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History of the Christian Church

VOLUME 6 The Middle Ages, the Decline of the Papacy and the Preparation for Modern Christianity from Boniface VIII to the , AD 1294 to 1517

By Philip Schaff

CH609

Chapter 9: The Pulpit and Popular Piety

History of the Christian Church Volume 6 The Middle Ages, the Decline of the Papacy and the Preparation for Modern Christianity from Boniface VIII to the Reformation, AD 1294 to 1517

CH609 Table of Contents

Chapter 9. The Pulpit and Popular Piety ...... 2 6.72. Literature ...... 2 6.73. The Clergy ...... 4 6.74. Preaching ...... 9 6.75. Doctrinal Reformers ...... 13 6.76. Girolamo Savonarola ...... 15 6.77. The Study and Circulation of the Bible ...... 32 6.78. Popular Piety ...... 38 6.79. Works of Charity ...... 45 6.80. The Sale of Indulgences ...... 50

excerpts from their writings.—HERGENROETHER- Chapter 9. The Pulpit and Popular KIRSCH, II., 1047–1049.—JANSSEN-PASTOR: I. Piety 745–747.—HARNACK: Dogmengesch., III. 518, etc.—LOOFS: Dogmengesch., 4th ed., 655– 6.72. Literature 658.—For GOCH: HisDe libertate christ., etc., ed. For §§73, 74.—The works of Erasmus, Colet, by Corn. Graphaeus, Antw., 1520–1523.—O. Tyndale, Geller of Strassburg and other CLEMEN: Joh. Pupper von Goch, Leip., 1896 and sources quoted in the notes.—LEA: Hist. of Cler. artt. In Herzog, VI. 740–743, and In Wetzer- Celibacy. Also Hist. of Span. Inq.—Histt. Of The Welte, VI. 1678–1684.—For Wesel: his Adv. Engl. Ch. by CAPES and GAIRDNERTRAILL: Social indulgentias in Walch’s Monumenta medii aevi Hist. of Engl., vol. II.—SEEBOHM: Oxf. Goetting., 1757.—The proceedings of his trial, Reformers.—GASQUET: The Old Engl. Bible and in AENEAS SYLVIUS: Commentarium de concilio Other Essays, Lond., 2d ed., 1907. Also The Eve Basileae and D’ARGENTRÉ: Col. Nov. judiciorum of the Reformation, pp. 245 sqq.—CRUEL: de erroribus novis, , 1755, and BROWNE: Gesch. d. deutschen Predigt, im MA, pp. 431– Fasciculus, 2d ed., Lond., 1690.—Artt. in 663, Detmold, 1879.—KOLDE: D. relig. Leben in Herzog by CLEMEN, xxi, 127–131, and Wetzer- Erfurt am Ausgange d. MA, 1898.—LANDMANN: Welte, VI. 1786–1789.—For WESSEL: 1st ed. of D. Predigttum in Westphalen In d. letzten his works Farrago rerum theol., a collection of Zeiten d. MA, pp. 256.—SCHOEN: art. Predigt in his tracts, appeared in the about Herzog, XV. 642–656. JANSSEN-PASTOR: Hist. of 1521, 2d ed., Wittenb., 1522, containing the Ger. People, vol. I.—PASTOR: Gesch. d. Luther’s letter, 3d and 4th edd., , 1522, Paepste, I. 31 sqq., Ill. 133 sqq.—HEFELE- 1523. Complete ed. of his works containing HERGENROETHER: Conciliengesch., vol. VIII. Life, by A. HARDENBERG (preacher in Bremen, d. For 6.75.—ULLMANN: Reformers before the 1574), , 1614.—MUURLING: Reformation, 2 vols., Hamb., 1841 sq., 2d ed., Commentatio historico-Theol. de Wesseli cum Gotha, 1866, Engl. trsl, 2 vols., Edinb., 1855; vita tum meritis, Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1831; Also J. Wessel, ein Vorgaenger Luthers, Hamb., also de Wesseli principiis ac virtutibus, 1834.—GIESELER, II., Part IV. 481–503. Copious Amsterd., 1840.—J. FRIEDRICH, Rom. Cath.: J.

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Wessel, Regensb., 1862.—Artt. Wessel in studii intorno a Savon., 1876, 2d ed., Flor., Herzog, by VAN VEEN, xxi. 131–147, and 1887.—The Triumph of the Cross, ed. in Lat. Wetzer-Welte, XII. 1339–1343.—P. HOFSTEDE and Ital. by L. FERRETTI, O. P., Milan, 1901. Engl. DE GROOT: P. J. Wessel Ganzevoort, Groningen, trsl. from this ed. by J. PROCTER, Lond., 1901, pp. 1871. 209.—Exposition of Ps. LI and part of Ps. XXXII, For 6.76.—NICOLAS OF LYRA: Postillae sive Lat. text with Engl. trsl. by E. H. PEROWNE, Commentaria brevia in omnia biblia, , Lond., 1900, pp. 227.—Sav.’s Poetry, ed. by C. 1541–1543, 5 vols., Introd.—WYCLIF: De GUASTI, Flor., 1862, pp. xxii, 1864.—Rudelbach, veritate scrip. Sac., ed. by Buddensieg, 3 vols., Perrens and Villari give specimens in the Leipzig, 1904.—GERSON: De sensu litterali original.—E. C. BAYONNE: Oeuvres spir. choisies scrip: sac., Du Pin’s ed., 1728, I. 1 sqq.— de Sav., 3 vols., Paris, 1880.—Oldest ERASMUS: Introd. to Gr. Test., 1516.—L. HAIN: biographies by P. BURLAMACCHI, d. 1519, Repertorium bibliographicum, 4 vols., Stuttg., founded on an older Latin Life, the work of an 1826–1838. ED. REUSS, d. 1891: D. Gesch. d. eye-witness, ed. by Mansi, 1761: G. F. PICO heil. Schriften N. T., 6th ed., Braunschweig, DELLA MIRANDOLA (nephew of the celebrated 1887, pp. 603 sqq.—F. W. FARRAR: Hist. of scholar of that name), completed 1520, publ. Interpretation, Lond., 1886, pp. 254–303.—S. 1530, ed. by Quétif, 2 vols., Paris, 1674. On BERGER: La Bible Française au moyen âge, these three works, see VILLARI, Life of Sav., pp. Paris, 1884. GASQUET: The Old Engl. Bible, etc.; xxvii sqq.—Also J. NARDI (a contemporary): Le the Eve of the Reformation.—F. FALK: storie della cittá di Firenze, 1494–1531, Flor., Bibelstudien, Bibelhandschriften und 1584. LUCA LANDUCCI, a pious Florentine Bibeldrucken, Mainz, 1901: Die Bibel am apothecary and an ardent admirer of Sav.: Ausgange des MA, ihre Kenntnis und ihre Diario Fiorentino, 1450–1516, Florence, 1883. Verbreitung, Col., 1905.—W. WALTHER: D. A realistic picture of Florence and the deutschen Bibeluebersetzungen des MA, preaching and death of Savonarola. Braunschweig, 1889–1892.—A. COPPINGER: II. MODERN WORKS.—For extended lit., see Incunabula bibl. or the First Half Cent. of the POTTHAST: Bibl. Hist. med., II. 1564 sqq.—Lives Lat. Bible, 1450–1500, with 54 facsimiles, by RUDELBACH, Hamb., 1835.—MEIER, Berl., Lond., 1892.—The Histt. of the Engl. Bible, by 1836.—K. HASE in Neue Propheten, Leip., WESTCOTT, EADIE, MOULTON, KENYON, etc.— 1851.—F. T. PERRENS, 2 vols., Paris, 1853, 3d JANSSEN-PASTOR: Gesch. des deutschen Volkes, I. ed., 1859.—MADDEN, 2 vols., Lond., 1854.— 9 sqq.—BEZOLD: Gesch. der Reformation, pp. PADRE V. MARCHESE, Flor., 1855.—*PASQUALE 109 sqq.—R. SCHMID: Nic. of Lyra, In Herzog XII. VILLARI: Life and Times of Savon., Flor., 1859– 28–30.—Artt. Bibellesen und Bibelverbot and 1861, 2d ed., 1887, 1st Engl. trsl. by L. Horner, Bibeluebersetzungen in Herzog II. 700 sqq., Ill. 2d Engl. trsl. by Mrs. Villari, Lond., 2 vols., 24 sqq. Other works cited in the notes. 1888, 1 vol. ed., 1899.—RANKE in Hist. biogr. For 6.77.—I. SOURCES: Savonarola’s Lat. and Studien, Leip., 1877.—BAYONNE: Paris, 1879.— Ital. writings consist of sermons, tracts, letters E. WARREN, Lond., 1881.—W. CLARK, Prof. and a few poems. The largest collection of MSS. Trinity Col., Toronto, Chicago, 1891.—J. L. and original edd. is preserved in the National O’NEIL, O. P.: Was Sav. really excommunicated? Library of Florence. It contains 15 edd. of the Bost, 1900; *H. LUCAS, St. Louis, 1900.—G. Triumph of the Cross issued in the 15th and MCHARDY, Edinb., 1901.—W. H. CRAWFORD: Sav. 16th centt. Epp. spirituales et asceticae, ed. the Prophet in Men of the Kingdom series.—*J. QUÉTIF, Paris, 1674. The sermons were SCHNITZER: Quellen und Forschungen zur collected by a friend, Lorenzo Vivoli, and Gesch. Savon., 3 vols., Munich, 1902–1904. Vol. published as they came fresh from the II., Sav. und die Fruerprobe, pp. 175.—Also preacher’s lips. Best ed. Sermoni a Prediche, Savon. im Lichte der neuesten Lit. in Hist.-pol. Prato, 1846. Also ed. by G. BACCINI, Flor., 1889. Blaetter, 1898–1900.—H. RIESCH: SAVON. U. S. A selection, ed. by VILLARI and CASANOVA: Scelta ZEIT, Leip., 1906.—ROSCOE in Life of Lorenzo di prediche e scritti, G. Sav., Flor., 1898.— the Magnificent.—E. COMBA: Storia della Germ. trsl. of 12 sermons and the poem de riforma in Italia, Flor., 1881.—P. SCHAFF, art. ruina mundi by H. SCHOTTMUELLER: Berlin, Savon. in Herzog II., 2d ed., XIII. 421–431, and 1901, pp. 132. A. GHERARDI: Nuovi documenta e BENRATH in 3d ed., XVII. 502–513.—CREIGHTON:

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vol. III.—GREGOROVIUS: VII. 432 sqq.—*PASTOR: OF JUETERBOCK, etc. Much material is given by 4th ed., Ill. 137–148, 150–162, 396–437: Zur W. KOEHLER: Dokumente zum Ablassstreit, Beurtheilung Sav., pp. 79, Freib. im Br., 1896. Tueb., 1902, and A. SCHULTE: D. Fugger in Rom, This brochure was in answer to sharp attacks 2 vols., Leipz., 1904. Vol. II contains upon Pastor’s treatment of Savonarola in the documents.—The authoritative Cath. work is 1st ed. of his Hist., especially those of Luotto FR. BERINGER: Die Ablaesse, ihr Wesen u. and Feretti.—P. LUOTTO: Il vero Savon. ed il Gebrauch, pp. 860 and 64, 13th ed., Paderb., Savon. di L. Pastor, Flor., 1897, p. 620. Luotto 1906.—Also NIC. PAULUS: J. Tetzel, der also wrote Dello studio di scrittura sacra Ablassprediger, Mainz, 1899.—Best Prot. secondo G. Savon. e Léon XIII., Turin, 1896.— treatments, H. C. LEA: Hist. of Auric. Conf. and FERETTI: Per la causa di Fra G. Savon., Milan, Indulgences in the Lat. Ch., 3 vols., Phil., 1897.—MRS. OLIPHANT: Makers of Florence. 1896.—T. BRIEGER, art. Indulgenzen in Herzog, GODKIN: The Monastery of San Marco, Lond., IX. 76–94, and Schaff-Herzog, V. 485 sqq. and 1901.—G. BIERMANN: Krit. Studie zur Gesch. des D. Wesen d. Ablasses am Ausgange d. MA, a Fra G. Savon., Rostock, 1901.—BRIE: Savon. und university address. Brieger has promised an d. deutsche Lit., Breslau, 1903.—G. BONET- extended treatment in book form.—SCHAFF: Ch. MAURY: Les Précurseurs de la Réforme et de la Hist., V., I. p. 729 sqq., VI. 146 sqq. liberté de conscience … du XIIe et XIIIe siècle, Paris, 1904, contains sketches of Waldo, 6.73. The Clergy Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable, St. Both in respect of morals and education the Francis, Dante, Savonarola, etc.—Savonarola clergy, during the period following the year has been made the subject of romantic 1450, showed improvement over the age of treatment by Lenau In his poem Savonarola, the Avignon captivity and the papal schism. 1844, Geo. Eliot in Romola, and by Alfred Clerical practice in that former age was so Austin in his tragedy, Savonarola, Lond., 1881, with a long preface in which an irreverent, if low that it was impossible for it to go lower not blasphemous, parallel is drawn between and any appearance of true religion remain. the Florentine preacher and Christ. One of the healthy signs of this latter period For 6.78.—See citations In the Notes. was that, in a spirit of genuine religious For 6.79.—G. UHLHORN: Die christl. devotion, Savonarola in Italy and such men in Liebesthaetigkeit im MA, Stuttg., 1884.—P. A Germany as Busch, Thomas Murner, Geiler of THIEJM: Gesch. d. Wohlthaetigkeitsanstalten in Strassburg, Sebastian Brant and the Belgien, etc., Freib., 1887.—L. LALLEMAND: Hist. Benedictine abbot, Trithemius, held up to de la charité, 3 vols., Paris, 1906. Vol. 3 covers condemnation, or ridicule, priestly the 10th-16th century.—T. KOLDE: Art. incompetency and worldliness. The pictures, Bruderschaften, in Herzog, Ill. 434–441.—A. which they joined Erasmus in drawing, were BLAIZE: Des monts-de-piété et des banques de dark enough. Nevertheless, the clergy both of prêt sur gage, Paris, 1856.—H. HOLZAPFEL: D. Anfaenge d. montes pietatis 1462–1515, the higher and lower grades included in its Munich, 1903.—TOULMIN SMITH: Engl. Gilds, ranks many men who truly sought the well- Lond., 1870.—THOROLD ROGERS: Work and being of the people and set an example of Wages, ch. XI. sqq.—W. CUNNINGHAM: Growth of purity of conduct. Engl. Industry and Commerce, bk. II., ch. III. The first cause of the low condition, for low it sqq.—LECKY: Hist. of Europ. Morals, II.— continued to be, was the impossible STUBBS: Const. Hist., ch. XXI.—W. VON HEYD: requirement of celibacy. The infraction of this Gesch. d. Levantenhandels im MA, 2 vols., Stuttg., 1879.—Artt. Aussatz and Zins u. rule weakened the whole moral fibre of the Wucher In Wetzer-Welte, I. 1706 sqq., XII. clerical order. 1963–1975.—JANSSEN-PASTOR, I. 451 sqq.— A second cause is to be looked for in the PASTOR: Gesch. d. Paepste., III. seizure of the rich ecclesiastical endowments For 6.60.—The Sources are THOMAS AQUINAS, by the aristocracy as its peculiar prize and the papal bulls of indulgence and treatments securing them for the sons of noble parentage by WYCLIFFE, HUSS, WESSEL, JOHN OF PALTZ, JAMES

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 5 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course without regard to their moral and intellectual Inquisition, Dr. Lea devotes a special chapter fitness. to clerical solicitation at the confessional. To the evils arising from these two causes Episcopal deliverances show that the priests must be added the evils arising from the were often illiterate and without even a unblushing practice of pluralism. No help knowledge of Latin. came from Rome. The episcopal residences of The prelates were given to worldliness and Toledo, Constance, Paris, Mainz, Cologne and the practice of pluralism. The revenues of the Canterbury could not be expected to be see of Toledo were estimated at from 80,000 models of domestic and religious order when to 100,000 ducats, with patronage at the the tales of Boccaccio were being paralleled in disposal of its incumbent amounting to a like the lives of the supreme functionaries of sum. Christendom at its center. A single instance must suffice to show the The grave discussions of clerical manners, extent to which pluralism in Spain was carried on at the Councils of Constance and carried. Gonzalez de Mendoza, while yet a Basel, revealed the disease without providing child, held the curacy of Hita, at twelve was a cure. The proposition was even made by archdeacon of Guadalajara, one of the richest Cardinal Zabarella and Gerson, in case further benefices of Spain, and retained the bishopric attempts to check priestly concubinage failed, of Seguenza during his successive to concede to the clergy the privilege of administrations of the archbishoprics of marriage. In the programme for a Seville and Toledo. Gonzalez was a gallant reformation of the Church, offered by knight and, in 1484, when he led the army Sigismund at Basel, the concession was which invaded Granada, he took with him his included and Pius II., one of the attendants on bastard son, Rodrigo, who was subsequently that synod, declared the reasons for restoring married in great state in the presence of the right of matrimony to priests to be Ferdinand and Isabella to Ferdinand’s niece. stronger in that day than were the reasons in In 1476, when the archbishopric of Saragossa a former age for forbidding it. The need of a became vacant, king Juan II. applied to Sixtus relaxation of the rigid rule found recognition IV. to appoint his son, Alfonzo, a child of six, in the decrees of Eugenius IV., 1441, and to the place. Sixtus declined, but after a Alexander VI., 1496, releasing some of the spirited controversy preserved the king’s military orders from the vow of chastity. Here good-will by appointing the boy perpetual and there, priests like Lallier of Paris at the administrator of the see. close of the 15th century, dared to propose In France, the of Angers, in an official openly, as Wycliffe had done a century before, address to Charles VIII., 1484, declared that its full abolition. But, for making the proposal, the religious orders had fallen below the level the Sorbonne denied to Lallier the doctorate. of the laity in their morals. To give a case of In Spain, the efforts of synods and prelates to extravagant pluralism, John, son of the duke put a check upon clerical immorality of Lorraine, 1498–1550, was appointed accomplished little. Finally, the secular power bishop-coadjutor of Metz, 1501, entering into intervened and repeated edicts were issued full possession seven years later, and, one by Ferdinand and Isabella against priestly after the other, he united with this concubinage, 1480, 1491, 1502, 1503. So preferment the bishoprics of Toul, 1517, and energetic was the attempt at enforcement Térouanne, 1518, Valence and Die, 1521, that, in districts, clerics complained that the Verdun, 1523, Alby, 1536, Macon soon after, secular officials made forcible entrance into Agen, 1541 and Nantes, 1542. To these were their houses and carried off their women added the archbishoprics of Narbonne, 1524, companions. In his History of the Spanish Rheims, 1533, and Lyons, 1537. He also held

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 6 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course at least nine abbeys, including Cluny. He pages, allowing their beards and hair to grow resigned the sees of Verdun and Metz to a long, and going about in green- and red- nephew, but resumed them in 1548 when this colored shoes and shoes punctured with nephew married Marguerite d’Egmont. In holes through which ribbons were drawn. 1518, he received the red hat. During the 15th They were often seen in coats of mail, and century one boy of 10 and another of 17 filled accoutered with helmets and swords, and the the bishopric of Geneva. A loyal Romanist, tournament often witnessed them entered in Soeur Jeanne de Jussie, writing after the the lists. beginning of the 16th century, testifies to the The custom of reserving the higher offices of dissoluteness of the and clergy of the the Church for the aristocracy was widely Swiss city and charged them with living in sanctioned by law. As early as 1281 in Worms adultery. and 1294 in Osnabruck, no one could be dean In Germany, although as a result of the labors who was not of noble lineage. The office of of the Mystics the ecclesiastical condition was bishop and prebend stalls were limited to much better, the moral and intellectual men of noble birth by Basel, 1474, Augsburg, unfitness was such that it calls forth severe 1475, Muenster and Paderborn, 1480, and criticism from Catholic as well as Protestant Osnabruck, 1517. The same rule prevailed in historians. The Catholic, Janssen, says that Mainz, Halberstadt, Meissen, Merseburg and “the profligacy of the clergy at German other dioceses. cathedrals, as well as their rudeness and At the beginning of the 16th century, it was ignorance, was proverbial. The complaints the established custom in Germany that no which have come down to us from the 15th one should be admitted to a cathedral chapter century of the bad morals of the German who could not show 16 ancestors who had clergy are exceedingly numerous.” joined in the tournament and, as early as Ficker, a Protestant, speaks of “the 1474, the condition of admission to the extraordinary immorality to which priests chapter of Cologne was that the candidate and monks yielded themselves.” And Bezold, should show 32 members of his family of likewise a Protestant, says that “in the 15th noble birth. Of the 228 bishops who century the worldliness of the clergy reached successively occupied the 32 German sees a height not possible to surpass.” The from 1400–1517, all but 13 were noblemen. contemporary Jacob Wimpheling, set forth The eight occupants of the see of Muenster, probably the true state of the case. He was 1424–1508, were all counts or dukes. So it severe upon the clergy and yet spoke of many was with 10 archbishops of Mainz, 1419– excellent prelates, canons and vicars, known 1514, the 7 bishops of Halberstadt, 1407– for their piety and good works. He knew of a 1513, and the 5 archbishops of Cologne, German cleric who held at one time 20 1414–1515. livings, including 8 canonries. To the This custom of keeping the high places for archbishopric of Mainz, Albrecht of men of noble birth was smartly condemned Hohenzollern added the see of Halberstadt by Geiler of Strassburg and other and the archbishopric of Magdeburg. For his contemporaries. Geiler declared that promotion to the see of Mainz he paid 30,000 Germany was soaked with the folly that to the gulden, money he borrowed from the bishoprics, not the more pious and learned Fuggers. should be promoted but only those who, “as The bishops were charged with affecting the they say, belong to good families.” It remained latest fashions in dress and wearing the finest for the Protestant Reformation to reassert the textures, keeping horses and hunting dogs, democratic character of the ministry. surrounding themselves with servants and

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A high standard could not be expected of the success is a matter of doubt. John Busch lower ranks of the clergy where the labored most energetically in that direction incumbents of the high positions held them, for nearly fifty years in Westphalia, Thuringia not by reason of piety or intellectual and other parts. The things that he records attainments but as the prize of birth and seem almost past belief. favoritism. The wonder is, that there was any Nunneries, here and there, were no better genuine devotion left among the lower than brothels. In cases, they were habitually priesthood. Its ranks were greatly visited by noblemen. The experience is told of overstocked. Every family with several sons one nobleman who was travelling with his expected to find a clerical position for one of servant and stopped over night at a convent. them and often the member of the family, After the evening meal, the nuns cleared the least fitted by physical qualifications to make main room and, dressed in fine apparel, his way in the world, was set apart for amused their visitor by exhibitions of religion. dancing. Thomas Murner went so far as to say Here again Geiler of Strassburg applied his that convents for women had all been turned lash of indignation, declaring that, as people into refuges for people of noble birth. The set apart for St. Velten the chicken that had dancing during the sessions of the Diet of the pox and for St. Anthony the pig that was Cologne, 1505, was opened by the archbishop affected with disease, so they devoted the and an abbess, and nuns from St. Ursula’s and least likely of their children to the holy office. St. Mary’s, the king Maximilian looking on. The German village clergy of the period were Preachers, like Geiler of Strassburg, cried out as a rule not university bred. The chronicler, against the moral dangers which beset Felix Faber of Ulm, in 1490 declared that out persons taking the monastic vow. The of 1000 priests scarcely one had ever seen a cloistral life came to be known as “the university town and a baccalaureate or compulsory vocation.” As the time of the master was a rarity seldom met with. With a Reformation approached, there was no sigh, people of that age spoke of the well- lessening of the outcry against the immorality equipped priest of the good old times.” of the clergy and convents, as appears from the writings of Ulrich von Hutten and From the Alps to Scandinavia, concubinage Erasmus. was widely practised and in parts of Germany, such as Saxony, Bavaria, Austria The practice of priestly concubinage, and the Tirol, it was general. The region, uncanonical though it was, bishops were where there was the least of it, was the quite ready to turn into a means of gain, country along the Rhine. In parts of levying a tax upon it. In the diocese of Switzerland and other localities, parishes, as a Bamberg, a toll of 5 gulden was exacted for measure of self-defense, forced their young every child born to a priest and, in a single pastors to take concubines. Two of the Swiss year, the tax is said to have brought in the Reformers, Leo Jud and Bullinger, were sons considerable sum of 1,500 gulden. In 1522, a of priests and Zwingli, a prominent priest, similar tax of four gulden brought into the was given to incontinence before starting on treasury of the bishop of Constance, 7,500 his reformatory career. It was a common gulden. The same year, complaint was made saying that the Turk of clerical sensualism to the by the Diet of Nuernberg of the within was harder to drive out than the Turk reckless lawlessness of young priests in from the East. corrupting women and of the annual tax levied in most dioceses upon all the clergy How far the conscientious effort, made in without distinction whether they kept Germany in the last years of the Middle Ages concubines or not. It is not surprising, in view to reform the convents, was attended with of these facts, that Luther called upon monks

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 8 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course and nuns unable to avoid incontinence of of the Church, to the altar of Christ, to the thought, to come forth from the monasteries mysteries of God.” The famous tract, the and marry. On the other hand, it must not be Beggars’ Petition, written on the eve of the forgotten that no plausible charge of British Reformation, accused the clergy of incontinence was made against the Reformer. having no other serious occupation than the If we turn to England, we are struck with the destruction of the peace of family life and the great dearth of contemporary religious corruption of women. literature, 1450–1517, as compared with As for the practice of plural livings, it was Germany. Few writings have come down to us perhaps as much in vogue in England as in from which to form a judgment of the Germany. Dr. Sherbourne, Colet’s predecessor condition of the clergy. Our deductions must as dean of St. Paul’s, was a notable example of be drawn in part from the testimonies of the a pluralist, but in this respect was exceeded English Humanists and Reformers and from by Morton and Wolsey. As for the ignorance the records of the visitations of monasteries of the English clergy, it is sufficient to refer to and also their suppression under Henry VIII. the testimony of Bishop Hooper who, during In a document, drawn up at the request of his visitation in Gloucester, 1551, found 168 Henry V. by the University of Oxford, 1414, of 811 clergymen unable to repeat the Ten setting forth the need of a reformation of the Commandments, 40 who could not tell where Church, one of the articles pronounced the the Lord’s Prayer was to be found and 31 “undisguised profligacy of the clergy to be the unable to give the author. scandal of the Church.” In Scotland, the state of the clergy in pre- In the middle of the century, 1455, Reformation times was probably as low as in Archbishop Bourchier’s Commission for any other part of Western Europe. John IV.’s Reforming the Clergy spoke of the marriage bastard son was appointed bishop of St. and concubinage of the secular clergy and the Andrews at 16 and the illegitimate sons of gross ignorance which, in quarters, marked James V., 1513–1542, held the five abbeys of them. In the latter part of the century, 1489, Holyrood, Kelso, St. Andrews, Melrose and the investigation of the convents, undertaken Coldingham. Bishops lived openly in by Archbishop Morton, uncovered an concubinage and married their daughters into unsavory state of affairs. the ranks of the nobility. In the marriage The old abbey of St. Albans, for example, had document, certifying the nuptials of Cardinal degenerated till it was little better than a Beaton’s eldest daughter to the Earl of house of prostitution for monks. In two Crawford, 1546, the cardinal called her his priories under the abbey’s jurisdiction, the child. On the night of his murder, he is said to nuns had been turned out to give place to have been with his favorite mistress, Marion avowed courtesans. The Lollards demanded Ogilvie. the privilege of wedlock for priests. When, in Side by side with the decline of the monastic 1494, thirty of their number were arraigned institutions, there prevailed among the by Robert Blacater, archbishop of Glasgow, monks of the 15th century a most one of the charges against them was their exaggerated notion of the sanctifying assertion that priests had wives in the influence of the monastic vow. According to primitive Church. Writing at the very close of Luther, the monks of his day recognized two the 15th century, Colet exclaimed, “Oh, the grades of Christians, the perfect and the abominable impiety of those miserable imperfect. To the former the monastics priests, of whom this age of ours contains a belonged. Their vow was regarded as a great multitude, who fear not to rush from second baptism which cleared those who the arms of some foul harlot into the temple received it from all stain, restored them to the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 9 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course divine image and put them in a class with the carrying a bag full of boxes packed with angels. Luther was encouraged by his salves. Holding up a black box, the devil said superiors to feel, after he had taken the vow, that he used it to put people to sleep during that he was as pure as a child. This second the preaching service. The preachers, he regeneration had been taught by St. Bernard continued, greatly interfered with his work, and Thomas Aquinas. Thomas said that it may and often by a single sermon snatched from with reason be affirmed that any one him persons he had held in his power for 30 “entering religion,” that is, taking the or 40 years. monastic vow, thereby received remission of By the end of the 15th century, all the German sins. cities and most of the larger towns had 6.74. Preaching regular preaching. It was a common thing to endow pulpits, as in Mainz, 1465, Basel, 1469, The two leading preachers of Europe during Strassburg, 1478, Constance, Augsburg, the last 50 years of the Middle Ages were Stuttgart and other cities. The popular Jerome Savonarola of Florence and John preachers drew large audiences. So it was Geiler of Strassburg. Early in the 15th with Geiler of Strassburg, whose ministry century, Gerson was led by the ignorance of lasted 30 years. Ten thousand are said to the clergy to recommend a reduction of have gathered to hear the sermons of the preaching, but in the period just before the barefooted monk, Jacob Mene of Cologne, Reformation there was a noticeable revival of when he held forth at Frankfurt, the people the practice of preaching in Germany and a standing in the windows and crowding up movement in that direction was felt in against the organ to hear him. It was Mene’s England. Erasmus, as a cosmopolitan scholar practice to preach a sermon from 7–8 in the made an appeal for the function of the pulpit, morning, and again after the noon meal. On a which went to all portions of Western Europe. certain Good Friday he prolonged his effort In Germany, the importance of the sermon five hours, from 3–8 P. M. According to was emphasized by synodal decrees and Luther, towns were glad to give itinerant homiletic manuals. Such synods were the monks 100 gulden for a series of Lenten synods of Eichstaedt, 1463, Bamberg, 1491, discourses. Basel, 1503, Meissen, 1504. Surgant’s noted Other signs of the increased interest felt in Handbook on the Art of Preaching praised the sermons were the homiletic cyclopedias of sermon as the instrument best adapted to the time furnishing materials derived from lead the people to repentance and inflame the Bible, the Fathers, classic authors and Christian love and called it “the way of life, from the realm of tale and story. To these the ladder of virtue and the gate of paradise.” must be added the plenaria, collections from It was pronounced as much a sin to let a word the Gospels and Epistles with glosses and from the pulpit fall unheeded as to spill a comments. The plenarium of Guillermus, drop of the sacramental wine. In the professor in Paris, went through 75 editions penitential books and the devotional manuals before 1500. Collections of model sermons of the time, stress was laid upon the duty of were also issued, some of which had an attending preaching, as upon the mass. extensive circulation. The collection of John Those who left church before the sermon Nider, d. 1439, passed through 17 editions. began were pronounced deserving His texts were invariably subjected to a excommunication. Wolff’s penitential manual threefold division. The collection of the of 1478 made the neglect of the sermon a Franciscan, John of Werden, who died at violation of the 4th commandment. The Cologne about 1450, passed through 25 efficacy of sermons was vouched for in the editions. John Herolt’s volume of Sermons of a following story. A good man met the devil Disciple—Sermones discipuli—went through

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41 editions before 1500 and is computed to reached 26 editions before 1500; the have had a circulation of no less than 40,000 Franciscan, John Meder of Basel whose copies. Lenten discourses on the Prodigal Son of the One of the most popular of the collections year 1494 reached 36 editions and Ulrich called Parati sermones—The Ready Man’s Krafft, pastor in Ulm, 1500 to 1516, and Sermons—appeared anonymously. Its title author of the two volumes, The Spiritual was taken from 1 Peter 4:6, “ready— Battle and Noah’s Ark. paratus—to judge the quick and the dead” More famous than all others was Geiler of and Ps. 119:60, “I made haste [ready] and Strassburg, usually called from his father’s delayed not to observe thy commandments.” birthplace, Geiler of Kaisersberg, born in In setting forth the words “Be not unwise but Schaffhausen, 1445, died in Strassburg, 1510. understanding what the will of the Lord is” He and his predecessor, Bertholdt of the author says that such wisdom is taught by Regensburg, have the reputation of being the the animals. most powerful preachers of medieval 1. By the lion who brushes out his paw- Germany. For more than a quarter of a prints with his tail so that the hunter is century he stood in the cathedral pulpit of thrown off the track. So we should with Strassburg, the monarch of preachers in the penance erase the marks of our sins that North. After pursuing his university studies in the devil may not find us out. Freiburg and Basel, Geiler was made 2. The serpent which closes both ears to the professor at Freiburg, 1476. His pulpit efforts seducer, one ear with his tail and the soon made him a marked man. In accepting other by holding it to the ground. Against the call as preacher in the cathedral at the devil we should shut our ears by the Strassburg, he entered into a contract to two thoughts of death and eternity. preach every Sunday and on all festival and 3. The ant from which we learn industry in fast days. He continued to fill the pulpit till making provision for the future. within two months of his death and lies 4. A certain kind of fish which sucks itself interred in the cathedral where he preached. fast to the rock in times of storm. So we “The Trumpet of Strassburg,” as Geiler was should adhere closely to the rock, Christ called, gained his fame as a preacher of moral , by thoughts of his passion and thus and social reforms. He advocated no doctrinal save ourselves from the surging of the changes. Called upon, 1500, to explain his waves of the world. public declaration that the city councilors Such materials show that the homiletic were “all of the devil,” he issued 21 articles instinct was alert and the preachers anxious demanding that games of chance be to catch the attention of the people and prohibited, drinking halls closed, the Sabbath impart biblical truth. and festival days observed, the hospitals properly cared for and monkish mendicancy The sermons of the German preachers of the regulated. 15th century were written now in Latin, now in German. The more famous of the Latin He was a preacher of the people and now sermonizers were Gabriel Biel, preacher in amused, now stung them, by anecdotes, plays Mainz and then professor in Tuebingen, d. on words, descriptions, proverbs, sallies of 1495, and Jacob Jueterbock, 1383–1465, wit, humor and sarcasm. He attacked popular Carthusian prior in Erfurt and professor in follies and fashions and struck at the priests the university in that city. Among the notable “many of whom never said mass,” and at the preachers who preached in German were convents in which “neither religion nor virtue John Herolt of Basel, already mentioned; the was found and the living was lax, lustful, Franciscan John Gritsch whose sermons dissolute and full of all levity.” Medieval

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 11 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course superstition he served up to his hearers in the ferocious activities of the devil. A series good doses. He was a firm believer in on the Human Tree comprised no less than astrology, ghosts and witches. 163 discourses running from the beginning of Geiler’s style may seem rude to the polite age Lent, 1495, to the close of Lent, 1496. in which we live, but it reached the ear of his During the last two years of the 15th century, own time. The high as well as the low Geiler preached 111 homilies on Sebastian listened. Maximilian went to hear Geiler when Brant’s Ship of Fools, all drawn from the text he was in Strassburg. No one could be in Eccles. 1:15 as it reads in the Vulgate, “the doubt about the preacher’s meaning. In a fools are without number.” Through Geiler’s series of 65 passion sermons, he elaborated a intervention Brant had been brought to comparison between Christ and a ginger Strassburg from Basel, where he was cake—the German Lebkuchen. Christ is professor. His famous work, which is a composed of the bean meal of the deity, the travesty upon the follies of his time, old fruit meal of the body and the wheat meal employed the figure of a ship for the of the soul. To these elements is added the transport of his fools because it was the honey of compassion. He was thrust into the largest engine of transportation the author oven of affliction and is divided by preachers knew of. Very humorously Brant placed into many parts and distributed among the himself in the moderator’s chair while all the people. In other sermons, he compared other fools were gathered in front of him. He perfect Christians to sausages. himself took the rôle of the Book-fool. Among In seven most curious discourses on Der Hase other follies which are censured are the im Pfeffer an idiomatic expression for That’s doings of the mendicants, the traffic in relics the Rub—based on Prov. 30:26, “The coney is and indulgences and the multiplication of a weak folk,” he made 14 comparisons benefices in single hands. Geiler’s homilies between the coney and the good Christian. equal Brant’s poetry in humor. Both were The coney runs better up hill than down, as a true to life. No preacher of the Middle Ages good Christian should do. The coney has long held the popular ear so long as Geiler of ears as also a Christian should have, Strassburg and no popular poet, not even Will especially monastics, attending to what God Langland, more effectually wrote for the has to say. The coney must be roasted; and so masses than Sebastian Brant. must also the Christian pass through the In this period, the custom came to be quite furnace of trial. The coney being a lank beast general to preach from the nave of the church must be cooked in lard, so also must the instead of from the choir railing. Preachers Christian be surrounded with love and limited their discourses by hour-glasses, a devotion lest he be scorched in the furnace. custom later transplanted to New England. In 64 discourses, preached two years before Sermons were at times unduly extended. his death, Geiler brought out the spiritual Gerhard Groote sometimes preached for lessons to be derived from ants and in three hours during Lent and John Gronde another series he elaborated the 25 sins of extended some of his discourses to six hours, the tongue. In a course of 20 sermons to mercifully, however, dividing them into two business men, he depicted the six market parts with a brief breathing-spell between, days and the devil as a peddler going about profitable as may well be surmised alike to selling his wares. He preached 17 sermons on the preacher and the hearers. Geiler, who at the lion in which the king of beasts was one time had been inclined to preach on successively treated as the symbol of the without regard to time, limited his discourses good man, the worldly man, Christ and the to a single hour. devil; 12 of these sermons were devoted to

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The criticisms which preachers passed upon In ridiculing the preaching of his day, the customs of the day show that human Erasmus held forth the preachers’ ignorance, nature was pretty much the same then as it is their incongruous introductions, their use of now and that the “good old times” are not to stories from all departments without any be sought for in that age. All sorts of habits discrimination, their old women’s tales and were held up to ridicule and scorn. the frivolous topics they chose—aniles Drunkenness and gluttony, the dance and the fabulae et questiones frivolse. A famous street comedy, the dress of women and the passage in which the great scholar disparages idle lounging of rich men’s sons, usury and the preaching of the monks and friars begins going to church to make a parade were with the words:— among the subjects dwelt upon. All their preaching is mere stage-playing, and Again and again, Geiler of Strassburg their delivery the very transports of ridicule returned to the lazy sons of the rich who and drollery. Good Lord! how mimical are spent their time in retailing scandals and these gestures! What heights and falls in their doing worse, more silly in their dress than the voice! What toning, what bawling, what singing, what squeaking, what grimaces, women, fops who “thought themselves making of mouths, apes’ faces, and distorting somebody because their fathers were rich.” of their countenance; and this art of oratory as He also took special notice of women and a choice mystery, they convey down by their fripperies. He condemned their belts, tradition to one another. sometimes made of silk and adorned with Erasmus deserves credit for discerning the gold, costing as much as 40 or 50 gulden, need of the times, and recommending the their padded busts and their extensive revival of the practice of preaching and the wardrobes, enabling them to wear for a week mission of preachers to the heathen nations. at a time two different garments each day and His views were set forth in the Ecclesiastes or a third one for a dancing party or the play. He Preacher, a work written during the Freiburg launched out against their long hair, left to fall period and filling 275 pages, each double the down over the back and crowned with size of the pages of the hardcopy volume. ribbons or small caps such as the men wore. The chief purpose of preaching he defined to As examples of warning, Absalom and be instruction. Every preacher is a herald of Holofernes were singled out, the former Christ, who was himself the great preacher. caught by his hair in the branches of the tree The office of preaching is superior in dignity and Holofernes ensnared by the adornments to the office of kings. of Judith. Geiler called upon the city authorities to come to the help of society and “Among the charisms of the Spirit, none is the preacher and legislate against such evils. more noble and efficacious than preaching. To be a dispenser of the celestial and a Another preacher, Hollen, condemned the messenger of the divine will is excelled by no long trails which women wore as “the devil’s office in the church.” wagon,” for neither men nor angels but only It is quite in accord with Erasmus’ high the devil has a caudal appendage. As for regard for the teaching function, that he dancing, especially the round dances, the magnifies the instructional element of the devil was the head concertmaster at such sermon. Writing to Sapidus, 1516, he said, “to entertainments and the higher the dancers be a schoolmaster is next to being a king.” jumped, the deeper their fall into hell and, the Of the English pulpit, there is little to say. We more firmly they held on to each other with hear of preaching at St. Paul’s Cross and at their hands, the more closely did the devil tighten his hold upon them. Dancing was other places, but there is no evidence that preaching was usual. No volumes of English represented by the preachers as an occasion sermons issued from the printing-press. Colet of much profligacy.

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 13 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course is the only English preacher of the 15th improvement was not one of the primary century of historical importance. The aims of the Reformation. The very opposite is churchly counsel given to priests to impart proved by the efforts of Luther, Calvin and instruction to the people, issued by the Knox to secure the establishment of schools Lambeth synod of 1281, stands almost in every hamlet and the catechisms which the solitary. In 1466, Archbishop Nevill of York two former prepared and the numerous did no more than to repeat this legislation. catechisms prepared by their fellow In Scotland the history of the pulpit begins Reformers. And what of their habit of with Knox. Dr. Blaikie remarks that, for the constant preaching? Luther preached day three centuries before the Reformation, after day. One of the first signs of the scarcely a trace of Christian preaching can be Reformation in Geneva was that St. Pierre and found in Scotland worthy the name. The St. Gervaise were opened for preaching daily. country had no Wycliffe, as it had no Anselm. Calvin incorporated into his ecclesiastical Hamilton and Wishart, Knox’s immediate polity as one of the orders the ministry, the forerunners, were laymen. teaching body. The Abbé Dr. Gasquet in a chapter on A 6.75. Doctrinal Reformers Forgotten English Preacher in his Old Eng. A group of theologians appeared in Bible and other Essays gives extracts from the Northwestern Germany who, on the one MS. sermon of Thomas Branton, Bishop of hand, were closely associated by locality and Rochester, 1372–1389. After saying that we training with the Brothers of the Common know very little about medieval preaching in Life and, on the other, anticipated the coming England, Dr. Gasquet, p. 54, remarks that it is age by the doctrinal reforms which they perhaps just as well, as the sermons were proposed. On the latter account, John of Goch, probably dull and that “the modern sermon” John of Wesel and Wessel of Gansfort have has to be endured as a necessary evil. In his been properly classed with Wycliffe and Huss chapter on Teaching and Preaching, pp. 244– as Reformers before the Reformation. 284, in his Eve of the Reformation, the same Erasmus has no place at their side for, with author returns to the subject, but the chapter his satire on ceremonies and church itself gives the strongest evidence of the conditions, the question is always raised of literary barrenness of the English Church in his sincerity. the closing years of the Middle Ages and the dearth of preaching and public instruction. Savonarola suggested no doctrinal changes. Among the new views emphasized by one or By far the larger part of the chapter, pp. 254– all of these three men were the final authority 280, is taken up with quotations from Sir of the Scriptures, the fallibility of the pope, Thomas More, the tract Dives and Pauper and the sufficiency of divine grace for salvation other tracts, to show that the doctrine of the irrespective of priestly mediation, and the worship of images and saints was not taught distinction between the visible and the in its crass form and with a statement of the invisible Church. However, but for the usefulness of miracle-plays as a means of Protestant Reformation, it is not probable popular religious instruction. Dr. Gasquet lays their voices would have been heard beyond stress upon the “simple instruction” given by the century in which they lived. the English priesthood in the Middle Ages as opposed to formal sermons which he John Pupper, 1400–1475, usually called John confesses “were probably by no means so of Goch from his birthplace, a hamlet on the frequent as in these times.” He makes the lower Rhine near Cleves, seems to have been astounding assertion, p. 245, that religious trained in one of the schools of the Brothers instruction as a means of social and moral of the Common Life, and then studied in Cologne and perhaps in Paris. He founded a

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 14 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course house of Augustinians near Mecheln, saved irrespective of pope and priests, and all remaining at its head till his death. His who have faith will enjoy as much writings were not published till after the blessedness as prelates. beginning of the Reformation. He anticipated Wesel also made the distinction between the that movement in asserting the supreme visible and the invisible Church and defined authority of the Bible. the Church as the aggregation of all the The Fathers are to be accepted only so far as faithful who are bound together by love. In they follow the canonical Scriptures. In his trial, he was accused of having had contrast to the works of the philosophers and communication with the Hussites. In matters the Schoolmen, the Bible is a book of life; of historical criticism, he was also in advance theirs, books of death. He also called in of his age, casting doubt upon some of the question the merit of monastic vows and the statements of the Athanasian Creed, validity of the distinction between the higher abandoning the application of the term and lower morality upon which monasticism Catholic to the Apostles’ Creed and laid stress. What is included under the higher pronouncing the addition of the filioque morality is within the reach of all Christians clause—and from the Son—unwarranted. and not the property of monks only. He The doctrines of indulgences and the fund of renounced the Catholic view of justification merit he pronounced unscriptural and pious without stating with clearness the evangelical frauds. The elect are saved wholly through theory. the grace of God. John Ruchrath von Wesel, d. 1481, attacked At the request of Diether of Isenburg, the hierarchy and indulgences and was archbishop of Mainz, the Universities of charged on his trial with calling in question Cologne and sent delegates to the almost all the distinctive Roman Catholic trial. The accused was already an old man, tenets. He was born in Oberwesel on the leaning on his staff, when he appeared before Rhine between Mainz and Coblentz. He taught the tribunal. Lacking strength to stand by the at the University of Erfurt and, in 1458, was heretical articles, he agreed to submit “to chosen its vice-rector. Luther bore testimony mother Church and the teachings of the to his influence when he said, “I remember doctors.” A public recantation in the cathedral how Master John Wesalia ruled the University followed, and his books were burnt. These of Erfurt by his writings through the study of punishments were not sufficient to expiate which I also became a master.” Leaving his offence and he was sentenced to Erfurt, he was successively professor in Basel imprisonment for life in the Augustinian and cathedral preacher in Mainz and Worms. convent of Mainz, where he died. In 1479, Wesel was arraigned for heresy Among Wesel’s reported sayings, which must before the Inquisition at Mainz. Among the have seemed most blasphemous to the charges were that the Scriptures are alone a devout churchman of the time, are the trustworthy source of authority; the names of following: “The consecrated oil is not better the predestinate are written in the book of than the oil used for your cakes in the life and cannot be erased by a priestly ban; kitchen.” “If you are hungry, eat. You may eat indulgences do not profit; Christ is not a good capon on Friday.” “If Peter established pleased with festivals of fasting, pilgrimages fasting, it was in order that he might get more or priestly celibacy; Christ’s body can be in for his fish” on fast days. To certain the bread without any change of the bread’s monastics, he said, “Not religion” (that is, substance: pope and councils are not to be monastic vows) “but God’s grace saves,” obeyed if they are out of accord with the religio nullum salvat sed gratia Dei. Scriptures; he whom God chooses will be

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A still nearer approach to the views of the defined the Church to be the communion of Reformers was made by Wessel Gansfort, the saints. The unity of the Church does not commonly called John Wessel, born in lie in the pope—unitas ecclesiae sub uno Groningen, 1420, died 1489. In his Preface to papa tantum accidentalis est, adeo ut non sit Wessel’s writings, 1522, Luther said, “If I had necessaria. read Wessel earlier, my enemies might have He laid stress upon the faith of the believer in said that Luther drew everything from partaking of the Eucharist or, rather, upon his Wessel, so well do our two minds agree.” hunger and thirst after the sacrament. But he Wessel attended school at , where he did not deny the sacrifice of the mass or the met Thomas à Kempis of the neighboring validity of the communion under one kind. He convent of Mt. St. Agnes. The story ran that gave up the judicial element in priestly when Thomas pointed him to the Virgin, absolution. There is no such thing as works of Wessel replied, “Father, why did you not supererogation, for each is under obligation rather point me to Christ who calls the heavy- to do all he can and to do less is to sin. The laden to himself?” He continued his studies in prerogative of the keys belongs to all Cologne, where he took Greek and Hebrew, in believers. Plenary indulgences are a Heidelberg and in Paris. He declined a call to detestable invention of the papacy to fill its Heidelberg. In 1470, we find him in Rome. treasury. The story went that, when Sixtus IV. invited In 1522, a Dutch lawyer, von Hoen, joining him to follow the common custom of visitors with other Netherlanders, sent Luther a copy to the Vatican and make a request, the of some of Wessel’s writings. In the preface German student replied that he would like to which the Reformer wrote for the Wittenberg have a Hebrew or Greek manuscript of the edition, he said that, as Elijah of old, so he had Bible from the Vatican. The pope, laughing, felt himself to be the only one left of the said, “Why did you not ask for a bishopric, prophets of God but he had found out that you fool?” Wessel’s reply was “Because I do God had also had his prophets in secret like not need it.” Wessel. Wessel spent some time in Basel, where he These three German theologians, Goch, Wesel met Reuchlin. In 1473, the bishop of Utrecht and Wessel, were quietly searching after the wrote that many were seeking his life and marks of the true Church and the doctrine of invited him back to Holland. His last years, justification by faith in Christ alone. Without from 1474 on, Wessel spent with the Brothers knowing it, they were standing on the of the Common Life at Mt. St. Agnes, and in threshold of the Reformation. the nuns’ convent at Groningen. There, in the place of his birth, he lies buried. His last 6.76. Girolamo Savonarola words were, “I know no one save Jesus, the In the closing decade of the 15th century the Crucified.” city of Florence seemed to be on the eve of Wessel enjoyed a reputation for great becoming a model municipality, a pattern of learning. He escaped arraignment at the Christian morals, a theocracy in which Christ hands of the Inquisition, but was violently was acknowledged as sovereign. In the attacked after his death in a tract on movement looking towards this change, the indulgences, by Jacob Hoeck, Dean of chief actor was Jerome Savonarola, prior of Naaldwyk. None of Wessel’s writings were the Dominican convent of St. Savonarola published till after the outbreak of the Mark’s, the most imposing preacher of the Reformation. Although he did not reach the Middle Ages and one of the most noteworthy doctrine of justification by faith, he declared preachers of righteousness since St. Paul. that pope and councils may err and he Against the dark moral background of his

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 16 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course generation he appears as a broad sheet of In 1481, he was sent to Florence, where he northern light with its coruscations, became an inmate of St. Mark’s. The convent mysterious and portentous, but also quickly had been rebuilt by Cosimo de Medici and its disappearing. His message was the prophet’s walls illuminated by the brush of Fra cry, “Who shall abide the day of His coming Angelico. At the time of Savonarola’s arrival, and who shall stand when He appeareth?” the city was at the height of its fame as a seat Savonarola, born in Ferrara Sept. 21, 1452, of culture and also as the place of lighthearted died in Florence May 23, 1498, was the third dissipation under the brilliant patronage of of seven children. Choosing his grandfather’s Lorenzo the Magnificent. profession, he entered upon the study of The young monk’s first efforts in the pulpit in medicine, from which he was turned away by Florence were a failure. The congregation at a deepening impression of the corruption of San Lorenzo, where he preached during the society and disappointment at the refusal of a Lenten season, fell to 25 persons. Fra Mariano family of Strozzi, living at Ferrara, to give him da Gennazzano, an Augustinian, was the their daughter in marriage. At the age of 23, popular favorite. The Dominican won his first he secretly left his father’s house and betook fame by his Lenten sermons of 1486, when he himself to Bologna, where he assumed the preached at Brescia on the Book of Dominican habit. Two days after his arrival in Revelation. He represented one of the 24 Bologna, he wrote thus to his father elders rising up and pronouncing judgments explaining the reason of his abrupt departure. upon the city for its wickedness. In 1489, he I could not endure any longer the wickedness was invited back to Florence by Lorenzo at of the blinded peoples of Italy. Virtue I saw the suggestion of Pico della Mirandola, who despised everywhere and vices exalted and had listened to Savonarola’s eloquence at held in honor. With great warmth of heart, I Reggio. made daily a short prayer to God that He might During the remaining nine years of his life, release me from this vale of tears. ‘Make known to me the way,’ I cried, ‘the way in the city on the Arno was filled with which I should walk for I lift up my soul unto Savonarola’s personality. With Catherine of Thee,’ and God in His infinite mercy showed Siena, he shares the fame of being the most me the way, unworthy as I am of such religious of the figures that have walked its distinguishing grace. streets. During the first part of this short He begged his father to console his mother period, he had conflict with Lorenzo and, and referred him to a poem by his pen on the during the second, with Alexander VI., all the contempt of the world, which he had left while seeking by his startling warnings and among his papers. In this letter and several his prophecies to bring about the letters to his mother, which are extant, is regeneration of the city and make it a model shown the young monk’s warm affection for of civic and social righteousness. his parents and his brothers and sisters. From Aug. 1, 1490, when he appeared in the In the convent, the son studied Augustine and pulpit of St. Mark’s, the people thronged to Thomas Aquinas and became familiar with hear him whether he preached there or in the the Scriptures, sections of which he cathedral. In 1491, he was made prior of his committed to memory. Two copies of the convent. To preaching he added writings in Bible are extant in Florence, containing the department of philosophy and tracts on copious notes in Savonarola’s own humility, prayer and the love of Jesus. He was handwriting, made on the margin, between of middle height, dark complexion, lustrous the printed lines and on added leaves. After eyes dark gray in color, thick lips and aquiline his appointment as provincial, he emphasized nose. His features, which of themselves would the study of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek. have been called coarse, attracted attention

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 17 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course by the serious contemplative expression Florence the city of Savonarola. Portraying which rested upon them, and the flash of his the insincerity of the clergy, he said:— eye. In these days, prelates and preachers are Savonarola’s sermons were like the flashes of chained to the earth by the love of earthly lightning and the reverberations of thunder. things. The care of souls is no longer their It was his mission to lay the axe at the root of concern. They are content with the receipt of dissipation and profligacy rather than to revenue. The preachers preach to please princes and to be praised by them. They have depict the consolations of pardon and done worse. They have not only destroyed the communion with God. He drew more upon Church of God. They have built up a new the threatenings of the divine wrath than Church after their own pattern. Go to Rome upon the refreshing springs of the divine and see! In the mansions of the great prelates compassion. Tender descriptions of the there is no concern save for poetry and the divine love and mercy were not wanting in oratorical art. Go thither and see! Thou shalt his sermons, but the woes pronounced upon find them all with the books of the humanities the sinfulness of his time exceeded the gentle in their hands and telling one another that they appeals. He was describing his own method, can guide mens’ souls by means of Virgil, when he said, “I am like the hail. Cover thyself Horace and Cicero … The prelates of former days had fewer gold mitres and chalices and lest it come down upon thee, and strike thee. what few they possessed were broken up and And remember that I said unto thee, Cover given to relieve the needs of the poor. But our thy head with a helmet, that is clothe thyself prelates, for the sake of obtaining chalices, will with virtue and no hail stone will touch thee.” rob the poor of their sole means of support. In the time of his greatest popularity, the Dost thou not know what I would tell thee! throngs waited hours at the doors of the What doest thou, O Lord! Arise, and come to cathedral for the preacher’s arrival and it has deliver thy Church from the hands of devils, from the hands of tyrants, from the hands of been estimated by Villari, that audiences of iniquitous prelates. 10,000 or 12,000 hung on his discourses. Like fields of grain under the wind, the feelings of Dizzy flights of fancy abounded in his audiences were swayed by the preacher’s Savonarola’s discourses and took the place of voice. Now they burned with indignation: calm and logical exposition. On the evening now they were softened to tears. before he preached his last sermon in Advent, 1492, Savonarola beheld in the middle of the “I was overcome by weeping and could not go sky a hand holding a sword with the on.” So wrote the reporter while taking down inscription, Behold the sword of the Lord will a sermon, and Savonarola himself felt the descend suddenly and quickly upon the terrible strain of his efforts and often sank earth—Ecce gladius Domini super terram cito back into his seat completely exhausted. His et velociter. Suddenly the sword was turned message was directed to the clergy, high and toward the earth, the sky was darkened, low, as well as to the people and the flashes of swords, arrows and flames rained down. The his indignation often fell upon the palace of heavens quaked with thunder and the world Lorenzo. The clergy he arraigned for their became a prey to famine and death. The greed of prebends and gold and their vision was ended by a command to the devotion to outer ceremonies rather than to preacher to make these things known. Again the inner life of the soul. Florence he and again, in after years did he refer to this addressed in endearing terms as the object of prophetic vision. Its memory was also his love. “My Florence,” he was wont to preserved by a medal, representing on one exclaim. Geneva was no more the city of side Savonarola and on the other a sword in Calvin or Edinburgh of Knox than was the heavens held by a hand and pointing to a city beneath.

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The inscription on the heavenly sword well noble ends. The severity of his warnings was represents the style of Savonarola’s often so fearful that the preacher himself preaching. It was impulsive, pictorial, shrank back from delivering them. On one eruptive, startling, not judicial and occasion, he spent the entire night in vigils instructive. And yet it made a profound and prayer that he might be released from the impression on men of different classes. Pico duty of making known a message, but in vain. della Mirandola the elder has described its The sermon, he then went forth to preach, he marvelous effect upon himself. On one called a terrific sermon. occasion, when he announced as his text Gen. Savonarola’s confidence in his divine 6:17, “Behold I will bring the flood of waters appointment to be the herald of special upon the earth,” Pico said he felt a cold communications from above found shudder course through him, and his hair, as expression not only from the pulpit but was it were, stand on end. set forth more calmly in two works, the One is reminded of some of the impressions Manual of Revelations, 1495, and a Dialogue made by the sermons of Christmas Evans, the concerning Truth and Prophecy, 1497. The Welsh preacher, and the impression made by latter tract with a number of Savonarola’s Whitefield’s oratory upon Lord Chesterfield sermons were placed on the Index. In the and Franklin. But the imagery of the sermon, former, the author declared that for a long brilliant and weird as it was, is no sufficient time he had by divine inspiration foretold explanation of the Florentine preacher’s future things but, bearing in mind the power. The preacher himself was burning Saviour’s words, “Give not that which is holy with religious passion. He felt deeply and he unto the dogs,” he had practised reserve in was a man of deep devotion. He had the eye of such utterances. the mystic and saw beneath the external and He expressed his conception of the office ritual to the inner movements of spiritual committed to him, when he said, “The Lord power. has put me here and has said to me, ‘I have The biblical element was also a conspicuous placed thee as a watchman in the center of feature of his preaching. Defective as Italy … that thou mayest hear my words and Savonarola’s exegesis was, the biblical announce them,’ ” Ezek. 3:17. If we are element was everywhere in control of his inclined to regard Savonarola as having made thought and descriptions. His famous a mistake in claiming prophetic foresight, we discourses were upon the ark, Exodus, and easily condone the mistake on the ground of the prophets Haggai, Ezekiel, Amos and his impassioned fervor and the pure motives Hosea, and John’s Revelation. He insisted by which he was animated. To his prophecies upon the authority of Scripture. “I preach the he applied Christ’s own words, that no jot or regeneration of the Church,” he said, “taking tittle should fail till they were fulfilled. the Scriptures as my sole guide.” None of his messages was more famous than Another element which gave to Savonarola’s the one he received on his visit to paradise, sermons their virility and power was the March, 1495. Before starting on his journey, a prophetic element. Savonarola was not number of ladies offered to be his merely the expounder of righteousness. He companions. Philosophy and Rhetoric he claimed to be a prophet revealing things declined. Accepting the company of Faith, which, to use his own words, “are beyond the Simplicity, Prayer and Patience, he was met scope of the knowledge which is natural to on his way by the devil in a monk’s garb. any creature.” This element would have been Satan took occasion to present to him a sign of weakness, if it had not been objections against the supernatural character associated with a great personality, bent on of his predictions. Savonarola ought to have

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 19 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course stopped with preaching virtue and is laid, were the political revolution in denouncing vices and left prophecy alone. A Florence, which occurred, and the coming of prophet was always accredited by miracles. Charles VIII. from across the Alps. Savonarola True prophets were holy men and the devil saw in Charles a Cyrus whose advent would asked Savonarola whether he felt he had release Florence from her political bondage reached a high grade of saintliness. He then and introduce an era of civil freedom. He also ventured to show that Savonarola’s predicted Charles’ subsequent retreat. prophecies had not always been fulfilled. By Commines, who visited Savonarola in the this time they had arrived at the gates of convent of St. Mark’s after the trials which paradise where prudently Satan took his followed Charles’ advent in Italy had begun, leave. The walls of paradise—so Savonarola went away impressed with the friar’s piety described them—were of diamonds and and candor, and declared that he predicted other precious stones. Ten banners with certainty to him and to the king, “things surmounted them inscribed with the prayers which no one believed at the time and which of Florence. Hierarchies and principalities have all been fulfilled since.” appeared on every side. With the help of On the other hand, such solemn angels, the visitor mounted a ladder to the prognostications failed of fulfilment, as the throne of the Virgin who gave him a crown extension of Florentine dominion even to the and a precious stone and then, with Jesus in recovery of Pisa, made May 28, 1495, and the her arms, supplicated the Trinity for speedy conversion of the Turks and Moors, Savonarola and the Florentines. Her request made May 3, 1495. The latter purported to be was granted and the Florentines promised an a revelation from the Virgin on his visit to era of prosperity preceded by a period of paradise. Where a certain number of solemn, sorrows. In this new time, the city would be prophetic announcements remained more powerful and rich than ever before. unfulfilled, it is fair to suspect that the The question arises whether Savonarola was remainder were merely the predictions of a a genuine prophet or whether he was self- shrewd observer watching the progress of deluded, mistaking for the heated events. imaginations of his own religious fervor, Many people trusted the friar as a prophet direct communications from God. Alexander but, as conditions became more and more VI. made Savonarola’s “silly declaration of involved, they demanded with increasing being a prophet” one of the charges against insistence that he should substantiate his him. In his Manual of Revelations, Savonarola prophetic claim by a miracle. Even the advanced four considerations to prove that he predictions which came true in part, such as was a true prophet—his own subjective the coming of Charles VIII. across the Alps, certainty, the fulfilment of his predictions, received no fulfilment in the way of a their result in helping on the cause of moral permanent improvement of conditions, such reform in Florence and their acceptance by as Savonarola expected. The statement of good people in the city. His prophecies, he Prof. Bonet-Maury expresses the case well. said, could not have come from astrology for Savonarola’s prophetic gift, so-called, was he rejected it, nor from a morbid imagination nothing more than political and religious for this was inconsistent with his extensive intuition. Some of his predictions were not in knowledge of the Scriptures, nor from Satan the line of what Christian prophecies might for Satan hated his sermons and does not be expected to be, such as the rehumiliation know future events. of Pisa. For us, the only valid test is historical fact. The Florentines felt flattered by the high Were Savonarola’s prophecies fulfilled? The honor which the prophet paid to their city, two prophecies, upon whose fulfilment stress

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 20 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course and his predictions of her earthly dominion “Although I am a stranger in the city, and as well as heavenly glory. In his Manual of Lorenzo the first man in the state, yet shall I Revelations he exclaims, “Whereas Florence stay here and it is he who will go hence.” is placed in the midst of Italy, like the heart in When the hour of death approached, Lorenzo the midst of the body, God has chosen to was honest with himself. In vain did the select her, that she may be the center from physician, Lazzaro of Pavia, resort to the last which this prophetic announcement should medical measure, a potion of distilled gems. be spread abroad throughout all Italy.” Farewell was said to Pico della Mirandola and No scene in Savonarola’s career excels in other literary friends, and Lorenzo gave his moral grandeur and dramatic interest his final counsels to his son, Piero. The solemn appearance at the death-bed of Lorenzo the rites of absolution and extreme unction were Magnificent, in 1492. History has few such all that remained for man to receive from scenes to offer. When it became apparent to man. Lorenzo’s confessor was within reach the brilliant ruler of the Florentine state that but the prince looked to St. Mark’s. “I know of his days were numbered, he felt unwilling to no honest friar save this one,” he exclaimed. face the mysteries of death and the future And so Savonarola was summoned to the without the absolution priestly prerogative bedside in the villa Careggi, two miles from pretends to be competent to confer. the city. Savonarola and Lorenzo loved Florence with The dying man wanted to make confession of an equal love, though the one sought its glory three misdeeds: the sack of Volterra, the through a career of righteousness and the robbery of Monte delle Fanciulle and the other through a career of worldly dominion merciless reprisals after the Pazzi conspiracy. and glittering culture. The two leaders found The spiritual messenger then proceeded to no terms of agreement. Lorenzo had sought to present three conditions on which his win the preacher by personal attention and absolution depended. The first was a strong blandishments. He attended mass at St. faith in God’s mercy. The dying man gave Mark’s. Savonarola held himself back as from assent. The second was that he restore his ill- an elegant worldling and the enemy of the gotten wealth, or charge his sons to do it. To liberties of Florence. “You see,” said Lorenzo, this assent was also given. The third demand “a stranger has come into my house, yet he required that he give back to Florence her will not stoop to pay me a visit.” “He does not liberties. To this Lorenzo gave no response ask for me; let him go or stay at his pleasure,” and turned his face to the wall. The priest replied the friar to those who told him that withdrew and, in a few hours, April 8, 1492, Lorenzo was in the convent garden. the ruler of Florence passed into the presence Five influential citizens of Florence called and of the omnipotent Judge who judges not suggested to the friar that he modify his according to the appearance but according to public utterances. Recognizing that they had the heart and whose mercy is everlasting. come at Lorenzo’s instance, he bade them tell The surmise has been made that, if the prince to do penance for his sins, for the Savonarola had been less rigid, he might have Lord is no respecter of persons and spares exercised an incalculable influence for good not the mighty of the earth. Lorenzo called upon the dying prince who was still upon Fra Mariano to publicly take Savonarola susceptible of religious impressions. But who to task. This he did from the pulpit on can with probability conjecture the secrets of Ascension Day, 1491. Lorenzo himself was the divine purpose in such cases? Perhaps, present, but the preacher’s charges overshot Savonarola’s relentless demands awakened in the mark, and Savonarola was more popular Lorenzo a serious impression showing itself than ever. The prior of St. Mark’s exclaimed, in a cry to God for absolution, while the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 21 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course extreme unction of the priest might have about which he had spoken to him, God’s lulled the dying man’s conscience to sleep wrath would be poured out upon his head. with a false sense of security. At any rate, the These things were the recognition of the influence of the friar of St. Mark’s with the liberties of Florence and the return of Pisa to people increased. her dominion. In his letter of May 25, 1495, During the years, beginning with 1494, bidding Charles favor the city of Florence, he Savonarola’s ascendancy was at its height and asserted, “God has chosen this city and so cold a witness as Guicciardini reports his determined to magnify her and raise her up influence as extraordinary. These years and, whoso toucheth her, toucheth the apple included the invasion of Charles VIII., the of His eye.” Certainly, from the standpoint of banishment of the Medici from Florence and the welfare of Italy, the French invasion was the establishment of a theocratic government not of Providential origin. Although the in the city. banners of his army were inscribed with the words Voluntas Dei—the Will of God—and “He will come across the Alps against Italy Missus Dei—the legate of God—Charles was like Cyrus,” Savonarola had prophesied of the bent on territorial aggrandizement and not French king, Charles VIII. And, when the on breaking the bonds of civic despotism. French army was approaching the confines of Florence, he exclaimed, “Behold, the sword The time had now come to realize in Florence has come upon you. The prophecies are Savonarola’s ideal of government, a theocracy fulfilled, the scourge begun! Behold these with Christ at its head. The expulsion of the hosts are led of the Lord! O Florence, the time Medici made possible a reorganization of the of singing and dancing is at an end. Now is the state and the new constitution, largely a time to shed floods of tears for thy sins.” matter of Savonarola’s creation, involved him inextricably in civic policies and the war of Florence listened eagerly. Piero de’ Medici civic factions. However, it should not be went to the French camp and yielded to the forgotten that his municipal constitution king’s demand for 200,000 florins, and the secured the commendation of Guicciardini cession of Pisa, Leghorn and Sarzana. But and other Italian political writers. It was a Savonarola thundered and pled from the proof of the friar’s remarkable influence that, pulpit against the Medicean house. The city at his earnest advice, a law was passed which decreed its banishment and sent prevented retaliatory measures against the commissioners to Charles, with Savonarola followers of the Medici. among them. In his address, which is preserved, the friar reminded his Majesty that Landucci wrote in his diary that, but for he was an instrument sent by the Lord to Savonarola, the streets would have been relieve Italy of its woes and to reform the bathed in blood. In his great sermons on Church. Charles entered Florence but, moved Haggai, during the Advent season of 1494, by Savonarola’s intercession, reduced the and on the Psalms in 1495, Savonarola tribute to 120,000 florins and restrained the definitely embarked as a pilot on the political depredations of the French soldiery. The king sea. “The Lord has driven my bark into the also seems to have listened to the friar’s stern open ocean,” he exclaimed from the pulpit. words when he said to him, “Hearken unto Remonstrating with God for imposing this the voice of God’s servant and pursue thy duty upon him, he declared, ‘I will preach, if journey onward without delay.” so I must, but why need I meddle with the government of Florence.’ And the Lord said, When Charles, after sacking Rome and ‘If thou wouldst make Florence a holy city, occupying Naples, returned to Northern Italy, thou must establish her on firm foundations Savonarola wrote him five letters threatening and give her a government which cherishes that, if he did not do for Florence the things righteousness.’

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Thus the preacher was committed. He Savonarola proceed to Rome and answer pronounced from the pulpit in favor of virtue charges. Then followed papal inhibitions of as the foundation of a sound government and his preaching and the decree of democracy as its form. “Among northern excommunication, and the conflict closed nations,” he affirmed, where there is great with the appointment of a papal commission strength and little intellect, and among which condemned Savonarola to death as a southern nations where there is great heretic. intellect and little strength, the rule of a single Alexander’s order, summoning the friar to despot may sometimes be the best of Rome, was based on his announcement that governments. But in Italy and, above all in his predictions of future events came by Florence, where both strength and intellect divine revelation. At the same time, the pope abound,—where men have keen wits and expressed his great joy over the report that of restless spirits,—the government of the one all the workers in the Lord’s vineyard, can only result in tyranny.” Savonarola was the most zealous, and he In the scheme, which he proposed, he took for promised to welcome him to the eternal city his model the great council of Venice, leaving with love and fraternal affection. Savonarola out its head, the doge, who was elected for declined the pontiff’s summons on the ground life. The great council of Florence was to of ill-health and the dangers that would beset consist of, at least, 1500 men, who had him on the way to Rome. His old rival in the reached the age of 29, paid their taxes and pulpit, Fra Mariano de Gennazzano, and other belonged to the class called beneficiati, that is, enemies were in Rome intriguing against him, those who held a civil office themselves or and the Medici were fast winning the pope’s whose father, grandfather, or great- favor. grandfather had held a civil office. A select Alexander’s first letter inhibiting him from council of 80 was to be chosen by it, its preaching, Sept. 9, 1495, condemned members to be at least forty years of age. In Savonarola’s insane folly in mixing up with criminal cases, an appeal from a decision of Italian political affairs and his announcement the signory was allowed to the great council, that he was a special messenger sent from which was to meet once a week and to be a God. In his reply Savonarola answered the voting rather than a deliberative body. charges and, at the invitation of the signory, The place of the supreme doge or ruler, continued to preach. In his third brief, Oct. 16, Savonarola gave to God himself. “God alone,” 1495, the pontiff forbade him to preach he exclaimed from the pulpit, “God alone will openly or in private. Pastor remarks, “It was be thy king, O Florence, as He was king of as clear as the sun that Savonarola was guilty Israel under the old Covenant.” “Thy new of rank disobedience to the papal authority.” head shall be Jesus Christ,”—this was the For five months, the friar held himself aloof in ringing cry with which he closed his sermons his convent but, Feb. 17, 1496, at the call of on Haggai. Savonarola’s recent biographer, the signory to preach the Lenten sermons, he Villari, emphasizes “the masterly prudence again ascended the pulpit. He took the bold and wisdom shown by him in all the position that the pope might err. “The pope,” fundamental laws he proposed for the new he said, “may command me to do something state.” He had no seat in the council and yet that contravenes the law of Christian love or he was the soul of the entire people. the Gospel. But, if he did so command, I would In the last chapter of his career Savonarola say to him, thou art no shepherd. Not the was pitted against Alexander VI. as his Roman Church, but thou errest.” From that contestant. The conflict began with the time on, he lifted his voice against the demand made by the pope July 25, 1495, that corruptions of the papal city as he had not

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 23 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course done before. Preaching on Amos 4:1, Feb. 28, On the last day of the carnival of 1497, 1496, he exclaimed, “Who are the fat kine of occurred the burning of the vanities, as it was Bashan on the mountains of Samaria? I say called. The young men, who had been stirred they are the courtesans of Italy and Rome. Or, to enthusiasm by Savonarola’s sermons, went are there none? A thousand are too few for through the city, knocking from door to door Rome, 10,000, 12,000, 14,000 are too few for and asking the people to give up their Rome. Prepare thyself, O Rome, for great will trinkets, obscene books such as Ovid and be thy punishments.” Boccaccio, dice, games of chance, harps, Finding threats would not stop Savonarola’s mirrors, masks, cosmetics and portraits of mouth, Alexander resorted to bribery, an art beautiful women, and other objects of luxury. in which he was well skilled. Through a These were piled up in the public square in a Dominican sent to Florence, he offered to the pyramid, 60 feet high and 240 feet in friar of St. Mark’s the red hat. But Alexander circumference at the base. The morning of had mistaken his man and, in a sermon that day, throngs listened to the mass said by delivered August, 1496, Savonarola declared Savonarola. The young men went in that neither miters nor a cardinal’s hat would procession through the streets and reaching he have, but only the gift God confers on His the pile of vanities, they with others joined saints—death, a crimson hat, a hat reddened hands and danced around the pile and then with blood. Lucas, strangely enough, ascribes set fire to it amid the singing of religious the offer of the red hat, not to vicious songs. The sound of bells and trumpets added shrewdness but to the alleged good purpose to the effect of the strange spectacle. Men of Alexander to show his appreciation of “an thought of the books and philters, burnt at earnest but misguided man.” Ephesus under the spell of Paul’s preaching. The scene was repeated the last year of The carnival season of 1496 and the seasons Savonarola’s life, 1498. of the next two years gave remarkable proofs of the hold Savonarola had on the popular Savonarola has been charged with having no mind. The carnival, which had been the scene sympathy with the Renaissance and the of wild revelries, was turned into a semi- charge it is not easy to set aside. As religious festival. The boys had been Burckhardt, the historian of that movement, accustomed to carry their merriment to rude says, he remained a monastic. In one writing, excesses, forcing their demands for money he sets forth the dangers of literature. Plato upon older persons, dancing around bonfires and Aristotle are in hell. And this was the at night and pelting people and houses judgment expressed in the city of the Platonic promiscuously with stones. For this “festival Academy! Virgil and Cicero he tolerated, but of the stones,” which the signory had been Catullus, Ovid and Terence he condemned to unable to abolish Savonarola and his co- banishment. helpers substituted a religious celebration. It At one time, under the spell of the prior’s was called the reform of the boys. Savonarola preaching, all Florence seemed to be going to had established boys’ brigades in different religion. Wives left their husbands and betook wards of the city and arranged tiers of seats themselves to convents. Others married, for them against the walls of the cathedral. taking the vow of nuptial abstinence and These “boys of Fra Girolamo,” as Landucci Savonarola even dreamed that the city might calls them, marched up and down the streets reach so perfect a condition that all marrying singing hymns which Savonarola and would cease. People took the communion Benivieni composed and taking their places at daily and young men attended mass and stands, erected for the purpose, received received the Eucharistic emblem. Fra collections for the poor. Bartolomeo threw his studies of naked figures into the fire and for a time continued

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 24 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course to think it sinful to use the hands in painting Apostolic admonitions and commands” and which ought to be folded continually in as “one suspected of heresy” Alexander prayer. It was impossible that such a tension declared him excommunicate. All were should continue. There was enthusiasm but forbidden to listen to the condemned man or not regeneration. A reaction was sure to come have converse with him. and the wonder is that Savonarola retained so In a letter addressed a month later “to all much of the popular confidence, almost to the Christians, the elect of God,” Savonarola again end of his life. affirmed his readiness to yield to the Church’s Alexander would have none of the Florentine authority, but denied that he was bound to reforms and was determined to silence submit to the commands of his superiors Savonarola at any cost. Within the city, the air when these were in conflict with charity and was full of rumors of plots to restore the God’s law. “Henceforth,” exclaimed the Medici and some of the conspirators were Puritan contemporary, Landucci, “we were executed. Enemies of the republic avowed deprived of the Word of God.” The signory their purpose to kill Savonarola and wrote to Alexander in support of Savonarola, circulated sheets and poems ridiculing and affirming his purity of character and threatening him. Insulting placards were soundness of doctrine, and friends, like Pico posted up against the walls of his convent della Mirandola the younger, issued defences and, on one occasion, the pulpit of the of his conduct. The elder Pico della Mirandola cathedral was defiled with ordure and draped and Politian, both of whom had died a year or in an ass’ skin, while spikes were driven into two before, showed their reverence for the place where the preacher was Savonarola by assuming the Dominican garb accustomed to strike his hand. Landucci on their death-beds. speaks of it as a “great scandal.” Assassins At this time, Savonarola sent forth his even gathered in the cathedral and were only Triumph of the Cross, in which were set forth cowed by guards posted by the signory. The the verity and reasonableness of the Catholic friar of St. Mark’s seemed not to be appalled. faith. After proving from pure reason God’s It was ominous, however, that the signory existence and the soul’s immortality, the became divided in his support. work proceeds to expound the Trinity, which If possible, Savonarola became more intense is above man’s reason, and articles of the in his arraignment of the evils of the Church. Apostles’ Creed, and to set forth the superior He exclaimed: “O prostrate Church, thou hast excellency of the lives of Christians, on which displayed thy foulness to the whole earth. much stress is laid. It closes with a Thou hast multiplied thy fornications in Italy, confutation of Mohammedanism and other in France, in Spain and all other regions. Thou false forms of religion. hast desecrated the sacraments with simony. Savonarola kept silence in the pulpit and Of old, priests called their bastards nephews, refrained from the celebration of the now they call them outright sons.” Alexander sacrament until Christmas day of 1497, when could not mistake the reference nor tolerate he celebrated the mass at St. Mark’s three such declamations. The integrity of the times. On the 11th of February, he stood again supreme seat of Christendom was at stake. A in the pulpit of the duomo. To a vast prophetic function superior to the papacy concourse he represented the priest as Eugenius III. might recognize, when it was merely an instrument of the Almighty and, administered in the admonitions of a St. when God withdraws His presence, prelate Bernard, but the Florentine prophet had and pope are but as “a broken iron tool.” engaged in denunciation even to personal “And, if a prelate commands what is contrary invective. The prophet was losing his balance. to godly living and charity, he is not only not On May 12,1497, for “his failure to obey our

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 25 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course to be obeyed but deserves to be anathema.” through the immediate and startling On another occasion, he said that not only intervention of God. He called heaven to may the pope be led into error by false witness that he was “ready to die for His God” reports but also by his own badness, as was and invited God to send him to the fires of the case with Boniface VIII. who was a wicked hell, if his motives were not pure and his pope, beginning his pontificate like a fox and work inspired. On another occasion, he ending it like a dog. Many, through reverence invoked the Lord to strike him dead on the for the Church, kept away from Savonarola’s spot, if he was not sincere. Landucci reports preaching from this time on. Among these some of these wild protestations which he was the faithful Landucci, who says, “whether heard with his own ears. justly or unjustly, I was among those who did One weapon still remained to the pope to not go. I believed in him, but did not wish to bring Savonarola to terms,—the interdict. incur risk by going to hear him, for he was This he threatened to fulminate over under sentence of excommunication.” Florence, unless the signory sent this “son of Savonarola’s enemies had made the words of the evil one” to Rome or cast him into prison. Gregory the Great their war-cry, “The In case the first course was pursued, sentence of the shepherd is to be respected, Alexander promised to treat Savonarola as a whether it be just or unjust.” His father would treat a son, provided he denunciations of the corruption prevailing in repented, for he “desired not the death of a the Church became more bold. sinner but that he might turn from his way The tonsure, he cried, is the seat of all and live.” He urged the signory not to allow iniquity. It begins in Rome where the clergy Savonarola to be as the fly in the milk, make mock of Christ and the saints; yea, are disturbing its relations with Rome or “to worse than Turks and worse than Moors. tolerate that pernicious worm fostered by They traffic in the sacraments. They sell their warmth.” benefices to the highest bidder. Have not the Through epistolary communications and priests in Rome courtesans and grooms and legates, the signory continued its attempts to horses and dogs? Have they not palaces full of remove Alexander’s objections and protect tapestries and silks, of perfumes and lackeys? Savonarola. But, while all the members Seemeth it, that this is the Church of God? continued to express confidence in the friar’s Every Roman priest, he said, had his purity of motive, the majority came to take concubine. No longer do they speak of the position that it was more expedient to nephews but of their sons and daughters. silence the preacher than to incur the pope’s Savonarola even sought to prove from the ban. At the public meeting, called by the pulpit that the papal brief of signory March 9,1498, to decide the course of excommunication proceeded from the devil, action to be taken, the considerations pressed inasmuch as it was hostile to godly living. were those of expediency. The pope, as the It was becoming evident that the preacher vicar of Christ, has his authority directly from was fighting a losing battle. His assaults God and ought to be obeyed. A second against the morals of the clergy and the consideration was the financial straits of the Vatican stirred up the powers in the Church municipality. A tenth was needed and this against him; his political attitude, factions in could only be ordered through the pope. Florence. His assertions, dealing more and Some proposed to leave the decision of the more in exaggerations, were developing an matter to Savonarola himself. He was the best expectant and at the same time a critical state man the world had seen for 200 years. Others of mind in the people which no religious boldly announced that Alexander’s letters teacher could permanently meet except were issued through the machinations of enemies of Florence and the censures they

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 26 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course contained, being unjust, were not to be Savonarola himself disapproved the ordeal. It heeded. On March 17,1498, the signory’s was an appeal to the miraculous. He had decision was communicated to Savonarola never performed a miracle nor felt the that he should thenceforth refrain from importance of one. His cause, he asserted, preaching and the next day he preached his approved itself by the fruits of righteousness. last sermon. But to the people, as the author of Romola has In his last sermon, Savonarola acknowledged said, “the fiery trial seemed a short and easy it as his duty to obey the mandate. A measure argument” and Savonarola could not resist had been worked out in his mind which was the popular feeling without forfeiting his the last open to a churchman. Already had he popularity. The history of Florence could hinted from the pulpit at the convention of a show more than one case of saintly men general council as a last resort. The letters are whose profession had been tested by fire. So still extant which he intended to send to the it was, during the investiture controversy, kings of Spain, England, France, Germany and with St. John Gualberti, in Settimo close by, Hungary, calling upon them to summon a and with the monk Peter in 1068, and so it council. In them, he solemnly declared that was, a half century later, with another Peter Alexander was no pope. For, aside from who cleared himself of the charge of purchasing his office and from his daily sale contemning the cross by walking unhurt over of benefices, his manifest vices proved him to nine glowing ploughshares. be no Christian. The letters seem never to The ordeal was authorized by the signory and have been received. Individuals, however, set for April 7. It was decided that, in case Fra dispatched preliminary communications to Domenico perished, Savonarola should go friends at the different courts to prepare the into exile within three hours. The two parties, way for their appeal. One, addressed to Domenico and Rondinelli, filed their Charles VIII., was intercepted at Milan and statements with the signory. The Dominican’s sent to the pope. Alexander now had included the following points. The Church documentary proof of the Florentine’s stands in need of renovation. It will be rebellion against papal authority. But chastened. Florence will be chastened. These suddenly a wholly unexpected turn was given chastisements will happen in our day. The to the course of events. sentence of excommunication against Florence was startled by the rumor that Savonarola is invalid. No one sins in ignoring resort was to be had to ordeal by fire to it. decide the genuineness of Savonarola’s The ordeal aroused the enthusiasm of claims. The challenge came from a Franciscan, Savonarola’s friends. When he announced it Francesco da Puglia, in a sermon at S. Croce in in a sermon, many women exclaimed, “I, too, which he arraigned the Dominican friar as a I, too.” Other monks of St. Mark’s and heretic and false prophet. In case Savonarola hundreds of young men announced their was not burnt, it would be a clear sign that readiness to pass through the flames out of Florence was to follow him. The challenge regard for their spiritual guide. was accepted by Fra Domenico da Pescia, a Alexander VI. waited with intense interest for monk of St. Mark’s and close friend of the last bulletins from Florence. His exact Savonarola’s, a man of acknowledged purity state of mind it is difficult to determine. He of life. He took his friend’s place, holding that wrote disapproving of the ordeal and yet he Savonarola should be reserved for higher could not but feel that it afforded an easy way things. Francesco da Puglia then withdrew of getting rid of the enemy to his authority. and a Franciscan monk, Julian Rondinelli, After the ordeal was over, he praised reluctantly took his place. Francesco and the in extravagant

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 27 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course terms and declared the Franciscans could not The crowds were waiting. The hour was past. have done anything more agreeable to him. There was a mysterious moving of monks in The coming trial was looked for with the most and out of the signory-palace. The whole intense interest. There was scarcely any other story of what occurred was later told by topic of conversation in Florence or in Rome. Savonarola himself as well as by other Great preparations were made. Two pyres of eyewitnesses. thorns and other wood were built on the The Franciscans refused to allow Fra public square about 60 feet in length, 3 feet Domenico to enter the burning pathway wide at the base and 3 or 4 feet high, the wearing his red cope or any of the other wood soaked with pitch and oil. The distance garments he had on, on the ground that they between the pyres was two feet, just wide might be bewitched. So he was undressed to enough for a man to pass through. All his skin and put on another suit. On the same entrances to the square were closed by a ground, they also insisted that he keep at a company of 300 men under Marcuccio distance from Savonarola. The impatience of Salviatis and two other companies of 500 the crowds increased. The Franciscans again each, stationed at different points. The people passed into the signory-hall and had a long began to arrive the night before. The conference. windows and roofs of the adjoining houses They had discerned a wooden crucifix in were crowded with the eager spectators. Domenico’s hands and insisted upon its being The solemnity was set for eleven o’clock. The put away for fear it might also have been Dominicans made a solemn impression as bewitched. Savonarola substituted the host they marched to the appointed place. Fra but the Franciscans insisted that the host Domenico, in the van, was clothed in a fiery should not be carried through the flames. The red velvet cope. Savonarola, clad in white and signory was appealed to but Savonarola carrying a monstrance with the host, brought refused to yield, declaring that the accidents up the rear of the body of monks and these might be burnt like a husk but that the were followed by a great multitude of men, essence of the sacred wafer would remain women and children, holding lighted tapers. unconsumed. Suddenly a storm came up and When the hour arrived for the procession to rain fell but it as suddenly stopped. The delay start, Savonarola was preaching. He had again continued. The crowds were growing unruly told the people that his work required no and threatening. Nightfall was at hand. The miracle and that he had ever sought to justify signory called the ordeal off. himself by the signs of righteousness and Savonarola’s power was gone. The spell of his declared that, as on Mt. Carmel, miraculous name had vanished. The spectacle was felt to intervention could only be expected in be a farce. The popular menace grew more answer to prayer and humility. and more threatening and a guard scarcely Later medieval history has few spectacles to prevented violence to Savonarola’s person, as offer to the eye and the imagination equal in the procession moved back to St. Mark’s. interest to the spectacle offered that day. There is much in favor of the view that on There, stood the greatest preacher of his time that day Savonarola’s political enemies, the and the most exalted moral figure since the Arrabbiati, were in collusion with the days of John Huss and Gerson. And there, the Franciscans and that the delay on the square, ancient method of testing innocence was once occasioned by interposing objections, was a more to be tried, a novel spectacle, indeed, to trick to postpone the ordeal altogether. It was that cultured generation of Florentines. The said daggers were ready to put Savonarola glorious pageants of Medicean times had out of the way. The populace, however, did afforded no entertainment more attractive. not stop to consider such questions.

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Savonarola had not stood the test. And, it with his hands behind his back, was lifted reasoned, if he was sincere and confident of from the floor and then by a sudden jerk his cause, why did he not enter the flaming allowed to fall. On a single day, he was pathway himself and brave its fiery perils. If subjected to 14 turnings of the rope. There he had not gone through unharmed, he at any were two separate trials conducted by the rate, in dying, would have shown his moral municipality, April 17 and April 21–23. In the heroism. delirious condition, to which his pains It was Luther’s readiness to stand the test at reduced him, the unfortunate man made Worms which brought him the confidence of confessions which, later in his sane moments, the people. Had he shrunk in 1521 in the he recalled as untrue. He even denied that he presence of Charles V., he would have lost the was a prophet. The impression which this popular regard as Savonarola did in 1498 on denial made upon such ardent admirers as the piazza of Florence. The judgment of Landucci, the apothecary, was distressing. modern times agrees with the popular Writing April 19,1498, he says:— judgment of the Florentines. Savonarola I was present at the reading of the proceedings showed himself wanting in the qualities of the against Savonarola, whom we all held to be a hero. Better for him to have died, than to have prophet. But he said he is no prophet and that exposed himself to the charge of cowardice. his prophecies were not from God. When I heard that, I was seized with wonder and Florence felt mad anger at having been amazement. A deep pain took hold of my soul, imposed upon. The next day St. Mark’s was when I saw such a splendid edifice fall to the stormed by the mob. The signory voted ground, because it was built upon the sorry Savonarola’s immediate banishment. foundation of a falsehood. I looked for Florence Landucci, who wept and continued to pray for to become a new Jerusalem whose laws and him, says “that hell seemed to have opened its example of a good life—buona vita—would go doors.” Savonarola made an address, bidding out for the renovation of the Church, the farewell to his friends. Resistance of the mob conversion of infidels and the comfort of the good and I felt the contrary and took for was in vain. The convent was broken into and medicine the words, “in thy will, O Lord, are all pillaged. Fra Domenico and the prior were things placed”—in voluntate tua, Domine, bound and taken before the galfonier amidst omnia sunt posita. Diary, p. 173. insults and confined in separate apartments. Alexander dispatched a commission of his A day or two later Fra Silvestro, whose own to conduct the trial anew, Turriano, the visions had favored the ordeal, was also Venetian general of the Dominicans and seized. “As for saying a word in Savonarola’s Francesco Romolino, the bishop of Ilerda, favor,” wrote Landucci, “it was impossible. afterwards cardinal. Letters from Rome One would have been killed.” stated that the commission had instructions The pope, on receiving the official news of the “to put Savonarola to death, even if he were occurrences in Florence, sent word another John the Baptist.” Alexander was congratulating the signory, gave the city quite equal to such a statement. Soon after his plenary absolution and granted it the coveted arrival in Florence, Romolino announced that tithes for three years. He also demanded that a bonfire was impending and that he carried Savonarola be sent to Rome for trial, at the the sentence with him ready, prepared in same time, however, authorizing the city to advance. proceed to try the three friars, not neglecting, Fra Domenico bore himself most admirably if necessary, the use of torture. A commission and persisted in speaking naught but praise was appointed to examine the prisoners. of his friend and ecclesiastical superior. Fra Torture was resorted to. Savonarola was Silvestro, yielding to the agonies of the rack, bound to a rope drawn through a pulley and, charged his master with all sorts of guilt.

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Other monks of St. Mark’s wrote to Alexander, permitted to meet face to face the night making charges against their prior as an before the appointed execution. The meeting impostor. So it often is with those who praise occurred in the hall of the signory. When in times of prosperity. To save themselves, Savonarola returned to his cell, he fell asleep they deny and calumniate their benefactors. on the lap of Niccolini of the fraternity of the They received their reward, the papal Battuti, a fraternity whose office it was to absolution. minister to prisoners. Niccolini reported that The exact charges, upon which Savonarola the sleep was as quiet as the sleep of a child. was condemned to death, are matter of some On awaking, the condemned man passed the uncertainty and also matter of indifference, remaining hours of the night in devotions. for they were partly trumped up for the The next morning, the friends met again and occasion. Though no offender against the law partook together of the sacrament. of God, he had given offence enough to man. The sentence was death by hanging, after He was accused by the papal commissioners which the bodies were to be burnt that “the with being a heretic and schismatic. He was soul might be completely separated from the no heretic. The most that can be said is, that body.” The execution took place on the public he was a rebel against the pope’s authority square where, two months before, the crowds and went in the face of Pius II.’s bull had gathered to witness the ordeal by fire. Execrabilis, when he decided to appeal to a Savonarola and his friends were led forth council. stripped of their robes, barefooted and with The intervals between his torture, Savonarola hands bound. Absolution was pronounced by spent in composing his Meditations upon the the bishop of Verona under appointment two penitential Psalms, the 32d and the 51st. from the pope. In pronouncing Savonarola’s Here we see the gloss of his warm religious deposition, the prelate said, “I separate thee nature. The great preacher approaches the from the Church militant and the Church throne of grace as a needy sinner and begs triumphant”—separo te ab ecclesia militante that he who asks for bread may not be turned et triumphante. “Not from the Church away with a stone. He appeals to the cases of triumphant,” replied Savonarola, “that is not Zaccheus, Mary Magdalene, the woman of thine to do”—militante, non triumphante: hoc Canaan, Peter and the prodigal son. Deliver enim tuum non est. In silence he witnessed me, he cries, “as Thou hast delivered the deaths of Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro, countless sinners from the grasp of death and whose last words were “Jesus, Jesus,” and the gates of hell and my tongue shall sing then ascended the platform of execution. aloud of thy righteousness.” Luther, who There were still left bystanders to fling published the expositions with a notable insults. The bodies were burnt and, that no preface,1523, declared them “a piece of particle might be left to be used as a relic, the evangelical teaching and Christian piety. For, ashes were thrown into the Arno. in them Savonarola is seen entering in not as Savonarola had been pronounced by a Dominican monk, trusting in his vows, the Alexander’s commission “that iniquitous rules of his order, his cowl and masses and monster—omnipedium nequissimum—call good works but clad in the breastplate of him man or friar we cannot, a mass of the righteousness and armed with the shield of most abominable wickedness.” The pious faith and the helmet of salvation, not as a Landucci, in thinking of his death, recalled the member of the Order of Preachers but as an crucifixion and, at the scene of the execution, everyday Christian.” again lamented the disappointment of his At their own request the three prisoners, hopes for the renovation of the Church and after a separation of six weeks, were the conversion of the infidel—la novazione della chiesa e la conversione degli infedeli.

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Savonarola was one of the most noteworthy Julius II.’s bull Cum tanto divino, 1505, figures Italy has produced. pronounced every election to the papacy The modern Christian world, Catholic and secured by simony invalid. If it was meant to Protestant, joins him in close fellowship with be retroactive, then Alexander was not a true the flaming religious luminaries of all pope. countries and all centuries. He was a preacher The favorable judgments of contemporaries of righteousness and a patriot. Among the were numerous. Guicciardini called him the religious personalities of Italy, he occupies a saviour of his country—salvatore di patria— position of grandeur by himself, separate and said that “Never was there so much from her imposing , like Gregory VII. goodness and religion in Florence as in his and Innocent Ill.; from Dante, Italy’s poet and day and, after his death, it was seen that the world’s; from St. Francis d’Assisi and from every good thing that had been done was Thomas Aquinas. Italy had other preachers,— done at his suggestion and by his advocacy.” Anthony of Padua, Bernardino of Siena,—but Machiavelli thus expressed himself: “The their messages were local and ecclesiastical. people of Florence seemed to be neither With Arnold of Brescia, Savonarola had illiterate nor rude, yet they were persuaded something in common. Both had a stirring that God spake through Savonarola. I will not message of reform. Both mixed up political decide, whether it was so or not, for it is due ideals with their spiritual activity and both to speak of so great a man with reverence.” died by judicial sanction of the papal see. The day after Savonarola’s death, women Savonarola’s intellectual gifts and were seen praying at the spot where he attainments were not extraordinary. He was suffered and for years flowers were strewn great by reason of moral conviction, his there. Pico della Mirandola closed his eloquence, his disinterested love of his biography with an elaborate comparison country, his whole-souled devotion to the between Savonarola and Christ. Both were cause of righteousness. As an administrator, sent from God. Both suffered in the cause of he failed. He had none of the sagacity or tact righteousness between two others. At the of the statesman and it was his misfortune to command of Julius II., Raphael,12 years after have undertaken to create a new government, Savonarola’s death, placed the preacher a task for which he was the least qualified of among the saints in his Disputa. Philip Neri all men. He was a preacher of righteousness and Catherine de Ricci revered him, and and has a place in the “goodly fellowship of Benedict XIV. seems to have regarded him the prophets.” He belonged to the order of worthy of canonization. Ezekiel and Isaiah, Nathan and John the Within the Dominican order, the feeling Baptist,—the company in which the toward its greatest preacher has undergone a Protestant world also places John Knox. great change. Respect for the papal decision Savonarola was a true Catholic. He did not led it, for a hundred years after Savonarola’s deny a single dogma of the medieval Church. death, to make official effort to retire his But he was more deeply rooted in the name to oblivion. The Dominican general, fundamental teachings of Christ than in Sisto Fabri of Lucca, in 1585, issued an order ecclesiastical formulas. In the deliverance of forbidding every Dominican monk and nun his message, he rose above rituals and usages. mentioning his name and commanded them He demanded regeneration of heart. His to give up any article to their superiors which revolt against the authority of the pope, in kept warm admiration for him or aroused it. appealing to a council, is a serious stumbling- In the latter half of the 19th century, as the block to Catholics who are inclined to a 400th anniversary of his execution favorable judgment of the Friar of St. Mark’s. approached, Catholics, and especially

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Dominicans, in all parts of the world souled German Reformer exclaimed, “Christ defended his memory and efforts were made canonizes Savonarola through us even though to prepare the way for his canonization. In popes and papists burst to pieces over it.” the attempt to remove all objections, The sculptor has given him a place at the feet elaborate arguments have been presented to of Luther and at the side of Wycliffe and Huss prove that Alexander’s sentence of in the monument of the Reformation at excommunication was in fact no Worms. When Catholics, who heard that this excommunication at all. The sound and was proposed, wrote to show the impropriety judicious Catholic historians, Hefele- of including the Florentine Dominican in such Knoepfler, do not hesitate to pronounce his company, Rietschel consulted Hase on the death a judicial murder. subject. The venerable Church historian By the general consent of Protestants, Jerome replied, “It makes no difference whether they Savonarola is numbered among the counted Savonarola a heretic or a saint, he precursors of the Reformation,—the view was in either case a precursor of the taken by Ranke. He was not an advocate of its Reformation and so Luther recognized him.” distinguishing tenet of justification by faith. The visitor in Florence to-day finds two The Roman church was for him the mother of invisible personalities meeting him all other churches and the pope its head. In everywhere, Dante, whom the city banished, his Triumph of the Cross, he distinctly asserts and Savonarola, whom it executed. The spirit the seven sacraments as an appointment of of the executioner has vanished and the Christ and that Christ is “wholly and mention of Savonarola’s name strikes in all essentially present in each of the Eucharistic Florentines a tender chord of admiration and elements.” Nevertheless, he was an innovator love. In 1882, the signory placed his statue in and his exaltation of divine grace accords the Hall of the Five Hundred. There, a few with the teaching of the Reformation. Here all yards from the place of his execution, he Protestants would have fellowship with him stands in his Dominican habit and cowl, with as when he said:— his left hand resting on a lion’s head and It is untrue that God’s grace is obtained by holding aloft in his right hand a crucifix, while pre-existing works of merit as though works his clear eye is turned upwards. Again, on and deserts were the cause of predestination. May 22,1901, the city honored the friar by On the contrary, these are the result of setting a circular bronze tablet with portrait predestination. Tell me, Peter; tell me, O on the spot where he suffered death. A great Magdalene, wherefore are ye in paradise? multitude attended the dedication and one of Confess that not by your own merits have ye the wreaths of flowers bore the name of the obtained salvation, but by the goodness of Dominicans. God. In Savonarola’s cell in St. Mark’s has been Passages abound in his Meditations like this placed a medallion head of the friar, and still one. “Not by their own deservings, O Lord, or another on the cloistral wall over the spot by their own works have they been saved, lest where he was seized and made prisoner, and any man should be able to boast, but because the visitor will often find there a fresh wreath it seemed good in Thy sight.” Speaking of of flowers, a proof of the undying memory of Savonarola’s Exposition of the Psalms, Luther the Florentine preacher and patriot. said that, although some clay still stuck to This was he, Savonarola’s theology, it is a pure and Savonarola,—the star-look shooting from the beautiful example of what is to be believed, cowl. trusted and hoped from God’s mercy and how —Browning, Casa Guido Windows. we come to despair of works. And the whole-

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6.77. The Study and Circulation of the Bible are to do and the analogical directs to things The only biblical commentary of the Middle to be awaited. The last three senses Ages, conforming in any adequate sense to correspond to faith, hope and charity. Hugo of our modern ideas of exegesis, was produced Cher compared them to the four coverings of by Nicolas of Lyra, who died 1340. The the tabernacle, the four winds, the four wings exegesis of the Schoolmen was a subversion of the cherubim, the four rivers of paradise, of Scripture rather than an exposition. In the four legs of the Lord’s table. Here are their hands, it was made the slave of dogma. specimens: Jerusalem, literally, is a city in Of grammatical and textual criticism they had Palestine; allegorically, it is the Church; no conception and they lacked all equipment morally, the faithful soul; analogically, the for the grammatical study of the original heavenly Jerusalem. The Exodus from Hebrew and Greek. is, historically, a fact; allegorically, the redemption of Christ; morally, the soul’s What commentaries were produced in the conversion; analogically, the departure for flourishing era of Scholasticism, were either the heavenly land. In his earliest years, Dean collections of quotations from the Fathers, Colet followed this method. From Savonarola called Chains,—catenae, the most noted of we would expect it. The literal heaven, earth which was the catena on the Gospels by and light of Genesis 1:1, 2, he expounded as Thomas Aquinas,—or, if original works, they meaning allegorically, Adam, Eve and the light teemed with endless suggestions of the fancy of grace or the Hebrews, Gentiles and Jesus and were like continents of tropical vine- Christ; morally, the soul, body and active growths through which it is next to intelligence; analogically, angels, men and the impossible to find a clear path to Jesus Christ vision of God. In his later years, Colet, in and the meaning of human life. The bulky answer to a letter from Erasmus, who insisted expositions of the Psalms, Job and other upon the fecundity of meanings of Scripture biblical books by such theologians as Rupert texts, abandoned his former position and of Deutz, Bonaventura and Albertus Magnus, declared that their fecundity consisted not in are to-day intellectual curiosities or, at best, their giving birth to many senses but to one manuals from which piety of the conventual only and that the truest. In his better moods, type may be fed. They bring out every other Erasmus laid stress upon the one historical, meaning but the historical and plain sense sense, applying to the interpretation of the intended by the biblical authors. Especially Bible the rule that is applied to other books. true is this of the Song of Songs, which the Schoolmen made a hunting-ground for After the Reformation was well on its way, descriptions of the Virgin Mary. It is said, the old irrational method continued to be Thomas Aquinas was engaged on the practised and Bishop Longland, in a sermon exposition of this book when he died. on Prov. 9:1, 2, preached in 1525, explained the words “she hath furnished her table” to The traditional medieval formula of mean, that wisdom had set forth in her interpretation reduced Tychonius’ seven spiritual banquet the four courses of history, senses to four,—the literal, allegorical, moral tropology, analogy and allegory. Three years and analogical. later, 1528, Tyndale, the translator of the Thomas Aquinas, fully in accord with this English Bible, had this to say of the medieval method, said that “the literal sense of system of exegesis and the new system which Scripture is manifold, its spiritual sense, sought out the literal sense of Scripture:— threefold, viz., allegorical, moral and The papists divide the Scripture into four analogical.” The literal sense teaches the senses, the literal, tropological, allegorical things which have happened, the allegorical and analogical. The literal sense has become what we are to believe, the moral what we nothing at all, for the pope hath taken it clean

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 33 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course away and hath made it his possession. He Although Wycliffe wrote no commentaries on hath partly locked it up with the false and books of Scripture, he gave expositions of the counterfeited keys of his traditions, Lord’s Prayer and the Decalogue and of many ceremonies and feigned lies. Thou shalt texts, which are thoroughly practical and understand that the Scripture hath but one popular. In his treatise on the Truth of sense, which is the literal sense, and this Scripture, he seems at times to pronounce the literal sense is the root and ground of all and discovery of the literal sense the only object the anchor that never faileth whereunto, if of a sound exegesis. A generation later Gerson thou cleave, thou canst never err or go out of showed an inclination to lay stress upon the the way. literal sense as fundamental but went no A decided step in the direction of the new further than to say that it is to be accepted so exegesis movement was made by Nicolas of far as it is found to be in harmony with the Lyra in his Postillae, a brief commentary on teachings of the Church. the entire Bible. This commentator, called by Later in the 15th century, the free critical Wycliffe the elaborate and skillful annotator spirit which the Revival of Letters was of Scripture,—tamen copiosus et ingeniosus begetting found pioneers in the realm of postillator Scripturae, was born in Normandy, exegesis in Laurentius Valla and Erasmus, about 1270, and became professor in Paris Colet, Wesel and Wessel. As has already been where he remained till his death. He knew said, Valla not only called in question the Greek and learned Hebrew from a rabbi and genuineness of Constantine’s donation, but his knowledge of that tongue gave rise to the criticized Jerome’s Vulgate and Augustine. false rumor that he had a Jewish mother. Lyra Erasmus went still farther when he left out of made a new Latin translation, commented his Greek New Testament, 1516, the spurious directly on the original text and ventured at passage about the three witnesses, 1 John 5:7, times to prefer the comments of Jewish though he restored it in the edition of 1522. commentators to the comments of the He pointed out the discrepancy between a Fathers. As he acknowledged in his statement in Stephen’s speech and the Introduction, he was much influenced by the account in Genesis and questioned the writings of Rabbi Raschi. authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Lyra’s lasting merit lies in the stress he laid Apostolic origin of 2d and 3rd John and the upon the literal sense which he insisted Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse. should alone be employed in establishing In opposition to such views the Sorbonne, in dogma. In practice, however, he allowed a 1526, declared it an error of faith to call in secondary sense, the mystical or typical, but question the authorship of any of the books of he declared that it had been put to such abuse the New Testament. Erasmus recommended as to have choked out—suffocare—the literal for the student of the Scriptures a fair sense. The language of Scripture must be knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew and understood in its natural sense as we would also that he be versed in other studies, expect our words to be understood. His especially the knowledge of natural objects method aided in undermining the fanciful and such as the animals, trees, precious stones pernicious exegetical system of the and geography of Scripture. Schoolmen who knew neither Greek nor The nearest approach to the exegetical Hebrew and prepared the way for a new principles as well as doctrinal positions of the period of biblical exposition. He was used not Reformers was made by the Frenchman, only by Wycliffe and Gerson, but also by Lefèvre d’Etaples, whose translations of the Luther, who acknowledged his services in New Testament and the Old Testament carry insisting upon the literal sense. us into the period introduced by Luther. It

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 34 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course remained for Luther and the other Reformers text free “from all mixture of falsehood and to give to the literal or historical sense its due mistake.” This, he alleged, was evident from weight, and especially from the sane its acceptance by the Church in all ages and grammatical exegesis of John Calvin is a new the use the Fathers had made of it. Another period in the exposition of the sacred member of the Louvain faculty, Latromus, writings to be dated. employed his learning in a pamphlet which The early printing-presses, from Lyons to maintained that a knowledge of Greek and Paris and from Venice and Nuernberg to Hebrew was not necessary for the scholarly Cologne and Luebeck, eagerly turned out study of the Scriptures. In England, Erasmus’ editions of the entire Bible or parts of it, the New Testament was attacked on a number of vast majority of which, however, gave the grounds by Lee, archbishop of York; and Latin text. The first printed Latin Bible, which Standish, bishop of St. Asaph, preached a appeared at Mainz without date and in two furious sermon in St. Paul’s churchyard on volumes, belongs before 1455 and bears the Erasmus’ temerity in undertaking the issue of name of the Gutenberg Bible from the printer such a work. The University of Cologne was or the Mazarin Bible from the copy which was especially outraged by Erasmus’ attempt and found in the library of Cardinal Mazarin. Conrad of Hersbach wrote:— Before 1520, no less than 199 printed They have found a language called Greek, at editions of the entire volume appeared. Of which we must be careful to be on our guard. It these,156 were Latin,17 German,—3 of the is the mother of all heresies. In the hands of German editions being in Low German,—11 many persons I see a book, which they call the Italian, 2 Bohemian and one Russian. Spain New Testament. It is a book full of thorns and poison. As for Hebrew my brethren, it is produced two editions, a Limousin version at certain that those who learn it will sooner or Valencia,1478, and the Complutensian Bible later turn . of Cardinal Ximenes, 1514–1517. England But among the men who read Erasmus’ text was far behind and her first printed English was , and he was studying it to New Testament did not appear till 1526, settle questions which started in his soul. although Caxton had setup his printing-press About one of these he asked his friend at Westminster in 1477. Spalatin to consult Erasmus, namely the final To the printed copies of the whole Scriptures meaning of the righteousness of the law, must be added the parts which appeared in which he felt the great scholar had plenaria and psalteria,—copies of the Gospels misinterpreted in his annotations on the and of the Psalms,—and in the postillae Romans in the Novum instrumentum. He which contained the Scripture text with believed, if Erasmus would read Augustine’s annotations. From 1470–1520 no less than works, he would change his mind. Luther 103 postillae appeared from the press. preferred Augustine, as he said, with the The number of copies of the Bible sent off in a knowledge of one tongue to Jerome with his single edition is a matter of conjecture as knowledge of five. must also be the question whether copies Down to the very end of its history, the were widely held by laymen. medieval Church gave no official The new path which Erasmus struck out in encouragement to the circulation of the Bible his edition of the New Testament was looked among the laity. On the contrary, it uniformly upon in some quarters as a dangerous path. set itself against it. In 1199 Innocent III., Dorpius, one of the Louvain professors, in writing to the diocese of Metz where the 1515, anticipated the appearance of the book Scriptures were being used by heretics, by remonstrating with Erasmus for his bold declared that as by the old law, the beast project and pronounced the received Vulgate touching the holy mount was to be stoned to

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 35 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course death, so simple and uneducated men were Gospel and the epistles of Paul. And I wish they not to touch the Bible or venture to preach its were translated into all languages, so that they doctrines. might be read and understood, not only by Scots and Irishmen but also by Turks and The article of the Synod of Toulouse, 1229, Saracens, I long that the husbandman should strictly forbidding the Old and New sing portions of them to himself as he follows Testaments to the laity either in the original the plow, that the weaver should hum them to text or in the translation was not recalled or the tune of his shuttle, that the traveler should modified by papal or synodal action. Neither beguile with their stories the tedium of his after nor before the invention of printing was journey. the Bible a free book. Gerson was quite in line The utterances of Erasmus aside, the appeals with the utterances of the Church, when he made 1450–1520 for the circulation of the stated, that it was easy to give many reasons Scriptures among all classes are very sparse why the Scriptures were not to be put into the and, in spite of all pains, Catholic vulgar tongues except the historical sections controversialists have been able to bring and the parts teaching morals. together only a few. And yet, the few that we In Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella represented have show that, at least in Germany and the the strict churchly view when, on the eve of Netherlands, there was a popular hunger for the Reformation, they prohibited under the Bible in the vernacular. Thus, the Preface severe penalties the translation of the to the German Bible, issued at Cologne, 1480, Scriptures and the possession of copies. The called upon every Christian to read the Bible positive enactment of the English archbishop, with devotion and honest purpose. Though Arundel, at the beginning of the 15th century, the most learned may not exhaust its wisdom, forbidding the reading of Wycliffe’s English nevertheless its teachings are clear and version, was followed by the notorious uncovered. The learned may read Jerome’s pronouncement of Archbishop Bertholdt of Vulgate but the unlearned and simple folk Mainz against the circulation of the German could and should use the Cologne edition Bible, at the close of the same century, 1485. which was in good German. The devotional The position taken by Wycliffe that the manual, Die Himmelsthuer,—Door of Scriptures, as the sole source of authority for Heaven,—1513, declared that listening to creed and life, should be freely circulated sermons ought to stir up people to read found full response in the closing years of the diligently in the German Bible. In 1505, Jacob Middle Ages only in the utterances of one Wimpheling spoke of the common people scholar, Erasmus, but he was under suspicion reading both Testaments in their mother- and always ready to submit himself to the tongue and made this the ground of an appeal judgment of the Church hierarchic. If Wycliffe to priests not to neglect to read the Word of said, “God’s law should be taught in that God themselves. tongue that is more known, for this wit Such testimonies are more than offset by [wisdom] is God’s Word,” Erasmus in his warnings against the danger attending the Paraclesis uttered the equally bold words:— popular use of Scriptures. Brant spoke I utterly dissent from those who are unwilling strongly in this vein and so did Geiler of that the sacred Scriptures should be read by Strassburg, who asserted that putting the the unlearned translated into their own vulgar Scriptures into the hands of laymen was like tongue, as though the strength of the Christian putting a knife into the hands of children to religion consisted in men’s ignorance of it. The cut bread. He added that it “was almost a counsels of kings are much better kept hidden wicked thing to print the sacred text in but Christ wished his mysteries to be German.” Archbishop Bertholdt’s fulmination published as openly as possible. I wish that against German versions of the Bible and even the weakest woman should read the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 36 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course their circulation among the people no doubt Catholic party issued none till the close of the expressed the general mind of the hierarchy 16th century. in Germany and all Europe. Distinct witness is borne by Tyndale to the In this celebrated edict, the German primate unwillingness of the old party to have the pronounced the German language too Bible in English, in these words: “Some of the barbarous a tongue to reproduce the high papists say it is impossible to translate the thoughts expressed by Greek and Latin Scriptures into English, some that it is not writers, writing of the Christian religion. The lawful for the layfolk to have it in the mother- Scriptures are not to be given to simple and tongue, some that it would make them all unlearned men and, above all, are not to be heretics.” After the new views were quite put into the hands of women. He spoke of the prevalent in England, the English Bible had a fools who were using the divine gift of hard time in winning the right to be read. printing to send forth things proscribed to the Tyndale’s version, for the printing of which he public and declared, that the printers of the found no room in England, was at Wolsey’s sacred text were moved by the vain love of instance proscribed by Henry VIII. and the fame or by greed. In his zeal, the archbishop famous burning of 1527 in St. Paul’s went so far as to forbid the translation of all churchyard of all the copies Bishop Tonstall works whatsoever, of Greek and Latin could lay his hands on will always rise up to authorship, or their sale without the sanction rebuke those who try to make it appear that of the doctors of the Universities of Mainz or the circulation of the Word of God was Erfurt. The punishment for the violation of intended by the Church authorities to be free. the edict was excommunication, confiscation Tyndale declared that, “in burning the New of books and a fine of 100 gulden. Testament, the papists did none other thing The decree was so effective that, after 1488, than I looked for; no more shall they do if only four editions of the German Bible they burn me also.” Any fears he may have appeared until 1522, when Luther issued his had were realized in his execution at New Testament, when the old German Vilvorde, 1536. No doubt, the priest translations seemed to be suddenly laid aside. represented a large class when he rebuked In England, Arundel’s inhibition so fully Tyndale for proposing to translate the Bible expressed the mind of the nation that for a in the words, “We were better without God’s full century no attempt was made to translate laws than the pope’s.” The martyr Hume’s the Bible into English and it was not till after body was hung when an English Bible was 1530 that the first copy of the English found on his person. In 1543, the reading of Scriptures was published on English soil. Sir the Scriptures was forbidden in England Thomas More, it is true, writing on the except to persons of quality. The Scotch threshold of the English Reformation, joined the English authorities when the Synod interpreted Arundel’s decree as directed of St. Andrews, 1529, forbade the importation against corrupt translations and sought to of Bibles into Scotland. make it appear that it was on account of In France, according to the testimony of the errors that Wycliffe’s version had been famous printer Robert Stephens, who was condemned. He was striving to parry the born in 1503, the doctors of the Sorbonne, in charge that the Church had withheld the Bible the period when he was a young man, knew from popular use, but, whatever the about the New Testament only from interpretation put upon his words may be quotations from Jerome and the Decretals. He (see this volume, p. 348), the fact remains declared that he was more than 50 years old that the English were slow in getting any before he knew anything about the New printed version of their own and that the Testament. Luther was a man before he saw a copy of the Latin Bible. In 1533, Geneva

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 37 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course forbade its citizens to read the Bible in NOTE. German or French and ordered all Both Janssen and Abbot Gasquet spend much translations burnt. The strict inquisition of pains in the attempt to show that the books would have passed to all countries, if medieval Church was not opposed to the the hierarchy had had its way. In 1535, circulation of the Bible in popular versions or Francis I. closed the printing-presses and the Latin Vulgate. The proofs they bring made it a capital offence in France to publish forward must be regarded as strained and a religious book without authorization from insufficient. They ignore entirely the vast the Sorbonne. The attitude of the Roman mass of testimony on the other side, as, for Catholic hierarchy, since the Reformation as example, the testimony involved in the well as during the Reformation, has been popular reception given to the German and against the free circulation of the Bible. In the English Scriptures when they appeared from 19th century, one pope after another the hands of the Reformers and the mass of anathematized Bible societies. In Spain, Italy testimony given by the Reformers on the and South America, the punishments visited subject. Gasquet endeavors to break the force upon Bible colporteurs and the frequent of the argument drawn from Arundel’s edict, burning of the Bible itself have been quite in but he has nothing to say of the demand the line of the decrees of Arundel and Wycliffe made for the popular dissemination Bertholdt and the treatment of Bishop of the Bible, a demand which implied that the Tonstall. Nor will it be forgotten that, at the Bible was withheld from the people. Dr. Barry time Rome was made the capital of Italy in who belongs to the same school, in the 1870, a papal law required that copies of the Cambr. Mod. Hist., I. 640, speaks of “the Bible found in the possession of visitors to the enormous extent the Bible was read in the papal city be confiscated. 15th century” and that it was not “till we On the other hand, through the agency of the come within sight of the Lutheran troubles Reformers, the book was made known and that preachers, like Geiler of Kaisersberg, hint offered freely to all classes. What use the their doubts on the expediency of Reformers hoped to make of printing for the unrestrained Bible-reading in the dissemination of religion and intelligence is vernacular.” What is to be said of such an tersely and quaintly expressed by the exaggeration in view of the fact that the vast martyrologist, Foxe, in these words:— majority of Bibles were in Latin, a language Either the pope must abolish printing or he which the people could not read, that Geiler must seek a new world to reign over, for else, died in 1510, seven years before Luther as the world stands, printing will abolish him. ceased to be a pious Augustinian monk, and The pope and all the cardinals must that he did very much more than hint doubts! understand this, that through the light of He expressed himself unreservedly against printing the world begins now to have eyes to Bible-reading. Janssen-Pastor,—I. 23 sqq., 72 see and heads to judge.… God hath opened sqq., VII. 535 sqq.—have a place for stray the press to preach, whose voice the pope is testimonies between 1480–1520 in favor of never able to stop with all the puissance of the popular reading of the Scriptures, but, go the triple crown. By printing as by the gift of far as I can see, do not refer to the warnings tongues and as by the singular organ of the of Brant, Geiler and others against their use Holy Ghost, the doctrine of the Gospel sounds by laymen, and the only reference they make to all nations and countries under heaven and to Bertholdt’s notorious decree is to the what God reveals to one man, is dispersed to clause in which the archbishop emphasizes many and what is known to one nation is the divine art of printing. opened to all.

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6.78. Popular Piety issued the passion in a series of pictures at During the last century of the Middle Ages, Wittenberg. the religious life of the laity was stimulated by A marked and most hopeful novelty in some new devices, especially in Germany. Germany were the numerous manuals of There, the effort to instruct the laity in the devotion and religious instruction which matters of the Christian faith was far more were issued soon after the invention of vital and active than in any other part of printing. This literature bears witness to the Western Christendom. intelligent interest taken in religious training, The popular need found recognition in the although its primary purpose was not for the illustrations, furnished in many editions of young but to furnish a guide-book for the the early Bibles. The Cologne Bible of 1480, confessional and to serve priest and layman the Luebeck Bible of 1494 and the Venice in the hour of approaching death. Bible of Malermi, 1497, are the best examples These books are, for the most part, in of this class of books. Fifteen of the 17 German, and probably had a wide circulation. German Bibles, issued before the They show common Christians what the laws Reformation, were illustrated. of God are for daily life and what are the chief A more distinct recognition of this need was articles of the Church’s faith. Some of the given in the so-called biblia pauperum,— titles give us an idea of the intent,—The Soul’s Bibles for the poor,—first single sheets and Guide, Der Seelenfuehrer; Path to Heaven, Die then books, containing as many as 40 or 50 Himmelstrasse; The Soul’s Comfort, Der pictures of biblical scenes. In the first Seelentrost; The Heart’s Counsellor, Der instance, they seem to have been intended to Herzmahner; The Devotional Bell, Das aid priests in giving instruction. Side by side, andaechtige Zeitgloecklein; The Foot-Path to they set scenes from the two Testaments, Eternal Bliss, Der Fusspfad zur ewigen showing the prophetic types and their Seligkeit; The Soul’s Vegetable Garden, Das fulfilments. Thus the circumcisions of Seelenwuerzgaertlein; The Soul’s Vineyard, Abraham, Jacob and Christ are depicted in Der Weingarten der Seele; The Spiritual Chase, three separate pictures, the priest being Die geistliche Jagd. Others were known by the represented in the very act of circumcising general title of Beichtbuechlein—libri di Christ. Explanations in Latin, German or penitentia—or penitential books. French accompany the pictures. A compendious statement of their intent is An extract will give some idea of the kind of given in the title of the Seelenfuehrer, namely information furnished by this class of “The Soul’s Guide, a useful book for every literature. When Adam was dying, he sent Christian to practice a pious life and to reach Seth into the garden to get medicine. The a holy death.” This literature deserves closer cherub gave him a branch from the tree of attention both because it represents territory life. When Seth returned, he found his father hitherto largely neglected by students of the dead and buried. He planted the branch and later Middle Ages and because it bears in 4000 years it grew to be the tree on which witness to the zeal among the German clergy the Saviour was crucified. to spread practical religion among the people. The Himmelwagen, the Heavenly Carriage, The best executed of these biblical picture- represents the horses as faith, love, books are those in Constance, St. Florian, repentance, patience, peace, humility and Austria and in the libraries of Munich and obedience. The Trinity is the driver, the Vienna. The name, biblia pauperum, may have carriage itself God’s mercy. been derived from Bonaventura or the statement of Gregory the Great, that pictures With variations, these little books explain the are the people’s bible. In 1509, Lukas Kranach 10 Commandments, the 14 articles of the

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Creed—the number into which it was then sermon and hears them recite the divided—the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, Commandments, Lord’s Prayer and Creed and mortal sins, the 5 senses, the works of mercy the 7 mortal sins. Then, after he has refreshed and other topics. The Soul’s Comfort, which himself with a draught, Trinklein, they sing a appeared in 16 editions,1474–1523, takes up song to God or Mary or to one of the saints. the 10 Commandments, 7 sacraments, 8 The Soul’s Comfort counsels parents to Beatitudes, 6 works of mercy, the 7 spiritual examine their households about the articles gifts, 7 mortal sins and 7 cardinal virtues and of faith and the precepts the children had “what God further thinks me worthy of learned at school and at church. The Table of knowing.” Most useful as this little book was a Christian Life urges the parents to keep adapted to be, it sometimes states truth their children off the streets, send them to under strange forms, as when it tells of a man school, making a selection of their teachers whose soul after death was found, not in his and, above all, to live well themselves and “go body but in his money-chest and of a girl who, before” their children in the practice of all the while dancing on Friday, was violently struck virtues. by the devil but recovered on giving her Of the penitential books, designed distinctly promise to amend her ways. as manuals of preparation for the The Path to Heaven contains 52 chapters. The confessional, the work of John Wolff is the first two set forth faith and hope, the joys of most elaborate and noteworthy. This good the elect and the pains of the lost and it closes man, who was chaplain at St. Peter’s, with 4 chapters describing a holy death, the Frankfurt, wrote his book 1478. He was devil’s modes of tempting the dying and deeply interested in the impartation of questions which are to be put to sick people. religious instruction. His tombstone, which Dietrich Kolde’s Mirror of a Christian Man, was unearthed in 1895, calls him the “doctor one of the most popular of the manuals, in the of the 10 Commandments” and gives a first two of its 46 chapters, took up the representation of the 10 Commandments in Apostles’ Creed and, in the last, the marks of a 10 pictures, each Commandment being good Christian man. The first edition designated by a hand with one or more appeared before 1476; the 23d at Delfft, fingers uplifted. Such tables it was not an 1518. uncommon thing, in the last years of the Many of the manuals expressly set forth the Middle Ages, to hang on the walls of churches. value of the family religion and call upon Wolff’s book, which is a guide for daily parents to teach their children the Creed, the Christian living, sets forth at length the 10 10 Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, to Commandments and the acts and inward have them pray morning and evening and to thoughts which are in violation of them, and take them to church to hear the mass and puts into the mouth of the offender an preaching. The Soul’s Guide says, “The appropriate confession. Thus, confessing to a Christian home should be the first school for violation of the 4th Commandment, the young children and their first church.” offender says, The Path to Heaven, written by Stephen von “I have done on Friday rough work, in farming, Landskron, dean of Vienna, d. 1477, presents dunging the fields, splitting wood, spinning, a very attractive picture of a Christian sewing, buying and selling, dancing, striking household. As a model for imitation, the head people at the dance, playing games and doing of a family is represented as going to church other sinful things. I did not hear mass or preaching and was remiss in the service of with his wife, children and servants every Almighty God.” Sunday and listening to the preaching. On returning home, he reviews the subject of the Upon the exposition of the Decalogue follow lists of the five baser sins,—usury, killing,

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 40 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course stealing, sodomy and keeping back wages,— the title was prepared by George Wicelius, the 6 sins against the Holy Ghost, the 7 works 1535. of mercy such as visiting the sick, clothing the In England, we have something similar to the naked and burying the dead, the sacraments, German penitential books in the Prymers, the the Beatitudes, the 7 gifts of the Holy Ghost first copy of which dates from 1410. They and an exposition of repentance. The work were circulated in Latin and English, and closes with a summary of the advantages to were intended for the instruction of the laity. be derived from the frequent repetition of the They contained the calendar, the Hours of our 10 Commandments and mentions 13 excuses, Lady, the litany, the Lord’s Prayer, Creed, Ten given for not repeating them, such as that the Commandments, 7 Penitential Psalms, the 7 words are hard to remember and the deadly sins, prayers and other matters. The unwillingness to have them as a perpetual book is referred to by Piers Plowman, and monitor. frequently in the 15th century, as one well These manuals, having in view the careful known. instruction of adults and children, indicate a The Horn-book also deserves mention. This new era in the history of religious training. No device for teaching the alphabet and the catechisms have come down to us from the Lord’s Prayer consisted of a rectangular ancient Church. The catechumens to whom board with a handle, to be held like a modern Augustine and Cyril addressed their hand-mirror. On one or both sides were cut catechetical discourses were adults. In the or printed the letters of the alphabet and the 13th century, synods began to call for the Lord’s Prayer. Horn-books were probably not preparation of summaries of religious in general use till the close of the 16th knowledge for laymen. So a synod at century, but they date back to the middle of Lambeth, 1281, Prag, 1355, and Lavaur, the 15th. They probably got their name from France, 1368. a piece of animal horn with which the face of The Synod of Tortosa, 1429, ordered its the written matter was covered as a prelates to secure the preparation of a brief protection against grubby fingers. compendium containing in concise A nearer approach to the catechetical idea paragraphs all that it was necessary for the was made by Colet in his rudiments of people to know and that might be explained religious knowledge appended to his to them every Sunday during the year by their elementary grammar, and intended for use in pastors. Gerson approached the catechetical St. Paul’s School. It contains the Apostles’ method (see this volume, p. 216 sq.) and, Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, an exposition of the after long years of activity made the love due God and our fellowmen, 46 special statement that the reformation of the church “precepts of living,” and two prayers, and is must begin with children. In his Tripartite generally known as the Catecheyzon. work he presents the Ten Commandments, Religious instruction was also given through confession and thoughts for the dying. The the series of pictures known as the Dance of catechetical form of question and answer was Death, and through the miracle plays. In the not adopted till after the Lutheran Dance of Death, a perpetual memento mori, Reformation was well on its way. The term, death was represented in the figure of a catechism, as a designation of such a manual skeleton appearing to persons in every was first used by Luther, 1525, and the first avocation of life and of every class. None were book to bear the title was Andreas too holy or too powerful to evade his Althammer’s Catechism, which appeared in intrusion and none too humble to be beyond 1528. Luther’s two catechisms were issued his notice. Death wears now a serious, now a one year later. The first Catholic book to bear comic aspect, now politely leads his victim,

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 41 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course now walks arm in arm with him, now drags the parable of the 10 Virgins in Eisenach, him or beats him. An hour-glass is usually 1324, the margrave, Friedrich, was so moved found somewhere in the pictures, grimly by the pleas of the 5 foolish maidens and the reminding the onlooker that the time of life is failure to secure the aid of Mary and the certain to run out. These pictures were saints, that he cried out, “What is the painted on bridges, houses, church windows Christian religion worth, if sinners cannot and convent walls. Among the oldest obtain mercy through the intercession of specimens are those in Minden, 1383, at Paris Mary?” The story went, that he became in the churchyard of the Franciscans, 1425, melancholy and died soon afterwards. Dijon, 1436, Basel, 1441, Croyden, the Tower Of the four English cycles of miracle plays, of London, Salisbury Cathedral, 1460, York, Chester, Coventry and Towneley or Luebeck, 1463. Wakefield, the York cycle dates back to 1360 In the fifteenth century, the religious drama and contained from 48 to 57 plays. Chester was in its bloom in Germany and England. and Coventry were the traditional centers of The acting was now turned over to laymen the religious drama. The stage or pageant, as and the public squares and streets were it was called, was wheeled through the preferred for the performances. The people streets. The playing was often in the hands of looked on from the houses as well as from the the guilds, such as the barbers, tanners, streets. In 1412, while the play of St. Dorothea plasterers, butchers, spicers, chandlers. The was being acted in the market-place at paying of actors dates from the 14th century. Bautzen, the roof of one of the houses fell and Chester cycles was Noah’s Flood, a subject 33 persons were killed. The introduction of popular everywhere in medieval Europe. buffoonery and farce had become a After God’s announcement to the patriarch, recognized feature andand lightened the his 3 sons and their wives offered to take impression without impairing the religious hand in the building of the ark. Noah’s wife usefullness of the plays. The devil was made a alone held out and scolded while the others subject of perpetual jest and fun. The people worked. found in them an element of instruction The ark finished, each party brought his which, perhaps, the priest did not impart. The portion of animals and birds. But when they scenes enacted reached from the Creation were housed, Noah’s help-meet again proved and the fall of Lucifer to the Last Judgment a disturbing element. Noah bade Shem go and and from Abel’s death and Isaac’s sacrifice to fetch her. the crucifixion and resurrection. Such plays were impressive sermons, a Set forth by living actors, the miracle plays popular summer-school of moral and and moralities were to the Middle Ages what religious instruction, the medieval the Pilgrim’s Progress was to Puritans. They Chautauqua. They continued to be performed were performed from Rome to London, at the in England till the 16th century and even till marriage and visits of princes and for the the reign of James I., when the modern drama delectation of the people. We find them took their place. The last survival of the presented before Sigismund and prelates religious drama of the Middle Ages is the during the solemn discussions of the Council Passion Play given at Oberammergau in the of Constance, as when the play of the Nativity highlands of Bavaria. In obedience to a vow, and the Slaughter of the Innocents was acted made during a severe epidemic in 1684, it has at the Bishop of Salisbury’s lodgings, 1417, been acted every ten years since and more and at St. Peter’s, as when the play of often in recent years. Since 1860, the Susannah and the Elders was performed in performances have attracted throngs of honor of Leonora, daughter of Ferrante of spectators from foreign lands, a performance Naples, 1473. At a popular dramatization of

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 42 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course being set for 1910. Writers have described it the cross and other priceless relics are kept. as a most impressive sermon on the most Some idea of the popularity of pilgrimages momentous of scenes, as it is a solemn act of may be had from the numbers that are given, worship for the simple-hearted, pious though it is possible they are exaggerated. In Catholics of that remote mountain village. 1466, 130,000 attended the festival of the Pilgrimages and the worship of relics were as angels at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and in 1496 popular in the 16th century as they had been the porter at the gate of Aachen counted in previous periods of the Middle Ages. Guide- 146,000. In the 14 days, when the relics were books for pilgrims were circulated in displayed, 85,000 gulden were left in the Germany and England and contained money-boxes of St. Mary’s, Aachen. vocabularies as well as items of geography Imposing religious processions were also and other details. Jerusalem continued to popular, such as the procession at Erfurt, attract the feet of princes and prelates as well 1483, in a time of drought. It lasted from 5 in as persons of less exalted estate. Frederick the morning till noon, the ranks passing from the Wise of Saxony, Luther’s cautious but firm church to church. Among those who took part friend, was one of these pilgrims in the last were 948 children from the schools, the days of the Middle Ages. William Wey of entire university-body comprising 2,141 England, who in 1458 and 1462, went to the persons, 812 secular priests, the monks of 5 Holy Land, tells us how the pilgrims sang “O convents and a company of 2,316 maidens city dear Jerusalem,” Urbs beata, as they with their hair hanging loosely down their landed at Joppa. Sir Richard Torkington and backs and carrying tapers in their hands. Sir Thomas Tappe, both ecclesiastics, made German synods called attention to the abuses the journey the same year that Luther nailed of the pilgrimage-habit and sought to check it. up the Theses, 1517. The journeys to Rome English pilgrims, not satisfied with going to during the Jubilee Years of 1450, 1500, drew Rome, Jerusalem and the sacred places on vast throngs of people, eager to see the holy their own island, also turned their footsteps city and concerned to secure the religious to the tomb of St. James of Compostella, Spain. benefits promised by the supreme pontiff. In 1456, Wey conducted 7 ship-loads of Local shrines also attracted constant streams pilgrims to this Spanish locality. Among the of pilgrims. popular English shrines were St. Edmund of Among the popular shrines in Germany were Bury, St. Ethelred of Ely, the holy hood of the holy blood at Stemberg from 1492, the Boxley, the holy blood of Hailes and, more image of Mary at Grimmenthal from 1499, as popular than all, Thomas à Becket’s tomb at a cure for the French sickness, the head of St. Canterbury and our Blessed Lady of Anna at Dueren from 1500, this relic having Walsingham. So much frequented was the been stolen from Mainz. The holy coat of road to Walsingham that it was said, Treves was brought to light in 1512. As in the Providence set the milky way in the place it flourishing days of the Crusades, so again, occupies in the heavens that it might shine pilgrimage-epidemics broke out among the directly upon it and direct the devout to the children of Germany, as in 1457 when large sacred spot. These two shrines were visited bands went to St. Michael’s in Normandy and by unbroken processions of religious in 1475 to Wilsnack, where, in spite of the itinerants, including kings and queens as well exposure by Nicolas of Cusa, the blood was as people less distinguished. Reference has still reputed holy. The most noted places of already been made to Erasmus’ description, pilgrimage in Germany were Cologne with the which he gives in his Colloquies. At bodies of the three Magi-kings and Aachen, Walsingham, he was shown the Virgin’s where Mary’s undergarment, Jesus’ shrine rich with jewels and ornaments of swaddling-cloth and the loin-cloth he wore on silver and gold and lit up by burning candles.

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There, was the wicket at which the pilgrim perhaps than Christ himself. Sir Thomas had to stoop to pass but through which, with More, in his defence of the worship of saints, the Virgin’s aid, an armed knight on expressed his astonishment at the “madness horseback had escaped from his pursuer. The of the heretics that barked against the custom Virgin’s congealed milk, the cool scholar has of Christ’s Church.” described with particular precision. Asking The encouragement, given at Rome to the what good reason there was for believing it worship of relics, had a signal illustration in was genuine, the verger replied by pointing the distinguished reception accorded the him to an authentic record hung high up on head of St. Andrew by the Renaissance pope, the wall. Walsingham was also fortunate Pius II. In Germany, princes joined with enough to possess the middle joint of one of prelates in making collections of sacred bones Peter’s fingers. and other objects in which miraculous virtue At Canterbury, Erasmus and Colet looked was supposed to reside and whose worship upon Becket’s skull covered with a silver case was often rewarded by the almost infinite except at the spot where the fatal dagger grace of indulgence. pierced it and Colet, remarking that Thomas In Germany, in the 15th century as in was good to the poor while on earth, queried Chaucer’s day in England, the friars were the whether now being in heaven he would not indefatigable purveyors of this sort of be glad to have the treasures, stored in his merchandise, from the bones of Balaam’s ass tomb, distributed in alms. When a chest was to the straw of the manger and feathers from opened and the monk held up the rags with St. Michael’s wings. The Nuernberger, Nicolas which the archbishop had blown his nose, Muffel, regretted that, after the effort of 33 Colet held them only a moment in his fingers years, he had only been able to bring together and let them drop in disgust. It was said by 308 specimens. Unfortunately this did not Thomas à Kempis, that rarely are they keep him from the crime of theft and the sanctified who jaunt about much on penalty of the gallows. In Vienna, were shown pilgrimages. One of the German penitential such rarities as a piece of the ark, drops of books exclaimed, “Alas! how seldom do sweat from Gethsemane and some of the people go on pilgrimages from right motives.” incense offered by the Wise Men from the Twenty-five years after the visits of Erasmus East. Albrecht, archbishop of Mainz, helped to and Colet, the canons of Walsingham, collect no less than 8,138 sacred fragments convicted of forging relics, were dragged by and 42 entire bodies of saints. This collection, the king’s order to Chelsea and burnt and the which was deposited at Halle, contained the tomb of St. Thomas was rifled of its contents host—that is, Christ’s own body—which and broken up. Christ offered while he was in the tomb, a Saints continued to be in high favor. Every statue of the Virgin with a full bottle of her saint has his distinct office allotted to him, milk hanging from her neck, several of the said Erasmus playfully. One is appealed to for pots which had been used at Cana and a the toothache, a second to grant easy delivery portion of the wine Jesus made, as well as in childbirth, a third to lend aid on long some of the veritable manna which the journeys, a fourth to protect the farmer’s live Hebrews had picked up in the desert, and stock. People prayed to St. Christopher every some of the earth from a field in Damascus morning to be kept from death during the from which God made Adam. day, to St. Roche to be kept from contagion A most remarkable collection was made by no and to St. George and St. Barbara to be kept less a personage than Frederick the Wise of from falling into the hands of enemies. He Saxony. A rich description of its treasures has suggested that these fabulous saints were been preserved from the hand of Andreas more prayed to than Peter and Paul and

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Meinhard, then a new master of arts. On his gratified at the priest’s prayers and loved him way to Wittenberg, 1507, he met a raw much but that he should not forget also to student about to enter the university, direct prayers to himself. The book, Heavenly Reinhard by name. The elector had made Wagon, called upon sinners to take refuge in good use of the opportunities his pilgrimages her mantle, where full mercy and pardon to Jerusalem furnished and succeeded in would be found. Erasmus remarked that obtaining the very respectable number of Mary’s blind devotees, praying to her on all 5,005 sacred pieces. The collection was occasions, considered it manners to place the displayed for over a year in the Schlosskirche, mother before the Son. In 1456, Calixtus III. where Meinhard and his travelling commended the use of the Ave Maria as a companion looked at it with wondering eyes protection against the Turks. English Primers and undoubting confidence. Among the pieces contained the salutations, were a thorn from the crown of thorns, a Blessid art thou virgyn marie, that hast born tunic belonging to John the Evangelist, milk the lord maker of the world: thou hast getyn from the Virgin’s breast, a piece of Mt. hym that made thee, and thou dwellist virgyne Calvary, a piece of the table on which the Last withouten ende. Thankis to god. Supper was eaten, fragments of the stones on Heil sterre of the see, hooli goddis modir, alwei which Christ stood when he wept over maide, blesful gate of heuene. Jerusalem and as he was about to ascend to The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in heaven, the entire body of one of the its extreme form, exempting Mary from the Bethlehem Innocents, one of the fingers of St. beginning from all taint of original sin, was Anna, “the most blessed of grandmothers,”— defined by the Council of Basel but the beatissimae aviae,—pieces of the rods of decision has no ecumenical authority. Sixtus Aaron and Moses, a piece of Mary’s girdle and IV., 1477 and 1483, declared the definition of some of the straw from the Bethlehem the dogma still an open question, the Holy See manger. Good reason had Meinhard to not having pronounced upon the subject. But remark that, if the grandfathers had been able the University of Paris, 1497, in emphatic to arise from the dead, they would have terms decided for the doctrine and bound its thought Rome itself transferred to members to the tenet by an oath. Erasmus, Wittenberg. Each of these fragments was comparing the subtlety of the Schoolmen with worth 100 days of indulgence to the the writings of the Apostles, observed that, worshipper. The credulity of Frederick, the while the former hotly contended over the collector, and the people betrays the Immaculate Conception, the Apostles who atmosphere in which Luther was brought up knew Mary well never undertook to prove and the struggle it must have cost him to that she was immune from original sin. attack the deep-seated beliefs of his To the worship of Mary was added the generation. worship of Anna, Mary’s reputed mother. The The religious reverence paid to the Virgin names of Mary’s parents, Anna and Joachim, could not well go beyond the stage it reached were received from the Apocryphal Gospels in the age of the greater Schoolmen nor could of James and the Infancy. Jerome and more flattering epithets be heaped upon her Augustine had treated the information with than were found in the works of Albertus suspicion as also the further information that Magnus and Bonaventura. Mary was more the couple were married in Bethlehem and easily entreated than her Son. The Horticulus lived in Nazareth, had angelic announcements animae,—Garden of the Soul,—tells the story of the birth of Mary and that, upon Joachim’s of a cleric, accustomed to say his Ave Marias death, Anna married a second and a third devoutly every day, to whom the Lord time. The Crusaders brought relics of her with appeared and said, that his mother was much them to Western Europe and gradually her

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 45 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course claim found recognition. Her cult spread them with original tunes. Sometimes the rapidly. In Alexander VI. she found a hymns were in German from beginning to distinguished devotee. Churches and end, sometimes they were a mixture of Latin hospitals were built to her memory. and German. As the Middle Ages drew to a Trithemius wrote a volume in her praise and close, religious song increased. The artists, like Albrecht Duerer, joined her with Reformation established congregational Mary on the canvas. She was claimed as a singing and begat the congregational patron saint by women in childbirth and by hymnbook. the copper miners. Luther himself was one of These adjuncts and elements of Christian her ardent worshippers. Both Albrecht of worship and training were added to the usual Mainz and Frederick the Wise were fortunate service of the churches, the celebration of the enough to have in their collections of relics, mass, which was central, the confessional and each, one of the fingers of the saint. preaching. The age was religious but doubt If sacred poetry is any test of the devotion was growing. A writer of the 16th century paid to a saint, then the Virgin Mary was far says of England: and away the chief personage to whom There are many who have various opinions worshippers in the last centuries of the concerning religion but all attend mass every Middle Ages looked for help. The splendid day and say many pater nosters in public, the collection issued by Blume and Dreves,— women carrying long rosaries in their hands Analecta hymnica,—filling now nearly 8,000 and any who can read taking the Hours of our pages, gives the material from which a Lady with them and reciting them in church judgment can be formed as to the relative verse by verse in a low voice as is the manner amount of attention writers of hymns and of the religious. They always hear mass in sequences paid to the Godhead, to Mary and their parish church on Sunday and give to the other saints. Number XLII., containing liberal alms nor do they omit any form 336 hymns, gives 37 addressed to Christ,110 incumbent upon good Christians. to Mary and 189 to other saints. Number The age of a more intelligent piety was still to XLVI. devotes 102 to Mary. These numbers come, though it was to prove itself less are taken at random. submissive to human authority. Anna also has a large place in the hymns of the later Middle Ages and the 16th century. In 6.79. Works of Charity England, singing sacred songs seems to have Benevolence and philanthropy, which are of been little cultivated before the 16th century. the very essence of the Christian religion, The singing of Psalms in the days of Anne flourished in the later Middle Ages. In the Boleyn was a novelty and was greatly enjoyed endeavor to provoke his generation to good at the court as it was later in Elizabeth’s reign, works, Luther asserted that “in the good old on the streets. The vast numbers of sacred papal times everybody was merciful and kind. pieces, written in Germany, France and the Then it snowed endowments and legacies and Lowlands, were intended for conventual hospitals.” Institutions were established to devotions not for popular use. Singing, care for the destitute and sick, colleges and however, was practised extensively in bursaries were endowed and protection pilgrimages and processions and also in given to the dependent against the rapacity of churches, and the Basel synod at its 21st unscrupulous money-lenders. session complained that the public services The modern notion of stamping out sickness were interrupted by hymns in the vernacular. by processes of sanitation scarcely occurred Germany took the lead in sacred popular to the medieval municipalities. Although the music. From 1470–1520, nearly 100 hymns population of Europe was not/10 of what it is were printed from German presses, many of

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 46 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course to-day, disease was fearfully prevalent. No and fed, particularly the lepers. One of the epidemics so fatal as the Black Death hospitals that survives is St. Crow at appeared in Europe but, even in England, the Winchester for old and indigent people. The return of plagues was frequent, as in 1406, cook Ketel, a Brother of the Common Life, 1439, 1464, 1477. The famine of 1438, called whose biography Thomas à Kempis wrote, the Great Famine, was followed the next year said it would be better to sell all the books of by the Great Pestilence, called also the the house at Deventer and give more to the pestilence sans merci. In 1464, to follow the poor. Chronicle of Croyland, thousands, “died like Hospitals, in the earlier part of our period, slaughtered sheep.” The sweating sickness of were the special concern of the knights of the 1485 reappeared in 1499 and 1504. In the Teutonic Order and continued throughout the first epidemic, 20,000 died in London and, in whole of it to engage the attention of the 1504, the mayor of the city succumbed. The Beguines. It became the custom also for the disease took people suddenly and was Beguines to go as nurses to private houses as marked by a chill, which was followed by a in Cologne, Frankfurt, Treves, Ulm and other fiery redness of the skin and agonizing thirst German cities, receiving pay for their that led the victims to drink immoderately. services. The Beguinages in Bruges, Ghent, Drinking was succeeded by sweating from Antwerp and other cities of Belgium and every pore. Holland date back to this period. The 15th Provision was made for the sick and needy century also witnessed the growth of through the monasteries, gilds and municipal hospitals, a product of the civic brotherhoods as well as by individual spirit which had developed in North-Europe. assistance and state collections. The care of Cities like Cologne, Luebeck and Augsburg the poor was in England regarded as one of had several hospitals. The Hotel de Dieu, the primary functions of the Church. Paris, did not come under municipal control Archbishop Stratford, 1342, ordered that a till 1505. In cases, admission to hospitals was portion of the tithe should be invariably set made by their founders conditional on ability apart for their needs. The neglect of the poor to say the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and the was alleged as one of the crying omissions of Ave Maria, as for example to St. Anthony’s, the alien clergy. Augsburg. In this case, the founder took care Doles for the poor, a common form of charity to provide for himself, requiring the inmates in England, were often provided for on a large on entering to say 100 Pater nosters and 100 scale. During the 40 days the duke of Gaunt’s Ave Marias over his grave and every day to body was to remain unburied, 50 marks were join in saying over it 15 of each. Damian of to be distributed daily until the 40th day, Loewen and his wife, who endowed a hospital when the amount was to be increased to 500 at Cologne, 1450, stipulated that “the very marks. Bishop Skirland wanted 200 given poorest and sickest were to be taken care of away between his death and his interment. A whether they belonged to Cologne or were draper of York gave by will 100 beds with strangers.” furniture to as many poor folk. Rome had more than one hospital A cloth-maker made a doubtful charity when endowment. The foundation of Cardinal John he left a suit of his own make to 13 poor Colonna at the Lateran, made 1216, still people, with the condition that they should sit remains. In his History of the Popes (III. 51), around his coffin for 8 days. There were Pastor has given a list of the hospitals and houses, says Thorold Rogers, where doles of other institutions of mercy in the different bread and beer were given to all wayfarers, states of Italy and justly laid stress upon this houses where the sick were treated, clothed evidence of the power of Christianity. The English gilds, organized, in the first instance,

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 47 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course for economic and industrial purposes, also municipality to regulate or forbid altogether. pledged relief to their own sick and indigent In England, mendicancy was a profession members. The gild of Corpus Christi at York recognized in law. provided eight beds for poor people and paid With the decay of the monastic endowments a woman by the year 14 shillings and and the legal maintenance of wages at a low fourpence to keep them. The gild of St. Helena rate, the destitution and vagrancy increased. at Beverley cared constantly for 3 or 4 poor The English statutes of laborers at the close of folk. this period, 1495 and 1504, ordered beggars, Leprosy decreased during the last years of the not able to work, to return to their own towns Middle Ages, but hospitals for the reception of where they might follow the habit of begging lepers are still extensively found,—the without hindrance. lazarettos, so called after Lazarus, who was At a time when in Germany, the richest reputed to have been afflicted with the country of Europe, church buildings were disease. Houses for this malady had been multiplying with great rapidity, many established in England by Lanfranc, Mathilda, churches in England, on account of the low queen of Henry I. at St. Giles, by King Stephen economic conditions, were actually left to go at Burton, Leicestershire and by others till the to ruin or turned into sheepcotes and stables, reign of John. St. Hugh of Lincoln, as well as a transmutation to which Sir Thomas More as St. Francis d’Assissi distinguished themselves well as others refers. The rapacity of the by their solicitude for lepers. But the disease nobles and abbots in turning large areas into seems to have died out in England in the 14th sheep-runs deprived laborers of employment century and it was hard to fill the beds and brought social distress upon large endowed for this class of sufferers. In 1434, it numbers. On the other hand, parliament was ordered that beds be kept for 2 lepers in passed frequent statutes of apparel, as in the great Durham leper hospital “provided 1463 and 1482, restricting the farmer and they could be found in these parts.” Originally laborer in his expenditure on dress. The the hospital had beds for 60. Late in the 16th different statutes of laborers, enacted during century there were still lepers in Germany. the 15th century, had the effect of depressing Thomas Platter wrote, “When we came to and impoverishing the classes dependent Munich, it was so late that we could not enter upon the daily toil of their hands. the city, but had to remain in the leperhouse.” In spite of the strict synodal rules, repeated Begging was one of the curses of England and again and again, usury was practised by Germany as it continues to be of Southern Christians as well as by Jews. All the greater Europe to-day. It was no disgrace to ask alms. Schoolmen of the 13th century had discussed The mendicant friars by their example the subject of usury and pronounced it sin, on consecrated a nuisance with the sacred the ground of Luke 6:34, and other texts. authority of religion. Pilgrims and students They held that charges of interest offended also had the right of way as beggars. against the law of love to our neighbor and Sebastian Brant gave a list of the different the law of natural fairness, for money does ecclesiastical beggars who went about with not increase with use but rather is reduced in sacks, into which they put with indiscriminate weight and value. It is a species of greed greed apples, plums, eggs, fish, chickens, which is mortal sin. It was so treated by meat, butter and cheese,—sacks which had no medieval councils when practised by bottom. Christians and the contrary opinion was In Germany, towns gave franchises to beg. pronounced heretical by the ecumenical The habit of mendicancy, which Brant council of Vienne. Geiler of Strassburg ridiculed, Geiler of Strassburg called upon the expounded the official church view when he

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 48 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course pronounced usury always wicked. It was records of 16 papal authorizations from such wrong for a Christian to take back more than popes as Pius II., Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., the original principal. And the substitution of Alexander VI., Julius II. and Leo X. The a pig or some other gift in place of a money sanction of Innocent VIII., given to the Mantua payment he also denounced. fund, 1486, called upon the preachers to The rates of the Jews were exorbitant. In summon the people to support the fund, Florence, they were 20% in 1430 and, in promised 10 years full indulgence to donors, 1488, 32½%. In Northern Europe they were and excommunicated all who opposed the much higher, from 43⅓ to 80 or even 100%. project. Sixtus IV., in commending the fund Municipalities borrowed. Clerics, convents for his native town of Savona, 1479, and churches mortgaged their sacred vessels. pronounced its worthy object to be to aid not City after city in Germany and Switzerland only the poor but also the rich who had expelled the Jews,—from Spires and Zuerich, pawned their goods. He offered a plenary 1435, to Geneva, 1490, and Nuernberg, Ulm indulgence on the collection of every 100 and Noerdlingen, 1498–1500. The careers of gulden. In 1490, the Savona fund had 22,000 the great banking-houses in the second half of gulden and the limit of loans was raised to the fifteenth century show the extensive 100 ducats. demand for loans by popes and prelates, as The administration of these bureaus of relief well as secular princes. was in the hands of directors, usually a mixed To afford relief to the needy, whose body of clergymen and laymen, and often necessities forced them to borrow, a measure appointed by municipal councils. The of real philanthropy was conceived in the last accounts were balanced each month. In century of the Middle Ages, the montes Perugia, the rate, which was 12% in 1463, pietatis, or charitable accumulations. They was reduced to 8% a year later. In Milan it were benevolent loaning funds. The idea was reduced from 10% to 5%, in 1488. Five found widespread acceptance in Italy, where per cent was the appointed rate fixed at the first institutions were founded at Perugia, Padua, Vicenza and Pisa, and 4% at Florence. 1462, and Orvieto, 1463. City councils aided The loans were made upon the basis of such funds by contributions, as at Perugia, property put in pawn. The benevolent efficacy when it gave 3,000 gulden. But in this case, of these funds cannot be questioned and to finding itself unable to furnish the full them, in part, is due the reduction of interest amount, it mulcted the Jews for 1,200 gulden, from 40% to 4 and 10% in Italy, before the Pius II. giving his sanction to the constraint. close of the 15th century. They met, however, In cases, bishops furnished the capital, as at with much opposition and were condemned Pistoja, 1473, where Bishop Donato de’ as contravening the traditional law against Medici gave 3,000 gulden. At Lucca, a usury. merchant, who had grown rich through A foremost place in advancing the movement commercial affiliation with the Jews, donated was taken by the Franciscans and in the the princely capital of 40,000 gold gulden. At Franciscan Bernardino da Feltre, 1439–1494, Gubbio, a law taxed all inheritances one per it had its chief apostle. This popular orator cent in favor of the local fund, and neglect to canvassed all the greater towns of Northern pay was punished with an additional tax of Italy,—Mantua, Florence, Parma, Padua, one per cent. Milan, Lucca, Verona, Brescia. Wherever he The popes showed a warm interest in the went, he was opposed from the pulpit and by new benevolence by granting to particular doctors of the canon law. At Florence, so funds their sanction and offering indulgences warmly was the controversy conducted in the to contributors. From 1463 to 1515 we have pulpits that a public discussion was ordered at which Lorenzo de’ Medici, doctors of the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 49 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course law, clerics and many laymen were present, connected with it. Cities often had a number with the result that the archbishop forbade of these organizations. Wittenberg had 21, opposition to the mons on pain of Luebeck 70, Frankfurt 31, Hamburg 100. excommunication. The Deuteronomic Every reputable citizen in German cities injunction, 24:12 sq., ordering that, if a man belonged to one or more. Luther belonged to borrow a coat, it should be restored before 3 at Erfurt, the brotherhoods of St. Augustine, sundown and the Lord’s words, Luke 6, were St. Anna and St. Catherine. quoted by the opposition. But it was replied, The dead, who had belonged to them, had the that the object of loaning to the poor was not distinct advantage of being prayed for. Their to enrich the fund or individuals but to do the sick were cared for in hospitals, containing borrower good. Savonarola gave the beds endowed by them. Sometimes they institution his advocacy. The Fifth Lateran incorporated the principle of mutual benefit commended it and in this it was followed, 50 or assurance societies, and losses sustained years later, by the Council of Trent. by the living they made good. At Paderborn, The attempt to transplant the Italian in case a brother lost his horse, every institution in Germany was unsuccessful and member contributed one or two shillings or, was met by the establishment of banks by if he lost his house, his fellow-members municipal councils, as at Frankfurt. In contributed three shillings each or a load of England also, it gained no foothold. So strong lumber. was the feeling against lending out money at As there were gilds of apprentices as well as interest that, at Chancellor Morton’s of master-workmen, so there were importunity, parliament proceeded against it brotherhoods of the poor and humble as well with severe measures, and a law of Henry as of those in comfortable circumstances. VII.’s reign made all lending of money at Even the lepers had fraternities, and one of interest a criminal offence and the bargain these clans had fief rights to a spring at between borrower and lender null and void. Wiesbaden. So also had the beggars and Notable expression was also given to the cripples at Zuelpich, founded 1454. The practice of benevolence by the religious entrance fee in the last case was 8 shillings, brotherhoods of the age. These organizations from which there was a reduction of one-half developed with amazing rapidity and are not for widows. to be confounded with the gilds which were In the case of the Italian brotherhoods, it is organizations of craftsmen, intended to often difficult to distinguish between a promote the production of good work and society organized for a benevolent purpose also to protect the master-workers in their and a society for the cult of some saint. The monopoly of trade. They were connected with gilds of Northern Italy, as a rule, laid the Church and were, in part, under the emphasis upon religious duties such as direction of the priesthood, although from attendance upon mass, confession of sins and some of them, as in Luebeck, priests were refraining from swearing. The Roman distinctly excluded. Like the guilds, their societies had their patron saints,—the organization was based upon the principle of blacksmith and workers in gold, St. Eligius, mutual aid but they emphasized the principle the millers Paulinus of Nola, the barrel- of unselfish sympathy for those in distress. makers St. James, the inn-keepers St. Blasius Luther once remarked, there was no chapel and St. Julian, the masons St. Gregory the and no saint without a brotherhood. In fact, Great, the barbers and physicians St. Cosmas nothing was so sure to make a saint popular and St. Damian, the painters St. Luke and the as to name a brotherhood after him. By 1450, apothecaries St. Lawrence. The popes there was not a mendicant convent in encouraged the confraternities and elevated Germany which had not at least one fraternity

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 50 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course some of them to the dignity of Mary was without stain. From the vast archfraternities, as St. Saviour in Rome, the surplus accumulation supplied by their first to win this distinction. Florence was also merits, the Church had the right to draw in good soil for religious brotherhoods. At the granting remission to sinners from the beginning of the 16th century, there were no penalties resulting from the commission of less than 73 within its bounds, some of them sin. The very term “keys,” it was said, implies societies of children. a treasure which is locked away and to which Society did not wait for the present age to the keys give access. The authority to grant apply the principle of Christian charity. The indulgences was shared by the pope and the development of organizations and bureaus in bishops. The law of Innocent III., intended to the 15th century was not carried as far as it is check its abuse, restricted the time for which to-day, and for the good reason that the same bishops might grant indulgence to 40 days, demand for it did not exist. The cities were the so-called quarantines. By the decree of small and it was possible to carry out the Pius X., issued Aug. 28,1903, cardinals, even practice of individual relief with little fear of though they are not priests, may issue deception. indulgences in their titular churches for 200 days, archbishops for 100 and bishops for 50 6.80. The Sale of Indulgences days. Nowhere, except in the lives of the popes The application of indulgence to the realm of themselves, did the humiliation of the purgatory by Sixtus IV. was a natural Western Church find more conspicuous development of the doctrine that the prayers exhibition than in the sale of indulgences. The and other suffrages of the living inure to the forgiveness of sins was bought and sold for benefit of the souls in that sphere. As Thomas money, and this sacred privilege formed the Aquinas clearly taught, such souls belong to occasion of the rupture of Western the jurisdiction of the Church on earth. And, if Christendom as, later, the Lord’s Supper indulgences may be granted to the living, became the occasion of the chief division certainly the benefit may be extended to the between the Protestant churches. intermediate realm, over which the Church Originally an indulgence was the remission of also has control. a part or all of the works of satisfaction Sixtus’ first bull granting indulgence for the demanded by the priest in the sacrament of dead was issued 1476 in favor of the church penance. This is the definition given by of Saintes. Here was offered to those who Roman Catholic authorities to-day. In the paid a certain sum—certam pecuniam—for 13th century, it came to be regarded as a the benefit of the building, the privilege of remission of the penalty of sin itself, both securing a relaxation of the sufferings of the here and in purgatory. At a later stage, it was purgatorial dead, parents for their children, regarded, at least in wide circles, as a release friend for friend. The papal deliverance from the guilt of sin as well as from its aroused criticism and in a second bull, issued penalty. The fund of merits at the Church’s the following year, the pontiff states that such disposition—thesaurus meritorum—as relaxations were offered by virtue of the defined by Clement VI., in 1343, is a treasury fullness of authority vested in the pope from of spiritual assets, consisting of the infinite above plenitudo potestatis—to draw upon merits of Christ, the merits of Mary and the the fund of merits. supererogatory merits of the saints, which To the abuse, to which this doctrine opened the Church uses by virtue of the power of the the door, was added the popular belief that keys. One drop of Christ’s blood, so it was letters of indulgence gave exemption both argued, was sufficient for the salvation of the from the culpability and penalty of sin. The world, and yet Christ shed all his blood and

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 51 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course expression, “full remission of sins,” plena or for those joining in a crusade against plenissima remissio peccatorum, is found Ladislaus, issued 1412, Huss copied Wycliffe again and again in papal bulls from the almost word for word. Wycliffe fiercely famous Portiuncula indulgence, granted by condemned the papal assumption in granting Honorius III. to the Franciscans, to the last full indulgence for the crusade of Henry de hours of the undisputed sway of the pope in Spenser. Priests, he asserted, have no the West. It was the merit of the late Dr. Lea authority to give absolution without proper to have called attention to this almost works of satisfaction and all papal absolution overlooked element of the medieval is of no avail, where the offenders are not of indulgence. Catholic authorities of to-day, as good and worthy life. If the pope has power to Paulus and Beringer, without denying the use absolve unconditionally, he should exercise of the expression, a poena et culpa, assert that his power to excuse the sins of all men. The it was not the intent of any genuine papal English Reformer further declared that, to the message to grant forgiveness from the guilt of Christian priest it was given, to do no more sin without contrition of heart. The than announce the forgiveness of sins just as expression was in current use in tracts and in the old priests pronounced a man a leper or common talk. John of Paltz, in his Coelifodina, cured of leprosy, but it was not possible for an elaborate defence of indulgences written him to effect a cure. He spoke of “the fond towards the close of the 15th century, fantasy of spiritual treasure in heaven, that affirmed that an indulgence is given by virtue each pope is made dispenser of the treasure of the power of the keys whereby guilt is at his own will, a thing dreamed of without remitted and penalty withdrawn. These keys ground.” Such power would make the pope open the fund of the Church to its sons. master of the saints and Christ himself. He Luther was only expressing the popular view condemned the idea that the pope could when, writing to Albrecht of Mainz, 1517, he “clear men of pain and sin both in this world complained that men accepted the letters of and the other, so that, when they die, they flee indulgence as giving them exemption from all to heaven without pain. This is for blind men penalty and guilt—homo per istas to lead blind men and both to fall into the indulgentias liber sit ab omni poena et culpa. lake.” As for the pardoning of sin for money, Not only on the Continent but also in England that would imply that righteousness may be were such forms of indulgence circulated. For bought and sold. Wycliffe gave it as a report, example, Leo X.’s indulgence for the hospital that Urban VI. had granted an indulgence for S. Spirito in Rome ran in its English 2,000 years. translation, “Holy and great indulgence and Indulgences found an assailant in Erasmus, pardon of plenary remission a culpa et howbeit a genial assailant. In his Praise of poena.” The popular mind did not stop to Folly, he spoke of the “cheat of pardons and make the fine distinction between guilt and indulgences.” These lead the priests to its punishment and, if it had, it would have compute the time of each soul’s residence in been quite satisfied to be made free from the purgatory and to assign them a longer or sufferings entailed by sin. If by a papal shorter continuance according as the people indulgence a soul in purgatory could be purchase more or fewer of these salable immediately released and given access to exemptions. By this easy way of purchasing heavenly felicity, the question of guilt was of pardon any notorious highwayman, any no concern. plundering bandit or any bribe-taking judge Long before the days of Tetzel, Wycliffe and may for a part of their unjust gains secure Huss had condemned the use of the formula, atonement for perjuries, lusts, bloodsheds, “from penalty and guilt,” as did also John debaucheries and other gross impieties and, Wessel. In denouncing the bulls of indulgence having paid off arrears, begin upon a new

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 52 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course score. The popular idea was no doubt stated were cast, was also a matter of much by Tyndale in answer to Sir Thomas More importance and here also the Fuggers figured when he said, that “men might quench almost prominently. Keys to such chests were often the terrible fire of hell for three halfpence.” distributed to two or three parties, one of It is fair to say that, while the last popes of the whom was apt to be the representative of the Middle Ages granted a great number of bankers. indulgences, the exact expression, “from guilt Among the more famous indulgences for the and penalty,” does not occur in any of the building of German churches were those for extant papal copies although some of their the construction of a tower in Vienna, 1514, expressions seem fully to imply the for the rebuilding of the Cathedral of exemption from guilt. Likewise, it must be Constance, which had suffered great damage said that they also contain the usual from fire, 1511, the building of the Dominican expressions for penitence as a condition of church in Augsburg, 1514, the restoration of receiving the grace—“being truly penitent the Cathedral of Treves, 1515, and the and confessing their sins”—vere building of St. Annaberg church, 1517, in poenitentibus et confessio. which Duke George of Saxony was much Indulgences in the last century of the Middle interested. One-half of the moneys received Ages were given for all sorts of benevolent for these constructions went to Rome. In purposes, crusades against the Turks, the most of these cases, the Fuggers acted as building of churches and hospitals, in agents to hold the keys of the chest and connection with relics, for the rebuilding of a transmit the moneys to the papal exchequer. town desolated by fire, as Bruex, for bridges The sees of Constance, Chur, Augsburg and and for the repair of dikes, such an Strassburg were assigned as the territory in indulgence being asked by Charles V. The which indulgences might be sold for the benefits were received by the payment of cathedral in Constance. No less than four money and a portion of the receipts, from bulls of indulgence were issued in 1515 for 33% to 50%, was expected to go to Rome. the benefit of Treves, including one for those The territory chiefly, we may say almost who visited the holy coat which was found exclusively, worked for such enterprises was 1512 and was to be exhibited every 7 years. confined to the Germanic peoples of the Among the noted hospitals to which Continent from Switzerland and Austria to indulgences were issued—that is, the right to Norway and Sweden. England, France and secure funds by their sale—were hospitals in Spain were hardly touched by the traffic. Nuernberg, 1515, Strassburg, 1518 and S. Cardinal Ximenes set forth the damage done Spirito, Rome, 1516. to ecclesiastical discipline by the practice and, Both of the churches in Wittenberg were as a rule, it was under other pretexts that granted indulgences and a special indulgence papal moneys were received from England. was issued for the reliquary-museum which In the transmission of the papal portions of the elector Frederick had collected. An the indulgence-moneys, the house of the indulgence of 100 days was attached to each Fuggers figures conspicuously. Sometimes it of the 5,005 specimens and another 100 to charged 5%, sometimes it appropriated each of the 8 passages between the cases that amounts not reckoned strictly on the basis of held them. With the 8,133 relics at Halle and a fixed per cent. The powerful banking-firm, the 42 entire bodies, millions and billions of also responding cheerfully to any request days of indulgence were associated, a sort of made to them, often secured the grant of anticipation of the geologic periods moderns indulgences in Rome. The custodianship of demand. To be more accurate, these relics the chests, into which the indulgence-moneys were good for pardons covering 39,245,120

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 53 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course years and 220 days and the still further and Tetzel took a prominent part in the period of 6,540,000 quarantines, each of 40 campaign. days. It remains to speak of the most important of In Rome, the residence of the supreme all of the indulgences, the indulgence for the pontiffs, as we might well have expected, the construction of St. Peter’s in Rome. This offer of indulgences was the most copious, interest was pushed by two notable popes, almost as copious as the drops on a rainy day. Julius II. and Leo X., and called forth the According to the Nuernberger relic-collector, protest of Luther, which shook the power of Nicolas Muffel, every time the skulls of the the papacy to its foundations. It seems Apostles were shown or the handkerchief of paradoxical that the chief monument of St. Veronica, the Romans who were present Christian architecture should have been built received a pardon of 7,000 days, other in part out of the proceeds of the scandalous Italians 10,000 and foreigners 14,000. In fact, traffic in absolutions. the grace of the ecclesiastical authorities was On April 18,1506, soon after the laying of the practically boundless. Not only did the living cornerstone of St. Peter’s, Julius II. issued a seek indulgences, but even the dying bull promising indulgence to those who stipulated in their wills that a representative would contribute to its construction, fabrica, should go to Assisi or Rome or other places to as it was called. Eighteen months later, Nov. secure for their souls the benefit of the 4,1507, he commissioned Jerome of Torniello, indulgences offered there. a Franciscan Observant, to oversee the Prayers also had remarkable offers of grace preaching of the bull in the so-called 25 attached to them. According to the penitential Cismontane provinces, which included book, The Soul’s Joy, the worshipper offering Northern Italy, Austria, Bohemia and Poland. its prayers to Mary received 11,000 years By a later decree Switzerland was added. indulgence and some prayers, if offered, freed Germany was not included and probably for 15 souls from purgatory and as many earthly the reason that a number of indulgence bulls sinners from their sins. It professed to give were already in force in most of its territory. one of Alexander Vl.’s decrees, according to A special rescript appointed Warham, which prayer made three times to St. Anna archbishop of Canterbury, as chief overseer of secured 1,000 years indulgence for mortal the business in England. At Julius’ death, the sins and 20,000 for venial. The Soul’s Garden matter was taken up by Leo X. and pushed. claimed that one of Julius II.’s indulgences The preaching of indulgences in Germany for granted 80,000 years to those who would the advantage of St. Peter’s began in the pray a prayer to the Virgin which the book pontificate of Leo X. and is closely associated gave. No wonder Siebert, a Roman Catholic with the elevation of Albrecht of writer, is forced to say that “the whole Hohenzollern to the sees of Mainz, atmosphere of the later Middle Ages was Magdeburg and Halberstadt. Albrecht, a soaked with the indulgence-passion.” brother of Joachim, elector of Brandenburg, An indulgence issued by Alexander VI., in was chosen in 1513 to the archbishopric of 1502, was designed to secure aid for the Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt. knights of the Teutonic Order against the The objections on the ground of his age and Russians. The latter was renewed by Julius II. the combination of two sees—a thing, and Cologne, Treves, Mainz, Bremen, however, which was true of Albrecht’s Bamberg and other sees were assigned as the predecessor—were set aside by Leo X., after territory. Much money was collected, the listening to the arguments made by the papal treasury receiving one-third of the German embassies. returns. The preaching continued till 1510

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 54 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course

In 1514, Albrecht was further honored by funds, he resorted to a two-years’ tax of two- being elected archbishop of Mainz. The last fifths which he levied on the priests, the incumbent, Uriel of Gemmingen, died the year convents and other religious institutions of before. The archdiocese had been unfortunate his dioceses. In 1517, “out of regard for his with its bishops. Berthold of Henneberg had Holiness, the pope, and the salvation and died 1504 and James of Liebenstein in 1508. comfort of his people,” Joachim opened his These frequent changes necessitated a heavy domains to the indulgence-hawkers. It was burden of taxation to enable the prelates to his preaching in connection with this bull that pay their tribute to the Holy See, which won for Tetzel an undying notoriety. Oldecop, amounted to 10,000 ducats in each case, with writing in 1516, of what he saw, said that sundry additions. By the persuasion of the people, in their eagerness to secure elector Joachim and the Fuggers, Leo deliverance from the guilt and penalty of sin sanctioned Albrecht’s election to the see of and to get their parents and friends out of Mainz. He was given episcopal consecration purgatory, were putting money into the chest and thus the three sees were joined in the all day long. hands of a man who was only 24. The description of Tetzel’s sale of indulgences But Albrecht’s confirmation as archbishop and Luther’s protest are a part of the history was not secured without the payment of a of the Reformation. It remains, however, yet high price. The price,10,000 ducats, was set to be said, as belonging to the medieval by the authorities in Rome and did not period, that the grace of indulgences was originate with the German embassy, which popularly believed to extend to sins, not yet had gone to prosecute the case. The committed. Such a belief seems to have been proposition came from the Vatican itself and encouraged by the pardon-preachers, at the very moment the Lateran council was although there is no documentary proof that voting measures for the reform of the Church. any papal authorities made such a promise. In It carried with it the promise of a papal writing to the archbishop of Mainz, Oct. indulgence for the archbishop’s territories. 31,1517, Luther had declared that it was The elector Joachim expressed some scruples announced by the indulgence-hawkers that of conscience over the purchase, but it went no sin was too great to be covered by the through. Schulte exclaims that, if ever a indulgence, nay, not even the sin of violating benefice was sold for gold, this was true in the Virgin, if such a thing had been possible. the case of Albrecht. And late in life, 1541, the Reformer stated The bull of indulgences was issued March that the pardoner “also sold sins to be 31,1516, and granted the young German committed.” The story ran that a Saxon knight prelate the right to dispose of pardons went to Tetzel and offered him 10 thaler for a throughout the half part of Germany, the sin he had in mind to commit. Tetzel replied period being fixed at 8 years. The bull offered, that he had full power from the pope to grant “complete absolution—plenissimam such an indulgence, but that it was worth 80 indulgentiam—and remission of all sins,” sins thaler. The knight paid the amount, but some both of the living and the dead. A private time later waylaid Tetzel and took all his paper, emanating from Leo and dated two indulgence-moneys from him. To Tetzel’s weeks later, April 15, mentions the 10,000 complaints the robber replied, that thereafter ducats proposed by the Vatican as the price of he must not be so quick in giving indulgence Albrecht’s confirmation as having been from sins, not yet committed. already placed in Leo’s hands. To enable him The traffic in ecclesiastical places and the to pay the full amount of 30,000 ducats his forgiveness of sins constitutes the very last ecclesiastical dignities had cost, Albrecht scene of medieval Church history. On the eve borrowed from the Fuggers and, to secure of the Reformation, we have the spectacle of

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 55 CH609: Volume 6, Chapter 9 a Grace Notes course the pope solemnly renewing the claim to have rule over both spheres, civil and ecclesiastical, and to hold in his hand the salvation of all mankind, yea, and actually supporting the extravagant luxuries of his worldly court with moneys drawn from the trade in sacred things. How deep-seated the pernicious principle had become was made manifest in the bull which Leo issued, Nov. 9,1518, a full year after the nailing of the Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, in which all were threatened with excommunication who failed to preach and believe that the pope has the right to grant indulgences.