276 ORDER OF CLARA. MENDICANT FRIARS. general, the culminating point of the form of Catholicism in that day exhibited itself in this order on a certain side; so from many other of the peculiar ideas which inspired Francis, as the following after Christ, evangelical poverty,- tendencies might proceed forth which were at variance with the church system. Seized and emblazoned in the colors of a sensuous fancy, that profoundly Christian idea of following after Christ gave birth to the story of the five wounds,' said to have been imprinted on Francis, after Christ had appeared to him in a miraculous vision, two years before his death, in 1226. Eye-witnesses are appealed to, who saw these marks at the time. A story, which assuredly did not proceed at first from any intention to deceive,but only from the self-deception of a fanatical bent of the imagination, and from fanciful exaggeration; and a story with regard to which it still needs and deserves inquiry to what extent, in certain eccentric states of the system, a morbidly over-excited fancy might react on the bodily organism. It cannot be doubted, however, that this story has contributed much to promote a fanatical and excessive reverence of Francis, highly derogatory to the honor which is due to Christ alone. Three spiritual orders were founded by him. The one already mentioned, and which was the first, avoiding each proud name, called itself the Society of Minor Brothers (Fratres minores, Minorites), and its rule, revised, was confirmed by pope Honorius the Third. The second, was an order of nuns. This started with a young woman in Assisi,— Clara, whom a kindred bent of Christian feeling, early communicated to her by education, conducted to Francis; and she was the first superintendent of the order called after herself, the order of St. Clara (at first, Ordo dominarum pauperum). Next came the third order (Fratres ordinis tertii, tertiarii), by the founding of which, in the year 1221, Francis furnished an opportunity for pious laymen, who would not or could not renounce the family-life, to live together in a sort of spiritual union, after one rule, and under a superior. They were also called Fratres poenitentiae, inasmuch as this monk-like mode of life was regarded as a life devoted to penance. Many pious societies, which had proceeded from the order of laymen, might here find a place of refuge and a common bond of union. The peculiar regulation that distinguished the orders of the so-called mendicants (Fratres mendicantes) from other orders, would serve in a special manner to promote their more extensive spread and more general influence. In order to their establishment in any place, no endowed monasteries were required. Every country, every village, stood open to them; and they were contented with whatever indifferent food might be offered them. The way in which they subsisted brought them into the closest relations with the lower class of people. As religious instruction and the pastoral care were for the reasons already given most neglected in their case, so the monks who interest 1 Quinque stigmata Christi. * See the account of her life by a contemporary, at the 12th August. Her mother had distinguished herself by the zeal with which she made pilgrimages; she, in fact, undertook a journey to the holy sepulchre, and made it a point to visit all the holy places in Syria. THEIR HARDSHIPS AND DEPRIVATIONS. 277 ed themselves with self-denying love in their spiritual wants, were received with the more hearty welcome; and, provided only pious men, well-instructed in the doctrines of Christianity, were selected for that purpose, much good might be done by their means. The men, animated by pious zeal, who first, with a sort of enthusiastic love, seized upon this mode of life, subjected themselves to sacrifices and deprivations truly great, when, in all weathers, defying the fiercest cold in the north, the fiercest heat in the south, they itinerated through the countries, entering the meanest hovels, and cheerfully putting up with any fare which the poor occupants set before them to satisfy the most pressing momentary wants, and at the same time sustained all the toil of preaching and fatigue of pastoral labors. Nor did they suffer themselves to be driven off by insults and ridicule, whether from laymen, whose utter barbarity of manners and the want of religious instruction made them regard these men as unwelcome guests, or from jealous ecclesiastics. The Belgian Dominican, Thomas de Cantinpre, who lived in the thirteenth century, relating his own experience in this way,' describes how he and his companions, so wearied out by a long journey which they had made on foot as to be ready to sink to the earth, arrived at a certain village. They went to the house of a parish priest; but he refused to give them even a morsel of the black bread on which he supported himself and his domestics. After they had wandered over the whole village, and applied in vain at every door, they came finally, near the end of it, to a poor hut, where they were offered a crust of bran-bread, a very acceptable alms to persons in their condition. They sat down under the sky and regaled themselves on this fare; and never had food tasted so pleasant to them before as this branbread mixed with straw. "And not without deep pain," says this man, who, from being a canonical priest at Cantinpre, had turned Dominican," did I compare myself, who was not able to undergo so much at once in a single day, with those deservedly-called blessed men who, in many places, and in much worse circumstances, are obliged to endure greater hardships than these." With good reason, if we compare such men with other monks, might it be said of them, that although they pursued no bodily occupation to obtain a subsistence, yet they endured for other purposes far greater labors and deprivations.2 The Benedictine Matthew of Paris, who, being an antagonist to both orders, is certainly an unexceptionable witness, relates how the Franciscans, directly after the establishment of their order, were favored by pope Innocent the Third; how they See the words of Thomas Cantipratenus, in his Bonum universale de apibus, 1. ii. c. x: Numquid primo vides in praedicatorum ordine fratres, qui etsi studiis continuis et vigiliis macerati, non habentes in zona aes, per lutosa et lubrica pedibus gradientes terras praedicationibus circuire, imparata frequenter hospitia, cibos crudos, et duros, et super omnia ingratitudinem hominum sustinere? He relates in the same chapter, page 164, an example from his own VOL. IV. 24 experience: Veni pedes in villam ignotam mihi, longo itinere fatigatus in tantum, ut prae debilitate nimia corde me deficere mox putarem. Ingressi fratres domum presbyteri nec saltem frustum panis nigerrimi, quo familia vescebatur, potuerunt obtinere. Inde digressi late per villam nihil prorsus, nisi in fine villae a quadam paupercula fragmen panis furfurei habuerunt, donum satis magnum. 2 See 1. c. 278 THE MENDICANT FRIARS AND THE CLERGY. 2 settled themselves down in societies of ten or seven in the towns and villages; how on Sundays and festival days they came forth from their seclusion and preached in the parish churches; how they were contented with anything that was offered to them for the satisfying of their bodily wants; and how they set before all men an example of humility. By their strict mode of living, their deprivations, their disinterested, indefatigable labors for the salvation of souls, these monks would gain the love and respect of their contemporaries, and so much the more as they were distinguished thereby from the other worldly and degenerate monks of older foundations, who suffered themselves to be carried away by the tide of corruption. Certainly, their efficiency as preachers and pastors for the common people had a great influence and was attended with the happiest results, so long as due care was taken to select the right sort of men for the performance of these duties. It was through the powerful preaching of one of these Franciscans, Dodo of Friesland, who flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century, that a stop was finally put to the practice of taking revenge for bloodshed, which had continued to prevail in that country down to his own times.3 Pious bishops, who were anxious for the salvation of their flocks, sent of their own accord to procure men from these two monkish orders, to take the place of the vicious and ignorant clergy, in the office of preaching and the performance of pastoral duties. But the latter, finding that their shameful deficiencies were exposed by these monks, and that the people ran after the new preachers and confessors, became their bitterest enemies. Robert Groshead, bishop of Lincoln, for example, a prelate sincerely anxious for the spiritual prosperity of his extensive diocese, was inclined to encourage in every way the labors of the mendicant friars among his people. He was obliged to complain that his clergy resorted to various bad arts, for the purpose of drawing away the people from the new preachers and confessors belonging to the two mendicant orders; whilst others, whose influence was most injurious to piety, but whose spiritual quackery brought gain to their employers, were welcomed into the field. He bade the priests of his diocese take every pains to At the year 1207: Sub his diebus praedicatores, qui appellati sunt minores, favente papa Innocentio, subito emergentes terram repleverunt, habitantes in urbibus et civitatibus deni et septeni, nihil omnino possidentes, in victu et vestitu paupertatem nimiam praeferentes, nudis pedibus incedentes, maximum humilitatis exemplum omnibus praebuerunt. Diebus autem dominicis et festivis, de suis habitaculis exeuntes, praedicaverunt in ecclesiis parochialibus evangelium verbi, edentes et bibentes quae apud illos erant, quibus officium praedicationis impendebant. Qui in rerum coelestium contemplatione tanto perspicaciores sunt inventi, quanto a rebus praesentis saeculi et carnalibus deliciis comproban tur alieni. 2 Complaints of the licentious manners and rude worldly lives of many among the Benedictines, may be found in a letter of Robert of Lincoln, in the collection already cited on page 200, ep. 53, p. 343, and ep. 108, p. 382. Thomas Cantipraten. t. i, c. i, p. 120. 4 On whom first he had to make requisitions of this sort, ut sciat unusquisque saltem simpliciter articulos fidei et decem mandata. See his address to his clergy, 1. c. 260. P Sunt quidam rectores et vicarii et sacerdotes, qui non solum audire fastidiunt praedicationes utriusque ordinis, sed sicut possunt, ne audiat eos populus praedicantes aut iis confitentur, malitiose praepediunt, admittunt etiam, ut dicitur, praedicatores quaestuarios ad praedicandum, qui solum talia praedicant, qualia nummum melius THE FRIARS DEGENERATE. 279 persuade the people to attend diligently on the preaching of the monks and to confess to them, but to have nothing more to do with those quacks, those quaestuarii, or penny-preachers, as the same class of people were called in the sermons of the pious Franciscan, Berthold, in the last times of the thirteenth century. He requested the general of the Dominicans to send him an assistant2 from his order;3 since he stood in great need of help, his diocese being large and more populous than any other in England. It was his desire that the archbishop of Canterbury might have men around him that were not only versed in the civil and canon laws, but that had also studied divine wisdom in the sacred oracles, and received it not merely into their minds, but also into their hearts, and bore testimony of it by their daily walk; but such men were to be found only in the two orders. So agreeable to his views were the renunciation of everything earthly, and the zeal for the salvation of souls in those two orders, so much did he hope from them as a means of good to the church, that he is said to have seriously entertained the idea of entering into one of the orders himself. At a synod held at Cologne, under the papal legate, Conrad, a parish priest complained of the encroachments of the Dominicans, who, under the characters of confessors, had contrived to win the favor of the people, and to monopolize everything to themselves. The legate upon this, asked him how large his congregation was; and being told that it consisted of nine thousand souls, he severely rebuked the man who was willing to undertake alone the responsibility of caring for so many souls, and did not rather rejoice to find men, who were willing to assist him gratuitously in his formida ble work.5 But the greater the influence exercised by the mendicant friars, as preachers and confessors, and as persons who mixed familiarly with extrahunt. See ep. 107 to his archdeacon. In the letter just referred to. Among the treasures of the cathedral library of Prague, a rich and important collection for everything pertaining to church history, are to be found many other manuscript letters of the bishop of Lincoln, serving to illustrate this point, which are not contained in the collection published by Brown. In a letter to the pope, in which he laments over the corruption of the church and the great want of religious instruction, he mentions the Dominicans as shining conspicuously above all others throughout the whole land, luce praedicationis. Ep. 6. In a letter to the cardinal de Ostia (ep. 7), he says: Fratres Minoritae per Angliam constituti sua salubri praedicatione populum efficaci ter illuminant ad veritatem. In a letter to a bishop, in which he advocates the cause of the injured mendicant friars, he says of them: Verbo praedicationis et exemplo populum illuminant et supplent in hac parte defectum praelatorum. During a short residence in Prague, in the year 1817, when, by 280 THE POPE AND THE FRIARS. THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE YOUTH. all classes, upon the people,-so much the more pernicious would it prove when it came to be abused by ignorant and badly disposed men; and of such there would be no want as the branches of these orders extended and multiplied. The causes that had introduced corruption amongst the other monkish societies, as soon as they attained to eminence, were not inactive in the case of these; and soon, many evils began to intermingle with the benefits which flowed from them. As they enjoyed the special favor of the popes, and, through their respective generals in Rome, stood in close relations with the popes,-they allowed themselves to be employed by the latter as instruments for exacting money, and for other bad purposes. The historian Matthew of Paris, who had himself perceived and extolled the good influences of these foundations at the time of their first appearance, complains of the change which had taken place in the same monks after the lapse of a few years; how they erected sumptuous buildings, and though it was against their wishes, yet consented to be employed by the popes for exacting contributions. If we may credit him, Robert, bishop of Lincoln, who had hoped so much good from them, denounced them shortly before his death, because his expectations had in so many respects been disappointed." Men had occasion to complain of the obtrusiveness of these monks, of the tricks to which they resorted in order to slip into monasteries, and there fix themselves, after they had once been voluntarily received as guests. It was said that they sought to elevate themselves at the expense of all other monks and ecclesiastics; that they took pains to represent their order as the only holy one; that they bound the people exclusively to themselves; and endeavored to instil into them distrust of their clergy, who, to be sure, often furnished occasion enough for it. Easily might the people be carried so far as to regard all other confessors and among the clergy there were but too many whose lives were altogether scandalous as worthless, and to run after these monks alone.3 The enormous influence of these orders threatened to overturn the whole previous constitution of the church, and to do away the various gradations and intermediate links between the pope and the other parts of which the church was composed.4 Partly by the force of the idea lying at the bottom of these two orders, and having its deeper ground in the pious spirit of the age,partly by the authority which individual preachers exercised over the minds of men, the minds of the youth were especially carried away. Young men of every rank entered, sometimes, as in the case of the far-famed Thomas Aquinas, contrary to the will of their parents, into one of these orders. Such as had been brought up in a luxurious - latis, ipsis praedicatoribus confitebantur, unde non mediocriter viluit ordinariorum dignitas et conditio et de tanto sui contemptu non sine magna confusione doluerunt nec sine evidenti causa, videbant ordinem ecclesiae jam enormiter perturbari. Comp. the documents of evidence furnished by Dr. Gieseler in the Studien und Kritiken, i, 1, an. 1828, S. 109, and onward. |