THE story of these worldly princes is taken mainly from a long digression in which Salimbene enumerates and characterises the rulers of his time. He then proceeds to give us the other side of the picture, and to estimate with his usual keen but sympathetic insight the Legates who had been commissioned by different Popes to champion the Church cause in Northern Italy: and who, in consequence of the worldly policy which was inseparable from the Temporal Power, were necessarily statesmen or warriors first of all, and churchmen only in the second place. These portraits are valuable as coming from a convinced and consistent Churchman who had yet independence enough to write of things and men exactly as he saw them, and as they were frankly discussed within the ranks of the Guelf party. It is very difficult for a modern reader to realize 13th century society. But here and there even a single episode, told frankly and in detail, gives the intelligent reader just that double evidence which we require — the conviction, not only that the thing is true in itself, but also that it is characteristic of the times — no mere artificial museum-specimen, but a real natural growth, drifted down the ages to us, with the soil of its home still clinging to its roots. Not all the crimes of Gilles de Retz are half so damning to 15th century society as the collateral evidence of the equanimity with which his misdeeds were so long suffered, of his own firm trust to meet his accomplice in Paradise, and of the tenderness with which his bones were brought by “damsels of high estate,” to be buried honourably with the Carmelite friars of Nantes.1 Similarly, even the sickening atrocities of Alberigo, and the no less sickening reprisals of his victims, carry in themselves less demonstrative force than the matter-of-course words in which Salimbene, a nobleman by birth and a man of Religion by profession, records how the victims were paraded before the crowd in their naked shame, until the Venetian citizens were sufficiently wrought up to the Holy War. So, again, many students to 258 whom the Inferno has given an inkling of the real life of the tyrants, and who have a clear enough general recollection that Dante saw grave faults in the Church of his time, may yet be surprised at these figures of Church champions drawn by Salimbene from the life. He describes in chronological order the twelve Papal Legates who, during his lifetime, had championed the Church cause in Italy. The first was Ugolino, friend and protector of St. Francis, and later Pope Gregory IX. The next was “The Cardinal” par excellence, Ottaviano, into whose mouth later chroniclers put the despairing cry, “if there be such a thing as a soul, then I have lost mine for the Ghibellines!” (385) “He was a goodly man to see, and of noble birth; for he was of the sons of Ubaldino da Mugello in the Bishopric of Florence; he was of great repute among the Imperial party; but for his own honour’s sake he sometimes wrought to the profit of the Church, knowing that thereto he had been sent. When he was Legate at Bologna, I oft-times ate with him, and he set me ever at the head of his board, so that none sat betwixt me and him but the friar my comrade; and he himself took the third place from the head of the table. Then I did as the Wise Man saith in Proverbs: ‘When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee and set a knife to thy throat’: and this was right and proper, for the whole hall of this palace was full of guests. Yet we had food in plenty and with all decency, and choice wine was set before us, and all delicacies. Then began I to love the Cardinal, as it is written in Proverbs ‘Many will intreat the favour of the prince; and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.’ But the Cardinal invited me and my comrade to go and eat daily with him; but I thought best to do as Ecclesiasticus teacheth ‘When thou art bidden of a more powerful man than thou, depart, for thus will he bid thee all the more.’ Moreover, it was said of this same Cardinal that he was the son of the Lord Pope Gregory IX; perchance for that he had loved him with special love. I have also seen the daughter of this Cardinal, a nun in a certain convent2: and she invited and prayed me instantly to be her spiritual father, (devotus) and she my spiritual daughter (devota). She knew not whose daughter she was, nor what a father she had. But I knew well, and answering said to her, ‘I will not have thee for a friend, for the poet Patecchio saith, “It is a weariness when I cannot speak with her,” meaning to say, “It is a weariness to have a lady-friend to whom her friend cannot speak,” as thou art, being enclosed in a convent.’ And she said to me, ‘Even if we may not converse together, at least let us love each other in heart, and pray 259 mutually for each other’s salvation, as St. James saith in his last chapter (v. 16).’ And I thought within myself that she would have drawn me in little by little, and entangled me, that I might love her: so I told her the example of the blessed Arsenius.” The reference is to St. Jerome’s “Lives of the Fathers.”3 The aged Arsenius was visited in his desert cell by a noble Roman lady, who had dared the perils of the deep and of the wilderness to look once upon his face. She fell at his feet: but he rebuked her intrusion with such asperity that she dared not even look up, and could only falter, “I beseech thee, pray for me and deign to bear me in mind.” “I pray to God,” replied the saint, “that He may blot all memory of thee from my soul.” She was cut to the heart, went home, took to her bed and longed to die. Her own bishop, however, cured her by pointing out how subtle a flattery the Saint’s rudeness implied to her charms; and we may perhaps hope that the same reflection consoled Salimbene’s fair friend. He pursues “Moreover the Lord Ottaviano was a most subtle man. For one day when there was a great procession, a certain jester raised his voice as the Cardinal went by and said in his hearing, ‘Remove, all ye good folk, and give way and let the man pass who hath betrayed the Roman court and oft-times deceived the church!’ Hearing this, the Cardinal softly bade one of his men to shut the man’s mouth with a gift of money, knowing that all things obey money. And thus he redeemed his own vexation; for the jester took the gift, and went forthwith to another place where the Cardinal should pass by; and then he spake in manifold commendation of him, saying that there was no better cardinal at the court, and that he was well worthy of the Papal tiara. Of such saith Micah: ‘if one give not somewhat into their mouth they hallow war against him.’ Moreover I have heard it said that if Pope Innocent IV had lived but a little while longer, he would have put down the Lord Ottaviano from his Cardinalate for that he was too much Imperial and wrought not faithfully for the Church. But he, knowing that he had not the Pope’s favour, and that this had already been noised abroad by many at the Court and elsewhere, did thus to show that he had the Pope’s favour. One day when all the Cardinals were hastening to go out from the Consistory and from the Pope’s presence to their own homes, the Lord Ottaviano alone remained so long in talk with a clerk in the closet or chamber which was at the issue from the Pope’s presence, until he knew that all in the other Cardinals were gone forth, so that they who were in the palace hall might think him to have gone out last of all, wishing thus to show that the Pope had kept him to hold familiar converse 260 and treat privily of great matters with him; that they might thus think him the greatest cardinal of the court, and most powerful of all with the Pope, and in consequence might bring him gifts as to one who could help them in their business with the Pope.”
The next Legate whom he describes is Gregorio da Montelungo, who lived in Ferrara shortly before Salimbene, and whose pet raven was already of legendary fame, like the raven of St. Francis.4 “Long ago, when he lived in Ferrara, he had a raven which he was wont to pledge for great sums of money, and afterwards to redeem faithfully by repaying the gold. For the raven spake like a man and was an excellent buffoon. For he would arise in the night and call forth from their inns the travellers who abode therein, crying ‘Who will come to Bologna? Who will come to Dojolo? Who will come to Peola? Let him come, come, come! Quick, quick! Arise, arise! Come, come! Bring your baggage! Off, off! To the boat, to the boat! Raise [the anchor], raise! Yare, yare, yare! Get off the boat! Steer, steer!’ So the stranger guests, not knowing the wiles and deceits of this raven, would arise and carry their goods and baggage; and well-nigh all night long they would wait by the Po bank for the ship to take them whither they would go: and they marvelled who could so have deceived them, for they heard no man by the river. Moreover, this raven had such a feud with a certain blind man that, whenever he begged with bare legs and feet along the banks of the Po, the bird would come and peck his heels and calves, and draw back and cry injuriously to the blind man, ‘now thou hast it, now thou hast it!’ But one day the blind man smote the raven with his staff and broke his wing, and said ‘now thou hast it, now thou hast it!’ Whereunto the raven answered: ‘now I have it, now I have it.’ And the blind man ‘keep now that thou hast, take what is thine own and depart! cozeners and deceivers provoke the wrath of God: I have smitten thee once and no second stroke will be needed. Go to the physician, if by chance he may heal thee, for incurable is thy breaking, terrible is thy wound.’ So the Lord Gregorio pawned his raven for a pledge and would never redeem him, but left him there, for that he was smitten. So do very many, [plures] who leave their servants when they begin to fall sick.” Salimbene pays a high tribute to the Legate’s military genius and political orthodoxy: but his morals were no more irreproachable than those of Ottaviano. (391) “He faithfully treated and wrought the affairs of the Church, and therefore he earned the Patriarchate of Aquileia and held it many years, even to his last end. Yet it must be known of the Lord Gregorio da Montelungo 261 that he was gouty and unchaste [non bene castus]: for I knew a leman of his. But many secular clerics who have lordships and prelacies and live in delights, seem to care little for chastity; and they put into the Apostle’s [Paul’s] mouth that he said ‘though not chastely, yet [live] cautiously.’5 But the Apostle wrote not thus: rather he wrote [1 Cor. xv, 33, 34; Gal. vi, 5-8; also Wisdom ix, 15, Eccles. xiv, 20, 21, and many other texts]. All this I have said, because certain worldly clerics, who desire to live after the flesh, lay upon the Apostle this crazy falsehood, saying that he said ‘if not chastely, yet [live] cautiously.’ Methinks I have heard them say it a hundred times: and certainly the Apostle taught no such doctrine: for he saith ‘A bishop must be blameless, having his children in subjection with all gravity.’* After Gregorio da Montelungo the Lord Philip [Fontana], by the grace of God and of the Pope, Archbishop of the holy church of Ravenna, was made Legate of the Apostolic See. This Legate was born in Tuscany in the district of Pistoia, and being yet a poor scholar he came to the city of Toledo, desiring to learn the art of necromancy. And as he sat one day in that city under a portico, a certain knight asked him what he sought. So when he said he was a Lombard, and why he was come thither, the knight led him to a certain great master of that art, an old man of hideous aspect with a hood over his head, to whom the knight recommended him, begging the necromancer for his sake to instruct this stranger in his art. The old man led him therefore into his chamber, and gave him a book, saying, ‘When I am gone from thee thou must stay and study here.’ Then departing from him, he diligently closed the door, and the whole chamber. So, as the youth read in the book, suddenly there appeared demons, of manifold kinds and shapes; for all seemed full of mice, cats, dogs, and pigs, which ran tumultuously hither and thither through the chamber. And forasmuch as he spake nothing to then, suddenly he found himself sitting outside the chamber in the street; and the Master came and said to him, ‘What dost thou here, son?’ Then he told the Master what had befallen him, so that the old man brought him again into the chamber, and departed from him as before, and locked the door with care. And as he read, there appeared a multitude of boys and girls, running hither and thither through the chamber. Forasmuch 262 as again he spoke nought to them, he again found himself sitting without in the street; wherefore his Master said: ‘Ye Lombards are unfit for this art; leave it to us Spaniards, who are fierce men, like unto demons. But thou, son, go to Paris, and study in Holy Scripture; for thou shalt yet be a mighty man in the church of God.’ So he went and studied at Paris, and learned excellently, and returned to Lombardy and dwelt at Ferrara with the Bishop Garsendino, who was one of the sons of Manfred of Modena, and brother of the Abbot of Pomposia. And the Bishop made him his chamberlain; and after his death another Bishop was elected, after whom this Philip was elected Bishop of Ferrara, and remained many years Bishop Elect, until he was made Bishop of Ravenna. And when Pope Innocent IV came from Lyons to Ferrara, this Bishop there” . . . . . [Here some scandalised reader has torn a leaf out of the manuscript, which (as we learn from the ancient table of contents) related “how a certain nun disposed in her heart to forsake God unless He should come to her succour.” The text then proceeds:] “It came to pass therefore at the time when kings go forth to war, that the Lord Philip, Archbishop of Ravenna, having been made Legate by the Lord Pope, came to Ferrara. (Now that which men call “the time when kings go forth to war” is the month of May, for then the weather is quiet and jocund and temperate, wherein the nightingale tunes her song, and grass is found abundantly for oxen and horses). The Legate then, being at Ferrara, gathered together all the citizens of that city and strangers from Padua, and preached from the great door of the Cathedral church of St. George, opposite to the church of San Romano. And all the monks and friars were there and all folk of the city, both great and small; for they hoped to hear great marvels of God. Moreover, I also was by the Archbishop’s side, and Buongiorno the Jew, who was my familiar friend, sat by my side, for he also would fain listen. The Legate therefore, standing in the gate of the Lord’s house, began to preach in a loud voice, saying briefly that the time for words was now past, and we must keep silence, for the time is come to do those deeds which words do but represent. And he published how he had been made Legate by the Lord Pope against Ezzelino da Romano, and how he would fain raise an army of Crusaders to recover the city of Padua, and restore the expelled Paduans. And whosoever would be of his army in that expedition should have Indulgence and remission and absolution of all his sins. And let none say: ‘It is impossible for us to fight against that man of the Devil whom even demons fear,’ for it shall not be 263 impossible with God, who will fight for us. And the Legate added, ‘I say to you, to the honour and praise of God Almighty, and of the blessed Peter and Paul, his Apostles, and likewise of the blessed Anthony, whose body is held in veneration at Padua, that if I had in my army none but the orphans, the wards, and the widows, and the rest who have been afflicted by this man Ezzelino, yet even with these I would hope to have the victory over that limb of Satan and son of iniquity. For now the cry of his wickedness is gone up to Heaven, and therefore they shall fight from Heaven against him.’ So when he had finished his speech his hearers rejoiced: and he gathered together an army, and in due time marched forward to assault the city of Padua, which Ezzelino had most strongly fortified, garrisoning it with 1,500 knights, all stout men and skilled in war. Yet he himself dwelt elsewhere, for he feared as little for Padua as God fears lest the sky should fall, especially since the city had three rings of walls, and a moat both within and without, besides the knights and a multitude of people. For he held the Legate’s army, with regard to their fitness to storm such a city, as a mere unarmed rabble without either courage or skill in war. Yet in that army there was a certain lay-brother of the Order of Friars Minor, a Paduan by birth, called Clarello, whom I have seen and known well, who was a man of great courage, and whose heart’s desire was that the Paduans who had long been in exile should return now to their city. Seeing then that this occasion was favourable to him, and knowing how God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, he undertook to be the standard-bearer of that army, if haply God would give them salvation through his hand. Wherefore he strode before the army and found a peasant there with three mares, whereof he took one by force and, mounting it, caught in one hand a pole to serve him for a lance, and began to gallop hither and thither, shouting valiantly, ‘Ho! ye soldiers of Christ! Ho! ye soldiers of the blessed Peter! Ho! ye soldiers of the blessed Anthony! Cast away fear from you, be strong in the Lord.’ In brief, the army was so cheered and comforted by these words of his that it was ready to follow him whithersoever he might go; and thus cried Brother Clarello, ‘On! On! At them! At them! Salvation is the Lord’s. Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered!’ So the army followed him as its herald and standard-bearer, and set itself to storm the city. But the Lord struck fear into the hearts of those that were within, so that they dared not resist. For there was in the army another lay brother, also of the Friars Minor, a holy man and devout, who in the world 264 had been the Lord Ezzelino’s master-engineer, to build his machines and catapults and mangonels and battering rams, for the storming of cities and castles. Him the Legate commanded by holy obedience to strip off the habit of St. Francis (for the Legate loved that Order), and to put on a white habit, and build such an engine as might enable them to take the city by storm.6 So the Friar humbly obeyed him, and forthwith built an engine which in front was all fire, and behind was full of armed men; and the city was soon taken. Then the Church party, when they had entered the city, would neither hurt any in the city, nor did they slay nor take prisoners nor spoil goods, nor carry away anything; but they spared all men and let them go free. And the others held themselves happy in their mere freedom from prison and other harm; so the whole city exulted and rejoiced.7 The Legate therefore, although his name had been renowned even before this time, yet was he far more renowned after the capture of the city of Padua. In old days he had been Legate in Germany, by reason of the Landgrave who had been made Emperor after Frederick’s deposition, [i.e. Heinrich Raspe, d. 1247.] And at this time there were in Germany three Provinces, wherein were certain brethren of great dignity [solemnes] who, despising the discipline of the Order, would not obey the Ministers; and when they came to consult this Legate, he took them and handed them over to the power of the Ministers, that they might exercise judgment and justice on them according as the statutes of the Order demanded.8 Now it came to pass that the Landgrave died; and the Legate, being in another city, and hearing of the death of the Landgrave, feared Frederick’s son, Conrad, who caused Germany to be most strictly guarded. He commanded, therefore, one of his household on no account to open his chamber to any man for several days; for he purposed to flee, lest he should be utterly taken. Then, changing his garments, and taking with him a single comrade only, he came furtively and secretly to a convent of the Friars Minor, where he called the Guardian apart, and said to him, ‘Knowest thou me?’ And he answered, ‘Truly, nay!’ Then said the Legate, ‘I know thee well: and I command thee by holy obedience to keep in thine own bosom all that I shall tell thee, and to disclose it to none until I shall give thee leave; and to speak to no man but in my presence, and never in thy native German, but ever in the Latin tongue. The Landgrave is dead, and I am the Legate. Thou shalt therefore give me and my comrade a habit of the Order, and without delay thou shalt give me means to flee, and lead me to a safe place, that I be not taken 265 by Conrad.’ To be brief, all this was done obediently and gladly; but when the Guardian would have led them forth from the city, he found one gate shut, and likewise the second and the third: yet through the third, by a space which was beneath the gate, they saw a great dog creep out, and it seemed to them that this was the only way whereby they also might pass. But when they attempted it, it was found that the Legate was too fat to pass through; but the Guardian stood upon his body, and flattened him by stamping it to the ground, and thus he crept forth. When therefore all four were gone forth, they passed on and came that day to dinner at a certain city, wherein was a Convent of Friars Minor. And when these asked of the Guardian who were these friends whom he brought with him, he answered, ‘They are great Lombards. For God’s sake show them charity and courtesy and do them service.’ So the guardian of that house came with ten brethren of the convent, and ate with them in the guest-house with the greatest familiarity and solace, being much comforted to have such guests. When therefore the Legate saw that he was in a safe place, and had escaped all perils, at the end of dinner he gave leave to the Guardian his guide and fellow-traveller to make him known. Then that stranger-guardian who had travelled with him, said to the brethren, ‘Know, dearest friends, that this Brother with whom ye have eaten is the Legate of the Lord Pope, and therefore have I brought him to you, for that the Landgrave is dead, and here at last we have no further fear of Conrad. But even the comrade who travelled with me has known none of these things until this very hour.’ The brethren hearing this, began to tremble as a reed when it is shaken with the water. But the Legate said to them, ‘Fear not, brethren! I know you, that ye have God’s courtesy and charity and familiarity; the Lord repay you! I was even heretofore a friend to the Order of St. Francis: and that friendship will I now hold fast all the days of my life.’ And so in truth it was. For he gave to the Friars Minor the church of St. Peter the Great at Ravenna,9 and granted us every favour which we sought from him, of preaching, of hearing confessions, and of absolving from all cases of conscience which were reserved for himself. He had a terrible and savage household, yet they all revered the Friars Minor as apostles of Christ, knowing that their Lord loved us dearly. For they were full forty men-at-arms, whom he ever led with him, to be guardians of his life and person; and they feared him as they feared the Devil. Nay, Ezzelino da Romano was scarcely less 266 feared; for he gave his servants most grievous punishments. One day, as he went from Ravenna to Argenta (which is the Archiepiscopal palace), he caused one of his servants to be bound with a rope and plunged into the water, and thus they dragged him bound to the ship through the rolling waves, as though he were a sturgeon, because he had forgotten to bring salt. Another time he caused a certain servant to be bound to a great pole and turned as on a spit, before the fire; and when the men of his household wept for him with pity and compassion, the Legate, seeing the cruel sight, said to them, ‘Poor wretches! Do ye weep so soon?’ and so bade that he should be taken away from the fire. Yet the man had already borne bitter anguish of soul and much roasting. Moreover, the Legate cast into chains a certain Amanato, his steward, a Tuscan; and the rats devoured him in the prison, for he was accused of having wasted his master’s goods. Many other cruelties he practised on those who were of his household, for his own vengeance and their punishment, and to strike fear into others. And therefore God suffered him to be taken, while he was yet Legate, by Ezzelino, who kept him carefully, and took him whithersoever he went, that he might the more carefully guard him. Yet he treated him with honour and reverence, although he had taken Padua from him. But He who liberated Manasses from his dungeon and restored him to his kingdom, liberated likewise this Legate in the manner following. A certain man of Reggio, named Gerardo de’ Campsori, drew him forth from Ezzelino’s dungeon and let him down by a rope from an upper chamber: and so he escaped in the Lord’s name from Ezzelino’s hands. But he was not unmindful of this loving kindness, but repaid the same man by making him a Cardinal10 of Ravenna. Moreover, to Brother Enverardo of Brescia, a great Lector of the Order of Friars Minor, he gave the bishopric of Cesena, for that he was of his household, and had been taken prisoner with him; which Brother Enverardo, after the death of Ezzelino, was freed from prison with all the other prisoners whom that accursed tyrant kept in ward. Moreover, this aforesaid Archbishop [of Ravenna] had two nephews, Francis and Philip; but Philip was his own son, and was twenty-five or thirty years old, comely and fair as a second Absalom: and this Lord Philip, Archbishop of Ravenna, and Legate of the Roman court, loved him as his own soul. Whoever therefore was willing to fill the hands of these two men with gifts might have a prebend or whatsoever he demanded from the Archbishop; and thus they became rich beyond measure. He had also a fair daughter, whom he would 267 have given to wife to the Lord Jacopo di Bernardo: but he would not take her, both because she was not of lawful birth, and for that he would not take a dowry of Church goods, and also because he purposed to become a Friar Minor and die in that Order, as in truth he did. Moreover, the said Archbishop was sometimes so melancholy and gloomy and furious, and such a son of Belial, that none could speak with him. But to me he was always kind and familiar and courteous and liberal; for he gave me the relics of the blessed Eliseus,11 of whom we read in the Book of Kings, which were in a certain city called Cæsarea, hard by Ravenna, in the Monastery of St. Lawrence, in a stone coffin within the royal chapel; and I carried off the principal and greatest bones of that body, and placed them within the high altar of the Friars Minor at Parma, where they are even unto this day, with the following epitaph, besides that which I had affixed first on leaden letters: —
Hic virtute Dei — patris ossa manent Helysei,
Quæ Salimbene — detulit ossa bene.
But I could not have the head of Eliseus, because the Austin Friars had stolen it and carried it away unbidden. For the Archbishop cared more for war than for relics of Saints. Once when he was Legate he came to Faenza, where I then dwelt: and because he needed to enter a convent of the Order of St. Clara, and the Abbess wished to speak long with him, he sent for some brethren to be his comrades, both for honesty’s sake and for his own honour. For he loved honour above all men in the world, as my judgment goes; and above all men in the world he knew how to lord it and play the baron, as I have heard from others, and as it seemed to me likewise. We were therefore ten brethren that bare him company; and after we had warmed ourselves by the fire (for it was a Saturday morning in the month of January, on the feast of St. Timothy), he robed himself in sacerdotal vestments, that he might enter the Convent decently and honestly. And when he would have put on his alb, and found it too close in the sleeves, he was troubled. And the Bishop of Faenza said to him, ‘It is not close for me, for I put it on easily.’ To whom the Archbishop said, ‘How! Is this alb thine?’ ‘It is mine,’ said the Bishop. ‘And where then is mine?’ said the Archbishop; and presently it was found that one of his servants had carried it to Ravenna. And the Archbishop said, ‘In truth, I wonder much at mine own long-suffering, yet will I give him punishment! I cannot inflict it here in his 268 absence; but delay is no robbery!’ and I said to the Archbishop, ‘Have patience, Father, for “patience hath her perfect work.” And the Wise Man saith “By patience a prince shall be appeased, and a soft tongue shall break harness.” ’ Then the Archbishop said, ‘The Wise Man saith also in the xiii chapter of Proverbs “He that spareth the rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him correcteth him betime.” ’† I, seeing that the Archbishop was wholly purposed in his own heart to punish the offender, said, ‘Father, let us leave these words and speak of another matter. Do you celebrate?’ And he said, ‘No, I will that thou sing Mass.’ And I said to him, ‘I will obey you and sing Mass. Then said the Archbishop, ‘Will ye that I prophesy to you of the Pope to be?’ (for the Papacy had been vacant since the death of Pope Urban IV of Troyes.) And we said, ‘Yea, Father, tell us who shall be the Pope.’ And he said: ‘Pope Gregory IX loved much the Order of St. Francis. Now shall succeed Gregory X, who shall dearly love the Friars Minor.’ (For he thought to speak thus of himself; for he desired much to have the Papacy and even hoped it; both because he was a friend of the Friars Minor, and because the master of necromancy at Toledo had foretold that he would be great in the Church of God, and also because he saw himself already great, and that sometimes the Cardinals were at discord in the Papal election, and that at times men spake his name in this matter.) Then I answered and said, ‘Father, if the Lord will, you will be that Gregory X: and you have loved us, and will love us yet more.’ Yet it came not thus to pass; for no Gregory X succeeded then, but Clement IV; nor did this Archbishop of Ravenna ever come to the Papacy. So when this Archbishop and Legate had spoken the aforesaid words, he added, ‘These are they who shall enter the Convent: firstly, all the Friars who are here; then, of mine own company, let none enter but the Bishop of Faenza, the Archdeacon of Ravenna, and the Podesta of this city.’ When therefore we were come to the door of the church, we found there a lay-brother with a smoking censer, and when he had censed the Legate the latter took the censer from his hands, and censed each friar as he entered the church, saying thrice, de licenso ali frati me, which being interpreted is ‘Incense to my Brethren.’ Then we went to the stairs, and he leant on me, for honour’s sake and for help, both in mounting and descending; so that I held up his right arm, and 269 the Archdeacon of Ravenna his left. And the church was on an upper floor, and the whole Convent of those ladies, to the number of 72, was there gathered together; and after Mass had been solemnly celebrated, and all our council and business was ended, we went out from the Convent and found a plenteous fire kindled. And forthwith the bell ran to Nones, and the Legate took leave, and said, ‘I invite ye all to dine with me.’ I believe that he said full ten times over in the Tuscan tongue, mo e’ ve ’nvito, e si ve renvito, which is, being translated, ‘I invite you to dinner, and again I reinvite you.’ Nevertheless those brethren were so fearful and shamefaced that I could not bring with me but two; the rest went to eat in the Convent of the Brethren. When therefore I had come to the Bishop’s palace, the Legate said to me, ‘To-day is the Sabbath-day, and the Bishop and Podesta will eat flesh. Let us part from them, and go to the hall of the Palace, where we shall have abundantly to eat.’ And he kept me and made me sit by his side at table; and oft-times he said how he took it exceeding ill that I had not honoured him by bringing other Brethren with me; for he had invited them all. And I dared not tell him that they would not come, for he would have taken it too ill; but I told him that another time he should have the whole Convent. For he rejoiced much when men honoured him. Moreover the Archdeacon bare us company, and sat at a lower table by himself; but he was my friend and acquaintance and sent me a present.”
Here follows a long digression on the Council of Ravenna, in which Philip, despite his own lax morals, stoutly supported the Friars in their attempt to reform the morals of the parish clergy. Salimbene speaks again of his hopes of the Papacy, and their repeated disappointments; and he gives a pathetic picture of the great man’s last days. (429) “So the Lord Philip, Archbishop of Ravenna, after that he had fought many fights and gained many victories, became aged and weighed down with years and fell sick of the sickness whereof he died. And, wishing to die in his own land, he let himself be carried on a wooden litter by twenty men, ten and ten by relays; and when he came to Imola, he would fain stay in the Convent of the Friars Minor, where at that time I dwelt; and we gave him the whole Refectory to himself, and he stayed with us but one day. And when he was come to Pistoia, he sent for Brother Thomas of Pavia, who was his acquaintance and friend of old, and confessed to him and ordered well for the salvation of his soul; and so he rested in peace, and was buried in the church of the Friars Minor at Pistoia. (430) Moreover, this Lord Philip, when he was in his villa called 270 Argenta on the banks of the Po, and when he went to and fro through his palace, was wont to go singing some responsory or antiphon in praise of the glorious Virgin, from one corridor to another of that palace. And in summer time he would drink at each corner; for at each corner of the palace he had a pitcher of excellent and noble wine in the coldest water. For he was a mighty drinker, and loved not water with his wine, wherefore also he loved much the treatise which Primas wrote against mixing water with wine, which we will perhaps write in this book for the solace of some. Yet, you must know that water is most profitable in wine for many reasons: for watered wine doth not hurt the head or gnaw the stomach, or make the mouth to stink or impede the tongue, or inebriate or make a man wordy or provoke to lust: for (as St. Jerome saith) the belly that revelleth with wine is quick to foam into lust.” With which excuse Salimbene quotes in extenso these most unedifying verses of Primas.
The next whom he names (433) was not strictly a Legate (though Salimbene calls him so), but a Bishop of Mantua sent by the Pope to preach the crusade in Lombardy. He again was “a mighty drinker,” and not unnaturally subject to fits of religious depression: yet he was “a courteous man, humble and kindly and open-handed and liberal.” He had been a personal friend of Salimbene’s eldest brother; and one day our autobiographer sat a long while with him in the palace where he lodged on his way through Ravenna. The Legate rose at last and went to the window: “Where, then, is your convent, Brother Salimbene?” “Then I pointed it out to him: a great church with a tall campanile like the donjon-tower of a fortress,” in the shadow of which Dante’s bones still lie. “Then said the Bishop, ‘Do you believe, Brother Salimbene, that we bishops can come to heaven — we who are in so many labours and cares and anxieties by reason of the flocks committed to us — unless you Religious, who are in familiar converse with God, help us with your frocks and hoods?’ ” Salimbene comforted the Bishop with Prov. xv. 13, and xii. 25, and with a long quotation from St. Bernard’s sermons on the Canticles, in which the saint argues that the monk, who from his safe castle of contemplation looks down upon the sin-spotted Bishop in the outer world, is like the woman at her spinning-wheel who should scold the man returning from battle; for (quotes St. Bernard from Ecclesiasticus) “better is the iniquity of a man than a woman who doth well.” “These things” (pursues Salimbene) “are said [by St. Bernard] against the double temptation by which men of Religion are oft-times urged of the Devil either to run after the glory of Bishops or to judge rashly of their 271 excesses. So when I had quoted all these sayings, the Bishop said, ‘May the Lord reward thee, Brother Salimbene, for thou hast given me excellent comfort: thou art in truth, in the words of Ecclesiasticus, “a man of counsel who will not destroy understanding.” After him another Legate was sent to Lombardy, a Cardinal who had been Archbishop of Embrun. (323) He was a man of worth in knowledge and song and letters and honest and holy life: and once when a minstrel had played his viol in the Legate’s presence and begged for some gift, the Archbishop answered ‘If thou wilt fain eat, I will give thee gladly for God’s sake: but for thy song and viol I would give thee nought, for I can sing and play as well as thou.’ He always kept with him two Brethren Minor. (435) He transformed the Alleluia of St. Francis O patriarcha pauperum, into a hymn to the same air for the Blessed Virgin, O consolatrix pauperum: and he wrote the Summa Copiosa‡. After him a certain [Papal] chaplain was sent by the Lord Pope, who would have gathered knights from every city in help of King Charles against Manfred. When he came on this business to Faenza, he gathered together the Friars Minor and the Preachers in the Bishop’s chamber, who was there with his canons; and I likewise was present and heard his words. And he concluded our business in few words after the fashion of [his own] French, who speak briefly, and not like the men of Cremona, who delight in much speech: for he reviled Manfred and accused him to us of manifold crimes. Then he said that the French army would come quickly, and this was true, as I saw with mine own eyes at the Christmastide next following. Lastly he promised that the matter whereon they marched would quickly end well with victory; and so it was: yet some of his hearers scoffed and derided him, saying: Ver, ver cum bon báton, which was to say that the French should have the victory with good staves. After him another chaplain was sent as Legate, who contrived excellently to bring back the Church exiles of Cremona to their city; for they had long been exiles and wanderers. Moreover he subtly expelled Buoso da Duera and Pallavicino from the lordship of Cremona, which they had long held and done much ill. So the Church exiles returned to Cremona and gave them tit for tat, destroying their towers and houses and palaces and seizing their lands and possessions, as is the custom in Lombardy. This Legate was followed by Cardinal Latino, a young man and lean of flesh, of the Order of Friars Preachers, 272 whom Pope Nicholas IV had made Cardinal and Legate for his kindred’s sake. (169) He troubled all the ladies with a certain Constitution which he promulgated, wherein it was written that all women should have garments of length to reach to the ground and only the measure of a single palm further; for before this they trailed along the ground tails of garments a whole ell and a half long, whereof the Poet Patecchio writeth ‘And trains of cloth, long-trailing in dust.’ And the Bishop caused his Constitution to be preached in all the churches, and imposed it strictly upon the women, and that no priest might absolve them of their sins but if they obeyed; which to the women was bitterer than any death. For a certain lady told me in familiar talk that this tail was dearer to her than the whole of the rest of the garments wherewith she was clad. Moreover, the Cardinal enjoined that all women, both maidens and noble damsels, married and widows and matrons, should wear veils on their heads, which was horribly grievous to them. Yet for that tribulation they found a remedy, which for their tails they could not; for they caused their veils to be made of fine muslin and silk inwoven with gold, wherein they showed ten times fairer than before, and drew beholders’ eyes all the more to wantonness.”12 The twelfth and last Legate was that Cardinal Bernardo of whom we have already heard in connexion with Pinamonte. He had been created by Martin IV, and was his willing instrument in those wars of aggrandisement in which he wasted such incalculable blood and treasure. Salimbene constantly speaks with horror of this slaughter and waste; he tells us that the Pope spent “1,400,000 golden florins, which sum was from the tithes of all the churches which Pope Gregory X had gathered for the succour of the Holy land, and which was thus diverted from its true purpose.”
“These twelve abovenamed,” adds our chronicler, “were the most noble Legates and Princes of the Church whom the Pope sent into Lombardy and Romagna, not only for the salvation of men’s souls, but also against the wiles of that Dragon, the Emperor Frederick, who strove with his princes and followers to overthrown the liberty of the church, and to corrupt the unity of the faithful.” The remedy, however, was not so much more tolerable than the disease; and we can well understand the complaint which Salimbene ascribes to the monks of Cluny: “The Pope’s Legates rob the churches so far as in them lies, and carry off whatsoever they can.” (213)
* Note that Salimbene omits ‘the husband of one wife,’ thus making the rest of the Latin text read as though children were used only metaphorically of the Bishop’s flock.
† This text was taken in the Middle Ages to apply equally to servants: See the Moral Tales of the Franciscan Nicole Boson. (p. 25.)
‡ A standard commentary on the Canon Law which goes by the name of his cardinalate, Hostiensis.
BUT the Papal Legate was apt to be statesman first and churchman afterwards: — the nemesis of that Temporal Power in which so many besides Dante have seen one of the weakest points of the Roman Church. Let us turn now to other prelates who were in theory spiritual pastors first of all, and statesmen only accidentally.
Salimbene records the reign of sixteen Popes; for most of these he has little to say, and they are far from bulking in his chronicle as they would in a similar book of modern memoirs. First, in time and in greatness, comes Innocent III. After quoting Sicardo’s description of the great Pope’s energy and successes, Salimbene goes on (31) “The Church flourished and throve in his days, holding the lordship over the Roman Empire and over all the kings and princes of the whole world. Yet this Pope sowed the seeds of the cursed dissensions between Church and Empire, with his chosen Emperors Otto IV and Frederick II, whom he exalted and entitled Son of the Church: but herein he may be excused, that he meant well. And note that this Pope was a bold man and stout of heart. For once he measured on his own person the Seamless Coat of our Lord, and he thought how the Lord must have been of small stature; yet when he had put on the coat, it seemed too great for him; so he feared and venerated the relic, as was seemly. Moreover he would sometimes keep a book before him when he preached to the people; and when his chaplains asked why he did this, being so wise and learned a man, he would answer and say ‘I do it for you sakes, to give you an example; for ye are ignorant and yet are ashamed to learn.’ Moreover, he was a man who, as the poet saith, mingled his business at times with mirth, as this example may show. One day a minstrel of the Mark of Ancona saluted him, saying:
274‘Papa Innocentium,
Doctoris omnis gentium,
Salutat te Scatutius
Et habet te pro dominus.’
And when the Pope asked, ‘Whence art thou then, Scatuzio?’ he answered:
‘De castro Recanato,
Et ibi fui nato.’
To whom the Pope said;
‘Si veneris romam,
Habebis multam bonam,’
answering purposely in false grammar to the false grammar of the Minstrel. Moreover, one day as he preached to the people, he saw how a certain scholar mocked at his words. So when his sermon was ended he called him apart into his chamber and asked him why he had laughed at the Word of God which is profitable for salvation of souls. The scholar answered that the Pope’s were mere words, but that he himself could show deeds, as for example raising of the dead and authority over demons. So the Pope learned from him that he was a necromancer who had studied at Toledo: wherefore he besought him to raise a certain dear friend of his own, with whom he would fain speak and hear of his soul’s health. So they chose a desert and secret spot in Rome, whereunto the Pope went as though he walked abroad for air; and when he was come thither he bade his attendants pass on and tarry until he came again to them. They therefore did as he had bidden, believing that he went down into this place at the call of nature. So the scholar raised up before his eyes the Archbishop of Besmantova,1 with the same pomp and vainglory with which he was wont to come to Court. First came the servants to make ready his lodging, then a great multitude of sumpter-mules with his treasures, then his squires to wait on him, and then his knights, and himself last of all with many chaplains round him. The necromancer asked him whither he went; and he made answer ‘To the Court, to my friend Pope Innocent, who would fain see me.’ Then said he ‘Here is thy friend Innocent, who would know from thine own mouth how it standeth with thee.’ ‘Ill indeed,’ said the Archbishop, ‘for I am damned by reason of my pomp and vainglory and my other sins: and I did no penitence: wherefore I am doomed to dwell with devils and with those who go down to hell.’ When therefore 275 these speeches were ended on either side, the apparition vanished and the Pope went back to his attendants.”
It is evident that Salimbene did not feel unmixed admiration even for the greatest Pope of the age. We have seen already (chap. vi) how little he valued Innocent’s liturgical ordinances: and (as Prof. Michael points out) he dismisses in a few careless lines that great Lateran Council which made Transubstantiation a dogma of the Church and aimed at a sweeping reform of clerical leaning and discipline (22). “Among other things, the Pope ordained that there should be henceforth no [new] Order of religious Mendicants: but this constitution was not kept, through the negligence of the prelates. Nay rather, whosoever will may clap on a hood and go begging and boast that he has founded a new Order. Hence comes confusion in the world; for secular folk are burdened thereby, and their alms are not enough for those who labour in word and in teaching, and whom the Lord hath set to live by the gospel. For rude secular folk, who have no knowledge or discernment, leave as much by will to one wretched woman living in a hermitage as to a convent of thirty priests, who celebrate mass almost daily for the living and for the dead. May the Lord see to it, and change for the better all that is ill done! The rest that was ordained at that council I write not here, for weariness and for the avoidance of prolixity.” Salimbene’s contempt, apart from his obvious zeal for his own Order, is no doubt partly to be explained by the scanty practical result of that Council: but it is also true that Innocent in his own days often commanded a far less unreserved admiration than in ours. Many good Churchmen were quite as much scandalized by his political struggles as edified by his zeal for religion: e.g. St. Liutgardis spoke of him as only having just avoided damnation, and Caesarius thought little better of him. The conception of the Papacy in the 13th century was in many ways still far from its modern development. Nearly two centuries after Salimbene, even so orthodox a saint as James of the Mark, in controversy with the heretics of his time, could only claim that at least no two consecutive popes had taught heresy, for there had always been an orthodox successor to repudiate his forerunner’s errors.2 It must always be borne in mind that the “state of siege” (as Mr. Wilfrid Ward calls it) in which Romanism has lived since the Reformation has contributed very strongly to raise the characters of the Popes, and to teach them circumspection in their actions. Even in the 13th century (to say nothing of the far worse 200 years which followed) the average Pope generally cuts a poor figure in the pages of contemporary 276 chroniclers: and it is a matter of common remark that Dante, who damns so many, mentions even the great Innocent only in a couple of words, as having ratified the Rule of St. Francis.
Of Honorius III Salimbene tells us that (33) “he deposed a Bishop who had not read Donatus:” i.e. who knew little or no Latin.
Gregory IX had been the Cardinal Ugolino of Franciscan history: Salimbene speaks of him as a man of strong feelings (88), but had little sympathy with his aggressive politics, which had for a moment well-nigh wrecked the Church (36). Later on, as we have already seen, he mentions the report that Cardinal Ottaviano was this Pope’s son. Celestine IV and the interregnum of nearly two years are barely mentioned: but Innocent IV, who ruled eleven years and had been a friend of Salimbene’s father, receives plenty of attention, though not always of a flattering kind, in spite of his favour to the Friars. (61, 62). Indeed, nearly all the Popes of this period were staunch friends to the Franciscans, a fact which adds all the more weight to these criticisms, since Salimbene’s strongest prejudices were those of his Order. He speaks repeatedly of Innocent’s shameless nepotism (62, 176), and has no doubt that God smote him for a momentary weakness in siding with the parish clergy against the Friars. Certain German Friars, who had vainly waited long months for an audience, found their way in at last when all others had deserted the dying Pope, and promised to wash his body for burial: “for he remained on the straw, naked and abandoned of all men, as is the wont of the Pontiffs of Rome when they give up the ghost” (420). The sang-froid with which Salimbene speaks of God’s judgment on this Pope will surprise only those who are unfamiliar with medieval chronicles. The learned and orthodox Wadding describes the affair at much greater length. He tells us how the friars in their trouble recited a daily Litany against the Pope’s oppressive measure; and how the Virgin Mary was seen standing on the altar of their great church at Rome and saying “Son, hear them!” Innocent fell ill at Naples, and died on December 7th, quoting with his last breath “Thou with rebukes dost chasten man for sin:” hence a proverbial saying at the Roman court “Beware of the Litanies of the Friars Preachers.” Thomas of Chantimpré, himself a Dominican and a suffragan Bishop at that time, asserts that the Pope was struck with palsy on the very day on which he signed the Bull. Thomas of Eccleston tells substantially the same story, and adds that “no beggar — not to say, no human being — dies a more miserable and viler death than all Popes die.”3
277Alexander IV (453) astounded the world by his freedom from nepotism: he neither made a Cardinal of his nephew nor an Abbess of his niece. Moreover he was a learned and zealous man and “a true and faithful friend, as we see in the case of Brother Rinaldo di Tocca of our Order, whom he loved more dearly than Jonathan his David, or Amis his Amiles.4 For though the whole world had said aught of evil against him, the Pope would have believed no whit thereof, nor even lent ear thereto; and he would go barefoot to open when Brother Rinaldo knocked at his chamber door, as was seen by one who was alone with the Pope in his chamber, namely, Brother Mansueto da Castiglione of Arezzo, my friend, from whose mouth I heard all this. This Pope would not meddle with wars, but passed his days in peace. He was big, that is, fat and corpulent, like another Eglon: he was kindly, merciful, just, God-fearing, and devout.” He died of a broken heart, considering daily the terrible and increasing strife among Christians,” says Wadding (an. 1261.)
Of his successor Urban IV, Salimbene had a poor opinion: and he attributes his death to the influence of the great comet of 1264. But the next Pope was again a man after his own heart. This was Clement IV, who had a wife and children “in the World,” and who as Pope “was so devoted to vigils, fastings, and prayers that God is though to have remedied for his merits many disorders under which the Church then suffered.” (476) After him came a disastrous interregnum of nearly four years, which men vainly attempted to prevent in future by passing ordinances to which nobody paid any attention. Then came Gregory X, the last of the good Popes in this chronicle. One case of nepotism is indeed reported of him; he gave the Archbishopric of Ravenna, in favour of his kindred, to the Bonifacio Fieschi of Purg. xxiv, 29; “che pasturò col rocco molete genti“ (83). All else that he tells us is very much to this Pope’s credit. (488, 491) He hated simony: a rare virtue in that century: “he was a good man, just, and upright and God-fearing, and very zealous for religion; and he purposed to do many things which were broken off by his death. In 1274 he celebrated a General Council at Lyons, wherein he appeared truly holy, for there he ordained many good constitutions.” Moreover, he thought to cleave fast to Christ’s commands, if he had lived: but he was carried off by death, even as Josiah, King of Judah, at that moment when he was most needed, for the sake of our wickedness who still survive him.” But Salimbene finds two other characteristic reasons for the Pope’s death — he had attempted to continue the imperial line after Frederick’s decease, 278 and had set his heart upon recovering the Holy Land: in each case, in flat neglect of Joachim’s prophecies.
Nicholas III earned Salimbene’s gratitude by making two Franciscan Cardinals: but the costly and scandalous wars of Martin IV had their real origin in Nicholas’s acquisition of Romagna from the Emperor Rudolf: “for the Popes oft-times seek to extort gifts from the Empire by reason of a fresh accession, since the emperor cannot fittingly refuse a demand at that moment” (509). Again, Nicholas was sadly given to nepotism, “for he ‘built up Sion with blood,’ as also certain other Roman Pontiffs have sometimes done.5 I believe most surely in my conscience that there are a thousand Friars of the Order of the blessed Francis (whereof I am a poor and most humble Brother) who would be better fitted by their learning and holy life to receive the Cardinal’s hat than many who are promoted by reason of their kindred by the Roman Pontiffs. We need not seek far for an example. Pope Urban IV promoted to the Cardinalate his nephew Anger, and exalted him in riches and honour above all the Cardinals of the Court: yet he was at first so miserable a scholar that he was wont to fetch back flesh from the market for his fellow scholars; and in process of time it was found that he was the Pope’s son — and so they promote and exalt their bastards, and say that they are their nephews, sons of their brethren.6 Not so did the blessed Job, who saith of himself ‘If as a man I have hid my sin, and have concealed my iniquity in my bosom,’ etc. And certainly such men as these are thought most honourable when they are promoted to power and dignities, and have wealth and free access to the Pope; but hearken now to a text which may comfort thee against any man who hath a fat prebend. ‘If his sons be multiplied, they shall be for the sword, and his grandsons (nepotes) shall not be filled with bread.’ Therefore . . . .” here follow six-and-a-half lines which have been scratched out, the only legible words being at the end “is loved, for that she is foul and deformed; moreover, she is hunchbacked and of illegitimate birth.” (170).
Of Martin IV he speaks frequently, showing little sympathy with his waste of blood and treasure in the Italian wars, and with his embezzlement of the Crusade money: he is rather amused than otherwise that the Perugians should have burnt him and his cardinals in effigy. (510) At the same time, he shows his leniency in omitting all mention of that gluttony and wine-bibbing which earned Martin a conspicuous place in Dante’s Purgatory. Martin’s successor, Honorius IV, passed among the Friars for an enemy of their Order; and Salimbene probably 279 wrote more about him than we shall ever know. For, under the year 1286, two passages of five sheets each have been torn from the MS., no doubt as containing more unedifying details than usual. The first evidently contained criticism of the Roman Court, since among the first words on the next page we read (618) “For the Cardinals are wont to care little for such things. Moreover, the Cardinals at that time had just such a Pope, a Roman named Jacopo Savelli, grasping and avaricious and of little worth and crippled with the gout.7 He was called Pope Honorius IV: and not only was he no founder of new Orders of Religion, but, so far as in him lay, he was a great destroyer of those already founded and growing — being moved thereto by bribes from certain prelates of churches; for all things are obedient unto gold.” His death (thinks Salimbene) might partly be explained by his renewing Gregory X’s attempt to continue the Roman Empire after Frederick’s death, in the teeth of Joachim’s prophecies; but the main cause was this aforesaid acceptance of £100,000 Tournois to curtail the privileges of the Friars. “And the Lord Matteo Rossi who was the cardinal, protector, governor, and corrector of the Franciscan Order, came weeping to the Brethren, and said to them with tears: ‘My brethren, I have laboured all that in me lay to turn the Supreme Pontiff aside from his purpose; yet could I not recall him from his evil disposition (malignitate) which he beareth in his heart towards you. Pray ye therefore to God who “bringeth to nought the designs of the malignant,” that he may “deliver you from importunate and evil men.” Pray ye also to the blessed Francis that he may deign to work his accustomed marvels against those who strive to trouble his Order, that all men living may know, and all who do evil, that it is not easy to fight against God and his servants.’ Hearing this, the Brethren turned with one mind to beseech the Lord that He might deign to succour them in this peril; and, for that ‘the prayers of so many must needs be heard’ (as saith St. Augustine) therefore He who ‘hath had regard to the prayer of the humble; and hath not despised their petition’ that is, God — whereas Pope Honorius was about to promulgate the aforesaid decree on the morrow of Maundy Thursday — God (I say) smote him on the fourth day of Holy Week at even, and he died.” (619, 629).
After all, Papal embezzlement, Papal immorality, Popes prayed to death by the faithful, are common phenomena enough in the 13th and 14th centuries. Matthew Paris speaks far more bitterly than Salimbene about the theft of the Crusade money, though he never lived to see its grosser forms under Martin IV: and this 280 was no doubt one of the main causes for that decay of crusading enthusiasm of which Etienne de Bourbon so bitterly complains (p. 174). If there is any medieval chronicler who wrote consistently of the Popes in terms that would satisfy a modern Roman Catholic, it may pretty safely be asserted that the majority did not. Salimbene’s popes, it must be remembered, were after all far better than those of an earlier or a later age. His complaints as to the distribution of Church preferment, petulant as it sounds, is outdone by St. Dominic’s successor, the blessed Jordan of Saxony. Here is the latter’s reply to certain Bishops who complained that Friars, when raised to the episcopal rank, were less satisfactory than before. “Though I have passed many years in the [Dominican] Order, I do not recall a single instance in which his Holiness the Pope, or any Legate, or Cathedral Chapter, has ever asked me or any of our Superiors, or any General or Provincial Chapter, to find them a good bishop. On the contrary, they picked their own men at will, either for reasons of nepotism, or from some other unspiritual motive, and so no blame can rest with us.”
“Like Pope, like Cardinal,” as all contemporaries assure us. The terrible accusations which Grosseteste brought against the Papal Court at the first Council of Lyons (1245) are if possible outdone by Hugh de Digne’s diatribe against the Cardinals on that same occasion, as recorded by Salimbene. “I heard it” (he says) “from the mouth of Brother Hugh, and wrote it down even as I heard it, fully and faithfully.” Fully indeed, for it would fill nearly twenty pages of this book, and I can give only the briefest summary here (226 ff.). Innocent IV had asked Hugh to attend and give an informal account of his Joachistic beliefs before the Cardinals in Consistory. They began by asking what news he brought — naturally enough, as the modern reader would think, seeing that the ordinary friar was a sort of professional go-between and newsbearer. But Hugh was of St. Bonaventura’s opinion in the matter, and loathed the ready sociability of his ordinary brethren: in a moment his Provençal blood was up, and he felt himself “full of the fury of the Lord.” Taking their worldly curiosity as the text of his sermon, he proceeded to “rate them like asses.” First he compared them to St. Paul’s Athenians, idly agape all day long for some new thing. Then he passed on to rebuke their notorious simony and nepotism, and the bribery that was rampant at the Roman Court. Both Pope and cardinals (he says) neglect to do as Jethro advised Moses; i.e. choose fit men to govern in pastoral offices. At Rome, there is no relic half so efficacious as the bones of St. Gold and St. Silver: with 281 money, a man may buy a judgment at his will. He quotes the University epigram:
“On an accusative errand no suitor to Rome need wend,
Unless he bring with him the dative, to make that Mammon his friend.”
By this time his blood was well up, and he proceeds to hurl text after text at the princes of the Church. The bitterest invectives of Isaiah and Amos against rich men’s luxury and wantonness, and of Christ against the Pharisees, had but prefigured the Cardinals — or, as pseudo-Joachim nicknamed them, the Grabbinals (Carpinales). Their very title and dignity is a mushroom growth: in Constantine’s time no Cardinals were known: it was but yesterday in 1245 that Innocent IV gave them their red hats to distinguish them from the rest of the clergy 6 . . . “And ye travel not, except it be in pomp from your own lodging to the Pope’s Consistory, and thence to your own table, where ye eat and drink sumptuously. Then ye journey to your bed and sleep softly; after which ye are all day idle in your chambers, stagnating in sloth, and sporting with hounds and hawks, or with your nephews and your fat palfreys. Such is the business of your lives, nor do ye care what stranger lies in the street, who lacks bread, who needs clothing, who is to be visited or redeemed from captivity or buried. Surely ye might convert the whole world if ye followed what the Wise Man teacheth, ‘Run about, make haste, stir up thy friend:’ thus would men believe in you more than in their priests. Of the Lord it is said that He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues. But the chief Pontiff, who is called Pope, and Bishop, and Servant of the Servants of God, remains shut in day and night, that they may gain money who keep him in prison. . . . St. Paul said ‘There shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine: but according to their own desires they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.’ Of whom in truth ye are, who inquire after fables and news. Tell me who of your whole College — I mean of you Cardinals — has yet been written on the roll of the Saints? Certainly Pope Damasus was accused by you of adultery, St. Jerome was foully and shamefully driven away, but he did wisely in departing from you,9 and was of more profit to the Church of God by withdrawing from you than if he had remained with you and had become Pope; for if he had been Pope, perchance he might have made four Deacons and five Presbyters and fifteen Bishops in divers places, and would have 282 ordained patens of glass to be kept.10 But after his departure from your midst he edited many books, and expounded many, and translated the Bible. . . . I have spoken: it is enough.”
The Cardinals were cut to the heart and gnashed their teeth at the bold friar: “It seemed long to them till he should depart from them and go forth from the chamber, nor did they imitate the Athenians in saying ‘We will hear thee again concerning this matter.’ ” But the Pope, to his honour be it said, praised Hugh for his fearless speech: it will be remembered that Innocent, with all his faults, had also a real regard for the inconveniently earnest John of Parma. Moreover, Hugh had from the first stipulated that he should have fair play, and be allowed to finish his speech without interruption. Salimbene, ever glad to show his very great scripture knowledge, remarked that if the Cardinals had been less taken aback and more ready with their Bibles, they might have answered Hugh with one or two contemptuous texts such as Prov. xvii. 28, or xxvi. 10: or xix. 25. In this latter case they might have suited the action to the word and caused him to be scourged. To which Hugh answered that he would have taken the stripes cheerfully, with the tranquil conviction that he had had his money’s worth of plain speech beforehand: for he had thoroughly fulfilled his initial promise, “I will touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.”
On this point, as on nearly all the others on which I touch in these chapters, the significance of the evidence lies less even in its intensity than in its universality. That one or two men — even specially distinguished men — should have “rated the Cardinals like asses” is not so surprising: but the absence of rebutting evidence is most remarkable. Similar accusations of corruption made by orthodox writers against the Court of Rome during the last four centuries before the Reformation would fill a volume. Matthew Paris quotes the epigram:
“The whole world for Rome’s greed can not suffice
Nor the world’s harlots for its lecheries.”
Wherever the Pope has made his abode — until quite recent times — the morality of that city has always enjoyed an evil reputation. Hugh of St.-Cher, one of the few really learned and virtuous Cardinals under Innocent IV, made a memorable farewell speech to the citizens when the Papal Court was on the point of leaving Lyons: “We found three or four houses of ill-fame when he came hither [seven years ago], and now at our departure we leave the whole city one continuous brothel.” Petrarch has still 283 harder words for Avignon during the years of the Pope’s abode there: and its common nickname of “the sinful city” finds its way even into English parliamentary documents of the time. Exactly the same complaint was made against the city of Constance during the sitting of the Great Council in the next century. The iniquities of the city of Rome itself have always been proverbial: both Boccaccio and Benvenuto da Imola refer to them as notorious, and they are silently admitted even by Father Ryder in his reply to Littledale’s Plain Reasons.11
Moreover, the Bishops as a class were if anything worse than the Cardinals. We have seen what Jordan of Saxony says about them: and Salimbene among others, makes the very same complaint: “Note that in my days many Friars Minor and Preachers have been raised to bishoprics, rather by favour of their family and their fleshly kindred, than by favour of their Order. For the canons of the cathedral church of any city care little to have men of religious orders set above them as prelates, however clearly they may see them to shine in life and doctrine. For they fear to be rebuked of them, while they would fain live in fleshly lusts and wantonness.” At that Council of Lyons at which St. Bonaventura was the prominent figure, the good Gregory X had roundly asserted that “the prelates were the cause of the ruin of the whole world.” This Pope did what he could for reform during those brief years which were yet granted him “in a world too evil to retain him.” By exerting the whole weight of his authority, he succeeded in enforcing the resignation of the great prince-bishop Henry of Liège, who for nearly thirty years had led a life almost incredible, but for the plain evidence of similar episcopal scandals even under Innocent III. Two abbesses and a nun were among his concubines; and he boasted of having had fourteen children in twenty-two months. Though illiterate, and not made a priest till eleven years after, he had been elected for political reasons by the special exertions of Innocent IV, the Pope whose influence on the Church was perhaps strongest of all during Salimbene’s lifetime. It has been pleaded that we must be lenient to the episcopal scandals of the Middle Ages, regarding the Church rather as an unwilling victim to rude and oppressive secular lords, who too often forced unworthy prelates upon her: but the plea will not bear a moment’s serious examination.12 The Papal Court had plenty of power to minimize or even stamp out such an abuse, if it had cared to throw into such a struggle those energies which it wasted in petty Italian civil wars, in the persecution of heretics, and in the collection of vast sums to be squandered on selfish and 284 scandalous indulgences. What is more, contemporaries assure us that the Popes themselves were directly responsible for the unworthiness of the prelates. Salimbene, (as we have seen in Chapter VIII) quotes the saintly Cistercian Geoffroi de Péronne, whose spirit came back from the other world to announce he would have been damned without hope if he had let himself be persuaded by St. Bernard and the Pope to accept the Bishopric of Tournai. Franciscan records tell us how a 13th-century scholar of Paris, being led down to hell in a vision, asked news of his lately deceased uncle the Bishop. “The demon replied, ‘I know him not: so many Bishops come hither daily that I know not of whom thou speakest.’ ” We have small reason to look back fondly to an age when a Bishopric could be spoken of, even hyperbolically, as one of the high roads to damnation; and when this aversion to the office was strongest among many of the very best men. Salimbene has told us already of poor Rinaldo and the ex-Bishop of Turin: and similar evidence meets us everywhere. Gregory X complained of the number of Bishops who besieged him for leave to resign their sees. Albert the Great, a man perhaps superior on the whole to his pupil Aquinas, accepted the Bishopric of Ratisbon for the sake of carrying out definite and sorely needed reforms: the General of his Order treated this acceptance as a terrible fall. “Who would believe that you, in the very evening of life, would set such a blot on your own glory and on that of the Order which you have done so much to augment? Consider what has befallen such as have suffered themselves to be drawn into such offices: what their reputation now is, what fruits they have brought forth, how they have ended their lives!” Later on, Albert resigned his see, and died as a simple monk at Cologne. Aquinas refused the see of Naples, Bonaventura that of York. Such refusals are specially plentiful in Franciscan chronicles: but they stare out from every page of the history of the times, down to the Gran Rifiuto of Celestine V, who, before taking the decisive step, used to weep alone in his cell; “they say I have all power in this world over souls, and why cannot I ensure my own salvation?” It is generally known that John of Salisbury debated more or less seriously the question “Can an Archdeacon ever be saved?” but few know the earnest and far more significant discussion in Caesarius of Heisterbach. He begins: “A certain clerk at Paris pronounced a terrible judgment on Bishops a few years ago, saying, ‘I can believe anything, but I cannot believe that any German Bishop can ever be saved:’ ” and he goes on to quote Salimbene’s Geoffroi de Péronne as saying, “The state of the Church is now come to such a pass 285 that it is not worthy to be ruled but by Bishops doomed to damnation.”13
Lurid as this picture is, it is quite in accord with other details we find in Salimbene, though he leaves the world-renowned sinners alone, and speaks merely of those who have come within his own ken. We have seen already how low one Bishop of his acquaintance estimated Episcopal chances of salvation (435, quoted in chap. xxi). He tells us of eight Bishops of Parma during his lifetime. The first, uncle to Innocent IV, was “honest of his person, as men report” — i.e., chaste: a praise which of itself is significant. (69) His successor Grazia “was held by the Parmese to be a good Bishop: in truth he was no dissipator of the Episcopal revenues. After him came a certain Gregory, a Roman, who lived but a short time, and died at Mantua, a heretic and accursed. For when in his last illness they brought him the Body of the Lord, he would not take it, saying that he believed nothing of such a faith. When therefore he had been asked why he accepted the bishopric, he said, ‘Because of its riches and honours;’ and so he died, without the Holy Communion. After him Master Martin da Colurnio was Bishop, a man of no very distinguished birth; after whom came Bernardo Vizi. From this Bernard, (who had founded the Order of Brethren of Martorano,) although he had received the Bishopric from the Legate Gregorio da Montelungo, Pope Innocent IV nevertheless took it away and gave it to his brother Albert: for he dearly loved his kinsfolk.” (69, 176, 1285 — 365) Albert, though useless as a Bishop, was however again “honest of his person.” He never took priest’s orders or obtained consecration, though he held the see for fourteen years. His death was the signal for an exact repetition of the previous jobbery: Master John was canonically and rightly elected, but “then came the Lord Obizzo Bishop of Tripoli, who was likewise a nephew of the aforesaid Pope, and took it from him.” (69) Obizzo began less decently than his brother, but apparently lived to become quite a respectable specimen of an Italian Bishop. “He was rather like a knight, and may be described as we have above described the Lord Nicholas, Bishop of Reggio; for he was a clerk with the clergy, a monk with monks, a layman with laymen, a knight with knights, a baron with barons: a great embezzler (barator), a great waster, freehanded, liberal, and courtly. At first he wasted many lands and possessions of the Bishopric, and gave them to buffoons; but as time went on, he recovered the lands which he had given away, and did much good in his Bishopric. He was a man of learning, especially in Canon Law, and most skilled in the office of a Churchman, and 286 he knew the game of chess, and kept the secular clergy strictly under his rod, and he would give parishes and churches to those who did well by him.” (62). About ten years after Salimbene’s death, Obizzo was driven from Parma by a popular rising, and fled to Ravenna, where he succeeded Dante’s Bonifazio as Archbishop.14
This is not a brilliant record for sixty years of Bishops, in a see which was as safe from undue secular influence as any in Europe. In truth, Papal appointments were generally quite as political as any others: and these illegal interferences with the freedom of election constantly resulted in bloody quarrels or at least in long vacancies, during which the people got on as best they could without a Bishop. So it was at Milan after the death of the pugnacious Leo: so at Modena (141): and Reggio, still nearer to Parma, was thus vacant for ten years, while two noble candidates of rival houses fought out their differences. (175) The Papal candidate entered at last into his see: but Salimbene’s epitaph shows that he was of the type of Innocent’s other creations. (518). “In this year died the Lord Guglielmo Fogliani, Bishop of Reggio, and he ordered ill for the health of his soul. For he was avaricious, illiterate, and almost as a layman. He was also as Zacharias saith ‘a shepherd, and idol, that forsaketh the flock.’ He loved to live splendidly or eat sumptuously every day for the pampering of his body. Oft-times he made great feasts to the rich and to his relatives, but from the poor he shut up the bowels of compassion. He dowered no girls; he was a boorish man, that is, dull and rude: he had few who spoke well of him. It had been better for him had he been a swineherd or a leper than a Bishop. He left nothing to the Religious, nor to the Friars Minor or Preachers, nor to other poor: the poor Religious who were present that day at his funeral had naught to eat of his goods, or rather, of the goods of the Bishopric. I was present at his funeral and interment, and I know that a dog defiled his grave when he was laid therein.15 He was buried below in the cathedral church, where the men of the people are laid (yet he was worthy to be buried on a dung-heap;) and he troubled many that were at peace. He held the Bishopric of Reggio for forty years save one month.”
The avarice or wastefulness of the Bishops is a common medieval theme: many were the prelates of whom it might be said, as Innocent III said of the Archbishop of Narbonne, that he had a purse where his heart should have been. Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, with all his sense of responsibility, does not hesitate to tell us of a priest who suffered so terribly from an 287 episcopal visit and from the insatiable demands of his Lordship’s cook, that, in despair, he sawed several slices from the body of the great crucifix, and brought them roasted to the Bishop. “My larder is empty: I have nothing left for your table but these ribs of the Crucified.”16 Salimbene bears out this picture: in three other places he describes covetous Bishops of his day. Of one (Genoa) he adds that “men even whisper a sinister report of him, to wit that he was not altogether a good Catholic,” (317) but it is only fair to note that the author of the Golden Legend gives this Bishop a good character: (Chron. Januense, col. 47), and Salimbene seems certainly mistaken in quoting a report that he was finally murdered. He goes on with another anecdote on which Prof. Holder-Egger throws doubt also: “The Bishop of Ferrara was no less miserly and covetous than he; for when the Patriarch of Jerusalem had come from the Holy Land to Ferrara on a journey of business to the Roman Court, and besought the Bishop to lodge him for one night in his palace, he denied his brother that hospitality. So the Patriarch went to the Court of Rome; and there after a short space he was made Pope by the title of Urban IV. So he wrote letters to the Bishop of Ferrara saying, ‘Know now that I am Pope, and that I may render thee thy deserts for thy avarice and thy covetousness; since the Apostle saith “a Bishop must be given to hospitality.” ’ Yet we read not that the Pope wrought the Bishop any evil: though, indeed, the latter feared it all the days of his life, which itself was a great vengeance. The aforesaid Bishop was a Brescian by birth, and a physician by his calling: then he was made Bishop of Piacenza; and, going to the Court, he procured the Bishopric of Ferrara. At Piacenza he was wont to keep two Friars Minor in his palace; but they had a miserable life in the matter of victuals, by reason of his avarice.” Our chronicler describes the bestial debauchery of another (Faenza) in words which the Parmese editor felt bound to omit even from his Latin text. This satyr was succeeded by a mere party politician, who received a politician’s reward, and was driven out by the other faction. “So this Bishop went to Bagnacavallo, were he tarried all night shut up in the campanile of the parish church, quaking with terror, since he feared for his own skin. He lived but a few days after this, and another Bishop was made in his room.” (426 ). Indeed, good Bishops are rare in our chronicle: and the general level may be judged by Salimbene’s enthusiasm over the Patriarch of Antioch, (179) “who was of the family of Roberti at Reggio. At the time of the great earthquake he was Bishop of Brescia; and having left his 288 chamber at the cry of a certain Friar Minor who dwelt with him whilst he was Bishop, immediately after he had quitted it the chamber fell in at the shock of the earthquake; and he so recognised this benefit from God, that he was wholly converted to Him. For immediately without delay he made a vow, and promised firmly to God that for all the days of his life he would keep his chastity, which he was not formerly wont to keep; and that all the days of his life he would eat no flesh, which vow he inviolably kept. Yet he gave abundantly to all of his household, according to the word of St. Chrysostom which saith, ‘Wilt thou both appear and be holy, be austere with respect to thine own life, kindly with respect to the lives of others. Let men hear of thee as doing hard things, and commanding small things.’ But there are some wretched men, who when they abstain and fast, would have all men do likewise, and when they are sad, would have all be sad, which, indeed, they do either from avarice or from churlishness. This Patriarch was wont to do as the Apostle saith to the Romans, ‘Rejoice with them that rejoice, weep with them that weep,’ which, indeed, he did excellently, for he could be sportive when he would. Wherefore, one day as he sat at meat with his whole court and many other guests, he saw how a certain jongleur hid by stealth a silver spoon. So the Patriarch called his servant and said to him, ‘I will not return thee my spoon unless each one at this table shall first have returned thee his,’ and so by this speech he made this seneschal careful, and recovered his spoon. Moreover, the said Patriarch was a man of small learning, but made amends for this defect by other good deeds which he wrought; for he was a bountiful almsgiver, and was wont daily to say the Office for the dead with nine lessons. Being, therefore, a man with small learning, who made up by good works for that to which he could not attain in books, he might have said ‘Because I have not known learning, I will enter into the powers of the Lord,’ and so forth (Ps. lxx. 15 Vulg.): for, as St. Paul saith, ‘The letter killeth but the spirit quickeneth.’ Because therefore this Patriarch continued his good life from the time when he gave up his heart wholly to love of God, therefore God glorified him in death by miracles, thus showing that he had been his servant and friend. Which miracles I write not here for brevity’s sake.” Of another Archbishop (Embrun) Salimbene records “he was made a Cardinal of the Roman court, and was a man of worth in learning and in song and in letters and in honest and holy life. And one day when a jongleur had played his viol in the Archbishop’s presence and begged for a gift the prelate answered, ‘if 289 thou art in want of food, I will give gladly unto thee for God’s sake: but I would give thee nought for thy song and viol-play, for I can sing and play as well as thou.’ ” (323).
Another good Bishop’s life shows that medieval belief in the mysterious significance of anniversaries and symmetrical periods of time, which comes out so strikingly in the “Vita Nuova.” At Marseilles a boy was born on the Feast of St. Benedict, and named Benedict; and after he had been weaned, he was set to learn letters on St. Benedict’s day; afterwards, well versed in literature and almost grown to manhood, he entered upon St. Benedict’s day into the Order of Black Monks of St. Benedict: and in process of time he was made sacristan on that same day. Then, many years after, for his good life and manners, the monks choose him for their abbot on the Feast of St. Benedict; and thus, step by step, on the Feast of St. Benedict the Canons of Marseilles chose him to be their Bishop, in which office he bore himself with all praise. At length on the same day he entered the Order of the Blessed Francis, wherein he lived humbly and with all praise for ten years, and breathed his last on the Feast of St. Benedict. He is buried in a marble tomb in the church of the Friars Minor of Marseilles, and God hath glorified him by miracles. He was, indeed, a man of venerable life, blessed both in grace and in name . . . Blessed be that Bishop, for he began well and ended well, and the Friars Minor of Marseilles had many good books through his favour; for he would rather ‘be humbled with the meek than to divide the spoils with the proud.’ ”
But there is one prelate in this book who needs no apology of any kind: a man little known compared with inspired madmen like Brother Juniper and Jacopone da Todi, yet a far truer son of the real Christ-like Francis. Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, would scarcely have run stark naked through the streets with Ruffino and his master: but he plodded doggedly along the thorny path of office for 27 years, and men called him afterwards “The Model of Good Life.”17 One of the greatest scholars of his time, he quitted his books to wrestle with the sordid ignorance of clergy and laity in a great province. Of noble birth, he was one of the few friars whom the princely state and income of a prelate never tempted away from their first simplicity: to the very last he valued his friendship of King Louis and his influence with the Popes mainly for the power they lent him in his daily warfare against the encompassing wickedness. Side by side with St. Bonaventura, he led the van of the reformers at the second council at Lyons; and he has left to posterity the most valuable 290 episcopal record of medieval Europe — an official diary so complete, that, except for two or three chance omissions, we may trace his movements and his labours from day to day for more than twenty years. It unfortunately does not begin until a month after Salimbene’s meeting with him and St. Louis at Sens in 1248. But it does record the Archbishop’s presence at Mantua, Ferrara, and Bologna early in 1253, when we know Salimbene to have been living at Ferrara; and of this journey our chronicler tells us the following anecdote. (434) “The Legate dealt most generously at Mantua with Brother Rigaud and all his household when he passed towards the Court of Rome: and he sent forward his seneschal to pay his expenses as far as Bologna: but Brother Rigaud would not suffer him, saying that he and his whole household could live with becoming splendour on the half of his revenue, wherefore the other half was superfluous to him. Yet he had on that journey eighty mounted attendants, and a proper household; and when he sat at meat in the city of Ferrara he had with him four Friars Minor, who had gone to visit him. And he had before him on the table two great bowls of silver, wherein food was put for the poor, and his butler always brought two dishes of each kind of food, according to the diversities of meats, and laid them before Brother Rigaud: and he kept one dish for himself and ate therefrom, and the other he poured into the silver bowls, for the poor. And this he did with each course and each several sorts of meats. Now this Brother Rigaud was of our Order, and one of the most learned men in the world. He had been doctor of theology in the convent [at Paris]: being a most excellent disputator and a most gracious preacher. He wrote a work on the Sentences; he was a friend of St. Louis, King of France, who indeed laboured that he might be made Archbishop of Rouen. He loved well the Order of the Friars Preachers, as also his own of the Friars Minor, and did them both much good: he was foul of face, but gracious in mind and works, for he was holy and devout, and ended his life well; may his soul, by God’s mercy, rest in peace! He had a brother according to the flesh in the Order, a goodly man and learned, who was called Brother Adam le Rigaud. I saw both often and in in divers places.” Brother Adam appears prominently also in the diary, from which I shall quote later on to corroborate Salimbene’s evidence as to the parish clergy. The bitterest epigrams of satirists and preachers, the most heartrending confessions of great administrators like St. Bonaventura, are less dismal on the whole than the daily prosaic tale of the struggles, and disappointments, and compromises of this other saint who faced the most thankless routine work 291 under a system already rotten to the core. Eudes Rigaud was one of those true heroes who plod on through the discouragements which all men are apt to feel in their own generation, and from which most of us are tempted to escape in day-dreams of the past or of the future. We cannot help admiring poor Rinaldo for throwing off the Lord Bishop to beg round the town in his ragged frock, and presently to lay his weary bones in a grave which the poor folk honoured with their simple faith. But a closer acquaintance with the morals and manners of the 13th century would move most men to far deeper respect for his sturdy brother of Rouen, who laboured for nearly half a lifetime to make the crooked paths straight.
IT is sometimes tacitly assumed that, however, unworthy the clergy of the early 13th century might have been, the Franciscan and Dominican movements soon effected something like a radical reform. Such ideas as this are mainly fostered by a class of writers who read their Franciscan texts only in the light of carefully expurgated Church histories. Father Cuthbert, for instance, has prefaced his translation of Thomas of Eccleston with a long introduction which takes the most medieval licence with the facts of history. He describes (p. 4) the embarrassment caused to the clergy by the growth of urban populations in language almost strong enough to describe the present state of things. Yet the plain fact is that England in the 13th century had nearly 9000 parish churches to four million souls — or only about 450 per parish — and that the towns were, if anything, better off for priests than the country districts. There were of course great inequalities then as now: St. Peter’s Mancroft at Norwich contained probably about 3000 souls: and Cæsarius speaks of a specially large parish in Germany which contained 10,000: though here he probably takes the usual medieval licence with figures. But an attempt to represent the average medieval town Paris as over-populated is contradicted by the most elementary facts of economic history: and such descriptions as Father Cuthbert’s are simply random exaggerations of the already ultra-enthusiastic picture drawn by Prof. Brewer.1 St. Bonaventura does indeed complain how great is the harvest and how few the labourers: but the context of this complaint, with its stress on the uselessness of the clergy and the perversity of their flocks, makes it perfectly consistent with the figures above quoted; especially when it is borne in mind that Italian conditions were definitely worse than French or English in this respect. The saint, as one who both knew the facts and had reason to weigh his words, is our most unexceptionable Italian authority on this subject.2 “The world,” he complains, “seems far worse 293 now than it was of old”: “many (plures) clergy weaken the laity both in morals and in faith by their evil example. . . . Very many of the clergy are notoriously unchaste, keeping concubines in their houses or elsewhere, or notoriously sinning here and there with many persons. . . . Simple folk might think that those sins among the clergy were not hateful to God, unless we preached against them; and silly women might think that it was no fault to sin with them; as it is well known that some have been so persuaded by the clergy. . . . Many (plerique) of them [cannot hear confessions, since] an honest woman fears to lose her reputation if she whisper secretly with them . . . Again, whereas the late Legate in Germany gave a general sentence of suspension from office and benefice against clergy who solicited nuns of any Order to sin, and of excommunication against all who actually sinned with them . . . it is to be feared that many have come under this sentence.” Yet these go on in their parishes as if nothing had happened, and crucify Christ daily afresh: while their confession and absolution are void and their prayers ineffectual, and the parishioners have no right to attend their Masses. Even these, moreover, are only a small proportion of the parish priests who have lost almost all priestly powers, and are therefore worse than useless, deceiving their flocks with hollow ministrations, leaving them in their sins, and involving in their own excommunication those parishioners who ask them for Masses or offer them money.3 For the unchaste, the illegitimately born, the simoniacal, the pluralists, those who have celebrated in defiance of their suspension — all these numerous clergy have become “irregular” and lost the power of binding and loosing from sin, unless (which is seldom the case) they amend and procure the removal of their disabilities. Moreover, even of those who have the strict right to bind or loose, few are able to use it properly. “There are in Italy so many inexperienced clergy that, even if they be well-taught in grammar and other knowledge, yet where a hundred or more rectors and vicars are gathered together, there are scarcely any (vix pauci) who have in fact enough knowledge of the Scriptures to manage either the souls committed to their care, or other things necessary for salvation . . . [The Prelates], given up to temporal cares, wink at these faults, so that there is scarce any hope of amendment: nay, even if at times they would fain correct such shortcomings and removed the unprofitable clergy, they have none better to put in their places.” Therefore the Friars themselves are terribly hampered in their ministrations, since they dare not supersede the parish clergy too openly for fear of increasing what 294 is already the main cause of heresies — the contempt of the flocks for their pastors. Almost incredibly dark as this picture seems, it is borne out by the contemporary writers Eudes Rigaud in France, Berthold of Ratisbon in Germany, and Salimbene in Italy. Here, for instance, is the latter’s report of the Council of Ravenna in 1261. (403) It had been summoned at the Pope’s bidding to collect money against the invading Tartars: but the parish clergy refused to contribute until they had discussed the encroachments of the Friars upon their duties and privileges. “So the Archbishop began hotly to defend the Friars, saying ‘Wretched madmen! to whom shall I commit the confessions of layfolk, if the Friars are not to hear them? I cannot with a safe conscience commit them to you: for if they come to you seeking balm for their souls, and desiring to confess, ye give them poison for drink. For ye lead women behind the altar under pretence of confession, and there ye deal as the sons of Eli dealt at the door of the tabernacle, which is horrible to relate and more horrible to do. Therefore doth the Lord complain of you though the mouth of the prophet Hosea “I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: these are the fornications of Ephraim”: for therefore are ye grieved that the Friars hear confession since ye would not that they should hear your evil deeds. Can I commit women’s confessions to the priest Gerard here present, when I know well that he has a whole house full of sons and daughters, and that he might not unfitly be spoken of in the words of the Psalmist, “Thy children shall be like young olive trees around thy table”? And would that Gerard were singular in this matter, and had no partners like unto himself!̵y; So when the Archbishop had thus spoken his mind, all were ashamed who were conscious of guilt in this matter.” Salimbene then goes on to record two incidents of which the first, though told originally by the Bishop within whose experience it happened, and repeated by Pope Alexander IV to St. Bonaventura, cannot be reproduced here even in summary. (409) Its moral is the same as that of this next here following. (411) “I knew one Brother Umile of Milan, who was Custode of the Parma Custody.4 One Lententide, when he was dwelling in our convent of Fano, he was busy in preaching and hearing confessions. The mountaineers, men and women, hearing this, sent and prayed him for God’s sake and for the salvation of their souls, to deign to come unto them; for they would fain confess to him. So he took a companion and went unto them preaching and hearing confessions for many days, and working much good there with his salutary counsels. So one day a certain woman 295 came to him for confession.” It transpired that she had twice been not only invited, but forced to sin by the priests to whom she had come for confession. “He therefore said to her: ‘I have not invited thee to sin, nor will I so invite thee: but rather I invite thee to the joys of Paradise, which the Lord will grant thee if thou love Him and do penance.’ So he gave her absolution, and said, ‘What meaneth this knife which thou hast in thy hand, at such an hour as this?’ She answered, ‘Father, in truth I was purposed to stab myself and die in my despair, if ye had invited me to sin as the other priests had done.’ ” Any reader who cares to follow this subject up should refer to the story of the old canon of Lucca (426). Prof. Michael (p. 75) does Salimbene great injustice in complaining that our chronicler relates so many startling stories in such plain language. One of the worst of those stories (as we have seen) came to him through a Saint and a Pope. It is impossible to get away from such things in facing the real facts of the Middle Ages. So far from being exceptional in its plain speech, Salimbene’s chronicle is at least as fit to be put into a girl’s hands as many definitely “edifying” books of the Middle Ages. It will bear comparison in this respect with the collections of anecdotes for sermons made by Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, the Dominican Etienne de Bourbon, and the Franciscan Nicole Bozon; with Bishop Thomas of Chantimpré’s edifying treatise De Apibus, or with that standard book of religious instruction, the Gesta Romanorum. It is decidedly more decent than the manual which the Chevalier de la Tour-Landry wrote for his two daughters, and which became at once the most popular educational treatise of the Middle Ages. If Salimbene, in speaking of the clergy of his time, uses language shocking to modern ears, it is because he has to describe a state of things entirely foreign to modern experience. * For indeed all thirteenth century writers who take their readers into their confidence speak practically with the same voice about the abuse of the Sacrament of Penitence. They show us the confessional treated as a farce on the one hand, or used for blackmail and seduction on the other: moreover, even the well-meaning “groper of consciences” would sometimes put into innocent 296 minds ideas hitherto undreamt of, yet henceforth never to be forgotten, as Cæsarius (for instance) complains. Nowadays, when confession is practised by only a fraction of the population, under the eye of unsympathetic critics and with hitherto unknown guarantees for publicity, the system is no doubt comparatively free from the worst scandals which were the despair of good Churchmen in the 13th century.5 No apologist has ever dared to grapple at close quarters with the evidence brought forward thirty-eight years ago by Dr. Lea; yet still the ordinary public has only a faint conception of the actual facts; and modern Englishmen have reason to be proud that their countrymen are so slow to realize abominations which haunted the saints of the Middle Ages like a nightmare. Moreover, it is necessary to protest against the mischievous modern plea that most of these clerical connexions were virtual, though not legal, marriages. Even if this were true, what religious denomination could hold up its head in any civilized country of to-day, if a large proportion of its clergy, (to suggest a very mild parallel,) habitually broke the law by marrying their deceased wives sisters? But the plea itself contains only a very small grain of truth, even if we consider 13th century England and Germany alone, where the clergy fought so hard for their ancient rights. On every side we have evidence that the tie was necessarily furtive, scandalous, and precarious. The Register of Salimbene’s friend Eudes Rigaud, which gives us the very names of the worse clerical offenders in the diocese of Rouen between 1248 and 1261, shows us that scarcely any of these connexions can possibly have borne the character even of an informal marriage. Many of them were multiple: some even incestuous. None of the evidence packed into Dr. Lea’s 650 learned pages — accurate as it is reluctantly allowed to be even by hostile critics — has the same quite force as this diary in which the saintly Eudes wrote down sadly, from day to day, the results of his visitations. In very few dioceses in Europe can the conditions have been so favourable as in that of Rouen: yet here we find, at the first visitation, 18 per cent. of the parishes possessing, to the Archbishop’s knowledge, drunken or concubinary priests. Worse still, it was difficult to remove even these, and dangerous in many ways — for what security had the Archbishop for those who might take their places? True, the offenders were ipso facto excommunicate: but they went on deluding their flocks with sacraments and services of which many were invalid in Canon Law: and even this very exceptionally strong prelate was almost powerful against the dead weight of their resistance. As his contemporary Bourbon put it, the clergy 297 cared more for a fine of a few shillings than for their bishop’s sentence of excommunication: and, later on, the University of Oxford was driven to the same and confession.6
Not half a century after St. Francis’s’ death, it was already impossible for the Friars to imitate him in kissing a priest’s hand as a rebuke to others who accused their pastor of immorality. These few years had made it quite plain that, if the Friars were ever to reform the Church, it must be in spite of the parish priests. St. Bonaventura, as we have seen, was driven to speak of them in terms which might well seem too violent in the mouth of a modern Protestant: and I will here conclude with Salimbene’s racier, though not more damning, evidence. (425) “I have found some priests lending out their money to usury and enriching themselves merely for the sake of their bastards: again, I have found others keeping taverns, with the sign of the hoop,7 and selling wine, and their whole house full of bastard children, and spending their nights in sin, and celebrating Mass next day. And when the people communicate, they thrust the consecrated host which remain over into clefts of the wall: though these are the very body of our Lord. And many other foul things they do and horrible to be told, which I pass over for brevity’s sake. They keep their missals, corporals, and church ornaments in an indecent state — coarse, black, and stained: tiny chalices of tarnished pewter; rough country wine, or vinegar, for the Mass. The hosts they consecrate are so little as scarce to be seen betwixt their fingers — not circular, but square, and all filthy with the excrements of flies.† Many women have better shoe-bands than the cincture, stole, and maniple of many priests, as I have seen with mine own eyes. One day when a Franciscan friar had to celebrate mass in a certain priest’s church on a feast-day, he had no stole but the girdle of the priest’s concubine, with the bunch of keys attached: and when the friar (whom I knew well) turned round to say ‘Dominus vobiscum,’ the people heard the jingling of the keys. (425). Am I then to preach for tithes on these men’s behalf? or shall I for their sake abstain from celebrating Mass in our convents, that they may the easier get offerings to spend in this fashion? God forbid, God forbid!” And he quotes the evidence of the so-called Devil’s Letter, which was commonly believed in the Middle Ages. (419) “Certain it is that, before the Friars Minor and Preachers had appeared in the world, when the secular clergy and prelates were gathered together 298 at a synod, letters were thrown into their midst couched in these terms: ‘The Prince of darkness to the Prelates of the churches, greeting. We give you abundant thanks, for that all the souls committed to you are transmitted to us.’ ”8
Moreover, many of the parish clergy were as ignorant as they were idle and immoral. Roger Bacon, casting about for an illustration of parrot-learning which would at once be understood by his hearers, wrote “just as boys gabble through the psalter which they have learnt; and as clerks and country priests recite the Church services (of which they know little or nothing) like brute beasts.” St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventura, Cæsarius of Heisterbach, St. Bernardino, St. Catharine of Siena, and Sacchetti made similar complaints, which were echoed in many great church councils during the times of St. Francis and Dante. At two English synods, in 1222 and 1237, it was enacted, “Let the Archdeacons see that the priests can rightly pronounce at least the formula of consecration [in the Mass] and that of baptism, and that they clearly understand the meaning of these two formulas.” The modern reader may well stagger at the abyss of ignorance revealed by these injunctions, and hesitated to press them to their legitimate conclusion without further evidence. But we have such evidence in abundance. For instance, the Salisbury Register of St. Osmund, under the year 1222, contains a record of the examination to which a number of curates were submitted who had long been serving livings in the gift of the Dean and Chapter. Five of these men, who had been in priests’ Orders for an average of nearly six years, were unable to construe or parse the very first words of the Canon of the Mass — the most solemn portion of the whole service, which could be learnt by heart almost in a single day by a man to whom Latin is really familiar. What is more, there is no hint of any measures taken to get rid of these illiterate priests, though the Commissaries did superannuate another worn-out curate whose toothless jaws mumbled to unintelligibly as it make it impossible, (according to Canon Law,) that he should work the miracle of Transubstantiation. It may be that curates were often hired for Dean and Chapter livings in the cheapest market, as was notoriously the case with monastic churches; yet even so it is startling to find five such incapables in seventeen parishes. But the contemporary Register of Eudes Rigaud records six similar examinations of clergy, with very similar results. One candidate could not even construe annus: he dimly thought that it meant “often,” and when asked “How often?” replied “Every day!” Another, whom the Archbishop found “unable to read competently or 299 to construe,” promptly gave notice of appeal to the Pope. Johann Busch gives us similar evidence for Germany in the 15th century. Abbot Gasquet’s attempts to whitewash English religious education in the later Middle Ages rest, like so many of his other theses, partly on disingenuous suppressions and partly on misquotation of his documents.9 For, as the clergy were, so were their flocks. Bishop Haymo of Hythe, founding an almhouse in 1337 for the special benefit of men of good position who had come down in the world, made it a sine qua non that they should know the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave, and the Creed: and we have plenty of evidence to show how necessary this stipulation was. What (for instance) must have been the ignorance of those lay populations to whom their clergy could quote St. Paul broadcast as having counselled Christians to “walk cautiously even if they did not live chastely?” What was the education of those “many thousands” who, in consequence of the lying persuasions of indulgence-mongers, “falsely believe that they have done penance for all their sins with a penny or a halfpenny, and so go straight to hell?” These are the words of Brother Berthold of Ratisbon, perhaps the greatest popular preacher of the 13th century, of whom Roger Bacon speaks no less enthusiastically than Salimbene: and the testimony of Gascoigne two centuries later is more damning still. The plain proofs of popular ignorance and irreverence, though they have never yet been fairly faced, are bewildering in their multiplicity. The many-sided records of medieval life, public and private, show us the people going in and out as they pleased during Mass; often coming in only for a moment at the Elevation, and forthwith “running off as if they had not seen Christ but the Devil.” Among St. Louis’s brief dying instructions to his sons we find “attend the service of Holy Church devoutly and without jesting talk.” The knight of La Tour Landry impresses the same on his daughters: and his statement of the strictest theory on this point is eloquent as to the laxer practice of the majority: “sum clerkes susteineth that none shulde not speke no manere thing whiles they bene atte masse, and in especial atte the gospel, nor atte the ‘per omnia.’ ” Silence during the Church services was among the nineteen points of self-denial to which Franciscan Tertiaries were pledged by their statutes. Visitations of great cathedral and collegiate churches record how the canons and vicars walked about during the service, chattered with women in the aisles, or across to each other in the choir, mocked aloud at the officiants, and played childish practical jests, dropping hot wax or snuffings from their candles upon the shaven pates of the 300 clergy in the stalls below them “to excite ridicule and perhaps . . . open discord, or at least rancour and spite of heart.” These irreverences had become so ingrained that the Bishop of Angers complained at the Ecumenical council of Vienne in 1311 “the clergy of collegiate churches . . . impede and disturb divine service, to the scandal of many”: and a formal statement to the same effect was solemnly registered by the Pope in his collection of Decretals. Moreover, church councils constantly complain of the indevout way in which the service was gabbled. Benvenuto, in his note on Inf. vii, 125 ff, explains how Dante’s “this hymn they gurgle in their throats” contains a direct satire upon the clergy: “since priests, whose duty it is to sing hymns, labour most of all under the vice of accedia and asinine sloth (asinitatis); wherefore such sluggards, when they chant divine service, oft-times can scarce move their lips.” Etienne de Bourbon speaks even more strongly: a priest came back from the dead to say that “an infinite multitude of clerks and priests” suffered terribly in hell for the words they had skipped or mumbled in their services. I have heard” (he goes on) “that a poor scholar came from Paris and helped a parish priest to celebrate Mass. When the priest was saying his hours, he so corrupted the verses that the scholar could not understand a word, but only the sound: so he for his part began to cry aloud in imitation of what he had heard in Paris of a workman crying his wares (even as, for instance, botchers of old clothes cry, or such as go about seeking old shoes, or muffin-men); and the priest believed him to have said all his responses aright, for he understood the clerks as little as the clerk understood him — that is, he heard only the sound of his voice.”10
We need hardly wonder, then, that Berthold of Ratisbon has to complain of ordinary lay folk habitually talking at Mass “as if they were at market.” “Nay, Brother Berthold, we understand not the Mass,” pleads a voice from the congregation. “The sermon indeed we can follow word by word, but not the Mass: we know not what is being sung or read; we cannot comprehend it.” The good friar finds the excuse so far justified, that he spends the rest of his sermon in explaining roughly the different stages of the ecclesiastical service. St. Bernardino, again, interrupts one of his sermons with the same complaint. “Fie on you, ladies! for in the morning while I am saying Mass ye make such a noise that I seem to hear a pile of clattering bones, such a chatter do ye make. One says ‘Giovanna’! another cries, ‘Caterina’! and a third ‘Francesca’! Oh! your fine devotion to hear Mass! To my poor wits, it seems 301 to be mere confusion, without any devotion or reverence whatsoever. Do ye not consider that here we celebrate the glorious body of Christ the Son of God, for your salvation? and that ye should stay so still that none should say a single hush! Yet here comes Madonna Pigara, and would fain sit in front of Madonna Sollecita. No more of this: ‘first at the mill, first grind.’11 Take your seats in order as ye come, and let none crowd in before you. And now to my sermon again.” His contemporary, Gerson, complains in the same words as Berthold 200 years before: “they talk as if they were at market.” Men and women scuffled and fought for precedence not only at the Communion but also at religious processions: such fights not infrequently ended fatally.12 Apart from war and the nameless vices of the soldiery,13 even in times of peace the churches were too often neglected by priests and people alike. Parish churches and cathedrals were used as barns; a Devonshire parson even brewed his beer within the sacred walls. If the Reformation had come in the middle of the 13th instead off the 16th century, there would have been comparatively little point in Dr. Jessopp’s articles on “the Great Pillage.” The separation of the sexes during service, often revived in our own day, was in those days a necessary measure of propriety. The vulgar proverb that “thunderbolts often fall on the church but never on the tavern,” is justified by Bourbon on the ground of the profanities and indecencies which went on in God’s house: and he is borne out by an anecdote which Wadding quotes.14 Really devout people, of course, attended Mass daily: but St. Bernardino speaks as if the majority came only on Sundays, and with very scant reverence even then. To communicate every Sunday and holy day was very exceptional, and such superfluous devotion was sometimes strongly discouraged by the parish clergy.15 Moreover, we get glimpses here and there of the most extraordinary irregularities even in the most ordinary ecclesiastical offices. Sacchetti mentions “a good many” who did not feel certain that they had been baptized, and whom he consoles by assuring them their faith in the fact would be taken by God as equivalent as the fact itself. The ignorant folk were withheld from accepting extreme unction by the grossest superstitions, and in Germany at least by the heavy fee which the clergy demanded for that sacrament. A Constitution of Archbishop Peckham (1281) complains that there were in England “numberless people grown old in evil days who had not yet received the grace of confirmation:” and there is similar evidence on this subject from Germany, Flanders, and 302 Austria. Yet it must be borne in mind how numerous and powerful the clergy were, what rights the law gave them over almost every part of their parishioners’ lives, and how fully they insisted on those rights whenever they were pecuniarily profitable. Indeed, one of the main causes for the general irreverence was the fact that clergy and people were constantly quarrelling about tithes. It was a matter of common complaint that heretics found their strongest justification in the lives of the clergy: as Benvenuto comments on Purg. xvi. 102: “we see, as a matter of fact, that the people catch vices more readily than virtues from the morals of the priests.” Gower bears him out; and the professor and the satirist are outdone in vehemence by the greatest saint of their time. “It is impossible,” writes Mr. E. G. Gardner, “to reject the appalling picture of the corruption of the ministers of the Church that is given us by St. Catherine [of Siena] herself in certain amazing chapters of her Dialogue. The saint’s own words make it abundantly clear that the lives of the great prelates of the curia and of the humblest parish priests alike were too often such that the fire from heaven, with which Dante and Petrarch had threatened the Cardinals, seemed as though it needs must fall.”16
It need not surprise us therefore to find that, even in the 13th century, the heretics were often distinguished from the orthodox laity by their avoidance of profane oaths and by their wider religious knowledge. We know this on the testimony of their most determined adversaries. “They know the Apostle’s Creed excellently in the vulgar tongue,” says Etienne de Bourbon: “they learn by heart the Gospels of the New Testament in the vulgar tongue, and repeat them aloud to each other. . . . I have seen a young cowherd who had dwelt but one year in the house of a Waldensian heretic, yet had attended so diligently and repeated so carefully all that he heard, as to have learned by heart within that year forty Sunday gospels, not counting those for feast-days . . . . and other extracts from sermons and prayers. I have also seen some layfolk who were so steeped in their doctrine that they could even repeat by heart a great part of the Evangelists, as Matthew or Luke, and especially all that is said therein of our Lord’s teaching and sayings; so that they could repeat them continuously with scarce one wrong word here and there. This I say on account of their diligence in evil and the negligence of the Catholics in good; for many (plures) of these latter are so negligent of their own and their families’ salvation as scarce to know their Pater or their Creed, or to teach the same to their servants.” Berthold of Ratisbon says the same 303 of the Jews, that they knew their Bible better than Christian laymen, and were therefore dangerous adversaries. At the same time, the Church blindly attempted to right herself by suppressing these “heretical” scripture studies, instead of rivalling them by the thoroughness of her own instruction in orthodoxy: and even the enlightened Busch, who would allow the laity some religious books in their mother tongue, disapproved of “such lofty or divine books” as a translation of the Communion service: indeed, finding one in the hands of some nuns, he committed it to the flames. The modern apology that the authorities forbade only unorthodox translations of Bibles and religious books is demonstrably false.17 The Friars had, it is true, brought a real change into religious education: yet even so the world of 1300 was far less in advance of 1200 than both were still behind our present age, with all its grievous shortcomings. The Friars did study the Bible, in the earlier generations at least; and Salimbene himself is an admirable example. But they did little to spread the knowledge of the actual text among the people, who were fed on glosses and pious embroideries rather than on the plain facts of Bible history. One of the most popular books of this kind, St. Bonaventura’s Hundred Meditations on the Life of Christ, contains a good twenty per cent. of glosses from the Fathers, or else of sheer romance, based upon the saint’s own surmises of what might have happened, or on revelations vouchsafed to “a holy Brother of our Order.” In spite of a general warning at the beginning of the book, and several others elsewhere, there is nothing in most cases to mark the transition from Bible fact to pious fancy. The Virgin Mary is constantly brought in as acting and speaking without the least Biblical authority. And the example thus set by one of the first men of the century was naturally followed by others: e.g. by the friar who wrote the very pretty but utterly unbiblical romance of the Magdelene, lately translated by Miss Hawtrey. Chaucer’s keen eye noted this tendency on the Friars’ part. (Cant. Tales, D. 1790, 1920). St. Bonaventura’s book, apparently, was designed for the immediate use of the clergy, through whom it would filter to the people: but in this indirect process it would be just the extraneous features of these biblical romances which would catch the hearers’ fancy, and stick most surely. At the best, therefore, the great bulk of the people knew the Bible story only with a strong admixture of modern Franciscan notions.18 Here again Chaucer helps us: his clerk Nicholas, reminding the carpenter of Noah’s flood, has no doubt that he will remember the least Biblical feature in that event as conceived in the 304 later Middle Ages — the refusal of Noah’s wife to embark until she had drunk one more pot of ale with her jolly gossips ashore. It is true that many of St. Bonaventura’s fancies are really beautiful: but it is difficult to realize nowadays how inevitably even the most pious fancies ended in hateful falsehoods, among people who had no materials for criticism and were not permitted free discussion. A single example may suffice. The legends of the early martyrs had inspired many generations of Christians; and the pious enthusiasm with which each martyrologist would outbid his predecessors in describing their odour of sanctity and their joy under torments might well seem harmless or even praiseworthy. Yet these legends, from the 13th century onwards, served to steel the hearts of naturally charitable men against the most devilish cruelties practised on their fellow-Christians. St. James of the Mark, arguing with those Fraticelli whose faith had originated in loyalty to the Franciscan tradition, takes it as a plain note of uncatholicity that their sect does not flourish, like the early Christians, under the unrelenting persecutions to which it is subjected. Again, (he argues) when a heretic is burnt the odour of sanctity is entirely wanting: “for instance, when the Pope Nicholas V was at Fabriano, certain heretics were burned there, and the stench of them filled the city three days long; this I know, for I smelt the evil savour all those three days even in our convent.” Etienne de Bourbon tells a similar story; and St. Bernardino of Siena was of the same mind.19 When we consider in what blind reliance on this and similar pious figments whole populations have been exterminated at the bidding of men who thought to do God service, we may well be thankful that the poorest in our own age have at any rate some chance of checking mistaken glosses by comparison with the text to which all Christians nominally appeal in the last resort.
I am quite aware that much of what I have written in this chapter will excite strong disapproval in many quarters, and that in one sense the very strength of my evidence may render it scarcely credible to modern readers. I would only repeat that while I have often tried in vain to obtain any real evidence from apologists of the Middle Ages, I am always ready to discuss this and similar questions, at my own expense, with an competent student of medieval history.
* The fullest evidence on this subject may be found in Dr. Lea’s Confession, vol. i, p. 392, and Celibacy, pp. 350, 566, 632. some who cannot deny the accuracy of Dr. lea’s quotations accuse him of playing the part of “the man with the muck-rake:” but readers who have gone over a good deal of the same ground in original authorities will only wonder at his moderation and self-restraint. He might have quoted indefinitely more to the same effect, but has rightly judged it useless to multiply evidence which is already absolutely conclusive to any open mind.
† Cf. Mirror of Perfection, chaps. 56 and 65, where Leo describes how St. Francis used to carry a broom to sweep dirty churches, and tried to teach priests to treat the consecrated host with more reverence.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 See note.