An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 22

[Sidenote: The question of the character of the mediaeval clergy.]

84. It is natural to ask whether the commanders of the great army which made up the Church proved valiant leaders in the eternal warfare against evil. Did they, on the whole, resist the temptations which their almost limitless power and wealth constantly placed in their way? Did they use their vast resources to advance the cause of the Great Leader whose humble followers and servants they claimed to be? Or were they, on the contrary, selfish and corrupt, turning the teachings of the Church to their own advantage, and discrediting its doctrines in the eyes of the people by flagrant maladministration and personal wickedness?

[Sidenote: The debt of western Europe to the church.]

No simple answer to this question is possible. One who realizes how completely the Church dominated every human interest and influenced every department of life in the Middle Ages must hesitate to attempt to balance the good and evil to be placed to its account. That the Church conferred incalculable benefits upon western Europe, few will question.

To say nothing of its chief mission,--the moral uplifting of mankind through the Christian religion,--we have seen how, under its auspices, the barbarians were civilized and brought into the family of nations, how violence was checked by the "Truce of G.o.d," and how an educated cla.s.s was maintained during the centuries when few laymen could either read or write. These are only the more obvious of its achievements; the solace and protection which it afforded to the weak, the wretched, and the heart-sore, no one can a.s.sume to estimate.

[Sidenote: The corruption of the clergy.]

On the other hand, no one can read the sources of our knowledge of the history of the Church without perceiving that there were always bad clergymen who abused their high prerogatives. Many bishops and priests were no more worthy to be intrusted with their extensive powers than the unscrupulous office-seekers to whom high stations in our modern governments sometimes fall.

[Sidenote: Tendency to exaggerate the evil in the Church.]

Yet as we read the fiery denunciations of the clergy's evil practices, which may be found in the records of nearly every age, we must not forget that the critic is always p.r.o.ne to take the good for granted and to dwell upon the evil. This is particularly true in dealing with a great religious inst.i.tution, where corruption is especially shocking.

One wicked bishop, or one form of oppression or immorality among the clergy, made a far deeper impression than the humble virtues of a hundred dutiful and G.o.d-fearing priests. If, however, we make all due allowance for the good which escaped the writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it must be admitted by all who read their testimony that they give us a gloomy picture of the life of many prelates, priests, and monks, and of the startling variety of abuses which developed in the Church.

[Sidenote: Temptations to corruption among the clergy.]

Gregory VII imagined that the reason for the existence of bad clergymen was that the kings and feudal lords forced their favorites into the offices of the Church. The root of the difficulty lay, however, in the wealth and power of the Church itself. It would have needed saints always to exercise righteously the tremendous powers which the clergy had acquired, and to resist the temptations to which they were subjected. When we consider the position of a rich prelate, it is not surprising that corruption abounded. The offices of the Church offered the same possibilities of money-making that civil offices, especially those in the great American cities, offer to the mere schemer to-day.

The descriptions of some of the churchmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries remind us far more of the professional politician than of a modern clergyman, whether Catholic or Protestant.

[Sidenote: The chief forms of corruption in the Church.]

85. At least a brief description of the more notorious forms of corruption among the clergy will be necessary to an understanding of the various heresies or revolts against the Church. These began seriously to threaten its power in the twelfth century and culminated in the successful Protestant revolt of the sixteenth. The vices of the clergy serve to account also for the appearance of the begging monks, the Franciscans and Dominicans, and to explain the need of the great reform which they undertook in the thirteenth century.

[Sidenote: Simony.]

[Sidenote: The worldly and immoral lives of many bishops and abbots.]

In the first place, there was simony, a disease so deep-seated and persistent that Innocent III declared it incurable. This has already been described in an earlier chapter. Even boys were made bishops and abbots through the influence of their friends and relatives. Wealthy bishoprics and monasteries were considered by feudal lords an admirable means of support for their younger sons, since the eldest born usually inherited the fief. The life led by bishops and abbots was often merely that of a feudal prince. If a prelate had a taste for fighting, he organized military expeditions for conquest or to satisfy a grudge against a neighbor, exactly as if he belonged to the bellicose laity of the period.

[Sidenote: Corruption in the ecclesiastical courts.]

Besides simony and the scandalous lives of many of the clergy, there were other evils which brought the Church into disrepute. While the popes themselves, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were usually excellent men and sometimes distinguished statesmen, who honestly endeavored to exalt the vast inst.i.tution over which they presided, their officials, who tried the innumerable cases which were brought to the papal court, had a reputation for grave corruption.[147] It was generally believed that the decision was always in favor of him who could pay most and that the poor received scant attention. The bishops'

courts were notorious for their oppression, since a considerable portion of the bishop's income, like that of the feudal lord, came from the fines imposed upon those condemned by his officials. The same person was sometimes summoned to different courts at the same time and then fined for neglecting to appear at one or the other.

[Sidenote: The parish priests often no better than their superiors.]

As for the parish priests, they appear often to have followed the demoralizing example set by their superiors. The acts of church councils indicate that the priest sometimes turned his parsonage into a shop and sold wine or other commodities. He further increased his income, as we have seen, by demanding fees for merely doing his duty in baptizing, confessing, absolving, marrying, and burying his paris.h.i.+oners.

The monks of the twelfth century, with some remarkable exceptions, did little to supply the deficiencies of the secular clergy.[148] Instead of instructing the people and setting before them an example of a pure and holy life, they enjoyed no better reputation than the bishops and priests. Efforts were made, however, by newly founded orders in the eleventh and twelfth centuries--like that of the Cistercians to which St. Bernard belonged--to reform the monks.

[Sidenote: Corruption and abuses recognized and condemned by the better element in the clergy itself.]

The universal impression of selfishness and depravity which the corrupt churchmen made upon all observers is reflected in innumerable writings of the time,--in the letters of the popes, in the exhortations of holy men like St. Bernard, in the acts of the councils, in the satirical poems of the popular troubadours and the sprightly versifiers of the courts.[149] All agree in denouncing the iniquity of the clergy, their greed, and their reckless disregard of their sacred duties. St. Bernard sadly asks, "Whom can you show me among the prelates who does not seek rather to empty the pockets of his flock than to subdue their vices?"

[Sidenote: The lay critics of the Church.]

86. The evils which the churchmen themselves so frankly admitted could not escape the notice and comment of laymen. But while the better element among the clergy vigorously urged a reform of the existing abuses, no churchman dreamed of denying the truth of the Church's doctrines or the efficacy of its ceremonies. Among the laity, however, certain popular leaders arose who declared that the Church was the synagogue of Satan; that no one ought any longer to rely upon it for his salvation; that all its elaborate ceremonies were worse than useless; that its ma.s.ses, holy water, and relics were mere money-getting devices of a depraved priesthood and helped no one to heaven. These bold rebels against the Church naturally found a hearing among those who felt that the ministrations of a wicked priest could not possibly help a sinner, as well as among those who were exasperated by the t.i.thes and other ecclesiastical dues.

[Sidenote: Heresy.]

Those who questioned the teachings of the Church and proposed to cast off its authority were, according to the accepted view of the time, guilty of the supreme crime of heresy. To the orthodox believer nothing could exceed the guilt of one who committed treason against G.o.d by rejecting the religion which had been handed down in the Roman Church from the immediate followers of his Son. Moreover, doubt and unbelief were not merely sin, they were revolt against the most powerful social inst.i.tution of the time, which, in spite of the depravity of some of its officials, continued to be venerated by people at large throughout western Europe. The extent and character of the heresies of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the efforts of the Church to suppress them by persuasion, by fire and sword, and by the stern court of the Inquisition, form a strange and terrible chapter in mediaeval history.

[Sidenote: Two cla.s.ses of heretics.]

The heretics were of two sorts. One cla.s.s merely abjured the practices and some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church while they remained Christians and endeavored to imitate as nearly as possible the simple life of Christ and the apostles. On the other hand, there were popular leaders who taught that the Christian religion was false. They held that there were two principles in the universe, the good and the evil, which were forever fighting for the victory. They a.s.serted that the Jehovah of the Old Testament was really the evil power, and that it was, therefore, the evil power whom the Catholic Church wors.h.i.+ped.

[Sidenote: The Albigenses.]

This latter heresy was a very old one, by which even St. Augustine had been fascinated in his early years. It was revived in Italy in the eleventh century and became very popular, especially in southern France, in the twelfth. Its adherents called themselves _Cathari_ (the pure), but we shall call them _Albigenses_, a name derived from the town of Albi in southern France, where they were very numerous.[150]

[Sidenote: The Waldensians.]

Among those who continued to accept the Christian faith but refused to obey the clergy on account of their wickedness, the most important sect was that of the Waldensians. These were followers of Peter Waldo of Lyons, who gave up all their property and lived a life of apostolic poverty. They went about preaching the Gospel and expounding the Scriptures, which they translated into the language of the people. They made many converts, and before the end of the twelfth century there were great numbers of them scattered throughout western Europe.

The Church did not wish to condemn the efforts of good and simple men to imitate as exactly as possible the life of Christ and the apostles.

Nevertheless these laymen, who claimed the right to preach and hear confession, and who a.s.serted that prayer was quite as efficacious when uttered in bed or in a stable as in a church, seemed clearly to call in question the general belief in the Church as the exclusive agent of salvation, and seriously to threaten its influence among the people.

[Sidenote: Beginning of the fight against heresy.]

Before the end of the twelfth century the secular rulers began to take notice of heresy. Henry II of England, in 1166, ordered that no one should harbor heretics in England, and that any house in which they were received should be burned. The king of Aragon decreed (1194) that any one who listened to the preaching of the Waldensians, or even gave them food, should suffer the penalties for treason and should have his property confiscated by the state. These are the beginnings of a series of pitiless decrees which even the most enlightened kings of the thirteenth century issued against all who should be convicted of belonging either to the Albigenses or the Waldensians. The Church and the civil government agreed that heretics were dangerous to the welfare of both, and that they were criminals deserving the terrible death of burning alive.[151]

[Sidenote: Heresy regarded as treason.]

It is very difficult for us who live in a tolerant age to understand the universal and deep-rooted horror of heresy which prevailed not only in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but also down at least to the eighteenth. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the fact that heresy was considered treason against an inst.i.tution which practically all, both the learned and the unlearned, agreed was not only essential to salvation but was necessary also to order and civilization. Frank criticism of the evil lives of the clergy, not excluding the pope himself, was common enough. But this did not const.i.tute heresy. One might believe that the pope and half the bishops were bad men, and yet in no way question the necessity for the Church's existence or the truth of every one of its dogmas; just as nowadays we might call particular rulers and government officials fools or knaves, without being suspected of repudiating government altogether. The heretic was the anarchist of the Middle Ages. He did not simply denounce the immorality of the officers of the Church; he claimed that the Church was worse than useless. He sought to lead people to throw off their allegiance to it and to disregard its laws and commands. The Church and the civil government consequently proceeded against him as against an enemy of society and order. Heresy was, moreover, a contagious disease, and spread rapidly and un.o.bserved, so that to the rulers of the times even the harshest measures appeared justifiable in order to prevent its dissemination.

[Sidenote: Different methods of opposing heresy.]

[Sidenote: Internal reform.]

87. There were several ways of opposing heresy. First, a reform of the character of the clergy and a suppression of the abuses in the Church would have removed a great cause of that discontent to which the writers of the time attributed the rapid growth of heresy. The attempt of Innocent III to improve the conditions in the Church by summoning a great council at Rome in 1215 failed, however, and, according to his successor, matters grew worse rather than better.

[Sidenote: Extermination by the sword.]

A second plan was to organize an expedition against the rebels and annihilate them by the sword. This policy was only possible if a large number of heretics could be found in a single district. In southern France there were many adherents of both the Albigenses and the Waldensians, especially in the county of Toulouse. At the beginning of the thirteenth century there was in this region an open contempt for the Church and a bold defense of heretical teachings even among the higher cla.s.ses.

[Sidenote: Albigensian crusade.]

Against the people of this flouris.h.i.+ng land Innocent III preached a crusade in 1208. An army under Simon de Montfort[152] marched from northern France into the doomed region and, after one of the most atrocious and b.l.o.o.d.y wars upon record, suppressed the heresy by wholesale slaughter. At the same time the war checked the civilization and destroyed the prosperity of the most enlightened portion of France.

[Sidenote: The Inquisition.]

The third and most permanent defense against heresy was the establishment, under the heads.h.i.+p of the pope, of a system of tribunals designed to ferret out secret cases of unbelief and bring the offenders to punishment. These courts of experts, who devoted their whole attention to the discovery and conviction of heresy, const.i.tuted the Holy Inquisition, which gradually took form after the Albigensian crusade. We cannot stop to describe these courts, which became especially notorious in Spain some two centuries after their establishment. The unfairness of the trials and the cruel treatment to which those suspected of heresy were subjected, through long imprisonment or torture--inflicted with the hope of forcing them to confess their crime or implicate others--have rendered the name of the Inquisition infamous.

Without by any means attempting to defend the methods employed, it may be remarked that the inquisitors were often earnest and upright men whose feelings were not unlike those of a New England judge presiding at a witch trial in the seventeenth century. The methods of procedure of the Inquisition were not more cruel than those used in the secular courts of the period.