whole diocese of Rheims, in Orleans, in Paris, in Germany, at Goslar, Cologne, Trèves, Metz, Strasburg. Throughout the whole South of France, and it should seem in Hungary, this sectarianism is the dominant religion. Even in Italy these opinions had made alarming progress. Innocent himself calls on the cities of Verona, Bologna, Florence, Milan, Placentia, Treviso, Bergamo, Mantua, Ferrara, Faenza, to cast out these multiplying sectaries. Even within or on the very borders of the Papal territory Viterbo is the principal seat of the revolt. union amongst Sectaries. In one great principle alone the heresiarchs of this Principle of age, and their countless sects, conspired with dangerous unity. It was a great anti-sacerdotal movement; it was a convulsive effort to throw off what had become to many the intolerable yoke of a clergy which assumed something beyond Apostolic power, and seemed to have departed so entirely from Apostolic poverty and humility. It was impossible that the glaring contrast between the simple religion of the Gospel, and the vast hierarchical Christianity which had been growing up since the time of Constantine, should not, even in the darkest and most ignorant age, awaken the astonishment of some, and rouse a spirit of inquiry in others. But for centuries, from this embarrassing or distressing contrast between Apostolic and hierarchical Christianity, almost all who had felt it had sought and found refuge in monachism. And monachism, having for its main object the perfection of the individual, was content to withdraw itself out of worldly Christianity into safe seclusion; being founded on a rule, an universal rule, of passive submission, it did not of necessity feel called upon, or seem to itself justified in more than protesting against, or condemning by its own austere indigence, the inordinate wealth, power, or splendour of the clergy, still less in organising revolutionary resistance. Yet unquestionably this oppugnancy was the most active element in the jealous hostility between the seculars and the regulars, which may be traced in almost every country and in every century. We have heard the controversy between Peter Damiani and Hilde CHAP. VIII. ELEMENTS OF DISUNION. 171 brand, each of whom may be accepted as the great champion of his class, which though it did not quench their mutual respect, even their friendship, shows the irreconcileability of the conflict. Yet each form of monasticism had in a generation or two become itself hierarchical; the rich and lordly abbot could not reproach the haughty and wealthy bishop as an unworthy successor of the Apostles. Clugny, which by its stern austerities had put to shame the older cloisters, by the time of St. Bernard is become the seat of unevangelic luxury and ease. Moreover, a solemn and rigid ritual devotion was an essential part of monachism. Each rule was more punctilious, more minute, more strict, than the ordinary ceremonial of the Church; and this rigid servitude to religious usage no doubt kept down multitudes, who might otherwise have raised or followed the standard of revolt. There were no rebellions to any extent in the monastic orders, so long as they were confined in their cloisters; it was not till much later, that among the Begging Friars, who wandered freely abroad, arose a formidable mutiny, even in the very camp of the Papacy. The hierarchy, too, might seem to repose securely in its conscious strength; to look back with quiescent pride on its unbroken career of victory. The intellectual insurrection of Abelard against the dominant philosophy and against the metaphysic groundwork, if not against the doctrines of the dominant Christianity, had been crushed, for a time at least, by his own calamities and by the superior authority of St. Bernard. The republican religion of Arnold of Brescia had met its doom at the stake; the temporal and spiritual power had combined to trample down the perilous demagogue rather than heresiarch. But doctrines expire not with their teachers. Abelard left even in high places, if not disciples, men disposed to follow out his bold speculations. But these were solitary abstruse thinkers, like Gilbert de la Porée, or minds which formed a close esoteric school; no philosophising Christian ever organised or perpetuated a sect. Arnold no doubt left behind him a more deep and dangerous influence. minds there lingered from his teaching, if no very In many definite notions, a secret traditionary repugnance to the established opinions, an unconscious aversion to the rule of the sacerdotal order. Security of The Papacy, the whole hierarchy might seem, in the wantonness of its despotism, almost deliberately to the hierarchy. drive Christendom to insurrection. It was impossible but that the long, seemingly interminable conflict with the imperial power, even though it might end in triumph, should not leave deep and rankling, and inextinguishable animosities. The interdicts uttered, not against monarchs, but against kingdoms like France and England; the sudden and total cessation of all religious rites; the remorseless abandonment, as it were, of whole nations to everlasting perdition for the sins or alleged sins of their sovereigns, could not but awaken doubts; deaden in many cases religious fears-madden to religious desperation. In France it has been seen that satire began to aim its contemptuous sarcasms at the Pope and the Papal power. In the reign of John, the political songs, not merely in the vernacular tongue but in priestly or monastic Latin, assume a boldness and vehemence which show how much the old awe is dropping off; and these songs, spread from convent to convent, and chanted by monks, it should seem, to holy tunes, are at once the expression and the nutriment of brooding and sullen discontent: discontent, if as yet shuddering at aught approaching to heresy, at least preparing men's minds for doctrinal license. See Mr. Wright's Political songs and poems of Walter de Mapes, among the most curious volumes published by the Camden Society. In the Carmina Burana, (from the monastery of Benedict Buren, published by the Literary Union of Stutgard, 1847,) we find the same pieces, some no doubt of English origin. This strange collection of amatory as well as satirical pieces shows that the license, even occasionally the grace and beauty of the Troubadour, as well as his bitter tone against the clergy, were not confined to the South of France, or to the Provençal tongue :— "Cum ad papam veneris, habe pro constanti CHAP. VIII. VENALITY OF ROME. 173' Nor were the highest churchmen aware how by their own unsparing and honest denunciations of the abuses of the Church, they must shake the authority of the Church. The trumpet of sedition was blown from the thrones of bishops and archbishops, of holy abbots and preachers of the severest orthodoxy; and was it to be expected that the popular mind would nicely discriminate between the abuses of the hierarchical system and the system itself? The flagrant, acknowledged venality of Rome could not be denounced without impairing the majesty of Rome; the avarice of Legates and Cardinals could not pass into a proverb and obtain currency from the most unsuspicious authorities, without bringing Legates, Cardinals, the whole hierarchy into contempt. We have heard Becket declaim, if not against the Pope himself (yet even the Pope is not spared), against the court and council of the Pope as bought and sold. The King, he says, boasts that he has in his pay the whole college of cardinals; he could buy the Papacy itself, if vacant; and, if Becket brands the impiety, he does not question on this point the truth of the King. Becket's friend, John of Salisbury, not only in the freedom of epistolary writing, but in his grave philosophic works, dwells, if with trembling reverence yet with no less force, on this indelible sin of Rome and of the legates of Rome.f We have heard Innocent compelled to defend himself from the imputed design of fraudulently alienating for his own use contributions raised for the hallowed purposes of the Crusade. anti-Sacer All these conspiring causes account for the popularity of this movement; its popularity, not on account Movement of the numbers of its votaries, but the class in dotalist. which it chiefly spread: the lower or middle orders of the cities, in many cases the burghers, now also striving vol. xxii. 147, 8. I had selected the same quotations. "Sed Legati sedis Apostolicæ manus suas excutiant ab omni munere, qui interdum in provincias ita debacchantur ac si ad ecclesiam flagellandam egressus sit Sathan a facie domini." He adds, "Non de omnibus sermo est." -Compare, Hist. Litér. de la France, Polycratic. v. 15. after civil liberties, forming the free municipalities in the cities; and in those cities not merely opposing the authority of the nobles, but that not less oppressive of the bishops and the chapters. This wide-spread, it might seem almost simultaneous revolt throughout Latin Christianity (though in fact it had been long growing up, and, beat down in one place, had ever risen in another); this insurrection against the dominion of the clergy and of the Pope, more or less against the vital doctrines of the faith, but universally against the sacerdotal system, comprehended three classes. These, distinct in certain principles and tenets, would of necessity intermingle incessantly, melt into, and absorb each other. Once broken loose from the authority of the clergy, once convinced that the clergy possessed not the sure, at all events, not the exclusive power over their salvation; awe and reverence for the churches, for the sacraments, for the confessional, once thrown aside; they would welcome any new excitement; be the willing and eager hearers of any teacher who denounced the hierarchy. The followers of Peter de Brueys, or of Henry the Deacon, in the South of France, would be ready to listen without terror to the zealous and eloquent Manichean; the first bold step was already taken; they would go onward without fear, without doubt, wherever conviction seemed to flash upon their minds or enthrall their hearts. In most of them probably the thirst was awakened, rather than fully allayed; they were searchers after truth, rather than men fully satisfied with their new creed. These three classes were-I. The simple Anti-Sacerdotalists, those who rejected the rites and repudiated the authority of the clergy, but did not depart, or departed but in a slight degree from the established creeds; heretics in manners and in forms of worship rather than in articles of belief. These were chiefly single teachers, who rose in different countries, without connection, without organisation, each dependent for his success on his own eloquence or influence. They were insurgents, who shook the established government, but did not attempt to replace it by any new form or system of opinions and discipline. Three classes. |