Life of St. Francis of Assisi
behold, thou wouldst make us leave the strait and difficult path
of salvation, and wouldst set us in the broad road of eternal
death. Thou hast preached to us (the virtues of) solitude, and
thou art about to change this place into a fair and a
market-place. We know well that thou art a saint! Thou hast no
need to prove it to us by performing miracles which will destroy
our humility. Be not so zealous for thy reputation as to augment
it to the injury of our salvation. This is what we ask of thee,
expecting it of thy love. If not, we declare unto thee by the
obedience which we once owed to thee, we will unearth thy bones
and throw them into the river."
Stephen obeyed up to the time of his canonization (1189), but from that
time forward ambition, avarice, and luxury made such inroads upon the
solitude of Grammont that its monks became the byword and scoff of the
Christian world.[8]
Pierre of Limoges was not entirely without reason in fearing that his
monastery would be transformed into a fair-ground; members of the
chapters of most of the cathedrals kept wine-shops literally under their
shadows, and certain monasteries did not hesitate to attract custom by
jugglers of all kinds and even by courtesans.[9]
To form an idea of the degradation of the greater number of the monks it
is not enough to read the oratorical and often exaggerated reproofs of
preachers obliged to strike hard in order to produce an effect. We must
run through the collection of bulls, where appeals to the court of Rome
against assassinations, violations, incests, adulteries, recur on
almost every page. It is easy to see that even an Innocent III. might
feel himself helpless and tempted to yield to discouragement, in the
face of so many ills.[10]
The best spirits were turning toward the Orient, asking themselves if
perchance the Greek Church might not suddenly come forward to purify all
these abuses, and receive for herself the inheritance of her sister.[11]
The clergy, though no longer respected, still overawed the people
through their superstitious terror of their power. Here and there might
have been perceived many a forewarning of direful revolts; the roads to
Rome were crowded with monks hastening to claim the protection of the
Holy See against the people among whom they lived. The Pope would
promptly declare an interdict, but it was not to be expected that such a
resource would avail forever.[12]
To maintain the privileges of the Church the papacy was often obliged to
spread the mantle of its protection over those who deserved it least.
Its clients were not always as interesting as the unfortunate
Ingelburge. It would be easier to give unreserved admiration to the
conduct of Innocent III. if in this matter one could feel certain that
his only interest was to maintain the cause of a poor abandoned woman.
But it is only too evident that he desired above all to keep up the
ecclesiastical immunities. This is very evident in his intervention in
favor of Waldemar, Bishop of Schleswig.
Yet we must not assume that all was corrupt in the bosom of the Church;
then, as always, the evil made more noise than the good, and the voices
of those who desired a reformation aroused only passing interest.
Among the populace there was superstition unimaginable; the pulpit,
which ought to have shed abroad some little light, was as yet open only
to the bishops, and the few pastors who did not neglect their duty in
this regard accomplished very little, being too much absorbed in other
duties. It was the birth of the mendicant orders which obliged the
entire body of secular clergy to take up the practice of preaching.
Public worship, reduced to liturgical ceremonies, no longer preserved
anything which appealed to the intelligence; it was more and more
becoming a sort of self-acting magic formula. Once upon this road, the
absurd was not far distant. Those who deemed themselves pious told of
miracles performed by relics with no need of aid from the moral act of
faith.
In one case a parrot, being carried away by a kite, uttered the
invocation dear to his mistress, "_Sancte Thoma adjuva me_," and was
miraculously rescued. In another, a merchant of Groningen, having
purloined an arm of St. John the Baptist, grew rich as if by enchantment
so long as he kept it concealed in his house, but was reduced to beggary
so soon as, his secret being discovered, the relic was taken away from
him and placed in a church.[13]
These stories, we must observe, do not come from ignorant enthusiasts,
hidden away in obscure country places; they are given us by one of the
most learned monks of his time, who relates them to a novice by way of
forming his mind!
Relics, then, were held to be neither more nor less than talismans. Not
alone did they perform miracles upon those who were in no special state
of faith or devotion, the more potent among them healed the sick in
spite of themselves. A chronicler relates that the body of Saint Martin
of Tours had in 887 been secretly transported to some remote hiding
place for fear of the Danish invasion. When the time came for bringing
it home again, there were in Touraine two impotent men who, thanks to
their infirmity, gained large sums by begging. They were thrown into
great terror by the tidings that the relics were being brought back:
Saint Martin would certainly heal them and take away their means of
livelihood. Their fears were only too well founded. They had taken to
flight, but being too lame to walk fast they had not yet crossed the
frontier of Touraine when the saint arrived and healed them!
Hundreds of similar stories might be collected, statistics might be made
up to show, at the accession of Innocent III., the greater number of
episcopal thrones occupied by unworthy bishops, the religious houses
peopled with idle and debauched monks; but would this give a truly
accurate picture of the Church at this epoch? I do not think so. In the
first place, we must reckon with the choice spirits, who were without
doubt more numerous than is generally supposed. Five righteous men would
have saved Sodom; the Almighty did not find them there, but he perhaps
might have found them had He Himself made search for them instead of
trusting to Lot. The Church of the thirteenth century had them, and it
was for their sakes that the whirlwind of heresy did not sweep it away.
But this is not all: the Church of that time offered a noble spectacle
of moral grandeur. We must learn to lift our eyes from the wretched
state of things which has just been pointed out and fix them on the
pontifical throne and recognize the beauty of the struggle there going
on: a power wholly spiritual undertaking to command the rulers of the
world, as the soul masters the body, and triumphing in the end. It is
true that both soldiers and generals of this army were often little
better than ruffians, but here again, in order to be just, we must
understand the end they aimed at.
In that iron age, when brute force was the only force, the Church,
notwithstanding its wounds, offered to the world the spectacle of
peasants and laboring men receiving the humble homage of the highest
potentates of earth, simply because, seated on the throne of Saint
Peter, they represented the moral law. This is why Alighieri and many
others before and after him, though they might heap curses on wicked
ministers, yet in the depths of their heart were never without an
immense compassion and an ardent love for the Church which they never
ceased to call their mother.
Still, everybody was not like them, and the vices of the clergy explain
the innumerable heresies of that day. All of them had a certain success,
from those which were simply the outcry of an outraged conscience, like
that of the Waldenses, to the most absurd of them all, like that of Eon
de l'Etoile. Some of these movements were for great and sacred causes;
but we must not let our sympathies be so moved by the persecutions
suffered by heretics as to cloud our judgment. It would have been better
had Rome triumphed by gentleness, by education and holiness, but
unhappily a soldier may not always choose his weapons, and when life is
at stake he seizes the first he finds within his reach. The papacy has
not always been reactionary and obscurantist; when it overthrew the
Cathari, for example, its victory was that of reason and good sense.
The list of the heresies of the thirteenth century is already long, but
it is increasing every day, to the great joy of those erudite ones who
are making strenuous efforts to classify everything in that tohu-bohu of
mysticism and folly. In that day heresy was very much alive; it was
consequently very complex and its powers of transformation infinite. One
may indicate its currents, mark its direction, but to go farther is to
condemn oneself to utter confusion in this medley of impulsive,
passionate, fantastic movements which were born, shot upward, and fell
to earth again, at the caprice of a thousand incomprehensible
circumstances. In certain counties of England there are at the present
day villages having as many as eight and ten places of worship for a few
hundreds of inhabitants. Many of these people change their denomination
every three or four years, returning to that they first quitted, leaving
it again only to enter it anew, and so on as long as they live. Their
leaders set the example, throwing themselves enthusiastically into each
new movement only to leave it before long. They would all alike find it
difficult to give an intelligible reason for these changes. They say
that the Spirit guides them, and it would be unfair to disbelieve them,
but the historian who should investigate conditions like these would
lose his head in the labyrinth unless he made a separate study of each
of these Protean movements. They are surely not worth the trouble.
In a somewhat similar condition was a great part of Christendom under
Innocent III.; but while the sects of which I have just spoken move in a
very narrow circle of dogmas and ideas, in the thirteenth century every
sort of excess followed in rapid succession. Without the slightest
pause of transition men passed through the most contradictory systems of
belief. Still, a few general characteristics may be observed; in the
first place, heresies are no longer metaphysical subtleties as in
earlier days; Arius and Priscillian, Nestorius and Eutychus are dead
indeed. In the second place, they no longer arise in the upper and
governing class, but proceed especially from the inferior clergy and the
common people. The blows which actually threatened the Church of the
Middle Ages were struck by obscure laboring men, by the poor and the
oppressed, who in their wretchedness and degradation felt that she had
failed in her mission.
No sooner was a voice uplifted, preaching austerity and simplicity, than
it drew together not the laity only, but members of the clergy as well.
Toward the close of the twelfth century we find a certain Pons rousing
all Perigord, preaching evangelical poverty before the coming of St.
Francis.[14]
Two great currents are apparent: on one side the Cathari, on the other,
innumerable sects revolting from the Church by very fidelity to
Christianity and the desire to return to the primitive Church.
Among the sects of the second category the close of the twelfth century
saw in Italy the rise of the _Poor Men_, who without doubt were a part
of the movement of Arnold of Brescia; they denied the efficacy of
sacraments administered by unworthy hands.[15]
A true attempt at reform was made by the Waldenses. Their history,
although better known, still remains obscure on certain sides; their
name, _Poor Men of Lyons_, recalls the former movement, with which they