Chapter IV: Theology and Its Battles (12)

§ 112.7. =Overthrow of the Templars.=--The order of Knights
Templar, whose chief seat was now in Paris and the south of
France, by rich presents, exactions, and robberies in the
island of Cyprus, vast commercial speculations and extensive
money-lending and banking transactions with crusaders and
pilgrims and needy princes, had acquired immense wealth in
money and landed property in the East and the West. They
had in consequence become proud, greedy, and vicious. Their
independence of the State had long been a thorn in the eye
of Philip the Fair of France, and their policy was often at
variance with his. But above all their great wealth excited
his cupidity. In a letter to a visitor of the order Innocent III.
had in A.D. 1208 bitterly complained of their unspirituality,
worldliness, avarice, drunkenness, and study of the black art,
saying that he refrained from remarking upon yet more shameful
offences with which they were charged. Stories also were current
of apostasy to Mohammedanism, sorcery, unnatural vice, etc.
It was said that they worshipped an idol Baphomet; that a
black cat appeared in their assemblies; that at initiation
they abjured Christ, spat on the cross, and trampled it under
foot. A Templar expelled for certain offences gave evidence in
support of these charges. Thereupon in A.D. 1307 Philip had all
Templars in his realm suddenly apprehended. Many admitted their
guilt amid the tortures of the rack; others voluntarily did so
in order to escape such treatment. A Parliament assembled at
Tours in A.D. 1308 heartily endorsed the king’s opinion, and
the pope, Clement V., was powerless to resist (§ 110, 2). While
the pope’s commissioners were prosecuting inquiries in all
countries, Philip without more ado in A.D. 1310 brought to the
stake one hundred Templars who had retracted their confession.
The =œcumenical council at Vienne in A.D. 1311=, summoned for
the final settlement of the matter, refused to give judgment
without hearing the defence of the accused. But Philip threatened
the pope till a decree was passed disbanding the order because
of the suspicion and ill repute into which it had fallen. Its
property was to go to the Knights of St. John. But a great part
had already been seized by the princes, especially by Philip.
Final decision in regard to individuals was committed by the
pope to the provincial synods of the several countries. Judgment
on the grand-master, James Molay, and the then chief dignitaries
of the order, he reserved to himself. Philip paid no attention
to this, but, when they refused to adhere to their confession
of guilt, had them burnt in a slow fire at Paris in A.D. 1314.
Most of the other knights turned to secular employments, many
entered the ranks of the Knights of St. John, while others ended
their days in monastic prisons.--Scholars are to this day divided
in opinion as to the degree of guilt or innocence which may be
ascribed to the Templars in regard to the serious charges brought
against them.[330]

§ 112.8. =New Orders.=--In A.D. 1317 the king of Portugal,
for the protection of his frontier from the Moors, instituted
the =Order of Christ=, composed of knights and clergy, and to
it John XXII. in A.D. 1319 gave the privileges of the order
of Calatrava (§ 98, 13). Alexander VI. released them from the
vow of poverty and allowed them to marry. The king of Portugal
was grand-master, and at the beginning of the 16th century
it had 450 companies and an annual revenue of one and a half
million livres. In A.D. 1797 it was converted into a secular
order.--Among the new monkish orders the following are the most
important:

1. =Hieronymites=, founded in A.D. 1370 by the Portuguese
Basco and the Spaniard Pecha as an order of canons regular
under the rule of Augustine, and confirmed by Gregory XI.
in A.D. 1373. Devoted to study, they took Jerome as their
patron, and obtained great reputation in Spain and Italy.

2. =Jesuates=, founded by Colombini of Siena, who, excited
by reading legends of the saints, combined with several
companions in forming this society for self-mortification
and care of the sick, for which Urban V. prescribed the
Augustinian rule in A.D. 1367. They greeted all they met
with the name of Jesus: hence their designation.

3. =Minimi=, an extreme sect of Minorites (§ 98, 3), founded
by Francis de Paula in Calabria in A.D. 1436. Their rule
was extremely strict, and forbade them all use of flesh,
milk, butter, eggs, etc., so that their mode of life was
described as _vita quadragesimalis_.

4. =Nuns of St. Bridget.= To the Swedish princess visions of
the wounded and bleeding Saviour had come in her childhood.
Compelled by her parents to marry, she became mother of
eight children; but at her husband’s death, in A.D. 1344,
she adopted a rigidly ascetic life, and in A.D. 1363
founded a cloister at Wedstena for sixty nuns in honour
of the blessed Virgin, with thirteen priests, four deacons,
and eight lay brothers in a separate establishment. All were
under the control of the abbess. She also founded at Rome a
hospice for Swedish pilgrims and students, made a pilgrimage
from Rome to Jerusalem, and died at Rome in A.D. 1373.
The _Revelationes S. Brigittæ_ ascribed to her were in
high repute during the Middle Ages. They are full of bitter
invectives against the corrupt papacy; call the pope worse
than Lucifer, a murderer of the souls committed to him, who
condemns the guiltless and sells believers for filthy lucre.
There were seventy-four cloisters of the order spread over
all Europe. Her successor as abbess of the parent abbey was
her daughter, St. Catherine of Sweden, who died in A.D. 1381.

5. The French =Annunciate Order= was founded in A.D. 1501 by
Joanna of Valois, the divorced wife of Louis XII., and when
abolished by the French Revolution it numbered forty-five
nunneries.

§ 112.9. =The Brothers of the Common Life=, a society of pious
priests, gave themselves to the devotional study of Scripture,
the exercise of contemplative mysticism, and practical imitation
of the lowly life of Christ with voluntary observance of the
three monkish vows, and residing, without any lifelong obligation,
in unions where things were administered in common. Pious laymen
were not excluded from their association, and institutions for
sisters were soon reared alongside of those for the brothers. The
founder of this organization was Gerhard Groot, _Gerardus magnus_,
of Deventer in the Netherlands, a favourite pupil of the mystic
John of Ruysbroek (§ 114, 7). Dying a victim to his benevolence
during a season of pestilence in A.D. 1384, a year or two after
the founding of the first union institute, he was succeeded by
his able pupil and assistant Florentius Radewins, who zealously
carried on the work he had begun. The house of the brothers at
Deventer soon became the centre of numerous other houses from
the Scheld to the Wesel. Florentius added a cloister for regular
canons at Windesheim, from which went forth the famous cloister
reformer Burch. The most important of the later foundations of
this kind was the cloister built on Mount St. Agnes near Zwoll.
The famous Thomas à Kempis (§ 114, 7) was trained here, and
wrote the life of Groot and his fellow labourers. Each house was
presided over by a rector, each sister house by a matron, who was
called Martha. The brothers supported themselves by transcribing
spiritual books, the lay brothers by some handicraft; the sisters
by sewing, spinning, and weaving. Begging was strictly forbidden.
Besides caring for their own souls’ salvation, the brothers
sought to benefit the people by preaching, pastoral visitation,
and instructing the youth. They had as many as 1,200 scholars
under their care. Hated by the mendicant friars, they were
accused by a Dominican to the Bishop of Utrecht. This dignitary
favoured the brothers, and when the Dominican appealed to the
pope, he applied to the Constance Council of A.D. 1418, where
Gerson and d’Ailly vigorously supported them. Their accuser was
compelled to retract, and Martin V. confirmed the brotherhood.
Though heartily attached to the doctrines of the Catholic Church,
their biblical and evangelical tendencies formed an unconscious
preparation for the Reformation (§ 119, 10). A great number
of the brothers joined the party of the reformers. In the
17th century the last remnant of them disappeared.[331]

II. Theological Science.

§ 113. SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS REFORMERS.

The University of Paris took the lead, in accordance with the liberal tendencies of the Gallican Church, in the opposition to hierarchical pretensions, and was followed by the universities of Oxford, Prague, and Cologne, in all of which the mendicant friars were the teachers. Most distinguished among the schoolmen of this age was John Duns Scotus, whose works formed the doctrinal standard for the Franciscans, as those of Aquinas did for the Dominicans. After realism had enjoyed for a long time an uncontested sway, William Occam, amid passionate battles, successfully introduced nominalism. But the creative power of scholasticism was well nigh extinct. Even Duns Scotus is rather an acute critic of the old than an original creator of new ideas. Miserable quarrels between the schools and a spiritless formalism now widely prevailed in the lecture halls, as well as in the treatises of the learned. Moral theology degenerated into fruitless casuistry and abstruse discussion on subtly devised cases where there appeared a collision of duties. But from all sides there arose complaint and contradiction. On the one side were some who made a general complaint without striking at the roots of the evil. They suggested the adoption of a better method, or the infusion of new life by the study of Scripture and the Fathers, and a return to mysticism. To this class belonged the Brothers of the Common Life (§ 112, 9) and d’Ailly and Gerson, the supporters of the Constance reforms (§ 118, 4). Here too we may place the talented father of natural theology, Raimund of Sabunde, and the brilliant Nicholas of Cusa, in whom all the nobler aspirations of mediæval ecclesiastical science were concentrated. But on the other side was the radical opposition, consisting of the German mystics (§ 114), the English and Bohemian reformers (§ 119), and the Humanists (§ 120).

§ 113.1. =John Duns Scotus.=--The date of birth, whether
A.D. 1274 or A.D. 1266, and the place of birth, whether in
Scotland, Ireland, or England, of this Franciscan hero, honoured
with the title _doctor subtilis_, are uncertain; even the place
and manner of his training are unknown. After lecturing with
great success at Oxford, he went in A.D. 1304 to Paris, where
he obtained the degree of doctor, and successfully vindicated
the _immaculata conceptio B. V._ (§ 104, 7) against the Thomists.
Summoned to Cologne in A.D. 1308 to engage in controversy with
the Beghards, he displayed great skill in dialectics, but died
during that same year. His chief work, a commentary on the
Lombard, was composed at Oxford. His answers to the questions
proposed for his doctor’s degree were afterwards wrought up
into the work entitled _Quæstiones quodlibetales_. The opponent
and rival of Thomas, he controverted his doctrine at every point,
as well as the doctrines of Alexander and Bonaventura of his own
order, and other shining stars of the 13th century. In subtlety
of thought and dialectic power he excelled them all, but in
depth of feeling, profundity of mind, and ardour of faith he
was far behind them. Proofs of doctrines interested him more
than the doctrines themselves. To philosophy he assigns a purely
theoretical, to theology a pre-eminently practical character,
and protests against the Thomist commingling of the two. He
accepts the doctrine of a twofold truth (§ 103, 3), basing it
on the fall. Granting that the Bible is the only foundation
of religious knowledge, but contending that the Church under
the Spirit’s guidance has advanced ever more and more in the
development of it, he readily admits that many a point in
constitution, doctrine, and worship cannot be established from
the Bible; _e.g._ immaculate conception, clerical celibacy,
etc. He has no hesitation in contradicting even Augustine and
St. Bernard from the standpoint of a more highly developed
doctrine of the Church.

§ 113.2. =Thomists and Scotists.=--The Dominicans and Franciscans
were opposed as followers respectively of Thomas and of Scotus.
Thomas regarded individuality, _i.e._ the fact that everything
is an individual, every _res_ is a _hæc_, as a limitation and
defect; while Duns saw in this _hæcitas_ a mark of perfection
and the true end of creation. Thomas also preferred the Platonic,
and Duns the Aristotelian realism. In theology Duns was opposed
to Thomas in maintaining an unlimited arbitrary will in God,
according to which God does not choose a thing because it is
good, but the thing chosen is good because He chooses it. Thomas
therefore was a determinist, and in his doctrine of sin and
grace adopted a moderate Augustinianism (§ 53, 5), while Duns
was a semipelagian. The atonement was viewed by Thomas more in
accordance with the theory of Anselm, for he assigned to the
merits of Christ as the God-Man infinite worth, _satisfactio
superabundans_, which is in itself more than sufficient
for redemption; but Duns held that the merits of Christ were
sufficient only as accepted by the free will of God, _acceptatio
gratuita_. The Scotists also most resolutely contended for
the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, while
the Thomists as passionately opposed it.--Among the immediate
disciples of Duns the most celebrated was =Francis Mayron=,
teacher at the Sorbonne, who died in A.D. 1325 and was dignified
with the title _doctor illuminatus_ or _acutus_. The most notable
of the Thomists was =Hervæus Natalis=, who died in A.D. 1323
as general of the Dominicans. Of the later Thomists the most
eminent was =Thomas Bradwardine=, _doctor profundus_, a man of
deep religious earnestness, who accused his age of Pelagianism,
and vindicated the truth in opposition to this error in his _De
causa Dei c. Pelagium_. He began teaching at Oxford, afterwards
accompanied Edward III. as his confessor and chaplain on his
expeditions in France, and died in A.D. 1349 a few weeks after
his appointment to the archbishopric of Canterbury.[332]

§ 113.3. =Nominalists and Realists.=--After nominalism
(§ 99, 2) in the person of Roscelin had been condemned by the
Church (§ 101, 3) realism held sway for more than two centuries.
Both Thomas and Duns supported it. By sundering philosophy
and theology Duns opened the way to freer discussion, so that
by-and-by nominalism won the ascendency, and at last scarcely
any but the precursors of the Reformation (§ 119) were to be
found in the ranks of the realists. The pioneer of the movement
was the Englishman =William Occam=, a Franciscan and pupil of
Duns, who as teacher of philosophy in Paris obtained the title
_doctor singularis et invincibilis_, and was called by later
nominalists _venerabilis inceptor_. He supported the _Spirituals_
(§ 112, 2) in the controversies within his order. He accompanied
his general, Michael of Cesena, to Avignon, and escaping with
him in A.D. 1328 from threatened imprisonment, lived at Munich
till his death in A.D. 1349. There, protected by Louis the
Bavarian, he vindicated imperial rights against papal pretensions,
and charged various heresies against the pope (§ 118, 2). In
philosophy and theology he was mainly influenced by Scotus.
In accordance with his nominalistic principles he assumed the
position in theology that our ideas derived from experience
cannot reach to a knowledge of the supernatural; and thus he
may be called a precursor of Kant (§ 171, 10). The _universalia_
are mere _fictiones_ (§ 99, 2), things that do not correspond to
our notions; the world of ideas agrees not with that of phenomena,
and so the unity of faith and knowledge, of theological and
philosophical truth, asserted by realists, cannot be maintained
(§ 103, 2). Faith rests on the authority of Scripture and the
decisions of the Church; criticism applied to the doctrines of
the Church reduces them to a series of antinomies.--In A.D. 1339
the University of Paris forbade the reading of Occam’s works, and
soon after formally condemned nominalism. Thomists and Scotists
forgot their own differences to combine against Occam; but all
in vain, for the Occamists were recruited from all the orders.
The Constance reform party too supported him (§ 118, 4).[333]
Of the Thomists who succeeded to Occam the most distinguished
was =William Durand= of St. Pourçain, _doct. resolutissimus_,
who died in A.D. 1322 as Bishop of Meaux. =Muertius of Inghen,=
one of the founders of the University of Heidelberg in A.D. 1386
and its first rector, was also a zealous nominalist. The last
notable schoolman of the period was =Gabriel Biel= of Spires,
teacher of theology at Tübingen, who died A.D. 1495, a nominalist
and an admirer of Occam. He was a vigorous supporter of the
doctrine of the immaculate conception, and delivered public
discourses on the “Ethics” of Aristotle.

§ 113.4. =Casuistry=, or that part of moral theology which
seeks to provide a complete guide to the solution of difficult
cases of conscience, especially where there is collision of
duties, moral or ecclesiastical, makes its first appearance in
the penitentials (§ 89, 6), and had a great impetus given it in
the compulsory injunction of auricular confession (§ 104, 4). It
was also favoured by the hair-splitting character of scholastic
dialectics. The first who elaborated it as a distinct science
was Raimundus [Raimund] de Pennaforte, who besides his works on
canon law (§ 99, 5), wrote about A.D. 1238 a _summa de casibus
pœnitentialibus_. This was followed by the Franciscan _Antesana_,
the Dominican _Pisana_, and the Angelica of the Genoese Angelus
of A.D. 1482, which Luther in A.D. 1520 burned along with the
papal bull and decretals. The views of the different casuists
greatly vary, and confuse rather than assist the conscience.
Out of them grew the doctrine of probabilism (§ 149, 10).

§ 113.5. =The Founder of Natural Theology.=--The Spaniard
=Raimund of Sabunde= settled as a physician in Toulouse in
A.D. 1430, but afterwards turned his attention to theology.
Seeing the need of infusing new life into the corrupt
scholasticism, he sought to rescue it from utter formalism and
fruitless casuistry by a return to simple, clear, and rational
thinking. Anselm of Canterbury was his model of a clear and
profound thinker and believing theologian (§ 101, 1). He also
turned for stimulus and instruction to the book of nature.
The result of his studies is seen in his _Theologia naturalis
s. liber creaturarum_, published in A.D. 1436. God’s book
of nature, in which every creature is as it were a letter,
is the first and simplest source of knowledge accessible to
the unlearned layman, and the surest, because free from all
falsifications of heretics. But the fall and God’s plan of
salvation have made an addition to it necessary, and this we
have in the Scripture revelation. The two books coming from the
one author cannot be contradictory, but only extend, confirm,
and explain one another. The facts of revelation are the
necessary presupposition or consequences of the book of nature.
From the latter all religious knowledge is derivable by ascending
through the four degrees of creation, _esse_, _vivere_, _sentire_,
and _intelligere_, to the knowledge of man, and thence to the
knowledge of the Creator as the highest and absolute unity, and
by arguing that the acknowledgment of human sinfulness involved
an admission of the need of redemption, which the book of
revelation shows to be a fact. In carrying out this idea Raimund
attaches himself closely to Anselm in his scientific reconciling
of the natural and revealed idea of God and redemption. Although
he never expressly contradicted any of the Church doctrines, the
Council of Trent put the prologue of his book into the _Index
prohibitorum_.

§ 113.6. =Nicholas of Cusa= was born in A.D. 1401 at Cues,
near Treves, and was originally called Krebs. Trained first by
the Brothers at Deventer (§ 112, 9), he afterwards studied law
at Padua. The failure of his first case led him to begin the
study of theology. As archdeacon of Liège he attended the Basel
Council, and there by mouth and pen supported the view that the
council is superior to the pope, but in A.D. 1440 he passed over
to the papal party. On account of his learning, address, and
eloquence he was often employed by Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V.
in difficult negotiations. He was made cardinal in A.D. 1448,
an unheard of honour for a German prelate. In A.D. 1450 he was
made bishop of Brixen, but owing to a dispute with Sigismund,
Archduke of Austria, he suffered several years’ hard imprisonment.
He died in A.D. 1464 at Todi in Umbria. His principal work
is _De docta ignorantia_, which shows, in opposition to proud
scholasticism, that the absolute truth about God in the world
is not attainable by men. His theological speculation approaches
that of Eckhart, and like it is not free from pantheistic
elements. God is for him the absolute maximum, but is also the
absolute minimum, since He cannot be greater or less than He is.
He begets of Himself His likeness, _i.e._ the Son, and He again
turns back as Holy Spirit into unity. The world again is the
aggregated maximum. His _Dialogus de pace_, occasioned by the
fall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453, represents Christianity
as the most perfect of all religions, but recognises in all
others, even in Islam, essential elements of eternal truth.
Like Roger Bacon (§ 103, 8), he assigns a prominent place to
mathematics and astronomy, and in his _De separatione Calendarii_
of A.D. 1436 he recommended reforms in the calendar which were
only effected in A.D. 1582 by Gregory XIII. (§ 149, 3). He
detected the pseudo-Isidore (§ 87, 2) and the Donation of
Constantine (§ 87, 4) frauds.

§ 113.7. =Biblical and Practical Theologians.=

1. The Franciscan =Nicholas of Lyra=, _doctor planus et utilis_,
a Jewish convert from Normandy, and teacher of theology at
Paris, did good service as a grammatico-historical exegete
and an earnest expositor of Scripture. Luther gratefully
acknowledges the help he got in his Bible translation from
the postils of Lyra.[334] He died in A.D. 1340.

2. =Antonine of Florence= played a prominent part at the
Florentine Council of A.D. 1439, and was threatened
by Eugenius IV. with the loss of his archbishopric. He
discharged his duties with great zeal, especially during
a plague and famine in A.D. 1448, and during the earthquake
which destroyed half of the city in A.D. 1457. As an earnest
preacher, an unwearied pastor, and upright churchman he was
universally admired, and was canonized by Hadrian VI. in
A.D. 1523. He had a high reputation as a writer. His _Summa
historialis_ is a chronicle of universal history reaching
down to his own time; and his _Summa theologica_ is a
popular outline of the Thomist doctrine.

3. The learned and famous abbot =John Trithemius=, born
in A.D. 1462, after studying at Treves and Heidelberg,
entered in A.D. 1487 the Benedictine cloister of Sponheim,
became its abbot in the following year, resigned office
in A.D. 1505 owing to a rebellion among his monks, and
died in A.D. 1516 as abbot of the Scottish cloister of
St. James at Würzburg. Influenced by Wessel’s reforming
movement (§ 119, 10), he urged the duty of Scripture study
and prayer, but still practised and commended the most
extravagant adoration of Mary and Ann. Though he was keenly
alive to the absurdity of certain forms of superstition,
he was himself firmly bound within its coils. He lashed
unsparingly the vices of the monks, but regarded the
monastic life as the highest Christian ideal. He pictured
in dark colours the deep and widespread corruption of the
Church, and was yet the most abject slave of the hierarchy
which fostered that corruption.

§ 114. THE GERMAN MYSTICS.[335]

The schoolmen of the 13th century, with the exception of Bonaventura, had little sympathy with mysticism, and gave their whole attention to the development of doctrine (§ 99, 1). The 14th century was the Augustan age of mysticism. Germany, which had already in the previous period given Hugo of St. Victor and the two divines of Reichersberg (§ 102, 4, 6), was its proper home. Its most distinguished representatives belonged to the preaching orders, and its recognised grand-master was the Dominican Meister Eckhart. This specifically German mysticism cast away completely the scholastic modes of thought and expression, and sought to arrive at Christian truth by entirely new paths. It appealed, not to the understanding and cultured reason of the learned, but to the hearts and spirits of the people, in order to point them the surest way to union with God. The mystics therefore wrote neither commentaries on the Lombard nor gigantic _summæ_ of their own composition, but wrought by word and writing to meet immediate pressing needs. They preached lively sermons and wrote short treatises, not in Latin, but in the homely mother tongue. This popular form however did not prevent them from conveying to their readers and hearers profound thoughts, the result of keen speculation; but that in this they did not go over the heads of the people is shown by the crowds that flocked to their preaching. The “Friends of God” proved a spiritual power over many lands (§ 116, 4). From the practical prophetic mysticism of the 12th and 13th centuries (§§ 107; 108, 5) it was distinguished by avoiding the visionary apocalyptic and magnetic somnambulistic elements through a better appreciation of science; and from the scholastic mysticism of that earlier age (§§ 102, 3, 4, 6; 103, 4) by abandoning allegory and the scholastic framework for the elevation of the soul to God, as well as by indulgence in a somewhat pantheistic speculation on God and the world, man and the God-Man, on the incarnation and birth of God in us, on our redemption, sanctification, and final restoration. Its younger representatives however cut off all pantheistic excrescences, and thus became more practical and edifying, though indeed with the loss of speculative power. In this way they brought themselves more into sympathy with another mystic tendency which was spreading through the Netherlands under the influence of the Flemish canon, John of Ruysbroek. In France too mysticism again made its appearance during the 15th century in the persons of d’Ailly and Gerson (§ 118, 4), in a form similar to that which it had assumed during the 12th and 13th centuries in the Victorines and Bonaventura.

§ 114.1. =Meister Eckhart.=--One of the profoundest
thinkers of all the Christian centuries was the Dominican
Meister Eckhart, the true father of German speculative mysticism.
Born in Strassburg about A.D. 1260, he studied at Cologne under
Albert the Great, but took his master’s degree at Paris in
A.D. 1303. He had already been for some years prior at Erfurt
and provincial vicar of Thuringia. In A.D. 1304 he was made
provincial of Saxony, and in A.D. 1307 vicar-general of Bohemia.
In both positions he did much for the reform of the cloisters
of his order. In A.D. 1311 we find him teacher in Paris;
then for some years teaching and preaching in Strassburg;
afterwards officiating as prior at Frankfort; and finally as
private teacher at Cologne, where he died in A.D. 1327. While
at Frankfort in A.D. 1320 he was suspected of heresy because
of alleged intercourse with Beghards (§ 98, 12) and Brothers
of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5). In A.D. 1325 the archbishop
of Cologne renewed these charges, but Eckhart succeeded in
vindicating himself. The archbishop now set up an inquisition
of his own, but from its sentence Eckhart appealed to the pope,
lodged a protest, and then of his own accord in the Dominican
church of Cologne, before the assembled congregation, solemnly
declared that the charge against him rested upon misrepresentation
and misunderstanding, but that he was then and always ready to
withdraw anything that might be erroneous. The papal judgment,
given two years after Eckhart’s death, pronounced twenty-eight
of his propositions to be pantheistic in their tendency,
seventeen being heretical and eleven dangerous. He was therefore
declared to be suspected of heresy. The bull, contrary to reason
and truth, went on to say that Eckhart at the end of his life
had retracted and submitted all his writings and doctrines
to the judgment of the Holy See. But Eckhart had indignantly
protested against the charge of pantheism, and certainly in his
doctrine of God and the creature, of the high nobility of the
human soul, of retirement and absorption into God, he has always
kept within the limits of Christian knowledge and life. Attaching
himself to the Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrines, which are met
with also in Albert and Thomas, and appealing to the acknowledged
authorities of the Church, especially the Areopagite, Augustine,
and Aquinas, Eckhart with great originality composed a singularly
comprehensive and profound system of religious knowledge.
Although in all his writings aiming primarily at quickening and
edification, he always grounds his endeavours on a theoretical
investigation of the nature of the thing. But knowledge is for
him essentially union of the knowing subject with the object to
be known, and the highest stage of knowledge is the intuition
where all finite things sink into the substance of Deity.[336]

§ 114.2. =Mystics of Upper Germany after Eckhart.=--A noble band
of mystics arose during the 14th and 15th centuries influenced
by Eckhart’s writings, who carefully avoided pantheistic extremes
by giving a thoroughly practical direction to their speculation.
Nearest to Eckhart stands the author of “=The German Theology=,”
in which the master’s principles are nobly popularized and
explained. Luther, who took it for a work of Tauler, and
published it in A.D. 1516, characterized it as “a noble little
book, showing what Adam and Christ are, and how Adam should
die and Christ live in us.” In the most complete MS. of this
tract, found in A.D. 1850, the author is described as a “Friend
of God.”--The Dominican =John Tauler= was born at Strassburg,
studied at Paris, and came into connection with Eckhart, whose
mysticism, without its pantheistic tendencies, he adopted. When
Strassburg was visited with the Black Death, he laboured as
preacher and pastor among the stricken with heroic devotion.
Though the city was under an interdict (§ 110, 3), the Dominicans
persisted for a whole year in reading mass, and were stopped
only by the severe threats of the master of their order. The
magistrates gave them the alternative either to discharge their
official duties or leave the city. Tauler now, in A.D. 1341,
retired to Basel, and afterwards to Cologne. In A.D. 1437
we find him again in Strassburg, where he died in A.D. 1361.
His thirty sermons, with some other short tracts, appeared
at Leipzig in A.D. 1498. The most important of all Tauler’s
works is, “The Imitation of the Poverty of Christ.” It was
thought to be of French authorship, but is now admitted to be
Tauler’s.[337]--=Rulman Merswin=, a rich merchant of Strassburg,
in his fortieth year, A.D. 1347, with his wife’s consent,
retired from his business and forsook the world, gave his
wealth to charities, and bought in A.D. 1366 an old, abandoned
convent near the city, which he restored and presented to the
order of St. John. Here he spent the remainder of his days in
pious contemplation, amid austerities and mortifications and
favoured with visions. He died in A.D. 1382. Four years after
his conversion he attained to clear conceptions and inner
peace. His chief work, composed in A.D. 1352, “The Book of the
Nine Rocks,” was long ascribed to Suso. It is full of bitter
complaints against the moral and religious corruption of all
classes, and earnest warnings of Divine judgment. Its starting
point is a vision. From the fountains in the high mountains
stream many brooks over the rocks into the valley, and thence
into the sea; multitudes of fishes transport themselves from
their lofty home, and are mostly taken in nets, only a few
succeed in reaching their home again by springing over these
nine rocks. At the request of the “Friend of God from the
Uplands” he wrote the “Four Years from the Beginning of Life.”
His “Banner Tract” describes the conflict with and victory
over the Brothers of the Free Spirit under the banner of
Lucifer (§ 116, 4, 5).

§ 114.3. =The Friend of God in the Uplands.=--In a book
entitled “The Story of Tauler’s Conversion,” originally called
“The Master’s Book,” but now assigned to Nicholas of Basel,
it is told that in A.D. 1346 a great “Master of Holy Scripture”
preached in an unnamed city, and that soon his fame spread
through the land. A layman living in the Uplands, thirty miles
off, was directed in a vision thrice over to go to seek this
Friend of God, companion of Rulman. He listened to his preaching,
chose him as his confessor, and then sought to show him that
he had not yet the true consecration. Like a child the master
submitted to be taught the elements of piety of religion
by the layman, and at his command abstaining from all study
and preaching for two years, gave himself to meditation and
penitential exercises. When he resumed his preaching his success
was marvellous. After nine years’ labour, feeling his end
approaching, he gave to the layman an account of his conversion.
The latter arranged his materials, and added five sermons of
the master, and sent the little book, in A.D. 1369, to a priest
of Rulman’s cloister near Strassburg. In A.D. 1486 the master
was identified with Tauler. This however is contradicted by
its contents. The historical part is improbable and incredible,
and its chronology irreconcilable with known facts of Tauler’s
life. We find no trace of the original ideas or characteristic
eloquence of Tauler; while the language and homiletical
arrangement of the sermons are quite different from those
of the great Dominican preacher.

§ 114.4. =Nicholas of Basel.=--After long hiding from the
emissaries of the Inquisition the layman Nicholas of Basel,
in extreme old age, was taken with two companions, and burned
at Vienna, as a heretic, between A.D. 1393-1408. He has been
identified by Schmidt of Strassburg with the “Friend of God.”
This is more than doubtful, since of the sixteen heresies,
for the most part of a Waldensian character, charged against
Nicholas, no trace is found in the writings of the Friend of
God; while it is made highly probable by Denifle’s researches
that the “Friend of God” was but a name assumed by Rulman Merswin.

§ 114.5. =Henry Suso=, born A.D. 1295, entered the Dominican
cloister of Constance in his 13th year. When eighteen years old
he took the vow, and till his twenty-second year unceasingly
practised the strictest asceticism, in imitation of the
sufferings of Christ. He completed his studies, A.D. 1325-1328,
under Eckhart at Cologne, and on the death of his pious mother
withdrew into the cloister, where he became reader and afterwards
prior. The first work which he here published, in A.D. 1335, the
“Book of the Truth,” is strongly influenced by the spirit of his
master. Accused as a heretic, he was deposed from the priorship
in A.D. 1336. His “Book of Eternal Wisdom” was the favourite
reading of all lovers of German mysticism. Blending the knight’s
and fanatic’s idea of love with the Solomonic conception of
Wisdom, which he identifies sometimes with God, sometimes with
Christ, sometimes with Mary, he chose her for his beloved,
and was favoured by her with frequent visions and was honoured
with the title of “Amandus.”--Like most of his fellow monks at
Constance, Suso was a supporter of the pope in his contest with
Louis the Bavarian, while the city sided with the emperor. When,
in A.D. 1339, the monks, in obedience to the papal interdict,
refused to perform public worship, they were expelled by the
magistrates. In his fortieth year Suso had begun his painful
career of self-discipline, which he carried so far as to endanger
his life. Now driven away as an exile, he began his singularly
fruitful wanderings, during which, passing from cloister to
cloister as an itinerant preacher, he became either personally
or through correspondence most intimately acquainted with all
the most notable of the friends of mysticism, and made many
new friends in all ranks, especially among women. In A.D. 1346,
along with eight companions, he ventured to return to Constance.
There however he met with his sorest trial. An immoral woman,
who pretended to him that she sorrowed over and repented of her
sins, while really she continued in the practice of them, and
was therefore turned away by him, took her revenge by charging
him with being the father of the child she was about to bear.
Probably this painful incident was the occasion of his retiring
into the monastery of Ulm, where he died in A.D. 1366. In him
the poetic and romantic element overshadowed the speculative,
and in his attachment to ecclesiastical orthodoxy he kept aloof
from all reformatory movements.

§ 114.6. =Henry of Nördlingen= is only slightly known to us
by the letters which he sent to his lady friend, the Dominican
nun =Margaret Ebner=. He was spiritually related to Tauler,
as well as to Suso, and shared with the great preacher in his
sorrows over the calamities of the age, which his sensitive
nature felt in no ordinary degree during enforced official
idleness under the interdict. His mysticism, by its sweetly
sentimental character, as well as by its superstitious tendency
to reverence Mary and relics, was essentially distinguished
from that of Tauler. His friend Margaret, who had also a
spiritual affinity to Tauler, and was highly esteemed by all
the “Friends of God,” was religiously and politically, as a
supporter of the anathematized emperor, much more decided.
In depth of thought and power of expression however she
is quite inferior to the earlier Thuringian prophetesses
(§ 107, 2).--=Hermann of Fritzlar=, a rich and pious layman,
is supposed to have written, A.D. 1343-1349, a life of the
saints in the order of the calendar, as a picture of heart
purity, with mystic reflections and speculations based on the
legendary matter, and all expressed in pure and simple German.
Hermann, however, was only the author of the plan, and the actual
writer was a Dominican of Erfurt, =Giseler of Slatheim=.--A
Franciscan in Basel, =Otto of Passau=, published, in A.D. 1386,
“The Four-and-Twenty Elders, or the Golden Throne,” which became
a very popular book of devotion, in which the twenty-four elders
of Revelation iv. 4, one after another, show the loving soul
how to win for himself a golden throne in heaven. Passages of
an edifying and contemplative description from the Fathers and
teachers of the Church down to the 13th century are selected by
the author, and adapted to the use of the unlearned “Friends of
God” in a German translation.

§ 114.7. =Mystics of the Netherlands.=

1. =John of Ruysbroek= was born, in A.D. 1298, in the village
of Ruysbroek, near Brussels. In youth he was addicted more
to pious contemplation than to scholastic studies, and
in his sixtieth year he resigned his position as secular
priest in Brussels, and retired into a convent of regular
canons (§ 97, 3) near Brussels, where he died as its prior
in A.D. 1481, when eighty-eight years old. He was called
_doctor ecstaticus_, because he regarded his mystical
views, which he developed amid pious contemplation in the
shades of the forest, and there wrote out in Flemish speech,
as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His mysticism was
essentially theistic. The _unio mystica_ consisted not
in the deification of man, but was wrought only through
the free grace of God in Christ without the loss of man’s
own personality. His genuine practical piety led him to
see in the moral depravity of the clergy, not less than
of the people generally, the cause of the decay of the
Church, so that even the person of the pope did not escape
his reproof. Numerous pilgrims from far and near sought
the pious sage for counsel and quickening. His favourite
disciple was Gerhard Groot of Deventer, who impressed
much of his master’s spirit upon the brotherhood of the
Common Life (§ 112, 9).--Of this noble school of mystics
the three following were the most distinguished.

2. =Hendrik Mande=, who died A.D. 1430, impressed by a sermon
of Groot’s, and favoured during a long illness by visions,
abandoned the life of a courtier for the fellowship of
the Brethren of Deventer, and in A.D. 1395 entered the
cloister of Windesheim, to which he bequeathed his wealth,
and where he continued to enjoy visions of the Saviour and
the saints. His works, written in Dutch, are characterized
by spirituality and depth of feeling, copious and
appropriate imagery, and great moral earnestness.

3. =Gerlach Peters= was the favourite scholar of Florentius
in Deventer. He subsequently entered the monastery of
Windesheim, where, after a painful illness, he died in
A.D. 1411, in his thirty-third year. “An ardent spirit
in a body of skin and bone,” praising God for his terrible
bodily sufferings as a means of grace bestowed on him,
his devotion reaches the sublimest heights of enthusiasm.
He wrote the _Soliloquium_, the voice of a man who has
daily struggled in God’s presence to free his heart from
worldly bonds, and by God’s grace in the cross of Christ
to have Adam’s purity restored and union with the highest
good secured.

4. =Thomas à Kempis=, formerly Hamerken, was born in A.D. 1380
at Kempen, near Cologne. He was educated at Deventer, and
died as sub-prior of the convent of St. Agnes, near Zwoll,
in A.D. 1471. To him, and not to the chancellor Gerson,
according to the now universally accepted opinion, belongs
the world renowned book _De Imitatione Christi_. Reprinted
about five thousand times, oftener than any other book
except the Bible, it has been also translated into more
languages than any other. Free from all Romish superstition,
it is read by Catholics and Protestants, and holds an
unrivalled position as a book of devotion. A photographic
reproduction of the original edition of A.D. 1441 was
published from the autograph MSS. of Thomas, by Ch. Ruelans,
London, 1879.[338]

III. The Church and the People.

§ 115A. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
OF THE PEOPLE.

Preaching in the vernacular was carried on mainly by the Brothers of the Common Life, the mystics, and several heretical sects, _e.g._ Waldensians, Wiclifites, Hussites, etc.; and stimulated by their example, others began to follow the same practice. The so called _Biblia pauperum_ set forth in pictures the New Testament history with its Old Testament types and prophecies; _Bible Histories_ made known among the people the Scripture stories in a connected form; and, after the introduction of printing, the German _Plenaries_ helped also to spread the knowledge of God’s word by renderings for private use of the principal parts of the service. For the instruction of the people in faith and morals a whole series of _Catechisms_ was constructed after a gradually developed type. The “Dance of Death” in its various forms reminded of the vanity of all earthly pleasures. The spirit of the Reformation was shown during this period in the large number of hymns written in the vernacular. Church music too received a powerful impulse.

§ 115.1. =Fasts and Festivals.=--New =Mary Festivals= were
introduced: _F. præsentationis M._ on 21st Nov. (Lev. xii. 5-8),
_F. visitationis M._ (Luke i. 39-51), on 2nd July. In the
15th century we meet with the festivals of the Seven Pains of
Mary, _F. Spasmi M._, on Friday or Saturday before Palm Sunday.
Dominic instituted a rosary festival, _F. rosarii M._, on 1st
Oct., and its general observance was enjoined by Gregory XIII.
in A.D. 1571.--The =Veneration of Ann= (§ 57, 2) was introduced
into Germany in the second half of the 15th century, but soon
rose to a height almost equal to that of Mary.--The =Fasts= of
the early Church (§ 56, 7) had, even during the previous period,
been greatly relaxed. Now the most special fast days were mere
days of abstinence from flesh, while most lavish meals of fish
and farinaceous food were indulged in. Papal and episcopal
dispensations from fasting were also freely given.

§ 115.2. =Preaching= (§ 104, 1).--To aid and encourage preaching
in the language of the people, unskilled preachers were supplied
with _Vocabularia prædicantium_. Surgant, a priest of Basel,
wrote, in the end of the 15th century, a treatise on homiletics
and catechetics most useful for his age, _Manuale Curatorum_.
In it he showed how Latin sermons might be rendered into the
tongue of the people, and urged the duty of hearing sermons.
The mendicants were the chief preachers, especially the mystics
of the preaching orders, during the 14th century (§ 114), and
the Augustinians, particularly their German Observants, during
the 15th (§ 112, 5), and next to them, the Franciscans.--The
most zealous preacher of his age was the Spanish Dominican
=Vincent Ferrér=. In A.D. 1397 he began his unprecedentedly
successful preaching tours through Spain, France, Italy, England,
Scotland, and Ireland. He died in A.D. 1419. He laboured with
special ardour for the conversion of the Jews, of whom he is
said to have baptized 35,000. Wherever he went he was venerated
as a saint, received with respect by the clergy and prelates,
highly honoured by kings and princes, consulted by rich and
poor regarding temporal and spiritual things. He was canonized
by Calixtus III. in A.D. 1455. Certain Flagellants (§ 116, 3)
whom he met in his travels followed him, scourging themselves
and singing his penitential songs, but he stopped this when
objected to by the Council of Constance. His sermons dealt
with the realities of actual life, and called all classes
to repent of their sins. Of a similar spirit was the Italian
Dominican =Barletta=, who died in A.D. 1480, whose burlesque
and scathing satire rendered him the most popular preacher
of the day. In his footsteps went the Frenchmen =Maillard=
and =Menot=, both Franciscans, and the German priest of
Strassburg, =Geiler of Kaisersberg=, quite equal to them in
quaint terseness of expression and biting wit. All these were
preeminently distinguished for moral earnestness and profound
spirituality.[339]

§ 115.3. =The _Biblia Pauperum_.=--The typological
interpretation of the Old Testament history received a fixed
and permanent form in the illustrations introduced into the
service books and pictures printed on the altars, walls, and
windows of churches, etc., during the 12th century. A set of
seventeen such picture groups was found at Vienna, of which the
middle panels represent the New Testament history, _sub gracia_,
above it an Old Testament type from the period _ante legem_, and
under it one from the period _sub lege_. This picture series was
completed by the =Biblia pauperum=, so called from the saying
of Gregory I., that pictures were the poor man’s Bible. Many of
the extant MSS., all depending on a common source, date from the
14th and 15th centuries. The illustrations of the New Testament
are in the middle, and round about are pictures of the four
prophets, with volumes in their hands, on which the appropriate
Old Testament prophecies are written. On right and left are Old
Testament types. The multiplication of copies of this work by
woodcuts and types was one of the first uses to which printing
was put.[340]

§ 115.4. =The Bible in the Vernacular.=--The need of
=translations of the Bible= into the language of the people,
specially urged by the Waldensians and Albigensians, was now
widely insisted upon by those of reformatory tendencies (§ 119).
On the introduction of printing, about A.D. 1450, an opportunity
was afforded of rapidly circulating translations already made
in most of the European languages. Before Luther, there were
fourteen printed editions of the Bible in High and five in Low
German. The translations, made from the Vulgate, were in all
practically the same. The translators are unknown. The diction
is for the most part clumsy, and the sense often scarcely
intelligible. Translations had been made in England by the
Wiclifites, and in Bohemia by the Hussites. In France, various
renderings of separate books of Scripture were circulated,
and a complete French Bible was issued by the confessor of
Charles VIII., Jean de Rely, at Paris, in A.D. 1487. Two
Italian Bibles were published in Venice, in A.D. 1471, one by
the Camaldulite abbot Malherbi, closely following the Vulgate;
the other by the humanist Bruccioli, which often falls back
on the original text. The latter was highly valued by Italian
exiles of the Reformation age. In Spain a Carthusian, Ferreri,
attempted a translation, which was printed at Valencia in
A.D. 1478. More popular however than these translations were the
=Bible Histories=, _i.e._ free renderings, sometimes contracted,
sometimes expanded, of the historical books, especially these
of the Old Testament. From A.D. 1470 large and frequent editions
were published of the German =Plenaries=, containing at first
only the gospels and epistles, afterwards also the Service of
the Mass, for all Sundays and festivals and saints’ days, with
explanations and directions.

§ 115.5. =Catechisms and Prayer Books.=--Next to preaching,
the chief opportunity for imparting religious instruction was
confession. Later catechisms drew largely upon the baptismal
and confessional services. In the 13th and 14th centuries the
decalogue was added, and afterwards the seven deadly sins and
the seven principal virtues. Pictures were used to impress
the main points on the minds of the people and the youth.
The catechetical literature of this period, both in guides
for priests and manuals for the people, was written in the
vernacular.--During the 15th century there were also numerous
so-called _Artes moriendi_, showing how to die well, in which
often earnest piety appeared side by side with the grossest
superstition. There were also many prayer books, _Hortuli animæ_,
published, in which the worship of Mary and the saints often
overshadowed that of God and Christ, and an extravagant belief
in indulgences led to a mechanical view of prayer that was
thoroughly pagan.

§ 115.6. =The Dance of Death.=--The fantastic humour of the
Middle Ages found dramatic and spectacular expression in the
Dance of Death, in which all classes, from the pope and princes
to the beggars, in turn converse with death. It was introduced
into Germany and France in the beginning of the 14th century,
with the view of raising men out of the pleasures and troubles
of life. It was called in France the Dance of the Maccabees,
because first introduced at that festival. Pictures and verbal
descriptions of the Dance of Death were made on walls and
doors of churches, around MSS. and woodcuts, where death was
generally represented as a skeleton. Hans Holbein the Younger
gave the finishing touch to these representations in his
_Imagines Mortis_, the originals of which are in St. Petersburg.
In this masterpiece, the idea of a dancing pair is set aside,
and in its place forty pictures, afterwards increased to
fifty-eight, full of humour and moral earnestness, pourtray
the power of death in the earthly life.[341]

§ 115.7. =Hymnology= (§ 104, 10).--The =Latin Church poetry= of
the 14th and 15th centuries was far beneath that of the 12th and
13th. Only the mystics, _e.g._ Thomas à Kempis, still composed
some beautiful hymns. We have now however the beginnings of
=German= and =Bohemian= hymnology. The German flagellators sang
German hymns (§ 116, 3), and so obtained much popular favour.
The Hussite movement of the 15th century gave a great impulse
to church song. Huss himself earnestly urged the practice of
congregational singing in the language of the people, and himself
composed Bohemian hymns. The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren
were specially productive in this department (§ 119, 8). In
many churches, at least on high festivals, German hymns were
sung, and in some even at the celebration of mass and other parts
of public worship. The spiritual songs of this period were of
four kinds: some half German, half Latin; others translations of
Latin hymns and sequences; others, original German compositions
by monks and minstrels; and adaptations of secular songs to
spiritual purposes. In the latter case the original melodies
were also retained. Popular forms and melodies for sacred songs
were now secured, and these were subsequently appropriated by
the Reformers of the 16th century.

§ 115.8. =Church Music= (§ 104, 11).--Great improvements were
made in organs by the invention of pedals, etc. =Church music=
was also greatly developed by the introduction of harmony and
counterpoint. The Dutch were pre-eminent in this department.
Ockenheim, founder of the second Dutch school of music, at
the end of the 15th century, was the inventor of the canon
and the fugue. The greatest composer of this school was
Jodocus Pratensis, about A.D. 1500, and next to him may be
named the German, Adam of Fulda.