell beneath
the devastating inroads4 of Timur (or Tamerlane). Its chief
promoters were a series of the native khans who had inhe
rited, for many generations, the peculiar name of ' Prester
John'5, or were at least distinguished by that title in the
credulous accounts of tourists and crusaders'.

§ 2. LIMITATION OF THE CHURCH.
The desolating march of the Hungarians' into Europe
has been noticed on a former page. Yet deeply as those
ravages were felt, they did not permanently curtail the
area of the Western Church. A heavier blow had been
inflicted by the ruthless hordes of Northmen (principally
1 This protection was not, however, uniformly granted : e. g. in 849
the Christians of Chaldasa underwent a bitter persecution. Le Quien,
Oriens Christ. 11. 1130.
2 Asseman. Biblioth. Orient., torn. 11. 444 sq : Mosheim, Hist. Tartar.
Eccles., pp. 23 sq., ed. Helmstad. 1741. He was baptized by the Nes
torian primate of Maru in Chorasan: (cf. Le Quien, Oriens Christ, n.
1261 sq.)
3 On the spread of Nestorianism in these regions, see above, p. 26, and
cf. Wiltsch, 1. 461.
4 Mosheim, ibid. pp. 27 sq.
5 Asseman, torn. in. part 11. p. 487: cf. the discussion on this point
in Schrockh, xxv. 186 — 194. Some writers have inferred that the original
' Prester John ' was a Nestorian priest, who had been raised to the throne
of the Tatar princes; but others, it would seem more probably, look upon
the form ' Prester ' as a western corruption of some Persian, Turkish, or
Mongolian word.
6 e.g. Joinville's Memoirs of St Louis, pp. 477 sq., in Bohn's Chronicles
of the Crusaders.
7 Above, p. 126.
M. A. K

ASIATIC
MISSIONS.

Propagation of the
Gospel in
Tatary.

' Prester
John.'

The anti-
Christian
fury of the
Northmen

130

Limitation of the Church.

[A.D. 814

RAVAGES OP THE
NORTHMEN.

Theirestab-
lishment in
the British
Islands,

andgira-dual con-

Danish and Norwegian vikings), who alighted on the
fairest field of Christendom to cover it with violence and
death1. In their unhallowed thirst for gold they pillaged
almost every church and abbey on their way, in Germany,
in France, in Belgium, in the British Islands; and,
success inflaming their cupidity, they ventured even to
the coasts of Italy and Spain, and came into collision
with the other spoilers of the Church, the Moslems and
the Magyars. Their path was uniformly marked by ruined
towns and castles, by the ashes of the peaceful village
and the bones of its murdered inmates : literature was
trampled down and buried, order and religion were expiring
on all sides ; while the profaneness and brutality of which
the Northmen are convicted baffle or forbid description2.
Nowhere did the tempest fall with greater violence
than on the borders of the British Church3. The inroads
of the Scandinavian vikings form the darkest passage in
her annals. Landing year by year a multiplying swarm
of pirates, they continued to enchain and spoil her from
7874 until the date of the Norman Conquest. After the
disastrous war of 833—851, very many of them left their
barks and settled in the conquered lands, more espe
cially the Northern and the Eastern districts. It now
seemed, indeed, as if the Anglo-Saxon had been destined
to succumb in turn before the ruder spirits of the North,
as he had formerly expelled the British Christians. But
this fear was gradually abated when a number of the
Anglo-Danes, abandoning the gods of the Walhalla, were
1 The best modern account of these miscreants is in Palgrave's Hist.
of Normandy, i. 297 sq.: Lappenberg's Hist, of England under the Anglo-
Saxon Kings, vol. n., and Worsaae's Danes and Norwegians in England,
Scotland, and Ireland: on their inroads into Spain and Portugal, see
Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes en Espana, i. 276, 284 ; ed. Barcelona,
1844. 2 The chronicles of the period give intensity of meaning to the cry of
the persecuted Church: 'A furore Normannorum libera nos.' See Pal
grave, i. 460.
3 .... ' per Angliam et circa illam pervagantes monasteria cum
monachis et sanctimonialibus, ecclesias cum clericis incendere, civitates,
urbes, oppida, villasqne cremare, agros devastare, strages hominum multas
agere, niinime cessabant.' Florent. Wigorn. ad Chron. Append, in Monu
ment. Britan. p. 640.
4 Saxon Chron. ad. an. A simple picture of the barbarities com
mitted by the Danes has been preserved in the after-portions of this
Chronicle.

—1073]

Limitation of the Church.

131

absorbed into the Church. Anterior to the treaty of 878
between the English, under Alfred, and the Northmen,
under Guthrum (Gorm), the latter had been well-affected
to the Gospel ; and his baptism made a way to the
evangelizing of his subjects in East- Anglia, where he
governed till his death, 891 \ After a very short time the
religion of the vanquished was generally adopted by the
Danish settlers in Northumbria. The peace of the Church
and country, consolidated under Edgar, was broken in
upon by new hordes of the heathen under his unhappy
successor. But in the time of the Scandinavian dynasty,
beginning with Cnut the Great2 (1016-1035), the perma
nent Danish settlers, who now might be distinguished
from the lawless viking that was prowling on the seas,
were thoroughly blended with the English population.
Similar results ensued in Scotland3, where, at least among
the Highlands, the majority of settlers were Norwegian,
and united to the crown of Norway : while their brethren,
who had won important colonies in Ireland, were not slow
in copying their example4.
After paralysing all the vigour of the sons of Charle-
magtie by their desultory inroads, many bands of Northmen
settled down in France (circ. 870), and gradually submitted
to the Gospel5. In 876 and following years, their mighty
chieftain, Rollo, wasted all the north and midland provinces,
but, after a most bloody contest, was bought off by the
surrender of a large portion of the Frankish territory of
Neustria (911), and married to a Christian princess. On his
baptism6, in 912, the Gospel was successively diffused in
1 Alfred and Guthrum's Peace, in Thorpe, Anglo-Saxon Laws, 1. 152.
In 942 Odo, whose father was a Dane and fought against the English
under Alfred, occupied the see of Canterbury: and a number of the other
clerics were of Scandinavian blood. Worsaae, 134, 135.
2 On his zeal in extirpating heathenism and in restoring the external
fabric of religion, see LaPPenc>erg, n. 203 sq. Among other proofs of a
better state of things was the institution of a festival in honour of arch
bishop .^Elfheah (Elfeg), who had been deliberately murdered after the
general massacre at Canterbury (1011). Saxon Chron., ad. an. 1012.
8 See above, p. 111. Iona was again a missionary center for the
¦ Christianizing of the southern islands, and the Gospel was at times con
veyed from it to Norway and Iceland. Worsaae, pp. 275, 276.
4 Ibid. pp. 333 sq. Norwegian kings reigned in Dublin, Waterford,
and Limerick, for three centuries, p. 316.
5 Palgrave, 1. 503, 504.
« Ibid. 690.
K2

RAVAGES OP THE
NORTHMEN.

Their es
tablishmentinNorman-

132

Limitation of the Church.

[A.D. 814

PERSE
CUTIONS IN
SPAIN.
and general
conversion. Oppression
of the
Church by
the Mu-

every quarter of the dukedom. Missions1 had been formed
already under Hervd, primate of the Gauls, and Guido,
archbishop of Rouen ; yet, until the final victory of Rollo,
many converts had been ill-instructed in the faith, and not
unfrequently retained their pagan habits and ideas2.
The condition of the Church in the Iberian peninsula
was now less hopeful than in Britain, Germany, or France;
for though at first the Moslems3 did not practice anything
like systematic persecution4, they resisted all the missionary
efforts of the Christians, and by proselyting in their turn
extended the dominion of the caliph5. Nothing daunted
by the checks they had received from Charles Martel,
they sometimes overleapt the Pyrensean barrier; and in
Spain, the mountain-districts, where the Church had taken
refuge, or at least in which alone she dwelt secure and
independent, were contracted more and more by the en
croachments of Islam. She was still more fearfully af
flicted in the gloomy period (850—960), when the Moslems,
irritated in some cases by the vehemence with which their
system was denounced, adopted a more hostile policy, and
panted for the blood of their opponents. At this juncture,
we are told, multitudes6 of Spanish Christians perished
by the scourge or in the flames, exhibiting, indeed, the
firmness of the earliest martyr, but deficient in his calm
forbearance and his holy self-possession. A considerable
section of the Church, desirous of restraining what had
grown into a kind of passion, drew a difference between
these martyrdoms and those of ancient times; and in a
1 See the Pastoral of archbp. Herve', in the Concilia Rothomagensis
Provin., Bouen, 1717. It was based upon instructions given him (900) by
pope John IX. ; Mansi, xviii. 189 sq.
2 In the document above cited the pope speaks distrustfully of men
who had been baptized and re-baptized ; ' et post baptismum gentiHter
vixerint et paganorum more Christianos interfecerint, sacerdotes trucida-
verint, atque simulacris immolanles idolothyta comederint.'
3 See above, p. 32.
4 See the Memoriate Sanctorum of Eulogius, in Schott's Hispania
Illustrata, vol. iv., as adduced by Neander, v. 461, 462; and, on the
general feeling of the Moslems to the Christians at this period, see Conde,
Domination de los Arabes en Espaiia, i. 88, 101, 180; Schrockh, xxi.
293—299 ; Gieseler, n. 305 sq.
6 By intermarriages and other means: see Geddes, Hist, of the Ex
pulsion of the Moriscoes, in his Miscell. Tracts, i. 104 sq.
6 As in the last note, and in the Indiculus Luminosus of Alvar Of
Cordova, passim.

1073]

Limitation of the Church.

133

council1, held at Cordova (852), and prompted, some have
said, by Abdu-r-Rahman II., it was ruled that, for the
future, Christians, under persecution, should not rush un
bidden to the danger, but should wait until the summons
of the magistrate compelled them to assert their faith. The
ultimate predominance of these, and other like pacific coun
sels, gradually disarmed the fury of the Moslems ; and the
bleeding Church of Spain enjoyed an interval of rest.
1 Mansi, xiv. 969. Eulogius, however, afterwards (859) the victim
of his stern and unflinching hatred of Islamism, has denounced this
synod as unlawful: Memoriale Sanct. lib. n. c. 15: cf. his Apologeticus
pro Martyribus adversus Calumniatores, where he vigorously defends the
conduct of the most fanatic martyrs. He was followed in this line by
Alvar, his biographer.

PERSE
CUTIONS IN
SPAIN.

( 134 )

[A.D. 814

CHAPTER VI.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN
CHURCH.

§ 1. INTERNAL ORGANIZATION.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
Monarchical form of
the Western
Church.

Promoted by the
' Forged
Decretals.'

The form of government prevailing in the Western, as
distinguished from the Eastern Church, was threatening to
become an absolute autocracy. This change is due entirely
to the growth of the papal usurpations, which almost
reached a climax under Hildebrand, or Gregory VII. (1073).
The Romanizing spirit of the west will consequently form
a leading item in our sketch of the internal constitution of
the Christian body at this period of its progress.
The attention of the reader should especially be drawn
to one of the mightiest engines in the triumphs of the
papacy, a series of Decretals, known as the Pseudo-Isidore1,
1 Cf. the allusions to this series above, p. 41, n. 1; p. 59, n. 2.
Some of the documents had already appeared in the collection of Dio-
nysius Exiguus (circ. 526), and others in a later one ascribed to Isidore
of Seville : but the impostor [Mohler, Schriften und Aussatze, I. 309,
makes him only a romanticist !] who had assumed the name of Isidore, at
the begirming of the 9th century, fabricated many others, and professed
to carry back the series of papal rescripts as far as a.d. 93. A large
portion of these were afterwards received into the Boman canon-law.
See Spittler's Gesckichte des canon. Rechts bis auf die Zeiten des falschen
Isidorus : Werken, i. 220 sq. Halle, 1778. It is almost certain that the
Pseudo-Isidore decretals were first published, as a body, in Austrasia,
and in the interest of the see of Mentz ; between the years 829 and 845 ;
though some of them appear to have been circulated separately in the
time of Charlemagne. The forgery has been imputed to Eiculf, arch
bishop of Mentz 787 — 814; but it is more probably due to the deacon
Benedict who lived in the time of archbishop Otgar of Mentz, 826 — 847.
See Bobertson, Church History, n. 268, 269; Gieseler, n. 331, n. 12;

—1073]

Constitution of the Church.

135

which had been fabricated, in some measure out of the
existing canons, at the close of the eighth century or the
beginning of the ninth; and in the latter period, after
suffering fresh interpolations, were made current in the
churches of the west. While tending to exaggerate the
power and privileges of the sacerdotal order generally,
they strengthened more and more the aspirations of the
papal see1, by representing it, on the authority of ancient
usage, as the sole and irresponsible directress of the
theocratic system of the Church. As early2 as 857, the
Pseudo-Isidore decretals had been openly enlisted to repress
ecclesiastical commotions3, and to settle questions of the
day; and subsequently to the year 864 4, they were adduced
in many of the papal rescripts, — it would seem, with no
shadow of misgiving.
Prior to this date the claims to supremacy of power, so
steadily advanced by the adherents of the Roman church,
were seldom carried out to their natural results. Under
Stephen V. (816), Paschal I. (817), Eugenius II. (824),
Valentine (827), Gregory IV.5 (827), Sergius II.6 (844),
Guizot, Led. xxvii. The first person who critically impugned the genu
ineness of the collection (as distinguished from its binding force) was Peter
Comestor in the 12th century ; but the cheat was not generally exposed
until the time of the Beformation, when the Magdeburg Centuriators
(cent. n. u. 7, cent. in. u. 7) pointed out the almost incredible ana
chronisms and other clumsy frauds by which the bulk of the decretals
are distinguished. They have since been openly abandoned by Bel-
larmine, de Pontif. Roman, lib. 11. c. 14; Baronius, Annal. Eccl. ad
an. 865, § 8; Fleury, Hist. Eccl. torn. xin. Disc. Prelim, p. 15.
1 e.g. 'Quamobrem sancta Bomana Ecclesia ejus [i.e. S. Petri]
merito Domini voce consecrata, et sanctorum Patrum auctoritate robo-
rata, primatum tenet omnium ecclesiarum, ad quam tarn summa episco
porum negotia et judieia atque querelas, quam et majores ecclesiarum
quasstiones, quasi ad caput, semper referenda sunt.' Vigilii ep. ad Pro-
jut-arum, c. 7 ; cf. Mansi, ix. 29, note.
2 Cf. above, p. 41, n. 4.
3 e. g. Hincmar, who afterwards questioned their binding force, when
cited by the popes against himself, could hold them out notwithstanding
as a warning to church-robbers ('raptores et prasdones rerum ecclesiasti-
carum'): Epist. Synodal, in Mansi, xv, 127.
4 Gieseler, 11. 333, n. 15.
6 The important letter (Mabillon, Vet. Aval. p. 298) bearing the
name of this pope and addressed to bishops everywhere, is at the least
of questionable authority: Jaffe", Regest. Pontif. Rom. p. 227. One clause
of it runs thus : ' Cum nulli dubium sit, quod non solum pontificalia
causatio, sed omnis sanctas religionis relatio ad sedem apostolicam, quasi
ad caput, debet referri et inde normam sumere.'
6 An ' anti-pope ' (John), chosen ' satis imperito et agresti populo,'

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

136

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

given to the
Papalusurpa tions by
Nicholas I.

Leo IV.1 (847), Benedict III.2 (855), they had made no
measurable progress : but when Nicholas I. (858-867) was
seated on the throne, the theory of papal grandeur, which
had long been floating in the mind of western Christendom,
began to be more clearly urged and more consistently
established3. In the course of his reign, however, he ex
perienced more than one indignant check4 from the resist
ance of a band of prelates who stood forward to uphold the
independence of provincial churches, and the ancient honour
of the crown. The staunchest of these anti-papal champions
was the Frankish primate Hincmar5: but they could not
was interpolated after Gregory IV., but soon afterwards expelled, ab
' urbis principibus.' Liber Pontif. ed Vignol. in. 39, 40. Sergius (844)
appointed a vicar for all the transalpine provinces; cf. his Epistle in
Mansi, xiv. 806.
1 On the death of Leo IV. the papal chair is said to have been occu
pied by a female pope, Johanna (Johannes Anglicus) : but as the story,
in addition to its great improbability on chronological and other grounds,
is not fouDd in any writer of the period, or for centuries later, it is now
almost universally rejected by the critics. Prior to the Beformation,
few, if any, doubted the existence of the papess. See the evidence fairly
stated in Schrockh, xxn. 75 — 110; Gieseler, n. 220, n. I. The story
may have possibly originated in the soft or dissolute lives of men like
John VIII. and his later namesakes.
2 Another ' anti-pope ' Anastasius was elected on the death of Benedict
III., but speedily deposed. Liber Pontif. in. 154.
3 One of the earliest indications of this purpose may be found in a
rescript (863), where the primacy of Hincmar (of Bheims) is confirmed
on the express condition, ' si tarn in prassenti quam semper, in nullo ab
apostolicce sedis praceptionibus quoquomodo discrepaverit.' Mansi, xv.
375. On the vast influence exercised by Nicholas I. in the establish
ment of the ultra-papal claims, see Planck, Geschichte des Pabstlmms von
der mitte des neunten Jahrhunderts an, I. 35 — 147 ; Milman, Latin Chris
tianity, bk. 5, ch. 4; Neander, vi. 10 sq.
4 e.g. the account in the Appendix to the Annates Bertiniani (Pertz,
I. 463), when the two Frankish archbishops, Gunthar of Cologne and
Thietgaud of Trfeves, protested against the sentence which the pope had
passed in condemnation of themselves and the synod of Metz (863). But
as the Frankish promoters were abetting the illicit union of the king
Lothair II. with his mistress, Waldrade, their resistance was deprived of
all moral force, and was eventually conducive to the despotism of Ni
cholas : cf. Milman, n. 301 sq. For the peremptory proceedings of the
Roman synod on this question, see Mansi, xv. 651.
6 He had doposed the, bishop of Soissons, Bothad, in 863, notwith
standing his appeal to Bome, and when this prelate in the following year
detailed his grievances before a Boman synod, the pope was able in the
end to effect his restoration (Jan. 22, 865) : Lib. Pontif. in. 207; Mansi,
xv. 693. It was on this occasion that Nicholas entrenched himself
behind the Pseudo-Isidore decretals: 'Absit ut cujuscumque [pontificis
Bomani], qui in fide catholica perseveravit, vel decretalia constituta vel
de ecclesiastica disciplina quaslibet exposita non amplectamur opuscula,

—1073]

Constitution of the Church.

137

keep their ground in opposition to the centralizing spirit
of the age; particularly when that spirit had evoked the
forged decretals, and consigned them to intrepid pontiffs
such as Nicholas I.
A slight reaction, it is true, occurred under Hadrian
II. (867), when the zeal of Hincmar stirred him up afresh
to counteract1 the imperious measures of the Roman church,
and warn it of the tendency to schism which its frequent
intermeddling in the business of the empire could not fail
to have excited. Still, on the accession of pope John VIII.
(872), it entered into closer union2 with the reigning house
of France, and in spite of the remonstrances of Hincmar
and of other prelates like him, it continually enlarged the
circle of its power. John VIII. was succeeded by Marinus 1. 3
quas dumtaxat et antiquitus sancta Bomana ecclesia conservans nobis
quoque custodienda mandavit, et penes se in suis archivis recondita
veneratur...decretales epistolas Bomanorum pontificum sunt recipiendas,
etiamsi non sunt canonum codici compaginatas.'
1 See his bold letter to Hadrian II. (870) in Hincmar, Opp. 11. 689,
ed. Sirmond. Hadrian had come forward to defend the cause of the
emperor Louis II., and even threatened to place the adherents of Charles
the Bald under an anathema: Mansi, xv. 839. Another specimen of
Hincmar's independence is the letter written in the name of Charles the
Bald to Hadrian II. (Hincmar, Opp. n. 701), who had interfered in behalf
of Hincmar's nephew (Hincmar, bishop of Laon), after he was deposed
by the synod of Douzi (Duziacum) in 871: Mansi, xvi. 569 sq. In this
case also the assumptions of the pontiff had been based on the pseudo-
Isidore decretals, which led Hincmar (though not critical enough to see
their spuriousness) to draw an important difference between merely papal
rescripts and the laws of the Christian Church when represented in a
General Council: cf. Hincmar's Opuscul. lv. Capitulorum adv. Hincmar.
Laud.: Opp. n. 377 sq.
3 John VHL, in 876, approved the conduct of Hincmar in deposing
his unworthy nephew (Mansi, xvn. 226), and afterwards espoused the
cause of Charles the Bald, whom he crowned as emperor. The tone of
Charles was altered by this step, and he permitted the appointment of a
papal vicar with the right of convoking synods, notwithstanding the
remonstrances of Hincmar (Opp. n. 719). The prodigious powers of this
legate may be gathered from the following statement : ' ut, quoties utili-
tas ecclesiastica dictaverit, sive in evocanda synodo, sive in aliis negotiis
exercendis per Gallias et per Germanias apostolica vice fruatur, et de-
creta sedis apostolieas per ipsum episcopis manif esta efficiantur : et rursus
quas gesta fuerint ejus relatione, si necesse fuerit, apostolieas sedi pand-
antur, et majora negotia ac difficiliora quseque suggestione ipsius a sede
apostolica disponenda et enucleanda quasrantur:' cf. Gieseler, 11. 348,
n. 31. 3 This was the first pope, who before his elevation to that rank had
actually been made a bishop. Annal. Fuldens. a.d. 882 (Pertz, 1. 397),
where the election is spoken of as ' contra statuta canonum.'

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

His succes
sors.

138

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Corrupted
state of the
Papacy.

(882), Hadrian III. (884), Stephen VI. (885), Formosus1
(391', Boniface VI. (896), Stephen VII. (896), Romanus
(897), Theodore II. (897), John IX. (898), Benedict IV.
(900), Leo. V. (903), Christopher (903), Sergius III. (904),
Anastasius III. (911), Lando (913), John X.2 (914),
Leo VI. (928), Stephen VIII. (929), John XI. (931),
Leo VII. (936), Stephen IX. (939), Marinus II. (942),
Agapetus II. (916), John XII.3 (955). They fill what is
to be regarded as the vilest and the dreariest passage in
the annals of the papacy; yet notwithstanding the deci
sive language in which the sins and corruptions4 of the
Roman church were censured here and there, it kept its
hold on the affections of the masses, and continually made
good its claim to a supremacy of power5.
At the close of a second troublous period, during which
the see of Rome was governed, as before, by lax and

1 The corpse of Formosus was exhumed by Stephen VII. and all his
official acts annulled. Chroi. S. Benedict. (Pertz, v. 204: cf . i. 53, 412).
But although these proceedings were in turn condemned (898) by John
IX. (Mansi, xvin. 221), a long and disgraceful contest was kept up be
tween the advocates and enemies of Formosus.
2 In the Pontificate of John X. and those of his immediate succes
sors, the Boman Church was at the mercy of a band of unprincipled
females. See Schrockh, xxn. 242 sq. Dollinger, in. 136. When we
have made a large abatement for the credulity of the Italian chronicler
Luitprand, who was a contemporary (see his Antapodosis, in Pertz, v.
273 sq.), enough will be left to prove the horrible degeneracy and the
unblushing licence of the Boman see at this period of its history : cf . the
treatise of Ratherius, bishop of Verona, de Contemptu Canonum (in
D'Achery's Spicilegium, I. 347 sq.). He speaks of the utter corruption
of morals as extending ' a vilissimo utique ecclesias usque ad prasstantis-
simum, a laico usque ad pontificem (pro nef as !) summum. '
3 Iniquity reached a climax in this pontiff, who was raised to the
papal throne at the age of eighteen. He was deposed (Dec. 4, 963) by the
emperor Otho (Luitprand, De rebus Gestis Othonis, in Pertz, v. 342), who
secured the appointment of Leo VIII. and maintained him at the helm
of the Western church, in spite of the opposition of both John XII. and
Benedict V.: Mansi, xvin. 471; Luitprand, ubi sup. v. 20; Contin. Regi-
non. Chron. A.D. 964 (Pertz, I. 626).
4 The centre of this party was Arnulph, archbishop of Orleans: see
Neander, vi. 33 sq. His freer spirit was imbibed by Gerbert, who in 999
was himself raised to the papal chair, and took the name of Silvester II. ,
but his brief reign (of four years) prevented him from carrying out bis
projects of reform. Ibid, and Hock's Gerbert oder papst Sylvester II.
und sein Jahrhundert, ed. Wien, 1837.
6 The synod of Bheims (991) furnished an almost solitary instance of
contempt for the papal jurisdiction. Mansi, xix. 109 sq. ; Bicher (in
Pertz, v. 636 sq.).

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Constitution of the Church.

139

worthless rulers,— Leo VIII. (963-965), Benedict V. (964),
John XIII. (985), Benedict VI.1 (972), Benedict VII. (974),
John XIV.2 (983), Boniface VII. (934), John XV. (935),
Gregoiy V.3 (993), Silvester II. (999), John XVII. (1003),
John XVIII. (1003), Sergius IV. (1009), Benedict VIII.4
(1012), John XIX. (1024), Benedict IX.6 (1033), Gre
gory VI. (1045), Clement II. (1046), Damasus II. (1048),
— there had grown up in almost every country a desire to
promote a reformation of the Church, to counteract the
spread of secularity, and put an end to the ravages of
discord and corruption. But it chanced that the master
spirit of this healthier movement had been trained from
his very Cradle in the tenets of the Pseudo-Isidore de
cretals, and the reader will accordingly perceive, that all
the efforts he originated for the extirpation of abuses,
were allied with a strong determination to extend the
dominions of the papacy, by making it, as far as might
be, independent of the German empire. Such was the in
cessant aim of Hildebrand6, who, long before his elevation
to the papal throne, directed the reforming policy, as well
1 He was put to death by the lawless faction, headed by the females
above mentioned, p. 138, n. 2. Bespecting Donus or Domnus, who is
said to have succeeded for a few days, see Jafte, pp. 331, 332.
2 John XIV. was starved to death, or executed (984) by Boniface VII.
his successor (Rerum Ital. Script, ed. Muratori, in. ii. 333 — 335), who
had been consecrated pope as early as 974, but soon afterwards expelled.
Heriman. Chron. a.d. 974 (Pertz, vn. 116).
3 After the consecration of Gregory V. his place was seized (997) by
an 'antipope' (John XVI., called Calabritanus andPhilagathus), but the
intruder was in turn defeated and barbarously mutilated. Vit. S. Nili
(Pertz, vi. 616).
4 This pope was, in like manner, supplanted for a time (1012) by an
'antipope,' Gregory. Thietmar. Chron. lib. vi. c. 61 (Pertz, v. 835).
5 Benedict IX., one of the most profligate of the pontiffs, owed his
elevation to the gold of his father. At the time of his election he did
not exceed the age of twelve years. Heriman. Chron. (Pertz, vn. 121),
Glaber Badulphus, Hist. lib. iv. c. 5 : lib. v. c. 5 (in Bouquet's Histo
rians des Gaules, etc. x. 50 sq.). In 1045 he sold the popedom (see author
ities in Jaffe\ pp. 361, 362), but seized it afresh in 1047: so that with an
'antipope' (Silvester III. 1044—1046) and Gregory VI. (who was ap
pointed in 1045, on the retirement of Benedict IX.) there were now
three rival popes. All of them were deposed by the Synod of Sutri
(1046), at the instance of the emperor Henry III. See the account of
Desiderius (afterwards pope Victor III.), De Miraculis, etc. dialogi (in
Biblioth. Patr. ed. Lugdun. xvin. pp. 853 sq.).
6 He was seconded throughout by Peter Damiani, cardinal bishop of
Ostia, who was equally anxious to abolish simony, to check the immoral
ity of the priesthood, and to widen the dominions of the pope.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Desire of
reforma
tion.

The ' re
forming' party advo
cate the ul
tra-papal
claims.

140

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Effect of
these claims
on the me
tropolitan
constitution.

as the encroachments of successive pontiffs. — Leo IX.
(1048), Victor II. (1054), Stephen X. (1057), Benedict X.
(1058), Nicholas II.1 (1059), and Alexander II. (1061-1073).
A field was thus preparing for that mighty conflict of
the secular and sacerdotal powers, which was doomed
under Gregory VII. to agitate the Christian Church in
every province of the west.
But while the arm of the papacy grew stronger in
proportion to the weakness of the Carolingian monarchs ;
while it rapidly extended its possessions, in the east as far
as Hungary, and up to Greenland in the north, the augmen
tation of its power was followed, as a natural result, by the
curtailment of the privileges of the metropolitan bishops.
Hincmar felt these fresh invasions more acutely than
his neighbours: he objected to the intermeddling of the
pontiff in the case of an appeal to Rome, upon the ground
that such an act was fatal to episcopacy2 in general; and
when afterwards a papal vicar, with extraordinary powers,
was nominated for the GalTican and German churches,
the same class of prelates openly disputed the appointment;
they protested that they would not acquiesce in novelties
put forward by the delegate of Rome, except in cases
where his claims to jurisdiction could be shewn to be
compatible with ancient laws and with the dignity of
metropolitans3. A recent law demanding vows of absolute
obedience to the pope4, on the conferring of the pallium,

1 This pontiff, on the death of the emperor (Henry III.) effected an
important change in the relations of the papacy, by which it was deter
mined that the pope should in future be elected by the cardinals (bishops,
priests, and deacons), with the concurrence of the rest of the Boman
clergy and laity, and subject to an ill-defined acquiescence of the em
peror. See the best version of this act in Pertz, Leges, n. Append.
p. 177: and cf. Hallam, Middle Ages, n. 180 (10th ed.).
2 ' Hanc tenete,' are the words he puts into the mouth of his Boman-
izing nephew, ' et eviudicate mecum compilation em [i.e. the Pseudo-
Isidore decretals], et nulli nisi Eomano pontifici debebitis subjecjtionem ;
et dissipabitis mecum Dei ordinationem in communis episcopalis ordinls
discretam sedibus dignitatem.' Hincmar, Opp. ii. 559, 560.
3 Hincmar, Opp. n. 719.
4 Cf. above, p. 136, n. 3. The first case on record is that of Anskar
the apostle of the North. He had received the pallium as archbishop of
Hamburg (above, p. 103), without any such condition: but when Ni
cholas I. (864) confirmed the union of the two sees of Hamburg and Bre
men (above, p. 104), he announced to Anskar that it was granted on
condition, that himself and his successors not only acknowledge the six

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Constitution of the Church.

141

served to deepen this humiliation of the Western primates ;
and in newly-planted churches, where the metropolitan
constitution was adopted, under Roman influence, it was
seldom any better than a shadow. Though the primates
usually confirmed the bishops of their province, and were
still empowered to receive appeals from them and from
their synods, they were rigorously watched, and overruled
in all their sacred functions, by the agents or superior
mandates of the Pope1. The notion had diffused itself on
every side, that he was the 'universal bishop' of the Church2,
that he was a.ble to impart some higher kind of absolution3
than the ordinary priest or prelate, and was specially
commissioned to redress the wrongs of all the faithful.
It may be that his intervention here and there was bene
ficial, as a counterpoise to the ambition of unworthy
metropolitans, protecting many of their suffragans and
others from the harshness of domestic rule: but on the
-contrary we should remember that the pontiffs also had
their special failings, and the growth of their appellate
jurisdiction only added to the scandals of the age. It
general councils, but profess on oath to observe with all reverence
' decreta omnium Bomanas sedis prsesulum et epistolas quas sibi delatas
fuerint.' Lappenberg, Hamb. Urkunden-buch, 1. 21. In 866 Nicholas
was under the necessity of upbraiding Hincmar, among other acts of dis
respect, for not using the pallium 'certis temporibus:' Mansi, xv. 753.
On the rapid alteration of the views of prelates with regard to the im
portance of this badge, see Pertsch (as above, p. 37), p. 145.
1 Among the latest champions for the metropolitan system in its
struggle with the papacy, were the archbishops of Milan: see the con
temporary account of Arnulph (a Milanese historian), in Muratori, Re-
rum Ital. Script, iv. 11 sq. When Peter Damiani and Anselm, bishop of
Lucca, were sent as papal legates to Milan in 1059, this protesting spirit
was peculiarly awakened : ' Factione clericorum repente in populo mur
mur exoritur, non debere Ambroslanam ecclesiam Romanis legibus sub-
jacere, nuttumque judicandi vel disponendi jus Romano pontifici in ilia
sede competere. '. Damiani, Opusc. v. Opp. m. 75 : Mansi, xix. 887 sq. :
cf. Neander, on the whole of this movement; vi. 62 — 70.
2 ' Summum pontificem et universalem papam, non unius urbis sed
totius orbis:' cf. Schrockh, xxn. 417, 418. The condemnation of orders
Conferred by Scottish teachers, which was issued by the Councils of Ch£-
lons (813), c. 43 (Labbe, vn. 1270); and of Cealchythe (816), c. 5
(Councils, &c. in. 581), cannot be understood as indicating any resist
ance 'to papal jurisdiction specially maintained by the Scots ; but must
be regarded as a precaution for securing the purity of the succession and
the regular authority of the diocesans. It is really to be viewed as a
measure of the same sort as the disuse of Chorepiscopi.
3 See examples in Gieseler, n. 384, 385.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
v  ,
Its virtual
supersession.

142

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

was not, however, till a period somewhat later that these
features of the papal system, traceable to the ideas which
gave birth to the 'spurious decretals,' were unfolded in
their ultimate and most obnoxious shape.
The organizing of the several dioceses had continued
as of old. The bishop1 was, at least in theory, the father
and the monarch of his charge. But the effects of his
episcopate were often damaged 2 or destroyed by his utter
inexperience, by the secularization of his heart, and his
licentious habits. It is clear that not a few of the Western
prelates had been wantonly obtruded on ' their flocks,
through private interest and family connexions, or indeed,
in many cases, through the open purchase of their sees
from the imperial power. By this kind of bishops the
disease that had been preying on the Church for centuries
was propagated still more widely ; and those prelates who
were far less criminal allowed themselves to be entangled
in the business of the State, to the abandonment of higher
duties. Yet, in spite of this unhappy prevalence of epis
copal delinquency, occasional exceptions meet us in all
branches of the Church: the synodal enactments3 that
., , 1 The chorepiscopi, whom we saw expiring in the former period
(p. 46, n. 2), lingered here and there. The synod of Paris (829) com
plains of them (lib. i. c. 27) as wishing to intrude into1;he province of
the bishops. Nicholas I. in 864 (Mansi, xv. 390) directs that ordinations
made by them should not be rescinded, but that in future they should
abstain from every function that was peculiar to the episcopate: cf. a
rescript of 865 (Ibid. xv. 462), and one of Leo VII., about 937 (Ibid.
xvin. 379), in which a like prohibition is repeated. The synod of Metz
(888), can. 8, directs that churches consecrated by chorepiscopi only
shall he consecrated anew by the bishop : ibid. xvin. 80.
2 A child of five years old was made archbishop of Bheims (925).
The see of Narbonne was purchased for another at the age of ten.
Hallam, Middle Ages, n. 172. His statement, from Vaissfete, that it
was almost general in the Western church to have bishops under twenty,
is, of course, an exaggeration. The following picture is drawn by Atto,
bishop of Vercelli (about 950), in D'Achery's Spicileg. i. 421 : ' Illorum
sane, quos ipsi [i.e. principes] eligunt, vitia, quamvis multa et magna
sint, velut nulla tamen reputantur. Quorum quidem in examinatione
non charitas et fides vel spes inquiruntur, sed divitia, affinitas et obse-
quium eonsiderantur.' And again, p. 423 : ' Quidam autem adeo mente
et corpore obesecantur ut ipsos etiam parvulos ad pastoralem promovere
curam non dubitent,' etc.
3 e.g. A synodal letter of the pope to the bishops of Brittany (848),
Mansi, xiv. 882, or still earlier, the reforming synod of Paris, 829, at
which three books of more stringent canons were drawn up. The Council
of Pavia (Papiense or Ticinense), held in 850, among other salutary
injunctions prohibiting episcopal extortion and intemperance, directed

—1073]

Constitution of the Church.

143

acquaint us with the spread of evil testify no less to the
existence of a nobler class of bishops, actively engaged in
their sacred avocations and deploring the enormities around
them. As we readily foresee, the mass of the parochial clergy1
were infected by the ill example of the prelate. They had
taken holy orders, in some cases, from unworthy motives,
chiefly with a view to qualify themselves for the acceptance
of the tempting church-preferment, which had rapidly in
creased in value since the time of Charlemagne. Others
gained possession of their benefices through the help of
unhallowed traffic with the patron, or descendant of the
founder, of a church. This crime of simony, indeed, was
one of the most flagrant characteristics of the age2. It
urged a multitude of worthless men to seek admission into
orders solely as the shortest way to opulence and ease :
while some of them, regardless of propriety, are said to
have farmed out the very offerings of their flock3, and
pawned the utensils of the church4.
Nor were other seculars more scrupulous, and worthy
of their calling. The itinerating priests5, whom we en-
that bishops should, when possible, celebrate mass every day, should
read fhe Holy Scriptures, explain them to their clergy, and preach on
Sundays and holy-days. Can. 2 — 5. The works of mercy wrought by
individual bishops (such as Badbod of Treves and Ethelwold of Winches
ter) are recounted by Neander, vi. 88, 89, and note.
1 Bowden's Gregory the Seventh, 1. 43 sq. ' Ipsi primates utriusque
ordinis in avaritiam versi, coeperunt exercere plurimas, ut olira fecerant,
vel etiam eo amplius rapinas cupiditatis: deinde mediocres ac minores
exemplo majorum ad immania sunt flagitia devoluti.' Glaber Badul-
phus, Hist. lib. iv. c. 5.
2 Cf. above, p. 143, n. 2. It began to be prevalent as early as 826
(Pertz, Leges, 11. App. pp. 11 sq.). It was denounced by Leo IV. (circ.
850) in the letter to the bishops of Brittany (Mansi, xiv. 882). Subse
quently it grew up to an enormous pitch (Lambert's Annates, a.d. 1063,
1071, in Pertz, vn. 166, 184), and the correction of it was a chief aim of
the reforming movement under Hildebrand, who was resolved to cut it
off, especially in the collation of the crown-preferment. There was also
at this period no lack of pluralists: e.g. two of the archicapella.ni of Louis
the Pious held three abbeys each. Palgrave, Normandy, 1. 239, 247.
3 See Vidaillan, Vie de Greg. VII. 1. 377, Paris, 1867.
4 Hinomar of Rheims was compelled to issue a decree against these
practices. Bowden, as above, p. 49.
» See above, p. 45. The 23rd canon of the council of Pavia (850)
renews the condemnation of these ' clerici acephali :' cf . Life of Bp.
Godehard of Hildesheim, c. rv. §26 (Acta Sanct. Maii, I. 511), where
they are said to wander to and fro ' vel monachico vel canonico vel etiam
Greco habitu.'

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Degeneracyof the paro
chialclergy :

and of
others,

144

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

INTERNA!,
ORGANIZA TION.

more espe
cially in
Italy.

Decay of
the order of
Canons.

countered in the former period, still continued to produce
disorder on all sides. They were not, however, so de
graded as the larger class of chaplains, who are said to
have literally swarmed in the houses of the gentry1. Very
frequently of servile origin, they were employed by the
feudal lords in humble, and, at times, in menial occupations,
which exposed them to the ridicule of the superior clergy,
and destroyed their proper influence on society at large.
It is not therefore surprising, that so many councils of
this age unite in deploring the condition of both morals
and intelligence in the majority of the ecclesiastics. This
degeneracy was most of all apparent in the church of
Italy2, and, in the early years of Hildebrand, the clergy of
the Roman see are mentioned as preeminent in every species
of corruption3. There as elsewhere nearly all the healthier
impulse that was given to the sacred orders by the energy
of Charlemagne, had been lost in the ensuing troubles
which extinguished the dominion of his house (887).
The decline of the cathedral canons4 is a further illus
tration of this change. Materialized by the prevailing
lust of wealth, they strove to make themselves completely
1 The following is a picture of them drawn by Agobard, archbp. of
Lyons, in his De privilegio et jure Sacerdotii, u. xi. : ' Fosdi'tas nostri
temporis omni lachrymarum fonte ploranda, quando increbuit consue-
tudo impia, ut pane nullus inveniatur quantulumcunque proficiens ad
honores et gloriam temporalem, qui non domesticum habeat sacerdotem,
non cui obediat, sed a quo incessanter exigat licitam simul atque illici-
tam obedientiam, ita ut plerique inveniantur qui aut ad mensas minis-
trent,' etc.
2 See the works of Batherius, a reforming bishop of Verona (who died
in 924), in D'Achery's Spicilegium, I. 345 sq. The ignorance and immo
rality of his own clergy, and of the Italians generally, appear to have
been almost incredible. Another eye-witness speaks in the same strain
of the Milanese ecclesiastics : ' Istis temporibus inter clericos tanta erat
dissolutio, ut alii uxores, alii meretrices publice tenerent, alii venatio-
nibus, alii aucupio vacabant, partim foenerabantur in publico, partim in
vicis tabernas exercebant cunctaque ecclesiastica beneficia more pecu-
dum vendebant.' Life of Ariald (a vehement preacher, who fell a victim
to his zeal in 1067), § 2, in Puricelli's History of the Milanese Church;
Milan, 1657. The same scandals and corruptions were prevailing at thig
period in the East: e.g. Neale, Church of Alexandria, n. 190, 211.
3 Hildebrand's uncle would not allow him to complete his education
there, ' ne Bomanas urbis corruptissimis tunc moribus (ubi omnis pane
clerus aut simoniacus erat aut concubinarius, aut etiam vitio utroque
sordebat) inquinaretur astas tenera,' etc. See Vidaillan, Vie de Greg. i.
372. 4 Cf. above, p. 44.

Constitution of the Church.

—1073] independent of the bishop; and as soon as they had gained
the power of managing their own estates1, we see them
falling back into the usual mode of life2, except in the
two particulars of dwelling near each other in the precincts
of the cathedral, and dining at a common table. As
a body, they had lost their ancient strictness, and were
idle, haughty, and corrupt. The failure of all attempts to
effect a general reform of the existing bodies resulted in
the formation, under the influence of Ivo of Chartres, of a
new order, the canons regular of St Augustine, very closely
resembling Benedictine monachism.
In this connexion we may touch on a kindred point,
the marriage, or in other cases the concubinage, of clerics.
At no period did the law of celibacy find a general ac
ceptance3, notwithstanding the emphatic terms in which it
was repeated4; and when Hildebrand commenced his task
as a reformer, aiming chiefly at ecclesiastical delinquents,
numbers of the bishops and the major part of the country-
clergy6 were exposed to his stern reproaches. In some

1 The earliest instance on record is the chapter of Cologne, whose
independence was confirmed by Lothair in 866, and afterwards by a
council at Cologne in 873: Mansi, xvn. 275; cf. Gieseler, n. 387 (note).
a The following is the language of Ivo, the holy bishop of Chartres,
who wrote about 1090 : ' Quod vero communis vita in omnibus ecclesiis
pasne defeeit, tarn civilibus quam diocesanis, nee auctoritati sed desuetu-
dini et defectui adscribendum est, refrigescente charitate, quas omnia vult
habere communia, et regnante cupiditate, quas non quasrit ea, quas Dei
sunt et proximi, sed tantum quas sunt propria.' Epist. 215. Gieseler,
n. 388. From the Annalis of Hirschau, (J. Trithemius) A. n. 973, we
learn that the example had been set in that year by the canons of
Treves: i. 116, ed. 1690.
3 See above, p. 47.
4 e.g. Canons at Eanham (1009), § 2, where it is affirmed that some of
the English clerics had more wives than one. Johnson, i. 483.
5 e.g. we are told of the Norman prelates and the other clergy: ' Sa-
cerdotes ac summi pontifices libere conjugati et arma portantes ut laici
erant.' Life of Herluin, abbot of Bee, in Mabillon, Ad. Sanct. Ord.
Bened., sasc. vl part n. p. 344. Batherius of Verona (above, p. 144,
n. 2) found it an established custom for the clergy to live in wedlock,
and for their sons to be clergymen in their turn: D'Achery's Spicilegium,
i. 370, 371. Aventinus (Annates Boiorum, lib. v. c. 13, p. 541, ed. Gund-
ling), speaking of this same period, remarks: 'Sacerdotes ilia tempes-
tate publice uxores, sicuti casteri Christiani, habebant, Alios procreabant,
sicut in instrumentis donationum, quas illi templis, mystis, monachis
fejere, ubi has nominatim cum conjugibus testes citantur, et honesto
vocabulo presbyterissa nuncupantur, invenio.' According to Mr Hallam I
(Middle Ages, n. 173) the sons of priests were capable of inheriting by I
M. A. L

145

INTERNA!.
ORGANIZA TION.

ance of cle
rical mar
riages.

146

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
The strug
gle to sup
press them
on the Con
tinent.

Dunstan's
measures
for the
same end.

quarters, and especially at Milan, where the ordinances
against clerical marriage had been rigorously urged, there
was a party1 who contended for the lawfulness of such
alliances, deriving their ideas from the Bible and the
earlier doctors of the Church. But the great body of the
people, blinded by the prejudices of the age2, and disgusted
by the lewdness and corruption which had shewn itself in
spite of the marriage of the clerics, took the side of men
like Hildebrand, abstaining even from the public services
conducted by the married priest3, and indicating their
disapprobation by ridicule and not unfrequently by their
assaults on his property or person4. A like spirit is be
trayed in the still earlier movement that was headed by
the English primate, Dunstan5 (961—988). He was truly
anxious for the moral elevation of his clergy; but the
measures he adopted to secure it were not able to achieve
a permanent success. He hoped to counteract the barbar
ism and immorality around him by abstracting the eccle
siastics from the world, that is, by prohibiting their mar
riage: and this object seemed to him most easy of attain
ment by the substitution of monastic and unmarried clergy
in the place of degenerate seculars and canons6. By his
the laws of France and also of Castile; in the latter country in conse
quence of the indulgence shewn to concubinage in general.
1 See the controversy at length in Neander vi. 61 sq. ; and Milman,
Latin Christianity, in. 13 sq. , who, with many other instances, men
tions the letter of TJlric, bishop of Augsburg (900), to pope Nicholas I. (in
Eccard, n. 23). An actual permission to marry was given to his clergy
by Cunibert, bishop of Turin, himself unmarried, in the hope of preserv
ing his diocese from the general corruption. Ibid. p. 53.
2 These were so strong that even Batherius of Verona looked upon
the man who was ' contra canones uxorius ' in the light of an adulterer.
D'Achery, I. 363. On this account it is not easy to distinguish between
the lawful and illicit connexions of the clergy. Hildebrand, Damiani,
and other zealots spoke of such alliances in general as reproductions of
the ' Nicolaitan heresy.' See Damiani Opuscul. xvin., contra Clericos

In accordance with the bidding of the Council of Lateran (1059) :
Mansi, xix. 907.
4 Arnulph, Hist. Medial, lib. in. e. 9: cf. Fleury, liv. lxi. s. 26.
5 See the accounts in Soames, Anglo-Saxon Church, pp. 195 sq., ed.
1844 : and Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxons, 11. 126 sq.
6 '...statuit [969], et statuendo decretum confirmavit, videlicet ut
canonici omnes, presbyteri omnes, diaconi et subdiaconi omnes, aut caste
viverent aut ecclesias quas tenebant una cum rebus ad eas pertinentibus
perderent.' Oswald, bishop of Worcester, was especially active in carry
ing out this edict, and founded seven monasteries in his own diocese

—1073]

Constitution of the Church.

*A7

influence, and the aid of the civil power which he wielded
at his pleasure, many of the elder clerics were ejected, and
Benedictine monks1 promoted to the leading sees and
richer livings. But soon afterwards, this rash proceeding
led the way to a violent reaction : and the following period
had to' witness many struggles for ascendancy between the
monks and seculars of England. When the latter gained
a victory, we learn that their wives2 were partakers of the
triumph. Contrary to the idea of Dunstan, the corruptions of the
age had found admission even to the cloisters. It was
customary3 for the royal patron of an abbey to bestow it,
like a common estate, on some favourite chaplain of his
court, on parasites or on companions of his pleasures,
paying no regard to their moral character and intellectual
fitness. Others gained possession of the convents by ra
pacity and sold them to the highest bidder, not unfre
quently to laymen4, who resided on them with their wives
and families, and sometimes with a troop of their re
tainers6. It should also be observed, that in the present
alone. ' ...Post hasc in aliis Anglias partibus ad parochiam suam nil per
tinentibus insignes ecclesias ob prasfixam causam clericis evacuavit, et
eas...viris monastics institutionis sublimavit.' Eadmer, Vit. S. Oswaldi
(in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, n. 200).
1 Lappenberg, n. 136, 137. It is by no means easy to disentangle
the several measures taken in the English church for the reform of mo
nasticism and for the improvement of clerical morality in general ; or to
determine what was the action of the statesmanlike mind of Dunstan,
and what of the narrower and severer piety of his followers. But there
is no doubt that Dunstan's personal share in these transactions has been
exaggerated, for he did not turn out the secular clerks of his own cathe
drals, either at Worcester or Canterbury. A great deal of the evidence
for his prohibition of clerical marriages is very questionable. On the
whole question of clerical celibacy treated historically, see Lea's History
of Sacerdotal Celibacy, Philadelphia, 1867.
2 ' Principes plurimi et optimates abbates cum monachis de monas-
teriis, in quibus rex Eadgarus eos locaverat, expulerunt, et clericos, ut
prius, loco eorum cum uxoribus induxerunt.' Matth. Westmonast. Flor.
Hist. p.'193, ed. Francof. 1601.
3 Bowden's Gregory the Seventh, i. 46. It was complained of Charles
the Bald that he gave away religious houses recklessly, ' partim juven-
tute, partim fragihtate, partim aliorum callida suggestione, etiam et
minarum necessitate, quia dicebant petitores, nisi eis ilia loca sacra
donaret, ab eo deficerent.' Epist. Episcoporum ad Ludovicum Regem, in
Baluze, n. 110.
4 Known by the name of abba-comites : cf. Palgrave, Normans, i.
184 sq.
6 Council of Trosli, as below, p. 148, n. 2.
L2

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
Degeneracy of the
monks.

148

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Attempts to
reform
them.Benedict of
A niane.

age, when many of the chief foundations were most anxious
to obtain exemptions from the bishops1, and had no efficient
champions in the Roman see, they were deprived of their
strongest remedy against the evils which beset them. The
appearance of a race of worldly-minded abbots^was the
signal for the relaxation of monastic discipline2 in every
quarter of the west : and this degeneracy produced in turn
the open violation of the rules of St Benedict.
An effort, it is true, was made, as early as 817, under
Louis the Pious, to check these rampant evils in the con
vents of his kingdom. It was mainly stimulated by the
zeal of Benedict3 of Aniane (774-821), who, following at
a humble distance in the steps of the elder Benedict and
borrowing his name, is honoured as the second founder of
monasticism in France4. Disorders of the grossest kind,
however, had continually prevailed until the time of Berno5,
the first abbot of Clugny (910), and Odo6, his successor
(927—941), who endeavoured to effect a thorough reforma
tion. In the hands of the latter abbot, not a few of the
1 See above, p. 42. The privileges actually granted to them did not
at first exempt them from the ordinary jurisdiction of the bishop ;
although he had no longer any power to modify the rules of the frater
nity, e.g. in the Council of Fimes (Concil. apud S. Macram), 881, his
authority is still recognized : for the fourth canon orders that all monas
teries, nunneries, and other religious houses shall be visited by the
bishop and the king's commissioners, and a report drawn up of their
condition. Mansi, xvn. 540. The exemption of the abbey of Clugny
was made absolute by Alexander II. in 1063, and other instances soon
afterwards occurred. Gieseler, n. 420. In the newly-founded Bussian
church the common practice of the East obtained; the bishop having the
sole right of appointing the archimandrites and also of depriving them.
Mouravieff's Hist, of the Russian Church, pp. 359, 360.
2 See the complaints of the council of Trosli (near Soissons) 909,
can. 3, which taxes both the monks and nuns with every species of
excess : Mansi, xvm. 270. The degeneracy is traced to the influence of
the lay-abbots, who were then in possession of nearly all the monasteries
of France. 3 His measures are detailed in a Capitulary (Aquisgranense (817) :
Baluze, i. 579) containing eighty articles, which may be viewed as a com
mentary on the rule of Benedict the elder. See Guizot's remarks upon
it, Led. xxvi. Among other things he urges that 'the reformation of the
sixth century was at once extensive and sublime : it addressed itself to
what was strong in human nature : that of the ninth century was puerile,
inferior, and addressed itself to what was weak and servile in man.'
4 In the Frankish empire at this period there were eighty-three large
monasteries. Dollinger, in. 192.
6 See his Life in MabUlon, Act. Sanct. Ord. Ben. sasc. v. pp. 67 sq.
6 Ibid. pp. 150 sq.

—1073]

Constitution of the Church.

149

ascetic laws were made more stringent and repulsive1:
yet the fame of the order from this period was extended
far and wide2. In spite of an extreme austerity in many
of its regulations, they presented a refreshing contrast to
the general corruption; and their circulation gave a
healthier tone to all the churches of the west3.
The impulse which had led to this revival of the Be
nedictine order, urged a number of congenial spirits to
take refuge in the mountains and the forests, with the
hope of escaping from the moral inundation, or of arming
for a future struggle with the world. Of these we may
notice Romuald4, who in after life became the founder
(circ. 1018) of a large community of hermits, known as
the Camaldulenses ; John Gualbert5, in whose cell the
order of the Coenobites of Vallombrosa had its cradle (circ.
1038) ; and especially the younger Nilus6, a recluse of
Calabria, who stood forward in the tenth century as an
awakening preacher of repentance in his own and in the
neighbouring districts.
§2. RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO THE CIVIL
PO WER.
The influence of the State preponderated as before in
all the Eastern churches. This was shewn especially in
1 Among other changes, the Ordo Cluniacensis observed an almost
unbroken silence 'in ecclesia, dormitorio, refectorio, et coquina.' See
their Consuetudines (circ. 1070) lib. 11. cap. in. De Silentio ; cap. iv. De
signis loquendi ; in D'Achery 's Spicilegium, 1. 670 sq.
2 In the year of his death, Odo left his successor two hundred and
seventy deeds of gift which had been made to the order in thirty- two
years. Dollinger, in. 194. The abbots Majolus and Odilo advanced its
reputation more and more. See the Life of the latter in Mabillon, sasc.
vi. part 1, pp. 631 sq.
3 The greatest difficulty was presented by some of the German mo
nasteries, where the inmates rose into rebellion. See the instances in
Gieseler, n. 415, n. 9. The example, however, of Hanno, archbp. of
Cologne, in 1068, was followed very generally. Lambert of Hersfeld,
Annates in Pertz, vn. 238. The ' congregation of Hirschau ' also sprang
up at this time (1069) : it was based on the rule of Clugny. Bernold's
Chronicon, in Pertz, vn. 451.
4 See his Life in Damiani, Hist. Sanctorum; Opp. 11. 426; and the
Rule of the Camaldulensians, in Holstein's Codex Reg. Monast. n.
192 sq.
5 Life in Mabillon, sasc. vi. part 11. pp. 266 sq.
6 An interesting sketch of his labours is given by Neander, vi. 105 —
110.

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.
Rise of the
Cluniac
monks.

Some other
religious
spirits.

ISO

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Difference between the
East and
West.

Causes of a
movement in the West
against the
supremacy of the
crown.

the appointment of their bishops, who, with the exception
of the patriarchates which still languished under the do
minion of the Saracens, were for the most part chosen
absolutely by the crown. In Russia1 and the other king
doms where the Gospel had been planted by the agency
of Oriental missions, the alliance with the civil power was
also intimate and undisturbed. But it was otherwise in
nearly all the churches of the west. The daring and
aggressive genius of the papacy, which now stood forward
on the plea of acting as their champion, had embarrassed
the alliance on the one side ; while the grasping worldliness
of laymen generally, and the venality or violence with which
the civil power had tampered with the church-preferment2,
seemed to justify the disaffection that arose in every quarter.
Very much of it is traceable to a confusion of ideas re
lating to the temporalities of the Church. The laity, and
more especially the crown, regarded the endowments made
by them or by their predecessors for the service of religion,
in the light of public loans, which still remained at their
disposal; and the practice of conceding to church-founders
what is called the right of patronage", appeared in some
degree to favour this construction. An effect of those
prolific errors might be seen, most glaringly perhaps, on
filling up the vacant sees. In harmony with the pre
vailing feudalism a bishopric was granted at this period
like an ordinary fief4; and emperors, in their capacity of
1 The bishops were usually selected by the prince of the district with
the consent of the superior clergy and the chief of the citizens, and were
then presented to the metropolitan for consecration. Mouravieff's Hist.
by Blackmore, p. 359. The Hungarian bishops, although chiefly foreign
ers at first, and in communion with the Western Church, were similarly
nominated by the crown. Dollinger, m. 35.
2 See above, pp. 143 sq.; and other examples in Gieseler, n. 239,
n. 10. Under Henry IV., the rival of Hildebrand, simony was practised
at the imperial court in the most scandalous manner (e.g. Lambert's
Annates, a.d. 1063, 1071 : Pertz, vn. 166, 184).
3 From the first, however, the privilege of appointing to a church
could not lawfully be exercised without the approval of the bishop of the
diocese, to whose jurisdiction also the new incumbent was made subject
(see Council of Bome, in 826, and again in 853, c. 21; Mansi, xrv. 493,
1006, 1016). But this rule, like others of the kind, was continually
evaded. 4 Besides taking the oath of allegianee, like other vassals, prelates
were on this ground compelled to render to the king a twofold service,
one of following him in time of war, the other of appearing frequently at

—1073]

Constitution of the Church.

15*

suzerain, affected to confer investiture upon the spiritual
as well as on the temporal nobility. So blind were many
of them to the plain distinction between the property and
sacred duties of a see, that their appointment now began
to be confirmed by the delivery of a ring and crozier, —
symbols of the spiritual functions of the bishop. He was
thus insensibly becoming a mere feudatory, or a vassal
of the crown1.
We saw that under Charlemagne2 prelates were again
occasionally chosen in obedience to the ancient canons; and
the clergy lost no opportunity of pleading this concession
in their efforts to retain the freedom it had promised 3.
Still the privilege was scarcely more than verbal at the
best4: and under Otho I., who laboured to curtail the
power of the German and Italian clergy5, it was formally
annulled. He acted on the principle, that popes and

court. They were also amenable to the judicial sentence of the king,
regarded as their liege-lord, and even were at times deposed by him.
Hasse, as below. On the state of feeling with regard to the participa
tion of ecclesiastics in the wars, see Neander, vr. 83 sq.
1 Hasse's Life of Anselm, by Turner, p. 53, Lond. 1850: see Church's
Essays (from the Christian Remembrancer), and his Life of Anselm. As
consecration was subsequent to investiture, the jurisdiction of the prelate
seemed to be derived from the state. The indignation of the Hildebran-
dine party at this juncture may be gathered from Humbert's treatise
Adversus Simoniacos, lib. m. c. 11 (in Martene's Thesaurus Anecdot. torn.
v. p. 787).
2 Above, p. 53.
3 Thus, at the Council of Valence (855), c. 7 (Mansi, xv. 7), it was
decreed that ' on the death of a bishop, the monarch should be requested
to allow the clergy and the community of the place to make an election
according to the canons.' But the synod goes on to intimate that mon-
archs not unfrequently sent a nominee of their own, and that their per
mission was in all cases needed before an election could take place. See
the energetic letter of Hincmar to Louis III. of France, on the subject of
royal interference in elections: Opp. torn. n. p. 190.
4 Bowden, Life of Gregory, 1. 45 : cf . Guizot, n. 320.
6 Vidaillan, Vie de Greg. VII. 1. 365, 366. After deposing pope
Benedict V. (964) and restoring Leo VIII., Otho held a council at Bome,
which, in his presence, granted him and his descendants the right of
choosing the popes in future, and of giving investiture to the bishops of
the empire. See the acts of this council in Luitprand, de Rebus Gestis
Ottonis, c. 10 sq. (Pertz, v. 342) : and De Marca, De Concordia, lib. viii.
c. 12, § 10. This decree was prompted by the growth and bitterness of
the political factions which at that time were convulsing every part of
Italy. But acts of violence among the populace were not uncommon, at
an earlier period, in the filling up of vacant sees: e.g. the decree of Ste
phen V. (816), in Mansi, xiv. 147.

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Nomina
tions to
vacant

152

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Encroachments on
the side of
theChurch :

bishops were like other functionaries of the empire, and
as such were subject to his beck. These fresh assumptions
were indeed renounced by Henry II., but soon afterwards
repeated : and it was on the absolute appointment of pope
Leo IX. (1049) by Henry III. of Germany, that Hilde
brand at length emerged from private life, to bring the
struggle to a crisis. He was able in 1059, while engaged
as the subdeacon of the Roman church, to wrest the nomi
nation of the popes entirely from the civil power1, although
reserving to it for the present a precarious right of con
firmation. But this partial victory incited him the more
to persevere in his original design of compassing what
he esteemed the ancient freedom of the Church. Accord
ingly, as soon as he was elevated to the papal throne, he
hastened to prohibit every form of ' lay-investiture :' and
the dispute which he had thus embittered was not closed
for half a century2.
While it is plain that the civil power exceeded its
own province in suppressing the episcopal elections and
in arbitrary misappropriation of the other church-prefer
ment, there was also an aggressive movement on the side
of the ecclesiastics. This, indeed, is the most prominent
and startling feature of the times. It was of course de
veloped to the greatest height among the popes, who had
already shewn themselves peculiarly impatient of the se
cular authority. We saw that under Charlemagne they
were able to effect but little in curtailing his imperial
powers; and in 823 Paschal I. even felt obliged to clear
himself by oath before the missi (or commissioners) of
Louis the Pious3; yet from this period onwards the
pretensions of the Roman court were less and less disputed
by the Carolingian princes4. Its ascendancy increased
1 See above, p. 140, n. 1.
2 By the Concordat of Worms, 1122; see below, 'Relations of the
Church to the Civil Power,' Period in.
3 Life of Louis, by Theganus, in Pertz, n. 597. Other examples of
this supremacy of the civil power at Bome itself may be seen in Gieseler
n. 231, 232.
4 The following fragment (circ. 850) of a letter from Leo TV. to the
emperor Louis II. , which has been preserved in Gratian (Decret. Pars n.
Caus. n. Qu. vn. c. 41), is one of the latest recognitions of the imperial
rights : ' Nos, si incompetenter aliquid egimus, et in subditis justas legis
tramitem non conservavimu3, vestro ac missorum vestrorum cunda volu-

—1073]

Constitution of the Church.

153

on the dismemberment of the Frankish empire, and still
further when all central government was enervated by the
progress of the feudal system. Aided by the 'Forged
Decretals,' which endeavoured among other kindred objects
to exalt the Church above the influence of the temporal
princes, Nicholas I.1 was able to achieve a number of
important triumphs. He came forward, it is true, on two
occasions, as a champion of the wronged, a bold avenger
of morality2, and therefore carried with him all the weight
of popular opinion. His success emboldened John VIII.
in 876 to arrogate in plainer terms, and as a privilege
imparted from on high, the right of granting the imperial
crown3 to whomsoever he might choose : and since this
claim was actually established in his patronage and coro
nation of the emperor Charles the Bald4, the intermeddling
of the pope in future quarrels of the Carolingians, and
indeed of other princes, was facilitated more and more.
The claim grew up, as we shall see in Hildebrand, to nothing
less than a theocratic power extending over all the earth.
Nor was the spirit of aggression at this time restricted
to the Roman pontiffs. It had also been imbibed by other
prelates of the west. In England5, it is true, if we except
collisions in the time of Odo and Dunstan, there is little
or no proof that the ecclesiastics were forgetting their
vocation. While the Church continued, as before, in close
alliance with the civil power, she exhibited no tendency
to cripple or dispute the independence of the crown. But
mus emendare judicio,' etc. 'But every thing soon changes, and the
Church in her turn governs the emperor.' Guizot, 11. 326.
1 A contemporaneous admirer says of him, ' regibus ac tyrannis impe-
ravit, eisque, ac si dominus orbis terrarum, auctoritate prasfuit.' Begino's
Chron. ad an. 868.
2 See above, p. 136, n. 4 : and cf. Guizot, 11. 341 sq.
3 Epist. cccxv. cccxvi. : Mansi, xvn. 227, 230.
4 It should be remarked, however, that Charles the Bald, in earlie •
life a warm defender of the liberties of the Frankish Church (see above,
p. 137), was not, in 876, entirely made a vassal of the pope's. See Gol-
dast's Colledio Constitut. Imperial, n. 34.
6 As before noticed (p. 49), the civi! and spiritual tribunals had been
acting most harmoniously together till the Norman Conquest. Some
ecclesiastical causes were referred to the decision of a synod of the pre
lates; but many which at a later period were reputed ecclesiastical were
subjected, like the ordinary causes of the laity, to the judgment of the
shiremoot or county-court. This extended even to the probate of wills.
Kemble, Saxons, n. 385.

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.
especiallyof the
popes :

but also of
the pi'elates
generally.

154

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 814

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Exceptionsto this rule.

it was otherwise in continental nations. There we see
the monarch struggling on one side with his disaffected
nobles, on the other with the prelates of his realm ; and
not unfrequently succumbing to the usurpations of the
latter. Before the death of Charlemagne, for example, his
authority in matters even of religion was so great, that
councils1 deemed it proper to address him in a tone which
bordered almost on servility : yet more than one of his
successors formally acknowledged their dependence on the
members of the hierarchy, and submitted to its most hu
miliating censures2. The extent of this vast but ill-defined
preponderance may be gathered from the transfer that was
made of the regalia (royal privileges) to the hands of the
superior clergy3.
Some, indeed, of the better class of prelates, while they
rendered due obedience to the civil ruler, kept aloof from
all secular affairs4: the rest however, more especially
throughout the tenth century, yielded to the worldly spirit
of the age ; they could too seldom be distinguished from
the other vassals. But this close connexion with the
crown was operating as a check on hierarchical ambition :
1 e.g. the councils of Aries and Mentz, both held in 813, on making a
report to him of ecclesiastical matters that were crying for a reformation,
beg him to supply what he might deem corrections, and confirm their
work by his authority. Mansi, xiv. 62, 65.
2 e.g. Louis the Pious (835) was deposed and afterwards absolved by
a party of bishops: Mansi, xiv. 657. See Palgrave, Hist, of Normandy,
i. 295, 296. Louis the Germanic was treated in like manner by a synod
at Metz (859) : Baluze, Capitular, n. 121. In the synod of Savonieres
(Tallensis, apud Saponarias) held in the same year, Charles the Bald
acknowledged his dependence on the bishops in the most abject terms :
Baluze, n. 129 : cf. Guizot, n. 326, 327. The general principle on which
the bishops claimed to exercise these powers was frequently avowed in
the synods: e.g. Fimes, apud S. Macram (881), c. 1; Mansi, xvn. 538:
Trosli (909), c. 1; Mansi, xvm. 267.
3 Among these regalia may be mentioned the right of tolls, markets,
and coinage which was granted among other privileges by Louis the
Pious, on the principle 'ut episcopos, qui propter animarum regimen
principes sunt cosli, ipse eosdem nihilominus principes efficeret regni.'
Gieseler, n. 255, 374. These grants, however, were made not unfre
quently by the sovereigns with a political object, to secure the allegiance
of the bishops, to balance them against the inordinate power of the feudal
lords ; to retain a certain amount of patronage that could not be made
hereditary, and to interpose tracts of sacred estates between the territo
ries of princes devoted to private war. Hasse's Life of Anselm, p. 51.
4 Thus, for example, reasoned Badbod, archbp. of Utrecht. See his
Life, in Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Bened. sasc. v. p. 30.

—1073]

Constitution of the Church.

155

it eventually gave birth to an important school of royalists,
who vindicated the imperial interest1 from the attacks of
an extreme or Romanizing party.
Of the minor and less obvious benefits accruing to
society at large from the exalted power of the ecclesiastics,
one is to be found in the exertions which they made to
mitigate the ravages of private or intestine wars, now
common in all quarters. They were able in the end
(circ. 1032) to establish certain intervals of peace2 ('Treugae
Dei'), extending from the Thursday to the Monday morn
ing of each week: for which space it was ordered, under
pain of excommunication, that all acts of violence as well
as law-proceedings should be everywhere suspended. The
same influence was directed also, though more feebly, to
the abolition of the ordeal-trials, or as they were com
monly entitled, 'judgments of God.' The zealous Agobard
of Lyons was conspicuous in this movement3: but the
custom, deeply rooted in antiquity, was not to be sub
verted at a blow. It kept its hold on the Germanic races
till a far later period, notwithstanding constant efforts,
made in councils, for its suppression, partly no doubt
through the sanction or connivance of the ill-instructed
teachers of the Church.
1 How large this party grew may be inferred from the case of England,
where the bishops almost to a man united with the crown in opposition to
archbp. Anselm and his view of the investiture-controversy. On one occa
sion he complained of this most bitterly, adding, 'et me de regno, potius
quam hoc servarent, expulsuros, et a Bomana ecclesia se discessuros.'
Epist. lib. rv. ep. 4. .
2 See Ducange, under Treva, Treuga, seu Trevia Dei : cf . Neander s
remarks, vi. 87, 88; and Balmez, Protestantism and Catholicity com
pared, c. xxxu. pp. 139 sq. The provincial synod of Limoges (1031)
placed a number of refractory barons, who refused to join in the 'Treuga
Dei,' under an interdict : Mansi, xix. 530, 542.
3 e. g. in his treatise Contra Judicium Dei. Pope Stephen VI. (circ.
886) condemns both fire and water-ordeals. He adds, ' Spontanea enim
confessione vel testium approbatione publicata delicta . . . commissa sunt
regimini nostro judicare : occulta vero et incognita Eli sunt rehnquenda,
Qui solus novit corda filiorum hominum.' Mansi, xvin .25. On the
other hand, the 'judicium aquas frigidas et caUidas' was defended even
by Hincmar of Bheims: Opp. torn. 11. 676. "Wager of Battle 'was
strongly denounced by the Council of Valence (855), c. 12, under pain of
excommunication, which incapacitated the subject of it for performmg
any civil function: Mansi, xv. 9. On the whole subject of ordeal and
wager of battle, see Lea's Superstition and force, Philadelphia, 1870.

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.
Beneficial result of
clerical
ascen dancy.

( 156 )

[A.D. 814

WESTERN CHURCH.
The mighty
influence of
St Augus
tine,

and his
school.

CHAPTER VII.
ON THE STATE OF BELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND
CONTROVERSIES.

WESTERN CHURCH.
The works of St Augustine had continued to direct
the mind of Western Christendom. He was the standard
author of the age, and to his writings it was commonly
indebted for the traces it retained of earnestness and
evangelic truth. Inferior only to the sacred penmen, whom
his ample expositions of the Scriptures were believed to
represent with a peculiar fidelity, he was consulted as the
ablest guide in all the speculative provinces of thought :
and we shall see in the review of a discussion, which
affected many branches of his system of theology, that
all the combatants professed a high respect for him, and
that the vanquished fled for shelter to his works. In cases
even where the Augustinian spirit did not find its way
directly, it was circulated, in a somewhat milder form1, by
influential writers of his school, especially by Gregory the
Great and Alcuin.
The majority of authors whom this period has produced
will take their place at the beginning of it. They were
nearly all of them brought up in the scholastic institutions
of the Frankish empire2. One of Alcuin's many pupils,
1 e. g. Alcuin, de Fide S. Trinitatis, lib. n. c. 8 (Opp. i. 717), uses lan
guage inconsistent with a belief in the extreme position of a 'prasdestinatio
duplex,' and his view was shared by Rabanus Maurus. Cf . S Augustine
Epist. 214 (al. 46) ad Valentin. § 2; Opp. n. 790.
2 Some of the principal were the Schola Palatina (patronized by Louis
the Pious, Lothair, and Charles the Bald), and those of Orleans," Fulda
Corbey (old and new), Bheims, Tours, Hirschau, Eeichenau, and St Gall!

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

157

and, like him, an indefatigable friend of education, occupied
the foremost rank of theologians in the west. This was
Rabanus Maurus, who had been the master of the school,
and afterwards the abbot, of Fulda (822), before his eleva
tion to the archbishopric of Mentz (847). His numerous
Commentaries1 on the writings of the Sacred Canon, and
on some of the Apocrypha, evince a familiarity with older
Christian literature ; and the devotional feeling which per
vades them may convince us that the piety of better ages,
though too frequently declining, was not dead. Another
of his works, De Institutione Clericorum, while important
in a liturgical point of view, contributed to the more
careful training of the candidates for holy orders, and
inspired them with a deeper sense of the importance of
their work. Rabanus was a favourite author in the west
for many centuries after his death2.
Another of the Carolingian literati was Agobard3,
archbishop of Lyons (813—841), equally conspicuous for
his scholarship and his activity in the affairs of state4.
But he is better known as a reformer of religion. Many
of his treatises were aimed at the ignorance and super
stitions of the times, especially at those connected with the
growing use of images5.
See Bahr's Geschichte der romisch. Literatur in karoling. Zeitalter, Carls-
ruhe, 1840. Its character in this, even more than in the former period,
was exclusively religious; science (mathematics, astronomy, and medicine)
being for the most part abandoned to the Arabs, who patronized such
studies, more especially in Spain. Their great college of Cordova, which
became for Europe what Bagdad was for Asia, was founded in 980. See
Middeldorpf, Comment, de Institutis Literariis in Hispania, qua Arabes
auctores habuerunt, Gottingas, 1810.
1 Very many of his works (including Homilies, as well as ethical and
ecclesiological treatises) were published, in 6 vols, folio, at Cologne, 1627 :
see also a sketch of Babanus, by Kunstmann, Mainz, 1841.
2 Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened. Sasc. vi. Prafatio, § 1.
3 The best edition of his works is that of Baluze, Paris, 1666, 2 vols.
8vo: cf. Hundeshagen, de Agobardi Vita et Scriptis, Giessas, 1831.
4 His fame in this capacity is stained by the countenance he gave to
the rebellious sons of Louis the Pious, contrasting ill with Babanus
Maurus. Neander, vi. 157.
6 e. g. He condemned the 'battle-trial,' and the 'water-ordeal' (see
above, p. 155): and his treatise, De Piduris et Imaginibus, is a resolute
attack on all forms of image- worship, and a protest against the sensuous
bias of the Church. He also laboured to reform the liturgy of his pro
vince; and the two works, De Divina Psalmodia and De Correctione
Antiphonarii, are a defence of his proceedings. The great number of

WESTERN CHURCH.
Rabanus Maurus (776—
856).

Agobard of
Lyons (d. 841).

iS8

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 814

WESTERN CHURCH.  y  '
Claudius
of Turin
(d. 839).

In this and other points he may be linked with Claudius,
bishop of Turin, who died in 839, after an episcopate
of eighteen years. Excited, as it seems, by principles
which he had learned from holy Scripture and the
works of St Augustine1, he stood forward to revive, as
far as he was able, a more truly Christian spirit in the
members of the Church. He ardently declaimed against
all forms of creature-worship, not excluding invocation
of the saints; and, on his arrival in his diocese, all symbols,
whether pictures, images, or crosses, which could possibly
give rise to adoration, were ejected from the churches2.
In addition to his writings on these subjects, of which
fragments only are preserved, he was a fertile commentator
on the Bible; yet, with one or two exceptions3, all
his labours in this field of thought are still inedited.
A list of other kindred works, though varying much
in character and worth, was added to the hermeneutical
productions of the age. The chief were, (1) Commentaries

Jews who had settled in the Frankish empire at that period urged him to
take up his pen against them: e.g. De Insolentia Judaorum, and De
Judaicis Superstitionibus.
1 The adversaries of Claudius have endeavoured to convict him of
Adoptionism, on the ground that he was educated in Spain (see above,
p. 61) ; but his Augustinianism is proved by Neander, vi. 120 sq.
2 In this measure he was strongly resisted by his former friend the
abbot Theodemir, by Dungal, au Irishman, by Jonas bishop of Orleans,
and others: but he kept his ground until his death, apparently through
the support of the Frankish emperor. See Schrockh, xxni. 407 — 421 :
Dollinger, in. 57, 58. It is remarkable that Jonas of Orleans admitted
the flagrant abuse of images prevailing in the Church of Italy, and only
found fault with Claudius for supposing that the same abuse existed in
the French and German churches. He defends the 'adoration' of the
cross ('ob recordationem passionis Dominicse'), but explains the act to
mean no more than ' salutare.' See his treatise De Cultu Imaginum, in
Bibl. Patrum, ed. Lugdun. xiv. fol. 183. This prelate was a stem and
faithful censor of all forms of immorality. See his De Institutione
Laicali, in D'Achery's Spicilegium, i. 258 — 323. Leger and other writers
on the Waldenses have endeavoured to connect Claudius of Turin with
that body, representing him as the leader of a secession which is thought
to have taken place as early as the 9th century; but on no better grounds
than conjecture.
3 His Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians will be found in
Biblioth. Patr., ed. Lugdun. xiv. 139 sq., and that on the Epistle to
Philemon in the Spicilegium Romanum, ix. 109 sq. Introductions to
other books have also been published (Gieseler, n. 262, n. 19): see,
especially, Specimens of his inedited works, with dissertations by Budel-
J bach, Havnias, 1824.

-1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

159

of Haimo1, bishop of Halberstadt (841—853), and formerly
a fellow-student of Rabanus Maurus: (2) the popular and
widely-circulated Glossa Ordinaria (or an exposition of the
difficult texts of Scripture), compiled by Walafrid Strabo2,
abbot of Reichenau ^842— 849) : but (3) worthy of especial
mention is the sober and elaborate Commentary on St
Matthew, by Christian Druthmar3, a monk of Corbey, and
divinity-lecturer in the diocese of Li£ge, who died about 840.
These all, together with the great majority of writers
who come forward at the present period, yield a simple
and unreasoning assent to the traditions of the past: but
in a work of the deacon Fredegis, who had been trained
in Alcuin's school at York, we may discover symptoms
of a more philosophizing tendency4. That tendency, how
ever, was betrayed far more distinctly in the Irishman6
John Scotus (Erigena), who was regarded as an oracle
of wisdom by the court of Charles the Bald. He was
the earliest of the mediaeval writers in the west, who ven
tured to establish Christian dogmas by a dialectic process ;
who, in other words, attempted to evince the union, or
consistency at least, of human reason and theology. In
this respect he must be viewed as a precursor of the
schoolmen6 who, in close alliance with the Aristotelian
1 There is some difficulty in ascertaining what works are really his.
See Oudinus, De Scriptoribus Eccl. n. 330: Schrockh, xxin. 282 sq.:
Mabillon, Acta Benedict, v. 585 sq.
2 The Glossa Ordinaria was published at Antwerp in 6 vols, folio, 1634.
Another important work of Walafrid Strabo is of a liturgical character,
De Exordiis et Incrementis Rerum Ecclesiasticarum, published in Hittorp's
collection De Divinis Officiis, Colon. 1568.
3 In the Biblioth. Patrum, ed. Lugdun. xv. 86 sq. The preface to this
commentary shews that Druthmar was averse to mystical interpretations
of the Bible, except when they are subordinated to the literal or historic
sense. Neander, vi. 159.
4 See his Epistola de Nihilo et Tenebris ad proceres Palatii, in Baluz.
et Mansi, Miscell. n. 56.
5 Neander has pointed out several circumstances which indicate that
the Irish monasteries still continued to influence literature in the West ;
vi. 161, 162 (note): see also Lanigan, Hist, of Irish Church, in. 260 sq.
John Scotus Erigena is to be carefully distinguished from a monk, named
John, whom king Alfred invited from France to the English court. See
Mabillon's Annates Benedict, in. 243.
« Far the rise of scholasticism in the East, see above, pp. 57, 70, 71.
Its cradle, or at least the earliest school in which it was cultivated by the
Westerns, was the monastery of Bee in Normandy. Lanfranc and Anselm
(afterwards archbishops of Canterbury) took the lead in its diffusion (see

WESTERN CHURCH.
Haimo of
Halberstadt (d. 853).
Walafrid
Strabo (d. 849.)
Druthmar (d. 840).

John Sco
tus Erigena
(d. 875 ?j:

a precursor
of the Wist-
em school-

i6o

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.d. 814

WESTERN CHURCH.

but his phi
losophic
system that
of Neo-
Platonism.

Gottschalk
(d. 868?)
and the
predestina- rian con-

philosophy1, were bent on systematizing the traditions of
the Church, and proving that the Christian faith is truly
rational2. But Scotus, while agreeing with the schoolmen
in his point of departure, differed widely from them all
in his results. He was a Neo-Platonist; and, like the
Alexandrian doctors of an earlier age, could see in Chris
tianity no more than a philosophy, — an earthly manifesta
tion of the Absolute, intended to direct and elevate the
human spirit and prepare it for eventual absorption into
God3. It is a startling feature of the times that one, whose
theories were so divergent from the teaching of the Church,
was called to speak as an authority on two of the most
awful topics of the faith. These were the doctrines of
Predestination and the Eucharist ; which, owing to the
great activity of thought engendered in the Carolingian
schools, were now discussed with unwonted vehemence.
The former of these controversies4 took its rise from
Gottschalk, who in earlier life had been a monk of Fulda,
under the eye of Rabanus Maurus ; but had left it for
the cloister of Orbais in the diocese of Soissons. Going
Mohler's Schriften und Aufsatze, i. 32 sq.); Lanfranc having first tried
the temper of his new weapon in the Eucharistic controversy with
Berengarius : see below.
1 The logical writings of Aristotle (the first two treatises of the
Organon) were known in the West from the ninth century, but only, till
the thirteenth, by the Latin translation of Boetius. Cousin's Ouvrages
inedites d'Abelard, Introd. p. Ii. : Smith's Biog. Did. i. 325.
2 'Auctoritas ex vera ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex
auctoritate  Nil enim aliud videtur mini esse vera auctoritas, nisi
rationis virtute cooperta Veritas, et a sacris patribus ad posteritatis utili-
tatem literis commendata.' Scotus, De Divisione Natura, p. 39, ed.
Oxon. 1681. The entire works of Scotus have been recently collected
and edited by Floss, in Migne's Patrologia, Paris, 1853: cf. a review of
that publication in the Theol. Quartalschrift, Tiibing. 1854, i. 127 sq.
3 On the whole of his philosophico-religious system, see Bitter, Gesch.
der Christ. Philosophie, in. 206 sq. ; Neander, vl 1 63 sq. ; Guizot, Led.
xxvin.; Dorner, n. 344 — 358. His pantheism is clearly established by
the treatise De Divisione Naturte : but very much of his philosophizing
was unintelligible to the age. He seems to have imbibed that tendency
from his familiarity with Greek writers, and especially with Dionysius the
Areopagite, whom he translated into Latin. This translation excited the
suspicions of pope Nicholas I. (Mansi, xv. 401). His great work was con
demned by the University of Paris in 1209: Dorner, p. 358.
4 The great authority is Mauguin's collection of ancient authors, De
Pradestinatione et Gratia, Paris, 1650: cf. Ussher's Gotteschalci et Pra-
dest. Controv. Hist. Dublin, 1631; Cellot's Hist. Gotteschalci Pradesti-
naiiani, Paris, 1655.

-1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

161

far beyond his favourite author, St Augustine1, he main
tained the most rigorous opinions on the subject of Divine
predestination, stating it in such a way as to imperil human
freedom. He contended for a twofold system of decrees
(' praedestinatio duplex'), which consigned the good and
bad, elect and reprobate alike, to portions from eternity
allotted to them, irrespectively of their own conduct in
the present life. In other words, Divine foreknowledge
in his system was identified completely with predestina
tion; and the latter was as arbitrary in relation to the
lost as to the saved, — the one infallibly attaining to eternal
life, the other being so necessitated to continue in his sins,
that he can only be in name a subject of God's grace, and
only in appearance a partaker of the sacraments.
The Church had hitherto been occupying, on the pre
sent as on other kindred points, an intermediate place,
affirming, but with no attempt to reconcile, the absolute
necessity of superhuman powers, while she insisted on the
salvabihty of all men. Notwithstanding her profound
respect for St Augustine and her hatred of Pelagianism,
she did not countenance the fatalistic theory of grace,
which threatens, and constructively subverts, the principle
of our responsibility to God. Accordingly, as soon as
Gottschalk published his opinions2, he encountered a de
cisive opposition from the leading doctors of the age. His
old superior, Rabanus Maurus, now archbishop of Mentz,
influenced (it may be) to some extent by personal dislike,
put forth a vehement reply to what he deemed an utter
violation of the faith. Although himself a warm believer
in the doctrine of Divine decrees3, Rabanus shrank from
1 See a fair statement of this vexed question in Guizot's Civilization
in France, Lect. v. It is plain, however, that St Augustine in some pas
sages made use of language bordering on the positions of Gottschalk ;
and the 'gemina prasdestinatio sive electorum ad requiem, sive repro-
borum ad mortem' is at least as old as Isidore of Seville, Sentent. lib.
ii. c. 6.
2 He appears to have bad an earlier controversy with Babanus, while
he was a monk at Fulda (Kunstmann's Hrabanus Maurus, p. 69); but he
did not develope his opinions fully till some years later, when he was
returning from a tour in Italy. He then disclosed them to Notting,
bishop of Verona (847), who brought the question under the notice of
Babanus Maurus.
B Nearly all the statements in his Epist. ad Notingum (apud Manguin,
I. 3) are borrowed from the works of St Augustine and Prosper. Nean
der, vi. 185.

M.A.

M

WESTERN CHURCH.
His ex
treme posi-

how differ
ent from
those of the
Church.

Rabanus Maurus his
opponent.

1 62

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 814

Gottschalk
at the sy
nod of
Mentz (848),

by Archbp.
Hincmar (849).
Defenders
of Gott
schalk.

all approximation to the thought that the causality of sin
is traceable to God. In his view the Divine foreknowledge
is distinguishable from Divine predestination ; and those
only whom the Lord foreknows as the incorrigibly wicked,
are abandoned to eternal death (' praesciti '). Gottschalk, in
the following year (848), defended his positions1 at the
council of Mentz, stating (it is said) emphatically that
the scriptural phrases which record our Saviour's death
for all men should be limited to the 'elect;' and that the
rest of the human family, as the result of a constraining
act of God, have been irrevocably destined to perdition2.
As the voice of the synod was against him, Gottschalk was
now handed overto his metropolitan, the proud and energetic
Hincmar, who soon afterwards (849) procured his con
demnation3 at Kiersy-sur-Oise (Carisiacum), and shut him
up in a monastic prison, where he lingered under the ban
of the archbishop till 868, refusing to abjure or modify
his errors.
But the controversy kindled by him in the Frankish
Church was not so easily extinguished. Many influential
writers, moved either by pity for his barbarous fate4 or by
1 See fragments of his defence in Hincmar, de Pradestinatione, c. 5,
c. 21, c. 27: cf. Annates Fuldenses, a.d. 848, in Pertz, i. 365.
2 Babani Epistola Synodalis ad Hincmarum (Mansi, xrv. 914): ...
'quod prasdestinatio Dei, sicut in bono, sit ita et in malo: et tales sint
in hoc mundo quidam, qui propter prsedestinationem Dei, quas eos cogat
in mortem ire, non possint ab errore et peccato se corrigere ; quasi Deus
eos fecisset ab initio incorrigibiles esse et posnas obnoxios in interitum
ire. ' But it must be borne in mind, that this statement of the views of
Gottschalk is the work of an adversary, and as such may have been
overcoloured. 3 Mansi, xiv. 919. By this synod, the,. unfortunate monk was ordered
to be flogged, according to a rule of St Benedict, for troubling the de
liberations on ecclesiastical affairs, and intermeddling with politics.
While he lay in prison at the monastery of Hautviliiers, he wrote two more
confessions of his faith, adhering to his former tenets : Mauguin, i. 7. The
importance he attached to the controversy may be estimated from the
violent language of his prayer, ' Te precor, Domine Deus, gratis Ecclesiam
Tuam custodias, ne sua diutius earn falsitate pervertant [aUuding to his
opponents], hareseosque sua pestifera de reliquo pravitate subvertant,
licet se suosque secum lugubriter evertant,' etc. He also offered to prove
the truth of his tenets by submitting to the ordeal of fire,  „. 'ut
videlicet, quatuor doliis uno post unum positis atque ferventi sigillatim
repletis aqua, oleo pingui, et pice, et ad ultimum accenso copiosissimo
igne, liceret mild, invocato gloriosissimo nomine Tuo, ad approbandam
hanc fidem meam, imo fidem Catholicam, in singula introire et ita per
singula transire,' etc.
* This feeling seems to have been shared by pope Nicholas I. to

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

163

their predilection for his theological opinions, had imme
diately appeared in his behalf. Of these the chief were
Prudentius1, bishop of Troyes ; Servatus Lupus2, the ac
complished abbot of Ferrieres ; and Ratramnus3, a learned
monk of Corbey ; none of whom, however, would commit
himself to the extreme positions of his client. They af
firmed that the predestination of the wicked is not absolute,
but is conditioned on Divine foreknowledge of all sins that
would result from the voluntary act of Adam, — holding
fast, on this and other points, to the more sober views of
St Augustine.
Hincmar and his party were now driven to defend their
harsh proceedings, and as they could no longer count upon
the help of Rabanus Maurus, who withdrew entirely from
the conflict4, they put forward as the champion of their
cause the learned and free-thinking guest of Charles the
Bald — Erigena. His famous treatise, De Prwdestina-
tione5, appeared in 851 : but arguing, as he did, on purely
philosophic grounds, for the unbiassed freedom of the will,
and contradicting all established doctrines of the nature
both of good and evil, he gave equal umbrage to his
enemies and friends. The former instantly assailed him
(852) by the hands of Prudentius of Troyes6 and Floras '
a deacon of Lyons ; while the primate Hincmar, compro
mised by his ill-chosen coadjutor, went in search of other
means for quieting the storm.
A work of Amulo, archbishop of Lyons, now lost,
whom Gottschalk had eventually appealed. Hincmar, Opp. 11. 290, ed.
Sirmond. 1 See his Letter to Hincmar (circ. 849) in Cellot's Hist. Gotteschal.
Pradest. pp. 425 sq. But he also, like others of the period, would in
terpret passages like 1 Tim. ii. 4, exclusively of the 'elect.'
2 His work, De Tribus Quastionibus, is printed in Mauguin, 1. pt. 11.
9 : see also the Works of Servatus Lupus, ed. Baluze, Antv. 1710.
3 De Pradestinatione Dei (circ. 850), in Mauguin, 1. pt. 1. 27 sq.
His name was frequently mis-read into Bertram, perhaps Be. (=Beatus)
Batramn. 4 See his letters to Hincmar, in Kunstmann's Hrabanus, pp. 215 sq.
6 In Mauguin, 1. pt. 1. 103 sq.
8 De Pradestinatione contra Joh. Scotum, in Mauguin, 1. pt. 1. 191 sq.
7 He wrote, in the name of the Church of Lyons, De Pradestinatione
contra Joh. Scoti erroneas Definitiones ; ibid. 575 sq. : see Neander, vx.
202, 203, on the character of this reply. The council of Valence (855)
repeated the condemnation of Scotus (c. iv. c. vi.) in the most contemp
tuous terms.
M2

WESTERN CHURCH.

John Scotus
writes against
him:

but offends
both

1 64

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.d. 814

WESTERN CHURCH.

Remigius of Lyons
vindicates the general
theory of
Gottschalh

Hincmar's reply at the
synod of
Kiersy,853.

The rival
synod of
Valence,
855.

was written with this object : but Remigius, his successor
and the leading prelate of the south of Gaul, did not
inherit his opinions 1. He condemned the cruelty by which
the author of the movement was repressed, and strove in
a less ruffled tone to vindicate his orthodoxy from the
imputations of the northern province. He contended that
in Gottschalk's system of theology the absolute predesti
nation of the wicked had been neither stated nor implied;
and while confessing his own predilection for the view that
God does not wish the salvation of all men, he declared
his willingness to leave that question open till it was au
thoritatively settled by the Church. His manifesto roused
the zeal of Hincmar to the very highest pitch, and in
another synod2 held at Kiersy (853), his party reasserted
nearly all the views which Gottschalk had continued to
reject. In a short series of propositions, based entirely
on the works of St Augustine, they affirmed, with other
truths admitted by their adversaries, that no human being
whom the Lord foreknew as wicked had been foreordained
to perish, and that Christ had died a sacrifice for all men,
willing all men to be saved3. The counter-movement in
the southern province ultimately issued in a rival synod,
which assembled at Valence4 in 855. Its effect, however,
was to bring the disputants more closely to each other.
It declared expressly that the sin of man, although an
object of Divine foreknowledge, was in no degree neces
sitated by an act of predetermination : and while all the
prelates were agreed that Christ did not redeem habitual
unbelievers6, they confessed that many are in truth re-
1 Hincmar, and Pardulus bishop of Laon, had already written two
letters to Amulo ; sending him at the same time a copy of the letter from
Babanus Maurus to Notting of Verona. These three documents Bemigius
now proceeded to examine in his Liber de Tribus Epistolis, in Mauguin,
i. pt. n. 61 sq. The notion that the wicked are necessitated to commit
impiety he spurns as 'immanis et detestabilis blasphemia' (c. xli.), and
denies that it was held by any one ; reflecting strongly on Babanus Maurus,
who imputed it to Gottschalk. See Neander, vi. 203 sq.; and Milman,
Latin Christianity, in. 241 sq.
2 Mansi, xiv. 995; cf. 920.
3 ' Christi sanguinem pro omnibus f usum, licet non omnes passionis
mysterio redimantur : ' c. 4.
4 Mansi, xv. 1 sq. Bemigius had already censured the 'four chapters'
of Kiersy : Mauguin, i. pt. 2. 178.
6 They even spoke of universal redemption as a 'm'mius error:' c. 4.

-1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

165

generated at their baptism, who in after-life may forfeit
the initial grace of God by their unholy conduct1.-
Hincmar now took up his pen and laboured to confirm
the views he had espoused, in two elaborate productions2,
one of which is lost; and in 859, he was able to effect
a better understanding with the prelates of the south at the
council of Savonieres in the diocese of Toul8. There, eight
metropolitans, with more than thirty bishops, received some
general statements of the Augustinian dogmas ; and the
combatants on either side, exhausted by the struggle, were
now willing to lay down their arms, without coming to any
more definite conclusion, yet without granting to Gottschalk
any alleviation of his wretched imprisonment4.
The second controversy that sprang up in the Carol
ingian era of the Church related to the mode in which
the Body and Blood of Christ are taken and received in
1 ... 'ex ipsa tamen multitudine fidelium et redemptorum, alios sal-
vari asterna salute, quia per gratiam Dei in redemptione sua fideliter
permanent, alios quia noluerunt permanere in salute fidei  ad plenitu-
dinem salutis et ad perceptionem asternas beatitudinis nullo modo per-
venire.' c. 5. The following passage from the Annates Bertiniani (by
Prudentius of Troyes), a.d. 859 (Pertz. 1. 453), appears to intimate that
pope Nicholas I. approved of the canons of Valence : ' Nicolaus, pontifex
Bomanus, de gratia Dei et libero arbitrio, de veritate geminas prasdestina-
tionis et sanguine Christi, ut pro credentibus omnibus fusus sit, fideliter
confirmat.' The Jesuits, who are strongly opposed to Gottschalk, labour
hard to set aside this passage.
2 The extant work, written between 859 and 863, is entitled De Pra
destinatione Dei et Libero Arbitrio adversus Gotteschalkum et cateros
Pradestinatianos : see his Works by Sirmond, torn. 1.
3 Cone. Tullense I. (apud Saponarias; Mansi, xv. 527) read over six
doctrinal canons, which had been agreed upon at a smaller synod, held
about a fortnight before at Langres (Lingonense; ibid. xv. 525), appa
rently in preparation for this meeting with Hincmar; and which had
been framed at Valence in 855 (ibid. xv. 3). The prelates, however, for
the sake of peace, now omitted the reference to the four Kiersy proposi
tions, which had been pointedly condemned at Valence, ' propter inutili-
tatem, vel etiam noxietatem, et errorem contrarium veritati;' c. 4. Cf.
Gieseler, 11. 297 sq. ; Neander, vi. 208.
* He died in prison, 868. Neander (p. 204) cites from Mauguin the
terms of well-deserved rebuke, in which Bemigius condemned Hincmar's
cruel treatment of Gottschalk. This unhappy monk had been involved
(circ. 850) in another dispute with Hincmar, touching the expression,
' Te, trina Deitas unaque, poscimus,' which occurs in an ancient hymn.
The primate had forbidden the use of it on the ground that it savoured
of Tritheism : but Gottschalk and the other Frankish Benedictines, re
presented by Batramnus, justified the phrase (Hincmar's Works, i. 413
sq.), and Hincmar was compelled to let the matter rest. On Hincmar's
oareer generally see his Life by J. C. Prichard, Oxford, 1849.

WESTERN CHURCH.

Termina
tion of the
struggle, at
Savonieres,859.

The Eucha-
ristic con
troversy.

1 66

WESTERN CHURCH.

The work
of Pascha-
sius Rad-
iert, 831.

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.d. 814
the Lord's Supper. It employed the leading theologians
of the west for several years: and when religion had
emerged from the benumbing darkness of the tenth cen
tury, it furnished a perplexing theme for the most able
of the schoolmen. As the spirit of the Western Church
contracted a more sensuous tone, there was a greater dis
position to confound the sacramental symbols with the
grace they were intended to convey, or, in a word, to cor-
porealize the mysteries of faith. Examples of this spirit
may be found in earlier writers who had handled the great
question of the Eucharist : but it was first distinctly mani
fested by Paschasius Radbert in 831. He was a monk,
and afterwards (844 — 851) the abbot, of Corbey ; and in a
treatise1, On the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ,
appears to have maintained that, by the act of consecration,
the material elements are so transformed as to retain no
more than the appearance (' figura ') of their natural sub
stance, being truly, though invisibly, replaced by Christ
Himself in every way the same as He was born and
crucified2. The work of Radbert was composed in the first
instance for a pupil, but when he presented a new edition
of it (844) to Charles the Bald, it startled nearly all the
scholars of the age. Rabanus Maurus3 wrote against it;
1 The best edition is in Martfene and Durand's Veter. Script. Collect.
rx. 367 sq. ; or Badberti Opp. omnia, ed. Migne, 1852.
2 e. g. 'Quia Christum vorari fas dentibus non est, voluit in mysterio
hunc panem et vinum vere camera Suam et sanguinem, consecratione
Spiritus Sancti, potentialiter creari, creando vero quofcidie pro mundi
vita mystice immolari, ut sicut de Virgine per Spiritum vera caro sine
coitu creatur ita per eundem ex substantia panis ac vini mystice idem
Christi corpus et sanguis consecretur,' etc. c. rv.: 'Substantia panis et
vini in Christi carnem et sanguinem efficaciter interius commutatur,'
e. viii. It may be noted, as an index to the principles of Badbert, that
he also argued for the miraculous delivery of the Virgin in giving birth
to our blessed Lord ( ' absque vexatione matris ingressus est mundum 
sine dolore et sine gemitu et sine ulla corruptione carnis ') : Pasch. Bad
bert. de Partu Virginis, in D'Achery's Spicilegium, I. 44. He was again
opposed in this view by Batramnus : Ibid. I. 52.
3 'Quidam nuper de ipso Sacramento corporis et sanguinis Domini
non rite sentientes dixerunt, hoc ipsum esse corpus et sanguinem Do
mini, quod de Maria Virgine natum est, et in quo ipse Dominus passus
est in cruce et resurrexit de sepulcro. Cui errori quantum potuimus, ad
Egilonem abbatem [i.e. of Priim] seribentes, de corpore ipso quid vere
credendum sit aperuimus.' Epist. ad Heribaldum AuHssiodorensem epis.
(bp. of Auxerre). The passage is given, in its fullest form, in Mabillon's
Iter Gennanicum, p. 17. The letter to Egilo has perished, unless it be

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

167

but unhappily no full account of his objections is pre
served. Another monk of Corbey, Ratramnus, whom
we saw engaging in a former controversy, was the main
antagonist of Radbert. He put forth, at the request
of the emperor, a treatise1 On the Body and Blood of
the Lord. It is divided into two parts, the first enter
ing on the question, whether the body and blood of
Christ are taken by the faithful communicant in mystery
or in truth ('in mysterio an in veritate2') ; the second,
whether it is the same body as that in which Christ was
born, suffered, and rose from the dead. In answering the
former question he declared, with St Augustine, that the
Eucharistic elements possess a twofold meaning. Viewed
externally they are not the thing itself (the 'res sacra-
menti'); they are simply bread and wine: but in their
better aspect, and as seen by faith, the visual organ of
the soul, they are the Body and Blood of Christ. The
latter question was determined in the same spirit, though
the language of Ratramnus is not equally distinct. While
he admitted a 'conversion' of the elements into the body
of the Lord, in such a manner that the terms were inter
changeable, he argued that the body was not Christ's in
any carnal sense, but that the Word of God, the Bread
Invisible, which is invisibly associated with the Sacrament,
communicates nutrition to the soul, and quickens all the
faithful who receive Him3. Or, in other words, Ratramnus
identical with a document edited by Mabillon in Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened.
sasc. iv. pt. n. 591. Other traces of the doctrine of Babanus on the
Eucharist are left in his De Instit. Clericorum, lib. 1. c. 31 : cf. Soames's
Bampton Led. pp. 412, 413. Badbert himself was forced to allow, in
writing to a monk Frudegard (Opp. p. 1351, ed. Migne) that 'many'
doubted the truth of his teaching: and the Bomanists admit that he was
the first writer who explained their views of the Lord's Supper with pre
cision. See L'Arroque's Hist, of the Eucharist, p. 387, Lond. 1684.
1 The best edition is by Boileau, Paris, 1712. Eespecting the genuine
ness of the work, see Fabricius, Bibl. Latinitatis Med. JEtat. 1. 661 sq.
2 Adding, by way of explanation, ' utrum aliquid secreti contineat,
quod oculis fidei solummodo pateat,' § 1. He afterwards illustrates the
efficacy of the Lord's Supper by the analogous application of the element
of water in the sacrament of Baptism.
3 'Verbum Dei, qui est Panis Invisibilis, invisibiliter in illo existens
Sacramento, invisibiliter partieipatione Sui fidelium mentes vivifieando
pascit.' See Neander, vi. 214 sq.; Dollinger, in. 73. The work of
Ratramnus was placed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of 1559 ; but
some Boman Catholic writers (e.g. Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Bened. sac. iv.
pt. n. prasf. p. xliv) try to vindicate him from the charge of 'heresy.'

WESTERN CHURCH.
Refuted by
Ratram nus. The nature
of his re
ply-

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 814

WESTERN CHURCH.
His views
accordant
with the
generalteaching of
the age.
John Scotus
takes the
opposite
extreme.

was in favour of a real, while he disbelieved a corporal,
or material presence in the Eucharist.
His views were shared, to some extent at least, by
Florus, Walafrid Strabo, Christian Druthmar, and others1
on the continent, and were identical with those professed
in England till the period of the Norman conquest2. The
extreme position on the other side appears to have been
taken by Erigena, who was invited, as before, to write
a treatise on the subject of dispute. Although his work3
has perished, we have reason to infer from other records
of his views, that he saw little more in the Eucharist than
a memorial of the absent body of the Lord, — or a remem
brancer of Christian truths, by which the spirit of the
faithful is revived, instructed, and sustained4.
Paschasius, unconvinced by opposition, stedfastly ad
hered to his former ground6; and as the theory which he
1 See extracts from their works in Gieseler, n. 289, n. 8. Amalarius,
a priest and abbot in the diocese of Metz, took part in the Eucharistic
controversy, arguing for a triplicity of the body of Christ (de tripartito
Christi Corpore), i. e. a distinction between the natural body of Christ
and the Eucharistic', first, as it exists in the living Christian, and secondly,
as it abides in the Christian after death. He opened the revolting ques
tion of Stercoranism (the liability of the Eucharistic elements to the
same kind of decomposition in the human system as that which is under
gone by ordinary food): see Mabillon, Act. Sand. Bened. prasf. ad ssec. iv.
pt. n. p. xxi. The views of Amalarius on the symbolic nature of the
Eucharist may be seen in his answer to Bantgar, bp. of Noyon, in
D'Achery's Spicileg. in. 330.
2 This point has been triumphantly established by many writers;
e. g. Soames's Bampton Led. Serm. vn. and notes. iElfric, the great
Anglo-Saxon doctor, was familiar with the work of Batramnus : Ibid. p. 421.
3 The work of Batramnus has been attributed to him, and many
writers have maintained that only one book was written (see Lauf's essay
on this point in the Theolog. Studien und Kritiken for 1828, i. 755 sq. ) :
but the other view that there were originally two treatises, composed
under royal patronage, appears to be the more probable. Neander,
vi. 217.4 Hincmar (Opp. i. 232) condemns as one of the opinions of Scotus,
that the Eucharist was 'tantum memoria veri corporis et sanguinis Ejus.'
Adrevald has also written an Opusculum de Corpore et Sanguine Domini
contra Joannem Scotum, in D'Achery's Spicileg. i. 150 : and in a MS.
lately found at Bome, containing a commentary of Scotus on the Hierar-
chia Coslestis, the Eucharist is said to be 'typicam similitudinem spirit-
ualis participationis Jesu, quam fideliter solo intellectu gustamus.' Note
to the English edition of Dollinger's Ch. Hist. in. 73. Cf. Scoti Opp. ed.
Floss, p. 41.
6 See his Expositio in Matth. lib. xn. c. xxvr. Opp. p. 891, ed, Migne.
His view appears to be supported in Haimo's Tradatus de Corp. et Sang.
Domini (D'Achery, i. 42).

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

169

defended was in unison with the materializing spirit of
the age, it was gradually espoused in almost every pro
vince of the Western Church. The controversy slum
bered1, with a few exceptions, for the whole of the tenth
century, when it broke out with reinvigorated force.
The author of the second movement, Berengarius, was
archdeacon of Angers (1040), and formerly the head of
the thriving schools attached to the cathedral of Tours.
Embracing the more spiritual view of the Eucharist, as
it had been expounded by Ratramnus2, he was forced
at length into collision with a former school-fellow, Adel-
mann3, who warned him in 1045 and 1047 of scandals
he was causing in the Church at large by his opinions
on this subject. Like the rest of the mediaeval reformers,
Berengarius had inherited a strong affection for the works
of St Augustine4; and his confidence in the antiquity
and truth of his position is expressed, with a becoming
modesty, in his appeal to the celebrated Lanfranc6, prior
of Bee, in Normandy. This letter had been forwarded
to Rome, where Lanfranc was in 1050, and on being
laid before a council6, which was sitting at the time, its
1 Cf . L'Arroque, History of the Eucharist, part 11. ch. xvi. Herigar,
abbot of Lobes, in the diocese of Liege (circ. 1000) , compiled ' contra
Batbertum multa catholicorum patrum scripta de corpore et sanguine
Domini' (D'Achery, 11. 744) : and Gerbert (afterwards, in 999, Silvester
II.) put forth a modified version of the theory of Radbert (in Pez, The
saurus Anecdot. torn. 1. pt. n. 133 — 149) especially denouncing the ' Ster-
coranists. ' On the other hand, that theory was advocated in its fulness
by Gezo, abbot of Tortona (circ. 950 ; in Muratori's Anecdota, in. 237),
and confirmed in the eyes of the vulgar by miraculous stories, which
asserted nothing less than a physical change in the Eucharistic elements.
2 Owing to the early confusion between the works of Scotus and
Batramnus (see above, p. 168, n. 3), Berengarius is continually charged
with drawing his opinions on the Eucharist from the erratic Scotus;
but there is no question, after his own constant reference to the treatise
of Ratramnus, that it was the work intended by his adversaries.
3 Then residing at Liege, afterwards (1048) bishop of Brescia. See
Adelmann, De Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Domini, ed. Schmidt, Brunsv.
1770, in which edition other documents are printed. The rumour which
had reached Liege was, that Berengarius denied 'verum corpus Christi,'
and argued for 'figuram quandam et similitudinem.'
4 See Neander, vi. 223.
6 Lanfranc. Opp. ed. D'Achery, p. 22. One of the best modern ac
counts of this controversy is in Ebrard's Doctrine and History of the
Lord's Supper (in German), 1. 439 sq. Francof. 1845.
6 Mansi, xix. 757 : Lanfranc. Opp. p. 234 : Berengar. de Sacra Cana,
p. 35 ; ed. Berolin. 1834. The sentence was confirmed in the following

WESTERN CHURCH.

Lull in the
contro
versy. Revived by
Berengarius (d. 1088).

His view
condemned at Bome,
1050.

170

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D 814

WESTERN CHURCH.

He is ac
quitted at
Tours,
1054:

author was condemned unheard. His friends, however,
more particularly Bruno1, bishop of Angers, did not aban
don him in this extremity ; and after a short interval
of silence and suspense2, he was relieved from the charge
of heresy in a provincial synod held at Tours3 in 1054.
The papal representative was Hildebrand, who listened
calmly to the arguments of the accused, and when he
had most cordially admitted that the bread and wine are
(in one sense) the Body and Blood of Christ4, the legate
took his side, or was at least completely satisfied with the
account he gave of his belief. Confiding in the powerful
aid of Hildebrand, he afterwards obeyed a summons to
appear in Rome6 (1059), but his compliance ended in a
bitter disappointment of his hopes. The sensuous multi
tude, who had become impatient of all phrases that ex-

September, at Vercelli, where the book of Scotus (? Ratramnus) is con
nected with the doctrine of Berengarius : Mansi, xix. 773 ; Berengar. de
Sacr. Ccena, pp. 42, 43. He was anxious to appear at this later synod,
but was prevented by the king of France (Henry I.), the patron of the
abbey of Tours, in which Berengarius was an inmate.
1 See his friendly but guarded Letter to Berengarius, printed in De
Boye, De Vita Berengarii, p. 48, ed. Andegav. 1657.
2 In this interval is to be placed the council of Paris, if such a council
was actually held. See Neander, vi. 231, 232. In any case, it is plain
that popular opinion was strongly against Berengarius. The Bishop of
Liege (Deoduin), in an Epistle to the king (Bibl. Patr. ed. Lugdun. xvin.
531), alludes to this excited state of public feeling in violent terms, and
even charges Berengarius and Bruno of Angers with denying other articles
of faith (' qualiter.. .antiquas haereses modernis temporibus introducendo
adstruant, corpus Domini non tarn corpus esse quam umbram et figuram
corporis Domini, legitima conjugia destruant, et, quantum in ipsis est,
baptismum parvulorum evertant ').
3 See Berengarius, ubi sup. pp. 50 sq., and the varying account of
Lanfranc, de Eucharist, c. iv.
4 ' Panis atque vinum altaris post consecrationem sunt corpus Christi
et sanguis.' From this and other passages it is plain that Berengarius
did not view the Eucharist as a bare symbol. What he controverted was
the theory of men like archbishop Guitmund, circ. 1075 (de Corpore et
Sanguine Christi, in Bibl. Patr. ed. Lugd. xvin. 440), who maintained
that the bread and wine were changed ' essentialiter. ' The same writer
mentions that, while some of the ' Berengariani ' admitted ' tantummodo
umbras et figuras,' Berengarius himself and others ('rectis Ecclesise
rationibus cedentes') affirmed a real though uncorporeal presence : 'dicunt
ibi corpus et sanguinem Domini revera, sed latenter contineri, et, ut sumi
possint, quodammodo (ut ita dixerim) impanari.' This view was cer
tainly shared by Bruno, above, n. 1; and, in so far as we can judge, by
Hildebrand himself. Neander, vi. 233 (note).
s Mansi, xix. 758.

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

171

pressed a spiritual participation in the Eucharist1, now
clamoured for his death, and through the menaces of bishop
Humbert, who was then the leading cardinal, he was
eventually compelled to sign a formula of faith, in which
the physical conversion of the elements was stated in the
most revolting terms2. The insincerity of this confession
was indeed soon afterwards apparent : for on his return
to France he spoke with bitterness, if not contempt, of
his opponents3, and at length proceeded to develope and
defend his earlier teaching. His chief antagonist4 was Lan
franc, who, while shrinking from expressions such as those
which emanated from the Roman synod, argued strongly
for a change of substance in the bread and wine5. The
controversy, in their hands, became a battle-field for
putting the new dialectic weapons to the proof; and in
a long dispute, conducted with no common skill, they both
were able to arrive at clearer definitions than had hitherto
been current in the Church. The feverish populace, how
ever, with the great majority of learned men, declared for
Lanfranc from the first ; and more than once his rival only
just escaped the ebullition of their rage6. The lenient tone'
of Alexander II. in dealing with reputed misbelief, was
due perhaps to the pacification of his favourite, Hildebrand;
and when the latter was exalted to the papal throne as
Gregory VII. (1073), the course of Berengarius promised
to grow smoother. But that interval of peace was short.
His adversaries, some of whom had private grounds of
disaffection to the reigning pontiff, made common cause

1 Berengarius, de Sacra Coma, p. 72.
2 ... ' verum corpus et sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi esse, et
sensualiter non solum Sacramento, sed in veritate, manibus sacerdotum
tractari, frangi etfidelium dentibus atteri;' Lanfranc. Opp. p. 232.
3 See a contemporary writing (? by Bernaldus), in Bibl. Patr. ed.
Lugd. xvin. 835.
4 Another was Guitmund (see p. 170, n. 4), and a third Durandus,
abbot of Troarn (Lanfranc. Opp. ed. D'Achery, Append, pp. 71 sq.).
5 ' Credimus terrenas substantias, quae in mensa Dominica per sacer-
dotale mysterium Divinitus sanctificantur, ineffabiliter, incomprehensi-
biliter, mirabihter, operante superna potentia, converti in essentiam
Dominici corporis, reservatis ipsarum rerum speciebus, et quibusdam aliis
qualitatibus,' etc. De Eucharist, c. xvin. p. 244.
6 e.g. at the synod of Poitiers (1076): Chronicon. S. Maxentii, in
Labbe's Biblioth. MSS. n. 212.
7 See the statement of the writer quoted above, n. 3.

WESTERN CHURCH.

Contro
versy re
opened.

Lanfranc,his oppo
nent.

172

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 814

WESTERNCHURCH.

Cited to
appearagain at
Rome,1078.

His second
recanta
tion, 1079.

with the more stringent cardinals; and in 1078, the author
of the movement, which continued to distract the Western
Church, was cited to appear a second time at Rome1. The
pope himself, adducing the authority of Peter Damiani as
an equipoise to that of Lanfranc, was at first content
with an untechnical confession that 'the bread and wine
are, after consecration, the true Body and Blood of Christ;'
which the accused was ready to accept2. But other mem
bers of the Roman church, incited by the cardinal Benno3,
Gregory's implacable opponent, now protested that, as
formulae like these did not run counter to the faith of
Berengarius, he should be subjected to a stricter test.
To this demand the pope was driven to accede4, and in
a numerous council6, held at Rome in the following Fe
bruary (1079), the faith of the accused again forsook him.
He subscribed a new confession teaching the most rigorous
form of transubstantiation6, and retired soon afterwards
from Rome with testimonials of his orthodoxy granted by
the pope7. As in the former case, his liberation was ac
companied by bitter self-reproach; but though he seems to
have maintained his old opinions8 till his death, in 1088,
no further measures of repression were adopted by his
foes. 1 See the account of Berengarius himself in Martene and Durand's
Thesaur. Anecdot. iv. 103 ; Mansi, xix. 761.
2 ' Profiteor panem altaris post consecrationem esse verum corpus
Christi, quod natum est de Virgine, quod passum est in cruce, quod sedet
ad dexteram Patris; et vinum altaris, postquam consecratum est, esse
verum sanguinem, qui manavit de latere Christi.'
3 He calls in question the ' orthodoxy' of Gregory himself, as well he
might, for fraternizing with Berengarius. See his work De Vita Hilde-
brandi (in Goldast's Apolog. pro Henrico IV. p. 3.)
4 Cf. Neander, vi. 244, 245.
5 Mansi, xx. 523.
6 'Corde credo et ore confiteor, panem et vinum, quas ponuntur in
altari, per mysterium same orationis et verba nostri Bedemptoris sub-
stantialiter converti in veram et propriam et vivificatricem carnem et
sanguinem Jesu Christi Domini nostri, et post consecrationem esse
verum Christi corpus, quod natum est de Virgine, et quod pro salute
mundi oblatum in cruce pependit, et quod sedet ad dexteram Patris ; et
verum sanguinem Christi, qui de latere Ejus effusus est, non tantum per
signum et virtutem Sacramenti, sed in proprietate natura et veritate sub
stantia.' 7 D'Achery's Spicileg. in. 413. All who call Berengarius a heretic are
anathematized. 8 See Gieseler, n. 411, and Neander, vi. 247, on the one side; and
Dollinger, m. 79, SO, on the other.

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

173

In him expired an able but inconstant champion1 of
the primitive belief respecting the true Presence in the
Supper of the Lord. While he contended that the sub
stance of the elements is not destroyed at consecration,
he regarded them as media instituted by the Lord Himself
for the communication, in a supernatural manner, of His
Body and His Blood to every faithful soul. He argued
even for the fitness of the term 'conversion' as equivalent
to 'consecration,' and in this respect allowed a change in
the bread and wine; a change, however, which, according
to his view, was nothing like a physical transubstantiation,
but was rather a transfiguration, which the elements ap
peared to undergo, when contemplated by a living faith
in Christ, who had appointed them as representatives and
as conductors of Himself.
The great bulk of the church-writers who had been
produced in the period under our review, are far less
worthy of enumeration. We must not, however, pass in
silence men2 like Alfred the Great, the Charlemagne of
England (871 — 901) who, after struggling with the bar
barous Northmen, and at length subduing them, stood
forward as the ardent patron of the Church and a restorer
of religion. Almost every trace of native scholarship3 had
been obliterated in the conflict with the Danes, but through
the holy efforts of the king himself4, assisted by a band

1 The later Boman Catholic writers, Mabillon, Martene, and Durand,
admit, after the discovery of some original documents, that he only
denied transubstantiation, but conceded a 'real presence.' Gieseler,
ibid. It is plain, however, that the movement which he headed, num
bered others who denied the presence of the Lord in any sense whatever :
see above, p. 170, n. 4.
2 Cf. The Laws' of Howel the Good, the Cambrian prince and legislator
of the 10th century.
3 See above, p. 86, n. 1.
4 A Jubilee edition of his Complete Works has been published. His most
valuable treatises (ecclesiastically speaking) are the Anglo-Saxon editions
of the Pastoral of Gregory the Great, and Bede's Church History: to
which we may add the freer version of Boetius de Consolatione and the
Soliloquies of St Augustine. The Laws of King A Ifred are re-published
in Thorpe's Ancient Laws, &c. 1. 44 — 101. It was mainly through the
influence of king Alfred that so many vernacular glosses on the Scrip
tures and the Service-books were undertaken at this period. See Wright's
Biograph. Britan. (Anglo-Saxon Period) pp. 426, 427. The Rule of St
Benedict was afterwards translated into Anglo-Saxon by Ethelwold.
Ibid. 440.

WESTERN CHURCH.

of his
belief.

Alfred the
Great
(d. 901).

His influ
ence as a
patron of
learningand reli
gion.

174

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 814

WESTERN CHURCH.

Mlfric.

Wulfstan,
or Lupus.

of literati1, a new impulse was communicated to the spi
ritual and intellectual progress of the Anglo-Saxon race.
The English, it is true, like other churches of the west1,
was not exempted from the corruptions which prevailed
so widely in the tenth century : but from the age of Alfred,
a more general diffusion of religious truth, in the ver
nacular language, raised the standard of intelligence. His
policy was carried out3 by .iElfric, the Canonist, Homilist,
Grammarian, Monastic Reformer, and Hagiographer, to
whom we are indebted for a large proportion of the ver
nacular literature of his age, but whose identification
is one of the most obscure problems of English History4.
iElfric left behind him a set of eighty Anglo-Saxon Homi
lies for Sundays and great festivals, compiled in almost
every case from the earlier doctors of the west; and a
second set for Anglo-Saxon Saints' days. There is extant
also a collection of contemporary Homilies ascribed to a
Bishop Lupus, who has been conjecturally identified with
Archbishop Wulfstan of York5.
1 Some of these were Plegmund, archbp. of Canterbury, who died
923; Werefrith, bp. of Worcester (d. 915), Grimbald, John of Corbey
(confounded with John Scotus Erigena), and Asser, the biographer of
Alfred, and a native of Wales. See Wright, ubi sup. pp. 405 — 418.
2 The almost solitary exceptions on the continent, at least till the
close of the tenth century, are Eatherius of Verona, and Atto of Ver-
celli; see above, p. 144, n. 2 ; p. 142, n. 2. The latter, it may be added,
wrote a Commentary of some value on the Epistles of St Paul: ed.
Vercelli, 1768.
3 See his Preface to the Homilies, where, in declaring that his aim
was to edify unlettered people, who knew nothing but ' simple English,'
he alludes to the ' prudent ' labours of king Alfred.
4 The difficulty of distinguishing between the many owners of the
name of iElfric is confessed on every hand. See Wharton's Dissertatio
utrum Elfricus Grammaticus? (who makes the most distinguished iElfric
an archbishop of York:) and, on the other side, Mores' De Mlfrico
Dorobernensi Archiepiscopo, ed. Thorkelin, Lond. 1789, who identifies
him with the archbishop iElfric of Canterbury. The editor of the iElfric
Homilies (Mr Thorpe) assigns them to the archbishop of York. But all
that can be certainly advanced is that the homilist was a West-Saxon
monk, a pupil of Ethelwold bishop of Winchester; and that there are
almost insuperable objections to identifying him with either prelate. See
an elaborate article in Niedner's Zeitschrift fur die historische Theologie,
1855. Heft iv. pp. 487 sq. Wright, ubi sup. 485, 486.
6 See Wanley's Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon MSS. (in Hickes' Thesaurus),
n. 140 — 143. There was another Wolstan (or Wulfstan) at the close of
the tenth century. He was a monk of Winchester and. a respectable
Latin poet. Wright, pp. 471 — 474. Contemporary with him was the

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

175

On the continent of Europe very few of the scholars
had attained to greater celebrity than Gerbert, a monk of
Aurillac, and subsequently pope Silvester II. (999-1003).
His fund of scientific knowledge1 was derived from the
Muhammedans; and, as the fruit of an awakened intel
lect, he was at first a strenuous adversary of the ultra-
papal claims2. ' His influence was extended far and near,
especially by a distinguished pupil, Fulbert, in whose
hands the school of Chartres grew into a mighty agent
for diminishing the darkness of the age.
By this and other kindred institutions3 it was shewn
that a fresh era of comparative illumination had now
opened in the west. The seeds of knowledge and of moral
culture, planted in the time of Charlemagne, were beginning
to produce more salutary fruits ; for though the systems
of the schoolmen were in many points imperfect, they
may justly be regarded as a great advance upon the
barbarism which marked the seventh century, and the
materializing spirit of the tenth.
EASTERN CHURCH.
The Eastern Church, while it continued to preserve
its former intellectual level4, manifested a deplorable defect
Latin poetess Boswitha, a nun of Gandersheim. See her Carmina, ed.
Witemb. 1707.
1 His mathematical and astronomical learning was suspected; and
the vulgar thought him guilty of alliance with the devil. Only a few of
his works have been published. See especially his Epistles, in the Scrip-
tores Franc., ed. Duchesne, 11. 787 sq. His treatise on the Eucharist is
mentioned above, p. 169, n. 1.
2 See above, p. 138, n. 4.
3 Those more especially influenced by Gerbert were Bobbio, Rheims,
Aurillac, Tours, and Sens.
4 Above, p. 64. Of the Eastern dissenting bodies the Armenians,
who are like the Jacobites in nearly every feature, were most flourishing
throughout the present period. See Neumann's Gesch. der Armenischen
Literatur, pp. 114 sq. Leipzig, 1836; Stanley, Lectures on the Eastern
Church, pp. 7 sq. Their separation is said to have arisen from the
accidental absence of the Armenian bishops from the Council of Chalce-
don (451); hence they never received its decrees, and, in 596, they repu
diated it, under their patriarch Abraham I., at the synod of Tovin.
The chief patriarch was henceforth called ' Catholicos,' and resided in
the convent of Echmiadzin, now belonging to Bussia: Golovin's Cau
casus, p. 168, Lond. 1854. An attempt was made about 866 to win them
over to the Eastern Church, but it was fruitless. See Spicileg. Rom.
torn. a. pt. 11. 449.

WESTERN CHURCH.
i J
Gerbert, or
Silvester II.
(d. 1003).

Fulhert,bishop of
Chartres,
(d. 1028).

176

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.D. 814

EASTERN CHURCH.

The revival
of the Ico
noclastic controver
sy.

Leo the
Armenian (d. 820).

The resist
ance of
Nicephorus: and the
Constanti-

of earnestness and moral health. We gather this especially
from records of the image-controversy, which, although it
had rapidly subsided after the council of Nicsea (787),
started into life again at the commencement of the present
period. It had been revived, indeed, by some of the
Frankish prelates1 (such as Agobard and Claudius of
Turin) ; but there, as images were not so grievously
abused, the agitation they excited was not permanent.
In the Byzantine capital, however, the Iconoclasts grew
up into a powerful body, and were able, for a time at
least, to sway the fortunes of the Eastern Church.
The germs of a reaction seem to have been always
cherished in the army, who, as we observed, had been
the main support of an Iconoclastic monarch2; and when
Leo the Armenian (813—820) was invested with the purple,
they rejoiced to see him take the lead in the suppression
of all images (the symbol of the cross excepted). Leo
strove at first to bring about his reformation by conciliatory
means3; but as Nicephorus, the patriarch of Constantinople,
was inflexibly devoted to the present ritual of the church,
he fell under the severe displeasure of the court. As
in the former time, the spirit of resistance still continued
to be strongest in the monks4. They were now headed
by the abbot of the Studion (a great monastery of Con-
1 Above, pp. 157, 158. In 825 a synod had been held at Paris under
Louis the Pious, for the purpose of ascertaining what the Fathers thought
of the use of images in Divine worship. The prelates there assembled
did not hesitate to censure the prevailing superstitions on this subject,
more especially in Italy (Mansi, xiv. 424), and also animadverted on the
language of the pope in his attempt to answer the Libri Carolini (above,
p. 77). At the same time they were opposed to the violent proceedings
of the Iconoclasts. Some of the Frankish prelates even went on a
mission, first to Rome, and then to Constantinople, in the capacity of
mediators between the pope and the emperor Michael IL See Life of
Louis the Pious, in Pertz, n. 631.
2 Above, p. 75.
3 He represented, among other things, that the 'people' were opposed
to image-worship (6 Xabs CKavBaXlferai Sid rds elKouas, Xiyovres Sri xaxiSs
auras Trpoo-Kvvovuev, Kal on Sid tovto rd ISirq nvpieiovaiv -huiSv): but this
antipathy (as will appear in the sequel) was far from general. He urged
also the importance of scriptural proof for the practice (ireio-ov rip.as Si ov
^Keiva irpoffKwetre, T-rjs ypaipijs p.i) tyw^ns finrtSs Tribirore). For an account
of the whole interview between Leo and the patriarch, see the Chrono
graph, (in Continuation of Theophanes), p. 437, and the Life of Nicephorus,
l>y his pupil, Ignatius, in the Acta Sanct. Mart. 11. 296, 704.
4 Above, p. 74, n 1.

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

177

stantinople), Theodore Studita (759—826), who maintained
that an inferior worship (jrpovKvvwvR) of the sacred images
was to be recognized as an essential article of faith1. His
violence, united with the firmness of Nicephorus, impelled
the emperor to enter on a strenuous course of action. He
forbade the public meetings of the monks, and bound them
to maintain a total silence on the subject of dispute2;
himself avowing no desire at present to expel the images
entirely. But as soon as he could count upon the help
of many of the bishops, he convened a synod3 at Con
stantinople (815) for this purpose; and, on finding that
the patriarch was still immoveable, proceeded to eject him
from his throne. It was bestowed on a severe Iconoclast,
Theodotus, but all the ardent image-worshippers imme
diately renounced communion with him4. Their resistance
now brought down upon their heads the most inhuman
persecutions, and a number of the monks (their leader,
Theodore, included) felt the lashes of the vigilant police,
and died in prison or in exile5.
1 He argued, that the hostility to images arose from disbelief in the
reality of Christ's human nature. See his BlfiXos SoyuariK-h (three dis
courses against Iconoclasm), passim. Most of his numerous works relate
to the same question, and are written in the same vehement tone. See
a portion of them in Sirmond's Opp. torn. v. (Paris, 1696), where a Greek
Life of Theodoras (? by a monk named Michael) will also be found. Other
works are enumerated in Smith's Biograph. Did. in. 1057.
2 Theodore, the Studite, in a vehement circular, denounced all those
who yielded to the edict. Epist. lib. n. ep. 2.
3 Mansi, xiv. 135. This synod (never recognized in the Western
Church) condemned the Acts of the Council of Nicasa (787), and decreed
that all paintings in the churches should be destroyed, as well as the
ecclesiastical vestments and vessels which were marked by any sacred
image. Neander (vi. 272), relying perhaps on a letter of the next em
peror, Michael (Mansi, xiv. 417), supposes that a council (' locale conci
lium ') had been held anterior to the deposition of Nicephorus, in order
to effect a compromise between the opposite extremes. The images or
pictures were to be raised into a higher part of the churches, 'ne ab
indoctioribus et infirmioribus adorarentur. '
4 The conforming party, who resorted to a kind of mental reserva
tion (olKovoula, as they called it), were regarded by the rest as traitors.
See the letter of Theodore to Nicephorus, the banished patriarch, lib. n.
ep. 18. We learn from another of these letters (lib. n. ep. 215) that men
of his way of thinking travelled into Italy for ordination, shunning the
Iconoclasts as nothing less than heretics. They did not, however, yield
to the exclusive theory of Bome, but viewed the pope as one of the patri
archs (rb irevraKbpvipov Kpdros rfjs iKKXyalas), though granting him the
first place in general councils (lib. n. ep. 129).
5 See besides the Life of Theodore, the touching story of his pupil,
Nicetas, another Studite monk, in the Ad. Sanct. Febr. torn. i. 538 sq.

EASTERN
CHURCH.
nopolitanmonksunder Theodore
the Studite.

Iconoclastic synod
(815) :

persecution of the
image-wor
shippers.

M. A.

N

1 78

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 814

EASTERNCHURCH.
Gentle po
licy of
MichaelII.

Persecu tions under
Theophilus (d. 842).

finally restored underTheodora,
843.

The accession of the new emperor, Michael II. (820—
829), filled the image-worshippers with hope. He tolerated
them on principle, and laboured even to effect a general
understanding in the disputants on either side1. But men
like Theodore the Studite could not listen to a propo
sition, which in their eyes would involve a compromise
of truth2. The schism was, accordingly, continued to the
end of the reign.
Theophilus, the heir of Michael II., succeeded to the
throne in 829, and for thirteen years directed all his
energies to silence and convert the monks, who clung as
formerly to image-worship. Very many of his acts are
stained by cruelty, although his enemies have been unable
to deny that he was zealous in promoting what he deemed
the cause of God, and upright in discharging his imperial
duties3. But it happened now, as at the death of Leo IV.;
his able and intriguing relict, Theodora, who administered
affairs in the minority of her son (Michael III.), restored
the interdicted worship4, banished John the Grammarian,
patriarch of Constantinople, who was true to his opinions,
and established in his place a zealot named Methodius.
On the first Sunday of Lent (Feb. 18, 843), the use of
images was introduced afresh into the churches of the
Eastern metropolis, where the event has been commemo
rated ever since by an annual feast, entitled 'Feast of
Orthodoxy.' With some brief exceptions, the Iconoclastic
troubles vanish at this stage. The subsequent decrees of
1 See the Life of Theodore the Studite, as above, c. 102 — 122. This
emperor, in writing to the Western Church, has left a most melancholy
picture of the extravagances of the image-party. ' Psallebant et adora-
bant, atque ab eisdem imaginibus auxilium petebant. Plerique autem
linteaminibus easdem imagines circumdabant, et filiorum suorum de
baptismatis fontibus susceptrices [i.e. sponsors] faciebant 
Quidam vero sacerdotum et clericorum colores de imaginibus radentes,
immiscuerunt oblationibus et vino,' etc. Mansi, xiv. 420. Even Theo
dore himself, while arguing for the absolute necessity of images for fixing
in our minds the truth of the Incarnation, was compelled to acknowledge
that, in some cases, reverence for them had issued in idolatry. See for
instance, his Epist. lib. n. ep. 151 : and Neander, vi. 281, 282.
2 Epist. lib. n. ep. 171.
3 See the evidence respecting him fairly stated in Schlosser's Ge-
schichte der bilder-sturm. Kaiser, pp. 469 sq.
4 Ibid. 544 sq. For the strange way in which her scruples, as to the
salvation of her husband, were removed, see the Continuation of Theo
phanes, lib. iv. c. 4.

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

179

councils at Constantinople1, in 869 and 879, may be re
garded as the formal winding-up of the discussion, — till
it was at length reopened by the Western Churches in
the sixteenth century.
The master-spirit of the image-worshippers, as we have
seen already, was the abbot Theodore, the Studite. Nearly
all his published writings bear upon this point: but he has
left a multitude of other works behind him*. He was held
in very high repute, and thus transmitted the impression
which was made upon the Eastern Church by John of
Damascus, whom in many features he resembled. In the
latter half of the ninth century and the commencement of
the tenth, there was no lack of scholars at Constantinople,
owing to the special patronage afforded to them by the
emperors Basil the Macedonian (867—886) and Constantine
Porphyrogennetus (913—959). Indeed the whole of the
present period witnessed a variety of literary labours in
the East, although they are too often compilations3 (or
Catenae) from the older stores of knowledge.
Simeon4 (6 Mera^paarr/'i), who appears to have flou
rished about 900, was not destitute of originality, but it
is manifested chiefly in his numerous Lives of Saints6;
the greater part of which, however, may have been re-
castings from the earlier Legends. None of the expositors
of Holy Scripture is more worthy of a passing notice than
the Thracian bishop, OScumenius (circ. 950). Though he
1 Here, as in the earlier synod (843), the language of the second
council of Nicasa was confirmed. Li 869, the third canon puts the wor
ship of the sacred image of our Lord upon a level with the worship of
the Gospels : Mansi, xvi. 400. Traces of a short reaction of Iconoclasm,
about 860, are found, in an epistle of pope Nicholas L; Mansi, xv. 161.
2 See above, p. 177, n. 1.
3 e.g. Constantine Porphyrogennetus suggested the formation of com
pendious works from all the earlier writers. They were arranged under
fifty-three heads, embracing history, politics, and morals. Schrockh,
xxi. 130 sq.
4 See Leo Allatius, De Simeonum Scriptis Diatriba.
6 The number of these is reckoned at six or seven hundred: but many
seem to have been compiled by other writers. Ibid, and Fabricius, Bib
lioth. Graca, ed. Harles, x. 186 sq. The rest of his works are Annals,
Sermons, Poems, &c. See the list in Smith's Biogr. Did. in. 953, 954.
His credulity was quite prodigious, for expressions like the following
seem to indicate that he believed his own stories. He is speaking of his
namesake Symeon Stylites, the elder: 'AXX4 SiSoiKa piij rots perk ravra
p.vdos etvai S6£n ttjs dXnBetas yeyvpeviouevos.
n2

EASTERNCHURCH.

The lite
rary la
bours of
Theodorethe Studite.

Age of Ca
tenas.

Simeon Metaphras-tes.

i8o

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a. d. 814

EASTERN CHURCH.
CEcume-
¦nius, (circ.
950).
Eutychius
of A lexan-
dria (d. 940).
Photius (d. 891?).

His varied
erudition.

borrowed largely from St Chrysostom, his Commentaries1
on the Acts, the Canonical Epistles, and the Apocalypse,
betoken a sound judgment in the choice of his materials,
and are always neatly, if not elegantly written. As a
general scholar, tinctured also with the love of science, we
may notice an Egyptian prelate, Eutychius2 (Said Ebn-
Batrich), patriarch of Alexandria (933-940).
But the ripest and most highly gifted of the Eastern
scholars, in the period under our review, was Photius3, an
exalted servant of the court of Byzantium in the middle
of the ninth century. His character, indeed, is sullied by
ambition, and too oft by his forgetfulness of higher duties
and unprincipled devotion to the world ; yet as a writer no
one will deny that he conferred a lasting boon on that and
succeeding ages. In addition to his Bibliotheca (criticisms
in almost every field of ancient literature), his Nomocanon
(or a digest of ecclesiastical laws), his interesting Letters,
and a string of minor works, he published treatises directly
bearing on theology and sacred exegesis. Some of these
are in the form of Homilies and Commentaries*, and in
one (the Amphilochia) he attempts to solve a number of
perplexing questions in divinity. The rest are chiefly
aimed at misbelievers (such as the Paulicians), or impeach
the orthodoxy of the rival Church of Rome.
From Photius, therefore, we may pass to a dispute in
which he played a leading part, the controversy which
resulted in the
1 The Exposition of the Gospels frequently attributed to him appears
to be the work of a later writer, Euthymius Zigabenus (or Zygadenus), a
monk of Constantinople (published in 3 vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 1792). The
Commentaries of CEcumenius have been often printed (e.g. Paris, 2 vols.
folio, 1631). For that on the Apocalypse, see Cramer's Catena, Oxf
1840. 2 His Annates (reaching to the year 940) were edited by Pocock,
Oxon. 1659 : besides which he wrote a treatise on Medicine, and a Dis
putation between a Christian and a Heretic. See Neale's East. Church
'Alexandria,' n. 181 — 183.
8 See the ample article in Smith's Biograph. Did. in. 347 — 355.
4 A copy of the Commentary of Photius on the Pauline Epistles,
mentioned by the writer of the article above, is among the Cambridge
University MSS. (Ff. i. 30).

-1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

181

SCHISM BETWEEN THE EASTERN AND THE WESTERN
CHURCHES.
The materials of dissension had been long accumulating,
and there needed only a direct collision of the Roman and
Byzantine patriarchs to tear asunder the surviving fibres
which composed the bond of peace. Apart from the di
vergencies of temperament and intellectual bias, which in
periods like the present were not easily adjusted, the old
leaven1 of ambition, jealousy, and envy had fermented more
and more. One subject of dispute assumed the gravest
character, relating as it did to the Procession of the Holy
Ghost. It had already occupied the leading theologians
of the East and West (for instance, Alcuin and John of
Damascus), and was now put forward still more promi
nently on both sides8. The Greeks, while they admitted
fully3 that the Holy Spirit is communicated by, and through,
the Son, and therefore may be called "the Spirit of the
Son," denied as fully that the Godhead of the Holy Ghost
proceeded equally from Both the other Persons of the
blessed Trinity. To argue thus appeared to them a vio
lation of the truth, that God the Father is to be regarded
as the single Root or underived Principle of Godhead (as
the apxv °f all being). Other grounds of discord came
to light later, but from the importance of the doctrine,
the Procession of the ILoly Ghost has ever been the
1 Above, pp. 37, 38, 47; p. 54, n. 1; p. 57, n. 1; p. 122. Dollinger
traces the origin of the schism directly to the Council in Trullo (691),
when the Greek bishops shewed what he thinks an unjustifiable ' fastidi
ousness on the subject of the superiority of the Church of Rome,' in. 83 :
cf. Neander, vi. 298, 299 ; Stanley's Eastern Church, pp. 23 sq.
a The following is the title of a tract by Photius : Kara tu>v rijs
rraXaids 'Pt6/xr;s on £k Karpbs pbvov iKTopeuerai rb HveGfia rb 'A.ylov aXX'
ovxt «ai tic roS Tlou. It is printed in the Panoplia of Euthymius Zigabe-
nus (pp. 112, 113, ed. Tergovist. 1710). On the introduction of the clause
Filioque into the western creeds, see above, p. 57, n. 1, and the refer
ences there.
3 Neale's Eastern Church, Introd. Dissert, in. The language of John
of Damascus (quoted by Neander, vi. 295) is as follows : Tlov Se Ilvevua,
ovX us il; avrov, dXX' (its Si' ai/Toi? £k too Harpbs iK-n-opevbuevov p.6i>os
ydp aXrios b Harijp. ' Juxta vero Latinos, a Patre et Fitio : quamvis in
quibusdam Grascorum expositionibus ejindem Spiritum a Patre per
Filium procedere reperiamus.' Scotus Erigena, De Divisione Natura,
p. 85, ed. Oxon. 1681. Cf. Laud, Conf. with Fisher, pp. 17-20, Oxf.
1839.

SEPARA
TION OP
EAST AND
WEST.

The Greek
doctrine of
the Proces
sion of the
Holy Ghost.

182

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 814

SEPARA
TION OP
BAST AND
WEST.
Depositionof the pa-
triarcliIgnatius, 858.

The con
duct of his
rival Pho
tius.

His claims
recognized by papal
legates : but
denied at
Rome, 863.

most conspicuous topic in the quarrels of the East and
West. The deposition of Ignatius1 by the worthless Caesar
Bardas, uncle of Michael III., was followed by the ele
vation of Photius to the patriarchal throne of Constan
tinople (858). He was before a courtier and a layman,
but, as happened not unfrequently in such an age, he
passed at once through the subordinate gradations of the
ministry, and in a week had reached the highest honours
of the Church2. Ignatius was, however, far too conscious
of integrity to sign his own disgrace, and sentence was
accordingly pronounced against him at a council3 drawn
together by his rival in the following year (859). But
as the friends of the deposed were still a formidable body4,
Photius ventured to invoke the mediation of the Church of
Rome5, and for that purpose put himself into communi
cation with the equally ambitious pontiff, Nicholas I. The
latter, bent as we have seen on carrying out the Pseudo-
Isidore Decretals6, now came forward as an autocratic
judge7. In this capacity he sent two legates to Constan
tinople (860), but they were not proof against the threats
and bribery of the court8. They recognized the claims of
the intruder, Photius (861) ; yet their sentence was ere
long repudiated" by a Roman Synod (863), which, after
weighing all the merits of Ignatius, did not hesitate to
launch anathemas upon his rival. This event was fol-
1 See the contemporary Life of Ignatius, by Nicetas Paphlago, a warm
admirer of him, in Mansi, xvi. 209 sq. According to this authority,
Bardas had been excommunicated by Ignatius on the charge of incest
with the wife of his own son.
2 Ibid. 229, 232. Photius urged on his own behalf that the appoint
ment was pressed upon him by the clergy as well as by the court.
3 The report of its proceedings was destroyed at the eighth session of
the following council in 869.
4 See Photii Epist. in. vi. vin. ; ed. Montague, Lond. 1651.
6 See the reply of Nicholas I. (Sept. 25, 860) to a letter of the em
peror (now lost), in Mansi, xv. 162 : and the somewhat fulsome letter of
Photius himself in Baronius, Annates, ad an. 859, § 61.
> Above, pp. 134 sq. He actually rebuked Photius in 862 for his
slowness in perceiving the weight of such Decretals. Mansi, xv. 174.
7 In the Letter to the emperor above cited, and another of the same
date to Photius. Mansi, xv. 168.
8 Ibid. xv. 216, where Nicholas informs the emperor that the un
worthy legates have been excommunicated.
8 Ibid. xv. 178 sq., 245 sq.

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

183

lowed by an angry correspondence between the emperor
Michael and the pope1; while Photius2, throwing off the
mask and waiving all his former courtesy, proceeded in
a council held at Constantinople to denounce the Latin
Church in general, and even to anathematize the pope (867).
The quarrel was embittered by occurrences already noted
in the missions of Bulgaria3. The diffusion of the Gospel
in that country had been due at first to the Byzantine
Church, but on the introduction of a staff of Latin clergy
in 866, the province had been wrested from the hands of
Photius. He alluded to this point in the ' Encyclica,' which
he put forth on summoning the council of 867, and even
went so far as to charge the Western missionaries with
departures from the faith4.
But at this crisis, a new emperor, Basil I. (the Mace
donian), whom Photius estranged by rejecting him from the
Communion5, on the ground of his complicity in the as
sassination of his predecessor, took the side of the opponents
and proceeded to restore Ignatius to his see. The pope
was now invited to acknowledge him afresh6, and at the
numerous council of Constantinople' (Oct. 5, 869 — March
1 The emperor's letter is lost, but its contemptuous character may be
inferred from the more dignified reply of Nicholas (865). Ibid. xv.
187 sq. He despises the imperial threats (' Nolite nobis minas prasten-
dere, quoniam nee illas metuimus, nee per has prascepta vestra faciemus:'
ib. 213), being no longer subject to the Eastern court: cf. the equally
characteristic letter to the emperor (866): Ibid. 216 sq.
2 See Epist. 11. pp. 47 sq. This was an encyclical letter addressed to
the leading bishops of the East, inviting them to take part in a synod.
For a brief notice of its acts, see Anastasius, Prcef. ad Concil. QHcumen.
viii. [i.e. the so-called oecumenical council of Constantinople, 869]:
Mansi, xvi. 1 sq.
3 Above, pp. 121, 122.
* He dwelt especially on the Western doctrine of the Procession of
the Holy Ghost, the celibacy of the clergy, and fasting on the Sabbath
(Saturday). The cause of the Latins was defended, among others, by
the learned Ratramnus of Corbey, whose reply (in D'Achery's Spicilegium,
1. 63 — 112) is characterized by great moderation.
6 See on this point the annotations of Neander, vi. 314. The same
view is taken by the writer in Smith's Biogr. Did. in. 349.
6 Mansi, xvi. 46.
7 Ibid. xvi. 1 sq. This council was preceded by a kindred one at
Eome (June, 869: see Jaffa", pp. 256, 257), and Boman influence, telling
as it did in favour of Ignatius, was predominant throughout. Some of
the Greek prelates, it is true, protested, ' non bene factum fuisse, quod
ecclesiam Constantinopolitanam tanta subjectione Eomanae subdi eccle
sias permiserint' (Mansi. xvi. 29); and the following entry of a Frankish

SEPARA
TION OP
EAST AND
WEST.

His quarrel
with pope
Nicholas I.

and the
Latin Church.

Restoration
of Igna-

1 84

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 814

at the Coun
cil of Con
stantinople, 869.
Reappoint
ment of
Photius,
878,

approvedby the
Council of
Constanti
nople, 879.

13, 870), where Photius was again condemned, the schism
between the rival patriarchs, as well as that between the
Christians of the East and West, appeared1 to have been
healed. In 878, when Ignatius was no more, the choice of the
emperor fell upon their ancient adversary, Photius, whom
he had already called from banishment. It seems, how
ever, that there was a numerous party in the East, who
were all bitterly opposed to the imperial nomination, on
the ground that Photius still lay under sentence of a coun
cil headed by the pope. To satisfy the scruples of this
school2 an effort was next made to win his approbation
of their recent conduct, such appearing the most likely
way to bring the quarrel to a close. Accordingly the
pontiff, John VIII., more pliant than his predecessors, and
affecting to undo the late decisions at Constantinople by
a special act of grace3, despatched his legates to the scene
of the dispute (Aug. 16, 879) : but in the following council,
while the Easterns seemed to recognize his right of in
terference, they most artfully evaded all the ultra-papal
claims, to the annoyance of the Roman Church4. The

chronicler (quoted by Gieseler, n. 471) is most significant: 'In qua synodo
de imaginibus adorandis aliter quam orthodoxi doctores ante definierant,
statuerunt ; quasdam etiam pro favore Romani pontificis, qui eorum votis
de imaginibus adorandis annuit, et quasdam contra antiques canones,'
etc. The claim of the council to be called oecumenical (cf. above, p. 76,
n. 2) is entirely set aside by the fact that the other three patriarchs were
not represented; the pretended envoys of those sees being in truth agents
from the Saracens, who had come to Constantinople on matters of busi
ness (Photii, Epist. cxvm.: cf. Palmer, Treatise on the Church, n. 161,
162; 3rd edit.).
1 The old controversy about Bulgaria was, however, still unsettled,
and we find John VIH. (878) repeatedly holding out the threat of excom
munication against Ignatius on account of an assertion of patriarchal
rights in ordaining clergy for that district: Mansi, xvn. 67. The Eastern
influence finally triumphed; the province of Achrida or Justinianopolis
adhering to the see of Constantinople. Wiltsch, i. 405. But the strug
gle has been renewed in our own days, in 1860 and 1861.
3 Neander, vi. 321, 322.
3 See his Letters in Mansi, xvi. 479 sq. The policy of John VIII.
was chiefly aimed at securing for himself the province of Bulgaria;
and at least, according to the Roman version of the matter, Photius
had accepted this condition, but had afterwards falsified the papal re
script, so that before it was submitted to the council it appeared more
favourable to the independence of the Eastern Church.
4 The Acts of the council are in Mansi. xvn. 373 sq. In the fifth

¦ — 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

185

sanction of that church, indeed, was for a time conceded
to their Acts1; but when she saw that the Byzantine
patriarch determined to retain his jurisdiction in Bulgaria,
notwithstanding her reiterated threats, she had recourse
to another fulmination2 (circ. 881), and thus the inter
communion of the two rival churches was again sus
pended. For a century and a half at least the marks of inter
course are slight and discontinuous. In 1024 (or there
abouts) the emperor Basil II., struck by the degraded
state of Western Christendom, proposed to reestablish a
concordat, on the understanding that the patriarchs of
Rome and of Byzantium should hereafter act upon a level ;
and it seems that John XIX. was only frightened from
considering the suggestion by the ferment it excited in
the West3. Indeed a kindlier feeling had been now more
generally diffused, as we may gather from the fact that
public worship, in accordance with the ritual of the Greeks,
was tolerated at Rome, and the converse at Byzantium.
But this very circumstance eventually became the ground
of fresh disputes, and led the way to the final schism.
The patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, in
1053, peremptorily forbade the celebration of the Latin
session (Jan. 26, 880), the Eoman legates declared that they recognized
Photius as the lawful patriarch, and rejected the council of 869, at which
he was condemned. In the second session (Nov. 16, 879), the claims of
the papal legates with regard to Bulgaria were mildly repelled. But
the most remarkable feature of the synod was its reaffirmation of the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, without the clause ' Filioque.' Lb.
p. 515. 1 Thus the pope writes to Photius (Aug, 13, 880) : 'Ea, quas pro causa
tuas restitutionis synodali decreto Constantinopoli misericorditer acta
sunt, recipimus.' He rejects, however, any of the Acts to which his
legates may have assented ' contra apostolicam prasceptionem.' Mansi,
xvn. 185. The synod was afterwards called by the Latins 'Pseudo-
synodus Photiana.' The Greeks regard it as ' oecumenical.'
2 Mansi, xvi. 449 ; xvn. 537. For the later measures of the popes
against Photius, see ibid. xvm. 11. He was again displaced in 886, from
political motives, by Leo VI., and died an exile in Armenia (circ. 891).
3 Glaber Badulph. Hist. lib. iv. c. 1. After stating the proposal as
above, he continues : ' Dum ergo adhuc leni sub murmure hujusce
machinatores in conclavi sese putarent talia tractavisse, velox fama
de ipsis per universam Italiam decucurrit. Sed qualis tunc tumultus,
quam vehemens commotio per cunctos exstitit, qui audierunt, dici non
valet.' A remonstrance on the subject was addressed to the pope by
William of Dijon.

SEPARA
TION OP
EAST ANE
WEST.

Fresh
quarrel
with the
pope. Attempt to
restore com
munion (circ.
1024).

Final rup
ture, 1054.

1 86

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 814

SEPARA
TION op/
EAST ANI
WEST.

ritual in his province1; and, assisted by Leo, metropolitan
of Bulgaria, published an intemperate attack2 on all the
members of the Western Church. This angry missive
roused the indignation of the Latins, more especially of
the polemic cardinal Humbert8, whose reply, though very
bitter in its tone, is marked in some respects by larger
views of evangelic freedom. All attempts to calm the
passion of the disputants were vain : and when the papal
legates, at the instance of a Romanizing emperor4, arrived
at Constantinople in 1054, they found the patriarch im-
moveably opposed to their pretensions. They departed,
therefore, after placing on the altar of the church of St
Sophia (July 16) an imperious writ of excommunication6,
which was followed in its turn by an anathema from
Cerularius and his clergy6. The disunion of the Roman
and Byzantine sees was consummated by these acts ; and
as the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch7, and Jerusalem
1 See the letter of Leo IX. (1054) to Cerularius of Constantinople and
Leo of Achrida : Mansi, xix. 635.
2 It is only extant in the Latin version of cardinal Humbert, in
Baronius, Annal. ad an. 1053, §§ 22 sq. It was addressed to John, bishop
of Trani (in Apulia), but through him 'ad universos principes sacer-
dotum et sacerdotes Francorum et monachos et populos et ad ipsum
reverendissimum papam.' He insists, among other trivial things, on
the importance of using common or leavened bread in the celebration
of the Eucharist, instead of the paschal or unleavened bread, which
after the eighth century had been common among the Latins : see the
Dissertation concerning Azymes, in Neale's Eastern Church, Introd. n.
1051 sq. The ground of the objection to the Latin custom was alleged
to be its Judaizing tendency. See another angry work in opposition to
the Latin Church by Nicetas, a Studite monk, in Canisius, Led. Antiq.
in. pt. i. pp. 308 sq., where Humbert's Responsio is also printed. Nicetas
afterwards recanted.
3 See above, p. 171. His refutation is printed at length in Canisius,
Led. Antiq. in. pt. i. pp. 283 sq.
4 This tenderness for Bome is indicated in the letter addressed to
him by Leo IX. (1054) : Mansi, xix. 667.
6 See the Brevis Commemoratio of Humbert in Canisius, Ibid. pp.
325 sq. Among other charges levelled at the Orientals in this document
the following are remarkable : ' Sicut Arriani rebaptizant in nomine
sanctse Trinitatis baptizatos, et maxime Latinos ; sicut Donatistas affir
mant, excepta Grascorum Ecclesia, Ecclesiam Christi et verum sacrifi-
cium atque baptismum ex toto mundo periisse ; sicut Nicolaitas carnales
nuptias concedunt et defendunt sacri altaris ministris; sicut Severiani
maledictam dicunt legem Mosis ; sicut Pneumatomachi vel Theomachi
absciderunt a symbolo Spiritus Sancti processionem a Folio,' etc.
6 In a synod held at Constantinople (1054) ; see Leo Allatius, De
Libris Ecclesiasticis Grmcorum, ed. Paris. 1645, pp. 161 sq.
7 Peter of Antioch acted at first the part of a mediator : see Monu-

— 1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. 187

adhered to the more powerful see of Constantinople, the
estrangement was transmitted almost universally to other
countries of the East1.

THE EASTERN AND WESTERN SECTS.
The rise and growth of the Paulicians2 have been fully
traced already, though their influence gave a colour to
the present period of the Church. They flourished chiefly
in Armenia, on the borders of the Zendic or Parsee re
ligion ; and a mixture of their creed with it appears to
have produced the sect of the Thontrakians, founded by
one Sembat, a Paulician (between 833 and 854) in the
province of Ararat3. In spite of persecution4 it made nu
merous converts, more especially when it was joined by an
Armenian bishop, Jacob, in 1002.
This century also witnessed a revival8 of the mys
tic sect of Euchites (or Enthusiasts), who afterwards were
known by an equivalent Slavonic name, the Bogomiles.
Proceeding from the Eastern Church they seem to have
maintained substantially the Zendic doctrine of two prin
ciples, and also to have held with it exaggerated views
of the importance of monastic life, which they regarded
as the one effective agent for the subjugation of the flesh
and for disarming all the powers of darkness.
menta Eccl. Grcec. ed. Coteler. n. 123 sq. In the same collection (pp.
138 sq.) are letters addressed to Peter by Cerularius, in which he com
plains of the pride and insolent demands of the legates, and points out
what he considers fresh scandals in the Latin Church.
1 At the period of the separation it seems probable that the number
of episcopal sees was nearly equal on both sides. Palmer's Treatise on
the Church, 1. 164, 165, 3rd edit.
2 Above, pp. 78—84.
3 See Chamchean's (or, as the Germans write it, Tschamtschean's
Geschichte von Armenien, n. 884 sq. ; Neander, vi. 342 sq.
* The Armenian Church (cf. above, p. 175, n. 4) had retained a large
amount of Judaizing elements (even animal sacrifices in memory of the
dead), and accordingly the antagonism between it and the Paulicians
was complete. Ibid. Akin to the Armenians in their tenderness for
Judaism, were the new sect of Athinganians, who appeared in Phrygia.
Neander (vi. 347 sq.) conjectures that they were a remnant of the
Judaizing misbelievers whom St Paul rebukes in the Epistle to the
Colossians (ii. 21 sq.).
6 Several traces of them in the interval between the fourth and
eleventh centuries, have been pointed out by Gieseler, 11. 489 (note),
They seem to have had a regular church constitution, and to have named

The sect of
the Thon
trakians.

Revival of
the Eu
chites.

I

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 814

Transmis
sion of
many of
their prin
ciples to the
West

The so-
called Ma-
nichceans in Europe.
Their dis
tinctivetenets.

Many of these oriental sects, desirous of securing pro
selytes or driven from their early haunts by dint of per
secution, migrated, as it would seem, most frequently
along the course of the Danube, into several countries
of the West. The progress of the Bogomiles and the
related school of Cathari belongs to the following period :
but the seeds of lasting controversies were now scattered
far and wide, in Italy, in France, and even in the Nether
lands and some parts of Germany. The name with which
the sectaries are branded in the works of a host of un-
discriminating adversaries, is the odious name of Mani-
chaeans1, — misbelievers who had formerly aroused the zeal
of St Augustine. They had gained a stable footing in the
church of Orleans (circ. 1020), and attracted notice almost
simultaneously in other distant spots.
So far as we can gather from the extant traces of the
movement2, all its chief adherents were distinguished by a
tendency to rationalism, while they preserved the mystic
and ascetic elements of thought we have just noted in the
Euchite. Questioning the possibility of supernatural birth,

the chief teachers 'apostles.' The fullest source of information re
specting them at the latter date is the Hepl tvepyetas Saiuovav kidXoyos
of the very learned Michael Psellus (circ. 1050), ed. Norimberg. 1838.
Among other startling practices he mentions that the Euchites were
' devil-worshippers :' perhaps connected in some measure with the
' Tezeedees,' on whom see Badger's Nestorians, i. Ill — 134 : Lond. 1852.
1 The other view (advocated, for instance, -by Gieseler, n. 491) is,
that the western sects, now stigmatized as Manichoeans, were really
descended from the ancient Manes, whose disciples had not been ex
tinguished in some parts of Italy. This class of writers grant, however,
that after the crusades there was a kind of fusion of the eastern and
western sects, and that the Bogomiles (or Euchites) were then exactly
like the French and Italian ' Manichasans.' The view adopted in the
text is that of Muratori, Antiq. Italia medii JEvi, v. 81 — 152 ; Gibbon,
v. 283 sq., ed. Milman; and Neander, vi. 348. See Bobertson, Church
History, n. 423.
2 See especially the Acts of the synods of Orleans (1022) and of
Arras (1025) in Mansi, xix. 373, 423 ; Glaber Badulph. Hist. lib. iii. c. 8 ;
and the Chronicle of Ademar, a contemporary monk of Angoulerne, in
Bouquet, x. 154. Besides the tenets mentioned above, these sectaries
made light of all the mediasval saints, and reverenced none except
apostles and martyrs : they opposed the veneration of the cross ; they
ridiculed the consecration of churches; they insisted on the greater
dignity of the unmarried state, and even spoke of sexual intercourse
when sanctified by matrimony as a thing accursed. Like the Euchites,
they are said to have worshipped the devil (above, n. 5), and to have
religiously abstained from every kind of animal food.

-1073] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

189

they represented the humanity of Christ as the mere sem
blance of a body, and accordingly concluded that His death
and resurrection also were unreal : while the same Docetic
theory resulted in contempt of all material media instituted
to promote the culture of the soul. They undervalued, if
they did not openly abjure, the holy sacraments, professing
to administer a spiritual baptism and a spiritual Eucha
rist instead of corresponding ordinances in the system of
the Church1.
On the detection of this band of heretics in Aquitaine
and other parts of France, a synod was convened at Orleans
in 1022, where thirteen of the ' Manichseans,' who were
true to their convictions, suffered at the stake2. Soon
afterwards a kindred faction was impeached in the dioceses
of Liege and Arras by a synod held at the latter place "
(1025). But notwithstanding the extreme severity4 with
which the leading misbelievers were repressed, the sect
went on fermenting, more especially among the working
class6. Besides a host of other ' Manichaeans ' who were
executed in these parts and even in the north of Germany6,
the neighbourhoods of Milan and Turin supplied fresh vic
tims to the sanguinary spirit of the age (1030). The here
tics abounded most at Monteforte7; and their creed, so far
1 See the remarks of Neander on this point, vi. 352. The sect ad
ministered a rite resembling confirmation. They termed it the ' conso-
lamentum,' or communication of the Comforter. Ibid. At the synod
of Arras they brought three reasons against the efficacy of baptism as
administered by the Church — • (1) quia vita reproba ministrorum bap-
tizandis nullum potest prasbere salutis remedium: (2) quia quidquid
vitiorum in fonte renunciatur postmodum in vita repetitur : (3) quia
ad parvulum non volentem neque currentem, fidei nescium, suseque
salutis atque utilitatis ignarum, in quern nulla regenerationis petitio,
nulla fidei potest inesse confessio, aliena voluntas, aliena fides, aliena
confessio nequaquam pertinere videtur.' Mansi, xix. 425.
2 Authorities above, p. 188, n. 2.
3 Mansi xix. 423 sq. The abp. Gerhard 11. refuted the objections of
the sectaries at length. Ibid.
4 Almost the only prelate who denounced the persecuting spirit
of the times was Wazo, bishop of Liege (d. 1047) ; see his noble language
in the Gesta Episcoporum Leodiensium, in Martene and Durand's Col-
lectio, rv. 898 sq.
5 They were particularly stimulated, first by Gundulf, an Italian,
and then by a teacher of the name of Eamihed, who was at last hunted
down and burned.
6 Herimanni Chron. an. 1052 (Pertz, vn. 130).
7 Glaber Eadulph. Hist. lib. iv. c. 2. A new name began to be

Persecu
tion of the
sectaries.

190

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 814

as we can judge, had even fewer elements of truth1 than
were surviving in the other branches of the sect.
applied in Italy at this period to all kinds of sects. It was that of
Patareni, or Paterini, which appears to be derived from 'pataria,' a
Milanese word = ' popular faction.' It was originally the nickname
given by the clergy to the popular party of Milan during the agitations
against the marriage of the priests: Schrockh, xxni. 349, 350 ; Neander,
vi. 67, 68.
1 See Landulphi Hist. Mediolan. lib. 11. c. 27 (in Muratori, Script.
Ital. iv. 88. sq.), where an account is given of the sect by one of its
functionaries, Gerhard, who was summoned by archbp. Heribert of
Milan. According to him, the doctrines of the Gospel, though in words
accepted as the truth, were robbed of all their meaning by an ultra-
spiritualistic style of exposition. Thus the Son of Godvis made to signify
a soul that has become the object of God's love ; the birth of Christ
from the Virgin is the new birth of a soul out of the sacred Scriptures ;
while the ' Holy Ghost ' is the true understanding of these Scriptures.

—1073]

C 191 )

CHAPTER VIII.
ON THE STATE OF INTELLIGENCE AND PIETY.

In sketching the religious life of Western Christendom
at this period, a distinction must be drawn between the
tenth century and the remaining portions of the ninth and
the eleventh. The influence of the Carlovingian schools,
supported as they were by Louis the Pious and Charles
the Bald1, was very widely felt : it ended only when do
mestic troubles, the partition of the empire, and the savage
inroads of the Northmen checked all further growth. The
same is, speaking generally, true of England ; but the
noble efforts of king Alfred2 to revive the ancient taste
for learning rescued his dominions, in some way at least,
from the barbaric darkness which continued to oppress the
continent of Europe, till the dawn of the Hildebrandine
reformation. Nearly all the intermediate time is desert,
one expanse of moral barrenness and intellectual gloom3.
As in the former period4, the instruction of the masses
was retarded by the multiplicity and breaking up of lan
guages, and most of all, by the adherence of the Western
Church to Latin only as the vehicle of worship. It was
1 In the former reign the literature was almost exclusively religious,
owing to the predilections of the monarch, but the court and schools of
Charles the Bald displayed a stronger relish for more general learning
(' utriusque eruditionis Divinas scilicet et humanas ' is the language of the
Council of Savonieres in 859): cf. Guizot, 11. 371.
a Above, pp. 173, 174.
3 See, for instance, Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened., sasc. v. Prasf.
Other writers (e. g. Hallam, Lit. of Middle Ages, pt. 1. ch-. 1. § 10) consider
the tenth an advance upon the seventh century, more particularly in
France. <* See above, p. 87.

The varia
tions in the
degree of
intelligence.

Tenth cen
tury pcctt-

dark.
Decay of
the Latin
language.

192

State of Intelligence and Piety.

[A.D. 814

MEANS OF
GRACE AND
SXNOW-
LEDOE.
Injunctionson preach
ing.

now, in fact, disused1 by nearly all excepting clerics.
Many of the councils have, however, laid especial stress
on the necessity of preaching in the native dialects2. They
urge that opportunity should be afforded, both in town and
country parishes3, of gaining a complete acquaintance with
the precious Word of God. The doctrines of the Saviour's
incarnation, death, and final triumph in behalf of man, the
gift of the Holy Ghost, the value of the sacraments, the
blessedness of joining in the act of public prayer, the need
of pure and upright living, and the certainty of future
judgment in accordance with men's works, are recom
mended as the leading topics for the expositions of the
priest4. But insufficient training6, even where he was alive

1 Bahr, Geschichte der romisch. Lit. in karol. Zeit. p. 59.
2 e.g. The council of Mentz, in 847, orderB (c. 2) that bishops should
not only be assiduous in preaching, but that they should be able to
translate their homilies into Romana rustica or Theotisca (Deutsch), 'quo
facilius cuncti possint intelligere quas dicuntur.' The practice of the
English in this respect is illustrated by iElfric and Wulfstan (see above,
p. 174) : and in iElfric's Canons, c. 23 (Johnson, i. 397), the priest is dis
tinctly reminded of his duty to expound the Gospel in English every
Sunday and mass-day.
3 e.g. The council of Yalence (855), c. 16. Pope Nicholas I. soon
afterwards (between 858 and 867) urges the importance of erecting 'plebes,
vel baptismales ecclesias' (parish churches), 'ut ibi conventus celebrior
populorum fiat et dodrina fidei pradicetur.' Mansi, xv. 452.
4 See, for instance, the Capitula of Herard, archbp. of Tours (858),
c. 9 (in Baluze, i. 1285): and council of Mentz, as above, n. 2.
6 The requisite amount of knowledge is laid down by Hincmar in his
Capitula (852); Mansi, xv. 475. Besides committing several offices and
formulas to memory, the priest is to be able to expound the Apostles'
Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed of St Athanasius ('Quicunque Vult'),
and understand forty homilies of Gregory the Great. Several councils
complained bitterly of unlearned priests: e.g. that of Rome (826), which
also insists on the importance of securing school-masters, 'qui studia
litterarum liberaliumque artium dogmata assidue doceant :' c. 34 ; Mansi,
xiv. 1008 : cf. ib. 493. So grossly ignorant were the clerics of Yerona,
that Batherius (d. 974) found many (plurimos) unable to repeat even the
Apostles' Creed: D'Achery, i. 381. See Ratherius von Verona und das
zehnte Jahrhundert, von Albrecht Vogel, Jena, 1854. He had also to
contend with others (of Vicenza) who had sunk into anthropomorphism,
resolutely maintaining (like the present Mormons) ' corporeum Deum
esse : ' Ibid. 388 sq. This part of Christendom, indeed, would seem to
have been very prone to such unworthy speculations. Here sprang up
the ' Theopaschites' condemned at Bome (862), when the decision was
that the Godhead of our Saviour was impassible, that He 'passionem
crucis tantummodo secundum carnem sustinuisse' (Mansi, xv. 658).
The same council was under the necessity of condemning an opinion that
in baptism 'originale non ablui delictum.'

— 1073] State of Intelligence and Piety.

193

to his vocation, rendered him unable to imprint those
verities effectually upon his semi-barbarous flock. As
children they were taught indeed by him and by their
sponsors1 several elements of Christian faith (e.g. the Lord's
Prayer and the Apostles' Creed) : yet there is reason to
infer that in the many, more especially of tribes which
were now added to the Church, the roots of heathenism
were still insuperably strong2.
How far the masses learned to read is not so easily
determined. The amount of education must have differed
with the circumstances of the country, diocese, or parish :
still we are assured that efforts were continually made to
organize both town and village schools3.
The richest institutions of this class were the conventual
seminaries of the French and German Benedictines ; and
although they often shared in the deterioration of the
order, and were broken up by the invasions of the Mag
yars and Northmen, we must view them as the greatest
boon to all succeeding ages ; since in them4 especially the
copies of the Sacred Volume, of the fathers, and of other
books were hoarded and transcribed5.
The reverence for the Holy Scriptures on the ground
of their superhuman character was universally retained6.
1 Gieseler (11. 265, n. 29) mentions a German-Latin exhortation on
this subject belonging to the present period. Still, as we may judge from
the council of Trosli (909), c. 15, multitudes of either sex were unable to
repeat even the Lord's Prayer and the Creed.
2 Cf. above, p. 87, n. 1; p. 110; p. 116; p. 132, n. 2.
3 e. g. Council of Valence (855), c. 18; council of Savonilres (859), c. 10.
Herard of Tours, in like manner, enjoins (c. 17) 'ut scholas presbyteri
pro posse habeant et libros emendatos.' It seems, however, that there
was a constant jealousy of the lay or secular schools on the part of the
monks, who succeeded in getting several of them closed. Vidaillan, Vie
de Greg. VII., 1. 290.
4 Some idea of the contents of a monastic library at this period may
be formed from the catalogue belonging to the French convent of St
Biquier, in Chronicon Monast. S. Richarii Centulensis (D'Achery's Spicil.
11. 310 sq.).
5 The founder of a reformed branch of the Benedictines, the Congre
gation of Hirschau, did great service in this way: 'Duodecim monachis
suis scriptores optimos instituit, quibus ut Divina auctoritatis libros, et
sanctorum Patrum tractatus rescriberent, demandavit. Erant praster hos
et alii scriptores sine certo numero, qui pari diligentia scribendis volu-
minibus operam impendebant.' J. Trithemius [John of Trittenheim],
Annates Hirsaugienses, 1. 227: ed. St Gall, 1690.
6 See the Benedictine Hist. Lit. de la France, iv. 252 sq., v. 291 sq.,
M. A. O

MEANS OP
GRACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.
Crudeness
of the po
pular in
struction.

Schools,

the Bene-

194

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 814

MEANS OP
GRACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.
Scarcity of
entire co
pies of the
Bible. Vernacu
lar trans
lations.

Too often, however, the supply of biblical as well as other
manuscripts appears to have been extremely small1 ; and
very few even of the well-affected clergy had sufficient
means to purchase more than two or three separate works2
of the inspired Authors. Copies of the Psalms and Gospels
were most frequently possessed.
The laity, when they could read, had also opportunities
of gathering crumbs of sacred knowledge, here and there
at least, from versions now in circulation3 of some parts
of holy Writ, from interlinear glosses of the Service-books4,
or from poetic paraphrases, harmonies, and hymns in the
vernacular, — productions which indeed grow very numerous
at this period5.

and, for England, iElfric, Ore the Old and New Testaments, translated by
L'Isle, Lond. 1638. At the consecration of a bishop the following ques
tion was asked : 'Vis ea qua ex Divinis Scriptwis intelligis plebem cui
ordinandus es et verbis doeere et exemplis.' MS. quoted in Soames,
Bampt. Led. p. 95. See Maskell's Monumenta Ritualia, m. 246. Dun
stan urges the advantage of a familiar acquaintance with the Holy Scrip
tures in his 'Exposition of the Bule of St Benedict :* Cambr. Univ. MSS,
Ee. n. 4, fol. 26, b.
1 Mr Kemble (Saxons, n. 434) quotes a letter from Freculf bishop of
Lisieux to Babanus Maurus, in which he says 'in episcopio nostra
parvitati commisso, nee ipsos Novi et Veteris Testament! repperi libros,.
multo minus horum expositiones.'
2 This was implied in the advice of Biculf, bishop of Soissons (889),
who urged his country clergy to bestow especial pains upon their schools,
and to provide themselves with as many books as possible. If they could
not procure all the Old Testament, they were at least to have the Book of
Genesis: Fleury, liv. liv. § 4. In. the conventual catalogue above cited,
p. 193, n. 4, the ' Bibliotheca, ' or entire Bible, was in one copy 'dispersa
in voluminibus xrv. '
3 Above, p. 89. King Alfred is said to have commenced a version of
the Psalms into English (W. Malmsbur. De Gest. Regum. p. 45, ed.
Francof. 1601). The fragments of iElfric's Heptateuchus, a translation
of portions of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, &c, have been printed,
ed. Thwaites, Oxon. 1698. The Anglo-Saxon Gospels (best edited by
Thorpe, Lond. 1842) are also traceable to this period. The Slavonic
churches of Moravia, Bussia, Servia, and probably others, possessed the
Bible and Service-books in the vernacular. See above, p. 113, p. 121,
p. 125: but it is worthy of remark, that in the cognate church of Dal-
matia, subject to the popes, attempts were ultimately made (e. g. council
of Spalato, 1069) to banish the Slavonic ritual and to substitute the
Latin. 4 Above, p. 89, n. 4: and Wright's Biogr. Brit. i. 427. The 'Durham
Book' (Cotton MS. Nero, D. rv.), of which the Latin portion was written
between 687 and 721, received the interlinear gloss about 950.
6 Louis the Pious had a metrical version of the Scriptures made
under his direction (Palgrave's Normandy, I. 188), which most probably

— 1073] State of Intelligence and Piety.

195

Still, as writers of the age itself complain, , a careful
study of the Bible was comparatively rare, especially
throughout the tenth century; the clerics even giving a
decided preference to some lower fields of thought, for
instance, to the elements of logic and of grammar1. The
chief source of general reading was the swarming ' Lives
of Saints,' which had retained the universal influence we
have noticed on a former page2. The Eastern Church was
furnished with them even to satiety by Simeon Meta-
phrastes"; and a number of his wildest Legends were
transmitted to the West. The general craving for such
kinds of food is well attested by the fact that iElfric
had himself translated two large volumes at the wish of
the English people, and had subsequently been induced
to undertake a third for the gratification of the monks*.
The counteraction to this growing worship of the saints
was now less frequent and emphatic than before. The
voice of a reforming prelate, such as Agobard5 or Claudius
of Turin6, did little to abate the ruling spirit of the age.

is the Heliand (circ. 830).,. an Old-Saxon Gospel Harmony (ed. Schmeller),
alliterative in form. Another Harmony, or Paraphrase of the Gospels, is
by Ottfried (circ. 868), a monk of Weissenburg. See this and other ver
nacular pieces in Schilter's Thesaurus Antiq. Teutonicarum. The Psalms
also were translated into the Low-German dialect (ed. Hagen). Von
Baumer (as referred to above, p. 89, n. 1) will point out many other
fragments of this class. In the eleventh century, Notker Labeo, a monk
of St Gall, and Williram, master of the cathedral-school at Bamberg,
added to the stock of vernacular theology ; the former having published
a German paraphrase of the Psalms, and the latter a German translation
and exposition of Solomon's Song.
1 See the complaint of Notker in Neander, vi. 177. Agobard of
Lyons, at an earlier date, in his endeavours to reform the Liturgy, and
raise the spiritual character of the priesthood, bears the following wit
ness to the evils of his time: 'Quam plurimi ab ineunte pueritia usque
ad senectutis canitiem omnes dies vitas suas in parando et confirmando
expendunt, et totum tempus utilium et spiritalium studiorum, legendi,
videlicet, et Divina eloquia perscrutandi, in istiusmodi occupatione con-
sumunt. ' De Corredione Antiphon. c. 18. Opp. n. 99, ed. Baluze.
2 p. 90.
3 Above, p. 179.
* See the Preface to an Anglo-Saxon Passion of St George, edited by
the present writer, for the late Percy Society, No. lxxxviii. Time for
reading would be found on Sundays, which were still most rigorously
observed : e.g. Council of Eanham (1009), c. 15, c. 30 (Johnson, i. 486,
490) ; Council of Coyaco, in Spain (1050), c. 3.
6 De Imaginibus, c. xxxv : Opp. I. 267.
6 See Neander, vi. 129.
02

Popularity
of the Dives
of Saints.

Saint-wor
ship.

196

State of Intelligence and Piety. [A.D. 814

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Increase in
the number
of Saints.

The exces
sive vene
ration of
the Virgin.

The calendar was crowded more and more with names,
occasionally, it is true, the names of genuine saints1, or
those of missionaries who expired in the evangelizing of
the heathen; but frequently they represent a host of
mythic beings, coloured, if not altogether forged, to satisfy
the wants of an uncritical and marvel-hunting generation2.
In some cases, it is probable, the authors of the Legends
put them out as nothing more than historical romances,
but the ordinary reader did not view them in this light ;
and therefore the results to which they naturally led, in
moulding the religious habits and ideas of the Middle
Ages, were extensive and profound3.
Of all the saints whom Christians venerated more and
more, the blessed Virgin was the chief. The story of her
exaltation into heaven obtained a general credence, and
as men were often vying with each other in attempts to
elevate her far above the common sphere of humanity4,
they now devised a public service for this end, — the Hours
or Office of St Mary*. It was gradually accepted in the
1 e.g. Count Gerald of Aurillac, whose life was written by Odo, the
abbot of Clugny, in the Biblioth. Cluniacensis, ed. Paris, 1614. He is
said to have left many clerics far behind in his knowledge of the Scrip
tures. 2 e.g. Bellarmine even thinks that the productions of Simeon Meta-
phrastes were indebted largely to his own inventive powers (they were
narrations ' non ut res gestas fuerant, sed ut geri potuerant ') : but this
idea is rejected by another of the Boman controversialists, Leo Allatius,
in his De Simeonum Scriptis, pp. 43 — 47. Many legends also were
repeated of different saints merely with a change of names : Gieseler, n.
424, 425. The Church besides was deluged at this period by ' heretical'
or 'apocryphal' hymns and martyrologies : see, for instance, the Pref.
quoted in p. 195, n. 4. Agobard informs us in like manner that it was
usual for some persons to sing the most heterodox effusions even in the
churches : ' non solum inepta et superflua sed etiam prof ana et hasretica
in ecclesiis decantare.' De Correct. Antiphon. c. 18. He proposes in
stead of these to have a reformed Antiphonary, ' ex purissimis Sanctas
Scripturse verbis sufficientissime ordinatum.' Ibid. c. 19.
3 We may conceive of this effect more clearly by remembering that
Ignatius Loyola was fired to institute the Order of the Jesuits by reading
the Legenda in a time of sickness. An account of the Martyrologies
produced by the present period may be seen in Schrockh, xxni. 209 sq.
4 e.g. Peter Damiani (Hildebrand's coadjutor) has the following:
'Numquid quia ita deificata, ideo nostras humanitatis oblita es? Nequa-
quam, domina....Data est tibi omnis potestas in coslo et in terra.' Sermo
xliv. Opp. n. 107. His sermons on the Virgin are always in this strain:
cf. Soames' Bampton Led. pp. 232 sq.
6 Hymns in honour of the Virgin are somewhat older, but Damiani
seems to have been among the first who engrafted them on the public

— 1073] State of Intelligence and Piety.

197

monasteries, where the custom of performing mass on
Saturdays1 to the especial honour of the Virgin also took
its rise.
The saints indeed were worshipped by the more en
lightened on the ground that every act of veneration paid
to them was ultimately paid to Christ Himself, and would
redound to the glory of His grace2: but in 'the many it
was very different. Owing to their want of spiritual and
intellectual culture, a distinction of this kind was for the
most part altogether unintelligible. They would naturally
confound the courtiers and the king ; in other words, the
worship of the holy dead, as understood by them, was
bordering close upon polytheism. The formal recognition
(' canonization ') of a saint, not only in one single district
but in every province of the Church (a usage dating from
the present period3), added greatly to the downward im
pulse. We have glanced already at the storm excited by the
images and pictures of the saints. It seems that on the
close of the Iconoclastic troubles they were now employed
in East and West alike, although the more intelligent
continued to regard them in the light of historical re-
worship of the Church : see his Opuscul. xxxin. c. 3. It was now not
unusual to call her ' mater misericordias,' ' beata regina mundi,' ' sae-
steorra,' etc. Mabillon (Annal. Benedict, rv. 462 sq.) traces the Rosary,
or Psalter of the Virgin, to the eleventh century, when it existed in Eng
land and the Netherlands.
> Damiani, ubi sup. c. 4. He met with opposition when he urged
this observance on some of the Italian convents. A monk, Gozo, resisted
it on the ground that it was an innovation: see Gieseler, n. 428, n. 18.
2 e.g. Such is the language of John XV. in 993 (Mansi, xix. 170) 
' quoniam sic adoramus et colimus reliquias martyrum et confessorum,
ut Eum Cujus martyres et confessores sunt adoremus, honoramus servos,
ut honor redundet in Dominum,' etc. Even Batherius of Verona was an
advocate of saint-worship in this sense: Prceloquia, lib. iv. p. 892, ed.
Ballerini. On the other hand, Claudius of Turin (above, p. 158) con
demned the practice. The ideas of king Alfred may be gathered from
expressions like the following: ' I Alfred king, in honour of God and of
the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the Saints,' etc....' Whosoever shall
misappropriate this gift, may he be by God and the Holy Virgin Mary
and all the saints accursed for ever.' Codex Diplomaticus, ed. Kemble,
u. 106. 3 See above, p. 90, n. 2. The earliest well-authenticated instance of
a canonization by the pope is that of TJlrich, bishop of Augsburg, which
took place in 993: Mansi, xix. 169. The metropolitans, however, in
some districts exercised their ancient right till 1153: Pagi, Breviar.
Pontif. in. 115.

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

ideas of the
nature of
Saint-wor
ship.

Images.

ig8

State of Intelligence and Piety. [A.D. 814

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

membrancers, and not as in themselves the end, or even
the especial channels of devotion1.
A perpetual source of mischief and profaneness was the
feverish passion to become possessed of relics of the saints.
The gross credulity of some, and the unpardonable fraud
of others, multiplied the number of these objects of research
to a prodigious and most scandalous extent. They grew
at length into a common article of traffic2. Monasteries
in particular, where many of them were enshrined from
motives either of cupidity or superstition, reaped a harvest
by exhibiting their treasures to the simple-hearted crowd.
A few indeed of the disinterested or less credulous abbots
interposed occasionally, and shut up some wonder-working
relic from the gaze of the tumultuary assemblage whom
it had attracted to the spot3. Too often, however, 'the
religious,' running with the stream of popular opinion,
acquiesced in the circulation of the vilest cheats4. The
masses were thus more and more confirmed in semi-pagan
notions with respect to amulets and charms; believing
everywhere, to some extent at least, in the protective and
the therapeutic virtues of the relics.
In connexion with this point we may remark, that

1 See above, pp. 158, 175. A remarkable specimen of the reigning
modes of thought on this subject is supplied by the Laws of king Alfred
(Thorpe, i. 44), where the second precept of the Decalogue is omitted,
but in order to complete the number ten, we have the following addition,
' Make not thou for thyself golden or silver gods.'
2 e.g. Life of Rabanus Maurus, in Act. Sanct. Febr. i. 513. Glaber
Badulphus (Hist. lib. iv. c. 3) tells a story of an impostor who wandered
(circ. 1020) from place to place, under different names, as a vendor of
dead men's bones, which he dug up almost indiscriminately. Numbers
of relics now began to be imported by the pilgrims on their visits to the
East. Thus Simeon of Treves (circ. 1030) introduced relies of St Catha
rine to the Western Church, where she was hitherto unknown ; Fleury,
Hist. Ecctes., lib. lix. s. 27. Perhaps no more striking characteristic of
the spirit of the times has been recorded than the contest respecting a
St Martial (one of the companions of St Denis the Areopagite?) whom
the monks of Limoges endeavoured to exalt into the rank of an apostle.
See an account of the controversy in Schrockh, xxni. 145 sq.
3 e.g. Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium (St Trond), in D'Achery's Spi
cileg. n. 664. Cf. Guerard, Cartulaire de VEglise de Notre-Dame p. xxv
4 The number of these finally suggested the application of the fire-
ordeal (cf. above, p. 155, n. 3) to test the genuineness of relics. See Ma-
billon's Vet. Analecta, p. 568. Schrockh (xxni. 180 sq.) enumerates
some of the most cherished of the relics now discovered or transmitted
to the West; e.g. a Tear of Christ, Blood of Christ, &c.

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199

a more ancient practice of the Church in seeking to
ward off the ravages of sickness, now obtained an almost
universal currency. This was the rite which subsequently
bore the name of 'extreme unction.' It was at the first
applied by private Christians1, and was not restricted, any
more than the anterior custom noticed by St James
(v. 14), to mortal sickness only. The administration was
however, in the eighth century, confined to members of
the sacerdotal class2, the rite itself attaining to the rank
of special ordinances, which, in laxer phrase, were not
unfrequently entitled ' sacraments3.'
As might be augured from the cheerless aspect of the
age, a number of the more devout of either sex had been
impelled into seclusion, where they lived amid inhospitable
woods and wilds. These hermits, it would seem, abounded
most in the tenth century4. Disgusted with their former
selves, or with the desperate state of morals and religion
in the town, they hoped to find in solitude an interval
of holy calm which they might dedicate to prayer and
closer self-inspection.
A more earthly spirit breathed in the prevailing rage
for pilgrimages. Many doubtless undertook them with
a mingled class of feelings, differing little, if at all, from
those of modern tourists : while the rest would view such
journeys, as the Church herself did for the most part, in
relation to the penitential system of the age. As the
more hopeful doctrines of the cross had been forgotten
1 Cf. Neander vi. 145: Klee (Boman-catholic), Hist, of Christ. Dod.
(in German), Part 11. ch. vi. § 5.
2 ' Omnes presbyteri oleum infirmorum ab episcopo expetant secum-
que habeant; et admoneant fideles infirmos illud exquirere ut eodem
oleo peruncti a presbyteris sanentur,' etc. Bonifacii Opp. n. 24, ed. Giles.
The usage is again sanctioned, more especially in case of mortal sickness,
by the council of Pavia (850), c. 8. In the Canons enacted under Edgar
(Thorpe, 11. 258) it is enjoined that "the priest shall give 'husel' (the
Eucharist) to the sick, and unction also, if they desire it."
3 e.g. Damiani speaks of twelve rites to which this name is applicable,
unction in the number: Sermo lxix; Opp. 11. 167. It may be noted
here that although communion in both kinds was still the rule of the
Church, the consecrated wine was often administered, for prudential
reasons, through a tube ('calamus,' ' canna,' ' fistula') : see Spittler, Gesch.
des Ketches im Abendmahl. The practice of receiving the consecrated
elements into the hand of the communicant began to be discontinued
after the Council of Bouen (880) : Grancolas, Les Anc. Liturg. 11, 323.
4 Capefigue, L'Eglise au Moyen Age, 1. 251.

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Extremeunction.

Solitaries.

Pilgrimages,

200

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 814

to Rome,

and to the
Holy
Sepulchre. The peni
tential sys
tem of the
Church.

or displaced, men felt that the Almighty could no longer
be propitious to them while resorting to the common
means of grace. Accordingly they acquiesced in the most
rigid precepts of their spiritual director and the heaviest
censures of the Church. The pilgrimage to Rome stood
highest in their favour during all the earlier half of the
present period ; the extravagant ideas of papal grandeur,
and the hope of finding a more copious absolution at the
hands of the alleged successor of St Peter, operating very
powerfully in all districts of the West1. But subsequently
the great point of confluence was the Holy Sepulchre, which
from the year 1030 seems to have attracted multitudes
of every grade2.
It must, however, be remembered, that the better class
of prelates, even where they yielded more or less to the
externalizing spirit of the times, have never failed to
censure all reliance on these works as grounds of human
merit, or as relieving men from the necessity of inward
transformation to the holy image of the Lord3. A number
also, it must be allowed, of the ascetics, both in east and
west, exhibited the genuine spirit of humility and self-

1 See above, pp. 141, 142. Such pilgrims were called Romei, Homines
peregrini et Romei, Romipeta. Nicholas I. (862) declares, 'Ad hanc sanc-
tam Eomanam ecclesiam, de diversis mundi partibus quotidie multi
sceleris mole oppressi confugiunt, remissionem scilicet, et venialem sibi
gratiam tribui supplici et ingenti cordis mcerore poseentes:' Mansi, xv.
280. Individual bishops protested against this custom; and the council
of Seligenstadt (1022) commanded that the German Christians should
first perform the penance prescribed by their own clergy, and then, if
they pleased to obtain the permission of their bishop, it allowed them to
go to Bome: c. 18; Mansi, xix. 398. A similar proof of independence is
supplied by archbishop Dunstan: Soames, Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 207.
ed. 1844.
2 ' Per idem tempus (circ. 1030) ex universo orbe tarn innumerabilis
multitudo cospit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis, quan-
tam nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Primitus enim ordo infe-
rioris plebis, deinde vero mediocres, posthasc permaximi quique reges et
comites, marchiones ac prassules : ad ultimum vero, quod nunquam con-
tigerat, mulieres multas nobiles cum pauperioribus illuc perrexere.' Gla-
ber Eadulph. Hist. lib. iv. c. 6. For earlier instances of these visits, see
Schrockh, xxni. 203 sq., and the treatise of Adamnan De Situ Terra
Sandce, ed. Ingolstadt, 1619. The fame of St James (San Jago) of
Compostella (above, p. 93, n. 2) was now increasing in the West. See
Heidegger, Dissert, de Peregrinat. Religiosis, pp. 18 sq. Tiguri, 1670.
3 See e.g. the Libri Tres de Institutione Laicali of Jonas,' bishop of
Orleans, passim, in D'Achery's Spicileg. i. 258 — 323.

—1073]

State of Intelligence and Piety.

201

renunciation1. Yet, upon the other hand, it is apparent
that the penitential discipline of the Church was under
mining the foundations of the truth. The theory most
commonly adopted was, that penances are satisfactions
paid by the offender, with the hope of averting the dis
pleasure of Almighty God. Its operation, therefore, would
be twofold, varying with the temperament or the con
victions of the guilty. The more earnest felt that the
effects of sin could only be removed by voluntary suffer
ing, by an actual and incessant mortification of the flesh.
Accordingly they had recourse to measures the most
violent, for instance, to a series of extraordinary fasts
and self-inflicted scourgings2, not unlike the almost suicidal
discipline which had for ages been adopted by the Yogis
of the east. The other and the larger class who shrank
from all ascetic practices could find relief in commu
tations, or remissions, of the penances3 prescribed by
canons of the ancient Church. A relaxation of this kind,
now legalized in all the Libri Pcenitentiales, was entitled
an ' indulgence.' Grants of money for ecclesiastical pur
poses, a pilgrimage, the repetition of religious formulas,
and other acts like these, were often substituted for a long
term of rigorous self-denial4, and too often also (we must
apprehend) for genuine change of heart and life. The
magnitude of penances was greater in the case of clerics
1 Thus Anskar, the Apostle of the North, who carried the practice
of self-mortification to a high pitch, could pray notwithstanding that he
might be kept from spiritual pride which threatened him at times:
'Qua de re tristis faetus, et ad Domini pietatem totis viribus in ora-
tione conversus, postulabat ut Sua eum gratia ab hac perniciosissima
impietate liberaret.' Vit. S. Anskar. c. 35 : Pertz, n. 717. In the same
spirit, Theodore the Studite could attribute all he had and all he was
to God : Aici airXdyxva oUripuuv, ovk <¦£ tpyum uov tivuv ov ydp iiroi-nad n
dyaBbv iirl rfjs yijs dXXd TomavHov. Epist. lib. II. ep. 34.
2 The great advocate of this extreme asceticism was Damiani, who
regarded it as a 'purgatory' on earth. He had to defend his views,
however, from the censure of opponents. See his Opuscul. xliii. De
Laude Flagellorum et Disciplina, and cf. Gieseler, n. 444, n. 10.
3 This practice of the Church had been condemned (e. g. in the re
forming synod of Clovesho 747, c. 26 ; and afterwards in that of Mentz,
847, c. 31), but it had gained an almost universal currency in the present
" See Muratori, Antiq. Ital. v. 710 sq. ' De redemptione Peccatorum.'
The custom of granting indulgences to certain ' privileged ' churches
dates from the profligate pontiff, Benedict IX. (above, p. 139, n. 5) : see
Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened. sasc. v. prasf. § 109.

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

False views
of peni
tence.

Self-scourging and ex
treme asce
ticism.

Indul-

or commu
tations of
penance.

202

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 814

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Vicarious

Confession:

than in that of laymen ; it was greater also in the high
born than the low : but through a sad confusion of ideas
it was possible for the more wealthy sinner to compress
a seven years' fast, for instance, into one of three days,
by summoning his numerous dependents, and enjoining
them to fast with him and in his stead1.
Beside the discipline allotted to the individual, on con
fessing voluntarily to the priest, more overt acts of sin2
had to be publicly acknowledged on the pain of excom
munication. When offenders proved refractory, the issuing
of this sentence, backed as it now was by the civil power,
incapacitated them for holding offices or reaping honours
of the state. Another engine of the spirituality was the
more dreadful sentence of anathema, by which the subjects
of it were excluded altogether from the fellowship of
Christians3. But the heaviest of those censures, which we
find developed in its greatest vigour at the opening of
the eleventh century, was termed the interdict*, or utter
excommunication, not of individuals merely, but of all the
province where a crime had been committed.
The morose and servile feelings which the penitential
system of the Church engendered or expressed, were deep
ened by the further systematizing of her old presentiments
respecting purgatory5. The distinction, to be afterwards
1 A case of this very kind occurs in the Canons enacted under Edgar
(Thorpe, ii. 286). It is presumed, of course, that the offending lord
who profits by the regulation is penitent himself, but from the whole
passage one is bound to draw the inference that a sin was to be liqui
dated exactly like some ordinary debt. ' The man not possessing means
may not so proceed, but must seek it for himself the more diligently ;
and that [the canon is compelled to add] is also justest, that every one
wreak his own misdeeds on himself, with diligent bdt (satisfaction).
Scriptum est enim : Quia unusquisque onus suum portabit,' p. 289.
Damiani (Opuscul. v. : Mansi, xix. 893) makes use of the following Ian-
guage: 'Centum itaque annorum sibi poenitentiam indidi, redemptio-
nemque ejus taxatamper unumquemque annum pecunia quantitate prasfixi.'
2 The bishop inquired into such flagrant cases on his visitation-tour.
See Begino, De Disciplinis Eccl. lib. n. c. 1 sq., ed. Baluze, 1671.
3 See Neander, vi. 153.
4 Earlier instances oocur, but till the present period they had been
condemned by the more sober class of prelates; e.g. Hincmar's Opusc.
xxxni. (against his nephew Hincmar of Laon, who had placed his
diocese under an interdict). The first example of the mediasval practice
which drew down no condemnation, happened in 994: see Bouquet's
Historiens des Gaules, etc x. 147. The penalty was legalized in 1031
by the provincial synod of Limoges (Limovicense II.) ; Mansi, xix. 541.
6 See above, p. 95.

—1073]

State of Intelligence and Piety.

203

evolved, between the temporal and eternal consequences
of sin, was still indeed unknown : but in defining that a
numerous class of frailties, unforgiven in the present life,
are nevertheless remissible hereafter, the dominion of the
sacerdotal order and the efficacy of prayers and offerings
on the part of the survivors were indefinitely extended
to the regions of the dead1. From this idea2, when em
bodied ultimately in a startling legend3, sprang the ' Feast
of All Souls' (Nov. 2), which seems to have been instituted
soon after 1024, at Clugny, and ere long accepted in the
Western Church at large.
Perhaps the incident which of all others proved the
aptest illustration of the spirit of the age, is found in a
prevailing expectation that the winding-up of all things
would occur at the close of the tenth century. At first
arising, it may be, from misconceptions of the words of
the Apocalypse4 (xx. 1—6), the notion was apparently
confirmed by the terrific outbreak of the powers of evil :
while a vivid consciousness of their demerit filled all
orders of society with a foreboding that the Judge was
standing at the door. As soon as the dreaded year 1000
had gone over, men appeared to breathe more freely on
all sides. A burst of gratitude for their deliverance5 found
expression in rebuilding or in decorating sanctuaries of
1 Thus John VIII. (circ. 878) declares that absolution is to be
granted to those Christians who have died while fighting ' pro defensione
sanctas Dei ecclesias et pro statu Christianas religionis ac reipublicas,'
against pagans and infidels. Mansi, xvn. 104.
2 Cf. Palgrave, History of Normandy, 1. 164.
3 Vit. S. Odilonis, c. 14 ; in Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened. sasc.
vi. pt. 1. p. 701 : cf. Schrockh, xxni. 223.
4 Hengstenberg, Die Offenbarung des h. Johannes, n. 369, Berlin,
1850 ; Mosheim, Cent. x. part. 11. 0. in. § 3 : Capefigue, L'Eglise au
Moyen Age, 1. 259 sq. Deeds of gift in the tenth century often com
mence with the phrase, ' Appropinquante mundi termino.'
5 Capefigue, pp. 269, 270. Gratitude might enter very largely into
men's feelings at this crisis ; but more frequently it was the wish to
make compensation for sin (' synna gebStan' is the Anglo-Saxon phrase)
which stimulated men to acts of piety and benevolence. ' Pro redemp
tione animas meas et prasdecessorum meorum ' may be taken as a fair
specimen of the motives which were then in the ascendant : cf. Schrockh,
xxni. 139 sq. and Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus, passim. The excite
ment in connexion with the year 1000 was renewed in 1033, at the
beginning of the second thousand years after the Crucifixion. Many
were then stimulated to set out for Palestine, where Christ was expected
to appear : see above, p. 200.

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
The effects
of the belief
in purga
tory.
FeastofAllSouls.

General
expectation of the final
judgment.

204

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 814-1073

God and other spots connected with religion. To this
circumstance we owe a number of the stateliest minsters
and cathedrals which adorn the west of Europe1.
Much, however, as the terrors of the Lord had stimu
lated zeal and piety, it is too obvious that the many soon
relapsed into their ancient unconcern. The genuine re
formation of the Church 'in head and members,' though
the want of it is not unfrequently confessed, was still to
human eye impossible. She had to pass through further
stages of probation and decline. It almost seems as if
the consciousness of individual fellowship with Christ,
long palsied or suppressed, could not be stirred into a
healthy action till the culture of the human intellect had
been more generally advanced. Accordingly the dialectic
studies of the schools, however mischievous in other ways,
were needed for the training of those master-minds, who
should at length eliminate the pagan customs and un
christian modes of thought which had been blended in the
lapse of ages with the apostolic faith. It was required
especially that Hildebrandine principles, which some had
taken as the basis of a pseudo-reformation, should be
pressed into their most offensive consequences, ere the
local or provincial Churches could be roused to vindicate
their freedom and cast off the papal yoke2.
1 ' Infra millesimum tertio jam fere imminente anno contigit in uni-
verso posne terrarum orbe, prascipue tamen in Italia et in Galliis, inno-
vari ecclesiarum basilicas, licet pleraeque deeenter locatas minime in-
diguissent, etc.. .Erat enim instar ac si mundus ipse excutiendo semet,
rejecta vetustate, passim candidam ecclesiarum vestem indueret.' Glaber
Badulph. Hist. lib. in. c. 4.
2 Schaff (Ch. Hist. ' Introd.' p. 51) remarks on the character of this
period : — ' This may be termed the age of Christian legalism, of Church
authority. Personal freedom is here, to great extent, lost in slavish sub
jection to fixed, traditional rules and forms. The individual subject is of
account, only as the organ and medium of the general spirit of the
Church. All secular powers, the state, science, art, are under the
guardianship of the hierarchy, and must everywhere serve its ends.
This is emphatically the era of grand universal enterprises, of colossal
works, whose completion required the cooperation of nations and cen
turies ; the age of the supreme outward sovereignty of the visible Church.
Such a well-ordered and imposing system of authority was necessary
for the training of the Bomanic and Germanic nations, to raise them
from barbarism to the consciousness and rational use of freedom. Pa
rental discipline must precede independence: children must first be
governed, before they can govern themselves : the law is still, as in the
days of Moses, a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ.'

C|irir $triot 0f % PMIc Jges.
THE CHRISTIAN CHTJRCH FROM GREGORY VII.
UNTIL THE TRANSFER, OF THE PAPAL SEE
TO AVIGNON. 1073—1305.

( 206 )

[a.d. 1073

NORTHERN MISSIONS.

Militaryconversion of the
Finns.

CHAPTER IX.

§1. GROWTH OF 'HE CHURCH.
The districts in the north of Europe, which had hitherto
continued strangers to the Christian faith, were for the
most part now ' converted ;' though the agency employed
was far too frequently the civil sword, and not the genuine
weapons of the first Apostle.
AMONG THE FINNS.
These tribes, addicted still to a peculiar form of nature-
worship1, were subdued (circ. 1150) by Eric IX., king of
Sweden, whose exertions in diffusing Christianity2 have won
for him the name of saint3. Impelled by a misgoverned
zeal, he laboured to coerce the Finns into a knowledge
of the Gospel. His ally in this crusade was Henry,
bishop of Upsala4, an Englishman, who ultimately perished
while attempting to excommunicate a murderer (1158).
Some real progress was effected6 in the reign of Eric;
1 Mone, Gesch. des Heiidenthums, i. 43 sq.
2 Sweden was itself imperfectly Christianized in the former period
(p. 107, n. 3). In 1123 a crusade was formed against the heathen of
Scania, where several Englishmen, David, Askil, Stephen and others were
distinguished missionaries (Laing's Sweden, p. 239, Lond. 1839); and
in some of the other districts Eric carried on the work of conversion
(Schrockh, xxv. 279).
3 See his Life in the Acta Sanct. Maii, iv. 187.
4 He also was canonized: see his Life in the Acta Sanct. Januar. n.
249. 5 A bishopric was founded at Eendamecki, afterwards (? 1228) trans
ferred to Abo. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geogr. n. 259, n. 14. It was included
in the Swedish province of Upsala.

—1305]

Growth of the Church.

207

but in 1240 we find the natives generally adhering to their
ancient superstitions, and most eager to annihilate the little
Christian flock. A Swedish jarl, accordingly (1249), began
a fresh crusade against them, and his violence was copied
on a further provocation by the Swedish monarch, Thorkel.
who reduced a tribe of Finns beyond the Tawastlanders.
It is said that, prior to the date of his incursion, tidings
of the faith had reached them through a Russian channel1.

AMONG THE. CLAVONIC TRIBES.
The rapid progress of the truth among this section of
the human family has been already traced2. The present
period witnessed an extension of the missionary work.
The earliest converts were the Pomeranians, then possess
ing Pomerania Proper, Wartha, and Lusatia. From the
date of their succumbing to the Poles (circ. 997) attempts
were made, especially in Eastern Pomerania, to annex the
heathen natives to the Church by founding a bishopric at
Colberg3 (1000). But their fierce resistance4 to the mis
sionary long impeded his success ; and only when the
Polish sway was extended over all the western district
by the arms of Boleslav III. in 1121, could any stable
groundwork be procured for the ulterior planting of the
Church. A Spanish priest named Bernard5, who embarked upon
the mission in the following year, was found obnoxious,
from his poverty, asceticism, and other causes, to the bulk
1 Dollinger, in. 277, 278.
2 Above, pp. Ill sq.
a Wiltsch, 1. 397, n. 2. The bishop Beinbern, however, had no suc
cessor (see Kanngiesser's Bekehrungs-Gesch. der Pommern zum Christen-
thume, pp. 295 sq., Greifswald, 1824); the- diocese being united with that
of Gnesen. 4 ' Sed nee gladio prasdicationis cor eorum a perfidia potuit revocari,
nee gladio jugulationis eorum penitus viperalis progenies aboleri. Saspe
tamen principes eorum a Duce Polonias praslio superati ad baptismum
confugerunt, itemque collectis viribus fidem Christianam abnegantes
contra Christianos helium denuo paraverunt.' Martinus Gallus (as above,
p. 116, n. 3).
6 Vit. S. Ottonis, in Ludewig's Script. Rer. Episcop. Bamberg. 1. 460 sq.
A more nearly contemporary account of the mission is the Vit. B. Ottonis,
in Canisii Led. Antiq. ed. Basnage, in. pt. ii. pp. 35 sq.

POMERA NIAN
CHURCH.

The mis
sionary
efforts of
the Poles.

208

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 1073

POMERA NIAN
CHURCH.
Labours of
Otho, bi
shop of
Bamberg (d. 1139).

at Stettin,

of the heathen natives. He was therefore superseded at
his own desire by one more fitted for the task, the cheerful
and judicious Otho, bishop of Bamberg, who set out (April
24, 1124) with an imposing retinue and many tempting
presents. He commenced the missionary work at Pyritz
(near the Polish frontier), where a large assemblage was col
lected for the celebration of a pagan feast ; and after twenty
days no less than seven thousand of them were admitted
to the sacrament of baptism. Wartislav, the duke of
Pomerania, was a warm supporter of the mission, exer
cising a most salutary influence by his own renunciation
of polygamy, and his endeavours to repress the other
heathen customs1. Fear of Poland, blended with increas
ing admiration of the earnestness of bishop Otho, gradually
disposed the natives of all ranks to seek for shelter in the
Church. From Cammin, where the ducal family resided,
Otho bent his course to the important isle of Wollin, whence
however he was soon obliged to fly from the assault of an
infuriated mob. He next addressed his offers to the lead
ing town of Pomerania, Stettin, and succeeded after fresh
resistance in demolishing the temple of its chief divinity2
(Triglav), and in winning over a large band of converts3.
Having lingered here five months, he crossed again to
Wollin, the remaining stronghold of the pagan party, and
was now enabled to adopt the town of Julin as the see*
of the first bishop (Adalbert).
He then took his leave of Pomerania and returned to
Bamberg in the spring of 1125 : but learning subsequently

1 From Otho's addresses (in Canisius, as above, pp. 61 — 63) to the
recently-baptized converts we learn, among other things, that the un
natural custom of destroying female children at their birth prevailed to a
great extent.
2 The interesting circumstances connected with this and similar acts
are given at length in Neander, vn. 16 — 21 : cf. Mone, I. 178.
3 Numbers seem to have been influenced by a promise now elicited by
Otho from the duke of Poland, to remit the annual tribute of the Chris
tian Pomeranians (Vit. B. Ottonis, in Canisius, p. 69).
4 Owing to quarrels with the Danes, the bishopric was afterwards
(1175) transferred to Cammin. Wiltsch, ii. 85. It was exempted from all
archiepiscopal jurisdiction and placed in immediate dependence on the
see of Bome by Innocent II. (1140): Hasselbach, Codex Pomerania
Diplom. i. 36; ed. Greifswald, 1843. Clement III. sanctioned the trans
fer of the see in 1188, on the understanding that the bishops should pay
annually to the pope 'fertonem (=farthing) auri.' Ibid. p. 152.

Growth of the Church.

—1305] that a strong reaction had commenced in favour of the
ancient religion, he was constrained to enter on a second
journey in 1128. Deflecting from his earlier route1 he
came into the dukedom at the town of Demmin (Timiana),
where the Gospel was unknown. A diet held at Usedom
(Uznam), soon after his arrival, sanctioned its diffusion in
these parts, and Otho lost no time in sending out his staff
of missionaries, two and two, among the neighbouring
heathen. As before, he frequently encountered opposition
from the populace, especially at Wolgast (Hologasta),
which he visited in person. A large band of soldiers
headed by the duke himself, could hardly keep the mul
titude in check. At length, however, they consented to
behold the demolition of the pagan temples, and promoted
the erection of a Church.
On leaving Wolgast Otho steadily declined the services
of Albert the Bear, who would have fain employed his
sword against the pagans. Giitzkow (Gozgangia) was the
place at which the missionaries halted next, and where
they reaped a larger harvest of conversions2. An attempt
to gain the Slavic isle of Riigen having failed, they bent
their course to Stettin with the hope of counteracting the
revival of the pagan rites. The bishop found an ardent
coadjutor in a former convert Witstack3, and their courage,
tempered with affection, finally disarmed the frenzy of the
zealots, who passed over in great numbers to the Church
(1128). Henceforward it was everywhere triumphant.
Christian, more particularly Saxon, colonists supplied the
waste of population which had been occasioned by incessant
wars; and as the clergy for the most part were Teutonic
also, Pomerania both in language and in creed was Ger
manized4. The Wendish tribes, especially the northernmost (the
Obotrites), who had relapsed into polytheism upon the
martyrdom of Gottschalk6 (1066), continued for the most
1 Vit. B. Ottonis, as above, pp. 75 sq.
2 Ibid. pp. 77 sq. On the consecration of a stately church, the bishop
dwelt at large upon the truth that the one genuine temple of the Lord is
in the human heart. His sermon wrought a deep effect, especially in
Mizlaf, the governor of the district.
8 Lbid. pp. 83 sq.
4 Neander, vn. 41.
6 See above, pp. 118, 119.
M. A. P

209

POMERA NIAN
CHURCH.
Otho's
second
missionary tour.

Bitterly
opposed at
Wolgast :

but finally
successful.

Vicissi
tudes of
religion ;

2IO

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 1073

WENDISH CHURCH.

its re-esta
blishmentin the
southern
provinces.

Subjuga tion of the
. Obotrites.
Previous labours of
Vicelin
(d. 1154).

His re-

part the implacable opponents of the Gospel till the middle
of the twelfth century. His son, indeed, assisted by the
neighbouring Christian states, restored the Wendish king
dom in 1105, and made some brief and feeble efforts to
restore the truth1. The dissolution of the empire on the
death of Cnut (1131) facilitated the political designs of
German princes and the spread of Christianity. The arms
of Albert the Bear (1133 sq.) in Brandenburg (Leuticia)
and of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony (1142 sq.), re
placed the Wendish Church upon its early footing, and
soon after it was able to reorganize a number of the sees8
that had been ruined in the former period.
Many of the northern Wends', however, stubbornly
adhered to the ancestral religion until the utter subjugation
of the Obotrites in 1162. Their chief apostle was the
saintly Vicelin4, a man of learning and of indefatigable
zeal. Attracted to this field of missionary enterprise (1125),
he preached at first in the border-town of Neumiinster
(Faldera), selecting it as a kind of outpost in his plan for
the evangelizing of the northern districts of the Elbe. He
drew around him a fraternity5 of laymen and ecclesiastics,
and in 1134, when the emperor Lothair II. paid a visit
to the north, the earnest labours of the mission had been
very largely blessed.
A church in Liibeck, with authority to organize religion
in those parts, was now committed to the hands of Vicelin;
but the Slavonians, on the death of the emperor (1137),
suspecting him of a design against their liberties, rose up

1 The best general accounts are Helmold, Chron. Slavorum, lib. i. c.
24 sq. (as above, p. 118, n. 1), and Gebhardi, Geschichte alter Wendisch-
Slavischen Staaten, I. 143 sq.
2 Cf. above, p. 118, n. 1. The see of Oldenburg, after being occupied
by 'Vicelin and Gerold, was transferred to Liibeck by Henry the Lion ;
that of Mecklenburg to Schwerin (1197), 'propter tyrannidem Sclav-
orum.' Wiltsch, n. 79. The see of Batzeburg was also revived. Ibid.
pp. 79, 238.
3 Helmold, Chron. Ibid.
4 See De Westphalen's Origines Neomonaster. in the Monument, dm-
brica, n. 234 sq. and Praf. pp. 33 sq.: cf. St Vicelin, von P. C. Kruse,
ed. Altona, 1826. Vicelin studied Biblical and other literature for three
years at the university of Paris under Rudolf and Anselm. He was born
at Quernheim, a village on the banks of the Weser.
5 According to Schrockh (xxv. 261), the Rule adopted was that of the
' Prsemonstratensians. '

-1305]

Growth of the Church.

211

in arms and banished every herald of the faith1. Retiring
.only when the storm was loudest, Vicelin continued to
watch over the affairs of his disheartened flock. At length
the partial subjugation of the Slaves by Adolph, count
of Holstein, opened a more prosperous era ; and in 1149,
the toil-worn missionary was promoted to the see of Ol
denburg by Hartwig, the archbishop of Bremen. A pro
longed misunderstanding now ensued between that primate
and the duke, upon the subject of investiture'2; but though
embarrassed by it, Vicelin continued3 to the last (1154)
a pattern of devotion and of evangelic zeal. By dint of
arms, by missionary labour, and a large infusion of Ger
manic settlers, gradually displacing the more ancient
population, Christianity was now triumphantly diffused in
all the broken empire of the Wends.
The latest fortress and asylum of Slavonic heathenism4
was the extensive isle of Riigen. It had shewn a bitter
and imperious zeal in favour of paganism when Pomerania
was converted6. Otho had, indeed, on more than one
occasion, purposed to extend his visits thither, but the
warlike bearing of the people, and the fears of his com
panions had constrained him to desist9. It was reduced,
however, in 1168, by an invasion of the Danes7, who broke
in pieces the chief shrine (of Swantewit) at Arcona, and
reared a Christian sanctuary upon the site. The natives
generally, convinced by the successes of the adversary that
their own divinities were powerless, now assented to the
Gospel The ecclesiastical supervision of the island was
entrusted to a luminary of the Danish Church, the bishop
Absalom of Roskild8.

1 Helmold, Chron. c. 48 — c. 55.
3 It appears that this and other sees were re-erected contrary to the
wishes of the duke (Schrockh, xxv. 263). He therefore claimed at least
the right of granting investiture to the newly-chosen bishops, as was
done by the German kings. To this Hartwig, proud of his primatial
dignity, objected as disgraceful to the Church: but Vicelin at length
consented. 3 Helmold, Ibid. c. 71 sq.
4 Mone, Gesch. des Heidenthums, i. 173 sq.
5 Menacing their recently converted neighbours of Stettin and Julin
' quod sine respectu et consillo eorum idolis renunciassent.' Ibid. p. 184.
6 See the account at length in Neander, vn. 32, 33.
7 Helmold, Ibid. lib. n. c. 12, c. 13 : Gebhardi, n. 9 sq.
8 Biigen was thus annexed to his own diocese : Wiltsch, n. 95.
p2

WENDISH CHURCH.

elevation to
the see of
Oldenburg.

Final triumph of
the Gospel.
Military conversion
of Riigen,

212

Growth of the Church.

[A.D. 1073

LIVONIAN CHURCH.

Labours of
Canon
Meinhard.

Relapse of
his con
verts.

Succeededby Ber-
thold.

AMONG THE LIEFLANDERS AND OTHER NORTHERN TRIBES.
These tribes1, who bordered mainly on the Baltic and
extended northward to the Gulf of Finland, were most
probably a branch of the Slavonic family, though largely
intermingled, it is said, with others of the Indo-European
stock, and also with the Ugrian race of Finns.
Livonia had been for some time visited by its northern
neighbours, when an aged canon of the name of Mein
hard2 joined himself to certain merchants from the port
of Liibeck, or Bremen, who were trading thither in 1186.
He had been reared in one of Vicelin's foundations (Sege-
berg), and was truly anxious to extend a knowledge of
the Christian faith. As soon as he had made some pro
gress in the work, he was appointed to the see of Yxkull"
(Ykeshola, on the Duna) by the German prelate Hartwig,
the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, who had signalized
himself in other missionary fields. The hopes, however,
which this step excited in the breast of Meinhard, were all
blasted when he came into his diocese. The fickle multi
tude had speedily relapsed, and though he spared no pains
to rescue them afresh from the seductions of polytheism, he
died without attaining any permanent success (1196). His
post was filled by a Cistercian abbot, Berthold4, out of
Lower Saxony, who after trying more pacific measures,
carried on the mission in a very different spirit. Aided by
pope Innocent III.5 he summoned a large army of crusaders
from the neighbouring regions ; and the terrified Livonians
were at length compelled to acquiesce in his demands.
He fell in battle : but as soon as the victorious army was
withdrawn, the pagans rose afresh to wreak their ven-
1 Eespecting their mythology, see Mone, i. 66 sq.
2 See the Origines Livonia sacra et civiles (a Chronicle by Henry, a
Livonian priest, written about 1226), ed. Erancof. 1740, pp. 1 — 5: Geb-
hardi, Gesch. von Liefland, etc. pp. 314 sq.
3 It was secured to the province of Hamburg by the grant of pope
Clement III. (1188) : Lappenberg, Hamburg Urkundenbuch, i. 248.
4 Origines Livonia (as above, n. 2), pp. 10 sq.
5 See his three Letters on this subject in Baynaldus, Annal. Eccl.
ad an. 1199, § 38. He directs those who had vowed a pilgrimage to
Bome, to substitute for it a crusade against the Livonians.

—1305]

Growth of the Church.

213

geance on the Christian body. Berthold was succeeded
by a priest of Bremen, Albert (1198—1229), who also came
into the diocese attended by a numerous army. He
established1 in 1201 the knightly Order of the Sword
('Ordo Fratrum militia? Christi'), by whose chivalry the
elements of paganism were gradually repressed. The
centre of his operations was at Riga (built in 1200), to
which place the see of Yxkull was transferred2.
The zeal of Albert now impelled him to extend the
Church in the adjoining countries. Esthland (or Esthonia)
seems to have been visited already at the instance of pope
Alexander III.3 (1171), but the attempt, as far as we can
judge, was fruitless. A fanatical campaign4 of the Knights
of the Sword, aided by the king of Denmark, Waldemar II.,
had a different issue (1211 — 1218). The province now
succumbed and was evangelized at least in name6. The
twofold nature of the influences exerted in this work gave
rise to a vexatious feud between the Germans and the
Danes, which terminated after many years in the ascend
ancy of the former. Similar disputes had previously grown
up between the military Order and the bishops6.
The conversion of Semgallen7 followed in 1218, and that
of Courland8 in 1230, though in neither case are we at
liberty to argue that the truth was planted very deeply9.
1 Helyot, Hist, des Ordres Relig. et Militaires, 111. 150 sq. Better
influences were at work in Biga. Thus, archbishop Andreas of Lund,
who had come over with the allied Danes in 1205, lectured during the
whole winter on the Book of Psalms. Neander, vn. 53.
2 Wiltsch, n. 82, n. 13. The church of Riga was soon raised to
archiepiscopal rank, and a large province assigned it, by pope Alexander
IV. Raynaldus, Annal. Eccl. ad an. 1255, § 64.
3 Mansi, xxi. 936. A certain Fulco is there mentioned as the bishop
of the Esthlanders.
4 Origines Livonia (as above, p. 212, n. 2), pp. 122 sq.
6 One bishopric was planted at Eeval, a second (1224) at Dorpat, and
a third at Pernau, finally transferred to the isle of Oesel. Wiltsch, 11.
268. The see of Eeval was of Danish origin ; the German party planting
theirs in the first instance at Leal, afterwards at Dorpat : cf . Schrockh,
xxv. 304.
6 Origines Livonia, pp. 47 sq. The pope at last decided in favour of
the Knights. Ibid. p. 74.
7 A bishopric was placed at Seelburg: Wiltsch, 11. 268. The natives,
however, soon relapsed into heathenism.
8 Bishopric at Pilten. Ibid.
9 The visit of William of Modena, as papal legate, in 1225, was salu
tary in appeasing strife and urging the necessity of Christian education.

ESTHONIAN CHURCH.

sion of the
pagans by
force.

Military
conversion
of Esth
land:

Semgallen and Cour
land.

214

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 1073

PRUSSIAN CHURCH.

Labours of
the monk
Christian(d. 1241).

Reaction.

AMONG THE PRUSSIANS.
Prussia, whose inhabitants were chiefly Slaves, with an
admixture of the Lithuanian and Germanic blood, was now
divided into several independent states, all marked, how
ever, by inveterate hatred of the Gospel. In the time
of Adalbert of Prague and Bruno, chaplain of Otho III.,
this fierce antipathy, embittered, we may judge, by their
incessant struggle with the Christian Poles, had shewn
itself in the assassination of the missionaries1; and as late
as the opening of the thirteenth century, the fascinations
of a simple and voluptuous paganism2 retained their an
cient power.
The first successful3 preacher was a monk, named Chris
tian, from a Pomeranian convent (Oliva) near Dantzic
(circ. 1210). He was supported warmly by pope Inno
cent III.4, and on a visit to the see of Rome (circ. 1214),
in which he was attended by two Prussian chiefs, the
first-fruits of his zeal, the pontiff made him bishop of the
new community. Ere long, however, the suspicions of
the heathen (anti-Polish) party woke afresh, and drove
them in their rage to take a signal vengeance on the
Christians5, and to scourge the neighbouring districts
Among other things he warned the German clergy, ' ne Teutonici grava-
minis aliquod jugum importabile neophytorum humeris imponerent, sed
jugum Domini leve ac suave, fideique semper docerent sacramenta.' See
the account of his proceedings at length, in Gebhardi (as above), pp.
361 sq.
1 See above, p. 115, n. 3.
2 Mone, Gesch. des Heiden. i. 79 sq. Among other barbarous and
bloody rites, it was the custom to destroy, or sell, the daughters of a
family excepting one. On the antiquities of Prussia, see Hartknocli,
Alt und Neues Preussen, Kbnigsberg, 1684.
3 He was preceded (in 1207) by a Polish abbot, Gottfried, and a monk,
Philip, but the work appears to have been interrupted by the murder of
the latter. There is, however, some confusion in the history at this
point. See Schrockh, xxv. 314 sq. The original authority is Peter of
Dusburg, who wrote his Chronicon Prussia about 1326. It is edited,
with dissertations, by Hartknoch, Jense, 1679.
4 He committed the supervision of the converts in the first place to
the archbishop of Gnesen : Innocent III. Epist. lib. xin. ep. 128. But
the missionaries had another form of opposition to endure, arising from
the jealousy of their own abbots. See Innocent's letter (1213) in their
behalf. Epist. lib. xv. ep. 147.
6 Pet. de Dusburg, Chron. Pruss. Pars n. o. 1 sq. Nearly three hun-

—1305]

Growth of the Church.

215

which belonged to Conrad, duke of Masovia1. Through
his efforts, aided by the sanction of the pope, a body of
Crusaders were attracted to the theatre of strife (1219).
The 'Order of Knights-Brethren of Dobrin'2, allied to
those whom we have met already in Livonia, was now
formed upon the model of the Templars ; but as soon as
they had proved unequal to the work of subjugating
Prussia, the more powerful 'Order of Teutonic Knights'
was introduced3, upon the understanding that the con
quered district should remain in their possession. Step
by step, though frequently repelled, they won their way
into the very heart of Prussia. In the course of these
revolting wars, extending over fifty years (1230 — 1283),
and waged in part with native pagans, and in part with
Russians, Pomeranians4, and other jealous states, the land
was well-nigh spoiled of its inhabitants. A broken rem
nant6, shielded in some measure by the intervention of the
popes, were now induced to discontinue all the heathen
rites, to recognize the claims of the Teutonic Order, and
to welcome the instruction of the German priests. The
dioceses6 of Culm, Ermeland, Pomerania, and Samland,
organized before the final conquest by Innocent IV.7 (1243),
were subdivided into three parts, of which two rendered
homage to the Knights, and the remainder to the bishop,
dred churches and chapels were destroyed, and many Christians put to
death. 1 It is clear from a spirited epistle of Innocent III. (lib. xv. ep. 148),
that the authorities of Poland and Pomerania pressed hard upon the con
verts, and employed the Gospel chiefly as an organ for effecting the sub
jugation of the Prussians. Hence the reaction.
2 Chron. Pruss. ibid. c. 4: Dollinger, m. 281, 282.
3 Ibid. On the following events, see Hartknoch's Fourteenth Disser
tation (as above, p. 214, n. 3,) and the various documents appended to
his work; I. pp. 476 sq.
4 The chief opposition came from this quarter ; Svantepolk, the duke
of Pomerania, being jealous of the military Order. He complained of
their despotic conduct to the pope, who laboured to secure more favour
able terms for the oppressed: see Privilegium Pruthenis, a.d. 1249 con-
cessum, in Hartknoch, pp. 463 sq. Eventually, however, the Teutonic
Knights were almost absolute in the ecclesiastical affairs. Dollinger,
p. 284. 6 Some few, however, would not yield, but found a sanctuary among
their heathen neighbours of Lithuania. Chron. Pruss. Pars in. c. 81.
6 Wiltsch, n. 270 sq., where an inquiry is made as to the subsequent
distribution of the Prussian dioceses.
1 Hartknoch, pp. 477, 478.

PRUSSIAN CHURCH.

Crusades
of the
Knights-
Brethren ;
and the
TeutonicKnights.

The
heathen
finally subdued, 1283.

Ecclesias tical or-

2l6

Vicissitudes of the Church.

[a.d. 1073

EASTERN ASIA.

Nestorian-
ism in
EasternAsia :

tolerated
by the
Mongols.

as their feudal lord. A multitude of churches and re
ligious houses now sprang up on every side. The Prussian
youths were sent for education to the German schools,
especially to Magdeburg, and at the close of the present
period the Teutonic influence was supreme.

§ 2. VICISSITUDES OF THE CHURCH IN OTHER
REGIONS.
The Nestorian body, though its power was on the wane,
continued1 to unfurl the sacred banner of the cross, al
most without a rival, among the tribes of Eastern Asia.
We are told, indeed, that one of the Khans of Kerait,
who bore the name of ' Prester-John,' despatched an
embassy to Rome2 in 1177, and that a leading member
of it was there consecrated bishop. But in 1202 3 the
kingdom of Kerait sank before the revolutionary arms of
Chinghis-Khan, the founder of the great Mongolian dy
nasty ; although a remnant of the tribe appears to have
survived and to have cherished Christianity as late as
12464. While hosts of Mongols poured into the steppes
of Russia (1223), threatening to eradicate the growing
Church, in north and south alike6, and even to contract
the limits of the German empire (1240), the Nestorian
1 See above, pp. 128, 129. The residence of their patriarch was still
Bagdad. 2 The authorities for this account are exclusively English. The letter
of pope Alexander III. (dated Sept. 27, 1177) is preserved in Benedict of
Peterborough, i. 210, and Boger of Hoveden, n. 168; the address is 'Ad
Johannem regem Indorum.'
3 D'Herbelot, Bibliothique Orientate, ' Carit ou Kerit,' p. 235.
4 Dollinger, in. 287. It is even said (cf. Neander, vn. 65, 66) that
Chinghis-Khan espoused the Christian daughter of Ung-Khan, the priest-
king of the period.
6 See the touching narrative of these incursions in Mouravieff, Hist.
of the Russ. Church, pp. 42 sq. The centre of Eussian Christianity,
Kieff, after a bloody siege, was given up to fire and pillage; and the me
tropolitans transferred their residence first to Vladimir and then to Mos
cow, wjiere they groaned for two centuries under the yoke of the Mongols.
Cf. Neale's Hist, of the Eastern Church, Int. i. 56. One of the native
princes, Daniel ('dux Bussias1), supplicated the assistance of Pope Inno
cent IV., who sent a legate into Russia for the sake of negociating the
admission of that country into the Latin Church; but Oriental influence
baffled the attempt. ' Capefigue, n. 106.

—1305]

Vicissitudes of the Church.

217

missionary, as it seems, was still at liberty to propagate
his creed, and sometimes very high in the favour of the
Khan, whose sceptre quickly stretched across the whole of
Persia, and the greater part of Central and of Eastern Asia.
The incursions of the Mongols into Europe, joined with
a report that some of them had shewn an interest in the
Christian faith, excited Innocent IV to send an embassy1
among them in 1245. Soon after three Franciscan monks
embarked upon a kindred mission into Tartary itself2.
They found the Khan apparently disposed to tolerate the
Gospel, and a number of Nestorian clergy at his court.
But this and other hopes3 of his conversion proved illusive.
Actuated, as it seems, by a belief that it was necessary
to propitiate the gods of foreign lands before he was
allowed to conquer them, the Khan attended with an equal
affability to the discourses of the Catholics, Nestorians,
Buddhists, and Muhammedans, by all of whom he was
solicited to cast his lot among them. In the end, when
the posterity of Chinghis saw their arms victorious every
where, they set on foot a composite religion4, — the still
thriving Lamaism, — as the religion of the state. The first
Grand Lama was appointed under Kublai-Khan in 1260,
for the eastern (or Chinese) division of the empire6. Chris-
1 A report of their journey and negociation with the Mongolian gene
ral in Persia is given by Vincent of Beauvais (Bellovacensis), in his Spe
culum Historiale, lib. xxxi. u. 33 sq. The arrogance of the pope and the
unskilfulness of his Dominican envoys only irritated the Mongolian.
2 They were accompanied by an Italian, John de Piano Carpini,
whose report is given as above. The fullest form of it appears in the
Paris edition of 1838.
3 An embassy of Louis IX. of France (in 1253) grew out of the report
that Mangu-Khan,. as well as some inferior princes, were disposed to join
the Church. The leading envoy was a Franciscan, William de Bubru-
quis, whose report is in the Relation des Voyages en Tartaric, edited by
Bergeron, Paris, 1634. He disparages the missionary labours of the
Nestorians, and draws a gloomy picture of their own condition. This,
however, should be taken ' cum grano salis.' His discussions with the
various teachers of religion are most interesting. Neander (vn. 71 sq.)
gives a sketch of them. See also Wuttke, Gesch. des Heidenthums, i. 215.
—218, Breslau, 1852.
4 It was largely intermixed with Buddhism, or rather Buddhism
formed the essence and substratum of it. See Schlosser's Weltgeschichte,
Band. in. Th. H. Abth. i. p. 269: cf. M. Hue's Voyages dans la Tartaric,
etc., in which its numerous points of resemblance to the mediasval Chris
tianity may be at once discerned.
5 In Persia (circ. 1258) Hulagu-Khan, whose queen was a Nestorian,
favoured Christianity (Asseman, Bibl. Orien. torn. in. pt. n. pp. 103 sq.),

EASTERN ASIA.

Their in
cursions
into

Negocia-
tions with
a view to
their con
version.

Their
adoption of
Lamaism.

218

Vicissitudes of the Church.

[A.d. 1073

EASTERN ASIA.

Mission of
John de
MonteCorvino
(d. 1330).

Extinctionof the
Latin in
fluence in
China.
The East
ern Cru
sades.

tianity, however, even there was tolerated, and at times
respected by the Khans.
This feeling is apparent in the history of Marco Polo1,
a Venetian, who resided many years at the court of Kublai-
Khan (1275 — 1293) ; and still more obviously in the re
ception given to a genuine missionary of the Latin Church,
John de Monte Corvino2, a Franciscan. After sojourning
a while in Persia and India, he proceeded quite alone, in
1292, to China, where he preached, with some obstructions,
in the city of the Khan, Cambalu (Pekin). He was joined
in 1303 by Arnold, a Franciscan of Cologne. His chief
opponents were Nestorians, who eventually secured a fresh
ascendancy in China, counteracting all his labours. On
the death of John (1330), aided though he was at length
by other missionaries, every trace of the Latin influence
rapidly decayed3.
A notice of the mighty movements, known as the
Crusades, belongs more aptly to a future page : for much
as they subserved the interest of the papacy, entangled
the relations of the Greek and Latin Church, united na
tions and the parts of nations by one great idea, and
modified in many ways the general spirit of the times, they
wrought no lasting changes in the area of the Christian
fold.and so did many of his successors : but this circumstance aroused the
hatred of the Muhammedans (who formed the great majority of the popu
lation), till at last the Christian Church was almost driven out of Persia.
Neander, vn. 75, 76.
1 His curious work, De Regionibus Orientalibus, written after his
return to Europe, has been frequently printed.
2 The original account of his missionary travels is in Wadding's
Annates Fratr. Minor, torn, vi.: cf. the sketch in Neander, vn. 77 sq.
He instituted schools: he translated the New Testament and. Book of
Psalms into the Tatar language : and one of his converts (formerly a
Nestorian), who appears to have been descended from the ' priest-kings,'
began to translate the whole Boman liturgy into the vernacular, but died
prematurely (1299). In 1303, Clement V. elevated the Church of Pekin
to the rank of an archbishopric. Wiltsch, ii. 325. The Nestorians had
already occupied the see (circ. 1282), and kept their hold till the begin
ning of the 16th century. Lbid. 366. Some interesting illustrations of
the part taken by English sovereigns in promoting these missions may
be found in Bymer's Fadera, n. 17, 18, 37, &c.
3 The next prelate, nominated by John XXII., never took possession
of his diocese, probably on account of the change of dynasty by which
the Catholics appear to have been expelled (1309). Asseman, Bibl. Orient.
torn. in. pt. n. 516, 535.

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Vicissitudes of the Church.

219

The impulse they communicated to the nations of the
west is further shewn by the attempts, in part abortive
and in part successful, to eject the Moors from Africa
and Spain1. Too often, however, the conversion of the
unbeliever, in the proper meaning of the phrase, was but
a secondary object. The enthusiastic Francis of Assisi2
is one instance of the better class of preachers; a second
is supplied in the eventful life of a distinguished scholar,
Raymond Lull3 (1236 — 1315). When he perceived how
the Crusaders had in vain attempted to put down the
Saracens by force of arms4, he tried the temper of the
apostolic weapons, and endeavoured to establish truth by
means of argument and moral suasion. In the intervals
between his missionary tours, directed chiefly to the Sa
racens and Jews of his native isle, Majorca, and the north
of Africa6, he hoped to elaborate an argumentative system
('Ars Generalis') by the help of which the claims of
Christianity might be established in so cogent and com
plete a way, that every reasonable mind would yield its
willing homage to the Lord6. He acted on these prin
ciples, and after eight- and-twenty years of unremitting
toil, was stoned to death in the metropolis of the Mu
hammedans, at Bugia (Bejyah).
The fanaticism, which found expression in the violence
of the Crusaders, still continued to abhor and persecute

1 Capefigue, n. 82, 83. The chief agents in this work were the Fran
ciscans and Dominicans.
2 See the account of his preaching to the Sultan of Egypt in 1219, in
Jac. de Vitry's Hist. Occid. c. 32, and Neale's East. Church, n. 286.
3 See Wadding's Annal. Fratr. Minor., ad an. 1275, 1287, 1290, 1293,
1295, and (especially) 1315 : cf. also a Life of him in the Act. Sanct. Jun.
v. 661 sq. An edition of his very numerous works was published at
Mentz in 1722.
4 At first indeed he thought that arms might be of service in support
ing his appeal (Neander, vn. 263) : but subsequently he confessed that
such a method was unworthy of the cause (Ibid. pp. 265, 266). One of
his projects was to found missionary colleges, in which the students
might be taught the languages of heathen countries, and at length (1311)
the plan received the approbation of pope Clement V. and the Council of
Vienne. Professors of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic were in future to be
supported at Bome, Paris, Oxford and Salamanca (Ibid. pp. 85, 95, 96).
6 He travelled, on one occasion, into Armenia, with the hope of win
ning the natives over to the Latin Church.
6 See his Necessaria Demonstratio Articulorum Fidei.

SPAIN AND"
NORTHERN AFRICA.
Others in
Spain and
Africa.

Better
spirit ma
nifestedin Ray
mond Lull
(d. 1315).

Attempts to
Christian
ize the
Jews.

220

Vicissitudes of the Church.

[A.D. 1073

Their occa
sional suc
cess.

the Jews \ That wondrous people in the present period
manifested a fresh stock of intellectual vigour, and so far
as learning 2 reached were quite a match for their calum
niators and oppressors. It is true that men existed here
and there to raise a hand in their behalf3: and of this
number few were more conspicuous than the better class
of popes4. Whenever reasoning6 was employed to draw
them over to the Christian faith, their deep repugnance
to the Godhead and the Incarnation of our blessed Lord,
as well as to the many forms of creature-worship then
prevailing in the Church, is strongly brought to light.
Occasionally the attempt would prove successful, as we
gather from the very interesting case of Hermann6 of
Cologne, who was converted at the middle of the twelfth
century: but issues of this happy kind were most un
questionably rare.
1 A full account of their condition at this period may be seen in
Schrockh, xxv. 329 sq.
2 Joseph Kimchi (circ. 1160), with his sons David and Moses, were
distinguished as Biblical scholars (see list of their works in Fiirst's Bib
lioth. Judaica, Leipzig, 1851). Batsbi Solomon Isaac (Bashi) also flou
rished at the close of the twelfth century. But the greatest genius whom
their nation has produced, at least in Christian times, both as a free
expositor of Holy Scripture and a speculative theologian, was Maimo-
nid.es (Moses Ebn-Maimun), born at Cordova in 1131 : see Fiirst, Lbid.
Th. n. pp. 290—313.
8 e.g. St Bernard defended them from the onslaught of a savage
monk, Budolph, who, together with the cross, was preaching death to the
Jews : Neander, vn. 101, and the Jewish Chronicle there cited.
4 Lbid. pp. 102 sq., where many papal briefs are noticed, all protect
ing Jews and urging gentle measures in promoting their conversion. But
Neander overlooks a multitude of other documents in which the popes
and councils of the 13th century have handled the Jews more roughly:
see Schrockh, xxv. 353 sq.
5 e.g. Abbot Gislebert (of Westminster), Disputatio Judai cum Chris
tiana de Fide Christiana, in Anselm's Works, pp. 512 — 523, ed. Paris,
1721 : Bichard of St Victor, De Emmanuele, Opp. pp. 280 — 312, ed. Bo-
thomagi, 1650. A more elaborate work is by a Spanish Dominican,
Baymond Martini, of the 13th century. It is entitled Pugio Fidei, and
directed first against Muhammedans, and next against Jews; edited by
Carpzov, Leipzig, 1687.
6 See his own narration of the process, appended to the Pugio Fidei,
as above. He finally entered a convent of the Prasmonstratensians at
Kappenberg in Westphalia.

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( 221 )

CHAPTER X.
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN
CHURCH.

§ 1. INTERNAL ORGANIZATION.
Referring to a later page for some account of the
encroachments now effected by the hierarchy in the
province of the civil power, as well as for a sketch of
the reactions they produced in England, Germany, and
France, we shall at present notice only the internal con
stitution of the Church regarded as a spiritual and in
dependent corporation.
In the western half of Christendom the pope, who
formed its centre, was no more a simple president or
primus, charged with the administration of ecclesiastical
affairs according to the canons1. He had gradually pos
sessed himself of the supreme authority : he was the
irresponsible dictator of the Church, the only source of
lawful jurisdiction, and the representative of Christ 2. The
claim which he put forward in the half-century from
Innocent III. to Innocent IV. (1198 — 1243), though reach-
1 Cf. the language even of Boniface, p. 19, n. 8 ; and of Dunstan,
p. 200, n. 1. In the present period individuals were not wanting to dis
pute the claim of popes, who promulgated new enactments of their own
(e.g. Placidus of Nonantula, De Honore Ecclesia, in Pezii Thesaur.
Anecdot. n, pt. n. pp. 75 sq. , and especially Grosseteste of Lincoln, see
below, p. 228) : but their power of dispensing with the canons of the
Church was almost everywhere allowed, in many cases ' ante factum. '
See authorities at length in Gieseler, in. 162 sq. Among the few limita
tions to which this power was subjected is the case when any dispensa
tion would be 'contra quatuor evangelia,' or 'contra praseeptum Apos-
toli,' i.e. ' in iis quae spectant ad articulos fidei.' John of Salisbury (op.
198, ed. Giles) limits the papal power in the same manner.
a e. g. Innocent HI. Epist. lib. i. ep. cccxxvi.

INTERN Al,
ORSANIZA- TION.

The culmi
nation of
the papal
power.

222

Constitution of the Church. [A.D. 1073

INTERNALORGANIZA TION.

ing to an almost prseterhuman height1, was very generally
allowed. The metropolitans and other bishops, having
lost their independence, were content to be esteemed his
vassals, instruments, or vicars2. They were said to be
appointed ' by the grace of God and of the apostolic see.'
In other words, the scheme which had been advocated
by the Pseudo-Isidore 'Decretals' was at length in active
operation. No one clung to this idea so intelligently or promoted
its development so much as the indomitable Hildebrand8,
or Gregory VII. (1073). His leading principles are stated,
both in reference to the Church and civil power, in certain
propositions known as the Dictatus Hildebrandini*. Trained,
while serving former pontiffs, in the art of government, he
turned his wondrous energy and diplomatic skill to the
immediate execution of the projects he had cherished from
his youth. These were (1) the absolute ascendancy of
papal power, and (2) the reformation of abuses, more es
pecially of those which had been generated by the bishops
and the clerics6. Hildebrand was seconded from first to
1 The former pontiff, in a passage quoted with approbation by Cape
figue (ii. 61), styles himself 'citra Deum, ultra hominem,' and again,
'minor Deo, major homine.' Yet in cases where the popes surrendered
any of these claims, their partisans contended (e.g. Dollinger, in. 339)
that an unpalatable edict of the Boman see could, not invalidate the acts
of former synods. At the crisis here alluded to, the French bishops
almost to a man (' universi pasne Francias episcopi') determined on the
excommunication of the pope himself, if he abandoned any more of the
hierarchical pretensions. See Gerhoh of Beichersberg, De Corrupto Ec
clesia Statu, c. 22.
3 See Innocent HI. Epist. lib. i. epp. ccccxcv, ccccxcvi. The office
of a bishop was regarded as a cession made by him of part of his own
universal pastorship. In the Canon Law (Sexti Decret. lib. I. tit. n. c. i.)
it is affirmed of the Boman pontiff; 'jura omnia in scrinio pectoris sui
censetur habere.' The same spirit is betrayed in the absolute limitation
of the name 'apostolic see' to the Church of Bome; thereby swallowing
up the other ' sedes apostolieas.'
3 Above, pp. 140 sq.
4 Bowden's Life of Greg. VII. n. 394. Mr Bowden (Ibid. n. 50, 51)
argues that this series, consisting of twenty-seven propositions, ought not
to be ascribed to Hildebrand himself ; yet it is obvious that they have
preserved, in a laconic shape, the principles on which his policy was uni
formly based: cf. Neander, vn. 165.
6 Above, p. 140. Gregory's earnestness on this point can hardly be
questioned. Wedded as he doubtless was to the idea of carrying out the
papal claims at any cost, and wanting therefore, as he showed himself, in
truthfulness on more than one occasion, he was, notwithstanding, actu
ated by a firm belief that God had raised him up for moral ends, espe-

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Constitution of the Church.

223

last by very many of the nobler spirits of the age1, who
trusted that a sovereign power, if wielded by the Roman
pontiffs, might be turned into an agent for the moral
exaltation of the Church. But in the Hildebrandine (or
'reforming') party there were many others who had been
attracted chiefly by the democratic (or in some, it may
be, the fanatic) spirit of the movement2. They were glad
of an occasion for expressing their contempt of married
clergymen, or for escaping altogether from domestic rule.
The policy of Hildebrand, on this and other questions,
was adopted in the main by his successors, Victor III.
(1086), Urban II. (1088), Paschal II. (1099), Gelasius II.
(1118) ; but owing to the bitter conflicts with the German
emperor as well as to the coexistence of an influential
anti-pope, Clement III.3 (1080 — 1100), their usurpations in
the Church at large were somewhat counteracted. The
two following pontiffs, Calixtus II. (1119) and Honorius II.
(1124), maintained the Hildebrandine principles with almest
uniform success, and in the reigns of Innocent II.4 (1130),
Ccelestine II. (1143), Lucius II. (1144), Eugenius III.
(1145), Anastasius IV. (1153), Hadrian IV. (1154), Alex
ander III.6 (1159), Lucius III. (1181), Urban III. (1185),
cially for the repression of the worldly Bpirit which possessed the mass of
the ecclesiastics (e.g. Epist. lib. 1. ep. 9; Mansi, xx. 66) : cf. Neander, vn.
116 sq.
1 Neander, Lbid. 125 (note), 153.
3 It is plain that Hildebrand always counted on the succour of the
populace (cf. above, p. 146), and in his efforts to put down clerical mar
riages, as well as customs really exceptionable, he relied on what is called
the force of ' public opinion,' which he lost no time in seeking to exaspe
rate: see Neander, vn. 128, 135, 147: Dollinger, in. 318. This movement
afterwards became unmanageable (Neander, Ibid. 202), and it seems that
not a few of the later forms of misbelief (e.g. the invalidity of sacraments
administered by unworthy clergymen) are traceable to the workings of
the spirit which the Hildebrandine principles called up.
3 On his death Theoderic was elected by the rival party, but soon
afterwards shut up in a monastery. Albert (also called 'antipapa') fol
lowed in 1102, and Silvester IV. (or Maginulfus) in 1105. The last was
deposed by Henry V. in 1111, when his dispute with Paschal H. had been
adjusted for a time. See Jaffe\ pp. 519 — 521. The antipope to Calixtus
II. was Burdinus (Gregory VHL), 1118—1121.
4 He was opposed, however, first by Anacletus II. (1130 — 1138), and
next by Victor IV. (1138) ; but as the schism did not grow out of political
considerations, the dominion of the papacy was not much weakened by
it. Innocent II. was supported by the almost papal influence of St Ber
nard, and the peace which he effected was consolidated at the council of
Lateran (1139).
6 Under this pontiff an important decree was made for obviating the

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

The series
of popes.

224

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1073

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Decay of
the papal
grandeur.

Gregory VIII. (1187), Clement III. (1187), Ccelestine III.
(1191), the papal claims, though not unfrequently contested
at those points in which they trenched upon the civil
jurisdiction, were, in sacred matters, still more generally
allowed. With Innocent III.1 (1198), the idea of the
Roman pontiff as the organ and the representative of
God in the administration of all sublunary things was
carried, step by step, into the most extravagant results.
He was, indeed, the second Hildebrand ; but, owing to
the circumstances of the age, he far exceeded every other
pontiff in the grandeur of his conquests and the vigour
of- the grasp by which they were retained. Honorius IH.
(1216), Gregory IX. (1227), Ccelestine IV.2 (1241), and
Innocent IV. (1243), inherited his domineering spirit and
perpetuated the efforts he had made in carrying out his
theory of papal absolutism : but the tide (as we shall see
hereafter) now began to turn, and at the close of the
present period many of their worst pretensions, after
calling up a spirited reaction, had been tacitly with
drawn. The following are the other members of the
series, dating from the time of Innocent IV to the im
portant epoch, when their honours had begun to droop,
divisions which arose at the papal elections : Mansi, xxn. 217. Further
regulations were introduced with the same object by Gregory X. : cf.
Neander vn. 266. Alexander III. had to encounter a series of formi
dable rivals, Victor IV. (1159—1164), Paschal IH. (1164—1168), Calixtus
HI. (1168—1178), Innocent HI. or Landus Sitinus (1178—1180), backed
by the imperial interest ; but his triumph was secured by the exertions of
men like our English primate, Becket, who appear to have carried with
them the general feeling of the age.
1 See Neander's remarks on his character and conduct, vn. 239 sq.
Some of his very numerous Letters were edited by Baluze, in 2 vols.
folio; and his Works are now printed in 4 vols, of Migne's Patrologia,
Paris, 1855 : cf. the able, but Bomanizing work of Hurter, Gesch. Papst
Innocenz des Dritten, Hamburg, 1834. The towering claims of Innocent
and his successors were supported by the new school of canonists (' de-
cretists,' afterwards ' decretalists,') which had sprung up especially at
Bologna. About 1151, Gratian published his Concordia Discordantium
Canonum [the Decretum Gratiani], in which he forced the older canons
into harmony with the Pseudo-Isidore Decretals. As the papal edicts
multiplied and superseded more and more the ancient regulations of the
Church, a further compilation was required. It made its appearance in
1234, under the sanction of Gregory IX., in five books. A sixth ('Liber
Sextus') was added by Boniface VIII. in 1298. See Bshmer's Dissert.
in his edition of the Corpus Juris Canonici, Halas, 1747.
2 The papal chair, which he filled only a few days, oontinued vacant
until June, 1243.

—1305]

Constitution of the Church.

225

and when the papal chair itself was planted at Avignon1
—Alexander IV. (1254), Urban IV. (1261), Clement IV
(1265), Gregory X. (1271), Innocent V (1276), Hadrian V.
(1276), John XX. or XXI.2 (1276), Nicholas III. (1277),
Martin IV. (1281), Honorius IV. (1285), Nicholas IV.3
(1288), Ccelestine V.4 (1294), Boniface VIII. (1294), Bene
dict XI. (1303), Clement V. (1305).
The leading agents, or proconsuls, of the pope in the
administration of his ever-widening empire, were the
legates (or 'legati a latere'), whom he sent, invested
with the fullest jurisdiction, into every quarter of the
world. Officials of this class appeared occasionally in the
time of Hincmar6 : but their mission was regarded as
intrusive, and excited many hostile feelings in the coun
try whither they were bound6. The institution was how-
1 Another vacancy, of two years and nine months, occurred at his
death. 2 This was the title which the pope himself assumed (thereby, as it
has been argued, counting Joan as a pope), although he was really the
twentieth of the name.
3 The Boman see was vacant at his death for two years and three
months. 4 Known as the 'hermit-pope:' see Dollinger, iv. 79, 80. He abdi
cated after a brief reign of three months.
5 Above, p. 137, n. 2.
6 Thus Chicheley, archbishop of Canterbury, writes at a still later
period : ' Be inspection of lawes and cronicles was there never no legat a
latere sent into no lond, and specially in to your rengme of Yngland,
withowte grete and notable cause  And yit over that, he was tretyd
with or he cam in to the lond, when he shold have exercise of his power,
and how myche schold bee put in execution,' &c. Vit. H. Chichele, p.
129, Lond. 1699. In the year 1100, when the archbishop of Vienne came
into England in this capacity he made no impression on the people, but
departed ' a nemine pro legato susceptus, nee in aliquo legati officio func
tus.' Eadmer, ed. Selden, 1623, p. 58. William of Corbeuil, however,
the archbishop of Canterbury, who had been sent to Bome, to complain
of the intrusion of a legate into England, returned in 1126, the bearer of
the very office against which the nation had protested (Gervas. Dorobern.,
in Twysden's Script. X., col. 1663); being elevated to that office by Ho
norius H. (Wharton, Ang. Sac. 1. 792.) The archbishop by accepting
the office was enabled to exclude the interference of any other legate
from Bome, whilst the pope, by commissioning the archbishop as legate,
was enabled to regard all the proper jurisdiction of the metropolitanate
as exercised under his own authorization. From the year 1195 to the
reformation the archbishops of Canterbury were with scarcely an excep
tion legates, legati nati, commissioned by the popes as a matter of course.
The dislike of the English seems to have been directed rather against
the Italian extortioners who as Cardinals appeared for a short time with
special commission a latere.
M. A. Q

The vast
influence of
the papal
legates.

226

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1073

INTERNALORGANIZA TION.

Appeals to
Rome.

ever, an essential element of Hildebrandine despotism1 :
and while its operation here and there was salutary, or
was tending to correct abuses2 in some ill-conditioned
province, it more frequently became an engine of ex
tortion, and thus added to the scandals of the age. The
constant intermeddling of the popes in other churches, by
the agency of roving legates, indicated more and more
the worldly spirit which possessed them, notwithstanding
all their affectation of peculiar purity and all their pro
jects of reform. The 'curia' (or the court) of Rome3
was now the recognized expression ; and no object lay
so near the heart of him who bore the legatine au
thority4, as the advancement of its temporal interests in
opposition to the crown and every species of domestic
rule. The same desire to elevate and to enrich the papacy,
1 e.g. see Gregory's Epist. to the duke of Bohemia: Mansi, xx. 73.
He exhorted the civil authorities to compel the acquiescence of Jaromir,
the contumacious bishop of Prague, ' usque ad interniciem. ' According
to the Didatus Hildebrand. , § 4, the legate was to take precedence of all
bishops. 2 St Bernard's ideal of a legate will be found in the De Consideratione
ad Eugenium, lib. iv. c. 4. His picture was, however, realized too sel
dom : ' Nonne alterius saculi res est, redisse legatum de terra auri sine
auro? transisse per terram argenti et argentum nescisse?' c. 5. On the
general duties of the legate and his influence in promoting the consolida
tion of the papacy, see Planck, iv. pt. n. 639 sq.
3 ' Neque enim vel hoc ipsum carere macula videtur, quod nunc dici-
tur curia Romana quas antehac dicebatur ecclesia Romana.' Gerhoh of
Keichersberg, De Corrupto Ecclesia Statu, Prasfat. (seu Epist. ad Henri-
cum Card.) § 1, Opp. n. 9, ed. Migne.
4 The legates constantly urged the right of the pope to dispose of
vacant benefices, and even bishoprics. Planck, ubi sup. pp. 713 sq. At
first he recommended individuals, by way of ' petition ;' but in the 13th
century the 'preces' were changed into 'mandata;' and he finally
insisted on the promotion of his favourites (sometimes boys, and chiefly
absentees) in the most peremptory manner, by an edict ' non obstante.'
It was a case of this kind (1252) which stirred the indignation of Grosse-
teste, bishop of Lincoln: see the account in Matthew Paris (ed. 1684),
p. 740 ; cf. pp. 749 sq. A former pope (Honorius IH. ) in 1226 (Matthew
Paris, p. 276) had been constrained to make the most humiliating con
fession by his legate, Otho: ' Idem papa allegavit scandalum sanctas Bo-
manas ecclesia) et opprobrium vetustissimum, notam scilicet concupiscen-
tias, quas radix dicitur omnium malorum : et in hoc prascipue, quod nullus
potest aliquod negotium in Bomana curia expedire nisi cum magna effu-
sione pecunias et donorum exhibitione,' etc.: cf. John of Salisbury's
Policraticus, lib. v. c. 16. An exact account of the steps by which papal
influence was introduced into English church patronage will be found in
Bishop Forbes's Explanation of the 39 Articles, n. 749, Oxford, 1868.

-1305]

Constitution of the Church.

227

though blended in some cases with a -wish to patronize
the feeble and to shelter the oppressed, is seen in a re
quirement now extended in all quarters, that appeals,
instead of being settled in the courts at home, should
pass, almost indiscriminately1, to the Roman court, as the
ultimate tribunal of the West. Attempts2, indeed, were
made (occasionally by the popes3 themselves) to limit this
unprincipled recourse to foreign jurisdiction : but the prac
tice, notwithstanding such impulsive acts of opposition,
kept its hold on every side, especially in all the newly-
planted churches.
The development of papal absolutism, though it tended
to protect the bishops from the violence of feudal lords,
and even to exempt them altogether from the civil juris
diction, swallowed up the most important of their rights.
The metropolitans, in cases where they did not also fill
the post of legate, were compelled to yield obedience to
the papal nominee4, though he might often be a priest
and nothing more. The vows of servitude imposed on
them at the reception of the pallium6 were exacted also
1 See St Bernard's remarks, Ad Eugeniium, lib. in. b. 2. Innocent
III., a shrewd administrator, checked the excessive frequency of appeals,
on the ground that numbers would avail themselves of this privilege
merely to buy off the execution of the laws : e.g. Concil. Lateran. (1215)
c. 7. He enjoined that the sentence of provincial councils should take
immediate effect, and that no appeal should lie to Bome unless the
forms of law had been exceeded.
2 In England there was always a peculiar jealousy on the subject of
appeals and when this feeling was aroused in 1164, provision was dis
tinctly made in the ' Constitutions of Clarendon,' that all controversies
whatever should be settled in the home-courts : Matthew Paris, p. 84
(from Eoger of Wendover, Ftores Histor. n. 300: ed. E. H. S. 1841).
The prelates and others in like manner had required a pledge from
Anselm, ' quod nunquam amplius sedem Sancti Petri, vel ejus vicarium,
pro quavis quas tibi queat ingeri causa appelles.' Eadmer, p. 39.
3 See n. 1.
4 See above, p. 225, n. 6. The English were extremely scandalized
when John of Crema (1125) a cardinal priest, assumed these novel
powers: Gervase of Canterbury (Dorobern.), ed. Twysden, col. 1663.
And we may gather from the following passage of a letter addressed to
Gregory VH., that many bishops viewed him as the enemy of all authority
except the papal : ' Sublata, quantum in te fuit, omni potestate ab
episcopis, quae eis Divinitus per gratiam Spiritus Sancti eollata esse
dinosciiur, dum nemo jam alicui episcopus aut presbyter est, nisi qui
hoc indignissima assentatione a fastu tuo emendicavit ;' in Eccard's
Script. Rer. Germanic, n. 172.
6 Above, p. 141.
q2

INTERNALORGANIZA» HON.

Effect of
papal ab
solutism on
episcopacy.

228

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1073

Roman
izing spirit
of the
monks.

from the other bishops1, who, in order to secure the
friendship of the pope, betook themselves to Rome, and
sued for confirmation at his hands. The pride, extortion,
and untruthfulness of many of the pontiffs stirred them,
it is true, at times into the posture of resistance, and a
man like Robert Grosseteste" did not hesitate to warn
the pope himself, that by persisting in extravagant de
mands, the Roman Church was likely to become the
author of apostasy and open schism. Yet, generally, we
find that a belief in the transcendant honours of the
Roman see retained the western bishops in their old con
nexion with it. Galling as they felt the bondage, they
had not the heart to shake it off.
The stoutest advocates of papal usurpation were the
members of religious orders. Gifted with a very large
amount of the intelligence, the property3, the earnestness,
and the enthusiasm of the age, they acted as the pope's
militia4, and became in troublous times the pillars of his
throne. On this account he loaded them with favours5.
1 See Neander, vn. 276, 277 : Dollinger, in. 332. The protestantism
of Matthew Paris breaks out afresh at this indignity, when it was urged
more pointedly in 1257. He calls the papal edict ' Statutum Bomas
cruentissimum, quo oportet quemlibet electum personaliter transalpinare,
et in suam lassionem, imo eversionem, Bomanorum loculos imprasgnare :'
p. 820. 2 ' Absit, autem, absit, quod haec sacratissima sedes, et in ea prassi-
dentes, quibus communiter et in omnibus mandatis suis et prasceptis
obtemperatur, prsecipiendo quicquam Christi prseceptis et voluntati con-
trarium, sint causa veras discessionis.' See the whole of this startling
and prophetic Sermon in the Opuscula R. Grosieteste, in Brown's Fasci
culus, n. 255. There is a copious Life of Grosseteste, by Pegge ; his
letters have been published in the Chronicles and Memorials, edited by
Mr Luard, 1861.
3 Their property was very much augmented at the time of the Cru
sades by mortgages and easy purchase from the owners, who were bent
on visiting the Holy Land. Planck, rv. pt. n. 345 sq. Others also,
to escape oppression, held their lands feudally from the religious houses
and the clergy.
4 For this reason they incurred the bitter hatred of the anti-Hilde-
brandine school, who called them 'Pharisees' and ' Obscurantes ' (Ne
ander, vn. 133, 134). When the Church was oscillating between Alex
ander IH. and the anti-pope (Victor), the Carthusians and Cistercians
warmly took the side of the former, and secured his triumph. See Life
of Bishop Anthelm in the Act. Sanct. Jun. v. c. 3.
6 e.g. the abbot was allowed to wear the insignia of the bishop,
sandals, mitre, and crosier; and exemptions (see above, p. 148, n. 1)
were now multiplied in every province, as a glance at Jaffa's Regesta
Pontific. Roman, will abundantly shew. The nature of these privileges

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Constitution of the Church.

229

Many of the elder Benedictines had departed from the
strictness of their rule, and in this downward course
they were now followed by the kindred monks of
Clugny : but a number of fresh orders started up amid
the animation of the Hildebrandine period, anxious to
redeem the honour of monasticism, and even to surpass
the ancient discipline. Of these the order of Carthusians,
founded by Bruno1 of Cologne (1084), at the Chartreuse,
near Grenoble, proved themselves the most unworldly
and austere. They fall into the class of anchorets, but
like the Benedictines they devoted many of their leisure
hours to literary occupations2. Other confraternities8 ap
peared ; but none of them were so successful as the order
of the Cistercians (monks of Citeaux near Dijon), who
endeavoured to revert in every feature of their system to
the model of St Benedict. The founder4, Robert, having
vainly sought for peace and satisfaction in the life of a
recluse, established his new convent in 1098. Its greatest

may be gathered from an epistle of Urban II. (1092) in Mansi, xx. 652.
Complaints respecting them were constantly addressed to the succeeding
popes : e.g. that of the archbishop of Canterbury among the Epist. of
Peter of Blois (Blesensis), ep. 68 ; and St Bernard, Ad Eugenium, lib.
in. c. 4.
1 See Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened. VI. pt. 11. 52 sq. : Annates,
v. 202 sq. Many of the later legends respecting Bruno are purely
mythical. The order of the Carmelites founded in Palestine about 1156
was transplanted into the West during the following century and assimi
lated to the other orders of Friars. They grew up into a somewhat
numerous body. See Holstein's Codex Regular, in. 18 sq., and Fleury,
Hist. Eccl. liv. lxxvi. § 55.
3 Labbe has published their Institutiones in his Bibliotheca, i. 638
sq. : cf . Neander, vn. 368.
3 e.g. The Ordo Grandimontensis (of Grammont) founded about 1070
(see Life of the founder, Stephen, in Martene and Dumnd's Ampliss.
Colledio, vi. 1050 sq. ; Mabillon's Annates, v. 65 sq.): the Ordo Fontis-
Ebraldi (of Fontevraud), founded in 1094 (Mabillon's Annal. v. 314 sq.).
The Order of St Anthony, founded by Gaston in 1095, attended on the
sick, especially the leprous (Act. Sanct. Jan. n. 160 sq.) : the Trinitarians
('Fratres Domus Sanctse Trinitatis'), founded by John de Matha and
Felix de Valois (1198), endeavoured to procure the redemption of Chris
tians who had fallen into the hands of the infidels. See Fleury, liv.
lxxv. § 9.
4 See Mabillon, as above, v. 219, 393 sq. ; Mannque, Annates Cis-
tercienses, Lugd. 1642; and Holstein, Codex, n. 386 sq. Among the
other features of the institute we notice a peculiar reverence for episcopal
authority : see the papal confirmation of their rules (1119) in Manrique,
1. 115.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Rise of
the Car
thusians,
1084.

Rise of
the Cister
cians,1098.

23O

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d. 1073

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
Influenceof St Ber
nard.

orders ill
adapted to
the times.

The rise of
the Fran
ciscans,1207.

luminary was St Bernard1 (1113 — 1153), who, after spend
ing a short time in the parent institution, planted the
more famous monastery of Clairvaux (Clara Vallis), in
the diocese of Langres. Aided by the influence of his
name and writings, the Cistercian order rapidly diffused
itself in every part of Europe2, and became ere long the
special favourite of the popes3. It formed, indeed, a
healthy contrast to the general licence of the age, as
well as to the self-indulgence and hypocrisy of many of
its coanobitic rivals4.
But however active and consistent they might be, these
orders were imperfectly adapted to the wants of the thir
teenth century. As men who had renounced the business
of this world, to make themselves another in the cloisters
where they lived and died, they kept too far aloof from
secular concerns, and even where they had been most
assiduous in the duties of their convent, their attachment
to it often indisposed them to stand forward and do battle
with the numerous sects that threatened to subvert the
empire of their patron. Something ruder and more prac
tical, less wedded to peculiar spots and less entangled by
superfluous property, was needed if the Church were to
retain its rigid and monarchic form5. The want was
made peculiarly apparent when the Albigenses had be
gun to lay unwonted stress on their own poverty, and to
decry the self-indulgence of the monks.
At this conjuncture rose the two illustrious orders
known as mendicant, (1) the Minors or Franciscans,
1 See Neander's Life of him. There is an English Life of Bernard
by J. C. Morison. London, 1864.
2 At the death of Bernard (1153) he left behind him one hundred
and sixty monasteries, which had been formed by monks from Clairvaux.
3 e.g. Innocent III. and the council of Lateran (1215), c. 12, held it
up as a model for all others.
4 One of these was the order of Clugny, presided over (1122 — 1156)
by Peter the Venerable, who, though anxious to promote the reformation
of his house, resented the attack which had been made on it by some
of the Cistercians. For an account of his friendly controversy with
Bernard, see Maitland's Dark Ages, pp. 423 sq. There are traces of the
controversy in the poem De Ctarevaltensibus et Cluniacensibus, among
those attributed to Walter Mapes, ed. Wright, pp. 237 sq.
s Innocent III. seems to have felt this : for, notwithstanding his desire
to check the multiplication of fresh orders of monks (Concil. Lateran.
1215, c. 13, 'ne quis de castero novam religionem inveniat'), he could not
resist the offers now held out by such an army of auxiliaries.

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Constitution of the Church.

231

(2) the Preachers or Dominicans, both destined for two
centuries to play a leading part in all the fortunes of
the Church. The former sprang from the enthusiasm of
Francis of Assisi1 (1182 — 1226). Desirous of reverting
to a holier state of things (1207), he taught the duty of
renouncing every kind of worldly goods2, and by a strain
of spirit-searching, though untutored, eloquence attracted
many thousands to his side. The pope3 at first looked
down upon this novel movement, but soon afterwards con
firmed the rule of the Franciscans, and indeed became
their warmest friend. By founding what was termed an
' order of penitence4' (the third estate of Friars), they
were able to embrace in their fraternity a number of the
working classes, who, while pledged to do the bidding of
the pope and to observe the general regulations of the
institute, were not restricted by the vow of celibacy nor
compelled to take their leave entirely of the world.
The stricter spirits of this school could not, however,
be so easily confined within the limits which their chief
was anxious to prescribe. They followed out their prin
ciple of sacred communism, or evangelical perfection, to its
1 See the Life of him by Thomas of Celano, his companion (in Act.
Sanct. Oetob. 11. 683 sq.) ; another, by Bonaventura, a Franciscan (Ibid.
742 sq.) : cf . Chavin de Malan, L'Histoire de S. Francois d' Assise, Paris,
1845; Helyot, Hist, des Ordres, etc., torn. vn. The great authority on
the Franciscan Order generally is Wadding's Annates Minorum, Bomas,
1731 — 1741. Cf. Pref. to Monumenta Franciscana, ed. Brewer, 1858, in
the Chronicles, ofc. of Great Britain. We find the germs of it in an
early sect of Euchites, who, from a desire to reach the summit of ascetic
holiness, renounced all kinds of property and common modes of life.
Neander, in. 342.
2 In the fashion of the age he spoke of Poverty as his bride and the
Franciscan order as their offspring. Before ten years had elapsed, five
thousand mendicants assembled at Assisi to hold the second general
chapter of their order. Sir J. Stephen's Essays, ±. 121, 122. The Order
of St Clara (' Ordo dominarum pauperurn ') was animated by the same
spirit, and adopted the Franciscan rules: Holstein's Codex, in. 34 sq. :
Helyot, vn. 182 sq. On the stigmatization of St Francis, and the impious
extravagances to which it led, see a temperate article in the Revue des
deux Mondes, Tome viii. pp. 459 sq.
3 Innocent IH., after hesitating a while, extended to them a cordial,
but unwritten, approbation (1209). In 1223, the order was formally
adopted by Honorius III. : see Holstein, in. 30 sq. A pledge of absolute
obedience to the pope is contained in the first chapter. Nicholas IV. was
so ardently attached to them that he enjoined the use of their service-
books on the whole Church . Capefigue, n. 180.
4 Holstein, in. 39 sq.: Helyot, vn. 216 sq.: cf. Sir J. Stephen's re
marks on this supplemental institute, I. 127, 128. I

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Their allv
ance with
the Pope.

The aberr
ations of
an extreme
party.

252

Constitution of the Church.

[A.d. 1073

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Tlie rise of
the Domi
nicans, 1215.

most obnoxious length, and even ventured to affirm that
Christ and the original Apostles had nothing of their own.
A quarrel was now opened, in the course of which the
rigorous faction1 ('Spirituales' they were called), deriving
their ideas2 very mainly from one-sided views of the
Apocalypse, commenced a series of attacks upon the
members of the hierarchy and the secularizing spirit of
the age. A party of these malcontents were drafted
off at length into a fresh community, entitled the Coeles-
tine-Hermits3 (1294), but in the end they seem to have
entirely separated from the Church, and to have been
absorbed into the sect of the 'Fratricelli4,' where, indeed,
they underwent a bitter persecution.
The twin-order, that of the Dominicans or 'Preachers,'
took its rise in 1215 at Toulouse. Its founder was the
canon Dominic5 (b. 1170), a native of Castile, although
the plan was due rather to his bishop Diego (Didacus)
1 They professed to be adhering literally to the will of their founder;
but the popes, especially Greg. IX. (1231) and Innocent IV. (1245), took
the other (or the laxer) side : see their bulls in Eoderic's Nova Colledio
Privilegiorum, etc., ed. Antverp. 1623, pp. 7, 13.
2 These may be gathered from a production called the Introductorius
in Evangelium Mternum, which appeared at Paris in 1254. The subject
is exhausted by Gieseler, in. 251 sq. ; and Neander, viii. 369 sq. When
Nicholas III. (1279) explained the rule of St Francis still more laxly, the
' spirituales ' grew still more indignant. They were headed by the friar
John Peter de Oliva, of whose Postilla super Apocalypsi, extracts are pre
served in Baluze and Mansi, Miscell. n. 258 sq. In commenting on
Apoc. xvii., he has the following passage: 'Nota quod hasc mulier stat
hie pro Bomana gente et imperio, tarn prout fuit quondam in statu
paganismi, quam prout postmodum fuit in fide Christi, multis tamen
criminibus cum hoc mundo fornicata,' etc.
3 So called from pope Ccelestine V., their patron: Helyot, vn. 45.
They, were, however, persecuted by the rest of the Franciscans (e. g
Wadding, ad an. 1302, §§ 7, 8).
4 See Capefigue, n. 147, 148. Among their supporters may be ranked
Ubertinus de Casali, a pupil of the Franciscan Oliva above mentioned,
n. 2: see the Articuli Probationum contra fratrem Vbertinum de Casali
indudarum, and his reply before John XXII., in Baluze and Mansi,
Miscell. n. 276 sq. One charge brought against him is for saying 'quod
a tempore Coslestini papas non fuit in Ecclesia papa verus.'
6 The oldest Life of Dominic is by his successor Jordanus, printed,
with others, in the Act. Sanct. August, i. 545 sq. For the Constitutions
of the Order, see Holstein's Codex, iv. 10 sq. At the suggestion of
Innocent III., the basis of the rule of Dominic was borrowed from the
Augustinian: and soon after, at a general chapter-meeting (1220), the
principles of Francis of Assisi were adopted, in so far as they abjured all
property and income. Vit. S. Dominici (by Jordanus), c. 4.

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Constitution of the Church.

253

of Osma, who, while journeying in the south of France,
had noticed with concern that anti-papal and heretical
opinions were most rife, and threatened to disturb all
orders of society. His object, therefore, was, in concert
with the prelates of the district, to refute the arguments
adduced by the heresiarchs, to emulate their poverty,
and to win their followers back to the communion of the
Church. In carrying out this undertaking, Dominic had
been distinguished from the first, and when its author
died (circ. 1207) he still continued, with a few of his com
panions, in the same sphere of duty. In 1209 the mis
believing province of Languedoc was desolated by the
earliest of the Albigensian crusades1. The leaders of that
savage movement found a spy and coadjutor in the over-
zealous missionary; and soon after he began to organize
and head the larger confraternity, whose foremost object
was the spiritual benefit2 of others and the vindication of
the Church. Accompanied by the notorious Foulques3 (or
Fulco), bishop of Toulouse, he laid his project at the feet
of the sovereign pontiff in an hour when Rome might
well have trembled for its empire in the south of France
(1215), and readily procured the papal sanction. In the
following year the institute was solemnly confirmed4 by
Honorius III. It soon attracted many able and devoted
members, and diffused itself on every side.
Though parted from each other now and then by mu
tual jealousies5, the Minorites and Preachers commonly
proceeded hand in hand6, particularly in resisting the at
tacks which they provoked, not only from the clergy and
1 See below, 'State of Eeligious Doctrine,' § Sects.
2 ...'studium nostrum ad hoc debet principaliter intendere ut proxi-
morum animabus possimus utiles esse.' Constit. Prol. c. 3.
3 Cf. Sir J. Stephen's Led. on the Hist, of France, 1. 221, ed. 1851.
4 The bull of confirmation is prefixed to the Constitutions of the order,
as above, p. 232, n. 5. According to the pope's idea the Dominicans were
to become 'pugiles fidei et vera mundi lumina.'
6 See the graphic picture of Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, a.d. 1243,
p. 540. They afterwards contended still more sharply touching the im
maculate conception of the Virgin, the Franciscans taking the positive,
the Dominicans the negative. Klee, Hist, of Christ. Dogmas (German),
pt. n. c. iii. § 25.
6 e. g. the generals of the two orders issued a number of caveats in
1255, with a view to cement or re-estabhsh friendly relations. Wadding's
Annal. Minor, ad an. 1255, § 12.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Us con
nexion with
the Albi
gensian crusades.

Contro
versy be
tween the
Mendicants and
the Uni
versities.

234

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1073

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

monastic orders1, but from nearly all the Universities.
Presuming on their popularity, their merits2, and the
strong protection of the Roman court3, they thrust them
selves into the professorial chairs, and not unfrequently
eclipsed all other doctors4. Paris was at present the chief
seat of European learning, and in it especially (1251), the
Mendicants, although in favour with the king, had to en
counter a determined opposition6. For a while they were
discouraged by a bull of Innocent IV.6, who saw the in
roads they were making on the constitution of the Church,
and was accordingly induced at length to take the part
of the University ; but on his death (1254) they found an
ardent champion in pope Alexander IV.' His influence
and the writings of the more distinguished members of
their body (such as Bonaventura8 and Aquinas*) aided
1 e.g. Matthew Paris, a.d. 1243, p. 541 ; a.d. 1247, p. 630. He was himself
a Benedictine, and implacable in his hostility to the new race of teachers.
2 These must originally have been very considerable, for besides their
zeal in missionary labour, they conciliated the good opinion of a class of
men like Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, who employed them in his
diocese. He defended, them against the opposition of his clergy, and
even charged the latter through the arehdeacon ' ad inducendum effica-
citer populum ut Fratrum utriusque Ordinis prasdicationes devote et
attente audiat,' etc.: Brown's Fascic. n. 382. He afterwards bequeathed
his library to the Franciscans at Oxford, among whom the famous Boger
Bacon was educated {Warton, Eng. Paetry, n. 89, ed. 1840): though
Matthew Paris writes that on his death-bed he complained that they had
disappointed his expectations, and had begun to degenerate most griev
ously: Hist. Maj., a.d. 1253, p. 752.
3 e. g. Gregory IX (1237) begins a grant of privileges in the following
terms: 'Quoniam abundavit iniquitas, et refriguit charitas plurimorum,
eece ordinem dilectorum filiorum fratrum Prasdicatorum Dominus sus-
citavit,' etc., in Matth. Paris, a.d. 1246, p. 607. The popes claimed the
right of sending Friars anywhere without the acquiescence of the bishops
or the clergy.
4 Most of the theological professors in the University of Naples,
founded 1220, were chosen from the Mendicants. Their first establish
ment in England was at Oxford, 1221, when, for some time, they pro
duced the leading scholars of the age. Warton, as above, pp. 88, 89.
5 See Bulasus (Du Boulay), Hist. Univers. Paris, in. 240 sq.; Cape
figue, n. 167 sq. The latter is a warm apologist of the Friars. Their
most vigorous opponent at the time was Wilham de Sancto Amore, a
Parisian doctor of divinity, who composed his treatise De Periculis
Novissimorum Temporum, in 1255. It is printed (as two Sermons) in
Brown's Fasciculus, n. 43—54. The author was condemned by Alexander
IV. , but reconciled to Clement IV.
6 Bulasus, Ibid. 270 sq. : cf. Neander, vn. 392.
7 Bulasus, 273. In this bull he exempts them from the jurisdiction
of the bishops and parish priests.
8 He was general of the Minorites, and often argued for them on the

—1305]

Constitution of the Church.

235

them in bearing down resistance, and in virtually sup
planting for a time the ordinary teachers of the Church.
The Mendicants, as we have seen already, fostered in
their bosom many germs of misbelief. In this particular
they seem to have resembled the still older groups of
Beguins or Beghards1, who finally took refuge (1290) in
the third order of the Franciscans2. They were chiefly
females ('Beguinas') in the earlier stages of their history,
but, subsequently, when the number of them had pro
digiously increased3, the principle on which they had
associated was borrowed (circ. 1220) by the other sex4
('Beguini'). They were ridiculed6 as 'pietists' (boni ho
mines), and in the end appear to have adopted most of
the opinions held by the extreme or Apocalyptic school of
the Franciscans, so that ' Beguin' often was synonymous
with heretic.
Another wing of the great army which the Christians
of the Middle Age employed for their defence and the con
solidation of the papal empire were the Military Orders.
Their triumphant struggle with the heathen of the north
of Europe has been mentioned on a former page6. It was
their leading object to combine the rules of chivalry and
knighthood with monastic discipline, which they derived,
to some extent, from the Cistercian institutions.
The Knights Templars7 ('Fratres Militia? Templi') were

plea of necessity, alleging that the ordinary ecclesiastics were so corrupt
as to neglect all their sacred duties : see e. g. his Liber de Paupertate
Christi contra Magist. Gulielmum, etc.
* See his Opuscul. xix., contra Impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem.
1 See Mosheim, De Beghardis et Beguinabus Commentarius, passim.
They seem to have existed as early as the eleventh century in Flanders.
The name (see Ducange, sub voc.) appears to have been extended to all
kinds of female associations ('collegia') where the secular and monastic
life were partially combined. The inmates ('canonissas') could leave the
establishment and marry.
2 Helyot, vn. 251.
s Matthew Paris (a.d. 1250, p. 696) speaks of the German 'BeguineB'
as an ' innumerabilis multitudo.'
4 Mosheim, as above, p. 168.
6 See Ducange, under ' Papelardus.'
6 pp. 213, 215.
7 See, on their general history, L'Art de verifier les Dates, 1. 512 sq.,
and the Hist. Crit. et Apologet. des Chevaliers du Temple, Paris, 1789.
Their Regula is printed in Holstein, 11. 429 sq .; and in Mansi, xxi.
359 sq.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA- TION.

The Be
guins or
Beghards.

Military Orders.

The
Knights Templars.

236

Constitution of the Church

[a.d. 1073

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

The disso
lution of
the Order.

The
KnightsHospital-

founded at Jerusalem (1119), and through the powerful
advocacy of St Bernard1 the idea which they attempted to
embody won the sanction of the western prelates in the
synod of Troyes 2 (Jan. 13, 1128). The order soon extended
into every part of Europe, where' it was most liberally
endowed. Amid the stirring incidents of the crusades,
the Templars had abundant opportunity for justifying the
discernment of their patrons. On the fall of Acre in 1291,
they could maintain the Christian cause no longer, and
retreated to their rich domains in Cyprus : but suspicions3
of their orthodoxy which had once been irreproachable
were now quite current in the west. A long and shame
ful controversy ended in the dissolution of the order4 at
Vienne (March 22, 1312).
Their property was all sequestrated and in part trans
ferred5 to what are known as the Knights Hospitallers6,
organized as early as 1048, to wait on the sick pilgrims
in the hospital of St John, at Jerusalem, but not converted
into a military order till the twelfth century7. They also
were ejected from the Holy Land with the last army of
1 He wrote his Exhortatio ad Milites Templi at the request of the
Grand-master, Hugh des Payens. See also his Tract, de Nova Militia.
2 Concil. Trecense: Mansi, xxi. 357.
3 The charges brought against them may be classed as follows:
(1) Systematic denial of Christ on their admission into the order, accom
panied with spitting or trampling on the cross. (2) Heretical opinions
concerning the sacraments. (3) Beception of absolution from masters and
preceptors, although laymen. (4) Debauchery. (5) Idolatry. (6) Ge
neral secrecy of practice. See English Review, Vol. i. p. 13.
4 The Templars were not allowed to speak in their own defence, and all
the English, Spanish, German and some other prelates were accordingly
resolved to take no part in their condemnation. This was the work of
the French king Philip the Fair and his creature, pope Clement V., who
also carried off a portion of the spoil, by levying fines on the transfer of
the property. The Grand-master and others were burnt by the arbitrary
act of Philip.
6 See the remarkable statute De Terris Templariorum, 17 Edw. H.
st. in. The 'Temple' of London was given, by some private arrange
ment, to the earl of Pembroke (whose widow founded Pembroke College,
Cambridge), but afterwards passed into the hands of the Hospitallers,
who leased it to the students of the laws of England.
6 Helyot, in. 74 sq.; Vertot's Hist, des Chevaliers Hospitaliers, etc.,
Paris, 1726.
7 The Bule given to the order by Baymond du Puy (1118), in Hol
stein, n. 445 sq., is silent as to their military duties: but in, the same
year they performed a prodigy of valour. Helyot, p. 78. They were
taken under the special protection of Pope Innocent II., in 1137: Bre-
quigny, Table Chronol. des Diplomcs, etc., m. 4, Paris, 1769.

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Constitution of the Church.

237

Crusaders, but continued to exist for many centuries.
Their chief asylum was at Rhodes (1309), and finally at
Malta (1530).
A connecting link between the rest of the religious orders
and the seculars, or ' working clergy,' is supplied by the
canons regular of St Augustine whose institution, the re
sult of the failure of all attempts to reform the old secular
canons, coincides in date with the opening of this period1.
Another order of a similar kind was that of the Praemon-
stratensians (canons of Pre'rnonstre), who sprang up in the
diocese of Laon, in 1119. Their founder, Norbert2, was
himself a secular, but on awakening to a deeper sense of
his vocation, he resolved to organize an institution for the
better training of ecclesiastics3. With this object he en
deavoured to unite the cure of souls and a conventual
mode of life.
The canons secular, in pursuance of their ancient policy4,
withdrew still further from the reach of their diocesan.
At the conclusion of the struggle which the Church main
tained against the civil power respecting the episcopal ap
pointments, nearly all the bishops were elected absolutely
by the canons of the cathedrals6, which could not fail to
add fresh weight to their pretensions. They exceeded all the

1 See above, p. 144.
2 See hisLife by a Prasmonstratensian in the Act. Sanct. Jun. i. 804 sq.,
and Hugo's Ord. Pramonst. Annal., Nanceii, 1734. He died archbishop
of Magdeburg, in 1134.
3 It was commended in 1129 by pope Innocent H. (Hugo, 11. 109), who
afterwards granted to it many privileges. Le Paige, Biblioth. Pramonst.,
p. 622, Paris, 1633.
4 See above, pp. 144, 145.
5 Thus Innocent III. (1215) enjoins respecting the election of a bishop,
' ut is eollatione adhibita eligatur, in quern omnes vel major vel sanior
pars capituli consentit:' Decret. Gregor. lib. i. tit. vi. c. 42 (in Corpus
Juris Canon.). Before this time a certain right of assent had been re
served for 'spiritales et religiosi viri' (including, perhaps, the laity): but
by an edict of Gregory IX. (ibid. c. 56) it is forbidden, notwithstanding
any usage to the contrary, 'ne per laicos, cum canonicis, pontificis [i.e. of
a bishop] electio prassumatur.' This right of election had long been
possessed by the Scotch Culdees (Keledei=' servants of God'), who were
an order of canonical clergy, some, if not all, of them being attached to
the cathedral churches. Dollinger, hi. 270, 271. They were at length
superseded in many places by canons regular, and on appealing to Boni
face VIH. in 1297, with the hope of recovering their ancient right of
electing their bishop, they were unsuccessful. Cf. Spotswood, Hist, of
Church and State of Scotland, p. 51.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

The order
ofPra-
monstra- tensian
canons.

Power and
degeneracyof the
canons.

238

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d. 1073

INTERNAL
•ORGANIZA TION.

Attemptsto reform
them.

Titular
and suf
fragan bishops.

other clergy both in rank and in worldliness, regarding the
cathedral prebend as a piece of private income, suited more
especially for men of noble birth1, and not unfrequently
employing substitutes2 (or 'conduct-clerics') to discharge
their sacred duties. Many an effort, it is true, was made
to bring about a reformation3 of the canons, and in some
of the western churches the new impulse which accom
panied the Hildebrandine movement may have been con
siderably felt : but, judging from the number of complaints
that meet us in the writings of a later period, those reform
ing efforts were too commonly abortive4.
We have seen5 that many of the functions of the chor
episcopi devolved on the archdeacons. After the thirteenth
century the supervision of a diocese was often shared by
titular or suffragan bishops6, whom the pope continued to
1 This plea was urged by the chapter of Strasburg in 1232 ; but the
pope (Decret. Greg. IX. lib. in. tit. v. c. 37) replied that the true nobility
was ' non generis sed virtutum :' cf . Neander, vn. 286.
2 ' Clerici conductitii : ' see Ducange, under ' conductitius. ' This point
is dwelt upon by a most rigorous censor of the canons, although one of
their own order, Gerhoh of Beichersberg. See his Dialogus de differentia
clerici regularis et sacularis. 'Nos autem' (says the Secular Canon)
'pasne omnes genere, nobilitate, divitiis excellimus:' Gerhohi Opp. v..
1419, ed. Migne.
3 As early as 1059, Nicholas II. and a Boman synod had enjoined (c. 3)
the strict observance of their rule (Mansi, xix. 897). In very many cases
canons were allowed to have private property : but when attempts were
made to reform the order, the new canons ('canonici regulares') as dis
tinguished from the old ('canonici sasculares') boasted of their 'apos
tolical' community of goods. Schiiickh, xxvn. 223 — 226. The name of
' canons ' however was everywhere given to the cathedral clergy, whether
or no they had ever accepted a rule; and after the foundation of the
Augustinian canons or canons regular, the pretence of a rule was scarcely
maintained by the canons secular at all. The Augustinian canons occu
pied most of the Scottish cathedrals and that of Carlisle. The other
English cathedrals remained until the Beformation divided nearly equally
between the Benedictines and the secular canons; the latter possessed the
cathedrals of the Continent with very few exceptions.
4 Planck, iv. pt. n. 570 sq.
5 Above, p. 46, n. 2.
6 'Episcopi in partibus infidelium.' The number of these increased
very much when Palestine became a Turkish province. Councils were
then under the necessity of checking their unlicensed ministrations : e.g.
that of Bavenna (1311) speaks in no gentle terms of ' ignoti et vagabundi
episcopi, et maxime lingua et ritu dissoni:' see Planck, n. pt. n. 604 sq.;
Neander, vn. 297, 298. These bishops under the title of suffragans were
very largely employed in those countries in which, as in England and
Germany, the dioceses were large, and the diocesan bishops employed in
secular business ; a list of the English suffragans may be found in the
Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum (Oxford, 1858), pp. 142 — 148.

—1305]

Constitution of the Church.

239

ordain for countries which the Saracens had wrested from
his hands. These bishops found employment more espe
cially in Germany. Where they did not exist, arch
deacons were unrivalled in the vast extent of their author
ity1, which numbers of them seem indeed to have abused
by goading the inferior clerics2 and encroaching on the
province of the bishop3. In the hope of checking this
presumption, other functionaries, such as 'vicars-general'
and 'officials'4, were appointed to assist in the adminis
tration of the churches of the west. But these in turn
appear to have excited the distrust and hatred of the peo
ple by their pride, extortion, and irreverence5.
The more solemn visitations6 of the bishop were con
tinued ; and he still availed himself of the diocesan synod
for conferring with the clergy and adjusting purely local
questions. Other councils also7, chiefly what are termed
1 This may be ascertained from the Decret. Gregor. IX. lib. 1. tit. xxni.,
which contains ten chapters 'De officio Archidiaconi.'
2 e. g. John of Salisbury (ep. lxxx.) complains at length of the 'rabies
archidiaconorum.' Some of them, however, were most exemplary, travel
ling, staff in hand, through their archdeaconries and preaching in every
village. Neander, (vn. 293) quotes such an instance.
3 Thomassinus, Vetus et Nova Ecclesia Discipl. pt. 1. lib. 11. c. 18 — 20.
Alexander III. found it necessary to inhibit the archdeacon of Ely, among
others, from committing the cure of souls to persons ' sine mandato et
licentia episcopi.' Mansi, xxn. 364.
4 Thomassinus, ibid. c. 8,9: Schrockh, xxvn. 150 sq. Other duties
of the archdeacon were transferred to the ' penitentiary ' of the diocese,
an officer appointed at the council of Lateran (Decret. Gregor. lib. 1. tit.
xxxi. u. 15) to assist the bishop ' non solum in prsedicationis officio, verum
etiam in audiendis confessionibus et poenitentiis injungendis, ac casteris,
quas ad salutem pertinent animarum.' However, as the archdeacons were
generally in deacon's orders, they could not have discharged the duties
imposed on the penitentiaries. They should be regarded as ecclesiastical
lawyers, not as persons in charge of souls.
6 See an epistle of Peter Blesensis (of Blois), where at the close of the
twelfth century he calls the officials ' episcoporum sanguisugas :' ep. xxv.
Other instances are given by Neander, vn. 294.
6 See above, p. 46. The council of Lateran (1179), c. 4, passed some
curious regulations limiting the equipages of the prelates and archdeacons
while engaged on these visitation-tours.
7 Their number may be estimated from the list in Nicolas' Chronol.
pp. 239 — 259. What are called by the Church of Bome 'general' or
'oecumenical' councils, those of Lateran (1123), of Lateran (1139), of
Lateran (1179), of Lateran (1215), of Lyons (1245), of Lyons (1274), were
such neither in their mode of convocation (having no true representatives
from other patriarchates), nor in their reception by the Church at large.
See Palmer's Treatise on the Church, 11. 162 sq., 3rd ed. Provincial
synods were commanded to be held every year by the council of Lateran
(1215), c. 7.

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Exorbitance of
archdea
cons.

Vicars-
general and of
ficials.

240

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d.1073

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.

Corrupt
ions of the
clergy ge
nerally.

'provincial' (or, in England, ' convocations'1) were assem
bled through the whole of the present period. Their effect,
however, was diminished by the intermeddling of the papal
legates and the growth of Romish absolutism2.
From these councils, much as they evince of the genuine
spirit of reform, we are constrained to argue, that the
general system of the Church was now most grievously
disjointed and the morals of the clergy fearfully relaxed.
Abuses of ecclesiastical patronage3 which Hildebrand and
others of his school attempted to eradicate had come to
light afresh. A race of perfunctory and corrupted priests,
non-residents and pluralists, are said to have abounded
in all quarters4 ; and too often the emphatic voice of
1 See above, pp. 50, 53; p. 153, n. 5. From the foundation of the
Anglo-Saxon church, the bishops and abbots had been accustomed to
meet in ecclesiastical councils; sometimes in national (Bede, H. E. rv.
17), sometimes in provincial assemblies (Sim. Dun. Mon. Hist. Brit.
p. 670), and this independently of the witenagemots, and before the
assembling of a general witenagemot for England was possible. After
the Conquest for a long period the ecclesiastical councils were national,
and attended by the prelates of both provinces, as, for example, that of
London in 1075; (Will. Malmesb. Gesta Pontificum, pp. 66 — 68, ed.
Hamilton.) In 1127, the king held a council at London, and the arch.-
bishop another at Westminster (H. Hunt. fo. 219, ed. Savile), in a way
which has been compared with the modern custom of holding parliament
and convocation at the same time. See Wake, State of the Church, p. 171,
London, 1703. Becords of provincial councils are very rare, until the
custom of voting money in them arose. That of 1175 however, at West
minster, was clearly a provincial council of Canterbury (Hoveden ii. 72),
and that of 1195 held by Hubert Walter as legate, at York, was a pro
vincial Council of the Northern province (Hoveden, in. 293 — 297).
Provincial councils become more frequent after the beginning of John's
reign; and diocesan ones also in which the money-grants of the clergy
were arranged. During the thirteenth century it is difficult to distin
guish in every case the ecclesiastical and secular character of these
meetings; and towards the end of it, Convocation in two provincial
representative assemblies was established on its present basis. The
representative principle was introduced rather earlier into the ecclesi
astical than into the lay councils ; proctors for the cathedral clergy being
summoned as early at least as 1225. In 1258 the archdeacons act as
proctors or proxies for the clergy of their archdeaconries; in 1273 the
bishops are directed to name the representatives ; in 1277 the diocesan
clergy are represented by proctors, and from 1283 each diocese is repre
sented as at the present day. These Convocations must be carefully
distinguished from the Parliamentary assemblies of the clergy which
were not provincial. See Select Charters (Oxford, 1870), pp. 38, 442 — 446,
456, &c.
2 Capefigue, n. 65, 66.
3 Above, pp. 143 sq.
4 On this subject, see the Verbnm A bbreviatum of Peter Cantor (a Paris
theologian, who died 1197), c. 34, ed. Montibus, 1639, and Gerhoh of

—1305]

Constitution of the Church.

241

councils, stipulating as to the precise conditions on which
sacred offices were to be held, produced no visible or
•permanent effect.
One source of the more glaring immoralities1, which
synod vied with synod in denouncing, was the celibacy
of the clergy. This had been at length established as
the practice of the Western Church through the astute
and unremitting efforts of the Roman pontiff. It is true
that even Gregory VII. had been constrained to shew in
dulgence2 in some cases where the married priest appeared
incorrigible ; and in England, at the council of Winchester
(1076), the rigours of the Hildebrandine legislation were
considerably abated3: but the marriage of the clergy, dis
credited on every hand, was gradually disused, and died
away entirely at the middle of the thirteenth century.
The prohibition was at length extended also, after a pro
tracted contest, to sub-deacons and inferior orders4 of the

Beichersberg, De Corrupto Ecclesia Statu; Opp. 11. 10 sq. ed. Migne.
The language of men like Bonaventura (Opp. vn. 330, ed. Lugduni),
where, in his defence of the Mendicants, he draws a most gloomy picture
of the clergy, should be taken ' cum grano salis ;' but his colouring is
not very much deeper than that of bishop Grosseteste (ep. cvn.), in
Brown's Fascic. n. 382: cf. his Sermo ad clerum, contra pastores et pra-
latos mabos ; Ibid. 263. Schrockh (xxvn. 175 sq.) has proved at large
from the decrees of councils, that simony, which Hildebrand and others
after him denounced, was rife in nearly every country, often in its most
obnoxious forms.
1 e. g. Schrockh, xxvn. 205, 206. Men like Aquinas saw clearly ' minus
esse peecatum uxore uti quam cum alia fornicari' (Ibid. p. 211) ; but they
all felt that the canons of the Church were absolutely binding, and there
fore that clerical marriages were sinful.
2 The imperial party, now in the ascendant, won the sympathy of
many of the married priests, and Hildebrand accordingly advised his
legates for the present (1081) to dispense with some of the more rigorous
canons on this subject: Mansi, xx. 342. As late as 1114, the council of
Gran (Strigoniense) decreed as follows, c. 31: 'Presbyteris uxores, quas
legitimis ordinibus acceperint, moderatius habendas, prasvisa fragilitate,
indulsimus : ' Pe'terffy's Concil. Hungar. 1. 57, ed. Viennas Austr. 1742 :
Mansi, xxi. 106.
3 'Decretum est, ut nullus canonicus uxorem habeat. Sacerdotes
vero in castellis vel in vicis habitantes habentes uxores non cogantur ut
dimittant; non habentes interdicantur ut habeant,' etc. ; Wilkins, 1. 367.
For the later aspects of the struggle in England and other countries, see
the references in Gieseler, in. 205 — 207, n. 4. Zealots like Boscelin con
tended that the sons of clergymen were not eligible to any ecclesiastical
office. Neander, viii. 9.
4 Thomassinus, Eccl. Discip. pt. 1. lib. 11. c. 65. According to the
Decret. Greg. lib. in. tit. in. c. 1, a clerio under the rank of subdeacon

M. A.

R

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
Constrain
ed celibacy:

its exten
sion,

242

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1073

INTERNAL
ORGANIZA TION.
and effect.

Other vices
of the se
culars.

clerical estate. A darker train of evils was the conse
quence of this unnatural severity. Incontinence, already
general1 among the higher clergy, now infected very many '
of the rest. Nor was that form of vice the only one which
tended to debase the spirit of the seculars and counteract
the influence which they ought to have exerted on their
flocks. Their levity, intemperance, and extortion2 had too
frequently excited the disgust and hatred of the masses,
and so far from meeting with the reverence which their
sacred office claimed, they were the common butt of raillery
and coarse vituperation3. The more earnest of their charge

might retain his wife by relinquishing his office, but subdeacons and all
higher orders are compelled to dismiss their wives and do penance : cf.
Synod of London (1108) : Wilkins, I. 387.
1 Thus the Gloss, on Distinct, lxxxi. c. 6 (in Corpus Jur. Canon.)
adds that deprivation is not meant to be enforced ' pro simplici fornica-
tione;' urging, as the reason, ' cum pauci sine illo vitio inveniantur.'
2 The prevalence of these vices may be inferred from the numerous
complaints of men like St Bernard (see passages at length, in Gieseler,
in. 208 — 210, n. 10), and the decrees of councils (e. g. Lateran, 1215,
cc. 14, 15, 16). The same is strongly brought to light in the reforming
(anti-secularizing) movement headed by Arnold of Brescia. : see Neander,
vn. 205 sq.
3 See, for instance, the Collection of Political Songs, &c, edited by
Mr Wright for the Camden Society, and 'Latin Poems commonly at
tributed to Walter Mapes' (appointed archdeacon of Oxford in 1196),
edited by the same. These specimens, together with the whole cycle of
Provencal poetry (the sirventes of the Troubadours and the fabliaux of
the Trouveres), contain the most virulent attacks on the clerical, and
sometimes the monastic, order. Much as satire of this kind was over-
coloured by licentious or distempered critics, it had, doubtless, some
foundation. The champion and biographer of Becket, Herbert of Bose-
ham, did not hesitate to employ the following language in speaking
of the clergy : ' Sacerdos quippe nisi sensum Scripturarum prashabuerit,
tanquam omni carens sensu, idolum potius quam sacerdos judicatur...
Utinam et juxta prophetas votum illis fiant similes qui ea faciunt, qui
tales in Dei ecclesia ordinant. Simia quippe in aula, talis sacerdos in
ecclesia.' Supplementa Herb, de Boseham, pp. 102 sq., ed. Caxton Soc.
1851. It should, however, be borne in mind that the very evidence on
which this account of the clergy is received proves the existence of a
better and higher idea, and that the ruling one. The enactments of
councils are necessitated by a single case as well as by many, and the
fact that such enactments were possible proves that the majority of at
least the influential clergy were on the right side. No institution could
stand if it were to be judged by vulgar caricatures such as the popular
songs are ; nor could the history of public morality at the present day be
drawn from the police reports. The abuses of certain sorts were through
the medieval period great and notorious, but if they had been the rule
generally the Church must have long ago ceased to exist. It is observable
also that the worst charges are all in general language. No accurate

—1305]

Constitution of the Church.

243

preferred, the ministrations first of monks, and then of
mendicants, whose popularity must have been chiefly due
to their superior teaching and more evangelic lives. Ex
ceptions there would doubtless be in which the humble
parish-priest approved himself the minister of God and
was the light and blessing of his sphere of duty : but the
acts of such are seldom registered among the gloomy
annals of the age.

§2. RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO THE CIVIL
POWER.
The Western Church was now exalted by the papacy
as the supreme and heaven-appointed mistress of the State;
or looking at the change produced by this conjuncture
from a different point of view, she ran the risk of falling,
under Gregory VII., into a secular and merely civil in
stitution. Having generally succeeded in his effort to
repress the marriage of the clergy, he began to realize
the other objects that had long been nearest to his heart,
the abolition of all ' lay-investitures,' the freedom of epis
copal elections, and his own ascendancy above the juris
diction of the crown1. In carrying out his wishes he
advanced a claim to what was nothing short of feudal
sovereignty in all the kingdoms of the west2, in some
upon the ground that they were the possessions (fiefs)
of St Peter3, and in others as made tributary to the
popes by a specific grant4.
judgment can be drawn from the generalities of fanatical reformers or
from the sneers of professed enemies.
1 His own election, it is true, had been confirmed by the emperor ac
cording to the decree of Nicholas II. (above, p. 140, n. 1) : but that is
the last case on record of a like confirmation. Bowden's Life of Gregory
VII. 1. 323.
2 In his more sober moments he allowed that the royal power was
also of Divine institution, but subordinate to the papal. The two dig
nities (' apostolica et regia ') are like the sun and moon : Epist. lib. vn.
ep. 25 (Mansi, xx. 308). An apology for Gregory VH. on claiming
oaths of knightly service from the kings and emperors, is made by Dol
linger, m. 314—316.
3 Spain was so regarded (' ab antiquo proprii juris S. Petri fuisse') :
Epist. lib. 1. ep. 7.
4 Thus Gregory VII. (1074) reproaches the king of Hungary for
accepting the emperor as lord paramount of his dominions. That

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.
Their gene
ral unpo
pularity.

The main
features of
the Hilde
brandine
policy.

244

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1073

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.
Struggle of
the pope
with Henry IV.

The chief opponent of these ultra-papal claims was
Henry IV. of Germany1: but his abandoned character,
his tampering with the church-preferment, and his un
popularity in many districts of the empire, made it easier
for the pope to humble and subdue him. The dispute was
opened by a Roman synod in 1075, where every form of
lay-investiture was strenuously resisted2. After some pa
cific correspondence, in which Henry shewed himself dis
posed to beg the papal absolution3 for the gross excesses
of his youth, he was at length commanded to appear in
Rome for judgment4, on the ground that Hildebrand had
been entrusted with the moral superintendence of the
world. Henry now hastened to repel this outrage : he
deposed his rival5, and was speedily deposed himself and
stricken with the papal ban6 (1076). Supported by a
kingdom is said to be 'Bomanas ecclesias proprium  a rege Stephano
ohm B. Petro oblatum.' The letter goes on to say: ' Prasterea Heinricus
pias memorias imperator ad honorem S. Petri regnum illud expugnans,
victo rege et facta victoria, ad corpus B. Petri lanceam coronamque trans-
misit et pro gloria triumphi sui illuc regni direxit insignia, quo princi-
patum dignitatis ejus attinere cognovit.' Lib. n. ep. 13: cf. above, p.
128, n. 5. On the sturdy language of William the Conqueror, when
asked to do homage to Gregory, see Turner, Hist, of England, ' Middle
Ages,' i. 131, ed. 1830.
1 See Stanzel, Gesch. Deutschlands unter den frank. Kaisern, I.
248 sq.
2 On the historical connexion of this law, see Jaffe", p. 417. It runs
as follows : ' Si quis deinceps episcopatum vel abbatiam de manu ali-
cujus laicas personas susceperit, nullatenus inter episcopos habeatur,'
etc  adding, 'Si quis imperatorum, regum, ducum, marehionum,
comitum, vel quilibet saecularium potestatum aut personarum investi-
turam episcopatuum vel alicujus ecclesiastics dignitatis dare pras-
sumpserit, ejusdem sententias [i.e. of excommunication] vinculo se
adstrictum esse sciat :' Mansi, xx. 517. Gregory had already (1073)
threatened Philip of France with excommunication and anathema for
simoniacal proceedings : Epist. lib. i. ep. 35.
3 His letter (1073) is given at length in Bowden, i. 340 sq. The
hopes which it inspired in Gregory are expressed by his Epist. lib. i.
epp. 25, 26.
4 See Bruno, De Bello Saxon, c. 64 (in Pertz, vn. 351) ; and Lam
bert's Annates, a.d. 1076. According to the latter writer Henry was
summoned, on pain of anathema, to appear in Bome by Feb. 22 : but
cf. Neander, vn. 144, 145.
6 The stronghold of the imperialists was the collegiate chapter of
Goslar. They were backed on this occasion by the synod of Worms
(Jan. 24, 1076), which, not content with a repudiation of the pope,
assailed his character with the most groundless calumnies : Lambert,
as above ; Bowden, n. 92 sq.
6 Mansi, xx. 469. ' Henrico regi, filio Henrici Imperatoris, qui contra

—1305]

Constitution of the Church.

245

number of disloyal princes who assembled at Tribur, the
terrible denunciation took effect ; they formed the resolution
of proceeding to appoint another king, and Henry's wrath
was, for a time at least, converted into fear1. An abject
visit to the pope, whom he propitiated by doing penance
at Canossa2, ended in the reconstruction of his party, and
the gradual recognition of his rights3. The papal ban,
indeed, was reimposed in 1080 ; but Henry had strength
enough to institute a rival pontiff4 (Clement III.) : and
although his arms were partially resisted by the countess
of Tuscany5 (Matilda) and the Normans under Robert
Guiscard6 who came forward in behalf of Gregory, the
subjects of the pope himself were now in turn estranged
from him7. He therefore breathed his last (1085) an exile
from the seat of his ambitious projects8.
It was made apparent in the course of this dispute that
numbers were unwilling to concede the pope a right of
excommunicating monarchs, even in extreme cases; and
tuam ecclesiam inaudita superbia insurrexit, totius regni Teutonicorum
et Italias gubernacula contradico, et omnes Christianos a vinculo jura-
menti, quod sibi fecere vel facient, absolvo, et ut nullus ei sicut regi
serviat interdico.. .vinculo eum anathematis vice tua alligo '. ... Cf. Paul.
Bernried, Vit. Gregor. c. 68 sq. This and other works in defence of
Gregory will be found in Gretser, Opp. torn. vi. Those which take the
opposite (or imperial) side have been collected in Goldast's Apolog. pro
Imper. Henrico IV. , Hanov., 1611.
1 Neander, vn. 153.
2 See the humiliating circumstances detailed by Gregory himself
(Jan. 28, 1077) in a letter written to the German princes : lib. iv. ep.
12. The tone of this letter is most unapostolic.
3 The enemies of Henry, it is true, proceeded to elect Budolph of
Swabia for emperor, the pope remaining neutral at first, and afterwards
(1080) espousing (Mansi, xx. 531) what he thought the stronger side :
but Budolph's death soon after left his rival in possession of the crown,
and ruined the designs of Gregory.
4 Jaffa-, p. 443.
6 On the relations of Gregory with this princess, see Neander, vn. 155
(note), and Sir J. Stephen's Essays, 1. 45 sq.
6 This rude soldier had been excommunicated by Gregory in 1074
(Mansi, xx. 402), but in 1080 (June 29) the services of the Norman army
were secured at all hazards. See Gregory's investiture of their leader
in Mansi, xx. 314.
7 See Bowden, n. 318.
8 One of his last public acts was a renewal of the anathema against
Henry and the anti-pope: see Bernold's Chron. a.d. 1084 (Pertz, vn.
441). The letters of Gregory VH. bearing on German and imperial
topics have been published in a very convenient form by Jafffi, Monu-
menta Gregoriana, Berlin, 1865.

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

' Reform
ing' princi
ples deve
loped by it.

246

Constitution of the Church. [A.D. 1073

RELATIONS TO THE
crvn,
POWER.

Further
papal en
croach-

ened by the

that others who admitted this denied the further claim to
dispossess an emperor of all his jurisdiction and absolve his
subjects from their oath of allegiance1.
The relations of the spiritual and temporal authorities
were now embarrassed more and more by popes who fol
lowed in the steps of Gregory. The second Urban, after
placing Philip I. of France2 under the papal ban (1094),
forbade a priest or bishop to swear any kind of feudal
homage3 to the sovereign or to other laymen, — an in
junction which, if carried out, would have been absolutely
fatal to the union of the Church and civil power. This
pontiff also headed the new movement4 of the age for
rescuing Palestine from the dominion of the Saracens.
The project had been entertained before by Gregory VII.5,
who seems to have expected that Crusades, while strength
ening his throne, would tend to reunite the Eastern and
the Western Christians ; but no step was taken for the
realizing of his wish until it found a mighty echo in the
heart of Urban IL* Of the many consequences which
resulted from that wondrous impulse, none is more appa
rent than the exaltation of the papal dignity7 at the
expense of every other. Rome had thus identified her-

1 Cf. on the one side Neander, vn. 149 sq., Gieseler, m. 16, n. 25,
with Dollinger, in. 323 sq. Gregory's own defence of his conduct may
be seen in his Epist. lib. iv. ep. 2. According to Capefigue (1. 294 sq.),
the excommunicated emperor was to be avoided like a leper, and there
fore his deposition followed as a matter of course.
2 In this case as in others (cf. p. 136, n. 4) the papal fulmination
was a popular act, Philip having repudiated his lawful wife. He was
resisted by Ivo, the bishop of Chartres, who begged the pope (Epist.
46) to adhere to the sentence he had pronounced through his legate at
the council of Autun. The ban was accordingly pronounced afresh at
the council of Clermont (1095) in Philip's own territories. Bernold's
Chron. a.d. 1095 (Pertz, vn. 464).
3 See Dollinger's remarks on what he calls ' the new and severe addi
tion,' in. 330.
4 On the Crusades generally, see Wilken, Gesch. der Kreuzziige,
Michaud, Hist, des Croisades, and Gibbon, ch. lviii.
5 Epist. lib. n. ep. 31. In lib. n. ep. 49, he begs that men who
love St Peter will not prefer the cause of secular potentates to that of the
Apostle, and complains of the sad depression of the Eastern Church.
6 See the acts of the council of Clermont (Nov. 18 — 28, 1095), in
Mansi, xx. 815 sq.
7 Neander, vn. 176. On the establishment of the kingdom of Je
rusalem (1099) the power of the pope was fully recognized in temporal
as in spiritual things.

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Constitution of the Cfmrch.

247

self with the fanaticism of princes and of people, to secure
an easy triumph over both.
Paschal II., known in English history as the supporter
of archbishop Anselm1 in his opposition to the crown, had
sided with Henry V. in his unnatural effort to dethrone
his father (1104) : but soon afterwards he drove the pope
himself into concessions which were deemed an ignominious
compromise. Paschal2 openly surrendered into the hands
of the civil power all the secular fiefs which had been
bestowed on the clergy, on condition that the king should
in his turn resign the privileges of investiture; but sub
sequently even this condition was abandoned, and the over-
pliant pontiff went so far as to concede that Henry should
invest the prelates, in the usual way, before their conse
cration. But the pledge was speedily revoked.
Amid the crowd of conflicting theories as to the limits
of the sovereign power in matters ecclesiastical, there grew
up in the popedom of Calixtus II. a more tractable and
intermediate party3; and since all the combatants were
now exhausted by the struggle4, a concordat was agreed
1 See Hasse's Life of Anselm, Lond. 1850; and Turner's Middle
Ages, 1. 155 sq. The investiture-controversy (cf. above, p. 155, n. 1)
was settled in England as early as 1107 ; the pope and Anselm having
conceded that all prelates should, on their election, do homage to the
king. This concordat was accepted in the synod of London, 1107:
Wilkins, 1. 386.
2 He had already (1106) prohibited every kind of lay investiture like
his predecessors (Mansi, xx. 1211): but in 1111, on the advance of an
imperial army, he proposed (1) to resign the regalia held by bishops
and abbots, 'i.e. civitates, ducatus, marchias, comitatus, monetas, telo-
neum, mercatura, advocatias regni, jura centurionum, et curtes, quas
manifesto regni sunt, cum pertinentiis suis, militia et castra regni'
(in Pertz, rv. 67); and (2) to grant the king, 'ut regni, tui episcopis vel
abbatibus libere prseter symoniam et violentiam electis, investituram
virga3 et annuli conferas,' etc. ; Ibid. p. 72. The pope, however (see
above, p. 222, -n. 1), was soon compelled by his party to revoke these
concessions : Ibid. Append, pp. 181 sq. : cf . Cardinal, de Aragon. Vit,
Paschalis II., in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script, in. part 1. 363, and Nean
der, vn. 186—194. A very bold and bitter protest was put forth (circ.
1102) against the temporal assumptions of Paschal, by the church of
Liege. Their organ was Sigebert, a monk of Gemblours (Gemblacensis).
The letter is printed, among other places, in Mansi, xx. 987.
3 This school was represented by Hugo, a monk of Fleury, whose
Tractatus de Regia Potestate et Sacerdotali Dignitate is preserved in
Baluze and Mansi's Miscellan. rv. 184 sq.
4 The following language of Calixtus to the emperor (Feb. 19, 1122)
deserves attention: 'Nihil, Henrice, de tuo jure vendicare sibi quasrit

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Humilia
tion of Pas
chal II.

Concordat
of Worms,
1122.

248

Constitution of the Church. [A.D. 1073

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

TheGhibel- lines and
the popes.

upon at Worms1 (in September 1122), and solemnly con
firmed by the council of Lateran2 in the following year
(March 27). It was there determined that the emperor
should cease to claim the right of investiture by ring and
crosier and should grant to every church the free election
of the bishop, while the pope conceded that on their elec
tion prelates should receive the 'regalia' from the king
by means of the sceptre, and should thus avow their
willingness to render unto Caesar the things that are
truly his.
But though one topic of dispute was now adjusted, fresh
ones could not fail to be evoked by the aspiring projects
of the papacy : while on the other hand, the opposition
offered by the house of Franconia, under Henry IV. and
Henry V., was stubbornly continued for a hundred years
(1137 — 1236) by the new line of emperors8 (the Hohen-
staufen, Waiblingen or Ghibellines). The pontiff could,
however, keep his ground, supported as he was by the
political assailants of the empire4.
His throne, indeed, was shaken for a time in the im
petuous movement headed by a minor cleric, Arnold of
Brescia5, who came forward as the champion of the volun-
ecclesia ; nee regni nee imperii gloriam affectamus : obtineat ecclesia
quod Christi est, habeat imperator quod suum est,' etc. ; in Neugart's
Codex Diplom. Alemannia, n. 50, ed. 1791.
1 See Ekkehard, ad an. 1122 (Pertz, viii. 260) ; Vit. Calixti, in
Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script, in. pt. i. p. 420: Planck, rv. pt. i. 297 sq.
2 Dollinger (in. 345, 346) remarks that on the subject of the act of
' homage' as distinguished from the oath of fealty, the concordat was
entirely silent, indicating that Calixtus 'tolerated' it. In a letter dated
Dec. 13, 1122, he congratulates the emperor on his return 'nunc tandem
ad ecclesias gremium :' Mansi, xxi. 280.
8 See Von Ballmer's Gesch. der Hohenstaufen und ihrer Zeit, Leipzig,
1840. 4 The Guelphs (Welfs) and Ghibellines became the 'Whigs' and
'Tories' of this period, the pope allying himself with the former: cf. F.
von Schlegel, Philos. of History, p. 369 (Bonn's ed.), who views the
matter differently. The Welfs took their name from the line of princes
which gave dukes to Bavaria and Saxony. Under Frederick I. this line
was represented by Henry the Lion; and later on by his son Otho IV;
both of whom represented the ancient dislike of the Saxons of North
Germany to the imperial rule, and so were united in a common antipathy
with the popes. The use of the party names however is later than the
struggle itself ; the power of both Hohenstaufen and Welf was extinct by
the middle of the 13th century, and they represent merely imperial and
papal partisanship in Italy of a later date.
5 See Schrockh, xx. 112 sq., and 155, 156, ou the different views

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Constitution of .the Church.

249

tary system, and impugned the right of bishops and of
popes themselves to any temporal possession. A republic
was proclaimed at Rome (1143) ; the principles of Arnold
spread in every part of Lombardy, and though repressed
at length by the imperial arms1, the fermentation they
excited did not Gease for twenty years, after which the mis
guided author of it fell into the hands of the police2 (1155).
The German- empire was now administered by one of
the sturdiest of the anti-papal monarchs, Frederic I. or
Barbarossa (1152 — 1190). But after he had proved him
self a match for Hadrian IV.3, he was compelled (1176)
to recognize the claims of Alexander III.4, who, counting
on the disaffection of the Lombards, carried out the Hil
debrandine principles in all their breadth and rigour. He
was seconded in England by the primate Becket6, who,
although he rose to eminence as a minister of the king6,
respecting him. Neander's estimate is favourable (vn. 203 — 209). It
appears to be established that Arnold was a pupil of AbeUard: Ibid. p.
204 (note). Francke, Arnold von Brescia, Zurich, 1825, tries to connect
him with the Waldenses and Cathari. He was condemned as early as
1139, at the council of Lateran, in company with the anti-pope: cf. S.
Bernard. Epist. 195, written in the following year to caution the bishop of
Constance against Arnold and his principles.
1 The Eomans in this extremity invited Conrad to resume the ancient
imperial rights: see e.g. the two Letters in Martene and Durand's Collect.
n. 398. 8 Hadrian IV. desired the emperor to give up ' Arnaldum hasreticum,
quern vicecomites de Campania abstulerant . . . quern tanquam prophetam
in terra sua cum honore habebant.' Card, de Aragon. Vit. Hadriani, in
Muratori, as above, p. 442. He was immediately hanged: cf. Neander,
vn. 223.
8 He had reminded Frederic (1157) that the imperial crown was con
ferred ('collatam')'by the pope, with the addition, 'Neque tamen posnitet
nos desideria tuas voluntatis in omnibus implevisse, sed si majora bene-
ficia excellentia tua de manu nostra suscepisset, si fieri posset, non
'immerito gauderemus :' see Badevicus Gest. Frid. lib. 1. c. 9 ; in Muratori,
Rer. Ital. Script, vi. 746 sq. The pope, in 1158, was forced to explain
away the obnoxious terms: Lbid. c. 22; Pertz, iv. 106.
4 See Von Eaumer (as above), pp. 244 sq.; Dollinger, rv. 19, 20;
Gieseler, in. § 52, n. 22.
6 A copious stock of authorities for the Life of Becket is contained in
the S. Thomas Cantuariensis, edited by Giles, 8 vols. Oxf. 1845 : see also
J. G. Bobertson's Becket', a Biography, London, 1859.
6 Sharon Turner has tried to shew that several limitations of the
clerical encroachments had been made under his own auspices : Middle
Ages, 1. 233, and note 55, ed. 1830. The instances, however, are not very
convincing; and all that can be proved is that whilst Becket was minis
ter, the bishops and abbots were brought under contribution for the
scutage. The same writer has shewn (p. 259, n. 112) that at one period

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.
*— — v 
The anti-
hierarchi cal move
ment under
Arnold.Early
struggle of
Frederic Barbarossa
with the

The influ
ence of
Becket.

250

Constitution, of the Church.

[a.d. 1073

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

threw himself, on his promotion to Canterbury, on the side
of clerical immunities and ultimately perished in the
cause. The point on which he took his stand was the ex
emption of all clerical offenders from the civil jurisdiction,
urging that, whatever was the nature of their crime1,
they should be tried in the spiritual courts, and punished
only as the canon law prescribed. The king insisted, on
the contrary, that clerics, when convicted in his courts,
should be degraded by the Church and then remanded to
the civil power for execution of the sentence. In a meet
ing2 called the 'Council of Clarendon' (Jan. 25, 1164),
Becket had allowed himself to acquiesce in regulations
which he deemed entirely hostile to the Church and fatal
to his theory of hierarchical exemption : but the pope im
mediately absolved him from the oath3, and afterwards,
until his murder (Dec. 29, 1170), countenanced his un
remitting opposition to the crown4. His canonization,
and the miracles5 alleged to have been wrought on pil
grims who had worshipped at his tomb, conspired to fix the

the clergy were apprehensive lest Henry should have broken altogether
with the pope.
1 The number of crimes charged against clerics (major and minor) in
the early years of this reign was very great. Engl. Review, vi. 61, 62.
2 It consisted of the king, the two archbishops, twelve bishops, and
thirty-nine lay barons. Though purporting to re-enact the 'customs of
England,' the Constitutions of Clarendon infringe at many points on the
existing privileges of the Church: e.g. the twelfth reduced the patronage
of the bishoprics and abbeys almost entirely under the king's control.
Wilkins, 1. 435.
3 Epist. S. Thoma, n. 5, ed. Giles.
4 Alexander durst not bring the matter to an open rupture, on account
of his own misunderstanding with the emperor Frederic: but (June 8,
1165) he reprimanded Henry (Ibid. 11. 115) and incited some of the
bishops to exert their influence in behalf of Becket. Among other things
they were to admonish the king, ' ut in eo quod excesserit satisf aciat, a
pravis actibus omnino desistat, Bomanam ecclesiam solita veneratione
respiciat,' etc.; Ibid. n. 96: cf. n. 53. Even where he is urging Becket
to proceed against his enemies (April, 1166) he adds : ' Verum de persona
regis speciale tibi mandatum non damus, nee tamen jus tibi pontificale
quod in ordinatione et consecratione tua suscepisti adimimus. ' Ibid. n.
12. In a subsequent endeavour to effect a compromise, Henry insisted
on the reservation ' salva dignitate regni,' and Becket on ' salva ecclesias
dignitate,' so that nothing was accomplished. (Bobertson, Becket, p. 224.)
But the king afterwards relented (Jan, 1170) when he found it likely
that his kingdom would be placed under an interdict (Epist. S. Thoma,
n. 55). 6 John of Salisbury, Vita S. Thoma, Opp. v. 380, ed. Giles.

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Constitution of the Church.

251

triumph1 of those ultramontane principles which he had
laboured more than others to diffuse.
Meanwhile the conflict with the emperor had been re
opened. Lucius III. and his immediate successors (1181 —
1187) were ejected from the papal city by domestic trou
bles2; and the restless Barbarossa threatened to reduce
them into bondage, when he was at length diverted from
the theatre of strife to lead an army of Crusaders (1189).
He did not survive the expedition3. The reign of Henry
VI. and the minority of Frederic II. favoured the en
croachments of the Roman pontiff. Innocent III. (as we
have seen4) advanced the most exorbitant pretensions,
and by force of character as well as circumstances humbled
nearly all the European courts. His foremost wishes were
the conquest of Palestine and an extensive ' reformation of
the Church6,' but neither of these ends could be achieved,
according to his theory, except by the obliteration of all
nationalities and the entire ascendancy of Rome above
the temporal power. He gave away the crown of Sicily6
and governed there as guardian of the king : he elevated,
and in turn deposed, a candidate for the imperial throne7:
1 See the Purgatio Henrici Regis pro morte beati Thoma, and the
Charla Absolutionis Domini Regis in Boger de Hoveden, Chron. n.
35 — 37 ; ed. London, 1869. The vantage-ground secured to Alexander
by these acts is shewn in language like the following (Sept. 20, 1172),
where he had congratulated Henry on the conquest of Ireland : ' Et quia
Bomana ecclesia aliud jus habet in insula quam in terra magna et con-
tinua, nos earn spem tenentes, quod jura ipsius ecclesias non solum
conservare velis, sed etiam ampliare, et ubi nullum jus habet, id debeas
sibi conferre, rogamus,' etc. Bymer's Faedera, 1. 45, ed. 1816: Jaffe,
p. 751. 2 Dollinger, iv. 21 sq.
3 Von Baumer, as above, 11. 411 sq.
4 Above, pp. 224, 225.
5 Thus he writes (1215): 'Hlius ergo testimonium invocamus, Qui
Testis est in coslo fidelis, quod inter omnia desiderabilia cordis nostri
duo in hoc sasculo principaliter affectamus, ut ad recuperationem videlicet
Terras Sanctas ac reformationem universalis Ecclesias valeamus intendere
cum effectu.' Mansi, xxn. 960. The foundation of the Latin empire at
Constantinople (1204) added largely to the papal empire and excited
larger expectations. It was destroyed, however, in 1261.
6 Securing from the crown a surrender of the following points : the
royal nomination of bishops, the power of excluding legates, and pro
hibiting appeals to Bome, and the arbitrary grant or refusal of permission
to the bishops to be present at councils: see Planck, iv. pt. 1. 452 sq.;
Dollinger, rv. 27.
7 This was Otho IV., who had renounced all participation in ec-

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Frederic
Barbarossa
renews the
contest.His influ
ence coun
teracted
under In
nocent III.

252

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RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

he freed the subjects of count Raymond of Toulouse, who
was infected with the Albigensian tenets, from their
allegiance1: he made Philip Augustus of France take back
his rightful queen2: and, passing over similar achieve
ments, it was he who forced a sovereign of this country
(John) to hold his royal dignity as one of the most abject
vassals of the pope3 (1213). The 'Magna Carta' was,
however, gained in spite of Innocent's emphatic repro
bation4, and his death in 1216 allowed the imperialists
to breathe afresh and make an effort for diminishing
the range of papal absolutism. Fretted by their oppo
sition, Gregory IX. betrayed the fiery spirit of his pre
decessors and pronounced his ban against the emperor
Frederic II.5 (1227). A compromise ensued, in which the
quarrel seemed to have been amicably settled : but the
interval of calm was short ; and on the recommencement
of hostilities, the fearless monarch was at length proscribed
as an incorrigible misbeliever, who had justly forfeited his
crown (March 24, 1239)6. The contest thus exasperated^
clesiastical elections and the 'jus spolii,' or title to the property of
deceased bishops and other clergymen : but afterwards withdrawing from
this engagement and seizing some of the temporalities of the Boman
see, he was excommunicated by Innocent (1211) and his crown trans
ferred to Frederic II. : Matthew Paris, from Boger of Wendover, a.d. 1210 ;
Dollinger, iv. 31, 32.
1 See Sir J. Stephen's Lectures, i. 219, 220; ed. 1851.
2 Innocent. Epist. lib. in. ep. 11 sq.: Will. Armor, apud Bouquet,
xvn. 88.
3 The pope ' sententialiter definivit ut rex Anglorum Johannes a solio
regni deponeretur, et alius, papa procurante, succederet, qui dignior
haberetur,' etc. M. Paris, a.d. 1212, p. 195; from Boger of Wendover,
m. 241, ed. Coxe. He had before (1208) laid, the whole kingdom under
interdict. In John's deed of cession he speaks of it as made 'Deo et
Sanctis Apostolis ejuB Petro et Paulo, et Sanctas Bomanas ecclesias matri
nostras, ac domino papas Innocentio ejusque catholic-is successoribus...pro
remissione omnium peccatorum nostrorum et totius generis nostri tarn
pro vivis quam pro defunctis.' M. Paris, a.d. 1213, p. 199; B. Wendover,
in. 253. The tribute-money was to be 'mille marcas esterlingorum
annuatim.' 4 Wendover, a.d. 1215, m. 323.
6 Wendover (1228), rv. 157; M. Paris, p. 291. While under this ban
Frederic actually set out on a crusade in spite of the Boman pontiff,
issuing his orders 'in the name of God and of Christendom.'
6 The grounds on which the papal fulmination rested are given at
length in the bull of deposition: M. Paris (1239), p. 412: cf. Frederic's
own letters, Lbid. pp. 415 sq. How far he merited the charge of blas
phemy, infidelity, or free-thinking, is discussed by Neander, vn. 248 sq.
The recent work, Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi, ed. Huillard-

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Constitution of the Church.

253

did not cease until his death in 1250, after having more
and more developed the conviction in his subjects, that
some check must be imposed on the ambition of the
Roman see1.
The papacy, indeed, appeared to have come forth tri
umphant when the last of the Hohenstaufen, Conradin2,
perished on the scaffold (Oct. 29, 1268) : but, in spite of
the prodigious energy which it continued to evince, its
hold on all the European nations was relaxing, while the
hope of Eastern conquest faded more and more8. It is
alike remarkable that one of the premonitory blows which
Roman despotism provoked had been inflicted, half uncon
sciously, by Louis IX. (St Louis) of France, and at this
very juncture. What are known as the ' Gallican Liber
ties ' are clearly traceable to him. In his ordinance
of 1268 4 he proceeds on the idea of building up a
' national church ' in strict alliance with the civil power.
But a more sensible advance was made in this direction
under Philip the Fair6, whose conduct in ecclesiastical
affairs, however selfish, arbitrary and unjust, was tending
Brenolles (Paris, 1853), contains the most accurate information respecting
him. 1 A saying rose in Germany that Frederic would return, or that an
eagle would spring from his ashes and destroy the papacy.
2 Von Baumer, Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, iv. 594.
5 Cf . the remarks of Neander on the dying-out of the Crusades : vn.
260 sq.
4 Commonly called a 'Pragmatic Sanction;' printed in Capefigue, n.
352 sq. See the critique of this author (n. 171, 172). Another instru
ment, bearing the title 'Pragmatic Sanction' and more plainly 'Gallican,'
was issued by Charles VII. in 1438. Louis IX. also contributed to the
foundation of the college of Sorbonne (1259), which afterwards produced
a number of intrepid champions in the cause of 'nationality' as it di
verges from the Boman theory of universalism.
5 On his important struggle with Boniface VIII. see Gieseler, in.
133 — 156, on one side, and Dollinger, iv. 80 sq. or Capefigue, n, 181 sq.
on the other. After some preliminary skirmishing, Philip, backed by the
States-General (Ap. 10, 1302), wrote a warning letter to the pope, whose
indignation knew no bounds. In the famous decretal 'Unam Sanctam,'
which appeared in the following November, and is printed in Capefigue,
n. 355 (cf. Neander, ix. 11), Boniface asserted the absolute supremacy of
papal power (' Porro subesse Bomano pontifici omnem humanam creatu-
ram declaramus, dicimus, diffinimus et pronuntiamus omnino esse de
necessitate salutis'). He published the ban against his rival (April 13,
1303), but it was powerless. Philip summoned the States-General afresh
(June 13), where he preferred a charge of heresy against the pope and
stated his intention of appealing to a general council and a future pontiff.
Boniface, however, died in October, and the next pope (Benedict XI.)

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

of reaction
against the
papacy.

254

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1073

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

The
grounds of
this reac-

to reverse the whole of the Hildebrandine policy, and
threatened more than once to rend the kingdom from its
old connexion with the Roman see. The humbled pontiff,
watched and crippled at Avignon, was for many years the
creature and tool of the kings of France1.
There was, indeed, no general wish to question the
supremacy of Rome, so long as she confined herself within
the sacerdotal province ; but her worldliness, venality, and
constant intermeddling in the affairs of state, could hardly
fail to lessen the respect with which her claims had been
regarded : and as soon as the idea of an appeal from her
decisions to a General Council2 was distinctly mastered,
it is clear that the prestige by which her usurpations
were supported was already vanishing away. The true
relations of the regal and ecclesiastical authority3 were
now discussed with greater freedom. A reaction had
commenced. Mankind were growing more and more per
suaded that prerogatives like those of Hildebrand or Inno
cent III. were far from Apostolic, and could not be safely
lodged in sacerdotal hands4. Prophetic warnings on the
fall and secularization of the Church, poured forth by
revoked all the edicts which Boniface had promulgated against the
French king.
1 This period of about seventy years (1305 — 1309 at Lyons, 1309 to
1376 at Avignon) is known as ' the Captivity,' and was such when regarded
from the ultramontane point of view : see Vita Paparum Avenionensium,
ed. Baluze, Paris, 1693.
2 Frederic II. had done this in his circular Letters to the Christian
princes and the cardinals: Matthew Paris, p. 416: Neander, vn. 248.
The example was followed by Philip the Fair: see above, p. 253, n. 5. A
remarkable symptom of the state of feeling on this point is furnished by
a poem of the 13th century (Cambr. Univ. MSS. Dd. xi. 78, § 18), where
the Bomans, after arguing with pope Innocent III., and charging him
with becoming 'apostaticus' (fol. 114, a), are made to carry their appeal
to a general council, which pronounces in their favour.
3 e.g. by the Dominican, John of Paris, in his Tradatus de Potestate
Regali et Papali, published in Goldast's Monarchia sancti Romani Im-
peratoris, n. 108 sq. An analysis of it is made in the posthumous volume
of Neander, ix. pp. 22 sq. See also the Quastio disputata in utramque
partem pro et contra pontificiam potestatem, by JEgidius Bomanus (after
wards archbishop of Bourges), in Goldast, n. 95 sq. ; Neander, rx. 19.
The worst evils of the age were traced to the temporal possessions of the
pope and to the spurious 'Donatio Constantini,' on which those posses
sions were believed to rest: cf. above, p. 40, n. 6.
4 See especially the 'Supplication du Pueuble de France au Roi centre
le Pape Boniface le VIII.,' in the Appendix to Du Puy's Hist, du Diffe-
rend entre le Pape et Philippes le Bel, Paris, 1655.

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255

earnest souls like Hildegard and Joachim1, united with
the sneers of chroniclers like Matthew Paris and a host
of anti-papal songs2 in waking the intelligence and pas
sions of the many : while the spreading influence of the
Universities and Parliaments3 was tending, by a different
course, to similar results. The vices of the sacred curia,
uncorrected by the most despotic of its tenants, had excited
general grief and indignation, even in the very staunchest
advocates of Rome. St Bernard4, for example, in ad
monishing Eugenius III. to extirpate abuses, could not
help reverting with a sigh to earlier ages of the faith,
when ' the Apostles did not cast their nets for gold and
silver but for souls.' And both in Germany and in Eng
land, the impression had grown current that the Church
of Rome, which had been reverenced there as a benignant
mother, was now forfeiting her claim to such a title by
imperious and novercal acts6.
1 The 'abbot Joachim, in his exposition of Jeremy, and the maiden
Hildegare in the book of her prophecy,' are frequently cited in these
times by writers on the corruptions of the -Church (e.g. in a Sermon
preached by B. Wimbledon at St Paul's Cross, a.d. 1389, and printed in
London, 1745). Bespecting them and their influence, see Neander, vn.
298—322 ; Bobertson, in. 206—212.
2 Extracts from German ballads of this class have been collected in
Staudlin's Archiv fiir alte und neu Kirchengesch. iv. pt. hi. pp. 549 sq. :
cf. above, p. 242, n. 3. The unmeasured fulminations of the Albigenses
and other sectaries will be noticed on a future page. Dante (it is well
known) associated a Boman bishop with the apocalyptic woman riding on
the beast 'con le sette teste.'
3 Cf. Capefigue's observations on this point, n. 163. (' On commen-
cait une epoque de curiosity et d'innovation.') Comte (Philos. Posit.
lib. vi. c. 10) fixes on the opening of the 14th century as the origin of the
revolutionary process, which has from that date been participated in by
every social class, each in its own way.
4 See his De Consideration ad Eugenium, passim. In epist. 238,
'Amantissimo Patri et domino Dei gratia summo Pontifici Eugenio,' he
asks : ' Quis mihi det antequam moriar videre ecclesiam Dei sicut in
diebus antiquis, quando Apostoli laxabant retia in capturam, non in cap-
turam argenti vel auri, sed in capturam animarum?'
5 Thus Frederic II., in writing to the king of England (Matthew Paris,
A.n. 1228, p. 293), complains that the 'Curia Bomana,' which ought to be
a nurse and mother-church, is 'omnium malorum radix et origo, non
maternos sed actus exercens novercales, ex cognitis fructibus suis certum
faciens argumentum.' And John of Salisbury, the bosom friend of
Hadrian IV., assured that pontiff how the public feeling was now set
against the Boman church ; ' Sicut enim dicebatur a multis, Bomana
ecclesia, quas mater omnium ecclesiarum est, se non tarn matrem exhibet
aliis quam novercam.' Policraticus, lib. vi. c. 24.

RELATIONS TO THE
CIVIL
POWER.

Premoni tory symp
toms of the
Reforma tion.

256

Constitution of the Church, [A.D. 1073

In other words, the struggle with the civil power had
been maturing the predispositions that eventually attained
their object in redressing ancient wrongs and in a general
re-awakening of the Church.

—1305]

( 257 )

CHAPTER XL
ON THE STATE OF BELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND
CONTROVERSIES.

WESTERN CHURCH.
The man who at this time surpassed all others in
religious earnestness, and who has therefore been re
vered especially by all succeeding ages of the Church, was
the illustrious Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux1. In reference
to his system of theology he bears the title ' last of the
Fathers,' representing what is called the ' positive,' patristic
or traditionary school, which in the twelfth century was
giving place to philosophical inquiries and to freer modes
of thought. St Bernard, in his numerous Letters, Tracts,
and Sermons (of which eighty-six are on the 'Book of
Canticles' alone), exhibits a decided opposition2 to the
speculative, and as deep a love for the contemplative, or
mystical, theology. His general object was to elevate and
warm the spirit of the age in which he lived, and all
his writings of this class are emanations from a truly
Christian heart that, after communing profoundly with
itself, appears to have obtained a satisfactory response
1 See above, p. 230, Neander's Life of him, translated by Wrench:
and Hist. LitUr. de S- Bernard et de Pierre-le-Venirable by Dom Cle"-
mencet, ed. 1773.
2 This antagonism is seen especially in his controversy with Abelard
(see below). Thus, for instance, he writes in Epist. 192: 'Magister
Petrus [i.e. Abelard] in libris suis prof anas vocum novitates inducit et
sensum, disputans de fide contra fidem, verbis legis legem impugnat
Nihil videt per speculum et in senigmate, sed facie ad faciem omnia
intuetur, ambulans in magnis et in mirabilibus super se.' The school of
the Victorines (inmates of the abbey of St Victor at Paris) came back, as
we shaU see, in part to the standing ground of St Bernard.
M. A. s

WESTERN CHURCH.

St Bernard
(d. 1153).
The pecu
liar tone of
his theo-

258

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a. d. 1073

The rise of
the School-
iien.

archbp. of
Canterbury(*¦ 1109).

General
drift of
Sciiolasti-

to its most ardent aspirations in that view of Holy Scrip
ture which had been transmitted by the ancient doctors of
the Church.
But meanwhile other principles, allied in some degree
to those which characterize the Syrian school of theologians
in the fifth century and John of Damascus in the eighth1,
were spreading in all parts of Europe. The scholastic
era had begun. We saw the earliest trace of it, accord
ing to its proper definition, in the monastery of Bee2, and
Anselm, who became the abbot in 1078 and archbishop
in 1093, may be regarded as the purest and most able
type of schoolmen in the west3, fie occupied the place
of St Augustine in relation to the Middle Age. The
basis of his principles indeed was also Augustinian4: but
the form and colour which they took from the alliance
now cemented between them and Aristotelian dialectics,
gave to Anselm a peculiar mission, and, compared with
his great master, a one-sided character.
The leading object of the Schoolmen in the earlier
stages of their course was not so much to stimulate a
spirit of inquiry, as to write in the defence and illus
tration of the ancient dogmas of the Church6. In this
1 See above, pp. 71, 72.
2 Above, p. 159, n. 6.
3 Cf. Mohler's Essay entitled Die Scholastik des Anselmus in his
Schriften etc. (Begensburg, 1839), i. 129 — 176: Bornemann's Anselmus
et Abalardus, Havnia, 1840.
4 Thus, according to his own account (Epist. lib. i. ep. 68), it had
been his desire in controversy, ' ut omnino nihil ibi assererem, nisi quod
aut canonicis aut B. Augustini dictis incunctanter posse defendi vi-
derem.' The work here referred to is the Monologium sive exemplum
meditandi de ratione Fidei, which, together with his Proslogium (or Fides
quarens Intelledum), gives the best insight into his theologico-metaphy-
sical system. Some parts of it were attacked by a monk named Gaunilo,
and Anselm replied in the Apologeticus. His Works, containing a
Life by his English pupil, Eadmer, were edited by Gerberon, Paris,
1675, and have been reprinted in Migue's Patrologia cursus, Paris,
1854. A contemporary, and in some respects an equal, of Anselm, was
Hildebert of Lavardin, bishop of le Mans, and afterwards archbp. of
Tours, who died about 1135. His works were published at Paris, in
folio, 1708.
5 The principle on which the true scholastic wrote is forcibly stated
by Anselm in the following passage: 'Nullus quippe Christianus debet
disputare, quomodo quod ecclesia catholica corde credit et ore confite-
tur, non sit: sed semper eandem fidem indubitanter tenendo, amando,
et secundum illam vivendo humiliter quantum potest, quserere rationem
quomodo sit.' De Fide Trinitat. contra Roscettinum, c. 2: or still more

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

259

capacity, they undertook to shew, (1) that faith and reason
are not inconsistent ; or, in other words, that all the su
pernatural elements of revelation are most truly rational :
they laboured (2) to draw together all the several points
of Christian doctrine, and construct them into one con
sistent scheme ; and (3) they attempted the more rigorous
definition of each single dogma, pointed out the rationale
of it, and investigated its relation to the rest.
This method of discussion was extended even to the
most inscrutable of all the mysteries of faith, the doctrine
of the Blessed Trinity in Unity : and some of the scho
lastics did not hesitate to argue that the truth of it is
capable of rigorous demonstration1. A dispute as to the
proper terms in stating that and other doctrines opened
out the controversy of the Nominalists and Realists, a
question which employed the subtle spirit of the Schools-
at intervals for three or more centuries. The author of
the former system2 was the canon Rousellin, or Roscel-
linus*, of Compiegne, who, holding that all general con
ceptions are no more than empty names ('flatus vocis'),.
or, in other words, are mere grammatical abstractions,
chosen to facilitate our intellectual processes, but with no
real and objective import, argued boldly from these prin
ciples that if, according to the current language of the
Church, the essence of the Godhead naight be spoken of
as One reality ('una res'), the personal distinctness of the
three Divine hypostases would be constructively denied.
To view the Godhead thus was (in his eye) to violate
the Christian faith : it was equivalent to saying that the
Persons of the Holy Trinity were not Three distinct
touchingly in the Proslogium, c. 1 ; ' Non tento, Domkie, penetrare alti^
tudinem Tuam,. quia nullatenus comparo illi intellectum meum ; sed
desidero aliquatenus intelligere veritatem Tuam, quam credit et amat
cor meum. Neque enim- quairo intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut
intelligam.' 1 Klee, Hist, of Christian Dogmas (German), part 11. ch. ii. § 11.
2 The problem, had, however, been suggested at an earlier date by
Porphyry: see Cousin's Ouvrages inidits d 'Abelard, pp. Ix. sq. Paris,
1836 : Gieseler, in. 278, n. 5.
3 The historical notices of Boscellinus are very few : see Epistola
Johannis ad Anselmum, in Baluze and Mansi, Miscell. 11. 174: Ansehn's
Liber de Fide Trinitatis et de Incarnatione Verbi contra blasphemias
Ruzelini. Gieseler,, in. 281, n. 12, has also drawn attention to -a letter
of Boscellinus, Ad P'etr. Abalardum,\&ie\j found in Munich.
s2

WESTERN CHUECH.

Dispute
between the
Nominal
ists and
Realists.

Opinions -if
Roscelli-

26o

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

WESTERN CHURCH.

condemned at the
Council of
Soissons, 1092;
and refuted
by Anselm.

Abelardand his
tendencies(d. 1142).

subsistencies ('non tres res'), but names and nothing more,
without a counterpart in fact. He urged, accordingly,
that to avoid Sabellianism the doctors of the Church were
bound to call the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost three
real Beings ('tres res') of equal majesty and will. A
council held (1092) at Soissons1 instantly denounced the
author of these speculations on the ground that they were
nothing short of tritheism : and Anselm, as the champion
of the other system (or the school of Realists), took up
his pen to write in its behalf2. According to his view
the genus has a true subsistence prior to, and independent
of the individuals numbered in the class it represents :
particulars arise from universals, beiag fashioned after
these (the 'universalia ante rem') or modelled on a general
archetype that comprehends the properties of all3.
But though the Nominalists were now suppressed, they
afterwards returned to the encounter, headed by a man
of most extraordinary powers. Abelard, born in Brittany
(1079), was educated under William of Champeaux4 (Cam-
pellensis), a renowned logician of the Realistic school. The
boldness of his speculations and his brilliant talents soon
attracted crowds of auditors to Paris, where he opened his

1 See Pagi Critic. inBaronii Annal. ad an. 1094. Boscellinus abjured
the heresy imputed to him, but afterwards withdrew his recantation.
He died at last in retirement.
2 The treatise above mentioned, p. 259, n. 3. He maintained that
God, though Triune, is one 'Ipsum:' Dorner, p. 360. As the title
indicates, Anselm looked upon the nominalistic theory of his opponent
as subversive also of the doctrine of the Incarnation. He could not
understand how Christ assumed humanity in all its fulness, if humanity
be not a something real and objective, different from the nature of an
individual man: cf. archd. Wilberforce, Ore the Incarnation,^. 40 sq.
The thoughts of Anselm on this doctrine are preserved at length hi
his remarkable treatise, Cur Deus Homo, analysed in part by Schrockh,
xxvin. 376—384.
3 The Nominalists regarded all general ideas (universalia) as nothing
but abstractions of the human understanding, and derived from the
objects presented to its observation (post rem). The Bealists viewed such
general ideas as having their origin entirely in the mind itself (ante rem),
or as that which is essential in every thing actual (in re). Cf. Milman,
Latin Christianity, in. 247 ; Neander, viii. 3 ; and references in Gieseler
m. 278, 279, n. 6.
4 See a Life of him in the Hist. LitUr. de la France, x. 307: cf.
Cousin, as above, p. ex. A short Treatise of William de Champeaux,
De Origine Anima, is printed in Martene and Durand, Thesaur. Anecd.
, v. 877 sq.

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

261

career1. Success, however, threw him off his guard ; and
to the evil habits there contracted2 many of his future
griefs as well as many of his intellectual aberrations may
be traced. His earliest publication was an Introduction
to Theology3, in which he has confined himself to an in
vestigation of the mysteries connected with the Holy
Trinity. It claims for men the right of free inquiry into
all the subjects of belief, asserting that the highest form
of faith is one which has resulted from a personal ac
quaintance with the ground on which it rests4. The
indiscriminate avowal of this principle, united in his pupils
with the boast, that nothing really exceeds the compre
hension of a well-instructed mind, provoked the opposition
of the older school of teachers6. The council of Soissons
(1121) compelled him to withdraw his more extreme po
sitions, and consign his volume to the flames6. But the
enthusiasm awakened by his lectures did not die, and as
1 He had indeed lectured for a while already at Laon in opposition
to Anselm of that place, whose works are sometimes confounded with
those of Anselm of Canterbury: see Cave, ad an. 1103.
2 See his own epistle De historia Calamitatum suarum, in P.
Abalardi et Heloisa Opp. Paris, 1616: cf. Hist. Litter, de la France
xn. 86 sq., 629 sq. ; Abelard, par C. de Bemusat, Paris, 1845; Milman,
Latin Christianity, in. 251 sq.
3 Introdudio ad Theolog. Christ., seu de Fide Trinitatis; Opp. 973
sq. He tries to shew that the doctrine of the Trinity is a necessary
conception of right reason, and as such was not unknown even to the
Gentile sages : cf . the larger and revised edition of the treatise entitled
Theologia Christiana, in Martene and Duraud's Thesaur. Anecd. v. 1139
sq. Gieseler (in. 282, n. 16) supposes that another work, Sententia Aba
lardi, was derived also from this source.
4 See Neander's remark on the difference between Anselm and Abe
lard, viii. 35, 36. The strong feelings of the latter on this point may
be estimated from a single passage : 'Asserunt [i.e. the anti-philosophic
school] nil ad catholics fidei mysteria pertinens ratione investigandum
esse, sed de omnibus auctoritati statim credendum esse, quantumcunque
hac ab humana ratione remota esse videatur. Quod quidem si recipiatur
...cujusque populi fides, quantameunque adstruat falsitatem, refelli
non poterit, etsi in tantam devoluta sit caBcitatem, ut idolum quodlibet
Deum esse ac cceli ac terrse Creatorem fateatur.' Introd. ad Theolog.
lib. n. c. 3, p. 1059.
6 Walter de Mauretania (Mortagne) was one of these : see his Epist.
ad Petrum Abalard., in D'Achery, in. 525.
6 Cf. his own account, Hist. Calamit. suar. c. 9, with Otto Prising.
De Gestis Frider. lib. 1. c. 47 (in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script, torn. vi.).
He now retired first to the abbey of St Denis, and afterwards to an ora
tory in the diocese of Troyes ('the Paraclete'). This he transferred to
Heloise when he himself became abbot of Buys in Brittany (1126 — 1136).

WESTERN CHURCH.

Condemna
tion of him
at Soissons,
1121:

262

State of Religions Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

Vm STERN
CHURCH.

and at
Sens,1140.

Gilbert de
la Por&e
(d. 1154).

he still adhered to his opinions1, many charges of heretical
teaching were brought against him. Bernard of Clair
vaux, whose tone of mind was so completely different
from his, had been induced2 to take the lead in checking
the dissemination of his views. The two great doctors
were confronted in the council of Sens (June 22, 1140) ;
where it was decided that the teaching of Abelard was
unsound3, but that the mode of dealing with his person
should, on his appeal, be left to the superior judgment
of the pope. The latter instantly (July 16) approved
their verdict and condemned the misbeliever to perpetual
silence4. He now published a Confession and Apology"
and died soon afterwards, the guest of Peter the Venerable6
and the monks of Clugny (1142).
The zeal of Bernard was now turned against a kindred
writer, Gilbert de la Poree (Porretanus), bishop of Poitiers
(1141), who, in criticizing the established language of the
Church, had been apparently betrayed into a class of

1 Another startling work, his Sic et Non, had probably appeared in
the mean time. Some portions of it are printed in Cousin's Ouvrages
inidits. It exhibits the multiformity of Christian truth by placing
side by side a number of divergent extracts from the Fathers, forming
a manual for scholastic disputation: cf. Milman, in. 271. If Bernard
saw this treatise, it explains his implacable hostility. Other causes of
offence were found in his Scito teipsum and his Commentary on the
Epistle to the Romans.
2 By William, abbot of St Thierry, in Bernard. Epist. 326, al. 391.
The ground of Bernard's opposition, which appears to have been first
stated to Abelard in private, may be seen in his Letters (Epp. 188,
192, 193), and his Tractatus de Erroribus P. Abalardi ad Innocent. II. ;
Opp. i. 1441, ed. Paris, 1839.
3 The charges brought against him were of the most serious kind,
e.g. that he made 'degrees' in the holy Trinity, that he denied, or eva
cuated, the doctrines of grace, and divided the Person of our Lord like
the Nestorians. All that is known respecting the proceedings of the
council has been collected in Gieseler, in. 287, n. 24.
4 In writing to Bernard and others, Innocent II. declares that he con
demned the 'perversa dogmata cum auctore,' Mansi, xxi. 565; and after
wards commands, 'ut Petrum Abffilardum et Amaldum de Brixia [see
above, p. 249], perversi dogmatis fabricatores et catholics) fidei impug-
natores, in rehgiosis locis... separatim faciatis includi, et libros erroris
eorum, ubicumque reperti fuerint, igne comburi.'
5 Bespecting these and the spirit which suggested them, see Neander,
viii. '62, 63.
6 By his influence a reconciliation was effected between Bernard and
Abelard : see his Epist. lib. iv. ep. 4, in Bibl. Patr. ed. Lugdun xxn.
907 ; Milman, in. 267.

-1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

263

errors bordering on Nestorianism1. Convicted by a synod
held at Paris in 1147, he disarmed his adversaries by
recanting in the following year at Rheims2 (March 21).
Our space will not admit a separate notice of the
many other writers8, who in different ways attempted to
pursue the philosophic methods of the Schoolmen in the
study of theology. The impulse given in that direction
by Abelard had been moderated for a time : the calmer
views of Anselm having grown predominant, especially
among the Victorines (surnamed from the abbey of S. Vic
tor at Paris) — -Hugo4, Richard5, and Walter8, all of whom
combined the cultivation of the dialectics of the age with
a more spiritual and mystic turn of mind7. It was through
their endeavours more especially that men like Bernard
were conciliated by degrees in favour of the general prin
ciples from which scholasticism had sprung.
This combination was exhibited afresh in Robert le
Poule (or Pullen), for some years distinguished as a
1 The fourth proposition he was charged with maintaining is ' Quod
Divina natura non esset incarnata :' cf. Capefigue, 1. 357, 358. The fol
lowing ' minor ' points are also urged against him (Otto Frising. De
Gestis Frider. lib. 1. c. 50) : ' Quod meritum humanum attenuando,
nullum mereri diceret prseter Christum : Quod Ecclesiae sacramenta
evacuando diceret, nullum baptizari nisi salvandum.' He wrote, among
other subjects, on the Apocalypse (ed. Paris, 1512).
2 See the 'Fidei symbolum contra errores Gilliberti Porretani,' in
Mansi, xxi. 712.
3 e.g. John of Salisbury (d. 1180), a pupil of Abelard, but unlike him
(Wright's Biogr. Brit. 11. 230 sq.) : Bupert of Deutz (d. 1135), a copious
exegetical writer (Hist. Litter, de la France, xi. 422 sq. : Dorner, n.
389 sq.)
4 His chief works (ed. Botomagi, 1648) are De Sacramentis Fidei and
the Summa Sententiarum (assigned incorrectly, with the title Tractatus
Theologicus, to Hildebert of Tours) : see Liebner's Hugo von S. Victor
und die theol. Richtungen seiner Zeit, Leipzig, 1832, and Hist. Littir. de
la France, xn. 7. Neander (viii. 65 sq.) gives a striking summary of
his modes of thought.
6 Bichard was of Scottish extraction, and wrote De Trinitate, De statu
interioris hominis, etc. (ed. Botomagi, 1650) : cf. Neander, vm. 80 — 82 ;
Schrockh, xxix. 275—290.
6 The opposition to Abelard and his school was strongest in this
writer (otherwise called Walter of Mauretania; see above, p. 261, n. 5).
His chief work is commonly entitled Contra quatuor labyrinthos Gallia,
being a passionate attack on the principles of Abelard, Peter Lombard,
Peter of Poitiers, and Gilbert de la Poree. Extracts only are printed in
Bulasus, Hist. Univ. Paris, 11. 200 sq., 402 sq., 562 sq., 629 sq.
7 On this peculiarity, and the Greek influence it betrayed, see Dorner,
11. 360 sq.

WESTERN CHURCH.

Modifica
tion of
Scholasticism.

Hugo of
St Victor
(d; 1141).
Richard of
St Victor
(d. 1173).
Walter of
St Victor
(¦circ.
1180).Robert le
Poule, or
Pullen (A. 1150).

264 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

WESTERN CHURCH.

Peter Lom
bard, Mas
ter of the
Sentences (d. 1164).

preacher1 in Oxford, and at length a Roman cardinal
(1144). His treatise called the Sentences1 ('Libri Senten
tiarum') recognized the principle of basing every dialectic
process on the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers. But the
classical production of this kind is one by Peter Lombard,
of No vara, who attained the greatest eminence at Paris8,
where he died as bishop in 1164. His work was also
termed The Sentences4 (or ' Quatuor Libri Sententiarum ').
It consisted of timid arguments upon the leading theolo
gical questions then debated in the schools, supported
always by quotations from the older Latin doctors of the
Church ; and since the whole is neatly and methodically
put together, it was welcomed as a clear and useful
hand-book by the students in divinity. Its fame, indeed,
extended everywhere, and many able scholars both of
that and future times wrote commentaries on it, making

1 .... 'ibique scripturas Divinas, quss per idem tempus in Anglia ob-
soluerant, prse scholasticis quippe neglectae fuerant, per quinquennium
legit, omnique die Dominico verbum Dei populo prsedicavit, ex cujus
doctrina plurimi profecerunt.' Quoted in Wright's Biogr. Britan. ii. 182
(note). Another Englishman of distinction in the field of metaphysical
theology was Robert of Melun, bishop of Hereford, who wrote a Summa
Theologia. Ibid. p. 201. Copious extracts from this Summa are printed
in Bulasus, Histor. Univers. Paris, n. 585 — 628.
2 Published at Paris, 1655. He appears to have also written on the
Apocalypse, and twenty of his Sermons are preserved among the Lam
beth MSS. Wright, Ibid. p. 183.
3 He was opposed by Walter of St Victor (above, p. 263, n. 6), for his
speculations touching the Incarnation (or 'Nihilianism,' as they were
called) ; see Dorner, n. 379 sq. : but his work On the Sentences received
the formal approbation of Innocent III. at the council of Lateran (1215),
c. 2. 4 The first book treats 'De Mysterio Trinitatis,' the second 'De
Berum corporalium et spiritualium creatione et formatione,' the third
'De Incarnatione Verbi aliisque ad hoc spectantibus,' the fourth 'De
Sacramentis et signis sacramentalibus.' See Schrockh' s account of it
and its author, xxvin. 487 — 534; and an analysis of the work in
Turner, Middle Ages, Part iv. ch. 1; and cf. Milman, Latin Chris
tianity, Bk. xiv. ch. m. Peter Lombard had before him a Latin version
of the great work of John Damnscenus, vepl 6p$odo^ov irtareas, and
thus connected the Western with the Eastern scholasticism: Dorner,
n. 257, 258. Summa and Sententia were now multiplied in every
quarter, the first being mainly devoted to the free discussion of doc
trines and speculative problems, and the second more especially to the
arrangement of passages derived from the writings of the Fathers. To
the former class belongs the Ars Catholica Fidei ex rationibus natu-
ralibus demonstrata, of Alanus Magnus, a Parisian doctor (d. 1202), in
Pez, Thesaur. Anecdot. i. pt. ii. 475 sq.

-1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

265

it the groundwork of more shrewd and independent
speculations. Hitherto the influence of the Aristotelic philosophy
had been confined almost entirely to the single field of
dialectics1, where it served for the defence of Christian
dogmas. Plato was the real favourite of the Church,
although a concord2 having been in part established be
tween him and the Stagirite, the opinions of the latter
had indirectly tinctured the theology of many writers in
the west. It is remarkable, indeed, that when the other
works of Aristotle, through the medium of the Arabs and
Crusaders, were more widely circulated in the twelfth
century, they were not only treated by the popes and
councils with suspicion, but the physical and metaphysical
books were actually condemned3. Yet this antipathy soon
afterwards abated4, and in the more palmy period of the
Schoolmen, dating from Alexander of Hales, the blending
of the Aristotelic processes and doctrines with the con-

1 Cf. above, p. 160, n. 2. The other works of Aristotle were, how
ever, studied with enthusiasm in the Moorish schools of Spain, especially
after the time of Avicenna (Ebn-Sina), who died in 1036. A new
impulse in the same direction was given by Averroes (Ebn-Bashid), at
the close of the twelfth century, who combined with his belief in the
Koran an almost servile deference to the philosophic views of the Sta
girite. See authorities in Tennemann's Manual of Philosophy, §§ 255
— 257 : cf. Milman, vi. 265 sq. From the tenets of Averroes, when
imbibed by Christian writers, grew the tendency to scepticism which the
profound and ever-active Baymond Lull (above, p. 219) especially en
deavoured to resist in his Ars Generalis.
2 See Neander, viii. 91, 92, 127; and Dr Hampden's Thomas Aquinas,
in Encyclop. Metrop. xi. 804, 805.
3 e.g. at the synod of Paris (1209 or 1210), and afterwards by a papal
legate (1215). The 'statute' of the latter (Bulasus, Hist. Univ. Paris,
111. 81) is as follows : ' Et quod legant libros Aristotelis de dialectica,
tarn de veteri quam de nova in scholis ordinarie et non ad cursum...Non
legautur libri Aristotelis de metaphysica et naturali philosophia, nee
Summae de eisdem aut de doctrina magistri de Dinant aut Amalrici
haeretiei, aut Mauricii Hispani. ' These persons were infected with the
Pantheistic principles advocated by Erigena, and then spreading in the
Moorish schools: see Dorner, n. 365, 366. The pope (1229) again forbids
the introduction of 'profane science' into the study of Scripture and
tradition: cf. Capefigue's remarks, 11. 165, 166; and Milman, vi. 268.
4 Thus Boger Bacon (Opus Majus, p. 14, ed. Jebb), writing fifty years
later, says that Aristotle's treatises had been condemned ' ob densam ig-
norantiam. ' Among the works of Bobert Grosseteste (see above, p. 228)
is a Commentary on parts of Aristotle (in Libros Posteriorum), cd.
Venet. 1552.

WESTERN CHURCH.
Change of
feeling with
respect to
Aristotle.

266 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

WESTERN CHURCH.
Alexanderof Hales
(d. 1245),
the Irrefra
gable.

Bonaven- tara(d. 1274),
the Sera-

Albertus
Magnus (d. 12 0),
the Univer
sal.

troversies of the Western Church was almost uni
versal1. Alexander of Hales (Alesius), after studying in the
convent of that name in Gloucestershire, attained a high
celebrity at Paris, where he was distinguished from the
many scholars of the age as the 'Irrefragable Doctor.'
His great work is a Summa Universce Theologies*, in which
the various topics handled in the book of Peter Lombard
are extended and discussed according to the strictly syl
logistic method of the Schools.
He was a mendicant of the Franciscan order, and as
such had taken part in the training of another schoolman
(the ' Seraphic Doctor '), who was destined to effect a last
ing hold upon the spirit of the Western Churches. This
was John of Fidanza, or Bonaventura, in whom the rising
order of Franciscans found an able champion3 and a vene
rated head. Inferior in acumen to his fellow-countryman,
archbishop Anselm, he was more than equal in the warmth
and elevation of his feelings, though the mode in which
they were too frequently expressed — the rapturous worship
of the Virgin4 — is a deep and startling blemish on his
character. His works are very numerous6, for the most
part of a mystical, ascetic, and subjective kind.
Contemporary with these two Franciscans, and no less
distinguished, were the two Dominicans, Albert the Great
and Thomas Aquinas, standing also in the same relation
of tutor and pupil. Albert6, born in Swabia (1193),
1 Cf. Milman's remarks on the era of Scholasticism, and the school
men; Latin Christianity, vi. 272 sq. ; and Brewer's Preface to Monu-
menta Franciscana, pp. lii. sq., in Chronicles and Memorials of Great
Britain. 2 Opp. ed. Cologne, 1622, 4 vols. ; see Schrockh (xxix. 9 — 54) for a
sketch of his theological system.
3 See above, p. 234 : and, on his life and writings, Hist. LitUr. de la
France, xxix. 266 sq. ; Schrockh, xxix. 209—232.
4 When he became general of the Franciscans, he placed them under
the peculiar patronage of the Virgin, and his works abound with extrava
gant and almost impious sayings in her honour (e. g. Speculum de
Laudibus B. Maria). It has been disputed whether the Psalterium B.
Maria be his or not, e.g. by Alban Butler in his Life of S. Bonaventura
(July 14) : cf. Schrockh, xxvni. 255, and Capefigue, n. 40.
6 The Vatican edition is in 8 vols, folio. Among the rest (vol. rv. v.)
is a Commentarius in IV. Libr. Sententiarum. The first and second
volumes contain expositions of the Holy Scriptures.
6 See his Works in 21 vols, folio, ed. Lyons, 1651: and, for his Life,

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

267

educated at Paris and Bologna, and eventually settling at
Cologne, exhibited all the marks of the genuine scholar.
He was conversant with nearly every field of human
thought, but most at home in physics, natural history, and
ethics. His chief writings in divinity are Commentaries i
on the Book of Sentences, and a Summa Theologian'', in
both of which, amid a crowd of metaphysical subtleties
peculiar to the time, he manifests a clear conception of
the leading truths of Christianity.
But Albert and indeed all others were eclipsed by his
illustrious and profound disciple. Thomas de Aquino8 (or
Aquinas), honoured with the names of 'Universal' and
'Angelic Doctor,' and the founder of the able school of
'Thomists,' proved himself the master-spirit of scholas
ticism, and a most worthy representative of mediaeval philo
sophy. He took his stand among the school of Realists,
and was devoted strongly to the Aristotelian dialectics,
which he used as the organ of investigation : but his
independent genius urged him to dissent materially from
other principles of Aristotle, and to graft upon the older
system many foreign elements. A careful study4 of the
Bible and the Book of Sentences prepared him for the
composition of those powerful works which occupied him
till his death in 1274. The greatest of them is the Summa
Totius Theologian, which, as it forms a clear exponent of

Scriptores Ord. Pradicat. by Quetif and Echard, i. 162 sq., Schrockh,
xxiv. 424 sq.
1 Filling, vol. xiv — xvi.
2 See Schrockh' s Analysis, xxix. 57 sq.
3 See his Life in the Acta Sanct. Mart. 1. 655 sq., and on his philoso-
phico-religious system, Dr Hampden's Aquinas, in Encycl. Metrop.
xl. 793 sq. : Schrockh, xxix. 71 — 208: Bitter's Gesch. der Christi. Philos.
iv. 257 sq.
4 It is also mentioned in his biography (as. above) that he never
wrote, lectured, or disputed, without betaking himself to God in prayer
for the Divine illumination, and he did the same when he was confronted
by difficulties and doubts. The reason he assigned for the peculiar fre
quency of his devotions was the following: 'Quia frequenter contingit,
quod dum intelleetus superius subtilia speculator, affectus inferius a
devotione remittitur.'
5 A good edition, with copious indexes, was published at Arras
(Atrebati) in 1610. The whole works of Aquinas have been often
reprinted. The best edition is that of Venice (1745 sq.) in 28 vols. 4to.
His Catena Aurea (from the Fathers) has been translated into English
(Oxf. 1843).

WESTERN CHURCH.

Thomas
A quinas
(1224-
1274),
the Angelic.

Generaloutline of
his Summa
Theolo-

268

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1073

WESTERN CHURCH.

PrimaPars.

SecundaPars.

his views and is the most colossal work of that or any
period, merits an especial notice1. It is divided into three
great parts, (1) the Natural, (2) the Moral, (3) the Sacra
mental. In the first of these, the writer ascertains the
nature and the limits of theology, which he esteems a
proper science, based upon a supernatural revelation, the
contents of which, though far transcending all the powers
of human thought, are, when communicated, subjects for
devout inquiry and admit of argumentative defence. Ac
cordingly the writer next discusses the existence and the
attributes of God, endeavouring to elucidate the nature of
His will, His providence, the ground of His predestination2,
and the constitution of the Blessed Trinity in Unity, — a
doctrine which, although he deems it incapable of logical
demonstration, finds an echo and a counterpart in man.
Descending from the Cause to the effects, he analyses the
constituent parts of the creation, angels, the material world,
and men, enlarging more especially upon the functions of
the human soul, its close relation to the body, and the
state of both before the Fall.
The second part is subdivided into the Prima Secundce,
and the Secunda Secundm. The former carries on the
general subject, viewing men no longer from the heavenly
but from the earthly side, as moral and responsible agents
gifted with a vast complexity of passions, sentiments, and
faculties. The way in which these powers would naturally
operate, if acting by themselves, is first considered, and
the author then proceeds to shew how they are modified
by supernatural agencies, or coexistent gifts of grace8.
This leads him to compare the state, or the position, of
mankind in reference to the systems (or economies) of
1 Cf. Hampden, as above, p. 267, n. 3, and Kling's Descriptio Summa
Theolog. Thoma Aquin. succinda, Bonn, 1846.
2 On this point his views are rigorously Augustinian; Par. i. QusBst.
xxni. Anselm wrote a special treatise on it in a somewhat milder tone.
The title is, De Concordia Prascientia et Pradestinationis necnon Gratia
Dei cum libero arbitrio.
3 He does not indeed suppose, as many of the Schoolmen did, that
the communication of the gifts of grace was to depend upon the way
in which mankind employed the simply natural qualities (' pura natu-
ralia '). His view is, that grace was given from the first, and that the
harmonious coexistence of the natural and the supernatural constituted
man's ' originalis justitia. ' The violation of this harmony (' inordinata
dispositio partium animse') is original sin. Cf. Neander, viii. 193.

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

269

grace and nature, and, as the immediate consequence, to
treat of our original righteousness, free-will, original sin,
justification1, and the various rules of life. In the Secunda
Secunda, the several virtues are discussed in turn, as they
exist under the operation of Divine grace or that of nature
only. They are seven in number. Three of them are
'theological,' or supernaturally infused and nourished, —
viz. faith, hope, and love, while the remainder are the
four cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, fortitude, and
temperance, and are 'ethical' or purely human. The
discussion of these virtues forms an admirable work on
Christian morals.
The third part of the Summa is devoted to an expo
sition of the mysteries of the Incarnation and the efficacy
of the Sacraments, — a class of topics which, according to
the principles of all the mediaeval writers, are essentially
akin2. Aquinas traces every supernatural influence to the
Person of the Word made flesh, who by the union of our
nature with the Godhead has become the Reconstructor
of humanity and the Dispenser of new life. This life, to
gether with the aliment by which it is sustained, descends
to man through certain outward media, or the sacramenta]
ordinances of the Church : their number being seven, viz.
Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penitence, Orders,
Matrimony, and Extreme TJnction8. In the last division
of the work we see the mighty influence of Aquinas in
determining the scientific form and mutual action of those
1 This he makes to be primarily the infusion of grace, which operates
(1) in the spontaneous movement of the will to God, (2) in the resistance
to sin, and (3) to its forgiveness ; although these effects are said to be
produced simultaneously. Prima Secund. Qusest. cxni. Art. 8: cf.
Neander, viii. 222 sq.
2 'Post considerationem eorum quas pertinent ad mysteria Verbi
Incarnati, considerandum est de Ecclesia? sacramentis, quas ab Ipso Terbo
Incarnato efficaciam habent.' Quasst. lx. On the mutual relations and
order of the sacraments in the theological system of Aquinas, see Quasst.
lxv. Art. 1, 2. One of his reasons for assigning the chief place to the
Eucharist is this : 'Nam in Sacramento EucharistiaB continetur Ipse
Christus substantialiter, in aliis autem sacramentis continetur quasdam
virtus instrumentalis participata a Christo. ' Ibid. Art. 3.
3 The discussion of these points in detail was cut short by the author's
death, before he reached the 'sacrament of orders:' but a Supplement
containing his opinions on the rest was formed out of his Commentary on
the Book of Sentences, and is appended to the Arras and other editions of
the Summa.

WESTERN CHURCH.

Tenia
Pars.

270

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1 073

WESTERN CHURCH.
John Duns
Scotus (d. 1308),
the Subtle.

The pecu
liar opin
ions of his
school

doctrines which hereafter threatened to obtain complete
ascendancy in all the western Churches.
The most powerful rival of Aquinas and the Tho-
mists of this period was the English Franciscan, John
Duns Scotus1, whose acumen and success in the scho
lastic fields of war enabled him to organize the party
known as ' Scotists.' He was termed the ' Subtle Doctor,'
and although a realist in the dispute concerning uni
versal and particulars, diverged on many topics from
the system of Aquinas2, and attracted a large number of
disciples. In the narrower province of theology he is
remarkable for his antagonism, in part at least, to the
authority of St Augustine. He maintained the freedom
of the human will, and stated other principles in such a
way as to incur the imputation of Pelagianism3; while
in his theorizing with regard to the conception of the
Virgin he opposed, not only the more ancient teaching
of the Church4, but also that of Bernard5 and the school
of Thorn ists6.
1 Born at Dunston, near Alnwick ; or at Dunse in Berwickshire ; at
'Duns in the countrey of Mers, according to Spotswood (anno 1328), 'p. 54.
See Life of Scotus by Wadding (the Franciscan annalist) prefixed to his
edition of the Works of Scotus, Lugdun. 1639, 12 vols. fol.
2 Schrockh, xxiv. 435 sq.; Bitter, rv. 354 sq. Gieseler (m. 305, n. 26)
draws attention to an order in which all the Franciscan lecturers are
commanded to follow Scotus 'tarn in cursu philosophico quam in theo-
logico.' 3 e.g. on the question of original sin he argued that it was barely
negative, a ' carentia justitias debitas ' (In Lib. Sentent. lib. n. Dist. xxxn.
§ 7) , discarding from his definition the idea of concupiscence (Ibid. Dist
xxx.) He questioned the absolute necessity of preventing grace, asserting
.'quod ex puris naturalibus potest quacunque voluntas saltern in statu
naturas instituta diligere Deum super omnia' (Ibid. lib. in. Dist. xxvn.
§ 15) : and while Aquinas made the heresy of Pelagius to consist in main
taining ' quod initium bene faciendi sit ex nobis, consummatio autem a
Deo' (Summa, Part i., Quasst. xxni., Art. 5), Scotus thought the root of
it to lie in the position 'quod liberum arbitrium sufficiat sine gratia'
Ibid. lib. n. Dist. xxvm. § 1). These Pelagianizing tendencies of the
Scotists were opposed by archbp. Bradwardine (of Canterbury), who died
1349, in his De Causa Dei contra Pelagium, etc., ed. Savile, Lond. 1618.
4 Cf. above, p. 233, n. 5. Dorner (n. 416, 417) connects the Mario-
latry of Scotus with his peculiar views of the Incarnation.
6 Bernard in his Epist. clxxiv. speaks of the doctrine of the immacu
late conception as a novelty, 'quam ritus Ecclesias nescit, non probat
ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio,' etc.
6 In the Summa, Part. in. Quasst. xxvn. Art. 1, as contrasted with
Duns Scotus, In Libr. Sentent. lib. in. Dist. in. Quasst. i. §§ 9, 14 sq. ;
and Rosarium B- Maria, seu Append., ad quasi. 1. dist. 3: of. Klee, Hist.

-1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

271

Passing by a crowd of minor writers1 who adhered to
one or other of these theological parties, our attention is
arrested by the most original genius whom the thirteenth
century produced. The Friar Bacon2, born at Ilchester,
in Somersetshire, 1214, was trained in the universities of
Oxford and Paris, where his time was for the most part
devoted to scientific pursuits, and to the study of languages.
His great proficiency in these had won for him the name
of 'Doctor Mirabilis.' He entered the Franciscan Order,
but the more fanatic members of that body, joining with
unlettered clergymen and academics, put an end to his
public lectures, aud eventually procured his incarceration
(1278), on the ground that he was prying too minutely
into all the mysteries of nature. In the Opus Majus de
utilitate Scientiarum3, — a collection of his works addressed
in 1266 to Pope Clement IV., — the general object is to
inculcate the need of a reform in the physical and other
sciences : but he did not hesitate to push his principle of
free inquiry into every sphere of human thought4. While
indicating little or no love for the scholastic subtleties5,
of Dogmas, part n. ch. m. § 25, where it is mentioned that Duns Scotus
so far carried his point in the University of Paris as to exclude all
persons from degrees who did not pledge themselves to maintain the
truth of the immaculate conception.
1 William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris (d. 1248), deserves some men
tion as a theologian and apologist (Opp. Paris, 1674, 2 vols, folio), and as
a sample of the scanty stock of writers who were not attached to one or
other of the Mendicant Orders. Of the ritualists belonging to the thir
teenth century the most eminent is Duranti (not to be confounded with a
nominalistic schoolman, Durand de S. Pourcain), whose Rationale Divi-
norum OffXciorum is a copious exposition of the principles supposed to be
expressed in the structure, ornaments, the ministry, and ritual of the
Church. It has been often published, e.g. Venet. 1609. On the other
liturgical writings of the period, see Schrockh, xxvin. 277 sq.
2 Boger is to be distinguished from his contemporary Robert Bacon,
the friend of Grosseteste. See Tanner's Biblioth. under the names : from
which source a good account of Friar Bacon and his writings may be
drawn. Some idea of his marvellous acquaintance with chemistry and
other sciences is given by Dr Shaw, in Dr Hook's Eccl. Biogr. 1. 450, 451:
cf. Palgrave's Merchant and Friar, passim ; and the Preface to the volume
of Bacon's Opera Inedita, ed. Brewer, 1859, in the series of Chronicles and
Memorials of Great Britain.
3 Ed. Jebb, Lond. 1733.
4 e.g. he points out errors in the writings of the Fathers (c. 12),
arguing that 'in omni homine est multa imperfectio sapientias, tarn in
Sanctis quam in sapientibus.'
6 He preferred Aristotle on the whole, but added very charaeteris-

RogcrBacon
(d. 1294),
the Won
derful.

His general
views in
relation to

272

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1073

EASTERN CHURCH.

Deadnessof the Greek
commu
nion.

he spoke in favour of the wider circulation and more
earnest study of the sacred volume, tracing nearly all the
evils of the times to want of personal acquaintance with
this heavenly rule of life1. He proved the clearness and
fertility of his convictions on these points by recommending
a revision of the Latin Vulgate2, and especially by urging
the importance of recurring to the Greek and Hebrew
texts. Indeed the mind of Roger Bacon was so greatly
in advance of the period when he lived, as to have ante
dated much of what has only flourished since the reforma
tion of the Western Church.

EASTERN CHURCH.
There was little in the mind of Eastern Christendom
to correspond with the activity, enthusiasm, and almost
universal progress we have noted in the sister churches
of the West. Reposing with a vague and otiose belief
on the traditionary doctrines as they had been logically
systematized by John of Damascus, the great body of the
' orthodox ' (or Greek) communion were subsiding fast into
a state of spiritual deadness and of intellectual senility.
The rigours of Byzantine despotism, too prone to inter
meddle with the articles of faith8, the ill example of a
tically, 'Posteriores ipsum in aliquibus correxerunt, et multa ad ejus
opera addiderunt, et adhuc addentur usque ad finem mundi : quia nihil
est perfectum in humanis inventionibus : ' Lbid. part n. c. 8. The highest
of all sciences (according to him) is the science that treats of divine
things, and it is all contained in the Bible ' quas in sacris Uteris tota con
tinetur, per jus tamen canonicum et philosophiam explicanda:' as in the
following note, p. 421 : cf. Neander, vm. 112, 113.
1 See the remarkable extracts from his Epistola de Laude Scriptura
Sancta, in the additions made to Ussher's Hist. Dogmat. by Wharton
(Lond. 1689), pp. 420—424. The MS. is in the Library at Lambeth: no.
cc. fol. 38.
2 This idea was carried out in part by Hugo de S. Charo (S. Cher), a
Dominican (d. 1263), who by the aid of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin MSS.
reformed the text of the whole Bible. He also composed a Concordance
of the Scriptures (Schrockh, xxvni. 331), and Postilla in Universa Biblia,
juxta quadruplicem sensum (Ibid. 368).
3 Cf. above, p. 50, n. 4. In the present period Nicetas Choniates (De
Manuele Comneno, lib. vn. c. 5) remarks that the emperors expected men
to believe that they were, lis SoXo/tup deoaotpoi Kal Soyinariaral Beioraroi,
Kal Kavoves roxf kuvovwv evdearepoi, Kal dirXus Belojv Kal dvdpwn-lvtov irpayadrtav
dirpoaipaXeis ¦jvtAy.oves. The emperor here alluded to (1143 — 1180) excited
a most violent controversy, by insisting on the general adoption of this

— 1305] Stale of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

273

crowd of idle and unlettered monks1, and the perplexities
entailed upon the Eastern empire by the recklessness of the
Crusaders2, had contributed to this result. The literary
spirit now and then revived, however; and if they in whom
it wrought are often shadows in comparison of men like
Chrysostom, or Basil, or the Gregories, they must be, not
withstanding, viewed as bright exceptions to the general
dulness of the age.
Among the foremost scholars of the eleventh century
is Michael Psellus, the younger, who besides composing
multifarious treatises3 on jurisprudence, physics, mathe
matics, and philosophy, displayed an aptitude for higher
fields of contemplation in his Chapters on the Holy Trinity
and the Person of Christ, and his Paraphrases on the Old
Testament. Contemporary with him was Theophylact4, archbishop
of Bulgaria, who achieved a lasting reputation by his
Commentaries on the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles of
St Paul, and the Minor Prophets. They are based, how
ever, for the most part on the corresponding labours of
St Chrysostom.
Another exegetical writer was a monk of Constantinople,
Euthymius Zigabenus5, who commented on the Psalms,
the Gospels, and the Pauline Epistles, in the style, and not
formula, rbv aeffapKtouevov Qebv •wpoo-tpkpeiv re bfwv koX rcpoaipkpeaBai (Lbid.).
Some of the bishops who resisted it, when sanctioned by a council, were
instantly deposed: cf. Neander, viii. 252, 253. On a later occasion,
when the prelates made a stand against him, Manuel threatened to call
in the pope, which ultimately led to a compromise : Lbid. p. 254. The
despotism of Michael Palasologus (1259 — 1282) occasioned what is known
as the Arsenian schism (1266 — 1312), by which the Church of Constanti
nople was for a time divided in itself and separated from that of Alexan
dria. See Neale, n. 311, 312.
1 See the startling revelations of Eustathius, ''Eirla-Kexpis j3£ou uovaxi-
kov i-irl diopdwtrei riiv irepl axirov, passim. Opp. ed. Taf el, 1832.
2 On the relations of the East and West at this period, see below,
pp. 276 sq.
3 See a list of them in Oudinus, De Scriptoribus Eccl. n. 646, and the
article in Smith's Biogr. Diet. m. 563, 564. The work on the Trinity
and some of the paraphrases have been published. Psellus also wrote an
ecclesiastical treatise, Eis rds dylas lirra ovvobovs, Basil. 1536.
* Opp. Tenet. 1754—1763, 4 vols, fol.: cf. Schrockh, xxvni. 315— 318.
The sober views of Theophylact on the separation of East and West may
be gathered from his Lib. de Us in quibus Latini accusantur.
6 Cf. above, p. 180, n. 1. Gieseler contends that he should be called
Zygadenus. His valuable Commentaries on the Psalms and Gospels have
M. A. T

EASTERN
CHURCH.

Michael Psellus (d. 1105?)

Theophy
lact (d. 1112?)

Euthymius
Zigabenus (d. 1118?)

274

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

EASTERN CHURCH.

NicetasAcominatus (d. 1206?)

Nicholas bp. of Me
thane (d. 1200?)

Eustalhiusarchbp. of
Thessalo-
nica (d. 1198).

unfrequently the language, of the earlier doctors of the
East. He also wrote a Panoply1 in refutation of all forms
of misbelief, deriving the great bulk of his materials from
the same quarter.
In the following century a kindred work2, intended as
the complement of this, proceeded from the learned pen of
Nicetas Acominatus (born at Chonse, formerly Colosse).
The title is Thesaurus Orthodoxice, but only portions of it
have been published.
Nicholas, bishop of Methone (in Messenia) was a more
original and able writer. He examined and rejected the
philosophy of Proems8, the Neo-Platonist, whose principles
appear to have survived in the Peloponnesus, and was also
energetic in repelling the encroachments of the pope and
in defending the peculiar tenets of the Greeks.
But all the Eastern scholars of this period are surpassed
by the archbishop of Thessalonica, Eustathius. His gi
gantic commentaries4 on the ancient poets, more especially
on Homer, did not so engross his mind as to unfit him
for the prosecution of his ecclesiastical studies. Some of
his minor works6, including Sermons and Epistles, have
lately come to light, and we there see him treading in the
been often printed in Latin versions. The Greek text of that on the
Psalms is in Theophylacti Opp. Tom. rv. 325 sqq. : that on the Gospels
was printed at Leipzig, 1792, and Athens, 1840. The Commentary on
the Epistles exists only in MS. Cf. Fabricius, Bibl. Graca, viii. 328 sq.;
Gieseler, m. 485, n. 4; and Schrockh (xxvni. 306 sq.) on the character of
his works.
1 The full title is HavmTda Soy/ianKy rfjs opBoSo^ov Trlareas. Part only
of the Greek original has been published (at Tergovisto, in Wallachia,
1711). A Latin translation appeared at Yeniee in 1555 : but the thir
teenth title, Kard riav ttjs irakaias ' Ywfins, 7Jroi r&v '\ra\Gw, on the doctrine
of the Procession, is there dropped. See an interesting article (by Ull-
mann), in the Studien und Kritiken, for 1833, m. 665. Another work of
this class (A Collection of the Principles of Faith) was composed for the
Alexandrine Jacobites by Ebn-Nassal. It not only refutes the systems of
paganism and Judaism, but makes an assault on the Nestorians and the
Melchites. Neale, n. 304.
2 TJllmann, Ibid. p. 680. The whole is extant in the Boyal Library
of Paris. The first five books appeared in Paris, 1569. On the historical
writings of the author, see Smith's Biogr. Did. n. 1183.
3 The title of the treatise is 'AvdirrvZis rfjs BeoXoyiK-ijs aroixeiiio-eas
HpoKkov, ed. Vbinel, Francf. 1825 : cf. TJllmann, as above, pp. 701 sq.
His treatises De Primatu Papa, etc. are not published (Fabricius, Bibl.
Grac. xi. 290).
4 See Smith's Biogr. Diet. n. 120.
5 Eustathii Opuscula, ed. Tafel, Francof. 1832 : cf. Neander, viii. 248

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

27S

steps of Chrysostom, and waging war against the hollow-
ness, frivolity, and superstitions of the age.
Besides a multitude of long-forgotten writers on divinity,
and some who still enjoy considerable fame as jurists and
historians, others had continued to spring up beyond the
pale of the 'Orthodox' communion. Ebed-Jesu1 metro
politan of Soba (JSisibis) was the most able and voluminous
writer of the Chaldsean (or 'Nestorian') body; and among
the Jacobites were Dionysius Bar-Salibi2, bishop of Amida,
Jacob3, bishop of Tagritum, and Abulpharagius 4 (Bar-
Hebrseus), maphrian or primate of the East. The kindred
sect of the Armenians also added many contributions to
the province of dogmatic and polemical theology, as well
as to the other fields of learning6. The best known and
most accessible are those of the Armenian catholicos,
Nerses6, who exhibits a decided predilectipn for the western
modes of thought.
Hated and occasionally persecuted by their Moslem con
querors, these sects had gradually been drawn more closely
to each other7, though retaining their distinctive creeds.
The state of feeling was, however, different in the Greek
and Latin Christians, whom we saw diverging more com
pletely and exchanging the most bitter fulminations at the
close of the previous period.
1 Among other things (see Asseman, Bibl. Orient, m. part. 1. 325) he
wrote a treatise entitled Liber Margarita sen de Veritate Christiana
Religionis, printed in Maii Script. Vet. Nova Collectio, Bom. 1825, Tom.
x. part. 11. 317 sq.
2 He wrote Commentaries on the whole Bible and many other treatises
(Asseman, Ibid. n. 156). His Liturgia is published in Benaudot, Liturg.
Orient. Collectio, 11. 448 sq., ed. 1847.
3 On his Liber Thesaurorum, Bee Asseman, Ibid. 11. 237.
4 Besides a very important historical work, Hist. Dynastiarum, of
which versions have been printed entire (ed. Pocock, 1663), together with
a portion of the original Syriac (Leipzig, 1789) and extracts from the rest
in Asseman (Lbid. n. 244—463), Abulpharagius wrote many strictly theo
logical works, e. g. Horreum Mysteriorum, Candelabrum Sanctorum de
Fundamentis ecclesiasticis. His Nomocanon Ecclesia Antiochena is pub
lished in a Latin version by Mai, as above, Tom. x. part. 11. 1 — 268 : and
his Liturgia in Benaudot, n. 455 — 467, where see the editor's annotations,
pp. 467—470.
6 See Neumann's Gesch. der Armenisch. Liter, p. 148 : cf. above, p. 175,
n. 4. 6 His works, with a Latin version, were published at Venice, in 2 vols.
8vo. 1833.
7 Asseman (n. 291) quotes the following from Abulpharagius, who,
t2

EASTERN CHURCH.
Ebed-Jesu (d. 1318).

Bar-Salibi(d. 1171).
Jacob of
Tagritum(d. 1231).
Abulpharagius (d. 1286).
Nerses (d. 1173).

276

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1073

RELATIONS OF THE
EAST AND
WEST.
Prolonga tion of the

Reunion attempted
1098:

RELATIONS OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES.
The effect of the scholastic system, and still more of the
development of papal absolutism, was to sharpen the great
lines of demarcation which divided East from West. The
Latin theory as to the mode of the Procession of the Holy
Spirit, which has constituted, with some points of minor
moment, an insuperable bar to compromise, was now more
clearly stated and more logically urged into its consequences
by a master mind like Anselm's1; while the towering
claims of Hildebrand, content with nothing short of uni
versal monarchy in every patriarchate of the Church, were
met by indignation and defiance2.
It is likely that the thought of widening the papal
empire was a moving cause of the Crusades; and when
the first of those enterprises was considered at the council
of Bari8 (in Apulia), 1098, the Latin doctrine was distinctly

after censuring those who introduced absurd heresies into the Church,
continues: 'Beliquas vero quas hodie in mundo obtinent sectas, cum
omnes de Trinitate et incolumitate naturarum, ex quibus est Christus
absque conversione et commistione, aque bene sentiant, in nominibvs
unionis solum secum pugnant :' cf. Lbid. pp. 249, 266. The Armenians on
more than one occasion made overtures to the Greek empire with a view
to the establishment of union, and that union seemed to be almost com
pleted in 1179. (Gieseler, in. 503, n. 9.) But subsequently (1199) fresh
negotiations were opened with the popes, which led to a more permanent
result (Schrockh, xxix. 368 sq.). In 1239 it is recorded that the catho-
licos received a pallium fi-om Bome (Lbid. 370). This truce was, however,
ultimately broken in its turn. The powerful Latins also threatened at one
period (1237—1247) to absorb the Jacobites and the Nestorians : see Bay-
naldus, Ann. Eccl. ad an. 1247, §§ 32-^2 ; Schrockh, xxix. 363—367.
1 See his De Processione Spiritus Sancti contra Gracos: Opp. ed. Ger-
beron, pp. 49 — 61. The sober tone of this production may be estimated
from the Prologue where he is speaking of his antagonists : ' Qui quoniam
Evangelia nobiscum venerantur, et in aliis de Trino et Uno Deo credunt
hoc ipsum per omnia quod nos, qui de eadem re certi sumus ; spero per
auxilium ejusdem Spiritus Sancti quia si malunt solidas veritati acquies-
cere quam pro inani victoria contendere, per hoc quod absque ambiguitate
confitentur ad hoc quod non recipiunt rationabiliter duci possint.'
2 e.g. Anna Comnena, as quoted by Gibbon, ed. Milman, vl 5, n. 11.
Under Hildebrand (1075) the Western pontiffs made their first attempt
upon the Bussian church, 'ex parte B. Petri:' Mansi, xx. 183: Moura
vieff, p. 362.
3 Anselm happened to be present, and (adds William of Malmesbury)
'ita pertractavit quasstionis latera, ita penetravit et enubilavit intima, ut
Latini clamore testarentur gaudium, Grasci de se prasberi dolerent ridieu-
lum.' De Gestis Pontif. p. 100; ed. Hamilton. Out of this oration grew
the treatise above mentioned.

-1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

277

reaffirmed, and the anathema imposed afresh on all who
ventured to impugn it. In the reign of the next pontiff
(Paschal II.) a negotiation was 'set on foot (1113) by
sending Peter Chrysolanus1, archbishop of Milan, to the
court of Alexius I. Comnenus, (1081 — 1118), who was
trembling at the progress of the Seljuk Turks on one side
and the wild Crusaders on the other. Terms of union
were again proposed in 1115, Paschal writing a pacific
letter to the emperor, but urging the submission" of the
Eastern prelates as the foremost article of the concordat
he was anxious to arrange. The project failed, however,
as we learn from its revival in 1136, when Anselm, bishop
of Havelberg, and ambassador of Lothair II., disputed with
Nicetas, the archbishop of Nicomedia, at Constantinople.
It is obvious from the extant record3 of this interview, that
the divergency of East and West had rather widened since
the time of Cerularius ; and the other writings of the age4
bear witness to the fact. They shew especially6 that the
encroachments of the pope were now more keenly felt to

1 See his Oration in Leo Allatius, Gracia Orthodoxa, 1. 379 sq. Bom.
1652. The treatise De Eccl. Occident, atque Orient, perpetua Gonsen-
sione, by the same author, is an important, though one-sided, authority
in this dispute.
2 'Prima igitur unitatis hujus via haso videtur, ut confrater noster
Constantinopolitanus patriarcha primaturn et reverentiam sedis apostolieas
recognoscens...obstinatiam prasteritam corrigat...Ea enim, quas inter La
tinos et Grascos fidei vel consuetudinum [diversitatem] f aciunt, non viden-
tur aliter posse sedari, nisi prius capiti membra cohasreant.' The whole
of this letter is printed for the first time in Jaff6, Regest. Pontif. Roman.
pp. 510, 511, Berolin. 1851. The independent bearing of the Bussian
Church at this period is well attested by a letter of the metropolitan of
Kieff to the pope, in Mouravieff, ed. Blackmore, pp. 368 — 370.
3 In D'Achery's Spicileg. 1. 161 sq. Cf. the modern German essays,
referred to by Neander, vm. 256 (note).
4 See the list in Gieseler, in. 491, n. 7. The popular hatred is graphi
cally sketched by Gibbon, vi. 5 sq. At this period grew up the still pend
ing controversy on the subject of the Holy Places at Jerusalem. After
the capture of Jerusalem in 1187, the 'orthodox' or Greeks purchased
from Saladin the church of the Holy Sepulohre; but Latin Christians,
and even some of the Eastern sects (e.g. the Armenians), were allowed
the use of chapels in it, to the great annoyance of the proper owners.
5 Thus Nicetas, in the Disputations above quoted (lib. in. 0. 8, p. 196) :
' Si Bomanus Pontifex in excelso throno glorias suas residens nobis tonare,
et quasi projicere mandata sua de sublimi voluerit, et hon nostro concilio,
sed proprio arbitrio, pro beneplacito suo de nobis et de ecclesiis nostris
judicare, imo imperare voluerit: qua fraternitas, sen etiam qua paternitas
hac esse poterit 1 Quis hoc unquam asquo animo sustinere queat?' etc.

RELATIONS or THE
EAST AND
WEST.
and subse-

but the ef
fort una-

278

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

RELATIONS OP THE
EAST AND
WEST.
Foundation of a
Latin em
pire at Con-

Its effect on
the reunion
of the
Churches.

be subversive of religious nationality, and that the 'Boman'
Church was being substituted for the Catholic and Apostolic
brotherhood which they were taught to reverence in the
creed1. The founding of a Latin empire at Constantinople by
the French and Venetians, and the brutal pillage that had
been its harbinger (1204), could only deepen the hereditary
hatred of the Greeks, and add fresh fuel to the flame2.
It chanced, however, that the new political relations which
this Latin dynasty effected, led the way to another series
of attempts for binding the antagonistic churches into one.
The Eastern emperors, who held their court at Nicsea,
watching for an opportunity to stem the furious tide of
western domination, ultimately sought to bring about this
object by negotiating a religious treaty with the popes.
The step originated in the able politician, John III.
Vatatzes (1222—1255), who was seconded by two severe
but on the whole conciliatory letters8 from the pen of
Germanus, the patriarch of Constantinople (1232). Gre
gory IX. attracted by these overtures dispatched his envoys
to the East (1233). They were instructed to declare4 that
while he could not tolerate in any one the slightest
deviation from the doctrines of the Roman Church, he

i Ibid.
2 So deep had the aversion grown that at the date of the council of
Lateran (1215), it was not unusual for the Greeks to rebaptize those who
had been already baptized by the Latins; c. 4: cf. above, p. 186, n. 5.
Other sweeping charges which polemics brought against each other may
be seen in the Tractatus contra Gracorum errores de Processione Spiritus
S. , de animabus defundorum, de azymis et fermentato et de obedientia Rom.
Ecclesia (1252), in Canisius, Led. Antiq., ed. Basnage, rv. 29 sq. In the
midst of these dissensions the French king, Philip Augustus, founded a
' collegium Constantinopolitanum ' in Paris for the training of the Greeks
who now and then embraced the Latin rite : Bulasus, Hist. Univ. Paris.
in. 10.
3 Preserved in Matthew Paris, a.d. 1237, pp. 386 sq.: but misdated.
See an account of the life and writings of Germanus in Smith's Biogr.
Did. n. 264. He did not hesitate to trace the schism between the rival
churches to the pride and tyranny of Bome: 'Divisio nostras unitatis
processit a tyrannide vestras oppressionis [addressing the cardinals], et
exactionum Bomanas ecclesias, quas de matre facta noverca suos quos diu
educaverat, more rapacis volucris suos pullos expellentis, Alios elon-
gavit:' p. 389.
4 See the papal Letters in Matthew Paris, pp. 390 sq. The envoys
were two Dominicans and two Franciscans, respecting whose negotiation,
see Baynaldus, Annal. A.D. 1233, § 5 sq.

; — 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

279

would allow the Orientals to retain a few of their peculiar
usages, and even to omit, provided they did not repu
diate1, the expression Filioaue, in their recitation of the
Creed. Although this effort shared the fate of many of its
predecessors, an important school with leanings to the
Western view of the Procession now arose among the
Greeks. The leader of it was an influential ascetic,
Nicephorus Blemmidas2; and when the policy of John
Vatatzes was continued under Michael Paleeologus, who
drove the Latins from Constantinople (1261), the plan of a
reunion was more widely entertained, and in so far as
the Byzantine jurisdiction reached, was almost carried to
effect. The emperor himself appears to have been forced
into this negotiation by his dread of the crusade3 which
Urban IV. had organized against him, for the purpose
of replacing Baldwin II., his Latin rival, on the throne.
When every other scheme for warding off the danger
failed him, he convened a synod at Constantinople, and
enlarging on the critical position of affairs, attempted to
win over the reluctant Clergy to his side. He argued 4 that
the use of leavened or unleavened bread might be in future
left an open question; that it was imprudent, and uncharit
able also, for the Eastern Christians to require an absolute
agreement in the choice of theological terms, and that
they ought to exercise forbearance on such points, pro
vided the antagonistic Latins would in turn expunge their
Filioaue from the Creed ; that by agreeing to insert the

1 They were even required to burn the books which they had written
against the Latin doctrine of the Procession, and to inculcate it in their
sermons. 2 He wrote two works on the Procession, in the- one maintaining the
Greek doctrine, and in the other manifesting a decided preference for the
Latin. Leo AUatius (De Perpetua Consensione, lib. 11. c. 14) attempts to
explain this variation. Both the treatises are published in that writer's
Gracia Orthodoxa, 1. 1—60. The firmness of Nicephorus in declining to
administer the sacrament to Marcesina, an imperial mistress, is applauded
by Neander, viii. 263.
3 See Gibbon, vi. 96 sq., ed. Milman.
4 The best account is that of Georgius Paohymeres, who was advo
cate-general of the church of Constantinople, and wrote, among other
things, an Historia Byzantina, containing the life of Michael Palaso-
logus: see especially lib. v. c. 18 sq., ed. Bonn, 1835, and cf. Schrockh,
xxix. 432 sq.

RELATIONS OP THE
EAST AND
WEST.

Fresh at
tempts at
union.

The argu
ments of
MichaelPalao-logus.

28o

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D.1073

RELATIONS OF THE
EAST AND
WEST.

offered to

His depu
tation to
the pope,
1273.

Reunion of
Rome and
Constanti-

name of the Roman pontiff in the 'diptychs/ they would
not incur the charge of elevating him unduly, nor of
derogating from the honour of the Eastern patriarchs;
and lastly, that the exercise of papal jurisdiction in the
matter of appeals, if such a claim as that should be in
words asserted, could not, owing to the distance of the
Eastern empire, be so harsh and burdensome as they
were ready to forebode.
The patriarch of Constantinople, Joseph, who was ever
an inflexible opponent of the compromise, had found a
warm supporter in the chartophylax Beccus, or Veccus,
(keeper of the records in the great church of Constan
tinople). But it seems that the convictions of the latter
underwent a thorough change1 while he was languishing
in prison, as a penalty for his resistance to the wishes of
the court ; and afterwards we find him the most able and
unflinching champion of the party who were urging on
the project of reunion. Michael Palseologus now sent a
message2 to pope Gregory X., in which, ignoring the dis
inclination of the patriarch and the hostility of his own
subjects at Constantinople, he expressed a strong desire
for unity, and even ventured to hold out a hope of its im
mediate consummation (1273): In the following year a
larger embassy3 appeared in his behalf at what is called
1 This change is ascribable, in part at least, to the writings of Ni
cephorus Blemmidas. Some have viewed it as no more than hypocritical
pretence. But his subsequent firmness, notwithstanding all the persecu
tions he endured from the dominant party, is opposed to this construc
tion. Many of his works are published by Leo AUatius, in the Gracia
Orthodoxa. 2 Neale, East. Church, 'Alexandria,' n. 315. The displeasure of the
people at this movement of the court is noticed by Pachymeres, as above,
lib. v. c. 22. Gibbon mentions, however, that the letters of union were
ultimately signed by the emperor, his son, and thirty-five metropohtans
(vi. 98), which included all the suffragans of that rank belonging to the
patriarchate : yet (as Mr Neale remarks) they do not address the pope as
'oecumenical,' but only as the 'great pontiff of the Apostolic see.' Ibid.
p. 316. 3 The members of it were Germanus, formerly patriarch of Constan
tinople, Theophanes, metropohtan of Nicasa, and many other court dig
nitaries. In the letter which they carried with them (Mansi, xxiv. 67),
Michael Palasologus, after he had made a statement of his faith according
to a form drawn up by Clement IV. in 1267, preferred the follawing
request : ' Bogamus magnitudinem vestram, ut ecclesia nostra dicat sanc
tum symbolum, prout dicebat hoc ante schisma usque in hodiernum
diem;' but it seems that the delegates themselves had no objection to the

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

281

the 'general' Council of Lyons; and on June 29, 1274, the
formal work of 'reconciliation' was inaugurated, in the
presence of the pope himself, with unexampled grandeur
and solemnity2. A later session of the prelates, on
July 6, beheld the representatives of Michael Palaeologus
abjure the ancient schism, and recognize the papal pri
macy, as well as the distinctive tenets of the Roman Church.
On their return, the patriarch Joseph, who had pre
viously retired into a convent waiting for the issue of
negotiations he had vainly striven to retard, was superseded
by his former colleague Beccus8: but the people of Con
stantinople viewed the union with unmixed abhorrence, and
in many cases went so far as to decline religious inter
course with any one suspected of the slightest tenderness
for Rome. The gentle pen of Beccus was in vain em
ployed to soften the asperity of public feeling ; and
although he often interceded with the emperor in mitiga
tion of the penalties inflicted by that heartless tyrant on
the nonconforming party, his endeavours only tended to
increase the general agitation. He resigned his honours,
Dec. 26, 1282, convinced that he should never reconcile
his flock to the unpopular alliance with the West4.
The Roman pontiffs had in turn grown weary of the
coldness, craft, and insincerity betrayed by Michael and his
clause Filioque, as they chanted the creed with that addition on the 6th
of July. 1 The Council was not recognized as 'oecumenical' by Eastern churches:
it contained no representatives of Athanasius the patriarch of Alexandria,
nor of Euthymius of Antioch, nor of Gregory II. of Jerusalem. The last
of these positively wrote against the union. Neale, Ibid. p. 317. The
same repugnance to the union was felt in Bussia. Mouravieff, p. 49.
2 Five hundred Latin bishops, seventy abbots, and abeut a thousand
other ecclesiastics were present, together with ambassadors from Eng
land, France, Germany, &c. The pope celebrated high mass, and Bona
ventura preached. Aquinas, who had recently composed an Opusculum
contra Gracos, was expected to take part in the proceedings of the coun
cil, but died on his journey thither.
3 Pachymeres, as above, Ub. v. 0. 24 sq., and Neander, viii. 270 sq.
Banishment, imprisonment, confiscation of property, scourging, and
personal mutilation were among the instruments employed by Michael
Palasologus in forcing his subjects into an approval of the union with
the Latins. On the other side, the ultra-Greeks were most unmeasured
in their animosity and in the charges which they brought against their
rivals. 4 Pachymeres (lib. vi. c. 30) says that, with the exception of the em
peror and patriarch, and a few of their immediate dependents, rtavra
iSva-fUvatvop t§ elptyy.

RELATIONS OP THE
EAST AND
WEST.
nople, at
the council
of Lyons,
1274.
General
disappro bation of
the mea
sure.

Formal dissol/utiiof the
union,1281.

282

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1073

Rise and
spread of
the Bogo-

son in carrying out the terms of union. They accordingly
allowed the crown of the Two Sicilies to fall into the
hands of his powerful rival1, Charles of Anjou (1266) : and
when he instigated the revolt of those provinces in 1280,
pope Martin IV. restrained himself no longer, breaking
up the hollow and unprofitable treaty by his excommuni
cation of the Eastern emperor2 (Nov. 18, 1281). The
speedy death of Michael Palseologus (1282) was followed
by the overthrow and disappearance of the Latin party,
and the formal revocation8 of the acts in which the see of
Constantinople had succumbed to that of Rome.
THE EASTERN AND WESTERN SECTS.
The most important of the Eastern sects who flourished
at this period were the Bogomiles, or the Massilians4,
kindred (as we have already seen5) to the Enthusiasts or
Euchites. Issuing in the early part of the twelfth century
from Bulgaria, where they grew into a formidable body,
they invaded other districts in the patriarchate of Con
stantinople, and soon afterwards obtained a footing in
Egyptian dioceses6.
At the centre of their theological system7, which was
1 Gibbon, vi. 100 sq.
8 See the document in Baynaldus, Annal. Eceles. a.d. 1281, § 25.
Earlier traces of displeasure are noted in Schrockh, xxix. 449.
3 The new emperor Andronicus II., although he had joined his
father in negotiating the union on political grounds, was reaUy opposed
to it : see his Life by Pachymeres, lib. i. c. 2. He also was excommuni
cated, by Clement V., in 1307.
4 That these names may be regarded as descriptive of the same body,
is proved by the following passage, among others : 'H iroXvilimiios rdv
~M.aaaihiavG)V, etrovv BoyoulXwv a'lpetris ev irday wbXei, Kal x<*>Pa> Ka^- e'Trapxla
iimroXd^ei ravvv. Euthymius Zigabenus, in his work entitled "EXeyxos
Kal Qpiafxftos rfjs fikaaipyjuov Kal woXveiSous aip£o-ews rwv dddiav MacrffaXtavup,
r&v Kal $ovvba.irwv Kal BoyopiLXtov KaXovp.eviov, Kal Eu^itcop, k.t.X., edited
by Tollius in his Iter Italicum, 1696, p. 112.
6 Above, p. 187. The colony of the Paulicians at Philippopolis
(above, p. 84, n. 4) was still thriving : but their influence was counter
acted in a great degree by the foundation of the orthodox Alexiopolis
in the reign of Alexius Comnenus (1081 — 1118). See the Life of that
emperor ('Alexias') by his learned daughter Anna Comnena, lib. xiv.
6 Neale, n. 240. According to this writer, a treatise, still in MS.,
was composed by the Alexandrine patriarch Eulogius against the Bo
gomiles. 7 Our information on this subject is derived mainly from the work of
Euthymius, above cited, n. 4, and the twenty-third title of his Pano-
plia (see above, p. 274, n. 1), which was edited separately by Gieseler,

-1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

iSs

quasi-dualistic, stood a superhuman being whom they
called Satanael, the first-born Son of God, and honoured
with the second place in the administration of the world1.
This Being (a distorted image of the Prince of Evil) was
ere long intoxicated by the vastness of his power: he
ceased to pay allegiance to the Father, and resolved to
organize an empire of his own. A multitude of angels,
whom he had involved in his rebellion, were ejected with
him from the nearer presence of the Lord, and after
fashioning the earth from preexistent but chaotic elements,
he last of all created man. The human soul, however,
had a higher origin : it was inspired directly into our
first parents by the Lord of heaven Himself; the framer
of the body having sought in vain to animate the work
until he had addressed his supplications to the Author
of all Good2. The very excellences now apparent in
mankind inflamed the envy of Satanael. He seduced the
mother of the human race ; and Cain, the godless issue
of that intercourse, became the root and representative of
evil: while his brother Abel, on the contrary, the son of
Adam, testified to the existence of a better principle in
man. This principle, however, was comparatively in
efficacious8 owing to the crafty malice of the Tempter;

Gottingen, 1842. The general truthfulness of Eastern writers on the
Bogomiles has been established by the close agreement of their narrative
with independent publications of the Western Church in refutation of
the kindred sect of Cathari.
1 Euthym. Panop. tit. xxni. c. 6: cf. the apocryphal Gospel in Thilo's
Codex Apocryph. N. Test. i. 885, and Neander's summary, viii. 279 sq.
2 Aie7rpe<r/3eiVaTo irpbs rdv dya&ov Harepa, Kal irapeKaXeae 7rep.tp&7Jvai
irap' avrov vvoty, iirayyeiXdua>os koivw etvai riv dvBpavov, el fwoirow;^, Kal
airo too yivovs avrov TrXnpovaBai tovs iv ovpavfy rowovs tiSd d-wajspupBhrav
dyyZKuiv : Ibid. e. 7. The same idea of supplying vacancies occasioned
by the fall of the angels is mentioned elsewhere : e. g. by Scotus Erigena,
De Divisione Natura, p. 304, ed. Oxon.
3 Aiyovaiv, Sri tu? dvBpiJmav iriKp&s rvpawovaivav, Kal airnvws diroXXv-
fiivtw, p,6yis SXlyoi. rivks rijs rov irarpbs ueptSos iyivovro, Kal els rrjv rdv
dyyiXav rd%iv dvifi-naav. Lbid. c. 8. One of the acts of Satanael, accord
ing to this sect, was to delude Moses, and through him the Hebrew nation,
by giving them the Law. The Bogomiles had consequently no reverence
for the Pentateuch, although they used the Psalter and the Prophets, as
well as the New Testament (c. 1). Neander thinks (viii. 286) that they
attributed a paramount authority to the Gospel of St John: and it is
actuaUy stated (c. 16) that a copy of that Gospel was laid upon the head
of each on his admission to the sect.

The main
features of
their creed.

284

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d.1073

Their false
views re
specting the
Irtcarna-
tixm :

and the
Holy Trinity.

Other gr

and at length1 an act of mercy on the part of God was
absolutely needed for the rescue and redemption of the
human soul. The agent whom He singled out was Christ.
A spirit, called the Son of God, or Logos, and identified
with Michael the Archangel, came into the world, put
on the semblance of a body2, baffled the apostate angels,
and divesting their malignant leader of all superhuman
attributes, reduced his title from Satanael to Satan, and
curtailed his empire in the world3. The Saviour was then
taken up to heaven, where, after occupying the chief post
of honour, He is, at the close of the present dispensation,
to be reabsorbed into the essence out of which His being
is derived. The Holy Spirit, in like manner, is, according
to the Bogomiles, an emanation only, destined to revert
hereafter, when His work has been completed, to the ab
original and only proper source of life.
The authors of this scheme had many points in common
with the other, mediaeval sects. They looked on all the
Church as antichristian and as ruled by fallen angels,
arguing that no others save their own community were
genuine 'citizens of Christ'4. The strong repugnance
which they felt to every thing that savoured of Mosaism6
urged them to despise the ritual system of the Church:
for instance, they contended that the only proper baptism
1 This was said to be in the 5500th year after the creation of the
world, which corresponded with the Christian era in the reckoning of
Constantinople. 2 adpKa rip tpaivopJvip uev iXiinjv Kal 6p.otav dvBpi&irov aauari t§ 5'
aX-nBeta av'Xov Kal Beoirpeiry, c. 8. The Incarnation and the Passion of the
Christ were, therefore, equally unreal. Ibid.
3 According to Euthymius (Ibid.) Satan was shut up in Tartarus
(iraxei Kal Bapu kXoi$ Karaorjaai Kal iyKXeitrai rip raprdpip) ; but it appears
from other statements that the unredeemed were still, according to the
BogomUes, exposed to his malignity: cf. Neander's note, viii. 281. The
consciousness of this may have led them to propitiate the powers of
darkness by a modified worship, whioh some of them actually paid;
appealing in justification of their conduct to the language of apocryphal
Gospels (Ibid. cc. 20, 21). On the devil-worshippers, cf. above, p.
187, n. 5.
4 See Tollius, Iter Ital. p. 112. The word is xpu'roToXtrai.
B See above, p. 283, n. 3. They spoke of churches as the habitation
of demons (Euthymius, as above, c. 18), urging that the Almighty does
not dwell in 'temples made with hands:' they condemned the sacrament
of the altar (ryv p-variKyv Kal <ppiKrrjv lepovpylav), on the ground that it was
Bvalav rilv tvoiKoivruv rois vadis Saiubvam, c. 17. The only form of prayer
whioh they aUowed was the Lord's Prayer: c. 19.

— -1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

285

is a baptism of the Spirit1. A more healthy feeling was
indeed expressed in their hostility to image-worship and
exaggerated reverence of the saints, though even there
the opposition rested mainly on Docetic views of Christ
and His redemption3.
These opinions had been widely circulated4 in the
Eastern empire when Alexius Comnenus (d. 1118) caused
inquiries to be made respecting them, and after he had
singled out a number of the influential misbelievers5 doomed
them to imprisonment for life. An aged monk, named
Basil, who came forward as the leader of the sect, resisted
the persuasions of Alexius and the patriarch. He ulti
mately perished at the stake, in Constantinople, 1119. His
creed, however, still survived and found adherents in all
quarters, more especially in minds alive to the corruptions
of the Church, and mystic in their texture".
The communication which existed now between the
Eastern and the Western world, arising chiefly out
of pilgrimages, commerce, and crusades, facilitated the
transmission of these errors into Lombardy, the south
of France, and ultimately into almost every part of
Western Europe. All the varying titles, Bulgri7, Pope-
1 o. 16. The baptism administered at church was in their eyes
equivalent to John's, and therefore was a vestige of Judaism. Their own
mode of initiation is described in the paragraph here quoted.
2 ToOj 'lepdpxas Se Kal roils na-r^jas oaov ir&vras airoSoKip.d{ov<riv ws
etooiXoXdrpas Sid ryv rSv eUbviav rrpoaKivnaiv (c. 11). It is very
remarkable that the Bogomiles cherished an esteem for Constantine Co-
pronymus (above, p. 74).
3 They abhorred the symbol of the cross us dvuiph-nv too Swrifaos (c.
14) ; they refused the title GeoToras to the Virgin on the ground that it
properly belongs to every holy soul, and not peculiarly to her who was
unconscious even of the Saviour's birth (rfjs wapBivov pyre r-qv etsobov
abrov yvoio-ns pvr\re ryv tfcfiov, c. 8). An Oration was composed by the
patriarch of Constantinople, Germanus (d. 1254), In exaltationem vene-
randa crucis et adversus Bogomitos; in Gretser, Opp. ii. 112 sq.
4 See the expressions in p. 282, n. 4.
6 For an account of the stratagem employed by Alexius, see Schrockh,
xxix. 462 sq.
8 See the sketch given by Neander of the two monks Chrysomalos and
Niphon (viii. 289—295).- Several counoils of Constantinople (e.g. 1140,
1143; Mansi, xxi. 551, 583) anathematized the principles of the Bogo
miles. 7 This name (with its varieties, Bulgares, Bougres, etc.) points at
once to Bulgaria, the chief seat of the BogomUes, and formerly infected
with the cognate heresy of the Paulicians (Gibbon, v. 281 sq. ed. Mil-
man).

SECTS.

Their oppo
sition to
images and
saint-worship.

Partialsuppression
of the sect,
1119.

The rise of
the Cathari
or AIM-

286

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

The ab
stract priri
ciplet of .
their creel

licani1, Paterini2, Passagieri8, Cathari4, and Albigenses5,
indicate, if not the very same, at least a group of kindred
sects, all standing in relations more or less immediate
iwith the Bogomiles, and holding certain points in common
with the Paulicians and the Manichseans proper6.
At the basis of their speculative system lay the Eastern
theories of dualism and emanation. But the former was
considerably changed or softened, partly (as it seems) by
contact with less impious sectaries, and partly by the
independent action of the Western mind. One school7 of

1 'PopeUcani' (= ' Publicani,' and in Flanders, 'PipMles') seems to
have been chiefly used in France. Ducange, Gloss, v. ' Populicani.' It is
probably a corrupted form of HavXiKiavol. See Dr Maitland's Facts and
Documents illustrative of the History, dkc. of the Albigenses and Waldenses,
Lond. 1832, p. 91, and the same writer's Eight Essays, Lond. 1852,
p. 172. The Greeks would pronounce their word PavUkiani.
2 See above, p. 189, n. 7. Matthew Paris, A. d. 1236, p. 362, writes,
'qui vulgariter dicuntur Paterini et Bugares:' and, a.d. 1238, p. 407:
'Ipsos autem nomine vulgari Bugaros appeUavit (Bobertus Bugre, the
Inquisitor), sive essent Paterini, sive Joviniani, vel Albigenses, vel aliis
hseresibus maculati.'
3 This name, with its equivalent 'Passagini,' is derived from 'Passa-
gium,' the common word for a 'crusade' (Ducange, subvoc); it therefore
will suggest the channel by which Catharist opinions were conveyed at
times into the west of Europe.
4 This name (=the Pure, or Puritans, and connected with 'Boni
Homines' and 'Bons-hommes') was most current in Germany. It sur
vives as a generic form in Ketzer. As early as Aldhelm (Opp. p. 87, ed.
Giles) we read of heretics, 'qui se Katharos, id est, mundos nuncupari
voluerunt,' but the reference is to the early Novatianists.
6 The name 'Albigenses' (meaning natives of the district Albigesium,
or the neighbourhood of Alby) does not appear to have been used for
marking out the members of this sect until some time after what is called
the 'Albigensian' Crusade (Maitland, Facts and Documents, &c. p. 96).
They were at first known by some one of the titles above mentioned, or
others like them (see Schmidt, Hist, et Doctrine de la sede des Cathares,
Paris, 1849, Tome n. pp. 275 — 284) ; and subsequently, as distinguished
from the Waldenses, they bore the simple name of 'heretics:' Maitland,
Eight Essays, p. 178.
6 See the works of Maitland and Schmidt above referred to ; and es
pecially Hahn's Gesch. der Ketzer im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1845—7;
Gieseler, in. §§ 87—90, 96; and Neander, viii. 297—330. The last writer
has pointed out many particulars which shew the close affinity between
the Cathari and Bogomiles, although he thinks (p. 297) that one class of
the former may have sprung out of some other (Eastern) sect which
differed in the detaUs of its creed from BogomUes or Euchites: cf.
Schmidt's reply, n. 263 — 266, in which he contends that BogomUism itself
is rather a branch or modification of primitive Catharism.
7 Neander, viii. 298. It is observable that some writers of this party
appealed both to the Scriptures and Aristotle in favour of their views;

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

287

Cathari continued, it is true, entirely ditheistic, cherishing
the Manichsean view of two opposing Principles, which
had alike subsisted from eternity in regions of their own
(the visible and the invisible) : but others1, like the Bogo
miles, while tracing the formation of the present world
to absolutely evil agencies, and looking upon matter as
irreconcileably opposed to spirit, were nevertheless induced
to recognize one only primal God, the Author of all true
and permanent existence. The antagonistic powers of
darkness had originally paid allegiance unto Him, and as
their fall, with its results, at length necessitated the de
scent of Christ, who was a glorious emanation issuing from
the Father in behalf of men, the fruit of His redemption
will be seen in the eventual recovery of human souls and
a return of the material world into the chaos out of which
it had been shaped.
In noting the more practical phases of this heresy the
modes of thought we saw prevailing in the Bogomiles
continually recur. The Cathari rejected most of the pro
phetic writings of the Old Testament2 as well as the dis
tinctive principles of the Mosaic ritual, on the ground
that Satan was the author of them both3. Contending that
the body of the Son of God4, on His appearance among
men, was an ethereal body, or was not in any way
but they indulged in the most extravagant flights of ' spiritual ' inter
pretation. Among the chief of their dogmatic peculiarites they were pre-
destinarians (p. 301), and represented the Virgin-Mother as an angel
(p. 303). 1 Ibid. p. 305 ; with which compare Schmidt's 'Appreciation Generate,'
11. 167—173. 2 The Dominican Moneta, who wrote his book Adversus Catharos et
Valdenses about 1240, says (p. 218) that the Cathari at first rejected aU
the prophets except Isaiah : but they afterwards quote these writings in
disputing with their adversaries.
3 e.g. Peter, a Cistercian monk of Vaux Cernai (Vallis-sarnensis),
whose Hist. A tbigensium (as far as the year 1218) is printed in the Recueil
des Historiens de. la France, xix. 1 sq. : 'Novum Testamentum benigno
Deo, Vetus vero maligno attribuebant, et Ulud omnino repudiabant
prater quasdam audoritates qua de veteri Testamento novo sunt inserta,'
etc. c. 2.
4 Different views existed on this point. One school of Cathari ad
mitted the reality of our Saviour's body, but ascribed it to Satan, and
affirmed that the genuine Christ ('bonus Christus') is purely spiritual and
altogether different from the historic Christ (see Peter of Vaux Cernai, as
in the former note): others held the same opinion as the BogomUes;
above, p. 283.

Its more
practical

288

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

The Ca
thari most
powerful in
the south of
France.

derived from the substance of His Virgin-mother, they
repudiated every article of faith that rests upon the doc
trine of the Incarnation. They agreed in substituting
novel rites for those administered at church1, denouncing
with peculiar emphasis the baptism of unconscious chil
dren2. They were also most ascetic in their discipline;
forbidding matrimony, and, at least in many districts,
every kind of animal food. Nor should we deem this
rigour hypocritical. The lives of the more spiritual or
'perfect' class3 presented an example of simplicity, and
sometimes even of moral elevation4, higher than was
commonly discernible in members of the Church; and to
this circumstance should be ascribed at least some measure
of the popularity and progress6 of the Cathari as soon as
they began to circulate their tenets in the West.
The ground in which those tenets were most deeply
rooted was the south of France, from Be"ziers to Bordeaux,
especially throughout the territories of the count of Tou
louse, and in the neighbourhood of Alby. Here, indeed,
among the haunts of gaiety, refinement, and romance,
the morals both of court and people were most shamelessly

1 Their hatred of the whole church-system is attested by contem
porary writers, e.g. Ebrard and Ermengard, edited by Gretser (Ingolstadt,
1614), in a work bearing the incorrect title Trias Scriptorum adv. Wal-
densium sedam: cf. Gieseler, in. 405 — 407, n. 25, 26; and Maitland,
Facts and Documents, pp. 372 — 391.
2 Their own rite of initiation was caUed 'consolamentum' (cf. above,
p. 189, n. 1), a 'baptism of the Spirit' ('Consolator'), which they ad-
ministered by the laying on of hands and prayer. See Schmidt, n.
119 sq. respecting this and other rites. The best original authority is
Bainerio Sacchoni (circ. 1250), whose work is analysed in Maitland's Facts
and Documents, pp. 400 sq. : cf. pp. 625 sq.
3 The Cathari were divided into (1) the 'Perfecti,' or 'Boni Homines,'
and (2) the 'Credentes,' or 'Auditores:' see Schmidt, n. 91 sq. Neander,
viii. 315 sq. It is recorded that, although the number of the Cathari
was immense in all quarters of the world in the first half of the thirteenth
century, only four thousand belonged to the class of 'Perfecti.'
4 The picture drawn by Schmidt (i. 194) may be somewhat too favour
able, but the superiority of their moral character as compared with that
of some of the prelates cannot be disputed. See the whole of the chapter,
pp. 188 sq.
6 e.g. WiUiam of Newburgh, De Rebus Angl. lib. n. c. 13, whose his
tory closes in 1197, describes their rapid growth in France, Spain, Italy,
and Germany. Some who found their way into England were suppressed
as early as 1166, by a councU at Oxford, (E. Diceto, ed. Twysden, c. 539.
WUkins, i. 438). They were so numerous in the Bouth of Franoe,

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

289

relaxed1; but on a sudden the attention of the many, rich
and poor alike, had been directed into other channels by
the forcible harangues of 'Albigensian' preachers. With a
few exceptions, all the barons of the neighbourhood became
protectors of the heresy; some even ranking with its most
devoted followers, the 'Perfect2.' In a council held at
Toulouse as early as July 8, 1119, a class of tenets such
as those maintained among the Cathari3, were solemnly
denounced; and mission after mission4 laboured to repress
their wider circulation. It was not, however, until the
pontificate of Innocent III.5, that vigorous measures were
adopted for the extirpation of the sect. The murder of
the papal legate6, Pierre de Castelnau, in 1208, which was
attributed unjustly to count Raymond of Toulouse, a patron
Guienne, Provence, and the greater part of Gascony, that foreigners were
told how heresy was rapidly infecting more than a thousand towns, and
how the followers of Manes in that district were outnumbering those of
Jesus Christ. Schmidt, 1. 194. The same is mentioned with regard to
Lombardy and the papal states (Schmidt, 1. 142 sq.), where we may
gather from the treatise of Bonacursus (circ. 1190), Vita Hcereticorum,
seu Manifestatio Haresis Gatharorum (in D'Achery, I. 208 sq.), that the
leaders of the sect (' Passagini ') had so far modified their doctrines as to
have betrayed a Judaizing tendency; cf. Neander, viii. 332; Schmidt,
n. 294. 1 Abundant proofs of this are furnished in the 'chanzos' of the Pro
vencal poets, collected, for example, by Baynouard in his Poisies des
Troubadours; and in the Fabliaux: although these latter more commonly
refer to the north of France.
2 Schmidt, i. 195, 196.
a It denounces (can. 3) those, ' qui religionis speciem simulantes Do
minici corporis et sanguinis sacramentum, puerorum baptisma, sacer-
dotium, et casteros ecclesiastieos ordines et legitimarum damnant fcedera
nuptiarum,' (Mansi, xxi. 225, where the date is incorrectly given: cf.
Jaffe', p. 529). At this council an appeal was made to 'potestates exterte,'
in order to suppress the misbelievers. The decrees were echoed at the
councU of Lateran (1139): Mansi, xxi. 532. Other councils, e.g. Bheims
(1148), v. 18, and Tours (1163) c. 4, adopted the same course. An
important conference with the leaders of the Cathari was held in 1165
(Hoveden, Chr. n. 105, Mansi, xxn. 157) at Lombers, the residence of
their bishop Sicard Cellerier, near Alby : cf. Schmidt, I. 70 sq.
4 That in 1147 consisted of the legate Alberic and St Bernard : see
Bernard. Epist. 241, from which we learn that the churches were de
serted, the clergy despised, and nearly aU the south of France addicted
to the Cathari : cf. Schmidt, i. 44, 45. In 1181, Henry Cardinal bishop
of Albano, who had before (1178) when abbot of Clairvaux endeavoured
to reclaim the diocese of Alby in a gentler way, began to preach a
crusade against it: Ibid. i. 83.
5 See above, p. 233, on his patronage of Dominic, the founder of
the Preachers.
« Schmidt, i. 217 sq.

M. A.

U

Their vio
lent repres
sion; by Cru
sades,

290

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

and by the
Inquisi tion.

Peter of
Bruis (d. 1124)

of the 'Albigenses,' led the way to an atrocious series of
Crusades, at first conducted at the bidding of the pope
by Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, and extending over
thirty years1. By this terrific war the swarming misbe
lievers of Provence were almost literally 'drowned in blood.'
The remnant which escaped the sword of the crusaders
fell a prey to ruthless agents of the Inquisition, — the
tribunal now established permanently by the council of
Toulouse2 (1229) for noting and extinguishing all kinds
of heretical pravity.
The fears awakened at Rome and in the Western
Church at large by the astounding progress of the 'Al
bigenses,' were increased by other movements, totally
distinct in character, but also finding the great bulk of
their adherents in the southern parts of France. The
author of the earliest (1104 — 1124) was a priest of Bruis
named Peter (hence the title Petrobrusiani), who, together
with some startling traits of heterodoxy, manifested3 an
attachment to the central truth of Christianity, and a
desire to elevate the tone of morals in the districts where
he taught. He ultimately perished at the stake ; but the
impression he produced was much extended by a Cluniac
monk and deacon, Henry4. After labouring sedulously
1 See Barrau and Darragon, Hist, des Croisades contre les Albigeois,
Paris, 1840, and Schmidt, as above, 1. 219—293.
2 Mansi, xxni. 192 sq. The germ of this institution is contained in
the decree of Lucius III. (1184), 'Contra Hsereticos,' (Maitland's Facts,
&c. pp. 496! — 498) ; and its organization was advanced by the council of
Lateran (1215), c. 3 (Decret. Gregor. Ub. v. tit. 7, c. 13: in the Corpus
Juris Canon.). On the general history see Limborch, Hist. Inquisitionis,
Amst. 1692. It soon found other fields of duty in extinguishing the
Cathari of Italy (Schmidt, I. 159 sq.), of Spain (Ibid. i. 372 sq.), of Ger
many (Ibid. I. 376 sq.), and also in suppressing (1234) a politico-religious
sect, entitled ' Stedingers,' who had arisen in the district of Oldenburg:
Gieseler, in. § 89, n. 37. Friesisches Archiv, ed. Ehrentraut, n. 265
sq., Oldenburg, 1854. They refused to pay tithes and tributes.
3 Our chief information respecting him is derived from a contem
porary Letter of Peter the Venerable, Adversus Petrobrusianos Hareticos;
Opp. p. 719, ed. Migne. It seems that Peter of Bruis and his immediate
followers rejected infant baptism, on the ground that personal faith is
always needed as a precondition, ere the grace of God can take effect
('nos vero tempus congruum fidei expectamus '). For this cause they
rebaptized. They undervalued, if they did not absolutely set aside, the
Eucharist. They burned the crosses, and denounced church-music and
the ritual system of the age. They also censured and derided prayers
and offerings for the dead : cf. Neander, viii. 338 — 341.
4 See Gesta Hildeberti among the Acta Episcoporum Cenomanensium

— 1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

291

in the field which had been overrun by 'Albigensian'
missionaries, and attracting many whom their doctrines
did not satisfy1, he fell (1147) into the hands of a papal
legate, who had visited Provence in company with St
Bernard for the purpose of resisting the further propa
gation of heretical opinions. Henry was sentenced at the
council of Rheims (1148) to meagre diet and imprisonment
for life.
How far the influential sect, afterwards known as the
'Waldenses-2,' were allied with this reforming movement,
is not easy to determine. They are certainly to be dis
tinguished from the 'Albigenses3.' In their creed we find
no vestiges of dualism, nor anything which indicates the
least affinity to oriental theories of emanation. What
those bodies learned to hold in common, and what made
them equally the prey of the Inquisitor, was their un
wavering, belief in the corruption of the Mediaeval Church,
especially as governed by the Roman pontiffs4. It has
also been disputed whether the 'Waldenses' dated further
back as a religious corporation than the twelfth century.
[i.e. of le Mans], in Mabillon,. Vet. Analect. 111. 312, and cf. Neander,
viii. 341—350 ; Gieseler, in. 391—393, n. 4.
1 Schmidt. 1. 40, 41.
* This name first occurs in an edict of Alfonso, king of Arragon
(1194). (Maitland's Fadsand Documents, &c, p. 181.) The 'Waldenses '
are there associated with the 'Inzabbati' (i.e. persons wearing 'sabots'
or wooden shoes), and with the 'Poor Men of Lyons.' Another of the
names they bore was 'Leonistse ' (from Leonum = Lyons).
3 This distinction has been questioned by two very different schools
of theologians, one endeavouring to shew that the tenets of the Albi
genses and Waldenses were equaUy false, and the second that they
were equally true : but all dispassionate writers of the present day
(e.g. Gieseler, Neander, Schmidt) agree in the conclusion above stated.
Dr Maitland has discussed the question at length in his Facts and
Documents, etc., and in his Eight Essays (1852), pp. 178 sq., he adduces
evidence from a record of the Inquisition of Toulouse (1307 — 1323)
which ' completely decides the question.' A new work, entitled Die
romanischen Waldenser, etc. was put forth in 1853 (Halle) by Dr Herzog.
4 In 1207 a pastor of the Albigenses maintained that the Church
of Bome was not the Spouse of Christ, but the Apocalyptic Babylon.
See the extract on this subject in Ussher's De Christ. Eccl. Successione
et Statu, ch. x. § 23, Opp. n. 341, ed. Ellington. The Waldenses also
ultimately urged the same objection (though at first their tone was
different), 'Quod Ecclesia Bomana non est Ecclesia Jesu Christi 
Quod Ecclesia Bomana est ecclesia malignantium, et bestia et meretrix,'
etc. See Bainerii Summa de Catharis et Leonistis, in Martene and
Durand's Thesaur. Anecdot. v. 1775.
U2 I

SECTS.
and Henry
the Cluniac
monk (si
lenced 1148).

The Wal
denses or
Vaudes.

292

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1073

Theirfoun-
der, Peter
Waldo:

Although this view appears to have been current once
with members of the sect1, or had at least been confidently
urged on some occasions when the adversary challenged
them to prove the antiquity of their opinions, it is found
to have no basis in authentic history.
The leader of the agitation out of which they grew (1170)
was Peter Waldo (Pierre de Vaud), a citizen of Lyons, who
renounced his property that he might give himself entirely
to the service of religion. He began to cnculate a Ro-
maunt version of the Gospels and of many other books of
Holy Writ2, and with the aid of kindred spirits, laymen like
himself, to preach among the populace; their object being,
not to tamper with the creeds or revolutionize the eccle
siastical system, but rather to exalt the spirit and to
purify the practice of the aga These warm and desultory
efforts proved distasteful to the archbishop of Lyons,
who compelled the preachers to desist. They carried an
appeal to Rome (1179), exhibiting their version of the
Bible to pope Alexander III., and suing for his appro-

1 In the Summa, as above quoted, the Waldenses of the thirteenth
century affirmed ' quod ecclesia Christi permansit in episcopis et aliis
prffilatis usque ad B. Sylvestrum [the contemporary of Constantine], et
in eo defecit quousque ipsi earn restaurarunt : tamen dicunt, quod semper
fuerunt aliqui qui Deum timebant et salvabantur.' But when it was
argued, e.g. by the Dominican Moneta (circ. 1240) Adversus Catharos et
Valdenses, ed. Bicchini, p. 402, that the Waldenses were not ' successores
EcclesisB primitivffi,' and therefore not 'Ecclesia Dei,' some of them
contended that the sect had lasted ever since the time of pope Sylvester,
and others that it was traceable to the age of the Apostles : see the
Additions to the Summa of Bainerio, in Bibl. Patr. ed. Lugdun. xxv.
264, and Pilschdorf, Contra Waldenses (circ. 1444) : Ibid. xxv. 278.
Schmidt (n. 287 — 293) has proved that history and tradition are both
silent on this great antiquity until the 13th century, and that the sect
was really no older than Peter Waldo. Neander (viii. 368, note) thinks
Dr Maitland somewhat too sceptical as to the genuineness of the Nobla
Leyczon, a Waldensian summary of doctrines, claiming to belong to a. d.
1100. Schmidt, p. 290, supposes that it may have been written at the
close of the 12th century, but the researches of Mr Bradshaw have
shown that it cannot be earlier than the 15th (The Books of the Vaudois,
p. 220 ; by Dr Todd, Cambridge, 1865).
2 As he was himself no scholar, the version was made for him by
two ecclesiastics. See a contemporary account by the Dominican
Stephen De Borbone, extracted in D'Argentre', Collectio Judiciorum de
Novis Erroribus, qui ab initio xii sac. usque ad an. 1632 in Ecclesia
proscripti sunt, Paris, 1728, 1. 87. The same hands translated for him
' auctoritates Sanctorum multas per titulos congregatas, quas Scntentias
appeUabant.'

—1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

293

bation both of it and of the new fraternity1. The papal
licence was not given, although at present the Waldenses
did not share in the anathemas pronounced on other bodies
(Cathari included). They were afterwards condemned,
however, in 1184, by Lucius III.2 But nothing could
repress the sturdy vigour of the men who laboured at all
costs to forward what they deemed a genuine reformation
of the Church. Their principles were soon diffused in
Southern France, in Arragon, in Piedmont, in Lombardy3,
and even in the Rhenish provinces4. Insisting as they
always did on the desirableness of personal acquaintance
with the Bible, which, in union with their claim to exercise
the sacerdotal office6, constituted the peculiarity in their
original creed, they multiplied translations into the ver
nacular, and frequently surpassed the clergy in their
knowledge of the scriptures6. Innocent III. endeavoured
to unite them with the Church (1210), and he in part
succeeded, forming his Waldensian converts into a society
entitled Pauperes Catholici7; but the majority, estranged
by persecution, zealously maintained a separate existence.
At the close of the thirteenth century we find a number

1 See the important record of their conduct at the councU of Lateran
by one who was an eye-witness, Walter Mapes, afterwards archdeacon
of Oxford (1196). The passage is in his De Nugis Curialium, Distinct.
I. § xxxi. (ed. Wright, 1850), the title being ' De secta Valdesiorum. '
2 ' In primis ergo Catharos et Patarinos, et eos qui se Humiliatos vel
Pauperes de Lugduno falso nomine mentiuntur ; Passaginos, Josepinos,
Arnoldistas perpetuo decernimus anathemate subjacere.' Mansi, xxn.
477. 3 See authorities at length in Gieseler, in. § 88, n. 8, 9, 10.
* The following passage is an allusion to their progress in the
neighbourhood of TrSves (1231) : ' Et plures erant sectse et multi earum
instructi erant Scripturis Sanctis, quas habebant in Theutonicam trans-
latas.' Gesta Trevirorum, 1. 819, August. Trevir. 1836.
5 e.g. They maintained (in the passage above cited, n. 4) that the
Eucharist might be consecrated 'a viro et muUere, ordinate et non
ordinato :' and both males and females preached on every side (' tam
homines quam muheres, idiotas et Uliterati, per villas discurrentes et
domos penetrantes et in plateis praadicantes et etiam in ecclesiis, ad
idem alios provocabant.' Stephen de Borbone (as above, p. 292, n. 2).
They had a ministry, however, nominated by the brotherhood, and
consisting of ' majorales ' ( = bishops ?) and ' barbas ' ( = preachers ?) : see
Gieseler, in. 465, n. 29. Their ministers were married.
6 Neander, viii. 360.
7 Innocent III. Epist. lib. xi. epp. 196—198: lib. xn. epp. 17, 69:
lib. xm. ep. 78.

fails to
procure the
papal sanc
tion.

Rapid dif
fusion of
his princi
ples.

294

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1073

The Apos-
tolicals (1260-
1307).

of them in the valleys of Piedmont1, where after many
dark vicissitudes they are surviving at the present
day2. Their tenets, which were at the first distinguishable in
but few particulars from those of other Christians, rapidly
developed into forms antagonistic to the common teaching
of the Mediseval Church8. The Vaudois were indeed to
some extent precursors of the Reformation, more especially
as it was often carried out in continental Europe.
An allusion has been made already to the aberrations
of the stricter school of the Franciscans4, of the Beghards5,
and the Arnoldists6 (or partisans of Arnold of Brescia).
From the impulse which had been communicated by the
authors of those movements sprang another sect, entitled
'Apostolicals7.' It was confined at first to Lombardy and
1 See extracts from a record in the archives of Turin communicated
by Krone in his Fra Dolcino und die Patarener, p. 22, Leipz. 1844.
2 They maintained themselves in Provence until 1545, when by
uniting with the Calvinists they were violently persecuted and expelled.
For an account of their past sufferings and present condition, see
Gilly's Narrative, &c. 4th edition, and Leger, Hist, des Vaudois. Their
intercourse with CEcolampadius and other Swiss reformers, in 1530, is
described by Herzog, pp. 333 — 376.
3 They denied the sacramental character of orders, .unction, con
firmation, and marriage, and the efficacy of absolution and the Eu
charist when these were administered by unworthy persons whether
lay or cleric (cf. above, p. 293, n. 5). They did not accept the canon of
the Mass, but were in favour of more frequent (even daUy) communion.
They did not invoke the saints, nor venerate the cross and relics. They
did not believe in any kind of purgatory, and made no offerings for the
dead. They repudiated tithes, the taking of an oath, military service,
and capital punishment. They disparaged fasting, aU distinction of
days (' quod unus dies sit sicut alius '), and every kind of decoration in
the ritual or the fabric of the church. With regard to baptism their
opinions are not very clearly stated, but, owing to their strong belief
in the necessity of actual preconditions on the part of the recipient, they
seem at best to have esteemed it, when administered to infants, as an
empty ceremonial ('quod ablutio, qaie datur infantibus, nihil prosit'):
cf. Neander, viii. 365. See on the Waldensian doctrines the authorities
quoted above, p. 292, n. 1, and the Extracts from Limborch's History of
the Inquisition, in Maitland's Facts, &c. pp. 229 sq.
4 Above, p. 232.
6 Above, p. 235. Gieseler, in. 469, 470, n. 35, has pointed out some
features in which the Beghards, or, (as they described themselves) ' the
Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit,' were akin to the Waldenses ;
and it will be shewn hereafter that they were progenitors of the German
(not the English) Lullards, or Lollards.
« Above, pp. 249, 250.
7 See Mosheim's Gesch. des Apostelrordens, Helmstedt, 1748. A full.

-1305] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

295

certain districts of the Tyrol. Its main object was to realize
the long-forgotten picture which the Bible seemed to
furnish of a truly evangelic poverty, and of a Church
where all the members, from the highest to the lowest,
are united solely by the bonds of Christian love1. The
exhortations of the Apostolicals were all, however, more
or less distempered by fanatical and communistic theories2,
which, rousing the displeasure of the Inquisition and the
civil power, at length consigned their hapless leader, Saga-
relli8, to the stake (1300). His able, but misguided fol
lower, Dolcino, after braving almost every kind of danger,
for the sake of his convictions, met the same unchristian
treatment4 (1307).
but somewhat violent, description of the struggle which the 'Aposto
licals ' excited will be found in Mariotti's (GaUenga) Fra Dolcino and
his Times, Lond. 1853.
1 ' Sine vinculo obedientise exterioris, sed interioris tantum.'
2 Mariotti, pp. 182 sq. , pp. 213 sq. Extracts from two of Dolcino's
circulars are given in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. ix. 450. The following
views, among his other predictions, shew that he hoped to witness not
only the purification of the papacy but also the founding of a native
monarchy : ' Fredericus rex Sicilian debet relevari in imperatorem, et
facere reges novos, et Bonifacium papam pugnando habere et facere
occidi cum aUis occidendis...Tunc omnes Christiani erunt positi in pace,
et tunc erit unus papa sanctus a Deo missus mirabUiter et electus,...et
sub Ulo papa erunt illi, qui sunt de statu Apostolico, et etiam alii de
clericis et rehgiosis qui unientur eis,  et tunc accipient Spiritus Sancti
gratiam, sicut acceperunt Apostoli in Ecclesia primitiva.' For Dante's
view of Dolcino and his mission, see Dell' Inferno, cant. xxvm. 55 sq.
3 Mariotti, p. 102.
4 Ibid. p. 296. In 1320 some branches of the sect of the ' Aposto
licals' existed in the south of France, and traces of them are found in
Germany as late as the year 1402. Ibid. pp. 314 sq.

Sagarelli, and Dol
cino.

( 296 )

[a.d. 1073

MEANS OF
GBACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

New im
pulse given
to the West
ern mind.

Literaturenot exclu
sively eccle
siastical :

CHAPTER XII.
ON THE STATE OF INTELLIGENCE AND PIETY.

Confining our review to Western Christendom1, in
which alone the aspect of religion underwent a clearly
measurable change, we must regard the present as an
age of great activity and very general progress. The
Crusades had opened a new world of intellectual enter
prise; the fever of scholasticism arousing all the specu
lative faculties had urged men to investigate the grounds
of their belief; while literary institutions, bent on further
ing the spread of secular as well as sacred knowledge, and
constructed after the illustrious models in the University
of Paris, had sprung up on every side2. A somewhat
novel feature in the works transmitted to us from the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries should not be overlooked.
The literature of Europe until then was almost everywhere
exclusively 'religious,' or one might affirm at least that
it was nearly always penetrated by a strong ecclesiastical
element8. But afterwards a different class of works were
published, which, if not entirely hostile to the Church, were
calculated to impair its old ascendancy and to imperil the
foundations of both faith and morals. Such were many
1 On the torpor and monotony of the Eastern Church at this period
also, see above, p. 272.
2 See above, 234. Colleges began to be numerous in France, Italy,
Spain, Portugal, and Germany (Mohler, Schriften, etc. n. 6). This
impulse was transmitted as far as Iceland, on the copious Uterature of
which, see MaUet's Northern Antiquities, pp. 363 sq. ed. 1847. The
two ' general' councils of Lateran, a.d. 1179 (c. 18), and a.d. 1215 (c. 11),
enjoin that a schoolmaster shall be provided in every cathedral church
for teaching the poorer clerics and the young.
3 Capefigue, L'Eglise au Moyen Age, i. 362.

—1305] State of Intelligence and Piety.

297

of the amorous pieces1 of the Troubadours, Trouveres, and
Minnesingers. Soft and polished as they are, it is too
obvious that their general tendency was to produce con
tempt for holy things and throw a veil upon the most
revolting sensuality. The same is often true of mediaeval
romances2, which, as may be argued from the copious list
surviving at the present day, began to fascinate a very
numerous circle.
The more earnest readers still preferred the ancient
'Lives of Saints3.' These after some recasting were, as in
the former age, translated into many dialects of Europe.
Some acquaintance with the truths of Christianity might
also be obtained from versions of the Bible, or at least
of certain parts which were occasionally put in circula
tion4. But the most original method now adopted for
imparting rudiments of sacred knowledge were dramatic
exhibitions, called 'miracle-plays,' which grew at length
into 'moralities.' The object was to bring the leading
1 See Sismondi, Literature of the South of Europe, c. iv. — c. viii. ;
Taylor (Edgar), Lays of the Minnesingers, passim. It appears that one
of the earliest of the amorous poets in the north of France was Abelard,
the schoolman. Hallam, Liter, of Eur. pt. 1. ch. 1. § 36. On the swarms
of romances that found their way into the monasteries at this period, see
Warton, Engl. Poet. 1. 80 sq. ed. 1840.
2 See Ellis, Specimens of Early Engl. Romances, ed. Halliwell, 1848.
3 The Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais (Bellovacensis),
and the Historia Lombardica sive Legenda Aurea de Vitis Sanctorum,
of Jacobus de Voragine (da Viraggio), were the favourite books in
Western Europe. The popularity of the latter (the ' Golden Legend ')
continued to the time of the Beformation. A specimen of the vernacular
hagiology of this period is furnished by a Semi-Saxon Legend of St
Catherine (among the publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian
Society). The date is the early part of the 13th century.
4 E.g. before the year 1200, the English had translated into then
own dialect, in prose, the Psalter and the Canticles of the Church ; and
towards the middle of the thirteenth century they seem to have possessed
a prose version of the entire Bible. But most of the sacred literature
at this period is metrical ; e. g. the Ormulum, written perhaps about the
commencement of the thirteenth century, and serving as a paraphrase
of the Gospels and the Acts. Other instances are quoted in the Preface
to the Wycliffite Bible, p. iii. Oxford, 1850. The Historia Scholastica
of Peter Comestor (circ. 1190) was very generally circulated both in the
original and in translations. It contains an abstract of sacred history,
disfigured often by absurd interpolations and unauthorized glosses. A
version of it, somewhat modified (1294), was known as the first French
Bible. See Gilly's Preface to the Romaunt Version of St John, pp.
xiv. — xvii. Lond. 184S.

MEANS OF
GKACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.
often very
immoral.

Vernacu
lar sources
of religious
knowledge.

Religious
plays.

298

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 1073

MEANS OP
GKACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

Reading of
the Bible.

Specially
promoted by the sec
taries.

facts of revelation and church-history more vividly be
fore the ill-instructed mass. The infancy, the public life,
and crucifixion of our Blessed Lord were the most favourite
topics1. It is constantly complained, however, even with regard
to the more enterprising class of scholars, that the Bible
was comparatively thrust into the background2, many of
them seeming to prefer the study of the pagan writers or
the civil law, and others giving all their time to lectures
on the ' Book of Sentences.'
The Vaudois, on the contrary, like all the other mediae
val sectaries who thought themselves constrained to wrestle
with the evils of the times, appealed in every case di
rectly to the Bible3; and although the meaning of the
sacred text was often very grievously distorted in their
efforts to establish a one sided or heretical position, the
fresh impulse which had now been given to scriptural
inquiry was insensibly transmitted far and wide among
the members of the Church itself4. At first, indeed,
the use to which vernacular translations were applied
1 See an abstract of one of them in Sismondi, Lit. of the South of
Europe, i. 231 sq. ; Mone's Schauspiele des Mittelalters , passim, Karls
ruhe, 1846, and Warton's Hist, of English Poetry, n. 24 sq., ed. 1840.
It is remarkable that a northern missionary (at Biga) made use of
this vehicle in 1204, ' ut fidei Christianas rudimenta gentilita3 fide etiam
disceret oculata ;' Neander, vn. 52. One of the earliest, and in England
the very first, of these theatrical pieces was a Ludus S. Catharina,
performed at Dunstable about 1100 : Dugdale's Monast. n. 184, new ed.
2 Thus Bobert le Poule (Pullen), as above, p. 263, read the Scriptures
at Oxford, where, as well as in other parts of England, they had been
neglected 'praa scholasticis :' cf. the remarkable language of Peter of
Blois (Blesensis), archdeacon of Bath (cir. 1200), ep. lxxvi. The following
words of Boger Bacon (quoted in Buloeus, Hist Univ. Paris, in. 383)
are to the same effect: 'Baccalaureus, qui legit textum, succumbit
lectori Sententiarum. Parisiis ille, qui legit Sententias, habet prin-
cipalem horam legendi secundum suam voluntatem, habet socium et
cameram apud religiosos, sed qui legit Bibliam caret his,' etc. — But
on the other hand numerous instances have been collected, more
especially by TJssher (Hist. Dogmatica: Works, ed. Elrington, xn.
317 — 343), in which the ancient reverence for the Scriptures, as the
rule of life, is very forcibly expressed.
3 It was the principle of Peter Waldo to persuade all 'ut Biblia
legerent, atque ex ipso fonte libentius haurirent aquam salutarem,
quam ex hominum impuris lacunis. Soli enim Bibfias scripturae tot
Divinis testimoniis ornatas atque confirmataa conscientias tuto inniti
posse.' MS. quoted by Ussher, as above, p. 331.
4 E.g. Boger Bacon, above, p. 271.

-1305] State of Intelligence and Piety.

299

awakened the suspicions1 of the prelates and the fury of
the Inquisition. The endeavours to suppress them dated
from the council of Toulouse2 in 1229, reference being there
intended more especially to the Romaunt translations
circulated by the followers of Peter Waldo. But in spite
of this repugnance on the part of the ecclesiastical
authorities, the wish to draw instruction personally from
the oracles of God continued to increase with the diffusion
of intelligence.
The present age was also far superior to the last in the
efficiency and number of its public teachers3. Every parish-
priest, as heretofore, was bound4 to inculcate on all the
'_ Thus Innocent III. (1199), lib. n. ep. 141, after directing the at
tention of the bishop and chapter of Metz to the existence of a ' Gallic '
version of the Psalter, Gospels, Pauline Epistles, etc., proceeds as
follows: 'Licet autem desiderium intelligendi Divinas Scripturas, et
secundum eas studium adhortandi reprehendendum non sit, sed potius
commendandum ; in eo tamen apparent merito arguendi, quod tales
occulta conventicula sua celebrant, officium sibi praedicationis usurpant,
sacerdotum simplicitatem eludunt, et eorum consortium aspernantur,
qui talibus non inhserent. ' A like feeling was manifested in condemning
the works of the pantheistic schoolman David of Dinant (see above, p.
205, n. 3). The prohibition was extended to all 'theological' works
in the French language, David having used translations for disseminating
his opinions : Neander, vm. 131, 132.
2 Can. 14. It forbids the laity to have in their possession any copy
of the books of the Old and New Testament, except perhaps the Psalter
and those parts of the Bible contained in the Breviary and the Hours of
the Blessed Virgin, and most rigorously condemns the use of vernacular
translations. See Fleury's apology for this injunction, Hist. Eccles.,
liv. lxxix. § 58. At the council of Tarragona (1234, c. 2), the censure
is restricted to all versions 'in Bomanico :' but in 1246 the council of
Beziers (Biterrense), where the Cathari had been most numerous, abso
lutely urge the Inquisition (c. 36: Mansi, xxni. 724) to take measures
' de Ubris theologicis non tenendis etiam a laicis in Latino, et neque ab
ipsis neque a. clericis in vulgari.' It is remarkable, however, that not
withstanding these local prohibitions, many parts of the Bible were still
translated (e. g. into Italian and Spanish), and apparently authorized :
Gilly , as above, pp. xvi. , xvii. The reason given for putting out a new
edition of the French ' Bible ' (see above, p. 297, n. 4) in the reign of
Charles V. of France (1364 — 1380), was to supplant the Waldensian
versions : GUly, p. xxii. Cf. Buckingham, Bible in the Middle Ages,
pp. 43, 46. On the use made of translations of the Scriptures by the
Boman missions to the East, see above, p. 218, n. 2.
3 We may judge of the opportunities of instruction now afforded
to the working-classes by the fact that all persons were enjoined to
go to church (sometimes under a penalty, e. g. council of Toulouse, a. d.
1229, c. 25) on Sundays, on the greater festivals (see a list of them, Ibid.
c. 26, or council of Exeter, A. d. 1287, c. 23), and on Saturday evenings.
4 Cf. above, pp. 192, 193; see also the Pracepta Communia of Odo,

MEANS OF
GKACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.
Attempted
suppressionof vernacu
lar trans
lations.

300

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 1073

MEANS OF
GBACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.
Preaching,

often com
mitted to
the Men
dicant Orders.

children of his cure at least some elementary knowledge
of the Christian faith (by expositions of the Creed, the
Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and at last the
Ave Maria, in the vulgar tongue), as well as to be dili
gent in preaching to the rest1. But more was now effected
through the voluntary labours of the Mendicants2, whose
zeal and learning were employed, as they itinerated here
and there, in teaching simple truths of Christianity no less
than in repelling what were deemed the shafts of misbelief.
A prelate, such as Grosseteste8, anxious for the spiritual
advancement of his flock and painfully alive to the incom
petence4 of many of the seculars, occasionally invited Men
dicants to aid him in his holy task; and even where they
had no invitation, they considered that the papal licence
was enough to warrant their admission into any diocese.
The popularity of this abnormal method of procedure indi
cates the growing thirst for knowledge ; and we must infer
that, notwithstanding all the gross hypocrisy, fanaticism,
and intermeddling spirit which the friars have too commonly
betrayed in after times, they served at first as powerful
agents in the hands of the Almighty for promoting in
tellectual culture and enlivening the stagnant pulses of
religion5.

bishop of Paris (circ. 1200), § 10, in Mansi, xxn. 681; the Statuta Sy
nodal, of Bichard of Chichester (1246), Ibid. xxni. 714: and archbp.
Peckham's Constitutions (1281), in Johnson, n. 282 sq.
1 A mighty influence must have been exerted by the sermons of St
Bernard, who often preached in the vernacular language. Specimens
of this class are printed in the Documens sur I'Histoire de France, ed.
Le Boux de Lincy, 1841. On the other famous preachers of this period,
see Schrockh, xxix. 313 sq. The sermons of Berthold, a Franciscan
(d. 1272), are said to have produced a very deep impression on aU kinds
of hearers. Many of them (surviving in the vernacular) have been edited
by Kling, Berlin, 1824. Specimens of early EngUsh Sermons of the
13th and 14th centuries have been edited for the Early EngUsh Text
Society by Dr B. Morris, 1868.
s See above, pp. 230 sq.
3 Above, p. 234, n. 2.
4 This was also urged by the apologist of the Franciscan and
Dominican orders. He regarded them as supernumeraries especially
authorized by the pope in an emergency to remedy the sad defects of
the parochial priests: cf. the language of Bonaventura and Aquinas
quoted in Neander, vn. 398.
5 The treatise of Humbert de Bomanis (circ. 1250), general of
the Dominicans, entitled De Eruditione Prcedicatorum, is a fine proof
of the earnestness with which men were enjoined to enter on the work

— 1305] State of Intelligence and Piety.

301

It was not until this period that the 'sacramental'
system of the Church attained its full development1. The
methodizing and complete determination of the subjects
it involved is due to the abstruse inquiries of the School
men. Previously the name of 'sacrament' was used to
designate2 a ritual or symbolic act in general, — Baptism,
Confirmation, and the Eucharist belonging to a special
class3. But in the twelfth century the ordinances which
could claim to be admitted to the rank of 'sacraments'
were found to coincide exactly with the sacred number
seven4. The earliest trace of this scholastic limitation has
been pointed out in a discourse of Otho the apostle of
the Pomeranians6 (1124) ; and from the age of Peter
Lombard6, Bonaventura, and Aquinas, members of the
of preaching, though we trace in it a disposition to exaggerate the
worth of sermons as compared with other means of grace. See a review
of it in Neander, vn. 435 — 440. The foDowing is the account given
by the biographer of Aquinas (c. viii. s. 48, as above, p. 267, n. 3),
respecting his style of preaching : ' Prasdicationes suas, quibus placeret
Deo, prodesset populo, sic formabat, ut non esset in curiosis humanse
sapientiae verbis, sed in spiritu et virtute sermonis, qui, vitatis qua?
curiositati potius quam utilitati deserviunt, in Ulo suo vulgari nateUs
soli proponebat et prosequebatur utilia populo.'
1 See Hagenbach, Hist, of Doctrine, § 189 (vol. 11. pp. 73 sq., Edinb.
1852), on the one side, and Klee, Dogmengesch. Pt. 11. ch. vi., on the
other. 2 St Augustine's definition was 'sacrae rei signum,' or 'invisibilis
gratias visibilis forma ' (Klee, lbid. § 1) : but Uke Damiani (quoted above,
p. 199, n. 3), he applied the word ' sacramentum' very generally. The
same appears to have been the case with the word p.var-qpiov in the
East, although the number of rites to which it was in strictness ap-
pUcable, was at length reduced to six, — baptism, the Lord's Supper,
the consecration of the holy oil (reXerri uvpov), priestly orders, monastic
dedication (aovaxiK^ reXeiuais), and the ceremonies relating to the holy
dead. Schrockh, xxni. 127 — 129 ; xxvni. 45.
3 E.g. as late as Babanus Maurus (De Institut. Clericorum, nb. 1.
c. 24), and Paschasius Badbert (De Corpore et Sang. Domini, v. 3), and
Berengarius (De Coma Domini, p. 153), the 'sacramenta' are restricted
in this manner : and when Alexander of Hales (Summa, Pt. iv. Qurest.
vm. Art. 2) accepted the scholastic terminology he was constrained to
allow that only two sacraments (baptism and the Eucharist) were insti
tuted by the Lord Himself ' secundum suam f ormam. ' The same ap
pears to be the view of Hugo of St Victor, in his work On the Sacra
ments (above, p. 263, n. 4).
4 See the varying theories on this point in Klee (as above), § 10,
to which may be added the sermons of the Franciscan Berthold (as
above, p. 300, n. 1), pp. 439 sq.
5 Above, p. 208: cf. Schrockh, xxv. 227.
6 Sentent., lib. iv. Dist. 1. sq., which practically settled the dis-

COKRUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Sacramen tal system
of the
Church.

Limitation
of the sa
craments to
seven.

302

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 1073

Mode of
regarding them.

Definiteestablishment of
transub
stantiation.

Western Church were taught to pay a large, if not an
equal, share of reverence to all the 'sacraments of the
new law,' — Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Peni
tence, Extreme Unction, Orders, and Matrimony. A dis
tinction was, however, drawn among them in respect of
dignity, specific virtues, and importance1. Preachers also
were not wanting to insist upon the need of faith and
other preconditions in all those, excepting infants2, who
were made partakers of the sacraments. Still it is plain
that the prevailing tendency of this and former ages, as
distinguished from the period since the Reformation, was
to view a sacred rite far too exclusively in its objective
character3, (i. e. without regard to the susceptibility of those
to whom it was applied). •
These feelings were in no case carried out so far as
in relation to the Eucharist. The doctrine which affirmed
a physical 'transubstantiation' of the elements had, on the
overthrow of Berengarius4, gained complete possession of

cussion in the Western Church. The sects, however, still continued
to protest against the elevation of a class of ordinances for which there
was no express warrant in the Bible (e. g. the Waldenses, above, p. 294,
n. 3). 1 Klee, as above, § 11.
2 See the remarkable passage in Peter Lombard, Sentent. lib. rv.,
Dist. 4, on the benefits of baptism in the case of infants. His language
implies that the precise amount of spiritual blessing was disputed, and
that some, who thought original sin to be remitted in the case of
every child, contended that the grace imparted then was given 'in
munere non in usu, ut cum ad majorem venerint [i. e. cuncti parvuli]
ffitatem, ex munere sortiantur usum, nisi per liberum arbitrium usum
muneris extinguant peceando, et ita ex culpa eorum est, non ex defectu
gratise, quod mali fiunt.' Aquinas discusses the same point, 'utrum
pueri in baptismo consequantur gratiam et virtutes ' (Summa, Pt. in.,
Qusest. lxix., Art. vi.), determining it, for the most part, in the language
of Augustine. 3 The phrase ' ex opere operato ' was now introduced to represent
this mode of viewing sacraments; e. g. Duns Scotus (Sent. Ub. iv. Dist. i. ,
Quasst. 6, § 10) affirms, ' Sacramentum ex virtute operis operati confert
gratiam, ita quod non requiritur ibi bonus motus anterior qui mereatur
gratiam; sed sufficit, quod suscipiens non ponat obicem. ' Aquinas, on
the other hand (Summa, Pt. in., Quasst. lxii.) maintains that the sacra
ment is no more than the 'instrumentalis causa gratias,' while the true
agent is God: 'Deus sacramentis adhibitis in anima gratiam operatur:'...
'Nihil potest causare gratiam, nisi Deus.' Elsewhere, however (Pt. in.
Quasst. lxxx. Art. 12), he argues that the 'perfection' of the Eucharist is
not to be sought ' in usu fidehum, sed in consecratione materia?.'
4 See above, p. 173.

— 1305] State of Intelligence and Piety.

303

the leading teachers of the West1. Discussions2, it is true,
were agitated still among the Schoolmen as to the exact
intention of the phrase 'to transubstantiate;' but the em
phatic sentence of the council held at the Lateran8 (1215),
designed especially to counteract the spreading tenets of
the Albigenses and some other sects4, admitted of no
casuistical evasion.
One effect of a belief in transubstantiation was to discon
tinue the original practice of administering the Eucharist
in both kinds6; the reason being that our Blessed Lord
existed so entirely and so indivisibly in either element that
all who were partakers of the consecrated Host received
therein His Body and His Blood6. This novel theory
was called the doctrine of 'concomitance:' but notwith
standing all the specious logic which the schoolmen urged
in its behalf, it was not generally accepted till the close
of the thirteenth century.
Another consequence that flowed immediately from the
scholastic dogmas on the Lord's Supper was the adoration
of the Host. It had been usual long before to elevate7
1 Gieseler (111. 315, n. 5) has pointed out an instance where the term
' transubstantiatio ' occurs as early as Damiani in his Expositio Canonis
Missa, in Maii Script. Vet. Colled, vi., pt. n. 215, Bom. 1825). Other
instances belonging to the twelfth century have been collected in Bp.
Cosin's Hist. Transubstant. c. 7, new edit., which is an important author
ity on the whole question.
2 See Klee, as above, § 25. One of the most independent writers on
the subject was the Dominican, John of Paris (circ. 1300), whose Deter-
minatio de modo exisiendi Corporis Christi in Sacramento altaris alio
quam sit ille, quern tenet ecclesia was edited by Allix, Lond. 1686: cf.
Neander, vn. 473.
3 ' In qua [i.e. Ecclesia] idem Ipse Sacerdos est et Sacrificium Jesus
Christus, Cujus corpus et sanguis in Sacramento altaris sub speciebus
panis et vini veraciter continentur, transubstantiatis pane in corpus et
vino in sanguinem potestate Divina', etc. c. 1. On the contemporary
doctrine of the Eastern Church, see above, p. 95, n. 1; Schrockh,
xxvin. 72, 73; Hagenbach, § 197.
4 Cf. Palmer's Treatise on the Church, part rv. ch. xi. § 2.
6 Cf. above, p. 199, n. 3.
6 Anselm (Epist. lib. iv. ep. 107) was the first who argued ' in utraque
specie totum Christum sumi.' Others, quoted at length by Gieseler (in.
320—324, 11. 11, 12), foUowed his example; though the cup did not begin
to be actually withdrawn from the communicants till somewhat later.
The steps by which the change was finally accomplished have been traced
at length in Spittler (as above, p. 199, n. 3).
7 Schrockh, xxvin. 74: Klee, part 11. ch. vi. § 32: L'Arroque, Hist, of
the Eucharist, part 1. ch. ix. We may gather the prevailing modes of

COEU.UP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Commu
nion in one
kind only.

Adorationof the Host.

304

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 1073

00RKUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Feast of
Corpus
Christi.

Practicalresult of a
belief in
transub
stantiation.

the holy sacrament with the idea of teaching by a symbol
the triumphant exaltation of the Lord. A different mean
ing was, however, naturally imparted to the rite1, where
men believed that Christ was truly veiled beneath the
sacramental emblems. These in turn became an object
of the highest worship, which was paid to them not only
in the celebration of the mass, but also when the Host
was carried in procession to the sick. The annual feast
of Corpus Christi (on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday)
was the point in which these acts of worship culminated.
It was authorized expressly in a bull of Urban IV.2 (1264),
and confirmed afresh by Clement V. at the council of
Vienne8 (1311).
Although we must acknowledge that the better class
of minds may have been stimulated in their pious medita
tions4 by thus realizing the immediate presence of the
thought from the 'AncrenBiwle,' written early in the 13th century (edited
with translation by Morton ; Camd. Soc. 1853) : ' In the mass, when the
priest elevates God's body, say these verses standing, Ecce salus mundi,
verbum Patris, hostia vera, Viva caro, deitas integra, verus homo: and
then fall down with this greeting, Ave principium nostra creationis, etc'
p. 32. 1 The first recorded instance of ' adoration' in Germany (i.e. of kneel
ing down before the host as an object of worship) is said to have occurred
in the 13th century (circ. 1215). See Caesarius of Heisterbach, De Mira-
culis, etc., Dialogi, Ub. ix. c. 51 (quoted by Neander, vn. 474). In the
Decret. Gregor. IX., Ub. in. tit. xli. c. 10 (Corpus Juris Canon.), we find
the following order of Honorius III. (circ. 1217) : ' Sacerdos vero quilibet
frequenter doceat plebem suam, ut, cum in celebratione missarum eleva-
tur Hostia salutaris, quilibet se reverenter inclinet, idem facienscum earn
defert presbyter ad infirmum.' The Order of St Clara (above, p. 231, n. 2)
devoted themselves especially to the adoration of the sacrament. Cape
figue, n. 21.
2 Bullarium Romanum, ±. 146 sq. Lugdun. 1712. It seems to have
existed somewhat earner in the diocese of Liege, or at least the institu
tion of it was suggested from that quarter. See Gest. Pontiff. Leodiens.,
ed. Chapeaville, n. 293; Leodii, 1612.
3 Clementin. lib. in. tit. xvi. (in the Corpus Jur. Canon.).
4 E.g. the treatise De Sacrament. Altaris, Pt. n. c. 8 (wrongly ascribed
to Anseim of Canterbury and printed in the old editions of his Works) :
' Cum ergo, de carne Sua, amandi Se tantam ingerit materiam, magnam
et mirificam animabus nostris vita? alimoniam ministrat, cum dulciter
reeolliginvus et in ventre memorias recondimus quaacunque pro nobis fecit
et passus est Christus.' Ancren Riwle, p. 35 (Morton's translation):
' After the kiss of peace in the mass, when the priest consecrates, forget
there all the world, and there be entirely out of the body; there in glow
ing love embrace your beloved [Saviour] Who is come down from heaven
into your breast's bower, and hold Him fast until He shall have granted
whatever you wish for.' Cf. Neander, vn. 467.

-1305] State of Intelligence and Piety.

305

Crucified, the general effect of a belief in transubstan
tiation, and the doctrines in connexion with it, was to
thin the number of communicants1. The Eucharist was
commonly esteemed an awful and mysterious sacrifice of
which the celebrant alone was worthy to partake, at least
from day to day. His flock were present chiefly as
spectators of the rite.
A grave delusion which had shewn itself already in the
worship of the blessed Virgin was continued to the present
age2. It now pervaded almost eveiy class of Christians,
not excepting the more thoughtful Schoolmen8, and was
one of the prime elements in giving birth to what are
called the institutes of 'chivalry1.' The parallel indeed
which was established at this time between the honours
rendered to St Mary and to God Himself5 is a distressing
1 The twenty-first canon of the Council of Lateran (1215) is evidence
of this infrequency. It enjoins that all the faithful of either sex shall
communicate at least once a year, viz. at Easter, on pain of excommuni
cation (' nisi forte de consUio proprii sacerdotis ob aliquam rationabilem
causam ad tempus ab ejus perceptione duxerit abstinendum'). Schrockh
(xxvin. Ill sq.) has collected other evidence, shewing that in France and
England attempts were made to induce the people to communicate three
times a year. Worthless priests now began to enter into pecuniary con
tracts, binding themselves to offer masses (say for twenty or thirty years)
in behalf of the dying and the dead. The better class of prelates did not
faU, however, to denounce the practice. Ibid. p. 113, and Neander, vn.
481. The practice of administering the Eucharist to children was dis
continued from this epoch, scarcely any trace of it appearing after the
twelfth century. It was actually forbidden at the councU of Bordeaux
(Burdegalense), a.d. 1255, c. 5, but is stiU retained in the Eastern
Church. 2 Buckingham, p. 255 : ' In the 13th century the universal reverence
of mankind found utterance in the establishment of that order, whose
founders chose the title of Servites, or Serfs of Mary, as the expression of
their joyful aUegiance to her sovereignty.'
3 e. g. Bonaventura, above, p. 266.
4 See Miller's History Philosophically Illustrated, 11. 14 — 16. A glance
at the Fabliaux (ed. Le Grand) will shew the awful way in which the
worship of the Virgin was associated with an almost diabolical Ucentious-
ness: see especially the Contes Divots, in tome v.
6 We see this feeling manifested strongly in the Cursus B. Maria
(Neander, vn. 117, note), and in the compilation of the Psalterium Minus,
the Psalterium Majus B. Virginis Maria, and the Biblia Mariana, which
(whoever may have been the authors) were circulated at this period
(cf. above, p. 266, n. 4 ; and Gieseler, in. 340—343, n. 9, 10, 12). Aqui
nas first employed the term hyperdulia (= 'medium inter latriam et
duUam '), intending by it the peculiar veneration, short of supreme wor
ship, which was due to the Virgin as distinguished from all other saints
(Summa, Secunda Secunda?, Quasst. cm. Art. iv.). He affirms elsewhere
M. A. X

COBKUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Worship of
the Virgin.

306

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 1073

CORRUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Saint wor
ship.

Pilgrim-
ayes.

proof that in the estimation even of her purest votaries she
was exalted far above the human level and invested with
prerogatives belonging only to her Son. A slight reaction
may indeed have been occasioned through the partial failure
of the effort, noticed on a previous page1, when the Fran
ciscans attempted to exact belief in the immaculate con
ception of the Virgin as an article of faith : but it is obvious
that the party siding with Anselm, Bernard, and Aquinas
was outnumbered by the rest, and that the general current
of religious feeling had now set the other way.
The number of factitious saints, already vast2, was
multiplied by the credulity of some and by the impious
fraud of others, who on their return from Palestine were
apt to circulate astounding tales among their countrymen,
and furnish fresh supplies of relics to the convents on
their way. These practices, however, were most warmly
reprobated here and there3.
The rage for pilgrimages had not been diminished,
even after the idea of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre was
generally abandoned4 on all sides. The less distant
shrines were still frequented by a crowd of superstitious
(Part in. Qua?st. xxv. Art. v.) 'quod matri Begis non debetur a?qua!is
honor honori qui debetur Begi; debetur tamen ei quidam honor consimilis
ratione cujusdam excellentia?.'
1 Above, p. 270. The Feast of the Conception of the Virgin (Dec. 8),
corresponding with that of her Nativity (Sept. 8: cf. above, p. 92, n. 1)
was introduced in the 13th century, but not made absolutely binding
(' cujus celebrationi non imponitur necessitas;' Synod of Oxford, a.d.
1222, c. 8: Mansi, xxn. 1153). See, on the general question, Gravois,
De Ortu et Progressu Cultus ac Festi Immac. Concep. Dei Genetricis, Luc.
1762. The CouncU of Basel (Sess. xxxvi.; Sept. 17, 1439) decreed that
the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was a pious opinion, agree
able to the worship of the Church, the Catholic Faith, and right reason.
See the arguments against it in the great work of Torquemada, Tractatus
de Veritate Conceptionis B. M. V. Bome, 1547; Oxford, 1869.
2 Above, p. 196: see the very large Catalogus Sanctorum, compiled
by Peter de Natalibus ; fol. Lugdun. 1514. To this period belongs the
famous legend of the 11,000 virgins of Cologne (perhaps a mis-reading of
XI M. Virgines=XI Martyres, Virgines). The story was already current
among our forefathers in the 14th century : see a Norman-French Chron
icle, c. lux. Cambr. Univ. MSS. Ee. i. 20.
3 A fine specimen occurs in the treatise De Pignoribus Sanctorum of
Guibert, abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy (d. 1124) : Opp. ed. D'Achery, 1651.
4 Above, p. 253. The feelings of the more intelligent pUgrims may
be gathered from a tract of Peter of Blois, De Hierosolymitana Peregrina-
tione acceleranda. See extracts of the same general character in Nean
der, vn. 425—427.

— 1305] State of Intelligence and Piety.

307

devotees, attracted thither, as of old, by an idea of light
ening the conscience at an easy cost. Nor was the sterner
and ascetic class of penitents extinct1: although it seems
that in the West the spirit of religion had upon the
whole become more joyous than was noted in the former
period. The influence of the Schools had shewn itself again in
giving a more scientific shape to the conceptions which
had long been current in the Western Church respecting
penance. It is true that many popular abuses of an earlier
date" were still too common both in England and the
continent. They kept their ground in spite of all the
efforts made by Gregory VII.8 and other prelates to enforce
a worthier and more evangelic doctrine. Peter Lombard,
with the Schoolmen generally, insisted on contrition of the
heart as one of three4 essential elements in true repent-
1 They frequently took refuge in some one of the religious Orders, or
attached themselves to the third class of the Franciscans (see above,
p. 231). In the Eastern Church the self-immolation of the monks
assumed the most extravagant shapes. See Eustathius, Ad Stylitam
quendam, c. 48 sq. (Opp. ed. Tafel). The pilgrimages of Italian ' Flagel
lants ' (1260 sq.) are manifestations of the same spirit in the West (Mu
ratori, Script. Rer. Ital. viii. 712). The author of the Ancren Riwle, who
is generally very stern, was under the necessity of giving such injunctions
as these to the nuns of Tarent in Dorsetshire : ' Wear no iron, nor hair
cloth, nor hedgehog-skins; and do not beat yourselves therewith, nor
with a scourge of leather thongs, nor leaded; and do not with holly nor
with briars cause yourselves to bleed without leave of your confessor;
and do not, at one time, use too many flagellations:' p. 419 (Morton's
translation). 2 See above, p. 201: and cf. councU of York (1195) c. 4; of London
(1237), c. 4: Wilkins, 1. 501, 650; Johnson, n. 76, 154.
3 His letter (1079) to the bishops and faithful of Brittany (Ub. vn.
ep. 10 : Mansi, xx. 295) is very remarkable. He argues that true repent
ance is nothing less than a return to such a state of mind as to feel one's
self obliged hereafter to the faithful performance of baptismal obligations.
Other forms of penance, if this change of heart be wanting, are said to be
sheer hypocrisy. See also the Epistles of Ivo of Chartres, epp. 47, 228;
and the 16th canon of the synod of Melfi (1089): Mansi, xx. 724. The
sober views of Hildebrand respecting monasticism may be gathered from
his letter to the abbot of Clugny : Ub. vi. ep. 17.
4 The three-fold representation of penance, ' contritio (distinguished
from attritio) cordis,' ' confessio oris,' and ' satisf actio operis,' dates from
HUdebert of Tours, e.g. Sermo iv. in Quadragesima, Opp. col. 324. It
is also found in Peter Lombard (Sentent. lib. rv., Dist. xvi.) and in the
schoolmen generaUy. Peter Blesensis, De Confessions Sacramentali
(p. 1086, ed. Migne) has the foUowing passage: ' Christus autem purga-
tionem peccatorum faciens, non in judicio, sed in desiderio, non in
aidore, sed in amore, tria nobis purgatoria misericorditer assignavit,
x2

COEEUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Extremeasceticism.

Scholastic
view of
Penance.

303

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 1073

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Absolution.

ance; — the remaining parts, confession of the mouth and
satisfaction, being signs or consequences of a moral change
already wrought within. According to this view, humili
ation in the sight of God is proved by corresponding acts
of self-renunciation, by confession to a priest (a usage ab
solutely enjoined on all of either sex in the Lateran council1,
1215), and by performing, in obedience to his will, a cycle
of religious exercises (fastings, prayers, alms, and other
kindred works). The aim of these austerities, as well as
that of penance in all cases, was to expiate the ' poena,' or
the temporal effect of sins which, it was argued, cleaves
to the offender, and demands a rigorous satisfaction, even
after the eternal consequences of them (or the 'culpa')
are remitted freely by the pardoning grace of Christ2.
As many as neglected to complete this satisfaction in the
present life would find a debt remaining still to be dis
charged in purgatory, — apprehended by the Schoolmen
as a place of discipline to which the spirits of the justified,
and they alone, have access.
Peter Lombard also dealt a heavy blow on those who
had exaggerated the effects of sacerdotal absolution8. He
cordis contritionem, oris confessionem, carnis afflictionem,' etc. On the
names ' contrition' and ' attrition,' see Klee, part n. ch. vi. § 11.
1 Peter Lombard (as above, Dist. xvn.) asserts the necessity of oral
confession, ' si adsit facultas:' but the first conciUar authority absolutely
demanding it of every one, ' postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit,'
is the Concil. Later. (1215), c. 21. See the arguments of Aquinas in the
Summa, part in. Quasst. lxxxiv. sq. The practice of confessing to lay
men was allowed in extreme cases, but in the 13th century such acts were
judged to be non-sacramental : see Gieseler, m. § 83, n. 2 : Klee, as
above, § 19. On the violent controversy which sprang up at this period
in the Jacobite communion respecting the necessity of auricular confes
sion, see Neale, Eastern Church, n. 261 sq.
2 e. g. Aquinas, (Summa, Pt. in. Supplement. Quasst. xvin. Art. 2) :
'Illi, qui per contritionem consequutus est remissionem peecatorum,
quantum ad culpam, et per consequens quantum ad reatum poena aterna,
qua? simul cum culpa dimittitur ex vi clavium, ex passione Christi effica-
ciam habentium, augetur gratia, et remittitur temporalis pcena, cujus
reatus adhuc remanserat post culpa? remissionem : non tamen tota, sicut
in baptismo, sed pars ejus,' etc.
3 ' Hoc sane dicere ac sentire possumus, quod solus Deus dimittii
peccata et retinet: et tamen Ecclesiae contuUt potestatem ligandi et sol-
vendi. Sed aliter Ipse solvit vel ligat, aliter Ecclesia. Ipse enim per se
tantum dimittit peecatum, quia et animam mundat ab interiori macula,
et a debito seterna? mortis solvit. N on autem hoc sacerdotibus concessit,
quibus tamen tribuit potestatem solvendi et ligandi, i. e. ostendendi homines
ligatos vel solutos.' Sentent. lib. iv. Dist. xvin. This view was, however,
far from general : cf. Klee, § 8.

— 1305] State of Intelligence and Piety.
maintained that any sentence of the priest was valid only
in so far as it accorded with the higher sentence of the
Lord. But in the many a distinction of this kind was
far too often disregarded, and the errors into which they
fell would find abundant countenance in some proceedings
of the Church itself. Indulgences, for instance, purporting
to lessen the amount of satisfaction, or, in other words, to
act as substitutes for penitential exercises1, were now issued
by the popes, in favour of all Western Christendom, when
it was necessary to stir up the zeal of the Crusaders, or
advance the interest of the Roman see. The earliest grant
of 'plenary' indulgences is due to Urban II.* (1095). It
was discovered also that a treasury of merits8, rising chiefly
out of Christ's, but partly out of those which others, by
His grace, had been enabled to contribute, was now placed
at the disposal of the popes, who could allot them to the
needy members of the Church as an equivalent for un
completed penance. A gigantic illustration of these prin
ciples recurred in 1300, which Boniface VIII. appointed
as the year of Jubilee4. A plenary indulgence was thereby
1 See above, p. 201.
2 Council of Clermont, c. 2 : ' Quicunque pro sola devotione non pro
honoris vel pecunias adeptione, ad liberandam Ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem
profectus fuerit, iter illud^ro omni panitentia [ei] reputetur:' Mansi, xx.
816: cf. Gibbon, ed. Milman, v. 413 sq. The fearful relaxation of mo
rals in the great bulk of the crusaders furnishes an instructive comment
on this practice. See Aventinus, Annal. Boiorum, Ub. vn. o. 3, edit.
Gundling. Innocent III. himself (1215), in Decretal. Greg. IX., Ub. v.
tit. xxxvin. c. 14, was obliged to limit the extension and number of
indulgences, and Innocent IV. (1246), in Mansi, xxni. 600, confesses that
some of the Crusaders ' cum deberent ab excessibus abstinere, propter
libertatem eis indultam, furta, homicidia, raptus mulierum, et alia perpe-
trant detestanda.' The inability of the populace to enter into the scho
lastic distinctions on this point is singularly illustrated by the language
of WilUam of Auxerre, who viewed the teaching of the Church about it
as a kind of ' pious fraud.' Neander, vn. 486.
3 'Thesaurus meritorum,' or 'Thesaurus supererogationis perfectorum.'
The first advocates of this notion were Alexander of Hales and Albertus
Magnus (see extracts in Gieseler, § 84, n. 15 — 18). With regard to souls
in purgatory it was contended that indulgences do not apply auctoritative
but impetrative, i.e. not directly, but in virtue of the suffrages which are
made in their behalf by the Uving. The question is discussed at length
by Aquinas (Summa, Pt. in. Supplement. Quasst. lxxi. Art. 10).
4 See the Bull in the Extravagantes Communes (Corp. Jur. Canon.),
lib. v. tit. ix. c. 1. The pope grants to all who are penitent, or shall
become so, 'in pra?senti et quolibet centesimo secuturo annis, non solum
plenam, sed largiorem, imo plenissimam omnium suorum veniam pecca-
torum.'

309

COEEUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Indul-

Treasiir'/of ma-iti.

3io

State of Intelligence and Piety, [a.d. 1073—1305]

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Year of
Jubilee.

Contradic
tions in the
general as-
pict of the
aye.

held out to every Christian, who, for certain days, should
punctually worship at the tombs of St Peter and St Paul.
The news of this festivity was spread on every side,
attracting a tumultuary host of pilgrims1, male and female,
who set out for the metropolis of Western Christendom,
in search of what they hoped might prove itself a general
amnesty, at least for all the temporal effects of sin, both
present and to come.
In that and other like events we see the characteristic
features of the age. It was an age of feverish excite
ment, where the passions and imagination acted far
more strongly than the reason, and accordingly it teemed
throughout with moral paradoxes. Elements of darkness
and of light, of genuine piety and abject superstition, of
extreme decorum and unblushing profligacy, of self-sacrifice
approaching almost to the apostolic model and of cal
lousness that bordered on brutality, are found not only
in immediate juxtaposition, but often, as it seems, amal
gamated and allied. The courtly knight devoted to the
special honour of the Virgin, but most openly unchaste,
the grasping friar, the Inquisitor consigning to the faggot
men whom he had just been labouring to convert, the
gay recluse, the pleasure-hunting pilgrim, the Crusader
bending on the blood-stained threshold of the Sepulchre
and then disgracing by flagitious deeds the holy sign he
had emblazoned on his armour, — these are specimens of
the deplorable confusion to be traced in all the ruling
modes of thought.
But on the other hand we should remember that anom
alies which differ only in degree present themselves in
every age of Christianity, nay, more or less, in every
human heart; and that in spite of very much to sadden
and perplex us in our study of the Middle Age, there
is enough in men like Anselm, Bernard, Louis IX. of
France, Aquinas, Grosseteste, and if we include the gentler
sex, Elizabeth of Hessen, Hedwige of Poland, and a host
of others, to attest the permanent influence of Christian
truth and real saintliness of life.
1 Capefigue, it. 142 sq.

Jfonrfjj feridr of % 3PMe Jges.
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE TRANSFER
OF THE PAPAL SEE TO AVIGNON UNTIL
THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF LUTHER.
1305—1520.

312 )

[a.d. 1305

Introduc
tion of Ike
Gospel into
Lithuania:

CHAPTER XIII.

§1. GROWTH OF THE CHURCH.
The Gospel of our Blessed Lord was now ' in truth or
in pretence' accepted by the vast majority of European
tribes, although in much of the Iberian peninsula, in
Russia1, and the modern Turkey2, its ascendancy was
broken or disputed by the adversaries of the Cross.
AMONG THE LITHUANIANS.
Almost the only district of importance which remained
entirely in the shade of paganism was the grand-duchy of
Lithuania8, peopled by a branch of the Sarmatian family4,
in close relation to the Slaves6. As early as 1252 we read6
that Mindove, the son of a Lithuanic chief, embraced the
Christian faith, and Vitus, a Dominican, appears to have
1 The Mongols were not expelled till 1462; see above, p. 121.
2 Constantinople itself fell into the hands of the Muhammedans,
May 29, 1453; the last refuge of the Christians being the church of
St Sophia, which was afterwards converted into a mosque. Gibbon, vi.
312 sq., ed. Milman.
3 Hither had fled a remnant of the Prussians, who stiU clung to
heathenism: above, p. 215, n. 5.
4 Numbers of their kinsmen in the East, instead of reahzing the
hopes of CathoUc and Nestorian missionaries (cf. above, p. 216), shewed
a stronger leaning to Muhamm edanism. See Mosheim, Hist. Tartar.
Eccl., pp. 90 sq. Hi China also Christianity was well-nigh subverted in'
1369 (above, p. 218, n. 3), and the subsequent irruptions (1370 — 1400) of
Timur (or Tamerlane), an ardent patron of the Persian (an ti- Turkish)
sect of the Muhammedans, while they proved instrumental in curtailing
the Ottoman power, were no less fatal to the propagation of the Gospel.
See Gibbon, vi. 178 sq., ed. Milman.
5 Dr Latham's Ethnology of Europe, pp. 154 sq., Lond. 1852.
« Dollinger, in. 285, 286: but cf. Schrockh, xxx. 496. Bussian in
fluences had also been exerted on the other side and in a milder spirit.
Mouravieff, p. 42.

—1520]

Growth of the Church.

717

through a
Polishchannel.

gone thither, at the bidding of pope Innocent IV., as
missionary bishop : but ere long the influence he exerted
was reversed, and scarcely aught is heard of Christianity
in Lithuania until 1386. In that year Jagal, or Jagello1,
the grand-duke, whose predatory inroads had been long
the terror of his Polish neighbours, entered into an alli
ance with them, on condition that he should espouse their
youthful monarch, Hedwige, and should plant the Church
in every part of his dominions. Jagal was baptized at
Cracow2 (1386), by the name of Vladislav, and in con
junction with Bodzanta8, the archbishop of Gnesen, and
a staff of Polish missionaries headed by Vasillo, a Fran
ciscan monk, he soon extinguished the more public and
revolting rites of paganism. But, strange to say, the
work of the evangelist was mainly undertaken by the
duke himself4, the missionaries having little or no know
ledge of the native dialects. The change produced was,
therefore, nearly always superficial6, though, as time went
on, the immediate neighbourhood of Wilna6, where the
bishops lived, was gradually pervaded by a knowledge of
the truth.

1 The chief original authority on the conversion of Lithuania is the
Historia Polonia of John Dlugoss (a canon of Cracow, who died 1480),
ed. Lips. 1711, Ub. x. pp. 96 sq.
2 Some of his retinue who had been formerly baptized according to
Greek rites could not be induced ' ad iterandum, vel, ut significantiori
verbo utar, ad supplendum baptisma.' Ibid. p. 104.
3 Wiltsch, ii. 261.
4 The foUowing entry of the Polish chronicler is in many ways in
structive: 'Per dies autem aliquot de articuUs fidei, quos credere oportet,
et Oratione Dominica atque symbolo per sacerdotes Polonorum, magis
tamen per Wladislai regis [ ? operam], qui linguam gentis noverat et cui
faciUus assentiebat, edocta, sacri baptismatis unda renata est, largiente
Wladislao rege singuUs ex popularium numero post susceptum baptisma
de panno ex Polonia adducto novas vestes, tunicas, et indumenta:' p. 110.
The baptisms were performed by sprinkUng a large mass of the people at
once, to aU of whom was given the same Christian name, e.g. Paul or
Peter. s In the middle of the fifteenth century, serpent-worship was still
dominant in many districts (see iEneas Sylvius, De Statu Europa, c. 26,
pp. 275 sq., Helmstad. 1699) : and traces of heathenism are recorded even
in the sixteenth century (see Lucas David, Preuss. Chronik. ed. Henning,
vn. 205).
6 The see was founded in 1387, in which year, according to a chro
nicler (quoted by Eaynaldus, ad an. § 15), Lithuania passed over 'ad
ecclesiae Eomanai obedientiam, optimi principis auctoritate inducta.'
The bishop was placed in immediate subjection to the papal see, without
a metropolitan.

314

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 1305

Conversion
of the Sa-
maites :

and Lapps.

Conversion
of the Ru
manians.

AMONG THE SAMA1TES AND LAPPS.
The arms of the Teutonic knights1 had forced a way
into the region occupied by the tribe of Samaites (Samo-
gitse), which are probably to be connected with the savage
and half-christian race of Samoieds1, at present bordering
on the Arctic circle. The slight impression thus produced
was afterwards extended (1413) by the labours of a Lithua
nian priest named Withold8. He was consecrated bishop
of Wornie or Miedniki4 (? 1417), but numbers of his flock
appear to have immediately relapsed. The date of their
final conversion is unknown.
The Lapps, a kindred tribe5 inhabiting the northern
most extremity of Scandinavia, had submitted to the
thriving state of Sweden in 1279. From thence pro
ceeded Christian missions, more particularly in the time
of Hemming6, primate of Upsala (1335), who founded the
first church at Tornea, and baptized a multitude of people.
It was not, however, till the sixteenth and two following
centuries7 that Christianity became the popular religion.
AMONG THE KUMANIANS.
These were members of the Turkish family8, who entered
Europe at the close of the eleventh century upon the track
of the Magyars. They settled more especially in Volhynia
and Moldavia, where, unlike a number of their kinsmen
who became Muhammedans, they clung to a degraded form
of paganism9. In 1340 some Franciscan missionaries, who
1 Above, p. 215.
2 Schrockh denies this (xxx. 498), but assigns no reason. On the
other hand it is indisputable that the Samoieds (a section of the TJgrian
race) had formerly dwelt in more southern latitudes: cf. Latham, Eth
nology of Europe, pp. 166 sq.
3 Dlugoss, as above, Hb. xi. pp. 342 sq.
4 A bishopric had been planted here in 1387 (see Eaynaldus, as above,
p. 313, n. 6), but owing to the troubles of the period, was not actually
fined until 1417: cf. Wiltsch, n. 262.
5 Latham, as above, p. 147.
6 See Scheffer's Lapponia, c. 8, pp. 63 sq., Francof. 1673.
' Guerike, Kirchengesch. n. 355, 356, Halle, 1843. On the earUer
labours of Eussian monks, see Mouravieff, pp. 70, 97.
8 Latham, as above, p. 247.
9 According to Spondanus, Annates, ad an. 1220 (Continuatio, i.
p. 78), the archbishop of Gran had in that year baptized the king of

—1520]

Growth of the Church.

315

had been established in the town of Szeret (in Bukhovina),
were assassinated by the natives. To avenge this barbarous
wrong an army1 of Hungarian crusaders marched into the
district and compelled a large proportion of the heathen to
adopt the Christian faith and recognize the Roman pontiff2.
But as all Moldavia was ere long subdued by the Walla-
chians, the new 'converts' passed thereby into the juris
diction of the Eastern Church'.
IN THE CANARIES AND WESTERN AFRICA.
The enterprising spirit of the Portuguese had opened
a new field for missionary zeal. Incited by the ardour
of prince Henry4, they discovered the important island of
Madeira in 1420. Other efforts were alike successful ; and
in 1484 Bartolome Diaz ventured round the southern point
of Africa, which was significantly termed the ' Cape of
Good Hope.' The ground-work of their Indian empire
was established in 1508 by Alfonso Albuquerque. Mean
while the authors of these mighty projects had secured the
countenance and warrant of the pope, on the condition
that wherever they might plant a flag, they should be
also zealous in promoting the extension of the Christian
faith5. This pledge, however, was but seldom kept in
view throughout the present period; an immoderate lust
the Kumanians and some of his subjects: but it does not appear that
Christianity was generally adopted tiU a later period : cf. Schrockh, xxx.
499, 500.
1 See the native Chronicle, c. 46, in Schwandtner's Script. Rer. Hun-
gar. 1. 195.
2 A Latin bishopric was placed at Szeret in 1370 by Urban V. :
WUtsch, 11. 300, 340.
3 Ibid. pp. 340, 349.
4 See Mariana, Hist. General de Espana, Ub. xxv. c. 11 (n. 166 sq.,
Madrid, 1678).
* The first arrangement of this kind was made by Henry of Portugal
with Eugenius TV. in 1443. Other instances are cited in Schrockh, xxx.
501, 502. Mariana (Ub. xxvi. c. 17) speaks as if it were a leading object
of the expeditions 'Llevar la luz del EvangeUo a lo postrero del mundo,
y a la India Oriental.' Whenever missionary zeal wa3 manifested, it was
also turned against antagonistic forms of Christianity. Thus in India,
the Portuguese laboured to repress the ' Syrian' Christians (above, p. 28)
on the coast of Malabar (see Geddes, Hist, of Church of Malabar, p. 4,
Lond. 1694); and the same spnit dictated the first interference of the
Portuguese in the Church of Abyssinia, extending over half a century
(1490 sq): Neale, East. Church, n. 343 sq.

Influence
of the dis
coveries of
the Portu
guese.

Apathy in
regard to
missions.

3i6

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 1305

MISSIONS.
Conversion
of the
Canary
Islands.

Christian
ity on the
coast of
Guinea.

Discovery
of America.

Fanaticism
of the Spa
nish con
querors:

of wealth and territorial grandeur strangling for the most
part every better aspiration. The Canary Islands are
indeed to be excepted from this class. A party of Fran
ciscans1, about 1476, attempted to convert the natives; and
a letter2 of pope Sixtus IV. attests their very general suc
cess, at least in four of the southern islands. The same
missionaries penetrated as far as the ' western Ethiopians,'
on the coast of Guinea8. And soon after, in 1484, when
traffic had been opened with the Portuguese, the seeds of
Christianity were scattered also to the south of Guinea,
in Congo and Benin4. But on the subsequent discovery
of a passage round the Cape, the speculations of the
western merchants were diverted into other channels.
IN AMERICA.
Columbus, while engaged in the service of Ferdinand
and Isabella, landed on the isle of San Salvador in 1492 ;
and five years later, a Venetian, Cabot or Gabotta, who
had sailed from England, ranged along the actual coast
of North America, and was indeed the first of the adven
turers who trod the soil of the new continent6. In 1499
Brazil was also added to the empire of the Portuguese,
and afterwards, in 1520, Magalhaens achieved the circum
navigation of the globe. Yet owing to the unhappy policy
of the Church in Spain and Portugal, these conquests did
not lead at first to any true enlargement of her borders,
What was done ostensibly for 'the conversion of the
Indians' tended rather to accelerate their ruin6. The

1 Eaynaldus, ad an. 1476, § 21.
2 ' Percepimus quod jam Divina cooperante gratia ex septem ipsarum
Canaries insuUs habitatores quatuor earundem insularum ad fidem con-
versi sunt : in ahis vero convertendis tribus non pauca sed magna expec-
tatur populorum et gentium multitudo converti ; nam qui Deum hactenus
non noverunt, modo cupiunt cathoUcam fidem suscipere, ac sacri baptis-
matis unda renasci,' etc. Quoted in WUtsch, § 522, n. 1.
3 Eaynaldus, ad an. 1476, § 22.
4 Ibid, ad an. 1484, § 82: Schrockh, xxx. 503.
6 Cf. the interesting tradition noticed above, p. 110, n. 4.
6 The title of the contemporary work of Bartolome de las Casas, an
eyewitness, is pathetically true : Relacion de la destruicion de las Indias.
See an account- of him and his writings in Prescott's Conquest of Mexico,
i. 318 sq. Lond. 1850. He declares that in forty years his feUow-country-
men had massacred twelve miUions of the natives of America.

-1520]

Growth of the Church.

317

fanatic temper of the Spaniard, maddened as he was by
recent conflicts with the infidel at home, betrayed him
into policy on which we cannot dwell without a shudder.
Multitudes who did not bend to his imperious will and
instantly renounce the ancient superstitions, were most
brutally massacred, while slavery became the bitter por
tion of the rest1. Their only friend for many years was
an ecclesiastic, Bartolome de las Casas, who in sojourning
among them (till 1516) drew a harrowing picture of the
national and social wrongs he struggled to redress2.
Some measures had indeed been taken for disseminating
Christian principles and lightening the yoke of the op
pressed. The pope already urged this point on making
grants of territory8 to the crowns of Spain and Portugal.
At his desire a band of missionaries4, chiefly of the Men
dicant orders, hastened to the scene of action; and in
many of the ordinances which prescribe the service of the
Indians, it is stipulated that religious training shall be
added. But these measures seldom took effect. In
1520 only five bishoprics6 had been established, and the
genuine converts were proportionately rare: although it
should be stated that upon the final settlement of Mexico,
the conqueror had begun to manifest a deep solicitude
for the religious welfare of his charge".
1 The Tlascalans alone, at the recommendation of Cortes, were ex
empted from the system of repartimientos (or compulsory service),
Prescott, as above, ill. 218: cf. m. 284. At first the bondage of the
conquered was most abject, but the emperor Charles V. consented to its
mitigation, and aUowed the Spaniards to transport a multitude of Negroes
from the coast of Africa. Thus started the inhuman 'slave-trade.'
2 Above, p. 316, n. 6. He finally retreated, almost in despair, to a con
vent in St Domingo. His dislike of slavery was, however, shared by the
Dominican missionaries, who appear as the ' abolitionists ' of that age.
3 Alexander VI. affected to do this (1493), 'de nostra mera Uberalitate
ac de apostoUcas potestatis plenitudine : ' Eaynaldus, ad an. 1493, § 19:
cf. Mariana, Ub. xxvi. c. 3 (n. 184). In the same year he sent out mis
sionaries to attempt the conversion of the natives, § 24.
4 Prescott, in. 218 (note).
6 WUtsch, § 523, where a letter, addressed to Leo X. by Peter Martyr
(an ecclesiastic of the court of Ferdinand), is quoted.
6 Prescott, in. 219. He begged the emperor to send out holy men,
not pampered prelates, but members of rehgious orders whose Uves
would be a fitting commentary on their doctrine. The result seems to
have been eminently successful in this case, almost every vestige of the
Aztec worship disappearing from the Spanish settlements in the course of
the next twenty years.

somewhat modified.

Attempts to
convert the
Indians.

3i8

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 1305

MISSIONS.

The Moors
of Spain :

their con
version, or
expulsion.

Persecution of the
Jews,

COMPULSORY CONVERSION OF MUHAMMEDANS AND JEWS.
A series of reactions dating from an earlier period had
confined the Moorish influence to a corner in the south
of Spain; and when the royal city of Granada ultimately
bowed beneath the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella, in
1492, it was their ardent hope to Christianize the whole
Peninsula afresh. The foremost agent they employed was
Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo (1495). His arguments,
however, did not always satisfy the audiences to whom
they were addressed1, and therefore he proceeded in the
narrow spirit of the age, to which in other points he
shewed himself remarkably superior2, to advise the appli
cation of coercive measures8, justifying them on grounds
of policy. The copies of the Koran were immediately
seized and burnt in public, while to gratify the rage of
the fanatic populace, it was resolved at last, in 1501,
that every obstinate Muhammedan who did not quit the
country should henceforward be reduced to the position
of a serf. As one might naturally expect, a part of the
Moriscos now conformed4; but many others, who were true
to their convictions, crossed the channel into Barbary6.
The violence with which the Jews were handled by
the other states of Europe 6 was intensified in the Peninsula,
where they had long existed as a thriving and compara
tively learned body7. The old story of their crucifying
1 See Flechier, Hist, du Cardinal Ximenes, i. 136 sq. Paris, 1694. On
the conquest of Granada, Ferdinand had positively pledged himseU to
tolerate the religion of the Moors. Mariana, lib. xxv. c. 16 (n. 176).
2 He was, for instance, a great patron of learning, and contributed
much to the editing of the Polyglott Bible which bears his name (Fleury,
lib. cxix. § 142). A sketch of his ecclesiastical reforms is given in
Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, n. 481 sq.
3 On the different views that were taken of his conduct, see Schrockh,
xxx. 518, 519.
4 Mariana (Ub. xxvn. c. 5) records many instances, where thousands
were baptized together.
6 Ibid.
6 Schrockh (xxx. 551 sq.) has pointed out a number of cruelties com
mitted on the Jews of Germany. One of the most inhuman persecutions,
which he does not mention, happened in 1349, when they were charged
with poisoning the weUs and causing an unusual mortaUty (see PezU
Scriptor. Rer. Austr. i. 248).
7 Their greatest theological luminary at this time was Eabbi Isaac
Abarbanel, a distinguished exegetical writer, born at Lisbon (3437). His

—1520]

Growth of the Church.

319

children on Good Friday, gained a general currency at
the beginning of the present period1. Laws were framed
accordingly for their repression, and a superstitious rabble,
stimulated, in the south of Spain particularly, by inflam
matory preachers2, vented their unchristian fury on the
Jews, whom they despoiled of property and even life
itself. More salutary influence was exerted here and there
by magistrates or preachers of the better class3: and at the
memorable disputation in Tortosa4 which lasted several
months (1414), a party of the most accomplished Rabbis
owned their inability to answer their opponents, and, with
two exceptions, instantly passed over to the Church. But
although the conversion of their champions had disarmed
to some extent the prejudice of others, it does not appear
that the Hebrews as a body had been drawn more closely
to the Christian faith. The thunders of the Spanish In
quisition, which began its course in 1480, were continually
levelled at the Jews6 and at a growing class of persons
whom it taxed with Judaizing. Prompted by the same
distempered zeal, or captivated by a prospect of replenish
ing the public coffers, Ferdinand and Isabella gave them
works on the Old Testament have been much used and valued by Chris
tian commentators.
1 Thus in Spain Alfonso X. enacted a law providing for the punish
ment of such offenders. A. de Castro, Hist, of the Jews in Spain, trans
lated by Mr Kirwan, pp. 64, 65, Cambridge, 1851. At the same time aU
Jews were ordered to wear a red badge on then left shoulder, under heavy
penalties. 2 e.g. those preached at Seville, 1391, by archdeacon Martinez (Ibid.
pp. 87 sq.), the effect of which was that many of his audience rushed into
the streets and murdered all the Jews they met. He was restrained,
however, by the king (John I.): but in the very next reign four thousand
Jews were slain at once. Ibid. p. 92.
3 The conversion (circ. 1390) of the learned Talmudist, Halorqi (after
wards known as Jer6nimo de Santa Fe) is traced to the discourses of an
earnest preacher, Vincente Ferrer. Ibid. p. 95. Pablo (afterwards bishop
of Cartagena) was moved to foUow his example by reading Aquinas De
Legibus. Ibid. p. 106.
4 Ibid. pp. 96 — 100. The congress was held in the presence of the
Spanish anti-pope Benedict XHL, who afterwards issued certain decrees
condemnatory of Jewish tenets, and among other things requiring that
Jews should Usten every year to three sermons preached with the design
of promoting their conversion: Ibid. p. 104 A similar decree was passed
at the councU of Basel in the sixteenth session (Feb. 5, 1434), where the
necessity for founding Hebrew and other professorships in the Universities
was strongly insisted on. Cf. above, p. 219, n. 4.
6 Ibid. pp. 145 sq.

particular ly in Spam.

Endeavours to
convertthem.

320

Growth of the Church.

[a.d. 1305

the alternative of baptism or expulsion1. Many, as we
noticed in regard to the Moriscos, would be nominally
Christianized in order to retain their property. A mul
titude of others fled for refuge chiefly into Portugal, but
new calamities were thickening on their path. In 1493
the king of Portugal (John II.) ordered2 that the children
of the Hebrews should be forcibly abstracted and baptized ;
while such of the adults as were unwilling to be taught
the truths of Christianity were in the following reign
compelled to forfeit their possessions and to emigrate in
quest of other homes.
1 Ibid. p. 164. Accounts differ as to the actual number of the expelled.
Mariana (lib. xxvi. c. 1) thinks it might be as great as eight hundred
thousand. 2 De Castro, as above, pp. 202 sq.

-1520]

( 32i )

CHAPTER XIV.

CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN
CHURCH.

The numerous changes that were supervening at this
period on the constitution of the Western Church, in
ternally regarded, had been so inextricably blended with
ulterior questions touching its relation to the secular au
thority, that, in the narrow limits of a volume like the
present, the two subjects will be most conveniently ap
proached and carried on together.
Viewed by unobservant eyes, the form of government
prevailing in the west of Christendom might often look
as autocratic as it was in the palmy days of Gregory VII.
or Innocent III.; but on a closer survey we shall find
that while political events as well as public opinion had
been hitherto conspiring almost uniformly to exalt the
papacy, they now were running more and more directly
counter to its claims. The very impulses which it had
given for civilizing all the influential states of Europe
were now threatening to recoil and overwhelm itself.
From the commencement of the present period to the
former half of the fifteenth century the consciousness
of civil and of intellectual independence was awakening
alike in kings, in scholars, and in legislative bodies.
The important middle-class, now starting up on every
side, had also grown impatient of the foreign bondage ;
and although the surface of the Church was somewhat
smoother in the interval between the council of Basel
(1443) and the appearance of Luther, it is obvious that
a strong under-current of hostility to Rome had never
ceased to work and rankle in men's bosoms. There was
M.A. T

THE
PAPACY.

Growth of
anti-papal
feeling.

322

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 1305

THE
PAPACY.

Effect of the
residence at
Avignon (1305-
1376).

still indeed no well-defined intention to revive the theory
of local churches, or to limit, in things purely spiritual,
the jurisdiction of the Roman see : but as one formidable
class of its pretensions had intruded very far into the
province of the civil power, the pontiffs daily ran the
risk of weakening their sway in general by the arbitrary
maintenance of some obnoxious point. The conflict, which
at first is traceable in almost every case to the resent
ment of a crushed and outraged nationality, was easily
extended to a different sphere of thought, till numbers
of the more discerning spirits, keenly smarting under the
injustice of the pope, had lost all real faith in his in
fallibility1. A heavy blow had been inflicted on the temporal su
premacy of Rome when Clement V. submitted to the
king of France and fixed his chair within the juris
diction of a papal vassal, Robert of Anjou, at Avignon.
The seventy years' captivity2, as the Italians often called
the papal sojourn in Provence, had tended much to
weaken the prestige associated with the mother-city of
the West. The pontiffs also, living as they now did far
away from their estates, devised new engines, of extor
tion8 for replenishing their empty coffers. By this venal
1 e.g. The following is the language of Marsilius of Padua, formerly
rector of the University of Paris : ' sic igitur propter temporaUa conten-
dendo non vere defenditur sponsa Christi. Earn etenim, qua) vere
Christi sponsa est, catholicam fidem et fideUum multitudinem, non
defendunt moderni Romanorum pontifices, sed offendunt, ilUusque pul-
ohritudinem, unitatem videlicet, non servant, sed fcedant, dum zizanias
et schismata seminando ipsius membra lacerant et ab invicem separant,'
etc. ; in Goldast, Monarchia Roman, n. 281, ed. Francof. 1668.
2 'L'empia Babilonia' is the phrase of Petrarch.
3 e.g. the appropriation of rich benefices and bishoprics to the use of
the pope or of his favourites, by what were known as 'reservations' or
'provisions.' Such benefices were held with others 'in commendam:'
cf. above, p. 226, n. 4. The system in this form commenced under
Clement V. (Extravagantes Communes, lib. in. tit. U. e_. 2, in ' Corpus
Juris Canon.'), and was fuUy developed by his successor John XXII., who
'reserved' to himself all the bishoprics in Christendom (Baluze, Vit.
Paparum Avenion., I. 722; HaUam, Middle Ages, c. vn. pt. n. : vol. n.
p. 234, 10th ed.; where other instances are given). In England, where
the papal mandates for preferring a particular clerk had been disputed
long before, the system of 'provisions' was most strenuously repelled :
see Rot. Pari., 3 Eic. II. § 37, and especially the famous statute of Provi-
sors (1351), 25 Edw. IH., cap. 6. Other cases of resistance are cited in
Twysden, Vindication of the Church, pp. 80, 81, Camb. ed. Annates, or
first-fruits of Ecclesiastical benefices, were also instituted by John XXII.

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

323

and rapacious policy the feelings of the Church were still
more deeply irritated and more lastingly estranged1,
In spite of the obsequiousness of Clement V. in deal
ing with the crown of France, he shewed as often as he
dared that he inherited the domineering temper of the
papacy2. But his pretensions were eclipsed by those of
¦ John XXII.3 (1316), whose contest4 with Louis of Ba
varia, king of the Romans, was a prolongation of the
mortal feud between the Ghibellines and Guelfs, to which
allusion has been made above5. In 1323 (Oct. 8) a papal
missive6 called on Louis to revoke his proclamations, to
abstain from the administration of the empire, and pre
sent himself, within three months, a suppliant at Avig
non, if he wished his claims to be allowed. Meanwhile
both laymen and ecclesiastics were commanded to with
hold allegiance from him. Goaded by indignities like this,
Louis put forth a counter-manifesto (Dec. 16, 1323), in
which he did not hesitate to call his adversary a pretender
and a fautor of heretical pravity. He also stated his inten
tion of appealing to a General Council7. But his threats
who accumulated in this way a prodigious treasure (Hallam, Ibid. ;
Twysden, pp. 104—107).
1 e.g. Giovanni Villani (Hist. Fiorent. Ub. ix. c. 58) draws the foUow-
ing picture of John XXII. : ' Questi fu huomo molto cupido di moneta e
simoniaco, che ogni beneficio per moneta in sua corte si vendea,' etc.
2 This was exempUfied in Mb laying Venice under the interdict
(1309), and even forbidding all commerce with it and empowering any
one to seize the property or persons of its subjects. Eaynald. ad an.
1309, § 6.
3 Owing to a violent dispute between the French and Italian cardi
nals, the papal throne was vacant two years and nearly four months after
the death of Clement (1314). It may here be noted that the last im
portant contribution to the Canon Law (the Libri Clementini) was made
by this pope in 1313 : cf. above, p. 224, n. 1.
4 One of the best accounts of this important struggle wUl be found in
Ohlenschlager, Staatsgesch. des rem. Kaiserthums in der erst. Halfte des
liten Jahrhunq]. pp. 86 sq., Francof. 1755.
6 p. 248. Dante was engaged in this controversy, taking the side of
the Ghibellines. His book Ore Monarchy appeared in 1322.
6 See the various Processes against the emperor in Martene and Du-
rand's Thesaur. Anecd. n. 644 sq., and cf. Dollinger, rv. 106. The people,
the jurists, and many of the clergy took the imperial side of the dispute.
7 See above, p. 254. The document in Ohlenschlager, as above, Ur-
kundenbuch, p. 84. Louis admits, however, that the Almighty has placed
two great Ughts in the firmament of the Church, ' pontificalem videlicet
auctoritatem et imperatoriam majestatem, illud ut prasesset diei, spiri-
tualia disponendo, alteram ut prseesset nooti, temporalia judicando :' cf .
above, p. 243, n. 2. Y 2

THE
PAPACY.

Contest be
tween John
XXII. and
Louis of
Bavaria.

324

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1305

THE
PAPACY.

Champions
of the im
perial inte
rest.

and protests were alike unheeded, and the sentence of
excommunication was launched against him in the fol
lowing spring (March 21).
Amid the tumults which this controversy had pro
duced, the Church was further startled by the publica
tion of a treatise written by Imperialists1 and levelled
at the roots of papal, and indeed all other hierarchical.
supremacy. The title of it is Defensor Pads. As the
natural effect of a recoil from Hildebrandine principles,
it manifests a disposition to exaggerate the privileges of
the laity in matters that affect the Church, contending
even that the power of the keys was delegated to the.
priesthood by their flock or by the emperor himself, who
might be viewed as the representative of all2. In many
points the authors of this work preserved a juster balance
and may fairly take their stand with the precursors of
the Reformation3. It is plain that nearly all the anti-
papal writings of the age are tinctured with the prin
ciples of the extreme Franciscans, or the 'Spirituales4,'

1 The leading author was Marsiuus of Padua, assisted by John of
Janduno, a Franciscan: cf. Neander, ix. 35. The Defensor Pads is
printed in Goldast's Monarch. Roman, ii. 154 sq. It was translated into
English at the beginning of the Reformation, and included in a Ust of
' prohibited books :' Baker, Notes on Burnet (Brit. Mag. xxxvi. 395).
2 e.g. Conclusio xvi. , xvin. , xxni. , xxxvn. (These Conclusions, forty-
one in number, are in the thnd Part of the treatise). The following is
another indication of the same tendency (Concl. xxxin.): 'Generale con
cilium aut partiale sacerdotum et episcoporum ac reliquorum fidelium
per coactivam potestatem congregare, ad fidelem legislatorem aut ejus
auctoritate prineipantem in communitatibus fidelium tantummodo perti-
nere, nee in ahter congregate determinata vim aut robur habere.' The
Defensor Pads also advocates the theory that priests and bishops were
originauy equal, and derives the primacy of Bome itseU from a grant of
Constantine (' qui quandam prffieminentiam et potestatem tribuit epis-
copis et ecclesiae Romanas super caateras mundi ecclesias seu presbyteros
omnes'). As above, n. 243.
3 Thus they plainly state, 'quod nullam scripturam irrevocabUiter
veram credere vel fateri tenemur de necessitate salutis aterna, nisi eas
quae canonical appeUantur' (Lbid. p. 254); reserving, however, the first
place in the interpretation of Scripture to general councUs (' et ideo pie
tenendum determinationes concUiorum generaUum in sensibus scriptura
dubiis a Spiritu Sancto suaa veritatis originem sumere,' Lbid.).
4 See above, p. 231. It was members of this school, headed by Uber-
tinus de CasaU, who stigmatized the pope as a heretic for maintaining
that our Lord and the Apostles ' in speciali non habuisse aUqua, nee in
communi etiam.' See also the Defensorium Wil. Occami contra Johan.
papam XXII., in Brown's Fascic. n. 439 — 465.

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

325

who had long been halting in their loyalty to Rome.
Another of that disaffected class is William of Ockham,
the English schoolman, who had found a shelter at the
court of Louis of Bavaria, and contended with a bold
ness hitherto unequalled for the dignity and independence
of the empire1. He questioned the infallibility of the
pope in judging even of doctrinal matters, and, unlike
the great majority who shared his feelings on this head,
he was unwilling to accept a General Council as the court
of ultimate appeal.
The cause of John XXII. was defended, among others2,
by an Augustinian hermit of Ancona, Agustino Triomfi
(Triumphus), who, in pushing ultramontane principles to
their legitimate results, asserted that the pope alone could
nominate an emperor, and therefore that the college of
electors acted only at his beck or through his delegation8.
But the hour was past when writers of this stamp could
sway the general mind of Europe. Appealing to a
future council4, Louis braved the excommunication, and
at last the interdict5, of his opponent (1324). He con
fided in the loyalty of his dependents6, and especially in
the Franciscan order, one of whom he thrust into the
1 His Disputatio de Potestate Ecclesia et Saculi and other kindred
works are printed in Goldast, as above, 11. 314 sq. His anti-popery is
almost as hot as Luther's (e.g. p. 390): cf. Turner, Hist, of England,
Middle Ages, in. 98.
2 The principal was a Franciscan of a milder school, named Alvarus
Pelagius, who composed his De Plandu Ecclesia about 1330 (ed. Venet.
1560). He maintains ' quod jurisdictionem habet universalem in toto
mundo Papa nedum in spiritualibus, sed temporalibus, Ucet executionem
gladU temporalis et jurisdictionem per fiUum suum legitimum impera-
torem, cum fuerit, tanquam per advocatum et defensorem Ecclesiaa, et
per alios reges...debeat exercere:' lib. 1. c. 13.
3 See the Summa de Potestate Ecclesiastica (ed. Rom., 1582), Quasst.
xxxv. Art. 1 sq. The papal claims were seldom more offensively stated
than in the following passage : ' Planum est autem, quod papa est omnis
juris interpres et ordinator, tamquam architector in tota ecclesiastica
hierarchia, vice Christi; unde quoUbet jure potest, cum srrbest causa
rationabiUs, decimas laicorum, non solum subditorum, verum etiam
regum, principum et dominorum recipere et concedere pro ecclesias utiU-
tate, ac eos, si noluerint dare, compellere.' Quaast. lxxiii. Art. in.
4 His formal appeal is given in Baluze, Vit. Papar. Avenion. n. 478.
5 In Martene and Durand, as above, 11. 660.
6 We learn from the contemporary Chronicon of Johann von Winter-
thur (or Vitoduranus), that such of the clergy as observed the interdict
were roughly handled by the people: see Thesaurus Hist. Helvetica
(Tiguri, 1735), 1. 49.

THE
PAPACY.

Defendersof the Pa
pacy.

The papal
threats ino
perative.

326

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1305

THE
PAPACY.

Attempts at
reconcilia
tion.

Continu
ance and
close of the
struggle.

place of John XXII. with the title Nicholas V., and from
whom he received the imperial crown. These friars never
ceased to tax the pontiff as a heretic, alleging, in ad
dition to an older charge respecting his contempt of
' evangelical poverty,' that he had absolutely erred while
preaching on the beatific vision of the saints1.
The next pontiff, Benedict XII.2 (1334), appears to
have been anxious to reform his court, and even can
celled many grants of benefices which his predecessors
had made over to themselves3. He also wished to bring
about a reconciliation with Louis of Bavaria : but his
efforts were resisted by the king of France, to whom he
was in bondage4. For this cause the interdict of John
XXII. long continued to disturb the peace of Germany.
In 1338 a meeting of electors6 held at Rense (on the
banks of the Rhine) asserted the divine commission of
the emperor, and laboured to emancipate him altogether
from the trammels of the Roman pontiffs, venturing even
to withdraw from them the ancient privilege of confirm
ing his election. Clement VI. (1342) prolonged the con
troversy, and on finding the imperialists determined to
maintain their ground, two other writs of excommunica-
1 According to the Continuator of the Chronicon of WUUam de Nangis
(D'Achery, in. 95), he had stated in a sermon (1331), 'quod animal dece-
dentium in gratia non videant Deum per essentiam, nee sint perfecte
beataa, nisi post resumptionem corporis:' cf. DoUinger, iv. Ill (note).
The practical deduction from his view is thus stated by Giovanni Villani,
Ub. x. c. 230 : ' Dicendo laicamente, come fedel Christiano, che in vano
si pregherebbono i santi, b harebbesi speranza di salute per ii loro meriti,
se nostra donna santa Maria.. .e U altri santi non potessono vedere la
Deitade infino al di del giudicio, ' etc.
2 Personally he was not a model for the clergy, being ' comestor max
imus et potator egregius,' and the origin of the proverb ' bibamus papa-
Uter:' see Neander, ix. 58.
3 e.g. Baluze, Vit. Papar. Avenion. ±. 198. Albert of Strasburg
(Argentinensis), Chron. in Urstisii German. Histor. n. 125.
4 DoUinger, iv. 116, 117.
5 See the document in Ohlenschlager, as above, p. 188. This act
was afterwards pubUshed (March, 1339) as a constitution of the empne
(Goldast, Gonstit. Imperial, m. Ill), and vigorously defended by Leopold
of Bebenburg, afterwards bishop of Bamberg, and by William of Ockham.
The last-mentioned writer took the part of Louis in another question,
where he far exceeded his prerogative by trying to dissolve the marriage
of Margaret of Carinthia, and granting to his son the dispensations
necessary for contracting an aUiance with her (1342). See Ockham, De
Jurisdidione imperatoris in causis matrimonialibus, in Goldast's Monarch.
i. 21, and the Chronicon of Vitoduranus (as above, p. 325, n. 6), p. 59.

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

327

tion1, breathing curses hitherto unequalled in the mani
festoes of the pope, were circulated in all quarters where
adherents could be gained (1341, 1346). When Louis
died in 1347, the prospects of his house and party had
been darkened by the elevation of a rival candidate for the
empire, Charles of Moravia, who had pledged himself2 to
carry out the policy suggested by the king of France and
by the conclave at Avignon. Many of the violent Fran
ciscans were now ready to conform, and even William
of Ockham ultimately recognized, in words at least, the
jurisdiction of the pope3.
But much as this important victory might seem to
benefit the cause of Clement and to prop his sinking for
tunes, they were damaged more and more by his rapacity,
his nepotism, and the licentious splendour of his court4.
He was succeeded by Innocent VI. (1352), who in a reign
of ten years did something5 to produce a healthier tone
of morals and to allay the ever-formidable spirit of re
monstrance which was breaking out on every side, espe
cially in parliaments and other public bodies. Urban V.
(1362) attempted, notwithstanding the resistance of one
faction in the conclave, to replace the papal chair in Italy
(1367), but unpropitious circumstances drove him back6 ;
and that desire could not be finally accomplished till the
next pontificate (1370), when Gregory XI., relying on the
influence of a nun, the able Catharine of Siena7, occupied
1 In Raynald. ad an. 1343, § 43 : ad an. 1346, § 3. For the intervening
negociations with the pope, see documents in Ohlenschlager, pp. 226 sq.
2 Raynald. ad an. 1346, § 19.
3 Dollinger, iv. 123.
4 See Albert of Strasburg (as above), p. 133, and Matteo Villani (who
continued the Historie Florentine of his brother, Giovanni Villani), Ub.
[11. c. 43: cf. DoUinger, rv. 124.
6 e. g. Baluze, Vit. Papar. Avenion. 1. 357. Under his predecessor
almost aU the English benefices were reserved to the pope or other
' ahens,' which provoked the famous statute of Provisors (1350). Inno
cent VI. did not repeat his claims ; and Urban V. issued a bull Contra
Pluraiitates in beneficiis (1365) : Wilkins, in. 62.
6 Raynald. ad an. 1370, § 19. Petrarch (Vie de PCtrarque, by De
Sade) was actively engaged in this dispute, contending for the claims of
Rome as the metropolis of the popes, and eloquently denouncing the
corruptions of Avignon, which he calls the third Babylon: see his
Epistola sine titulo. A sketch of the rise and fall of Rienzi, and the
civU revolutions of which Rome was now the theatre, wiU be found in
Gibbon, ch. lxx.
7 Some of her works, including letters on this point, were printed

THE
PAPACY.

Return of
the Pope to
Rome, 1376.

328

Constitution of the Church, [a. d. 1305

THE
PAPACY.

The papal
schism of
forty years.

the old metropolis (1376). His death, which followed in
1378, gave rise to a dispute, which, next to the long
residence at Avignon, tended more than other agencies
to shake the empire of the popes, and stimulate a reforma
tion of the Church1. The present schism, unlike convul
sions of an earlier period2, lasted almost forty years (1378
— 1417 3), and therefore could not fail to give an impulse,
hitherto unknown, in calling up the nationality of many
a western state, in satisfying it that papal rule was not
essential to its welfare, and in thereby adding strength
to local jurisdictions. The dislike of ' aliens' and of Roman
intermeddling was embittered at the same time by the
fresh exactions4 of the rival pontiffs, each of whom was
at Paris, 1644: see her Life in the Act. Sanct. AprU in. 956. Bridget
(Brigitta) of Sweden, also canonized, was equaUy urgent in promoting
the return of Gregory: see her Revelationes, Ub. rv. c. 139 sq., ed. Ant-
verp. 1611.
1 See Neander, ix. 67 sq. on the rise and important bearings of the
papal schism. Henry of Hesse (al. Langenstein), in his Consilium Pads,
printed by Von der Hardt in the Concil. Constant, n. 1 sq., declares
(1381) 'Hanc tribulationem a Deo non gratis permissam, sed in necessa-
riam opportunamque ecclesia reformationem finaUter convertendam:' cf.
Lenfant, Concile de Pise, Ub. i. p. 51, Amsterd. 1724.
a See, for instance, p. 223, n. 3, 4, 5.
" In this year Benedict XIH. was deposed by the council of Con
stance, but he persisted in his claims until his death in 1424.
4 See the treatise, written in 1401, De Ruina Ecclesia (al. De Cor-
rupto Ecclesia Statu), attributed generally to Nicholas de Clemenges
(Clemangis), and printed in Von der Hardt, Concil. Constant, torn. i.
pt. in., and in Brown, Fascic. n. 555 sq. Neander (ix. 81 sq.) has re
viewed this memorable work, together with a short treatise, De Studio
Theologico, in D'Achery, ±. 473 sq. The author traces the exile of the
popes to their own ' f ornicationes odibUes.' In speaking of his own time
he writes : ' Adeo se et ecclesiam universalem eorum arbitrio subjecerunt
atque dediderunt, ut vix aUquam parvulam praebendam nisi eorum man-
dato vel consensu in provincns eorum tribuere ausi essent.' A second
writer of the period, Theodoric of Niem (Nieheim), in his works, De
Schismate, and Nemus Unionis (Argentor. 1629), has furnished ample
evidence to the same effect. The EngUsh pariiaments continued to
resist, with more or less firmness, the increased exactions of the pope,
and in 1389 the statute of Praemunire, 13 Ric. H. stat. n. c. 2 and 3,
enlarged and reinforced by 16 Ric. II. c. 5, was levelled at the same
offender. No one in future was to send or bring hither a summons or
excommunication against any person for executing the statute of Pro-
visors (cf. above, p. 327, n. 5), and the bearers of papal buUs or other
instruments for the translation of bishops and like purposes, were sub
jected to the penalty of forfeiture and perpetual imprisonment. It is
remarkable that the statute 16 Ric. H. was enroUed on the desire of the
archbishop of Canterbury. Twysden, Vindic. of the Church, p. Ill,
Camb. ed.

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

329

clearly anxious to maintain his dignity at any cost what
ever. The origin of this important feud appears to be as
follows1. When the cardinals, of whom the great ma
jority were French, had met to nominate a successor of
Gregory XL, the Roman populace tumultuously demanded
that their choice should fall on some Italian. Influenced
by this menace they elected a Neapolitan, the archbishop
of Bari, who at his coronation took the name of Urban VI.
(April 18, 1378). The cardinals, however, soon repented
of their choice, and, when the pressure of the mob had
been withdrawn, endeavoured to annul the whole pro
ceeding by the substitution of a member of their own
conclave, and a Frenchman, who was crowned as Cle
ment VII. (Oct. 31). Between these two competitors the
Western Church was almost equally divided2. Urban,
who remained at Rome, enjoyed the countenance of Eng
land, Italy, Bohemia, the German empire, Prussia, Poland,
and the Scandinavian kingdoms : while his rival, who re
treated to Avignon, was acknowledged in the whole of
France3, Scotland, Spain, Lorraine, Sicily, and Cyprus.
Neither of the factions would consent to the retirement
of their leader, and accordingly the quarrel was embittered
and prolonged. The Roman conclave, after the death of
Urban, nominated Boniface IX. (1389), Innocent VII,
(1404), and Gregory XII. (1406) ; and Clement had an
obstinate successor in the cardinal Pedro de Luna, Be-
1 Hallam, Middle Ages, n. 237, 238, 10th ed. : Maimbourg, Hist, du
grand Schisme, Paris, 1678; and more especiaUy Lenfant, Concile de
Pise, who in the first and second books has fairly stated the evidence on
both sides.
8 Richard Ullerston (or Ulverstone), whose paper urging an immediate
'reformation of the church ' was presented at the council of Pisa (1409),
complains of this among the other consequences of the schism : ' Quod
profecto exinde patuit, quod regna inter se prius divisa partibus a se
invicem divisis et inter se de papatu contendentibus se pariformiter con-
junxerunt.' See the whole of this remarkable document in Von der
Hardt's Concil. Constant. 1. 1126 sq.
3 The university of Paris shewed its independence for some time by
recognizing neither of the candidates, so that there were three parties in
the Western Church, the Urbanites, the Clementites, and the Neutrals.
The last party, who were looking to a general council for redress, were
represented 'by Henry of Langenstein (ef. above, p. 328, n. 1): Neander,
ix. 71, 72. The influential manifestoes issued at this crisis by the uni
versity are noticed in Bulasus, Hist. Univ. Paris, iv. 618 sq.

THE
PAPACY.
Its origin.

Balance of
the two op
posing fac
tions.

Series of

330

Constitution of the Church. [a.D. 1305

Council of
Pisa,
1409 :

nedict XIII. (1394). Dismayed or scandalized by this
unseemly struggle, the more earnest members of the
Church1 now looked in every quarter for redress. At
length they seem to have been forced to a conclusion
that the schism was never likely to be healed, except by
the assembling of a general council2, which (in cases where
a reasonable doubt existed as to the validity of an election)
nearly all the theologians deemed superior to the pope.
The Council of Pisa3 was now summoned in this spirit
by the allied cardinals (1409), its object being to secure
the unity, and stimulate the reformation, of the Church.
During the sessions, which extended over many months
(March 25 — August 7), the rival pontiffs, on declining to
present themselves for judgment, were pronounced contu
macious (March 30), and at last were both formally de
posed4 (June 5) as guilty of schism, heresy, and perjury.
The choice of the electors now fell on Peter of Candia
(Alexander V.), who pledged himself to purify the Church5,
1 Others looked upon the question, it is true, in a very different man
ner, saying, 'nihil omnino curandum quot papa sint.' Bulaeus, Hist.
Univ. Paris, iv. 700.
2 Appeals had been occasionally made already to a general council in
the case where Roman absolutism was pecuUariy oppressive (see above,
p. 254) : but the coexistence of two rival pontiffs vying with each other in
the magnitude of their exactions, led men to discuss the subject far more
deeply. See, for instance, the remarkable treatise of Matthasus de Cra-
covia, bishop of Worms, entitled De Squaloribus Romana Curia (in
Walch, Moniment. Medii Mvi, I. 1—100, Gotting. 1757).
3 See Lenfant's Hist, du Concile de Pise, Amst. 1724: Mansi, xxvn.
1 sq. Among the very numerous prelates here assembled was Robert
Hallam, bishop of Salisbury, who took an active part in the proceedings,
and declared (April 30) that he had authority from the king of England
to consent to whatever the councU might determine for promoting unity :
Mansi, ib. 125.
4 'Christi nomine invocato, sancta et universalis synodus universalem
ecclesiam repraisentans, et ad quam cognitio et decisio hujus causa nos-
citur jjertinere. ..pronunciat...Angelum Corrario [i.e. Gregory XII.] et
Petrum de Luna [i. e. Benedict XIII.] de papatu contendentes et eorum
utrumque fuisse et esse notorios schismaticos, et antiqui schismatis
nutritpres, defensores,...necnon notorios haereticos et a fide devios,
notoriisque criminibus enormibus perjuru et violationis voti Uretitos,'
etc. On these grounds a definitive sentence is passed upon both,
inhibiting them 'ne eorum aliquis pro summo pontifice gerere se prae-
sumat,' etc.: Mansi, ib. 402: cf. Theodorio of Niem, De Schismate,
Ub. in. c. 44.
5 Lenfant, i. 290. See the discourse of Gerson, preached before
him, on this subject, in Gerson's Works, ed. Du Pin, n. 131. The text
was Acts i. 6 ; from which he urged the pope to reaUze (as far as might

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

331

in head and members ; but he died in the following year,
when Balthassar Cossa (John XXIIL), notoriously1 devoid
of principle, succeeded to his throne. So far, however,
was this council from allaying the religious conflicts of
the west, that for a time it only added fuel to the flames.
The whole of Spain and Scotland still adhered to Bene
dict ; and as the Roman candidate (Gregory XII.) was
not entirely unsupported, Christendom might gaze with
horror at the spectacle of three antagonistic popes. A
large majority, however, recognized the claim of John
XXIIL, upon the ground that he was nominated by the
lawful conclave who presided in the council of Pisa. But
this worthless pontiff afterwards consented, in an evil hour,
to summon all the western prelates to another general
council held at Constance (1414—1418), and intended, like
its predecessor, to eradicate abuses, and to heal the papal
schism2. The animus of the assemblage, numbering alto
gether eighteen thousand in ecclesiastics only', was dis
played in the first session (Nov. 16, 1414) ; where it was
determined4 that not only the prelates (bishops and abbots)
be) all the ends for which the Church of Christ was founded. But as
many prelates hastened to depart, the question of reform was after
wards postponed until the year 1412, when Alexander was to call another
council for that purpose ('reformare Ecclesiam in capite et in membris').
This delay was strongly censured by the ardent reformers, such as Nicho
las de Clemenges: see his Disputatio super materia Concilii Generalis
(written in 1416) : Opp. ed. Lydius, 1613, p. 70. It is true that a synod
was held at Rome in 1412, but, as the same writer complains (Ibid. p.
75), the time was merely wasted 'in rebus supervacuis nihilque ad utili-
tatem ecclesiae pertinentibus.'
1 Nicholas de Clemenges (ibid. p. 75) speaks of him in 1416 as
'Balthasar ille perfidissimus nuper e Petri sede (quam turpissime foeda-
vit) ejectus:' see the Life of him by Theodoric of Niem in Von der
Hardt's Concil. Constant. 11. 336 sq.: and cf. Dollinger, iv. 152.
2 See Lenfant's Hist, du Concile de Constance, Amst. 1727, and Von
der Hardt, Concil. Constant. 6 vols. Francof. 1700 (additional volume
containing Index by Bohnstedt, Berlin, 1742).
3 Dollinger, iv. 155. In the train of this assemblage followed, it is
said, no less than seven hundred 'muUeres communes.' See the statis
tical account of an eyewitness in Von der Hardt, v. pt. 11. pp. 10 sq.
4 The advocate of the inferior clergy was the cardinal Peter d'Ailly,
bishop of Cambray. See the whole discussion in Von der Hardt, 11.
224 sq. The Paris doctors, in suggesting the appeal to a general council
(1394), had aheady urged the importance of introducing doctors of theo
logy and law, or at least the representatives of cathedral chapters, mo
nastic orders, &c. The prelates, as a body, were considered too ilUterate
for the decision of so grave a point ('quia plures eorum, proh pudor!
hodie satis illiterati sunt ') : see Bulasus, Hist. Univ. Paris, iv. 690.

THE
PAPACY.

ineffectual in repress
ing schism.

Council of
Constance
(1414-1418).

332

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d. 1305

THE
PAPACY.

Vote by
' nations.'

Deposition
of John
XXIII.
1415.

but inferior clergy, proctors for the universities, and others,
not excluding jurists, should possess a deliberative voice.
The princes and ambassadors of Christian states might
also vote, except on articles of faith. And as Italian
prelates, who were numerous and devoted to the interest
of the pope, were not unlikely to impede the progress
of reform, if suffrages continued to be taken by the head,
it was arranged that ail the members of the council should
divide themselves into four 'nations1,' the Italian, German,
French, and English, each with equal rights, and that no
proposition should be carried till it was separately discussed
in all the nations, and then passed by a majority. En
trenched upon this vantage-ground, the members of the
synod wrung a promise2 of immediate abdication from
pope John himself, by whom they were convened, and
after he had violated his oath and fled3 to Schaffhausen
in disguise (March 21), they did not scruple to assert the
paramount authority of the council, citing him (May 2)
to appear before them, and at length completing his de
position4 (May 12, 1415). To these acts indeed they were
ostensibly impelled by a memorial5, charging him with
almost every species of depravity : but it is obvious that
the real cause of their antagonism was a desire to limit

1 See Lenfant, n. p. 45. After the renewed deposition of Benedict
XHI. (July 26, 1417), a Spanish 'nation' was added.
2 Von der Hardt, n. 240.
3 He hoped that in his absence nothing could be undertaken to his
detriment, and some of his adherents in the councU argued ' quod conci
lium dissolutum esset propter absentiam et recessum dicti Balthasaris.'
Theod. of Niem. Vit. Joh. XXIII. (as above), lib. n. c. 8.
4 After stating that he had persevered in evil courses ' post monitiones
debitas et caritativas,' and had shown himself altogether incorrigible,
they proceed : ' Eum dicta sancta synodus amovet, privat et deponit,
universos et singulos Christicolas, cujuscunque status dignitatis vel con-
ditionis existant, ab ejus obedientia, fidelitate et juramento, absolutos
declarando.' Von der Hardt, iv. 280; Mansi, xxvn. 716. In a former
session (March 30) they had declared: 'Quod ipsa Synodus in Spiritu
Sancto legitime congregata, generate conciUum faciens et ecclesiam
catholicam militantem reprassentans, potestatem a Christo immediate
habet, cui quilibet cujuscunque status vel dignitatis, etiamsi papalis,
existat, obedire tenetur in his, quae pertinent ad fidem et ad exstirpa-
tionem dicti schismatis, ac generalem reformationem Ecclesiae Dei in
capite et in membris.' Ibid. iv. 89; Mansi, ib. 585. On this ground
rest the famous ' GaUican Articles ' of 1682.
6 Theodorio of Niem, Vit. Joh. XXIII. lib. ii. c. 3: cf. Hallam,
Middle Ages, n. 240, 10th ed.

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

333

the supremacy of Rome and strangle the more daring of
the papal usurpations. Two of the conspicuous leaders
in the movement were Peter d'Ailly1 (de AUiaco) and John
Gerson2, who had been successive chancellors of the uni
versity of Paris. They had warmly advocated the as
sembling of the Pisan council; and at Constance, the
acute and fearless Gerson proved himself the soul of both
the anti-Roman and reforming parties.
Gregory XII. withdrew his claims (July 4, 1415), and
measures were adopted for displacing Benedict XIII., who
was accordingly degraded and deposed (July 26, 1417) 8.
In the forty-first session (Nov. 11, 1417), the cardinals,
assisted for this turn by prelates of the different nations,
elected a new pope. He took the style of Martin V.
His earliest promise was to expedite the general reforma
tion of the Church, a point on which the English, French,
and German4 deputies insisted strongly, and for which a
plan6 had been devised in the previous session; but ere
long the council was dissolved by his authority (April

1 See, for instance, his Monita de necessitate reformations ecclesia
(in Gerson, Opp. n. 885 sq. ed. Du Pin), or his treatise De difficultate
reformationis in Concilio universali (Ibid. 867 sq.).
2 His works on this subject are too numerous for recital (Opp. torn. n.
pt. n. passim). One of the most severe is entitled, De Modis uniendi ac
reformandi Ecclesiam in Concilio universali. For a review of this memo
rable treatise, see Neander, ix. 136. On the flight of the pope, Gerson,
in the name of the French ambassadors and the university of Paris,
preached an energetic sermon (March 23) affirming the absolute supe
riority of the CouncU (Opp. torn. n. pt. n. 201 sq.).
3 Von der Hardt, iv. 1373.
4 The Germans, backed by Sigismund, the king of the Romans, were
anxious to commence the work of reformation before they elected the
new pope: but on this point they finally gave way (Ibid. rv. 1394 sq.).
The foUowing is their protest (p. 1424) : ' Protestatur haac natio Germa-
nica coram Deo, tota curia coelesti, universali ecclesia et vobis, quod nisi
feceritis praamissa modo et ordine supra dictis, quod non per earn, sed
per vos stat, stetit et stabit, quominus sponsa Christi, sancta mater
ecclesia, suo Sponso inconvulsa, purior et immaculata reformetur, et
reformata ad perfectam reducatur unitatem.' As early as June 15, 1415,
a committee, termed the Reformation-college ('Reformatorium'), had
been organized. On its resolutions, see Lenfant, n. 309 sq.
6 Von der Hardt, rv. 1452. The points enumerated are nearly all of
a fiscal and disciplinary character. The one most ultimately bearing on
Christian doctrine is the question of indulgences, which in the time of
the papal schism had been sold or distributed at random (cf. Von der
Hardt, I. 1010).

Influence of
Gerson.

Election of
a new pope,
1417.

334

Constitution of the Church.

Tad, 1305

THE
PAPACY.

Meeting of
the Council
of Basel,
1431.Its leading
objects.

22, 1418) without proceeding to redress the scandalous
abuses1 on which Roman despotism was fed.
Arrangements had been made2, however, that a second
council should be gathered at the end of five years to
reconsider this gigantic task. It was convoked accord
ingly at Pavia (1423) by Martin V., who afterwards trans
ferred it to Siena, where the barren sessions were prolonged
into the following year. But owing to a further act of
prorogation nothing was effected till the western prelates
met at Basel (July 23, 1431), soon after the election of the
new pope, Eugenius IV. The objects of this great assem
blage8, as enumerated in the outset, were (1) to extirpate
all forms of heresy, (2) to reunite the Eastern and the
Western Churches, (3) to promote instruction in the truth,
(4) to check the wars then raging among Christian princes,
(5) to bring about a reformation of the Church in head
and members, (6) to re-establish, in so far as might be,
the severity of ancient discipline. The president was the
cardinal Juliano Cesarini4, who had been selected for that
office by Martin V. and confirmed in the appointment by
Eugenius IV. It was plain, however, that the anti-papal
spirit which prevailed at Constance had not ceased to
animate the western prelates, and accordingly the Roman
1 The only exceptions were a few decrees published March 21, 1418,
for restraining simony, &c. (Ibid. p. 1535.) The unsuccessful termina
tion of this council naturally shook men's faith in the probabUity of a
reformation; e.g. GobeUnus Persona, a German chronicler, writing at
the time (Cosmodromium, in Meibom. Rer. German. Script, i. 345, Helm-
asstad. 1688), complains as foUows: 'Ego quidem jam annis multis sta
tion pertractans Ecclesiae, per quern modum ad universalis ecclesiae
reformationem, scandaUs sublatis omnibus, pervenire posset curiosa
mente revolvi. Quern quidem modum Dominus fortasse ostendet, cum in
spiritu vehementi conteret naves Tharsis.' To abate the disaffection of
the states who were most anxious for the remedy of some inveterate
disorders, Martin entered into separate concordats with them, e.g. with
the EngUsh, in Von der Hardt, i. 1079 sq.
2 Von der Hardt, rv. 1546.
3 See aU the Acts and other documents relating to this council in
Mansi, xxix — xxxi.
4 He was at the time engaged in trying to reclaim the Hussites (in
Bohemia), and therefore opened the synod by means of two plenipoten
tiaries. In the following September he arrived at Basel; when he found
only a smaU muster of prelates. The mode of voting in this synod
differed from that which we have noticed at Constance. Here indeed, as
there, the members were divided into four sections ; but they were taken
indiscriminately from any province of the Church.

-1520

Constitution of the Church.

335

curia eyed them with suspicion and alarm1. On the 12th
of November, a bull was issued for transferring the council
to Bologna2, chiefly with the pretext that the Eastern
Church was favourable to re-union, and preferred to hold
their conference with the Latins in some town of Italy.
But, notwithstanding this abrupt decision of the pope,
the council of Basel, supported by the University of Paris8
and . emboldened by the arguments of Nicholas Cusanus4
(of Cues, in the diocese of Treves), proceeded with its
arduous work; and in the second session (Feb. 15, 1432)
did not hesitate to reaffirm the most extreme decrees of
Constance6, which subordinated all ecclesiastical authority
to that of universal synods. It was also now decided that
the council could not lawfully be transferred, dissolved,
or interrupted by any human power, without its own
deliberation and consent. Relying on the countenance of
Sigismund and other princes, the assembly warned, en
treated, and required Eugenius (April 29) to present him-
1 Capefigue, a consistent ultramontanist, sees the real ground of this
alarm: ' Je considere les concUes de Constance, de Bale, et la Pragma-
tique Sanction, comme les trois actes qui finissent le moyen £ge de
l'Eglise, en ebranlant la forte et sainte didature despapes:' n. 335.
a Eaynald. ad ari. 1431, §§ 20, 21.
3 See their Epistle, dated Feb. 9, 1432, in Bulaeus, Hist. Univ. Paris,
v. 412 sq. The university-men also acted the chief part in this assem
blage : cf. DoUinger, iv. 184, 207.
4 See his remarkable treatise, De Catholica Concordantia, written at
this time, and printed with his other numerous Works, Basil. 1565. He
afterwards (circ. 1437) went over to the papal side, and even did his
utmost to discredit the proceedings at Basel. In the work above quoted,
besides vindicating the supremacy of general councils, he threw suspi
cion on the Pseudo-Isidore decretals, the ' Donatio Constantini,' etc.
5 Mansi, xxix. 21. The president (Cardinal Juliano) felt himself
constrained to write two energetic letters to the pope, his patron, (in
Brown's Fasciculus, i. 54—67) deprecating the dissolution of the Council.
He points out that by denying its authority, the pope rejected the council
of Constance and ultimately destroyed his own title to the pontifical
chan (p. 64). The foUowing sentence is instructive: ' Si modo dissolva-
tur conciUum, nonne popuU Germaniai videntes se non solum destitutos
ab ecclesia, sed deceptos, concordabunt cum haereticis [meaning the Hus
sites] et fient nobis inimiciores quam Uli? Heu, Heu! quanta ista erit
confusio! finis pro certo est. Jam, ut video, securis ad radicem posita
est ' etc. p. 59. A like foreboding was expressed by a Spanish bishop,
Andreas de Escobar (1434), writing to the same cardinal Juliano (see his
Gubernaculum Conciliorum, in Von der Hardt, vi. 182): 'Et timendum
est. quod ante diem judicii et in brevi, nisi super earn [i.e. the Roman
Church] fiat reformatio et reparatio, desoletur et foras mittatur et ab
hominibus conculcetur.'

THE
PAPACY.
Hostility of
the pope.

Progress of
the strug
gle.

336

Constitution of the Church.

[a.d. 1305

The pope
declared
contumacious.

His tempo
rary recog
nition of
the council.

Departure
of his re
presenta tives.

self within three months1, or send accredited persons who
might give his sanction to the whole proceedings. Over
tures of peace ensued, and for a while accommodation did
not seem impossible : but in the following September, the
promoters of the council moved that both the pope and
cardinals should be pronounced contumacious, on the
ground that the obnoxious bull which they had published
for its dissolution was still unrevoked. At length the pope
could not resist the urgent prayers of Sigismund and other
advocates of peace : and as the council was now willing to
withdraw its threats and censures, representatives, who
swore2 (April 8, 1434) that they would faithfully adhere
to the decrees of Constance, and would labour to advance
the objects contemplated by the present meeting, were de
puted to attend in his behalf. But when, amid discussions
for reducing the pecuniary tribute3 to the pope (June 9,
1435), it was contended that in this respect he was amen
able to their control, his emissaries bitterly protested.
Other subjects of dispute arose continually, and in the
end the papal nuncios, Juliano4 with the rest, departed
from the council. After their retreat the pope was cen
sured even more emphatically for his backwardness in
carrying out the work of reformation6; and in person or

1 This threat was several times repeated, e.g. Sept. 6, 1432, Dec. 18,
1432, Feb. 19, 1433, Sept. 11, 1433. On Nov. 6, 1433 (the 14th session)
a new respite of three months was granted to Eugenius, and at the same
time were sent to him three forms of revocation. One of these he em
ployed soon after in annulling aU the buUs and other instruments which
he had issued against the countil. His letters to this effect were read
Feb. 5, 1434.
2 Mansi, xxix. 409. In the ensuing session (April 26) it was resolved
that the legates should be permitted to preside in the council only on
the condition that they should acknowledge their authority to be derived
entirely from the councU: Ibid. p. 90. The number of the prelates at
Basel was now about one hundred.
3 After abolishing first-fruits (Mansi, xxix. 104) it is added: 'Et si
(quod absit) Eomanus pontifex, qui pras caateris universalium conciUorum
exequi et custodire canones debet, adversus hanc sanctionem aliquid
faciendo ecclesiam scandalizet, generali Concilio deferatur.' This was
only one of a number of reforming acts which emanated from the council
subsequently to July 14, 1433. The last decisions of the kind were
made, Jan. 24, 1438 : see Mansi, xxix. 159.
4 He appears to have seceded in the twenty-fifth session (May 7,
1437), when his advice, touching certain Greek ambassadors who had
come over to negociate a union, was rejected by the council.
6 Mansi, xxix. 137 sq. They declared that nothing could induce him

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

337

by deputy was absolutely summoned to appear before the
council within sixty days. But feeling his position stronger1
than before, his tone was now proportionately changed.
Instead of yielding to the summons, he put forth a docu
ment (Sept. 18, 1437) in which he sought to stifle the
decrees of Basel, and urged the whole of Christendom to
meet him in a council at Ferrara. The new leader of the
Basel assembly was the cardinal I'Allemand2, archbishop
of Aries, who shewed himself unflinching in his struggles to
promote a reformation of the Church. On March 29, 1438, the
rival synod of Ferrara was condemned ; and all who had
frequented it, the pope himself among the number, excom
municated. In a later session he was formally deposed8
(June 25, 1439). Into the place of Eugenius (Nov. 17)
they elected an aristocratic hermit (formerly the duke of
Savoy) who reluctantly assumed4 the name of Felix V.
(July 24, 1440). But from this very date the cause of the
'reforming' (anti-papal) party manifestly drooped5. The

'ut aliquam morum emendationem Christo placentem, aut notissimo-
rum abusuum correctionem in ecclesia sancta Dei efficere satageret.'
1 When he yielded to the wish of Sigismund and others, and acknow
ledged the assembly at Basel, his territory was in a state of revolution,
and a prey to lawless condottieri (cf. Dollinger, iv. 188). This storm
had now blown over, and Eugenius strengthened himself by dispatching
nuncios to the several courts of Europe with his own ex-parte version of
the subjects in dispute.
2 Respecting him see Schrockh, xxxn. 65 sq. After the convoca
tion of the synod of Ferrara he was the only cardinal who remained at
Basel. 3 Mansi, xxix. 179. The synod decrees, ' Gabrielem prius nominatum
Eugenium papam IV. fuisse et esse notorium et manifestum contiima-
cem, mandatis seu praeceptis ecclesiae universaUs inobedientem et in
aperta rebellione persistentem,' etc. There was a small party at Basel,
headed by Tedeschi, archbishop of Palermo (Panormitanus), which at
tempted to avert this crisis by maintaining that inferior clerics who con
stituted a large majority should be deprived of then deUberative voice.
The bishops, it appears, were not disposed to go so far as the rest (cf.
DoUinger, rv. 201, 202). Tedeschi himseU, however, was a warm ad
herent of the councU generally. See his work in favour of it (1439) in
Mansi, xxxi. 205 sq. An answer was put forth by Johannes de Turre-
cremata, entitled Summa de Ecclesia, ed. Venet. 1561.
4 See the Letter of JSneas Sylvius (August 13, 1440), giving an ac
count of the coronation of Felix, in Brown's Fasciculus, I. 52—54. Felix
was, however, recognized only in Savoy, Switzerland, Bavaria and some
other parts of Germany.
5 This was proved by the secession of the more influential members
from the council. See the (one-sided) account of Johannes de Polemar

THE
PAPACY.

His bull
convening a
fresh coun
cil.

Counter
movement at Basel.

of the pope.

M.A.

Z

338

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1305

General re
action in
his favour.

PragmaticSanction of
1438,

finally ex
changed
flora Concordat.

empire, Spain, and France were, for the most part, neutral,
not renouncing their connexion with Eugenius, while they
inconsistently professed to recognize the legitimacy of the
council of Basel. The English people, with some others,
took his side more warmly, and sent deputies to Florence,
whither his new council of Ferrara was translated (1439).
So vast indeed was the discomfiture now suffered by his
adversaries, that upon the abdication of Felix V., ten
years later, all attempts to limit his supremacy and purify
the west of Christendom, by means of universal synods,
were abandoned in despair.
The only country, where the principles which had been
advocated in those synods gained a lasting hold upon
the rulers both in Church and State, was France. In
what is known as the Pragmatic Sanction1 of Bourges,
enacted under Charles VII. (1438), it was maintained dis
tinctly, with some other kindred points, all adverse to the
ultramontane claims, that General Councils are superior
to the pope. This edict, which for half a century became
the great palladium of the liberties of France, was after
wards "repealed by Louis XI. for diplomatic reasons ; but
as the Parisian parliament would not register his act,
the ' Sanction ' kept its ground until it was supplanted by
a new concordat in the time of Francis I.2 (1516).
(1443), in Mansi, xxxi. 197 sq.; iEneas Sylvius, Descriptio Germania, c.
10; and HaUam, Middle Ages, ii. 244, 10th ed.
1 Cf. above, p. 253 : Gieseler, iv. pp. 369, 370. A history of this
document is contained in the first volume of the well-known Traitez des
Droits et Libertez de VEglise Gallicane. Pope Pius II. said of it : ' The
bishop of Rome, whose diocese is the world, has no more jurisdiction
in France, than what the parUament is pleased to aUow him.' Ranke,
Hist, of France, i. 78, Lond. 1852. In Germany the pope (Nicholas V.)
was able to obtain more copious concessions. The 'concordat of As-
chaffenburg' (July, 1447), confirmed at Vienna (Feb. 17, 1448), replaced
him nearly on his former ground (cf. above, p. 334, n. 1, and Gieseler,
iv. p. 345). To the excesses which the Roman court afterwards com
mitted we must trace the Gravamina of 1461, in Waleh. Moniment. Med.
JEvi, i. 101 sq., and the memorable Centum Gravamina drawn up by the
German princes in 1522.
2 HaUam, as above, p. 252. The foUowing is the entry of the learned
chronicler Genebrard (Chronograph. Paris, 1580), relating to this sub
ject: 'Anno 1516 abrogata est in GallUs Pragmatica Sanctio, et Con-
cordata, ut yocant, substituuntur, fremente universo clero, scholasticis
populo, bonis denique et dodis omnibus.' For the vigorous Appellatio of
the University of Paris, reaffirming the principles laid down at the coun
cU of Basel, see Brown's Fascic. i. 68 — 71.

-1520]

Constitution of the Church.

339

Amid the lull which rested on the surface of the Church
at large for more than half a century anterior to the
Reformation, the cupidity of Rome was far more generally
confined within the papal states and their immediate circle1.
Nearly all the line of pontiffs, Nicholas V. (1447), Ca
lixtus III. (1455), Pius II. or iEneas Sylvius2 (1458),
Paul II. "(1464), Sixtus IV. (1471), Innocent VIII. (1484),
Alexander VI. (1492), Pius III.8 (1503), Julius II. (1503),
and Leo X.4 (1513 — 1522), betrayed increasing love of
pomp and worldly pleasures. Nepotism was the prevailing
motive in their distribution of preferment, while the taxes
of their chancery rose from day to day6. Too many also
played a leading part in base political intrigues, which,
even if successful, tended to destroy the influence and
discredit the pretensions of the hierarchy at large. Nor
may we pass in silence the appalling profligacy which
too often stained the reputation of these later pontiffs,
more particularly that of Alexander VI.6, who is perhaps
unequalled in the history of mediaeval crime, except by
Csesar Borgia, his son An effort, it is true, was made
1 Eanke, Popes during the 16th and VJth centuries (Bohn's ed.), i. § 4.
pp. 25 sq. Sixtus IV. was the first to carry out this line of politics, and
even favoured the conspiracy which led to the attempted assassination of
Lorenzo dei Medici on the steps of the high-altar in the cathedral of
Florence. 'Abuse foUowed abuse, and a dangerous confusion in the
ideas of men on the nature of the ecclesiastical power and on the true
position of the pope was the natural consequence. ' Dollinger, iv. 220.
2 He was formerly.devoted to the anti-papal cause (see his important
Commentarius de Gestis Basiliensis Concilii, in Brown's Fascic. I. 1 — 51),
but under the influence of the great reaction that ensued, he joined the
party of Nicholas V., and received a cardinal's hat from Calixtus III.
(1456). He died of grief (1464) on finding that he could not stir the
Church to join him in driving back the Turks who had now taken Con
stantinople (May 29, 1453), and occupied Bosnia and Slavonia. See the
unsparing Life of him in Platina, Vit. Pontif. Roman., and a more favour
able one by Campani, in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. in. pt. n. 967 sq.
His own Epistola (often printed) are the test original authority.
3 The first word of this pope after his election (1503) was 'Reforma
tion.' He died in twenty-six days. Dollinger, rv. 229.
4 On the part taken by this pontiff at the outset of the Reformation,
see Eoscoe's Life and Pontificate of Leo X., chap. xv.
6 Ranke, p. 43. DoUinger (at the time of writing, an ultramontanist)
is on these subjects too impartial for his EngUsh translator: see note
at p. 228.
6 WeU might the cry be uttered that the pope was now preparing the
way for Antichrist; and that he laboured to promote the coming of the
kingdom, not of heaven, but of Satan. Ranke, i. 39.
Z2

THE
PAPACY.

Restrictionof the influ
ence of the
popes:

their secu
larity,

and profli
gacy.

34Q

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D.1305

Bishops of
the period.

under iEneas Sylvius1 and Julius II* to resuscitate the
Hildebrandine principles, and in the council of Lateran2
(1512 — 1517) that effort was in part rewarded when the
French, who had been hitherto the chief antagonists ot
ultra-papal claims, consented to abandon the Pragmatic
Sanction8 : yet, meanwhile, a different class of spirits
breaking in tumultuously upon the guilty slumbers of
the conclave, had begun to wrench away the time-worn
pillars on which Roman despotism was reared.
The other prelates of the west maintained their old
relations to the papacy, with the exception that the lessen
ing of its influence often added to the magnitude of theirs.
This happened more especially throughout the forty-years'
schism4. The pallium was, however, still procured by all
the metropolitans : the Roman legate, where the office was
not held by one of them, enjoyed precedence in eccle
siastical assemblies, and in cases where no obstacle6 was
1 See, for instance, his Bulla Retradationum (April 26, 1463; Ray
nald. ad an. § 114 sq.), in which he maintains that the pope has received
supreme power over the whole Church directly from Christ Himself, and
that aU other ministers are his delegates ('per ordinem in omnem dif-
fundit ecclesiam'). He assaUed the French 'Pragmatic Sanction,' but
Charles VII. (1460) met him by appealing to a general councU: see
Preuves des Libertez de VEglise Gallicane, c. xin. § 10.
* It is of him MacchiaveUi says (Eanke, i. 42) that ' time was, when
no baron was so insignificant, but that he might venture to brave the
papal power; now, it is regarded with respect even by a king of France.'
2 Labbe, xiv. 1 — 346. In the year preceding the convocation of this
synod, Louis XII. of France, quarrelling with pope JuUus II., had insti
gated some of the cardinals to caU a council at Pisa (Labbe, xin. 1486 sq.).
It met for several months (Nov. 1, 1511 — April 21, 1512), and in the last
session ventured to suspend the pope: but its members were then dis
persed and nothing came of their denunciations. Louis XII. in the
course of this dispute struck a coin with the legend 'Perdam Babylonis
nomen:' see Thuanus (De Thou), Hist. i. 11.
3 See above, p. 338, n. 2. 'La Pragmatique, veritable source de
schisme et d'here'sie, fut heureusement revoquee par Louis XI.' Cape
figue, n. 335 (note).
4 Above, p. 328. On the other hand the growing system of papal
'provisions' (cf. above, p. 322, n. 3) tended to deprive them of a large
portion of their former influence. This was confessed by Martin V.
(1418), in striving to remedy some of the abuses generated by his pre
decessors, who exempted ' ecclesias, monasteria, capitula, conventus, pri-
oratus, et personaB ' from the jurisdiction of the bishops ' in grave ipsorum
Ordinariorum prasjudicium :' Von der Hardt, iv. 1535.
6 Such obstacles, however, did continuaUy arise; e.g. in England,
when Henry Beaufort, bishop of Wmchester, was constituted legate by
Martin V. (1426), he was admitted to the counsels of the sovereign only

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

34*

made by kings and parliaments his influence was su
preme. Appeals were also not unfrequently transferred
from the diocesan and the provincial courts to what was
deemed the chief tribunal of the west : but on this subject
we observe a corresponding jealousy among the legislative
bodies1. In appointing bishops there was much variety of usage,
as the papal or imperial interest predominated. Theo
retically every prelate was to be elected2, in accordance
with the ancient laws, and one of the most urgent stipu
lations of the council of Basel (July 14, 1433) related to
this subject. It was meant to counteract encroachments8
both of Rome and of the civil power. According to the
German compact, made in 1448, these free elections4 were
to be continued, the appointment of a prelate lapsing to
the pope, if the capitular election were not made within
the legal time. But, for the most part, it is obvious that
the crown was very loath to acquiesce in such arrange
ments, and contrived, while bent on humbling papal arro
gance, to fix the right of nominating to the bishoprics and
higher benefices absolutely in itself5. The French con-
on the condition, 'quod quotiens aUqua, materiae, causa?, vel negotia
ipsum dominum regem aut regna seu dominia sua ex parte una, ac sedem
apostoUcam ex parte altera concernentia .... idem cardinaUs se ab
hujusmodi consilio absentet, et communicationi eorundem, causarum,
materiarum, et negotiorum non intersit quovis modo,' etc., Rot. Pari. 8°
Hen. VI. u. 17. It is also worth observing that a charge brought against
Wolsey was, that as legate he had transgressed the ' statute of Praemurure '
(see above, p. 328, n. 4), by receiving buUs from Rome and acting on
them without the king's leave. See the Articles against him in Herbert's
Hist, of Henry VIII. pp. 294 sq. Lond. 1672.
1 Cf. Twysden, Vindication of the Church, pp. 51 sq. Camb. ed.
2 Above, pp. 151, 152, 237.
3 See Sess. xn. ; Mansi, xxix. 61: 'Decretum de electionibus et con-
nrmationibus episcoporum «et praelatorum. ' The prelates had then eye
especially on the very numerous 'reservations' (electiones expectandaa)
made by the pope in favour of some candidate of his own: but they
proceed to exhort princes also to abstain from superseding, or inter
meddling with, capitular elections. This indeed is only one of the mea
sures they originated for securing the independence -of the episcopate.
Their president (the cardinal archbishop of Aries), after declaring that
modern bishops were -mere shadows ('umbrae quaedam'), superior to the
presbyters only 'habitu et reditibus,' goes on to state: 'At nos eos in
Btatu reposuimus pristino...nos eos, qui jam non erant episcopi, fecimus
episcopos.' iEn. Sylvius, de Concil. Basil, (in Brown's Fascic. i. 23).
- 4 Schrockh, xxxn. 164, 165.
6 Ranke, Popes, i. 31. The flagrant instances, that now meet us, of

OTHEB
BRANCHES OE THE
HIERAR CHY.

Their ap
pointment :

342

Constitution of the Church.

[A.D. 1305

OTHER
BRANCHES OP THE
HIERAR CHY.
often made
by the
Crown.

A ttempted
reformation by
means of
diocesan

cordat, for example, which restored the annates and some
other privileges to Leo X., secured this right to Francis, —
the nominee, however, being pledged to seek collation from
the pope: and in this country, more particularly during
the reign of Henry VII., the power of filling up the vacant
sees had generally devolved upon the crown, which also
was appropriating to itself one-half of the annates. Every
where, indeed, the civil governments of Europe had be
come possessed of what were long regarded as ecclesiastical
prerogatives. The secular element in the Church was
threatening to suppress the spiritual or hierarchic, and
accordingly throughout the earlier stages of the Refor
mation we shall have to notice the confusion of ideas
which this new ascendancy produced1.
In the attempt to reinvigorate episcopacy the council
of Basel enjoined (Nov. 25, 1433) that each bishop should
hold a diocesan synod once at least every year2, and by
his presence labour to advance the reformation both of
pastors and of flocks. But owing to his sad unfitness,
intellectual and moral, or his livelong absence8 from the
sphere to which his energies were due, the bishop very
seldom gave effect to this injunction. It is true that fine
exceptions are not absolutely wanting, but the bishops for
episcopal pluralities, are traceable, at least in some degree, to this dicta
tion of the crown. Thus, the royal favourite Wolsey at the close of the
present period was farming on easy terms the bishoprics of Bath, Wor
cester, and Hereford, the real owners being absentees: he also gained
successively the bishoprics of Durham and Winchester, contriving to
keep one of them along with his archbishopric : he also held in com-
mendam the abbey of St Alban's and many other pieces of ecclesiastical
preferment, besides enjoying the virtual patronage of most of the vacant
benefices. Herbert, Hist, of Henry VIII. p. 57.
1 See the just remarks on this point by Bp. EusseU, Church in Scot
land, i. 164, 165. The royal intermeddling jpith conventual and other
church-property had in England begun some time before the Reforma
tion; e.g. several monasteries were suppressed by Wolsey with the con
sent both of the king and the pope. Herbert's Hist, of Henry VIII., pp.
146, 147, 163, 164, 251.
2 Sess. xv. : 'Ad minus semel in anno ubi non est consuetudo bis
annuatim celebrari.' Provincial synods were also ordered to assemble at
least every third year, and in England we occasionaUylneet with a hst
of 'Reformanda in convocatione cleri;' e. g. a.d. 1444, Wilkins, in. 540.
3 'Multi ex eia qui pastoraU apice potiuntur, perque annosa tempora
potiti sunt, nunquam civitates suas intraverunt, suas ecclesias viderunt,
sua loca vel diceceses visitaverunt,' etc. Nicholas de Clemenges, De cor-
rupto Ecclesia Statu: Brown's Fascic. n. 562. Passages might be multi-

—15201

Constitution of the Church.

343

the most part had grown ignorant, idle, and sensual, or
were often occupied exclusively in search of honours and
emoluments that bound them to the earth1.
The monks, as we have seen already2, gorged with the
ecclesiastical endowments, lost the moral elevation3 they
had shewn throughout the early periods of the Church,
and with it forfeited their hold on the affections of the
people. Except the order of Carthusians4 none of them
adhered to the letter of their institute. Their intellectual
vigour at the same time underwent a corresponding de
terioration, insomuch that few if any works of merit, either
in the field of science or in that of theology, proceeded in
plied to the same effect, especially in reference to those cases where the
pope presented his own courtiers to the foreign sees.
1 e.g. in the Defensor Pads (above quoted p. 324) wo have the fol
lowing complaint : ' Nunc vero propter regiminis corruptionem plurima
pars sacerdotum et episcoporum in sacra Scriptura periti sunt parum, et
si dicere liceat insufficienter ; eo quod temporalia beneficiorum, quae
assequuntur officiosi, ambitiosi, cupidi, et causidici quidam obtinere
volunt et obtinent obsequio, prece vel pretio vel sasculari potentia;' p.
258: cf. the frightful picture of the Spanish prelates, at the close of this
period, drawn by the Dominican Pablo de Leon in his Guia del Cielo
(extracts in De Castro, Spanish Protestants, Lond. 1851, pp. xxv. sq.).
He traces many of the evils to the vile example of the Roman court,
p. xxix. Other evidence is furnished by the decrees of the 'Reformation-
college' at Constance: see Lenfant: Uv. vn. s. 42 sq. John Sturmius
(ad Cardinales delectos; Argentor. 1538) asserts: 'Per Germaniam in
maximo numero episcoporum nullus est, qui, si canonum autoritas resti-
tuta esset, locum suum tueri possit. In GaUia quoque pauci sunt, sed
tamen ilia felicior est quam Germania. De ItaUa nihil affirmare possum.
AngUa sola est quae exemplo esse possit.'
2 Above, p. 230. The Spanish writer, above quoted, while acknow
ledging that good and holy monks existed, urges their inconvenient
wealth as a reason for some change. ' If left alone,' he says, ' every
thing wiU very soon belong to the monasteries,' p. xx.
3 See Nicholas de Clemenges (as above), p. 564. The same writer is
equally severe in speaking of the nuns. He says that their convents
were not 'Dei sanctuaria, sed Veneris execranda prostibula' (p. 566).
And Gerson more than once advances the same charge ; e.g. in a sermon
preached before the council of Constance he declares, ' Et utinam nulla
sint monasteria muUerum quaa facta sunt prostibula meretricum ; et pro-
hibeat adhuc deteriora Deus.' Opp. n. 550, ed. Dupin. The persecutions
to which a nun of the stricter sort was subject are graphically described
in a MS. belonging to the University of Cambridge (Dd. I. p. 372). The
usages of a weU-ordered nunnery are minutely described in the ' Ancren
Riwle' (Camd. Soc. 1853), ed. Morton.
4 See the contemporary work of John Buschius, De reformatione mo-
nasteriorum, Lib. in. o. 32 (in Leibnitz's Scriptores Brunsv. n. 935). A
healthier impulse was, however, given at the close of the 14th century to
monasticism in Russia, by Sergius of Eostoff, on whom see Mouravieff,
pp. 61 sq. and notes.

OTHER
BRANCHES OF THE
HIERAR CHY.
Degeneracy
of the
monks.

344

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1305

OTHER
BRANCHES OE THE
HIERAR CHY.

Efforts to
reform them.

New Con
gregations.

The condi
tion of the
Friars.

this age from cloisters of the west. The councils of Con
stance1 and Basel2, in their endeavours to brace up monas
tic discipline afresh, produced some transitory changes, by
insisting on the need of reformation and by authorizing
a commission of inquiry into many of the German con
vents. But in spite of these remedial measures we are
bound to argue, from complaints which rise in every
quarter, that monasticism had grown almost incorrigible and
was ripening daily for the scythe. As in the former period,
numerous congregations, separating one by one from the
degenerate Benedictines, organized themselves in fresh
societies. Of these the principal were (1417) the congre
gation of S. Justina3, to which was afterwards united that
of Monte Cassino. Offshoots4, in like manner, such as the
Bernardines (1497), grew out of the Cistercian order.
While the monks had thus degenerated step by step,
the Mendicants retained their former influence. The great
bulk of the religious endowments were now lavished upon
them, until they rivalled the Establishment which they
had bitterly attacked, in the magnificence of their foun
dations and the freedom of their mode of life6. Confiding
in the patronage of popes6, of kings*, and noble ladies,
1 On the orders made by the ' Reformation-coUege ' at Constance, see
Lenfant, Uv. vn. s. 55.
2 See Buschius, as above, pp. 476 sq., and elsewhere.
3 Helyot, Hist, des Ordres Relig. vi. 230 sq. Paris, 1714. The rise of
other confraternities is mentioned in the same place.
4 Ibid. v. 56 sq. The Spanish ' Order of the Hieronymites' (hermits)
had been founded as early as 1370 ; but they were at first devoted to the
so-caUed rule of St Augustine. In 1424 they adopted another : see Hol-
stein's Codex, in. 43 sq. ; and Stirling's Cloister-Life of the Emperor
Charles V., pp. 77, 78.
5 See Nicholas de Clemenges, as above, pp. 564, 565 ; The Vision of
William concerning Piers the Plowman (by WilUam Langland, about
1362), ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1869; The Creed of Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat,
London, 1867; and a still earUer satire On the Times of Edw. II., edited
by the present writer for the Percy Society, No. lxxxii. The author of
the latter poem attacks the vices prevalent among aU classes of the com
munity, especiaUy the 'Menours [Franciscans] and Jacobyn' [Domini
cans], Cannes [CarmeUtes], and Friars of what was caUed the order of
St Augustine : stan. 30 sq. In this particular he was a precursor of
WycUffe, on whose controversy with the Mendicants, see Vaughan's Life,
pp. 82 sq., ed. 1853.
6 e. g. Sixtus IV. (himself a Franciscan) granted them enormous
privileges in a bull entitled Mare Magnum (Aug. 31, 1474), which was
confirmed in the 'Bulla Aurea' (July 26, 1479). The parish-priest who
resisted them was threatened with the loss of his benefice. See the

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

345

they were able to surmount the opposition1 of the Uni
versities and the parochial clergy, who regarded them with
mingled fear, abhorrence, and contempt. In spite of mu
tual jealousies and altercations2, the four leading orders
of Mendicants3 (Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and
Augustinians) held themselves together4 and were almost
absolute in the administration of the Western Church.
Their learning and activity prevented them from forfeiting
this prominent position, till the latter half of the fifteenth
century, when all of them put forth the symptoms of
decay6. While the Dominicans had been employed especially in
Bullarium Romanum, m. 3, 139. The subject was reopened in the 11th
session of the council of Lateran (Dec. 19, 1516).
* See Turner's Middle Ages, in. 115 sq. The EngUsh Franciscans
were most favoured by gentlewomen, the Dominicans by the nuns. Ibid.
116. 1 Cf. above, pp. 233, 234. Pope John XXII. (Extravagantes Communes,
Ub. v., tit. Ui. c. 2, in Corp. Jur. Canon.) took the side (1321) of the
Friars against a doctor of the Sorbonne (J. de PoUaco) ; but the Sorbonne
gained a victory in 1409 ; Bulaeus, Hist. Univ. Paris, v. 189 : cf . v. 522 sq.
In Brown's Fascic. (n. 466 — 486) will be found a Defensorium Curatorum
contra privilegiatos (1357), by Eichard, archbishop of Armagh, who spent
some years at Avignon, striving to interest the pope in favour of the
parish-priests. The convocation of York (1466), under archbishop Nevil,
condemned those Friars ('pardoners'), who went about raising funds by
proaching (or seUing) indulgences, in the name of the pope and other
bishops : Johnson, English Canons, n. 521, 522.
2 Cf. above, p. 233, and see Warton's Engl. Poetry, n. 87 sq., ed.
1840, 8 Or, as they were now severaUy termed, the grey-friars, the black-
friars, the white-friars, and the Austin-friars.
4 Thus when they were attacked by the archbishop of Armagh (above,
n. 1), the cause of all the four orders was defended in common: see Tri-
themius (John of Trittenheim), Annal. Hirsaug. n. 245.
6 Such was plainly the case in England (see Warton, Lbid. pp. 92, 93).
The CarmeUtes, who were once conspicuous in repelling Lollardism
(Turner, m. 122), had lost their reputation both for scholarship and
orthodoxy about 1460 ; and some time before, the Augustinians had ruined
then cause by preaching seditious sermons. When Leland (cire. 1540)
visited the ancient seat of the Franciscans at Oxford, he found in the
Ubrary Uttle more than empty shelves covered with dust and cobwebs
(' inveni etiam et Ubros, sed quos tribus oboUs non emerem'). The Ob
servants (1425) were a reformed Order of Franciscans. The influence of
the Mendicants was great, however, even at the end of the present
period: for Erasmus (Epist. cccclxxvii., Opp. in. 515, ed. Lugd. Batav.
1703) declares that the world was then, among other evils, groaning
under ' tyrannide Fratrum Mendicantium, qui cum sint sateUites sedis
RomanaB, tamen eo potentiae ac multitudinis evadunt, ut ipsi Eomano
pontifici atque ipsis adeo regibus sint formidabUes.'

OTHER
BRANCHES OE THE
HIERAR CHY.

Their even
tual de
cline.

?46

Constitution of the Church. [a.d. 1305

OTHER
BRANCHES OF THE
HIERAR CHY.

Aberra tions of one
school of
Minorites.

Friars-Regular. The
Beghards andLollards.

counteracting misbelief and guiding the machinery of the
Inquisition, an important school of the Franciscans, as we
noticed on a former page1, were hostile to the see of Rome.
The feeling which had prompted that hostility was equally
aroused by other branches of the Church- establishment.
In union with the Beghards2, they continued to maintain
that truly ' spiritual ' persons would subsist exclusively on
alms, that personal tithes were not due to the parochial
clergy save by usage, and that deadly sin was fatal to
the sacerdotal character3. They also propagated the
Apocalyptic theories of earlier times4, and one at least of
their sodality laid claim to the prophetic office6. The
more sober still adhered to the communion of the Church,
reverting to the letter of their institute, and finally ob
taining the approbation of the council of Constance6 (1415).
As distinguished from the laxer or conventual school of
the Franciscans, they were called Friars-Regular.
But other groups, in which the Beghard influence7
seems to have preponderated, now appeared in many
countries of the west, especially in Flanders and some
parts of Germany. One section of them, notwithstanding
the indiscriminate censures8 of pope Clement V., had mani
fested no desire to vary from the general teaching of the
Church. They were religious brotherhoods and sister-
1 Above, p. 324.
2 Above, p. 235. They were condemned by John XXTI. in 1317
(Extravagantes Johan. XXII. tit. vn., in Corp. Jur. Canon.) , who declares
that very many of them are persons, who ' a veritate CathoUcas fidei
deviantes, ecclesiastica sacramenta despiciunt ac errores aUos student
multipUciter seminare.' Many of this class feU a prey to the Inquisition :
cf. a contemporary account in Baluze, Vit. Pap. Avenion. I. 598.
3 See, for instance, the proceedings against WiUiam Russell and
other English Franciscans, in Wilkins, in. 433 sq.
4 Above, pp. 332, 333. The Postilla of Oliva were still most popular
among them. The Church of Rome was Babylon, the ' meretrix magna;'
John XXII. was ' mysticus Antichristus, praeparator vias majoris Ahti-
christi, ' etc. See the Liber Sententiarum, p. 304, annexed to Limborch's
Hist. Inquisitionis.
5 See the Copia Prophetia Fratris Joh. de Rupescissa, etc. in Brown's
Fascic. n. 494 sq. For other light on this interesting subject, consult
Dr Maitland's Eight Essays (1852), pp. 206 sq.
6 Von der Hardt, iv. 515.
7 See above, p. 235, and Mosheim, as there quoted, pp. 244 sq.
8 e.g. Clementin. Constit. lib. in. tit. xi. c. i. John XXII., on the
contrary, in 1318, took the females commonly caUed Beghince under his
protection. Mosheim, Ibid. pp. 627 aq.

-1520]

Constitution of the Church.

347

hoods distinguished for their zeal in visiting the sick, or, in
the case of those to whom the name of Lollards1 (Lullards)
was now popularly given, for singing at the funerals and
for otherwise assisting in the burial of the dead. But
it would seem that the title ' Lollard,' like the older one
of Beghard, or Beguin, was at an early date synonymous
with heretic2, although the bearers8 of them both were
shielded, now and then at least, from the Inquisitor by
missives of succeeding popes.
Another confraternity, which ran the risk of being con
founded with the Beghards, owed their origin to Gerhard
Groot4, a clergyman of Deventer, at the middle of the
fourteenth century. They soon expanded, under the able
patronage of the reformed 'canons of Windesheim,' into
an order called the ' Fratres Vitae Communis ;' and while
elevating in some degree the tone of personal religion,
they contributed6 to the more careful training both of
1 As early as the year 1309, we read of ' quidam hypocritaa gyrovagi,
qui LoUardi, sive Deum laudantes, vocabantur,' in the neighbourhood
of Liege: see the Gest. Pontiff. Leod. Script, ed. Chapeaville, n. 350.
The derivation thus suggested is from the German lullen ( = 'lull'),
referring to the plaintive melody employed by them at funerals: cf.
GieBeler, rv. p. 159, n.4, and Maitland as above, p. 204. A ballad on Sir
John Oldcastle, quoted by Turner (in. 144, note), appears to connect
'Lollardrie' with an EngUsh verb 'loUe.' See also HaUiwell, Arch.
Diet. s.v. ' Lollards.'
2 See the last extract. In 1408, archbp. Arundel declares in his
Constitutions against the LoUards (§ 10) that his province (of Canter
bury) was ' infected with new unprofitable doctrines, and blemished
with the new damnable brand of Lollardy' (Johnson, n. 470), which
implies that the name was then somewhat fresh in England.
3 Thus Boniface IX. (1395) recaUs the exemptions which had been
granted to persons of either sex (' vulgo Beghardi, seu Lullardi et Zues-
triones, a se ipsis vero pauperes FratricelU seu pauperes pueruli nomi-
nati' by himseU or his predecessors, on the ground that heresies were
lurking in the institute. Mosheim, as above, p. 409.
4 See the deeply interesting Life of him by Thomas a Kempis (d. 1471)
in the Works of the latter, in. 3 sq. , ed. Colon. ; and a Chronicon (circ.
1465) of the canons of Windesheim by one of their number, Joh. Bu-
schius, ed. Antverp. 1621. This order had to defend themselves against
a virulent attack of a Saxon Dominican (Ibid. pp. 547 sq.), and were
supported by the leading men at the council of Constance. Lenfant,
Hist, du Concile, Uv. vi. §§ 64 sq. One of the grounds of objection to
them was that they lived together without adopting monastic vows.
They were afterwards protected for a time by Eugenius IV. (Mosheim,
as above, pp. 668 sq.): but numbers, through their stroDg resemblance to
the Beghards, were at last compelled to seek a shelter in the tertiary
estate of the Franciscans (cf. above, p. 232).
5 Their chronicler Buschius (as above, n. 4) asks with justice (p. 214) :

OTHER
PRANCHES OF THE
HIERAR CHY.

Common-
Life Cle
rics.

348

Constitution of the Church. [A.D. 1305

OTHER
BRANCHES OP THE
HIERAR CHY.

racy of the
clerics.

laymen and ecclesiastics in the North of Europe. _ One of
their most holy luminaries was Thomas a Kempis1, who
died in 1471.
It may be safely stated that the 'working' (parish)
clergy had never been so debased as at the close of the
present period. The corruptions we have marked already2
were now threatening day by day to leaven all the lump.
In Germany' and Spain4 particularly, their unblushing
licence, covetousness, pride, and secularity exposed them
to the hatred of their flocks and to the satire of the whole
community. Relieved on one side by exemptions from
the jurisdiction of the civil courts, and on the other by
the intermeddling zeal of Friars, on whom the actual cure
of souls had very frequently devolved, they sank into
luxurious ease and abject ignorance, or confined them
selves to the mechanical performance of their sacred
duties in the Church. Unchastity, the fruit of a mis-
' Quantae in saeculo sunt personaB sexus utriusque, quae amicitia his
conjunctae a saecuU vanitate per eas [congregationes] conversae, et ad
mehora... ipsarum exemplo inductee et provocate, quamvis ad omnia
evangelica consiUa statim arripienda propter multa impedimenta non-
dura dare se valent, vitam tamen sanctam a peccatis aUenam, ad earum
informationem student observare, quis enumerabit?' Their scholastic
and other institutions are described at length by Delprat, Verhandeling
over de Broederschap van G. Groote, Utrecht, 1830 (translated into Ger
man, with additions, by Mohnike, Leipz. 1840).
1 It has been disputed whether the De Imitatione Christi is to be
classed among his warm-hearted writings (some assigning it to abbot
Gersen, and others to Gerson, the ChanceUor of Paris), but the evidence,
external and internal, seems to point him out as the real author: cf.
Gieseler, v. 73, 74, n. 12.
2 Above, pp. 240, 241.
3 e.g. The cardinal Cesarini (above, p. 335) makes the following
report to Eugenius IV.: 'Incitavit etiam me hue venne [i.e. to the
reforming council of Basel] deformitas et dissolutio cleri Alemanniae, ex
qua laici supra modum irritantur adversus statum ecclesiasticum. Propter
quod valde timendum est, nisi se emendent, ne laici, more Hussitarum,
in totum clerum irruant, ut publice dicunt :' in Brown's Fascic. i. 56.
4 See especiaUy De Castro's Spanish Protestants, pp. xvi. sq. Lond.
1851, and the original authorities there mentioned. The foUowing pro
verb is a sample :
" Clerigo, fraUe <5 judio
"No lo tengas por amigo." p. xxxvn. For England the evidence
that might be cited is overwhelming. Gower, for instance, who de
nounced 'Antichristes LoUardes,' is in the Vox Clamantis a stern censor
of the vicious clergy. See the Preface : ed. by Mr Coxe for the Box-
burgh Club, 1850. In this point he quite agrees with Wycliffe. The
author of metrical Sermons [? Richard of Hampole], in the Camb. Univ.
MSS., Dd. i. pp. 188, 189, 283, has fine passages on the same subject.

—1520]

Constitution of the Church.

349

guided rigour in ecclesiastical legislation, had been long
the darkest blot upon their characters, and in the four
teenth and fifteenth centuries the proofs that it went
on increasing are most lamentably rife. It had infected
all the clerical estate, but seems to have been more espe
cially notorious in cathedral-canons1.
To eradicate these old and ulcerating evils was a leading
object in the great reformatory councils of Constance and
Basel. One proposition there advanced was to annul the
law enforcing celibacy2; but the common feeling, that of
Gerson8 with the rest, continued to incline the other way.
The ' concubinary ' priests (intending also by that name
the clerics who might have been secretly married) were
condemned with special emphasis at Basel4 (Jan. 22, 1435).
On their conviction they were sentenced, after a brief
respite, to the loss of their benefices, and in case of new
offences made incapable at any future time of holding
Church preferment. Still, it is too obvious, from the cries
of sorrow, indignation, and disgust which rise in every
quarter, that these stern injunctions were comparatively
1 See the evidence with regard to Spain in De Castro as above,
p. xxix. Nicholas de Clemenges, De corrupto Ecclesia statu, after
declaiming against the ignorance and vices of the other clergy, charac
terizes the canons as 'indoctos, simoniacos, cupidos... adhuc etiam ebri-
osos, incontinentissimos, utpote qui passim et inverecunde prolem ex
meretrice susceptam et scorta vice conjugum domi tenent,' etc. Brown's
Fascic. n. 563, 564. At the same period the 'Reforming CoUege' of
Constance passed many regulations with a view to the improvement of
these latter. See Lenfant, Uv. vn. c. 54.
2 e.g. Cardinal ZabareUa, in Von der Hardt, i. 524. Platina (Vit.
Pii II. p. 311) represents that pope as saying, that if there were good
reasons for prohibiting the marriage of priests, there were stronger rea
sons for aUowing it : cf. his language in Brown's Fascic. I. 50.
3 See his Dialogus Sophia et Natura super calibatu ecclesiasticorum
(Opp. n. 617 sq., ed. Du Pin). Gieseler, v. pp. 15 — 18, has collected
numerous instances of the other kind in which the marriage of the clergy
was advocated by individual writers throughout the fifteenth century.
4 Mansi, xxix. 101. , This decree also condemns a pernicious custom
of some bishops, who accepted a pecuniary fine from clergymen without
compelling them to put away their mistresses. A similar complaint had
been already made by the House of Commons in 1372 (Rotul. Pari. 46°
Edw. HI. p. 313). They prayed the king for remedy against ordinaries
who took sums of money from ecclesiastics and others ' pur redemption
de lour pecche de jour en jour et an en an, de ce que its tiendrent overte-
ment leurs concubines.' The evil was however unredressed, as we may
learn, among other evidence, from a monstrous anecdote in ErasmuB,
Opp. rx. 401 : ed. Le Clerc.

OTHER
BRANCHES OF THE
HIERAR CHY.

Attempts to
repress the
scandal :

unsuccess-
ful.

3 So

Constitution of the Cliurch.

[A.D. 1305

futile1. Individuals2 there would doubtless be, who formed
a bright exception to the guilty mass ; but when the Church
at length woke up and felt that some reorganization of
her system was imperatively needed, if she hoped to keep
her hold on the affections of mankind, no scandal was
so generally confessed3 as that presented by the lives of
the parochial clergy.
1 A long catalogue of authorities wiU be found in Gieseler, v. pp. 10,
11. 8 Such, for instance, were not wanting in Spain itself; De Castro, as
above, p. xxxv.
3 The committee of cardinals appointed by pope Paul HI. in 1538, to
consider what could possibly be done ' de emendanda Ecclesia,' animad
verted in the first place on the incompetence and crying vices of the
priests and other clerics: 'Hinc innumera scandala, hinc contemptus
ordinis ecclesiastici, hinc Divini cultus veneratio non tantum diminuta
sed etiam prope jam extincta.' Le Plat, Monum. Condi. Trident, n.
598 sq. , Lovan. 1782 : cf. the present writer's History of the Articles, pp.
1, 2 ; new edition.

—1520]

( 3Si )

CHAPTER XV.
ON THE STATE OF RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND
CONTROVERSIES.

WESTERN CHURCH.
The leading theologians of this period may be ranged
in one of two great classes. They are either speculative,
bent on reaching the solution of dogmatic problems
through the aid of Greek philosophy ; or mystical, re
posing on the old foundations of belief and shrinking
from all dialectic processes by which the former school
had long been struggling to prove the truth and reason
ableness of Christianity.
The spirit of inquiry which had been so powerfully
stimulated in the two preceding centuries continued to
be active in the present. Some indeed, as heretofore1,
employed scholastic weapons merely for the purpose of
defence, for vindicating the established doctrines of the
Church, and urging them in such a manner as to satisfy
the systematizing genius of the age. On men of this
kind, treading in the reverential steps of Anselm and
Aquinas, the effect of disputation would be often salu
tary : it imparted a more definite and scientific shape to
their convictions. But another train of consequences
might result from the scholastic exercises. An acute
and daring mind, uusobered by religious culture, might
convert them into an arena for evolving its own scep
ticism, and thus philosophy would prove herself the
parent and the nurse of misbelief. Examples of these
rationalistic tendencies appeared at an early date among
the Nominalists, in Roscellinus, and still more in the
disciples of Abelard. It was not, however, till the four-
i See above, pp. 257, 258.

WESTERN CHURCH.
Two great
classes of
theolo
gians.

Continu
ance of
scholas ticism.

ment of
scepticaltendencies.

352

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

Durand de
S. Pour-
cain (d. 1333),
' Doctor

teenth century that some objections which had hitherto
been stated hypothetically in the mock-encounters of the
schools were deemed unanswerable by the men who put
them forth. In other words, scholasticism, which had
been ever liable to this perversion1, not unfrequently
broke out at last into rebellion and derided supernatural
truth. The nominalistic school, from which these tendencies
were mainly to proceed, was now revived under Durand
of S. Pourcain2 (de S. Porciano), a Dominican and
formerly a Thomist. But the second founder of it was
a provincial of the English Franciscans, William of
Ockham, born in Surrey, and in earlier life addicted to
the principles of Scotus3. He was aptly characterized as
1 Fred, von Schlegel (Phil, of Hist. pp. 375 sq., ed. 1847) maintains
that the basis of the AristoteUan philosophy is essentiaUy ' rationahstic,'
and that even the genius of Aquinas could not bring it into harmony
with revelation. The remark that a principle might be true in philo
sophy, and yet false in theology, betrays the doubt which scholasticism
felt with respect to its own intimate tendencies. Comte (Liv. vi. c. 10)
affirms that the growing triumph of scholasticism was actuaUy working
the destruction of the theological philosophy and authority. It should
be borne in mind, however, that the worst forms of misbelief sprang up
at the end of the fifteenth century, when Platonism had gained predomi
nance afresh : see below, p. 355. Several glimpses of an older unbehef ,
arising from the false philosophy then prevalent, occur in the works of
Petrarch: e.g. in his De ignorantia sui ipsius et multorum, he writes of
the philosophers whom he encountered, ' Submotis arbitris oppugnant
veritatem et pietatem, clanculum in anguUs irridentes Christum, atque
Aristotelem, quem non intelUgunt, 'adorantes,' etc., Opp. in. 1048. The
frightful length to which these blasphemies were carried at the close of
the present period is Ulustrated by the following extract from a letter of
Erasmus (Ub. xxvi. ep. 34, Opp. ed. Le Clerc) : 'At ego EomaB his auri-
bus audivi quosdam abominandis blasphemUs debacchantes in Christum,
et in IUius Apostolos, idque multis mecum audientibus et quidem im-
pune. Ibidem multos novi, qui commemorabant, se dicta horrenda
audisse a quibusdam sacerdotibus aulae Pontificiai ministris, idque in
ipsa missa, tam clare ut ea vox ad multorum aures pervenerit.'
2 The freedom of hiB mind is indicated by bis title, ' Doctor resolu-
tissimus' (cf. Schrockh, xxxrv. 191 sq.). On many points, especially the
doctrine of the sacraments, he ventured to depart from Aquinas. He
arrived at the conclusion (Opus super Sententias Lombardi, Lib. rv. Dist. i.
Quasst. 4), that there is in a sacrament no ' virtus causativa gratias,' the
recipients, where they place no bar, deriving grace ' non a Sacramento sed
a Deo.' He also excludes matrimony from the number of sacraments
'properly so caUed' (Lib. rv. Dist. xxvi. Quasst. 3). Cf. Gieseler, iv.
§ 116, p. 168, n. 1.
3 According to Dorner (n. 446, 447), it was the Scotist-nominaUsts,
and not the Thomigt-nominaUsts, who placed reUgion altogether on the
same footing as phUosophy, and gave an impulse to freethinking.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.
the 'Invincible' and 'Singular Doctor.' We have seen
the intrepidity with which he vindicated the imperial
interest in opposition to the pope1, and this desire to
question every species of traditionary knowledge made
him sometimes overleap the common boundaries by
which the doctrines of the Church were guarded and
defined. An ardent speculator on the nature of ideas,
he contended finally that thought itself is but subjective, —
a conclusion which could hardly fail to give the most
pernicious handle to freethinkers of the day. Indeed
an under-stream of scepticism2 pervades his own pro
ductions. Ockham was vehemently opposed by many of
the Realists3, but notwithstanding all their censures and
the formal inhibition of his writings in the University of
Paris", the ascendancy of Nominalism as modified by him
was everywhere apparent, more especially in Germany
and England6. One of the last influential schoolmen,

1 Above, p. 325. It is indeed remarkable, though easily explained,
that what are called the ' orthodox' scholastics took the side of Roman
despotism, and that the nominalists were very often in the ranks of anti-
papists. Foxe (Acts and Mon. ii. 659, ed. Lond. 1843) says of Ockham,
that he was ' a worthy divine, and of a right sincere judgment, as the
times then would either give or suffer.' His book, Super potestate pra-
latis Ecclesia atque principibus terrarum commissa, was printed in Eng
land, in the reign of Henry VIII., in Latin, arid also in an English trans
lation. On this ground we may understand why Ockham was at first a
special favourite of Luther and Melanchthon, while in doctrine they were
often quite antagonistic to him. See Laurence, Bampt. Led. p. 59 (note)
3rd ed. He seems, however, favourable to the Lutheran view of consub-
stantiation: see his Quodlibeta Septem una cum Tradatu de Sacramento
Altaris, lib. iv. Qusest. 35, ed. Argent. 1491. In the latter treatise (c. 3)
he says that the Bible does not teach us to beheve in the annihilation of
the substance of the bread: cf. Schrockh, xxxiv. 195 sq., and, on the
philosophical system of Ockham, as developed in his Quastiones in Lib.
Sentent. (ed. Lugdun. 1495), and his Centiloquium Theologicum (ed. Oxon.
1675), see Eitter, Gesch. der Christ. Philos. iv. 579 sq.
2 See an essay by Rettberg, in the Studien und Kritiken for 1839, i.
69 sq. 3 e.g. by Walter Burley, a scholar of Oxford, and formerly his fellow-
student. 4 Thus, while John Buridan, his pupil, was ' rector' of the university,
the ' doctrina GuUelmi dicti Occam' was condemned (1339) : see Bulasus
Hist. Univ. Paris, iv. 257, and, for a sterner prohibition, Ibid. iv. 265.
In 1473 the BeaUsts obtained a fresh vietory by means of a royal order
(Ibid. v. 706 sq.), which commanded that the books of their opponents
should be locked up. But the order was rescinded in 1481 (Ibid. v. 739).
5 Cf. Mr Hallam's remark on this circumstance: Literat. of Europe,
Pt. I. ch. in. § 69.

353

M. A.

AA

WESTERN CHURCH.
'  v  —*
William of
Ockham(d. 1347),
the ' Invin
cible.'

Spread of
Ockham-
ism.

354 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

WESTERN CHURCH.

Reactionagainst the
Aristote lian scho
lastics.

Gabriel Biel1, who died in 1495, adhered almost im
plicitly to him. A less extended notice of these writers "
will suffice, particularly as their disputations do not fall
so much into the province of theology as into that of
metaphysics. It was natural, when scholasticism had almost every
where degenerated into lifeless subtleties, that a -new
period of reaction would commence. We saw the jea
lousy with which it was discountenanced by Bernard3 at
the first, and in proportion as its vices came to light, a
multitude of others turned their arms against it4. Some
of them indeed may have been actuated mainly by a
wish to introduce a purer love of letters, which was
certainly the case with not a few of the Platonic illumi-
nati, who revived the study of the pagan classics in the

1 His chief work is a Collectorium ex Occamo in Lib. Sentent.' ed.
Tubingen, 1501. His Expositio Canonis Missa, important in a hturgical
point of view, has been printed more than once. On his protestantism,
see a dissertation entitled De Gabriele Bid celeberrimo papista Anti-
papista, by H. W. Biel, Viteb, 1719. Biel was succeeded by Cortesius
(' the Cicero of dogmatists '), on whom see Schrockh, xxxiv. 217 sq.
2 Some of the chief were Robert Holcot, an Englishman (d. 1349),
Gregory of Rimini, or Ariminensis (d. 1358), Richard Swineshead (or
Suisset), an Oxford man (circ. 1350), Henry of Hesse (d. 1397). But
they were all surpassed by Peter d'Ailly (cf. above, p. 333), who was made
a cardinal in 1411. He laboured to estabUsh clear distinctions between
theology and philosophy. See his Quastiones super Lib. Sentent., Argent.
1490, and a Ust of his other numerous works in Cave, Hist. Liter, ad an.
1396. A Life of him by Du Pin is contained in the first volume of Ger
son's Works, ed. Du Pin.
3 Above, p. 257, n. 2.
4 This antagonism was shewn emphatically in Erasmus (b. 1486),
whose Moria Encomium (1508), his Ratio perveniendi ad veram Theolo-
giam, and other works, are full of severe critiques on the follies of the
later schoolmen. He had been preceded by Laurentius Valla (Opp.
Basil. 1543), who died in 1457, by Eodolph Agricola, or Hausmann, d.
1485 (Opp. Colon. 1539). One of his contemporaries who took the same
side, was TJlrich von Hutten, d. 1523 (Opp. Berol. 1821 — 5). This Ger
man knight had a principal hand in the famous satires Epistola Obscuro-
rum Virorum (ed. Munch, 1827), in which the stupidity and dog-Latin of
the mendicant friars, and their loud outcries respecting the luxuries of
the Humanists, are described so naturally and truthfully, that the Domi
nicans at first joined in circulating the book. See Gieseler, v. § 154,
pp. 199 sq. Luther at the same time was able to rejoice that the ' lec-
tiones sententiariae' were despised, and that professors who wished to
gain an audience must lecture on the Bible, St Augustine, ' aliumve
Ecclesiastics auctoritatis doctorem.' See his Letters, ed. De Wette
i. 57. '

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

355

second half of the fifteenth century1. They strove to
banish the Stagyrite2 and enthrone a more congenial
philosophy in the affections of the Church. That move
ment failed, however, to revive the ancient truths of
Christianity. Its general aim was heathenizing, more
especially as it has been developed in the works of men
like Marsilio Ficino, the favourite of the Medici, and
others, who not only clothed the doctrines of the Gospel in
the phraseology of Cicero and Horace, but were threaten
ing to exalt their Grecian master into rivalry with Christ.
So prevalent had errors of this class become, that in the
eighth session of the Lateran council3 (Dec. 19, 1513) it
was necessary to declare the immortality of individual
souls (in opposition to the Platonic views of ultimate
absorption), and to order all who might profess to teach
the doctrines of the old philosophy that they should
never hesitate to point out the particulars in which it
differed from the Christian faith. The need of this in
junction was peculiarly great in Italy 4, where learning
in the fifteenth century, and, more than ever, at the
dawn of Luther's reformation, threatened to assume an
anti-christian character, — where wanton speculations had
become most rife, and where indeed it was an index of
good, breeding to despise the mysteries of Holy Writ6.
But meanwhile other agents were at work in many
parts of Germany. The studies of ecclesiastics had there
taken a more distinctly biblical direction. Men who learned
to know themselves were thirsting6 after something more
1 See Roscoe's Life of Leo X. n. 87 sq., Lond. 1846; HaUam, Lit. of
Europe, Pt. i. ch. n. § 64, and ch. in. § 85. Ficino, however, wrote an
apologetic treatise, De Religione Christiana, analysed by Schrockh, xxxiv.
342 sq.
2 HaUam, Ibid. ch. in. §§ 13 sq. Pico of Mirandola at one time
would have fain estabUshed the consistency of the Aristotelian and Pla
tonic systems: but his own leanings were towards the latter, which he
blended with a multitude of wild opinions borrowed from the CabbaUstic
writings of the Jews: see his Heptaplus, Basil. 1601.
:< Labbe, xiv. 187.
4 Cf. the extract from Erasmus, above, p. 352, n. 1, and others in
Gieseler, v. § 154, pp. 181, 182, n. 8.
6 ' In quel tempo non pareva fosse galantuomo e buon cortegiano
colui che de dogmi della Chiesa non aveva qualche opinione erronea ed
heretica.' MS. qupted in Eanke, Popes, I. 56, Lond. 1847.
6 ' Nam quid potest ibi syncerum dici, ubi pro religione superstitio,
pro divina sapientia hominum philosophia, pro Christo Socrates, pro
AA2

WESTERN CHURCH.
Revival of
Platonism.

Its hereti
cal tenden
cies:

especially

Mysticalschool of
theolo
gians.

356 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.d. 1305

WESTERS CHURCH.

John Tauler(1290-
1361),' doctor
sublimis et
illumina-

profound than the scholastic subtleties, more fervent than
the cloudy reveries of Plato. Such was the new race
of mystics. Here and there we find them swerving into
serious errors1, but more commonly they are distinguished
by a simple and unreasoning adherence to the central
doctrines of the faith, combining with it a peculiar
earnestness and a desire to elevate the tone of personal
religion. In the members, therefore, of this school (the
'Friends of God' as they were called) we may discern
precursors2 of a genuine reformation.
At the head of them is John Tauler3, a Dominican of
Cologne. He was originally captivated by the dialectic
studies of the age, and the effect of them continued to
be traceable in all his writings : but his intercourse with a
Waldensian4, Nicholas of Basel (1340), produced a thorough
change in his convictions and pursuits. For twenty years
he was an indefatigable preacher, stimulated5, as it seems,
by the political distractions of his country and the ravages
of a terrific pestilence ('the black death'). His thrilling
sermons6, of which many were preserved in the ver
nacular dialects, are marked by evangelic tenderness and
sacris scriptoribus Aristoteles atque Plato in Ecclesiam irruperunt. Ne
que hasc ita inteUigi veUm, quasi reprehendam philosophiae studium...
sed sic se res habet, ut, nisi divinitatis cognitio prsemonstratrix, mens
ipsa hominis errans et vaga ad loca spinosa deviaque deducatur.' Stur-
mius ad Cardinales delectos ; Argentor. 1538.
1 e.g. Master Eckart (Aichard), a Dominican of Cologne, who died
about 1325, and was one of a class of mystics who diverged into Neo-
Platonism, affirming, for example, that our individuaUty would be for
feited at last on our reabsorption into the Divine essence. See Schmidt,
Etudes sur le mysticisme allemand au xiv' siecle, a Paris, 1847, pp. 12 sq. ;
Neander, ix. 569 sq., and Bitter, Christi. Philos. iv. 498 sq. Some of the
doctrines of Eckart were condemned in a bull of John XXH. (1329) :
see Eaynald. ad an. 1329, §§ 70, 71.
2 See XJUmann's Reformatoren vor der Reformation, Hamb. 1841 and
1842. i See especiaUy Schmidt's Johannes Tauler von Strassburg, Hamb.
1841, and his French Essay quoted in a previous note.
4 On this point, see Neander, ix. 563 sq.
6 Ibid. p. 588.
6 The last (modernized) edition was printed at Frankfort, 1826, in
3 vols, octavo. Luther (1516) spoke of them as foUows : ' Si te delectat-
puram, soUdam, antiqua simillimam theologiam legere in Germanica lin
gua effusam, Sermones Johannis Tauleri, praedicatorise professionis [i.e.
a Dominican], tibi comparare potes ..Neque enim ego vel in Latina vel
in nostra lingua theologiam vidi salubriorem et cum Evangelio conso-
nantiorem.' Luther's Letters, ed. De Wette, i. 46.

' — 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

357

spiritual depth. They were peculiarly useful in resisting
the general tendency to overvalue the liturgic element
of worship.
Tauler will be found to have had numerous points in
common with John Ruysbroek1, prior of the Canons-Regular
at Groenendaele near Brussels. He was equally desirous of
conforming to the public institutions of the Church2, al
though his language more than once excited a suspicion
of his orthodoxy. Gerson3 wrote (1406) against some
chapters of a book in which the doctrine of eventual
absorption into God appears to be maintained. The
works4 of Ruysbroek, in the Flemish language, were ex
tensively circulated. They are characterized by thorough
knowledge of the spiritual wants and aberrations of the
age. He strove to wake afresh the consciousness of in
dividual fellowship with God, in opposition to the modes
of thought which prompted men to lean for help on out
ward union with the Church. The faults of Ruysbroek
1 See Schmidt, Etudes sur le mysticisms, etc. pp. 213 sq., Schrockh,
xxxiv. 274 sq., and Neander ix. 579 sq. His works appeared in a Latin
translation at Cologne, 1552, and subsequently.
2 Extracts in Neander, pp. 556, 557.
3 The title is Epist. super tertia parte libri Joh. Ruysbroech de ornatu
spiritualium nuptiarum, Opp. i. 59, ed. Du Pin, where the remainder of
the controversy will be found.
4 They were translated into Latin (ed. Colon. 1552) and afterwards
into German (Offenbach, 1701): cf. Schmidt, Etudes (as above), pp. 213
sq., Neander ix. 580 sq. A third writer of this school was Henry Suso
(1300 — 1365), a Dominican of Swabia, on whom see Diepenbrock, Suso's
Leben und Schriften, Regensburg, 1837. Many other Dominicans fol
lowed in his steps. Thomas a Kempis, one of the ' Common-Life' clerics
(see above, p. 348, and Schrockh, xxxiv. 302 — 339), may be added to the
number, and so may the unknown author [? Ebland] of the famous trea
tise, Eyn teutsch Theologia, das ist, eyn edles Biichlein vom rechten Ver-
stand, etc., edited by Luther in 1518. He says, in the Preface, that next
to the Bible and St Augustine (his usual mode of speaking) there was no
book he prized more highly. The best modern edition is that of Biesen-
thal, Berlin, 1842: another by Pfeiffer (Roman CathoUc), Stuttgart,
1851. In England the mystical school, though far less influential, had a
worthy representative in the hermit Eichard Rolle, of Hampole, near
Doncaster, who died in 1348. Very many of his writings are poetical.
See Wharton's Append, to Cave, ad an. 1340, and Warton's Hist, of Eng.
Poetry, n. 35 — 43, ed. 1840. The treatise De Emendatione Vita (printed
at Paris, 1510) furnishes a good specimen of his teaching, e.g. cap. ix. :
' Si cupis ad amorem Dei pervenire et succendi in desiderio coelestium
gaudiorum, et induci ad contemptum terrenorum, non sis negUgens ad
meditandum et legendum sacram Scripturam.' Several of his English
Treatises have been printed by the Early EngUsh Text Society.

WE8TERN CHURCH.

John Ruysbroek (d. 1381),
' doctor
ecstaticus.'

358

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.d. 1305

WESTERN CHURCH.
John Gerson
(1363-1429),' doctor
Christian-
issimus.'

rola (1452-
| 1498).

are the common faults of mystical writers, springing from
undue development of the imaginative faculty.
John Charlies de Gerson, chancellor of Paris (1395),
whom we have noticed as an adversary of the ultra-papal
claims1, and also as opposed in some degree to Ruysbroek,
was himself upon the whole addicted to the principles of
mysticism2. But many of his writings indicate especial apt
ness for discussing points of practical Christianity3. He was
the most illustrious theologian of the time, and even now
is generally revered. The part, however, which he played
at Constance in promoting the condemnation of Huss4
must ever be a grievous stain upon his character. He
died in virtual exile6 at Lyons, 1429.
Another mystic of a warmer temperament than Gerson,
but deficient in his mental balance, was the Dominican,
Girolamo Savonarola6, born in 1452 at Ferrara. Some
of his contemporaries, it is true, denounce him as a wild
and visionary demagogue7, but the majority bear witness
1 Above, p. 333.
2 See, for example, his De Mystica Theologia, and other kindred
treatises in the collection of his Works by Du Pin, torn. in. pt. n. But
he never failed to guard against the feverish Ulusions of enthusiasm:
thus he wrote Contra sedam Flagellanlium; and also De probatione Spi-
rituum, giving rules for distinguishing false from true revelations. Cf.
Schrockh, xxxiv. 291—302.
3 On this account he was surnamed 'Doctor Christianissimus.'
Schmidt has pubUshed an able Essai sur Jean Gerson, Paris, 1839.
4 Lenfant, Uv. in. § 5. It was of him that Huss wrote as follows :
' 0 si Deus daret tempus scribendi contra mendaeia Parisiensis Cancel-
larii, qui tarn temerarie et injuste coram tota multitudine non est veritus
proximum erroribus annotare.' Ibid.
6 Ibid. liv. vi. § 82. On his return from his asylum at Molk, he
exercised the humble office of cateehizer of children, whom he coUected
daUy in the church of St Paul at Lyons, and of whom he required no
other reward than that they should repeat this simple prayer, ' God, have
mercy on thy poor servant, Gerson.'
6 A Life of him by Pico of Mirandola, his friend, is contained in
the Vit. Select. Virorum, ed. Bates, Lond. 1681, pp. 108 sq. But the
best accounts are that in Sismondi, Hist, des Repub. Ital. tome xn. ;
Meier's Girolamo Savonarola, Berlin, 1836 ; The Life and Times of Giro
lamo Savonarola (containing a complete catalogue of his writings), Lond.
1843 ; Jerome Savonarole, sa vie, ses predications, ses Merits, d'apres les
documens originaux, par F. T. Perrens, Paris, 1853 ; see also an Article
on Savonarola in Quart. Rev. No. exevn,
7 He laid especial stress on the Apocalypse, which, after 1485, he
expounded at Brescia, Florence, and elsewhere to crowded audiences-
denouncing the vengeance of heaven against Italy, and even claiming to
himself a kind of prophetic mission (see Life and Times, as above, pp.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

359

to his patriotism, his zeal, his learning, and his saintly
life. The fiery eloquence of Savonarola was evoked1 by
the unparalleled corruption of the Roman see, as then
administered by Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI. How
many elements of superstition and fanaticism had been
unconsciously blended with his nobler feelings is not easy
to determine : but the freedom of his speech2 in censuring
the vices and disputing the infallibility of the pope has never
been denied. In May, 1497, when he was laid under the
ban of excommunication8, he answered, the papal brief in
letters full of vehement remonstrances, and even ultimately
dared4 to excommunicate the pope in turn (Feb. 18, 1498).
His capture, prompted by the rage of his political ad
versaries, followed on the eighth of April, and soon after
wards his ashes were thrown into the Arno at Florence
(May 22), with the sanction, if not through the instiga
tion, of Alexander VI6. Savonarola has been called the
Luther6 of Italy : but his eventual implication in the quar
rels of the Florentines proved fatal both to him and to his
cause. A truer prototype of Luther was John Wessel7 (sur-
named Basilius and also Gansfort), born at Groningen
97 sq., and Savonarola's Compendium Revelationum). He became the
head of the Frateschi, or repubUcan, party at Florence, who endeavoured
to avert the judgments of God by checking the fearful spread of immo
rality (Ibid. p. 155).
1 Even Dollinger (iv. 227) admits this, and praises ' the eloquent and
venerated Dominican.'
2 Life and Times, as above, pp. 267 sq. His invectives were also
directed generaUy against the prelates of the church. ' Elorum Ubidi-
nem avaritiamque, Ulorum luxus simoniacasque labes insectabatur, pub-
lice privatimque monere soUtus, a Babylone (Romam inteUigens) fugien-
dum esse,' etc. Vit. Select. Viror. as above, p. 118.
3 It was now that Pico of Mirandola wrote his Apologia pro Hie-
ronymi Savonarola viri proplieta Innocentia, which is printed in Goldast's
Monarch, n. 1635 sq.
4 Life and Times, pp. 320 — 322. 5 Ibid. p. 351.
6 Attempts have been made, but not successfully, to prove that he
held the Lutheran view of justification, indulgences, &o. : cf. M'Crie's
Reformation in Italy, p. 18, Lond. 1827.
7 The best authority is TJUmann's Johann Wessel, ein Vorganger
Luthers, Hamb. 1834, and in the Reformatoren vor der Reformation,
Hamb. 1842. The Works of Wessel (with a Life prefixed) were pub
lished at Groningen, 1614. He is not to be confounded with his acquaint
ance Johann von Wesel (de WesaUa), called also Riohrath and Burchar-
dus, who was a professor of theology at Erfurt and afterwards a ' reform
ing' preacher at Worms. He died in prison (1482), as it seems, for

WESTERN CHURCH.

360 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

John Wessel
(1420-
1489).

Biblical

Nicholasde Lyra
(i 1340).

(1420). After studying and then lecturing in the univer
sities of Heidelberg, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere, he grew
dissatisfied with the scholastic theology, and took refuge
in a warm but scientific mysticism. On almost every
point, on justification, penance, purgatory, and even on
the Eucharist, he has anticipated the conclusions of those
earnest spirits1 who were destined to commence the Saxon
reformation of the Church. John Wessel was alike dis
tinguished as a theologian and as a general scholar. He
died in peace at Groningen (1489), protected from the
Inquisition by the bishop of Utrecht.
In Wessel, as in many of his predecessors, there had
been awakened a fresh love for biblical studies. This
alone had constituted in their hearts a bond of sympathy
with men like Wyclifie and the Hussites, more especially
perhaps in Germany, where versions of the Holy Scriptures
had been made, and very largely circulated2, in the latter
half of the fifteenth century. Before that time the only
critical works deserving notice3 are the Postills of Nicholas
de Lyra4, a Franciscan, who applied his Hebrew knowledge
holding intercourse with the Hussites. For his Paradoxa and the pro
ceedings against him, see Brown's Fascic. i. 325 — 333, and TJllmann,
Reform, vor der Ref. i. 367 sq. His Disputatio adversus Indulgentias is
printed in Walch, Monim. Med. JEvi, i. Ill sq. He denied the supre
macy of the Boman Church, and asserted that of Holy Scripture: but, as
John Wessel lamented (Opp. ed. 1614), p. 920, his 'eruditio et peracre
ingenium' not unfrequently betrayed him into novelties. His 'reform
ing' principles were shared in some measure by the prior of a nunnery
at MaUnes, John Pupper of Goeh, near Cleves (d. 1475). Respecting
him and others, see TJllmann, as above, and for some of his writings,
Walch, Monim. Med. JEvi, n. pt. i. 1 sq., and iv. 73 sq.
1 See, for instance, the extracts in Gieseler, v. § 153, pp. 172 sq.,
n. 18. Luther wrote the preface to a Farrago of his works, ed. BasU.
1522, and expressed himself in the following terms (which furnished
TJllmann with a motto) : 'Wenn ich den Wessel zuvor gelesen, so Uessen
meine Widersacher sich diinken, Luther hatte Alles vom Wessel genom-
men, also stimmet unser Beider Geist zusammen.'
2 e.g. the old High-German version, printed first at Mentz, 1462, was
reprinted ten times before the Reformation (see other evidence in Giese
ler, v. § 146, p. 74, n. 13). In like manner an ItaUan version, printed
at Venice as early as 1471, is said to have gone through nine editions in
the fifteenth century (see M'Crie's Reform, in Italy, p. 53, Lond. 1827).
3 Exceptions may be made in favour of the English Dominican
Eobert Holcot (d. 1349), on whose exegetical and other works, see Whar
ton's Append, to Cave's Hist. Liter, ad an. 1340; and of the Spanish pre
late, Tostatus of Avila (d. 1454), on whom, see Schrockh, xxxiv. 147 sq.
4 His Postilla Perpetua in Biblia have been often published, first at
Rome, 1471, in 5 vols. foUo.

-1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

-3^1

with effect to the elucidation of the Old Testament, and
Gerson, who was led by corresponding works of St Au
gustine to construct a Harmony of the Four Gospels1.
But on the resuscitation of the ancient literature and
the discovery of printing, stronger impulses were com
municated in this direction. The superior scholarship and
taste of Laurentius Valla2, cardinal Ximenes3, Reuchlin4,
Erasmus5, and others, indicated that a brighter period was
now dawning on the field of scriptural hermeneutics.
Though it be unfair to urge that men were wholly un
acquainted with the Bible in the times anterior to the
Reformation, we may safely argue that the Reformation
was itself a consequence of the enlightenment which bibli
cal inquiries had produced. EASTERN CHURCH.
As there was almost nothing in the Eastern Churches
corresponding to the Middle Ages in the West, we meet
with nothing like the healthy series of reactions just de
scribed. The present period was indeed more sterile and
monotonous than all which went before it. Scarcely any
theological writers6 of importance can be traced excepting
1 This work is entitled Monotessaron, seu unum ex quatuor Evangeliis :
Gerson, Opp. ed. Du Pin, iv. 83 sq. He looks upon the variations in the
Sacred Writers as constituting a ' concordissima dissonantia.'
2 His entire works wer.e printed at Basel in 1540. The chief of them
in this connexion (cf . above, p. 354, n. 4) is the series of Annotationes in
Novum Testamentum, which display great critical ability. His work, De
Libero Arbitrio, and stiU more the famous Dedamatio de falso credita et
¦ementita Constantini Donatione (cf. above, p. 254, n. 3), have laid him
open to BeUarmine's charge of being a precursor of the Lutherans.
3 Cf. above, p. 318. His sagacity and zeal in the preparation of the
Complutensian Polyglott (1514 — 1517) were beyond all praise : see
Schrockh, xxxiv. 81 sq. The papal sanction was, however, withheld
until after the cardinal's death in 1522.
4 Reuchlin's fame is mainly due to his restoration of Hebrew litera
ture, in which he was bitterly opposed by many of the German monks.
(See Maii Vit. Reuchlini, passim.) Against them are directed the most
cutting satires of the Epistola Obscurorum Virorum (see above, p. 354,
n. 4). Beuchlin's Hebrew grammar and lexicon were pubUshed in 1506:
and in 1518 a fine edition of the Hebrew Bible appeared at Venice. -
M'Crie, Reform, in Italy, p. 40.
5 His edition of the New Testament appeared at Basel in 1516:
Ibid. pp. 47 sq. The mighty influence which his theological works
exerted on the Reformation, more especially in England, where his cau
tion was appreciated, belongs in strictness to the foUowing period.
6 To Church-history an important contribution was made by Nice-

WE STERN
CHURCH.
Gerson
(d.1429).

Laurentius Valla
(d. 1451).
Ximenes (d. 1522).
Reuchlin (d. 1522).
Erasmus(d. 1536).

Scarcity of

362

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.d. 1305

EASTERN CHURCH.
Theophanes
of Nicaa
(circ.1347).
Simeon of
Thessalo-
¦nica (circ.
1410). George of
Trebizond
(1396—I486).

Russian
sect of Stri-
golniks.

The Quiet-
ist or
Hesychastcontroversy:

those who figured in the controversy with the Latin
Church. The most distinguished of the biblical scholars was
Theophanes1, archbishop of Nicasa, who composed a Har
mony of the Old and New Testament, and also an elaborate
Apology, directing both of them against the Jews. A
monk of Thessalonica, Simeon2, wrote a Dialogue against
all Heresies, and many other works in vindication of the
'orthodox' (or Greek) communion. George of Trebizond,
a somewhat copious author3, added to the stock of evi
dences in a book on the Truth of Christianity.
The state of feeling in the great majority of Eastern
Christians was so torpid as to cause but few internal
ruptures. The Strigolniks4 of Russia, who in 1371 and
afterwards obtained a host of proselytes at Novogorod,
are the only formidable sect that sprang up in this period.
They were bitterly opposed to all the members of the
sacerdotal order, and their tenets, in some points at least,
resemble those now current with the English ' Lollards.'
But another controversy8, that broke out in the neigh
bourhood of Constantinople, also merits our attention,
yielding as it does some insight into the prevailing modes
of thought. A party of the monks who swarmed upon
the ' Holy Mountain ' (Athos)8, in their contemplations on
phorus CalUsti XanthopuU (circ. 1333), whose work in eighteen books
extends from the Incarnation to the death of Phocas (610) : see DowUng's
Introd. to Eccl. Hist. pp. 91 sq., Lond. 1838.
1 See Wharton's Append, to Cave, ad an. 1347.
2 Ibid, ad an. 1410. Leo AUatius ^the Romanizer) writes, with refer
ence to Simeon's Dialogus, that it is 'pius et doctus, dignusque qui
aliquando lucem videat, sed manuductus a Catholico.' De Simeonum
Scriptis Diatriba, p. 193. Another work of this Simeon is On the Faith
and Sacraments of the Church, printed, according to Schrockh (xxxrv.
427), in Moldavia (1683) with the authority of Dositheus, patriarch of
Jerusalem. 3 Wharton, as above, ad an. 1440, and Leo AUatius, De Georgiis Dia
triba, pp. 395 sq.
4 See Mouravieff, ed. Blackmore, pp. 65, 379, 380. They maintained
that aU Christians are invested with the rights of priesthood, and elected
their own teachers from among themselves. They also denied the neces
sity of confession, and made no prayers and offerings for the dead.
5 On this controversy, see Schrockh, xxxiv. 431 — 451; Engelhardt,
Die Arsenianer [cf. above, p. 272, n. 3] und Hesychasten, in IUgen's Zeit-
schrift, Bd. viii. st. i. pp. 48 sq.; Dorner, Lehre von der Person Christi,
n. 292—297. 6 Since the 9th century Mount Athos has been covered with monas.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

3^3

the blessedness of 'seeing God,' were led to argue that
1 the Christian may arrive at a tranquillity of mind entirely
free from perturbation, and that all enjoying such a state
may hold an ocular intercourse with God Himself, as the
Apostles were supposed to do when they beheld His
glory shining forth in the Transfiguration of our Lord.
These mystics bore the name of Quietists, or Hesychasts1
(UavxatTTai). They were vehemently assailed2 by Bar-
laam (circ. 1341), a learned monk of the order of St
Basil, and in all his earlier life a staunch defender of the
Eastern Church3. His strictures roused the indignation of
Gregorius Palamas4, afterwards the archbishop-designate of
Thessalonica ; by whose influence several councils6, held
at Constantinople (1341—1350), were induced to shelter,
if not absolutely patronize, the Quietists. Their censor,
driven to revoke his acrimonious charges, instantly seceded
to the Western Church6, where he became the bishop of
Gerace in Calabria. The Hesychastic school was thus
enabled to achieve a triumph. They were generally sup
ported by the eastern theologians7; among others by the
celebrated mystic, Nicholas Cabasilas, archbishop also of
Thessalonica (circ. 1350). His important treatise on The
Life in Christ^ is now accessible to scholars.
teries. See their number and condition (in 1836) described in Curzon's
Visit to Monasteries in the Levant, Lond. 1849, pp. 356 sq.
1 Other names given to them by their opponents were MassaUans
(above, p. 282, n. 4), and 'Op4>aX6\pvxoi (Umbilicanimi). The latter
seems to have referred to their custom of sitting still and gazing on
the pit of their stomach (not unUke some of the Hindu and other hea
then ascetics).
2 Joh. Cantacuzenus, Hist. Ub. n. c. 39; Niceph. Gregoras, Hist.
Byzant. Ub. xi. c. 10.
3 See, for instance, his TLepl -rijs rov Itdira Apxns< ed. Salmasius,
Lugdun. 1645.
4 Joh. Cantacuzenus, Ibid. On his other writings, see Wharton's
Append, to Cave, ad an. 1354.
s (1341), Mansi, xxv. 1147; (1347), xxvi. 105; (1350), ib. 127.
6 Cantacuzenus, Ub. n. c. 40 ; Niceph. Gregoras, Ibid. Some of the
Letters which he wrote on the Western side of the controversy are printed
in Canisius, Led. Antiq., ed. Basnage, iv. 361 sq. Other instances of
secession to the Latin Church occur now and then.
7 Cf. Schrockh, xxxiv. 449, 450.
8 See Gass, Die Mystik des Nicolaus Cabasilas vom Leben in Christo,
Grief swald, 1849: Wharton, as above, ad an. 1350. Among other works
¦in vindication of the Greek Church, he wrote a treatise on the Procession
of the Holy Ghost, in answer to Aquinas (ct above, p..281, n. 2).

¦EASTERN CHURCH.

Barlaam(circ.
1341).
Resistance »f Gregorius
Palamas,

and NicholasCabasilas.

364

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.d. 1305

EELATIONS OP EAST
AND WEST.
Easternantipathyto the
Latin Church.

of nego
tiations.

Visit of
John VI.
Palaologus to Rome,
1369.

RELATIONS OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES.
The ancient resolution to maintain their freedom in
defiance of the Roman court was still the general feeling
of the eastern Christians. Some of them, for instance
Nilus Cabasilas1, who had preceded his nephew Nicholas
in the archiepiscopal chair of Thessalonica, wrote with
temper and ability. But in proportion as the Turks were
menacing Constantinople, it became the policy of the en
feebled emperors to win the favour of the Latin Churches.
This could only be effected by the healing of the schism.
Negociations were accordingly reopened as early as
1333. In 1339 Andronicus III. Palseologus2 dispatched
a formal embassy to Benedict XII. at Avignon. The
leader of this party was the monk Barlaam, who, as we
have seen3, immediately afterwards passed over to the
Western Church. His mission was, however, fruitless in re
spect of his fellow-countrymen at large : and though another
emperor, John VI. Palseologus, betook himself in person4
to the court of Rome (1369), and by his abject homage
to pope Urban V. endeavoured to awake the sympathy
1 His works, De Causis Divisionum in Ecclesia and De Primatu Papa
(translated into EngUsh, Lond. 1560), were edited by Salmasius, Hanov.
1608. He also wrote at great length De Processione S. Spiritus adversus
Latinos: see Leo AUatius, Diatriba de Nilis, p. 49. Another Nilus
(surnamed Damyla), circ. 1400, wrote several treatises on kindred sub
jects, but in a more bitter spirit: see Wharton's Append, to Cave ad
an. 1400.
2 On the earUer correspondence, see Raynald. ad an. 1333, §§ 17 sq.,
and Gibbon, ch. lxvi. In 1339 (Raynald. ad an. §§ 19 sq.) the Greeks
promise, 'Quascunque a generaU conciUo determinata fuerint, omnes
orientales libenter haec recipient.' They also begged that the mode of
stating the Procession of the Holy Ghost might be left an open question;
but the Latins answered, that this would be to violate the unity of the
faith ('quia in Ecclesia CathoUca, in qua una fides esse noscitur, quoad
hoc dupUcem fidem minus veraciter esset dare'). With regard to the
papal supremacy, Benedict intimated that the only way to ' auxiUa,
consUia, et favores,' was by cordiaUy returning to 'the obedience of the
Roman church.' A fresh embassy was sent to Avignon by Cantacuzenus
(see his own Hist. Ub. rv. c. 9), for the sake of negooiating a union with
Clement VI. (1348) ; but it also was fruitless.
3 Above, p. 363.
4 Eaynald. ad an. 1369, § 1 sq. He had already (1355) bound him
self by a secret oath to become 'fideUs, obediens, reverens et devotus
beatissimo patri et domino, domino Innocentio sacrosancta/Romanaa ac
universaUs Ecclesiae .... summo pontifici et ejus successoribus ' Eay
nald. ad an. 1355, § 34: cf. Gibbon, ch. lxvi. (vi. 217—220, ed. Milman)

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

36S

of European princes, his defection from the Eastern
Church produced no spiritual nor temporal results. His
son, Manuel II., notwithstanding a fresh canvass for auxi
liaries1 in Italy, France, Germany, and England (1400
—1402), was unshaken in his predilections for the creed
and worship of his fathers2. The invasions of Timur (or
Tamerlane), who conquered Anatolia in 1402, and thus
diverted3 for a while the onslaught of the Turks, relieved
the emperor from the necessity of forming an alliance
with the west; but, danger having finally become more
imminent than ever, a fresh series of negociations were
commenced (1434) under John VII. Palasologus, his son.
This monarch, after some preliminaries, undertook to
hold another conference with the Latin Church beyond
the Adriatic ; and when he was driven to determine4
whether the true channel of communication were the Roman
pontiff or the council of Basel, an accident eventually threw
him into the arms of the former. He was carried off in
triumph to the council of Ferrara (Feb. 28, 1438), attended
by twenty-one eastern prelates, in addition to the patriarch
of Constantinople6. The chief spokesmen on his side were
1 Gibbon, Ibid. pp. 220 — 222. On account of the papal schism
(above, p. 328) the emperor had studiously avoided committing himself
to either party, and indeed that circumstance facUitated his appUcation
to the different courts.
3 He even wrote twenty Dialogues in its defence: Leo AUatius, De
Eccl. Occident, et Orient. Perpet. Consensione, p. 854. In 1418, however,
he appears to have sent an embassy, headed by the archbishop of Kieff,
to the councU of Constance, where the Greeks were allowed to perform
Divine Service according to their rite. See Lenfant, Hist, du Concile de
Const. Uv. vi. ch. 44.
3 Cf. MiUer's History philosophically illustrated, n. 371, 3rd edit.
4 Both the councU and the pope (cf. above, p. 337) had sent vessels to
fetch the emperor from Constantinople, but the pope's gaUeys anticipated
the other by a few days, and thus in aU probabiUty decided a most
critical question as to the relations of the East and West in future ages.
The adrmral of the pope's gaUeys was his nephew, who had received
instructions tva iroXeu-nari 671-0C av evpn rd Karepya rfjs XvvbSov, Kal, el
SvvtfBrj, KaraStio-n Kal d(pav'ia-Q. See on the whole subject the work of
Syropulus (cnc. 1444), Vera Hist, unionis non vera inter Gracos et
Latinos, ed. Creyghton, Hagae Comitis, 1660, and the Acts of the coun
cils of Ferrara and Elorence, in Labbe, xiu. 1 sq. : cf. Schrockh, xxxrv.
413 sq.
5 The Bussian church at this time was governed by a metropoUtan of
Kieff, caUed Isidore, who had been appointed at Constantinople under
Romanizing influences. He went to the councU of Ferrara in spite of
the misgivings of king Basil, and at length espoused the tenets of the

RELATIONS OF EAST
AND WEST,
Anti-Roman bias of his
son.

Fresh nego
ciationsunder
John VII.
Palao-
logus. 1434-
1438. Council of
Ferrara, 1438.

366

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.' [a.d. 1305

RELATIONS OE EAST
AND WEST.

Subjects of
discussion.

Synod transferred
to Florence,
1439.

Mark of Ephesus, Dionysius of Sardis, and Bessarion of
Nicsea. Legates also were accredited for the occasion by
Philotheus of Alexandria and Dorotheus of Antioch; while
Joachim of Jerusalem entrusted his subscription to Mark
of Ephesus.
The pope (Eugenius IV.) was not generally present
in the council, after the second session (March 15); but
he left behind him two accomplished advocates, the car
dinal Juliano1, who had now retreated from the synod of
Basel, and Andrew, the Latin bishop of Rhodes. The
scheme of questions to be handled by the deputies con
sisted of the following heads : (1) the Procession of the
Holy Spirit, (2) the addition of the clause Filioaue to the
Constantinopolitan creed, (3) Purgatory and the interme
diate state, (4) the use of unleavened bread in the holy
Eucharist, (5) the jurisdiction of the Roman see and the
supremacy of the pope. - A long delay occurred before
the actual business of the conference was opened, owing
to the thin attendance2 of the western prelates at Ferrara.
But in the following autumn (Oct. 8), when the vigour
of the Basel assembly was declining, a debate3 was held
respecting the first point of controversy. It continued,
with some interruptions, till the synod was at length
transferred, by reason of the plague, to Florence.
There the sessions were resumed on Feb. 26, 1439, and
with them the discussions as to the Procession of the Holy
Ghost. The Latin arguments, adduced by the provincial
of the Dominicans in Lombardy, were stigmatized at

western theologians. On his return, however, decorated with the Roman
purple, he was 'for a while shut up in a monastery; but escaping thence
took refuge with the pope. Mouravieff, pp. 76 — 78.
1 See above, p. 334, and p. 336, n. 4.
2 In the first session before the arrival of the Greeks there were pre
sent only cardinal Juliano, five archbishops, eighteen bishops, ten abbots,
and some generals of monastic orders. Many of the European princes
were in favour of the council of Basel (see above, p. 337), and Charles
VII. of France, in particular, at first forbade any of his subjects to go to
Ferrara. 3 Andrew of Rhodes contended at great length in the 6th session
(Oct. 20) that the clause Filioque, which the Greeks regarded as a mere
addition, was in truth an exphcation, or necessary consequence, of what
had been maintained from the beginning. In the next session (Oct. 25)
he illustrated his remark by the enlargement of the Nicene Creed at
Constantinople in 381.

—1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

3^7

length as absolutely heretical by Mark of Ephesus1, but
on the other hand Bessarion2 owned himself a convert to
the western doctrine, which he now proceeded to defend
with vigour. A decree3, embodying his conclusions, was
put forward, pledging all who signed it to believe that
the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the
Son, and that His essence is eternally from Both as from
One principle, and by one only spiration ('tamquam ab
uno principio et unica spiratione'): or, in different lan
guage, that the Son is verily the Cause, or principle,
of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit equally with the
Father. It was next conceded by the Easterns that un
leavened bread as well as leavened might be lawfully
and efficaciously employed in celebrating the Eucharist4.
The Latin theories on purgatory also were admitted, the
new definition being, that the soul of every penitent who
dies in the love of God, before he has made satisfaction
for his past misdeeds by bringing forth the fruits of peni
tence, is aided after death by prayers and other offerings
which the faithful make in his behalf; while he himself
is undergoing pains ('poenis purgatoriis ') in order to his
final purification and reception into heaven5. Whether
this effect be due to elemental fire or other agents, is
1 Respecting him and his numerous anti-Latin writings, see Whar
ton's Append, to Cave, ad an. 1436. His Epistola de Synodo Florentina
ad omnes Christianos is printed, in the reply of Joseph, bp. of Methone,
in Labbe, xin. pp. 677 sq. Another Greek declared on this occasion,
when a threat had been appUed to make him surrender his behef : ' Mori
rnalo, quam unquam Latinizare.'
2 See Wharton, as above. Bessarion became a Boman cardinal, and
on the death of Nicholas V. (1455) was on the point of succeeding to the
popedom. His munificence and abilities contributed much to the diffu
sion of Greek literature in Italy.
3 Labbe, xin. 510 sq.
4 The language is remarkable: 'In azymo sive fermentato pane
triticeo corpus Christi veraciter confici [in Bessarion's version reXeitrBai
dXyBiSsJ ; sacerdotesque in altero ipsum Domini corpus conficere debere,
unumquemque scilicet juxta sua? ecclesiaa, sive occidentalis, sive orion-
taUs, consuetudinem.'
6 Ibid, and cf. Schrockh, xxxiv. 429, 430. The other two cases,
where the destination of the spirit is either heaven or heU, are put as
follows: 'Hlorumque animas, qui post baptisma susceptum nuUam om-
nino peceati maculam incurrerunt, iUas etiam, quaB post contractam
peceati maculam vel in suis corporibus, vel eisdem exutaa corporibus,
prout superius dictum est, sunt purgataB, in ccelum max rccipi, et intueri
clare ipsum Deum Trinum et Unum (cf. above, p. 326, n. 1), sicuti est,
pro meritorum tamen diversitate aUum alio perfectius; Ulorum autem

RELATIONS OF EAST
AND WEST.

Secessionto the
Latin side.
Decrees
on the
Procession :

on un
leavened bread :
on Pur
gatory:

368

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

RELATIONS OP EAST
AND WEST.

on the
papal supremacy.

Completion
of the
union.

Its rejec
tion in the
East.

declared to be no matter for a synodal decision. As to
the supremacy (to irpoaTelov) of the pope1, the Greeks
were willing to acknowledge it in all its latitude, unless
indeed the final clause for saving the canonical order,
rights, and privileges of the Eastern patriarchs were meant
to circumscribe his power.
This memorable edict was published July 6, 1439, when
it exhibited the signatures2 of the emperor, the repre
sentatives of the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and
Jerusalem, and of many others, not including Mark of
Ephesus, nor the patriarch of Constantinople, who had
lately died at Florence. The great object of so many
conferences might seem to have been reached. But when
the tidings of reunion were divulged in Russia3 and the
Eastern Church4 at large, the synod was immediately re
pudiated by the several churches. The new patriarch of
Constantinople, Metrophanes, became an object both of
hatred and contempt to his own suffragans, who forced
him in the end to abdicate his throne. All ' Latinizers '
were regarded by the populace as abject traitors to the
faith of Christ ; and even the compliant patriarchs 5 who took
a share in the proceedings at Ferrara, soon repented of their
aberrations and openly reverted to the ' orthodox ' belief.
animas, qui in actuaU mortaU peccato, vel solo originaU decedunt, mox
in infernum descendere, pcsnis tamen disparibus puniendas.'
1 ' Item diffinimus, sanctam apostolicam sedem et Romanum ponti-
ficem in universum orbem tenere primatum et ipsum pontificem Roma
num successorem esse beati Petri principis apostolorum, et verum Christi
vicarium, totiusque ecclesias caput et omnium Christianorum patrem ac
doctorem existere,' etc. Ibid. The pope, however, it was added, is to
act in accordance with the canons of the Church (KaB' ov rpowov Kal iv
to?s irpaKTiKois tujv oUoup.eviKuv avvobuv, Kal iv rots Upols Kavoat diaXap.[$d-
verai). 2 On the Latin side the persons who affixed their names were the
pope, eight cardinals, the Latin patriarchs of Jerusalem and Grado, two
episcopal ambassadors of the duke of Burgundy, eight archbishops, forty-
seven bishops (nearly aU Italians), four generals of monastic orders, and
forty-one abbots. The Greeks, to the number of thirty, arrived at Con
stantinople, on then return, Feb. 1, 1440.
3 See above, p. 365, n. 5.
4 Neale's Eastern Church, 'Alexandria,' n. 337: and Gibbon, ch.
lxvii. (vi. 260, 261, ed. Milman).
6 See e.g. their synodal letter (1443) in Leo AUatius, De Perpet. Con
sensione, pp. 939 sq., in which they characterize the councU of Florence
as aiapav, and threaten to excommunicate all who fraternize with the
Latins. Their epistle to the emperor is quite as denunciatory: Ibid.
pp. 942 sq.

-1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

369

On the annihilation of Byzantine glory (1453) the rea
sons for soliciting the friendship of the Western Church had
ceased to operate. The Christians of Constantinople were
then permanently disengaged from their alliance with the
civil power, and from that day to this, in spite of many
proselytizing efforts, concentrated at the close of the six
teenth century against the Church of Russia1, the inveterate
quarrels of the East and West have never been composed.
The fears awakened at Constantinople by the Turks
had acted in like manner on the court of Armenia. As
early as 1317 an embassy2 was sent imploring help from
John XXIL, and promising as an equivalent to bring
about a cordial reconciliation with the Latin Church3.
The briefs, however, which he circulated in the west of
Europe with the hope of stirring up a new crusade were
fruitless4: while, upon the other side, hereditary hatred
of the council of Chalcedon6 and a strong attachment to
1 Mouravieff, p. 122.
• Raynald. ad an. 1317, § 35: cf. ad an. 1308, § 32, and above, p. 275,
n. 7. 3 Ibid, ad an. 1318, §§ 8 — 17. In the same year (§ 15) the pope sent
a party of Dominicans to f aciUtate the union ; but it never seems to have
extended beyond the court and the nobles of Lesser Armenia: see (as
below, n. 5) Art. xxxiv. Of course the Uttle Latinized kingdom of Ar
menia (Cilicia) could not undertake for the Armenian Church, the bulk
of which lay far off, and had been long under Turkish dominion.
4 The patience of the Church was aheady weU-nigh exhausted by the
levying of tenths and other contributions with a similar pretext, for the
benefit of the popes and the kings of France : cf. Twysden, Vindication,
p. 103, Camb. ed. The pope, however, in the present case forwarded
pecuniary help to the Armenians (Raynald. ad an. 1323, § 5 : Schrockh,
xxxiv. 453). There is some danger of confounding the Armenians of the
little Christian kingdom which became extinct in 1393, with those of
Greater Armenia, where the strength of the Armenian Church lay. The
kingdom from its close connexion with the Crusaders was always more
than half Roman.
6 See a catalogue of errors aUeged against them in 1341 by Benedict
XII. (in writing to the CathoUcos of Armenia) ; Raynald. ad an. 1341,
§§ 45 sq. It is there stated (Art. in.) that they held a festival in ho
nour of Dioscorus who was condemned at Chalcedon (Oct. 13, 451), them
selves maintaining with him, or at least deducing from his theory, ' Quod
sicut in Domino Jesu Christo erat unica Persona, ita erat una Natura,
scihcet Divina, et una voluntas et una operatio' (cf. above, p. 64). They
appear to have also held (Art. rv.) that since the Passion of our Lord
original sin has been remitted to aU the children of Adam ('pueri qui
na.scuntur ex fiUis Adam non sunt damnationi addicti'). They did not
beUeve in a purgatory (' quia, ut dicunt, si Christianus confiteatur peccata
sua, omnia peccata ejus et pana peccatorum ei dimittuntur,' Art. xvn.).
They offered no prayers for the dead with the hope of procuring a remis-

RELATIONS OE EAST
AND WEST.
Perpetuity of the
schism.

Vain
attempts to
win ovor
the Arme
nians,

M. A.

BB

370

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

RELATIONS OF EAST
AND WEST.

renewed at
Florence ;

extended to
the Copts.

Latin

Overtures
to the
Nestoriansand the
Maronites,

their semi- Jewish notions1 swayed the bulk of the Arme
nian people to resist the tempting offers of the pope.
In 1367 their country fell a prey to the Mameluke Turks,
who threatened to erase all vestiges of Christianity*.
Yet even in the little kingdom a remnant survived. At
the council of Florence, after the departure of the Greeks,
a specious edict was drawn up (Nov. 22, 1440) for the
purpose of embracing the Armenians in the general peace3.
The kindred sect of Copts (or Jacobites) of Egypt, who had
also undergone a frightful persecution at the hands of the
Mamelukes4, were made the subjects of a like decree5
(Feb. 4, 1441). An emissary of the Coptic patriarch6 ap
peared in Florence, to facilitate this work. In neither case,
however, did the overtures prevail except with individuals
here and there. A firmer footing was at length obtained
among the Christians of Abyssinia7. It proceeded from
an interchange of salutations at the Florentine synod on
the part of their king Zara Jacob and Eugenius IV. The
ultimate effect of it was the formation of a Latinizing school,
which flourished, for some time at least, under the auspices
of the court of Portugal8. We gather also from the closing
acts of the council of Florence, now translated to the Lateran
(Sept. 30, 1444, and Aug. 7, 1445), that the prelates made
a vigorous effort to win over the Jacobites9 ('Syrians'),
and that numerous sectiou of the Maronites 10, who still
sion of sins (' sed generaUter orant pro omnibus mortuis, sicut pro beata
Maria, ApostoUs, Martyribus, et aliis Sanctis, ut in die judicii intrent in
regnum caleste.' Ibid.). In Arts, lxxxiv., lxxxv., we are told that they
absolutely denied the papal supremacy.
1 Thus (Art. xl vi.) they observed the legal distinctions between the
clean and unclean meats : cf. above, p. 187, n. 4.
2 Raynald. ad an. 1382, § 49.
3 Labbe, xin. 1197 sq. ; Schrockh, xxxiv. 458.
4 Renaudot, Hist. Patr. Alexand. Jacob, pp. 602 sq. ; Neale, n. 322,
323. 5 Labbe, Ibid. 1204 sq.: Schrockh, xxxiv. 416.
6 Neale, n. 336.
7 Neale, n. 336.
8 See above, p. 315, n. 5.
9 Labbe, xin. 1222 sq. This decree states that AbdaUa, arohbp. of
Edessa, had come to the synod in the name of Ignatius, patriarch of the
Syrians. 10 Ibid. 1225 sq. (cf. above, p 71). On the same occasion, deputies
presented themselves in the name of Timotheus, metropoUtan of the
'ChaldaBans' (Nestorians) of Cyprus. By these proceedings, writes the
Continuator of Fleury (ad an. 1445, s. 5), aU the eastern sects would

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

371

adhered to the Monothelete opinions. Whether any kind
of change resulted from these later manifestoes of the
Western Church, it is not easy to decide.
CONTINUOUS EFFORTS TO WORK OUT A REFORMATION.
The name of Reformation1 had been long familiar in
the West of Europe. During all the present period,
more especially the earlier half of the fifteenth century,
it never ceased to vibrate in men's ears. A consciousness
that the ecclesiastical system was diseased and lamentably
out of joint, as well as a presentiment that things could
not long continue as they were, had been awakened on all
sides among the earnest and more thoughtful members
of the Church. These feelings were occasionally shared
by the chiefs of the Roman court2 itself : but for the most
part it had now become the centre of corruption and a
rallying point for all the self-complacent and reactionary
spirits. Hence the origin of the continued struggle made
at Pisa, Constance, and Basel, to circumscribe the papal
monarchy. The leaders in it felt that such a step was
absolutely indispensable for healing the disorders of the
age. The council-party, as we saw, enjoyed the patronage
of kings and governments ; it was supported almost uni
formly by the lawyers and the more intelligent among
the laity. We must, however, bear in mind that few
reformers of this class had ever meditated critical in
quiries into the established dogmas of the Church. One
section of them were disposed to carry their reformatory
principle no further than the temporal branches of the
papal jurisdiction or the gross excesses in the lives of
clergymen and monks. Accordingly the failure3 of the
have been united to the Church of Eome, ' si ses decrets eussent e"te"
recus sur les lieux; mais par malheur ils n'eurent point d'effet:' cf.
Gibbon, vi. 241, ed. Milman.
1 See e.g. above, p. 21, n. 8; p. 251 n. 5.
2 e.g. Pius HI., above, p. 339, n. 3. The language of Hadrian VI.
(by his Nuncio), at the diet of Nuremberg in 1522, is most emphatic :
Raynald. ad an. 1522, § 66.
3 See above, p. 334, n. 1. The cry for a general council was renewed,
however, at the end of the fifteenth century, and prolonged by the Ger
mans and EngUsh to the middle of the next. We gather from the fol
lowing expressions that Uttle hope was held out of a conciUar reforma
tion: 'Quia ista deficiunt [i.e. obedientia principum, zelus fidei], qusso,
ex concUiis cujusmodi reformatio proveniet .... Ecclesiam per conciUum
reformare non poterit omnis humana f acultas : sed alium modum Altis-
bb2

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Reformersin the
Church.

372

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

movement they had started, for convening general councils
periodically, seemed a blow quite fatal to their projects
of reform. But others who like them were anxious to
preserve the outward unity of Christendom at almost any
price, went further in applying sanatory measures. Chilled
and wearied by the subtleties of a degenerate race of
schoolmen, they reverted1 for illumination to the Holy
Scriptures, and the writings of the early Church. The
great majority, indeed (for instance men like Gerson or
Thomas a Kempis), were not conscious of antipathy to
the established creed or ritual institutions of their country.
Many doctrines2 which have since been methodized in
such a way as to present a sharper, a more startling and
more systematic form, were tacitly allowed or even strenu
ously defended : yet meanwhile the general tone of their
productions, as the use to which they were hereafter put
by leaders of the Reformation shewed, was adverse3 to
the modes of thought and feeling which prevailed before
that epoch.
simus procurabit, nobis quidem pro nunc incognitum, Ucet heu! praa
foribus existat, ut ad pristinum statum ecclesia redeat.' The words are
addressed by the Inquisitor Henry Institoris to the enthusiast (or impos
tor) Andrew archbishop of Crayn, who in 1480 summoned a general coun
cil on his own authority to Basel, and died in prison in 1484. Hottinger,
Hist. Eccl. saec. xv. p. 413 ; see also Farlati, Illyricum sacrum, vol. vn.
pp. 437 — 448. Andrew was a Dominican friar, named Zuccomakehi, and
his see was probably in partibus; he gave himself out as Cardinal of
S. Sixtus. His whole history, which might be interesting, is unfortu
nately obscure. See Gieseler, v. pp. 154 — 156.
1 See above, p. 356.
2 Gerson, for example, reconciled himself to a belief in the Immacu
late Conception of the Virgin, on the ground that it was a development:
' Doctores addiderunt multas veritates ultra Apostolos. Quapropter
dicere possumus, hanc veritatem " beatam Ma.riam non fuisse conceptam
in peccato originali" de UUs esse veritatibus, qua noviter sunt revelata
vel declarata, tarn per nuracula quae leguntur, quam per majorem par
tem Ecclesiaa sanctse, quae hoc modo tenet.' Opp. in. 1330, ed. Dupin.
He also appUes the remark to purgatory. Juster views are advocated in
a Wycliffite treatise (1395) edited by Forshall (1851), the author asking
(p. 79) in a paraUel case : ' Bi what presumpcion bryngith in this synf ul
man this nouelrie, not foundid opinU in the lawe of God neithir in
reesun ?'
8 The Catalogus Testium Veritatis, qui ante nostram atatem recla-
marunt Papa (ed. 1556), though constructed in a narrow, grasping, and,
at times, in something Uke a disingenuous spnit, wUl furnish many
iUustrations of this remark. See also Field, On the Church, Append, to
Book in. (n. 1 — 387, ed. 1849), who proves at length that the extreme
opinions, stereotyped by the Council of Trent, were held only by ' a fac
tion' in the age preceding Luther's.

-1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

373

While the timid, calm, or isolated efforts of this kind
were tending in the bosom of the Church itself to some
thing more emphatic, other agencies external to it had
been also urging on the work. In spite of the Inquisitors1
who prowled in every part of Europe, many sects, retain
ing more or less of truth, and more or less antagonistic
to the hierarchy and the ritual of the Church, continued
to recruit their forces. Though the Cathari, or Albigenses,
had been massacred2 in all the south of France (except
a miserable remnant3), they were at the middle of the
fourteenth century so numerous4 in Croatia, Slavonia,
Dalmatia, Albania, Bulgaria, and especially in Bosnia, as
to form a large proportion of the populace. The school
of Peter Waldo had been similarly thinned by ruthless
persecutions5, but it still survived8 in France, in parts
of Germany, and even in Bohemia, as well as in the
more sequestered vales and fastnesses of Piedmont7. The
Beghards8 also, with the German Lollards, or at least
that section of them which had now revolted absolutely
from the Church, including Fratricelli, ' Brothers and
Sisters of the Free Spirit,' and a minor group of mystical
and antinomian confraternities, appear at intervals on
every side. They seemed to thrive not only in their
earlier settlements, but also in the south of France, in

1 Schrockh, xxxrv. 468 sq.
2 See above, p. 289.
8 Such are, possibly, the Cagots of the Pyrenees: Schmidt, Hist, des
'Cathares, etc. i. 360.
4 Ibid, i. 125 sq. The inhabitants of Bosnia and Albania, where the
doctrines of the Bogomiles were deeply rooted, afterwards became the
champions of Islamism. Spencer's Travels in European Turkey, i. 303—
312, Lond. 1851.
e The first of these, in the present period, was set on foot by John
XXII. (1332), and many others followed: Schrockh, xxxiv. 488 sq.
6 The numbers in Dauphiny, as late as 1373, are said to be 'maxima
multitudo' (Eaynald. ad an. § 20). Traces of them in different parts of
Germany are noted by Gieseler to the end of the fourteenth century;
iv. § 122, pp. 218, 219, n. 5. They are said to have entered Bohemia at
the close of the twelfth (see The Reformation and Anti-Reformation in
Bohemia, Lond. 1845, i. 5; and Krasinski, Reform, in Poland, i. 53).
* Above, p. 294.
8 See above, pp. 232, 235, 294, n. 5, p. 346. In 1322, a person
named Walter [Lollard ?] was put to death at Cologne, for cnoulating
heresy in the vernacular: see John of Trittenheim (Trithemius), Annal.
n. 155.

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.
Reformers out of the
Church.

374

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

John Wycliffe
(d. 1384),
the ' Evan
gelic Doc
tor.'

Italy and Sicily1. To these may be subjoined the
Adamites, the Luciferians, the Turlupines (all independent
offshoots from the Beghards2), the disciples of John
Pirnensis3 in Silesia, and a party of Flagellants4, who,
because they pushed ascetic principles to an intolerable
length and flogged themselves in public several times a
day, were finally restrained by Clement VI. (1349). They
now seceded in great numbers from the Church.
A movement altogether disconnected5 from the rest had
meanwhile been advancing rapidly in England. Its author
was John Wycliffe, (or John of Wycliffe), born not far
from Richmond, Yorkshire (? 1324). It is said that he
1 John XXII. leveUed a buU against them Pec. 30, 1317), in the
Extravagantes Johan. XXII., tit. vn. ('Corpus Juris Canon.'). From it
we gather that they sheltered, themselves under the pretext of belonging
to the tertiary order of Franciscans.
2 See the Uterature respecting them in Gieseler, rv. § 122, pp. 224,
225, n. 10, 11, 12. Gerson (as there quoted) charges some of these sec
taries with the most unbridled Ucentiousness.
3 The author of this sect appeared in 1341, maintaining among other
kindred tenets that the pope was Antichrist, and more especiaUy distin
guished by his hatred of the clergy: Erasinski, Reform, in Poland, I. 55,
56. Perhaps they were in some way connected with the Russian Stri-
golniks (cf. above, p. 362), and many would at length pass over to the
more extreme party of Hussites.
4 Cf. above, p. 201; and see Hahn, Gesch. der Ketzer im Mittelalter,
n. 537 sq. The later FlageUants (' Bianchi') wore white garments, and
on crossing the Alps into Italy (1399) produced a- marveUous sensation.
Benedict IX., however, finaUy apprehended the leader, and consigned
him to the flames. Members of the sect were found in Thuringia and
other parts of Germany at the outbreak of the Reformation. Another
group of sectaries, entitled 'Dancers' (from their violent gesticulations
under what they deemed the influence of the Holy Ghost), sprang up
in Flanders about 1370 : cf . Gieseler, iv. § 119, pp. 203, 204, n. 23, 24.
Some of the phenomena presented by them may remind us of the modern
'electro-biology.' 6 'It is a remarkable fact that the writings of Wycliffe never give
us any reason to suppose that he was acquainted in any degree with
the history of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, or with any of the con
tinental sects:' Vaughan's Wycliffe, p. 46, ed. 1853. The predecessor
whom he valued most was Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln. ' Seith Robert
Grosteed that this [pope's] buUes ben heresies' (MS. quoted in Turner,
v. 148, n. 5)— is only one of a multitude of references which he has
made to that prelate. In the WycUffite treatise (1395) edited by Mr
Forshall, with the title, Remonstrance against Romish Corruptions (Lond.
1851), there are no less than five such references to 'the worshipful
clerk, Grosted, bisshop of Lincolne.' On Dr Maitland's theory for con
necting the English LoUards with the political and other prophets of
the continent (e.g. the abbot Joachim, above, p. 255, n. 1), Bee his Eight
Essays (1852), pp. 207 sq.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

375

was at one time a resident in Queen's College, Oxford1,
but as there were certainly two if not three persons at the
university bearing the same name at this time, this is very
uncertain2. The first fact distinctly known about him is
that in 1361 he was master or warden of Balliol College3.
Devoting his attention to scholastics, he is said to have
outstripped4 all others in that field of study: but his
title Evangelic (Gospel) Doctor indicates that he was no
less favourably known at Oxford for proficiency in biblical
literature. Recent historical research has shewn that the
theory once received, of the commencement6 of Wycliffe's
controversial labours8 by an attack on the friars, is un
tenable. 1 Even this statement about him is uncertain. Compare Shnley,
Fasciculi Zizaniorum, pref. xU xiv. ; and the remarks of Mr H. T. RUey
in the Second Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, 1871, pp.
141, 142.
2 The John Wycliffe whose history is most frequently confounded
with the reformer's, was in 1356 a fellow of Merton College, and after
wards rector of Mayfield in Sussex, who died in 1383. It is probable
that this person was also Warden of Canterbury Hall. These prefer
ments have frequently been assigned to the great Wycliffe, who however
was a Doctor of Divinity at the time that hiB namesake was a Bachelor.
The whole argument against the identity of the two is stated by Dr
Shirley, Fasciculi Zizaniorum, pp. 513—528.
3 He was also presented by this society (1361) to the rectory of Fyling-
ham, in the archdeaconry of Stow, a benefice which he afterwards ex
changed (1368) for LudgershaU, nearer to Oxford.
4 Thus Henry Knyghton (in Twysden's Scriptores X., col. 2644) is
driven to admit, ' in philosophia nulli repirtabatur secundus, in scholas-
ticis disciplinis incomparabiUs:' cf. Le Bas, Life of Wiclif, pp. 93, 944,
Lond. 1832. He was a Realist, and thus opposed himself to Ockham.
For a complete list of his scholastic and philosophical writings (many of
whioh are preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, MSS.
No. 326), see Shnley' s Catalogue of Wyclif's Original Works, Oxford, 1865 ;
Select English Works of Wyclif, ed. Arnold, in. xvn. ; and Vaughan's
Wycliffe, pp. 541 sq., ed. 1853.
5 "That in 1356 he pubUshed his first work, The Last Age of the
Church ; that the same year he was one of the fellows of Merton, that in
1360 he took up the pen of the dying Archbishop Fitz Ralph of Armagh
in his memorable controversy with the Mendicants, are facts only by
courtesy and repetition. The Last Age of the Church has been assigned
to him in common with half the EngUsh reUgious tracts of the four
teenth and fifteenth centuries, in the absence of aU external, and in
defiance of aU internal evidence." Shirley, Fasc. Zizan. pref. xin.
On the authorship of the Last Age of the Church, see Shirley's Catalogue
of WicUf's Works, pref. p. xiii. it was edited by Dr Todd, Dublin,
1851. 6 See e.g. his Two Short Treatises against the Orders of Begging
Friars, Oxf. 1608: printed also in the Select English Works of Wiclif,

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

His early
career.

376

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

HisObjections
to the
Friars.

To whatever date however this hostility is to be re
ferred, his works on the subject are the utterances of a
man righteously indignant at the hollowness, the self-
indulgence, and extortion of the papal volunteers. He
seems to speak as if he had been personally thwarted by
them in his ministerial labours : every scandal and disaster
of the times was laid to their account. By them the work
ing of the Church was said to have been so enfeebled and
disorganized, that till they had been taught to understand
the 'freedom of the Gospel' and the 'clean religion of
Jesus Christ,' all other remedies would prove inefficacious.
Wycliffe never paused nor faltered1 in his declamations
on this head, and therefore the hostility which he excited
in a large and powerful section of his countrymen pur
sued him even to the grave. But on the other hand
his zeal, his patriotism, and learning commended him to
ed. Arnold, Oxford, 1871 ; in. 366. Mr Arnold ascribes these tracts to
1382 and 1384, and even questions whether they are WycUffe's. They
contain however much of the teaching of his school on the subject. He
had been preceded in this Une by several writers (see above, p. 344, n. 5),
especially by Richard Fitzralph, archbishop of Armagh, who had (in
1357) arraigned the Mendicants before the pope and cardinals at Avignon
(above, p. 345, n. 1). The Friars, on the other hand, were not desti
tute of champions. See, for instance, Wil. Wodfordus (a Franciscan)
adversus Joh. Wiclefum Anglum (in Brown's Fasc. I. 191 sq.), which
is a fuU examination of the various errors charged on Wycliffe and
his school.
1 One of the few anecdotes preserved respecting him informs us that,
when dangerously Ul in 1379, he was visited by certain Mendicants who
urged him to recal the accusations he had leveUed at them. His reply
was, 'I shaU not die, but Uve, and again declare the evU deeds of the
Friars:' Le Bas, p. 196. In the tract, De Ecclesia et Membris suis,
written in the last year of his life (1384), and edited in 1851, with two
other treatises by Dr Todd, and by Mr Arnold in the Select EngUsh
Works of Wyclif, in. 338, he urges that 'for profit of the chirche shulden
freris worche to quench this striyf.' 'But noon,' he adds, 'groundith
here his word, as noon of thes newe ordris groundith, that he cam inne
bi Crist, and but gif [i.e. unless] this groundyng be in dede, dremes and
confermyngis ben nougt. On this maner shulden trewe men seke wisely
the sothe, and purge our moder of apostemes, that ben harmful in the
chirche. To this shulde the pope helpe, for to this dette weren aposths
boundun, and not to lordshipis of money but [i.e. except] in as myche
as it helpide herto' etc., p. xlvii. (ed. Arnold, p. 353). The next treatise
in Dr Todd's volume, De Apostasia Cleri (Arnold, p. 430), [i.e. their
abandonment of their proper duties], shows that Wycliffe wa's not blind
to faUings in that quarter also; and the same is still more manifest in
a work doubtfully attributed to him Of Clerks Possessioners ¦ see an
account of it in Vaughan, p. 526. Shirley, Catalogue, p. 41- Arnold
Select Works of Wyclif, in. xix. ' '

• — 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

377

Edward III., who made him one of the royal chaplains1
and bestowed on him the prebend of Aust in the collegiate
church of Westbury (Worcester) and the rectory of Lutter
worth in Leicestershire2 (1374). The favour of the crown
had been already manifested in selecting him for one of
the commissioners appointed to negociate at Bruges
with certain papal envoys touching the pecuniary exac
tions of their master. Though the mission does not
seem to have produced3 a real mitigation of abuses, it
would hardly fail to rivet the attention of an earnest
soul like Wycliffe's on the manifold enormities prevailing
in the papal court and the administration of the Church
at large.
His controversial career, so far as it can be dated by ex
tant monuments, began about 1363, when on philosophical
subjects he was engaged in a dispute with the Carmelite
Kynyngham4. To Wycliffe's mind philosophical and prac
tical questions presented themselves in close conjunction,
scholastic, theological, and ecclesiastical abuses were too
firmly allied to stand severally alone when once the re
former's hand was raised against any one of them. Still
in 1366 we find him prepared to call himself ' a lowly and
obedient son of the Roman Church 6 ;' as though the clearest
1 This point is rather open to discussion, resting mainly on the way
in which he speaks of himself as standing in a close relation to the crown
('peculiaris regis clericus'). As such he professed his readiness to main
tain that the sovereign of this country may justly rule, though denying
tribute to the pope: Vaughan, as above, p. 106.
2 Le Bas, p. 155. He had meanwhile (before 1366) become a S. T. P.
of Oxford, and as such lectured in Theology: see Shirley, Ease. Ziz. pref.
p. xvii. 3 For instance, Wycliffe's coadjutor, the bishop of Bangor, was im
mediately afterwards translated (1375) by a papal buU to Hereford,
although the issue of the conference was that the pope should desist
from all 'reservations,' and that the king should no longer confer bene
fices by an arbitrary writ ('Quare impedit'): Le Bas, p. 154. The in
fluence of the recent negociations may be seen, however, in the 'Rolls' of
What is caUed the 'Good Parliament' (1376), which demanded among
other things that no papal questor or collector should remain in England
on pain of Ufe and limb (see Rot. Pari. 50° Edw. III., § 114).
4 Dr Shnley divides Wycliffe's Uterary career into three periods;
the first lasting up to 1366 or 1367, including his logical, physical and
scholastic works; the second including his attempts at constitutional
reform in the church extending to the date of the great schism; the third
from 1376 to his death, including his doctrinal writings. Ease. Ziz. pref.
pp. xxxix — xliii.
6 Vaughan, p. 109. His views at this time on the question whether

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

'llC

mission to
Bruges, 1374-1375.

378 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

insight into its corruptions and its crooked policy were
absolutely needed ere he could be roused to controvert the
papacy itself.
His eyes were opened by the diplomatic mission to
Bruges1, and accordingly, soon after his return, the Ro
manizing party in the Church of England, stimulated
as it seems by the emphatic warnings of the pope, and
headed by William Courtenay, bishop of London, insti
tuted measures for convicting him of heresy. He was
cited to appear and vindicate himself before the convo
cation, which assembled at St Paul's Cathedral, ' Feb. 3,
1377'2. The charges brought against him were that he
advanced, in lectures and elsewhere, a class of tenets
like the following3: — that the Church of Rome is not the
the crown of England owe any feudal homage to the pope in consequence
of the proceedings in the time of John (cf. above, p. 252) are stated in a
Determinatio, printed in Lewis, Life and Sufferings of John Wiclif, pp.
349 sq., Oxf. 1820. In this treatise (p. 354) we may see the germ of a
strange doctrine which afterwards became a reproach to him and his
followers, viz. that power and property are held by the tenure of grace,
and therefore Uable to be forfeited by the 'mortal sin' of the owner.
Mr Le Bas endeavours to relieve Wyclifie from this charge, pp. 350 sq. :
cf. Vaughan, p. 460.
1 He came from thence, persuaded that the 'proud, worldly priest
of Bome' was 'the most cursed of clippers and pursekervers.' Lewis,
p. 37. 2 The chronology of these events is rather confusing, but according
to the authorities at present accessible, the foUowing appears to be the
sequence. The Convocation at which Wycliffe first appeared was held
at St Paul's for the purpose of granting a subsidy, Feb. 3, 1377, (Hody,
p. 225). Wycliffe's appearance and the riot that broke up the sitting
are placed on the 23rd of February. The pope's letters were issued on
the 22nd of May. Of these the first is addressed to the University,
and forbids the propounding of Wycliffe's opinions, (Wals. 346); the
second to the archbishop and the bishop of London, bidding them ad
monish the king and nobles not to favour Wycliffe (Ibid. 347). The
third to the same two prelates enjoining them to cite Wycliffe to Rome
(Ibid. 348). The fourth to the same directing the arrest of the reformer
(Ibid. 350), the fifth to the king desiring him to favour the prosecution.
Edward died on the 21st of June. The letters of the archbishop and
bishop addressed to the University, directing the appearance of Wycliffe
at St Paul's in obedience to the papal mandate, are dated Dec. 28, 1377,
(Wilkins in. 123). He is ordered to appear on the thirtieth day after
citation. The place seems to have been changed, and probably the day
also. The trial at Lambeth was the result, and it was broken up in
much the same way as the former attempt at St Paul's. Compare Shir
ley, Fasc. Ziz. xxvi. — xxxiii., Vaughan, pp. 185 sq.
3 All the nineteen propositions are given in WUkins, as above, p. 123:
cf. Massingberd's Eng. Reformation, p. 9, Lond. 1847. The last of the
schedule must have been peculiarly offensive: 'Ecclesiasticus, immo

• — 1520] State of Religions Doctrine and Controversies.

379

head of all Churches, nor has Christ committed larger
functions to St Peter than to others of the Twelve ; that
the Roman pontiff has no powers of absolution different
from those entrusted to all members of the priesthood;
that ecclesiastical censures ought not to be used for grati
fying individual spleen, and that an excommunicated per
son does not truly fare the worse unless he be already
self-ejected from the fellowship of Christians ; that the civil
power, in certain cases, may both lawfully and meritoriously
punish a delinquent church by appropriating its revenues ;
that the Gospel is sufficient as a rule of life for every class
of Christians, and that other ' rules ' (adopted by religious
orders, for example) can add nothing of perfection to the
law of God.
When on the 23rd of February he appeared before the
convocation he was accompanied by the earl marshal,
Percy, and by John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster.
The latter, as the head of a numerous party who were
bent on lowering the pretensions of the English eccle
siastics, manifested a peculiar zeal in his behalf. Some
verbal skirmishing that passed between the bishop of
London and these powerful friends of Wycliffe, issued in
a riot of the citizens, who could not brook what they
esteemed the insult which was put on their diocesan, and
who hated John of Gaunt. Amid this angry tumult the
inquiry was suspended.
During the few months that followed Wycliffe's enemies
were busy at Rome. The king1 died in June, but before
this the pope had issued letters against the reformer,
addressed to the king, the archbishop of Canterbury, and
the chancellor of Oxford2. In pursuance of these orders
et Romanus pontifex, potest legitime a subditis et laicis corripi et
etiam accusari.' In the accompanying instruments the pope associates
Wycliffe with MarsiUus of Padua (see above, p. 324, n. 1) 'of accursed
memory.' 1 Whether Edward, who enacted a statute of Prajmunire (making
the execution of aU bulls, without the licence of the crown, a very grave
offence), would have been likely to sanction the proceedings against Wy-
cUfle, is not easy to determine.
3 The foUowing is part of Walsingham's entry at the year 1378, Eiley's
edition, vol. i. p. 345: 'Diu in pendulo hasrebant [i.e. the Oxford au
thorities] utrum papalem buUam deberent cum honore recipere, vel om-
nino cum dedecore refutare . . . Pudet recordationis tantaa imprudentias:
et ideo supersedeo in hujusmodi materia immorari, ne materna videar

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.
Summaryof his
opinions
at this
time.

Proceedings against
him. 1377.

38o

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

His line of
defence,

and the
principles there
enunciated.

Wycliffe appeared early in 1378 before the bishops at
Lambeth ; but on this occasion a fresh uproar stirred up,
it seems by the partizans of the reformer1, and supported
by a message in his favour from the princess of Wales,
determined the archbishop to dismiss him with a repri
mand2. It is important to remark the tone and tactics of the
culprit while he was arraigned at this tribunal3. He
examined all the several propositions which the papal
rescript had alleged against him, urging in the outset
that they were a puerile and garbled version of his real
tenets, and declaring his willingness to acquiesce in the
decisions of 'holy mother Church.' In proving that man
kind had no power to make St Peter and his successors
the political rulers of the world 'for ever,' he appealed
to the admitted fact that temporal property could only
last until the second advent. Other arguments alike
evasive were applied to propositions on the subject of
civil dominion and of civil inheritance : but when he finally
approached the questions touching church-property, the
power of excommunication, and the different orders of
the ministry, his language was more candid and distinct.
As tithes and all ecclesiastical possessions were but elee
mosynary4, he maintained that to withhold them, in some
ubera decerpere dentibus, quaa dare lac potum scientisB consuevere.' It
appears also that Wycliffe carried with him a large party (even a major
ity) of the Londoners (Vaughan, pp. 189, 190), although the municipal
authorities, and many of the citizens, who hated John of Gaunt, were
active on the other side.
1 Walsingham (p. 356) complains on this occasion, ' Non dioo cives
tantum Loudi menses, sed viles ipsius civitatis se impudenter ingerere
prassumpserunt in eandem capeUam [i.e. at Lambeth], et verba facere pro
eodem, et istud negotium impedne.'
2 See Walsingham's indignant language on the cowardice or mildness
of the prelates. He says, among other things, that they became ' velut
homo non audiens, et non habens in ore suo redargutiones. ' Ibid. p. 356.
Their injunction charging Wycliffe to abstain from pubUshing his opi
nions, was altogether lost upon him.
3 The same chronicler taxes him with dissimulation and crooked
dealing in the interview at Lambeth; Ibid. pp. 356, 363: cf. Le Bas,
pp. 178 sq. ; Lingard, iv. 256 sq. ; and Vaughan, pp. 207 sq., the last of
whom makes merry on the occasion, it would seem to many readers, at
Wycliffe's own expense.
4 The payments to the papaoy had always been spoken of as alms
(' eleemosyna beati Petri'). Sir Thomas More, Suppl. of Soules,
(Works, i. 296) describes Peterpence as ' ever payde before the conquest

*— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

38l

instances at least; might be an act of duty and of genuine
charity1. His statement was, however, somewhat modified
by intimating that such revocations should be only made
in cases where they had been authorized by civil and by
canon law2. Respecting excommunications, he avowed
that no effect was wrought by them unless the sentence
of the Church accorded with the will of Christ. He
followed several of the schoolmen3 in regarding priests
and bishops as of the same spiritual order, though dif
ferent in rank or jurisdiction ; arguing on this ground,
that each of the seven sacraments might be lawfully
administered by any of the sacerdotal class. He also
reaffirmed his earlier statement, that ecclesiastics, nay
the pope himself4, might be on some accounts impleaded
and corrected by their subjects, whether clerical or lay6.
The death of Gregory XL in the spring of 1378 was
followed, as already noticed6, by the schism which para
lysed the vigour of the Roman court. Its jealousy
to the apostolike sea towarde the mayntenance therof, but only by way of
gratitude and almes.' On the Responsio magistri Johannis Wycliff (1377)
respecting this question, see Fasciculi Zizaniorum, pp. 258 sq. , in Chron
icles of Great Britain : cf. Twysden's Vindication, p. 96. Camb. ed.
1 WycUffe, like the abbot Joachim, Hildegard, and the more rigorous
school of Friars, now arrived at the conviction that the secularity of the
Church was mainly due to its abundant property. On this account he
would have gladly seen ecclesiastics destitute of temporal possessions
except the scantiest portion by which Ufe could be sustained: cf. Le Bas,
p. 194. 2 It is manifest, however, from the proceedings of the synod of Lon
don (1382) that WycUffe was stiU charged with holding more extreme
opinions on this subject : ' Item quod decimaa sunt puraB eleemosynae, et
quod parochiani possint propter peccata suorum curatorum eas detinere,
et ad Ubitum aUis conf erre. ' Wilkins, in. 157.
3 See Palmer's Treatise on the Church, part vt. ch. iv. sect. 1.
4 He does not even shrink from the supposition ' Si papa fuerit a fide
devius.' 5 After his escape from his enemies at Lambeth, WycUffe had a con
troversy on the same topic with an anonymous divine called ' mixtus
theologus.' He there carries his opinions out more fuUy : see Le Bas, pp.
190 sq.; Vaughan, pp. 216 sq.
6 Above, p. 328. In WycUffe's treatise, Schisma Papa (1382), (Select
English Works of Wyclif; ed. Arnold, Oxford 1871, p. 247,) he thus
writes of the dissension : ' Trust we in the help of Christ on this point,
for he hath begun already to help us graciously, in that he hath clove
the head of Antichrist, and made the two parts fight against each other.
For it is not to be doubted that the sin of the popes which hath been
so long continued, hath brought in this division,' Quoted in Vauehan,
p. 37*.

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

3*2

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.
Wycliffe
attacks the
dogma of
transub
stantiation, 1380.

was thus diverted from the struggles of the English
Church, and Wycliffe gathered strength and courage for
his work. He had been hitherto endeavouring for the
most part to suppress the evils that grew out of mal
administration1. If he called the papacy an ' antichristian*
power, he only meant, as did a host of earlier writers who
had used a similar expression, to denounce the practical
corruptions then abounding in the see of Rome. But
after 1380 many of his protests went far deeper2. He
repudiated the prevailing dogmas on the nature of the
1 ThuB in the one of his three manifestoes issued at this time, which
Shirley fixes in October 1377, and Lewis after the Lambeth examination,
his protest runs as foUows: 'Hae sunt conelusiones, quas vult etiam usque
ad mortem defendere, ut per hoc valeat mores Ecclesia reformare.' (Lewis,
p. 389, Fasc. Ziz. p. 245.) WycUffe, in other words, had hardly exceeded
many of his predecessors in the area and vehemence of his critiques. See
for instance, A Poem on the Times of Edward II. (cnc. 1320), edited by
the present writer for the Percy Society, No. lxxxii. , or the Vision and
Creed of Piers Plowman, passim ; although the Creed may have been
itseU a WycUfiite production.
2 The foUowing are five of the twelve theses which he is charged with
maintaining at Oxford on this subject (1381): 1. 'Hostia consecrata
quam videmus in altari nee est Christus nee aUqua Sui pars, sed efficax
ejus signum. 2. NnUus viator [i.e. Christian] sufficit oculo eorporaU,
sed fide Christum videre in hoBtia consecrata. 3. Olim fuit fides Eccle-
si& Eomanae in professione Berengarii, quod panis et vinum quas rema
nent post benedictionem sunt hostia consecrata. 4. Eucharistia habet
vntute verborum sacramentaUum tarn corpus quam sanguinem Christi
vere et reaUter ad quemUbet ejus punctum. 5. Transubstantiatio,
idemptificatio, et impanatio, quibus utuntur baptistaj signorum in materia
de Eucharistia, non sunt fundabiles in Scriptura.' Fasc. Ziz. pp. 105,
106. These views are fuUy stated in the fourth book of Wycliffe's Tria-
logus (in 1382), a work which embodies many of his academical lectures.
It was printed in 1525, at Basel, with the title Jo. Wiclefi viri undiquaque
piissimi Dialogorum libri quatuor; and has been repubUshed at Oxford
under the editorship of Dr Lechler of Leipzig, in 1869. In an EngUsh
Confession, of the same date, preserved in Knyghton (inter Scriptores X.,
col. 2649), he deems it ' heresie for to trow that this sacrament is Goddus
body and no brede; for it is both togedur.' He also draws a sharp dis
tinction between his view and that of ' heretykes that trowes and telles
that this sacrament may on none wise be Goddus body.' Cf. also a Latin
Confessio, in Vaughan, pp. 564 sq. ; Fasc. Ziz. 115 — 132, where Wycliffe
taunts his adversaries on the ground that they are ' secta cultorum acci-
dentium,' and expresses his beUef ' quod finaUter Veritas vincet eos.' He
also adduces seven witnesses from the Fathers of the Church ' ad testifi-
candam Eoclesiaa judicis hujus sententiam,' ascribing the estabUshment
of transubstantiation to Innocent III. and the Friars : cf. above, p. 302
Wycliffe's Trialogus, p. 263 (ed. Oxon.), and the Wycliffite Remonstrance'
edited by Mr ForshaU (Lond. 1851), p. 79. Neander (ix. pp. 218 sq.'
Bonn's edition) has investigated the opinions of the reformer on these
topics.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

383

Presence in the Eucharist. According to his view there
is no physical conversion of the elements ; they do not
lose their proper substance after consecration : yet in some
mode or other which he does not rigidly define, it is
contended that the sacramental bread is simultaneously
and truly the Body of Christ. In different language,
Wycliffe seems to have revived the doctrine of Ratramnus,
.Mfric, and Berengarius1.
When these tenets had been advocated for some
time in Oxford11, they excited the hostility of William
Berton, the chancellor (1381), who, calling to his aid
twelve other doctors, eight of whom were members of
religious orders and on that account the bitter enemies
of Wycliffe, instantly pronounced the views of the re
former contrary to the determinations of the Church.
They censured3 him, and with him all who were unwilling
to confess that after the consecration of the Eucharistic
elements ' there do not remain in that venerable sacra
ment the material bread and wine which were there before,
each according to its own substance or nature, but only
the species of the same, under which species the very
Body and Blood of Christ are really contained, not merely
figuratively or tropically, but essentially, substantially, and
corporeally, — so that Christ is there verily in His own
proper bodily presence.' Silenced by the academical
authorities, the fearless culprit next endeavoured to con
found his adversaries by appealing to the king4: but he
1 See the previous note, and cf. above, pp. 168, 169, 173.
2 TheDiffinitio contra Opiniones Wycliffianas, here alluded to (Vaughan,
pp. 561 — 563 ; Fascic. Ziz. p. 110), complains that by the publication of
'pestiferous .documents' at Oxford, 'fides Catholica periclitatur, devotio
popuU minoratur, et hsec universitas mater nostra non mediocriter dU-
famatur.' 3 Vaughan, p. 562: cf. Twysden's Vindication, p. 234. They also ap
pended a prohibition, ' ne quis de caatero aUquem pubUce docentem, te-
nentem vel defendentem pramiissas duas assertiones erroneas aut earum
alteram in schoUs vel extra scholas in hac universitate quovismodo audiat
vel auscultet, sed statim sic docentem tanquam serpentem venenum pes-
tiferum emittentem fugiat et abscedat sub poena excommunicationis ma-
joris,' etc. (Fasc. Zit. 112.) To set himself right with his friends and
followers at large, WycUffe now pubUshed (1381) his weU-known tract
entitled Ostiolum or Wyckett (printed first at Nuremberg in 1546). See
Shirley's Catalogue, p. 33. He seems to have retreated from the Univer
sity at the same time, but, according to Dr Vaughan (pp. 571 sq.), he was
there again in the following year (1382).
4 See the extract from archbp. Sudbury's Register in WUkins, m.

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

His teach
ing on this
subject condemned
at Oxford.

384

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 13C5

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

tious cir
cumstances.

Synod of
London, 1382.

was driven to suspend this measure by the intervention
of John of Gaunt, who seems indeed to have been losing
all his confidence in Wycliffe, when the latter animad
verted on the doctrine, as distinguished from the practical
corruptions and the secular encroachments, of the Church.
A communistic outbreak of the English peasants and
villeins, headed by Wat Tyler and John Balle1, occurred
at this very juncture; and although it was not instigated*
or fomented by the new opinions, it could hardly fail to
prejudice the civil power against all further movements ;
more especially when, as in Wycliffe's, little or no tender
ness was shewn to the Establishment and other constituted
authorities of the realm.
The primate had been murdered in the recent tumults.
To his throne succeeded Courtenay, the old antagonist
of the reforming party, who availed himself at once of
the alarms now generally felt in England for suppressing
what was deemed by many of his school the surest pro
vocation of God's anger3. By his influence a new synod4
171, where the language is remarkable: ' ...appeUavit non ad papam,
vel episcopum, vel ordinarium ecclesiasticum ; sed haareticus adhierens
saeculari potestati in defensionem sui erroris et hasresis appeUavit ad
regem Bichardum, volens per hoc se protegere regah potestate, quod non
purnretur, vel emendaretur, ecclesiastica potestate.' In the autumn of
1382, however, WycUffe carried 'his appeal to Caesar,' in a Complaint
which he addressed to the king and parUament (printed at Oxford in
1608, with other pieces under the editorship of Dr James; ed. Arnold, in.
507). It is divided into four articles, three of which relate to the vows of
reUgious orders, the relations of the clergy to the civU power, and the
withholding of tithes and offerings from unworthy curates; while the
fourth re-states the theory of WycUffe on transubstantiation.
1 Of this person, who was a priest, Knyghton (col. 2644) says that he
was a 'precursor' of Wycliffe, but never intimates that the two were act
ing in concert : cf. Wilkins, in. 152, 153.
2 This fact is weU established by the author of a History of England
and France under the House of Lancaster (Lond. 1852), pp. 16 sq., and
notes: cf. Vaughan, pp.260, 261. Mr Hallam, (Middle Ages, in. 178,
179, 10th ed.) leans to the other side. That incendiary principles were
not uncommon at this period may be gathered from the condemnation of
John Petit, a doctor of Paris, by the synod of Constance (July 6, 1415).
3 e.g. The zealot, Walsingham (vol. n. p. 11), who never charged the
WycUffites with stimulating the insurrection, looks upon it as a judgment
of heaven upon the prelates for not prosecuting the new heresy.
4 Wilkins, in. 157. One of the prelates was WiUiam of Wykeham.
It is remarkable that, among the other accusations here brought against
the reformer, one is to this effect, that after the death of Urban VI. no
pope ought to be recognized, but that the people should be, like the
Greeks, governed by their own laws: § 9. See the contemporary history
of these proceedings in Fasciculi Zizaniorum, ed. Shirley, pp. 272 sq.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

3«S

was convened at the house of the Black Friars, London,
(May 19, 1382), in order to deliberate respecting certain
strange opinions which were said to have been widely
circulated among both the nobility and the commoners of
England. The proceedings had the sanction of eight pre
lates, with a sprinkling of canonists, civilians, and divines.
Of twenty-four propositions1 there attributed to Wycliffe,
ten were branded as heretical, and all the rest as execrable
and erroneous. Some of Wycliffe's more distinguished
partisans, especially Nicholas Hereford, Philip Repington,
and John Aston2, were now called upon to disavow those
tenets, or to suffer heavy penalties, — an ordeal which it
seems but few of them had still sufficient constancy to
meet3. There was indeed no English law at present
which inflicted capital punishment in case of heresy: but
Court enay had been able to procure a royal letter4 (dated
July 13) which authorized their banishment from Oxford
and the ultimate imprisonment of all who might defend
the new opinions. Lancaster himself enjoined the leaders
of the movement to throw down their arms; and after
1 Many of these were statements, somewhat garbled, of what Wycliffe
reaUy taught. The most preposterous of them (§ 7) ran as follows:
'Quod Deus debet obedne diabolo,' an inference drawn perhaps from
Wycliffe's rigorous views of predestination. Of the 'erroneous' con
clusions one is thus expressed: 'Quod liceat aUcui etiam diacono vel
presbytero, praedicare verbum Dei absque auctoritate sedis apostolieas
vel episcopi cathoUci, seu aUa de qua surficienter constet.' This charge
originated in the fact that some of WycUffe's disciples, ' Simple Priests '
or 'Poor Priests,' itinerated, like the Friars, in aU parts of the country,
often barefoot and in coarse raiment of a russet hue, inveighing against
the corruptions of the Church, comforting the sick and dying, and ex
pounding the Scriptures. They formed a kind of 'home-mission.' Fasc.
Ziz. xl.
2 WUkins, in. 166. Fasc. Ziz. 289. The foUowing passage from
Walsingham (Hypodigma Neustria, in Camden's Anglica, &c. p. 535)
appears to shew that Wycliffism was now most unpopular among the
clergy. They granted the king a tenth in the autumn of 1382, but with
the condition 'ut videUcet Eex manus apponat defensioni ecclesiae, et
praestet auxUium ad compressionem hasreticorum Wicklevensium, qui jam
sua prava doctrina poene inf ecerant totum regnum. '
3 Vaughan, pp. 269 sq.; Hist, of England under the House of Lan
caster, pp. 18 — 22, and note xn. How far WycUffe was himseU disposed
at this time to modify his statements on the Eucharist may be gathered
from the documents enumerated in p. 382, n. 2.
4 Addressed to the Oxford authorities and also to sheriffs and mayors :
see Hist, of England, as above, p. 360 ; and Fascic. Zizaniorum, pp.
312 sq.

M. A.

CO

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Condem
nation of
the Wy
cUffites.

386 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.
Wycliffe's
retirementand death,
1384. His trans
lation of
the Bible.

Wycliffe had in vain endeavoured, to excite the king
and parliament in their behalf1, he quietly resided on his
benefice at Lutterworth, where he expired2, in the com
munion of the English Church, Dec. 31, 1384.
Meanwhile, however, he had occupied himself in labours
that were destined to immortalize his name. The earlier
of those versions of the Bible and 'Apocrypha,' which
are known as ' Wycliffite3,' was then completed. Not a
few detached portions, as we have already seen4, were
rendered into English at an earlier date : but never till
the present period was the whole of the sacred volume
generally unlocked and circulated freely among all orders
of society. Though it is probable that many who resisted
Wycliffe's movement as unauthorized were still in favour
of vernacular translations6, others seem to have regarded
1 See above, p. 383, n. 4: Vaughan, pp. 289 sq. His comparative
impunity now stimulated Urban VI. (the rival pope acknowledged in this
country) to cite him to the court of Bome. Wycliffe repUed excusing
himself in » half- sarcastic letter (printed in Vaughan, p. 576; Select
English Works, ed. Arnold, in. 504 ; and in Latin in Fascic. Zizan.
p. 341), upon the ground of bodUy infirmity (a paralytic affection of
which he died at last). Among other things he says: 'I suppose over
this, that the pope be most obUshed to the keping of the Gospel among
aU men that liven here. For the pope is highest vicar that Christ has
here in erth. For moreness [i. e. superiority] of Christ's vicars is not
measured by worldly moreness, bot by this, that this vicar sues [i. e. fol
lows] more Christ by vertuous living : for thus teches the Gospel.'
2 He was taken Ul at mass on the feast of Thomas a Becket (Dec. 29)
and died on the feast of pope SUvester, from which his enemies argued
that his death was a Divine judgment for the violence with which he had
assailed both these prelates.
3 See on this subject the able Preface to the Wycliffite Versions of the
Bible, published at Oxford, 1850, p. vi. The later and more popular
version is mainly due to John Purvey, the second champion- of the Eng
Ush Lollards ; lbid. p. xxxu. ; Vaughan, p. 359, note.
4 Above, p. 297, n. 4. Sir Thos. More (Works, p. 233, ed. 1549)
actuaUy asserts that Wycliffe's version of the whole Bible into EngUsh
was not the oldest: but no one has ever verified the assertion: cf.
Vaughan, p. 334. The extract given in Ussher (Hist. Dogmat., Works,
xn. 346, ed. Ellington) states that an earlier version was put forth by
John of Trevisa, chaplain to Lord Berkeley; but this theory is also un
tenable ; Pref. to the Wycliffite Bible, p. xxi.
6 Even archbishop Arundel (Constitutions against Lollards, § 6; with
notes in Johnson, n. 466, 467, Oxf. 1851) does not absolutely forbid such
translations (in 1408), but requires that they shaU first be submitted
to the diocesan, or if need be, to a provincial council. He also praises
Anne of Bohemia (the queen of Eich. II.), 'quod quamvis advena esset
et peregrina, tamen quatuor Evangelia in linguam Anglicam versa et doc-
torum commentariis declarata assidue meditaretur.' Quoted in Ussher

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

387

them in every case with horror and alarm1. In putting
forth their work it is quite obvious that the authors were
anticipating the most active opposition2. An attempt was
made accordingly, soon after it appeared, to check its
circulation3: but no measures of that kind were carried
out till twenty years later, in a synod4 held at Oxford
(1408). The general views of Wycliffe on dogmatic questions
may be gathered partly from the evidence adduced above,
and partly from the multitudinous tracts5 he composed
at Lutterworth immediately before his death ; but none of
these are so distinct and comprehensive as the more scho
lastic work entitled his Trialogus". Accepting the con-
ciliar definitions of the ancient Church7 as they related to
the central truths of our religion, he professed to be
desirous of reverting in all other points to Holy Scripture
and the early standards of belief8. The prominence
as above, p. 352. Bichard of Hampole's version of the Psalms (circ. 1340)
was not prohibited.
1 Thus Knyghton, the anti-LoUard, has the following characteristic
passage (col. 2644): 'Hie magister Johannes Wyclif evangeUum, quod
Christus contulit clericis et Ecclesias doctoribus, ut ipsi laicis et inferiori-
bus personis secundum temporis exigentiam et personarum indigentiam
cum mentis eorum esurie dulciter ministrarent, transtulit de Latino in
Anghcam linguam, non angeUcam, unde per ipsum fit vulgare et magis
apertum laicis et muUeribus legere scientibus, quam solet esse clericis
admodum literatis et bene intelligentibus : et sic evangeUca margarita
spargitur' etc.
2 For their mode of defence, see Preface to the Wycliffite Bible, pp.
xiv, xv. note : Vaughan, p. 338. The title of Wycliffe's own treatise on
this point is sufficiently startUng: How Antichrist and his clerks travail
to destroy Holy Writ.
3 See the remarkable protest of John of Gaunt, when an attempt
was made to suppress it by act of Parliament (1390), in Ussher, as
above, p. 352.
4 Wilkins, in. 314; Johnson, 11. 457.
5 Vaughan, p. 405. The number of them (see the Catalogue, Lbid.
pp. 525 — 544) appears almost incredible.
6 Above, p. 382, n. 2. It is analysed in Turner's Hist, of Engl.
'Middle Ages,' v. 185—193, ed. 1830.
7 See the extracts in Massingberd, Engl. Reformation, pp. 127, 128,
2nd ed. The Wycliffite Remonstrance (ed. ForshaU) occupies the same
ground. It contends that the doctrine of transubstantiation is not ex
pressed in Holy Writ and is unproved by 'kyndeli [i.e. natural] reesoun,'
and experience. 'Alsoholi doctouris bi a thousand yeer and more
taughten not this opinli, bat expresli the contrarie, as it is opin of seynt
Austyn, Jerom, and Chrisostom:' p. 78.
8 The foUowing prophecy in the Trialogus (ed. Oxon. p. 349) is very
remarkable : ' Suppono autem, quod aliqui fratres, quos Deus doeere
CC2

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Summary
of his
theological
opinions :

'388

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

especiallyon the sa
craments.

awarded in his system to the Incarnation and Atone
ment of the Saviour1 led him to renounce all trust in
human merit, to suspect, if not to discontinue invocations
of the saints, and more especially to fulminate against
the impious sale of 'pardons,' or indulgences. Though
he persisted to the last in speaking of the 'sacraments'
as seven in number2, he arrived at clear distinctions with
regard to their necessity, importance, and effect. The
Eucharist, according to his view, while it is ' sacramentally
the Body of Christ' is also 'in its nature truly bread3;'
and consequently the supreme worship of the Host ap
peared to him idolatrous4. In baptism, which he thought
was properly administered to infants, he could recognize
the ordinary channel instituted by the Lord Himself, and
therefore commonly required, in order to the remission of
sins5. He was in doubt as to the scripturalness of con
firmation 6, shocked by an excessive ritualism with which it
had been loaded and obscured. The ministerial 'orders,'
he contended, were originally two'; on which account the
bishop ought to be included in a category with the pope,
the cardinals, and others, who had no existence in the
apostolic age. The first step in genuine penitence8, accord
ing to his view, is thorough change of heart, and though
dignatur, ad reUgionem primaevam Christi devotius convertentur, et
reUcta sua perfidia, sive obtenta sive petita Antichristi Ucentia, redi-
bunt Ubere ad reUgionem Christi primasvam, et tunc asdificabunt eccle
siam sicut Paulus.'
1 Trialogus, pp. 310, 356 sq.: cf. Le Bas, pp. 321, 322. He is most
emphatic on the subject of indulgences in his treatise On Prelates, (1383):
Vaughan, pp. 428—430.
2 Trialogus, pp. 245 sq.
3 Ibid. pp. 249 sq. : cf. above, p. 382, n. 2.
4 See Neander's remarks on this point, ix. 225.
5 Trialogus, pp. 281 sq.
6 Ibid. p. 292: cf. Le Bas, p. 340.
7 Cf. above, p. 381. The passage in the Trialogus (p. 296) runs as
foUows: 'In primitiva Ecclesia .... suffecerunt duo ordines clericorum,
scUicet, sacerdos et diaconus .... Tunc enim adinventa non fuit dis-
tinctio papas et cardinaUum, patriarcharum et archiepiscoporum, epi
scoporum et archidiaconorum,' etc. In his treatise on Obedience to Pre
lates (1382), he defends the nregularities of 'poor priests' (cf. above,
p. 385, n. 1) by urging that the 'worldly' bishops had no right to prevent
them from instructing the people : Vaughan, pp. 424 sq.
_ 8 Trialogus, pp. 326 sq. Of confession he adds : ' Sed non credat
aUquis, quin sine tali confessione auriculari stat hominem vere conteri et
salvari, cum Petrus injunxit generalem pcenitentiam.'

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

389

he did not question the established usage of auricular con
fession, he denied its absolute necessity in every case.
His speculations on the nature and intent of matrimony1
are peculiarly erratic. On the one side he conceived it
to have been ordained for the filling up the vacancies
occasioned in the court of heaven by the apostasy of Satan
and his angels2 : on the other, he regarded stipulations
which forbid the marriage even of the nearest kindred
as deriving all their force from human maxims and de
crees3. The last in order of the 'sacraments,' extreme
unction, was verbally retained: but he had looked in vain
for traces of its institution in the Holy Scriptures4.
While diverging thus at numerous points from the
tradition of the Mediaeval Church, it is remarkable that
Wycliffe still continued to believe in purgatory6, and at
least to some extent in the effects producible on saints
departed by the prayers and alms of holy friends surviv
ing, and the service of the mass. A late, if not his very
latest, publication6 represents the family of God in three
divisions : (1) the holy angels and beatified men, (2) the
saints in purgatory, who are doomed to expiate the sins

1 See the Trialogus, pp. 315 — 325, and Le Bas, pp. 342, 343.
2 Cf. above, p. 283, n. 2.
3 After speaking of the marriage of brothers and sisters in the in
fancy of the world, he adds: 'Nee superest ratio, quare non sic Uceret
hodie, nisi humana ordinatio, quaB dicit non solum ex cognatione, sed
ex affinitate, amorem inter homines dUatari ; et causa haec hominum est
nimis debUis ' (p. 318). More sober views, however, are expressed in An
Apology for Lollard Doctrines, attributed to Wycliffe, pp. 70, 71, ed.
Todd, 1842.
4 See the brief discussion in the next chapter of the Trialogus (Ub.
iv. c. 25). He maintains that St. James (v. 14) is not speaking of
'infirmitatem finalem, sed consolationem faciendam a presbytero, dum
aUquis infirmatur, et quia per viam naturaa oleum abundans in UUs
partibus valet ad corporis sanitatem. Ideo talem meminit unctionem,
non quod Ulud oleum agat in anirnam, sed quod oratio effusa a sacer-
dote devoto medicat quemquam, ut Deus infirmitati animffl suffragetur,'
(p. 333).5 In his treatise On the Curse Expounded [Select English Works, in,
286, 287 (1383)], he says that saying of mass, with cleanness of holy
Ufe and burning devotion, pleaseth God Almighty, and is profitable to
Christian souls in purgatory, and to men Uving on earth that they
may withstand temptations to sins. Vaughan, p. 438 : cf. Le Bas,
pp. 327, 328.
6 De Ecclesia et Membris ejus, edited by Dr Todd pubUn, 1851), and
in the Select Works, m. 338 sq.

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Purgatory.

Tripartite
division of
the Church.

39°

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

A bsolute
reproba tion.

Development of his
principles by the
Lollards.

committed in the world1, and (3) the remnant of true-
hearted Christians who are following while on earth the
footsteps of the Lord. As a result of his belief in ab
solute predestination2, he confined the members of the
Church to those who will eventually be saved8. The
reprobate he held to form a class essentially and irre
versibly distinct ; although as long as men are in the body
none (it was maintained) could feel assured of his eternal
destination4. Many germs of error and extravagance may be de
tected in the theories of Wycliffe, much as those were
overbalanced by the noble witness he had borne to long-
forgotten truths and by the virtues of his private life. The
anti-social principles avowed by some of his successors
(known as early as the year 1387 by the opprobrious name
of 'Lollards')6 had been logically drawn from his extreme
positions on the nature of property and the inherent vice
of all ecclesiastical endowments. Part, indeed, of the
success6 attending his own labours would be due to this
peculiarity of his creed : but there we also find an ele
ment conducing more than others to its premature decline.
The upper classes of society were alienated7, and a number
1 The words are remarkable, particularly as indicating a distrust of
prayers for the dead: 'The secound part of this chirche ben seintis in
purgatorie; and thes synnen not of the newe, but purgen ther olde
synnes: and many errours faUen in preiying for theis seyntis; and sith
thei aUe ben deede in body, Christis wordis may be takun of hem,
Sue [foUow] we Crist in our liyf and late the deede berie the dede;'
Select Works, in. 339.
2 See Neander's investigation of this point, ix. 240 sq. One of the
charges brought against Wycliffe at the council of Constance (1415) was,
that ' omnia de necessitate absoluta eveniunt :' cf . Lenfant, Hist, du Can
dle, Uv. n. ch. 59, Art. xxvii.
3 ' This chirche is modir to ech man that shal be saaf, and conteyneth
no membre but oonli men that shal be saved;' De Ecclesia, as above
(Select Works, in. 339).
4 Ibid. p. 339. He adds, that 'as ech man shal hope that he shal be
saaf in bliss, so he shulde suppose that he be lyme of hoU churche.'
6 See above, p. 347, n. 1; and Turner, Middle Ages, v. 198, where the
bishop of Worcester (1387) denounces the 'LoUards' as 'eternaUy-
damned sons of Antichrist,' &c.
6 This was so marked, that Knyghton, in speaking (coU. 2661, 2666)
of knights, counts, and even dukes among the ' WycUviani sive Lollardi '
adds: ' Secta Ula in maximo honore Ulis diebus habebatur et in tantum
multiplicata fuit, quod wix duos videres in via quin alter eorum discinu
lus Wyelefi fuerit.' F
7 Hist, of England under the House of Lancaster, pp. 36 37.

¦ — 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies/

39^

of the more distinguished clerics, who had joined the move
ment in its earlier stages, now withdrew and took the other
side1. Soon after Wycliffe's death complaints were made
that the 'Lollards' advocated tenets like the following2:
They regarded absolution as sinful and even impious : pil
grimages, invocation of saints, the keeping of saints'-days,
and the use of images they branded as idolatry : they ques
tioned3 the lawfulness of oaths, and, undervaluing all epi
scopal jurisdiction, went so far as to ordain their ministers4
and organize an independent sect. On more than one
occasion members of it were obnoxious to the charge of
stirring up sedition6; and the English court, at length
relieved from other adversaries, entered on a vigorous
course of action for repressing every kind of misbelief.
The same repressive policy was followed out by Henry
IV., who on dethroning Richard (Sept. 29, 1399) had
found it more than ever needful to secure the aid of the
ecclesiastics, monks, and friars6. At this epoch, it would
1 Instances are given in Le Bas, pp. 386 — 390. The same occurred,
and for similar reasons, in the great convulsion of the sixteenth century.
Heath, for instance, an especial favourite of Melanchthon (1535), became
the Marian archbishop of Tork (1555).
2 See the catalogue, of these 'novi errores' in Knyghton, col. 2707.
3 The words are ' Quod non licet aliquo modo jurare:' cf. the charges
brought against the Waldenses, above, p. 294, n. 3.
4 Walsingham, Hypodigma Neustria, p. 544, alludes to this feature
of their system in the foUowing terms: 'Lollardi sequaces Johannis Wi-
eUff in ta'ntam sunt evecti temeritatem, ut eorum presbyteri, more pon-
tificum [i.e. bishops] novos crearent presbyteros, asserentes quemlibet
sacerdotem tantam habere potestatem conferendi sacramenta ecclesias
tica quantum papa :' cf. the Apology for the LoUards, pp. 28 sq., and Dr
Todd's remarks, 'Introd.,' pp. xxvui, xxix.
5 e.g. they placarded the churches in London with scurrilous attacks
upon the priests. Hist, of England, as above, pp. 29, 30. The boldness
of then tone at this period is attested by the remonstrances which they
addressed to the parliament of 1395 (Wilkins, in. 221). The substance
of then manifesto was then expanded and published in the EngUsh lan
guage; and Mr Forshall has apparently identified the larger treatise
with the Ecclesia Regimen, or so-called Remonstrance, which he edited in
1851: see his Pref. pp. ix, x. In the following year (1396), eighteen
propositions taken from Wycliffe's Trialogus were condemned by a synod
held in London (Wilkins, in. 229), and answered in the treatise of Wood
ford above cited, p. 375, n. 6. ...
6 Soon after his accession he put forth a proclamation with the sanc
tion of the House of Lords, directing the seizure and imprisonment of
aU persons who dared to preach against the Mendicants (March 21, 1400):
Eymer's Fadera, viii. 87. Henry V. (Nov. 6, 1413) made a grant of 25
marks per annum to. the Warden and Convent of Friars Minors in the

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Attemptsof the
Crown to
repress them.

392 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

Furtherpoints of
controversy opened.

Persecuting
statute.

seem, the tenets of the Lollards1 were expressed with
greater boldness and pursued more generally into their
logical results. They lost all reverence for the sacra
ments administered at church, and characterized the mass
itself2 as the watch-tower of Antichrist. They absolutely
rejected the doctrine of purgatory3, though retaining, with
conditions, certain prayers and offerings for the dead4.
They carried out their views of matrimony so far as to
require that monks and nuns should marry, lowering at
the same time its importance by dispensing with the in
tervention of the priest. Their strong antipathy to saints'
days now extended to the weekly festival of the resurrec
tion, which they treated as a merely Jewish ordinance6.
Of other features now developed, none was practically
more important than the circulation of a host of semi-
political prophecies6, suggested by extravagant ideas re
specting the secularization of the Church.
It was to meet these later forms of Lollardism that
Henry and his parliament devised the sanguinary statute'
De hasreiico comburendo. Trial in the civil courts was
hereby superseded; for certificates from any bishop or
his commissary, stating that a person was convicted or
was vehemently suspected of heresy, constrained the
University of -Cambridge for the Bupport of the CathoUc faith : Documents
relating to the University, I. 38, ed. 1852.
1 See Hist, of England, as above, p. 32.
* WycUffe himself is charged (but, as it seems, unfairly) with dispa
raging 'the Mass and Hours.' Thus, in the Articuli Joh. Wiclefi con
demned at Constance (in Brown's Fascic. I. 276), we read among others
of this kind : ' UtUe f oret ecclesiae poni in pristina Ubertate : et sic ces-
sarent missarum superadditarum solennia et orationes cum horis cano-
nicis adinventae. Licet enim istae tres adinventiones humanse per acci-
dens prosint ecclesia, non tamen tantum quantum peecatum diaboli.'
3 Cf. above, p. 389.
4 e.g. in one of the Conclusions (§ 7), addressed to ParUament (as
above, p. 391, n. 5), they speak as foUows: 'Quod spirituales orationes
pro animabus mortuorum factae in ecclesia nostra [i.e. the Church of
England which they distinguish (§ 1) from its ' noverca,' the Church of
Bome], praeferentes unum per nomen magis quam alium, est falsum fun-
damentum eleemosyna?.'
6 Cf. above, p. 294, n. 3; where the same charge is brought against
the Waldenses.
6 See Dr Maitland's 8th essay (1852) on The Lollards, pp. 216 sq.
These ' prophecies ' continued to be tirculated until the very dawn of the
Eeformation. 7 2 Hen. IV. o. 15; Wilkins, m. 252. On the doubts respecting the
authority of this act, see Hist, of England, as above, Note xvii.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

393

sheriffs and their officers 'forthwith in some high place,
before the people, to do him to be burnt.' An early
victim of the spirit which presided in the framing of this
merciless enactment was William Sawtre1, a parish-priest,
who had already manifested what were deemed heretical
opinions, and had been driven to recant ; but on reiterating
his denial of transubstantiation2, he was publicly burnt at
Smithfield (Feb. 26, 1401). Another victim was Lord
Cobham3 (Sir John Oldcastle), a person of extraordinary
merit. He had always set the highest value on the works
of Wycliffe4, and his mansion at Cowling Castle in Kent
had often furnished Lollard preachers with a shelter and
a home. Suspected of a leaning to the new opinions, he
was now, on his appeal to Henry V.5, transferred into the
court of archbishop Arundel, his most implacable opponent6
(Sept. 1413). The charges brought against him were that
he impugned the jurisdiction of the English Church and
propagated misbelief, particularly on the Eucharist, the
merit of pilgrimages, relics, image-worship, and the papal
monarchy. The trial ended in a sentence which proclaimed
1 Vaughan, p. 486. The royal mandate for his execution (Rot. Pari.
2 Hen. IV. § 29) orders it to be made conspicuous 'in abhorrence of his
crime and as an example to aU other Christians.'
2 This was the gravamen of the case against him. A MS. Chronicle
of the period (Cambr. Univ. Libr. Dd. xiv. 2, fol. 305), in recounting
similar persecutions, states the crime of one of the sufferers in these
terms: 'bicause that he said that godys body myjt nat be grounde in a
muUe, and that he kept counseil in huyding of lollards boks. '
3 One of the best accounts of him is given in the anonymous Hist, of
England, as above, pp. 60 — 87.
4 Copies of them were diffused at his expense: Vaughan, p. 495.
6 This monarch is praised by a contemporary as ' Christo et mundo
commendatissimus inter reges,' for raising a standard 'contra Wicle-
vistas haereticos. '
6 In the convocation held at Oxford, 1408, and apparently adjourned
to London, he had pubUshed his violent Constitutions against Lollards
(Johnson, ii. 457 — 475, Oxf. 1851, where see the editor's notes). The
first of these enjoins that ' no one preach to the people or clergy in Latin
or in the vulgar tongue, within a church or without it, unless he present
himself to the diocesan of the place in which he attempts to preach and
be examined,' &c. In § 4, scholars are forbidden to dispute ' pubUcly, or
even privately, concerning the Catholic faith or the sacraments of the
Church.' Arundel was now supported by a CarmeUte friar, Thomas
Netter, of Walden, whose Doctrinale Antiquitatum Fidei Eccl. GatJwl.
(not unfrequently printed) is aimed at the LoUards. He is also generally
regarded as the author of Fasciculi Zizaniorum magistri Johannis Wyclif,
(above, p. 380, n. 4) : see Shirley's Introd., pp. lxx. sq.

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.
William
Sawtre (d. 1401).

Lord Cobham(d. 1417).

394

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

l%e
Council of
Cortstanccdenounces Wyclife,
1415.

him a ' pernicious and detestable heretic ;' but in the respite
granted with the hope of wringing from him a confession
of his guilt, he found an opportunity of escaping into
Wales1, where he continued till 1417. He was then re
captured, sentenced to the stake, and most barbarously
executed in St Giles's Fields on Christmas-day2.
A heavier blow had meanwhile been inflicted on the
Lollards by the council of Constance3 (1415). However
cordially the bulk of the ecclesiastics there assembled
might rejoice in the attempt of Wycliffe to repel the
arrogance of Rome, to banish all administrative abuses,
and to elevate the tone of morals in the Church at large4,
they could not tolerate those branches of his system where.
he meddled with the order of society and questioned the
traditionary faith of Christians. Five-and-forty articles6,
extracted from his writings, were accordingly denounced
(May 4, 1415). Another list, extending to no less than
1 Walsingham (ed. Eiley, n. 306, 307) ascribes the rumours of dis
turbances in the following January to a secret conspiracy of the LoUards :
but there is every reason to beUeve that Cobham was still in Wales : cf .
Vaughan, pp. 503 — 505. In 1430, however, some of them did rise into
actual rebellion : Turner, Middle Ages, in. 14, 15.
2 Many other executions followed (Wilkins, in. 394 sq.) to the joy of
men like Thomas Netter, who says (in the Proem, to his Doctrinale) that
they were aU consigned ' duplici pcenas, incendio propter Deum, suspen-
dio propter regem.' Elmham, a Latin poet of the time, discovers Sir
John Oldcastle in the apocalyptic number 666 : Liber Metricus, I. cap. n.
1. 89, 90. 'Nomine sexcenti sunt, sexaginta simul sex:
Extrahe quot remanent, his sua vita datur.'
Memorials of Hen. V., edited by Cole, in the series of Chronicles and Me
morials of Great Britain, p. 96.
3 The University of Oxford had deputed twelve persons in 1412 to
examine the works of WycUffe, and the result was that no fewer than two
hundred and sixty-seven conclusions were branded as 'guUty of fire:'
Wilkins, m. 339 sq. A fact like this appears to mUitate strongly against
the genuineness of the Publike Testimonie given out by the Universitie of
Oxford in honour of WycUffe, and bearing date Oct. 5, 1406 (Ibid. in.
302) : cf. Le Bas, pp. 309 sq. His writings were also condemned by pope
John XXIII. in 1412 : Mansi, xxvn. 505.
4 We may estimate the strength of these feelings from the fact that
the University of Oxford, which condemned the Lollard tenets in 1412
drew up in 1414, and by the king's express command, a series of Articles
concerning the Reformation of the Church (Wilkins, ni. 360  365).
6 See Von der Hardt, Concil. Constant, rv. 150 sq., and Lenfant, Hist.
du Concile de Const. Uv. n. ch. 59. The proceedings were prefaced by a
sermon from the bishop of Toulon, in which it is remarkable that the
pope himseU was hanUed in the roughest way.

^—1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

'395

sixty articles1 was added in a further session (July 6) ;
nearly all of them agreeing in the main with accusations
that had been already urged against himself or some of
his early followers in England. On the same occasion it
was ordered that the bones of Wycliffe, if discernible from
those of other persons, should be burnt, — a fulmination
which, however, was suspended till the time of pope
Martin V. (1428). The prelate whom he charged to see it
executed was Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, once an ardent
champion of the new opinions2, who proceeded to exhume
the body of his former friend, and after burning it, directed
that the ashes should be thrown into the Swift, the stream
which flows by Lutterworth3.
The only writer who applied himself in earnest to con
vert the Lollards, by the use of candid argument and by
• diffusing tracts in the vernacular, was Reginald Pecock4,
who had been translated from the bishopric of St Asaph
to that of Chichester in 1449. His moderation was, how
ever, almost fatal to him. He could not insist upon the
absolute infallibility of the Church6; and after a vexatious
controversy with his brother-prelates, he was driven by a
threat of punishment for heresy to make a solemn recanta-
1 Von der Hardt, iv. 408 sq. ; Lenfant, liv. in. ch. 42. Chicheley,
who succeeded Arundel at Canterbury, in the foUowing year (1416) fol
lowed up these censures in the same spirit (Wilkins, in. 378), aiming
more especially to prevent the LoUards from holding 'secret conven
ticles.' 2 See Le Bas, p. 390.
3 Lyndwood (Provinciate, p. 284, Oxon. 1679) mentions these barbar
ous proceedings with apparent satisfaction.
4 See Lewis, Life of Pecock, passim: and Wharton's Append, to Cave,
ad an. 1444. His chief book against the LoUards is entitled The Repres
sor of overmuch blaming of the Clergy; printed (1860) in the series of
Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain. In the first part he discusses
at great length the principal objection of the nonconformists, that
nothing is to be received as true, or obligatory on the Christians, if it be
not fully and expressly stated in the Bible. He maintains (Pt. i. ch. v.
p. 25), 'if eny semyng discorde be bitwixe the wordis writen in the out
ward book of HoU Scripture and the doom of resoun, write in mannis
soule and herte, the wordis so writen withoutforth oujten be expowned
and be interpretid and broujt forto accorde with the doom of resoun in
thilk mater;' &c.
6 His obnoxious statements had appeared in his Treatise of Faith :
see Mr Babington's Introduction to Pecock's Repressor, pp. xxxii. sq.,
and p. xxxix. n. 1. The second book, in which he shews that Scripture
is the only perfect and substantial basis of beUef, was pubUshed, Lon
don, 1688.

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.
Burning of
his bones,
1428.

Reginald
Pecock, (sUenced1457).

396

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.
Ulterior
influence of the
Lollards.

tion, and was finally imprisoned in Thorney abbey where
he died1.
Although it is not easy to trace out the fortunes of the
Lollards during the political convulsions from which Eng
land suffered in the fifteenth century, nor to determine
whether they were still surviving at the outbreak of the
Reformation2, we can scarcely doubt that strong predis
positions were excited in its favour, by their preaching
and their works. John Wycliffe may indeed be taken
as the prototype3 of one important school of English, and
still more of Continental Church-reformers. In the na
tural bias of his mind, in the unwonted clearness of his
moral intuitions, in his rude but manly style, and in the
fearless energy with which he struggled, almost single-
handed, to eradicate the gross abuses of the times, we see
an agent qualified to censure and demolish errors rather
than to strengthen the dismantled fortress of the Church,
and beautify afresh the ancient sanctuary of truth : while
some of his opinions, even where he was not conscious
of the slightest wish to foster insurrection, were too easily
convertible for such an end by over-heated crowds or by
less scrupulous disciples. It is found, accordingly, that
the Reformers who at last succeeded in the sphere of
labour where his patriotic piety had failed, drew little, if at
all, from his productions4: and in Germany, the Lutheran,
1 He was allowed no writing materials, and 'no books to look on,
but only a portuous [i.e. breviary], a mass-book, a psalter, a legend, and
a Bible.' Harleian MS. quoted by Turner, in. 143, n. 47: cf. Repressor,
Introd. p. lvii, and note 3. Leland (Collectanea, in. 410, ed. Hearne)
extracts a passage from an old chronicle which throws light on the con
demnation of Pecock : ' male sensit de Eucharistia et de sanctionibus
Ecclesiae. ' The suspicion with which he was regarded is further seen in
a supplemental statute of King's College, Cambridge (founded 1441);
provision being then made that every scholar, at the end of his proba
tionary years, should abjure the errors or heresies 'Johannis Wichf,
Reginaldi Pecock,' etc. : Lewis, as above, p. 173.
2 Traces of their influence are found in the Acts of the Convocation
of 1536 : see Hardwick's Hist, of the Articles, pp. 34, 35, 2nd edition.
3 See Prof. Blunt's remark on the affinity between the LoUard and
the Puritan, in his Sketch of the Reformation, pp. 87 sq., 6th edit.
4 Dr Todd, in the 'Advertisement' prefixed to his edition of Wy
cliffe's treatise De Ecclesia et membris suis, quotes a passage from Ayl-
mer's Harborough for faithful subjects, printed at Strasburg, 1559, and
launching censures at the prelates on account of their temporal posses
sions. The author seems to have been stirred to make this onslaught
by reading 'Wicliefe's boke, which he wrote De Ecclesia :' but when he

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

397

as distinguished from the Swiss divines, appear to have
regarded Lollardism with positive distaste1.
The feverish impulses, however, which that system had
communicated to the general spirit of the age were soon
transmitted to a distance. They not only tended to en
lighten England, but ' electrified ' Bohemia. Some indeed
of the reaction there produced is traceable to other causes2,
for example, to the freer element in the original Christianity
of the district; to the old antagonism between the Slavic
and Germanic families, of whom the latter was in close
alliance with the pope; and even more to individual
preachers3, who, anterior to the age of Huss or Wycliffe,
started independent measures for the exaltation of their
mother-Church. Of these precursors, three at least deserve a special
notice. Milicz, a Moravian of Cremsier, was the archdea
con of Prague, and secretary to the emperor Charles IV.,
the king of Bohemia. Anxious to devote himself entirely
to the spiritual benefit of others, he resigned his large
emoluments (1364), and during several years perambu
lated the country as an earnest preacher of repentance4.
He was more and more oppressed by a conviction that

was at length promoted to the see of London, he ' changed his mind,'
pp. 6—8: cf. Nicolas's Life and Times of Hatton, p. 237, Lond. 1847.
The twenty-Bixth of the Articles of Religion, U not others also, may have
had an eye to errors of the LoUards; although in the Remonstrance
edited by Mr ForshaU, the writer of it grants that sacraments and other
ordinances may be truly administered by ' evil men' (p. 123), but that in
cases where the Uves of priests are openly scandalous, their flocks are
bound to keep aloof from their communion (cf. Apology for Lollard
Doctrines, pp. 37—40, ed. Todd).
1 Some of their antipathy was due to the aberrations mentioned in
the previous note: e.g. Apologia Confess. August, (by Melanchthon),
p. 149, in the Libri Sijmbolici, ed. Franeke, Leipz. 1847: cf. other
instances in Gieseler, rv. § 125, p. 257, n. 31, and Le Bas, pp. 320, 321.
2 See above, pp. 111—115.
3 The best modern authorities on this subject are Palacky's Gesch.
von Bohmen, Prag. 1845, and Jordan's Vorldufer des Husitenthums in
Bbhmen, Leipz. 1846. . .,,.,... ...
4 At first his influence was impaned by his want of famihanty with
the native tongue, or the strangeness of his accent (' propter incongru-
entiam vulgaris sermonis'); but afterwards he made a deep impression,
more especially on the female auditors ('inceperunt muheres superbae
pepla alta et gemmis cncumdata caputia et vestimenta auro et argento
ornata deponere'): see a Life of MUicz (by a disciple) in Balbinus, Mis-
cell. Hist. Bohemia, Decad. i., Ub. rv., pp. 45, 46; Prag. 1682.

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Simulta
neous move
ment in
Bohemia.

Milicz (i 1374).

398

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1 305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Conrad of
Wald-
hausen (d. 1369).

the Church had sunk into the grasp of Antichrist1. He
treated on this topic in St Peter's at Rome2 (1367), but
was immediately silenced by the Inquisition3. Urban V.,
however, who attempted at that very juncture4 to reoccupy
the old metropolis, released the culprit from his chains
and sent him back to Prague. He there resumed his
work; but certain Friars, envious of his popularity and
writhing under his rebukes, commenced a fresh attack
upon him. He expired at Avignon in 1374, while the
judicial process they had instituted was still pending6.
One of his contemporaries was an Austrian, Conrad
of Waldhausen", who adopted a like method in Vienna
for awakening all classes of society. He was at length
invited by the emperor Charles IV. to aid the holy
movement in Bohemia7; and the sermons which he there
delivered seem to have produced a marvellous effect. Like
Milicz, he had also proved himself peculiarly obnoxious
to the Mendicants8, who strove to silence him (1364).
Their opposition failed, however, and he died in peace
(1369). Among the numerous followers of Milicz none acquired
1 With this feeling he composed a Libellus de Antichristo, on which
see Neander, rx. pp. 256 sq., Jordan, p. 29.
2 He there announced 'quod Antichristus venit' (Life, as abovej
p. 51): feeling himself constrained to pray and labour ' pro domino nostro
papa et pro domino imperatore, ut ita ordinent ecclesiam sanctam in
spirituaUbus et temporalibus, ut securi fideles deserviant Creatori:'
Neander, ix. 259. Another of the charges subsequently brought against
him was for strenuously maintaining ' quod omnis homo tenetur de
necessitate saltern ad minus bis in hebdomada sumere Corporis Dominici
sacramentum :' Jordan, p. 39, where aU the twelve articles are given.
3 This engine was now worked by Mendicants, to whom MiUcz, Uke
Wycliffe, made himself pecuUarly obnoxious. On his apprehension some
of them announced to their congregations in Prague, ' Carissimi, ecce jam
MiUtius cremabitur:' Life, as above, p. 51.
4 See above, p. 328.
6 This point does not seem to be very clearly estabUshed : see Jordan,
p. 27, and Neander, ix. p. 263.
6 Sometimes called 'von Stiekna' through an error of the press which
confounded him with another of the same class. Sczekna is said to have
also distinguished himself by preaching 'contra clericos:' Neander p
264, note. '
7 On his labours there and heretofore, see Jordan, pp. 3 sq. He also
was persuaded that the Antichrist was rampant in the Church.
8 According to Balbinus (as above, p. 397, n. 4), p. 406, Conrad com
posed a large treatise entitled Accusationes Mendicantium: cf. Neander
pp. 268 sq.

—1520] Stale of Religions Doctrine and Controversies.

399

so high a reputation as Matthias of Janow (in Bohemia)
who, proceeding on the same conviction that the Church
would decompose if it were not immediately reformed1,
appears to have anticipated many of the views afterwards
cherished by the Lutheran divines. A six years' residence
at Paris (hence his title of 'Magister Parisiensis ') made
him an accomplished scholar and philosopher : but holier
aspirations were excited in him as he listened to the fervent
preachers now arising in his native country. In 1381
he was collated to a stall in the cathedral church of
Prague. The scandals there laid open to his gaze impelled
him to rebuke the monks and clerics, in a work2 On the
Abomination of Desolation in the Church. A more im
portant work3, however, is entitled Rules of the Old and
New Testament, in which, amid a number of prophetic
theories, he handles the corruptions of the age with terrible
severity. Among the remedies on which both he and
Milicz had insisted, one was . greater frequency in the
reception of the Lord's Supper4: but a synod held at
1 He went so far even as to despair of the corrigibility of the Church
in its present state : ' Dei Ecclesia nequit ad pristinam suam dignitatem
reduci, vel reformari, nisi prius omnia fiant nova.' De Sacerdotum et
Monachorum Abominatione Desolationis, etc. c. 37 (pubUshed in the Hist.
et Monument. Joh. Hus, Norimb. 1715, i. 473 sq.). In an extract (given
by Jordan, p. 68), he thinks it essential to a reformation that the ritual
system of the Church and some of its dogmatical excrescences should be
curtailed : ' Quapropter apud me decretum habeo, quod ad reformandam
pacem et unionem in universit_te Christiana expedit omnem plantatio-
nem Ulam eradicare, et abbreviare iterum verbum Super terrain, et redu-
cere Christi Jesu Ecclesiam ad sua primordia salubria et compendiosa.'
The work has been ascribed sometimes to Wycliffe and alBO to Huss; but
it is, no doubt, by Matthias.
2 As in the previous note.
3 The whole is still in MS., but extracts from it are supplied in Jor
dan, as above, pp. 59 sq.: cf. Neander's review, ix. pp. 380 — 335. In one
passage (p. 313) it is manifest that Janow, had he followed out his argu
ment, would have insisted on the necessity of communion in both kinds.
His words are, ' Propter quotidianam frequentiam et propter duaUtatem
utriusque speciei, panis et vini, a quibus hoc sacrificium integratur.' cf.
p. 333. According to his view, the Eucharist was the crowning act of
worship (p. 323), and the Bible the great source of Christian joy and
knowledge. On the latter point he spoke with a peculiar emphasis (Jor
dan, p. 30); ' Unde cum vidi quam plurimos portare semper rehquias et
ossa diversorum sanctorum, pro defensione sua quiUbet et sua singulari
devotione...ego elegi mihi Bibliam, meam electam sociam meas peregri-
nationi, gestare semper mecum,' etc.
' * See above, p. 398, n. 2. Janow thus expresses himself in the un
published work reviewed by Neander (p. 329) : .' Absit. autem hoc a Chris-

REFORMA- TORY
EFFORTS.
Matthias
of Janow
(d. 1394).

4CO

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [a.D.

1305

BEFORMA- TORY
EFFORTS.
John Huss
(d. 1415).

Trans
mission of
Wycliffe's
writings to
Bohemia.

Prague1 in 1388 discountenanced the practice, by forbid
ding laymen to communicate more frequently than once
a month2. The ground had thus been broken for the sedulous
but ill-requited labours of John Huss3 (Hus), who saw
the light at Husinecz, a market-town of Bohemia, July
6, 1369. His place of training was the newly-founded
University of Prague, where he became professor {i.e.
public tutor) in philosophy (1396). Soon afterwards, in
(1400), he was chosen as the spiritual director of the
queen Sophia ; and his popular discourses at the chapel
of Bethlehem4 in Prague (1401) were instrumental to the
spreading of his influence from the court and university to
all the humbler grades of life. His ' orthodoxy ' at this
time was unimpeachable : we find him bearing a com
mission from the primate Sbynco (Lepus) and conducting
an inquiry into the genuineness of a reputed miracle at
Wilsnack5. Huss had grown familiar with the Sacred Writings,
with the doctors of the Western Church, especially Au
gustine, and with modern authors of celebrity, including
Grosseteste6 of Lincoln and his own fellow-countryman,
Matthias of Janow, when the theological as well as other
tracts of Wycliffe found their way as far as Prague and
caused a general fermentation in the academic circles7.
tianis quod debeant solum semel in anno agere memonam Dominicae
passionis, quas continuis momentis debet in ipsorum pectoribus demorari.'
He was in favour of daily communion.
1 Jordan, p. 55.
2 In the Ancren Riwle (Camd. Soc. 1853), p. 412, it is enjoined that,
as men undervalue what is frequently administered, the laity should
communicate only fifteen times in a year.
3 See especially, the Historia et Monumenta Joh. Hus atque Hieron.
Pragensis, Norimb. 1715; Palacky, Gesch. von Bohmen, as above; Nean
der, ix. 339 — 537; and Daun's Magister Johannes Hus, 1853. Documenta
M. J. Hus vitam, doctrinam, causam in Constantie.nsi concilio adam, &c.
illustrantia ; ed. Fr. Palacky, Prag. 1869.
4 The founder of this chapel states, in his deed of gift (Gieseler, v.
§ 150, p. 103, n. 1), that he caUed it 'Bethlehem quod interpretatur domus
panis. ..hac consideratione, ut ibidem populus communis et Christi fideles
pane pra3dicationis sanctae refici debeant. '
5 See the particulars in Neander, pp. 342 sq.
6 This may be concluded from references to Grosseteste in the works
of Huss. 7 According to Huss himseU (Contra Anglicum Joan. Stokes: Opp. i.
108), who informs us that as early as 1381 some of the Wycliffite tracts

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

401

The exchange of sentiments promoted in this age by
wandering scholars was facilitated in the case of England
and Bohemia by the marriage, in 1382, of the princess
Anna, daughter of Charles IV, to our Richard II. We
are also told1 that Jerome of Prague, who stood to Huss
in a relation similar to that in which Melanchthon stood
to Luther, sojourned for a time at Oxford (circ. 1398), and
on returning home imported numerous copies of the
Wycliffite tracts to circulate among the students in Bo
hemia. Huss had not been favourably impressed with
some of these productions ; but a change2 at length appears
to have come over him, and he stood forth as Wycliffe's
pupil and apologist. The ground-tone of their minds,
however wide they may have been apart on isolated
topics, was the same: they were both Realists3, and
both intensely anxious to promote the reformation of the
Church4. A numerous party5 now began to cluster in the chapel
were known in Prague, and that he was acquainted with them before
1391. These, however, may have been chiefly philosophical in their
character. 1 The authority on which this statement generaUy rests is tineas
Sylvius (Hist. Bohem. c. 35), whose hatred of the Hussites wiU be
gathered from the foUowing extract: ' Imbutus jam ipse [i. e. vir quidam
genere nobiUa] Wiclevitarum veneno et ad nocendum paratus, turn quod
erat familise suas cognomen, Putridum Piscem, i.e. fcetidum virus, in cives
suos evomuit.' Palacky, however, seems to think that the noble here
mentioned was Nicholas von Faulfisch, a less distinguished foUower of
WycUffe (111. pt. 2, 192, n. 245).
2 Vaughan's Wycliffe, p. 509. Yet it is obvious from the language
used by Huss himself (Opp. 1. 330) that he did not acquiesce in some of
WycUffe's opinions even at the close of his career. He says that he
holds to the ' sententiae verae' of the EngUsh reformer, 'non quia ipse
dixit, sed quia Divina Scriptura, vel ratio infalUbiUs dicit. Si autem
aliquem errorem posuerit, neo ipsum, nee quemcunque ahum intendo in
errore, quantumUbet modice, imitari.' On the other hand, iEneas Syl
vius, as above, declares that Huss carried his admiration of Wycliffe to
the highest pitch, asserting of his books that they contained aU truth,
' adjiciensque crebro inter praedicandum, se postquam ex hac luce migra-
ret in ea loca proficisci cupere, ad quas Wyclevi anima pervenisset, quern
virum bonum, sanctum, coeloque dignum non dubitaret.'
3 Neander, ix. p. 349. The German students, on the contrary, were
NominaUsts, which introduced another element of strife.
4 Huss (Opp. 1. 109) mentions this as the great bond of sympathy
with the English reformer: 'Movent me sua scripta, quibus nititur toto
conamine omnes homines ad legem Christi reducere, et clerum praecipue,
ut dimittendo sseeuli pompam et dominationem vivat cum apostoUs vitam
Christi.' 6 Neander, pp. 352 sq. .Eneas Sylvius (as above, c. 35) puts the
MA. » D

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Quarrel of

402

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

the German
and Bohe
mian aca
demics.

Huss at
tacks the
corrupt ec
clesiastics, 1407 =

and the lecture-room of Huss. In him the natives saw
an able type of the Bohemian as distinguished from the
other class of students ; and accordingly the advocacy of
the new opinions in religion was ere long identified with
nationalism in politics, and irritated by the national dis
like of every thing Germanic. In the midst of this un
happy war of races, nearly all the foreigners withdrew
from Prague. (1409), transfusing into other seats of learn
ing the antipathy which most of them how cherished for
both Wycliffe and the new reformers in Bohemia.
One of the most glaring evils on which Huss insisted
from the opening to the close of his career, was the
degeneracy of the ecclesiastics1. His invectives roused
the anger of his former friend, archbishop Sbynco2, who,
imputing the sensation thus produced to the diffusion of
the Lollard tracts, commanded them to be collected and
committed to the flames3 (1408). A series of complaints
were also lodged at Rome4, which finally evoked a bull
of Alexander V. (Dec. 20, 1409). He there enjoined a
fresh inquiry, in the hope of burning all the other books
of Wycliffe and suppressing every form of Lollardism,
matter thus: 'Bexernnt scholam Pragensem usque in ea tempora Teu-
tones. Id molestissimum Bohemis fuit, hominibus natura ferocibus atque
indomitis.' After the secession of the Germans, who are said to have
numbered, at the least, five thousand (others have it forty-four thousand)
students, there were only two thousand left in Prague. The malcontents
established themselves at Leipzig.
1 Cf . above, p. 401, n. 4. In 1407 he preached before a diocesan synod
from Eph. vi. 14 (Opp. n. 32 sq.), and betrayed his leaning to the views
of Wycliffe and Matthias of Janow with regard to the ecclesiastical en
dowments. He also inveighs against the dissolute habits of many of
his audience ('praelati, canonici, plebani, et aUi presbyteri,' p. 38).
2 Neander, pp. 361 sq. A formal treatise ('Antiwickleffus') was com
posed at this juncture (1408) by Stephen, prior of the Carthusians of
Dolan near Olmtttz. It is printed in Pez, Thesaur. Anecdot. rv. part. n.
149 sq. where the Antihussus and other cognate pieces may be found
(pp. 361 sq.).
3 Two hundred copies, of which many had been richly bound, were
thus destroyed : cf. Vaughan's Wycliffe, p. 404. The University of Prague
declared (June 15, 1410) that it was not a consenting party to the act of
archbishop Sbynco and the rest 'in combustionem librorum magistri
Johannis Wicklef :' Gieseler, v. § 150, p. 109, note 9. Neander (p. 377)"
places this combustion in the summer of 1410.
4 Another ground of complaint was that the new reformer exercised
pernicious influence by his sermons. This was to be obviated by for
bidding any one to preach in a private chapel, such as the Bethlehem.
See Alexander's buU in Baynald. ad an. 1409, § 89.

-1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

403

But ¦ Huss, like his precursor, was at first in favour with
the court1; and this advantage, added to a keen perception
of the weakness and injustice of the papacy, induced him
to appeal from the decision of ' a pontiff ill informed ' to
one ' to be better informed'1.' So confident was he in his
integrity, that on receiving news of Alexander's death
(May 3, 1410) soon afterwards, he promptly brought his
case before the new pope3, the monster John XXIII.
The culprit was now cited to attend in person at Bologna ;
but his friends, who knew the danger he was in, dissuaded
him from such a step4, and on his failing to appear, the
sentence of excommunication (Feb. 1411) was launched
immediately against him, notwithstanding all the interest
employed on his behalf by Wenceslaus and the queen6.
Their influence was, however, more successful in promoting
an accommodation between him and the archbishop;
Huss avowing his respect for the ecclesiastical authority
and his determination to adhere in all things to the will
of Christ and of the Church6.
But in the following autumn Sbynco breathed his last,
and when a legate was despatched from Rome with the
accustomed pallium for the new archbishop, John XXIII.
annexed to it a parcel of indulgences, which purported to
be at once available for all persons who might volunteer
to execute the ban that had been issued for dethroning
his opponent, the king of Naples. The enormity of this
procedure stirred the vehemence of Huss7 and of his col-
1 Stephen, the prior of Dolan (as above), p. 390, ascribes the protec
tion of Huss to the ' popularis vulgi favor et saeculare brachium.'
2 'A papa male informato ad papam melius informandum:' see Ne
ander, p. 376.
3 His Appellatio ad sedem Apostolicam is printed in the Hist, et Monu
ment. 1. 112. Bespecting John XXIII., see above, p. 331.
4 The following is part of his own version of the matter: 'Citatus
autem personahter ad Bomanam curiam optabam comparere hurmliter ;
sed quia mortis insidiffi tam in regno quam extra regnum praisertim a
Teutonicis sunt mihi positae, ideo multorum fretus consilio judicavi,
quod foret Deum tentare, vitam morti tradere, profectu EcclesiaB non
urgente. Igitur non parui personaliter, Bed advocates et procuratores
constitui, volens sanctas sedi apostoUcae obedne.' See the rest of this
Confession of Faith, correctly given in Pelzel, Lebensgeschichte des Kbnigs
Wenceslaus, Documents, No. 230; Prag. 1788.
5 Neander, pp. 392 sq.
6 Ibid. p. 396. He now put forth the Confession, quoted above, vin
dicating himseU in the eyes of the University.
7 He justified his resistance, on the foUowing grounds: 'Ego dixi quod
dd2

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.
appeals to a
pope better
informed ;

is excom
municated, 1411:

but recon
ciled to
the arch
bishop.

Indul
gences sent
into Bohe
mia :

404 Sta.te of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

burning of
the docu
ments in
Prague.
Huss re
treats.

league, Jerome, to the very highest pitch. The latter,
hot and sanguine, lost no time in propagating his enthu
siasm among the students, who, in order to exact a kind
of vengeance for the seizure of Wycliffe's writings, or
ganized a mock-procession in the streets of Prague and
burnt the papal instruments1. Though Huss had not
directly sanctioned this irregularity, and though he after
wards regretted its occurrence, the most formidable cen
sures of the Church alighted on his head2. He could
no longer prosecute his public mission, but addressing an
appeal to Jesus Christ Himself3, the only righteous Judge,
retreated from the theatre of strife.
The works4 which he composed in his retirement have
affecto cordiaUter implere mandata apostolica et ipsis omnino obedne,
sed voco mandata apostoUca doctrinas apostolorum Christi, et de quanto
mandata pontificis concordaverint cum mandatis et doctrinis apostoUcis,
secundum regulam legis Christi, de tanto volo ipsis paratissime obedne.
Sed si quid adversi concepero non obediam, etiamsi ignem pro combus-
tione mei corporis meis oculis praeponatis :' Neander, p. 400. His views
on indulgences may be seen at length in a remarkable Quastio devoted
to that subject (1412) : Hist, et Monument, i. 215 sq.
1 See Pelzel, as above, n. 608 sq. It seems that the violence con
nected with this act estranged the king from Huss. According to Stephen
of Dolan (in Pez, Thesaur. Monument, iv. part U. 380), he pubUshed a
decree, 'ut nequaquam aUquis audeat rebeUare et contradicere occulte
vel publice, sub capitaU pcena, indulgentiis papalibus.' Three youths
were afterwards executed for interrupting preachers who invited their
flocks to purchase indulgences; see Neander, pp. 417 sq., and Lenfant,
Hist, du Concile de Constance, liv. in. c. 11.
2 He was excommunicated afresh , and aU the place in which he Uved
was stricken by the papal interdict. Even the chapel in which he
preached was to be leveUed with the ground: Palacky, in. pt. i. 286.
3 See the Hist, et Monument, i. 22.
4 One of the most important, and indeed his very greatest work, is
the Tractatus de Ecclesia (in the Hist, et Monument. I. 243 sq.). His
division of the Church, like that of WycUffe (see above, p. 389), is tri
partite. The 'ecclesia dormiens' he defines (c. 2) to be 'numerus prae-
destinatorum in purgatorio patiens.' By recognizing some of the finaUy
condemned as members of the Church on earth^he shews that he did not
foUow WycUffe blindly (cf. above, p. 390, n. 4). The foUowing are his
words (c. 3): 'DupUciter homines possunt esse de sancta matre Ecclesia,
vel secundum praedestinationem ad vitam aeternam, quomodo omnes
finaliter sancti sunt de sancta matre Ecclesia; vel secundum praedestina
tionem solum ad praesentem justitiam, ut omnes, qui aliquando accipiunt
gratiam remissionis peccatorum sed finaliter non persev erant.' He insists
upon the fact (e.g. c. 4, c. 13 sq.) that Christ and He alone is the 'Head
of the Church,' but also urges the importance of obeying the pope and
cardinals (c. 17) 'dum docuerint veritatem juxta legem Dei' Another
source for ascertaining his opinions at this juncture are his Letters (Ibid
i. 117 sq.: cf. Palacky, in. pt. i. 297, 298).

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

405

enabled us to mark the final stages in the growth of his
belief. To many of the characteristic dogmas then pre
vailing in the Church he yielded his unwavering assent1,
confining his denunciations mainly to those points which
he regarded as excrescences, abuses, or distorted forms of
truth. His principles2, indeed, had they been logically
apprehended and consistently applied, must have con
strained him to relinquish some of" the positions advocated
by the western schoolmen : but, unlike his English fellow-
worker, Huss had not been largely gifted with the logical
faculty, and therefore he continued all his life unconscious
of his own divergencies. So far was he indeed from
meditating the formation of a sect, that he had hoped
to renovate the Western Church entirely from within.
A reference to these facts may well explain the readiness 3
he shewed to vindicate himself before the council of Con
stance, whither he was now invited to proceed. That
great assembly constituted in his eyes the lawful repre
sentative of Christendom ; and as he had no longer any
hope of finding justice at the papal court, he went in
search of it elsewhere. We see him starting for the
council4 (Oct. 11, 1414) armed with testimonials of his
'orthodoxy' from the primate of Bohemia (Conrad), and
the titular bishop of Nazareth, who was officiating as
the inquisitor of heresy in the diocese of Prague5. He
also bore the passport (or 'safe-conduct') of the king of
the Romans, Sigismund6, which guaranteed his personal
1 See Lenf ant's Hist, du Concile de Constance, Uv. in. c. 50 — 55; and
cf. liv. 1. c. 27.
2 Neander, pp. 429 sq.
3 After his arrival at Constance he stated that he came with joy, and
added, that if he were convicted of any error he would immediately abjure
it. Lenfant, liv. 1. c. 36.
4 Ibid. liv. 1. c. 24.
6 In this document (Hist, et Monument. 1. 3) the inquisitor declares,
among other things, ' CoUationes plures [i. e. with master John Hubs] de
diversis sacrae scriptural materiis faciendo, nunquam aUquem in ipso
inveni errorem vel haeresim, sed in omnibus verbis et operibus suis
ipsum semper verum et cathoUcum hominem reperi.'
6 Ibid. 1. 2. The violation of this promise was subsequently justified
(Sept. 23,' 1415) by a decree of the council (in Von der Hardt, iv. 521),
on the ground that Huss, by impugning the 'orthodox faith,' had ren
dered himself ' ab omni conductu et privilegio alienum ; nee ahqua sibi
fides aut promissio de jure naturali, Divino vel humano, fuerit in pra-
judicium catholica fidei observanda.'

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

g-ums opi
nions at
this time.

He pro
ceeds to the
Council of
Constance,
1414;

406 State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

v:here lie
is treache
rously im
prisoned,

protection in the very strongest terms. He reached Con
stance1 on the third of November, attended by a party of
his fellow-countrymen, especially the noble John of Chlum,
his pupil and unwavering friend. But others, who were
labouring to repress the holy movement in Bohemia, had
arrived before him2. One of them, Palecz3, his former
colleague in the university of Prague, was actively en
gaged in circulating rumours to his disadvantage : and as
many of the clerics there assembled had been prejudiced
against him, partly through his recent quarrel with the
German students, partly through his firmness in declining
to pronounce an indiscriminate condemnation of WycUffe
and the Oxford school of church-reformers, he was
treacherously taken into custody4 (Nov. 28). The scenes
that followed are the most revolting in the annals of the
Western Church. The oral explanations" of the prisoner,
even as reported by his adversaries, and the tracts6 which
he composed while languishing in chains, shew that to
the last his own opinions coincided in almost every point
with those professed by members of the council. They
were zealously employed in limiting the power and in
denying the infallibility of Rome7: they all of them ex-
1 According to Lenfant (liv. i. c. 26) Huss immediately notified his
arrival to pope John XXIIL, who promised to lend him every help in
his power.
2 Lenfant, liv. i. c. 35: Neander, rx. p. 465. They had been alienated
from him chiefly by his vigorous opposition to the papal indulgences.
3 In a formal reply, Ad Script. Steph. Paletz, he had been constrained
to speak as follows : ' Amicus Paletz, arnica Veritas, utrisque amicis exis-
tentibus, sanctum est prashonorare veritatem.'
4 Neander, pp. 472 sq. Some of the loose charges brought against
him may be seen in Lenfant, Uv". i. c. 42. One of them was, that he
taught the necessity of administering the Eucharist in both kinds ; but
we shall see hereafter that the accusation was groundless: cf. his own
repUes in Hist, et Monum. I. 15 sq. Gerson, the famous chanceUor of
Paris, also extracted nineteen articles from the treatise De Ecclesia, and
caUed upon the councU to condemn them (Ibid. pp. 29 sq.): cf. above,
p. 358, n. 4. His feUow-countrymen expressed their indignation at the
imprisonment of Huss (Hist, et Monum. i. 9 sq.), and they were seconded
by the Polish nobles who were present at the council (Krasinski, Reform.
in Poland, I. 62).
6 e. g. in his three public hearings before the council (Lenfant, Uv. m.
c. 4 sq.; Neander, pp. 495 — 515). On the second of these occasions
(June 7) he actually spoke of the view of Berengarius on the Eucharist
as ' magna haeresis. '
6 Lenfant, liv. i. c. 43.
7 See above, pp. 331 sq.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

407

hibited a wish to elevate the morals of the clergy, and
advance at least in some degree the reformation of the
Church, — the very measures that lay nearest to the heart
of Huss : yet so infatuated were they by their national
prejudices, or so blinded by their hatred of a man who
would not disavow all sympathy with Wycliffe1 (much as
he receded from the doctrines of the Lollards), that they
sentenced him to perish at the stake2. As soon as the
executioner had done his barbarous work, the ashes of
the victim were all flung into the Rhine, 'that nothing
might remain on earth of so execrable a heretic' (July
6, 1415).
The ardent Jerome of Prague, who shared his senti
ments, and who appeared at Constance hoping for a
prosperous issue, was at first so panic-stricken by the fate
of Huss that he consented to abjure the errors which the
council charged against him3 (Sept. 23). But his courage
afterwards revived. He publicly revoked his abjuration
(May 16, 1416), in so far as he had offered violence to
truth or had defamed the memory of Huss and Wycliffe.
He was therefore handed over to the civil power, and
several of his most infuriated enemies were struck by the
unearthly joy that swelled his bosom even in the flames4
(May 30).
The ashes of these two reformers lighted up a long
1 A charge on which the councU placed peculiar emphasis related to
this point: 'Quod pertinaciter articulos erroneos Wicleffi docuisset in
Bohemia et defendisset.' On his reply, see Lenfant, Uv. in. 0. 5, and
Neander, p. 501. The former of these writers (Uv. m. c. 57) shews that
partial sympathy with WycUffe was the ground of his condemnation ; and
it is remarkable that the order of the councU for burning the bones of
the EngUsh reformer immediately preceded the examination of Huss:
cf. above, p. 395.
2 Hist, et Monum. 1. 33 sq., and Lenfant, liv. in. c. 45. The follow
ing passage indicates a hope that reformation would come at last : ' Prius
laqueos, citationes et anathemata Anseri [a play on his own name, Hus=
Goose] paraverunt, et jam nonnullis ex vobis insidiantur. Sed quia
Anser, animal cicur, avis domestica, suprema volatu suo non pertingens,
eorum laqueos [? non] rupit, nihilominus aUae aves, quae Verbo Dei et
vita volatu suo alta petunt, eorum insidias conterent.' Hist, et Monum.
I. 121. 3 Lenfant, liv. iv. c. 31. See also the Narratio in the Hist, et Monum.
Johan. Huss, n. 522 sq.
4 Lenfant, Uv. iv. c. 85. As he went to the place of execution he
recited the Apostles' Creed, and at the stake his voice was heard chanting
the Paschal Hymn, 'Salve, festa dies,' etc. The astonishment of Poggio,

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

and put
to death,
1415.

Martyr^dom of
Jerome of
Praque,
1413.

Rise of tie
Hussitewar.

4o8

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

Jarobellus de Misa.

and furious war1. Their countrymen had already expos
tulated with the council, in the hope of rescuing the
martyrs from its grasp; and when the tidings of their
execution reached Bohemia, hostility to the Germans
and to Sigismund expressed itself anew in revolutionary
acts. Another element of strife had also been contributed.
It seems that Huss, who held the mediaeval doctrine of
concomitance2, had acquiesced in the propriety of the com
munion in one kind : but his disciple, Jacobellus de Misa
(Jacob of Mies), incited probably by some expressions
in the works of Matthias of Janow3, had begun as early
as the autumn of 1414 to lay unwonted stress on the
importance of administering the chalice to the laity4. The
other side was taken quite as absolutely by the council
of Constance5 (June 14, 1415), and 'The Chalice,' there
fore, grew at length into a watch-word of that numerous
party in Bohemia who revered the memory of Huss. For
several years the forces of the empire were completely
kept at bay: but the development of the religious dif
ferences among the Hussites was afterwards fatal to their
arms. One section of them, the Calixtines" or Uiraquists'' ',
may be called the moderate party. They adhered to Huss
the Florentine scholar, on listening to his defence before the council,
is expressed in a letter to Leonardo Aretino. translated in Lenfant'
c. 86. '
1 See Lenfant, Hist, de la guerre des Hussites, etc. Amsterdam. 1731,
with a Supplement by Beausobre, Lausanne, 1735.
2 Above, p. 303. The question is fuUy investigated by Lenfant, Hist.
du Concile de Const. Uv. n. c. 74 sq.
3 Cf. Neander, p. 488.
4 That he was the first to administer in both kinds is expressly stated
in the Apologia vera Dodrina drawn up in 1538 by the 'Moravians' (in
LydU Waldensia, n. 292, Dordreci, 1617) : 'Magister JacobeUus primus
omnium commumonem utriusque speciei in Bohemia practicare ccenit-'
cf. .Eneas Sylvius, Hist. Bohem. c. 35.
• / ?e% *}" def ee ™ Von der Hardt' m- 646> 'where the modern practice
is defended on the ground that it serves 'ad evitandum pericula aUqua et
scandala.' The doctrine of concomitance is also affirmed in the strongest
terms ('cum firmissime credendum sit, et nuUatenus dubitandum inte
grum corpus Christi et sanguinem tarn sub specie panis quam sub specie
vim veraciter contineri') For the Apologia of JacobeUus in reply to this
decree see Von der Hardt, in. 591 sq. He was supported by the univer
sity of Prague (March 10, 1417), whose manifesto is printed in the Hist.
€Z JxLOitUTTl. II. ooj,
6 From CaUx=chaUce.
7 From the phrase 'sub utraque specie.'

The Calix
tines, or
Uiraquists.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

409

and JacobeUus, claiming1 that the Word of God should
be freely preached in all the kingdom of Bohemia, that
the Eucharist should be administered according to the
terms of the original institution, that the incomes of the
clergy should be lowered, and a more rigorous discipline
enforced on all the members of the Church. This section
of the Hussites, after many sanguinary struggles with the
empire and their brethren, were eventually absorbed into
the Western Church, negociations with them having been
conducted through the medium of the council of Basel2
(1433). But the resistance was kept up much longer by
the Taborites (so called from a Bohemian mountain, Tabor,
where they pitched their earliest camp). While they
adopted many theories like those now current in the sect
of the Waldenses3, they diverged at other points into a
gloomy and morose fanaticism4. They ventured to destroy
all sacred literature, with the exception of the Bible ; to
denude religion of all pomp and every kind of ceremonial ;
to deprive the clergy of their property; to pillage the
religious houses ; and, confiding in the hope that Christ
would soon return in person as their king, they bade de
fiance to their constituted rulers in both church and state.
They were suppressed, however, in the end, by the Bo
hemian government (circ. 1453), or forced to sue for tole
ration as a sect. From their communion, after its fanatic
1 See the whole document in Brzezyna (al. Byzynius), Diarium Belli
Hussitici (in Ludewig's Reliquia Manuscr. vi. 175 sq.).
2 See the documents in Martene and Durand, Ampl. Collect, vm. 596
sq. The Compactata now drawn up concede the points on which the
Calixtines had insisted, but with many stringent limitation s : for instance,
the priest who ministers in both kinds is nevertheless to teach the people
that ' sub quaUbet specie est integer et totus Christus : ' cf . Mansi, xxx.
692. In 1462, jEneas Sylvius (Pius H.) declared the Compactata invaUd,
but they kept then ground in spite of his denunciation: Gieseler, v.
§ 152, pp. 145, 148, notes 10, 17.
3 Members of this sect existed in Bohemia at this time: see above,
p. 373, n. 6.
* On their actions and opinions, see Brzezyna (as above, n. 1), pp. 145
sq., 190 sq., and the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Bohemia,
1. 14 sq. Lond. 1845. Their chief leaders were Ziska (d. 1424) and Pro-
copius (see Brown's Fascic. 11. 632 sq.) : but after 1453, when they had
been defeated by the CaUxtines, they disappear as a poUtical body. About
the same time (1450) they seem to have opened negociations with the
patriarch of Constantinople: Ibid. p. 29. A section of the Taborites
were now entitled 'Picards' (i.e. Beghards), a name of reproach already
given to MiUcz, and to the early foUowers of Huss.

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

The Tabor
ites.

Origin of
theMoraii-ans, or
United
Brethren (circ.
1450).

4io

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies. [A.D. 1305

REFORMA TORY
EFFORTS.

Reforming
party in
Poland.

Appearance of
Luther (1483-
1546).

element had been expelled, arose the peaceful and still
thriving confraternity1 entitled the Moravians, or United
Brethren, who thus constitute the chief historic link be
tween the times of Huss or Wycliffe and our own.
It seems that efforts had been made to propagate the
Hussite doctrines in the neighbouring state of Poland.
As early as 1431 a public disputation2 was held at Cracow
between the doctors of the university and certain deputies
from Bohemia ; and in 1450, a Polish senator3 proposed
to expedite a reformation of the Church by calling in the
aid of the secular authority. But further indications of
this spirit are not clearly traceable until the partisans of
Luther made some converts at Dantzig4 and Thorn5 about
the year 1520.
He it was who carried out the principles6 which Huss
had perished in attempting to diffuse. Their characters,

1 A complete history of them wiU be found in Carpzov, Religions-
untersuchung der BShmischen und Mahrischen Bruder, Leipz. 1742 : see
also Lydii Waldensia, n. 1 sq. Dordreci, 1617. They separated entirely'
from the Church in 1457, not ' propter caeremonias aUquas vel ritus ab
hominibus institutos, sed propter malam et corruptam doctrinam.' They
denied transubstantiation and condemned the adoration of the Host,
affirming that Christ is not in the Eucharist 'corporaliter' but 'spiritali-
ter, potenter, benedicte, in veritate.' See the Responsio Excusatoria
Fratrum Waldensium (1508), in Brown's Fascic. i. 184. Other doctrinal
pecuUarities are enumerated in two kindred documents (Ibid. pp. 162 —
172). Mosheim regards the modern Moravians, or United Brethren, rather
as imitators than as representatives of the United Brethren of the six
teenth century, remarking especiaUy that but a very smaU fraction Of
them is Bohemian or Moravian. (Eccl. Hist. in. 479.)
2 Krasinski, Reform, in Poland, i. 79.
8 Ibid. I. 92 sq.
4 Ibid. p. 113.
5 Ibid. p. 124. When the papal legate came to this place, and was
proceeding to burn a portrait of Luther, he was pelted away by the crowd.
6 See the striking words of Luther in the Preface he contributed to the
Works of Huss, ed. Norinib. 1558 (quoted by Lenfant, Hist, du Candle de
Constance, Uv. I. c. 21). He speaks of his 'incredible astonishment' on
reading a copy of the Sermons of John Huss, which he found (cnc. 1506)
in the convent at Erfurt: 'I could not comprehend,' he adds, 'for what
cause they burnt so great a man, who explained the Scriptures with so
much gravity and skiU.' In 1519 Luther exchanged letters with some of
the Utraquists of Bohemia, one of whom addressed him as follows: 'Quod
olim Johannes Huss in Bohemia fuerat, hoc tu, Martine, es in Saxonia.
Quid igitur tibi opus? Vigila et confortare in Domino, deinde cave ab
hominibus:' see Gieseler, v. p. 246; Fourth Period, § i, n. 50. The con
nexion between Huss and Luther is strongly stated in a contemporary
baUad, edited by Soltau (Leipzig, 1845), pp. 278, 279.

— 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

411

indeed, had many traits in common1. Both were strongly
indisposed to vary from the standard teaching of the
Church 2: yet both were ultimately driven into a posture of
hostility by struggling to suppress the sacrilegious traffic
in indulgences. Their conscience sickened and revolted at
the spectacle. A power that authorized proceedings so
iniquitous, and did not scruple to employ its engines for
exterminating all whose moral nature had impelled them
to protest, could hardly (so they reasoned) be of God.
Although the Saxon friar had not anticipated the ulterior
bearings of this thought while he was posting up his
theses on indulgences3 (Oct. 31, 1517), his later inter
views4 with Cajetan, Eck, and others tended to develope
his opinions, and convinced him more and more that some
thing must be done to purify the Western Church. When
cited to the court of Rome, he entered an appeal6, as Huss
had done before him, to a future and more evangelic
pontiff (Oct. 16, 1518), and soon after indicated his in
tention of applying for redress to what he deemed the first
tribunal of all Christendom, a general Council6 (Nov. 28).

1 One of the most important differences was in their phUosophic
modes of thought. Huss (we saw above, p. 401) was a determined
Eealist; while Luther seems to have incUned in early life to Nominalism.
His favourite authors were Peter d'AiUy, Gerson, WUliam of Ockham
(cf. above, p. 353, n. 1), and Gabriel Biel, preferring them to Thomas
(Aquinas) and Duns Scotus. He was marked, however, like his great
Bohemian prototype, by an intense love for bibUcal studies (' f ontes doc-
trinae cselestis avide legebat ipse ; ') whUe they both were strongly Augus
tinian. Melanchthon says of Luther (Vita Lutheri, p. 7, ed. Heumann),
after mentioning the above particulars: 'Sed omnia Augustini monu-
menta et saepe legerat et optime rneminerat : ' cf. above, p. 357, n. 4.
2 They were also ardently devoted to the pope. Luther has informed
us that in early life he was so infatuated by the papal dogmas, 'ut para-
tissimus fuerim omnes, si potuissem, occidere aut occidentibus cooperari
et consentire, qui papaB vel una syUaba obedientiam detrectarent.' Pref.
to his Works, dated 1545.
3 See them (ninety-five in number) in Loscher, Reformations-Ada und
Documenta, 1. 438, Leipz. 1720. One thesis (§ 27) ran as foUows : 'Homi
nem praadicant, qui statim ut jactus nummus in cistam tinnierit, evolare
dicunt animam' [i.e. out of purgatory]. The papal buU enforcing the
generaUy received doctrine of indulgences is dated Nov. 9, 1518 : see it in
Loscher, 11. 493.
4 An account of these discussions is reserved for a future volume,
when the gradual change in Luther's views wiU be exhibited more fuUy.
6 'A papa non bene informato ad meUus informandum.' See the
document in Loscher, as above, n. 484.
8 Ibid. n. 505. He renewed this appeal Nov. 17, 1520.

412

State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies, [a.d. 1305

A further series of discussions, held at Leipzig1 (June 27,
— July 16, 1519), ended in his formal condemnation by the
pope (June 15, 1520): yet Luther, differing from a host
of his precursors who had not been able to withstand the
thunders of the Vatican, intrepidly arose to meet the
danger, pouring forth a torrent of defiance and contempt.
The bull of excommunication which had branded him as
a heretic was publicly burnt2 at the eastern gate of Wit
tenberg, together with a copy of the Decretals and other
obnoxious writings3 (Dec. 10, 1520).
Every chance of compromise and reconciliation4 va
nished at this point : it forms one of the most momentous
epochs in the history of Europe, of the Church, and of the
world. The deep and simultaneous heaving that was felt
soon afterwards in Switzerland 5, in Spain, in Poland, and
in Scandinavia, in the British Islands and in Hungary,

1 Lbid. in. 215 sq. Luther was supported on this occasion by Carl-
stadt (Bodenstein) ; their chief antagonist was Eck. Immediately after
wards Melanchthon wrote his Defensio contra Johan. Eckium: Opp. I.
113, ed. Bretschneider. In the following year Eck betook himself to
Bome in order to stir up the pontiff (Leo X. ). The buU against Luther
(in Baynald. ad an. 1520, § 51) was due to his exertions.
2 See the reasons he assigned for this act (Quare Pontificis Romani et
discipulorum ejus Libri a Dodore M. Luthero combusti sint) in his Works,
ed. Walch, xv. 1927: cf. Boscoe's Leo the Tenth, n. 218, 219, Lond. 1846.
On the foUowing day he told his college-class, ' Nisi toto corde dissentiatis
a regno papali, non potestis assequi vestrarum animarum salutem.' His
treatise De Captivitate Babylonlca Ecclesia, which was prohibited as
early as Oct. 20, 1520 (De Wette, I. 517), shews that on the doctrine
of the sacraments he had now broken altogether from the Mediaeval
Church. 3 'Omnes Ubri Papae, Decretum, Decretales, Sext., Clement., Extra
vagant. , et BuUa novissima Leonis X. ; item Summa AngeUca [a work on
casuistry], Chrysoprasus Ectii [a treatise on predestination], et aha
ejusdem autoris, EmBeri, et quaedam aha, quae adjecta per aUos sunt:'
Luthers Brief e, ed. De Wette, i. 532.
4 The nearest approximation to it, so far as the Saxon reformers were
concerned, was at the diet of Eatisbon (1541) : see the present writer's
Hist, of the Articles, pp. 29, 30, 2nd edit.
6 According to a statement of Capito (1536) in Hottinger's Hist. Eccl.
saec. xvi. pt. n. 207, the Swiss reformation sprang up more independently:
'Antequam Lutherus in lucem emerserat, Zuinglius et ego inter nos
communicavimus de Pontifice dejiciendo, etiam dum ille vitam degeret in
Eremitorio. Nam unique ex Erasmi consuetudine et lectione bonorum
auctorum qualecumque judicium turn subolescebat.' In Switzerland also
it was the scandalous traffic in indulgences that fired the soul of Zwin-
gU (Ibid, part in. p. 162) : cf. De FeUce, Hist, of the Protestants of France,
Introd. pp. xxix., xxx. Lond. 1853.

¦ — 1520] State of Religious Doctrine and Controversies.

413

in France, in Belgium, and the Papal States themselves,
as well as in the German provinces extending from the
Baltic to the Tyrol, proved that all things were now fully
ripe for some gigantic change; the Reformation had
arrived.

( 4H )

[a D. 1305

MEANS OF
GRACE AND
ENOW-
LEDGE.
Transitional cha
racter of
this period.

CHAPTER XVI.
ON THE STATE OF INTELLIGENCE AND PIETY.

Enough has been already urged to warrant us in say
ing that this period in the lifetime of the Western Church
is eminently one of twilight and transition. It may alto
gether be esteemed a sort of border-province that unites
the Mediaeval to the Modern history of Europe. Many
of the old traditions, whether social, civil or religious, had
been rudely shaken in the conflicts of an earlier date; but
it was only in the fourteenth, and still more the fifteenth
century, that we behold them tottering to their fall, or
actually dethroned. Then also that romantic ardour, — the
enthusiasm so characteristic of the Middle Age, producing
its phantastic modes of thought and action, and diffusing
over it an irresistible charm, — was more and more ex
hausted1. Popes and preachers, for example, sought in
vain to organize a fresh crusade: their motives were no
longer thought to be above suspicion, and accordingly,
when armies of the ' paynim' hovered on the confines of
the Western Church itself and made the potentates of
Hungary and Poland tremble for their safety, few could
now be stirred to raise a hand in their behalf. The spirit
of religious chivalry was dying, or at least had forfeited
the strong predominance it once possessed: it yielded to
the cold, and often contemptuous, voice of reason or the
maxims of prudential statecraft ; while the failure of the
public faith in the Roman system was tending to produce
lukewarmness in the many, and in some a rabid unbelief.
A different but no less portentous revolution had come
over all the other faculties of man: he grew more con-
1 The chief exceptions wiU be found in Spain: cf. above, p. 318.

—1520]

State of Lntelligence and Piety.

4'5

scious of his freedom, of his personality, and of his power.
The dim and circumscribed horizon of his thoughts, which
heretofore he never dared to pass, and which his fathers
deemed impassable, was every day expanding on all sides.
A prospect wider, grander, and more full of hope seemed
stretching at his feet.
The causes that had been conspiring to produce this
mighty change were various, and were also acting through
a multitude of independent channels. Some may be enu
merated thus: — the bold discussions of the later School
men1, which, however heartless, had not failed to sharpen
and evolve the intellectual powers; the restoration of a
purer taste'2, exemplified in literature by men like Dante,
Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Chaucer, and in art by Giotto,
Michael Angelo, and Raphael; the frequent intercourse3
between the Eastern and Western Christians, more par
ticularly in negociating a reunion of the Church; the con
quest of Constantinople by the Turks (1453) ; the west
ward flight of scholars bearing with them Greek and
other manuscripts; the spread of commerce; the discovery
of unknown and long-forgotten Continents, unveiling wider
spheres of intellectual enterprise; the cultivation of the
modern languages, and the invention (or at least extended
use) of paper4 as the common vehicle of writing. But the
mightiest agent was the press ; typography, or printing
by the aid of moveable metallic types6, originating at
the middle of the fifteenth century. By means of it the
ancient sources of instruction had been multiplied inde
finitely; reading had become more easy and inviting,
while the rapid diminution thus effected in the price of
1 See above, pp. 351 sq.
2 Miller's History philosophically illustrated, Bk. 11. ch. xm., xrv.
HaUam (Lit. of Europe,Vt. 1. ch. 1. § 92) regards Petrarch as the restorer
of poUte letters. The reanimation of Architecture had preceded that of
the other fine arts by many centuries. (See HaUam, Europe during the
Middle Ages, ch. rx. pt. 11.). Indeed it was the renaissance of heathen
izing influence in the age preceding the Beformation that led to the de
parture from the ancient types in Italy and other, countries of the West,
and interfered with the development of Christian architecture in the
unreformed as weU as in the reformed communities.
3 F. von Schlegel, Phil, of History, pp. 386, 387, ed. 1847.
4 See HaUam, Lit. of Europe, Pt 1. ch. 1. §§59 sq.
5 Ibid. ch. in. § 19; MUler, 11. 446 sq. Tabular or block-printing
was much older.

MEANS OE
GKACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

Causes of
the change.

Printing
one of the
most im
portant.

4i6

State of Intelligence and Piety. [A.D. 1305

MEANS OP
GKACE AND
ENOW-
LEDGE.

Scholastic institutions
and their
results.

books1 had made them more accessible to every grade
of life. We may compute the influence of the new in
vention by considering that in thirty years, from 1470
to 1500, more than ten thousand editions of books and
pamphlets issued from the press2.
The number of these publications may be also taken
as an index to the growth of schools and other kindred
institutions. It is true that as the monks degenerated3
many of the old establishments connected with religious
houses were involved in their decline ; and the same,
though in a less degree, is often visible among the dif
ferent ranks of Friars4: but meanwhile a considerable
compensation had been made in every part of Europe
by the founding of colleges and universities as well as
minor seats of learning. Not a few indeed of these were
planted on the very site of convents which had been
legally suppressed for the purpose. At the time when
Luther was engaged in giving lectures at Wittenberg, as
many as sixty-six universities were organized in different
parts of Europe, sixteen of them in Germany itself5; and
even in the fourteenth century we know that such as then
existed literally swarmed with students6. It is symptom
atic of the influence exercised by institutions of this class
1 The price was immediately diminished four-fifths: HaUam, Lbid,
§ 147. 2 See the statistics, Ibid. § 142. More than half of these appeared in
Italy. The editions of the Vulgate were 91. In England aU the books
printed in this interval amounted to 141.
3 See above, p. 343.
4 Above, p. 345.
6 Mohler's Schriften, etc. n. 6: Schrockh, xxx. 64 — 127.
6 It is said, but the statement is quite incredible, that before the
plague of 1348, no less than thnty thousand students were congregated at
Oxford in nearly four hundred seminaries. The foUowing is a portion of
the statement made by Bichard, archbishop of Armagh, an Oxford man,
in Brown's Fasdc. n. 473, 474: 'Item consequitur grave damnum in
clero,-in hoc, quod jam in Studiis [i.e. the scholastic institutions] regni
AngUae propter talem substractionem a suis parentibus puerorum [i.e.
then absorption into the Mendicant orders], laici ubique retrahunt suos
fiUos ne mittant eos ad Studium, quia potius eligunt eos facere cult-ores
agrorum eos habendo quam sic in Studiis eos taliter amittere : et sic fit
quod ubi in Studio Oxoniensi adhuc meo tempore erant triginta milUa
studentium, non reperiuntur sex miUia his diebus ; et major hujus minu-
tionis causa sive occasio, prsemissa puerorum circumventio [i.e. by the
Friars] aestimatur:' cf. Vaughan' s Wycliffe, pp. 32, 33; and on the vast
number of students who seceded from Prague in the time of Huss, see
above, p. 401, n. 5.

— 1520] State of Intelligence and Piety.

417.

that they invariably produced the chief antagonists of
Roman absolutism1; Wycliffe, Huss, and others being
numbered with the foremost academics of the age2. In
very many, doubtless, no desire of reformation was awak
ened by the subtle exercises of the schools; and it is cer
tain that no aim was further from the thoughts3 of those
who in the latter half of the fifteenth -century were loud
in advocating a return to every class of pagan models and
were eagerly engaged in studying the aesthetics and philo
sophy of Greece : yet even there we must remember that
the critical faculty was stimulated in a way unknown to
former ages. Some at length were bent on turning this
new light directly to the Church. The copies of the
Holy Scriptures and the Earlier Fathers were sought
out, collated, and in certain cases printed, more especially
by scholars like Erasmus4, who were thus unconsciously
supplying food as well as armour to the champions of a
later day. Men needed little penetration to discern that
Christianity, at least in its ordinary manifestations, had
receded far from its ideal; and although by some these
changes were explained on what has since been termed
the theory of development^, another class of minds6 would
labour to retrace their steps, in bringing back the creed
and ritual of the Church into more perfect harmony with
those of Apostolic times.
1 This, we have seen, was remarkably the case in the model-university
of Paris : and accordingly writers like Capefigue (e. g. n. _ 169) always
regard it as professing ' une theologie equivoque et un catholicisme rnixte,
osant quelquefois la negation partielle de l'autorite du pape.'
2 Even Gerson, while deploring the abuses of the period, turned with
comfort to the thought that education might eventually uproot them :
'A pueris videtur incipienda Ecclesiae reformatio.' Opp. 11. 109, ed. Du
Pin. 3 See above, p. 355:- and cf. M'Crie's Reformation in Italy, pp. 12. sq.
4 See above, p. 361. It was indeed a characteristic of the reforming
party, that they encouraged learning and carried with them the chief
scholars of the time, at least in earlier stages of the movement (Boscoe,
Life of Leo X., 11. 103, 104, ed. 1846). Yet, on the other hand, we must-
remember that the anti-reformation school was by no means destitute of
learning. For instance, the decree which condemned Luther as a heretic
was drawn and signed by the elegant pen of cardinal Sadoleti.
6 Such, for instance, was the way in which Gerson reconciled himself
to one prevailing doctrine of the age : see above, p. 372, n. 2.
6 This was the conviction of archbishop Hermann of Cologne, among
others: see his Simple and Religious Consultation, 'Epistle,' A, iii. Lond.
1547.

MEANS OP
GEACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

M. A.

EE

4i8

State of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 1305

MEANS OE
GKACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

Study of
the Bible.

Continued
use of ver
naculartransla tions.

The growing taste for purely biblical studies1 has been
noted in a former page. That taste was chiefly though
not altogether fostered by the anti-Roman party, — in the.
Church itself2 by those who urged the need of reforma
tion, and still more by sectaries who justified their own
abnormal acts by combating the errors and abuses that
had long been festering in Christendom at large. Nor
were the many absolutely destitute of sacred knowledge
and of access to the oracles of God. The blow3 which
had been aimed at the vernacular translations of the
thirteenth century had ceased to operate, or was at least
evaded, in all quarters. Several, it is true, including the
more gifted ecclesiastics, looked upon those versions with
an ill-concealed distrust4, and some of the more acri
monious partisans of Rome denounced them altogether5:
1 Above, p. 360.
2 e.g. by Nicholas de Clemenges (in the De Studio Theologico, as
above, p. 328, n. 4), who, after urging the study of the Fathers on the
principle that they are streams which bear us up dnectly to the fountain,
has remarked in reference to the Sacred Writings : ' Quoniam in his quae
Divina sunt nihU debemus temere definire, nisi ex calestibus possit
oraculis approbari; quae divinitus enuntiata de his, quae scitu de Deo
sunt necessaria, aut ad salutem opportuna, si diUgenter investigarentur,
nos sufficienter instruunt' (p. 476). Dr Abendon, an Oxford man, who
preached at the councU of Constance (1415), exhorted the prelates in
particular to cultivate this study (Lenfant, Uv. rv. c. 36) : and the reform
ing cardinal D'Ailly, in like manner, recommends it on the ground that
'ipsum fundamentum Ecclesiae' is 'ipsa Sacrae Scripturae Veritas' (in
Brown's Fascic. n. 510). We see the effect of the revival of letters in
the following passage of Pico of Mnandola (quoted by Ussher, Opp.
xn. 366, ed. Elrington): 'Ad hanc notitiam Divinorum capessendam
veteres theologi omnes exhortantur. Huic juniores, Innocentius, Joannes
Gerson, aUique nonnulU assidue monent incumbendum: et non modo
his qui ex officio ad id negotii sunt obnoxn, ut sacerdotes et clerici, sed
omnibus cujuscunque gradus et ordinis extiterint.'
3 See above, p. 299. To the instances there adduced, in note 2, it
may be added that an English prose version of the Book of Psalms and
certain Canticles was made (circ. 1320) by William of Schorham, and
that another was contributed by Eichard of Hampole (cf. above, p. 357,
n. 4), who added a brief commentary: see Preface to the Wycliffite
Bible, p. v.
4 Even Gerson is to be reckoned in this class. He desires (Opp. I.
105, ed. Du Pin) 'prohibendam esse vulgarem translationem Ubrorum
sacrorum nostrae BibUse, prasertim extra moralitates et historias,' adding,
'claras rationes ad hoc plurimas invenire facUe est.' His authority is
urged by the anti-reformation writer, Cochlaeus, in the tract, 'An expediat
Laicis legere novi Testamcnti libros lingua vernacula,' ed. 1533. The
'Ormulum' (above, p. 297, n. 4) was received with jealousy and opposi
tion : see White's Pref. p. lxxv. Oxf. 1852.
6 See, for example, the offensive language of Knyghton (Wycliffe's

—1520]

State of Intelligence arid Piety.

419

yet in spite of this occasional resistance, they could
never be displaced. In England numerous copies of the
Wycliffite Bibles1 were long cherished, even as it seems
by many who did not embrace the Lollard doctrines; and
in all the second half of the fifteenth century2 translations
of the Scriptures found a multitude of readers, in both
Germany and northern Italy, and some in Spain itself.
We should remember also that a larger fraction of
the whole community were educated at this period, having
learned to write3 as well as read. The operation of the
Crusades had proved most favourable to the growth of
civil liberty : they had relaxed the trammels of the feudal
system4. Artisans and traders had sprung up on every
side, and the inhabitants of towns, supplying the prolific
germ of the important middle-class, were far more nume
rous than in all the earlier ages of the Church. Amid the
humblest order of society, the peasants, where the bulk
appear to have been scarcely above the state of villenage,
some scanty tokens of amelioration and refinement 6 were
discernible. The powers of thought had been more com
monly aroused, and, as the natural effect of such awakening,
the masses had grown conscious of their own importance.
antagonist), above, p. 386, n. 1. In an anti-Lollard song, printed by
Bitson, it is said to be 'unkyndly for a knight' to 'bable the Bibel day
and night.'
1 See above, p. 385, and the Preface to the Oxford edition, p. xxxiu.
In the Constitutions of archbishop Arundel (Johnson, n. 466), the reading
of such versions is prohibited, under pain of the greater excommunica
tion, at least until they have been formaUy authorized.
2 The numerous editions of the German and Italian Bibles have been
mentioned above, p. 360: cf. Buckingham, Bible in the Middle Ages, pp.
60 sq. Attempts were made, however, to suppress aU vernacular transla
tions, for instance, by the archbp. of Mentz in 1486 (quoted in Gieseler,
V. § 146, p. 75, n. 14). In Spain the lovers of the Sacred Books evaded
the Inquisitor by translating portions of them into Castilian verse (e.g.
Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and the Life of Christ, drawn from the Evange
lists): A. de Castro, Spanish Protestants, p. lxu., Lond. 1851. On the
importance attached to the vernacular dialects and to the general diffu
sion of the Scriptures by the Waldenses, see Neander, rx. 565. The price
of the Sacred Books, however, would be long a serious bar to their pro
gress in the lower orders of society. Thus a copy of Wycliffe's Bible, at
the beginning of the 15th century, cost four marks and forty pence
(=£2. 16s. 8d. of present money): Blunt's Sketch of the Reformation,
p. 69, 6th edit.
3 HaUam, Liter, of Europe, Pt. 1. ch. 1. §§ 54 sq.
4 See Sir J. Stephen, On the History of France, Lect. vi.
6 History of England and France under the House of Lancaster, p. 10.
EE2

MEANS OF
GRACE AND,
KNOWLEDGE.

Intelli
gence more
widely dif
fused.

420

State, of Intelligence and Piety. [a.d. 1305

MEANS OF
OBACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

Other books
of devotion
and reli
gious in
struction.

They were often most impatient of the yoke which both in
secular and in sacred matters goaded them at every point
and bowed them to the earth. The strength of such con
victions was peculiarly betrayed in all the fourteenth
century, when it is easy to observe the rapid growth of
self-assertion, breaking out into political discontent1.
Besides the other tracts and ballads that were cir
culated for the gratifying of these intellectual wants, there
was a constant issue of 'religious' publications. Thus
in England a vernacular book of devotion for the laity
was furnished by 'The Prymer2.' The authors or trans
lators of religious poetry3 were also very numerous, choos
ing, for example, as their subject, an affecting passage
in the life or sufferings of our blessed Lord, expounding
Psalms or Canticles, or not unfrequently embellishing the
passion of some primitive or mediaeval saint. A deep
impression must also have been produced by tracts like
those contained in the ' Pauper Rusticus ' or ' Poor Caitif,'
which were now disseminated far and wide in English,
with the hope of leading ' simple men and women of good
will the right way to heaven4.' The same idea was exten-
1 e.g. in England, as early as 1275, it was found necessary to repress
a number of baUads and other pieces tending 'to cause discord betwixt
king and people' (Warton, Engl. Poetry, i. 45, ed. 1840); and in the time
of Wycliffe and subsequently (see above, p. 384, n. 3) the spirit of dis
affection shewed itself in the most violent forms (cf. the Preface to a
Poem On the times of Edw. II., ed. Percy Society, No. lxxxii., pp. vn. sq.).
2 Edited, with a preliminary Dissertation, and an Appendix of some
other vernacular forms of prayer, confession, &c, in Vol. n. of Maskell's
Monumenta Ritualia. The contents are : the Matins, and Hours of our
Lady; the Evensong; the Compline; the seven Psalms; the fifteen
Psalms : the Litany (containing the germ of the EngUsh Litany now in
use) ; the Placebo, and Dirige (the Office of the Dead) ; the Commenda
tions; the Pater noster; the Ave Maria; the Creed; the Ten Command
ments ; the Seven deadly Sins. See the Contents of other copies of ' the
Prymer,' ib. pp. xl. sq.; Procter, Hist, cf the Prayer-Book, pp. 12 sq.
3 The Cambridge University Library is rich in this kind, of literature.
A remarkable instance occurs in MS. Dd. i. 1, § 7, entitled 'Memoriale
Credentium,' which is said to be ' wreten in englisch tonge for lewid [lay]
men, that nought understand latyn ne frensch, and is drawn out of hoU
writte and of holy doctors beforn this tyme.' It contains an account of
the plagues of Egypt and the giving of the law, expositions of the Ten
Commandments, the seven deadly sins, penance, transubstantiation, the
Lord's prayer, the four cardinal virtues, the seven sacraments, the seven
gifts of the Holy Ghost, the seven works of mercy, the joys of heaven and
the pains of heU. The date is about 1330.
4 For an account of it see Vaughan's Wycliffe, p. 533, new edit.

— 1520] State of Intelligence and Piety.

421

sively adopted on the continent, especially1, as it would
seem, by the new order in which Thomas a Kempis had
been reared. Indeed the unexampled popularity of his
own treatise 'On the Imitation of Christ'2 will furnish a
delightful proof that thousands of his fellow-men could
find a pleasure in his simple and soul-stirring maxims, —
maxims which, in spite of their asceticism, are ever ani
mated by the breath of genuine Christianity.
The sermons preached at church on Sundays and saints'-
days must have varied with the piety and knowledge of
the curate or the friar who supplied his place. In England
many of them in the fourteenth century were metrical3,
consisting, as a general rule, of paraphrases on the Gospels
throughout the year, enforced by anecdotes or stories which
the preacher borrowed from the Old and New Testament,
from Legends, and from other sources. Some of these pro
ductions are both simple and pathetic; but the great majority
are pointless, cold, and nearly always full of puerilities. If
we may judge from the severe remarks of Gerson4 in his
Shirley points out that it is not a work of Wycliffe, but of a mendicant
friar, on the authority of bishop Pecock. Fasc. Zizan. xiii.
1 See Delprat (as above, p. 347, n. 5), pp. 306 sq. The Mendicants
opposed this practice of the 'Common-LUe Brothers,' affirming 'quod
laici Ubros Teutonicales habere non deberent, et sermones non nisi ad
populum in ecclesia fieri deberent.' The chronicler, John Buseh, in his
De reformatione Monasteriorum (as above, p. 343, n. 4), 11. 925 sq., did
not justify the translation of the 'Canon' (of the Mass), and of books
which he thought 'altos et divinos;,' yet he adds, 'libros morales de
vitiis et virtutibus, de Incarnatione, Vita, et Passione Christi, de vita et
sancta conversatione et martyrio sanctorum Apostolorum, etc. ; homiUas
quoque et sermones Sanctorum, ad emendationem vitae, morum discipli-
nam, inferni timorem, patriaeque coelestis amorem provocantes, habere et
quotidie legere cundis dodis et indodis utilissimum est.'
2 Above, p. 348, n. 1. This work is said to have gone through 1800
editions: HaUam's Liter, of Europe, Pt. 1. ch. n. § 63.
3 Thus in the volume of sacred poetry above mentioned (p. 420, n. 3),
there is a long series of metrical sermons belonging to this class (pp. 48—
402). They proceed, with two exceptions, in the usual course from
. Advent onwards. Many other copies exist; e.g. one in the same reposi
tory, Gg. v. 31, and a thnd in the Ashmolean coUection, No. 42. Such
also had been the Ormulum (ed. Oxon. 1852), a series of HomUies, com
posed in metre without aUiteration (early in the 13th century): cf.
White's Pref. pp. lxx., lxxi. A series of Expositions of the Dominical
Gospels, in Eomance, is preserved in the Camb. Univ. MS. Gg. 1. 1,
fol. 135—261: their author was Eobert de Gretham. For specimens of
the English prose sermons in the following century, see the Liber Fes-
tivalis printed by Caxton.
4 Lenfant, Hist, du Concile de Constance, Uv. vn. c. 8. Gerson adds,

MEANS OF
GEACE AND
KNOW
LEDGE.

Sermons.

422

State of Intelligence and Piety, [a.d. 1305

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

sermon before the Council of Rheims in 1408, the office
of preaching was now generally disparaged ; bishops having
almost everywhere abandoned it to their stipendiaries or
to the vagrant friars. In the age anterior to the Re
formation it was often made a subject of complaint1, that
preachers spent their strength on empty subtleties, or even
interlarded their discourses with citations from the pagan
authors rather than the Word of God. A better class
indeed always existed, such as we have sketched2 in Ger
many and Bohemia, but the evidence compels us to infer
that members of it were comparatively few3.
The observations made already on the ritual and the
sacramental system4 of the Church apply still further to
that there was no greater rarity than to hear 'good Gospel-preaching.'
'Seeds of error,' he continues, 'are scattered abroad, and the people are
fed with impertinent and frivolous tales.' Bichard TJlverstone (above,
p. 329, n. 2) in like manner expresses a hope, that when abuses had been
taken away the pontiff would preach the Gospel himseU, and would depute
sound preachers to all parts of Christendom : Ibid. u. 9. The language
of John of Trittenheim, immediately before the Beformation (circ. 1485),
shows that this hope had not been realized. After speaking of the
secularity and vices of the clergy generaUy, he adds, 'Bomana lingua
scribere vel loqui nesciunt, vix in vulgari exponere EvangeUa didicerunt.
Quantos errores, fabulas et haereses in Ecclesia praedicando popuUs enun-
cient, quis nisi expertus credere possetl' Instit. vita sacerdotalis, c. 4:
Opp. Mogunt. 1605.
1 See the last reference, and other passages in Gieseler, v. § 146, pp.
70 — 72, notes 2, 3. A like charge had been brought against the preachers
of an earUer date by Nicholas de Clemenges, in his De studio Theolog. (as
above, p. 328, n. 4). He writes, 'Hodie plurimi exercentur, quae licet
intellectum utcunque acuant, nidlo tamen igne succendunt affectum,
nullo alimento pascunt, sed frigidum, torpentem, aridum relinquunt:'
p. 476. Many of the Sermones de Tempore, the Sermones de Sanctis, the
Sermones Quadragesimales, etc. of the period amply justify this comment.
Immediately before the time of Luther several mendicants adopted a
sarcastic and quasi-comic style of preaching, e.g. Geiler of Kaisersberg,
Menot, a Franciscan of Paris, Gabriel of Barletta, a NeapoUtan: see,
especiaUy, 'Der Prediger Olivier MaUlard,' by C. Schmidt, in the Ze.it-
schrift fiir die histor. Theologie, 1856, pp. 489 — 542. Some preachers
used to give a coarse flavour to their discourses. This was thought to be
especiaUy allowable during the Easter festival, when, according to a
prevalent custom, the roughest jests were tolerated even in the pulpit, to
excite what was caUed the Easter laugh.
s See above, pp. 355 sq. and pp. 397 sq.
3 Even Bossuet aUows that many of the preachers ' made the basis of
piety to consist in those practices which are only its accessories,' and
that they 'did not speak of the grace of Jesus Christ as they ought to
have done.' Quoted in De Fence, Hist, of the Protestants of France,
Introd. p. xvii. Lond. 1853.
4 Pp. 301—305.

— 1520] State of Intelligence and Piety.

423

the present period. Much as individual writers1 called in
question the scholastic arguments on which that system
now reposed, and much as others might protest2 against
the notion that a sacrament can operate mechanically, or
without conditions on the part of the recipient, it is plain
that Western Christendom3 had, generally speaking, ac
quiesced in the conclusions of the earlier Schoolmen; or,
in other words, adopted the positions that were afterwards
fixed and stereotyped by the Council of Trent4. Almost
the only symptom of resistance, on the part of those who
held the other doctrines of the Church, related to com
munion in both kinds ; but we have seen that the Council
of Constance" strenuously adhered to the prevailing usage,
and at length, when some apparent relaxation had been
made at Basel, the non-necessity of such communion (or
the doctrine of 'concomitance') was quite as strongly re
affirmed. The worship of the Virgin, which had been developed
in preceding centuries to an appalling height, was carried
even higher by the sensuous and impassioned writers of
the present period. She was invoked, not only as the
queen of heaven, our advocate, our mediatrix, and in some
degree the moving cause of our redemption 6, but as the
1 e.g. Durand de S. Pour?ain (above, p. 352, u. 2), Wycliffe, Tri
alogus, Ub. iv. c. 1 sq.
3 e.g. John Wessel (Luther's prototype), in TJUmann's Life of him
(Hamb. 1834), pp. 322, 323.
3 The Eastern Church (cf. above, p. 301, n. 2) had also manifested a
disposition to accept the Western view, at least the representatives whom
it sent to the councU of Florence were committed to that course ; Mansi,
xxxi. 1054 sq.
4 Hence the phrase ' scholasticorum doctrina' in the English Articles
of 1552= 'doctrina Bomanensium' in the Articles of 1562: see Hardwick's
Hist, of the Articles, pp. 304, 305, 2nd edit.
6 See above, p. 408. A treatise was composed in the name of the
councU by Maurice of Prague (Lenfant, liv. vi. c. 19), in which the chief
weight of the argument is made to rest on the authority of synods. The
populace were easily reconcUed to the withdrawal of the Cup, especiaUy
when stories of 'bleeding Hosts' were circulated afresh: see Gieseler, v.
§ 145, p. 63, n. 9, where Nicholas Cusanus (1451), as papal legate, de
nounces the fabricators of this 'miracle' for their profaneness and
cupidity. In the MS. volume referred to above (p. 420, n. 3) there is a
story of an abbot who argued that 'the bred in the awter is not kynde-
Uche [naturaUy] Goddis body but a tokne thereof (p. 522). He is con
futed by a miracle, in which appeared 'in the awter a chUd Hgging beforn
the prest,' &c.
6 These expressions were used even by John Huss, in 1414; see Len
fant, Concile de Const. Uv. 1. v. 27.

COBKUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Worship of
the Virgin.

424

State of Intelligence and- Piety, [a.d. 1305

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

all-powerful, the single, and the all-prevailing intercessor \
High and low, the scholar and the peasant, generally
esteemed an 'Ave Maria' as equivalent to a 'Pater Nos
ter'2. It was therefore easy to predict that the hostility3
evoked by efforts which had long been seeking to exact
belief in the immaculate conception of the Virgin, had
grown feebler every day.
Although the spread of scholarship4 had frequently ex-
1 Instances occur, not only in poets like Chaucer, whose Priere de
Nostre Dame contains the Une 'Almighty and aU merciable queene,' but
also in the Mariale of an ItaUan Franciscan, Bernardinus de Bustis, on
whose works see Wharton's Append, to Cave, ad an. 1480. One extract
(Part. xn. Sermo n.) wiU suffice : ' A tempore quo virgo Maria concepit
in utero Verbum Dei, quandam ut sic dicam jurisdictionem seu auctori-
tatem obtinuit in omni Spiritus Sancti processione temporaU ita ut nulla
creatura aliquam a Deo obtineat gratiam vel virtutem, nisi secundum
Ipsius pia matris . dispensationem.' 'In her the penitent beheld the
Mother and the Mediatrix, the loving parent and the potent intercessor,
eager to bless as she was all-powerful to save.' Buckingham, p. 255.
2 See examples in Gieseler, § 145, p. 65, n. 13. It is painful to observe
an archbishop of Canterbury (Sudbury) enjoining his clergy (1377) to
supplicate ('devotissime exoreni') in one breath God, His Mother, and
the Saints : WUkins, in. 121. Two new festivals were instituted about the
same date (1372, 1389) in honour of the Virgin, the former caUed Festum
Prasentationis, the latter, Festum Visitationis. Another indication of
the blindness with which the worship of the Virgin was now practised is
suppUed by the currency of the fable respecting a miraculous transfer of
her house from Palestine to Loretto : see Gieseler, v. § 145, pp. 64, 65,
n. 12. 3 See above, p. 306. The way in which the credit of St. Bernard and
other writers was now saved is indicated by the foUowing extract from
Gabriel Biel, the schoolman (Colledorium, lib. in. distinct, in. quasst. i.
art. 2): 'Auctoritas Ecclesias major est auctoritate cujuscunque Sancti,
saltern post canonicos Scriptores. ...Nee propter hoc culpandus est D.
Bernhardus, sed nee S. Thomas, S. Bonaventura, caeterique Doctores
cum magno moderamine opposita opinantes, quoniam eorum tempore lioc
licuit, quoniam nuUa determinatio vel ConciUi vel ApostoUcae sedis facta
fuit.' The conciliar authority to which he aUudes is that of the synod of
Basel (Mansi, xxix. 183) ; yet even the decree there issued, owing to the
quarrels of the councU and the pope, was not regarded as a final settle
ment of the question. The Dominicans stiU protested, and went so far
as to charge the advocates of the immaculate conception of the Virgin
with the name of heretics ; see a buU of Sixtus IV. (1483) in the Canon
Law (Extravagantes Commun. Ub. in. tit. xn. c 2).
4 Thus Gerson preached a striking sermon at Constance on the canon-
ization of St Bridget (cf. above, p. 327, n. 7, and Lenfant, Uv. i. c. 70).
The title is De Probatione Spirituum (Opp. i. 37 sq.). JacobeUus, the
Hussite (Lenfant, Uv. n. c. 73), disparages without absolutely rejecting
some of the Legends; for instance, that of St Catharine of Alexandria.
Gobelinus Persona (circ. 1420), and after him Nicholas Clopper (1472),
were stiU more sceptical respecting her, although her name in some places
was admitted into the 'Canon of the .Mass.' See An Historical Inquiry

-1520] State of Intelligence and Piety.

425

cited men to criticize the older Legends, and on more than
one occasion to dispute the title even of the favourite saints
of Christendom, their worship, generally speaking, had
continued as before. They occupied the place of tutelar
divinities1, however much the holier class of Christians
shrank from their complete association on a level with the
King of saints Himself. It was indeed a gross exaggeration
of the reverence paid to them in earlier times that stirred
the zeal of Wycliffe2. Not content with placing them in
a subordinate position, he impugned the custom of ob
serving special festivals in honour of the saints : but few
if any members of the Church were now disposed to follow
his example.
This repugnance may have been increased in him by
witnessing the multiplicity of such observances ; for it is
remarkable that in the present period indications of a wish
to simplify the public ritual frequently occur and are be
trayed by earnest men of very different schools of thought.
They felt that true devotion ran the risk of being suf
focated3, and the memory of Christ Himself obscured, by
respecting her, by the present writer, among the PubUcations of the
Cambridge Antiquarian Society (1849).
1 Gerson admits (Opp. m. 947) that some Christians whom he terms
'simpletons' worshipped the very images of the saints, but he excuses
this impiety on the ground of their invincible ignorance, or because they
intend to do what the Church does in the honour she bestows on images.
Huss, though censuring such worship, did not object to certain marks of
outward reverence (' licet possint homines genua flectere, orare, offerre,
candelas ponere,' etc.): Opp. 11. 343.
2 Trialogus, Ub. in. c. 30. The 'reforming' party at Constance (in
cluding D'AiUy aDd Gerson.) were in favour of abolishing aU festivals 'not
instituted by the old law and the decrees of the Fathers, especiaUy the
inferior holy-days,' on the ground that they were generally devoted to
drunkenness and every species of excess: Lenfant, Uv. vn. c. 62. A
catalogue of the feasts which were rigorously observed by the Church of
England in 1362, will be found in Wilkins, 11. 560 (cf. Johnson's Notes,
n. 346, 428, 429). The first in order is the Lord's Day ('ab hora diei
sabbati vespertina inchoandum, non ante horam ipsam prasveniendum,
ne Judaicae professionis participes videamur'). The festival of Trinity
Sunday, or at least its universal observance on the octave of Whitsunday,
also dates from the present period: see Guerike, Manual of Antiquities,
ed. Morrison, p. 161.
3 See the remarkable extract from Jacobus de Paradiso, a Carthusian
(d. 1465) in Gieseler, § 145, vol. v. p. 59, n. 1, and the whole of another of
his treatises, De Septem Statibus Ecclesia, in Brown's Fascic. 11. 102—
112. The same point is urged by Nicholas de Clemenges in his De novis
celebritatibus non instituendis (Opp. pp. 143 sq., ed. Lydius). Matthias
of Janow in like manner, in the De Sacerdotum et Monachorum abomina-

CORRUP-
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Worship of
the saints.

Reaction against the
ritualismof the age.

426

State of Intelligence and Piety. [A.D. 1305

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

a complexity of rites that were too often altogether un
intelligible to their flocks. These rites they also felt were
celebrated only for filthy lucre by a multitude of hypo
critical and sacrilegious priests1. The mind of Western
Christendom had thus been predisposed for the avenging
outbreak of the sixteenth century, which shewed its ve
hemence in nothing so distinctly as in the abolishing of
'dark and dumb ceremonies,' — prelates not uncommonly
included in the number.
But a darker blot, and one that was almost ingrained
into the constitution of the Mediaeval Church, is found
in the prevailing theory of penance. At the basis of it
lay the thought, that, notwithstanding the forgiveness of
sins, a heavy debt is still remaining to be paid by the
offender as a precondition to his ultimate acceptance with
the Lord. The liquidation of this debt, according to the
Schoolmen, is advanced not only by the self-denial and
the personal afflictions of the sinner, but on his removal
hence may be facilitated more and more through various
acts of piety which others undertake in his behalf2. Among
tione (as above, p. 399, n. 1), c. 60, complained as follows: 'MultipUcata
sunt ad haec mandata et ceremoniae hominum infinitae, et ut tantum
essent tremenda et tantae auctoritatis, quemadmodum Dei summi prae-
cepta, praedicantur et docentur et cum magna districtione imperantur.'
The gentler influence of the 'Friends of God' (above, p. 356) was tending
to the same result. Even the papal champion (cf. above, p. 325, n. 2),
Alvarus Pelagius (De Plandu Ecclesia, Ub. n. c. 5), is forced to acknow
ledge: 'Nostra autem Ecclesia plena et superplena est altaribus, missis,
et sacrificns.'
1 e.g. Alvarus Pelagius, as in the previous note: 'Tot enim hodie
dicuntur missse quasi quaestuariae, vel consuetudinariae, vel ad complacen-
tiam, vel ad scelera cooperienda, vel propriam justificationem, quod apud
populum vel clerum sacrosanctum Corpus Domini jam vUescit.' And
Jacobus de Paradiso (in Brown, n. 110), after inveighing against a num
ber of superstitions, adds, ' Altaria aut ecclesias in conventiculis locorum,
sub spe miracutorum aut sacrorum erigentes propter turpem quastum.
The conclusion of the paragraph is very striking: 'Et quis omnia
enarrare ac enumerare sufficiat, quibus Ecclesia modernis temporibus
cernitur deformata? Putamusne haec omnia ahquando posse reformarif
cf. the observations Concerning the Service of the Church and Of Cere
monies, prefixed to the English Prayer-Book.
a Gabriel Biel, Expositio Missa (see above, p. 354, n. 1), Lect. lvii,
states the question thus: 'Cum enim defuncti implere non possint opus..
pro quo dantur indulgentiae, dum illud pro eis fit ab aUo, jam opus alterius
suffragatur eis, ut possint consequi indulgentias, non minus quam si ipsi
per se opus Ulud implevissent. ' So far was this idea of substitution
carried, that some of the Franciscans thought every member of their own
Order safe, expecting that St Francis would descend annuaUy and rescue

— 1520] State of Intelligence and Piety.

427

the more intelligent1 it was asserted that relief is only
possible to those who have already manifested true re
pentance and are truly justified before their death. The
soul which bas not in the present life been made a sub
ject of this holy change will pass immediately into the
prisons of the lost, where it can profit neither by its own
compunction nor by the suffrages of other men. But in
the popular discourses of the age we look in vain for such
discrimination in the handling of these awful subjects ;
penance is too generally confounded with repentance,
while the commutation and vicarious fulfilment of it are
at least assumed to be available for all, however hardened
or corrupt, and whether numbered with the living or with
the dead2.
A penance was awarded either publicly in case of fla
grant and notorious sin, or privately in the confessional ;
its nature and degree depending on the customs of the
diocese, or on the will of the spiritual adviser3. But the
work of penitence was prosecuted by the several classes
of delinquents in a very different spirit. Some, exceed
ing the most harsh requirements of the Church, en
deavoured to allay the consciousness of guilt by various
methods of self-torture, stimulated4 now, as heretofore, by
apprehensions, that the end of all things was at hand,
particularly by the frequent wars, by famine, pestilence,
aU who had died that year in the habit of the Order. See the account in
Eccard, Corpus. Hist. Med. Mvi, 11. 1101.
1 Cf. above, pp. 307, 308.
2 e.g. a plenary indulgence is said to be effectual 'pro vivis et defunc-
tis,' and its common definition is 'omnium peccatorum et pcenarum,
quas quis in purgatorio deberet pati, remissio.' Although the metrical
preacher (Camb. Univ. MSS., Di. 1. p. 361) condemns praying for those
who are in hell on the ground that it is 'unskUful' and 'unworthy to God
to hear,' he admits that such prayer might be answered.
3 In the MS. volume, above quoted, p. 515, three 'degrees of penance'
are enumerated: (1) 'beforn the busschop in the begynnyng of Lentone,
in the cathedral chirche,' (2) 'dryuyng about the sinner, about the chirche
or market, or other pUgrimage, with tapres and candeUs,' &c, (3) 'beforn
the prest whanne a man schryueth him of his synne and taketh his
penaunce therfor.'
4 Guerike, Kirchengesch. 1. 820, 5th edit. A more healthy form of
piety had shewn itself in others of this period, many of both sexes and
of ail ranks devoting at least an hour every day ' summum humano generi
impensum beneficium, Christi Passionem, meditari ac repetere,ut exinde
Deo grati mala mundi f erant patientius et virtutes operentur faciUus.'
See Neander, ix. p. 595.

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Ascetic
view of it.

428

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Self-indul
gent vicio
of it.

State of Intelligence and Piety, [a.d. 1305
or other national calamities, and by the desolating in
roads of the Turk. By none had this conception of the
penitential discipline been carried to so terrible a length
as by the 'Flagellants1,' who, although eventually excluded
from the Church, were faithful to its real principles, and
in respect of their unnatural austerity, had won the ad
miration2 of both scholars and the more enthusiastic of
the crowd. The gloom, however, which had been dif
fused in every quarter by the rigorous theory of penance
was now dissipated, partly through the wider spread of
knowledge, partly by a wish to substitute less onerous
kinds of 'satisfaction' for the discipline exacted in the
ancient canons of the Church. A favourite remedy was
that of vowing pilgrimages to the shrine of some pre
eminent or wonder-working saint. The crowd of devo
tees that travelled to and fro on errands of this nature
was prodigiously3 enlarged ; while it is obvious that the
Years of Jubilee4, as often as they revolved, would keep
1 See above, p. 374: Gieseler, in. § 84, p. 378, n. 21 ; and rv. § 123,
pp. 227 — 232: Milman, Latin Christianity, iv. pp. 396, 397. Two out
breaks of this religious phrenzy occurred; in 1260, when the great pU-
grimage of FlageUants started from Perugia ; and in 1348 and f oUowing
years, on the breaking out of the 'Black Death:' the practice lasted into
the 15th century, until it was disapproved by the Council of Constance.
2 On the reasons which influenced the councU of Constance to deal
gently with this sect, see Lenfant, liv. v. c. 50 — 55. It found a patron in
the Spanish worthy Vincente Ferrer (above, p. 319, n. 3).
3 e. g. the number of royal licences granted in the first seven months
of 1445, to authorize the exportation of EngUsh pUgrims to the shrine of
St Iago of Compostella in Spain (cf. above, p. 200, n. 2) was 2200: see
the statistics in Turner, Middle Ages, in. 138, n. 28. Of domestic pUgrim-
ages which stood in high repute in aU the fifteenth century, the most
popular was that to Becket's shrine at Canterbury, to Winifrith's Well,
and to the image of Our Lady of Walsingham. On the continent mul
titudes resorted to Loretto, Einsiedeln, the Seamless Coat of Treves,
&c. &c.
4 Cf. above, p. 310. Clement, in 1343, had fixed the recurrence of
the JubUee at the end of fifty years (see the Extravagantes Communes,
Ub. v. tit. 9, c. 2), esteeming it an act of amnesty to all who were 'vere
poenitentes et confessi.' Urban VI., however, in 1389, shortened the
period to thirty-three years ; but died soon afterwards. It was the sight
of the enormities connected with the jubUee of Boniface IX. in the fol
lowing year that roused the indignation of Theodoric of Niem (see his
oft-quoted treatise De Schismate, lib. i. c. 68). He declares that the
papal quaestors realized immense sums of money by the sale of indul
gences, 'quia omnia peccata etiam sine panitentia ipsis confitentibus
relaxarunt.' This conduct of his agents was, however, soon repudiated
by Boniface himself : Eaynald. ad an. 1390, § 2.

—1520] State of Intelligence and Piety.

429

alive the public prepossessions by attracting an enthusiastic
stream of pilgrims out of all the countries of the west to
worship at the ' tomb of the Apostles.'
One of the chief baits by which the multitude were
captivated at this period was the grant of fresh indul
gences (remission of unfinished penance). But these grants
could also be procured in other instances by money-pay
ments, and without submitting to the dangers and discom
forts of a lengthened tour. The 'pardoner1' had in the
middle of the fourteenth century become a recognized
official of the Roman pontiffs, and as such he introduced
himself at every turn among the numerous chapmen of the
age. The merit of his wares may have been sometimes
questioned2, while the purchaser had no explicit warrant of
their universal applicability, — that is, in favour of the dead
as well as of the living. But this point was definitely ruled
in the affirmative3 by Sixtus IV. (1477) : and during all
1 See Chaucer's well-known picture (or, in some respects, caricature)
of the ' pardoner.' He also dealt in charms and relics, palming on the
simple many bones of which the genuineness was more than question
able: cf. the Secreta Sacerdotum of Henry of Langenstein (quoted by
Gieseler, iv. § 119, p. 200, n. 14), who, after speaking of the sale of
precious reUcs, adds 'forte est os aUcujus asini vel damnati.' Many
timid efforts were made to put down unlicensed traffickers, and those
quaestors who had exceeded then commission: cf. above, p. 345, n. 1, and
Lenfant, Concile de Constance, liv. vn. c. 64.
2 The affirmative side was generaUy taken (above, p. 309, n. 3), but
Gerson, Sermo II. pro defundis, stiU denies ' indulgentias aeqvnri posse
pro mortuis.' Gabriel Biel, in like manner, had once doubted (Led. lvi.)
'utrum indulgentiae prosint defunctis;' but, cf. above, p. 426, n. 2. It
was, in fact, esteemed a heresy (in 1479) to advocate the other side,
' Bomanum pontificem purgatorii pcenam remittere non posse :' Eaynald.
ad an. 1479, § 32.
3 See his Declaratio, with many other facts relating to this question,
in Amort, De origine, progressu, valore, et frudu Indulgentiarum, 11.
292, August. Vindel. 1735. His argument is the foUowing: 'Quoniam
orationes et eleemosynae valent tanquam suffragia animabus impensa,
nos, quibus plenitudo potestatis ex alto est attributa, de thesauro uni
versalis Ecclesiae, qui ex Christi sanctorumque Ejus meritis constat,
nobis commisso, auxilium et suffragium animabus purgatorii afferre
cupientes supradictam concessimus indulgentiam, ita tamen, ut fideles
ipsi pro eisdem animabus suffragium darent, quod ipsae defunctorum
auimae per se nequeant adimplere.' When it was demanded why the
pope, who claimed a kind of ownership in this treasury of merits, did
not make more copious grants to Christians generally, the answer was,
that as the minister of God he must dispense the good things of the
Church with judgment and moderation ('discrete et cum moderamine')
Luther revived this question in the 82nd of his theses on indulgences,
as above, p. 411, n. 3.

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.
Pardons
from the
pope.

430

State of Intelligence and Piety; [a.d. 1305

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

Contro
versy re
specting their ef
ficacy.

Reaction
againstthe whole
system of
Church
penance :

the next half-century the traffic in indulgences had grown
into the most gigantic evil of the times. An inexhausti
ble supply of pardons1, unrestrained by explanations as to
their distinctive import and effects, were sold by vagrant
commissaries2, chiefly friars, like so many articles of dress
or food : ' redemption for the sins ' not only of the buyer,
but of families and even districts, being advertised for
sale by public auction, and at last made purchaseable in
advance. How many and how tangled were the roots of this
impiety is gathered from a judgment of the theological
faculty3 at Paris in 1518. Those doctors, it is true, had
found themselves unable to concur in a prevailing notion,
that all souls indifferently escape from purgatory at the
instant when a contribution of ten 'testons' sterling has
been made on their behalf, to funds collected for a charit
able object, or for instituting fresh crusades : yet on the
other hand their judgment clearly recognized the vicious
principle on which the system of indulgences was reared.
They leave the full adjudication of the matter in the hands
of God, who it is argued will assuredly accept (though not
according to a stated law or graduated tariff) whatsoever
is disbursed, in aid of living or departed souls, from the
superfluous treasure of the Church.
It was however quite impossible that thoughtful men
could look upon this doctrine of vicarious pardons, and
the impious traffic it produced, with aught like reverence
or respect. Too many poured contempt upon the minis-
1 Gabriel Biel accounts for their prodigious increase, partly from the
fact that charity having waxed cold, ' nee satisfactiones condignae injun-
guntur, nee modice injunctae perficiuntur.' Exposit. Missa, Lect. lvii.
2 See, for instance, Luther's theses, § 21 sq., as above, p. 411, n. 3:
and cf. De Felice, Hist, of the Protestants in France, Introd. p. xix.
The diplomata with which Tetzel was furnished for sale were printed
forms with blank spaces for the names of the purchasers, which he
fiUed up with his own hand, as occasion requned. A copy of one is
preserved in Gerdes, Scrinium Antiquarium (documents relating to the
Reformation), i. 73, Groning. 1748. For the modern traffic in indul
gences at Alcaki, see L'Espagne Pittoresque, by De Cuendias and De
Tereal, pp. 265—268.
3 Ibid. p. 113: cf. Smedley's Reformed Religion in France, i. 5 sq.,
Lond. 1832. The Sorbonne had in 1483 rejected the proposition that aU
souls in purgatory are 'de jurisdietione papae,' and that if he wish he can
evacuate the whole region : see D'Argentr^, Collectio Judiciorum de Novis
Erroribus, i. part n. 305.

—1520] State of Intelligence and Piety.

43T

terial office generally when they were told that a certificate
of absolution could be purchased at their pleasure. Others
of a grayer mood, like Huss1, or John of Wessel2, viewed
the subject differently ; they brought it to the touchstone
of antiquity and grew persuaded that indulgences, at least
as they were sanctioned by the popes and schoolmen,
were not able to abide the test. A way had thus been
gradually prepared for Luther and his colleagues ; and as
soon as the half-hearted pontiff, Leo X., was urged to
reaffirm the modern theory3, — declaring that the temporal
effects of sin may be remitted to the living and the dead
alike, by means of the indulgences which he had been
empowered to distribute as the almoner of Christ and of
the saints, — the friar of Wittenberg restrained himself no
longer. He rushed forward to denounce an antichristian
and demoralizing traffic, and at first he carried with him
nearly all the better spirits of the age4. For Luther had
betrayed no wish to criticize the general teaching of the
Church, to meddle with the continuity of her existence,
to subvert her ancient ritual, or disparage her collective
voice. The ground which he had occupied was moral

rather than

dogmatic.

He had sought to

1 Above, p. 403.
5 See the whole of his Adversus Indulgentias Disputatio, in Walch,
Moniment. Medii JEvi, Fasc. I., pp. Ill — 156. While granting that the
pope was able to commute the penalty which human law may have
in any ease attached to sin, he absolutely denies the scripturalness of
the pretension to relax a penalty imposed by God HimseU ('non est in
sacro Canone scriptum'). Durand de S. Pourpain, In Sentent. lib. rv.,
distinct, xx., quaest. 3, had long before suggested that the Bible said
nothing of indulgences expressly ('expresse'), and that Ambrose, HUary,
Augustine, and Jerome were all equaUy silent : while Gabriel Biel (him
self an advocate of indulgences) allows in Leet. lvii., quoted above, that,
before the time of Gregory the Great, ' modicus vel nuUus fuit usus
indulgentiarum. '
3 The document is printed in Loscher, as above, ii. 493. After de
fining that the ' culpa ' which attached, to sin was graciously forgiven
through the ' sacrament of penance,' he proceeded to discuss the ' tem-
poraUs poena.' The foUowing clause is unmistakeable : 'Ao propterea
omnes tarn vivos quam defunctos, qui veraciter omnes indulgentias
hujusmodi consecuti fuerint, a tanta temporali poena secundum Divinam
justitiam pro peccatis suis actualibus debita Uberari, quanta concessa et
acquisita indulgentia aquivalet.'
4 Even F. von Schlegel (Phil, of History, pp. 400; 401, Lond. 1847)
admits that the strong necessity of some regeneration was then uni
versally felt, and that Luther seemed to numbers the very man for
the work.

CORRUP
TIONS AND
ABUSES.

more espe
cially in
the time of
Luther.

432

State of Intelligence and Piety, [a.d. 1305

— 1520JC

in man the consciousness of personal responsibility, while
he insisted, with an emphasis unequalled since the time of
St Augustine, on the need of individual fellowship with
Christ. If it appear that in the following stages of the move
ment which he headed some of his disciples pushed
reforming principles to revolutionary lengths; if his ini
quitous extrusion from the Western Church became the
signal for igniting long-extinguished controversies, and the
origin of feuds that vibrated in every corner of the Chris
tian fold, those evils, it should never be forgotten, are less
chargeable on the impetuosity of Luther than on the
fierce antagonism of Rome. The pride, the worldliness, the
arbitrary and exclusive temper of the papal court, as well
as the unholy craft by which it undermined the liberty
and threatened to eclipse the light of Christendom, had
long been tending more than other causes to provoke
inquiry and necessitate the crisis that ensued. All projects
of reform, suggested either from within or from without,
had consequently grown distasteful to the Roman pontiffs :
it was so with hardly an exception in the fourteenth and
the fifteenth centuries ; and in the sixteenth we shall find
them concentrating all their virulence to blast alike the
Foreign, and the English Reformations in the bud.

INDEX.

Abbots 0ay)> r47> r48, and n. 2.
Abelard, the Nominalistic schoolman,
his life and writings, 260 — 262; an
amorous poet, 297, n. 1.
Abendon, Oxford doctor, 418, n. 2.
Absalom (bp. of RoskUd), 211.
Absolution, Peter Lombard on, 308,
and n. 3.
Abulpharagius (maphrian of the Ja
cobites), writings of, 275, and n. 4.
Abyssinia, interference of the Portu
guese, 315, 11. 5; 370; negociations
respecting, at Florence, 370.
Adalbert (an an ti- Roman prolate), 22.
Adalbert, German missionary in Bo
hemia, 115; his attempts to convert
the Prussians, 115, n. 3.
Adalbert (first archbp. of Magdeburg),
118.
Adalbert (archbp. of Bremen), 107, n.
' 1; 119, n. 2.
Adaldag (archbp. of Hamburg-Bre
men), 106.
Adalgar, northern missionary, 106.
Adamites, sect of, 374.
Adamnan, 14, 11. 4; his writings, 59,
n. 3.
Adelmann (bp. of Brescia), on the
Eucharist, 169, n. 3.
Adoptionist controversy, 6r — 64.
Adrevald, on the Eucharist, 168, n. 4.
^Egidius (archbp. of Bourges), on the
limits of the papal power, 254, n. 3.
-iElfheah (archbp. of Canterbury), 131,
n. 2.
JEhVRlO, on the Eucharist, 168, n. 2;
his other writings, 174; difficulty of
distinguishing between the 'iElfrics,'
174, n. 4; his 'Lives of Saints,'
195-
^thelberht, 7, 8.
Agatho (pope), endeavours to settle
the Monothelete controversy, 69.
Agil (Aile), missionary, 17, n. 5.
AGBIOOLA (Eodolph), 354, n. 4.
M. A.

Agobard (archbp. of Lyons) writes on
the Adoptionist controversy, 64, n. 2 ;
on 'Ordeals,' 155; his other works,
157; protests against image-worship,
157, n. 5 ; tries to reform the service-
books, 196, n. 2.
Aidan (Irish missionary), 12, 13 n. 1.
Alanus (Magnus), a Parisian school
man, 264, n. 4.
Albert the Great, Ufe and writings,
266, 267.
Albert (priest of Bremen), employs
force in converting the Lieflanders,
213.
Albigenses (see Cathari), import of the
name, 286, n. 5.
Alouin, opposed to compulsory conver
sions, 24; 26, 11. 4; his language to
the pope, 41, n. 4; and to the empe
ror, 54, n. 1; on the study of Holy
Scripture, 56, n. 3, his character and
writings, 60, 61, n. 4 ; 62, n. 2, 3 ; 63.
Aldprith (king of Northumbria), his
conduct towards Wilfrith, 15, n. 3.
Aldhelm, his writings, 59, n. 4; 89.
Alexander TI. (pope), his heinous
crimes, 339.
Alexius Comnenus (emperor), opposes
the Paulicians, 282, n. 5; and re
presses the Bogomiles, 285.
Alfred (king of England), 86, n. 1;
131; his patronage of learning and
religion, 173; his works, 173, n. 4;
his coadjutors, 174, n. 1.
AU Saints, feast of, instituted, 92 , 93, n. 1 .
All Souls, feast of, instituted, 203.
Allemand, reforming cardinal, 337;
and n. 2 ; 341, n. 3.
Amalarius (of Metz), on the triplicity
of the Body of Christ, 168, n. 1.
Amandus, missionary, 18, n. 4; 23, n. 5.
America, tradition respecting, no, n.
4; discovery of, 316; attempts to con
vert the natives, 317; eventual success,
317, n. 6.
FF

434

Index.

Amulo (archbp. of Lyons) engages in
the Predestinarian controversy, 163.
Anathema, 202.
Andreas (archbp. of Lund), 213, n. 1.
Andrew (of Rhodes), defends the Latin
Church, 366, and n. 3.
Andronicus III. Paleologus, nego-
ciates with the Latins, 364.
Anglia (East), conversion of, 11, 12.
Anglo-Saxons, their settlement in Eng
land, 6; their mythology, 7, n. 2.
Anna (of Bohemia), Queen of Kichard
II. of England, 386, n. 5; 401.
Annates, papal, 322, n. 3; 336, n. 3; 342.
Anselm (archbp. of Canterbury), 159,
n. 6 ," was the ' Augustine ' of the
Middle Age, 258, a Bealist, 259, 260;
writes against Boscellinus, 259, n. 3;
against the Greeks, 276, and n. 3.
Anselm (of Laon), 260, n. 2.
Anselm (bp. of Havelberg), 277.
Anskar (Ansgar), his missionary life,
101 — 105; receives the palmim, 140,
n. 4.
Anthropomorphists, 192, n. 5.
Apocrisiarius, what, 39, n. 1 ; 50, n. 3.
Apostolicals (sect of), 294, 295; later
traces of, 295, n. 4.
Appeals (to Borne), 226, 227; peculiarly
obnoxious to .the English, 227, 11. 2;
to a general council, 330, n. 2.
Aquileia, archbps. of, suspend their com
munion with Bome, 38, n. 2.
Aquinas (Thomas), life and writings,
267; analysis of his 'Summa,' 267
— 269.
Archbishops, their peculiar functions, 35;
their influence weakened by the pa
pacy, 35, 140, 141 ; metropolitans ap
pointed in England, 36, 37, and in
Germany, 36 ; how consecrated in En
gland, 36, n. 6; vow obedience to the
pope, 140; their rights defended at
Milan, 141, n. 1.
Archdeacons, 46; exorbitance of, 239,
and n. 6.
Archicapellanus, what, 45, n. 3; 143,
n. 2.
Archpresbyters, 46, n. 3.
Ardgar, missionary in Sweden, 104, and
n. 1.
Ariald, a Milanese preacher, 144, n. 2.
Aristotle, his influence in the Western
Church, 160, n. 1; 352, u. 1; change of
feeling in regard to him, 265, 267, 354.

Armenians (church of the), their flourish
ing condition, 175, n. 4; their judaizing
turn, 187, n. 4 ; attempts to reunite
them to the Church, 275, n. 7; re
newed with greater chances of suc
cess, 369, 370 ; their tenets in the
14th century, 369, n. 5; 370, 11. 1.
Arno (archbp. of Salzburg), 26, in.
Arnold (cleric of Brescia), his move
ment against the hierarchy, 249;
associated with Abelard, 262, n. 4.
Arnulph (archbp. of Orleans), his 're
forming' tendencies, 138, n. 4.
Arsenian schism, 272, n. 3.
Arundel (archbp. of Canterbury) op
poses the LoUards, 393, u. 6.
Ascetics, 200, 201, 307.
Asia (Central), missions to, 27, 28, 128,
129.
Asser, Alfred's coadjutor, 174, n. 1.
Aston (John), 385.
Athanasian Creed, 57, n. 1.
Athinganians, sect of, 187, n. 4.
Atto (bp. of VerceUi), 142, n. 2; 174,
n. 2.
Audomar (Omer), missionary 18, n. 4.
Augustine, St (of Hippo), his canoni
cal institute, 44, n. 3 ; influence of his
theology on the Middle Age, 57 sq. ;
156 sq. ; 258; and especially on Lu
ther, 357, n. 4; 411, n. 1.
Augustine (of Canterbury), 6; 7, n. 4;
8, 9, n; 43. n- 3-
Augustinian Canons, 156, 257.
Augustinian friars, 344, n. 5 ; 345, and
n. 5.
Autbert, missionary in Denmark, 102.
Auvergne (Wm. of), his writings, 271,
n. 1.
Avares, mission to, 26.
Averroes, his philosophy, 265, n. r.
Avignon, papal residence at, 254, 322;
effects of, 322, 323.
Atlmer (bp.) on Wycliffe, 396, n. 4.
Azymes, dispute respecting, 186, n. 2;
279. 366, 367.
Bacon (Boger), life and writings, 271,
272.
Balle (John), who, 384, n. 1.
Bardanes (emperor) revives Monothe
letism, 70, and n. 3.
Barlaam (eastern monk), opposes the
Quietists, 363, and secedes to Bome,
363 ; his negociation for unity, 364.

Index.

435

Baptism, infant, 24, n. 2; 80; 164,
165; 189, u. 1; 192, n. 5; 288, 290,
n. 3; 294, n. 3; 302, n. 2.
Basel, council of, its leading objects, 334;
struggle with the pope, 334 — 337;
conduct of the Greeks respecting, 365.
Basil I. (emperor) persecutes the Pau
licians, 84.
Basil (monk), leader of the BogomUes,
285.
Bavaria, conversion of, i8sq. ; presence
of an anti- Boman party, 20, 21.
Beatus, a writer in the Adoptionist
controversy, 63, n. 1.
Beccus (chartophylax at Constantino
ple), his Latinizing tendencies, 280,
281.
Becket (archbp. of Canterbury), his
contest with the crown, 249, 250;
his influence in consolidating the
papal power, 250, 251, n. 1.
Bede (Venerable), on the increase of
the episcopate, 46, n. 2; his theolo
gical writings, 59, 60; his devotion
to biblical learning, 60, and n. 1; 89;
on preaching in the native dialects,
87, 11. 5.
Beghards (and Beguins), their rise and
progress, 235; 346; remains of, 373,
374-
Benedict (of Monte Cassino), his order,
43-
Benedict (of Aniane), his monastic re
forms, 148, and n. 3.
Benedict Biscop, his influence, 59,
"¦ S; 94, n- 3-
Benedict IX., one of the most profli
gate of the popes, 139, 11. 5.
Berengarius, defends the ancient doc
trine of the Eucharist, 169 — 173;
extreme opinions of some of his ad
herents, 170, n. 4; 406, n. 5.
Bernard (a Spanish priest), his failure
in Pomerania, 207, 208.
Bernard (of Clairvaux), his influence
in extending the fame of the Cister
cians, 230; his writings, and the
character of his theology, 257, 270;
his opposition to Abelard, 257, n. 2;
262.
Berno, founder of the Cluniacs, 148.
Berthold, a distinguished preacher,
300, n. 1.
Berthold, a missionary in Livonia,
invokes military aid, 212, 213.

Berton (Wm.), chancellor of Ox
ford, 383.
Bessarion, convert to the Western
Church, 367 ; his patronage of letters,
367, n. 2.
Bible (see Scripture).
Biel (Gabriel), last of the schoolmen,
354, and n. 1.
Birinus, 10.
Bishops (diocesan), their functions, 34 ;
their visitations, 45, 46, and n. 1 ; 97;
election of, sometimes tumultuary,
50, n. 3 ; discontinuance of the prac
tice, 51, 151, 341 ; its partial revival,
i% 'S1. "• 3; 34i; usage in Eng
land, 53, 342; their general character,
142, 143; regarded as mere feuda
tories of the crown, 150, 151 ; their en
croachments on the state, 153, ex
ceptions, 134, 155, and n. 1; fettered
by the papal power, 227, 228; their
vow of servitude, 227; titular and
suffragan bishops, 238, 239 ; object
of the Basel council to elevate the
western bishops, 341, and n. 3.
Bodzanta (archbp. ofGnesen), 313.
Bogomiles, rise of, and main features
of their heresy, 282 — 285 ; repressed
in part, 285, and n. 6; connexion
with western sects, 285, 286, and n. 6.
Bohemia, conversion of, 114 — 116; as
cendancy of German influence, 116;
suppression of tho Slavonic ritual,
116, n. 2.; reformatory movements
™, 397—4IO-
Bonaventura, life and writings, 266;
promotes the growth of Mariolatry,
266, n. 4.
Bonifacius (Winfrith), extensive mis
sionary labours, 19 — 23; his writings,
59, n. 4; his Romanizing tenden
cies, 19, and n. 8; 35, and n. 4, 36,
and n. 1, 2.
Borgia (Caesar), 339.
Bradwardine (archbp. of Canterbury),
writes against the Scotists, 270, n. 3.
Bremen (see of) ; united with Ham
burg, 104, and n. 3 ; point of depar
ture for northern missions, 119, n. 2.
Bridget (of Sweden), 327, u. 7; her
canonization, 424, n. 4.
British Church, 6, and n. 4; 7, n. 4;
8, n. 6; 14, n. 4; 15, n. 1; 20, n. 4.
Bruno (bishop of Angers) favours Be
rengarius, 170.
FF 2

43^

Index.

Bruno, founder of the Carthusians, 229,
and n. 1.
Bruno, perishes in attempting to con
vert the Prussians, 115, n. 3.
Bulgaria, conversion of, 121 — 124; its
temporary union with the Church of
Constantinople, 124; controversy re
specting, 183, 185.
Bulgri, 285, n. 7; 286, n. 2.
Byzantinism, what, 50, 51, and 50, n. 4;
272, and n. 3.
GsDMON, his Metrical Paraphrase, 89,
n. 4.
Cagots, who, 373, 11. 3.
CaUxtines, Hussite party, 408, 409.
Canary Islands, conversion of, 310.
Candida Casa (=Whithern), 7, n. 1 ;
15, IX. L.
Canon law, its component parts, 224,
n. 1 ; 323, 11. 3.
Canons, order or, 44; their degeneracy,
144, 237; Dunstan's quarrel with
them, 146; their right of electing
the bishops, 237, and n. 5; attempts
to reform them, 238; distinction be
tween 'canons-regular' and 'canons-
secular,' 238, n. 3.
Canonesses, 44, u. 3.
Canterbury, 8; 9, n. 5; province of, 15,
n. 2 ; primacy settled in it, 36, n. 5.
Carinthia, conversion of, 25.
Carloman, 42, n. 1.
Carmelites (white-friars), 229, n. 1 ; 344,
n- 5 5 345; and n- 5-
Carthusians, order of, 229, 343.
Casali (Ubertinus de), a 'spiritualist'
Franciscan, 232, n. 4; 324, n. 4.
Casas (Bartolome" de las), friend of the
American Indians, 317, and n. 2.
Catena?, age of, 179.
Cathari, their rise, 286; principles of
the sect, 286 — 288; their rapid growth
and violent suppression, 289 ; remains
of, 373-
Catharine (of Alexandria), reUcs of,
introduced into the west, 1 98, n. 2 ;
legend of, disputed, 424, n. 4.
Catharine (of Siena), her political in
fluence, 327, and n. 7.
Cedd, 10; 14, n. 4.
Cerularius (patriarch of Constanti
nople) fixes the schism between East
and West, 185, 186; his attack on
the Latins, 186, u. -z.

Chaldaeans (see Nestorians).
Champeaux (Wm. de), a schoolman,
260, and n. 4.
Chaplains, 45, and n. 3; their abject
position, 144, and n. 1.
Chapters (rural), 45.
Charo (Hugo de S.), a bibUcal scholar,
272, n. 2.
Charles the Bald (emperor), 137, d.
1, 2; 154, n. z.
Charlemagne, adopts coercive mea
sures in the propagation of the Gos
pel, 24; his coronation by the pope,
40, n. 6; enforces the payment uf
tithes, 48 ; his extensive power in
matters ecclesiastical, 54, n. 2; 154;
on the study of Holy Scripture, 56,
11. 2; his moderation respecting im
ages, 77, and n. 5; his zeal in found
ing schools, 86; bis coadjutors, 86, u.
3 ; pubhshea a Homiliarium, 88, n. 4.
opposes many superstitions, 90, n. 2.
Chazars, partial conversion of, 124.
Chichelet (archbp. of Canterbury), on
papal legates, 225, n. 6; persecutes
the Lollards, 395, n. 1.
China, early traces of Christianity, 27,
218; its decline, 218, n. 1, 3.
Chinghis-Khan, 216.
Chorepiscopi, 46, n. 2; 142, n. 1.
Chosroes (Kesra) persecutes the East
ern Church, 29.
Christian (monk), missionary labours
in Prussia, 214.
Chrodegang (bp. of Metz) 44, and 11.
5; 88, n. 1.
Chrtsolanus (Peter), archbp. of Milan,
277.
Church-bvdlding, 93, 204.
Cistercians, order of, 229.
Clara, St, order of, 231, n. 2 ; 304, n. 1.
Clarendon, Constitutions of, 250, andn.2.
Claudius (bp. of Turin), his 'protes
tantism,' 158.
Clemenges (Nich. de), his ' reforming '
works, 328, n. 4; 330, n. 5.
Clement VII. (pope), his connexion
with the forty years' schism, 329.
Clement (anti-Roman prelate), 22.
Clergy, proper, 47, and n. 2; their
marriage, 47; 145; 241; 349, and
n. i, 3; their concubinage tolerated,
349, n. 4; their income, 48; effects
of their close alliance with the state,
£4> £5 5 their inteUectual qualifica-

Index.

437

tions, 86, and n. 3 ; 192, a. 5 ; their
degeneracy, 142—144; 240—243;
348 — 35° ; extension of the law
of celibacy to the minor orders,
241; the right of inferior clerics to
vote in synods, 331, n. 4.
Clergy, itinerant, 45, and n. 2 ; 143.
Clerici conductitii, 238, n. 2.
Clugny, monks of, 148.
Cnut (Canute the Great), interest in
northern missions, 106, and n. 8.
Cobham (Lord), opinions and martyr
dom, 393, 394.
Ccelestine-Hermits, 232.
Com, 12, n. 3.
Colleges, 235, n. 1 ; 278, n. 2; 296, n.
2; 416.
Colman (bishop of Lindisfarne), 14,
and n. 7.
Columba (Irish missionary), 6, 11. 1 ; 7,
n. 1.
Columbanus (Irish missionary), his la
bours and opinions, 16.
Common-fife Brothers, order of, 347,
348 ; their salutary influence, 347,
and n. 5.
Communicants, number of, 85, n. 2 ; 96,
11. 1 ; 305, n. 1 ; laymen forbidden to
communicate more than once a month,
400.
Communion of children, discontinued
in the west, 305, n. 1.
Communion in one kind, 303 ; contro
versy reopened, 399, n. 3 ; 406, n. 4.
Concomitance, doctrine of, 303.
Confession (auricular), generaUy prac
tised, 97, 202 ; made absolutely bind
ing, 308, and n. 1.
Conrad (of Waldhausen), a "reformer,"
398-
Conradin, last of the Hohenstaufen, 253.
Consolamentum, what, 288, n. 2.
Constance, councU of, history and effects,
331; presence of Greek envoys, 365,
n. 2.
Constans II. (emperor), a Monothe
lete, his Type of the Faith, 67 ; forces
compliance with it, 68.
Constantine, author of PauUcianism, 79.
Constantine Copronymus (emperor),
his proceedings against images, 74,
75; his personal character, 74, n. 2;
respected by Bogomiles, 285, n. 2 ;
and Petrobrusians, 290, n. 3.
Constantini Donatio, 254, n. 3.

Convocation (see Synods, provincial).
Copts (see Jacobites).
Corpus Christi, festival of, 304.
Corbinian (missionary), 18.
Cortes (conqueror of Mexico), his final
wish to evangelize the natives, 317,
n. 6.
Cortesius, a scholastic, 354, n. 1.
Councils (Bee also under Synods) : of
Aix-la-Chapelle (799), 64; Ibid. (816),
44; of Aries (813), 45, n. 4; 46, n. 7;
of Arras (1025), 188, n. 2 ; of Au-
vergne (533), 51, n. 7; of Barcelona
(S99>» 5', "• 6; of Bari (1098), 276;
of Basel (1431— 1440), 334—337; of
BSziers (1246), 299, n. 2; of Bologna
(1431), 335; of Bordeaux (1255),
305, n. 1; of Braga (675), 48, n. 5;
of Cashel (1172), 87, n. 4; of Ceal-
chyth (785), 46, n. 5 ; 57, n. 1 ; Ibid.
(816), 141, n. 2; of Chdlons (649),
45. n- 3; 88, n. 2; Ibid. (813), 44, n.
3; 141, n. 2; of Clarendon (1164),
250; of Clermont (1095), 246, n. 6;
of Clovesho (747), 21, n. 8; 46, n. 1,
5; 56, n. 2; of Cologne (873), 145,
n. 1 ; of Constance (1414 — 1418), 331
sq. ; of Constantinople (680), 40, n. 2 ;
Ibid. (754), 74; noi cecumenical, 74,
n. 4; Ibid. (867), 183; Ibid. (869),
183 ; not oecumenical, 183, n. 7 ; Ibid.
(1054), 186, n. 6; Ibid. (1140 and
1 143), 285, n. 6; of Cordova (852),
133; of Coyaco (1050), 195, n. 4; of
Douzi (871), 137, n. 1; of Eanham
(1009), 145, n. 4; 195, n.4; of Fer
rara (1437), 337, 33§; 365; oiFtmes
(881), 148, 11. 1; 154, n. 2; of Flo-
rence(i43g), 338, 366— 370 ; of Frank
fort (794), 63. 78; of Gran (11 14),
241, n. 2 ; of Hertford (673), 15, n. 2 ;
of Ingelheim (948), 106, n. 3 ; of Kier-
sy-sur-Oise (849), 162; Ibid. (833),
164 ; of Lateran (1059), I4-^i n- 3 ;
Ibid. (1123), 248; Ibid. (1139), 289,
n. 3; Ibid. (11 79), 239, n. 6; 293, n.
1; 296, n. 2; Ibid. (1215), 239, n. 7;
242, n. 2 ; 264, 11. 3 ; 278, n. 1 ; 296,
n. 2; 303; 305, n. 1; 327, n. 8; Ibid.
(H44), 37°; Ibid- (15"— 1517), 340;
344, n- 6; 355; of London (1107),
247, n. 1; Ibid. (1108), 241, n. 4;
Ibid. (1237), 307, n. 2; Ibid. (1382);
385 ; Ibid. (1396), 391, n. 5 ; of Lorn-
bers (1 165), 289, n. 3 ; of Lyons (1274),

438

Index.

not oecumenical, 281, and n. 1; of
Mentz (813), 88, e)i;Ibid. (847), 192;
n. 2 ; Ibid. (848), 162 ; of Melfi (1089),
307, n. 3; of Metz (859), 154, n. 2;
Ibid. (863), 136, n. 4; 75id. (888),
142, n. 1; Second Council of Nicaa
(787), 76; Sixth Oecumenical Council
(680), 69, 70; of Orleans (611), 48,
n. 5; Ibid. (1022), 188, n. 2; of
Oxford (1160), 288, n. 5; Ibid.
(1408), 393, n. 6; of Paris (557), 51,
n. 7; 76i'd. (615), 52; i"6id. (825),
176, n. 1; Ibid. (829), 142, n. I, 3)
of Pavia (850), 142, n. 3; 143, n. 5 ;
199, n. 2; of Pisa (1409), 330; Ibid.
(1512), 340, n. 2; of Poitiers (1076),
171, n. 6 ; of Prague(i^88),3gg,40o; of
Ratisbon (792), 63; of iiauewBa (131 1),
238, n. 6; of Rheims (624), 52; Ibid.
(99')» '38, n. 5; Ibid. (1148), 289,
n. 3; of Rome (595), 46, n. 8; Ibid.
(601), 42, n. 5 ; Ibid. (649), 68 ; lbid.
(680), 69; /Jtd. (731), 73, n. 6; Ibid.
(745), 22; Ibid. (769), 74, n. 4; 76irf.
(799), 63, n.6; Ibid. (826), 150, n. 3 ;
192, n. 5 ; Ibid. (853), 150, n. 3 ; iotd.
(863), 182; Ibid. (869), 183, n. 7;
/5id. (1050), 169; Ibid. (1059), 238,
n. 3; lbid. (1075), 244; 76«. (1079),
172; of Savonieres (859), 165, and
n. 3; 191, 11. 1; 193, n. 3; of Seli-
genstadt (1022), 200, n. 1; of Sens
(1 140), 262; of Seville (618), 46, n. 5;
of Soissons (744), 22 ; Ibid. (1092),
260; Ibid, (n 21), 261; of Spalato
(1069), 194, n. 3 ; of Tarragona ( 1 234),
299, n. 2 ; of Toledo (633), 46, n. 4, 7 ;
47, n. 1; 48, 11. 4; 56, n. 3; Ibid.
(653). 46, n. 7; 47, n. 5; /Mrf. (675),
47, n. 1 ; Ibid. (681), 53 ; of Toulouse
(1 119), 289; Ibid. (1229), 290, 299;
of Tours (813), 88, n. 4; Ibid. (1163),
289, n. 3; of Trosli (909), 148, n. 2;
I54> "• 2 ," '93, n. 1 ; in Trullo (691),
38, n. 2; 47; of Pet/crace (855), 151,
n- 3; 155, n-3! 164; 192, n. 3; 193,
n. 3; of Whitby (664), 14; of Win
chester (1076), 241 ; of Worms (1076),
244, n. 5; of York (1195), 307, n. 1.
Courland, temporary conversion of, 213.
Courtenat (bp. of London), Wycliffe's
antagonist, 378, 384.
Cracovia (Matthasus de), reforming
work, 330, n. 2.
Croats (Chrobatians), conversion of, 124.

Cross, reverenced even by Iconoclasts,
73, n. 5 ; 80, 11. 3 ; festival in ho
nour of, 93, n. 3; ' adoration' of, 158,
11. 2 ; abhorred by the Bogomiles, 285,
n. 3.
Crusades (eastern), 218; 246; 276,
277.
Crusades (Albigensian), 233.
Culdees, a Scotch order of canons, 237,
n. 5.
Cunibert (bp. of Turin), 146, n. 1.
Cup in the Eucharist, withdrawal of,
>99» n- 3; 3°3, n. 6, 304.
Cusanus (Nicholas), his writings, 335,
and n. 4.
Cuthbert (archbp. of Canterbury), 21,
n. 8; 36, n. 1.
Cyril (a Greek missionary), 1 1 1 ; trans
lates the Scriptures, 1 1 2, n. 1 ; evan
gelizes the Chazars, 124.
Cyrus (patriarch of Alexandria), a Mo
nothelete heretic, 65.

D'Ailly (De AUiaco), reforming cardi
nal, 331, n. 4; 333, and n. 1; his
theological writings, 354, n. 2.
Damascus (John of), 57 ; his theologi
cal system, 7 1 ; vehement defender of
images, 72, n. 1 ; 73.
Damiani (Pet.), the ally of Hildebrand,
146, n. 2.
Dancers, sect of, 374, n. 4.
Danes (see Northmen).
Daniel (bp. of Winchester), 19, 23,
n. 6.
Dante, 255, n. 2; 323, n. 5.
Deans (rural), 46, n. 3.
Decretals (Pseudo-Isidore), 41, u. 1 ;
origin of, 134, n. 1 ; their influence in
extending the papal power, 134, 135;
152 ; quoted with this object, 136, n.
S; 137, n. 1; 182, ,1. 6.
Denmark, mission to, 102, 104 — 106 ;
108 ; mythology of, 18, n. 3 ; 105, n.
3 ; conflicts with the Germans in pro
pagating the Gospel, 213.
Deutz (Rupert of), 263, n. 3.
Devil- worshippers, 187, n. 5.
Didacus (bp. of Osma), co-founder of
the Dominicans, 232, 233.
Dinant, David of, a heterodox philo
sopher, 265, n. 3; 299, n. 1.
Dinoot (British abbot), 6, n. 4; 8,
n. 6.

Index.

439

Dionysius (Pseudo-), influence of his
writings, 64, n. 4.
Dionysius (the Areopagite), 160, n. 3.
Dionysius (Bar-Salibi), a Jacobite au
thor, 275.
Diuma (bp. in Mercia), 13.
Dobrin, Knights-brethren of, 215.
Dolan (Stephen of), anti-Hussite writer,
404, n. i.
Dolcino, 295.
Dominicans (see also Mendicants), rise
and progress of, 232.
Druthmar (Christian), work of, 159;
views on the Eucharist, 168.
Dunstan (archbp. of Canterbury), the
nature of his pohoy, 146; 153; 200,
n. 1.
Durand (de S. Pourcain), the Nomi-
nafistic schoolman, 352 ; some of his
peculiarities, 352, n. 2 ; on indul
gences, 431, n. 2.
Duranti (Durandus), the liturgical
writer, 271, n. 1.
Eadbald, 9.
Eadwine, 12.
Easter, modes of reckoning, 7, n. 4 ;
13, n. 1, 4.
Ebbo (archbp. of Bheims), 101 ; 103,
n. 5.
Ebed-Jesu, Nestorian writer, 275.
Ebland, 357, n. 4.
Ebn-Nassal, work of, 274, n. 1.
Ecgberht (archbp. of York) his pa
tronage of letters, 60; writings, 60,
n. 4.
Eogprith (king of Northumbria), his
conduct towards Wilfrith, 15, n. 3.
Eckhart, a Neo-Platonist, 356, n. 1.
Eddius, 59, n. 4.
Eleeg (archbp.): see Mlfheah.
Eligius (Eloy), missionary bishop, 18,
n. 4.
Elipandus (archbp. of Toledo), his part
in the Adoptionist controversy, 61,
63-
Elmham, Latin poet, 394, n. 2.
Emmeran (missionary bishop), 17, 18.
England, growth of the Church in,
6 — 16; its comparative civilization
before the incursions of the North
men, 86.
English missionaries to the Continent,
18—25; 106, n. 8; 107, 108; 109,
n. 2; no, and n. 3; 206, 11. 2.

Erasmus, his opposition to the school
men, 354, 11. 4 ; his edition of the
Greek Testament, 361, n. 5.
Eric IX. (of Sweden), labours to ex
tend the Church, 206.
Erigena (see Scotus).
Erimbert (northern missionary), 105.
Essex, conversion of, 9, 10.
Esthland, conversion of, 213.
Etherius (bp. of Osma), 63, 11. 1.
Eucharistic controversy, 165 — 173.
Euchites, sect of, 187, 282.
Eulogius (patriarch of Alexandria)
writes against the Bogomiles, 282,
n. 6.
Eustasius (missionary), 1 7, n. 5.
Eustathus (archbp. of Thessalonica),
writings of, 274.
Eutychius (patriarch of Alexandria),
180.
Excommunication, 202.
Faroe Islands, conversion of, no, in.
Fasts, annual, 91, n. 4.
Felix (bishop of Dunwich), n.
Felix (bishop of Urgel), leader in the
Adoptionist controversy, 61 — 64.
Ferrara, council of, 365 ; presence of the
Greeks, 365 ; transferred to Florence,
366.
Ferrer (Vincente), 319, n. 3; 428,
n. 2.
Festivals, 91, 92, 178, 203 ; 299, n. 3 ;
3°4-
Ficino (Marsilio), a Christian Platonist,
3S5, andn. 1.
Filioque (clause so called), 57, n. 1 ; 184,
n. 4; 279; 366, andn. 3.
Finan (Irish missionary), 10, 13.
Finns, conversion of, 206, 207 .
Fitz-ralph (Richard, archbp. of Ar-
magh), defends the clergy against the
Mendicants, 345, n. 1, 4.
Flagellants, 201, and n. 2; 307, n. 1;
sect of, 374; their number and ex
travagances, 374, n. 4 ; 428.
Fleming (bp. of Lincoln), 395.
Florence, council of, 366 — 370; trans
lated to the Lateran, 370.
Florus (deacon of Lyons), engages in
the Predestinarian controversy, 163;
views on the Eucharist, 168.
Francis (of Assisi), 219, 231.
Franciscans (see also Mendicants), their
rise and progress, 230, 231 ; third

440

Index.

estate of, 231 ; growth of an extreme,
and anti-papal party, 231, 232 ; 346 ;
their extravagant notions respecting
purgatory, 426, n. 2.
FratriceUi, 232, 373.
Fredegis, 159.
Frederic I., Barbarossa, his struggle
with the popes, 249, 251.
Frederic II. (emperor), continues the
struggle, 251, 252; appeals to a ge
neral council, 234, n. 2 ; his personal
character, 252, n. 6.
Friars (see Mendicants).
Friars-regular, 346.
Friesland, conversion of, 18 sq.
Fulbert (bp. of Chartres), 175.
Fubsey (Irish monk), n, 12; 95, n. 5-

Gallus (Irish missionary), 17.
Gaunt (John of), his connexion with
Wycliffe, 379, 384.
Gauzbert (or Simon), missionary in
Sweden, 103 ; 105, n. 1.
Gegnesius, a Paulician leader, 82.
George (of Trebizond), writing of, 362.
Gerald (count of AuriUac), 196, n. 1.
Gerbert (see Sylvester II.).
Gerhard, a 'Manichsean' leader, 190,
n.-i.
Gerhoh (of Beichersberg), 240, n. 4.
Germanus (patriarch of Constantinople),
deposed for advocating image-worship,
73; his theory of 'relative' worship,
73, n- 2.
Germany, conversion of, 16 sq. ; its hea
then mythology, 18, n. 3.
Gerson (John), chancellor of Paris, his
reforming efforts, 330, n. 5 ; 333, and
n. 2; his theological writings, 357,
361 ; his theory of development, 372,
n. 2.
Gezo (abbot of Tortona), on the Eucha
rist, 169, n. 1.
GhibeUines, conflict with the popes,
248 sq.
Gislemar (missionary to Denmark),
102,
Goslar (chapter of), stronghold of the
German imperialists, 244, n. 5.
Gottschalk (king of the Wends), his
martyrdom, 118, 119.
Gottschalk (monk of Fulda), revives
the Predestinarian controversy, 160
—162; his firmness and violence, 162,

n. 2 ; defended by Remigius of Lyons
and others, 164; his controversy re
specting the phrase Trina Deltas, 165,
n. 4.
Gower (English poet), 348, u. 4. ^
Gratian, his 'Decretum,' 224, n. i.
Gregory VII. (pope), his 'reforming'
tendencies, 139; 143, n. 2; 144, n. 3;
endeavours to restrain the marriage
of the clergy, 145, 146; attacks 'lay-
investitures,' 152; symbolizesy with
Berengarius on the Eucharist, 170,
and n. 4; 171, 172, 11. 3; his lead
ing principles as pope, 222, 223; 243;
exasperates the people against the
clergy, 223, and n. 2 ; his struggle
with Henry IV. of Germany, 244,
— 245; his sober views on penance,
307. n- 3-
Gregory (of Dtrecht), missionary abbot,
Gregory the Great (pope), 6; con
troversy with John the Faster, 38;
enlarges the dominion of the papacy,
39, and n. 2, 3 ; his writings on the
ology, 57—59-
Gregory (of Tours), 89, n. 5; 92.
Greenland, the Gospel in, no; sup
pression of it by the Esquimaux, no,
n. 4 ; reintroduced by Moravian mis
sionaries, ibid.
Groot (Gerhard), founder of the ' Com
mon-life Brothers,' 347, and n. 4.
Grosseteste (bp. of Lincoln), opposes
the pope, 226, n. 4 ; warns him of his
tendency to produce a schism, 228,
and n. 2; his conduct with regard
to the Mendicants, 234, n. 2 ; his
complaint of the corruptions of the
clergy, 240, n. 4; his commentary
on -Aristotle, 265, n. 4 ; influences
on WycUffe, 374, n. 5 ; and Huss,
400.
Gualbert, founder of the Coenobites of
VaUombrosa, 149.
Gnelphs, allies of the pope against the
emperor, 248.
Guibert (abbot of Nogent), on relics,
306, n. 3.
Guinea, coast of, partly Christianized,
316.
Guisoard (Robert), 245, and n. 6.
Guitmund (archbp), on the Eucharist,
170, n. 4.
Guthlao (hermit), 90, n. 1.

Index.

441

Hacon (Hagen) introduces Christianity
into Norway, 108.
Hadrian I. (pope), his activity in fa
vour of images, 76, 78.
Haimo (bp. of Halberstadt), writings
of, 159 ; views on the Eucharist, 168,
n. 5.
Hales (Alexander of ), Ufe and writings,
266.
Halitgar (bishop of Cambray), 96,
n. 5; 101.
Hallam (Robert), bp. of Salisbury, at
the council of Pisa, 330, n. 3.
Hamburg (archbishopric of), 100, 103;
104, n. 2.
Hampole (Richard Rolle of), his
writings, 348, 11. 4 ; 357, n. 4.
Hartwig (archbp. of Bremen), 211, 212.
Heathenism, remnants of, 46, n. 1 ; 87,
n. 1.
Henry IV. (emperor), his struggle with
Gregory VII., 243—245.
Henry (of TJpsala), an EngUsh mis
sionary, 206.
Henry (the Cluniac monk), propagates
the Petrobrusian tenets, 290; is con
demned, 291.
Hemming (archbp. of TJpsala), 314.
Heraolius, eastern emperor, drives
back the Persians, 29; favours the
Monothelete heresy, 65 ; his Ecthesis,
66.
Hereford (Nicholas), partisan of Wy
cliffe, 385.
Hesigar (abbot of Lobes), on the Eu
charist, 169, n. 1.
Hermann (of Cologne), » converted
Jew, 220.
Hesse (Henry of), 328, n. 1 ; 329, n. 3.
Hessia, conversion of, 20 sq.
HesychaBtic controversy, 362, 363.
Hieronymites, order of, 344, n. 4.
Hildebert (archbp. of Tours), his
works, 258, n. 4; 263, n. 4.
Hildebrand (see Gregory VII.).
Hildegard (abbess), prophecies of, 254,
255-
Hincmar (archbp. of Rheims), opposed
to the ultra-papal claims, 136, 137,
140, n. 4; 141 ; and also to encroach
ments of the crown, 151, n. 3; his
activity in the Predestinarian contro
versy, 162 sq.
Hincmar (bishop of Laon), 137, n. 1 ;
140, n. 2.

Hirschau, monks of, 149, 11. 3.
Holcot (Robert), 354, n. 2 ; 360, n. 3.
Holy Places (at Jerusalem), controversy
respecting, 277, n. 4.
HomiUarium, what, 88, n. 4.
Honorius I. (pope), a Monothelete
heretic, 64, n. 4; 69, and n. 4.
Hospitallers, Knights, their rise and
fortunes, 236, 237.
Howel the Good (of Wales), 173, n. 2.
Humbert (cardinal), his fierce opposition
to Berengarius, 171; his mission to
Constantinople, 186; and his attack
on the Eastern Church, 186, n. 2.
Humbert (de Romanis), on preaching,
300, n. 5.
Hungarians, antiquities of, 126, and
n. 1 ; inroads into Europe, 106, 126 ;
evangelized, 126 — 128; their union
with the Western Church, 128 ; their
bishops appointed by the crown, 150,
n. 1.
Huss (John), Ufe and writings of, 400
— 407 ; his early influence and repute,
400 ; studies the Wycliffite tracts,
400, and n. 7 ; his general sympa
thy with Wycliffe, 401, and n. 5 ; his
quarrel with the German students,
40 1, and n. 5; appeals to a pope
'better informed,' 403 ; his excom
munication, 403 ; reconciled to arch
bp. Sbynco, 403 ; condemns the papal
indulgences, 403, 404; his religious opi
nions, 405 ; his reputed 'orthodoxy,'
405 ; proceedings against him at Con
stance, 405 — 407.
Hussites, war of the, 407 — 409.
Hutten (TJlrich von), chief contributor
to the ' Epist. Obscurorum, Virorum,'
354, "• 4; 36"', n. 4-
Iceland, conversion of, 109 ; remnants
of heathenism, no, n. -a.
Iconoclastic controversy, 72 — 78 ; re
vived, 175 — 179.
Ignatius (patriarch of Constantinople),
deposed, 182 ; controversy with Pho
tius, 182, 183; assisted by the pope,
183; 183, n. 7.
Ildefonsus (of Toledo), 59, n. 2 ; 91,
n- 3-
Images (see also Iconoclastic Contro
versy), how used in the time of Gre
gory the Great, 72, n. 3 ; opposite
decrees respecting, 75, and n. 1 ; 76,

442

Index.

77 ; views of the English Church, 78,
and n. 3 ; of the French, 78, 1 76, n. 3 ;
worship of, established permanently
in the east, 178 ; its extravagancies,
178, u. 1; prevailing theory, 197,
198, n. 1.
India, early traces of Christianity, 27,
28.
Indulgences, 201, 309, 333, n. 5 ; 345,
n. 1 ; condemned by Huss, 404, and
n. I ; by Luther, 411, 431 ; ultimate
development of the doctrine, 429 —
431-
Infidelity, rife in Italy before the Re
formation, 352, 11. 1 ; 355.
Innocent III. (pope), carries the papal
power to a climax, 221, 222, and 11.
1 ; 224 ; his immense influence in
temporal matters, 251, 252 ; on read
ing the Bible, 299, n. 1.
Inquisition, origin of, 290; its early
labours, 290, n. 2.
Interdict, 202, and n. 4.
Investiture, confused ideas respecting,
1 50 ; right of lay-investiture denied,
243, 244; how the controversy was
settled in England, 247, n. 1 ; and on
the Continent, 247, 248.
Iona, 7, n. 1; 12; 14, n. 4; 131, n. 3.
Ireland, conspicuous for its learning, 10,
n. 6; 17, and n. 2 ; 19, n. 1 ; 59, n.3.
Irene (empress), an ardent image-
worshipper, 73.
Irish missionaries, 7, and n. 4; 9 — 13;
many of them withdraw from England,
14 ; their orders disputed, 15, n. 1 ; la
ter traces of their influence, 87, n. 4;
141, n. 2 ; some penetrate to Iceland,
109, n. 4 ; no.
Isidore (of SevUle), his writings, 59;
see also Decretals (Pseudo-Isidore).
Ivo (Ives), bishop of Chartres, 145, n. 2.
Jacob (bishop of Tagritum), a, Jacobite
author, 275.
Jacobites (of Egypt), their missionary
efforts, 28; patronized by the Mu
hammedans, 32, n. 2; attempts to
reabsorb them into the church, 275,
n. 7.
Jacobellus (of Misa), contends for
communion in both kinds, 408 ; ques
tions some of the legends, 424, n. 4.
Janow (Matth. of), a Bohemian 're
former,' 399.

JARUMAN (bp.), 10, n. 4.
Jerome (of Prague), 401, and 11. 1 ;
404 ; his martyrdom. 407.
Jews, forcible conversion of, 29, n.3;
220; condemned by some, 220, n. 3 ;
their copious Uterature, 220, and n. 2 ;
318, n. 7; their abhorrence of images,
72, and creature-worship, 220; occa
sional conversions, 220; 319, n. 3 ;
320; writings against, 220, n. 5;
fresh persecutions, especially in Spain,
318, 319.
Joachim (abbot), prophecies of, 254,
T 255.
Joan (the female pope), fable of, 136,
n. 1.
John the Faster, controversy with
Gregory the Great, 38 ; his Paniten-
tial work, 59, n 4.
John the Chanter, introduces Roman
psalmody, &c. into England, 87, n. 4.
John the Grammarian (patriarch of
Constantinople), opposes image-wor
ship, 178.
John (king of England), abject submis
sion to the pope, 252, and n. 3.
John (a Dominican of Paris) writes on
the regal and papal power, 254, n. 3.
John, a monk of Old Saxony, at Alfred's
court, 159, n. 3; 174, n. 1.
John III. Vatatzes (emperor), endea
vours to unite the Eastern and West
ern Churches, 278.
John VI. Pal^ologus, submits to the
pope, 364, and n. 4.
John VII. Pal^ologus, negociates
with the Western Church, 365.
John IV. (pope), opposes Monothelet
ism, 66.
John VIII. (pope), his policy in the
case of Photius, 184, 185, n. 1".
John XXII. (pope), his contest with
the German emperor, 323 — 326 ; tax
ed with heresy, 326, n. 1.
John XXIII. (pope), appointed by the
council of Pisa, 331 ; deposed at Con
stance, 332.
Jonas (bp. of Orleans), on images, &c,
158, n. 2; on penitence, 200, n. 3.
Joseph (patriarch of Constantinople),
opposed to reunion, 280, 281.
Jubilee, year of, 309, 428, and n. 4.
Juliano (cardinal) 334, 336, n. 4 ; 366.
Justus (bp. of Rochester), 9 ; 10, n. ¦*.
Jutland, mi-siou to, 101.

Index.

443

Karbeas, a Paulician leader, 84.
Kempis (Thomas a), 347, u. 4 ; a 'Com
mon-life Brother,' 347; author of the
' De Imitatione Christi,' 348, n. 1 ;
421 ; his mystical tendency, 357, n. 4.
Kent, conversion of, 8, 9.
Kilian (Irish missionary), 17.
Kumanians, conversion of, 314, 315;
united with the Eastern Church, 315.
Laity, their right to elect bishops denied,
237, n- 5; their influence in synods,
324,. n. 2.
Lamaism, what, 217.
Lanfranc (aivhbp. of Canterbury), bis
controversy with Berengarius, 159,
n. 6; 169 — 171.
Langenstein, Henry of (see Hesse).
Languages, variety of, 87.
Lapps, partial conversion of, 314.
Latins, effect of their empire at Con
stantinople, 278, 279.
Laurentius (of Canterbury), 9, and
n. 4.
Lebwin (missionary monk), 23, n. 7.
Legates (papal), their vast influence,
225, 226; peculiarly obnoxious to the
English, 225, n. 6; 340, n. 5.
Legends (see Saints, Lives of).
Leidrad (archbp. of Lyons), 64; 86,
n. 3-
Leo the Armenian (emperor), opposed
to images, 176, 177; persecutes the
Paulicians, 83.
Leo the Isaurian (emperor), opens the
image-controversy, 72, 73 ; his ad
visers, 72, n. 5; patronizes the Pau
licians, 82.
Leo IV. Chazarus (emperor), opposed
to images, 75.
Leo X. (pope), 339, n. 4; on indul
gences, 431, and n. 3.
Libri Carolini, account of, 77.
Lieflanders, conversion of, 212, 213.
Lindisfarne (or Holy Island), 12, 14;
15, n. 2.
Lithuanians, nominal conversion of,
312, 313; through a PoUsh channel,
313; dependence on Rome, 313, n.
6; traces of heathenism, 313, n. 5.
Liudger (missionary), 25, 100.
LoUards, English, follownrs of Wycliffe,
390; their number, 390, 11. 6; their
development of Wycliffe's principles,
390, 391; incur the hatred of the

crown, 391; their persecutions, 391
sq. ; attempt to reclaim them, 396 ;
remains of, 396.
Lollards, foreign, their origin and office,
347 ; meaning of the word, 347, n. 1 ;
suspected of heresy, 347, n. 3.
Lombard (Peter), his 'Book of Sen
tences,' 264.
Louis of Bavaria, conflict with the
popes, 325, 326; grants a divorce,
326, n. 5.
Louis the Pious, his interest in north
ern missions, 101, 102, n. 4.
Louis IX. (of France), his unconscious
limitation of the papal power, 253,
and n. 4.
Luciferians, sect of, 374.
Lull (Raymond), life and labours, 219,
265, n. 1.
Lullards (see Lollards).
Luther, on the decline of scholasti
cism, 354, 1,. 4; recognizes many of
his precursors, 356, u. 6; 357, n. 4;
360, n. 1; his early career, 410—412;
his original moderation, 431.
Lyra (Nicholas de), biblical writings
360, 361.
Maoarius (patriarch of Antioch), ad
heres to Monotheletism, 69.
Magna Carta, 252.
Mahomet (see Muhammed).
Mainotes, conversion of, 125, n. 1.
Manichaeans, so called, 188, 189; 188,
n. 2.
Manuel II. (emperor), visit to the west,
365; his firm adherence to the Eastern
Church, 365, n. 2.
Mark (of Epbesus), defends the East
ern Church, 367, n. 1.
Maronites, account of, 71; fresh attempt
to reabsorb them into the church, 370.
Martial (St), controversy respecting,
198, n. 2.
Martin I. (pope), his opposition to
Monotheletism, 67, 68; his banish
ment, 68.
Marsilius (of Padua), 322, n. 1; his
' Defensor Pacis,' 324 ; associated with
Wycliffe, 378, n. 3.
Mary, St (see Virgin).
Masses (for the dead), 95.
Masses (private), 95; condemned, 96,
n. 2.
Massilians (see Bogomiles).

444

Index.

Matilda (countess of Tuscany), 245.
Maurbtania (Walter de), 261, n. 5;
263, n. 6.
Maurice (of Prague), on communion in
one kind, 423, n. 5.
Maximus (the Confessor), strenuous
opponent of the Monotheletes, 67 ; his
barbarous fate, 68 ; the character of
his theology, 67, 71; his works,67, u. 3.
Meinhard (canon), missionary in Li
vonia, 212.
Melchites, Egyptian catholics, 32, 65.
Mellitus (bp. of London), 9; 10, n. 2.
Melun (Robert de), an English meta
physical writer, 264, n. 1.
Mendicants, mutual jealousies of, 233,
n. 5; their amazing progress, 234;
their conflicts with the university au
thorities, 233, 234 ; their zeal aspreach-
ers, 300 ; their ultimate decline, 344,
345 ; Erasmus respecting, 345, n. 5.
Mercia, conversion of, 13.
Merits, treasury of, 309, and n. 3.
Methodius (a Greek missionary), in,
and n. 9 ; misunderstanding with Ger
man missionaries, 113; vindicates
himself at Rome, 113, 114; his in
fluence in Bohemia, 114; and perhaps
in Bulgaria, 122, n. 2.
Metropolitans (see Archbishops).
Michael II. (emperor), tolerates the
image party, 178.
Michael Pal^ologus (emperor), tries
to unite the east and west, 279 — 282.
Milicz, Bohemian 'reformer,' 397, 399;
insists on very frequent communiou,
399, n. 4.
Minors (see Franciscans).
Miracle-plays, 297, 298, and n. 1.
Mirandoia (Pico of), 355, n. 2 ; 386, n. 3.
Missi, what, 54, n. 2.
Mongols, their invasion of Russia, 216;
attempts to convert them, 217, 218.
Monks, importance and privileges of,
42; great varieties of in the East,
43, n. 2 ; order of St Benedict, 43,
and n. 3 ; peculiarly ardent in defend
ing images, 74, n. 1; degeneracy of,
147, 229; exemptions of, 42, 148, n.
1; 228, n. 5; the favourites of the
pope, 228; how ill-adapted to the
wants of the 13th century, 230;
state of the eastern monks, 272,
273, n. 1; 343, u. 4; further degene
racy of the western, 343; their supera

bundant property, 343, n. 2; vain
attempts to reform them, 344.
Monotheletism (heresy), 64 — 71.
Monte Corvino (John de), missionary
in eastern Asia, 218.
Montfort (Simon de), 290.
Moors, attempts made to repel them
from Spain and Africa, 219; success
ful with regard to Spain, 318, 319;
projects for converting them, 219.
Moravia, conversion of, 11 1 — 114; by
Greek influence, 112, 113; final as
cendancy of the Germans, 114.
Moravians (or United Brethren), their
origin, 409, 410.
Muhammed, origin and character of his
reUgion, 29 — 31 ; its rapid conquests,
33; and thus augments the papal
power, 37.
Muhammedans, persecute the Spanish
Christians, 132, 133; their Uterary
labours, 33; 156, n. 2.
Mystics, western school of, 356.
Nations, vote by, at the Council of Con
stance, 332.
Nerses (Armenian catholicos), writ
ings of, 275.
Nestorians (Chaldaeans), their vast mis
sionary settlements, 26, 27; 128,
129; 216; 218; patronized by the
Muhammedans, 27; 32; and Mongols,
216, 217; their internal condition, 217,
n. 3 ; attempts to reabsorb them into
the church, 275, n. 7.
Netter (Thomas, of Walden) writes
against the Lollards, 393, n. 6 ; 394,
n. i.
Nicsea, second council of, 76, 77; not
oecumenical, 76, n. 2.
Nicephorus (Callisti), historical work,
361, n. 6.
Nicephorus (patriarch of Constantino
ple), advocates image-worship, 176.
Nicephorus (Blemmidas), a Latinizer,
279, and n. 2.
Nicetas (Acominatus), writings of, 274,
and n. 2.
Nicetas (Studite monk), writes against
the Latins, 186, n. 2.
Nicetas (archbp. of Nicomedia), 277.
Nicholas I. (pope), quarrel with the
Greek missionaries respecting Bul
garia, 123, 124; his instructions to
the natives, 123; commences a new

Index.

445

epoch in the papacy, 136, 153; ap
proves the ultra-predestinarian synod
of Valence, 165, n. 1 ; conduct in the
case of Photius, 182.
Nicholas (Cabasilas), writings of, 363,
and n. 8.
Nicholas (bp. of Methone), writings of,
274, and n. 3.
Niem (see Theodoric).
Nilus (Cabasilas), writes against the
Latins, 364.
Nilus, a Calabrian recluse, 149.
Nilus (Damyla), an Anti-Latin writer,
364, n. 1.
Nisibis, Nestorian seat of learning, 27,
n. 6.
Nominalists, what, 259, 260.
Norbebt, founder of the Praemonstra-
tensians, 237.
Northmen (Danes and Norwegians),
ravages of, 103, 105,106, 129,130, 131.
Northumbria, conversion of, 12.
Norway, converted, 108, 109 ; through
English influence, 108, 109, n. 2.
Notker (a monk of St Gall), 194, n. 5.
Notting (bp. of Verona), engages in the
Predestinarian controversy, 1 6 1 , n. 2, 3 .
Nubia, partly Christianized, 28, 29.
Ockham (Wm. of), his anti-popery, 325,
and n. I ; 327 ; his views on divorce,
326, n. 5 ; founds a school of theology,
353; how far approved by Luther,
353, n. 1 ; condemnation of Ockham-
ism, 353, n. 4; but in vain, 353.
(Ecumenius, his writings, 180, and n. 1.
Offa (of Mercia), regulation respecting
tithes, 48, a. 9.
Officials, 239.
Olaf (the Holy) demolishes Paganism
in Norway, 109.
Olaf Tryggvason, reintroduces Chris
tianity into Norway, 108.
Oldoastle, Sir John (see Cobham).
Olga, Russian Princess, 120, andn. 4.
Oliva (John Peter de) , leader of the ' spi-
ritualist'Franciscans,232,n.2;346,n.4.
Ordeals, 155, and n. 3.
Orders (religious), 228 sq. ; 343.
Orders (military), 235 sq.
Orkney, conversion of, no, in.
Ormulum, 297, n. 4; 418, 11.4; 421,
n. 3-
Oswald (bp. of Worcester), patron of
the monks, 146, n. 6.

Oswiu (of Northumbria), 10, 13; joins
the Roman party, 14, and n. 6.
Otho (bp. of Bamberg), missionary la
bours in Pomerania, 208, 209.
Palamas (Gregorius), writings of, 363.
Pallium, its nature, 37; worn by all
eastern bishops, 37, n. 1; oath ex
acted at the conferring of, 140, 141.
Pardons (see Indulgences).
Paris, university of, 234 ; its independ
ence during the papal schism, 329, n.3;
331, n. 4; 335; and generaUy, 338, n. 2.
Parishes, 45, n. 1.
Paschal II. (pope), his humiliation in
the investiture controversy, 247.
Passagieri, 286, n. 3; 288, n. 5.
Patareni, or Paterini, who, 189, n. 7;
286, n. 2.
Patriarchs, eastern, how affected by
Islamism, 37, 38; those of the Nes
torians, 27, 37, n. 2 ; of the Jacobites,
29; 37, n. 2; original limits of the
Roman, 37, n. 3; title (Ecumenical
Patriarch, 38 ; mostly nominated by
the emperor, 50.
Patronage, right of, 45, and n. 4 ; how
abused, 150, and n. 3.
Paulicians, history and creed of, 78— 84 ;
their vitality, 187; 282, n. 5; 286,
and n. 1.
Paulinus (patriarch of Aquileia), writes
on the Adoptionist heresy, 64, n. 1
Paulinus (Boman missionary), 12, n.
3,4-
Paupere3 CathoUci, who, 293.
Pecock (Reginald), opinions of, 395,
and n. 4, 5 ; 396, n. 1 ; his troubles,
395. 396-
Pelagius (Alvarus), a Franciscan, 325,
11. 2.
Penance, doctrine of, 96 ; 200, 201 ; com
mutation of Penances, 97, n. 1 ; 201 ;
systematized completely, 307, 308 sq.
Penda, 12, 13.
Persia, Christianity of, 27; almost era
dicated, 217, n. 5.
Peter (Comestor), his ' Scholastic His
tory,' 297, n. 4.
Peter (Patriarch of Antioch), mediates
between the east and west, 186, n. 7.
Peter (the Venerable), 230, n. 4; 262,
and n. 6.
Peter (Cantor), treatise of, 240, u. 4.
Peter-pence, 380, u. 4.

44-6

Index.

Petit (John), condemned at Constance,
384, n. 2.
Petrarch, 322, n. 2; 327, n. 6; 352,
n. 1.
Petrobrusiani, sect of, 290; opinions of
the founder, 290, n. 3.
Philip the Fair (of France), humbles
the papacy, 253, 254; appeals to a
general council, 253, n. 5.
Phocas, establishes the papal primacy,
39, "• i-
Photius (patriarch of Constantinople),
his co-operation in missions to Bulga
ria, 122 ; his quarrel with Pope Nic
holas I., 123; his literary labours,
180; his controversy with Ignatius
and the Western Church, 182 — 184.
Picards ( = Beghards), 409, n. 4.
Pictures (see Images).
Pilgrims, 41, u. 3 ; 94, n. 2 ; sober views
respecting, 94 ; to Rome, 199, 200 ;
and n. 1 ; to the Holy Sepulchre, 200,
203, 11. 5: and elsewhere, 200, n. 2;
306; 428, and n. 3.
Piligrin (of Passau), a missionary in
Hungary, 127.
Piphfies, 286, n. 1.
Pirn a (John of), founder of a Silesian
sect, 374, and n. 3.
Pisa, council of, its history and effects,
33°> 33L
Pius II. (see Sylvius).
Plato, favourite of the church 265,
revival of his philosophy, 352, n. 1 ;
354' 355-
Pluralists, 143, n. 2; 240; 341. n. 5.
Pcenitentiaries (officers), 239, n. 4.
Poland, conversion of, 116, 117; final
ascendancy of German influence, 117;
reforming party in, 406, n. 4; 410.
Polo (Marco), Venetian traveller, 218.
Pomeranians, conversion of, 207 — 209;
gradually Germanized, 209.
Poor-priests, followers of Wycliffe, 385,
n. 1.
Popelicani, 286, n. 1.
Popes (see Rome), entire series of, 38 —
41; 135—140; 222—225; 322—339-
Porretanus (bp. of Poitiers), an erratic
schoolman, 262, 263, n. 1.
Portuguese, effect of their discoveries,
315; their interference in the church
of Abyssinia, 315, n. 5.
Pragmatic Sanction, 253, n. 4; 335, n.
'J 338.

Prsemonstratensians, order of, 237.
Praemunire, statute of, 328, n. 4.
Predestinarian controversy, 160 — 165.
Prester John, who, 129, and n. 5;
216.
Primates (see Archbishops).
Printing, invention of, its effect on the
Reformation, 415.
Procession of the Holy Ghost, contro
versy respecting, 181; 279; 364, n.
2 ; 3°6, 367-
Provisions, papal, 322, n. 3; 340, n. 4;
English statute respecting, 327, n. 5 ;
328, n. 4.
Prudentius (bp. of Troyes), engages in
the Predestinarian controversy, 163.
Prussians, conversion of, 115, n. 3;
213 — 216; mythology of, 214, n. 2;
gradually Germanized, 215.
Prymer (English), what, 420, n. 2.
Psellus (Michael, the younger), writ
ings of, 273.
Pullen (Robert), an Oxford preacher
and writer, 263, 264.
Pupper (John), a 'reformer,' 359,
n. 7.
Purgatory (doctrine of), 58, n. 6, 8;
94, 95; effects of a belief in, 202,
203 ; how defined at Florence, 367.
Purvey (John), second leader of tbe
Lollards, 386, n. 3.
Pyrrhus (patriarch of Constantinople),
a Monothelete, 66, 67, n. 2.

Rabanus Maurus (archbp. of Mentz),
his writings and influence, 157 ; takes
part in the Predestinarian controversy,
i6r, 163; opposes transubstantiation,
166, and n. 3.
Radbert (Paschasius), 101 ; introduces
the theory of transubstantiation, 166,
168, 169; maintains the miraculous
deUvery of the Virgin, 166, n. 2.
Rathebius (bp. of Verona), 138, n. 2;
144, n. 2; 146, n. 2; 174, n. 2; 197,
n. 2.
Ratramnus (monk of Coibey), engages
in the predestinarian controversy,
163; opposes the theory of Pascha
sius Radbert on transubstantiation,
167.
Realists, what, 260.
Recluses, 42, n.2; 199.
Reformation-college, what, 333, n. 4.

Index.

447

Reformation, general cry for, 371 sq.
Relics, 93, and n. 2 ; traffic in, 198 and
n. 2 ; other abuses, 198.
Repington (Philip), 385.
Reservations, papal, 322, n. 3; 341, n.
3; 377, "• 3-
Reuchlin, restorer of Hebrew litera
ture, 361, and n. 4.
Rimbert, northern missionary, 105,
107.
Robert, founder of the Cistercians,
229.
Rolle (see Hampole).
Rollo, 131, 132.
Rome, church and bishop of, their as
cendancy in England, 13, and 11. 3;
14, 41 ; occasionally checked, 15, and
11.3; rebuked by Columbanus, 17,
and n. 1 ; their power extended to
Germany, 19 sq., 35, 36; Spain and
France, 39 ; and augmented by the
Saracenic conquests, 37 ; rivalry of
the church of Constantinople, 37, 38,
n. 1 ; rapid progress of the papacy
under Gregory the Great, 39, 40;
and Hadrian I., 4 1, n. 1 ; popes often
Greeks and Syrians, 40, n. 3; their
temporal possessions, 40, n. 6 ; how
long dependent on the eastern em
pire, 50; struggle with the emperor
respecting Monotheletism, 68, 69, n.
4 ; temporary suspension of com
munion between Rome and'Constan-
tinople, 69, n. 1 ; the pope defies the
imperial edict, 73, and n. 6 ; fresh
quarrel between Rome and Constan
tinople, 122, 123; extension of the
papal power under Nicholas I., 136,
182, 183 ; resistance to it still of
fered, 140, 141, n. 1, 2 ; the nomi
nation of the pope wrested from the
civil power, 151 ; his temporal en
croachments, 152, 153; 242 — 252;
permanent breach with the Eastern
Churches, 183, 184, 186; culmination
of the papal power, 221, 222; intro
duction of the phrase 'court of Rome,'
226 ; last instance of the pope's 'con
firmation' by the emperor, 243, n. 1 ;
papal power augmented by the Cru
sades, 246; commencement of reac
tion, 252 sq. ; negociations with the
Eastern Church, 278—282; fruitless,
282 ; fresh negociations, 364 — 368 ;
ultimately disappointed, 368 ; general

growth of anti-papal feeling, 321,
322 ; struggles with the German em
perors, 244 — 254; 323 — 327; effects
of the residence at Avignon, 322 ; and
of the forty years' schism, 328; re
cognition of the papal power at Flo
rence, 368.
Romuald, founder of the Camaldulen-
sians, 149.
Boscellinus, author of the Nominal-
istic phUosophy, 259; abjures, 260,
n. 1 ; opinions on clerical marriage,
241, n. 3.
Roswitha, Latin poetess, 174, n. 5.
RuBRUQUIS (William de), missionary in
Tatary, 217, n. 3.
Riigen, isle of, stronghold of Slavonic
heathenism, 211.
Ruprecht (missionary bishop), 18.
Russia, conversion of, 119 — 121; by
Greek influence, 1 20 ; intimate union
with the church of Constantinople,
121, n. 1 ; incursion of the heathen
Mongols, 121; 216, and n. 5; po
sition of the monks, 148, n. I ; re
lation of the church to the state, 149,
150, and n. 1; attempt of Hildebrand
against, 276, n. 2; its independence,
277, n. 2; 281, n. 1 j repudiates the
council of Florence, 365, n. 5 ; more
recent attempts to win over to Rome,
369-
Ruysbroek (John), life and labours,
357. 358J opposed by Gerson, 357.

Sacraments, lax usage of the word, 199,
and n. 3 ; restricted to seven rites,
301 ; doctrine of, systematized, 269 ;
301 ; 423 ; eastern enumeration of,
301, n. 2 ; 423, n. 3 ; introduction of
the phrase 'ex opere operate, ' 302,
n. 3.
Sadoleti (cardinal), 417, n. 4.
Sagarelli, 295.
Saints (see also Virgin), exaggerated
honour of, 91, and n. 1; 195, 196;
306 ; prevailing ideas, 197 ; 'apocry
phal' saints, 196, and n. 2 ; 306 ;
canonization, 197, and n. 3.
Saints ('Lives of) very numerous and
influential, 89, 90 ; their general cha
racter, 90 ; attempts to suppress apo
cryphal stories, 90, n. 2 ; ' Golden
Legend,' 297, n. 3.

448

Index.

Salisbury (John of), 263, n. 3.
Samaites, conversion of, 314.
Samson, Irish opponent of Boniface, 22,
n. 4.
Sancto Amore (WilUam de), writes
against the Mendicants, 234, n. 5.
Sanctuary, right of, 54, and n. 5.
Savonarola (Girolamo), sketch of hiB
Ufe and writings, 358, 359.
Sawtre (Wm.), his opinions and exe
cution, 393.
Saxons (continental), conversion of, 19,
n. 5, 23, 11. 7; coercive measures of
Charlemagne respecting, 24.
Sbynco (archbp. of Prague), 400, 402,
403-
Schism, Papal, origin of, 328; divides
the Western Church into equal fac
tions, 329, and n. 3.
Schism of East and West, 181 sq.
Schleswig, conversion of, 106 ; remnants
of heathenism, 107, n. 1.
Schola Saxonum (English college at
Rome), 41, n. 3.
Scholasticism, 159, n. 6; its general
drift, 258, 259; its chief luminaries,
258—271; 351—353; development
of sceptical tendencies, 351, 352, and
n. 1.
Schools, 86, and n. 5; 156, n. 2; 191,
n. 1; 192, n. 5; 193; 296, n. 2; 415.
Scotists, 270.
Scotland, conversion of, 6; 7, n- J ! I2,
n. 6; 15, n. 1; Norwegian influence
in, 131.
Scotus (John Erigena), the character
of his theology, 159, 160; takes part
in the Predestinarian controversy,
163 ; his writings condemned, 163,
n. 7 ; views on the Eucharist, 168 ;
his work eonfounded with that of
Ratramnus, 168, n. 3; 169, n. ¦*..
Scotus (Duns), life and writings, 270;
some peculiarities of his school, 270,
n. 3.
Scripture (Holy), continued reverence
for, 56; 193; 399, n. 3; vernacular
translations, 89; 194, and n. 3, 5;
297, and n. 4 ; scarcity of copies,
T94, n. 1, 2; decline in the study of,
195, andn. 1; 298, and n. 2; Roger
Bacon's views respecting, 272, and
n. 1 ; vernacular translations prohi
bited, 299, and 11. 4 ; but not univer
sally, ibid. ; 360, n. 2; 418,419, and

n. 2 ; revival of Scriptural studies,
360, 361 ; 418 ; Wycfiffite versions,
386.
SemgaUen, temporary conversion of, 211.
Sends (? synods), 46, n. 1.
Serfs, manumission of, 55.
Sergius (patriarch of Constantinople),
a Monothelete heretic, 65.
Sergius, second founder of PauUcian-
ism, 82, 83.
Sermons in the vernacular, how fre
quent, 87, 88, and n. 4 ; 192, and n.
•2, 3; 300, and n. 5; 421, 422.
Servatus Lupus (abbot of Ferrieres),
engages in the Predestinarian con
troversy, 163.
Servians, conversion of, 125 ; their
ecclesiastical independence, 125, and
n. 6.
Severinus, a German missionary, 16,
n. 1.
Shetland, conversion of, no, in.
Sigeberht (the Good), 10.
Sigeberht (of East AngUa), 11, and
n. 5.
Sigebkrt (of Gemblours), against the
ultra-papal claims, 247, n. 2.
Silvester (see Sylvester).
Simeon (monk of Thessalonica), writ
ings of, 362, and n. 2.
Simeon (Metaphrastes), his writings,
'79, n- 5 ! *ae influence of his 'Lives
of Saints,' 195.
Simony, crime of, 143, and n. 2 ; 144, n.
2 ; 150, n. 2.
Sixtus IV. (pope), his political turn,
339, n. 1 ; his special patronage of
the friars, 344, n. 6.
Slave-trade (Negro), how commenced,
317, n. 1.
Slavic races, 11 1; 127; 207 sq. ; anti
quities of, m, n. 5.
Sophronius (patriarch of Jerusalem), a
champion against the Monotheletes,
65, 66.
Spain, persecutions in, 132, 133.
Stedingers, sect of, 290, n. 2.
Stephen (king of Hungary), his zeal in
propagating the Gospel, 127.
Stephen (see Dolan).
Stercoranism, what, 168, n. 1.
Stiekna, mistake respecting the name,
398, n. 6.
Strabo (Walafrid), writings of, 159,
and n. 2; views on the Eucharist, 168.

Index.

449

Strigolhiks, Russian sect, 362 ; 374, n. 3.
Sturm (of Fulda), missionary abbot,
23> 25.
Styria, conversion of, 25, 26.
Sunday, rigorous observance of, 88,
I95, n- 4-5 425, n. 2 ; how regarded
by the -Waldenses, 294, n. 3; and the
Lollards, 392.
Suso, a niystieal writer, 357, n. 4.
Sussex, conversion of, n.
Sveno (or Svend), scourge of Christian
ity, lo6.: -
Sveno (Estrithson), a zealous propa
gator of the Gospel, 107, n. 1.
Sweden (mission to), 102 — 105; imper
fect conversion of, 107, n. 3; 206, n.
2 ; mythology of, 18, n. 3; 105, n. 3.
Swineshead (Richard), 354, n. 2.
Swithberht, missionary, 19.
Swofd-brothers, miUtary order, 213.
Sylvester II., a 'reforming' pope,
138, n. 4; on the Eucharist, 169, n.
1; 175-
Sylvius (jEneas), his popedom, 339, n.
2; 340, n. 1.
Synods (diocesan), 46; regulations of
the Council of Basel respecting, 342.
Synods (provincial), action of the Frank
ish revived, 21; 35, n. 3 ; of Eng
land, 46, n. 4 ; of Spain, 46, n. 4;
nature of their acts, 46; combined
with civil courts, 50, 53, 54; by
whom convened, 53 ; to be held every
year, 239, n. 7; 342, u. 2; in Eng
land called 'convocations,' 240; early
traces of the representative principle,
240, n. 1.
Synods (oecumenical), 57, n. 1 ; 239, n.
7; sixth of this class held at Con-
. stantinople, 69, 70 ; declared superior
to the pope, 332, u. 4; 333, n. 2;
335-
Taborites, a Bohemian party of reform
ers, 409.
Tajo (of Saragossa), 59, n. 2.
Tarasius (patriarch of Constantinople),
76, and n. 1.
Tatwin (archbp. of Canterbury), 40, n.
Tauler (John), life and labours, 356,
357- , ,.
Templars (Knights), their rise and dis
solution, 235 — 236; charges brought
against them, 236, n. 3.
"" M. A.

Teutonic knights, influence of in Prus
sia, 215, 216.
Theodora (empress), restores image-
worship, 178; persecutes the Pauli
cians, 84.
Theodore (the Studite), an ardent ad
vocate of images, 177 ; other works,
177, n. 1 ; his repute as a theologian,
179.
Theodore (Archbp. of Canterbury), 14 ;
his writings, 59, n. 4.
Theodore (bp. of Pharan), author of
the Monothelete heresy, 64, and n. 4.
Theodoric (of Niem), 328, n. 4; 428,
n. 4.
Theopasehites, 192, n. 5.
Theophanes (archbishop of Nicaea),
writings of, 362.
Theophilus (emperor), represses image-
worship, 178.
Theophylact, writings of, 273, and n. 4.
Thomists, 267.
Thontrakians (sect of), 187.
Thuringia, conversion of, 20, 21.
Timur (Tamerlane), 312, n. 4; 365.
Tithes, 48.
Tostatus (of AvUa), 360, n. 3.
Transubstantiation, doctrine of, not held
in the 7th century, 95, n. 1 ; esta
blished, 171 sq., 302, 303; practical
results of this belief, 303, 304; Wy
cliffe's attack upon it, 382.
Trevias, or Treuga Dei, what, 155.
Trinitarians, order of, 229, n. 3
Trinity Sunday, festival of, 425, n, 2.
Triumphus (Augustinus), defends the
papacy, 325.
Troubadours, 242, u. 3; 289, n. 1 ; 297.
Trullan Council (see also Councils), its
importance, 85.
Turlupines, sect of, 374.
Tyler (Wat), 384.
Ulfilas, 89.
Ullerton (or Ulverstone), his 'reform
ing' paper, 329, n. 2.
Unction (extreme), gradual elevation of,
Universities, number and influence,
416, 417.
Urban II. (pope), stimulates the first
crusade, 246.
Urban VI. (pope), his connexion with
the forty years' schism, 329.
Urolf (archbp. of Lorch), 111. G G

4S0

Index.

Valla (Laurentius), 354, n. 4; 361,
and n. z.
Vasillo, a Franciscan missionary in
Lithuania, 313.
Vaudois (see Waldenses).
Veccus (see Beccus).
Vicars-general, 239.
Vicelin (bp. of Oldenburg), missionary
labours among the Wends, 210, 211.
Victorines, school of theologians, 263.
Vikings (northern pirates) , 103.
Virgilius, Irish opponent of Bordface,
24, n. 4.
Virgin (the blessed), story of her as
sumption, 92 ; festival in honour of it,
ibid, and 92, n. 4 ; and of her birth,
92, n. 1 ; other festivals, 306, n. 1 ;
excessive veneration of, 196, 197; 306;
423, 424; Hours and 'Psalter' of the
Virgin, 196 and n. 5; 305, n. 5; dis
pute respecting her immaculate con
ception, 233, n. 5; 270; 306, n. 1;
4^3, "• 3-
Vladimir, promotes the spread of Chris
tianity in Russia, 120, and n. 5.
Waldenses, different from Albigenses,
291, and n. 3; founded by Peter
Waldo, 292, and n. 1 ; faU to procure
the papal sanction, 293; peculiar te
nets, 293, and n. 5; 294, n. 3; their
rapid diffusion, 293 ; after-fortunes of
the sect, 293, 294, and n. 2; 373 and
n. 6.
Waldensis (see Netter).
Waldhausen (see Conrad).
Wazo (bp. of Liege), opposed to perse
cution, 189, n. 4.
Wends, conversion of, attempted, 117;
but in vain, 119; new attempts, 210;
more successful, 210, 211.
Wesalia (John de), a 'reformer,' 359,
n. 7; on indulgences, 431.
Wessel (John), life and writings, 359,
and n. 7, 360.
Wessex, conversion of, 10.
Wigheard (archbp. elect of Canterbury),
14, n. 6.
Wilfrith, ii, 14, 15 ; his appeals to
Rome, 15, n.3; foreign missionary
labours, 18.
Willehad (English missionary), 25;
100, u. 1.

Willebrord, his missionary labours,
18, 19 ; sanctity, 93, n. 2.
William (the Conqueror), his independ
ent language to HUdebrand, 243, n. 4.
Willibald (EngUsh traveUer and mis
sionary), 23, n. I.
Williram (schoolmaster at Bamberg),
194, n. 5.
Winfrith (see Bonifacius).
Witiza ' reforming ' king of Spain, 39.
n. 6; 47. n. 5.
Wolsey (cardinal), 340, n. 5 ; 341. n.
5; 342, 11. 1.
Woodford (Wm.), defends the friars
against Wycliffe, 375, n. 6.
Wulfram, missionary bishop, 19.
Wulfstan (English bishop), 174.
Wulfstan (monk), 174, n. 5.
Wursing, missionary, 19.
Wykeham (William of), 384, n. 12.
Wycliffe (John), life and writings of,
374 — 390; his movement unconnected
with others, 374; his profound respect
for Grosseteste, 374, n. 5; assails the
friars, 375, 376; diplomatic mission
to Bruges, 377; summary of his ear
lier opinions, 377; especially on
church property, 377, n. 5 ; proceed
ings against him, 378, 379 ; his Une of
defence, 380; his 'Poor Priests,' 385,
n. 1 ; assails the dogma of transub
stantiation, 382, 383, and n. i ; hU
teaching condemned at Oxford, 383 ;
394, n. 3, and London, 385 ; his
version of the Bible, 386; his theo
logical opinions, 387 — 390; his death,
386; condemned afresh at Constance,
394 ; his bones burnt, 395 ; Oxford
testimonial respecting him, 394, 11. 3 ;
influence of his writings in Bohemia,
400, 401; (see Lollards, English).
Ximenes (cardinal), 318; his biblica:
studies, 361, and n. 3.
York, regains its archiepiscopal rank,
12, n. 6.
Zigabenus (Euthymius), writings of,
^73. n- 5; «74, n. i-
Zwingli, early projects of reform, 412,
". 5-

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