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Title: Church History, Volume 2 (of 3)

Author: J. H. Kurtz

Translator: John Macpherson

Release date: March 17, 2016 [eBook #51490]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

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CHURCH HISTORY, VOLUME 2 (OF 3) ***

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The Table of Contents has been updated to agree with the headings and subheadings of the
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words missed by the printer.

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CHURCH HISTORY.
BY

PROFESSOR KURTZ.
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM LATEST REVISED
EDITION BY THE

REV. JOHN MACPHERSON, M.A.
IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II.

SECOND EDITION.

London:

HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCXCII.

Butler & Tanner,
The Selwood Printing Works,
Frome, and London.

CONTENTS.

SECOND DIVISION.
(Continued.)

SECOND SECTION.
HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH, FROM THE
10TH TO THE 13TH CENTURY.
A.D. 911-1294.

I. The Spread of Christianity.
§ 93. Missionary Enterprises.
(1) The Scandinavian Mission Field.
(2) Denmark.
(3) Sweden.
(4) The Norwegians.
(5) In the North-Western Group of Islands.
(6) The Slavo-Magyar Mission-field.
(7) The Poles.
(8) Hungary.
(9) The Wendish Races.
(10) Pomerania.
(11) Mission Work among the Finns and Lithuanians.
(12) Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland.
(13) The Prussians.

(14) Lithuania.
(15) The Mongolian Mission Field.
(16) The Mission Field of Islam.
§ 94. The Crusades.
(1) The First Crusade, A.D. 1096.
(2) The Second Crusade, A.D. 1147.
(3) The Third Crusade, A.D. 1189.
(4) The Fourth Crusade, A.D. 1217.
(5) The Fifth Crusade, A.D. 1228.
(6) The Sixth, A.D. 1248, and Seventh, A.D. 1270, Crusades.
§ 95. Islam and the Jews in Europe.
(1) Islam in Sicily.
(2) Islam in Spain.
(3) The Jews in Europe.

II.―The Hierarchy, the Clergy, and the Monks.
§ 96. The Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire in the
German Nationalities.
(1) The Romish Pornocracy and the Emperor Otto I.,
† A.D. 973.
(2) The Times of Otto II., III., A.D. 973-1002.
(3) Otto III.; Pope Sylvester II.
(4) From Henry II. to the Synod at Sutri, A.D. 1002-1046.
(5) Henry III. and his German Popes, A.D. 1046-1057.
(6) The Papacy under the Control of Hildebrand, A.D. 1057-
1078.
(7) Gregory VII., A.D. 1073-1085.
(8) Gregory’s Contention with Henry IV.
(9) The Central Idea in Gregory’s Policy.
(10) Victor III. and Urban II., A.D. 1086-1099.
(11) Paschalis II., Gelasius II., and Calixtus II., A.D. 1099-1124.
(12) English Investiture Controversy.
(13) The Times of Lothair III. and Conrad III., A.D. 1125-1152.
(14) The Times of Frederick I. and Henry VI., A.D. 1152-1190.

(15) Alexander III., A.D. 1159-1181.
(16) The Times of King Henry II. and Cœlestine III., A.D. 1154-
1198.
(17) Innocent III., A.D. 1198-1216.
(18) ―― Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215.
(19) The Times of Frederick II. and his Successors, A.D. 1215-
1268.
(20) Innocent IV. and his Successors, A.D. 1243-1268.
(21) The Times of the House of Anjou down to Boniface VIII.,
A.D. 1288-1294.
(22) Nicholas III. to Cœlestine V., A.D. 1277-1294.
(23) Temporal Power of the Popes.
§ 97. The Clergy.
(1) The Roman College of Cardinals.
(2) The Political Importance of the Superior Clergy.
(3) The Bishops and the Cathedral Chapter.
(4) Endeavours to Reform the Clergy.
(5) The Pataria of Milan.
§ 98. Monastic Orders and Institutions.
(1) Offshoots of the Benedictines.
1. The Brethren of Clugny.
2. The Congregation of the Camaldolites.
3. The Order of Vallombrosa.
4. The Cistercians.
5. The Congregation of Scottish Monasteries.
(2) New Monkish Orders.
1. The Order of Grammont.
2. The Order of St. Anthony.
3. The Order of Fontevraux.
4. The Order of the Gilbertines.
5. The Carthusian Order.
6. The Premonstratensian Order.
7. The Trinitarian Order.
8. The Cœlestine Order.

(3) The Beginnings of the Franciscan Order down to
A.D. 1219.
(4) The Franciscans from A.D. 1219 to A.D. 1223.
(5) The Franciscans from A.D. 1223.
(6) Party Divisions within the Franciscan Order.
(7) The Dominican or Preaching Order.
(8) The Dominican Constitutional Rules.
(9) The Female Orders.
1. Dominican Nuns.
2. Nuns of St. Clara.
(10) The other Mendicant Orders.
(11) Penitential Brotherhoods and Tertiaries of the
Mendicant Orders.
(12) Working Guilds of a Monkish Order.
(13) The Spiritual Order of Knights.
1. The Templars.
2. The Knights of St. John.
3. The Order of Teutonic Knights.
4. The Knights of the Cross.
(14) Bridge-Brothers and Mercedarians.

III. Theological Science and its Controversies.
§ 99. Scholasticism in General.
(1) Dialectic and Mysticism.
(2) The Philosophical Basis of Dialectic Scholasticism.
(3) The Nurseries of Scholasticism.
(4) The Epochs of Scholasticism.
(5) The Canon Law.
(6) Historical Literature.
§ 100. The Sæculum Obscurum: the 10th Century.
(1) Classical Studies―Germany; England.
(2) ―― Italy; France.
§ 101. The Eleventh Century.
(1) The Most Celebrated Schoolmen of this Century.

1. Fulbert.
2. Berengar of Tours.
3. Lanfranc.
4. Hildebert of Tours.
5. Anselm of Canterbury.
6. Anselm of Laon.
7. William of Champeaux.
8. Guibert of Nogent.
(2) Berengar’s Eucharist Controversy, A.D. 1050-1079.
(3) Anselm’s Controversies.
§ 102. The Twelfth Century.
(1) The Contest on French Soil.
I. The Dialectic Side of the Gulf―Peter Abælard.
(2) ―― Abælard’s Teachings.
(3) II. The Mystic Side of the Gulf―St. Bernard of
Clairvaux.
(4) III. Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Mysticism.
(5) IV. Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Dialectics.
(6) The Controversy on German Soil.
(7) Theologians of a Pre-eminently Biblical and
Ecclesiastico-Practical Tendency.
1. Alger of Liège.
2. Rupert of Deutz.
3. Hervæus.
(8) 4. John of Salisbury.
5. Walter of St. Victor.
6. Innocent III.
(9) Humanist Philosophers.
§ 103. The Thirteenth Century.
(1) The Writings of Aristotle and his Arabic Interpreters.
(2) Theory of a twofold Truth.
(3) The Appearance of the Mendicant Orders.
(4) Distinguished Franciscan Schoolmen.
(5) Distinguished Dominican Schoolmen―Albert the Great.
(6) ―― Thomas Aquinas.

(7) Reformers of the Scholastic Method―Raimund Lull.
(8) ―― Roger Bacon.
(9) Theologians of a Biblical and Practical Tendency.
1. Cæsarius of Heisterbach.
2. William Peraldus.
3. Hugo of St. Caro.
4. Robert of Sorbon.
5. Raimund Martini.
(10) Precursors of the German Speculative Mystics.

IV. The Church and the People.
§ 104. Public Worship and Art.
(1) The Liturgy and the Sermon.
(2) Definition and Number of the Sacraments.
(3) The Sacrament of the Altar.
(4) Penance.
(5) Extreme Unction.
(6) The Sacrament of Marriage.
(7) New Festivals.
(8) The Veneration of Saints.
(9) St. Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins.
(10) Hymnology.
(11) Church Music.
(12) Ecclesiastical Architecture.
(13) Free Mason Lodges.
(14) Statuary and Painting.
§ 105. National Customs and the National Literature.
(1) Knighthood and the Peace of God.
(2) Popular Customs.
(3) Two Royal Saints.
(4) Evidences of Sainthood.
1. Stigmatization.
2. Bilocation.
(5) Religious Culture of the People.

(6) The National Literature.
§ 106. Church Discipline, Indulgences, and Asceticism.
(1) Ban and Interdict.
(2) Indulgences.
(3) The Church Doctrine of the Hereafter.
(4) Flagellation.
§ 107. Female Mystics.
(1) Two Rhenish Prophetesses of the 12th Century.
(2) Three Thuringian Prophetesses of the 13th Century.

V. Heretical Opposition to Ecclesiastical Authority.
§ 108. The Protesters against the Church.
(1) The Cathari.
(2) ―― Their Theological Systems.
(3) The Pasagians.
(4) Pantheistic Heretics.
1. Amalrich of Bena.
2. David of Dinant.
3. The Ortlibarians.
(5) Apocalyptic Heretics.
(6) Ghibelline Joachites.
(7) Revolutionary Reformers.
1. The Petrobrusians.
2. Arnold of Brescia.
(8) 3. The Pastorelles.
4. The Apostolic Brothers.
(9) Reforming Enthusiasts.
1. Tanchelm.
2. Eon de Stella.
(10) The Waldensians.
1. Their Origin.
(11) 2. Their Divisions.
(12) 3. Attempts at Catholicizing.
(13) 4. The French Societies.

(14) ―― An Alternate Origin.
(15) 5. The Lombard-German Branch.
(16) 6. Relations between the Waldensians and Older and
Contemporary Sects.
§ 109. The Church against the Protesters.
(1) The Albigensian Crusade, A.D. 1209-1229.
(2) The Inquisition.
(3) Conrad of Marburg and the Stedingers.

THIRD SECTION.
HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH IN THE 14th AND
15th CENTURIES (A.D. 1294-1517).

I. The Hierarchy, Clergy, and Monks.
§ 110. The Papacy.
(1) Boniface VIII. and Benedict XI., A.D. 1294-1304.
(2) The Papacy during the Babylonian Exile, A.D. 1305-1377.
(3) John XXII., A.D. 1316-1334.
(4) Benedict XII., A.D. 1334-1342.
(5) Innocent VI. to Gregory XI., A.D. 1352-1378.
(6) The Papal Schism and the Council of Pisa, A.D. 1378-
1410.
(7) The Council of Constance and Martin V., A.D. 1410-1431.
(8) Eugenius IV. and the Council of Basel, A.D. 1431-1449.
(9) Pragmatic Sanction, A.D. 1438.
(10) Nicholas V. to Pius II., A.D. 1447-1464.
(11) Paul II., Sixtus IV. and Innocent VII., A.D. 1464-1492.
(12) Alexander VI., A.D. 1492-1503.
(13) Julius II., A.D. 1503-1513.
(14) Leo X., A.D. 1513-1521.
(15) Papal Claims to Sovereignty.
(16) The Papal Curia.
§ 111. The Clergy.
(1) The Moral Condition of the Clergy.

(2) Commendator Abbots.
§ 112. Monastic Orders and Societies.
(1) The Benedictine Orders.
(2) The Franciscans.
(3) The Observants and Conventuals.
(4) The Dominicans.
(5) The Augustinians.
(6) John von Staupitz.
(7) Overthrow of the Templars.
(8) New Orders.
1. Hieronymites.
2. Jesuates.
3. Minimi.
4. Nuns of St. Bridget.
5. Annunciate Order.
(9) The Brothers of the Common Life.

II. Theological Science.
§ 113. Scholasticism and its Reformers.
(1) John Duns Scotus.
(2) Thomists and Scotists.
(3) Nominalists and Realists.
(4) Casuistry.
(5) The Founder of Natural Theology―Raimund of Sabunde.
(6) Nicholas of Cusa.
(7) Biblical and Practical Theologians.--
1. Nicholas of Lyra.
2. Antonine of Florence.
3. John Trithemius.
§ 114. The German Mystics.
(1) Meister Eckhart.
(2) Mystics of Upper Germany after Eckhart.
(3) The Friend of God in the Uplands.
(4) Nicholas of Basel.

(5) Henry Suso.
(6) Henry of Nördlingen.
(7) Mystics of the Netherlands.
1. John of Ruysbroek.
2. Hendrik Mande.
3. Gerlach Peters.
4. Thomas à Kempis.

III. The Church and the People.
§ 115A. Public Worship and the Religious Education of the People.
(1) Fasts and Festivals.
(2) Preaching.
(3) The Biblia Pauperum.
(4) The Bible in the Vernacular.
(5) Catechisms and Prayer Books.
(6) The Dance of Death.
(7) Hymnology.
(8) Church Music.
(9) Legendary Relics.
§ 115B. National Literature and Ecclesiastical Art.
(10) The Italian National Literature.
(11) The German National Literature.
(12) The Sacred Drama.
(13) Architecture and Painting.
§ 116. Popular Movements.
(1) Two National Saints.
(2) The Maid of Orleans, A.D. 1428-1431.
(3) Lollards, Flagellants, and Dancers.
(4) The Friends of God.
(5) Pantheistic Libertine Societies.
§ 117. Church Discipline.
(1) Indulgences.
(2) The Inquisition.
(3) The Bull “In Cœna Domini.”

(4) Prosecution of Witches.

IV. Attempts at Reformation.
§ 118. Attempted Reforms in Church Polity.
(1) The Literary War between Imperialists and Curialists in
the 14th Century.
(2) ―― Continued.
(3) Reforming Councils of the 15th Century.
(4) Friends of Reform in France during the 15th Century.
1. Peter d’Ailly.
2. Jean Charlier (Gerson).
3. Nicholas of Clemanges.
4. Louis d’Aleman.
(5) Friends of Reform in Germany.
1. Henry of Langenstein.
2. Theodorich or Dietrich of Niem.
3. Gregory of Heimburg.
4. Jacob of Jüterboyk [Jüterbock].
5. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa.
6. Felix Hemmerlin.
7. The Reformation of the Emperor Sigismund.
(6) An Italian Apostate from the Basel Liberal Party―Æneas
Sylvius Piccolomini.
(7) Reforms in Church Policy in Spain.
§ 119. Evangelical Efforts at Reform.
(1) Wiclif and the Wiclifites.
(2) Precursors of the Hussite Movement.
1. Conrad of Waldhausen.
2. John Milicz of Cremsier.
3. Matthias of Janow.
(3) John Huss of Hussinecz.
(4) ―― Rector of the University of Prague.
(5) ―― Council of Constance; Trial; Execution.
(6) ―― His Teachings.

(7) Calixtines and Taborites.
(8) The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren.
(9) The Waldensians.
1. Lombard-German Waldensians.
(9A) 2. French Waldensians.
(10) The Dutch Reformers.
1. John Pupper of Goch.
2. John Ruchrath of Wesel.
3. John Wessel.
4. Nicholas Russ.
(11) An Italian Reformer―Jerome Savonarola.
§ 120. The Revival of Learning.
(1) Italian Humanists.
(2) German Humanism―University of Erfurt.
(3) ―― Other Schools.
(4) John Reuchlin.
(5) Epistolæ obscurorum virorum.
(6) Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.
(7) Humanism in England.
(8) Humanism in France and Spain.
(9) Humanism and the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.

THIRD DIVISION.
History of the Development of the Church under Modern European Forms
of Civilization.

§ 121. Character and Distribution of Modern Church History.

FIRST SECTION.
CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

I. The Reformation.
§ 122. The Beginnings of the Wittenberg Reformation.
(1) Luther’s Years of Preparation.
(2) Luther’s Theses of A.D. 1517.

(3) Prierias, Cajetan, and Miltitz, A.D. 1518, 1519.
(4) The Leipzig Disputation, A.D. 1519.
(5) Philip Melanchthon.
(6) George Spalatin.
§ 123. Luther’s Period of Conflict, A.D. 1520, 1521.
(1) Luther’s Three Chief Reformation Writings, A.D. 1520.
(2) The Papal Bull of Excommunication, A.D. 1520.
(3) Erasmus, A.D. 1520.
(4) Luther’s Controversy with Emser, A.D. 1519-1521.
(5) The Emperor Charles V.
(6) The Diet at Worms, A.D. 1521.
(7) Luther at Wittenberg after the Diet.
(8) The Wartburg Exile, A.D. 1521, 1522.
(9) The Attitude of Frederick the Wise to the Reformation.
§ 124. Deterioration and Purification of the Wittenberg
Reformation, A.D. 1522-1525.
(1) The Wittenberg Fanaticism, A.D. 1521, 1522.
(2) Franz von Sickingen, A.D. 1522, 1523.
(3) Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, A.D. 1524, 1525.
(4) Thomas Münzer, A.D. 1523, 1524.
(5) The Peasant War, A.D. 1524, 1525.
§ 125. Friends and Foes of Luther’s Doctrine, A.D. 1522-1526.
(1) Spread of Evangelical Views.
(2) “The Sum of Holy Scripture” and its Author.
(3) Henry VIII. and Erasmus.
(4) Thomas Murner.
(5) “Onus ecclesiæ.”
§ 126. Development of the Reformation in the Empire, A.D. 1522-
1526.
(1) The Diet at Nuremberg, A.D. 1522, 1523.
(2) The Diet at Nuremberg, A.D. 1524.
(3) The Convention at Regensburg, A.D. 1524.
(4) The Evangelical Nobles, A.D. 1524.
(5) The Torgau League, A.D. 1526.

(6) The Diet of Spires, A.D. 1526.
§ 127. Organization of the Evangelical Provincial Churches,
A.D. 1526-1529.
(1) The Organization of the Church of the Saxon Electorate,
A.D. 1527-1529.
(2) The Organization of the Hessian Churches, A.D. 1526-
1528.
(3) Organization of other German Provincial Churches,
A.D. 1528-1530.
(4) The Reformation in the Cities of Northern Germany,
A.D. 1524-1531.

§ 128. Martyrs for Evangelical Truth, A.D. 1521-1529.
§ 129. Luther’s Private and Public Life, A.D. 1523-1529.
(1) Luther’s Literary Works.
(2) Döllinger’s View of Luther.
§ 130. The Reformation in German Switzerland, A.D. 1519-1531.
(1) Ulrich Zwingli.
(2) The Reformation in Zürich, A.D. 1519-1525.
(3) Reformation in Basel, A.D. 1520-1525.
(4) The Reformation in the other Cantons, A.D. 1520-1525.
(5) Anabaptist Outbreak, A.D. 1525.
(6) Disputation at Baden, A.D. 1526.
(7) Disputation at Bern, A.D. 1528.
(8) Complete Victory of the Reformation at Basel, St. Gall,
and Schaffhausen, A.D. 1529.
(9) The first Treaty of Cappel, A.D. 1529.
(10) The Second Treaty of Cappel, A.D. 1531.
§ 131. The Sacramentarian Controversy, A.D. 1525-1529.
§ 132. The Protest and Confession of the Evangelical Nobles,
A.D. 1527-1530.
(1) The Pack Incident, A.D. 1527, 1528.
(2) The Emperor’s Attitude, A.D. 1527-1529.
(3) The Diet at Spires, A.D. 1529.

(4) The Marburg Conference, A.D. 1529.
(5) The Convention of Schwabach and the Landgrave Philip.
(6) The Diet of Augsburg, A.D. 1530.
(7) The Augsburg Confession, 25th June, A.D. 1530.
(8) The Conclusions of the Diet of Augsburg.
§ 133. Incidents of the Years A.D. 1531-1536.
(1) The Founding of the Schmalcald League, A.D. 1530, 1531.
(2) The Peace of Nuremberg, A.D. 1532.
(3) The Evangelization of Württemberg, A.D. 1534, 1535.
(4) The Reformation in Anhalt and Pomerania, A.D. 1532-
1534.
(5) The Reformation in Westphalia, A.D. 1532-1534.
(6) Disturbances at Münster, A.D. 1534, 1535.
(7) Extension of the Schmalcald league, A.D. 1536.
(8) The Wittenberg Concordat of A.D. 1536.
§ 134. Incidents of the Years A.D. 1537-1539.
(1) The Schmalcald Articles, A.D. 1537.
(2) The League of Nuremberg, A.D. 1538.
(3) The Frankfort Interim, A.D. 1539.
(4) The Reformation in Albertine Saxony, A.D. 1539.
(5) The Reformation in Brandenburg and Neighbouring
States, A.D. 1539.
§ 135. Union Attempts of A.D. 1540-1546.
(1) The Double Marriage of the Landgrave, A.D. 1540.
(2) The Religious Conference at Worms, A.D. 1540.
(3) The Religious Conference at Regensburg, A.D. 1541.
(4) The Regensburg Declaration, A.D. 1541.
(5) The Naumburg Bishopric, A.D. 1541, 1542.
(6) The Reformation in Brunswick and the Palatinate,
A.D. 1542-1546.
(7) The Reformation in the Electorate of Cologne, A.D. 1542-
1544.
(8) The Emperor’s Difficulties, A.D. 1543, 1544.
(9) Diet at Spires, A.D. 1544.

(10) Differences between the Emperor and the Protestant
Nobles, A.D. 1545, 1546.
(11) Luther’s Death, A.D. 1546.
§ 136. The Schmalcald War, the Interim, and the Council,
A.D. 1546-1551.
(1) Preparations for the Schmalcald War, A.D. 1546.
(2) The Campaign on the Danube, A.D. 1546.
(3) The Campaign on the Elbe, A.D. 1547.
(4) The Council of Trent, A.D. 1545-1547.
(5) The Augsburg Interim, A.D. 1548.
(6) The Execution of the Interim.
(7) The Leipzig or Little Interim, A.D. 1549.
(8) The Council again at Trent, A.D. 1551.
§ 137A. Maurice and the Peace of Augsburg A.D. 1550-1555.
(1) The State of Matters in A.D. 1550.
(2) The Elector Maurice, A.D. 1551.
(3) The Compact of Passau, A.D. 1552.
(4) Death of Maurice, A.D. 1553.
(5) The Religious Peace of Augsburg, A.D. 1555.
§ 137B. Germany after the Religious Peace.
(6) The Worms Consultation, A.D. 1557.
(7) Second Attempt at Reformation in the Electorate
of Cologne, A.D. 1582.
(8) The German Emperors, A.D. 1556-1612.
§ 138. The Reformation in French Switzerland.
(1) Calvin’s Predecessors, A.D. 1526-1535.
(2) Calvin before his Genevan Ministry.
(3) Calvin’s First Ministry in Geneva, A.D. 1536-1538.
(4) Calvin’s Second Ministry in Geneva, A.D. 1541-1564.
(5) Calvin’s Writings.
(6) Calvin’s Doctrine.
(7) The Victory of Calvinism over Zwinglianism.
(8) Calvin’s Successor in Geneva.

§ 139. The Reformation in Other Lands.
(1) Sweden.
(2) Denmark and Norway.
(3) Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia.
(4) England―Henry VIII.
(5) ―― Edward VI.
(6) ―― Elizabeth.
(7) Ireland.
(8) Scotland.
(9) ―― John Knox.
(10) ―― Queen Mary Stuart.
(11) ―― John Knox and Queen Mary Stuart.
(12) The Netherlands.
(13) France.
―― Francis I.
―― Henry II.
(14) ―― Huguenots.
―― Francis II.
―― Charles IX.
(15) ―― Persecution of the Huguenots.
(16) ―― The Bloody Marriage―Massacre of
St. Bartholomew.
(17) ―― Henry III.
―― Henry IV.
―― Edict of Nantes.
(18) Poland.
(19) Bohemia and Moravia.
(20) Hungary and Transylvania.
(21) Spain.
(22) Italy.
(23) ―― Aonio Paleario.
(24) 1. Bernardino Ochino.
2. Peter Martyr Vermilius.
3. Peter Paul Vergerius.
4. Cœlius Secundus Curio.

5. Galeazzo Carraccioli.
6. Fulvia Olympia Morata.
(25) The Protestantizing of the Waldensians.
(26) Attempt at Protestantizing the Eastern Church.

II. The Churches of the Reformation.
§ 140. The Distinctive Character of the Lutheran Church.
§ 141. Doctrinal Controversies in the Lutheran Church.
(1) The Antinomian Controversy, A.D. 1537-1541.
(2) The Osiander Controversy, A.D. 1549-1556.
(3) Æpinus Controversy; Kargian Controversy.
(4) The Philippists and their Opponents.
(5) The Adiaphorist Controversy, A.D. 1548-1555.
(6) The Majorist Controversy, A.D. 1551-1562.
(7) The Synergistic Controversy, A.D. 1555-1567.
(8) The Flacian Controversy about Original Sin, A.D. 1560-
1575.
(9) The Lutheran Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.
(10) Cryptocalvinism in its First Stage, A.D. 1552-1574.
(11) The Frankfort Compact, A.D. 1558, and the Naumburg
Assembly of Princes, A.D. 1561.
(12) The Formula of Concord, A.D. 1577.
(13) Second Stage of Cryptocalvinism, A.D. 1586-1592.
(14) The Huber Controversy, A.D. 1588-1595.
(15) The Hofmann Controversy in Helmstadt, A.D. 1598.
§ 142. Constitution, Worship, Life, and Science in the Lutheran
Church.
(1) The Ecclesiastical Constitution.
(2) Public Worship and Art.
(3) Church Song―Luther and early Authors.
(4) ―― Later Authors.
(5) Chorale Singing.
(6) Theological Science.
(7) German National Literature.

(8) Missions to the Heathen.
§ 143. The Inner Development of the Reformed Church.
(1) The Ecclesiastical Constitution.
(2) Public Worship.
(3) The English Puritans.
(4) ―― The Brownists.
(5) Theological Science.
(6) Philosophy.
(7) A Missionary Enterprise.
§ 144. Calvinizing of German Lutheran National Churches.
(1) The Palatinate, A.D. 1560.
(2) Bremen, A.D. 1562.
(3) Anhalt, A.D. 1597.

III. The Deformation.
§ 145. Character of the Deformation.
§ 146. Mysticism and Pantheism.
(1) Schwenkfeld and his Followers.
(2) Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Weigel.
(3) Franck, Thamer, and Bruno.
(4) The Pantheistic Libertine Sects of the Spirituals.
(5) The Familists.
§ 147. Anabaptism.
(1) The Anabaptist Movement in General.
(2) Keller’s View of Anabaptist History.
(3) The Swiss Anabaptists.
(4) The South German Anabaptists.
(5) The Moravian Anabaptists.
(6) The Venetian Anabaptists.
(7) The older Apostles of Anabaptism in the North-West
of Germany.
1. Melchior Hoffmann.
2. Melchior Ring.

(8) Jan Matthys of Haarlem.
(9) The Münster Catastrophe, A.D. 1534, 1535.
(10) Menno Simons and the Mennonites.
§ 148. Antitrinitarians and Unitarians.
(1) Anabaptist Antitrinitarians in Germany.
(2) Michael Servetus.
(3) Italian and other Antitrinitarians before Socinus.
(4) The Two Socini and the Socinians.

IV. The Counter-Reformation.
§ 149. The Internal Strengthening and Revival of the
Catholic Church.
(1) The Popes before the Council.
(2) The Popes of the Time of the Council.
(3) The Popes after the Council.
(4) Papal Infallibility.
(5) The Prophecy of St. Malachi.
(6) Reformation of Old Monkish Orders.
(7) New Orders for Home Missions.
(8) The Society of Jesus―Founding of the Order.
(9) ―― Constitution.
(10) ―― The Doctrinal and Moral System.
(11) Jesuit Influence upon Worship and Superstition.
(12) Educational Methods and Institutions of the Jesuits.
(13) Theological Controversies.
(14) Theological Literature.
(15) Art and Poetry.
(16) The Spanish Mystics.
(17) Practical Christian life.
§ 150. Foreign Missions.
(1) Missions to the Heathen―East Indies and China.
(2) ―― Japan.
(3) ―― America.
(4) Schismatical Churches of the East.

§ 151. Attempted Regeneration of Roman Catholicism.
(1) Attempts at Regeneration in Germany.
(2) Throughout Europe.
(3) Russia and the United Greeks.

NOTE BY TRANSLATOR.
While the translator was working from the ninth edition
of 1885, a tenth edition had appeared during 1887, to which
unfortunately his attention was not called until quite recently. The
principal additions and alterations affecting Vol. II. occur in §§ 98,
108, 119, and 147. On the section dealing with Anabaptism, the
important changes have been made in the text, so that § 147
precisely corresponds to its latest and most perfect form in the
original. As the printing of the volume was then far advanced, it
was impossible thus to deal with the earlier sections, but students
will find references in the Table of Contents to the full translation
in the Appendix of those passages where material alterations have
been introduced.

John Macpherson.

Findhorn, March, 1889.

SECOND DIVISION.
(Continued.)

SECOND SECTION.
HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-
ROMANIC CHURCH, FROM THE
10TH TO THE 13TH CENTURY.
A.D. 911-1294.

I. The Spread of Christianity.

§ 93. Missionary Enterprises.

During this period the Christianizing of Europe was well nigh
finished. Only Lapland and Lithuania were reserved for the
following period. The method used in conversion was still the
same. Besides missionaries, warriors also extended the faith.
Monasteries and castles were the centres of the newly founded
Christianity. Political considerations and Christian princesses

converted pagan princes; their subjects followed either under
violent pressure or with quiet resignation, carrying with them,
however, under the cover of a Christian profession, much of their
old heathen superstition. It was the policy of the German emperors
to make every effort to unite the converted races under the German
metropolitans, and to establish this union. Thus the metropolitanate
of Hamburg-Bremen was founded for the Scandinavians and those
of the Baltic provinces, that of Magdeburg for the Poles and the
Northern Slavs, that of Mainz for the Bohemians, that of Passau
and Salzburg for the Hungarians. But it was Rome’s desire to
emancipate them from the German clergy and the German state,
and to set them up as independent metropolitanates of a great
family of Christian nationalities recognising the pope as their
spiritual father (§ 82, 9). The Western church did now indeed make
a beginning of missionary enterprise, which extended in its range
beyond Europe to the Mongols of Asia and the Saracens of Africa,
but throughout this period it remained without any, or at least
without any important, result.

§ 93.1. The Scandinavian Mission Field.―The work of Ansgar
and Rimbert (§ 80) had extended only to the frontier provinces of
Jutland and to the trading ports of Sweden, and even the churches
founded there had in the meantime become almost extinct. A
renewal of the mission could not be thought of, owing to the robber
raids of Normans or Vikings, who during the ninth and tenth
centuries had devastated all the coasts. But it was just those Viking
raids that in another way opened a door again for the entrance of
missionaries into those lands. Many of the home-going Vikings,
who had been resident for a while abroad, had there been converted
to the Christian faith, and carried back the knowledge of it to their
homes. In France the Norwegians under Rollo founded Normandy
in A.D. 912. In the tenth century the entire northern half of England
fell into the hands of the Danes, and finally, in A.D. 1013, the Danish

King Sweyn conquered the whole country. Both in France and in
England the incomers adopted the profession of Christianity, and
this, owing to the close connection maintained with their earlier
homes, led to the conversion of Norway and Denmark.

§ 93.2. In Denmark, Gorm the Old, the founder of the regular
Danish monarchy, makes his appearance toward the end of the ninth
century as the bitter foe of Christianity. He destroyed all Christian
institutions, drove away all the priests, and ravaged the
neighbouring German coasts. Then, in A.D. 934, the German king
Henry I. undertook a war against Denmark, and obliged Gorm to
pay tribute and to grant toleration to the Christian faith. Archbishop
Unni of Bremen then immediately began again the mission work.
With a great part of his clergy he entered Danish territory, restored
the churches of Jutland, and died in Sweden in A.D. 936. Gorm’s
son, Harald Blaatand, being defeated in battle by Otto I. in A.D. 965,
submitted to baptism. But his son Sweyn Gabelbart, although he too
had been baptized, headed the reactionary heathen party. Harald fell
in battle against him in A.D. 986, and Sweyn now began his career as
a bitter persecutor of the Christians. Eric of Sweden, however,
formerly a heathen and an enemy of Christianity, drove him out in
A.D. 980, and at the entreaty of a German embassage tolerated the
Christian religion. After Eric’s death in A.D. 998, Sweyn returned. In
exile his opinions had changed, and now he as actively befriended
the Christians as before he had persecuted them. In A.D. 1013 he
conquered all England, and died there in A.D. 1014. His son Canute
the Great, who died in A.D. 1036, united both kingdoms under his
sceptre, and made every effort to find in the profession of a common
Christian faith a bond of union between the two countries over
which he ruled. In place of the German mission issuing from
Bremen, he set on foot an English mission that had great success. In
A.D. 1026 by means of a pilgrimage to Rome, prompted also by far-
reaching political views, he joined the Danish church in the closest
bonds with the ecclesiastical centre of Western Christendom.

Denmark from this time onwards ranks as a thoroughly
Christianized land.

§ 93.3. In Sweden, too, Archbishop Unni of Bremen resumed
mission work and died there in A.D. 936. From this time the German
mission was prosecuted uninterruptedly. It was, however, only in the
beginning of the eleventh century, when English missionaries came
to Sweden from Norway with Sigurd at their head, that real progress
was made. By them the king Olaf Skötkonung, who died in
A.D. 1024, was baptized. Olaf and his successor used every effort to
further the interests of the mission, which had made considerable
progress in Gothland, while in Swealand, with its national pagan
sanctuary of Upsala, heathenism still continued dominant. King
Inge, when he refused in A.D. 1080 to renounce Christianity, was
pursued with stones by a crowd of people at Upsala. His son-in-law
Blot-Sweyn led the pagan reaction, and sorely persecuted those who
professed the Christian faith. After reigning for three years, he was
slain, and Inge restored Christianity in all parts. It was, however,
only under St. Eric, who died in A.D. 1160, that the Christian faith
became dominant in Upper Sweden.263

§ 93.4. The Norwegians had, at a very early period, by means of
the adventurous raids of their seafaring youth, by means of Christian
prisoners, and also by means of intercourse with the Norse colonies
in England and Normandy, gained some knowledge of Christianity.
The first Christian king of Norway was Haco the Good (A.D. 934-
961), who had received a Christian education at the English court.
Only after he had won the fervent love of his people by his able
government, did he venture to ask for the legal establishment of the
Christian religion. The people, however, compelled him to take part
in heathen sacrifices; and when he made the sign of the cross over
the sacrificial cup before he drank of it, they were appeased only by
his associating the action with Thor’s hammer. Haco could never
forgive himself this weakness and died broken-hearted, regarding
himself as unworthy even of Christian burial. Olaf Trygvesen
(A.D. 995-1000), at first the ideal of a Norse Viking, then of a Norse

king, was baptized during his last visit to England, and used all the
powerful influences at his command, the charm and fascination of
his personality, flattery, favour, craft, intimidation and cruelty, to
secure the forcible introduction of Christianity. No foreigner was
ever allowed to quit Norway without being persuaded or compelled
by him to receive baptism. Those who refused, whether natives or
foreigners, suffered severe imprisonment and in many cases were
put to death. He fell in battle with the Danes. Olaf Haraldson the
Fat, subsequently known as St. Olaf (A.D. 1014-1030), followed in
Trygvesen’s steps. Without his predecessor’s fascinating manners
and magnanimity, but prosecuting his ecclesiastical and political
ends with greater recklessness, severity, and cruelty, he soon
forfeited the love of his subjects. The alienated chiefs conspired
with the Danish Canute; the whole country rose against him; he
himself fell in battle, and Norway became a Danish province. The
crushing yoke of the Danes, however, caused a sudden rebound of
public feeling in regard to Olaf. The king, who was before
universally hated, was now looked on as the martyr of national
liberty and independence. Innumerable miracles were wrought by
his bones, and even so early as A.D. 1031 the country unanimously
proclaimed him a national saint. The enthusiasm over the veneration
of the new saint increased from day to day, and with it the
enthusiasm for the emancipation of their native country. Borne
along by the mighty agitation, Olaf’s son, Magnus the Good, drove
out the Danes in A.D. 1035. Olaf’s canonization, though originating
in purely political schemes, had put the final stamp of Christianity
upon the land. The German national privileges, however, were
insisted upon in Norway over against the canon law down to the
13th century.264

§ 93.5. In the North-Western Group of Islands, the Hebrides, the
Orkneys, Shetlands, and Faröe Isles, the sparse Celtic population
professing Christianity was, during the ninth century, expelled by
the pagan Norse Vikings, and among these Christianity was first
introduced by the two Norwegian Olafs. The first missionary
attempt in Iceland was made in A.D. 981 by the Icelander Thorwald,

who having been baptized in Saxony by a Bishop (?) Frederick,
persuaded this ecclesiastic to accompany him to Iceland, that they
might there work together for the conversion of his heathen fellow
countrymen. During a five years’ ministry several individuals were
won, but by a decision of the National Council the missionaries
were forced to leave the island in A.D. 958. Olaf Trygvesen did not
readily allow an Icelander visiting Norway to return without having
been baptized, and twice he sent formal expeditions for the
conversion of Iceland. The first, sent out in A.D. 996, with Stefnin, a
native of Iceland, at its head, had little success. The second,
A.D. 997-999, was led by Olaf’s court chaplain Dankbrand, a Saxon.
This man, at once warrior and priest, who when his sermons failed
shrank not from buckling on the sword, converted many of the most
powerful chiefs. In A.D. 1000 the Icelandic State was saved at the
last hour from a civil war between pagans and Christians which
threatened its very existence, by the adoption of a compromise,
according to which all Icelanders were baptized and only Christian
worship was publicly recognised, but idol worship in the homes,
exposure of children, and eating of horses’ flesh was tolerated. But
in A.D. 1016, as the result of an embassage of the Norwegian king
Olaf Haraldson, even these last vestiges of paganism were wiped
out.―Greenland, too, which had been discovered by a
distinguished Icelander, Eric the Red, and had then been colonized
in A.D. 985, owed its Christianity to Olaf Trygvesen, who in
A.D. 1000 sent the son of the discoverer, Leif the Fortunate, with an
expedition for its conversion. The inhabitants accepted baptism
without resistance. The church continued to flourish there
uninterruptedly for 400 years, and the coast districts became rich
through agriculture and trade. But when in A.D. 1408 the newly
elected bishop Andrew wished to take possession of his see, he
found the country surrounded by enormous masses of ice, and could
not effect a landing. This catastrophe, and the subsequent incursions
of the Eskimos, seem to have led to the overthrow of the
colony.―Continuation, § 167, 9.―Leif discovered on his
expeditions a rich fertile land in the West, which on account of the
vines growing wild there he called Vineland, and this region was

subsequently colonized from Iceland. In the twelfth century, in order
to confirm the colonists in the faith, a Greenland bishop Eric
undertook a journey to that country. It lay on the east coast of North
America, and is probably to be identified with the present
Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

§ 93.6. The Slavo-Magyar Mission-field.―Even in the previous
period a beginning had been made of the Christianizing of Bohemia
(§ 79, 3). After Wratislaw’s death his heathen widow Drahomira
administered the government in the name of her younger son
Boleslaw. Ludmilla, with the help of the clergy and the Germans,
wished to promote St. Wenzeslaw, the elder son, educated by her,
but she was strangled by order of Drahomira in A.D. 927.
Wenzeslaw, too, fell by the hand of his brother. Boleslaw now
thought completely to root out Christianity, but was obliged, in
consequence of the victory of Otho [Otto] I. in A.D. 950, to agree to
the restoration of the church. His son Boleslas [Boleslaw] II.,
A.D. 967-999, contributed to its establishment by founding the
bishopric of Prague. The pope seized the opportunity on the
occasion of this founding of the bishopric to introduce the Roman
ritual (A.D. 973).265

§ 93.7. From Bohemia the Christian faith was carried to the Poles.
In A.D. 966 the Duke Micislas was persuaded by his wife Dubrawka,
a Bohemian princess, daughter of Boleslaw I., to receive baptism.
His subjects were induced to follow his example, and the bishopric
of Posen was founded. The church obtained a firm footing under his
son, the powerful Boleslaw Chrobry, A.D. 992-1025, who with the
consent of Otto III. freed the Polish church from the metropolitanate
of Magdeburg, and gave it an archiepiscopal see of its own at
Gnesen (A.D. 1000). He also separated the Poles from German
imperial federation and had himself crowned king shortly before his
death in A.D. 1025. A state of anarchy, which lasted for a year and
threatened the overthrow of Christianity in the land, was put an end
to by his grandson Casimir in A.D. 1039. Casimir’s grandson
Boleslaw II. gave to the Poles a national saint by the murder in

A.D. 1079 of Bishop Stanislas [Stanislaus] of Cracow, which led to
his excommunication and exile.

§ 93.8. Christianity was introduced into Hungary from
Constantinople. A Hungarian prince Gylas received baptism there
about A.D. 950, and returned home with a monk Hierotheus,
consecrated bishop of the Hungarians. Connection with the Eastern
church, however, was soon broken off, and an alliance formed with
the Western church. After Henry I. in A.D. 933 defeated the
Hungarians at Keuschberg, and still more decidedly after Otto I. in
A.D. 955 had completely humbled them by the terrible slaughter at
Lechfelde, German influence won the upper hand. The missionary
labours of Bishop Piligrim of Passau, as well as the introduction of
Christian foreigners, especially Germans, soon gave to Christianity
a preponderance throughout the country over paganism. The
mission was directly favoured by the Duke Geysa, A.D. 972-997, and
his vigorous wife Sarolta, a daughter of the above-named Gylas.
The Christianizing of Hungary was completed by Geysa’s son
St. Stephen, A.D. 997-1038, who upon his marriage with Gisela, the
sister of the Emperor Henry II., was baptized, a pagan reaction was
put down, a constitution and laws were given to the country, an
archbishopric was founded at Gran with ten suffragan bishops, the
crown was put upon his head in A.D. 1000 by Pope Sylvester II., and
Hungary was enrolled as an important member of the federation of
European Christian States. Under his successors indeed paganism
once more rose in a formidable revolt, but was finally stamped out.
St. Ladislaw [Ladislaus], A.D. 1077-1095, rooted out its last vestiges.

§ 93.9. Among the numerous Wendish Races in Northern and
North-Eastern Germany the chief tribes were the Obotrites in what
is now Holstein and Mecklenburg, the Lutitians or Wilzians,
between the Elbe and the Oder, the Pomeranians, from the Oder to
the Vistula, and the Sorbi, farther south in Saxony and Lusatia.
Henry I., A.D. 919-936, and his son Otto I., A.D. 936-973, in several
campaigns subjected them to the German yoke, and the latter
founded among them in A.D. 968 the archbishopric of Magdeburg

besides several bishoprics. The passion for national freedom, as well
as the proud contempt, illtreatment, and oppression of the German
margraves, rendered Christianity peculiarly hateful to the Wends,
and it was only after their freedom and nationality had been
completely destroyed and the Slavic population had been
outnumbered by German or Germanized colonists, that the Church
obtained a firm footing in their land. A revolt of the Obotrites under
Mistewoi in A.D. 983, who with the German yoke abjured also the
Christian faith, led to the destruction of all Christian institutions.
His grandson Gottschalk, educated as a Christian in a German
monastery, but roused to fury by the murder of his father Udo,
escaped from the monastery in A.D. 1032, renounced Christianity,
and set on foot a terrible persecution of Christians and Germans.
But he soon bitterly repented this outburst of senseless rage. Taken
prisoner by the Germans, he escaped and took refuge in Denmark,
but subsequently he returned and founded in A.D. 1045 a great
Wendish empire which extended from the North Sea to the Oder. He
now enthusiastically applied all his energy to the establishment of
the church in his land upon a national basis, for which purpose
Adalbert of Bremen sent him missionaries. He was himself
frequently their interpreter and expositor. He was eminently
successful, but the national party hated him as the friend of the
Saxons and the church. He fell by the sword of the assassin in
A.D. 1066, and thereupon began a terrible persecution of the
Christians. His son Henry having been set aside, the powerful
Ranian chief Cruco from the island of Rügen, a fanatical enemy of
Christianity, was chosen ruler. At the instigation of Henry he was
murdered in his own house in A.D. 1115. Henry died in A.D. 1127. A
Danish prince Canute bought the Wendish crown from Lothair duke
of Saxony, but was murdered in A.D. 1131. This brought the Wendish
empire to an end. The Obotrite chief Niklot, who died in A.D. 1161,
held his ground only in the territory of the Obotrites. His son
Pribizlaw, the ancestor of the present ruling family of Mecklenburg,
by adopting Christianity in A.D. 1164, saved to himself a part of the
inheritance of his fathers as a vassal under the Saxon princes. All the
rest of the land was divided by Henry the Lion among his German

warriors, and the depopulated districts were peopled with German
colonists.―In A.D. 1157 Albert the Bear, the founder of the
Margravate of Brandenburg, overthrew the dominion of the
Lutitians after protracted struggles and endless revolts. He, too,
drafted numerous German colonists into the devastated
regions.―The Christianizing of the Sorbi was an easier task. After
their first defeat by Henry I. in A.D. 922 and 927, they were never
again able to regain their old freedom. Alongside of the mission of
the sword among the Wends there was always carried on, more or
less vigorously, the mission of the Cross. Among the Sorbi bishop
Benno of Meissen, who died in A.D. 1107, wrought with special
vigour, and among the Obotrites the greatest zeal was displayed by
St. Vicelinus. He died bishop of Oldenburg in A.D. 1154.

§ 93.10. Pomerania submitted in A.D. 1121 to the duke of Poland,
Boleslaw III., and he compelled them solemnly to promise that they
would adopt the Christian faith. The work of conversion, however,
appeared to be so unpromising that Boleslaw found none among all
his clergy willing to undertake the task. At last in A.D. 1122, a
Spanish monk Bernard offered himself. But the Pomeranians drove
him away as a beggar who looked only to his own gain, for they
thought, if the Christians’ God be really the Lord of heaven and
earth He would have sent them a servant in keeping with His
glorious majesty. Boleslaw was then convinced that only a man who
had strong faith and a martyr’s spirit, united with an imposing
figure, rank, and wealth, was fit for the work, and these
qualifications he found in bishop Otto of Bamberg. Otto accepted
the call, and during two missionary journeys in A.D. 1124-1128
founded the Pomeranian church. Following Bernard’s advice, he
went through Pomerania on both occasions with all the pomp of
episcopal dignity, with a great retinue and abundant stores of
provisions, money, ecclesiastical ornaments, and presents of all
kinds. He had unparalleled success, yet he was repeatedly well nigh
obtaining the crown of martyrdom which he longed for. The whole
Middle Ages furnishes scarcely an equally noble, pure, and
successful example of missionary enterprise. None of all the

missionaries of that age presents so harmonious a picture of
firmness without obstinacy, earnestness without harshness,
gentleness without weakness, enthusiasm without fanaticism. And
never have the German and Slavic nationalities so nobly,
successfully, and faithfully practised mutual forbearance as did the
Pomeranians and their apostle.―The last stronghold of Wendish
paganism was the island of Rügen. It fell when in A.D. 1168 the
Danish king Waldemar I. with the Christian Pomeranian and
Obotrite chiefs conquered the island and destroyed its heathen
sanctuaries.

§ 93.11. Mission Work among the Finns and
Lithuanians.―St. Eric of Sweden in A.D. 1157 introduced
Christianity into Finland by conquest and compulsion. Bishop
Henry of Upsala, the apostle of the Finns, who accompanied him,
suffered a martyr’s death in the following year. The Finns detested
Christianity as heartily as they did the rule of the conquering
Swedes, who introduced it, and it was only after the third campaign
which Thorkel Canutson undertook in A.D. 1293 against Finland,
that the Swedish rule and the Christian faith were established, and
under a vigorous yet moderate and wise government the Finns were
reconciled to both.―Lapland came under the rule of Sweden in
A.D. 1279, and thereafter Christianity gradually found entrance. In
A.D. 1335 bishop Hemming of Upsala consecrated the first church at
Tornea.

§ 93.12. Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland were inhabited by
peoples belonging to the Finnic stem. Yet even in early times people
from the south and east belonging to the Lithuanian stem had settled
in Livonia and Courland, Letts and Lettgalls in Livonia, and
Semgalls and Wends in Courland. The first attempts to introduce
Christianity into these regions were made by Swedes and Danes,
and even under the Danish king Sweyn III., Eric’s son, about
A.D. 1048 a church was erected in Courland by Christian merchants,
and in Esthonia the Danes not long after built the fortress of
Lindanissa. The elevation of the bishopric of Lund into a

metropolitanate in A.D. 1098 was projected with a regard to these
lands. In A.D. 1171 Pope Alexander III. sent a monk, Fulco, to Lund
to convert the heathen and to be bishop of Finland and Esthonia, but
he seems never to have entered on his duties or his dignity. Abiding
results were first won by German preaching and the German sword.
In the middle of the 12th century merchants of Bremen and Lübeck
carried on traffic with towns on the banks of the Dwina. A pious
priest from the monastery of Segeberg in Holstein, called Meinhart,
undertook in their company under the auspices of the archbishop of
Bremen, Hartwig II., a missionary journey to those regions in
A.D. 1184. He built a church at Üxküll on the Dwina, was recognised
as bishop of the place in A.D. 1186, but died in A.D. 1196. His
assistant Dietrich carried on the work of the mission in the district
from Freiden down to Esthonia. Meinhart’s successor in the
bishopric was the Cistercian abbot, Berthold of Loccum in Hanover.
Having been driven away soon after his arrival, he returned with an
army of German crusaders, and was killed in battle in A.D. 1198. His
successor was a canon of Bremen, Albert of Buxhöwden. He
transferred the bishop’s seat to Riga, which was built by him in
A.D. 1201, founded in A.D. 1202, for the protection of the mission,
the Order of the Brethren of the Sword (§ 98, 13), amid constant
battles with Russians, Esthonians, Courlanders and Lithuanians
erected new bishoprics in Esthonia (Dorpat), Oesel, and Semgallen,
and effected the Christianization of nearly all these lands. He died in
A.D. 1229. After A.D. 1219 the Danes, whom Albert had called in to
his aid, vied with him in the conquest and conversion of the
Esthonians. Waldemar II. founded Revel in A.D. 1219, made it an
episcopal see, and did all in his power to restrict the advances of the
Germans. In this he did not succeed. The Danes, indeed, were
obliged to quit Esthonia in A.D. 1257. After Albert’s death, however,
the difficulties of the situation became so great that Volquin, the
Master of the Order of the Sword, could see no hope of success save
in the union of his order with that of the Teutonic Knights, shortly
before established in Prussia. The union, retarded by Danish
intrigues, was not effected until A.D. 1237, when a fearful slaughter
of Germans by the Lithuanians had endangered not only the

existence of the Order of the Sword but even the church of Livonia.
Then, too, for the first time was Courland finally subdued and
converted. It had, indeed, nominally adopted Christianity in
A.D. 1230, but had soon after relapsed into paganism. Finally in
A.D. 1255 Riga was raised to the rank of a metropolitanate, and
Suerbeer, formerly archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, was appointed
by Innocent IV. archbishop of Prussia, Livonia, and Esthonia, with
his residence at Riga.

§ 93.13. The Old Prussians and Lithuanians also belonged to the
Lettish stem. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, first brought the message
of salvation to the Prussians between the Vistula and Memel, but on
the very first entrance into Sameland [Samland] in A.D. 997 he won
the martyr’s crown. This, too, was the fate twelve years later of the
zealous Saxon monk Bruno and eighteen companions on the
Lithuanian coast. Two hundred years passed before another
missionary was seen in Prussia. The first was the Abbot Gothfried
from the Polish monastery of Lukina; but in his case also an end
was soon put to his hopefully begun work, as well as to that of his
companion Philip, both suffering martyrdom in A.D. 1207. More
successful and enduring was the mission work three years later of
the Cistercian monk Christian from the Pomeranian monastery of
Oliva, in A.D. 1209, the real apostle of the Prussians. He was raised
to the rank of bishop in A.D. 1215, and died in A.D. 1245. On the
model of the Livonian Order of the Brethren of the Sword he
founded in A.D. 1225 the Order of the Knights of Dobrin (Milites
Christi). In the very first year of their existence, however, they were
reduced to the number of five men. In union with Conrad, Duke of
Moravia, whose land had suffered fearfully from the inroads of the
pagan Prussians, Christian then called in the aid of the Teutonic
Knights, whose order had won great renown in Germany. A branch
of this order had settled in A.D. 1228 in Culm, and so laid the
foundation of the establishment of the order in Prussia. With the
appearance of this order began a sixty years’ bloody conflict
directed to the overthrow of Prussian paganism, which can be said
to have been effected only in A.D. 1283, when the greater part of the

Prussians had been slain after innumerable conflicts with the order
and with crusaders from Germany, Poland, Bohemia, etc. Among
the crowds of preachers of the gospel, mostly Dominicans, besides
Bishop Christian and the noble papal legate William, bishop of
Modena, the Polish Dominican Hyacinth, who died in A.D. 1257, a
vigorous preacher of faith and repentance, deserves special mention.
So early as A.D. 1243, William of Modena had sketched an
ecclesiastical organization for the country, which divided Prussia
into four dioceses, which were placed in A.D. 1255 under the
metropolitanate of Riga.

§ 93.14. The introduction of Christianity into Lithuania was longest
delayed. After Ringold had founded in A.D. 1230 a Grand Duchy of
Lithuania, his son Mindowe endeavoured to enlarge his dominions
by conquest. The army of the Prussian-Livonian Order, however, so
humbled him that he sued for peace and was compelled to receive
baptism in A.D. 1252. But no sooner had he in some measure
regained strength than he threw off the hypocritical mask, and in
A.D. 1260 appeared as the foe of his Christian neighbours. His son
Wolstinik, who had remained true to the Christian faith, dying in
A.D. 1266, reigned too short a time to secure an influence over his
people. With him every trace of Christianity disappeared from
Lithuania. Christians were again tolerated in his territories by the
Grand Duke Gedimin (A.D. 1315-1340). Romish Dominicans and
Russian priests vied with one another under his successor Olgerd in
endeavours to convert the inhabitants. Olgerd himself was baptized
according to the Greek rite, but apostatised. His son Jagello, born of
a Christian mother, and married to the young Polish queen Hedwig,
whose hand and crown seemed not too dearly purchased by
submitting to baptism and undertaking to introduce Christianity
among his people, made at last an end to heathenism in Lithuania in
A.D. 1386. His subjects, each of whom received a woollen coat as a
christening gift, flocked in crowds to receive baptism. The bishop’s
residence was fixed at Wilna.

§ 93.15. The Mongolian Mission Field.―From the time of
Genghis Khan, who died in A.D. 1227, the princes of the Mongols,
in consistency with their principles as deists with little trace of
religion, showed themselves equally tolerant and favourable to
Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. The Nestorians were very
numerous in this empire, but also very much deteriorated. In
A.D. 1240-1241 the Mongols, pressing westward with irresistible
force, threatened to overflow and devastate all Europe. Russia and
Poland, Silesia, Moravia, and Hungary had been already dreadfully
wasted by them, when suddenly and unexpectedly the savage hordes
withdrew. Innocent IV. sent an embassage of Dominicans under
Nicolas Ascelinus to the Commander Batschu in Persia, and an
embassage of Franciscans under John of Piano-Carpini to the Grand
Khan Oktaï, Genghis Khan’s successor, to his capital Karakorum,
with a view to their conversion and to dissuade them from repeating
their inroads. Both missions were unsuccessful. Certain adventurers
pretending to be bearers of a message from Mongolia, told
Louis IX. of France fabulous stories of the readiness of the Grand
Khan Gajuk and his princes to receive Christianity, and their
intention to conquer the Holy Land for the Christians. He
accordingly sent out two missions to the Mongols. The first, in
A.D. 1249 was utterly unsuccessful, for the Mongols regarded the
presents given as a regular tribute and as a symbol of voluntary
submission. The second mission in A.D. 1253, to the Grand Khan
Mangu, although under a brave and accomplished leader, William of
Ruysbroek, yielded no fruit; for Mangu, instead of allowing free
entrance into the land for the preaching of the gospel, at the close of
a disputation with Mohammedans and Buddhists sent the
missionaries back to Louis with the threatening demand to tender
his submission. After Mangu’s death in A.D. 1257, the Mongolian
empire was divided into Eastern and Western, corresponding to
China and Persia. The former was governed by Kublai Khan, the
latter by Hulagu Khan.―Kublai Khan, the Emperor of China, a
genuine type of the religious mongrelism of the Mongolians,
showed himself very favourable to Christians, but also patronised
the Mohammedans, and in A.D. 1260 gave a hierarchical constitution

and consolidated form to Buddhism by the establishment of the first
Dalai Lama. The travels of two Venetians of the family of Polo led
to the founding of a Latin Christian mission in China. They returned
from their Mongolian travels in A.D. 1269. Gregory X. in A.D. 1272
sent two Dominicans to Mongolia along with the two brothers, and
the son of one of them, Marco Polo, then seventeen years old. The
latter won the unreserved confidence of the Grand Khan, and was
entrusted by him with an honourable post in the government. On his
return in A.D. 1295 he published an account of his travels, which
made an enormous sensation, and afforded for the first time to
Western Europe a proper conception of the condition of Eastern
Asia.266 A regular Christian missionary enterprise, however, was
first undertaken by the Franciscan Joh. de Monte-Corvino,
A.D. 1291-1328, one of the noblest, most intelligent, and most
faithful of the missionaries of the Middle Ages. After he had
succeeded in overcoming the intrigues of the numerous Nestorians,
he won the high esteem of the Grand Khan. In the royal city of
Cembalu or Pekin he built two churches, baptized about 6,000
Mongols, and translated the Psalter and the New Testament into
Mongolian. He wrought absolutely alone till A.D. 1303. Afterwards,
however, other brethren of his order came repeatedly to his aid.
Clement V. appointed him archbishop of Cembalu in A.D. 1307.
Every year saw new churches established. But internal disturbances,
under Kublai’s successor, weakened the power of the Mongolian
dynasty, so that in A.D. 1370 it was overthrown by the national Ming
dynasty. By the new rulers the Christian missionaries were driven
out along with the Mongols, and thus all that they had done was
utterly destroyed.―The ruler of Persia, Hulagu Khan, son of a
Christian mother and married to a Christian wife, put an end in
A.D. 1258 to the khalifate of Bagdad, but was so pressed by the
sultan of Egypt, that he entered on a long series of negotiations with
the popes and the kings of France and England, who gave him the
most encouraging promises of joining their forces with his against
the Saracens. His successors, of whom several even formally
embraced Christianity, continued these negotiations, but obtained

nothing more than empty promises and protestations of friendship.
The time of the crusades was over, and the popes, even the most
powerful of them, were not able to reawaken the crusading spirit.
The Persian khans, vacillating between Christianity and Islam,
became more and more powerless, until at last, in A.D. 1387,
Tamerlane (Timur) undertook to found on the ruins of the old
government a new universal Mongolian empire under the standard
of the Crescent. But with his death in A.D. 1405 the dominion of the
Mongols in Persia was overthrown, and fell into the hands of the
Turkomans. Henceforth amid all changes of dynasties Islam
continued the dominant religion.

§ 93.16. The Mission Field of Islam.―The crusader princes and
soldiers wished only to wrest the Holy Land from the infidels, but,
with the exception perhaps of Louis IX., had no idea of bringing to
them the blessings of the gospel. And most of the crusaders, by their
licentiousness, covetousness, cruelty, faithlessness, and dissensions
among themselves, did much to cause the Saracens to scorn the
Christian faith as represented by their lives and example. It was not
until the 13th century that the two newly founded mendicant orders
of Franciscans and Dominicans began an energetic but fruitless
mission among the Moslems of Africa, Sicily, and Spain. St. Francis
himself started this work in A.D. 1219, when during the siege of
Damietta by the crusaders he entered the camp of the Sultan Camel
and bade him kindle a fire and cause that he himself with one of the
Moslem priests should be cast into it. When the imam present
shrank away at these words, Francis offered to go alone into the fire
if the sultan would promise to accept Christianity along with his
people should he pass out of the fire uninjured. The sultan refused to
promise and sent the saint away unhurt with presents, which,
however, he returned. Afterwards several Franciscan missions were
sent to the Moslems, but resulted only in giving a crowd of martyrs
to the order. The Dominicans, too, at a very early period took part in
the mission to the Mohammedans, but were also unsuccessful. The
Dominican general Raimund de Pennaforti [Pennaforte], who died
in A.D. 1273, devoted himself with special zeal to this task. For the

training of the brethren of his order in the oriental languages he
founded institutions at Tunis and Murcia. The most important of all
these missionary enterprises was that of the talented Raimund
Lullus of Majorca, who after his own conversion from a worldly life
and after careful study of the language, made three voyages to North
Africa and sought in disputations with the Saracen scholars to
convince them of the truth of Christianity. But his Ars Magna
(§ 103, 7), which with great ingenuity and enormous labour he had
wrought out mainly for this purpose, had no effect. Imprisonment
and ill-treatment were on all occasions his only reward. He died in
A.D. 1315 in consequence of the ill-usage which he had been
subjected.

§ 94. The Crusades.267

The Arabian rulers had for their own interest protected the
Christian pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. But even under the rule
of the Fatimide dynasty, early in the 10th century, the oppression of
pilgrims began. Khalif Hakim, in order that he might blot out the
disgrace of being born of a Christian mother, committed ruthless
cruelties upon resident Christians as well as upon the pilgrims, and
prohibited under severe penalties all meetings for Christian
worship. Under the barbarous Seljuk dynasty, which held sway in
Palestine from about A.D. 1070, the oppression reached its height.
The West became all the more concerned about this, since during
the 10th century the idea that the end of the world was approaching
had given a new impulse to pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Pope
Sylvester II. had in A.D. 999 ex persona devastatæ Hierosolymæ
summoned Christendom to help in this emergency. Gregory VII.
seized anew upon the idea of wresting the Holy Land from the
infidels. He had even resolved himself to lead a Christian army, but
the outbreak of contentions with Henry IV. hindered the execution
of this plan. Meanwhile complaints by returning pilgrims of
intolerable ill-usage increased. An urgent appeal from the
Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus gave the spark that lit the
combustible material that had been gathered throughout the West.
The imperial ambassadors accompanied Pope Urban II. to the
Council of Clermont in A.D. 1095, where the pope himself, in a
spirited speech, called for a holy war under the standard of the
cross. The shout was raised as from one mouth, “It is God’s will.”
On that very day thousands enlisted, with Adhemar, bishop of Puy,
papal legate, at their head, and had the red cross marked on their
right shoulders. The bishops returning home preached the crusade

as they went, and in a few weeks a glowing enthusiasm had spread
throughout France down to the provinces of the Rhine. Then began
a movement which, soon extending over all the West, like a second
migration of nations, lasted for two centuries. The crusades cost
Europe between five and six millions of men, and yet in the end
that which had been striven after was not attained. Its
consequences, however, to Europe itself were all the more
important. In all departments of life, ecclesiastical and political,
moral and intellectual, civil and industrial, new views, needs,
developments, and tendencies were introduced. Mediæval culture
now reached the highest point of its attainment, and its failure to
transcend the past opened the way for the conditions of modern
society. And while on the other hand they afforded new and
extravagantly abundant nourishment for clerical and popular
superstition, in all directions, but specially in giving opportunity to
roguish traffic in relics (§ 104, 8; 115, 9), on the other hand they
had no small share in producing religious indifference and
frivolous free-thinking (§ 96, 19), as well as the terribly dangerous
growth of mediæval sects, which threatened the overthrow of
church and State, religion and morality (§ 108, 1, 4; 116, 5). The
former was chiefly the result of the sad conclusion of an
undertaking of unexampled magnitude, entered upon with the most
glowing enthusiasm for Christianity and the church; the latter was
in great measure occasioned by intercourse with sectaries of a like
kind in the East (§ 71).
§ 94.1. The First Crusade, A.D. 1096.―In the spring of A.D. 1096
vast crowds of people gathered together, impatient of the delays of
the princes, and put themselves under the leadership of Walter the
Penniless. They were soon followed by Peter of Amiens with 40,000
men. A legend, unworthy of belief, credits him with the origin of the
whole movement. According to this story, the hermit returning from
a pilgrimage described to the holy father in vivid colours the

sufferings of their Christian brethren, and related how that Christ
Himself had appeared to him in a dream, giving him the command
for the pope to summon all Christendom to rescue the Holy
Sepulchre. The legend proceeds to say that, by order of the pope,
Peter the Hermit then went through all Italy and France, arousing
the enthusiasm of the people. The hordes led by him, however, after
committing deeds of horrid violence on every side, while no farther
than Bulgaria, were reduced to about one half, and the remnant,
after Peter had already left them because of their insubordination,
was annihilated by the Turks at Nicæa. Successive new crusades,
the last of them an undisciplined mob of 200,000 men, were cut
down in Hungary or on the Hungarian frontier. In August a regular
crusading army, 80,000 strong, under the leadership of Godfrey of
Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, passing through Germany and Hungary,
reached Constantinople. There several French and Norman princes
joined the army, till its strength was increased to 600,000. After
considerable squabbling with the Byzantine government, they
passed over into Asia. With great labour and heavy loss Nicæa,
Edessa, and Antioch were taken. At last, on 15th July, 1099, amid
shouts of, It is God’s will, they stormed the walls of Jerusalem;
lighted by torches and wading in blood, they entered with singing of
psalms into the Church of the Resurrection. Godfrey was elected
king. With pious humility he declined to wear a king’s crown where
Christ had worn a crown of thorns. He died a year after, and his
brother Baldwin was crowned at Bethlehem. By numerous
impropriations crowds of greater and lesser vassals were gathered
about the throne. In Jerusalem itself a Latin patriarchate was
erected, and under it were placed four archbishoprics, with a
corresponding number of bishoprics. The story of these proceedings
enkindled new enthusiasm in the West. In A.D. 1101 three new
crusades of 260,000 men were fitted out in Germany, under Welf,
duke of Bavaria, and in Italy and in France. They marched against
Bagdad, in order to strike terror into the hearts of Moslems by the
terrible onslaught; the undisciplined horde, however, did not reach
its destination, but found a grave in Asia Minor.

§ 94.2. The Second Crusade, A.D. 1147.―The fall of Edessa in
A.D. 1146, as the frontier fortress of the kingdom, summoned the
West to a new effort. Pope Eugenius III. called the nations to arms.
Bernard of Clairvaux, the prophet of the age, preached the crusade,
and prophesied victory. Louis VII. of France took the sign of the
cross, in order to atone for the crime of having burnt a church filled
with men; and Conrad III. of Germany, moved by the preaching
of Bernard, with some hesitation followed his example. But their
stately army fell before the sword of the Saracens, the malice of the
Greeks, and internal disorders caused by famine, disease, and
hardships. Damascus remained unconquered, and the princes
returned humbled with the miserable remnant of their army.

§ 94.3. The Third Crusade, A.D. 1189.―The kingdom of Jerusalem
before a century had past was in utter decay. Greeks or Syrians and
Latins had a deadly hatred for one another: the vassals intrigued
against each other and against the crown. Licentiousness, luxury,
and recklessness prevailed among the people; the clergy and the
nobles of the kingdom, but especially the so called Pulleni,268
descendants of the crusaders born in the Holy Land itself, were a
miserable, cowardly and treacherous race. The pretenders to the
crown also continued their intrigues and cabals. Such being the
corrupt condition of affairs, it was an easy thing for the Sultan
Saladin, the Moslem knight “without fear and without reproach,”
who had overthrown the Fatimide dynasty in Egypt, to bring down
upon the Christian rule in Syria, after the bloody battle of Tiberias,
the same fate. Jerusalem fell into his hands in October, A.D. 1187.
When this terrible piece of news reached the West, the Christian
powers were summoned by Gregory VIII. to combine their forces in
order to make one more vigorous effort, Philip Augustus of France
and Henry II. of England forgot for a moment their mutual
jealousies, and took the cross from the hands of Archbishop William
of Tyre, the historian of the crusade. Next the Emperor
Frederick I. joined them, with all the heroic valour of youth,
though in years and experience an old man. He entered on the
undertaking with an energy, considerateness, and circumspection

which seemed to deserve glorious success. After piloting his way
through Byzantine intrigues and the indescribable fatigues of a
waterless desert, he led his soldiers against the well-equipped army
of the sultan at Iconium, which he utterly routed, and took the city.
But in A.D. 1190 the heroic warrior was drowned in an attempt to
ford the river Calycadnus. A great part of his army was now
scattered, and the remnant was led by his son Frederick of Swabia
against Ptolemais. At that point soon after landed Philip Augustus
and Richard Cœur de Lion of England, who after his father’s death
put himself at the head of an English crusading army and had
conquered Cyprus on the way. Ptolemais (Acre) was taken in
A.D. 1191. But the jealousies of the princes interfered with their
success. Frederick had already fallen, and Philip Augustus under
pretence of sickness returned to France; Richard gained a brilliant
victory over Saladin, took Joppa and Ascalon, and was on the eve of
marching against Jerusalem when news reached him that his brother
John had assumed the throne of England, and that Philip Augustus
also was entertaining schemes of conquest. Once again Richard won
a great victory before Joppa, and Saladin, admiring his unexampled
bravery, concluded with him now, in A.D. 1192, a three years’ truce,
giving most favourable terms to the pilgrims. The strip along the
coast from Joppa to Acre continued under the rule of Richard’s
nephew, Henry of Champagne. But Richard was seized on his return
journey and cast into prison by Leopold of Austria, whose standard
he had grossly insulted before Ptolemais, and for two years he
remained a prisoner. After his release he was prevented from
thinking of a renewal of the crusade by a war with France, in which
he met his death in A.D. 1199.269

§ 94.4. The Fourth Crusade, A.D. 1217.―Innocent III. summoned
Christendom anew to a holy war. The kings, engaged in their own
affairs, gave no heed to the call. But the violent penitential preacher,
Fulco of Neuilly, prevailed upon the French nobles to collect a
considerable crusading army, which, however, instead of proceeding
against the Saracens, was used by the Venetian Doge, Dandolo, in
payment of transport, for conquering Zaras in Dalmatia, and then by

a Byzantine prince for a campaign against Constantinople, where
Baldwin of Flanders founded a Latin Empire, A.D. 1204-1261. The
pope put the doge and the crusaders under excommunication on
account of the taking of Zaras, and the campaign against
Constantinople was most decidedly disapproved. Their unexpected
success, however, turned away his anger. He boasted that at last
Israel, after destroying the golden calves at Dan and Bethel, was
again united to Judah, and in Rome bestowed the pallium upon the
first Latin patriarch of Constantinople.―The Children’s Crusade,
which in A.D. 1212 snatched from their parents in France and
Germany 30,000 boys and girls, had a most tragic end. Many died
before passing from Europe of famine and fatigue; the rest fell into
the hands of unprincipled men, who sold them as slaves in
Egypt.―King Andrew II. of Hungary, urged by Honorius III., led
a new crusading army to the Holy Land in A.D. 1217, and won some
successes; but finding himself betrayed and deserted by the
Palestinian barons, he returned home in the following year. But the
Germans under Leopold VII. of Austria, who had accompanied him
remained, and, supported by a Cologne and Dutch fleet, undertook
in A.D. 1218, along with the titular king John of Jerusalem, a crusade
against Egypt. Damietta was taken, but the overflow of the Nile
reservoirs placed them in such peril that they owed their escape in
A.D. 1221 only to the generosity of the Sultan Camel.

§ 94.5. The Fifth Crusade, A.D. 1228.―The Emperor Frederick II.
had promised to undertake a crusade, but continued to make so
many excuses for delay that Gregory IX. (§ 96, 19) at last thundered
against him the long threatened excommunication. Frederick now
brought out a comparatively small crusading force. The Sultan
Camel of Egypt, engaged in war with his nephew, and fearing that
Frederick might attach himself to the enemy, freely granted him a
large tract of the Holy Land. At the Holy Sepulchre Frederick placed
the crown of Jerusalem, the inheritance of his new wife Iolanthe,
with his own hands on his head, since no bishop would perform the
coronation nor even a priest read the mass service for the
excommunicated king. He then returned home in A.D. 1229 to

arrange his differences with the pope. The crusading armies which
Theobald, king of Navarre, in A.D. 1239, and Richard Earl of
Cornwall, in A.D. 1240, led against Palestine, owing to disunion
among themselves and quarrels among the Syrian Christians, could
accomplish nothing.

§ 94.6. The Sixth, A.D. 1248, and Seventh, A.D. 1270,
Crusades.―The zeal for crusading had by this time considerably
cooled. St. Louis of France, however, the ninth of that name, had
during a serious illness in A.D. 1244, taken the cross. At this time
Jerusalem had been conquered and subjected to the most dreadful
horrors at the hands of the Chowaresmians, driven from their home
by the Mongols, and now in the pay of Egyptian sultan Ayoub.
Down to A.D. 1247 the rule of the Christians in the Holy Land was
again restricted to Acre and some coast towns. Louis could no
longer think of delay. He started in A.D. 1248 with a considerable
force, wintered in Cyprus, and landed in Egypt in A.D. 1249. He
soon conquered Damietta, but, after his army had been in great part
destroyed by famine, disease and slaughter, was taken prisoner at
Cairo by the sultan. After the murder of the sultan by the
Mamelukes, who overthrew Saladin’s dynasty, he fell into their
hands. The king was obliged to deliver over Damietta and to
purchase his own release by payment of 800,000 byzantines. He
sailed with the remnant of his army to Acre in A.D. 1250, whence his
mother’s death called him home in A.D. 1254. But as his vow had
not yet been fully paid, he sailed in A.D. 1270 with a new crusading
force to Tunis in order to carry on operations from that centre. But
the half of his army was cut off by a pestilence, and he himself was
carried away in that same year. All subsequent endeavours of the
popes to reawaken an interest in the crusades were unavailing. Acre
or Ptolemais, the last stronghold of the Christians in the Holy Land,
fell in A.D. 1291.

§ 95. Islam and the Jews in Europe.

The Saracens (§ 81, 2) were overthrown in the 11th century by
the Normans. The reign of Islam in Spain too (§ 81, 1) came to an
end. The frequent change of dynasties, as well as the splitting up of
the empire into small principalities, weakened the power of the
Moors; the growth of luxurious habits in the rich and fertile
districts robbed them of martial energy and prowess. The Christian
power also was indeed considerably split up and disturbed by many
internal feuds, but the national and religious enthusiasm with which
it was every day being more and more inspired, made it invincible.
Rodrigo Diaz, the Castilian hero, called by the Moors the Cid, i.e.
Lord, by the Christians Campeador, i.e. champion, who died in
A.D. 1099, was the most perfect representative of Spanish Christian
knighthood, although he dealt with the infidels in a manner neither
Christian nor knightly. Also the Almoravides of Morocco, whose
aid was called in in A.D. 1086, and the Almohades, who had driven
out these from Barbary in A.D. 1146, were not able to stop the
progress of the Christian arms. On the other hand, neither the
unceasing persecutions of the civil power, nor innumerable
atrocities committed on Jews by infuriated mobs, nor even
Christian theologians’ zeal for the instruction and conversion of the
Israelites, succeeded in destroying Judaism in Europe.

§ 95.1. Islam in Sicily.―The robber raids upon Italy perpetrated by
the Sicilian Saracens were put an end to by the Normans who settled
there in A.D. 1017. Robert Guiscard destroyed the remnant of Greek
rule in southern Italy, conquered the small Longobard duchies there,
and founded a Norman duchy of Apulia and Calabria in A.D. 1059.
His brother Roger, who died in A.D. 1101, after a thirty years’
struggle drove the Saracens completely out of Sicily, and ruled over

it as a vassal of his brother under the title of Count of Sicily. His son
Roger II., who died in A.D. 1154, united the government of Sicily
and of Apulia and Calabria, had himself crowned in A.D. 1130 king
of Sicily and Italy, and finally in A.D. 1139 conquered also Naples.
In consequence of the marriage of his daughter Constance with
Henry VI. the whole kingdom passed over in A.D. 1194 to the
Hohenstaufens, from whom it passed in A.D. 1266 to Charles of
Anjou; and from him finally, in consequence of the Sicilian Vespers
in A.D. 1282, the island of Sicily passed to Peter of Arragon, the son-
in-law of Manfred, the last king of the Hohenstaufen line. The
Normans and the Hohenstaufens granted to the subject Saracens for
the most part full religious liberty, the Emperor Frederick recruiting
from among them his bodyguard, and they supplied the bravest
soldiers for the Italian Ghibelline war. For this purpose he was
constantly drafting new detachments from the African coast, as
Manfred also had done. The endeavours made by monks of the
mendicant orders for the conversion of the Saracens proved quite
fruitless. It was only under the Spanish rule that conversions were
made by force, or persecution and annihilation followed persistent
refusal.

§ 95.2. Islam in Spain.―The times of Abderrhaman III., A.D. 912-
961, and Hacem II., A.D. 961-976, were the most brilliant and
fortunate of the Ommaiadean khalifate. After the death of the latter
the chamberlain Almansor, who died in A.D. 1002, reigned in the
name of Khalif Hescham II., who was little more than a puppet of
the seraglio, and his rule was glorious, powerful and wise. But
interminable civil contentions were the result of this disarrangement
of government, and in A.D. 1031, in consequence of a popular
tumult, Abderrhaman IV., the last of the Ommaiades, took to flight,
and voluntarily resigned the crown. The khalifate was now broken
up into as many little principalities or emirships as there had been
governors before. Amid such confusions the Christian princes
continued to develop and increase their resources. Sancho the Great,
king of Navarre, A.D. 970-1035, by marriage and conquest united
almost all Christian Spain under his rule, but this was split up again

by being partitioned among his sons. Of these Ferdinand I., who
died in A.D. 1065, inherited Castile, and in A.D. 1037 added to it
Leon by conquest. With him begins the heroic age of Spanish
knighthood. His son Alfonso IV., who died in A.D. 1109, succeeded
in A.D. 1085 in taking from the Moors Toledo and a great part of
Andalusia. The powerful leader of the Almoravides, Jussuf from
Morocco, was now called to their aid by the Moors. On the plain of
Salacca the Christians were beaten in A.D. 1086, but soon the victor
turned his arms against his allies, and within six years all Moslem
Spain was under his government. His son Ali, in a fearfully bloody
battle at Ucles in A.D. 1107, cut down the flower of the Castilian
nobility; this marked the summit of power reached by the
Almoravides, and now their star began slowly to pale. Alfonso I. of
Arragon, A.D. 1105-1134, conquered Saragossa in A.D. 1118, and
other cities. Alfonso VII. of Castile, A.D. 1126-1157, whose power
rose so high that most of the Christian princes in Spain
acknowledged him as sovereign, and that he had himself formally
crowned emperor of Spain in A.D. 1135, conducted a successful
campaign against Andalusia, and in A.D. 1144 forced his way down
to the south coast of Granada. Alfonso I. of Portugal, drove the
Moors out of Lisbon; Raimard, count of Barcelona, conquered
Tortosa, etc. At the same time too the government of the
Almoravides was being undermined in Africa. In A.D. 1146 Morocco
fell, and with it North-western Africa, into the hands of the
Almohades under Abdelmoumen, while his lieutenant Abu Amram
at the same time conquered Moslem Spain and Andalusia.
Abdelmoumen’s son Jussuf himself crossed over into Spain with an
enormous force in order to extinguish the Christian rule there, but
fell in a battle at Santarem against Alfonso I. of Portugal. His son
Jacob avenged the disaster by the bloody battle of Alarcos in
A.D. 1195, where 30,000 Castilians were left upon the field. When,
notwithstanding the overthrow, the Christians a few years later
endeavoured to retrieve their loss, Jacob’s successor Mohammed
descended upon Spain with half a million fanatical followers. The
critical hour for Spain had now arrived. The Christians had won
time to come to agreement among themselves. They fought with

unexampled heroism on the plain of Tolosa in A.D. 1212 under
Alfonso VIII. of Castile. The battlefield was strewn with more than
200,000 bodies of the African fanatics. It was the death-knell of the
rule of the Almohad in Spain. Notwithstanding the dissensions and
hostilities that immediately broke out among the Christian princes,
they conquered within twenty-five years the whole of Andalusia.
The work of conquest was carried out mostly by Ferdinand III., the
saint of Castile, A.D. 1217-1254, and Jacob I., the conqueror of
Arragon, A.D. 1213-1276. Only in the southernmost district of Spain
a remnant of the Moslem rule survived in the kingdom of Granada,
founded in A.D. 1238 by the emir Mohammed Aben Alamar. Here
for a time the glories of Arabic culture were revived in such a way
as seemed like a magical restoration of the day of the Ommaiades.
In consequence of the marriage in A.D. 1469 of Ferdinand of
Arragon, who died in A.D. 1516, with Isabella of Castile, these two
most important Christian empires were united. Soon afterwards the
empire of Granada came to an end. On 2nd January, A.D. 1492, after
an ignominious capitulation, the last khalif, Abu Abdilehi Boabdil,
was driven out of the fair (Granada), and a few moments later the
Castilian banner waved from the highest tower of the proud
Alhambra. The pope bestowed upon the royal pair the title of
Catholic monarchs. The Moors who refused to submit to baptism
were expelled, but even the baptized, the so-called Moriscoes,
proved so dangerous an element in the state that Philip III., in
A.D. 1609, ordered them to be all banished from his realm. They
sought refuge mostly in Africa, and there went over openly again to
Mohammedanism, which they had never at heart rejected.270

§ 95.3. The Jews in Europe.―By trade, money lending and usury
the Jews succeeded in obtaining almost sole possession of ready
money, which brought them often great influence with the needy
princes and nobles, but was also often the occasion of sore
oppression and robbery, as well as the cause of popular hatred and
violence. Whenever a country was desolated by a plague the notion
of well-poisoning by the Jews was renewed. It was told of them that
they had stolen the consecrated sacramental bread in order to stick it

through with needles, and Christian children, that they might
slaughter them at their passover festival. From time to time this
popular rage exploded, and then thousands of Jews were ruthlessly
murdered. The crusaders too often began their feats of valour on
Christian soil by the slaughter of Jews. From the 13th century in
almost all lands they were compelled to wear an insulting badge, the
so called Jews’ hat, a yellow, funnel-shaped covering of the head,
and a ring of red cloth on the breast, etc. They were also compelled
to herd together in the cities in the so called Jewish quarter
(Italian=Ghetto), which was often surrounded by a special wall.
St. Bernard and several popes, Gregory VII., Alexander III.,
Innocent III., etc., interested themselves in them, refused to allow
them to be violently persecuted, and pointed to their position as an
incontrovertible proof of the truth of the gospel to all times. The
German emperors also took the Jews under their special protection,
for they classed them, after the example of Vespasian and Titus,
among the special servants of the imperial chamber, (Servi camera
nostræ speciales).271 In England and France they were treated as the
mancipium of the crown. In Spain under the Moorish rule they had
vastly increased in numbers, culture and wealth; also under the
Christian kings they enjoyed for a long time special privileges, their
own tribunals, freedom in the possession of land, etc., and obtained
great influence as ministers of finance and administration, and also
as astrologers, physicians, apothecaries, etc.; but by their usury and
merciless greed drew forth more and more the bitter hatred of the
people. Hence in the 14th century in Spain also there arose times of
sore oppression and persecution, and attempts at conversion by
force. And finally, in A.D. 1492, Ferdinand the Catholic drove more
than 400,000 Jews out of Spain, and in the following year 100,000
out of Sicily. But even the baptized Jews, the so-called “New
Christians,” who were prohibited from removing, fell under the
suspicion of secret attachment to the old religion, and many
thousands of them became victims of the Inquisition.―Many
apologetic and polemical treatises were composed for the purpose of
discussion with the Jews and for their instruction, but like so many

other formal disputations they did not succeed in securing any good
result, for the Jewish teachers were superior in learning, acuteness,
and acquaintance with the exposition of Old Testament Scriptures,
upon which in this discussion everything turned. But an interesting
example of a Jew earnestly striving after a knowledge of the truth
and working himself up to a full conviction of the divinity of
Christianity and the church doctrine of that age, somewhere about
A.D. 1150, is presented by the story told by himself of the conversion
of Hermann afterwards a Premonstratensian monk in the monastery
of Kappenberg in Westphalia.272 But on the other hand there are
also isolated examples of a passing over to Judaism as the result, it
would seem, of genuine conviction. The first known example of this
kind appears in A.D. 839, in the case of a deacon Boso, who after
being circumcised received the name Eleazar, married a Jewess, and
settled in Saracen Spain, where he manifested extraordinary zeal in
making converts to his new religion. A second case of this sort is
met with in the times of the Emperor Henry II., in the perversion of
a priest Wecelinus. The narrator of this story gives expression to his
horror in the words, Totus contremisco et horrentibus pilis capitis
terrore concutior. Also the Judaising sects of the Pasagians in
Lombardy during the 11th century (§ 108, 3) and the Russian Jewish
sects of the 15th century (§ 73, 5) were probably composed for the
most part of proselytes to Judaism.273

II.―The Hierarchy, the Clergy, and the
Monks.

§ 96. The Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire in
274
the German Nationalities.

The history of the papacy during this period represents it in its
deepest shame and degradation. But after this state of matters was
put an end to by the founding of the Holy Roman Empire of
German nationalities, it sprang up again from its deep debasement,
and reached the highest point of power and influence. With the
German empire, to which it owed its salvation, it now carried on a
life and death conflict; for it seemed that it was possible to escape
enslavement under the temporal power of the emperor only by
putting the emperor under its spiritual power. In the conflict with
the Hohenstaufens the struggle reached its climax. The papacy won
a complete victory, but soon found that it could as little dispense
with as endure the presence of a powerful empire. For as the
destruction of the Carolingian empire had left it at the mercy of the
factions of Italian nobles at the time when this period opens, so its
victory over the German empire brought the papacy under the still
more degrading bondage of French politics, as is seen in the
beginning of the next period. It had during this transition time its
most powerful props and advisers in the orders of Clugny and
Camaldoli (§ 98, 1). It had a standing army in the mendicant
orders, and the crusaders, besides the enthusiasm, which greatly
strengthened the papal institution, did the further service of
occupying and engrossing the attention of the princes.

§ 96.1. The Romish Pornocracy and the Emperor Otto I.,
† A.D. 973.―Among the wild struggles of the Italian nobles which
broke out after the Emperor Arnulf’s departure (§ 82, 8), the party
of the Margrave Adalbert of Tuscany gained the upperhand. His
mistress Theodora, a well born and beautiful, ambitious and
voluptuous Roman, wife of a Roman senator, as well as her like-
minded daughters Marozia and Theodora, filled for half a century
the chair of St. Peter with their paramours, sons and grandsons.
These constituted the base and corrupt line of popes known as the
pornocracy. Sergius III., A.D. 904-911, Marozia’s paramour, starts
this disgraceful series. After the short pontificates of the two
immediately following popes, Theodora, because Ravenna was
inconveniently distant for the gratification of her lust, called John,
the archbishop of that place, to the papal chair under the title of
John X., A.D. 914-928. By means of a successful crusade which he
led in person, he destroyed the remnant of Saracen robbers in
Garigliano (§ 81, 2), and crowned the Lombard king Bernard I.,
A.D. 916-924, as emperor. But when he attempted to break off his
disgraceful relations with the woman who had advanced him,
Marozia had him cast into prison and smothered with a pillow. The
two following popes on whom she bestowed the tiara enjoyed it
only a short time, for in A.D. 931 she raised her own son to the papal
throne in the twentieth year of his age. His father was Pope Sergius,
and he assumed the name of John XI. But her other son Alberich,
who inherited the temporal kingdom from A.D. 932, restricted this
pope’s jurisdiction and that of his four successors to the
ecclesiastical domain. After Alberich’s death his son Octavianus, an
arch-profligate and blasphemer, though only in his sixteenth year,
united the papacy and the temporal power, and called himself by the
name of John XII. A.D. 955-963―the first instance of a change of
name on assuming the papal chair. He would sell anything for
money. He made a boy of ten years a bishop; he consecrated a
deacon in a stable; in hunting and dice playing he would invoke the
favour of Jupiter and Venus; in his orgies he would drink the devil’s
health, etc. Meantime things had reached a terrible pass in Germany.
After the death of Louis the Child, the last of the German

Carolingians, in A.D. 911, the Frankish duke Conrad I., A.D. 911-
918, was elected king of the Germans. Although vigorously
supported by the superior clergy, the Synod of Hohenaltheim in
A.D. 915 threatening the rebels with all the pains of hell, the struggle
with the other dukes prevented the founding of a united German
empire. His successor, the Saxon Henry I., A.D. 919-936, was the
first to free himself from the faction of the clergy, and to grant to the
dukes independent administration of internal affairs within their
own domains. His greater son, Otto I., A.D. 936-973, by limiting the
power of the dukes, by fighting and converting heathen Danes,
Wends, Bohemians and Hungarians, by decided action in the French
troubles, by gathering around him a virtuous German clergy, who
proved true to him and the empire, secured after long continued
civil wars a power and reputation such as no ruler in the West since
Charlemagne had enjoyed. Called to the help of the Lombard nobles
and the pope John XII. against the oppression and tyranny of
Berengarius [Berengar] II., he conquered the kingdom of Italy, and
was at Candlemas A.D. 962 crowned emperor by the pope in
St. Peter’s, after having really held this rank for thirty years. Thus
was the Holy Roman Empire of German Nationalities founded,
which continued for centuries to be the centre around which the
history of the church and the world revolved. The new emperor
confirmed to the pope all donations of previous emperors with the
addition of certain cities, without detriment, however, to the
imperial suzerainty over the patrimony of St. Peter, and without
lessening in any degree the imperial privileges maintained by
Charlemagne. The Privilegium Ottonis, still preserved in the papal
archives, and claiming to be an authentic document, was till quite
recently kept secret from all impartial and capable investigators, so
that the suspicion of its spuriousness had come to be regarded as
almost a certainty. Under Leo XIII., however, permission was given
to a capable Protestant scholar, Prof. Sickel of Vienna, to make a
photographic facsimile of the document, the result of which was that
he became convinced that the document was not the original but a
contemporary official duplicate, a literally faithful transcript on
purple parchment with letters of gold for solemn deposition in the

grave of St. Peter. Its first part describes the donations of the
emperor, the second the obligations of the pope in accordance with
the Constitutio Romana, § 82, 4.―But scarcely had Otto left Rome
than the pope, breaking his oath, conspired with his enemies,
endeavoured to rouse the Byzantines and heathen Hungarians
against him, and opened the gates of Rome to Adalbert the son of
Berengarius [Berengar]. Otto hastened back, deposed the pope at the
synod of Rome in A.D. 963, on charges of incest, perjury, murder,
blasphemy, etc., and made the Romans swear by the bones of Peter
never again to elect and consecrate a pope, without having the
emperor’s permission and confirmation. Soon after the emperor’s
departure, however, the newly elected pope Leo VIII., A.D. 963-965,
had to betake himself to flight. John XII. returned again to Rome,
excommunicated his rival pope, and took cruel vengeance upon the
partisans of the emperor. On his death soon afterwards, in A.D. 964,
the Romans elected Benedict V. as his successor; but he, when the
emperor conquered Rome after a stubborn resistance, was obliged to
submit to humiliating terms. Leo VIII. had in John XIII., A.D. 965-
972, a virtuous and worthy successor. A new revolt of the Romans
led soon after his election to his imprisonment; but he succeeded in
making his escape in A.D. 966. Otto now for the third time crossed
the Alps, passed relentlessly severe sentences upon the guilty, and
had his son, now thirteen years of age, crowned in Rome as Otto II.,
A.D. 967.

§ 96.2. The Times of Otto II., III., A.D. 973-1002.―After the death
of Otto I., since Otto II., A.D. 973-983, was restrained from a Roman
campaign in consequence of Cisalpine troubles, the nobles’ faction
under Crescentius, son of Pope John X. and the younger Theodora,
again won the upperhand. This party had in A.D. 974 overthrown
Pope Benedict VI., A.D. 972-974, appointed by Otto I., and cast him
into prison. But their own anti-pope Boniface VII. could not
maintain his position, and fled with the treasures of St. Peter to
Constantinople. By means of a compromise of parties
Benedict VII., A.D. 974-983, was now raised to the papal chair and
held possession in spite of manifold opposition, till the arrival of the

young emperor in Italy in A.D. 980 obtained for him greater security.
Otto II. again restored the imperial prestige in Rome in A.D. 981, but
in A.D. 982 he suffered a complete defeat at the hand of the
Saracens. He died in the following year at Rome, after he had in
John XIV., A.D. 983-984, secured the appointment of a pope faithful
to the empire. His son Otto III., three years old, was at the council
of state, held at Verona, by the princes of Germany and Italy, there
gathered together, elected king of both kingdoms. During the
German civil wars under the regency of the Queen-mother
Theophania, a Byzantine princess, and the able Archbishop Willigis,
of Mainz, who, through his firmness and penetration saved the
crown for the royal child Otto III., A.D. 983-1002, and maintained
the existence and integrity of the German empire, Rome and the
papacy fell again under the domination of the nobles, at whose head
now stood the younger Crescentius, a son of the above mentioned
chief of the same name. In A.D. 984 the anti-pope Boniface VII.,
who had fled to Constantinople, made his appearance in Rome, won
a following by Greek gold, got possession of John XIV. and had him
cast into prison, but was himself soon afterwards murdered. The
new pope John XV., A.D. 985-996, who was thoroughly venal, was
an obedient tool of the tyranny of Crescentius, which, however,
soon became so intolerable to him, that he yearned for the
restoration of imperial rule under Otto III. At this same time great
danger threatened the imperial authority from France. Hugh Capet
had, after the death of the last Carolingian, Louis V., in A.D. 987,
taken possession for himself of the French crown. He insisted upon
John XV. deposing the archbishop Arnulf of Rheims, who had
opened the gates of Rheims to his uncle Charles of Lorraine, the
brother of Louis V.’s father. The pope, who was then dependent
upon German power, hesitated. Hugh then had Arnulf deposed at a
synod at Rheims in A.D. 921, and put in his place Gerbert, the
greatest scholar (§ 100, 2) and statesman of that age. The council
quite openly declared the whole French church to be free from
Rome, whose bishops for a hundred years had been steeped in the
most profound moral corruption, and had fallen into the most
disgraceful servitude, and Gerbert issued a confession of faith in

which celibacy and fasting were repudiated, and only the first four
œcumenical councils were acknowledged. But the plan was
shattered, not so much through the apparently fruitless opposition of
the pope as through the reaction of the high church party of Clugny
and the popular esteem in which that party was held. Gerbert could
not maintain his position, and was heartily glad when he could
shake the dust of Rheims off his feet by accepting an honourable
call of the young emperor, Otto III., who in A.D. 997 opened new
paths for his ambition by inviting the celebrated scholar to be with
him as his classical tutor. Hugh’s successor Robert reinstated Arnulf
in the see of Rheims. John XV. called in Otto III. to his help against
the intolerable oppression of the younger Crescentius, but died
before his arrival in A.D. 996. Otto directed the choice of his cousin
Bruno, twenty-four years of age, the first German pope, who
assumed the name of Gregory V., A.D. 996-999, and by him he was
crowned emperor in Rome. Gregory was a man of an energetic,
almost obstinate character, thoroughly in sympathy with the views
of the monks of Clugny. The emperor having soon returned home,
Crescentius violated his oath and made himself again master of
Rome. Gregory fled to Pavia, where he held a synod in A.D. 997,
which thundered an anathema against the disturber of the Roman
church. Meanwhile Crescentius raised to the papal throne the
archbishop John of Piacenza, formerly Greek tutor to Otto III.,
under the title of John XVI. It was not till late in autumn of that year
that the emperor could hasten to the help of his injured cousin. He
then executed a fearfully severe sentence upon the tyrant and his
pope. The former was beheaded, and his corpse dragged by the feet
through the streets and then hung upon a gallows; the latter, whom
the soldiers had cruelly deprived of his ears, tongue, and nose, was
led through the streets seated backward on an ass, with the tail tied
in his hands for reins.―From Pavia Gregory had issued a command
to Robert, the French king, to put away his queen Bertha, who was
related to him in the fourth degree, on pain of excommunication.
But he died a suspiciously sudden death before he could bring down
the pride of this king, which, however, his successor accomplished.

§ 96.3. Otto III. now raised to the papal chair his teacher Gerbert,
whom he had previously made Archbishop of Ravenna, under the
title of Sylvester II., A.D. 999-1003. Already in Ravenna had
Gerbert’s ecclesiastical policy been changed for the high church
views of his former opponents, and as pope he developed an activity
which marks him out as the worthy follower of his predecessor and
the precursor of a yet greater Gregory (VII.). He energetically
contended against simony, that special canker of the church, and by
sending the ring and staff to his former opponent, Arnulf, made the
first effort to assert the papal claim to the exclusive investiture of
bishops. But he had previously, as tutor of Otto, by flattering his
vanity, inspired the imaginative, high-spirited youth with the ideal
of a restoration of the ancient glory of Rome and its emperors
exercising universal sway. And just with this view had Otto raised
him to the papal chair in order that he might have his help. The pope
did not venture openly to withdraw from this understanding, for in
the condition of Italy at that time in a struggle with the emperor, the
victory would be his in the first instance, and that would be the
destruction of the papal chair. So there was nothing for it but by
clever tacking in spite of contrary winds of imperial policy, to make
the ship of the church hold on as far as possible in the high church
course and surround the emperor by a network of craft. The
phantom of a Renovatio imperii Romani with the mummified form
of the Byzantine court ceremonial and the vain parade of a title was
called into being. On a pilgrimage to the grave of his saintly friend
Adalbert in Gnesen (§ 93, 13) the emperor emancipated the Polish
church from the German metropolitanate by raising its see into an
archbishopric. He also, in A.D. 1000, released the Polish duke
Boleslaw Chrobry (§ 93, 7), the most dangerous enemy of Germany,
who schemed the formation of a great Slavic empire, from his fealty
as a vassal of the German empire, enlisting him instead as a “friend
and confederate of the Roman people” in his new fantastic universal
empire. In the same year, however, Sylvester, in the exercise of
papal sovereignty, conferred the royal crown on Stephen the saint of
Hungary (§ 93, 8), appointed the payment by him of a yearly tribute
to the papal vicar with ecclesiastical authority over his country, and

made that land ecclesiastically independent of Passau and Salzburg
by founding a separate metropolitanate at Gran. Though Otto let
himself be led in the hierarchical leading strings by his papal friend,
he yet made it abundantly evident by bestowing upon his favourite
pope eight counties of the States of the Church, that he regarded
these as merely a free gift of imperial favour. He also lashed
violently the extravagances as well as the greed of the popes, and
declared that the donation of Constantine was a pure fabrication
(§ 87, 4). The emperor, however, had meanwhile thoroughly
estranged his German subjects and the German clergy by his un-
German temperament. The German princes denounced him as a
traitor to the German empire. Soon all Italy, even the much fondled
Rome, rose in open revolt. Only an early death A.D. 1002 saved the
unhappy youth of twenty-two years of age from the most terrible
humiliation. With him, too, the star of the pope’s fortunes went
down. He died not long after in A.D. 1003, and left in the popular
mind the reputation of a dealer in the black art, who owed his
learning and the success of his hierarchical career to a compact with
the devil.

§ 96.4. From Henry II. to the Synod at Sutri, A.D. 1002-
1046.―After the death of Otto III., Henry II., A.D. 1002-1024,
previously duke of Bavaria, a great-grandson of Henry I. and as
such the last scion of the Saxon line, obtained the German crown―a
ruler who proved one of the ablest that ever occupied that throne. A
bigoted pietist and under the power of the priests, although pious-
hearted according to the spirit of the times and strongly attached to
the church, and seeking in the bishops supports of the empire
against the relaxing influence of the temporal princes, yet no other
German emperor ruled over the church to the same extent that he
did, and no one ventured so far as he did to impress strongly upon
the church, by the most extensive appropriation of ecclesiastical
property, especially of rich monasteries, that this was the shortest
and surest way of bringing about a much needed reformation.
Meanwhile in Rome, after the death of Otto III., Joannes
Crescentius, the son of Crescentius II., who was beheaded by order

of Otto, assumed the government, and set upon the chair of Peter
creatures of his own, John XVII., XVIII., and Sergius IV. But as he
and his last elected pope died soon after one another in A.D. 1012,
the long subjected faction of the Tusculan counts, successors of
Alberich, came to the front again, and chose as pope a scion of one
of their own families, Benedict VIII., A.D. 1012-1024. The anti-
pope Gregory, chosen by the Crescentians, was obliged to retire
from the field. He sought protection from Henry II. But this
monarch came to an understanding with the incomparably nobler
and abler Benedict, received from him for himself and his Queen
Cunigunda, subsequently canonized by Innocent III., the imperial
crown, in A.D. 1014, and continued ever after to maintain excellent
relations with him. These two, the emperor and the pope, were on
friendly terms with the monks of Clugny. They both acknowledged
the need of a thorough reformation of the church, and both carried it
out so far as this could be done by the influence and example of
their own personal conduct, disposition, and character. But the pope
had so much to do fighting the Crescentians, then the Greeks and
Saracens in Italy, and the emperor in quelling internal troubles in his
empire and repelling foreign invasions, that it was only toward the
close of their lives that they could take any very decided action. The
pope made the first move, for at the Synod of Pavia in A.D. 1018, he
excommunicated all married priests and those living in
concubinage, and sentenced their children to slavery. The emperor
entertained a yet more ambitious scheme. He wished to summon a
Western œcumenical council at Pavia, and there to engage upon the
reformation of the whole church of the West. But the death of the
pope in A.D. 1024, which was followed in a few months by the death
of the emperor, prevented the carrying out of this plan. After the
death of the childless Henry II., Conrad II., A.D. 1024-1039, the
founder of the Franconian or Salic dynasty, ascended the German
throne. To him the empire was indebted for great internal reforms
and a great extension of power, but he gave no attention to the
carrying out of his predecessor’s plans of ecclesiastical reformation.
Still less, however, was anything of the kind to be looked for from
the popes of that period. Benedict VIII. was succeeded by his

brother Romanus, under the name of John XIX., A.D. 1024-1033, as
void of character and noble sentiments (§ 67, 2) as his predecessor
had been distinguished. When he died, Count Alberich of Tusculum
was able by means of presents and promises to get the Romans to
elect his son Theophylact, who, though only twelve years old, was
already practised in the basest vice. He took the name of
Benedict IX., A.D. 1033-1048, and disgraced the papal chair with
the most shameless profligacy. The state of matters became better
under Conrad’s son, Henry III., A.D. 1039-1056, who strove after
the founding of a universal monarchy in the sense of Charlemagne,
and by a powerful and able government he came nearer reaching
this end than any of the German emperors. He was at the same time
inspired with a zeal for the reformation of the church such as none
of his predecessors or successors, with the exception of Henry II.,
ever showed. Benedict IX. was, in A.D. 1044, for the second time
driven out by the Romans. They now sold the tiara to Sylvester III.,
who three months after was driven out by Benedict. This pope now
fell in love with his beautiful cousin, daughter of a Tusculan count,
and formed the bold resolve to marry her. But the father of the lady
refused his consent so long as he was pope. Benedict now sold the
papal chair for a thousand pounds of silver to the archdeacon
Joannes Gratian. This man, a pious simple individual, in order to
save the chair of St. Peter from utter overthrow, took upon himself
the disgrace of simony at the bidding of his friends of Clugny,
among whom a young Roman monk called Hildebrand, son of poor
parents of Soana, in Tuscany, was already most conspicuous. The
new pope assumed the name of Gregory VI., A.D. 1044-1046. He
wanted the talents necessary for the hard task he had undertaken.
Benedict having failed in carrying out his matrimonial plans, again
claimed to be pope, as did also Sylvester. Thus Rome had at one and
the same time, three popes, and all three were publicly known to be
simonists. The Clugny party cast off their protégé Gregory, and
called in the German emperor as saviour of the church. Henry came
and had all the the three popes deposed at the Synod at Sutri,
A.D. 1046. The Romans gave to him the right of making a new
appointment. It fell upon Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, who took the

name of Clement II., and crowned the king emperor on Christmas,
A.D. 1046. The Romans were so delighted at having order restored in
the city, that they gave over to the emperor with the rank of patrician
the government of Rome and the right of papal election for all time,
and swore never to consecrate a pope without the emperor’s
concurrence. Henry took the ex-pope Gregory along with him, back
to Germany, where he died in exile, at Cologne. Hildebrand, his
chaplain, had accompanied him thither, and after his death retired
into the monastery of Clugny.

§ 96.5. Henry III. and his German Popes, A.D. 1046-1057.―With
Clement III., 1046-1047, begins a whole series of able German
popes, who, elected by Henry III., wrought under his protection
powerfully and successfully for the reform of the church. All
interested in the reformation, the brethren of Clugny, as well as the
disciples of Romuald and the settlers in Vallombrosa (§ 98, 1),
agreed that at the root of all the corruption of the church of that age
were simony, or obtaining spiritual offices by purchase or bribery
(Acts viii. 19), and Nicolaitanism (§ 27, 8), under which name were
included all fleshly lusts of the clergy, marriage as well as
concubinage and unnatural vices. These two were, especially in
Italy, so widely spread, that scarcely a priest was to be found who
had not been guilty of both. Clement II., in the emperor’s presence,
at a synod in Rome in A.D. 1047, began the battle against simony.
But he died before the end of the year, probably by poison. While
Roman envoys presented themselves at the German court about the
election of a new pope, Benedict IX., supported by the Tusculan
party, again laid claim to the papal chair, and the emperor had to
utter the severest threats before the man of his choice, Poppo,
bishop of Brixen, was allowed to occupy the papal chair as
Damasus II. Twenty-three days afterwards, however, he was a
corpse. This cooled the ardour of German bishops for election to so
dangerous a position, and only after long persuasion Bishop Bruno
of Toul, the emperor’s cousin and a zealous friend of Clugny,
accepted the appointment, on the condition that it should have the
approval of the people and clergy of Rome, which, as was to be

expected, was given with acclamation. He ascended the papal throne
as Leo IX., A.D. 1049-1054. According to a later story conceived in
the interests of Hildebrandism, Bruno is said not only to have made
his definite acceptance of the imperial call dependent upon the
supplementary free election of people and clergy of Rome, but also
to have been prevailed upon by Hildebrand, who by his own request
accompanied him, to lay aside his papal ornaments, to continue his
journey in pilgrim garb, and to make his entrance into the eternal
city barefoot, so that the necessary sanction of a formal canonical
election might be given to the imperial nomination. Leo found the
papal treasures emptied to the last coin and robbed of all its
territorial revenues by the nobles. But Hildebrand was his minister
of finance, and soon improved the condition of his exchequer. Leo
now displayed an unexampled activity in church reform and the
purifying of the papacy. No pope travelled about so much as he,
none held as many synods in the most distant places and various
lands. The uprooting of simony was in all cases the main point in
their decrees. By bonds of gratitude and relationship, but above all
of common interests, he was attached to the German emperor. He
could not therefore think of emancipating the papacy from the
imperial suzerainty. Practically Leo succeeded in clearing the
Augean stable of the Roman clergy, and filled vacancies with
virtuous men brought from far and near. In order to chastise the
Normans, put by him under ban because of their rapacity, he himself
took the field in A.D. 1053, when the emperor refused to do so, but
was taken prisoner after his army had been annihilated, and only
succeeded, after he had removed the excommunication, in getting
them to kiss his feet with the most profound devotion. He demanded
from the Greek emperor full restitution of the donation of
Constantine, so far as this was still in the possession of the
Byzantines, and his envoys at Constantinople rendered the split
between the Eastern and Western churches irreparable (§ 67, 3). Leo
died in A.D. 1054, the only pope for centuries whom the church
honours as a saint. A Roman embassy called upon the emperor to
nominate a new pope. He fixed upon Gebhardt, bishop of Eichstädt
[Eichstadt], who now ascended the papal throne as Victor II.,

A.D. 1055-1057. Here again monkish tales have transformed a single
matter of fact into a romance in the interests of their own party. The
Romans wished Hildebrand himself for their pope, but he was
unwilling yet to assume such a responsibility. He put himself,
however, at the head of an embassy which convinced the emperor of
the sinfulness of his former interferences in the papal elections, and
persuaded him to set aside the tyrannical power of his patrician’s
rank and to resign to the clergy and people their old electoral rights.
As candidate for this election, Hildebrand himself chose bishop
Gebhardt, the most trusted counsellor of the emperor. After long
opposition Henry’s consent was won to this candidature, he even
urged the bishop to accept it, who at last submitted with the words:
“Now so do I surrender myself to St. Peter, soul and body, but only
on the condition that you also yield to him what belongs to him.”
The latter, however, seems not mere beating of the air, for the
emperor restored to the newly elected pope the patrimony of Peter
in the widest extent, and bestowed on him besides the governorship
of all Italy.―Henry died in A.D. 1056, after he had appointed his
queen Agnes to the regency, and had recommended her to the
counsel and good offices of the pope. But the pope’s days were
already numbered. He died in A.D. 1057. Hildebrand could not boast
of having dominated him, but the position of the powerful monk of
Clugny under him had become one of great importance.

§ 96.6. The Papacy under the Control of Hildebrand, A.D. 1057-
1078.―After Victor’s death the cardinals without paying any regard
to the imperial right, immediately elected Cardinal Frederick of
Lorraine, at that time abbot of Monte Cassino, and Hildebrand
travelled to Germany in order to obtain the post factum approval of
the empress. Stephen IX., A.D. 1057-1058, for so Frederick styled
himself, died before Hildebrand’s return. The Tusculan party took
advantage of his absence to put forward as pope a partisan of their
own, Benedict X., A.D. 1058. But an embassy of Hildebrand’s to the
empress secured the succession to bishop Gerhard of Florence.
Benedict was obliged to withdraw, and Gerhard ascended the papal
throne as Nicholas II., A.D. 1058-1061. With him begins the full

development of Hildebrand’s greatness, and from this time,
A.D. 1059, when he became archdeacon of Rome, till he himself
mounted the papal chair, he was the moving spirit of the Romish
hierarchy. By his powerful genius in spite of all hindrances he raised
the papacy and the church to a height of power and glory never
attained unto before. He thus wrought on, systematically, firmly, and
irresistibly advancing toward a complete reformation in
ecclesiastical polity. Absolute freedom of the church from the power
and influence of the state, and in order to attain this and make it
sure, the dominion of the church over the state, papal elections
independent of any sort of temporal influence, the complete
uprooting of all simoniacal practices, unrelenting strictness in
dealing with the immorality of the clergy, invariable enforcement of
the law of celibacy, as the most powerful means of emancipating the
clergy from the world and the state, filling the sacred offices with
the most virtuous and capable men, were some of the noble aims
and achievements of this reformation. Hildebrand sought the
necessary secular protection and aid for the carrying out of his plans
among the Normans. Nicholas II., on the basis of the donation of
Constantine, gave as a fief to their leader, Robert Guiscard (§ 95, 1),
the lordship of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, out of which the
Saracens had yet to be expelled, and exacted from him the oath of a
vassal, by which he bound himself to pay a yearly tribute, to protect
the papal chair against all encroachments of its privileges, and
above all to maintain the right of papal elections by the “meliores
cardinales.” Yet again, Nicholas, when, at a later period, by the help
of the Normans, he had broken the power of the Tusculan nobles,
issued a decree at a Lateran synod at Rome, in A.D. 1059, by which
papal elections (§ 82, 4) were regulated anew. Of the two extant
recensions of this decree, which are distinguished as the papal and
the imperial, the former is now universally acknowledged to be the
more authentic form. According to it the election lies exclusively
with the Roman cardinal priests (§ 97, 1); to the rest of the clergy as
to the people there is left only the right of acclamation, that brought
no advantage, and to the emperor, according to Boichorst, the right
of concurrence after the election and investiture, according to

Granert, the right of veto before the election. This decree, and not
less the league with the Normans, were open slights to the imperial
claims upon Italy and the papal chair. The empress therefore
convened about Easter, A.D. 1061, a council of German bishops, at
which Nicholas was deposed, and all his decisions were annulled.
Soon after the pope died. The Tusculan party, now joined with the
Germans under the Lombard chancellor Wibert, asked a new pope
from the empress. At the Council of Basel in A.D. 1061, bishop
Cadalus of Parma was appointed. He assumed the name of
Honorius II., A.D. 1061-1072. But Hildebrand had already five
weeks earlier in concert with the Margravine Beatrice of Canossa,
wholly on his own responsibility, chosen bishop Anselm of Lucca,
and had him consecrated as Alexander II. A.D. 1061-1073.
Honorius advanced to Rome, accompanied by Wibert, and
frequently in bloody conflicts conquered the party of his opponent.
Duke Godfrey the Bearded of Lorraine, the husband of Beatrice,
now appeared as mediator. He made both popes retire to their
dioceses and gave to the empress the decision of the controversy.
But meanwhile a catastrophe occurred in Germany that led to the
most important results. Archbishop Anno of Cologne, standing at
the head of a rising of the princes, decoyed the young king of twelve
years of age on board a ship at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, and took
him to Cologne. The regency and the conduct of government were
now transferred to the German bishops collectively, but lay
practically in the hands of Anno, who meanwhile, however, since
A.D. 1063, found himself obliged to share the power with
Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. At a council held at Augsburg in
A.D. 1062, Alexander was acknowledged as the true pope, but
Honorius by no means resigned his claims. With a small army he
advanced upon Rome in A.D. 1064, seized fort Leo, which had been
built and fortified by Leo IV. for defence against the Saracens,
entrenched himself in the castle of St. Angelo, and repeatedly routed
his opponent’s forces. But Hildebrand reminded the Normans of
their oath of fealty. At a council held at Mantua in A.D. 1064
(or 1067?) Alexander was once again acknowledged, and Honorius,
whose party the council sought in vain to break up by force of arms,

was again deposed. The proud, ambitious and self-seeking priest of
Cologne had meanwhile been obliged to transfer to his northern
colleague, Adalbert of Bremen, the further education and training of
the young king, who, though only fifteen years old was now
proclaimed of age in A.D. 1065, as Henry IV., A.D. 1056-1106. If the
bishop of Cologne injured the disposition of the royal youth by his
excessive harshness and severity, the bishop of Bremen did him
irreparable damage by allowing him unrestrained indulgence in his
evil passions.

§ 96.7. Gregory VII., A.D. 1073-1085.―Hildebrand had at last
brought the papacy to such a height of power that he was able now
to put the finishing stroke to his own work in his own name, and so
now he mounted the chair of the chief of the apostles, as
Gregory VII., elected and enthroned by a disorderly mob. The
Lombard and German bishops appealed to the emperor to have the
election declared invalid. But he being on all sides threatened with
wars and revolution, thought it advisable to forego the assertion of
his rights and to win the favour of the pope by a letter full of
devotion and humility. At the Roman Fast Synod of A.D. 1074,
Gregory renewed the old law of celibacy and rendered it more strict,
deposed all married priests or those who got office through simony,
and pronounced their priestly acts invalid. The lower clergy, who
were generally married, violently opposed the measure, but
Gregory’s stronger will prevailed. Papal legates visited all lands,
and, supported by the people, insisted upon the strict observance of
the papal decree. At the next fast synod in A.D. 1075, the pope began
the contest against the usual investiture of the higher clergy by the
temporal princes, with ring and staff as symbols of episcopal office.
Whoever should accept ecclesiastical office from the hand of a
layman was to be deposed, and any potentate who should give
investiture should be put under the ban of the church. Here too he
thundered his anathema against the counsellors of Henry who
should meanwhile prove guilty of the sale of ecclesiastical offices.
Henry, whose hands were fully occupied with the rebellious Saxons,
at first dismissed his counsellors, but after the close of the wars he

reinstated them, and quite ignored the papal prohibition of
investiture. Gregory had for a while quite enough to do in Italy.
Cencius, the head of the nobles opposed to reform, fell upon him on
Christmas, A.D. 1075, during Divine service, and made him prisoner,
but the Romans rescued him, and Cencius had to take to flight. On
New Year’s Day, A.D. 1076, there appeared at the royal residence at
Goslar a papal embassy which threatened the king with
excommunication and deposition should he not immediately break
off all relations with the counsellors under the ban, and reform his
own infamous life. The king burst out in furious rage. He heaped
insults upon the legates, and at the Synod of Worms, on
24th January, had the pope formally deposed as a perjured usurper
of the papal chair, a tyrant, an adulterer and a sorcerer. The Lombard
bishops, too, gave their consent to this decree (§ 97, 5). At the next
Roman Fast Synod on 22nd February, the pope placed all bishops
who had taken part in these proceedings under ban, and at the same
time solemnly excommunicated and deposed the king, and released
all his subjects from the obligation of their oaths of allegiance.
Moreover he had the king’s ambassadors, whose life he had
preserved from the fury of those present at the meeting of synod by
his personal interference, cast into prison, and then in the most
contemptuous manner led through the streets. The papal ban made a
deep impression upon the German people and princes. One bishop
after another gave in, the Saxons raised a new revolt, and at the
princes’ conference at Tribur, in October, A.D. 1076, the pope was
invited to come personally to Augsburg on 2nd February, to meet
and confer with the princes about the affairs of the king. It was
resolved that if Henry did not succeed by 22nd February, the first
anniversary of the ban, to get it removed, he should for ever forfeit
the crown, but that meanwhile he should reside at Spires and
continue in the exercise of all royal prerogatives.

§ 96.8. It was for the pope’s advantage to have the business settled
upon German soil with the greatest possible publicity. Therefore he
scornfully refused the humble petition of the king to send him
absolution from Rome, and hastened his preparations for travelling

to Augsburg. But Henry went forth to meet him on the way. Shortly
before Christmas he escaped from Spires with his wife and child,
and in spite of a severe winter crossed Mount Cenis. The Lombards
protected him in defying the pretensions of the pope. But Henry’s
whole attention was now directed to overturning the machinations
of the hostile German princes. So he suddenly appeared at Canossa,
where Gregory was staying with the Margravine Matilda, daughter
of Beatrice, a princess enthusiastically attached to him and his ideal.
This meeting was unexpected and undesired by the pope. There
during the cold winter days, from 25th to 27th January, A.D. 1077,
stood the son of Henry III. barefoot in the courtyard of the castle of
Canossa, wearing a sackcloth shirt, fasting all day and supplicating
access to the proud monk. With inflexible severity the pope refused,
until at last the tears, entreaties, and reproaches of the margravine
overcame his obduracy. Henry promised to submit himself to the
future judgment of the pope in regard to his reconciliation with the
German princes, and was absolved. Nevertheless the princes at the
Assembly at Forcheim in March, with the concurrence of the papal
legate, elected a new king in the person of Rudolph of Swabia,
Henry’s brother-in-law. Roused to fury, Henry now hastened back to
Germany, where soon he gathered round him a great army.
Notwithstanding all pressure brought to bear upon him, Gregory
maintained for three years a position of neutrality, but at last, in
A.D. 1080, at the Roman Fast Synod, where the envoys of the
contending kings presented their complaints, he renewed the
excommunication and deposition of Henry. Then the bishops of
Henry’s party immediately met at Brixen, and hurled the anathema
and pronounced sentence of deposition against Gregory, and elected
as anti-pope Wibert, formerly chancellor, then archbishop of
Ravenna, who assumed the title of Clement III., A.D. 1080-1100.
After the death of Rudolph in battle, at Merseburg, in A.D. 1080,
Henry marched across the Alps and appeared at Pentecost before the
gates of Rome, which were opened to him after a three years’ siege.
Clement III. then at Easter, A.D. 1084, set upon him and his queen
the imperial crown. Gregory had withdrawn to the Castle of
St. Angelo. Henry, however, was compelled by the appearance of a

new rival for the crown, Henry, Count of Luxemburg, to return to
Germany, and Robert Guiscard, the Norman duke, hastened from
the south to deliver the pope, which he accomplished only after
Rome had been fearfully devastated. Gregory died in the following
year, A.D. 1085, at Salerno. Gregory VII. also took the field against
the dissolute and prodigal king of France, Philip I., and threatened
him, because of simony, with interdict and deposition. His success
here, however, was comparatively small. Philip avowedly submitted
to the papal decree, but did not in the least alter his conduct, and
Gregory felt that it was not prudent to push matters to an extremity.
He showed himself more indulgent toward the powerful William the
Conqueror of England, although this prince ruled the church of his
dominions with an iron hand, pronounced all church property to be
freehold, and was scarcely less guilty of simony than the kings of
Germany and France. Yet the pope himself, who hoped to secure the
aid of his arms against Henry IV., and sought therefore to dazzle
him with the prospect of the imperial throne, winked at his
delinquencies, and loaded him with expressions of his good-will.
The primate of England, too, the powerful Conqueror’s right-hand
supporter, Lanfranc of Canterbury, who bore a grudge against
Gregory because of his patronage of the heretic Berengarius
[Berengar] (§ 101, 2), showed no special zeal for the reforms
advocated by the pope. At a synod held at Winchester in A.D. 1076,
the law of celibacy was enforced, with this limitation, however, that
those of the secular clergy who were already married should not be
required to put away their wives, but no further marriages among
them were to be permitted.275

§ 96.9. The Central Idea in Gregory’s Policy was the
establishment of a universal theocracy, with the pope as its one
visible head, the representative of Christ upon earth, who as such
stands over the powers of the world. Alongside of it, indeed, the
royal authority was to stand independently as one ordained of God,
but it was to confine itself strictly to temporal affairs, and to be
directed by the pope in regard to whatever might be partly within
and partly without these lines. All states bearing the Christian name

were to be bound together as members of one body in the great
papal theocracy which had superior to it only God and His law. The
princes must receive consecration and Divine sanction from the
spiritual power; they are “by the grace of God,” not immediately,
however, but only mediately, the church as the middle term stands
between them and God. The pope is their arbiter and highest liege
lord, whose decisions they are under obligation unconditionally to
obey. Royalty stands related to the papacy as the moon to the sun,
from which she receives her light and warmth. The church, which
lends to the power of the world her Divine authority, can also
withdraw it again when it is being misused. When this is done, the
obligation of subjects to obey also ceases. Gregory began this
gigantic work, not so much to raise himself personally to the utmost
pinnacle of power, but rather to save the church from destruction.
He certainly was not free from ambition and the lust of ruling, but
with him higher than all personal interests was the idea of the high
vocation of the church, and to the realizing of it he enthusiastically
devoted all the energies of his life. On the other hand, he cannot
escape the reproach of having striven with carnal weapons for what
he called a spiritual victory, of having meted out unequal measures,
where his interests demanded it, in the exercise of his assumed
function as judge of kings and princes, and of having occupied
himself more with political schemes and intrigues than with the
ministry of the church of Christ. His whole career shows him to
have been a man of great self reliance, yet, on the other hand, he
was able to preserve the consciousness of the poor sinner who seeks
and finds salvation only in the mercy of Christ. The strict morality
of his life has been admitted even by his bitterest foes. Not
infrequently too did he show himself in advance of his time in
humanity and liberality of sentiment, as e.g. in the Berengarian
controversy (§ 101, 2), and in his decided disapproval of the
prosecution of witches and sorcerers.276

§ 96.10. Victor III. and Urban II., A.D. 1086-1099.―Gregory VII.
was succeeded by the talented abbot of Monte Cassino, Desiderius,
under the title of Victor III., A.D. 1086-1087. Only after great

pressure was brought to bear upon him did he consent to leave the
cloister, which under his rule had flourished in a remarkable
manner; but now aged and sickly, he only enjoyed the pontificate
for sixteen months. His successor was bishop Odo, of Ostia, a
Frenchman by birth, and a member of the Clugny brotherhood, who
took the name of Urban II., A.D. 1088-1099. For a long time he was
obliged to give up Rome to the party of the imperial anti-pope. But
the enthusiasm with which the idea of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre
was taken up, which he proposed to Western Christendom at the
Council of Clermont, in A.D. 1095 (§ 94), secured for him the
highest position in his time, and made him strong enough to
withstand the opposition of Philip I., king of France, whom he had
put under ban at Clermont, on account of his adulterous connection
with Bertrada. Returning to Italy from his victorious campaign
through France, he was able to celebrate Christmas once again in
the Lateran at Rome in A.D. 1096. His main supporters in the conflict
against the emperor were the powerful Margravine Matilda, and the
emperor’s most dangerous opponent in Germany, duke Welf of
Bavaria, whose son of the same name, then in his seventeenth year,
was married by the pope to the widowed Matilda, who was now
forty years of age, whence arose the first of the anti-imperial and
strongly papistical Welf or Guelph party in Germany and Italy. On
the other side the margravine succeeded in stirring up Conrad, the
son of Henry IV., to rebel against his father, and had him crowned
king in A.D. 1087. At Cremona this prince held the pope’s stirrup,
and took the oath of obedience to him. The emperor had him
deposed in A.D. 1098, and had his second son elected and crowned
as Henry V. Urban, who received on his death-bed the news of the
destruction of Jerusalem, died in A.D. 1099, and his anti-pope
Clement III., who had withdrawn to Ravenna, died in the following
year.

§ 96.11. Paschalis II., Gelasius II., and Calixtus II., A.D. 1099-
1124.―Urban’s successor, Paschalis II., A.D. 1099-1118, also a
member of the Clugny brotherhood, at once stirred up the fire of
rebellion against the excommunicated emperor, and favoured a

conspiracy of the princes. The young king, at the head of the
insurgents, took his father prisoner, and obliged him to abdicate in
A.D. 1106. Six months afterwards the emperor died. The church’s
curse pursued even his corpse. Twice interred in holy ground, first
in the cathedral of Liège, then in the cathedral of Spires, his bones
were exhumed and thrown into unconsecrated ground, until at last,
in A.D. 1111, his son obtained the withdrawal of the ban. At the
Council of Guastalla in A.D. 1106, Paschalis renewed the prohibition
of Investiture. But Henry V., A.D. 1106-1125, concerned himself as
little about this prohibition as his father had done. No sooner had he
seated himself upon the throne in Germany than he crossed the Alps
to compel the pope to crown him emperor and concede to him the
right of investiture. The pope, who was willing that the church
should be poor if only she retained her freedom, being now without
counsel or help (for Matilda was old and her warlike spirit was
broken, and from the Normans no assistance could be looked for),
was driven in A.D. 1111, in his perplexity to offer a compromise,
whereby the emperor should surrender investiture to the church, but
on the other hand the clergy should return to him all landed property
and privileges given them by the state since the times of
Charlemagne, while the Patrimony of Peter should continue the
property of the pope himself. On the basis of this agreement the
coronation of the emperor was to be celebrated in St. Peter’s on
12th Feb., A.D. 1111. But when after the celebration had begun the
document which set forth the compact was read, the prelates present
in the cathedral raised loud cries of dissent and demanded that it
should immediately be cancelled. The coronation was not proceeded
with, the pope and his cardinals were thrown into prison, and a
revolt of the Romans was suppressed. The pope was then compelled
to rescind the synodal decrees and formally to grant to the king the
right of investiture; he had also, after solemnly promising never
again to put the emperor under ban, to proceed with the coronation.
But Hildebrand’s party called the pope to account for this betrayal
of the church. A synod at Rome in A.D. 1112 declared the
concessions wrung from him invalid, and pronounced the ban
against the emperor. The pope, however, remembering his oaths,

refused to confirm it, but it was nevertheless proclaimed by his
legate in the French and German synods. Matilda’s death in
A.D. 1115 called the emperor again to Italy. She had even in the time
of Gregory VII. made over all her goods and possessions to the
Roman Church; but she had the right of free disposal only in regard
to allodial property, not in regard to her feudal territories. Henry,
however, now laid claim to all her belongings. At the Fast Synod of
A.D. 1116 Paschalis asked pardon of God and man for his sin of
weakness, renewed and made more strict the prohibition of
investiture, but still stoutly refused to confirm the ban of the
emperor. In consequence of a rebellion of the Romans he was
obliged to take to flight, and he died in exile in A.D. 1118. The high
church party now chose Gelasius II., A.D. 1118-1119, but
immediately after the election he was seized by a second Cencius
(see § 96, 7) on account of a private grudge, fearfully maltreated
and confined in chains within his castle. The Romans indeed
rescued him, but the emperor’s sudden arrival in Rome led him, in
order to avoid making inconvenient terms of peace, to seek his own
and the church’s safety in flight. The people and nobles in concert
with the emperor set up Gregory VIII. as anti-pope. So soon as the
emperor left Rome, Gelasius returned. But Cencius fell upon him
during Divine service, and only with difficulty he escaped further
maltreatment by flight into France, where he died in the monastery
of Clugny after a pontificate of scarcely twelve months. The few
cardinals present at Clugny elected archbishop Guido of Vienne. He
assumed the title of Calixtus II., A.D. 1119-1124. Pope and emperor
met together expressing desires for peace. But the auspiciously
begun negotiations never got beyond the statement of the terms of
contract, and ended in the pope renewing at the Council of Rheims,
in A.D. 1119, the anathema against the emperor and anti-pope. Next
year Calixtus crossed the Alps. He received a hearty greeting in
Rome. He laid siege to the anti-pope in Sutri, took him prisoner, and
after the most contumelious treatment before the Roman mob, cast
him into a monastic prison. The investiture question, now better
understood through learned discussions on civil and ecclesiastical
law, was at last definitely settled in the Worms Concordat, as the

result of mutual concessions made at the National Assembly at
Worms, A.D. 1122. The arrangement come to was this: canonical
election of bishops and abbots of the empire by the diocesan clergy
and the secular nobles should be restored, and under imperial
inspection made free from all coercion, but in disputed elections
decisions should be given in accordance with the judgment of the
metropolitan and the rest of the bishops, the investing of the elected
with the sceptre in Germany before, in other parts of the empire
after, consecration, should belong to the emperor, and investiture
with ring and staff at the consecration should belong to the pope.
This agreement was solemnly ratified at the First Œcumenical
Lateran Synod in A.D. 1123.

§ 96.12. The contemporary English Investiture Controversy was
brought earlier to a conclusion. William the Conqueror had
unopposed put Norman prelates in the place of the English bishops,
and had homage rendered him by them, while they received from
him investiture with the ring and the staff. William Rufus, the
Conqueror’s son and successor, A.D. 1087-1100, a domineering and
greedy prince, after Lanfranc’s death in A.D. 1089 (§ 101, 1) allowed
the archbishopric of Canterbury to remain vacant for four years, in
order that he might himself enjoy the undisturbed possession of the
revenues. It was not till A.D. 1093, during a severe illness and under
fear of death, that he agreed to bestow it upon Anselm, the
celebrated Abbot of Bec (§ 101, 1, 3), with the promise to abstain
ever afterwards from simony. No sooner had he recovered than he
repented him of his promise. He resumed his old practices, and even
demanded of Anselm a large sum for his appointment. For peace
sake Anselm gave him a voluntary present of money, but it did not
satisfy the king. When, in A.D. 1097, the archbishop asked
permission to make a journey to Rome in order to have the conflict
settled there, the king banished him. In Rome Anselm was
honourably received and his conduct was highly approved; but
neither Urban II. nor Paschalis II. could venture upon a complete
breach with the king. William the Conqueror’s third son, Henry I.
Beauclerk, A.D. 1100-1135, who, having also snatched Normandy

from his eldest brother Robert, needed the support of the clergy to
secure his position, agreed to the return of the exiled primate, and
promised to put a stop to every kind of simony; but he demanded
the maintenance of investiture and the oath of fealty which Anselm
now, in consequence of the decrees of a Roman synod which he had
himself agreed to, felt obliged to refuse. Thus again the conflict was
renewed. The king now confiscated the goods and revenues of the
see, and the archbishop was on the point of issuing an
excommunication against him, when at last an understanding was
come to in A.D. 1106, through the mediation of the pope, according
to which the crown gave up the investiture with ring and staff, and
the archbishop agreed to take the oath of fealty.―In France, too,
from the end of the 11th century, owing to the pressure used by the
high church reforming party, the secular power was satisfied with
securing the oath of fealty from the higher clergy, without making
further claim to investiture.277

§ 96.13. The Times of Lothair III. and Conrad III., A.D. 1125-
1152.―After the death of Henry V. without issue, the Saxon
Lothair, A.D. 1125-1137, was elected, and the Hohenstaufen
grandson of Henry IV. descended in the female line was passed
over. Honorius II., A.D. 1124-1130, successor of Calixtus II.,
hastened to confer the papal sanction upon the newly elected
emperor, who already upon his election had, by accepting spiritual
investiture before temporal investiture, and a minimising of the oath
of fealty by ecclesiastical reservations, showed himself ready to
support the claims of the clergy. But neither ban nor the preaching
of a crusade against Count Roger II. of Sicily (§ 95, 1) could
prevent him from building up a powerful kingdom comprehending
all Southern Italy. The next election of the cardinals gives us two
popes: Innocent II., A.D. 1130-1143, and Anacletus II., A.D. 1130-
1138. The latter, although not the pope of the majority, secured a
powerful support in the friendship of Roger II., whom he had
crowned king by his legate at Palermo. Innocent, on the other hand,
fled to France. There the two oracles of the age, the abbot Peter of
Clugny and Bernard of Clairvaux, took his side and won for him the

favour of all Cisalpine Europe. Both popes fished for Lothair’s
favour with the bait of the promise of imperial coronation. A second
edition of the Synod of Sutri would probably have enabled a more
powerful king to attain the elevation of Henry III. But Lothair was
not the man to seize the opportunity. He decided in favour of the
protégé of Bernard, led him back in A.D. 1133 to the eternal city, had
himself crowned emperor by him in the Lateran and invested with
Matilda’s inheritance, which was declared by the curialists a fief of
the empire. But Lothair’s repeated demands, that what had been
acquired by the Concordat of Worms should be renounced, were set
aside, through the opposition not so much of the pope as of
St. Bernard and St. Norbert (§ 98, 2). At the prayer of the pope, who
immediately after Lothair’s departure had been driven out by Roger,
and moved by the prophetic exhortations of Bernard, the emperor
prepared for a second Roman campaign in A.D. 1136. Leaving the
conquest of Rome to the eloquence of the prophet of Clairvaux, he
advanced from one victory to another until he brought all Southern
Italy under the imperial sway, and died on his return homeward in
an Alpine hut in the Tyrol. Fuming with rage Roger now crossed
over from Sicily and in a short time he reconquered his southern
provinces of Italy. The appointment, however, of a new pope after
the death of Anacletus miscarried, and Innocent was able at the
Second Œcumenical Lateran Synod in A.D. 1139 to declare the
schism at an end. The pope then renewed the excommunication of
Roger and pronounced an anathema against the teachings of Arnold
of Brescia (§ 108, 7), a young enthusiastic priest of the school of
Abælard, who traced all ecclesiastical corruption back to the wealth
of the church and the secular power of the clergy. He next prepared
himself for war with Roger. That prince, however, waylaid him and
had him brought into his tent, where he and his sons cast themselves
at the holy father’s feet and begged for mercy and peace. The pope
could do nothing else than play the rôle of the magnanimous given
him in this comedy. He had therefore to confirm the hated Norman
in the possession of the conquered provinces as a hereditary
monarchy with the ecclesiastical privilege of a native legate, and, as
some set off to comfort himself with, the prince was to regard the

territory as a fief of the papal see. But still greater calamities befell
this pope. The republican freedom, which the cities of Tuscany and
Lombardy won during the 12th century, awakened also among the
Romans a love of liberty. They refused to render obedience in
temporal matters to the pope and established in the Capitol a
popular senate, which undertook the civil government in the name
of the Roman Commune. Innocent died during the revolution. His
successor Cœlestine II. held the pontificate for only five months,
and Lucius II., after vainly opposing the Commune for seven
months, was killed by a stone thrown in a tumult. Eugenius III.,
A.D. 1145-1153, a scholar and friend of St. Bernard, was obliged
immediately after his election to seek safety in flight. An agreement,
however, was come to in that same year: the pope acknowledged the
government of the Commune as legitimate, while it recognised his
superiority and granted to him the investiture of the senators. Yet,
though taken back three times to Rome, he could never remain there
for more than a few months. He visited France and Germany
(Treves) in A.D. 1147. In France he heard of the fall of Edessa.
Supported by the fiery zeal of Bernard, the summons to a second
crusade (§ 94, 2) aroused a burning enthusiasm throughout all the
West. But in Rome he was unable to offer any effectual resistance to
the demagogical preaching by which Arnold of Brescia from
A.D. 1146 had inflamed the people and the inferior clergy with an
ardent enthusiasm for his ideal constitution of an apostolic church
and a democratic state. Since this change of feeling had taken place
in Rome, both parties, that of the Capitol as well as that of the
Lateran, had repeatedly endeavoured to win to their side the first
Hohenstaufen on the German throne, Conrad III., A.D. 1138-1152,
by promise of bestowing the imperial crown. But Conrad,
meanwhile otherwise occupied, refrained from all intermeddling,
and when at last he actually started upon a journey to Rome death
overtook him on the way.

§ 96.14. The Times of Frederick I. and Henry VI., A.D. 1152-
1190.―The nephew and successor of Conrad III., Frederick I.
Barbarossa, A.D. 1152-1190, began his reign with the firm

determination to realize fully the ideas of Charlemagne (§ 82, 3) by
his pope Paschalis III., whom at a later period, in A.D. 1165, he had
canonized. With profound contempt at heart for the Roman
democracy of his time, he concluded a compact in A.D. 1153 with
the papal see, which confirmed him in the possession of the imperial
crown and gave to the pope the Dominium temporale in the Church
States. After the death of Eugenius which soon followed, the aged
Anastasius IV. occupied the papal chair for a year and a half, a time
of peace and progress. He was succeeded by the powerful
Hadrian IV., A.D. 1154-1159. He was an Englishman, Nicholas
Breakspear, son of a poor English priest, the first and, down to the
present time, the only one of that nation who attained the papal
dignity. He pronounced an interdict upon the Romans who had
refused him entrance into the inner part of the city and had
treacherously slain a cardinal. Rome endured this spiritual famine
only for a few weeks, and then purchased deliverance by the
expulsion of Arnold of Brescia, who soon thereafter fell into the
hands of a cardinal. He was indeed again rescued by force, but
Frederick I., who had meanwhile in A.D. 1154 begun his first journey
to Rome, and on his way thither had humbled the proud Lombard
cities struggling for freedom, urged by the pope, insisted that he
should be surrendered up again, and subsequently gave him over to
the Roman city prefect, who, in A.D. 1155, without trial or show of
justice condemned him to be burnt and had his ashes strewn upon
the Tiber. In the camp at Sutri the pope personally greeted the king
who, after refusing for several days, at length agreed to show him
the customary honour of holding his stirrup, doing it however with a
very bad grace. Soon too the senatorial ambassadors of the Roman
people, who indulged in bombastic, turgid declamation, presented
themselves professing their readiness on consideration of a solemn
undertaking to protect the Roman republic, and on payment of five
thousand pounds, to proclaim the German king from the Capitol
Roman emperor and ruler of the world. With a furious burst of anger
Frederick silenced them, and with scathing words showed them how
the witness of history pointed the contrast between their miserable
condition and the glory and dignity of the German name. Yet on the

day of the coronation, which they were not able to prevent, the
Romans took revenge for the insults he had heaped upon them by an
attack upon the papal residence in the castle of Leo, and upon the
imperial camp in front of the city, but were repelled with sore loss.
Soon thereafter, in A.D. 1155, the emperor made preparations for
returning home, leaving everything else to the pope. The relations
between the two became more and more strained from day to day.
The Lombards, too, once again rebelled. Frederick therefore in
A.D. 1158 made his second expedition to Rome. On the Roncalian
plains he held a great assembly which laid down to the Lombards as
well as to the pope the imperial prerogatives. Hadrian would have
given utterance to his wrath by thundering an anathema, but he was
restrained by the hand of death.

§ 96.15. The cardinals of the hierarchical party elected
Alexander III., A.D. 1159-1181, those of the imperial party,
Victor IV. A synod convened by the emperor at Pavia in A.D. 1160
decided in favour of Victor, who was now formally recognised.
Meanwhile Milan threw off the yoke that had been laid upon her.
After an almost two years’ siege the emperor took the city in
A.D. 1162 and razed it to the ground. From France whither he had
fled, Alexander, in A.D. 1163, launched his anathema against the
emperor and his pope. The latter died in A.D. 1164, and Frederick
had Paschalis III. ( † A.D. 1168) chosen his successor; but in
A.D. 1165, Alexander returning from France, pressed on in advance
of him and was acknowledged by the Roman senate. Now for the
third time in A.D. 1166, Frederick crossed the Alps. A small
detachment of troops that had been sent in advance to accompany
the imperial pope to Rome under the leadership of the archbishops
of Cologne and Mainz, in a bloody battle at Monte Porzio in
A.D. 1167 utterly destroyed a Roman army of twenty times its size.
Frederick then himself hasted forward. After an eight days’ furious
assault the fortress of Leo surrendered, and Paschalis was able to
perform the Te Deum in St. Peter’s. The Transtiberines, too, after
Alexander had sought safety in flight, soon took the oath of fealty to
the emperor upon a guarantee of imperial protection of their

republic. But at the very climax of his success “the fate of
Sennacherib” befell him. The Roman malaria during the hot August
became a deadly fever plague, thinned the lines of his army and
forced him to withdraw. So weakened was he that he could not even
assert his authority in Lombardy, but had to return to Germany in
A.D. 1168. The emperor’s disaster told also unfavourably upon the
fortunes of his pope, whose successor Calixtus III. was quite
disregarded. In A.D. 1174 Frederick again went down into Italy and
engaged upon a decisive battle with the confederate cities of
Lombardy, but in A.D. 1176 at Legnano he suffered a complete
defeat, in consequence of which he agreed at the Congress of
Venice, in A.D. 1177, to acknowledge the freedom of the Lombard
cities, abandoned the imperial claims upon Rome, and recognised
Alexander III., who was also present there, as the rightful pope,
kissing his feet and holding his stirrup according to custom. Rome,
which he had not seen for nearly eleven years, would no longer shut
her gates against the pope. Welcomed by senate and people, he
made his public entrance into the Lateran in March A.D. 1178, where
in the following year he gathered together 300 bishops in the Third
Lateran Council (the 11th œcumenical), in order by their advice to
heal the wounds which the schism of the church had made. Here
also, in order to prevent double elections in time to come, it was
resolved that for a valid papal election two-thirds of the whole
college of cardinals must be agreed. The right of concurrence
assigned by the decree of Nicholas II. in A.D. 1059 to the people and
emperor was treated as antiquated and forgotten, and was not even
alluded to.

§ 96.16. Even before his victory over the powerful Hohenstaufen,
Alexander III. during his exile won a yet more brilliant success in
England. King Henry II., A.D. 1154-1189, wished to establish again
the supremacy of the state over church and clergy, and thought that
he would have a pliant tool in carrying out his plans in Thomas
à Becket, whom he made archbishop of Canterbury, in A.D. 1162.
But as primate of the English church, Thomas proved a vigorous
upholder of hierarchical principles. Instead of the accommodating

courtier, the king found the archbishop immediately upon his
consecration the bold asserter of the claims of the church. The jovial
man of the world became at once the saintly ascetic. At a council at
Tours in A.D. 1163, he returned into the pope’s own hand the pallium
with which an English prince had invested him in name of the king,
resigning also his archiepiscopal dignity, that he might receive these
directly as a papal gift. Straightway began the conflict between the
king and his former favourite. Henry summoned a diet at Clarendon,
where he obtained the approval of the superior clergy for his anti-
hierarchical propositions; Thomas also for a time withstood,
promising at last, when urged on all sides, to assent to the
constitutions, but refusing to sign the document when it was placed
before him. The king now ordered a process of deposition to be
executed against him, and Thomas then fled to France, where the
pope was at that time residing. The pope released him from his
promise, condemned the Constitutions of Clarendon, and threatened
the king with anathema and interdict. At last, after protracted
negotiations, in A.D. 1170 by means of a personal interview on the
frontiers of Normandy, a reconciliation was effected; by which,
however, neither the king nor the archbishop renounced their claims.
Thomas now returned to England and threatened with
excommunication all bishops who should agree to the Constitutions
of Clarendon. Four knights seized upon an unguarded word of the
king which he had uttered in passion, and murdered the archbishop
at the altar in A.D. 1170. Alexander canonized the martyr to
Hildebrandism, and the king was so sorely pressed by the pope, his
own people and his rebellious sons, that he consented to do penance
humbly at the tomb of his deadly sainted foe, and submitted to be
scourged by the monks. Becket’s bones, for which a special chapel
was reared at Canterbury, were visited by crowds of pilgrims until
Henry VIII., when he had broken with Rome (§ 139, 4), formally
arraigned the saint as a traitor, had his name struck out of the
calendar and his ashes scattered to the winds.278―Thus by A.D. 1178
Alexander III. had risen to the summit of ecclesiastical power; but
in Rome itself as well as in the Church States, he remained as

powerless politically as before. Soon, therefore, after the great
council he again quitted the city for a voluntary exile, and never saw
it more. His three immediate successors, too, Lucius III.
( † A.D. 1185), Urban III. ( † A.D. 1187), and Gregory VIII.
(† A.D. 1187), were elected, consecrated and buried outside of Rome.
Clement III. († A.D. 1191) was the first to enter the Lateran again in
A.D. 1188, on the basis of a compromise which acknowledged the
republican constitution under the papal superiority. Meanwhile
Frederick I., without regarding the protest of the pope as liege lord
of the Sicilian crown, had in A.D. 1186 consummated the fateful
marriage of his son Henry with Constance, the posthumous daughter
of king Roger, and aunt of his childless grandson William II.
(† A.D. 1194), and thus the heiress of the great Norman kingdom of
Italy. From the crusade which he then undertook in A.D. 1189
Frederick never returned (§ 94, 3). His successor, Henry VI.,
A.D. 1190-1197, compelled the new pope Cœlestine III., A.D. 1191-
1198, to crown him emperor in A.D. 1191, conquered the inheritance
of his wife, pushed back the boundaries of the Church States to the
very gates of Rome, and asserted his imperial rights even over the
city of Rome itself. He pressed on to the realizing of the scheme for
making the German crown together with the imperial dignity for
ever hereditary in his house. The princes of the empire in A.D. 1196
elected his son Frederick II., when scarcely two years old, as king of
the Romans. He then thought under the pretext of a crusade to
conquer Greece, to which he had laid groundless claims of
succession, but while upon the way his plans were overthrown by
his sudden death at Messina.

§ 96.17. Innocent III., A.D. 1198-1216.―After the death of
Alexander III. the power and reputation of the Holy See had fallen
into the lowest degradation. Then the cardinal deacon, Lothair
Count of Segni in Anagni, succeeded in A.D. 1198 in his 37th year,
under the name of Innocent III., and raised the papacy again to a
height of power and glory never reached before. In point of intellect
and power of will he was not a whit behind Gregory VII., while in
culture (§ 102, 9), scholarship, subtlety and adroitness he far

excelled him. His piety, too, his moral earnestness, his enthusiasm
and devotion to the church and the theocratical interest of the chair
of St. Peter, were at least as powerful and decidedly purer, deeper
and more spiritual than Gregory’s. And in addition to all these great
endowments he enjoyed an invariable good fortune which never
forsook him. His first task was the restoration of the Church States
and his political prestige in Rome. In both these directions he was
favoured by the sudden death of Henry VI. and the internal
disorders of the Capitoline government of that time. On the very day
of his enthronement the imperial prefect tendered him the oath of
fealty and the Capitol did homage to him as the superior. And also
before the second year had passed the Church States in their fullest
extent were restored by the expulsion of the greater and smaller
feudal lords who had been settled there by Henry VI. Rome was
indeed once more the scene of wild party conflicts which forced the
pope in A.D. 1203 to fly to Anagni. He was able, however, to return
in A.D. 1204 and to conclude a definite and decisive peace with the
Commune in A.D. 1205, according to the terms of which the many-
headed senate resigned, and a single senator or podestà nominated
by the pope was entrusted with the executive authority. Meanwhile
Innocent had been gaining brilliant successes beyond the limits of
the States of the Church. These were won first of all in Sicily. The
widow of Henry VI. had her son Frederick of four years old, after
his father’s death, crowned king in Palermo. Unadvised and
helpless, pressed upon all sides, she sought protection from
Innocent, which he granted upon her renouncing the ecclesiastical
privileges previously claimed by the king and making
acknowledgment of the papal suzerainty. Dying in A.D. 1198,
Constance transferred to him the guardianship of her son, and the
pope justified the confidence placed in him by the excellent and
liberal education which he secured for his ward, as well as by the
zeal and success with which he restored rest and peace to the land.
In Germany, Philip of Swabia, Frederick’s uncle, was appointed to
carry on the government in the name of his Sicilian nephew during
his minority. The condition of Germany, however, demanded the
direct control of a firm and vigorous ruler. The princes, therefore,

insisted upon a new election, for which Philip also now appeared as
candidate. The votes were split between two rivals; the Ghibellines
voting for Philip, A.D. 1198-1208, and the Guelph party for Otto IV.
of Brunswick, A.D. 1198-1218. The party of the latter referred the
decision to the pope. For three years he delayed giving judgment,
then he decided in favour of the Guelph, who paid for the preference
by granting all the demands of the pope, and calling himself king by
the grace of God and the pope. The States of the Church were thus
represented as including the Duchy of Spoleto, and in the election of
bishops the church was freed from the influence of the state. By
A.D. 1204, however, Philip’s power and repute had risen to such a
pitch that even the pope found himself obliged to take into account
the altered position of matters. A papal court of arbitration at Rome
to which both claimants had agreed to submit, was on the point of
giving its decision unequivocally in favour of the Hohenstaufen,
when the murder of Philip by Otto of Wittelsbach, in A.D. 1208,
rendered it void. Otto IV. was now acknowledged by all, and in
A.D. 1209 he was crowned by the pope after new concessions had
been made. But as Roman emperor he either would not or could not
perform what he had promised before and at his coronation. He took
to himself the possessions of Matilda as well as other parts of the
States of the Church, and was not prevented from pursuing his
victorious campaign in Southern Italy by the anathema which
Innocent thundered against him in A.D. 1210. Then Innocent called
to mind the old rights of his former pupil to the German crown, and
insisted that they should be given effect to. In A.D. 1212,
Frederick II., now in his eighteenth year, accepted the call, was
received in Germany with open arms, and was crowned in A.D. 1215
at Aachen. Otto could not maintain his position against him, and so
withdrew to his hereditary possessions, and died in A.D. 1218.

§ 96.18. King Philip Augustus II. of France, had in A.D. 1193
married the Danish princess Ingeborg, but divorced her in A.D. 1196,
and married the beautiful Duchess Agnes of Meran. Innocent
compelled him in A.D. 1200 to put her away by issuing against him
an interdict, but it was only in A.D. 1213 that he again took back

Ingeborg as his legitimate wife.―From far off Spain the young king
Peter of Arragon went in A.D. 1204 to Rome, laid down his crown as
a sacred gift upon the tomb of the chief of the apostles, and
voluntarily undertook the payment of a yearly tribute to the Holy
See. In the same year a crusading army, by founding a Latin empire
in Constantinople, brought the schismatical East to the feet of the
pope (§ 94, 4). In England, when the archbishopric of Canterbury
became vacant, the chapter filled it by electing their own superior
Reginald. This choice they had soon cause to rue. They therefore
annulled their election, and at the wish of the usurping king John
Lackland made choice of John, bishop of Norwich. Innocent refused
to confirm their action, and persuaded certain members of the
chapter staying in Rome to choose the cardinal priest Stephen
Langton, whose election he immediately confirmed.279 When the
king refused to recognise this appointment, and on an interdict being
threatened swore that he would drive all priests who should obey it
out of the country, the pope issued it in A.D. 1208 against all
England, excommunicated the king, and finally, in A.D. 1212,
released all his subjects from their oath of allegiance and deposed
the monarch, while he commissioned Philip Augustus of France to
carry the sentence into effect. John, now as cringing and terrified as
before he had been proud and despotic, humbled himself in the dust,
and at Dover, in A.D. 1213, placed kingdom and crown at the feet of
the papal legate Pandulf, and received it from his hands as a papal
fief, undertaking to pay twice a year the tribute imposed. But in
A.D. 1214 the English nobles extorted from their cowardly tyrant as a
safeguard against lordly wilfulness and despotism the famous
Magna Charta, against which the pope protested, threatening
excommunication and promising legitimate redress of their
grievances, though in consequence of confusion caused by the
breaking out again of the civil wars he was unable to enforce his
protest. And now his days were drawing to an end. At the famous
Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215, more than 1,500 prelates
from all the countries of Christendom, along with the ambassadors
of almost all Christian kings, princes and free cities, gave him

homage as the representative of God on earth, as visible Head of the
Church, and supreme lord and judge of all princes and peoples. A
few months later he died.―As in Italy and Germany, in France and
England, he had also in all other states of the Christian world, in
Spain and Portugal, in Poland, Livonia and Sweden, in
Constantinople and Bulgaria, shown himself capable of controlling
political as well as ecclesiastical movements, arranging and
smoothing down differences, organizing and putting into shape what
was tending to disorder. Some conception of his activity may be
formed from the 5,316 extant decretals of the eighteen years of his
pontificate.

§ 96.19. The Times of Frederick II. and his Successors,
280
A.D. 1215-1268.―Frederick II., A.D. 1215-1250, contrary to the
Hohenstaufen custom, had not only agreed to the partition of Sicily
from the empire in favour of his son Henry, but also renewed the
agreements previously entered into with the pope by Otto IV. He
even increased the papal possessions by ceding Ancona, and still
further at his coronation at Aachen he showed his goodwill by
undertaking a crusade. He also allowed this same Henry who
became king of Sicily as a vassal of the pope, to be elected king of
the Romans in A.D. 1220, and then began his journey to Rome to
receive imperial coronation. The new pope Honorius III.,
A.D. 1216-1227, formerly Frederick’s tutor and even still
entertaining for him a fatherly affection, exacted from him a solemn
renewal of his earlier promises. But instead of returning to
Germany, Frederick started for Sicily in order to make it the basis of
operations for the future carrying out of the ideas of his father and
grandfather. The peace-loving pope constantly urged him to fulfil
his promise of fitting out a crusade. But it was only after his
successor Gregory IX., A.D. 1227-1241, a high churchman of the
stamp of Gregory VII. and Innocent III., urged the matter with
greater determination, that Frederick actually embarked. He turned
back, however, as soon as an epidemic broke out in the ships, but he
did not himself escape the contagion, and died three days after. In
A.D. 1227 the pope had in a senseless passion hurled an anathema

against him, and, in an encyclical to all the bishops, painted the
emperor’s ingratitude and breach of faith in the darkest colours. The
emperor on his part, in a manifesto justifying himself addressed to
the princes and people of Europe, had quite as unsparingly lashed
the worldliness of the church, the corruption, presumption and self-
seeking of the papacy, and then in A.D. 1228 he again undertook the
postponed crusade (§ 94, 5). The pope’s curse followed “the pirate”
to the very threshold of the Holy Sepulchre, and a papal crusading
force made a raid upon Southern Italy. Frederick therefore hastened
his return, landed in A.D. 1229 in Apulia, and entered into
negotiations for peace, to which, however, the pope agreed only in
A.D. 1230, when the emperor’s victoriously advancing troops
threatened him with the loss of the States of the Church. In
consequence of the pope’s continued difficulties with his Romans,
who drove him three times out of the city, Frederick had frequent
opportunities of showing himself serviceable to the pope by giving
direct aid or mediating in his favour. Nevertheless he continually
conspired with the rebellious Lombards, and in A.D. 1239 renewed
the ban against the emperor. The pope who had hitherto only
charged Frederick with a tendency to freethinking, as well as an
inclination to favour the Saracens (§ 95, 1), and to maintain friendly
intercourse with the Syrian sultans, now accused him of flippant
infidelity. The emperor, it was said, had among other things declared
that the birth of the Saviour by a virgin was a fable, and that Jesus,
Moses and Mohammed were the three greatest impostors the world
had ever seen,―a form of unbelief which spread very widely in
consequence of the crusades. Manifestoes and counter-manifestoes
sought to outdo one another in their violence. And while the wild
hordes of the Mongols were overspreading unopposed the whole of
Eastern Europe, the emperor’s troops were victoriously pressing
forward to the gates of Rome, and his ships were preventing the
meeting of the council summoned against him by catching the
prelates who in spite of his prohibition were hastening to it. The
pope died in A.D. 1241, and was followed in seventeen days by his
successor Cœlestine IV.

§ 96.20. For almost two years the papal chair remained vacant. Then
this position was won by Innocent IV., A.D. 1243-1254, who as
cardinal had been friendly to the emperor, but as pope was a most
bitter enemy to him and to his house. The negotiations about the
removal of the ban were broken off, and Innocent escaped to
France, where at the First Lyonese or 13th Œcumenical Council
of A.D. 1245, attended by scarcely any but Frenchmen and
Spaniards, he renewed the excommunication of the emperor, and
declared him as a blasphemer and robber of the church deprived of
his throne. Once again with the most abject humility Frederick sued
for reconciliation with the church. The pope, however, wished not
for reconciliation, but the destruction of the whole “viper brood” of
the Hohenstaufens. But the rival king, Henry Raspe of Thuringia,
set up by the papal party in Germany, and William of Holland, who
was put forward after his death in A.D. 1247, could not maintain their
position against Frederick’s son, Conrad IV., who as early as
A.D. 1235 had been elected in place of his rebel brother Henry as
king of the Romans. Even in Italy the fortune of war favoured at
first the imperial arms. At the siege of Parma, which was disloyal,
the tide began to turn. The sorely pressed citizens made a sally in
A.D. 1248, while Frederick was away at a hunt, and roused to
courage by despair, put his army to flight. His brave son, Enzio,
king of Sardinia and governor of Northern Italy, fell in A.D. 1249
into the hands of the Bolognese, and was subjected to a life-long
imprisonment. Frederick himself in A.D. 1250 closed his active life
in the south in the arms of his son Manfred. The pope then returned
to Italy, in order to take possession of the Sicilian kingdom, which
he claimed as a papal fief. But in A.D. 1251 Conrad IV., summoned
by Manfred, hasted thither from Germany, subdued Apulia,
conquered Naples, and was resolved to lay hands on the person of
the pope himself, who had also excommunicated him, when his
career was stopped by death in A.D. 1254, in his twenty-sixth year.
On behalf of Conrad’s two-year-old son, Conradin, who had been
born in Germany after his father’s departure, Manfred undertook the
regency in Southern Italy, but found himself obliged to
acknowledge the pope’s suzerainty. Nevertheless the pope was

determined to have him also overthrown. Manfred, however,
escaped in time to the Saracenic colony of Luceria, and with its help
utterly defeated the papal troops sent out against him. Five days
after Innocent IV. died, Alexander IV., A.D. 1254-1261, although
without his predecessor’s ability, sought still to continue his work.
He could not, however, either by ban or by war prevent Manfred,
who on the report of Conradin’s death had had himself crowned,
from extending the power and prestige of his kingdom farther and
farther into the north. Urban IV., A.D. 1261-1264, a Frenchman by
birth, son of a shoemaker of Troyes, took up with all his heart the
heritage of hate against the Hohenstaufens, and in A.D. 1263 invited
Charles of Anjou, the youngest brother of Louis IX. of France, to
win by conquest the Sicilian crown. While the prince was preparing
for the campaign Urban died. His successor, Clement IV.,
A.D. 1265-1268, also a Frenchman, could not but carry out what his
predecessor had begun. Charles, whom the Romans without the
knowledge of the pope had elected their senator, proceeded in
A.D. 1265 into Italy, took the vassal oath of fealty, and was crowned
as Charles I., A.D. 1265-1285, king of the two Sicilies. Treachery
opened up his way into Naples. Manfred fell in A.D. 1266 in the
battle of Benevento; and Conradin, whom the Ghibellines had called
in as a deliverer of Italy, after the disastrous battle of Tagliacozzo in
A.D. 1268, died on the scaffold in his sixteenth year.

§ 96.21. The Times of the House of Anjou down to
Boniface VIII., A.D. 1288-1294.―The papacy had emerged
triumphantly from its hundred years’ struggle with the
Hohenstaufens, and by the overthrow of this powerful house
Germany was thrown into the utmost confusion and anarchy. But
Italy, too, was now in a condition of extreme disorder, and the
unconscionable tyrants of Naples subjected it to a much more
intolerable bondage than those had done from whom they pretended
to have delivered it. After the death of Clement IV. the Holy See
remained vacant for three years. The cardinals would not elect such
a pope as would be agreeable to Charles I. During this papal
vacancy Louis IX. of France, A.D. 1226-1270, fitted out the seventh

and last crusade (§ 94, 6), from which he was not to return. As
previously he had reformed the administration of justice, he now
before his departure introduced drastic reforms in the ecclesiastical
institutions of his kingdom, which laid the first foundations of the
celebrated “Gallican Liberties.” Clement IV. gave occasion for such
procedure on the part of the monarch who was a model of piety after
the standard of those times, by claiming in A.D. 1266 for the papal
chair the plenaria dispositio of all prebends and benefices. In
opposition to this assumption the king secured by a Pragmatic
Sanction of A.D. 1269 to all churches and monasteries of his realm
unconditional freedom of all elections and presentations according
to old existing rights, confirmed to them anew all privileges and
immunities previously granted them, forbade every form of simony
as a heinous crime, and prohibited all extraordinary taxation of
church property on the part of the Roman curia.―At last the
cardinals took courage and elected Gregory X., A.D. 1271-1276, an
Italian of the noble house of Visconti. The desolating interregnum in
Germany was also put an end to by the election of Count Rudolf of
Hapsburg, A.D. 1273-1291, as king of the Germans. At the Second
Lyonese or 14th Œcumenical Council of A.D. 1274, the worthy
pope continued his endeavours without avail to rouse the flagging
enthusiasm of the princes so as to get them to undertake another
crusade. The union with the Greek church did not prove of an
enduring kind (§ 67, 4). The constitution, too, sanctioned at the
council, which provided, in order to prevent prolonged vacancies in
the papal see, that the election of pope should not only be proceeded
with in immured conclaves in the place where the deceased pope
last resided with the curia, but also (though this was again abrogated
in A.D. 1351 by a decree of Clement VI.) should be expedited by
limiting the supply of food after three days to one dish, after other
five days to water, wine, and bread. Yet this completely failed to
secure the object desired. More successful, however, were the
negotiations carried on at Lyons with the ambassadors of the new
German king. Rudolf, in entering upon his government, renewed all
the concessions made by Otto IV. and Frederick II., renounced all
imperial claims upon Rome and the States of the Church, with the

exception of the possessions of Matilda, and abandoned all
pretension to Sicily. The pope on his part acknowledged him as king
of the Romans and undertook to crown him emperor in Rome,
where this agreement was to be formally ratified and signed. But
Gregory died before arrangements had been completed.

§ 96.22. The three following popes, Innocent V., Hadrian V., and
John XXI., died soon after one another. The last named, previously
known as Petrus [Peter] Hispanus, had distinguished himself by his
medical and philosophical writings. He was properly the twentieth
Pope John, but as there was a slight element of uncertainty (§ 82, 6)
he designated himself the twenty-first. After a six months’ vacancy
Nicholas III., A.D. 1277-1280, mounted the papal throne. By
diplomacy he secured the ratification of the still undecided
concordat with the German kingdom, and Rudolf, who had enough
to do in Germany, immediately withdrew from Italian affairs, even
abandoning his claims to imperial coronation. The powerful pope,
whose pontificate was marked by rapacity and nepotism, and who is
therefore put by Dante in hell, did not live long enough to carry out
his plans for the overthrow of the French yoke in Italy. But he
obliged Charles I. to resign his Roman senatorship, and secretly
encouraged a conspiracy of the Sicilians, which under his successor
Martin IV., A.D. 1281-1285, a Frenchman and a pliable tool of
Charles, broke out in the terrible “Sicilian Vespers” of A.D. 1282.
The island of Sicily was thereby rent from the French rule and papal
vassalage, and in a roundabout way the Hohenstaufens by the
female line regained the government of this part of their old
inheritance (§ 95, 1). Rome now again in A.D. 1284 shook off the
senatorial rule which Charles I. had meanwhile again assumed, and
after his death and that of Martin, which speedily followed, they
transferred this dignity to the new pope Honorius IV., A.D. 1285-
1287, whose short but vigorous reign was followed by a vacancy of
eleven months. The Franciscan general then mounted the papal
throne as Nicholas IV., A.D. 1288-1292. He filled up the period of
his pontificate with vain endeavours to revive the spirit of the
crusades and secure the suppression of heresy. Violent party feuds

of cardinals of the Orsini and Colonna factions delayed the election
of a pope after his death for two years. They united at last in
electing the most unfit conceivable, Peter of Murrone (§ 98, 2),
who, as Cœlestine V. changed the monk’s cowl for the papal tiara,
but was persuaded after four months by the sly and ambitious
Cardinal Cajetan to resign. Cajetan now himself succeeded in
A.D. 1294 as Boniface VIII. The poor monk was confined by him in
a tower, where he died. He was afterwards canonized by Pope
John XXII.

§ 96.23. Temporal Power of the Popes.―During the 12th and
13th centuries, when the spiritual power of the papacy had reached
its highest point, the pope came to be regarded as the absolute head
of the church. Gregory VII. arrogated the right of confirming all
episcopal elections. The papal recommendations to vacant sees
(Preces, whence those so recommended were called Precistæ) were
from the time of Innocent III. transformed into mandates (Mandata),
and Clement IV. claimed for the papal chair the right of a plenario
dispositio of all ecclesiastical benefices. Even in the 12th century
the theory was put forth as in accordance with the canon law that all
ecclesiastical possessions were the property not of the particular
churches concerned but of God or Christ, and so of the pope as His
representative, who in administering them was responsible to Him
alone. Hence the popes, in special cases when the ordinary revenues
of the curia were insufficient, had no hesitation in exercising the
right of levying a tax upon ecclesiastical property. They heard
appeals from all tribunals and could give dispensations from
existing church laws. The right of canonization (§ 104, 8), which
was previously in the power of each bishop with application simply
to his own diocese, was for the first time exercised with a claim for
recognition over the whole church by John XV., in A.D. 993, without,
however, any word of withdrawing their privilege from the bishops.
Alexander III. was the first to declare in A.D. 1170 that canonization
was exclusively the right of the papal chair. The system of
Gregory VII. made no claim of doctrinal infallibility for the Holy
See, though his ignorance of history led him to suppose that no

heretic had ever presided over the Roman church, and his
understanding of Luke xxii. 32 made him confidently expect that
none ever would. Innocent III., indeed, publicly acknowledged that
even the pope might err in matters of faith, and then, but only then,
become amenable to the judgment of the church. And Innocent IV.,
fifty years later, taught that the pope might err. It is therefore wrong
to say, “I believe what the pope believes;” for one should believe
only what the church teaches. Thomas Aquinas was the first who
expressly maintained the doctrine of papal infallibility. He says that
the pope alone can decide finally upon matters of faith, and that
even the decrees of councils only become valid and authoritative
when confirmed by him. Thomas, however, never went the length of
maintaining that the pope can by himself affirm any dogma without
the advice and previous deliberations of a council.―Kissing the feet
sprang from an Italian custom, and even an emperor like Frederick
Barbarossa humbled himself to hold the pope’s stirrup. According to
the Donation of Constantine document (§ 87, 4), Constantine the
Great had himself performed this office of equerry to Pope
Sylvester. When the coronation of the pope was introduced is still a
disputed point. Nicholas I. was, according to the Liber pontificalis,
formally crowned on his accession. Previously the successors of the
apostles were satisfied with a simple episcopal mitre (§ 84, 1),
which on the head of the crowned pope was developed into the tiara
(§ 110, 15). At the Lateran Council of A.D. 1059 Hildebrand is said
to have set upon the head of the new pope Nicholas II. a double
crown to indicate the council’s recognition of his temporal and
spiritual sovereignty. The papal granting of a golden rose
consecrated by prayer, incense, balsam and holy water to princes of
exemplary piety or even to prominent monasteries, churches, or
cities, conveying an obligation to make acknowledgment by a large
money gift, dates as far back as the 12th century. So far as is known,
Louis VII. was the first to receive it from Alexander III. in
A.D. 1163.―The popes appointed legates to represent them abroad,
as they had done even earlier at the synods held in the East.
Afterwards, when the institution came to be more fully elaborated, a
distinction was made between Legati missi or nuntios and Legati

nati. The former were appointed as required for diplomatic
negotiations, visitation and organization of churches, as well as for
the holding of provincial synods, at which they presided. They were
called Legati a latere, if the special importance of the business
demanded a representation from among the nearest and most trusted
councillors of the pope, i.e. one of the cardinals, as Pontifices
collaterales. The rank of born legate, Legatus natus, on the other
hand, was a prelatic dignity of the highest order conferred once for
all by papal privilege, sometimes even upon temporal princes, who
had specially served the Holy See, as for example the king of
Hungary and the Norman princes of Italy (§ 96, 3, 13), which made
them permanently representatives of the pope invested with certain
ecclesiastical prerogatives.―Among the numerous literary and
documentary fictions and forgeries with which the Gregorian papal
system sought to support its ever-advancing pretensions to authority
over the whole church, is one which may be regarded as the
contemporary supplement to the work of the Pseudo-Isidore. It is
the production of a Latin theologian residing in the East, otherwise
unknown, who, at the time of the controversies waged at the
Lyonese Council of A.D. 1274 between the Greeks and Latins
(§ 67, 4), brought forth what professed to be an unbroken chain of
traditions from alleged decrees and canons of the most famous
Greek Councils, e.g. Nicæa, Chalcedon, etc., and church fathers,
most frequently from Cyril of Alexandria, the so-called Pseudo-
Cyril, in which the controverted questions were settled in favour of
the Roman pretensions, and especially the most extreme claims to
the primacy of the pope were asserted. It was presented in A.D. 1261
to Urban IV., who immediately guaranteed its genuineness in a letter
to the emperor Michael Palæologus. On its adoption by Thomas
Aquinas, who diligently employed its contents in his controversies
against the Greeks as well as in his dogmatic works, it won respect
and authority throughout all the countries of the West.

§ 97. The Clergy.

By tithes, legacies, donations, impropriations, and the rising
value of landed estates, the wealth of churches and monasteries
grew from year to year. In this way benefit was secured not only to
the clergy and the monks, but also in many ways to the poor and
needy. The law of celibacy strictly enforced by Gregory VII. saved
the church from the impoverishment with which it was beginning
to be threatened by the dividing or squandering of the property of
the church upon the children of the clergy. But while an absolute
stop was put to the marriage of the clergy, it tended greatly to foster
concubinage, and yet more shameful vices. Yet notwithstanding all
the corruption that prevailed among the clerical order it cannot be
denied that the superior as well as the inferior clergy embraced a
great number of worthy and strictly moral men, and that the
sacerdotal office which the people could quite well distinguish
from the individuals occupying it, still continued to be highly
respected in spite of the immoral lives of many priests. Even more
hurtful to the exercise of their pastoral work than the immorality of
individual clergymen was the widespread illiteracy and gross
ignorance of Christian truth of those who should have been
teachers.

§ 97.1. The Roman College of Cardinals.―All the clergy attached
to one particular church were called Clerici cardinales down to the
11th century. But after Leo IX. had reformed and re-organized the
Roman clergy, and especially after Nicholas II. in A.D. 1059 had
transferred the right of papal election to the Roman cardinals, i.e.
the seven bishops of the Roman metropolitan dioceses and to the
presbyters and deacons of the principal churches of Rome, the title
of cardinal was given to them at first by way of eminence and very

soon exclusively. It was not till the 13th century that it became usual
to give to foreign prelates the rank of Roman cardinal priests as a
mark of distinction. Under the name of the holy college the
cardinals, as the spiritual dignitaries most nearly associated with the
pope, formed his ecclesiastical and civil council, and were also as
such entrusted with the highest offices of state in the papal domains.
Innocent IV. at Lyons in A.D. 1245 gave to them as a distinction the
red hat; Boniface VIII. in A.D. 1297 gave them the purple mantle that
indicated princely rank. To these Paul II. in A.D. 1464 added the right
of riding the white palfrey with red cloth and golden bridle; and
finally, Urban VIII. in A.D. 1630 gave them the title “Eminence.”
Sixtus V. in A.D. 1586 fixed their number at seventy, after the pattern
of the elders of Israel, Exod. xxiv. 1, and the seventy disciples of
Jesus, Luke x. 1. The popes, however, took care to keep a greater or
less number of places vacant, so that they might have opportunities
of showing favour and bestowing gifts when necessary. The
cardinals were chosen in accordance with the arbitrary will of the
individual pope, who nominated them by presenting them with the
red hat, and installed them into their high position by the ceremony
of closing and opening the mantle. From the time of Eugenius IV.,
A.D. 1431, the college of cardinals put every newly elected pope
under a solemn oath to maintain the rights and privileges of the
cardinals and not to come to any serious and important resolution
without their advice and approval.

§ 97.2. The Political Importance of the Superior Clergy (§ 84)
reached its highest point during this period. This was carried
furthest in Germany, especially under the Saxon imperial dynasty.
On more than one occasion did the wise and firm policy of the
German clergy, splendidly organized under the leadership of the
primate of Mainz, save the German nation from overthrow or
dismemberment threatened by ambitious princes. This power
consisted not merely in influence over men’s minds, but also in their
position as members of the states of the empire and territorial lords.
Whether or not a warlike expedition was to be undertaken depended
often only on the consent or refusal of the league of lords spiritual.

It was the policy of the clergy to secure a united, strong, well-
organized Germany. The surrounding countries wished to be
included in the German league of churches and states; not, however,
as the emperor wished, as crown lands, but as portions of the
empire. Against expeditions to Rome, which took the attention of
German princes away from German affairs and ruined Germany, the
German clergy protested in the most decided manner. They wished
the chair of St. Peter to be free and independent as a European, not a
German, institution, with the emperor as its supporter not its
oppressor, but they manfully resisted all the assumptions and
encroachments of the popes. One of the most celebrated of the
German dignitaries of any age was Bruno the Great, brother of the
Emperor Otto I., equally distinguished as a statesman and as a
reformer of the church, and the unwearied promoter of liberal
studies. Chancellor under his imperial brother from A.D. 940, he was
his most trusted counsellor, and was appointed by him in A.D. 953
Archbishop of Cologne, and was soon after made Duke of Lorraine.
He died in A.D. 965. Another example of a German prelate of the
true sort is seen in Willigis of Mainz, who died in A.D. 1011, under
the two last Ottos and Henry II., whom he raised to the throne. The
good understanding that was brought about between this monarch
and the clergy of Germany was in great measure owing to the wise
policy of this prelate. Under Henry IV. the German clergy got split
up into three parties,―the papal party of Clugny under Gebhard
[Gebhardt] of Salzburg, including almost all the Saxon bishops; an
imperial party under Adalbert of Bremen, who endeavoured with the
emperor’s help to found a northern patriarchate, which undoubtedly
tended to become a northern papacy; and an independent German
party under St. Anno II. of Cologne (§ 96, 6), in which
notwithstanding much violence, ambition, and self-seeking, there
still survived much of the spirit that had characterized the policy of
the old German bishops. Henry V., too, as well as the first
Hohenstaufens, had sturdy supporters in the German clergy; but
Frederick II. by his ill treatment of the bishops alienated their clergy
from the interest of the crown. The rise of the imperial dignitaries
after the time of Otto I., and the transference to them under Otto IV.

of the election of emperor raised the archbishops of Mainz, Treves,
and Cologne to the rank of spiritual electoral princes as arch-
chaplains or archchancellors. The Golden Bull of Charles IV., in
A.D. 1356 (§ 110, 4), confirmed and tabulated their rights and duties.

§ 97.3. The Bishops and the Cathedral Chapter.―The bishops
exercised jurisdiction over all the clergy of their diocese, and
punished by deprivation of office and imprisonment in monasteries.
Especially questions of marriage, wills, oaths, were brought before
their tribunal. The German synodal judicatures soon gave way
before the Roman judiciary system. The archdeacons emancipated
themselves more and more from episcopal authority and abused
their power in so arbitrary a way that in the 12th century the entire
institution was set aside. For the discharge of business episcopal
officials and vicars were then introduced. The Chorepiscopi (§ 84)
had passed out of view in the 10th century. But during the crusades
many Catholic bishoprics had been founded in the East. The
occupants of these when driven away clung to their titles in hopes of
better times, and found employment as assistants or suffragans of
Western bishops. Thus arose the order of Episcopi in partibus
(sc. infidelium) which has continued to this day, as a witness of
inalienable rights, and as affording a constant opportunity to the
popes of showing favour and giving rewards. For the exercise of the
archiepiscopal office, the Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215 made
the receiving from the pope the pallium (§ 59, 7) an absolutely
essential condition, and those elected were obliged to pay to the
curia an arbitrary tax of a large amount called the pallium fee. The
canonical life (§ 84, 4) from the 10th century began more and more
to lose its moral weight and importance. Out of attempts at reform
in the 11th century arose the distinction of Canonici seculares and
regulares. The latter lived in cloisters according to monkish rules,
and were zealous for the good old discipline and order, but sooner or
later gave way to worldliness. The rich revenues of cathedral
chapters made the reversion of prebendal stalls the almost exclusive
privilege of the higher nobility, notwithstanding the earnest
opposition of the popes. In the course of the 13th century the

cathedral clergy, with the help of the popes, arrogated to themselves
the sole right of episcopal elections, ignoring altogether the claims
of the diocesan clergy and the people or nobles. The cathedral
clergy also made themselves independent of episcopal control. They
lived mostly outside of the cathedral diocese, and had their
canonical duties performed by vicars. The chapter filled up
vacancies by co-optation.

§ 97.4. Endeavours to Reform the Clergy.―As a reformer of the
English clergy, who had sunk very low in ignorance, rudeness and
immorality, the most conspicuous figure during the 10th century
was St. Dunstan. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in A.D. 959
and died in A.D. 988. He sought at once to advance the standard of
education among the clergy and to inspire the Church with a higher
moral and religious spirit. For these ends he laboured on with an
energy and force of will and an inflexible consistency and strictness
in the pursuit of his hierarchical ideals, which mark him out as a
Hildebrand before Hildebrand. Even as abbot of the monastery of
Glastonbury he had given a forecast of his life work by restoring
and making more severe the rule of St. Benedict, and forming a
brotherhood thoroughly disciplined in science and in ascetical
exercises, from the membership of which, after he had become
bishop of Worcester, then of London, and finally primate of England
and the most influential councillor of four successive kings, he
could fill the places of the secular priests and canons whom he
expelled from their cures. As the primary condition of all clerical
reformation he insisted upon the unrelentingly consistent putting
down of marriage and concubinage among the priests.281―In the
11th century St. Peter Damiani distinguished himself as a zealous
supporter of the reform party of Clugny in the struggle against
simony, clerical immorality, and the marriage of priests. This
obtained for him not only his position as cardinal-bishop of Ostia,
but also his frequent employment, as papal legate in serious
negotiations. In A.D. 1061 he resigned his bishopric and retired into a
monastery, where he died in A.D. 1072. His friend Hildebrand, who
repeatedly called him forth from his retreat to occupy a conspicuous

place among the contenders for his hierarchical ideal, was therefore
called by him his “holy Satan.” He had indeed little interest in
pressing hierarchical and political claims, and was inclined rather to
urge moral reforms within the church itself. In his Liber
Gomorrhianus he drew a fearful picture of the clerical depravity of
his times, and that with a nakedness of detail which gave to Pope
Alexander II. a colourable excuse for the suppression of the book.
For himself, however, Damiani sought no other pleasure than that of
scourging himself till the blood flowed in his lonely cell (§ 106, 4).
His collected works, consisting of epistles, addresses, tracts and
monkish biographies, were published at Rome in A.D. 1602 in
4 vols. by Cardinal Cajetan.―In the 12th century St. Hildegard
(§ 107, 1) and the abbot Joachim of Floris, (§ 108, 5) raised their
voices against the moral degradation of the clergy, and among the
men who contributed largely to the restoring of clerical discipline,
the noble provost Geroch of Reichersberg in Bavaria, who died in
A.D. 1169 (§ 102, 5) and the canon Norbert, subsequently archbishop
of Magdeburg (§ 98, 2), are deserving of special mention.―In the
13th century in England Robert Grosseteste distinguished himself
as a prelate of great nobility and force of character. After being
chancellor of Oxford he became bishop of Lincoln, energetically
reforming many abuses in his diocese, and persistently contending
against any form of papal encroachment. He died in A.D. 1253.282

§ 97.5. The Pataria of Milan.―Nowhere during the 11th century
were simony, concubinage and priests’ marriages more general than
among the Lombard clergy, and in no other place was such
determined opposition offered to Hildebrand’s reforms. At the head
of this opposition stood Guido, archbishop of Milan, whom
Henry III. deposed in A.D. 1046. Against the papal demands, he
pressed the old claims of his chair to autonomy (§ 46, 1) and
renounced allegiance to Rome. The nobles and the clergy supported
Guido. But two deacons, Ariald and Landulf, about A.D. 1057
formed a conspiracy among the common people, against “the
Nicolaitan sect” (§ 27, 8). To this party its opponents gave the
opprobrious name of Pataria, Paterini, from patalia, meaning rabble,

riffraff, or from Pattarea, a back street of ill fame in Milan, the
quarter of the rabble, where the Arialdists held their secret meetings.
They took the name given in reproach as a title of honour, and after
receiving military organization from Erlembald, Landulf’s brother,
they opened a campaign against the married priests. For thirty years
this struggle continued to deluge city and country with blood.

§ 98. Monastic Orders and Institutions.

In spite of the great and constantly increasing corruption the
monastic idea during this period had a wonderfully rapid
development, and more persistently and successfully than ever
before or since the monks urged their claims to be regarded as “the
knighthood of asceticism.” A vast number of monkish orders arose,
taking the place for the most part of existing orders which had
relaxed their rules. These were partly reformed off-shoots of the
Benedictine order, partly new organizations reared on an
independent basis. New monasteries were being built almost every
day, often even within the cities. The reformed Benedictine
monasteries clustered in a group around the parent monastery
whose reformed rule they adopted, forming an organized society
with a common centre. These groups were therefore called
Congregations. The oldest and, for two centuries, the most
important, of these congregations was that of the Brethren of
Clugny, whose ardent zeal for reform in the hierarchical direction
was mainly instrumental in raising again the church and the papacy
out of that degradation and corruption into which they had fallen
during the 10th and 11th centuries. The otherwise less important
order of the Camaldolites was also a vigorous promoter of these
movements. But Clugny had in Clairvaux a rival which shared with
it on almost equal terms the respect and reverence of that age. The
unreformed monasteries of the Benedictines, on the other hand, still
continued their easy, luxurious style of living. They were
commonly called the Black Monks to distinguish them from the
Cistercians who were known as the White Monks. In order to
prevent a constant splitting up of the monkish fraternities,
Innocent III. at the Lateran Council of A.D. 1215 forbade the

founding of new orders. Yet he himself took part in the formation
of the two great mendicant orders, and also the following popes
issued no prohibition.―The papacy had in the monkish orders its
standing army. It was to them, in a special manner, that Gregory’s
system owed its success. But they were also by far the most
important promoters and fosterers of learning, science, and art. The
pope in various ways favoured the emancipation of the monasteries
from episcopal control, their so-called Exemption; and conferred
upon the abbots of famous monasteries what was practically
episcopal rank, with liberty to wear the bishop’s mitre, so that they
were called Mitred Abbots (§ 84, 1). The princes too classed the
abbots in respect of dignity and order next to the bishops; and the
people, who saw the popular idea of the church more and more
represented in the monasteries, honoured them with unmeasured
reverence. From the 10th century the monks came to be considered
a distinct religious order (Ordo religiosorum). Lay brethren,
Fratres conversi, were now taken in to discharge the worldly
business of the monastery. They were designated Fratres, while the
others who received clerical ordination were addressed as Patres.
The monks rarely lived on good terms with the secular clergy; for
the former as confessors and mass priests often seriously interfered
with the rights and revenues of the latter.―Besides the many
monkish orders, with their strict seclusion, perpetual vows and
ecclesiastically sanctioned rule, we meet with organizations of a
freer type such as the Humiliati of Milan, consisting of whole
families. Of a similar type were the Beguines and Beghards of the
Netherlands, the former composed of women, the latter of men.
These people abandoned their handicraft and their domestic and
civic duties for a monastic-like mode of life retired from the world.
The crusading enthusiasm also occasioned a combination of the
monastic idea with that of knighthood, and led to the formation of
the so-called Orders of Knights, which with a Grandmaster and

several Commanders, were divided into Knights, Priests, and
Serving Brethren.―Continuation, § 112.
§ 98.1. Offshoots of the Benedictines.

1. The Brethren of Clugny. Among the Benedictines, since their
reformation by the second Benedict (§ 85, 2) many serious
abuses had crept in. After the Burgundian Count Berno, who
died in A.D. 927, had done useful service by restoring discipline
and order in two monasteries of which he was abbot, the Duke
William of Aquitaine founded for him a new institution. Thus
arose in A.D. 910 the celebrated monastery of Clugny,
Cluniacum, in Burgundy, which the founder placed under
immediate papal control. Berno’s successor Odo, who died in
A.D. 942, abandoning the life of a courtier on his recovery from
a severe illness, made it the head and heart of a separate
Clugny-Congregation as a branch of the Benedictine order.
Strict asceticism, a beautiful and artistic service, zealous
prosecution of science and the education of the young, with yet
greater energy in the promotion of a hierarchical reform of the
church as a whole, as well as an entire series of able abbots,
among whom Odilo († A.D. 1048), the friend of Hildebrand, and
Peter the Venerable († A.D. 1156) are specially prominent, gave
to this congregation, which in the 12th century had 2,000
monasteries in France, an influence quite unparalleled in this
whole period. The abbot of Clugny stood at the head, and
appointed the priors for all the other monasteries. Under the
licentious Abbot Pontius, who on account of his base conduct
was deposed in A.D. 1122, the order fell into decay, but rose
again under Peter the Venerable. Continuation, § 164, 2.
2. The Congregation of the Camaldolites was founded in
A.D. 1018 by the Benedictine Romuald, descended from the
Duke of Ravenna, at Camaldoli (Campus Maldoli), a wild
district in the Apennines. In A.D. 1086 a nunnery was placed
alongside of the monastery. The president of the parent

monastery at Camaldoli stood at the head of the whole order as
Major. The order carried out enthusiastically the high church
ideal of Clugny, and won great influence in its time, although it
by no means attained the importance of the French order.
3. Twenty years later, in A.D. 1038, the Florentine Gualbertus
founded the Order of Vallombrosa, in a romantically situated
shady valley of the Apennines (Vallis umbrosa), according to
the rule of Benedict. This was the first of all the orders to
appoint lay brethren for the management of worldly business,
in order that the monks might observe their vow of silence and
strict seclusion. The parent monastery attained to great wealth
and reputation, but it never had a great number of affiliated
institutions.
4. The Cistercians. In A.D. 1098 the Benedictine abbot Robert
founded the monastery of Citeaux (Cistercium) near Dijon,
which as the parent monastery of the Congregation of the
Cistercians became the most formidable rival of Clugny. The
Cistercians were distinguished from the Brethren of Clugny by
voluntary submission to the jurisdiction of the bishops,
avoidance of all interference with the pastorates of others, and
the banishing of all ornaments from their churches and
monasteries. The order continued obscure for a while, till
St. Bernard (§ 102, 3), from A.D. 1115 abbot of the monastery
of Clairvaux (Claravallis), an offshoot of Citeaux, by his ability
and spirituality raised it far above all other orders in the esteem
of the age. In honour of him the French Cistercians took the
name of Bernardines. The hostility between them and the
Brethren of Clugny was overcome by the personal friendship of
Bernard and Peter the Venerable. By the statutory constitution,
the so-called Charta charitatis, drawn up in A.D. 1119, the
administration of all the affairs of the order was assigned to a
general of the order, appointed by the abbot of Citeaux, the
abbots of the four chief affiliated monasteries, and twenty other
elected representatives forming a high council. This council,
however, was answerable to the general assembly of all the

abbots and priors, which met at first yearly, but afterwards
every third year. The affiliated monasteries had a yearly
visitation of the abbot of Citeaux, but Citeaux itself was to be
visited by the four abbots just referred to. In the 13th century
this order had 2,000 monasteries and 6,000 nunneries.
5. The Congregation of Scottish Monasteries in Germany owed
its origin to the persistent love of travel on the part of Irish and
Scottish monks, which during the 10th century received a new
impulse from the Danish invasions (§ 93, 1). The first
monastery erected in Germany for the reception exclusively of
Irish monks was that of St. Martin at Cologne, built in the
10th century. Much more important, however, was the Scottish
monastery of St. James at Regensburg, founded in A.D. 1067 by
Marianus Scotus and two companions. It was the parent
monastery of eleven other Scottish cloisters in South Germany.
Old Celtic sympathies (§ 77, 8), which may have originally
bound them together, could not assert themselves in the new
home during this period as they did in earlier days; and when
Innocent III., at the Lateran Council of A.D. 1215, sanctioned
them as a separate congregation bound by the Benedictine rule,
there certainly remained no longer any trace of Celtic
peculiarities. They were distinguished at first for strict
asceticism, severe discipline and scientific activity, but
subsequently they fell lower than all the rest in immorality and
self-indulgence (§ 112).

§ 98.2. New Monkish Orders.―Reserving the great mendicant
orders, the following are the most celebrated among the vast array
of new orders, not bound by the Benedictine rule:

1. The Order of Grammont in France, founded by Stephen of
Ligerno in A.D. 1070. It took simply the gospel as its rule,
cultivated a quiet, humble and peaceable temper, and so by the
12th century it had its very life crushed out of it by the bold
assumptions of its lay brethren.

2. The Order of St. Anthony, founded in A.D. 1095 by a French
nobleman of Dauphiny [Dauphiné], called Guaston, in
gratitude for the recovery of his son Guérin from the so-called
St. Anthony’s fire on his invoking St. Anthony. He expended
his whole property upon the restoring of a hospital beside the
church of St. Didier la Mothe, in a chapel of which it was
supposed the bones of Anthony lay, and devoted himself,
together with his son and some other companions, to the
nursing of the sick. At first merely a lay fraternity, the members
took in A.D. 1218 the monk’s vow. Boniface VIII. made them
canons under the rule of St. Augustine (§ 45, 1). They were
now called Antonians, and devoted themselves to
contemplation. The order spread greatly, especially in France.
They wore a black cloak with a T-formed cross of blue upon
the breast (Ezek. ix. 9) and a little bell round the neck while
engaged in collecting alms.
3. The Order of Fontevraux was founded in A.D. 1094 by Robert
of Arbrissel in Fontevraux (Fons Ebraldi) in Poitou. Preaching
repentance, he went through the country, and founded convents
for virgins, widows and fallen women. Their abbesses, as
representatives of the Mother of God, to whom the order was
dedicated, were set over the priests who did their bidding.
4. The Order of the Gilbertines had its name from its founder
Gilbert, an English priest of noble birth. Here too the women
formed the main stem of the order. They were the owners of the
cloister property, and the men were only its administrators. The
monasteries of this order were mostly both for men and
women. It did not spread much beyond England, and had at the
time of the suppression of the monasteries twenty-one well
endowed convents, with orphanages and houses for the poor
and sick.
5. The Carthusian Order was founded in A.D. 1086 by Bruno of
Cologne, rector of the High School at Rheims. Disgusted with
the immoral conduct of Archbishop Manasseh, he retired with

several companions into a wild mountain gorge near Grenoble,
called Chartreuse. He enjoined upon his monks strict
asceticism, rigid silence, earnest study, prayer, and a
contemplative life, clothed them in a great coarse cowl, and
allowed them for their support only vegetables and bran bread.
Written statutes, Consuetudines Cartusiæ, which soon spread
over several houses of the Carthusians, were first given them in
A.D. 1134 by Guido, the fifth prior of the parent monastery. A
steward had management of the affairs of the convent. Each ate
in his own cell; only on feast days had they a common meal. At
least once a week they fasted on salt, water and bread.
Breaking silence, permitted only on high festivals, and for two
hours on Thursdays, was punished with severe flagellation.
Even the lay brethren were treated with great severity, and were
not allowed either to sit or to cover their heads in the presence
of the brothers of the order. Carthusian nuns were added to the
order in the 13th century with a modified rule.
6. The Premonstratensian Order was founded in A.D. 1121 by
Norbert, the only German founder of orders besides and after
Bruno. A rich, worldly-minded canon of Xanthen in the diocese
of Cologne, he was brought to another mind by the fall of a
thunderbolt beside him. He retired along with several other
like-minded companions into the rough valley of Prémontré in
the bishopric of Laon (Præmonstratum, because pointed out to
him in a vision). In his rule he joined together the canonical
duties with an extremely strict monastic life. He appeared in
A.D. 1126 as a preacher of repentance at the Diet of Spires, was
there elected archbishop of Magdeburg, and made a most
impressive entrance into his metropolis dressed in his
mendicant garb. His order spread and established many
convents both for monks and for nuns.
7. The Trinitarian Order, ordo s. Trinitatis de redemptione
captivorum, was called into existence by Innocent III., and had
for its work the redemption of Christian captives.

8. The Cœlestine Order was founded by Peter of Murrone,
afterwards Pope Cœlestine V. (§ 96, 22). Living in a cave of
Mount Murrone in Apulia, under strict penitential discipline
and engaged in mystic contemplation, the fame of his sanctity
attracted to him many companions, with whom in A.D. 1254 he
established a monastery on Mount Majella. Gregory X., in
whose presence Peter, according to his biographer, hung up his
monkish cowl in empty space, upon a sunbeam which he took
for a cord stretching across, instituted the order as Brethren of
the Holy Spirit. But when in A.D. 1294 their founder ascended
the papal throne, they took his papal name. This order, which
gave itself up entirely to extravagant mystic contemplation,
spread over Italy, France and the Netherlands.

§ 98.3. The Beginnings of the Franciscan Order down to
A.D. 1219.―The founder of this order was St. Francis, born in
A.D. 1182, son of a rich merchant of Assisi in Umbria. His proper
name was Giovanni Bernardone. The name of Francis is said to
have been given him on account of his early proficiency in the
French language; “Francesco”―the little Frenchman. As a wealthy
merchant’s son, he gave himself to worldly pleasures, but was
withdrawn from these, in A.D. 1207, by means of a severe illness. A
dream, in which he saw a multitude with the sign of the cross,
bearing weapons designed for him and his companions, led him to
resolve upon a military career. But a new vision taught him that he
was called to build up the fallen house of God. He understood this
of a ruined chapel of St. Damiani at Assisi, and began to apply the
proceeds of valuable cloth fabrics from his father’s factory to its
restoration. Banished for such conduct from his father’s house, he
lived for a time as a hermit, until the gospel passage read in church
of the sending forth of the disciples without gold or silver, without
staff or scrip (Matt. x.), fell upon his soul like a thunderbolt.
Divesting himself of all his property, supplying the necessaries of
life by the meanest forms of labour, even begging when need be, he
went about the country from A.D. 1209, sneered at by some as an
imbecile, revered by others as a saint, preaching repentance and

peace. In the unexampled power of his self-denial and renunciation
of the world, in the pure simplicity of his heart, in the warmth of his
love to God and man, in the blessed riches of his poverty,
St. Francis was like a heavenly stranger in a selfish world.
Wonderful, too, and powerful in its influence was the depth of his
natural feeling. With the birds of the forest, with the beasts of the
field, he held intercourse in childlike simplicity as with brothers and
sisters, exhorting them to praise their Creator. The paradisiacal
relation of man to the animal world seemed to be restored in the
presence of this saint.―Very soon he gathered around him a number
of like-minded men, who under his direction had decided to devote
themselves to a similar vocation. For the society of “Viri
pœnitentiales de civitate Assisii oriundi” thus formed Francis issued,
in A.D. 1209, a rule, at the basis of which lay a literal acceptance of
the precepts of Christ to His disciples, sent forth to preach the
kingdom of God (Matt. x.; Luke x.), along with similar gospel
injunctions (Matt. xix. 21, 29; Luke vi. 29; ix. 23; xiv. 26), and then
he went to Rome to get for it the papal confirmation. The pope was,
indeed, unwilling; but through the pious man’s simplicity and
humility he was prevailed upon to grant his request. In later times
this incident was in popular tradition transformed into a legend,
representing the pope as at first bidding him go to attend the swine,
which the holy man literally obeyed. Innocent III. was the more
inclined to yield, owing to the painful experiences through which
the church had passed in consequence of its unwise treatment of
similar proposals made by the Waldensians thirty years before. He
therefore gave at least verbal permission to Francis and his
companions to live and teach according to this rule. At the same
time also Francis heartily responded to the demand to place at the
head of his rule the obligation to obey and reverence the pope, and
to conclude with a vow of the most rigid avoidance of every kind of
addition, abatement, or change. There was no thought of founding a
new monkish order, but only of a free union and a wandering life,
amid apostolic poverty, for preaching repentance and salvation by
word and example. On entering the society the brothers were
required to distribute all their possessions among the poor, and dress

in the poor clothing of the order, consisting of a coarse cloak bound
with a cord and a capouch, to preach the gospel of the kingdom of
God wherever their master sent them, and to earn their livelihood by
their usual occupation, or any other servile work. In case of need
they were even to beg the necessaries of life. Thus mendicancy,
though only allowed in case of necessity, soon came to be
transformed by the lustre of the example of the poverty of Jesus and
His disciples and mother, who all had lived upon alms, and by the
idea of a twofold merit attaching to self-abnegation, inasmuch as not
only the receiver, by voluntarily submitting to the disgrace which it
involved in the eyes of the world, but also the giver of alms,
obtained before the judgment seat of God a great reward. But
neither as wages for work nor as alms were the brothers permitted to
accept money, but only the indispensable means of life, while that
which remained after their own wants had been supplied was
divided among the poor. From time to time they withdrew, either
singly or in little groups, for prayer, contemplation, and spiritual
exercises into deserts, caves, or deserted huts; and annually at
Pentecost they assembled for mutual edification and counsel in the
small chapel at Assisi, dedicated to “Mary of the Angel,” given to
St. Francis by the Benedictines. This church, under the name of the
Portiuncula, became the main centre of the order, and all who
visited it on the day of its consecration received from the pope a
plenary indulgence. The number of the brothers meanwhile
increased from day to day. When representatives of all ranks in
society and of all the various degrees of culture sought admission, it
soon became evident that the obligation to preach, hitherto enjoined
upon all the members of the order, should be restricted to those who
were specially qualified for the work, and that the rest should take
care to carry out in their personal lives the ideal of poverty, joined
with loving service in institutions for the poor, the sick, and the
lepers. A further move in the development of the order, tending to
secure for it an independent ecclesiastical position, was the
admission into it of ordained priests. Their missionary activity
among Christian people was restricted at first to Umbria and the
neighbouring districts of central Italy. But soon the thought of a

missionary vocation among the unbelievers got possession of the
mind of the founder. Even in A.D. 1212 he himself undertook for this
purpose a journey to the East, to Syria, and afterwards to Morocco;
in neither case, however, were his efforts attended with any very
signal success. In A.D. 1218, Elias of Cortona, with some
companions, again took up the mission to Syria, with equally little
success; and in A.D. 1219 five brethren were again sent to Morocco,
and there won the crown of martyrdom. In that same year, A.D. 1219,
the Pentecost assembly at Assisi passed the resolution to include
within the range of their call as itinerants the sending of missions,
with a “minister” at the head of each, into all the Christian countries
of Europe. They began immediately, privileged with a papal letter of
recommendation to the higher secular clergy and heads of orders in
France, to carry out the resolution in France, Spain, Portugal, and
Germany; while at the same time Francis himself, accompanied by
twelve brethren, again turned his steps toward the East.

§ 98.4. The Franciscans from A.D. 1219 to A.D. 1223.―Soon after
the departure of St. Francis the report of his death spread through
Italy, and loosened the bonds which, by reason of the obligation to
render him obedience hitherto operative, had secured harmony
among the brethren. Francis had, on the basis of Luke x. 7, 8, laid
upon his companions only the commonly accepted rules of fasting,
but the observance of a more rigorous fast required his own special
permission. Now, however, some rigorists, at a convention of the
elders, gave expression to the opinion, that the brethren should be
enjoined to fast not as hitherto, like all the rest of Christendom, only
on two, but on four, days of the week, a resolution which not only
removed the rule altogether from its basis in Luke x. 7, 8, but also
broke the solemn promise to observe the wish of Innocent III.,
incorporated in it, that in no particular should it be altered. And
while the rule forbade any intercourse with women, brother Philip
obtained a papal bull which appointed him representative of the
order of “poor women,” afterwards the Nuns of St. Clara, founded
in A.D. 1212 on the model of the Franciscan ideal of poverty.
Another brother, John of Capella, sought to put himself at the head

of an independent order of poor men and women. Many such
projects were being planned. So soon as news reached Francis of
these vagaries, he returned to Italy, accompanied by his favourite
pupil, the energetic, wise, and politic Elias of Cortona, whose
organizing and governing talent was kept within bounds down to the
founder’s death. Perceiving that all these confusions had arisen from
the want of a strictly defined organization, legitimized by the pope
and under papal protection, Francis now endeavoured to secure such
privileges for his order. He therefore entreated Honorius III. to
appoint Cardinal Ugolino of Ostia, afterwards Pope Gregory IX.,
previously a zealous promoter of his endeavours, as protector and
governor of his brotherhood; and he soon with a strong hand put a
stop to all secessionist movements in the community. A vigorous
effort was now made by the brotherhood, suggested and encouraged
by the papal chair, to carry out a scheme of transformation, by
means of which the order, which had hitherto confined itself to
simple religious and ascetic duties, should become an independent
and powerful monkish order, to place it “with the whole force of its
religious enthusiasm, with its extraordinary flexibility and its
mighty influences over the masses, at the service of the papacy, and
to turn it into a standing army of the pope, ever ready to obey his
will in the great movements convulsing the church and the world of
that time.” Honorius III. took the first step in this direction by a bull
addressed, in Sept., A.D. 1220, to Francis himself and the superiors
of his order, there styled “Ordo fratrum minorum,” by which a
novitiate of one year and an irrevocable vow of admission were
prescribed, the wearing of the official dress made its exclusive
privilege, and jurisdiction given to its own tribunal to deal with all
its members. Francis was now also obliged, willing or unwilling, to
agree to a revision of his rule. This new rule was probably
confirmed or at least approved at the famous Pentecost chapter held
at the Portiuncula chapel in A.D. 1221, called the “Mat Chapter”
(C. storearum), because the brethren assembled there lived in tents
made of rush-mats.283 It is, as Carl Müller has incontestably proved,
this same rule which was formerly regarded by all as the first rule

composed in A.D. 1209. The older rule, however, formed in every
particular its basis, and the enlargements and modifications rendered
necessary by the adoption of the new ideas appear so evidently as
additions, that the two different constituents can even yet with
tolerable certainty be distinguished from one another, and so the
older rule can be reconstructed. But the development and
modification of the order necessarily proceeding in the direction
indicated soon led to a gradual reformation of the rule, which in this
new form was solemnly and formally ratified by Honorius III. in
November, A.D. 1223, as possessing henceforth definite validity. In it
the requirement of the literal acceptance of the commands of Jesus
on sending out His disciples in Matthew x. and Luke x. is no longer
made the basis and pattern, as in the two earlier rules, but all the
stress is laid rather upon the imitation of the lives of poverty led by
Jesus and His apostles; as an offset to the renunciation of all
property, the obligation to earn their own support by work was now
set aside, and the practice of mendicancy was made their proper
object in life, came indeed to be regarded as constituting the special
ideal and sanctity of the order, which in consequence was now for
the first time entitled to be called a mendicant or begging order.
At its head stood a general-minister, and all communications
between the order and the holy see were conducted through a
cardinal-protector. The mission field of the order, comprising the
whole world, was divided into provinces with a provincial-minister,
and the provinces into custodies with a custos at its head.―Every
third year at Pentecost the general called together the provincials
and custodes to a general chapter, and the custodes assembled the
brethren of their dioceses as required in provincial and custodial
chapters. The dress of the order remained the same. The usual
requirement to go barefoot, however, was modified by the
permission in cases of necessity, on journeys and in cold climates, to
wear shoes or sandals.

§ 98.5. The Franciscans from A.D. 1223.―There was no mention
in the rule of A.D. 1223 of any sort of fixed place of abode either in
cloisters or in houses of their own. The life of the order was thus

conceived of as a homeless and possessionless pilgrimage; and as
for the means of life they were dependent on what they got by
begging, so also it was considered that for the shelter of a roof they
should depend upon the hospitable. The gradual transition from a
purely itinerant life had already begun by the securing of fixed
residences at definite points in the transalpine district and first of all
in Germany. After the first sending forth of disciples in A.D. 1219,
without much attention to rule and without much plan, had run its
course there with scarcely any success, a more thoroughly organized
mission, under the direction of brother Cæsarius of Spires,
consisting of twelve clerical and thirteen lay brethren, including
John v. Piano Cupini, Thomas v. Celano, Giordano v. Giano, was
sent by the “Mat Chapter” of A.D. 1221 to Germany, which,
strengthened by oft-repeated reinforcements, carried on from
A.D. 1228 a vigorous propaganda in Bohemia, Hungary, Poland,
Denmark, and Norway. In accordance with the rule of A.D. 1223
Germany as forming one province was divided into five custodies,
but in A.D. 1230 into two distinct provinces, the Rhineland and
Saxony, with a corresponding number of custodies. Even more
brilliant was the success attending the mission to England in
A.D. 1224. On their missionary tours the brethren took up their
residence temporarily in hospitals and leper houses, or in hospitable
parsonages and private houses, and preached by preference in the
open air, where the people flocked around them in crowds,
occasionally at the invitation of a bishop or priest in the churches.
Presents of lands gave them the opportunity of erecting convents of
their own, with churches and burying-grounds for themselves,
which, placed under the charge of a guardian, soon increased in
number and importance. The begging, which was now made the
basis of the whole institution, was regulated by the principle, that,
besides the benefactions voluntarily paid into the cloister, monks
sent forth at particular terms, hence called Terminants284 with a
beggar’s bag, should beg about for the necessaries of life. With
agriculture and industrial work, and generally all bodily labour, the
brothers had nothing to do. On the contrary, what was altogether

foreign to the intention of the founder and their rules, and so
originating not from within the order itself, but from without, first of
all by the admission of scientifically cultured priests, a strong
current set in in favour of scientific studies, stimulated by their own
personal ambition as well as by rivalry with the Dominicans. These
scholarly pursuits soon yielded abundant fruit, which raised the
reputation, power, and influence of the order to such a height, that it
has been enabled to carry out in all details the task assigned it in the
papal polity. Architecture, painting, and poetry also found among
the members of the order distinguished cultivators and
ornaments.―Supported by accumulating papal privileges, which,
for example, gave immunity from all episcopal jurisdiction and
supervision, and allowed its clergy the right in all parts, not only of
preaching, but also of reading mass and hearing confessions, and
aided in its course of secularization by papal modifications and
alterations of its rule, which permitted the obtaining and possessing
rich cloister property, the order of Minor Brothers or Minorites soon
could boast of an extension embracing several thousands of
cloisters.―Francis, wasted by long-continued sickness and by
increasing infirmities, was found dead, in A.D. 1226, stretched on the
floor of the Portiuncula chapel. Two years afterwards he was
canonized by Gregory IX., and in A.D. 1230 there was a solemn
translation of his relics to the beautiful basilica built in his honour at
Assisi. The legend, that a seraph during his last years had imprinted
upon him the bloody wound-prints or stigmata of the Saviour was
also turned to account for the glorification of the whole order, which
now assumed the epithet “seraphic.”―The one who possessed most
spiritual affinity to his master of all the disciples of St. Francis, and
after him most famous among his contemporaries and posterity, was
St. Anthony of Padua. Born in A.D. 1195 at Lisbon, when an
Augustinian canon at Coimbra he was, in A.D. 1220, received into
the communion of the Minorites, when the relics of the five martyrs
of Morocco were deposited there, and thereupon he undertook a
mission to Africa. But a severe sickness obliged him to return home,
and driven out of his course by a storm, he landed at Messina, from
whence he made a pilgrimage to Assisi. The order now turned his

learning to account by appointing him teacher of theology, first at
Bologna, then at Montpellier. For three years he continued as custos
in the south of France, going up and down through the land as a
powerful preacher of repentance, till the death of the founder and
the choice of a successor called him back to Italy. He died at Padua
in A.D. 1231. The pope canonized him in A.D. 1232, and in A.D. 1263
his relics were enshrined in the newly built beautiful church at
Padua dedicated to him. Among the numerous tales of prodigies,
which are said to have accompanied his goings wherever he went,
the best known and most popular is, that when he could obtain no
ready hearing for his doctrine among men, he preached on a lonely
sea-shore to shoals of fishes that crowded around to listen. His
writings, sermons, and a biblical concordance, under the title
Concordantiæ Morales SS. Bibliorum, are often printed along with
the Letters, Hymns, Testament, etc., ascribed to
St. Francis.―Among the legends of the order still extant about the
life of St. Francis is the Vita I. of Thomas of Celano, written in
A.D. 1229, the oldest and relatively the most impartial. On the other
hand, the later biographies, especially that of the so-called Tres socii
and the Vita II. of Thomas, which has been made accessible by the
Roman edition of Amoni of 1880, written contemporaneously
somewhere about A.D. 1245, as well as that of St. Bonaventura of
A.D. 1263, recognised by the chapter of the order as the only
authoritative form of the legends, are all more or less influenced by
the party strifes that had arisen within its ranks, while all are equally
overladen with reports of miracles. In A.D. 1399, by authority of the
general chapter at Assisi, the “Liber Conformitatum” of
Bartholomew of Pisa pointed out forty resemblances between Christ
and St. Francis, in which the saint has generally the advantage over
the Saviour. In the Reformation times an anonymous German
version of this book was published by Erasmus Alber with a preface
by Luther, under the title, Der Barfüssermönche Eulenspiegel und
Alkoran, Wittenberg, 1542. The most trustworthy contemporary
source of information has been only recently again rendered
accessible to us in the Memorabilia de Primitiv. Fratrum in
Teutoniam Missorum Conversatione et Vita of the above-named

Giordano of Giano, embracing the years 1207-1238, which G. Voigt
discovered among his father’s papers, and has published with a full
and comprehensive introduction. The Franciscans of Quaracchi near
Florence have re-edited it “after the unique Berlin manuscript,” as
well as the supplementary document, the De Adventu Fratrum
Minorum in Anglia, in the first volume of their Analecta
Franciscana, Quar., 1885.―Thode, in his Fr. v. A. und die Anfänge
d. Kunst d. Renaissance in Ital. (Berl., 1885), has described in a
thorough and brilliant style the mighty influence which St. Francis
and his order exerted upon the development of art in Italy, especially
of painting and architecture, as well as of poetry in the vernacular;
for he has shown how the peculiar and close relation in which the
saint stood to nature gave the first effective impulse to the
emancipation of art from the trammels of formalism, and how the
new artistic tendency, inspired by his spirit, was first given
expression to in the building and adorning of the basilica at Assisi
dedicated to him.285

§ 98.6. Party Divisions within the Franciscan Order.―That the
founder was by no means wholly in sympathy with the tendency
which prevailed in his order from A.D. 1221, and only tolerated what
he was no longer in a position to prevent, might have been guessed
from the fact that from that time he withdrew himself more and
more from the supreme direction of the order, and made it over to
Elias of Cortona, as his general-vicar, who in existing
circumstances was better fitted for the task. But from his Testament
it appears quite evident that he strictly adhered to the views of his
early days, and even attempted a last but fruitless reaction against
the tendency to worldly conformity that had set in. Thus, for
example, it still puts all the brethren under obligation to perform
honourable labour, and will allow them to beg only in case of
necessity, but especially forbids them most distinctly by their sacred
vow of obedience from asking any privilege from the papal chair, or
altering the simple literal meaning of the rule of the order, and of
this his last will and testament by addition, abatement, or change.
After his death, on 4th October, 1226, Elias retained in his hand the

regency till the next meeting of the Pentecost chapter; but then he
was deprived of office by the election of John Pareus as general-
minister, a member of the stricter party. Meanwhile the increasing
number and wealth of their cloisters and churches, with their
appurtenances, made it absolutely necessary that the brethren should
face the question how the holding of such possessions was to be
reconciled with the strict injunction of poverty in the sixth chapter
of their rule, according to which “the brothers are to possess nothing
of their own, neither a house, nor an estate, nor anything
whatsoever, but are to go about for alms as strangers and pilgrims in
this world.” At the next general chapter, in A.D. 1230, this question
came up for discussion, along with that of the validity of the
testament above referred to. When they could not agree among
themselves, it was decided, in spite of all the protestations of the
general, to request by a deputation the advice of the pope,
Gregory IX., on this and certain other disputed questions. With
reference to the testament, the pope declared that its demands,
because issued without the consent and approval of the general
chapter, could not be binding upon the order. With reference to the
property question, he repudiated the rendering of the rule in such a
way as if in this, just as in all other orders, only the possession of
property on the part of individual brothers was forbidden; but the
membership of the order as a whole could not be prevented from
holding property, as directly contrary to the literal statements of the
rule, without, however, entering upon the question as to whose
property the movables and immovables standing really at the call of
the order were to be considered. And as he had at an earlier date, on
the occasion of sending a new Minorite mission to Morocco,
granted as a privilege to the order to take alms in money, which was
allowed by the rule only for the support of sick brethren, for the
reason that without money they would not be able there to procure
the necessaries of life, so he now extended this permission for other
purposes essential to the good of the order, e.g. building and
furnishing of cloisters and churches, as not contrary to the rule, if
the collecting and spending of the money is carried on, not by
members of the order, but by procurators chosen for the work. It

was probably to this victory of the lax party that Elias owed his
elevation at the next election, in A.D. 1332, to the office of general. It
also enabled him to maintain his position for seven years, during
which he showed himself particularly active and efficient, not only
as general of the order, but also in political negotiations with the
princes of Italy, especially as mediator between the pope and the
emperor, Gregory IX. and Frederick II. But his government of the
order in a despotic and lordly manner, and his reckless endeavours
to conform to worldly customs, intensified the bitterness of his
pious opponents, and his growing friendliness with the emperor lost
him the favour of the pope. And so it came about that his overthrow
was accomplished at the general chapter in Rome, in A.D. 1239. He
now openly passed over into the service of the emperor, against
whom the ban had anew been issued, accompanied him on his
military campaigns, and inveighed unsparingly against the pope in
public speeches. As partisan of the banned emperor, already de jure
excommunicated, the ban was pronounced against him personally in
A.D. 1244, and he was expelled from the order. He died in A.D. 1253,
reconciled with the church after a penitential recantation and
apology. His four immediate successors in the generalship all
belonged to the strict party; but the growing estrangement of the
order from the interests and purposes of the curia, especially too its
relations to the Evangelium æternum, pronounced heretical in
A.D. 1254 (§ 108, 5), produced a reaction, in consequence of which
the general, John of Parma, was deprived of office in A.D. 1257.
With his successor, St. Bonaventura, the opposition succeeded to the
undisputed control of the order. The difficult question, how the
really pre-eminently rich cloister property was to be reconciled with
the rule of the order requiring absolute abandonment of all
possessions, found now among the preponderating lax party, the so-
called Fratres de communitate, its solution in the assertion, that the
goods in their hands had been bestowed upon them by the donors
only in usufruct, or even that they were presented not so much to the
order, as rather to the Romish Church, yet with the object of
supporting the order. Nicholas III., in A.D. 1279, legitimated the
theory, for he decided the question in dispute in his bull Exiit qui

seminat, by saying that it is allowed to the disciples of St. Francis to
hold earthly goods in usufruct, but not in absolute possession, as this
is demanded by the example of Christ and His apostles. But now
arose a new controversy, over the form and measure of using with a
distinction of a usus moderatus and a usus tenuis or pauper, the
latter permitting no store even of the indispensable necessaries of
life beyond what is absolutely required to satisfy present needs.
Those, on the other hand, who were dissatisfied with the principles
affirmed in the papal bull, the Spirituales or Zelatores, with Peter
John de Oliva and Ubertino de Casale at their head, assumed an
attitude of open, fanatical opposition to the papacy, identifying it
with antichrist (§ 108, 6). A section of them, which, besides the
points about poverty, took offence at the lax party also over
questions of clothing reform, obtained permission from
Cœlestine V., in A.D. 1294, to separate from the main body of the
order, and, under the name of Cœlestine Eremites, to form an
independent communion with a general of their own. They settled
for the most part in Greece and on the islands of the Archipelago.
Boniface VIII., in A.D. 1302, peremptorily insisted upon their return
to the West and to the present order. But as he died soon after, even
those who had returned continued their separate existence and their
distinctive dress.―Continuation, § 112, 2.

§ 98.7. The Dominican or Preaching Order.―St. Dominic, to
whom this order owes its origin, was born, in A.D. 1170, at
Calaruega, in Old Castile, of a distinguished family (De Guzman?).
As a learned Augustinian canon at Osma, he had already wrought
zealously for the conversion of Mohammedans and heretics, when
Bishop Diego of Osma, entrusted in A.D. 1204, by King
Alphonso VIII. with obtaining a bride for his son Ferdinand, took
him as one of his travelling retinue. The sudden death of the bride, a
Danish princess, rendered the undertaking nugatory. On their
homeward journey they met at Montpellier with the Cistercian
mission, sent out for the conversion of the Albigensians (§ 109, 1),
the utter failure of which had become already quite apparent.
Dominic, inflamed with holy zeal, prevailed upon his bishop to

enter along with himself upon the work already almost abandoned
in despair; and after the bishop’s early death, in A.D. 1206, he carried
on the enterprise at his own hand. For Albigensian women,
converted by him, he founded a sort of conventual asylum at
Prouille, and a house at Toulouse, which was soon afterwards gifted
to him, became the first centre where his disciples gathered around
him, whence by-and-by they removed into the cloister of
St. Romanus, assigned to them by Bishop Fulco. During the
Albigensian crusade, the thought ripened in his mind that he might
secure a firmer basis and more powerful support for his enterprise
by founding a new, independent order, whose proper and exclusive
task should be the combating and preventing of heresy by
instruction, preaching, and disputation. In order to obtain for this
proposal ecclesiastical sanction, he accompanied his patron, Bishop
Fulco of Toulouse, in A.D. 1215, to the Fourth Lateran Council at
Rome. But pope and council seemed little disposed to favour his
idea. The former, indeed, sought rather to persuade him to join some
existing ecclesiastical institution, and carry out his scheme under its
organization. Consequently Dominic, with his sixteen companions,
resolved to adopt the rule of St. Augustine, augmented by several
Præmonstratensian articles. When, however, Honorius III. had
ascended the papal chair, Dominic hastened again to Rome, and in
A.D. 1216 obtained from this pope without difficulty what
Innocent III. had refused him, namely, permission to found a new,
independent order, with the privilege of preaching and hearing
confession everywhere. Then, and also subsequently, he preached
frequently with great acceptance to those living in the papal palace,
and thus an opportunity was afforded of establishing the office of a
magister sacri palatii, or papal court preacher, which was
immediately occupied, and has ever since continued to be held, by a
Dominican. At a later period the supreme censorship of books was
also assigned to this same official. The first general chapter of the
order met at Bologna in A.D. 1220. There the vow of poverty, which
was hitherto insisted upon only in the sense of all the earlier orders
as a mere abandonment of property on the part of individuals, was
put in a severer form, so that even the order as such kept itself free

from every kind of possession of earthly goods and revenues, except
the bare cloister buildings, and exhorted all its adherents to live only
on begged alms. Thus the Dominicans, even earlier than the
Franciscans, whose rule then permitted begging only in case of
need, constituted themselves into a regular mendicant order.
Dominic, however, chose voluntary poverty for himself and his
disciples, not like St. Francis simply for the purpose of securing
personal holiness, but rather only to obtain a perfectly free course
for his work in the salvation of others. The official designation,
“Ordo fratrum Prædicatum,” was also fixed at this chapter.286 At
the second general chapter, in A.D. 1221, there were already
representatives from sixty cloisters out of eight provinces. Dominic
died soon after, at Bologna, on 6th August, 1221, uttering
anathemas against any one who should corrupt his order by
bestowing earthly goods upon it. He was canonized by Gregory IX.
in A.D. 1233. His immediate successor, Jordanus, wrote his first
biography, adorned, as we might expect, with endless miracles.

§ 98.8. According to the constitutional rules of the order, collected
and revised by the third general of the order, Raimund de
Pennaforte, about A.D. 1238, the general who stands at the head of
the whole order, residing at Rome, magister generalis, is elected to
office for life at the general chapter held annually at Pentecost, and
he nominates his own socii as advisory assistants. The government
of the provinces is conducted by a provincial chosen every four
years by the provincial chapter, assisted by four advisory
definitores, and each cloister elects its own prior. The mode of life
was determined by strict rules, severe fasts were enjoined, involving
strict abstinence from the use of flesh, and during particular hours of
the day absolute silence had to be observed. In the matter of
clothing, only woollen garments were allowed. The dress consisted
of a white frock with white scapular and a small peaked capouch;
but outside of the cloister a black cloak with capouch was worn over
it. From the favourite play upon the name Dominican, Domini
canes, in contrast to the dumb dogs of Isaiah lvi. 10, the order
adopted as its coat of arms a dog with the torch of truth in its mouth.

The special vocation of the order as preachers and opponents of
heresy required a thorough scientific training. Every province of the
order was therefore expected to have a seminary capable of giving a
superior theological education to the members of the order, to which
they gave the name of a studium generale, borrowed from the
universities, although the predicate was here used in a sense much
more restricted (comp. § 99, 3). But ambitious desires for scientific
reputation incited them to obtain authority for instituting theological
chairs in the University of Paris, the most celebrated theological
seminary of that age. The endeavour was favoured by a conflict of
Queen Blanca with the Parisian doctors, in consequence of which
they left the city and for a time gathered their students around them
partly at Rheims, partly at Angers, while the Dominicans,
encouraged by the bishop, established their first chair in the vacant
places in A.D. 1230. The Franciscans too accomplished the same end
about this time. The old professors on their return used every means
in their power to drive out the intruders, but were completely beaten
after almost thirty years of passionate conflict, and the nurture of
scholastic theology was henceforth all but a monopoly of the two
mendicant orders (§ 103, 3). The art of ecclesiastical architecture
and painting, which during this age reached a hitherto unattained
degree of perfection, found many of its most distinguished
ornaments and masters in the preaching order. And in zeal for
missions to the Mohammedans and the heathen the Franciscans
alone could be compared with them. But the order reached the very
climax of its reputation, influence, and power when Gregory IX., in
A.D. 1232, assigned to it exclusive control of the inquisition of
heretics (§ 109, 2).―The veneration of the devout masses of the
people, who preferred to confide their secret confessions to the
itinerant monks, roused against both orders the hatred of the secular
clergy, the preference shown them by the popes awakened the envy
of the other orders, and their success in scientific pursuits brought
down upon them the ill-will of the learned. Circumstances thus
rendered it necessary for a long time that the two orders should
stand well together for united combat and defence. But after all
those hindrances had been successfully overcome, the rivalry that

had been suppressed owing to temporary community of interests
broke out all the more bitterly in the endeavour to secure world-
wide influence, intensified by opposing philosophico-dogmatic
theories (§ 113, 2), as well as by the difference in the interpretation
and explanation of the doctrine of poverty, in regard to which they
strove with one another in the most violent and passionate manner
(§ 112, 2). From having in their hands the administration of the
Inquisition the preaching order obtained an important advantage
over the Minorites; while these, on the other hand, were far more
popular among the common people than the proud, ambitious
Dominicans, who occupied themselves with high civil and
ecclesiastical politics as counsellors and confessors of the princes
and the nobles.―Continuation, § 112, 4.

§ 98.9. To each of the two mendicant orders there was at an early
date attached a female branch, which was furnished by the saint
who founded the original order with a rule adapting his order’s ideal
of poverty to the female vocation, and therefore designated and
regarded as his “second order.”

1. The female conventual asylum, founded in A.D. 1206 at
Prouille, may be considered the first cloister of Dominican
nuns. The principal cloister and another institution, however,
was the convent of San Sisto in Rome, given to St. Dominic for
this purpose by Honorius III. In all parts of Christendom where
the preaching order settled there now appeared female cloisters
under the supervision and jurisdiction of its provincial superior,
with seclusion, strict asceticism, passing their time in
contemplation, and conforming as closely as possible to the
mode of life and style of clothing prescribed for the male
cloisters. This institution was presided over by a prioress.
2. The order of the Nuns of St. Clara, as “the second order of
St. Francis,” was founded by St. Clara of Assisi. Born of a
distinguished family, endowed with great physical beauty, and
destined to an early marriage, in her eighteenth year, in

A.D. 1212, she was powerfully impressed by the teaching of
St. Francis, so that she resolved completely to abandon the
world and its vanities. She proved the earnestness of her
resolve by obeying the trying requirement of the saint to go
through the streets of the city clad in a penitent’s cloak,
begging alms for the poor. On Palm Sunday at the Portiuncula
chapel she took at the hand of her chosen spiritual father the
three vows. Her younger sister Agnes, along with other
maidens, followed her example. Francis assigned to this union
of “poor women” as a conventual residence the church of
St. Damiani restored by him, from which they were sometimes
called the Nuns of St. Damiani. When in A.D. 1219 St. Francis
undertook his journey to the east, he commended them to the
care of Cardinal Ugolino, who prescribed for them the rule of
the Benedictine nuns; but after the saint’s return they so
incessantly entreated him to draw up a rule for themselves, that
he at last, in A.D. 1224, prepared one for them and obtained for
it the approval of the pope. Clara died in A.D. 1253, and was
canonized by Innocent IV. in A.D. 1255. Her order spread very
widely in more than 2,000 cloisters, and can boast not only of
having received 150 daughters of kings and princes, but also of
having enriched heaven with an immense number of beatified
and canonized virgins.

§ 98.10. The other Mendicant Orders.―The brilliant success of
the Franciscans and Dominicans led other societies, either
previously existing, or only now called into being, to adopt the
character of mendicants. Only three of them succeeded, though in a
much less degree than their models, in gaining position, name and
extension throughout the West. The first of these was the Carmelite
Order. It owed its origin to the crusader Berthold, Count of
Limoges, who in A.D. 1156 founded a monastery at the brook of
Elias on Mount Carmel, to which in A.D. 1209 the patriarch of
Jerusalem prescribed the rule of St. Basil (§ 44, 3). Hard pressed by
the Saracens, the Carmelites emigrated in A.D. 1238 to the West,
where as a mendicant order, under the name of Frates Mariæ de

Monte Carmelo, with unexampled hardihood they repudiated their
founder Berthold, and maintained that the prophet Elias had been
himself their founder, and that the Virgin Mary had been a sister of
their order. What they most prided themselves on was the sacred
scapular which the Mother of God herself had bestowed upon
Simon Stock, the general of the order in A.D. 1251, with the promise
that whosoever should die wearing it should be sure of eternal
blessedness. Seventy years later, according to the legends of the
order, the Virgin appeared to Pope John XXII. and told him she
descended every Saturday into purgatory, in order to take such souls
to herself into heaven. In the 17th century, when violent
controversies on this point had arisen, Paul V. authenticated the
miraculous qualities of this scapular, always supposing that the
prescribed fasts and prayers were not neglected. Among the
Carmelites, just as among the Franciscans, laxer principles soon
became current, causing controversies and splits which continued
down to the 16th century (§ 149, 6).―The Order of Augustinians
arose out of the combination of several Italian monkish societies.
Innocent IV. in A.D. 1243 prescribed to them the rule of
St. Augustine (§ 45, 1) as the directory of their common life. It was
only under Alexander IV. in A.D. 1256 that they were welded
together into one order as Ordo Fratrum Eremitarum S. Augustini,
with the duties and privileges of mendicant monks. Their order
spread over the whole West, and enjoyed the special favour of the
papal chair, which conferred upon its members the permanent
distinction of the office of sacristan to the papal chapel and of
chaplain to the Holy Father (Continuation, § 112, 5).―Finally, as
the fifth in the series of mendicant orders, we meet with the Order
of Servites, Servi b. Virg., devoted to the Virgin, and founded in
A.D. 1233 by seven pious Florentines. It was, however, first
recognised as a mendicant order by Martin V., and had equal rank
with the four others granted it only in A.D. 1567 by Pius V.

§ 98.11. Penitential Brotherhoods and Tertiaries of the
Mendicant Orders.―Carl Müller was the first to throw light upon
this obscure period in the history of the Franciscans. The results of

his investigations are essentially the following: In consequence of
the appearance of St. Francis as a preacher of repentance and of the
kingdom of God there arose a religious movement which, not
merely had as its result the securing of numerous adherents to the
association of Minor Brethren directed by himself, as well as to the
society of “poor women” attaching itself to St. Clara, but also
awakened in many, who by marriage and family duties were
debarred from entering these orders, the desire to lead a life of
penitence and asceticism removed from the noisy turmoil of the
world in the quiet of their own homes while continuing their
industrial employments and the discharge of civil duties. As
originating in the movement inaugurated by St. Francis, these
“Fratres pœnitentiæ” designated themselves “the third order of
St. Francis,” and as such made the claim that they should not be
disturbed in their retired penitential life to engage upon services for
the State, military duty, and so forth. In this way they frequently
came into conflict with the civil courts. Although in this direction
powerfully supported by the papal curia, the brotherhoods were just
so much the less able to press their claim to immunity in proportion
as they spread and became more numerous throughout the cities of
Italy, and the greater the rush into their ranks became from day to
day from all classes, men and women, married and unmarried. The
right of spiritual direction and visitation of them was assigned in
A.D. 1234 by Gregory IX. to the bishops; but in A.D. 1247
Innocent IV., at the request of the Minorites, issued an ordinance
according to which this right was to be given to them, but they were
not able in any case to carry it out. Not only the secular clergy were
opposed, but they were vigorously aided in their resistance by the
Dominicans.―In A.D. 1209, at the beginning of the Albigensian
crusade, St. Dominic had founded, at Toulouse, an association of
married men and women under the name of Militia Christi, which,
recognisable by the wearing of a common style of dress, undertook
to vindicate the faith of the church against heretics, to restore again
any goods that had wrongfully been appropriated by them, to protect
widows and orphans, etc. This Militia migrated from France to Italy.
Although originally founded for quite different purposes than the

Penitential brotherhoods, it had the same privileges as these enjoyed
conferred upon it by the popes, and assimilated itself largely to these
in respect of mode of life and ascetic practices, and practically
became amalgamated with them. But still the Penitential
brotherhoods always formed a neutral territory, upon which,
according to circumstances, sometimes the secular clergy, and
sometimes one or other of the two mendicant orders, but much more
frequently the Minorite clergy, exercised visitation rights. The first
attempt at effecting a definite separation arose from the Dominicans,
whose seventh general, Murione de Zamorra, prescribed a rule to
those Penitential brotherhoods which were more closely related to
his order. Upon their adopting it they were loosed from the general
society as “Fratres de Pœnitentia” S. Dominici, and described as
exclusively attached to the preaching order. In A.D. 1288, however,
Jerome of Arcoli, the former general of the Franciscans, ascended
the papal throne as Nicholas IV., and now used all means in his
power to secure to his own order the supremacy in every
department. In the following year, A.D. 1289, he issued the bill Supra
montem, in which he prescribed (statuimus) a rule of his own for all
Penitential brotherhoods; and then, since on this point, out of regard
for the powerful Dominican order, he did not venture to do more
than simply recommend, added the advice (consulimus), that the
visitation and instruction of these should be assigned to the Minorite
superiors, giving as a reason that all these institutions owed their
origin to St. Francis. Against both the prescription and the advice,
however, the bishops, as well in the interest of their own
prerogatives as for the protection of their clergy, threatened in
vocation and income, raised a vigorous and persistent protest, which
at last, however, succumbed before the supreme power of the pope
and the marked preference on the part of the people for the clergy of
the orders. Those brotherhoods which adopted the rule thus
obtruded on them stood now in the position of rivals, alongside of
those of St. Dominic, as “Fratres de pœnitentia” S. Francisci. The
Dominican Penitentials afterwards adopted the name and character
of a “third order of St. Dominic” or “Tertiaries.” In the Franciscan
legends, however, the rule drawn up by Nicholas IV. soon came to

be represented as the one prescribed to the Penitentials on their first
appearance in A.D. 1221 by St. Francis himself, only ratified anew
by the pope, and has been generally regarded as such down to our
own day.―The rapid growth in power and influence which the two
older mendicant orders owe to the Tertiary Societies, induced also
the later mendicant orders to produce an imitation of them within
the range of their activity. Crossing the Alps the Penitential
brotherhoods found among these orders, on this side, an open
door,―the Franciscan brothers being especially numerous,―and
entered into peculiarly intimate relations with the Beghard societies
which had sprung up there, forming, like them, associations of a
monastic type.

§ 98.12. Working Guilds of a Monkish Order.―(1) During the
11th century, midway between the strictly monastic and secular
modes of life, a number of pious artisan families in Milan, mostly
weavers, under the name of Humiliati, adopted a communal life
with spiritual exercises, and community of handicraft and of goods.
Whatever profit came from their work was devoted to the poor. The
married continued their marriage relations after entering the
community. In the 12th century, however, a party arose among them
who bound themselves by vows of celibacy, and to them were
afterwards attached a congregation of priests. Their society was first
acknowledged by Innocent III. in A.D. 1021. But meanwhile many of
them had come under the influence of Arnold (§ 108, 6), and so had
become estranged from the Catholic church. At a later period these
formed a connection with the French Waldensians, the Pauperes de
Lugduno, adopted their characteristic views, and for the sake of
distinction took the name of Pauperes Italici (§ 108, 12).―Related
in every respect to the Lombard Humiliati, but distinguished from
them by the separation of the sexes and a universal obligation of
celibacy, were the communities of the Beguines and Beghards.
Priority of origin belongs to the Beguines. They took the three
monkish vows, but only for so long as they belonged to the society.
Hence they could at any time withdraw, and enter upon marriage
and other relations of social life. They lived under the direction of a

lady superior and a priest in a so-called Beguine-house, Curtis
Beguinarum, which generally consisted of a number of small houses
connected together by one surrounding wall. Each had her own
household, although on entrance she had surrendered her goods over
to the community and on withdrawing she received them back. They
busied themselves with handiwork and the education of girls, the
spiritual training of females, and sewing, washing and nursing the
poor in the houses of the city. The surplus of income over
expenditure was applied to works of benevolence. Every Beguine
house had its own costume and colour. These institutions soon
spread over all Belgium, Germany, and France. The first Beguine
house known to us was founded about 1180 at Liège, by the famous
priest and popular preacher, Lambert la Bèghe, i.e. the Stammerer.
Hallmann thinks that the name of the society may have been derived
from that of the preacher. Earlier writers, without anything to
support them but a vague similarity of sound, were wont to derive it
from Begga, daughter of Pepin of Landen in the 7th century. Most
likely of all, however, is Mosheim’s derivation of it from “beggan,”
which means not to pray, “beten,” a praying sister, but to beg, as the
modern English, and so proves that the institute originally consisted
of a collection of poor helpless women. We may compare with this
the designation “Lollards,” § 116, 3.―After the pattern of the
Beguine communities there soon arose communities of men,
Beghards, with similar tendencies. They supported themselves by
handicraft, mostly by weaving. But even in the 13th century
corruption and immorality made their appearance in both. Brothers
and sisters of the New (§ 108, 4) and of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5),
Fratricelli (§ 112, 2) and other heretics, persecuted by the church,
took refuge in their unions and infected them with their heresies.
The Inquisition (§ 109, 2) kept a sharp eye on them, and many were
executed, especially in France. The 15th General Council at Vienna,
in A.D. 1312, condemned eight of their positions as heretical. There
was now a multitude of Beguine and Beghard houses overthrown.
Others maintained their existence only by passing over to the
Tertiaries of the Franciscans. Later popes took the communities that
were free from suspicion under their protection. But even among

these many forms of immorality broke out, concubinage between
Beguines and Beghards, and worldliness, thus obliging the civil and
ecclesiastical authorities again to step in. The unions still remaining
in the time of the Reformation were mostly secularized. Only in
Belgium have a few Beguine houses continued to exist to the
present day as institutions for the maintenance of unmarried women
of the citizen class.287

§ 98.13. The Spiritual Order of Knights.―The peculiarity of the
Order of Knights consists in the combination of the three monkish
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience with the vow to maintain a
constant struggle with the infidels. The most important of these
orders were the following.

1. The Templars, founded in A.D. 1118 by Hugo de Payens and
Godfrey de St. Omer for the protection of pilgrims in the Holy
Land. The costume of the order was a white mantle with a red
cross. Its rule was drawn up by St. Bernard, whose warm
interest in the order secured for it papal patronage and the
unanimous approbation of the whole West. When Acre fell in
A.D. 1291 the Templars settled in Cyprus, but soon most of
them returned to the West, making France their headquarters.
They had their name probably from a palace built on the site of
Solomon’s temple, which king Baldwin II. of Jerusalem
assigned them as their first residence.288―Continuation,
§ 112, 7.
2. The Knights of St. John or Hospitallers, founded by
merchants from Amalfi as early as the middle of the
11th century, residing at first in a cloister at the Holy
Sepulchre, were engaged in showing hospitality to the pilgrims
and nursing the sick. The head of the order Raimund du Puy,
who occupied this position from A.D. 1118, added to these
duties, in imitation of the Templars, that of fighting against the
infidels. They carried a white cross on their breast, and a red
cross on their standard. Driven out by the Saracens, they settled

in Rhodes in A.D. 1310, and in A.D. 1530 took possession of
Malta.289
3. The Order of Teutonic Knights had its origin from a hospital
founded by citizens of Bremen and Lübeck during the siege of
Acre in A.D. 1120. The costume of the knights was a white
mantle with a black cross. Subsequently the order settled in
Prussia (§ 93, 13), and in A.D. 1237 united with the order of the
Brothers of the Sword, which had been founded in Livonia in
A.D. 1202 (§ 93, 12). Under its fourth Grandmaster, the prudent
as well as vigorous Hermann v. Salza, A.D. 1210-1239, it
reached the summit of its power and influence.
4. The Knights of the Cross arose originally in Palestine under
the name of the Order of Bethlehem, but at a later period
settled in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Poland. There they
adopted the life of regular canons (§ 97, 5) and devoted
themselves to hospital work and pastoral duties. They are still
to be found in Bohemia as holders of valuable livings, with the
badge of a cross of red satin.

In Spain, too, various orders of spiritual knights arose under vows
to fight with the Moors (§ 95, 2). The two most important were the
Order of Calatrava, founded in A.D. 1158 by the Cistercian monk
Velasquez for the defence of the frontier city Calatrava, and the
Order of Alcantara, founded in A.D. 1156 for a similar purpose.
Both orders were confirmed by Alexander III. and gained great fame
and still greater wealth in the wars against the Moors. Under
Ferdinand the Catholic the rank of Grandmaster of both orders
passed over to the crown. Paul III. in A.D. 1540 released the knights
from the vow of celibacy, but obliged them to become champions of
the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Both orders still exist, but
only as military orders of merit.

§ 98.14. Bridge-Brothers and Mercedarians.―The name of
Bridge Brothers, Frères Pontifex, Fratres Pontifices, was given to a
union founded under Clement III., in Southern France, in A.D. 1189,

for the building of hospices and bridges at points where pilgrims
crossed the large rivers, or for the ferrying of pilgrims over the
streams. As a badge they wore a pick upon their breast. Their
constitution was modelled upon that of the Knights of St. John, and
upon their gradual dissolution in the 13th century most of their
number went over to that order.―Petrus [Peter] Nolescens, born in
Languedoc, of noble parents and military tutor of a Spanish prince,
moved by what he had seen of the sufferings of Christian slaves at
the hand of their Moorish masters, and strengthened in his resolve
by an appearance of the Queen of Heaven, founded in A.D. 1228 the
knightly order of the Mercedarians, Mariæ Virg. de mercede pro
redemptione Captivorum. They devoted all their property to the
purchase of Christian captives, and where such a one was in danger
of apostatising to Islam and the money for redemption was not
procurable, they would even give themselves into slavery in his
place. When in A.D. 1317 the Grand Commandership passed over
into the hands of the priests, the order was gradually transformed
into a monkish order. After A.D. 1600, in consequence of a reform
after the pattern of the rule of the Barefoots, it became a mendicant
order, receiving the privileges of other begging fraternities from
Benedict XIII. in A.D. 1725. The order proved a useful institution of
its time in Spain, France and Italy, and at a later period also in
Spanish America.

III. Theological Science and its
Controversies.

§ 99. Scholasticism in General.290

The scientific activity of the Middle Ages received the name
of Scholasticism from the cathedral and cloister schools in which it
originated (§ 90, 8). The Schoolmen, with their enthusiasm and
devotion, their fidelity and perseverance, their courage and love of
combat, may be called the knights of theology. Instead of sword
and spear they used logic, dialectic and speculation; and profound
scholarship was their breastplate and helmet. Ecclesiastical
orthodoxy was their glory and pride. Aristotle, and also to some
extent Plato, afforded them their philosophical basis and method.
The Fathers in their utterances, sententiæ, the Councils in their
dogmas and canons, the popes in their decretals, yielded to this
Dialectic Scholasticism theological material which it could use for
the systematising, demonstrating, and illustrating of the Church
doctrine. If we follow another intellectual current, we find the
Mystical Scholasticism taking up, as the highest task of theology,
the investigating and describing of the hidden life of the pious
thinker in and with God according to its nature, course, and results
by means of spiritual contemplation on the basis of one’s individual
experience. Dogmatics (including Ethics) and the Canon Law
constituted the peculiar field of the Dialectic Theology of the
Schoolmen. The standard of dogmatic theology during the
12th century was the Book of the Sentences of the Lombard
(§ 102, 5); that of the Canon Law the Decree of Gratian. Biblical

Exegesis as an independent department of scientific study stood,
indeed, far behind these two, but was diligently prosecuted by the
leading representatives of Scholasticism. The examination of the
simple literal sense, however, was always regarded as a secondary
consideration; while it was esteemed of primary importance to
determine the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical signification
of the text (§ 90, 9).
§ 99.1. Dialectic and Mysticism.―With the exception of the
speculative Scotus Erigena, the Schoolmen of the Carlovingian Age
were of a practical turn. This was changed on the introduction of
Dialectic in the 11th century. Practical interests gave way to pure
love of science, and it was now the aim of scholars to give scientific
shape and perfect logical form to the doctrines of the church. The
method of this Dialectic Scholasticism consisted in resolving all
church doctrines into their elementary ideas, in the arranging and
demonstrating of them under all possible categories and in the
repelling of all possible objections of the sceptical reason. The end
aimed at was the proof of the reasonableness of the doctrine. This
Dialectic, therefore, was not concerned with exegetical
investigations or Scripture proof, but rather with rational
demonstration. Generally speaking, theological Dialectic attached
itself to the ecclesiastical system of the day as positivism or
dogmatism; for, appropriating Augustine’s Credo ut intelligam, it
made faith the principal starting point of its theological thinking and
the raising of faith to knowledge the end toward which it laboured.
On the other hand, however, scepticism often made its appearance,
taking not faith but doubt as the starting point for its inquiries, with
the avowed intention, indeed, of raising faith to knowledge, but only
acknowledging as worthy of belief what survived the purifying fire
of doubt.―Alongside of this double-edged Dialectic, sometimes in
conflict, sometimes in alliance with it, we meet with the Mystical
Scholasticism, which appealed not to the reason but to the heart,
and sought by spiritual contemplation rather than by Dialectic to
advance at once theological science and the Christian life. Its object

is not Dogmatics as such, not the development of Fides quæ
creditur, but life in fellowship with God, the development of Fides
qua creditur. By contemplative absorption of the soul into the depth
of the Divine life it seeks an immediate vision, experience and
enjoyment of the Divine, and as an indispensable condition thereto
requires purity of heart, the love of God in the soul and thorough
abnegation of self. What is gained by contemplation is made the
subject of scientific statement, and thus it rises to speculative
mysticism. Both contemplation and speculative mysticism in so far
as their scientific procedure is concerned are embraced under the
name of scholastic mysticism. The practical endeavour, however,
after a deepening and enhancing of the Christian life in the direction
of a real and personal fellowship with God was found more
important and soon out-distanced the scientific attempt at tabulating
and formulating the facts of inner experience. Practical mysticism
thus gained the ascendency during the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries,
and formed the favourite pursuit of the numerous inmates of the
nunneries (§ 107).

§ 99.2. The Philosophical Basis of Dialectic Scholasticism was
obtained mainly from the Aristotelian philosophy, which, down to
the end of the 12th century, was known at first only from Latin
renderings of Arabic and even Hebrew translations, and afterwards
from Latin renderings of the Greek originals (§ 103, 1). Besides
Aristotle, however, Plato also had his enthusiastic admirers during
the Middle Ages. The study of the writings of Augustine and the
Areopagite (§ 90, 7) led back again to him, and the speculative
mystics vigorously opposed the supremacy of Aristotle.―At the
outset of the philosophical career of scholasticism in the
11th century we meet with the controversy of Anselm and
Roscellinus [Roscelin] about the relations of thinking and being or
of the idea and the substance of things (§ 101, 3). The Nominalists,
following the principles of the Stoics, maintained that General
Notions, Universalia, are mere abstractions of the understanding,
Nomina, which as such have no reality outside the human mind,
Universalia post res. The Realists, on the contrary, affirmed the

reality of General Notions, regarding them as objective existences
before and apart from human thinking. But there were two kinds of
realism. The one, based on the Platonic doctrine of ideas, taught that
General Notions are really existent before the origin of the several
things as archetypes in the Divine reason, and then also in the
human mind before the contemplation of the things empirically
given, Universalia ante res. The other, resting on Aristotle’s
doctrine, considered them as lying in the things themselves and as
first getting entrance into the human mind through experience,
Universalia in rebus. The Platonic Realism thought to reach a
knowledge of things by pure thought from the ideas latent in the
human mind; the Aristotelian, on the other hand, thought to gain a
knowledge of things only through experience and thinking upon the
things themselves.―Continuation, § 103, 1.

§ 99.3. The Nurseries of Scholasticism.―The work previously
done in cathedrals and cloister schools was, from about the
12th century, taken up in a more comprehensive and thorough way
by the Universities. They were, as to their origin, independent of
church and state, emperor and pope. Here and there famous teachers
arose in the larger cities or in connection with some celebrated
cloister or cathedral school. Youths from all countries gathered
around them. Around the teacher who first attracted attention others
gradually grouped themselves. Teachers and scholars organized
themselves into a corporation, and thus arose the University. By
this, however, we are to understand nothing less than a Universitas
litterarum, where attention was given to the whole circle of the
sciences. For a long time there was no thought of a distribution into
faculties. When the multitude of teachers and students demanded a
distribution into several corporations, this was done according to
nations. The name signifies the Universitas magistrorum et
scholarium rather than an articulated whole. The study here pursued
was called Studium generale or universale, because the entrance
thereto stood open to every one. At first each university pursued
exclusively and in later times chiefly some special department of
science. Thus, e.g. theology was prosecuted in Paris and Oxford and

subsequently also in Cologne, jurisprudence in Bologna, Medicine
in Salerno. The first university that expressly made provision for
teaching all sciences was founded at Naples in A.D. 1224 with
imperial munificence by Frederick II. The earliest attempt at a
distribution of the sciences among distinct faculties was occasioned
by the struggle between the university of Paris and the mendicant
monks (§ 103, 1), who separated themselves from the other
theological teachers and as members of a guild formed themselves
in A.D. 1259 into a theological faculty. The number of the students,
among whom were many of ripe years, was immensely great, and in
some of the most celebrated universities reached often to ten or even
twenty thousand. There was a ten years’ course prescribed for the
training of the monks of Clugny: two years’ Logicalia, three years’
Literæ naturales et philosophicæ, and five years’ Theology. The
Council at Tours in A.D. 1236 insisted that every priest should have
passed through a five years’ course of study.291

§ 99.4. The Epochs of Scholasticism.―The intellectual work of
the theologians of the Middle Ages during our period ran its course
in four epochs, the boundaries of which nearly coincide with the
boundaries of the four centuries which make up that period.

1. From the 10th century, almost completely destitute of any
scientific movement, the so-called Sæculum obscurum, there
sprang forth the first buds of scholarship, without, however,
any distinct impress upon them of scholasticism.
2. In the 11th century scholasticism began to show itself, and that
in the form of dialectic, both sceptical and dogmatic.
3. In the 12th century mysticism assumed an independent place
alongside of dialectic, carried on a war of extermination against
the sceptical dialectic, and finally appeared in a more peaceful
aspect, contributing material to the positive dogmatic dialectic.
4. In the 13th century dialectic scholasticism gained the complete
ascendency, and reached its highest glory in the form of

dogmatism in league with mysticism, and never, in the persons
of its greatest representatives, in opposition to it.

§ 99.5. The Canon Law.―After the Pseudo-Isidore (§ 87, 2) many
collections of church laws appeared. They sought to render the
material more complete, intentionally or unintentionally enlarging
the forgeries and massing together the most contradictory statements
without any attempt at comparison or sifting. The most celebrated of
these were the collections of bishops Burchard of Worms about
A.D. 1020, Anselm of Lucca, who died in A.D. 1086, nephew of the
pope of the same name, Alexander II., and Ivo of Chartres, who died
in A.D. 1116. Then the Camaldolite monk Gratian of Bologna
undertook not only to gather together the material in a more
complete form than had hitherto been done, but also to reconcile
contradictory statements by scholastic argumentation. His work
appeared about A.D. 1150 under the title Concordantia
discordantium canonum, and is commonly called Decretum
Gratiani. A great impulse was given to the study of canon law by
means of this work, especially at Bologna and Paris. Besides the
Legists, who taught the Roman law, there now arose numerous
Decretists teaching the canon law and writing commentaries on
Gratian’s work. Gregory IX. had a new collection of Decrees of
Councils and Decretals in five books, the so-called Liber extra
Decretum, or shortly Extra or Decretum Gregorii, drawn up by his
confessor and Grand-Penitentiary, the learned Dominican
Raimundus [Raimund] de Pennaforti [Pennaforte], and sent it in
A.D. 1234 to the University of Bologna. Boniface VIII. in A.D. 1298
added to this collection in five parts his Liber Sextus, and
Clement V. in A.D. 1314 added what are called after him the
Clementinæ. From that time down to A.D. 1483 the decretals of later
popes were added as an appendix under the name Extravagantes,
and with these the Corpus juris canonici was concluded. An official
edition was begun in A.D. 1566 by the so-called Correctores Romani,
which in A.D. 1580 received papal sanction as authoritative for all
time to come.292

§ 99.6. The Schoolmen as such contributed nothing to Historical
Literature. Histories were written not in the halls of the universities
but in the cells of the monasteries. Of these there were three kinds
as we have already seen in § 90, 9. For workers in the department of
Biblical History, see § 105, 5; and of Legends of the Saints,
§ 104, 8. For ancient Church History Rufinus and Cassiodorus were
the authorities and the common text books (§ 5, 1). An interesting
example of the manner in which universal history was treated when
mediæval culture had reached its highest point, is afforded by the
Speculum magnum s. quadruplex of the Dominican Vincent of
Beauvais (Bellovacensis). This treatise was composed about the
middle of the 13th century at the command of Louis IX. of France
as a hand-book for the instruction of the royal princes. It forms an
encyclopædic exposition of all the sciences of that day in four parts,
Speculum historiale, naturale, doctrinale, and morale. The
Speculum doctrinale breaks off just at the point where it should
have passed over to theology proper, and the Speculum morale is a
later compilation by an unknown hand.293

§ 100. The Sæculum Obscurum: the 10th
Century.294

In contrast to the brilliant theological scholarship and the
activity of religious life in the 9th century, as well as to the
remarkable culture and scientific attainments of the Spanish Moors
with their world-renowned school at Cordova, the darkness of the
10th century seems all the more conspicuous, especially its first
half, when the papacy reached its lowest depths, the clergy gave
way to unblushing worldliness and the church was consumed by
the foulest corruption. During this age, indeed, there were gleams
of light even in Italy, but only like a will o’ the wisp rising from
swampy meadows, a fanatical outburst on behalf of ancient classic
paganism. The literature of this period stood in direct and avowed
antagonism to Christian theology and the Christian church, and
commended a godless frivolity and the most undisguised
sensuality. A grammarian Wilgard of Ravenna taught openly that
Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal were better and nobler than Paul, Peter,
and John. The church had still so much authority as to secure his
death as a heretic, but in almost all the towns of Italy he had
sympathisers, and that among the clergy as well as among laymen.
It was only by the influence of the monks of Clugny, the
reformatory ascetic efforts of Romuald (§ 98, 1) and St. Nilus the
Younger, a very famous Greek recluse of Gaeta, who died in
A.D. 1005, aided by the reformatory measures for the purification
of the church taken by the Saxon emperors, that this unclean spirit
was gradually driven out. The famous endeavours of Alfred the
Great and their temporary success were borne to the grave along
with himself. From A.D. 959 however, Dunstan’s reformation
awakened anew in England appreciation of a desire for theological

and national culture. The connection of the imperial house of Otto
with Byzantium also aroused outside of Italy a longing after old
classical learning. The imperial chapel founded by the brother of
Otto I., Bruno the Great (§ 97, 2), became the training school of a
High-German clergy, who were there carefully trained as far as the
means at the disposal of that age permitted, not only in politics, but
also in theological and classical studies.
§ 100.1. The degree to which Classical Studies were pursued in
Germany during the period of the Saxon imperial house is shown by
the works of the learned nun Roswitha of Gandersheim, north of
Göttingen, who died about A.D. 984. The first edition of her works,
which comprise six dramas on biblical and ecclesiastical themes in
the style of Terence, in prose interspersed with rhymes, also eight
legends, a history of Otto I., and a history of the founding of her
cloister in leonine hexameters, was issued by the humanist Conrad
Celtes, with woodcuts by Dürer in A.D. 1501.―Notker Labeo,
president of the cloister school of St. Gall, who died in A.D. 1022,
enriched the old German literature by translations of the Psalms, of
Aristotle’s Organon, the Moralia of Gregory the Great, and various
writings of Boethius [Boëthius].―In England the educational
efforts of St. Dunstan (§ 97, 4) were powerfully supported by
Bishop Ethelwold of Winchester, who quite in the spirit of Alfred
the Great (§ 90, 10) wrought incessantly with his pupils for the
extension and enrichment of the Anglo-Saxon literature. Of his
scholars by far the most famous was Aelfric, surnamed
Grammaticus, who flourished about A.D. 990. He wrote an Anglo-
Saxon Grammar, prepared a collection of homilies for all the
Sundays and festivals and a free translation from sermons of the
Latin Fathers, translated also the Old Testament heptateuch, and
wrote treatises on other portions of Scripture and on biblical
questions.295

§ 100.2. Italy produced during the second half of the century many
theologians eminent and important in their day. Atto, bishop of

Vercelli, who died about A.D. 960, distinguished himself by his
exegetical compilations on Paul’s epistles, and as a homilist and a
vigorous opponent of the oppressors of the church during these
rough times. Still more important was his younger contemporary
Ratherius, bishop of Verona, afterwards of Liège, but repeatedly
driven away from both, who died A.D. 974. A strict and zealous
reformer of clerical morals, he insisted upon careful study of the
Bible, and wrought earnestly against the unblushing paganism of the
Italian scholars of his age as well as against all kinds of hypocrisy,
superstition, and ecclesiastical corruptions. This, and also his
attachment to the political interests of the German court, exposed
him to much persecution. Among his writings may be named De
contemptu canonum, Meditationes cordis, Apologia sui ipsius, De
discordia inter ipsum et clericos.―In France we meet with Odo of
Clugny, who died in A.D. 942, famed as a hymn writer and homilist,
and, in his Collationum Ll. iii., as a zealous reprover of the corrupt
morals of his age. In England and France, Abbo of Fleury taught
toward the end of the century. From England, where he had been
induced to go by St. Dunstan, he returned after some years to his
own cloister of Fleury, and by his academic gifts raised its school to
great renown. He wrote on astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and
history. He also composed a treatise on dialectics, in which he
makes his appearance as the first and most eminent precursor of the
Schoolmen. Chosen abbot of his monastery and exercising strict
discipline over his monks, he suffered a martyr’s death by the hand
of a murderer in A.D. 1004.―Gerbert of Rheims, afterwards Pope
Sylvester II. (§ 96, 3, 4), during his active career lived partly in
France, partly in Italy. Distinguished both for classical and Arabic
scholarship, he shone in the firmament of this dark century as it was
passing away ( † A.D. 1003) like a star of the first magnitude in
theology, mathematics, astronomy, and natural science, while by the
common people he was regarded as a magician. Under him the
school of Rheims reached the summit of its fame.

§ 101. The Eleventh Century.

During the 11th century, with the moral and spiritual elevation
of the church, eager attention was again given to theological
science. It was at first mainly prosecuted in the monasteries of the
Cistercians and among the monks of Clugny, but afterwards at the
seminaries which arose toward the end of the century. The dialectic
method won more and more the upper hand in theology, and in the
Eucharist controversy between Lanfranc and Berengar, as well as
in the controversy between Anselm and Gaunilo about the
existence of God, and between Anselm and Roscelin about the
Trinity, Dogmatism obtained its first victory over Scepticism.

§ 101.1. The Most Celebrated Schoolmen of this Century.

1. Fulbert opens the list, a pupil of Gerbert, and from A.D. 1007
Bishop of Chartres Before entering on his episcopate he had
founded at Chartres a theological seminary. His fame spread
over all the West, so that pupils poured in upon him from every
side.
2. The most important of these was Berengar of Tours,
afterwards a canon and teacher of the cathedral school of his
native city, and then again archdeacon at Angers. He died in
A.D. 1088. The school of Tours rose to great eminence under
him.
3. Lanfranc, the celebrated opponent of the last-named, was
abbot of the monastery of Bec in Normandy, and from
A.D. 1070 Archbishop of Canterbury (§ 96, 8). He died in
A.D. 1089. He wrote against Berengar Liber de corpore et
sanguine Domini.

4. Bishop Hildebert of Tours, who died in A.D. 1134, famous as a
writer of spiritual songs, was a pupil of Berengar. But he
avoided the sceptical tendencies of his teacher, and, warned of
the danger of dialectic and following the mystical bent of his
mind, he applied himself to the cultivation of a life of faith, so
that St. Bernard praised him as tantam columnam ecclesiæ.
5. The monastic school of Bec, which Lanfranc had rendered
celebrated, reached the summit of its fame under his pupil
Anselm of Canterbury, who far excelled his teacher in genius
as well as in importance for theological science. He was born in
A.D. 1033 at Aosta in Italy, educated in the monastery of Bec,
became teacher and abbot there, was raised in A.D. 1093 to the
archiepiscopal chair of Canterbury, and died in A.D. 1109. As a
churchman he courageously defended the independence of the
church according to the principles of Hildebrand (§ 96, 12). As
a theologian he may be ranked in respect of acuteness and
profundity, speculative talent and Christian earnestness, as a
second Augustine, and on the theological positions of that
Father he based his own. Though carrying dialectic even into
his own private devotions, there was yet present in him a vein
of religious mysticism. According to him faith is the condition
of true knowledge, Fides præcedit intellectum; but it is also
with him a sacred duty to raise faith to knowledge, Credo ut
intelligam. Only he who in respect of endowment and culture is
not capable of this intellectual activity should content himself
with simple Veneratio. His Monologium contains discussions
on the nature of God, his Proslogium proves the being of God;
his three books, De fide Trinitatis et de incarnatione Verbi,
develop and elaborate the doctrine of the Trinity and
Christology; while the three dialogues De veritate, De libero
arbitrio, and De casu diaboli treat of the object, and the tract
Cur Deus homo? treats of the subject, of soteriology. The most
able, profound, and impressive of all his writings is the last-
named, which proves the necessity of the incarnation of God in
Christ for the reconciliation of man with God. It was an epoch-

making treatise in the historical development of the church
doctrine of satisfaction on Pauline foundations.296 Anselm took
part in the controversy of the Greeks by his work De
processione Spiritus (§ 67, 4). He discussed the question of
predestination in a moderate Augustinian form in the book, De
concordia præscientæ et prædest. et gratiæ Dei cum libero
arbitrio. In his Meditationes and Orationes he gives expression
to the ardent piety of his soul, as also in the voluminous
collection (426) of his letters.297
6. Anselm of Laon, surnamed Scholasticus, was the pupil of
Anselm of Canterbury. From A.D. 1076 he taught with brilliant
success at Paris, and thus laid the first foundation of its
university. Subsequently he returned to his native city Laon,
was made there archdeacon and Scholasticus, and founded in
that place a famous theological school. He died in A.D. 1117. He
composed the Glossa interlinearis, a short exposition of the
Vulgate between the lines, which with Walafrid’s Glossa
ordinaria (§ 90, 4), became the favourite exegetical handbook
of the Middle Ages.
7. William of Champeaux, the proper founder of the University
of Paris, had already taught rhetoric and dialectic for some time
with great success in the cathedral school, when the fame of the
theological school of Laon led him to the feet of Anselm. In
A.D. 1108 he returned to Paris, and had immense crowds
listening to his theological lectures. Chagrined on account of a
defeat in argument at the hand of Abælard, one of his own
pupils, he retired from public life into the old chapel of
St. Victor near Paris, and there founded a monastery under the
same name for canons of the rule of St. Augustine. He died in
A.D. 1121 as Bishop of Chalons.

8. The abbot Guibert of Nogent, in the diocese of Laon, who
died about A.D. 1124, a scholar of Anselm at Bec, was a
voluminous writer and, with all his own love of the marvellous,
a vigorous opponent of all the grosser absurdities of relic and

saint worship. He wrote a useful history of the first crusade,
and a work important in its day entitled, Liber quo ordine
sermo fieri debeat. His great work was one in four books, De
pignoribus Sanctorum, against the abuses of saint and relic
worship, the exhibition of pretended parts of the Saviour’s
body, e.g. teeth, pieces of the foreskin, navel cord, etc., against
the translation or distribution of the bodies of saints, against the
fraud of introducing new saints, relics, and legends.

§ 101.2. Berengar’s Eucharist Controversy, A.D. 1050-
1079.―Berengar of Tours elaborated a theory of the eucharist
which is directly antagonistic to the now generally prevalent theory
of Radbert (§ 91, 3). He taught that while the elements are changed
and Christ’s body is really present, neither the change nor the
presence is substantial. The presence of His body is rather the
existence of His power in the elements, and the change of the bread
is the actual manifestation of this power in the form of bread. The
condition however of this power-presence is not merely the
consecration but also the faith of the receiver. Without this faith the
bread is an empty and impotent sign. Such views were publicly
expressed by him and his numerous followers for a long while
without causing any offence. But when he formally stated them in a
letter to his friend Lanfranc of Bec, this churchman became
Berengar’s accuser at the Synod of Rome in A.D. 1050. The synod
condemned him unheard. A second synod of the same year held at
Vercelli, before which Berengar was to have appeared but could not
because he had meanwhile been imprisoned in France, in an
outburst of fanatical fury had the treatise of Ratramnus on the
eucharist, wrongly ascribed to Erigena, torn up and burnt, while
Berengar’s doctrine was again condemned. Meanwhile Berengar
was by the intervention of influential friends set at liberty and made
the acquaintance of the powerful papal legate Hildebrand, who,
holding by the simple Scripture doctrine that the bread and wine of
the sacrament was the body and blood of Christ, occupied probably
a position intermediate between Radbert’s grossly material and
Berengar’s dynamic hypothesis. Disinclined to favour the fanaticism

of Berengar’s opponents, Hildebrand contented himself with
exacting from him at the Synod of Tours in A.D. 1054 a solemn
declaration that he did not deny the presence of Christ in the Supper,
but regarded the consecrated elements as the body and blood of
Christ. Emboldened by this decision and still always persecuted by
his opponents as a heretic, Berengar undertook in A.D. 1059 a
journey to Rome, in order, as he hoped, by Hildebrand’s influence to
secure a distinct papal verdict in his favour. But there he found a
powerful opposition headed by the passionate and pugnacious
Cardinal Humbert (§ 67, 3). This party at the Lateran Council in
Rome in A.D. 1059, compelled Berengar, who was really very
deficient in strength of character, to cast his writings into the fire
and to swear to a confession composed by Humbert which went
beyond even Radbert’s theory in the gross corporeality of its
expressions. But in France he immediately again repudiated this
confession with bitter invectives against Rome, and vindicated anew
against Lanfranc and others his earlier views. The bitterness of the
controversy now reached its height. Hildebrand had meanwhile, in
A.D. 1073, himself become pope. He vainly endeavoured to bring the
controversy to an end by getting Berengar to accept a confession
couched in moderate terms admitting the real presence of the body
and blood in the Supper. The opposite party did not shrink from
casting suspicion on the pope’s own orthodoxy, and so Hildebrand
was obliged, in order to avoid the loss of his great life work in a
mass of minor controversies, to insist at a second synod in Rome in
A.D. 1079 upon an unequivocal and decided confession of the
substantial change of the bread. Berengar was indiscreet enough to
refer to his private conversations with the pope; but now Gregory
commanded him at once to acknowledge and abjure his error. With
fear and trembling Berengar obeyed, and the pope dismissed him
with a safe conduct, distinctly prohibiting all further disputation.
Bowed down under age and calamities, Berengar withdrew to the
island of St. Come, near Tours, where he lived as a solitary penitent
in the practice of strict asceticism, and died at a great age in peace
with the church in A.D. 1088. His chief work is De Cœna S. adv.
Lanfr.―Continuation, § 102, 5.

§ 101.3. Anselm’s Controversies.

I. On the basis of his Platonic realism, Anselm of Canterbury
constructed the ontological proof of the being of God, that
there is given in man’s reason the idea of the most perfect being
to whose perfection existence also belongs. When he laid this
proof before the learned world in his Monologium and
Proslogium, the monk Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, who was a
supporter of Aristotelian realism, opposed him, and acutely
pointed out the defects of this proof in his Liber pro insipiente.
He so named it in reference to a remark of Anselm, who had
said that even the insipiens who, according to Psalm xiv. 1,
declares in his heart that there is no God, affords thereby a
witness for the existence of the idea, and consequently also for
the existence of God. Anselm replied in his Apologeticus
c. Gaunilonem. And there the controversy ended without any
definite result.
II. Of more importance was Anselm’s controversy with Roscelin,
the Nominalist, canon of Compiègne. He in a purely
nominalistic fashion understood the idea of the Godhead as a
mere abstraction, and thought that the three persons of the
Godhead could not be una res, οὐσία, as then they must all at
once have been incarnate in Christ. A synod at Soissons in
A.D. 1092 condemned him as a tritheist. He retracted, but
afterwards reiterated his earlier views. Anselm then, in his tract
De fide Trinitatis et de incarnatione Verbi contra blasphemias
Rucelini, proved that the drift of his argumentation tended
toward tritheism, and vindicated the trinitarian doctrine of the
church. For more than two centuries Nominalism was branded
with a suspicion of heterodoxy, until in the 14th century a
reaction set in (§ 113, 3), which restored it again to honour.

§ 102. The Twelfth Century.

In the 12th century dialectic and mysticism are seen
contending for the mastery in the department of theology. On the
one side stands Abælard, in whom the sceptical dialectic had its
most eminent representative. Over against him stands St. Bernard
as his most resolute opponent. Theological dialectic afterwards
assumed a pre-eminently dogmatic and ecclesiastical character,
entering into close relationship with mysticism. While this
movement was mainly carried on in France, where the University
of Paris attracted teachers and scholars from all lands, it passed
over from thence into Germany, where Provost Gerhoch and his
brother Arno gave it their active support in opposition to that
destructive sort of dialectic that was then spreading around them.
Although the combination of dogmatic dialectic and mysticism had
for a long time no formal recognition, it ultimately secured the
approval of the highest ecclesiastical authorities.

§ 102.1. The Contest on French Soil.

I. The Dialectic Side of the Gulf.―Peter Abælard, superior to
all his contemporaries in acuteness, learning, dialectic power,
and bold freethinking, but proud and disputatious, was born at
Palais in Brittany in A.D. 1079. His first teacher in philosophy
was Roscelin. Afterwards he entered the school of William of
Champeaux at Paris, the most celebrated dialectician of his
times. Having defeated his master in a public disputation, he
founded a school at Melun near Paris, where thousands of
pupils flocked to him. In order to be nearer Paris, he moved his
school to Corbeil; then to the very walls of Paris on Mount
St. Genoveva; and ceased not to overwhelm William with
humiliations, until his old teacher retreated from the field. In

order to secure still more brilliant success, he began to study
theology under the Schoolman Anselm of Laon. But very soon
the ambitious scholar thought himself superior also to this
master. Relying upon his dialectical endowments, he took a bet
without further preparation to expound the difficult prophet
Ezekiel. He did it indeed to the satisfaction of scholars, but
Anselm refused to allow him to continue his lectures. Abælard
now returned to Paris, where he gathered around him a great
number of enthusiastic pupils. Canon Fulbert appointed him
teacher of his beautiful and talented niece Heloise. He won her
love, and they were secretly married. She then denied the
marriage in order that he might not be debarred from the
highest offices of the church. Persisting in this denial, her
relatives dealt severely with her, and Abælard had her placed in
the nunnery of Argenteuil. Fulbert in his fury had Abælard
seized during the night and emasculated, so that he might be
disqualified for ecclesiastical preferment. Overwhelmed with
shame, he fled to the monastery of St. Denys, and there in
A.D. 1119 took the monastic vow. Heloise took the veil at
Argenteuil. But even at St. Denys Abælard was obliged by the
eager entreaties of former scholars to resume his lectures. His
free and easy treatment of the church doctrine and his haughty
spirit aroused many enemies against him, who at the Synod of
Soissons in A.D. 1121 compelled him before the papal legate to
cast into the fire his treatise De Unitate et Trinitate divina, and
had him committed to a monastic prison. By the intercession of
some friends he was soon again set free, and returned to
St. Denys. But when he made the discovery that Dionysius at
Paris was not the Areopagite the persecution of the monks
drove him into a forest near Troyes. There too his scholars
followed him and made him resume his lectures. His colony
grew up under his hands into the famous abbey of the
Paraclete. Finding even there no rest, he made over the abbey
of the Paraclete to Heloise, who had not been able to come to
terms with her insubordinate nuns at Argenteuil. He himself
now became abbot of the monastery of St. Gildasius at Ruys in

Brittany, and, after in vain endeavouring for eight years to
restore the monastic discipline, he again in A.D. 1136 resumed
his office of teacher and lectured at St. Genoveva near Paris
with great success. He wrote an ethical treatise, “Scito te
ipsum,” issued a new and enlarged edition of his Theologia
christiana, now extant as the incomplete Introductio ad
theologiam in three books, and composed a Dialogus inter
Philosophum, Judæum et Christianum, in which the heathen
philosophers and poets of antiquity are ranked almost as high
as the prophets and apostles. In Sic et Non, “Yes and No,” a
collection of extracts from the Fathers under the various heads
of doctrine contradictory of one another, the traditional
theology was held up to contempt.

§ 102.2.

Abælard maintained, in opposition to the Augustinian-Anselmian
theory, that faith preceded knowledge, that only what we
comprehend is to be believed. He did indeed intend that his dialectic
should be used not for the overthrow but for the establishment of the
church doctrine. He proceeded, however, from doubt as the
principle of all knowledge, regarding all church dogmas as
problems which must be proved before they can be believed:
Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus, inquirendo veritatem
percipimus. He thus reduced faith to a mere probability and
measured the content of faith by the rule of subjective reason. This
was most glaring in the case of the trinitarian doctrine, which with
him approached Sabellian modalism. God as omnipotent is to be
called Father, as all wise the Son, as loving and gracious the Spirit;
and so the incarnation becomes a merely temporal and dynamic
immanence of the Logos in the man Jesus. The significance of the
ethical element in Christianity quite overshadowed that of the
dogmatic. He taught that all fundamental truths of Christianity had
been previously proclaimed by philosophers and poets of Greece
and Rome, who were scarcely less inspired than the prophets and
apostles, the special service of the latter consisting in giving

currency to these truths among the uncultured. He turns with
satisfaction from the theology of the Fathers to that of the apostles,
and from that again to the religion of Jesus, whom he represents
rather as a reformer introducing a pure morality than as a founder of
a religious system. Setting aside Anselm’s theory of satisfaction, he
regards the redemption and reconciliation of man as consisting in
the awakening in sinful man, by means of the infinite love displayed
by Christ’s teaching and example, by His life, sufferings and death
upon the cross, a responding love of such fulness and power, that he
is thereby freed from the dominion of sin and brought into the
glorious liberty of the children of God.298―Abælard’s fame and
following grew in a wonderful manner from day to day; but also
powerful opponents dragged his heresies into light and vigorously
combated them. The most important of these were the Cistercian
monk William of Thierry and St. Bernard, who called attention to
the dangerous tendency of his teaching. St. Bernard dealt personally
with the heretic, but when he failed in converting him, he appeared
in A.D. 1141 at the Synod of Sens as his accuser. The synod
condemned as heretical a series of statements culled from his
writings by Bernard. Abælard appealed to the pope, but even his
friends at Rome, among whom was Card. Guido de Castella,
afterwards Pope Cœlestine II., could not close their eyes to his
manifest heterodoxies. His friendship for Arnold of Brescia also told
against him at Rome (§ 108, 7). Innocent II. therefore
excommunicated Abælard and his supporters, condemned his
writings to be burnt and himself to be confined in a monastery.
Abælard found an asylum with the abbot Peter the Venerable of
Clugny, who not only effected his reconciliation with Bernard, but
also, on the ground of his Apologia s. Confessio fidei, in which he
submitted to the judgment of the church, obtained permission from
the pope to pass his last days in peace at Clugny. During this time he
composed his Hist. calamitatum Abælardi, an epistolary
autobiography, which, though not free from vanity and bitterness, is
yet worthy to be ranked with Augustine’s “Confessions” for its
unreserved self-accusation and for the depth of self-knowledge

which it reveals. He died in A.D. 1142, in the monastery of
St. Marcellus at Chalons, where he had gone in quest of health. He
was buried in the abbey of the Paraclete, where Heloise laid on his
coffin the letter of absolution of Peter of Clugny. Twenty-two years
later Heloise herself was laid in the same quiet resting place.299

§ 102.3.

I. The Mystic Side of the Gulf.―Abælard’s most famous
opponent was St. Bernard of Clairvaux (§ 98, 1), born in
A.D. 1091 at Fontaines near Dijon in Burgundy, died in
A.D. 1153, a man of such extraordinary influence on his
generation as the world seldom sees. Venerated as a miracle
worker, gifted with an eloquence that carried everything before
it (doctor mellifluus), he was the protector and reprover of the
Vicar of God, the peacemaker among the princes, the avenger
of every wrong. His genuine humility made him refuse all high
places. His enthusiasm for the hierarchy did not hinder him
from severely lashing clerical abuses. It was his word that
roused the hearts of men throughout all Europe to undertake the
second crusade, and that won many heretics and schismatics
back to the bosom of the church. Having his conversation in
heaven, leading a life of study, meditation, prayer, and ecstatic
contemplation, he had also dominion over the earth, and by
counsel, exhortation, and exercise of discipline exerted a
quickening and healthful influence on all the relations of life.
His theological tendency was in the direction of contemplative
mysticism, with hearty submission to the doctrine of the
church. Like Abælard, but from the opposite side, he came into
conflict with the theory of Anselm; for the ideal of theology
with him was not the development of faith into knowledge by
means of thought, but rather the enlightenment of faith in the
way of holiness. Bernard was not at all an enemy of science,
but he rather saw in the dialectical hair-splitting of Abælard,
which grudged not to cut down the main props of saving truth
for the glorification of its own art, the overthrow of all true

theology and the destruction of all the saving efficacy of faith.
Heart theology founded on heart piety, nourished and
strengthened by prayer, meditation, spiritual illumination and
holiness, was for him the only true theology. Tantum Deus
cognoscitur, quantum diligitur. Orando facilius quam
disputando et dignius Deus quæritur et invenitur. The Bible
was his favourite reading, and in the recesses of the forest he
spent much time in prayer and study of the Scriptures. But in
ecstasy (excessus) which consists in withdrawal from sensible
phenomena and becoming temporarily dead to all earthly
relations, the soul of the pious Christian is able to rise into the
immediate presence of God, so that “more angelorum” it
reaches a blessed vision and enjoyment of the Divine glory and
that perfect love which loves itself and all creatures only in
God. Yet even he confesses that this highest stage of abstraction
was only attained unto by him occasionally and partially
through God’s special grace. Bernard’s mysticism is most fully
set forth in his eighty-six Sermons on the first two chapters of
the Song of Solomon and in the tract De diligendo Deo. In his
controversy with Abælard he wrote his Tractatus de erroribus
Petri Abælardi. To the department of dogmatics belongs De
gratia et libero arbitrio; and to that of history, the biography of
his friend Malachias (§ 149, 5). The most important of his
works is De Consideratione, in 5 bks., in which with the
affection of a friend, the earnestness of a teacher, and the
authority of a prophet, he sets before Pope Eugenius III. the
duties and dangers of his high position. He was also one of the
most brilliant hymn writers of the Middle Ages. Alexander III.
canonized him in A.D. 1173, and Pius VIII. in A.D. 1830 enrolled
him among the doctores ecclesiæ (§ 47, 22 c).―Soon after the
controversy with Abælard had been brought to a close by the
condemnation of the church, Bernard was again called upon to
resist the pretensions of dialectic. Gilbert de la Porrée
(Porretanus), teacher of theology at Paris, who became Bishop
of Poitiers in A.D. 1142 and died in A.D. 1154, in his
commentary on the theological writings of Boëthius (§ 47, 23)

ascribed reality to the universal term “God” in such a way that
instead of a Trinity we seemed to have a Quaternity. At the
Synod of Rheims, A.D. 1148, under the presidency of Pope
Eugenius III., Bernard appeared as accuser of Porretanus.
Gilbert’s doctrine was condemned, but he himself was left
unmolested.300

§ 102.4.

I. Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Mysticism.―At the
school of the monastery of St. Victor in Paris, founded by
William of Champeaux after his defeat at the hands of Abælard,
an attempt was made during the first half of the 12th century to
combine mysticism and dialectic in the treatment of theology.
The peaceable heads of this school would indeed have nothing
to do with the speculations of Abælard and his followers which
tended to overthrow the mysteries of the faith. But the mystics
of St. Victor made an important concession to the dialecticians
by entering with as much energy upon the scientific study and
construction of dogmatics as they did upon the devout
examination of Scripture and mystical theology. They exhibited
a speculative power and a profundity of thought that won the
hearty admiration of the subtlest of the dialecticians. By far the
most celebrated of this school was Hugo of St. Victor.
Descended from the family of the Count of Halberstadt, born in
A.D. 1097, nearly related to St. Bernard, honoured by his
contemporaries as Alter Augustinus or Lingua Augustini, Hugo
was one of the most profound thinkers of the Middle Ages.
Having enjoyed a remarkably complete course of training, he
was enthusiastically devoted to the pursuit of science, and,
endowed with rich and deep spirituality, he exerted a most
healthful and powerful influence upon his own and succeeding
ages, although church and science had to mourn their loss by
his early death in A.D. 1141. In his Eruditio didascalica we have
in 3 bks. an encyclopædic sketch of all human knowledge as a
preparation to the study of theology, and in other 3 bks. an

introduction to the Bible and church history.301 His Summa
sententiarum is an exposition of dogmatics on patristic lines, an
ecclesiastical counterpart of Abælard’s Sic et Non. The ripest
and most influential of all his works, and the most independent,
is his De sacramentis christ. fidei, in 2 bks., in which he treats
of the whole contents of dogmatics from the point of view of
the Sacraments (§ 104, 2). His exegetical works are less
important and less original. His mysticism is set forth ex
professo in his Soliloquium de arrha animæ and in the series of
three tracts, De arca morali, De arca mystica, and De vanitate
mundi. He makes Noah’s ark the symbol of the church as well
as of the individual soul which journeys over the billows of the
world to God, and, by the successive stages of lectio, cogitatio,
meditatio, oratio, and operatio reaches to contemplatio or the
vision of God.―Hugo’s pupil, and from A.D. 1162 the prior of
his convent, was the Scotchman Richard St. Victor, who died
in A.D. 1173. With less of the dialectic faculty than his
master―though this too is shown in his 6 bks. De trinitate, a
scholastic exposition of the Cognitio or Fides quæ creditur―he
mainly devoted his energies to the development on the
mystico-contemplative side of the “Affectus” or Fides qua
creditur, which aims at the vision and enjoyment of God. This
he represents as reached by the three stages of contemplation,
distinguished as mentis dilatatio, sublevatio, and alienatio.
Among his mystical tracts, mostly mystical expositions of
Scripture passages, the most important are, De præparatione
animæ ad contemplationem, s. de xii. patriarchis, and the
4 bks. De gratia contemplationis s. de arca mystica. These are
also known as Benjamin minor and B. major. In Richard there
appears the first indications of a misunderstanding with the
dialecticians which, among the late Victorines, and especially
in the case of Walter of St. Victor, took the form of vehement
hostility.

§ 102.5.

I. Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Dialectics.―After
Abælard’s condemnation theological dialectics came more and
more to be associated with the church doctrine and to approach
more or less nearly to a friendly alliance with mysticism.
Hugo’s writings did much to bring this about. The following
are the most important Schoolmen of this tendency.
1. The Englishman Robert Pulleyn, teacher at Oxford and
Paris, afterwards cardinal and papal chancellor at Rome,
who died about A.D. 1150. His chief work is Sententiarum
Ll. VIII. Though very famous in its day, it was soon cast
into the shade by the Lombard’s work.
2. Petrus [Peter] Lombardus [Lombard], born at Novara in
Lombardy, a scholar of Abælard, but powerfully
influenced by St. Bernard and Hugo St. Victor, was Bishop
of Paris from A.D. 1159 till his death in A.D. 1164. He
published a dogmatic treatise under the title of
Sententiarum Ll. IV.; of which Bk. 1 treated of God, Bk. 2
of Creatures, Bk. 3 of Redemption, Bk. 4 of the
Sacraments and the Last Things. For centuries this was the
textbook in theological seminaries and won for its author
the designation of Magister Sententiarum. He himself
compared this gift laid on the altar of the church to the
widow’s mite, but the book attained a place of supreme
importance in mediæval theology, had innumerable
commentaries written on it and was officially authorized as
the theological textbook by the Lateran Council of
A.D. 1215. It is indeed a well arranged collection of the
doctrinal deliverances of the Fathers, in which apparent
contradictions are dialectically resolved, with great skill,
and wrought up together into an articulate system, but
from want of independence and occasional indecision or
withholding of any definite opinion, it falls behind Hugo’s
Summa and Robert’s Sentences. It had this advantage,
however, that it gave freer scope to scholars and teachers,
and so was more stimulating as a textbook for academic

use. The Lombard’s works include a commentary on the
Psalms and Catenæ on the Pauline Epistles.
3. The Frenchman Peter of Poitiers (Pictaviensis), one of the
ablest followers of the Lombard, was chancellor of the
University of Paris toward the end of the century. He wrote
5 bks. of Sentences or Distinctions, which in form and
matter are closely modelled on the work of his master.
4. The most gifted of all the Summists of the 12th century
was the German Alanus ab Insulis, born at Lille or
Ryssel, lat. Insulæ. After teaching long at Paris, he entered
the Cistercian order, and died at an advanced age at
Clairvaux in A.D. 1203. A man of extensive erudition and a
voluminous writer, he was called Doctor universalis. He
wrote an allegorical poem Anticlaudianus, which describes
how reason and faith in union with all the virtues restore
human nature to perfection. His Regulæ de s. theologia
give a short outline of theology and morals in
125 paradoxical sentences which are tersely expounded. A
short but able summary of the Christian faith is given in
the 5 bks. De arte catholicæ fidei. This work is
characterized by the use of a mathematical style of
demonstration, like that of the later school of Wolf, and an
avoidance of references to patristic authorities, which
would have little weight with Mohammedans and heretics.
He is thus rather an opponent than a representative of
dialectic scholasticism. The Summa quadripartita
c. Hæreticos sui temporis ascribed to him was written by
another Alanus.

§ 102.6. The Controversy on German Soil.―The provost
Gerhoch and his brother, the dean Arno of Reichersberg in
Bavaria, were representatives of the school of St. Victor as
mediators between dialectics and mysticism. In A.D. 1150 Gerhoch
addressed a memorial to Eugenius III., De corrupto ecclesiæ statu,
and afterwards he published De investigatione Antichristi. He found

the antichrist in the papal schisms of his times, in the ambition and
covetousness of popes, in the corruptibility of the curia, in the
manifold corruptions of the church, and especially in the spread of a
dialectic destructive of all the mysteries of the faith. The
controversy in which both of these brothers took most interest was
that occasioned by the revival of Adoptionism in consequence of the
teaching of French dialecticians, especially Abælard and Gilbert. It
led to the formulating of the Christological doctrine in such a form
as prepared the way for the later Lutheran theories of the
Communicatio idiomatum and the Ubiquitas corporis Christi
(§ 141, 9).―In South Germany, conspicuously in the schools of
Bamberg, Freisingen, and Salzburg, the dialectic of Abælard,
Gilbert, and the Lombard was predominant. Its chief representatives
were Folmar of Triefenstein in Franconia and Bishop Eberhard of
Bamberg. The controversy arose over the doctrine of the eucharist.
Folmar had maintained like Berengar that not the actually glorified
body of Christ is present in the sacrament, but only the spiritual
substance of His flesh and blood, without muscles, sinews and
bones. Against this gross Capernaitic view (John vi. 52, 59)
Gerhoch maintained that the eucharistic body is the very
resurrection body of Christ, the substance of which is a glorified
corporeity without flesh and blood in a carnal sense, without sinews
and bones. The bishop of Bamberg took offence at his friend’s bold
rejection of the doctrine approved by the church, and so Folmar
modified his position to the extent of admitting that there was on the
altar not only the true, but also the whole body in the perfection of
its human substance, under the form of bread and wine. But
nevertheless both he and Abælard adhered to their radical error, a
dialectical dismemberment of the two natures of Christ, according
to which the divinity and humanity, the Son of God and the Son of
man, were two strictly separate existences. Christ, they taught, is
according to His humanity Son of God in no other way than a pious
man is, i.e. by adoption; but according to His Divine nature He is
like the Father omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. In respect
of His human nature it must still be said by Him, “My Father is
greater than I.” He dwells, however, bodily in heaven, and is shut in

by and confined to it. Only His Divine nature can claim Latria or
adoratio, worship. Only Dulia, cultus, reverence, such as is due to
saints, images, and relics, should be given to His body and blood
upon the altar. Gerhoch’s doctrine of the Supper, on the other hand,
is summed up in the proposition: He who receives the flesh of the
Logos (Caro Verbi) receives also therewith the Logos in His flesh
(Verbum carnis). Folmar and Eberhard denounced this as Eutychian
heresy. A conference at Bamberg in A.D. 1158, where Gerhoch stood
alone as representative of his views, ended by his opponents
declaring that he had been convicted of heresy. In A.D. 1162 a
Council at Friesach in Carinthia, under the presidency of
Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, reached the same conclusion.

§ 102.7. Theologians of a Pre-eminently Biblical and
Ecclesiastico-Practical Tendency.

1. Alger of Liège, teacher of the cathedral school there, was one
of the most important German theologians in the beginning of
the 12th century. He resigned his appointment in A.D. 1121, to
spend his last years in the monastery of Clugny, in order to
enjoy the company and friendship of its abbot, Peter the
Venerable; and there he died about A.D. 1130. The school of
Liège, in which he had himself been trained up in the high
church Cluniac doctrine there prevalent, flourished greatly
during his rule of twenty years. His chief works are De
Sacramentis corporis et sanguinis Domini in 3 bks.,
distinguished by acuteness and lucidity, and a controversial
tract on the lines of Radbert against Berengar’s doctrine
condemned by the church. In his De misericordia et justitia he
treats of church discipline with circumspection, clearness, and
decision.
2. Rupert of Deutz, more than any mediæval scholar before or
after, created an enthusiasm for the study of Scripture as the
people’s book for all times, the field in which the precious
treasure is hid, to be found by any one whose eyes are made

sharp by faith. He was a contemporary and fellow countryman
of Alger, and died in A.D. 1135. Though he refers to the Hebrew
and Greek texts, he cares less for the literal than for the
speculative-dogmatic and mystical sense discovered by
allegorical exegesis. In his principal work, De trinitate et
operilus ejus, he sets forth in 3 bks. the creation work of the
Father, in 30 bks. the revealing and redeeming work of the Son,
from the fall to the death of Christ, and in the remaining
9 books the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, from the
resurrection of Christ to the general resurrection. He maintains
in opposition to Anselm (who was afterwards followed by
Thomas Aquinas) that Christ would have become incarnate
even if men had not sinned (a view which appears in Irenæus,
and afterwards in Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus, John Wessel,
and others). In regard to the Lord’s Supper he maintained the
doctrine of consubstantiation, and he taught like pope Gelasius
(§ 58, 2) that the relation of the heavenly and earthly in the
eucharist is quite analogous to that of the two natures in
Christ.302
3. The Benedictine Hervæus in the cloister of Bourg-Dieu, who
died about A.D. 1150, was distinguished for deep piety and
zealous study of Scripture and the fathers. He wrote
commentaries on Isaiah and on the Pauline Epistles, the latter
of which was ascribed to Anselm and so published among his
works.

§ 102.8.

1. John of Salisbury, Johannes Parvus Sarisberiensis, was a
theologian of a thoroughly practical tendency, though a diligent
student of Abælard and an able classical scholar, specially
familiar with the writings of Cicero. As the trusted friend of
Hadrian IV. he was often sent from England on embassies to
the pope. In Becket’s struggle against the encroachments of the
Crown upon the rights of the church (§ 96, 16) he stood by the

primate’s side as his faithful counsellor and fellow soldier,
wrote an account of his life and martyrdom, and laboured
diligently to secure his canonization. He was made Bishop of
Chartres in A.D. 1176, and died there in A.D. 1180. His works,
distinguished by singularly wide reading and a pleasing style,
are pre-eminently practical. In his Policraticus s. de nugis
Curialium et vestigiis Philosophorum he combats the nugæ of
the hangers on at court with theological and philosophical
weapons in a well balanced system of ecclesiastico-political
and philosophico-theological ethics. His Metalogicus in 4 bks.
is a polemic against the prostitution of science by the empty
formalism of the schoolmen. His 329 Epistles are of immense
importance for the literary and scientific history of his times.
2. Walter of St. Victor, Richard’s successor as prior of that
monastery, makes his appearance about A.D. 1130, as the author
of a vigorous polemic against dialectic scholasticism, in which
he combats especially Christological heresies and spares the
idolized Lombard just as little as the condemned Abælard.303
He combats with special eagerness a new heresy springing
from Abælard and developed by the Lombard which he styles
“Nihilism,” because by denying the independence of the human
nature of Christ it teaches that Christ in so far as He is man is
not an Aliquid, i.e. an individual.
3. Innocent III. is deserving of a place here both on account of
his rich theological learning and on account of the earnestness
and depth of the moral and religious view of life which he
presents in his writings. The most celebrated of these are De
contemtu mundi and 6 bks. Mysteria evang. legis ac sacramenti
Eucharistitæ, and during his pontificate, his epistles and
sermons.

§ 102.9. Humanist Philosophers.―While Abælard was striving to
prove Christianity the religion of reason, and for this was
condemned by the church, his contemporary Bernard Sylvester,
teacher of the school of Chartres, a famous nursery of classical

studies, was seeking to shake himself free of any reference to
theology and the church. Satisfied with Platonism as a genuinely
spiritual religion, and feeling therefore no personal need of the
church and its consolations, he carefully avoided any allusion to its
dogmas, and so remained in high repute as a teacher and writer. His
treatise, De mundi universitates. Megacosmus et Microcosmus, in
dialogue form discussing in a dilettante, philosophizing style natural
phenomena, half poetry, half prose, was highly popular in its day. It
fared very differently with his accomplished and like-minded
scholar William of Conches. The vehemence with which he
declared himself a Catholic Christian and not a heathen Academic
aroused suspicion. Though in his Philosophia mundi, sometimes
erroneously attributed to Honorius of Autun, he studiously sought to
avoid any contradiction of the biblical and ecclesiastical theory of
the world, he could not help in his discussion of the origin of man
characterizing the literal interpretation of the Scripture history of
creation as peasant faith. The book fell into the hands of the abbot
William of Thierry, who accused its author to St. Bernard. The
opposition soon attained to such dimensions that he was obliged to
publish a formal recantation and in a new edition to remove
everything objectionable.

§ 103. The Thirteenth Century.

Scholasticism took a new departure in the beginning of the
13th century, and by the middle of the century it reached its climax.
Material for its development was found in the works of Aristotle
and his Moslem expositors, and this was skilfully used by highly
gifted members of the Franciscan and Dominican orders so that all
opposition to the scholastic philosophy was successfully overborne.
The Franciscans Alexander of Hales and Bonaventura stand side by
side with the brilliant Dominican teachers Albert the Great and
Thomas Aquinas. As reformers of the scholastic philosophy from
different points of view we meet with Raimund Lull and Roger
Bacon. There were also numerous representatives of this simple
biblical and practical tendency devoted to Scripture study and the
pursuit of the Christian life; and during this period we find the first
developments of German mysticism properly so called.

§ 103.1. The Writings of Aristotle and his Arabic
Interpreters.―Till the end of the 12th century Aristotle was known
in the Christian West only through Porphyry and Boëthius. This
philosophy, however, from the 9th century was diligently studied in
Arabic translations of the original text (§ 72) by Moslem scholars of
Bagdad and Cordova, who wrote expositions and made original
contributions to science. The most distinguished of these, besides
the logicians Alkindi in the 9th, and Alfarabi in the 10th century,
were the supernaturalistic Avicenna of Bokhara, † A.D. 1037 Algazel
of Bagdad, inclined to mysticism or sufism, † A.D. 1111, and the
pantheistic-naturalistic Averroes of Cordova, † A.D. 1198. The
Moors and Spanish Jews were also devoted students of the
peripatetic philosophy. The most famous of these was Maimonides,
† A.D. 1204, who wrote the rationalistic work More Nebochim. On
the decay of Arabic philosophy in Spain, Spanish Jews introduced

the study of Aristotle into France. Dissatisfied with Latin
translations from the Arabic, they began in A.D. 1220 to make
translations directly from the Greek. Suspicions were now aroused
against the new gospel of philosophy. At a Synod in Paris A.D. 1209
(§ 108, 4) the physical writings of Aristotle were condemned and
lecturing on them forbidden. This prohibition was renewed in
A.D. 1215 by the papal legate and the metaphysics included. But no
prohibition of the church could arrest the scientific ardour of that
age. In A.D. 1231 the definitive prohibition was reduced to a measure
determining the time to be devoted to such studies, and in A.D. 1254
we find the university prescribing the number of hours during which
Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics should be taught. Some decades
later the church itself declared that no one should obtain the degree
of master who was not familiar with Aristotle, “the precursor of
Christ in natural things as John Baptist was in the things of grace.”
This change was brought about by the belief that not Aristotle but
Erigena was the author of all the pantheistic heresies of the age
(§§ 90, 7; 108, 4), and also by the need felt by the Franciscans and
Dominicans for using Aristotelian methods of proof in defence of
the doctrine of the church. Philosophy, however, was now regarded
by all theologians as only the handmaid of theology. Even in the
11th century Petrus [Peter] Damiani had indicated the mutual
relation of the sciences thus: Debet velut ancilla dominæ quodam
famulatus obsequio subservire, ne si præcedit, oberret.304

§ 103.2. On account of their characteristic tendencies Avicenna was
most popular with the Schoolmen and after him Algazel, while
Averroes, though carefully studied and secretly followed by some,
was generally regarded with suspicion and aversion. Among his
secret admirers was Simon of Tournay, about A.D. 1200, who
boasted of being able with equal ease to prove the falseness and the
truth of the church doctrines, and declared that Moses, Christ, and
Mohammed were the three greatest deceivers the world had ever
seen. The Parisian scholars ascribed to Averroes the Theory of a
twofold Truth. A positive religion was required to meet the
religious needs of the multitude, but the philosopher might reach

and maintain the truth independently of any revealed religion. In the
Christian West he put this doctrine in a less offensive form by
saying that one and the same affirmation might be theologically true
and philosophically false, and vice versa. Behind this, philosophical
scepticism as well as theological unbelief sought shelter. Its chief
opponents were Thomas Aquinas and Raimund Lull, while at a later
time Duns Scotus and the Scotists were inclined more or less to
favour it.

§ 103.3. The Appearance of the Mendicant Orders.―The
Dominican and Franciscan orders competed with one another in a
show of zeal for the maintenance of the orthodox doctrine, and each
endeavoured to secure the theological chairs in the University of
Paris, the principal seat of learning in those days. They were
vigorously opposed by the university corporation, and especially by
the Parisian doctor William of St. Amour, who characterized them
in his tract De periculis novissimorum temporum of A.D. 1255 as the
precursors of antichrist. But he was answered by learned members
of the orders, Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Bonaventura, and
finally, in A.D. 1257, all opposition on the part of the university was
checked by papal authority and royal command. The Augustinians,
too, won a seat in the University of Paris in A.D. 1261.―The learned
monks gave themselves with enthusiasm to the new science and
applied all their scientific gains to polemical and apologetical
purposes. They diligently conserved all that the earlier Fathers down
to Gregory the Great had written in exposition of the doctrine and
all that the later Fathers down to Hugo St. Victor and Peter the
Lombard had written in its defence. But what had been simply
expressed before was now arranged under elaborate scientific
categories. The Summists of the previous century supplied abundant
material for the work. Their Summæ sententiarum, especially that of
the Lombard, became the theme of innumerable commentaries, but
besides these, comprehensive original works were written. These
were no longer to be described as Summæ sententiarum, but
assumed with right the title of Summæ theologiæ or theologicæ.

§ 103.4. Distinguished Franciscan Schoolmen.―Alexander of
Hales, trained in the English cloister of Hales, doctor irrefragabilis,
was the most famous teacher of theology in Paris, where in
A.D. 1222 he entered the Seraphic Order. He died in A.D. 1245. As
the first church theologian who, without the excessive hair-splitting
of later scholastics, applied the forms of the peripatetic philosophy
to the scientific elaboration of the doctrinal system of the church, he
was honoured by his grateful order with the title of Monarcha
theologorum, and is still regarded as the first scholastic in the strict
sense of the word. His Summa theologica, published at Nuremberg
in A.D. 1482 in 4 folio vols. was accepted by his successors as the
model of scientific method and arrangement. The first two vols.
treat of God and His Work, the Creature; the third, of the Redeemer
and His Work; the fourth, of the Sacraments of the O. and N.T. The
conclusion, which is not extant, treated of Præmia salutis per
futuram gloriam. Each of these divisions was subdivided into a
great number of Quæstiones, these again into Membra, and these
often into Articuli. The question at the head of the section was
followed by several answers affirmative and negative, some of
which were entitled Auctoritates (quotations from Scripture, the
Fathers, and the teachers of the church), some Rationes (dictates of
the Greek, Arabian, and Jewish philosophers), and finally, his own
conclusion. Among the authorities of later times, Hugo’s dogmatic
works (§ 102, 4) occupy with him the highest place, but he seems to
have had no appreciation of his mystical speculations.―His most
celebrated disciple John Fidanza, better known as Bonaventura,
had a strong tendency to mysticism. Born at Bagnarea in the district
of Florence in A.D. 1221, he became teacher of theology in Paris in
A.D. 1253, general of his order in A.D. 1257, was made Cardinal-
bishop of Ostia by Gregory X. in A.D. 1273, and in the following
year was a member of the Lyons Council, at which the question of
the reunion of the churches was discussed (§ 67, 4). He took an
active part in the proceedings of that council, but died before its
close in A.D. 1274. His aged teacher Alexander had named him a
Verus Israelita, in quo Adam non peccasse videtur. Later
Franciscans regarded him as the noblest embodiment of the idea of

the Seraphic Order next to its founder, and celebrated the angelic
purity of his personality by the title doctor seraphicus. Sixtus IV.
canonized him in A.D. 1482, and Sixtus V. edited his works in 8 fol.
vols. in A.D. 1588, and gave him in A.D. 1587 the sixth place in the
rank of Doctores ecclesiæ as the greatest church teacher of the West.
Like Hugo, he combined the mystical and doctrinal sides of
theology, but like Richard St. Victor inclined more to the mystical.
His greatest dogmatic work is his commentary in 2 vols. fol. on the
Lombard. His able treatise, De reductione artium ad theologiam,
shows how theology holds the highest place among all the sciences.
In his Breviloquium he seeks briefly but with great expenditure of
learning to prove that the church doctrine is in accordance with the
teachings of reason. In the Centiloquium, consisting of 100 sections,
he treats summarily of the doctrines of Sin, Grace, and Salvation. In
the Pharetra he gives a collection of the chief authorities for the
conclusions reached in the two previously named works. The most
celebrated of his mystical treatises are the Diætæ salutis, describing
the nine days’ journey (diætæ) in which the soul passes from the
abyss of sin to the blessedness of heaven, and the Itinerarium mentis
in Deum, in which he describes as a threefold way to the knowledge
of God a theologia symbolica (=extra nos), propria (=intra nos) and
mystica (=supra nos), the last and highest of which alone leads to
the beatific vision of God.

§ 103.5. Distinguished Dominican Schoolmen.―(1)Albert the
Great, the oldest son of a knight of Bollstadt, born in A.D. 1193, at
Laningen in Swabia, sent in A.D. 1212, because too weak for a
military career, to the University of Padua, where he devoted
himself for ten years to the diligent study of Aristotle, entered then
the Dominican order, and at Bologna pursued with equal diligence
the study of theology in a six years’ course. He afterwards taught the
regular curriculum of the liberal arts at Cologne and in the cloisters
of his order in other German cities; and after taking his doctor’s
degree at Paris, he taught theology at Cologne with such success
that the Cologne school, owing to the crowds attracted to his
lectures, grew to the dimensions of a university. In A.D. 1254 he

became provincial of his order in Germany, was compelled in
A.D. 1260 by papal command to accept the bishopric of Regensburg,
but returned to Cologne in A.D. 1262 to resume teaching, and died
there in A.D. 1280, in his 87th year. His amazing acquirements in
philosophical, theological, cabalistic, and natural science won for
him the surname of the Great, and the title of doctor universalis.
Since the time of Aristotle and Theophrastus there had been no
investigator in natural science like him. Traces of mysticism may be
discovered in his treatise Paradisus animæ, and in his commentary
on the Areopagite. Indeed from his school proceeded the greatest
master of speculative mysticism (§ 114, 1). His chief work in
natural science is the Summa de Creaturis, the fantastic and
superstitious character of which may be seen from the titles of its
several books: De virtutibus herbarum, lapidum, et animalium, De
mirabilibus mundi, and De secretis mulierum. He wrote three books
of commentaries on the Lombard, and two books of an independent
system of dogmatics, the Summa theologica. The latter treatise,
which closely follows the work of Alexander of Hales, is
incomplete.305

§ 103.6. The greatest and most influential of all the Schoolmen was
the Doctor angelicus, Thomas Aquinas. Born in A.D. 1227, son of a
count of Aquino, at his father’s castle of Roccasicca, in Calabria, he
entered against his parents’ will as a novice into the Dominican
monastery at Naples. Removed for safety to France, he was
followed by his brothers and taken back, but two years later he
effected his escape with the aid of the order, and was placed under
Albert at Cologne. Afterwards he taught for two years at Cologne,
and was then sent to win his doctor’s degree at Paris in A.D. 1252.
There he began along with his intimate friend Bonaventura his
brilliant career. It was not until A.D. 1257, after the opposition of the
university to the mendicant orders had been overcome, that the two
friends obtained the degree of doctor. Urban IV. recalled him to Italy
in A.D. 1261, where he taught successively in Rome, Bologna, Pisa,
and Naples. Ordered by Gregory to take part in the discussions on
union at the Lyons Council, he died suddenly in A.D. 1274, soon

after his return to Naples, probably from poison at the hand of his
countryman Charles of Anjou, in order that he might not appear at
the council to accuse him of tyranny. John XXII. canonized him in
A.D. 1323, and Pius V. gave him the fifth place among the Latin
doctores ecclesiæ.―Thomas was probably the most profound
thinker of the century, and was at the same time admired as a
popular preacher. He had an intense veneration for Augustine, an
enthusiastic appreciation of the church doctrine and the philosophy
which are approved and enjoined by this great Father. He had also a
vein of genuine mysticism, and was distinguished for warm and
deep piety. He was the first to give the papal hierarchical system of
Gregory and Innocent a regular place in dogmatics. His Summa
philosophiæ contra Gentiles, is a Christian philosophy of religion,
of which the first three books treat of those religious truths which
human reason of itself may recognise, while the fourth book treats
of those which, because transcending reason though not contrary to
it, i.e. doctrines of the incarnation and the trinity, can be known only
by Divine revelation. He wrote two books of commentaries on the
Lombard. By far the most important work of the Middle Ages is his
Summa theologica, in three vols., in which he gives ample space to
ethical questions. His polemic against the Greeks is found in the
section in which he defines and proves the primacy of the pope,
basing his arguments on ancient and modern fictions and forgeries
(§ 96, 23), which he, ignorant of Greek and deriving his knowledge
of antiquity wholly from Gratian’s decree, accepted bona fide as
genuine. His chief exegetical work is the Catena aurea on the
Gospels and Pauline Epistles, translated into English by Dr. Pusey,
in 8 vols., Oxf., 1841, ff. In commenting on Aristotle Thomas,
unlike Albert, neglected the treatises on natural science in favour of
those on politics.―The Dominican order, proud of having in it the
greatest philosopher and theologian of the age, made the doctrine of
Thomas in respect of form and matter the authorized standard
among all its members (§ 113, 2), and branded every departure from
it as a betrayal not only of the order but also of the church and
Christianity. The other monkish orders, too, especially the
Augustinians, Cistercians, and Carmelites, recognised the authority

of the Angelical doctor. Only the Franciscans, moved by envy and
jealousy, ignored him and kept to Alexander and Bonaventura, until
the close of the century, when, in Duns Scotus (§ 113, 1), they
obtained a brilliant teacher within their own ranks, whom they
proudly thought would prove a fair rival in fame to the great
Dominican teacher.306

§ 103.7. Reformers of the Scholastic Method.―Raimund Lull, a
Catalonian nobleman of Majorca, born in A.D. 1234, roused from a
worldly life by visions, gave himself to fight for Christ against the
infidels with the weapons of the Spirit. Learning Arabic from a
Saracen slave, he passed through a full course of scholastic training
in theology and entered the Franciscan order. Constrained in the
prosecution of his mission to seek a simpler method of proof than
that afforded by scholasticism, he succeeded by the help of visions
in discovering one by which as he and his followers, the Lullists,
thought, the deepest truths of all human sciences could be made
plain to the untutored human reason. He called it the Ars Magna,
and devoted his whole life to its elaboration in theory and practice.
Representing fundamental ideas and their relations to the objects of
thought by letters and figures, he drew conclusions from their
various combinations. In his missionary travels in North Africa
(§ 93, 16) he used his art in his disputations with the Saracen
scholars, and died in A.D. 1315 in consequence of ill treatment
received there, in his 81st year. Of his writings in Latin, Catalonian,
and Arabic, numbering it is said more than a thousand, 282 were
known in A.D. 1721 to Salzinger of Mainz, but only 45 were
included in his edition of the collected works.

§ 103.8. Roger Bacon, an English monk, contemporary with Lull,
worked out his reform in a sounder manner by going back to the
original sources and thus obtaining deliverance from the
accumulated errors of later times. He appealed on matters of natural
science not to corrupt translations but to the original works of
Aristotle, and on matters of theology, not to the Lombard but to the
Greek New Testament. He prosecuted his studies laboriously in

mathematics and the Greek language. Roger was called by his
friends Doctor mirabilis or profundus. He was a prodigy of learning
for his age, more in the department of physics than in those of
philosophy and theology. He was regarded, however, by his own
order as a heretic, and imprisoned as a trafficker in the black arts.
Born in A.D. 1214 at Ilchester, he took his degree of doctor of
theology at Paris, entered the Franciscan order, and became a
resident at Oxford. Besides diligent study of languages, which
secured him perfect command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic,
he busied himself with researches and experiments in physics
(especially optics), chemistry, and astronomy. He made several
important discoveries, e.g. the principle of refraction, magnifying
glasses, the defects of the calendar, etc., while he also succeeded in
making a combustible material which may be regarded as the
precursor of gunpowder. He maintained the possibility of ships and
land vehicles being propelled most rapidly without sails, and
without the labour of men or animals. Yet he was a child of his age,
and believed in the philosopher’s stone, in astrology, and alchemy.
Thoroughly convinced of the defects of scholasticism, he spoke of
Albert the Great and Aquinas as boys who taught before they learnt,
and especially reproached them with their ignorance of Greek. With
an amount of brag that smacks of the empiric he professed to be
able to teach Hebrew in three days and Greek in the same time, and
to give a full course of geometry in seven days. With fearless
severity he lashed the corruptions of the clergy and the monks. Only
one among his companions seems to have regarded Roger,
notwithstanding all his faults, as a truly great man. That was
Clement IV. who, as papal legate in England, had made his
acquaintance, and as pope liberated him from prison. To him Roger
dedicated his Opus majus s. de emendandis scientiis. At a later
period the general of the Franciscan order, with the approval of
Nicholas IV., had him again cast into prison, and only after that
pope’s death was he liberated through the intercession of his friends.
He died soon after in A.D. 1291.307

§ 103.9. Theologians of a Biblical and Practical Tendency.

1. Cæsarius of Heisterbach near Bonn was a monk, then prior
and master of the novices of the Cistercian monastery there. He
died in A.D. 1230. His Dialogus magnus visionum et
miraculorum in 12 bks., one of the best specimens of the finest
culture and learning of the Middle Ages, in the form of
conversation with the novices, gives an admirable and
complete sketch of the morals and manners of the times
illustrated from the history and legends of the monks, clergy,
and people.
2. His younger contemporary the Dominican William Peraldus
(Perault), in his Summa virtutum and Summa vitiorum, presents
a summary of ethics with illustrations from life in France. He
died about A.D. 1250, as bishop of Lyons.
3. Hugo of St. Caro (St. Cher, a suburb of Vienne), a Dominican
and cardinal who died in A.D. 1263, gives evidence of careful
Bible study in his Postilla in univ. Biblia juxta quadrupl.
sensum (a commentary accompanying the text) and his
Concordantiæ Bibliorum (on the Vulgate). To him we are
indebted for our division of the Scriptures into chapters. At the
request of his order he undertook a correction of the Vulgate
from the old MSS.
4. Robert of Sorbon in Champagne, who died in A.D. 1274, was
confessor of St. Louis and teacher of theology at Paris. He
urged upon his pupils the duty of careful study of the Bible. In
A.D. 1250 he founded the Sorbonne at Paris, originally a
seminary for the education and support of the poorer clergy
who aspired to the highest attainments in theology. Its fame
became so great that it rose to the rank of a full theological
faculty, and down to its overthrow in the French Revolution it
continued to be the highest tribunal in France for all matters
pertaining to religion and the church.
5. Raimund Martini, Dominican at Barcelona, who died after
A.D. 1284, was unweariedly engaged in the conversion of Jews

and Mohammedans. He spoke Hebrew and Arabic as fluently
as Latin, and wrote Pugio fidei contra Mauros et Judæos.308

§ 103.10. Precursors of the German Speculative
Mystics.―David of Augsburg, teacher of theology and master of
the novices in the Franciscan monastery at Augsburg, deserves to be
named first, as one who largely anticipated the style of speculative
mysticism that flourished in the following century (§ 114). His
writings, partly in Latin, partly in German, are merely ascetic
directories and treatises of a contemplative mystical order,
distinguished by deep spirituality and earnest, humble piety. The
German works especially are models of a beautiful rhythmical style,
worthy of ranking with the finest creations of any century. He is
author of the important tract, De hæresi pauperum de Lugduno, in
which the pious mystic shows himself in the less pleasing guise of a
relentless inquisitor and heresy hunter.―A brilliant and skilful
allegory, The Daughter of Zion, the human soul, who, having
become a daughter of Babylon, went forth to see the heavenly King,
and under the guidance of the virgins Faith, Hope, Love, Wisdom,
and Prayer attained unto this end, was first written in Latin prose;
but afterwards towards the close of the 13th century a free rendering
of it in more than 4,000 verses was published by the Franciscan
Lamprecht of Regensburg. Its mysticism is like that of St. Bernard
and Hugo St. Victor.―In speculative power and originality the
Dominican Theodorich of Freiburg, Meister Dietrich, a pupil of
Albert the Great, far excelled all the mystics of this century. About
A.D. 1280 he was reader at Treves, afterwards prior at Würzburg,
took his master’s degree and taught at Paris, A.D. 1285-1289. About
A.D. 1320, however, along with Meister Eckhart (§ 114, 1), he fell
under suspicion of heresy, and nothing further is known of him.
Among his still unpublished writings, mostly on natural and
religious philosophy, the most important is the book De beatifica
visione Dei per essentiam, which marks him out as a precursor of
the Eckhart speculation.―On Female Mystics, see § 107.

IV. The Church and the People.

§ 104. Public Worship and Art.

Public worship had for a long time been popularly regarded as
a performance fraught with magical power. The ignorant character
of the priests led to frequent setting aside of preaching as
something unessential, so that the service became purely liturgical.
But now popes and synods urged the importance of rearing a race
of learned priests, and the carefully prepared and eloquent sermons
of Franciscans and Dominicans found great acceptance with the
people. The Schoolmen gave to the doctrine of the sacraments its
scientific form. The veneration of saints, relics, and images became
more and more the central point of worship. Besides ecclesiastical
architecture, which reached its highest development in the
13th century, the other arts began to be laid under contribution to
beautify the ceremonial, the dresses of the celebrants, and the inner
parts of the buildings.

§ 104.1. The Liturgy and the Sermon.―The Roman Liturgy was
universally adopted except in Spain. When it was proposed at the
Synod of Toledo in A.D. 1088 to set aside the old Mozarabic liturgy
(§ 88, 1), the people rose against the proposal, and the ordeals of
combat and fire decided in favour of retaining the old service. From
that time both liturgies were used side by side. The Slavic ritual was
abandoned in Moravia and Bohemia in the 10th century. The
language of the church services everywhere was and continued to be
the Latin. The quickening of the monkish orders in the 11th century,
especially the Cluniacs and Cistercians, but more particularly the

rise of the Franciscans and Dominicans in the 13th century, gave a
great impulse to preaching. Almost all the great monks and
schoolmen were popular preachers. The crowds that flocked around
them as they preached in the vernacular were enormous. Even in the
regular services the preaching was generally in the language of the
people, but quotations from Scripture and the Fathers, as a mark of
respect, were made in Latin and then translated. Sermons addressed
to the clergy and before academic audiences were always in
Latin.―As a preacher of repentance and of the crusades, Fulco of
Neuilly, † A.D. 1202, regarded by the people as a saint and a miracle
worker, had a wonderful reputation (§ 94, 4). Of all mediæval
preachers, however, none can be compared for depth, spirituality,
and popular eloquence with the Franciscan Berthold of
Regensburg, pupil and friend of David of Augsburg (§ 103, 10),
one of the most powerful preachers in the German tongue that ever
lived. He died in A.D. 1272. He wandered from town to town
preaching to crowds, often numbering 100,000 men, of the grace of
God in Christ, against the abuse of indulgences and false trust in
saints, and the idea of the meritoriousness of pilgrimages, etc. His
sermons are of great value as illustrations of the strength and
richness of the old German language. Roger Bacon too (§ 103, 8),
usually so chary of praise, eulogises Frater Bertholdus Alemannus
as a preacher worth more than the two mendicant orders together.

§ 104.2. Definition and Number of the Sacraments (§§ 58;
70, 2).―Radbert acknowledged only two: Baptism including
confirmation, and the Lord’s Supper. Rabanus Maurus by separately
enumerating the bread and the cup, and counting confirmation as
well as baptism, made four. Hugo St. Victor again held them to be
an indefinite number. But he distinguished three kinds: those on
which salvation depends, Baptism, Confirmation, and the Supper;
those not necessary and forming important aids to salvation,
sprinkling with holy water, confession, extreme unction, marriage,
etc.; those necessary for particular callings, the ordination of priests,
sacred vestments. Yet he prepared the way for the final ecclesiastical
conception of the sacraments, by placing its Elementa Corporalia

under the threefold category as divinam gratiam ex similitudine
repræsentantia, ex institutione significantia, and ex consecratione
continentia. Peter the Lombard took practically the same view, but
fixed the number of the Sacraments at seven: Baptism,
Confirmation (§ 35, 4), the Supper, Penance, Extreme Unction,
Marriage, and Ordination (§ 45, 1). This number was first officially
sanctioned by the Florentine Council of A.D. 1439 (§ 67, 6).
Alexander of Hales gave a special rank to Baptism and the Supper,
as alone instituted by Christ, while Aquinas gave this rank to all the
seven. All the ecclesiastical consecrations and benedictions were
distinguished from the sacraments as Sacramentalia.―The
Schoolmen distinguished the sacraments of the O.T., as ex opera
operante, i.e. efficacious only through faith in a coming Redeemer,
from the sacraments of the N.T. as ex opera operato, i.e. as
efficacious by mere receiving without the exercise of positive faith
on the part of all who had not committed a mortal sin. Against old
sectaries (§§ 41, 3; 63, 1) and new (§§ 108, 7, 12) the scholastic
divines maintained that even unworthy and unbelieving priests
could validly dispense the sacraments, if only there was the intentio
to administer it in the form prescribed by the church.309

§ 104.3. The Sacrament of the Altar.―At the fourth Lateran
Council of A.D. 1215 the doctrine of Transubstantiation was finally
accepted (§ 101, 2). The fear lest any of the blood of the Lord
should be spilt led to the withholding from the 12th century of the
cup from the laity, and its being given only to the priests. If not the
cause, then the consequence, of this was that the priests were
regarded as the only full and perfect partakers of the Lord’s table.
Kings at their coronation and at the approach of death were
sometimes by special favour allowed to partake of the cup. The
withdrawal of the cup from the laity was dogmatically justified,
specially by Alex. of Hales, by the doctrine of concomitantia, i.e.
that in the body the blood was contained. Fear of losing any
fragment also led to the substitution of wafers, the host, for the
bread that should be broken.―A consecrated host is kept in the
Tabernaculum, a niche in the wall on the right of the high altar, in

the so-called liburium or Sanctissimum, i.e. a gold or silver casket,
often ornamented with rich jewels. It is taken forth, touched only by
the priests, and exhibited to the kneeling people during the service
and in solemn processions.

§ 104.4. Penance.―Gratian’s decree (§ 99, 5) left it to the
individual believer’s decision whether the sinner could be
reconciled to God by heart penitence without confession. But in
accordance also with the teaching of the Lombard, confession of
mortal sins (Gal. v. 19 ff. and Cor. v. 9 f.), or, in case that could not
be, the desire at heart to make it, was declared indispensable. The
forgiveness of sins was still, however, regarded as God’s exclusive
prerogative, and the priest could bind and loose only in regard to the
fellowship of the church and the enjoyment of the sacraments.
Before him, however, Hugo St. Victor had begun to transcend these
limits; for he, distinguishing between the guilt and the punishment
of the sinner, ascribed indeed to God alone the absolution from the
guilt of sin on the ground of sincere repentance, but ascribed to the
exercise of the priestly function, the absolution from the punishment
of eternal death, in accordance with Matthew xviii. 18 and John
xx. 23. Richard St. Victor held that the punishment of eternal death,
which all mortal sins as well as venial sins entail, can be commuted
into temporal punishment by priestly absolution, atoned for by
penances imposed by the priests, e.g. prayers, fastings, alms, etc.;
whereas without such satisfaction they can be atoned for only by the
pains of purgatory (§ 61, 4). Innocent III., at the fourth Lateran
Council of A.D. 1215, had the obligation of confession of all sins
raised into a dogma, and obliged all believers under threat of
excommunication to make confession at least once a year, as
preparation for the Easter communion. The Provincial Synod at
Toulouse in A.D. 1229 (§ 109, 2) insisted on compulsory confession
and communion three times a year, at Christmas, Easter, and
Pentecost. The three penitential requirements, enforced first by
Hildebert of Tours, and adopted by the Lombard, Contritio cordis,
Confessio oris, and Satisfactio operis continued henceforth in force.
But Hugo’s and Richard’s theory of absolution displaced not only

that of the Lombard, but, by an extension of the sacerdotal idea to
the absolution of the sinner from guilt, led to the introduction of a
full-blown theory of indulgence (§ 106, 2). As the ground of the
scientific construction given it by the Schoolmen of the
13th century, especially by Aquinas, the Catholic Church doctrine of
penance received its final shape at the Council of Florence in
A.D. 1439. Penance as the fourth sacrament consists of hearty
repentance, auricular confession, and satisfaction; it takes form in
the words of absolution, Ego te absolvo; and it is efficacious for the
forgiveness of sins. Any breach of the secrecy of the confessional
was visited by the fourth Lateran Council with excommunication,
deposition, and lifelong confinement in a monastery. The exaction
of a confessional fee, especially at the Easter confession, appears as
an increment of the priest’s income in many mediæval documents.
Its prohibition by several councils was caused by its simoniacal
abuse. By the introduction of confessors, separate from the local
clergy, the custom fell more and more into disuse.

§ 104.5. Extreme Unction.―Although as early as A.D. 416
Innocent I. had described anointing of the sick with holy oil (Mark
vi. 13; Jas. v. 14) as a Genus Sacramenti (§ 61, 3), extreme unction
as a sacrament made little progress till the 9th century. The Synod of
Chalons in A.D. 813 calls it quite generally a means of grace for the
weak of soul and body. The Lombard was the first to give it the fifth
place among the seven sacraments as Unctio extrema and
Sacramentum exeuntium, ascribing to it Peccatorum remissio et
corporalis infirmitatio alleviatus. Original sin being atoned for by
baptism, and actual sins by penance, Albert the Great and Aquinas
describe it as the purifying from the Reliquiæ peccatorum which
even after baptism and penance hinder the soul from entering into
its perfect rest. Bodily healing is only a secondary aim, and is given
only if thereby the primary end of spiritual healing is not hindered.
It was long debated whether, in case of recovery, it should be
repeated when death were found approaching, and it was at last
declared to be admissible. The Council of Trent defines Extreme
Unction as Sacr. pœnitentiæ totius vitæ consummativum. The form

of its administration was finally determined to be the anointing of
eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands, as well as (except in women) the
feet and loins, with holy oil, consecrated by the bishop on Maundy
Thursday. Confession and communion precede anointing. The three
together constitute the Viaticum of the soul in its last journey. After
receiving extreme unction recipients are forbidden again to touch
the ground with their bare feet or to have marital intercourse.

§ 104.6. The Sacrament of Marriage (§ 89, 4).―When marriage
came generally to be regarded as a sacrament in the proper sense,
the laws of marriage were reconstructed and the administration of
them committed to the church. It had long been insisted upon by the
church with ever-increasing decidedness, that the priestly
benediction must precede the marriage ceremonial, and that bridal
communion must accompany the civil action. Hence marriage had
to be performed in the immediate vicinity of a church, ante ostium
ecclesiæ. As another than the father often gave away the bride, this
position of sponsor was claimed by the church for the priest.
Marriage thus lost its civil character, and the priest came to be
regarded as performing it in his official capacity not in name of the
family, but in name of the church. Christian marriage in the early
times required only mutual consent of parties (§ 39, 1), but the
Council of Trent demanded a solemn agreement between bride and
bridegroom before the officiating priest and two or three witnesses.
In order to determine more exactly hindrances to marriage (§ 61, 2)
it was made a law at the second Lateran Council in A.D. 1139, and
confirmed at the fourth in A.D. 1215, that the parties proposing to
marry should be proclaimed in church. To each part of the
sacrament the character indelibilis is ascribed, and so divorce was
absolutely forbidden, even in the case of adultery (in spite of Matt.
v. 32 and xix. 9), though separatio a mensa et toro was allowed.
Innocent III. in A.D. 1215 reduced the prohibited degrees from the
seventh to the fourth in the line of blood relationship (§ 61, 2).

§ 104.7. New Festivals.―The worship of Mary (§ 57, 2) received
an impulse from the institution of the Feast of the Birth of Mary on

8th of September. To this was added in the south of France in the
12th century, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on the
8th December. Radbert (§ 91, 4) by his doctrine of Sanctificatio in
utero gave basis to the theory of the Virgin’s freedom from original
sin in her conception and bearing. Anselm of Canterbury, however,
taught in Cur Deus Homo? ii. 16, that Mary was conceived and born
in sin, and that she like all others had sinned in Adam. Certain
canons of Lyons, in A.D. 1140, revived Radbert’s theory, but raised
the Sanctif. in utero into the Immaculata conceptio. St. Bernard
protested against the doctrine and the festival; sinless conception is
a prerogative of the Redeemer alone. Mary like us all was conceived
in sin, but was sanctified before the birth by Divine power, so that
her whole life was faultless; if one imagines that Mary’s sinless
conception of her Son had her own sinless conception as a necessary
presupposition, this would need to be carried back ad infinitum, and
to festivals of Immaculate Conceptions there would be no end. This
view of a Sanctificatio in utero, with repudiation of the Conceptio
immaculata, was also maintained by Alex. of Hales, Bonaventura,
Albert the Great, and Aquinas. The feast of the Conception, with the
predicate “immaculate” dropped, gradually came to be universally
observed. The Franciscans adopted it in this limited sense at Pisa, in
A.D. 1263, but when, beginning with Duns Scotus (§§ 113, 112), the
doctrine of the immaculate conception came to be regarded as a
distinctive dogma of the order, the Dominicans felt called upon to
offer it their most strenuous opposition.310 (Continuation,
§ 112, 4.)―To the feast of All Saints, on 1st November, the
Cluniacs added in A.D. 998, the feast of All Souls on 2nd November,
for intercession of believers on behalf of the salvation of souls in
purgatory. In the 12th century the Feast of the Trinity was
introduced on the Sunday after Pentecost. Out of the
transubstantiation doctrine arose the Corpus Christi Festival, on
the Thursday after Trinity. A pious nun of Liège, Juliana, in
A.D. 1261, saw in a vision the full moon with a halo around it, and an
inward revelation interpreted this phenomenon to indicate that the
festal cycle of the church still wanted a festival in honour of the

eucharist. Urban IV. gave effect to this suggestion in A.D. 1264,
avowedly in consequence of the miracle of the mass of Bolsena. A
priest of Bolsena celebrating mass spilt a drop of consecrated wine,
which left a blood-red stain on the corporal or pall (§ 60, 5), in the
form of a host. The festival did not come into favour till Clement V.
renewed its institution at the Council of Vienne, in A.D. 1311. The
church, by order of John XXIII. in A.D. 1316, celebrated it by a
magnificent procession, in which the liburium was carried with all
pomp.

§ 104.8. The Veneration of Saints (§ 88, 4).―The numerous
Canonizations, from the 12th century exclusively in the hands of
the popes, gave an impulse to saint worship. It was the duty of
Advocatus diaboli to try to disprove the reports of virtues and
miracles attributed to candidates. The proofs of holiness adduced
were generally derived from thoroughly fabulous sources. The
introduction of the name of accepted candidates into the canon of
the mass gave rise to the term canonization. Beatification was a
lower degree of honour, often a preliminary to canonization at a
later period. It carried with it the veneration not of the whole
church, but of particular churches or districts. The Dominican
Jacobus a Voragine, who died in A.D. 1298, in his Legenda aurea
afforded a pattern for numerous late legends of the saints. A Parisian
theologian who styled it Legenda ferrea, was publicly expelled from
his office. The Veneration of Mary, to whom were rendered
Hyperdoulia in contradistinction from the Doulia of the saints, not
only among the people, but with the most cultured theologians,
publicly and privately, literally and figuratively, in prose and poetry,
was almost equal to the worship rendered to God, and indeed often
overshadowed it. The angel’s salutation (Luke i. 28) was in every
prayer. Its frequent repetition led to the use of the Rosary, a rose
wreath for the most blessed of women. The great rosary attributed to
St. Dominic has fifteen decades, or 150 smaller pearls of Mary, each
of which represents an Ave Maria, and after every ten there is a
greater Paternoster pearl. The small or common rosary has only five
decades of beads of Mary with a Paternoster bead for each decade.

Thrice repeated it forms the so-called Psalter of Mary. The first
appearance of the rosary in devotion was with the monk Macarius in
the 4th century, who took 300 stones in his lap, and after every
Paternoster threw one away. The rosary devotion is also practised by
Moslems and Buddhists. In cloisters, Saturday was usually
dedicated to the Mother of God, and was begun by a special
Officium S. Mariæ. May was called the month of Mary.―In the
11th century no further trace is found of the Frankish opposition to
Image Worship (§ 92, 1). But this in no way hindered the growth of
Relic Worship. Returning crusaders showered on the West
innumerable relics, which notwithstanding many sceptics were
received generally with superstitious reverence. Castles and estates
were often bartered for pretended relics of a distinguished saint, and
such treasures were frequently stolen at the risk of life. No story of a
trafficker in relics was too absurd to be believed.―Pilgrimages,
especially to Rome and Palestine, were no less in esteem among the
Western Christians of the 10th century during the Roman
pornocracy (§ 96, 1) or the tyranny of the Seljuk dynasty in
Palestine (§ 94). The expectation of the approaching end of the
world, rather gave them an impulse during this century, which
reached its fullest expression in the crusades.―Continuation,
§ 115, 9.

§ 104.9. The earliest trace of a commemoration of St. Ursula and
her 11,000 Virgins is met with in the 10th century. Excavations in
the Ager Ursulanus near Cologne in A.D. 1155 led to the discovery
of some thousand skeletons, several of them being those of males,
with inscribed tablets, one of the fictitious inscriptions referring to
an otherwise unknown pope Cyriæus. St. Elizabeth of Schönau
(§ 107, 1) at the same time had visions in which the Virgin gave her
authentic account of their lives. Ursula, the fair daughter of a British
king of the 3rd century, was to have married a pagan prince; she
craved three years’ reprieve and got from her father eleven ships,
each with an equipment of a thousand virgins, with which she sailed
up the Rhine to Basel, and thence with her companions travelled on
foot a pilgrimage to Rome. On her return, in accordance with the

Divine instruction, Pope Cyriæus accompanied her, whose name
was on this account struck out of the list by the offended cardinals;
for as Martinus Polonus says, Credebant plerique eum non propter
devotionem sed propter obtectamenta virginum papatum dimississe.
Near Cologne they met the army of the Huns, by whom they were
all massacred, at last even Ursula herself on her persistent refusal to
marry the barbaric chief.―In the absence of any historical
foundations for this legend, an explanation has been attempted by
identifying Ursula with a goddess of the German mythology. An
older suggestion is that perhaps an ancient inscription may have
given rise to the legend.311

§ 104.10. Hymnology.―The Augustan age of scholasticism was
that also of the composition of Latin hymns and sequences (§ 88, 2).
The most distinguished sacred poets were Odo of Clugny, king
Robert of France (Veni, sancte Spiritus, et emitte), Damiani,
Abælard, Hildebert of Tours, St. Bernard, Adam of St. Victor,312
Bonaventura, Aquinas, the Franciscan Thomas of Celano, A.D. 126O
(Dies iræ), and Jacopone da Todi, † A.D. 1306 (Stabat mater
dolorosa). The latter, an eccentric enthusiast and miracle-working
saint, called himself “Stultus propter Christum.” Originally a
wealthy advocate, living a life of revel and riot, he was led by the
sudden death of his young wife to forsake the world. He courted the
world’s scorn in the most literal manner, appearing in the public
market bridled like a beast of burden and creeping on all fours, and
at another time appearing naked, tarred and feathered at the
marriage of a niece. But he glowed with fervent love for the
Crucified and a fanatical veneration for the blessed Virgin. He also
fearlessly raised his voice against the corruption of the clergy and
the papacy, and vigorously denounced the ambition of
Boniface VIII. For this he was imprisoned and fed on bread and
water. When tauntingly asked, “When wilt thou come out?” he
answered in words that were soon fulfilled, “So soon as thou shall
come down.” Sacred Poetry in the vernacular was used only in
extra-ecclesiastical devotions. The oldest German Easter hymn

belongs to the 12th century.313 The Minnesingers of the
13th century composed popular songs of a religious character,
especially in praise of Mary; there were also sacred songs for
travellers, sailors, soldiers, etc. Heretics separated from the church
and its services spread their views by means of hymns. St. Francis
wrote Italian hymns, and among his disciples Fra Pacifico,
Bonaventura, Thomas of Celano, and Jacopone followed worthily in
his footsteps.

§ 104.11. Church Music (§ 88, 2).―The Gregorian Cantus firmus
soon fell into disfavour and disuetude. The rarity, costliness, and
corruption of the antiphonaries, the difficulty of their notation and
of their musical system, and the want of accurately trained singers,
combined to bring this about. Singers too had often made arbitrary
alterations. Hence alongside of the Cantus firmus there gradually
grew up a Discantus or Cantus figuratus, and instead of singing in
unison, singing in harmony was introduced. Rules of harmony,
concord, and intervals were now elaborated by the monk Hucbald of
Rheims about A.D. 900, while the German monk Reginus about
A.D. 920 and the abbot Opo of Clugny did much for the theory and
practice of music. In place of the intricate Gregorian notation the
Tuscan Benedictine Guido of Arezzo, A.D. 1000-1050, introduced
the notation that is still used, which made it possible to write the
harmony along with the melody, counterpoint, i.e. punctum contra
punctum. The discoverer of the measure of the notes was Franco of
Cologne about A.D. 1200. The organ was commonly used in
churches. The Germans were the greatest masters in its construction
and in the playing of it.―Continuation, § 115, 8.

§ 104.12. Ecclesiastical Architecture.―Church building, which the
barbarism of the 10th century, and the widespread expectation of the
coming end of the world had restrained, flourished during the
11th century in an extraordinary manner. The endeavour to infuse
the German spirit into the ancient style of architecture gave rise to
the Romance Style of Architecture, which prevailed during the
12th century. It was based upon the structure of the old basilicas, the

most important innovation being the introduction of the vaulted in
place of the flat wooden roof, which made the interior lighter and
heightened the perspective effect. The symbolical and fanciful
ornamentation was also richly developed by figures from the plants
and animals of Germany, from native legends. Towers were also
added as fingers pointing upward, sometimes over the entrance to
the middle aisle or at both sides of the entrance, sometimes over the
point where the nave and transepts intersected one another, or on
both sides of the choir. The finest specimens of this style were the
cathedrals of Spires, Mainz, and Worms. But alongside of this
appeared the beginnings of the so-called Gothic Architecture,
which reached its height in the 13th and 14th centuries. Here the
German ideas shook themselves free from the bondage of the old
basilica style. Retaining the early ground plan, its pointed arch
admitted of development in breadth and height to any extent. The
pointed arch was first learnt from the Saracens, but its application to
the Gothic architecture was quite original, because it was not as
with the Saracens decorative, but constructive. The blank walls were
changed into supporting pillars, and became a magnificent
framework for the display of ingenious window architecture. A rich
stone structure rose upon the cruciform ground plan, and the
powerful arches towered up into airy heights. Tall tapering pillars
symbolized the heavenward strivings of the soul. The rose window
over the portal as the symbol of silence teaches that nothing worldly
has a voice there. The gigantic peaked windows send through their
beautifully painted glass a richly coloured light full on the vast area.
Everything in the structure points upward, and this symbolism is
finally expressed in the lofty towers, which lose themselves in giddy
heights. The victory over the kingdom of darkness is depicted in the
repulsive reptiles, demonic forms, and dragon shapes which are
made to bear up the pillars and posts, and to serve as water carriers.
The wit of artists has made even bishops and popes perform these
menial offices, just as Dante condemned many popes to the infernal
regions.314

§ 104.13. The most famous architects were Benedictines. The
master builder along with the scholars trained by him formed
independent corporations, free from any other jurisdiction. They
therefore called themselves “Free Masons,” and erected “Lodges,”
where they met for consultation and discussion. From the
13th century these lodges fell more and more into the hands of the
laity, and became training schools of architecture. To them we are
largely indebted for the development of the Gothic style. Their most
celebrated works are the Cologne cathedral and the Strassburg
minster. The foundation of the former was laid under Archbishop
Conrad of Hochsteden in A.D. 1248; the choir was completed and
consecrated in A.D. 1322 (§ 174, 9). Erwin of Steinbach began the
building of the Strassburg minster in A.D. 1275.

§ 104.14. Statuary and Painting.―Under the Hohenstaufens
statuary, which had been disallowed by the ancient church, rose
into favour. Its first great master in Italy was Nicola Pisano, who
died in A.D. 1274. Earlier indeed a statuary school had been formed
in Saxony, of which no names but great works have come down to
us. The goldsmith’s craft and metallurgy were brought into the
service of the church by the German artists, and show not only
wonderful technical skill, but also high attainment in ideal art. In
Painting the Byzantines taught the Italians, and these again the
Germans. At the beginning of the 13th century there was a school of
painting at Pisa and Siena, claiming St. Luke as its patron, and
seeking to impart more life and warmth to the stiff figures of the
Byzantines. Their greatest masters were Guido of Siena and Giunta
of Pisa, and the Florentine Cimabue, † A.D. 1300. Mosaic painting
mostly on a golden ground was in favour in Italy. Painting on glass
is first met with in the beginning of the 11th century in the
monastery of Tegernsee in Bavaria, and soon spread over Germany
and all over Europe.315―Continuation, § 115, 13.

§ 105. National Customs and the National
Literature.

It was an age full of the most wonderful contradictions and
anomalies in the life of the people, but every phenomenon bore the
character of unquestionable power, and the church applied the
artificer’s chisel to the unhewn marble block. In club law the most
brutal violence prevailed, but bowed itself willingly or unwillingly
before the might of an idea. The basest sensuality existed alongside
of the most simple self-denial and renunciation of the world, the
most wonderful displays of self-forgetting love. The most sacred
solemnities were parodied, and then men turned in awful earnest to
manifest the profoundest anxiety for their soul’s salvation.
Alongside of unmeasured superstition we meet with the boldest
freethinking, and out of the midst of widespread ignorance and
want of culture there radiated forth great thoughts, profound
conceptions, and suggestive anticipations.

§ 105.1. Knighthood and the Peace of God.―Notwithstanding its
rude violence there was a deep religious undertone in knighthood,
which came out in Spain in the war with the Saracens, and
throughout Europe in the crusades. What princes could not do to
check savagery was to some extent accomplished by the church by
means of the injunction of the Peace of God. In A.D. 1034 the
severity of famine in France led to acts of cannibalism and murder,
which the bishops and synods severely punished. In A.D. 1041 the
bishops of Southern France enjoined the Peace of God, according to
which under threat of anathema all feuds were to be suspended from
Wednesday evening to Monday morning, as the days of the
ascension, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. At a later
council at Narbonne in A.D. 1054, Advent to Epiphany, Lent to eight
days after Easter, from the Sunday before Ascension to the end of

the week of Pentecost, as well as the ember days and the festivals of
Mary and the Apostles, were added. Even on other days, churches,
cloisters, hospitals, and churchyards, as well as priests, monks,
pilgrims, merchants, and agriculturists, in short, all unarmed men,
and, by the Council of Clermont, A.D. 1095, even all crusaders, were
included in the peace of God. Its healthful influence was felt even
outside of France, and at the 3rd Lateran Council in A.D. 1179
Alexander III. raised it to the rank of a universally applicable law of
the church.

§ 105.2. Popular Customs.―Superstition resting on old paganism
introduced a Christian mythology. In almost all the popular legends
the devil bore a leading part, and he was generally represented as a
dupe who was cheated out of his bargain in the end. The most
sacred things were made the subjects of blasphemous parodies. On
Fool’s Festival on New Year’s day in France, mock popes, bishops,
and abbots were introduced and all the holy actions mimicked in a
blasphemous manner. Of a similar nature was the Festum
innocentum (§ 57, 1) enacted by schoolboys at Christmas. Also at
Christmas time the so-called Feast of Asses was celebrated. At
Rouen dramatic representation of the prophecies of Christ’s birth
were given; at Beauvais, the flight into Egypt. This relic of pagan
license was opposed by the bishops, but encouraged by the lower
clergy. After bishops and councils succeeded in banishing these
fooleries from consecrated places they soon ceased to be celebrated.
Under the name of Calends, because their gatherings were on the
Calends of each month, brotherhoods composed of clerical and lay
members sprang up in the beginning of the 13th century throughout
Germany and France, devoting themselves to prayer and saying
masses for living and deceased members and relatives. This pious
purpose was indeed soon forgotten, and the meetings degenerated
into riotous carousings.

§ 105.3. Two Royal Saints.―St. Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew II.
of Hungary, married in her 14th year to St. Louis IV., Landgrave of
Thuringia, was made a widow in her 20th year by the death of her

husband in the crusade of Frederick II. in A.D. 1227, and thereafter
suffered many privations at the hand of her brother-in-law. Her
father confessor inspired her with a fanatical spirit of self denial.
She assumed in Marburg the garb of the Franciscan nuns, took the
three vows, and retired into a house of mercy, where she submitted
to be scourged by her confessor. There she died in her 24th year in
A.D. 1231. Her remains are credited with the performance of many
miracles. She was canonized by Gregory IX., in A.D. 1235, and in
the 14th century the order of Elizabethan nuns was instituted for
ministering to the poor and sick.316―St. Hedwig, aunt of Elizabeth,
married Henry duke of Silesia, in her 12th year. After discharging
her duties of wife, mother, and princess faithfully, she took along
with her husband the vow of chastity, and out of the sale of her
bridal ornaments built a nunnery at Trebnitz, where she died in
A.D. 1243 in her 69th year. Canonized in A.D. 1268, her remains were
deposited in the convent church, which became on that account a
favourite resort of pilgrims.

§ 105.4. Evidences of Sainthood.

1. Stigmatization. Soon after St. Francis’ death in A.D. 1226, the
legend spread that two years before, during a forty days’ fast in
the Apennines, a six-winged seraph imprinted on his body the
nail prints of the wounded Saviour. The saint’s humility, it was
said, prevented him speaking of the miracle except to those in
closest terms of intimacy. The papal bull canonizing the saint,
however, issued in A.D. 1228, knows nothing of this wonderful
occurrence. What was then told of the great saint was
subsequently ascribed to about 100 other ascetics, male and
female. Some sceptical critics attributed the phenomenon to an
impressionable temperament, others again accounted for all
such stories by assuming that they were purely fabulous, or that
the marks had been deceitfully made with human hands.
Undoubtedly St. Francis had made those wounds upon his own
body. That pain should have been felt on certain occasions in
the wounds may be accounted for, especially in the case of

females, who constituted the great majority of stigmatized
individuals, on pathological grounds.
2. Bilocation. The Catholic Church Lexicon, published in
A.D. 1882 (II. 840), maintains that it is a fact universally
believed that saints often appeared at the same time at places
widely removed from one another. Examples are given from
the lives of Anthony of Padua, Francis Xavier, Liguori, etc.
This is explained by the supposition that either God gives this
power to the saint or sends angels to assume his form in
different places.

§ 105.5. Religious Culture of the People.―Unsuccessful attempts
were made by the Hohenstaufens to institute a public school system
and compulsory education. Waldensians and such like (§ 108)
obtained favour by spreading instruction through vernacular
preaching, reading, and singing. The Dominicans took a hint from
this. The Council of Toulouse, A.D. 1229 (§ 109, 2), forbade laymen
to read the Scriptures, even the Psalter and Breviary, in the vulgar
tongue. Summaries of the Scripture history were allowed. Of this
sort was the Rhyming Bible in Dutch by Jacob of Maërlant,
† A.D. 1291, which gives in rhyme the O.T. history, the Life of Jesus,
and the history of the Jews to the destruction of Jerusalem. In the
13th century Rhyming Legends gave in the vernacular the
substance of the Latin Martyrologies. The oldest German example
in 3 bks. by an unknown author contains 100,000 rhyming lines, on
Christ and Mary, the Apostles and the saints in the order of the
church year. Still more effectively was information spread among
the people during the 11th and subsequent centuries by the
performance of Sacred Plays. From simple responsive songs they
were developed into regular dramas adapted to the different
festivals. Besides historical plays which were called
Mysteries=ministeria as representations of the Ministri eccl., there
were allegorical and moral plays called Moralities, in which moral
truths were personified under the names of the virtues and vices.

The numerous pictures, mosaics, and reliefs upon the walls helped
greatly to spread instruction among the people.317

§ 105.6. The National Literature (§ 89, 3).―Walter v. d.
Vogelweide, † A.D. 1230, sang the praises of the Lord, the Virgin,
and the church, and lashed the clerical vices and hierarchical
pretensions of his age. The 12th century editor of the pagan
Nibelungenlied gave it a slightly Christian gloss. Wolfram of
Eschenbach, however, a Christian poet in the highest sense, gave to
the pagan legend of Parcival a thoroughly Christian character in the
story of the Holy Grail and the Knights of the Round Table of King
Arthur. His antipodes as a purely secular poet was Godfrey of
Strassburg, whose Tristan and Isolt sets forth a thoroughly sensual
picture of carnal love; yet as the sequel of this we have a strongly
etherealized rhapsody on Divine love conceived quite in the spirit of
St. Francis.―The sprightly songs of the Troubadours of Southern
France were often the vehicle of heretical sentiments and gave
expression to bitter hatred of the Romish Babylon.318

§ 106. Church Discipline, Indulgences, and
Asceticism.

The ban, directed against notorious individual sinners and foes
of the church, and the interdict, directed against a whole country,
were formidable weapons which rarely failed in accomplishing
their purpose. Their foolishly frequent use for political ends by the
popes of the 13th century was the first thing that weakened their
influence. The penitential discipline of the church, too (§ 104, 4),
began to lose its power, when outward works, such as alms,
pilgrimages, and especially money fines in the form of indulgences
were prescribed as substitutes for it. Various protests against
prevailing laxity and formality were made by the Benedictines and
by new orders instituted during the 11th century. Strict asceticism
with self-laceration and mortification was imposed in many
cloisters, and many hermits won high repute for holiness. The
example and preaching of earnest monks and recluses did much to
produce a revival of religion and awaken a penitential enthusiasm.
Not satisfied with mortifying the body by prolonging fasts and
watchings, they wounded themselves with severe scourgings and
the wearing of sackcloth next the skin, and sometimes also brazen
coats of mail, heavy iron chains, girdles with pricks, etc.

§ 106.1. Ban and Interdict.―From the 9th century a distinction
was made between Excommunicatio major and minor. The latter,
inflicted upon less serious offences against the canon law, merely
excluded from participation in the sacrament. The former, called
Anathema, directed against hardened sinners with solemn
denunciation and the church’s curse, involved exclusion from all
ecclesiastical communion and even refusal of Christian burial.
Zealots who slew such excommunicated persons were declared by

Urban II. not to be murderers. Innocent III., at the 4th Lateran
Council A.D. 1215, had all civil rights withdrawn from
excommunicates and their goods confiscated. Rulers under the ban
were deposed and their subjects released from their oath of
allegiance. Bishops exercised the right of putting under ban within
their dioceses, and the popes over the whole church.―The Interdict
was first recognised as a church institution at the Synod of Limoges
in A.D. 1031. While it was in force against any country all bells were
silenced, liturgical services were held only with closed doors,
penance and the eucharist administered only to the dying, none but
priests, mendicant friars, strangers, and children under two years of
age received Christian burial, and no one could be married. Rarely
could the people endure this long. It was therefore a terrible weapon
in the hands of the popes, who not infrequently exercised it
effectually in their struggles with the princes of the 12th and
13th centuries.

§ 106.2. Indulgences.―The old German principle of composition
(§ 89, 5), and the Gregorian doctrine of purgatory (§ 61, 4), formed
the bases on which was reared the ordinance of indulgences. The
theory of the monks of St. Victor of the 12th century regarding
penitential satisfaction (§ 104, 4), gave an impetus to the
development of this institution of the church. It copestone was laid
in the 13th century by the formulating of the doctrine of the
superabundant merit of Christ and the saints (Thesaurus
supererogationis Christi et perfectorum) by Alexander of Hales,
Albert the Great, and Aquinas. The members of the body of Christ
could suffer and serve one for another, and thus Aquinas thought the
merits of one might lessen the purgatorial pains of another.
Innocent III., in A.D. 1215, allowed to bishops the right of limiting
the pains of purgatory to forty days, but claimed for the pope
exclusively the right of giving full indulgence (Indulgentia
plenaria). Clement VI. declared that the pope as entrusted with the
keys was alone the dispenser of the Thesaurus supererogationis.
Strictly indulgence was allowed only to the truly penitent, as an aid
to imperfect not a substitute for non-existent satisfaction. This was

generally ignored by preachers of indulgences. This was specially
the case in the times of the crusaders. Popes also frequently gave
indulgences to those who simply visited certain shrines.

§ 106.3. The Church Doctrine of the Hereafter.―All who had
perfectly observed every requirement of the penances and
sacraments of the church to the close of their lives had the gates of
Heaven opened to them. All others passed into the Lower World to
suffer either positively=sensus, inexpressible pains of fire, or
negatively=damnum, loss of the vision of God. There are four
degrees corresponding to four places of punishment. Hell, situated
in the midst of the earth, abyssus (Rev. xx. 1), is place and state of
eternal punishment for all infidels, apostates, excommunicates, and
all who died in mortal sin. The next circle is the purifying fire of
Purgatory, or a place of temporary punishment positive or negative
for all believing Christians who did not in life fully satisfy the three
requirements of the sacrament of penance (§ 104, 4). The Limbus
infantum is a side chamber of purgatory, where all unbaptized
infants are kept for ever, only deprived of blessedness in
consequence of original sin. Then above this is the Limbus Patrum,
“Abraham’s bosom,” where the saints of the Old Covenant await the
second coming of Christ.

§ 106.4. Flagellation.―From the 8th century discipline was often
exercised by means of scourging, administered by the confessor
who prescribed it. In the 11th century voluntary Self-Flagellation
was frequently practised not only as punishment for one’s own sin,
but, after the pattern of Christ and the martyrs, as atonement for sins
of others. It originated in Italy, had its great patron in Damiani
(§ 97, 4), and was earnestly commended by Bernard, Norbert,
Francis, Dominic, etc. It is reported of St. Dominic that he scourged
himself thrice every night, first for himself, and then for his living
companions, and then for the departed in purgatory. The zealous
Franciscan preachers were mainly instrumental in exerting an
enthusiasm for self-mortification among the people (§ 98, 4). About
A.D. 1225, Anthony of Padua attracted crowds who went about

publicly lashing themselves while singing psalms. Followers of
Joachim of Floris (§ 108, 5) as Flagellants rushed through all
Northern Italy in great numbers during A.D. 1260, preaching the
immediate approach of the end of the world.319

§ 107. Female Mystics.

Practical mysticism which concerned itself only with the
salvation of the soul, had many representatives among the women
of the 12th and 13th centuries. Among them it was specially
characterized by the prevalence of ecstatic visions, often
deteriorating into manifestations of nervous affections which
superstitious people regarded as exhibitions of miraculous power.
Examples are found in all countries, but especially in the
Netherlands, and the Rhine provinces, in France, Alsace and
Switzerland, in Saxony and Thuringia. Those whose visions
pointed to the inauguration of reforms are of particular interest to
us, as they often had a considerable influence on the subsequent
history of the church.

§ 107.1. Two Rhenish Prophetesses of the
12th Century.―St. Hildegard was founder and abbess of a cloister
near Bingen on the Rhine, where she died in A.D. 1178 in her
74th year. Grieving over clerical and papal corruptions, she had
apocalyptic visions of the antichrist, and travelled far and engaged
in an extensive correspondence in appealing for radical reforms.
St. Bernard and pope Eugenius III. who visited Treves in A.D. 1147
acknowledged her prophetic vocation, and the people ascribed to
her wonderful healing power.―Hildegard’s younger contemporary
was the like-minded St. Elizabeth of Schönau, abbess of the
neighbouring convent of Schönau, who died in A.D. 1165. Her
prophecies were mostly of the apocalyptic-visionary order, and in
them with still greater severity she lashed the corruptions of the
clergy. She also gave currency to the legend of St. Ursula (§ 104, 9).

§ 107.2. Three Thuringian Prophetesses of the
13th Century.―Mechthild of Magdeburg, after thirty years of

Beguine life, wrote in a beautiful rhythmical style in German her
“Light of Deity,” setting forth the sweetness of God’s love, the
blessedness of glorified saints, the pains of purgatory and hell, and
denouncing with great moral earnestness the corruptions of the
clergy and the church, and depicting with a poet’s or prophet’s
power the coming of the last day. Influenced by the apocalyptic
views of Joachim of Floris (§ 108, 5), she also gives expression to a
genuinely German patriotism. With her it is a new preaching order
that leads to victory against antichrist, and the founder of this order,
who meets a martyr’s death in the conflict, is a son of the Roman
king. In contrast with Joachim, she thus makes the German empire
not a foe but the ally of the church. Mechthild’s prophecies largely
influenced Dante, and even her name appears in that of his guide
Matilda.―Mechthild of Hackeborn, who died in A.D. 1310, in her
Speculum spiritualis gratiæ published her visions of a reformatory
and eschatological prophetic order, more subjective and personal
than those of the former.―Gertrude the Great, who died in
A.D. 1311, is more decidedly a reformer than either of the
Mechthilds or any other woman of the Middle Ages. A diligent
inquirer into the depths of Scripture, she renounced the veneration
usually shown to Mary, the saints, and relics, repudiated all the
ideas of her age regarding merits, ceremonial exercises, and
indulgences, and in the exercise of simple faith trusted only to the
grace of God in Christ. She seems to belong to the 16th rather than
to the 13th century. Her visions, too, are more of a spiritual kind.

V. Heretical Opposition to Ecclesiastical
Authority.

§ 108. The Protesters against the Church.

Mediæval endeavours after reform, partly proceeded from
within the church itself in attempts to restore apostolic purity and
simplicity, partly from without on the part of those who despaired
of any good coming out of the church, and who therefore warred
bitterly against it. Such attempts were often lost amid the vagaries
of fanaticism and heresy, which soon threatened the foundation of
the social fabric, and often came into collision with the State. Most
widely spread and most radical were the numerous dualistic sects
of the Cathari. Montanist fanaticism was revived in apocalyptic
prophesyings. There were also pantheistic sects, and among the
Pasagians a sort of Ebionism reappeared. Another group of sects
originated through reformatory endeavours of individual men, who
perceiving the utter corruption of the church of their day, sought
salvation in a revolutionary overthrow of all ecclesiastical
institutions and repudiated often the truth with the error which was
the object of their hate. The only protesting church of a thoroughly
sensible evangelical sort was that of the Waldensians.

§ 108.1. The Cathari.―Opposition to hierarchical pretensions led
to the spread of sects, especially in Northern Italy and France, from
the 11th century. Hidden remnants of Old Manichæan sects got new
courage and ventured into the light during the period of the
crusades. In France they were called Tisserands, because mostly
composed of weavers. In Italy they were called Patareni or Paterini,

either from the original meaning of the word, rabble, riff-raff
(§ 97, 5), or because they so far adopted the attitude of the Pasaria
of Milan, as to offer lay opposition to the local clergy, or because of
the frequent use of the Paternoster. Of later origin are the names
Publicani and Bulgări, given as opprobrious designations to the
Paulicians. The most widely current name of Cathari, from early
times a favourite title assumed by rigorist sects (§ 41, 3), had its
origin in the East. In France they were called Albigensians, from the
province of Albigeois, which was their chief seat in Southern
France.―Of the Writings of the Cathari we possess from the end
of the 13th century a Provençal translation of the N.T., free from all
falsification in favour of their sectarian views. Their tenets are to be
learnt only from the polemical writings of their opponents, Alanus
ab Insulis (§ 102, 5), the Dominican Joh. Moneta, about A.D. 1240,
and Rainerius, Sacchoni, Dominican and inquisitor, about A.D. 1250.

§ 108.2. Besides their opposition to the hierarchy, all these sects had
in common a dualistic basis to their theological systems. They held
in a more or less extreme form the following doctrines: The good
God who is proclaimed in the N.T. created in the beginning the
heavenly and invisible world, and peopled it with souls clothed in
ethereal bodies. The earthly world, on the other hand, is the work of
an evil spirit, who is held up as object of worship in the O.T.
Entering the heavenly world he succeeded in seducing some of its
inhabitants, whom he, when defeated by the archangel Michael,
took with him to earth, and there imprisoned in earthly bodies, so as
to make return to their heavenly home impossible. Yet they are
capable of redemption, and may, on repentance and submission to
purificatory ordinances, be again freed from their earthly bonds and
brought home again to heaven. For this redemption the good God
sent “the heavenly man” Jesus (1 Cor. xv. 47) to earth in the
appearance of man to teach men their heavenly origin and the means
of restoration. The Cathari rejected the O.T., but accepted the N.T.,
which they read in the vernacular. Marriage they regarded as a
hindrance to Christian perfection. They treated with contempt water
baptism, the Supper, and ordination, as well as all veneration of

saints and relics, and tolerated no images, crosses, or altars. Prayer,
abstinence, and baptism of the Spirit were regarded as the only
means of salvation. Preaching was next to prayer most prominent in
their public services. They also laid great stress upon fasting,
genuflection, and repetitions of stated formulæ, especially the
Lord’s Prayer. Their members were divided into Cregentz (credentes
or catechumens) and Bos homes or Bos crestias (boni homines, boni
Christiani=perfecti or electi). A lower order of the catechumens
were the Auditores. These were received as Credentes after a longer
period of training amid various ceremonies and repetition of the
Lord’s prayer, etc. The order of the Perfecti was entered by spiritual
baptism, the Consolamentum or communication of the Holy Spirit
as the promised Comforter, without which no one can enjoy eternal
life. Even opponents such as St. Bernard admit that there was great
moral earnestness shown by some of them, and many met a martyr’s
death with true Christian heroism. Symptoms of decay appeared in
the spread among them of antinomian practices. This moral
deterioration showed itself as a radical part of this system in the so-
called Luciferians or devil worshippers, whose dualism, like that of
the Euchites and Bogomils (§ 71), led to the adoption of two Sons
of God. Lucifer the elder, wrongly driven from heaven, is the
creator and lord of this earthly world, and hence alone worshipped
in it. His expulsion (Isa. xiv. 12) is carried out by the younger son,
Michael, who will, however, on this account, whenever Lucifer
regains heaven, be sent with all his company into eternal
punishment. Of an incarnation of God, even of a docetic kind, they
know nothing. They regarded Jesus as a false prophet who was
crucified on account of the evil he had done.―Catharist sects
suspected of Manichæan tendencies were discovered here and there
during the 11th century. In the following century their number had
increased enormously, and they spread over Lombardy and Southern
France, but were also found in Southern Italy, in Germany, Belgium,
Spain, and even in England. They had a pope residing in Bulgaria,
twelve magistri and seventy-two bishops, each with a Filius major
and minor at his side. In A.D. 1167 they were able to muster an
œcumenical Catharist Council at Toulouse. Neither clemency nor

severity could put them down. St. Bernard prevailed most by the
power of his love, and subsequently learned Dominicans had more
effect with their preaching and disputations. They found abundant
opportunity of displaying their hatred of the papacy during the
struggles of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. In spite of terrible
persecution, which reached its height in the beginning of the
13th century in the Albigensian crusade (§ 109, 1), remnants of
them were found down into the 14th century.

§ 108.3. The small sect of the Pasagians in Lombardy during the
12th century, protesting against the Manichæan depreciation of the
O.T. of the Catharists, adopted views of a somewhat Ebionite
character. With the exception of sacrifice, they enforced all the old
ceremonial observances, even circumcision, and held an Arian or
Ebionite theory of the Person of Christ. Their name meaning
“passage,” seems to refer to pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and
possibly from this a clue to their origin may be obtained.

§ 108.4. Pantheistic Heretics.

1. Amalrich of Bena taught first philosophy, then theology, at
Paris in the end of the 12th century. In A.D. 1204 Innocent III.
called him to account for his proposition, Christian in sound,
but probably pantheistically intended, that no one could be
saved who is not a member in Christ’s body, and obliged him to
retract. His death occurred soon after, and some years later we
find traces of a pantheistic sect founded on the alleged
doctrines of Amalrich vigorously propagated by his disciple
William the goldsmith. God had previously appeared as Father
incarnate in Abraham, and as Son in Christ, and now
henceforth as the Holy Spirit in every believer, who therefore
in the same sense as Christ is God. As such, too, he is without
sin, and what to others would be sin is not so to him. In the age
of the Son the Mosaic law lost its validity, and in that of the
Spirit, the sacraments and services of the new covenant. God
has always been all in all. We find him in Ovid as well as in

Augustine, and the body of Christ is in common bread as well
as in the consecrated wafer on the altar. Saint worship is
idolatry. There is no resurrection; heaven and hell exist only in
the imagination of men. Rome is Babylon, and the pope is
antichrist; but to the king of France, after the overthrow of
antichrist, shall the kingdoms of the earth be subject, etc. A
synod at Paris in A.D. 1209 condemned William and nine priests
to be burnt, and four other priests to imprisonment for life, and
ordered that Amalrich’s bones should be exhumed and scattered
over an open field. Regarding the physical works of Aristotle as
the source of this heresy, the council also prohibited all lectures
upon these (§ 103, 1). This was seen to be a mistake, and so in
A.D. 1225 Honorius III. fixed on the true culprit and condemned
the De divisione naturæ of Erigena (§ 90, 6). The penalties
inflicted did not by any means lead to the rooting out of the
sect. During the whole 13th century it continued to spread from
Paris over all eastern France as far as Alsace, Switzerland, and
the Netherlands, and in the 14th century reached its highest
development in the pantheistic-libertine doctrines of the
Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5). We never
again meet with the name of Amalrich, and the sects were
never called after him.
2. David of Dinant at the same time with Amalrich taught
philosophy and theology in the University of Paris. He also
lived for a long while at the papal court in Rome, high in
favour with Innocent III. as a subtle dialectician. The Synod of
Paris of A.D. 1209, which passed judgment on the Amalricians,
pronounced David a heretic and ordered his works to be burnt.
He avoided personal punishment by flight. The central point of
his system was the assumption of a single eternal substance
without distinctions, from which God, spirit (νοῦς), and matter
(ὕλη) sprang as the three principles of all later forms of
existences (corpora, animæ, and substantiæ æternæ). God is
regarded as the primum efficiens, matter as the primum
suscipiens, and spirit as the medium between the two. David’s

scholars never formed a sect and never had any connection
apparently with the followers of Amalrich.
3. The Ortlibarians were a sect condemned by Innocent III.,
followers of a certain Ortlieb of Strassburg about A.D. 1212.
They held the world to be without beginning. They looked
upon Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary, sinless like all other
children, but raised to be son of God only through illumination
from the doctrines of their sect, which had existed from the
earliest times. They admitted the gospel story of Christ’s life,
sufferings, and resurrection, not, however, in a literal but only
in a moral and mystical acceptation. The consecrated host was
but common bread, and in it was the body of the Lord. A Jew
entering their sect needed not to be baptized, and fellowship
with them was sufficient to secure salvation. There is no
resurrection of the flesh; man’s spirit alone is immortal. After
the last judgment, which will come when pope and emperor are
converted to their views and all opposition is overcome, the
world will last for ever, and men will be born and die just as
now. They professed a strictly ascetic life, and many of them
fasted every second day.

§ 108.5. Apocalyptic Heretics.―The Cistercian abbot Joachim of
Floris, who died in A.D. 1202, with his notions of the so called
“Everlasting Gospel,” as a reformer and as one inclined to
apocalyptic prophecy, followed in the footsteps of Hildegard of
Bingen and Elizabeth of Schönau (§ 107, 1). His prophetic views
spread among the Franciscans and were long unchallenged. In
A.D. 1254 the University of Paris, warning against the begging
monks (§ 103, 3), got Alexander IV. to condemn these views as set
forth in commentaries on Isaiah and Jeremiah ascribed to Joachim,
but now found to be spurious. Preger doubts but, Reuter maintains
the genuineness of the three tracts grouped under the title of the
Evangelium æternum. The main points in his theory seem to have
been these: There are three ages, that of the Father in the O.T., of the
Son in the N.T., and of the Holy Spirit in the approaching fulness of

the kingdom of God on earth. Of the apostles, Peter is representative
of the first age, Paul of the second, and John of the third. They may
also be characterized as the age of the laity, the clergy, and the
monks, and compared in respect of light with the stars, the moon,
and the sun. The first six periods of the N.T. age are divided (after
the pattern of the forty-two generations of Matt. i. and the forty-two
months or 1260 days of Rev. xi. 2, 3) into forty-two shorter periods
of thirty years each, so that the sixth period closes with A.D. 1260,
and then shall dawn the Sabbath period of the New Covenant as the
age of the Holy Spirit. This will be preceded by a short reign of
antichrist as a punishment for the corruptions of the church and
clergy. By the labours of the monks, however, the church is at last
purified and brought forth triumphant, and the life of holy
contemplation becomes universal. The germs of antichrist were
evidently supposed to lie in the Hohenstaufen empire of Frederick I.
and Henry VI. The commentaries on Isaiah and Jeremiah went so
far as to point to the person of Frederick II. as that of the antichrist.

§ 108.6. Ghibelline Joachites in Italy, mostly recruited from the
Franciscans, sided with the emperor against the pope and adopted
apocalyptic views to suit their politics, and regarded the papacy as
the precursor of antichrist. One of their chiefs, Oliva, who died in
A.D. 1297, wrote a Postilla super Apoc., in which he denounced the
Roman church of his day as the Great Whore of Babylon, and his
scholar Ubertino of Casale saw in the beast that rose out of the sea
(Rev. xiii.) a prophetic picture of the papacy.―In Germany these
views spread among the Dominicans during the 13th century,
especially in Swabia. The movement was headed by one Arnold.
who wrote an Epistola de correctione ecclesiæ about A.D. 1246. He
finds in Innocent IV. the antichrist and in Frederick II. the
executioner of the Divine judgment and the inauguration of the
reformation. Frederick’s death, which followed soon after in
A.D. 1250, and the catastrophe of A.D. 1268 (§ 96, 20), must have put
an end to the whole movement.

§ 108.7. Revolutionary Reformers.

1. The Petrobrusians, whose founder, Peter of Bruys, was a
pupil of Abælard and a priest in the south of France, repudiated
the outward or visible church and sought the true or invisible
church in the hearts of believers. He insisted on the destruction
of churches and sanctuaries because God could be worshipped
in a stable or tavern, burnt crucifixes in the cooking stove,
eagerly opposed celibacy, mass, and infant baptism, and after a
twenty years’ career perished at the stake about A.D. 1126 at the
hands of a raging mob. One of Peter’s companions, Henry of
Lausanne, whose fiery eloquence had been influential in
inciting to reform, succeeded to the leadership of the
Petrobrusians, who from him were called Henricians.
St. Bernard succeeded in winning many of them back. Henry
was condemned to imprisonment for life, and died in A.D. 1149.
2. Arnold of Brescia, who died in A.D. 1155, a preacher of great
moral and religious earnestness, addressed himself to attack the
worldliness of the church and the papacy. Except in
maintaining that sacraments dispensed by unworthy priests
have no efficacy, he does not seem to have deviated from the
church doctrine. Officiating as reader in his native town, his
bishop complained of him as a heretic to the second Lateran
Council of A.D. 1139. His views were condemned, and he
himself was banished and enjoined to observe perpetual
silence. He now went to his teacher Abælard in France. Here
St. Bernard accused him at the synod convened against
Abælard at Sens in A.D. 1141 (§ 102, 2) as “the armour-bearer”
of this “Goliath-heretic,” and obtained the condemnation of
both. He was then excommunicated by Innocent II. and
imprisoned in a cloister. Arnold, however, escaped to
Switzerland, where he lived and taught undisturbed in Zürich
for some years, till Bishop Hermann of Constance, at the
instigation of the Saint of Clairvaux, threatened him with
imprisonment or exile. He was now taken under the protection
of Guido de Castella, Abælard’s friend and patron, and
accompanied him to Bohemia and Moravia. On Guido’s

elevation as Cœlestine II. to the papal chair in A.D. 1143, Arnold
returned to his native land. From A.D. 1146 we find him in
Rome at the head of the agitation for political and ecclesiastical
freedom. For further details of his history, see § 96, 13, 14. A
party of so-called Arnoldists occupied itself long after his death
with the carrying out of his ecclesiastico-political ideal.

§ 108.8.

1. The so called Pastorelles were roused to revolution by the
miseries following the crusades. An impulse was given to the
sect by the news of the imprisonment of St. Louis (§ 94, 6). A
Cistercian Magister Jacob from Hungary appeared in
A.D. 1251 with the announcement that he had seen the Mother
of God, who gave him a letter calling upon the pastors to
rescue the Holy Sepulchre. Those who have heard the
Christmas message are called of God to undertake the great
work which neither the corrupt hierarchy nor the proud,
ambitious nobles were able to perform; but before them, the
poor shepherds, the sea will open a way, so that they may
hasten with dry feet to the release of king Louis. His fanatical
harangues soon gathered immense crowds of common people
around him, estimated at about 100,000 men. But instead of
going to the Holy Land, they first gave vent to their wrath
against the clergy, monks, and Jews at home by murdering,
plundering, and ill treating them in all manner of ways. The
queen-mother Blanca, favourable at first, now used all her
power against them. Jacob was slain at Bourges, his troops
scattered, and their leaders executed.
2. In the Apostolic Brothers we have a blending of Arnoldist and
Joachist tendencies. Their founder, Gerhard Segarelli, an
artisan of Parma, was moved about A.D. 1260 by the sight of a
picture of the apostles in their poverty to go about preaching
repentance and calling on the church to return to apostolic
simplicity. He did not question the doctrine of the church. Only

when Honorius in A.D. 1286 and Nicholas IV. in A.D. 1290 took
measures against them did they openly oppose the papacy and
denounce the Roman church as the apocalyptic Babylon.
Segarelli was seized in A.D. 1294 and perished in the flames
with many of his followers in A.D. 1300. Fra Dolcino, a
younger priest, now took the leadership, and roused great
enthusiasm by his preaching against the Roman antichrist. He
bravely held his ground with 2,000 followers for two years in
the recesses of the mountains, but was reduced at last in
A.D. 1307 by hunger, and died like his predecessor at the stake.
He distinguished four stages in the historical development of
the kingdom of God on earth. The first two are those of the
Father and the Son in the O.T. and the N.T. The third begins
with Constantine’s establishment of the Christian empire,
advanced by the Benedictine rule and the reforms of the
Franciscans and Dominicans, but afterwards falling into decay.
The fourth era of complete restoration of the apostolic life is
inaugurated by Segarelli and Dolcino. A new chief sent of God
will rule the church in peace, and the Holy Spirit will never
leave the restored communion of His saints. Remnants of the
sect were long in existence in France and Germany, where they
united with the Fraticelli and Beghards. Even in A.D. 1374 we
find a synod at Narbonne threatening them with the severest
punishments.

§ 108.9. Reforming Enthusiasts.

1. A certain Tanchelm about A.D. 1115 preached in the
Netherlands against the corruptions of the church. He claimed
like honour with Christ as being assisted by the same Spirit, is
said to have betrothed himself to the Virgin Mary, and to have
been killed at last in A.D. 1124 by a priest.
2. A Frenchman, Eon de Stella of Brittany, hearing in a church
the words “per Eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et
mortuos,” and understanding it of his own name, went through

the country preaching, prophesying, and working miracles. He
secured many followers, and when persecuted, fled to the
woods. He denied the Divine institution of the hierarchy,
denounced the Roman church as false because of the wicked
lives of the priests, rejected the doctrine of a resurrection of the
body, denied that marriage was a sacrament, and regarded the
communication of the Spirit by imposition of hands the only
true baptism. In A.D. 1148 troops were sent against him, and he
and many of his followers were taken prisoners. His adherents
were burnt, but Eon was brought before a synod at Rheims,
where he answered the question of the pope Eugenius III.,
“Who art thou?” by saying Is qui venturus est, etc. He was then
pronounced deranged and delivered over to the custody of the
archbishop.

§ 108.10. The Waldensians.

1. Their Origin.―A citizen of Lyons, named Valdez (Valdesius,
Waldus, the Christian name of Peter, given to him first
120 years later, is quite unsupported), who had become rich by
the practice of usury, an occupation condemned by the church,
was about A.D. 1173 deeply impressed by reading the legend of
St. Alexius, and was in his spiritual anxiety directed by a
theologian to the words of Christ to the rich young ruler in
Matthew xix. 21. Making over to his wife only his landed
property, and distributing all the rest of his possessions among
the poor, and then, for further instruction in regard to the
imitation of Christ required of him, having applied himself to
the study of the gospels, the Psalter, and other biblical books,
and a selection of classical passages translated for his use by
two friendly priests out of the writings of the Fathers into the
Romance dialect, he founded in A.D. 1177, in company with
certain men and women, who were prepared like himself to
abandon the world and all its goods, a society for preaching the
gospel among the people. In accordance with the Lord’s
command to the seventy disciples (Luke x. 1-4), they went

forth two and two in apostolic costume, in woollen penitential
garments, without staff or scrip, their feet protected with
merely wooden sandals (sabatas, sabots), preaching
repentance, and proclaiming the gospel message of salvation
throughout the land, in order to bring back again among the
people the Christian life in its purity and simplicity. The
Archbishop of Lyons prohibited their preaching; but they
referred to Acts v. 29, and appealed, praying for a confirmation
of their association, to the Third Lateran Council of A.D. 1179,
under Alexander III., which, however, scornfully dismissed
their appeal. As they nevertheless still continued to preach,
Pope Lucius III., at the Council of Verona, in A.D. 1184, laid
them under the ban. They had hitherto no intention of offering
any sort of opposition to the doctrine, worship, or constitution
of the Catholic church. Even the Catholic authorities did not so
much take offence at what they preached but rather only at this,
that they without ecclesiastical call and authority had assumed
the function of preaching. Innocent III., also, admitted the
imprudence of his predecessor, and favoured the plan of a
Waldensian who had left his brethren to transform the
association of the Pauperes de Lugduno into the monastic-like
lay union of Pauperes Catholici, to which in A.D. 1208 he
assigned the duties of preaching, expounding Scripture, and
holding meetings for edification under episcopal supervision.
But this concession came too late. Since the church had itself
broken off the fetters which had previously bound them to the
traditional faith of the Catholic church, the Leonists had gone
too far upon the path of evangelical freedom to be satisfied
with any such terms. Innocent now renewed the ban against
them at the Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215. Of the later
life and work of the founder we know with certainty only this,
that he made extensive journeys in the interests of his cause.
Even during his lifetime (he died probably about A.D. 1217) the
members (socii) of the society (Societas Valdesiana) founded
by him had spread themselves in great numbers over the whole
of the south of France, the east of Spain, the north of Italy, and

the south of Germany, and had even crossed the Channel into
England. They were named, in accordance with their
fundamental principle, as well as from the starting point of
their apostolic mission, Pauperes de Lugduno or
Leonistæ=from Lyons, also from the covering of their feet,
Sabatati; but they styled themselves among one another fratres
and sorores, and their adherents among the people amici and
amicæ; while the Catholic polemical writers, who for a similar
class among the Cathari had employed the distinctive terms
Perfecti and Credentes, made use of these designations in
treating of the Waldensians. The latter continue “in the world,”
that is, in the exercise of their family duties, and the discharge
of civil obligations, and all the positions and entanglements
connected therewith; while the former devoted themselves to a
celibate life, to absolute poverty, to incessant preaching from
place to place, and to unconditional refusal of all oathtaking,
and a literal acceptance of all the precepts of the Sermon on the
Mount, involving the rejection of any sort of fixed residence,
and on the basis of Luke x. 7, 8, any handiwork that would earn
for them the necessaries of life. They had their own ministri for
the administration of the sacraments; but these were elected
only ad tempus, namely once a year, simply for the discharge
of that duty. At the head of the whole community down to his
death stood the founder himself. He led the entire movement,
received new members into the societas, and chose and
ordained the ministri.―The two most important sources for the
primitive history of the Waldensian movement, mutually
supplementing one another, are, the Chronicon Laudunense of
an unnamed canon of Laon in the Mon. Germ. Scrr. xxvi. 447,
and the tract De Septem Donis Spir. S. of the inquisitor Stephen
de Borbone, who died A.D. 1261, which is given in full in de la
Marche, Anecdotes historiques, etc., Paris, 1877.

§ 108.11.

1. Their Divisions.―One of the oldest, most important, and most
reliable sources of information regarding the affairs of the old
Waldensians was first published by Preger in 1875, in his
Beiträge z. Gesch. d. Waldensier im MA., namely, an epistle
embodied by the “anonymous writer of Passau” in his heretic
catalogue, from the “Poor Men of Italy” to their fellow
believers in Germany, ad Leonistas in Alamannia, in which
they give a report of the proceedings at a convention held at
Bergamo in A.D. 1218, with the deputies from “the
ultramontane,” that is, the French, “Poor Men.” On the basis of
this communication Preger has contested the view that the
“Poor Men of Italy” were the Waldensians, and traces their
origin rather to the working men’s association of the Humiliati
that had already sprung up in the eleventh century (§ 98, 7),
which having even before this, by adopting Arnoldist ideas,
become estranged from the Catholic church, came also into
connection with Valdez, appropriated many of his opinions, and
then entered into fraternal relations with the French
Waldesians. This theory, as also no less the explanations
connected therewith of the constitutional and doctrinal
differences of the two parties, has been proved by Carl Müller
in his Die Waldensier u. ihre einzelne Gruppen bis Auf d. 14.
Jhd. to be in many particulars untenable, and he has shown that
the Waldensian origin of “the Poor Men of Lombardy” is
witnessed to even by this epistle. The results of his researches
are in the main as follows: The movement set on foot in
A.D. 1177 by Valdez of Lyons in the direction of an apostolic
walk and conversation was transplanted at a very early period
into northern Italy, and found there a favourable reception,
especially in the ranks of the Humiliati. These, too, as well as
Valdez, in A.D. 1179, approached Alexander III. with the prayer
to authorize their entering on such a vocation, but were also
immediately repulsed, attached themselves then to the “Poor
Men of Lyons,” submitting to the monarchical rule of their
founder, and along with them, in A.D. 1184, fell under the papal
ban. Yet among the Lombards a strong craving after greater

independence and freedom soon found expression, which
asserted itself most decidedly in the claim to the right of their
own independent choice and ordination of lifelong organs of
government for their society, as well as for priestly services,
which, however, Valdez, fearing a dissolution of the whole
society from the granting of such partial independence,
answered with a decided refusal. With equal decision did he
insist upon the disbanding of those workmen’s associations for
common production, which the Lombards, as formerly the
Humiliati, formed from the laymen belonging to them, and
forbade them even engaging in any handicraft which they had
hitherto pursued alongside of their spiritual vocations, as
inconsistent with the apostolic life according to the
prescriptions of Christ in Luke x. Thus it came about, in
consequence of the unyielding temper of both parties, that there
was a formal split; for the Lombards appointed their own
independent præpositus, who, just like their ministri charged
with the conduct of worship, held office for life. In the course
of the year the split widened through the adoption of other
divergences on the part of the Lombards. Yet after the death of
the founder, about A.D. 1217 they entered upon negotiations
about a reunion, which found a hearty response also among the
French. By means of epistolary explanations a basis for union
in regard to those questions which had occasioned the
separation had already been attained unto. The French granted
to the Lombards independent election and ordination of their
ministers for church government and worship, and allowed the
appointment to be for life, while they also agreed to the
continuance of their workmen’s associations. In May,
A.D. 1218, six brethren from the two parties were at Bergamo
appointed to draw up definite terms of peace, and to secure a
verbal explanation of other less important differences, which
was also accomplished without difficulty. The whole peace
negotiations, however, were ultimately shattered over two
questions, which first came to the front during the verbal
explanations: (i.) Over the question of the felicity of the

deceased founder, which the Lombards were disposed to affirm
only conditionally, i.e. in case he had been penitent before his
death for the sins of which he had been guilty through his
intolerant treatment of them, while the French would have it
affirmed unconditionally; and (ii.) over the controversy about
the validity of the dispensation of the sacrament of the altar by
an unworthy person. On both sides they were thoroughly
agreed in saying that not the priest, but the omnipotence of
God, changed bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper into the
body and blood of Christ. But while the French drew from this
the conclusion that even an unworthy and wicked priest could
truly and effectually administer the sacrament, the Italians
persisted in the contrary opinion, and quoted Scripture and the
writings of the Fathers to prove the correctness of their views.

§ 108.12.

1. Attempts at Catholicizing.―On the origin, character, and task
of the Pauperes Catholici referred to above, the epistles of
Pope Innocent III. regarding them afford us pretty accurate and
detailed information. The first impulse toward their formation
was given by a disputation with the French Waldensians held
by Bishop Diego of Osma at Pamiers in A.D. 1206, by means of
which he succeeded, aided by the powerful co-operation of his
companion St. Dominic, in persuading a number of the heretics
to return to the obedience of the Catholic church. Among those
converted on that occasion was the Spaniard Durandus of Osca
(Huesca), who now laid before the pope the plan of forming
from among the converted Waldensians a society of Catholic
Poor Men under the oversight of the bishops, which, by
appropriating and carrying out all the fundamental principles of
the Waldensian system―apostolic poverty, apostolic dress,
apostolic life, and apostolic vocation, according to
Luke x.―would not only paralyse or outbid the ministry of the
heretical Poor Men among the people, but would also open up
the way for their own return and attachment again to the

church. The pope approved of his plan, and confirmed the
union founded by him in A.D. 1208. The undertaking of
Durandus seems to have been from the first not altogether
without success in the direction intended. At least we find that
Bernard Primus was encouraged one and a half years later to
found a second similar society on essentially the same basis,
which Innocent III. approved and confirmed. This later
association was distinguished from the earlier only in this, that
it allowed its members, besides their itinerant preaching and
pastoral work, to engage also in their own handicraft. We are
now led, by this difference, to the conclusion that, as the
institution of Durandus issued from the bosom of the French
Waldensians, that of Bernard had its origin among the groups
of the Poor Men of Lombardy. This supposition is further
confirmed when we observe that the latter, in drawing up its
Catholic confession of faith, expressly abjures the formerly
cherished conviction of the inefficacy of sacramental actions
performed by unworthy priests. But the reason why both these
unions, notwithstanding papal approval and support, failed to
exert any permanent influence is to be sought pre-eminently in
this, that, tainted as their reputation was with the memory of
their former heresy, they were soon far outrun and
overshadowed by the two great mendicant orders, which
wrought with ampler means and appliances in the same
direction.

§ 108.13.

1. The French Societies.―What these found fault with in the
Catholic church was, not its dogmatics, to which, with the
single exception of the doctrine of purgatory and all therewith
connected, indulgence, masses for souls, foundations, alms, and
works of piety on behalf of the dead, they firmly adhered; nor
yet its liturgical institutions, which, with the exception of
masses for souls, they left untouched; nor yet its hierarchical
constitutions per se, for they transferred its leading principles

into their own organization: but it was simply this, that its
clergy had become guilty of the deadly sin of assuming and
exercising the apostolic prerogative without undertaking the
obligations of apostolic poverty, the apostolic life, and the
apostolic vocation, which alone warranted such assumption.
But as they thus, nevertheless, firmly adhered to the Catholic
principle of the validity of a sacrament administered even by an
unworthy person, if only he had authority for doing so from the
church, they could allow themselves, and specially their lay
adherents, to take part in all Catholic services and acts of
worship, without regarding themselves or their followers as
under obligation to yield obedience to the pope and the
bishops, or to recognise their spiritual jurisdiction, authority to
inflict punishment, and right of arbitrary legislation in regard to
fasts, festivals, impediments to marriage, etc.―As to the
organization of the society, it is now perfectly clear that there
was a threefold division of offices: bishops, presbyters, and
deacons. Reception into the Societas Fratrum was
consummated by the imparting of the ordination of deacon.
This, however, was preceded by a longer or shorter novitiate,
i.e. a period of trial and preparation for the apostolic vocation
of preaching. The entrance into this novitiate (conversio)
required the surrender of all property for the benefit of the
poor, and on the part of those already married the abandonment
of every form of marital relationship; and on reception into the
brotherhood the vow of obedience to the superiors was exacted,
as well as a vow of celibacy and chastity.―To the bishop, who
as such was also called minister and major or majoralis,
belonged the right to administer the sacraments of penance and
ordination, as well as the consecration of the eucharistic
elements; he might preach wherever he chose, and he assigned
to presbyters and deacons their spheres of labour. The
presbyters, in addition to preaching, also heard confessions,
imposed penance, and granted absolution, but did not
administer the punishments imposed, for this was the exclusive
function of the bishop.―The deacons were only to preach, but