Chapter IV: The Counter-Reformation (4)

§ 96.21. =The Times of the House of Anjou down to Boniface VIII.,
A.D. 1288-1294.=--The papacy had emerged triumphantly from
its hundred years’ struggle with the Hohenstaufens, and by
the overthrow of this powerful house Germany was thrown into
the utmost confusion and anarchy. But Italy, too, was now in
a condition of extreme disorder, and the unconscionable tyrants
of Naples subjected it to a much more intolerable bondage than
those had done from whom they pretended to have delivered it.
After the death of Clement IV. the Holy See remained vacant
for three years. The cardinals would not elect such a pope
as would be agreeable to Charles I. During this papal vacancy
Louis IX. of France, A.D. 1226-1270, fitted out the seventh
and last crusade (§ 94, 6), from which he was not to return.
As previously he had reformed the administration of justice,
he now before his departure introduced drastic reforms in the
ecclesiastical institutions of his kingdom, which laid the first
foundations of the celebrated “Gallican Liberties.” Clement IV.
gave occasion for such procedure on the part of the monarch
who was a model of piety after the standard of those times,
by claiming in A.D. 1266 for the papal chair the _plenaria
dispositio_ of all prebends and benefices. In opposition
to this assumption the king secured by a Pragmatic Sanction
of A.D. 1269 to all churches and monasteries of his realm
unconditional freedom of all elections and presentations
according to old existing rights, confirmed to them anew all
privileges and immunities previously granted them, forbade
every form of simony as a heinous crime, and prohibited all
extraordinary taxation of church property on the part of the
Roman curia.--At last the cardinals took courage and elected
=Gregory X.=, A.D. 1271-1276, an Italian of the noble house
of Visconti. The desolating interregnum in Germany was also
put an end to by the election of =Count Rudolf of Hapsburg=,
A.D. 1273-1291, as king of the Germans. At the =Second Lyonese
or 14th Œcumenical Council of A.D. 1274=, the worthy pope
continued his endeavours without avail to rouse the flagging
enthusiasm of the princes so as to get them to undertake another
crusade. The union with the Greek church did not prove of an
enduring kind (§ 67, 4). The constitution, too, sanctioned
at the council, which provided, in order to prevent prolonged
vacancies in the papal see, that the election of pope should
not only be proceeded with in immured conclaves in the place
where the deceased pope last resided with the curia, but also
(though this was again abrogated in A.D. 1351 by a decree of
Clement VI.) should be expedited by limiting the supply of food
after three days to one dish, after other five days to water,
wine, and bread. Yet this completely failed to secure the object
desired. More successful, however, were the negotiations carried
on at Lyons with the ambassadors of the new German king. Rudolf,
in entering upon his government, renewed all the concessions
made by Otto IV. and Frederick II., renounced all imperial claims
upon Rome and the States of the Church, with the exception of the
possessions of Matilda, and abandoned all pretension to Sicily.
The pope on his part acknowledged him as king of the Romans and
undertook to crown him emperor in Rome, where this agreement
was to be formally ratified and signed. But Gregory died before
arrangements had been completed.

§ 96.22. The three following popes, Innocent V., Hadrian V.,
and John XXI., died soon after one another. The last named,
previously known as Petrus [Peter] Hispanus, had distinguished
himself by his medical and philosophical writings. He was
properly the twentieth Pope John, but as there was a slight
element of uncertainty (§ 82, 6) he designated himself the
twenty-first. After a six months’ vacancy =Nicholas III.=,
A.D. 1277-1280, mounted the papal throne. By diplomacy he
secured the ratification of the still undecided concordat with
the German kingdom, and Rudolf, who had enough to do in Germany,
immediately withdrew from Italian affairs, even abandoning
his claims to imperial coronation. The powerful pope, whose
pontificate was marked by rapacity and nepotism, and who is
therefore put by Dante in hell, did not live long enough to
carry out his plans for the overthrow of the French yoke in
Italy. But he obliged Charles I. to resign his Roman senatorship,
and secretly encouraged a conspiracy of the Sicilians, which
under his successor =Martin IV.=, A.D. 1281-1285, a Frenchman
and a pliable tool of Charles, broke out in the terrible
“Sicilian Vespers” of A.D. 1282. The island of Sicily was
thereby rent from the French rule and papal vassalage, and in
a roundabout way the Hohenstaufens by the female line regained
the government of this part of their old inheritance (§ 95, 1).
Rome now again in A.D. 1284 shook off the senatorial rule which
Charles I. had meanwhile again assumed, and after his death
and that of Martin, which speedily followed, they transferred
this dignity to the new pope =Honorius IV.=, A.D. 1285-1287,
whose short but vigorous reign was followed by a vacancy of
eleven months. The Franciscan general then mounted the papal
throne as =Nicholas IV.=, A.D. 1288-1292. He filled up the
period of his pontificate with vain endeavours to revive the
spirit of the crusades and secure the suppression of heresy.
Violent party feuds of cardinals of the Orsini and Colonna
factions delayed the election of a pope after his death for
two years. They united at last in electing the most unfit
conceivable, Peter of Murrone (§ 98, 2), who, as =Cœlestine V.=
changed the monk’s cowl for the papal tiara, but was persuaded
after four months by the sly and ambitious Cardinal Cajetan
to resign. Cajetan now himself succeeded in A.D. 1294 as
Boniface VIII. The poor monk was confined by him in a tower,
where he died. He was afterwards canonized by Pope John XXII.

§ 96.23. =Temporal Power of the Popes.=--During the 12th and 13th
centuries, when the spiritual power of the papacy had reached its
highest point, the pope came to be regarded as the absolute head
of the church. Gregory VII. arrogated the right of confirming
all episcopal elections. The papal recommendations to vacant sees
(_Preces_, whence those so recommended were called _Precistæ_)
were from the time of Innocent III. transformed into mandates
(_Mandata_), and Clement IV. claimed for the papal chair
the right of a _plenario dispositio_ of all ecclesiastical
benefices. Even in the 12th century the theory was put forth
as in accordance with the canon law that all ecclesiastical
possessions were the property not of the particular churches
concerned but of God or Christ, and so of the pope as His
representative, who in administering them was responsible to
Him alone. Hence the popes, in special cases when the ordinary
revenues of the curia were insufficient, had no hesitation
in exercising the right of levying a tax upon ecclesiastical
property. They heard appeals from all tribunals and could
give dispensations from existing church laws. The right of
canonization (§ 104, 8), which was previously in the power of
each bishop with application simply to his own diocese, was
for the first time exercised with a claim for recognition over
the whole church by John XV., in A.D. 993, without, however,
any word of withdrawing their privilege from the bishops.
Alexander III. was the first to declare in A.D. 1170 that
canonization was exclusively the right of the papal chair. The
system of Gregory VII. made no claim of doctrinal infallibility
for the Holy See, though his ignorance of history led him to
suppose that no heretic had ever presided over the Roman church,
and his understanding of Luke xxii. 32 made him confidently
expect that none ever would. Innocent III., indeed, publicly
acknowledged that even the pope might err in matters of faith,
and then, but only then, become amenable to the judgment of
the church. And Innocent IV., fifty years later, taught that
the pope might err. It is therefore wrong to say, “I believe
what the pope believes;” for one should believe only what the
church teaches. Thomas Aquinas was the first who expressly
maintained the doctrine of papal infallibility. He says that
the pope alone can decide finally upon matters of faith, and that
even the decrees of councils only become valid and authoritative
when confirmed by him. Thomas, however, never went the length of
maintaining that the pope can by himself affirm any dogma without
the advice and previous deliberations of a council.--Kissing
the feet sprang from an Italian custom, and even an emperor
like Frederick Barbarossa humbled himself to hold the pope’s
stirrup. According to the _Donation of Constantine_ document
(§ 87, 4), Constantine the Great had himself performed this
office of equerry to Pope Sylvester. When the coronation of
the pope was introduced is still a disputed point. Nicholas I.
was, according to the _Liber pontificalis_, formally crowned on
his accession. Previously the successors of the apostles were
satisfied with a simple episcopal mitre (§ 84, 1), which on the
head of the crowned pope was developed into the tiara (§ 110, 15).
At the Lateran Council of A.D. 1059 Hildebrand is said to have
set upon the head of the new pope Nicholas II. a double crown to
indicate the council’s recognition of his temporal and spiritual
sovereignty. The papal granting of a golden rose consecrated by
prayer, incense, balsam and holy water to princes of exemplary
piety or even to prominent monasteries, churches, or cities,
conveying an obligation to make acknowledgment by a large money
gift, dates as far back as the 12th century. So far as is known,
Louis VII. was the first to receive it from Alexander III.
in A.D. 1163.--The popes appointed legates to represent them
abroad, as they had done even earlier at the synods held in the
East. Afterwards, when the institution came to be more fully
elaborated, a distinction was made between _Legati missi_ or
nuntios and _Legati nati_. The former were appointed as required
for diplomatic negotiations, visitation and organization of
churches, as well as for the holding of provincial synods, at
which they presided. They were called _Legati a latere_, if the
special importance of the business demanded a representation
from among the nearest and most trusted councillors of the pope,
_i.e._ one of the cardinals, as _Pontifices collaterales_. The
rank of _born_ legate, _Legatus natus_, on the other hand, was
a prelatic dignity of the highest order conferred once for all
by papal privilege, sometimes even upon temporal princes, who
had specially served the Holy See, as for example the king of
Hungary and the Norman princes of Italy (§ 96, 3, 13), which
made them permanently representatives of the pope invested with
certain ecclesiastical prerogatives.--Among the numerous literary
and documentary fictions and forgeries with which the Gregorian
papal system sought to support its ever-advancing pretensions to
authority over the whole church, is one which may be regarded as
the contemporary supplement to the work of the Pseudo-Isidore.
It is the production of a Latin theologian residing in the East,
otherwise unknown, who, at the time of the controversies waged
at the Lyonese Council of A.D. 1274 between the Greeks and
Latins (§ 67, 4), brought forth what professed to be an unbroken
chain of traditions from alleged decrees and canons of the most
famous Greek Councils, _e.g._ Nicæa, Chalcedon, etc., and church
fathers, most frequently from Cyril of Alexandria, the so-called
Pseudo-Cyril, in which the controverted questions were settled
in favour of the Roman pretensions, and especially the most
extreme claims to the primacy of the pope were asserted. It was
presented in A.D. 1261 to Urban IV., who immediately guaranteed
its genuineness in a letter to the emperor Michael Palæologus.
On its adoption by Thomas Aquinas, who diligently employed its
contents in his controversies against the Greeks as well as in
his dogmatic works, it won respect and authority throughout all
the countries of the West.

§ 97. THE CLERGY.

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

§ 97.1. =The Roman College of Cardinals.=--All the clergy
attached to one particular church were called _Clerici cardinales_
down to the 11th century. But after Leo IX. had reformed and
re-organized the Roman clergy, and especially after Nicholas II.
in A.D. 1059 had transferred the right of papal election to
the Roman cardinals, _i.e._ the seven bishops of the Roman
metropolitan dioceses and to the presbyters and deacons of the
principal churches of Rome, the title of cardinal was given to
them at first by way of eminence and very soon exclusively. It
was not till the 13th century that it became usual to give to
foreign prelates the rank of Roman cardinal priests as a mark of
distinction. Under the name of the holy college the cardinals, as
the spiritual dignitaries most nearly associated with the pope,
formed his ecclesiastical and civil council, and were also as
such entrusted with the highest offices of state in the papal
domains. Innocent IV. at Lyons in A.D. 1245 gave to them as a
distinction the red hat; Boniface VIII. in A.D. 1297 gave them
the purple mantle that indicated princely rank. To these Paul II.
in A.D. 1464 added the right of riding the white palfrey with red
cloth and golden bridle; and finally, Urban VIII. in A.D. 1630
gave them the title “Eminence.” Sixtus V. in A.D. 1586 fixed
their number at seventy, after the pattern of the elders of
Israel, Exod. xxiv. 1, and the seventy disciples of Jesus,
Luke x. 1. The popes, however, took care to keep a greater
or less number of places vacant, so that they might have
opportunities of showing favour and bestowing gifts when
necessary. The cardinals were chosen in accordance with the
arbitrary will of the individual pope, who nominated them
by presenting them with the red hat, and installed them into
their high position by the ceremony of closing and opening the
mantle. From the time of Eugenius IV., A.D. 1431, the college
of cardinals put every newly elected pope under a solemn oath
to maintain the rights and privileges of the cardinals and not
to come to any serious and important resolution without their
advice and approval.

§ 97.2. =The Political Importance of the Superior Clergy= (§ 84)
reached its highest point during this period. This was carried
furthest in Germany, especially under the Saxon imperial dynasty.
On more than one occasion did the wise and firm policy of the
German clergy, splendidly organized under the leadership of
the primate of Mainz, save the German nation from overthrow
or dismemberment threatened by ambitious princes. This power
consisted not merely in influence over men’s minds, but also
in their position as members of the states of the empire and
territorial lords. Whether or not a warlike expedition was to
be undertaken depended often only on the consent or refusal of
the league of lords spiritual. It was the policy of the clergy to
secure a united, strong, well-organized Germany. The surrounding
countries wished to be included in the German league of churches
and states; not, however, as the emperor wished, as crown lands,
but as portions of the empire. Against expeditions to Rome, which
took the attention of German princes away from German affairs
and ruined Germany, the German clergy protested in the most
decided manner. They wished the chair of St. Peter to be free
and independent as a European, not a German, institution, with
the emperor as its supporter not its oppressor, but they manfully
resisted all the assumptions and encroachments of the popes.
One of the most celebrated of the German dignitaries of any age
was Bruno the Great, brother of the Emperor Otto I., equally
distinguished as a statesman and as a reformer of the church,
and the unwearied promoter of liberal studies. Chancellor under
his imperial brother from A.D. 940, he was his most trusted
counsellor, and was appointed by him in A.D. 953 Archbishop of
Cologne, and was soon after made Duke of Lorraine. He died in
A.D. 965. Another example of a German prelate of the true sort
is seen in Willigis of Mainz, who died in A.D. 1011, under the
two last Ottos and Henry II., whom he raised to the throne. The
good understanding that was brought about between this monarch
and the clergy of Germany was in great measure owing to the
wise policy of this prelate. Under Henry IV. the German clergy
got split up into three parties,--the papal party of Clugny
under Gebhard [Gebhardt] of Salzburg, including almost all
the Saxon bishops; an imperial party under Adalbert of Bremen,
who endeavoured with the emperor’s help to found a northern
patriarchate, which undoubtedly tended to become a northern
papacy; and an independent German party under St. Anno II.
of Cologne (§ 96, 6), in which notwithstanding much violence,
ambition, and self-seeking, there still survived much of the
spirit that had characterized the policy of the old German
bishops. Henry V., too, as well as the first Hohenstaufens,
had sturdy supporters in the German clergy; but Frederick II.
by his ill treatment of the bishops alienated their clergy from
the interest of the crown. The rise of the imperial dignitaries
after the time of Otto I., and the transference to them under
Otto IV. of the election of emperor raised the archbishops of
Mainz, Treves, and Cologne to the rank of spiritual electoral
princes as arch-chaplains or archchancellors. The Golden Bull
of Charles IV., in A.D. 1356 (§ 110, 4), confirmed and tabulated
their rights and duties.

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

§ 97.4. =Endeavours to Reform the Clergy.=--As a reformer of the
English clergy, who had sunk very low in ignorance, rudeness and
immorality, the most conspicuous figure during the 10th century
was =St. Dunstan=. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in A.D. 959
and died in A.D. 988. He sought at once to advance the standard
of education among the clergy and to inspire the Church with a
higher moral and religious spirit. For these ends he laboured on
with an energy and force of will and an inflexible consistency
and strictness in the pursuit of his hierarchical ideals, which
mark him out as a Hildebrand before Hildebrand. Even as abbot
of the monastery of Glastonbury he had given a forecast of
his life work by restoring and making more severe the rule of
St. Benedict, and forming a brotherhood thoroughly disciplined
in science and in ascetical exercises, from the membership
of which, after he had become bishop of Worcester, then of
London, and finally primate of England and the most influential
councillor of four successive kings, he could fill the places of
the secular priests and canons whom he expelled from their cures.
As the primary condition of all clerical reformation he insisted
upon the unrelentingly consistent putting down of marriage
and concubinage among the priests.[281]--In the 11th century
=St. Peter Damiani= distinguished himself as a zealous supporter
of the reform party of Clugny in the struggle against simony,
clerical immorality, and the marriage of priests. This obtained
for him not only his position as cardinal-bishop of Ostia,
but also his frequent employment, as papal legate in serious
negotiations. In A.D. 1061 he resigned his bishopric and
retired into a monastery, where he died in A.D. 1072. His
friend Hildebrand, who repeatedly called him forth from his
retreat to occupy a conspicuous place among the contenders for
his hierarchical ideal, was therefore called by him his “holy
Satan.” He had indeed little interest in pressing hierarchical
and political claims, and was inclined rather to urge moral
reforms within the church itself. In his _Liber Gomorrhianus_
he drew a fearful picture of the clerical depravity of his
times, and that with a nakedness of detail which gave to
Pope Alexander II. a colourable excuse for the suppression
of the book. For himself, however, Damiani sought no other
pleasure than that of scourging himself till the blood flowed
in his lonely cell (§ 106, 4). His collected works, consisting
of epistles, addresses, tracts and monkish biographies,
were published at Rome in A.D. 1602 in 4 vols. by Cardinal
Cajetan.--In the 12th century St. Hildegard (§ 107, 1) and
the abbot Joachim of Floris, (§ 108, 5) raised their voices
against the moral degradation of the clergy, and among the men
who contributed largely to the restoring of clerical discipline,
the noble provost Geroch of Reichersberg in Bavaria, who died
in A.D. 1169 (§ 102, 5) and the canon Norbert, subsequently
archbishop of Magdeburg (§ 98, 2), are deserving of special
mention.--In the 13th century in England =Robert Grosseteste=
distinguished himself as a prelate of great nobility and
force of character. After being chancellor of Oxford he became
bishop of Lincoln, energetically reforming many abuses in his
diocese, and persistently contending against any form of papal
encroachment. He died in A.D. 1253.[282]

§ 97.5. =The Pataria of Milan.=--Nowhere during the 11th century
were simony, concubinage and priests’ marriages more general
than among the Lombard clergy, and in no other place was such
determined opposition offered to Hildebrand’s reforms. At the
head of this opposition stood Guido, archbishop of Milan, whom
Henry III. deposed in A.D. 1046. Against the papal demands,
he pressed the old claims of his chair to autonomy (§ 46, 1)
and renounced allegiance to Rome. The nobles and the clergy
supported Guido. But two deacons, Ariald and Landulf, about
A.D. 1057 formed a conspiracy among the common people, against
“the Nicolaitan sect” (§ 27, 8). To this party its opponents
gave the opprobrious name of Pataria, Paterini, from patalia,
meaning rabble, riffraff, or from Pattarea, a back street
of ill fame in Milan, the quarter of the rabble, where the
Arialdists held their secret meetings. They took the name
given in reproach as a title of honour, and after receiving
military organization from Erlembald, Landulf’s brother, they
opened a campaign against the married priests. For thirty years
this struggle continued to deluge city and country with blood.

§ 98. MONASTIC ORDERS AND INSTITUTIONS.

In spite of the great and constantly increasing corruption the monastic idea during this period had a wonderfully rapid development, and more persistently and successfully than ever before or since the monks urged their claims to be regarded as “the knighthood of asceticism.” A vast number of monkish orders arose, taking the place for the most part of existing orders which had relaxed their rules. These were partly reformed off-shoots of the Benedictine order, partly new organizations reared on an independent basis. New monasteries were being built almost every day, often even within the cities. The reformed Benedictine monasteries clustered in a group around the parent monastery whose reformed rule they adopted, forming an organized society with a common centre. These groups were therefore called Congregations. The oldest and, for two centuries, the most important, of these congregations was that of the Brethren of Clugny, whose ardent zeal for reform in the hierarchical direction was mainly instrumental in raising again the church and the papacy out of that degradation and corruption into which they had fallen during the 10th and 11th centuries. The otherwise less important order of the Camaldolites was also a vigorous promoter of these movements. But Clugny had in Clairvaux a rival which shared with it on almost equal terms the respect and reverence of that age. The unreformed monasteries of the Benedictines, on the other hand, still continued their easy, luxurious style of living. They were commonly called the Black Monks to distinguish them from the Cistercians who were known as the White Monks. In order to prevent a constant splitting up of the monkish fraternities, Innocent III. at the Lateran Council of A.D. 1215 forbade the founding of new orders. Yet he himself took part in the formation of the two great mendicant orders, and also the following popes issued no prohibition.--The papacy had in the monkish orders its standing army. It was to them, in a special manner, that Gregory’s system owed its success. But they were also by far the most important promoters and fosterers of learning, science, and art. The pope in various ways favoured the emancipation of the monasteries from episcopal control, their so-called _Exemption_; and conferred upon the abbots of famous monasteries what was practically episcopal rank, with liberty to wear the bishop’s mitre, so that they were called _Mitred Abbots_ (§ 84, 1). The princes too classed the abbots in respect of dignity and order next to the bishops; and the people, who saw the popular idea of the church more and more represented in the monasteries, honoured them with unmeasured reverence. From the 10th century the monks came to be considered a distinct religious order (_Ordo religiosorum_). Lay brethren, _Fratres conversi_, were now taken in to discharge the worldly business of the monastery. They were designated _Fratres_, while the others who received clerical ordination were addressed as _Patres_. The monks rarely lived on good terms with the secular clergy; for the former as confessors and mass priests often seriously interfered with the rights and revenues of the latter.--Besides the many monkish orders, with their strict seclusion, perpetual vows and ecclesiastically sanctioned rule, we meet with organizations of a freer type such as the Humiliati of Milan, consisting of whole families. Of a similar type were the Beguines and Beghards of the Netherlands, the former composed of women, the latter of men. These people abandoned their handicraft and their domestic and civic duties for a monastic-like mode of life retired from the world. The crusading enthusiasm also occasioned a combination of the monastic idea with that of knighthood, and led to the formation of the so-called Orders of Knights, which with a Grandmaster and several Commanders, were divided into Knights, Priests, and Serving Brethren.--Continuation, § 112.

§ 98.1. =Offshoots of the Benedictines.=

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

2. =The Congregation of the Camaldolites= was founded in
A.D. 1018 by the Benedictine Romuald, descended from the
Duke of Ravenna, at Camaldoli (_Campus Maldoli_), a wild
district in the Apennines. In A.D. 1086 a nunnery was placed
alongside of the monastery. The president of the parent
monastery at Camaldoli stood at the head of the whole order
as Major. The order carried out enthusiastically the high
church ideal of Clugny, and won great influence in its
time, although it by no means attained the importance of
the French order.

3. Twenty years later, in A.D. 1038, the Florentine Gualbertus
founded the =Order of Vallombrosa=, in a romantically
situated shady valley of the Apennines (_Vallis umbrosa_),
according to the rule of Benedict. This was the first of
all the orders to appoint lay brethren for the management
of worldly business, in order that the monks might observe
their vow of silence and strict seclusion. The parent
monastery attained to great wealth and reputation, but it
never had a great number of affiliated institutions.

4. =The Cistercians.= In A.D. 1098 the Benedictine abbot Robert
founded the monastery of Citeaux (_Cistercium_) near Dijon,
which as the parent monastery of the Congregation of the
Cistercians became the most formidable rival of Clugny. The
Cistercians were distinguished from the Brethren of Clugny
by voluntary submission to the jurisdiction of the bishops,
avoidance of all interference with the pastorates of others,
and the banishing of all ornaments from their churches
and monasteries. The order continued obscure for a while,
till St. Bernard (§ 102, 3), from A.D. 1115 abbot of the
monastery of Clairvaux (Claravallis), an offshoot of Citeaux,
by his ability and spirituality raised it far above all
other orders in the esteem of the age. In honour of him
the French Cistercians took the name of =Bernardines=.
The hostility between them and the Brethren of Clugny
was overcome by the personal friendship of Bernard and
Peter the Venerable. By the statutory constitution, the
so-called _Charta charitatis_, drawn up in A.D. 1119,
the administration of all the affairs of the order
was assigned to a general of the order, appointed by
the abbot of Citeaux, the abbots of the four chief
affiliated monasteries, and twenty other elected
representatives forming a high council. This council,
however, was answerable to the general assembly of all the
abbots and priors, which met at first yearly, but afterwards
every third year. The affiliated monasteries had a yearly
visitation of the abbot of Citeaux, but Citeaux itself was
to be visited by the four abbots just referred to. In the
13th century this order had 2,000 monasteries and 6,000
nunneries.

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

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

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

2. =The Order of St. Anthony=, founded in A.D. 1095 by a
French nobleman of Dauphiny [Dauphiné], called Guaston,
in gratitude for the recovery of his son Guérin from the
so-called St. Anthony’s fire on his invoking St. Anthony.
He expended his whole property upon the restoring of a
hospital beside the church of St. Didier la Mothe, in a
chapel of which it was supposed the bones of Anthony lay,
and devoted himself, together with his son and some other
companions, to the nursing of the sick. At first merely a
lay fraternity, the members took in A.D. 1218 the monk’s
vow. Boniface VIII. made them canons under the rule of
St. Augustine (§ 45, 1). They were now called Antonians,
and devoted themselves to contemplation. The order spread
greatly, especially in France. They wore a black cloak with
a T-formed cross of blue upon the breast (Ezek. ix. 9) and a
little bell round the neck while engaged in collecting alms.

3. =The Order of Fontevraux= was founded in A.D. 1094 by
Robert of Arbrissel in Fontevraux (_Fons Ebraldi_) in
Poitou. Preaching repentance, he went through the country,
and founded convents for virgins, widows and fallen women.
Their abbesses, as representatives of the Mother of God, to
whom the order was dedicated, were set over the priests who
did their bidding.

4. =The Order of the Gilbertines= had its name from its
founder Gilbert, an English priest of noble birth. Here
too the women formed the main stem of the order. They were
the owners of the cloister property, and the men were only
its administrators. The monasteries of this order were
mostly both for men and women. It did not spread much
beyond England, and had at the time of the suppression
of the monasteries twenty-one well endowed convents, with
orphanages and houses for the poor and sick.

5. =The Carthusian Order= was founded in A.D. 1086 by Bruno
of Cologne, rector of the High School at Rheims. Disgusted
with the immoral conduct of Archbishop Manasseh, he retired
with several companions into a wild mountain gorge near
Grenoble, called Chartreuse. He enjoined upon his monks
strict asceticism, rigid silence, earnest study, prayer, and
a contemplative life, clothed them in a great coarse cowl,
and allowed them for their support only vegetables and bran
bread. Written statutes, _Consuetudines Cartusiæ_, which
soon spread over several houses of the Carthusians, were
first given them in A.D. 1134 by Guido, the fifth prior
of the parent monastery. A steward had management of the
affairs of the convent. Each ate in his own cell; only on
feast days had they a common meal. At least once a week they
fasted on salt, water and bread. Breaking silence, permitted
only on high festivals, and for two hours on Thursdays, was
punished with severe flagellation. Even the lay brethren
were treated with great severity, and were not allowed
either to sit or to cover their heads in the presence of
the brothers of the order. Carthusian nuns were added to
the order in the 13th century with a modified rule.

6. =The Premonstratensian Order= was founded in A.D. 1121
by Norbert, the only German founder of orders besides and
after Bruno. A rich, worldly-minded canon of Xanthen in
the diocese of Cologne, he was brought to another mind by
the fall of a thunderbolt beside him. He retired along with
several other like-minded companions into the rough valley
of Prémontré in the bishopric of Laon (_Præmonstratum_,
because pointed out to him in a vision). In his rule he
joined together the canonical duties with an extremely
strict monastic life. He appeared in A.D. 1126 as a preacher
of repentance at the Diet of Spires, was there elected
archbishop of Magdeburg, and made a most impressive entrance
into his metropolis dressed in his mendicant garb. His order
spread and established many convents both for monks and for
nuns.

7. =The Trinitarian Order=, _ordo s. Trinitatis de redemptione
captivorum_, was called into existence by Innocent III., and
had for its work the redemption of Christian captives.

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

§ 98.3. =The Beginnings of the Franciscan Order down to
A.D. 1219.=--The founder of this order was =St. Francis=, born
in A.D. 1182, son of a rich merchant of Assisi in Umbria. His
proper name was Giovanni Bernardone. The name of Francis is said
to have been given him on account of his early proficiency in the
French language; “Francesco”--the little Frenchman. As a wealthy
merchant’s son, he gave himself to worldly pleasures, but was
withdrawn from these, in A.D. 1207, by means of a severe illness.
A dream, in which he saw a multitude with the sign of the cross,
bearing weapons designed for him and his companions, led him to
resolve upon a military career. But a new vision taught him that
he was called to build up the fallen house of God. He understood
this of a ruined chapel of St. Damiani at Assisi, and began to
apply the proceeds of valuable cloth fabrics from his father’s
factory to its restoration. Banished for such conduct from his
father’s house, he lived for a time as a hermit, until the gospel
passage read in church of the sending forth of the disciples
without gold or silver, without staff or scrip (Matt. x.), fell
upon his soul like a thunderbolt. Divesting himself of all his
property, supplying the necessaries of life by the meanest forms
of labour, even begging when need be, he went about the country
from A.D. 1209, sneered at by some as an imbecile, revered
by others as a saint, preaching repentance and peace. In the
unexampled power of his self-denial and renunciation of the world,
in the pure simplicity of his heart, in the warmth of his love
to God and man, in the blessed riches of his poverty, St. Francis
was like a heavenly stranger in a selfish world. Wonderful,
too, and powerful in its influence was the depth of his natural
feeling. With the birds of the forest, with the beasts of the
field, he held intercourse in childlike simplicity as with
brothers and sisters, exhorting them to praise their Creator.
The paradisiacal relation of man to the animal world seemed to
be restored in the presence of this saint.--Very soon he gathered
around him a number of like-minded men, who under his direction
had decided to devote themselves to a similar vocation. For the
society of “_Viri pœnitentiales de civitate Assisii oriundi_”
thus formed Francis issued, in A.D. 1209, a rule, at the basis
of which lay a literal acceptance of the precepts of Christ to
His disciples, sent forth to preach the kingdom of God (Matt. x.;
Luke x.), along with similar gospel injunctions (Matt. xix. 21,
29; Luke vi. 29; ix. 23; xiv. 26), and then he went to Rome
to get for it the papal confirmation. The pope was, indeed,
unwilling; but through the pious man’s simplicity and humility
he was prevailed upon to grant his request. In later times this
incident was in popular tradition transformed into a legend,
representing the pope as at first bidding him go to attend the
swine, which the holy man literally obeyed. =Innocent III.= was
the more inclined to yield, owing to the painful experiences
through which the church had passed in consequence of its unwise
treatment of similar proposals made by the Waldensians thirty
years before. He therefore gave at least verbal permission to
Francis and his companions to live and teach according to this
rule. At the same time also Francis heartily responded to the
demand to place at the head of his rule the obligation to obey
and reverence the pope, and to conclude with a vow of the most
rigid avoidance of every kind of addition, abatement, or change.
There was no thought of founding a new monkish order, but only
of a free union and a wandering life, amid apostolic poverty,
for preaching repentance and salvation by word and example. On
entering the society the brothers were required to distribute all
their possessions among the poor, and dress in the poor clothing
of the order, consisting of a coarse cloak bound with a cord and
a capouch, to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God wherever
their master sent them, and to earn their livelihood by their
usual occupation, or any other servile work. In case of need they
were even to beg the necessaries of life. Thus mendicancy, though
only allowed in case of necessity, soon came to be transformed
by the lustre of the example of the poverty of Jesus and His
disciples and mother, who all had lived upon alms, and by the
idea of a twofold merit attaching to self-abnegation, inasmuch
as not only the receiver, by voluntarily submitting to the
disgrace which it involved in the eyes of the world, but also
the giver of alms, obtained before the judgment seat of God a
great reward. But neither as wages for work nor as alms were the
brothers permitted to accept money, but only the indispensable
means of life, while that which remained after their own wants
had been supplied was divided among the poor. From time to time
they withdrew, either singly or in little groups, for prayer,
contemplation, and spiritual exercises into deserts, caves,
or deserted huts; and annually at Pentecost they assembled for
mutual edification and counsel in the small chapel at Assisi,
dedicated to “Mary of the Angel,” given to St. Francis by the
Benedictines. This church, under the name of the _Portiuncula_,
became the main centre of the order, and all who visited it on
the day of its consecration received from the pope a plenary
indulgence. The number of the brothers meanwhile increased from
day to day. When representatives of all ranks in society and
of all the various degrees of culture sought admission, it soon
became evident that the obligation to preach, hitherto enjoined
upon all the members of the order, should be restricted to
those who were specially qualified for the work, and that the
rest should take care to carry out in their personal lives the
ideal of poverty, joined with loving service in institutions
for the poor, the sick, and the lepers. A further move in the
development of the order, tending to secure for it an independent
ecclesiastical position, was the admission into it of ordained
priests. Their missionary activity among Christian people was
restricted at first to Umbria and the neighbouring districts
of central Italy. But soon the thought of a missionary vocation
among the unbelievers got possession of the mind of the founder.
Even in A.D. 1212 he himself undertook for this purpose a journey
to the East, to Syria, and afterwards to Morocco; in neither case,
however, were his efforts attended with any very signal success.
In A.D. 1218, Elias of Cortona, with some companions, again took
up the mission to Syria, with equally little success; and in
A.D. 1219 five brethren were again sent to Morocco, and there
won the crown of martyrdom. In that same year, A.D. 1219, the
Pentecost assembly at Assisi passed the resolution to include
within the range of their call as itinerants the sending of
missions, with a “_minister_” at the head of each, into all
the Christian countries of Europe. They began immediately,
privileged with a papal letter of recommendation to the higher
secular clergy and heads of orders in France, to carry out the
resolution in France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany; while at the
same time Francis himself, accompanied by twelve brethren, again
turned his steps toward the East.

§ 98.4. =The Franciscans from A.D. 1219 to A.D. 1223.=--Soon
after the departure of St. Francis the report of his death
spread through Italy, and loosened the bonds which, by reason
of the obligation to render him obedience hitherto operative,
had secured harmony among the brethren. Francis had, on the
basis of Luke x. 7, 8, laid upon his companions only the commonly
accepted rules of fasting, but the observance of a more rigorous
fast required his own special permission. Now, however, some
rigorists, at a convention of the elders, gave expression to
the opinion, that the brethren should be enjoined to fast not
as hitherto, like all the rest of Christendom, only on two, but
on four, days of the week, a resolution which not only removed
the rule altogether from its basis in Luke x. 7, 8, but also
broke the solemn promise to observe the wish of Innocent III.,
incorporated in it, that in no particular should it be altered.
And while the rule forbade any intercourse with women, brother
Philip obtained a papal bull which appointed him representative
of the order of “poor women,” afterwards the Nuns of St. Clara,
founded in A.D. 1212 on the model of the Franciscan ideal
of poverty. Another brother, John of Capella, sought to put
himself at the head of an independent order of poor men and women.
Many such projects were being planned. So soon as news reached
Francis of these vagaries, he returned to Italy, accompanied
by his favourite pupil, the energetic, wise, and politic Elias
of Cortona, whose organizing and governing talent was kept
within bounds down to the founder’s death. Perceiving that all
these confusions had arisen from the want of a strictly defined
organization, legitimized by the pope and under papal protection,
Francis now endeavoured to secure such privileges for his order.
He therefore entreated Honorius III. to appoint Cardinal Ugolino
of Ostia, afterwards Pope Gregory IX., previously a zealous
promoter of his endeavours, as protector and governor of his
brotherhood; and he soon with a strong hand put a stop to all
secessionist movements in the community. A vigorous effort was
now made by the brotherhood, suggested and encouraged by the
papal chair, to carry out a scheme of transformation, by means
of which the order, which had hitherto confined itself to simple
religious and ascetic duties, should become an independent and
powerful monkish order, to place it “with the whole force of its
religious enthusiasm, with its extraordinary flexibility and its
mighty influences over the masses, at the service of the papacy,
and to turn it into a standing army of the pope, ever ready
to obey his will in the great movements convulsing the church
and the world of that time.” Honorius III. took the first step
in this direction by a bull addressed, in Sept., A.D. 1220, to
Francis himself and the superiors of his order, there styled
“_Ordo fratrum minorum_,” by which a novitiate of one year and
an irrevocable vow of admission were prescribed, the wearing of
the official dress made its exclusive privilege, and jurisdiction
given to its own tribunal to deal with all its members. Francis
was now also obliged, willing or unwilling, to agree to a revision
of his rule. This new rule was probably confirmed or at least
approved at the famous Pentecost chapter held at the Portiuncula
chapel in A.D. 1221, called the “_Mat Chapter_” (_C. storearum_),
because the brethren assembled there lived in tents made of
rush-mats.[283] It is, as Carl Müller has incontestably proved,
this same rule which was formerly regarded by all as the first
rule composed in A.D. 1209. The older rule, however, formed in
every particular its basis, and the enlargements and modifications
rendered necessary by the adoption of the new ideas appear so
evidently as additions, that the two different constituents
can even yet with tolerable certainty be distinguished from one
another, and so the older rule can be reconstructed. But the
development and modification of the order necessarily proceeding
in the direction indicated soon led to a gradual reformation
of the rule, which in this new form was solemnly and formally
ratified by Honorius III. in November, A.D. 1223, as possessing
henceforth definite validity. In it the requirement of the literal
acceptance of the commands of Jesus on sending out His disciples
in Matthew x. and Luke x. is no longer made the basis and pattern,
as in the two earlier rules, but all the stress is laid rather
upon the imitation of the lives of poverty led by Jesus and His
apostles; as an offset to the renunciation of all property, the
obligation to earn their own support by work was now set aside,
and the practice of mendicancy was made their proper object in
life, came indeed to be regarded as constituting the special
ideal and sanctity of the order, which in consequence was
now for the first time entitled to be called a =mendicant or
begging order=. At its head stood a _general-minister_, and all
communications between the order and the holy see were conducted
through a _cardinal-protector_. The mission field of the order,
comprising the whole world, was divided into _provinces_ with
a _provincial-minister_, and the provinces into _custodies_
with a _custos_ at its head.--Every third year at Pentecost
the general called together the provincials and custodes to
a general chapter, and the custodes assembled the brethren of
their dioceses as required in provincial and custodial chapters.
The dress of the order remained the same. The usual requirement
to go barefoot, however, was modified by the permission in cases
of necessity, on journeys and in cold climates, to wear shoes or
sandals.