History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne Volume II Part 38

153 Plin. _Ep._ i. 8; iv. 13.

154 Schmidt, p. 428.

155 Spartia.n.u.s, _Hadrian_.

156 Capitolinus, _Antoninus_.

157 Capitolinus, _Anton._, _Marc. Aurel._

158 Lampridius, _A. Severus_.

159 See Friedlaender, _Hist. des Murs romaines_, iii. p. 157.

160 Seneca (_De Ira_, lib. i. cap. 16) speaks of inst.i.tutions called valetudinaria, which most writers think were private infirmaries in rich men's houses. The opinion that the Romans had public hospitals is maintained in a very learned and valuable, but little-known work, called _Collections relative to the Systematic Relief of the Poor_.

(London, 1815.)

161 See Tacit. _Annal._ xii. 58; Pliny, v. 7; x. 79.

162 Cornelius Nepos, _Epaminondas_, cap. iii.

163 Plutarch, _Cimon_.

164 Diog. Laert. _Bias_.

165 Tac. _Annal._ iv. 63.

166 See Pliny, _Ep._ x. 94, and the remarks of Naudet, pp. 38, 39.

_ 167 De Offic._ i. 14, 15.

168 Lucian describes this in his famous picture of Peregrinus; and Julian, much later, accused the Christians of drawing men into the Church by their charities. Socrates (_Hist. Eccl._ vii. 17) tells a story of a Jew who, pretending to be a convert to Christianity, had been often baptised in different sects, and had ama.s.sed a considerable fortune by the gifts he received on those occasions. He was at last miraculously detected by the Novatian bishop Paul. There are several instances in the _Lives of the Saints_ of judgments falling on those who duped benevolent Christians.

169 See on this subject Chastel, _etudes historiques sur la Charite_ (Paris, 1853); Martin Doisy, _Hist. de la Charite pendant les quatre premiers Siecles_ (Paris, 1848); Champagny, _Charite chretienne_; Tollemer, _Origines de la Charite catholique_ (Paris, 1863); Ryan, _History of the Effects of Religion upon Mankind_ (Dublin, 1820); and the works of Bingham and of Cave. I am also indebted, in this part of my subject, to Dean Milman's histories, Neander's _Ecclesiastical History_, and _Private Life of the Early Christians_, and to Migne's _Encyclopedie_.

170 See the famous epistle of Julian to Arsacius, where he declares that it is shameful that "the Galileans" should support not only their own, but also the heathen poor; and also the comments of Sozomen, _Hist. eccl._ v. 16.

171 The conduct of the Christians, on the first of these occasions, is described by Pontius, _Vit. Cypriani_, ix. 19. St. Cyprian organised their efforts. On the Alexandrian famines and pestilences, see Eusebius, _H. E._ vii. 22; ix. 8.

172 The effects of this conquest have been well described by Sismondi, _Hist. de la Chute de l'Empire Romain_, tome i. pp. 258-260.

Theodoric afterwards made some efforts to re-establish the distribution, but it never regained its former proportions. The pictures of the starvation and depopulation of Italy at this time are appalling. Some fearful facts on the subject are collected by Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, ch. x.x.xvi.; Chateaubriand, vime _Disc._ 2de partie.

_ 173 Cod. Theod._ ix. xl. 15-16. The first of these laws was made by Theodosius, A.D. 392; the second by Honorius, A.D. 398.

174 Cibrario, _Economica politica del Medio Evo_, lib. ii. cap. iii. The most remarkable of these saints was St. Julien l'Hospitalier, who having under a mistake killed his father and mother, as a penance became a ferryman of a great river, and having embarked on a very stormy and dangerous night at the voice of a traveller in distress, received Christ into his boat. His story is painted on a window of the thirteenth century, in Rouen Cathedral. See Langlois, _Essai historique sur la Peinture sur verre_, pp. 32-37.

175 The fact of leprosy being taken as the image of sin gave rise to some curious notions of its supernatural character, and to many legends of saints curing leprosy by baptism. See Maury, _Legendes pieuses du Moyen-Age_, pp. 64-65.

176 See on these hospitals Cibrario, _Econ. Politica del Medio Evo_, lib. iii. cap. ii.

177 Calmeil observes: "On a souvent constate depuis un demi-siecle que la folie est sujette a prendre la teinte des croyances religieuses, des idees philosophiques ou superst.i.tieuses, des prejuges sociaux qui ont cours, qui sont actuellement en vogue parmi les peuples ou les nations; que cette teinte varie dans un meme pays suivant le caractere des evenements relatifs a la politique exterieure, le caractere des evenements civils, la nature des productions litteraires, des representations theatrales, suivant la tournure, la direction, le genre d'elan qu'y prennent l'industrie, les arts et les sciences."-_De la Folie_, tome i. pp. 122-123.

178 Milman's _History of Latin Christianity_, vol. vii. pp. 353, 354.

"Venit de Anglia virgo decora valde, pariterque facunda, dicens, Spiritum Sanctum incarnatum in redemptionem mulierum, et baptizavit mulieres in nomine Patris, Filii et sui. Quae mortua ducta fuit in Mediolanum, ibi et cremata."-_Annales Dominicanorum Colmariensium_ (in the "Rerum Germanic. Scriptores").

179 "Martin Goncalez, du diocese de Cuenca, disoit qu'il etoit frere de l'archange S. Michel, la premiere verite et l'ech.e.l.le du ciel; que c'etoit pour lui que Dieu reservoit la place que Lucifer avoit perdue; que tous les jours il s'elevoit au plus haut de l'Empiree et descendoit ensuite au plus profond des enfers; qu'a la fin du monde, qui etoit proche, il iroit au devant de l'Antichrist et qu'il le terra.s.seroit, ayant a sa main la croix de Jesus-Christ et sa couronne d'epines. L'archeveque de Tolede, n'ayant pu convertir ce fanatique obstine, ni l'empecher de dogmatiser, l'avoit enfin livre au bras seculier."-Touron, _Hist. des Hommes ill.u.s.tres de l'ordre de St. Dominique_, Paris, 1745 (_Vie d'Eymericus_), tome ii. p. 635.

180 Calmeil, _De la Folie_, tome i. p. 134.

181 Ibid. tome i. pp. 242-247.

182 Calmeil, tome i. p. 247.

183 See Esquirol, _Maladies mentales_.

184 Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, ch. x.x.xvii.

185 Purchas's _Pilgrims_, ii. 1452.

186 Desmaisons' _Asiles d'Alienes en Espagne_, p. 53.

187 Leo Africa.n.u.s, _Description of Africa_, book iii.

188 I have taken these facts from a very interesting little work, Desmaisons, _Des Asiles d'Alienes en Espagne; Recherches historiques et medicales_ (Paris, 1859). Dr. Desmaisons conjectures that the Spaniards took their asylums from the Mohammedans; but, as it seems to me, he altogether fails to prove his point. His work, however, contains some curious information on the history of lunatic asylums.

189 Amydemus, _Pietas Romana_ (Oxford, 1687), p. 21; Desmaisons, p. 108.

190 Pinel, _Traite medico-philosophique_, pp. 241, 242.

191 See the dreadful description in Pinel, pp. 200-202.

192 Malthus, who is sometimes, though most unjustly, described as an enemy to all charity, has devoted an admirable chapter (_On Population_, book iv. ch. ix.) to the "direction of our charity;"

but the fullest examination of this subject with which I am acquainted is the very interesting work of Duchatel, _Sur la Charite_.

193 This is very tersely expressed by a great Protestant writer: "I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my G.o.d."-Sir T. Brown, _Religio Medici_, part ii. -- 2. A saying almost exactly similar is, if I remember right, ascribed to St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

194 See Butler's _Lives of the Saints_.

195 Campion's _Historie of Ireland_, book ii. chap. x.

196 He wrote his _Perils of the Last Times_ in the interest of the University of Paris, of which he was a Professor, and which was at war with the mendicant orders. See Milman's _Latin Christianity_, vol. vi. pp. 348-356; Fleury, _Eccl. Hist._ lx.x.xiv. 57.

197 Henry de Knyghton, _De Eventibus Angliae_.

198 There was some severe legislation in England on the subject after the Black Death. Eden's _History of the Working Cla.s.ses_, vol. i. p.

34. In France, too, a royal ordinance of 1350 ordered men who had been convicted of begging three times to be branded with a hot iron.

Monteil, _Hist. des Francais_, tome i. p. 434.