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206

FATE OF THE WELL-DISPOSED CLERGY.

a fierce struggle between the smaller number of the more strict ecclesiastics who were disposed to favor reform, and the great majority who followed only their pleasures.

But the measures applied by Gregory the Seventh and his successors, were by no means calculated to produce a lasting effect on the vast multitude who were not themselves affected by this spirit of reform. By laws of celibacy, chastity and purity of manners could not be forced on the clergy: men contented themselves with a seeming obedience, and those to whom a regular marriage was not allowed, abandoned themselves, in private, to excesses so much the worse,sought in gorgeous apparel, outward splendor, revelry, and noisy amusements, an indemnification for the enjoyments of domestic life, which were forbidden them. The dissolution of the canonical life continually went on increasing. The prebends were by many considered as only a means of good living, and they either did not concern themselves at all about the ecclesiastical functions incumbent on them, or performed them in a mechanical way, without devotion or dignity, or else got them performed by hireling job-working substitutes. Those who would not follow the example of the rest, who exhibited in their whole manner of life a seriousness corresponding to their vocation, who dared to converse about spiritual things, were decried by the latter as singular fellows and pietists; or, if they ventured to stand forth as censors, exposed themselves to hatred and persecution; for men dreaded a spirit of reform supported by popes and monarchs which might bring down a severe chastisement on the heads of the corrupt clergy. "Behold," said the others," how this man departs from our customs; he wants to convert us into monks. We must at once take our stand against him. If we do not, it will go with us as it has done with others before us. The pope and the king will unite against us, they will deprive us of our livings, and other fashions will be introduced here. We shall become a laughing-stock to all the people."5

When the popes had succeeded in banishing the direct and arbitrary influence of the princes on ecclesiastical appointments, another not

In opposition to these, see, e. g. the abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, ep. 2, § 11: Conceditur tibi, ut si bene deservis, de altario vivas, non autem, ut de altario luxurieris, ut de altario superbias, ut inde compares tibi frena aurea, sellas depictas, calcaria deargentata, varia griseaque pellicea a collo et manibus ornatu purpureo diversificata.

2 We have an example in a church at Gubbio in the twelfth century, in the account of the life of bishop Ubald, written by his successor Tebald: Nulla tunc temporis ordinis observantia, nulla prorsus religionis colebatur memoria. Mercede annua erat conductus, qui campanas pulsaret in hora officiorum et quia clericorum unusquisque in domo propria epulabatur et dormiebat, tota fere observantia ecclesiastici cultus custodiebatur in pulsu nolarum.—

See Acta Sanctor. Mens. Maj. t. iii, f. 631.

* Clerici conductores and conductitii, as Gerhoh says in his Dialog. de differentia clerici saecularis et regularis. Pez thes. anecd. noviss. t. ii, f. 482.

4 Si non facio, quod caeteri, de singularitate notabor. Bernard. ep. 2, § 11.

See Life of the abbot William Roskild, who belonged to the times of pope Innocent the Third, in the Actis Sanctor. M. April, t. i, f. 625; and what Jacob of Vitry says of those corrupt ecclesiastics: Hi autem, qui inter eos viri justi et timorati super abominationibus eorum lugent et contristantur, ab iis irridentur. Hypocritas et superstitiosos dicunt, reputantes pro magno crimine, quod divinae scripturae verbum vel ipsum Dei nomen inter eos ausi sunt nominare. Hist. occidental. c. xxx.

LAWS AGAINST ABUSES OF NO EFFECT.

207

less pernicious mode of arbitrary proceeding often took the place of that which had been suppressed. The bishops and chapters of the cathedral often suffered themselves to be determined by family interests and worldly considerations more than by any concern for the good of the church. The older ecclesiastical laws respecting the canonical age were neglected, and boys under age promoted to the first offices of the church. Canonical priests made it a rule amongst themselves, that none but persons of noble birth should join their class, and so the ostentatious display and luxurious modes of living practised in the higher ranks, were introduced amongst the clergy. Nepotism, and the spirit of gain, led to the accumulation of several benefices often involving the duties of incompatible callings on one person. Respecting the so-called plurality of benefices, and the non-residence of clergymen near the church with which their official duties were connected, various complaints were offered. Peter Cantor, in the work wherein he combats the ecclesiastical abuses of his times,3 resents it that, in a respectable church, the five offices of greatest income had been given to absentees. The popes Alexander the Third and Innocent the Third, passed laws at the Lateran general councils, in the years 1179 and 1215, for the suppression of the above-mentioned abuses; but, by all the outward measures that were applied, little could be effected, so long as the sources of the evil were still left behind; and the bad example which the arbitrary proceedings of succeeding popes presented, would only contribute to promote such abuses. Bishops, who had the good of their communities at heart, as, for example, Robert Grosshead, we hear complaining bitterly on this subject.5

In the contest with the great mass of the secularized clergy stood forth, in the twelfth century, men who sought to bring back the old canonical life to a still greater degree of strictness, to reform the clerical body still more according to the pattern of the monastic life.

The words of Bernard in his tract, De officio episcoporum, c. vii: Scholares pueri et impuberes adolescentes ob sanguinis dignitatem promoventur ad ecclesiasticas dignitates et de sub ferula transferuntur ad principandam presbyteris, laetiores interim, quod virgas evaserint quam quod meruerint principatum. The complaints in Peter de Blois, ep. 60: Episcoporum nequitia, qui circa parentum promotionem sunt adeo singulariter occupati, ut nihil aliud affectent aut somnient, atque indigentiam scholarium vel in modica visitatione non relevent. Purpurata incendit parentela pontificum et elata de patrimonio crucifixi in superbia et in abusione ad omnes vitae saecularis illecebras se effundit.

2 See e. g. Yve's letters, ep. 126. The Verbum Abbreviatum, already several times referred to.

*Pro quibus (reditibus) perceptis in ea nec per vicarium nec per alium servitur. Non dico, non cantatur, pon legitur tantum,

sed nec etiam consiliis ejus assistitur, quippe nulla personarum quinque semel in anno praesens in ea invenitur. 1. c. c. xxxiv.

See his letter to his archdeacon, ep. 107, in Brown, in which he calls upon him to exercise severity towards the clergy who neglected their duty, and complains of their incontinent lives, their worldly pursuits, and their trifling amusements: Ex relatu fide digno audivimus, quod plurimi sacerdotes archidiaconatus vestri horas canonicas aut non dicunt aut corrupte dicunt, et id quod dicunt sine omni devotione aut devotionis signo, imo magis cum evidenti ostensione animi indevoti dicunt nec horam observant in dicendo, quae commodior sit parochianis ad audiendum divina sed quae eorum plus consonat libidinosae desidiae. Habent insuper suas focarias, quod etsi nos et nostros lateat cum inquisitiones super ejusmodi fieri fecimus, his per quos fiunt inquisitiones perjuria non timentibus, non debet tamen vos sic latere.

208

CLERICI REGULARES AND SAECULARES.

Such a man was Norbert, the founder of a new and peculiar congregation, which became a place of refuge for many who were dissatisfied with the then existing condition of the clergy. Of him we shall have to speak more at large in the history of monasticism. But there were also other men of the more rigid tendency, who professed no wish of founding a new institution, but only desired to bring back the clergy to a mode of life and of association corresponding to their original destination. Among these the individual of whom we have so often spoken as an enthusiastic champion of the Hildebrandian system, the provost Gerhoh of Reichersberg, deserves particularly to be mentioned. The greatest part of his life was spent in struggling for the reformation of the clerus; and the storms which agitated that, body proceeded from this very cause; he is in this respect to be compared with Ratherius.3 The apostolical community of goods, as men conceived it, was to him the type of the union which ought to exist amongst the clergy. The rule ascribed to Augustin, he represented as the law for the community of the clergy; they should own no sort of property; strangers to all luxury and splendor, they should be contented with the simple necessaries of life. It was what Arnold of Brescia wanted to bring about, only in a more liberal spirit. To the clerical rule drawn up at Aix-la-Chapelle, Gerhoh referred back, as a lax rule, originating in the court of a prince, not in the church. Considered from this point of view, those ecclesiastics alone, who subjected themselves to this stricter rule, were recognized as genuine canonicals, as clerici regulares; all the rest were placed in the class of irregulares saeculares, secular clergymen. But among the latter, too, there was a great diversity as to their habits of living. This, even the zealous advocate of the stricter rule, the provost Gerhoh, little as he was inclined to allow them due justice, was forced to acknowledge.5 There were amongst the secular clergy men of spiritual feelings; and a distinction is to be made between those whom the love of freedom, and those whom an inclination to licentiousness led to choose this mode of life; of which latter Jacob of Vitry says, that they were very properly called canonici saeculares, because they belonged entirely to the sacculum, to the world, but that they were incorrectly styled canonici, for they led a life altogether without rule or law."

It so happened in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that, from the body of these secular clergymen, came individuals awakened to repentance by peculiar impressions upon their minds; filled with abhorrence of the worldly pursuits of the clergy, they turned all at once to

He has himself related the history of his contests with bishops, canonicals, and princes, in his Commentary on the Psalms. See Pez thes. anecd. noviss. t. v, 2039. 2 Vol. iii, p. 410.

3 Vol. iii, p. 416.

Illam clericorum regulam, non in ecclesia, sed in aula regis dictatam. In Ps. 67. Pez thes. t. v, f. 1352.

He says: Non eos omnes damnamus,

cum ex ipsis agnoscamus aliquos, licet paucos, esse ita disciplinatos, ut licet habeant propria, quasi non habentes, habeant ea et studeant in sectanda morum disciplina. In Ps. 67, 1. c. f. 1353.

From that better class he distinguishes these: Multi autem temporibus istis reperiuntur canonici vero nomine saeculares, quorum regula est, irregulariter vivere. c. xxx.

FULCO'S EDUCATION. HIS PREACHING.

209

an entirely different mode of life. The duties of the spiritual calling, their guilt in having hitherto so neglected them, pressed with their whole weight upon their consciences. They felt constrained to exert themselves the more earnestly to make good their own deficiencies, and to exhort clergy and laity to repentance and to a serious Christian deportment. They travelled round as preachers of repentance; by their words of exhortation, coming warm from the heart, many were moved, awakened to remorse for their sins and to resolutions of amendment; though the powerful impressions of the moment did not always endure. A circle of young men was formed around them, and they became the objects of enthusiastic veneration; by which, however, such of them as lacked firmness of Christian character might easily be intoxicated, and, quitting the paths of humility and discretion, be led into dangerous self-delusions; so that what had begun in a holy enthusiasm might gradually become vitiated by the intrusion of impure motives.

Near the close of the twelfth century, a great stir was produced in France by a person named Fulco. He was one of the ordinary, ignorant, worldly-minded ecclesiastics, the priest and parson of a country town not far from Paris. Afterwards, he experienced a change, of the nature we have described; and as he had before neglected his flock, and injured them by his bad example, so now he sought to build them up, by his teaching and example. But he soon became painfully sensible of his want of that knowledge which he had taken no pains to acquire, but which was now indispensable to him in order to instruct his community. In order to supply as far as possible this deficiency, he went on week-days to Paris, and attended the lectures of Peter Cantor, a theologian distinguished for his peculiar scriptural bent and his tendency to practical reform; and of the knowledge here acquired he availed himself, by elaborating it into sermons, which he preached on Sundays to his flock. These sermons were not so much distinguished for profoundness of thought, as for their adaptation to the common understanding and to the occasions of practical life. He was a man of the people, and the way in which he spoke made what he said still more impressive than it would otherwise have been. Hence, when others delivered his copied discourses over again, they failed of producing the same effects. At first, neighboring clergymen invited him to preach before their congregations. Next, he was called to Paris, and he preached not only in churches, but also in the public places. Professors, students, people of all ranks and classes, flocked to hear him. In a coarse cowl, girt about with a thong of leather, he itinerated as a preacher of repentance through France, and fearlessly denounced the reigning vices of learned and unlearned, high and low. His words often wrought such deep compunction, that people scourged themselves, threw themselves on the ground before him, confessed their sins before all, and declared themselves ready to do anything he might direct in order to reform their lives, and to redress the wrongs

See the words of Jacob of Vitry: Quae tamen non ita sapiebant in alterius

ore nec tantum fructificabant ab aliis praedicata. Hist. occidental. p. 287.

210

FULCO'S INFLUENCE ON THE CLERGY.

which they had done. Usurers restored back the interest they had taken; those who, in times of scarcity, had stored up large quantities of grain to sell again at a greatly advanced price, threw open their granaries. In such times he frequently exclaimed: "Give food to him who is perishing with hunger, or else thou perishest thyself." He announced to the corn-dealers that before the coming harvest they would be forced to sell cheap their stored-up grain; and cheap it soon became, in consequence of his own annunciation. Multitudes of abandoned women, who lived on the wages of sin, were converted by him. For some he obtained husbands; for others he founded a nunnery. He exposed the impure morals of the clergy; and the latter, seeing the finger of every man pointed against them, were obliged to separate from their concubines. A curse, that fell from his lips, spread alarm like a thunderbolt. People whom he so addressed were seen to fall like epileptics, foaming at the mouth and distorted with convulsions. Such appearances promoted the faith in the supernatural power of his words. Sick persons were brought to him from all quarters, who expected to be healed by his touch, by his blessing; and wonderful stories were told of the miracles thus wrought. Men were so eager to obtain a fragment of his clothing, in order to preserve it as a miracle-working relic, that the very garments he wore on his person were often rent in pieces by the multitude. It required strong qualities of mind for a man not to be hurried by such extravagant veneration paid to himself, into self-forgetfulness and spiritual pride. Pressed by the multitude, in danger of being crushed, Fulco would swing his staff with such violence around him as to wound many within its sweep. But the wounded never uttered a murmuring word; they kissed the blood as it streamed forth under the blow, as if they had been healed by the rough touch of the holy man. A person having once rent a fragment from his garment, said he to the multitude: "Tear not my apparel which has not been blessed," and signing the cross, he pronounced a blessing on the raiment of the individual who had torn the fragment from his own, and this was now immediately divided up into small pieces, which were looked upon as relics. At length, he stood forth as a preacher of the crusades. A great deal of money was sent to him, which he divided amongst the crusaders; yet the vast collections which he made injured his reputation.2

The personal influence of this man, who stood prominent neither by his talents nor his official station, gave birth to a new life of the clergy, a greater zeal in discharging the duties of the predicatorial office and of the cure of souls, both in France and in England. Young men, who, in the study of a dialectic theology at the University of Paris, had forgotten the obligation to care for the salvation of souls, were touched

'Deserving of notice are the words of Jacob of Vitry: Tanta infirmorum et eorum, qui eos afferebant, erat fides et devotio, quod non solum servi Dei meritis, sed fervore spiritus et fidei non haesitantis magnitudine plures sanarentur.

Jacobus de Vitriaco hist. occidental. c. vi, etc.; where we find the story related in full. Rigord, de gestis Philippi Augusti, at the year 1195, and the following. Matthew of Paris, year 1197, f. 160.

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