all things, was born of a virgin; and he affirms that nothing ought to be believed, which cannot be proved by the force and reason of nature. He has moreover attacked the Catholic faith in other words, as we can prove. Wherefore we warn all men by these letters not to allow the aforesaid Frederick to undermine the hearts of faithful Christians by his lying speeches.' * The allies, on whom Gregory reckoned with most reason, and for whose instruction the last-quoted Encyclical, the groundwork of many a stirring homily, was put forth, were the Dominicans and Franciscans. Now was the time for these Orders to repay the Holy See for her fostering care. Their influence was great in Kings' palaces and in Universities; but their help was chiefly valuable, in stirring up the common folk to take part in the great struggle. Frederick might have able Ambassadors at Westminster or Paris. Thaddeus of Sessa and Walter of Ocra were probably at least a match in diplomatic skill for any Cardinals whom Rome could boast. But Frederick had no popular orators to work upon the masses. On the other hand, Gregory had in every land hundreds of able preachers, who would set forth in the vulgar tongue the blasphemies im Matthew Paris shrewdly remarks upon this Encyclical, which had a most powerful effect upon the public mind, that the Church promoted Frederick to the Empire, not out of love to him, but from hatred to Otho. The monk adds, that Frederick had done more for the Church than the Church had done for Frederick. It was often remarked, that the Pope in time past used to accuse the Emperor of believing in Mohammed, but the Pope now declared that the Emperor counted Mohammed an impostor. The English observed, that Frederick had never plundered them or sent usurers among them; which was more than could be said for the Pope. CHAP. XII. 1237-1239. XII. 1237-1239. CHAP. puted to the Emperor and the wrongs long borne by the Pope, and who would by their persuasive eloquence open the purses of the faithful. The new machinery, which Innocent had bequeathed to the Church, was worked with great success and enabled Rome in the end to achieve her darling object. Let us place ourselves for a moment in some Italian city of the Thirteenth Century. The populace is gathered together, either in the nave of the great church, or around an extempore pulpit in the market-place. A little apart stands the parish priest, who looks on with undisguised discontent, viewing a rival orator in the same light that a portly vicar of our own time would regard a Ranting preacher. The worthy priest has evidently no good opinion of these strange new Orders of begging friars with whom the authorities at Rome are so taken, and who have free leave and license to come into his parish and thrust him on one side at their pleasure. Time was when it was thought enough for a Christian man simply to hear mass, but now it seems a settled point that sermons must be preached in the local dialect to stir up the flagging zeal of the faithful. The Benedictines of the neighbouring convent share in the discontent of the parish priest. The old and respectable Orders have no relish for these coarse ignorant friars, who go wandering about the country, clad in black and white, or with a cord tied round their waists, and who have but little reverence for their elder brethren. The area, as far as a man's voice can reach, is now full. The congregation is made up of every class. High-born ladies, brave knights, wealthy burghers, humble artizans, and uncouth peasants from the neighbourhood, are all thronging around the pulpit. It is ascended by CHAP. a man who bears evidence in his countenance of XII. long watchings and fastings, an ecclesiastic of a very 1237-1239. different stamp from the jovial parish priest, who has perhaps a fair presbytera at home, and who has been known to abuse the Confessional. The friar begins his sermon; he extols the merits of the founder of his Order. If he be a Preacher, he tells how St. Dominic was conceived without original sin. If he be a Minorite, he fixes the attention of his hearers upon the cord of St. Francis, with which the holy man of Assisi rescues his votaries from the flames. The friar then gives the latest tidings from abroad, for in those days the pulpit was to the people what the press is to us, both giving the tone to their opinions and supplying them with news. There is much doing in Christendom in these bustling times. Perhaps a great victory has been won over the Moslem by one of the gallant Spanish Kings. Perhaps, to counterbalance this success, the unbelievers are making great efforts to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the handful of knights, who are defending it until the long-promised help shall arrive from the West. Perhaps a more dreadful enemy, the savage Tartars, (so named, says the friar, because they have come out of Tartarus,) are laying waste Poland and Hungary with unheard-of cruelty. The preacher then dwells on the state of the Western kingdoms. The worthy Sovereign of England has yielded up his realm to the Pope's Legate, in spite of the murmuring of the people who are never weary of grumbling. Any Italian priest, with a little interest at Rome, can now * Salimbene tells some revolting stories about this abuse. CHAP. XII. 1237-1239. get a benefice in England, the chosen vineyard of the Pope, a garden of never-failing delights. The King of France, though otherwise a true son of the Church, cannot as yet be persuaded to view these revenue matters in the proper light, and declines to tax his people for the sake of the coffers of his Holiness. The friar then tells, how such stringent canons have been laid down for the punishment of the Albigenses in Languedoc, that not a heretic will in future be able to show his head; how the faithful at Milan have been roasting unbelieving Paterines by the score; how those sons of Belial, the men of Pisa, have been making use of their maritime strength to deal the Church some fresh blow. He then comes to the great topic of his discourse, the Emperor Frederick. Scripture is ransacked to supply parallels for the cruelty and unbelief of this miscreant. Pharaoh, Ahab, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, Herod, Pilate, and Nero, are all pressed into the service. This degenerate Cæsar went to the rescue of the Holy Land and might have been Judas Maccabæus, but chose rather to be Judas Iscariot and to betray the cause of God. He is the Abomination of desolation, the Man of Sin, the Antichrist that should come, the Beast whom St. John foretold, and whose mark too many in Italy have received. For these friars of old, more especially the disciples of Joachim, could handle and apply the mysteries of Daniel or the Apocalypse, as readily as any eagle-eyed divine of our own day. The effect of the sermon upon the hearers is most powerful. The Ghibellines hang their heads; the Guelfs are assured that theirs is the cause of Heaven. The burghers vow that they will stand by His Holiness in this great struggle, and that they will hold out their city against the Emperor, if need be, with all the stubbornness of Brescia or Faenza. We can have but a slight idea of the effect produced throughout Italy and Germany by such sermons as these. The throne of our Charles the First was shaken by the Puritan preachers. Keeping this in mind, we shall have some notion of the amazing power wielded by the begging friars, which was brought to bear upon an ignorant people in an ignorant age. Now was seen the wisdom of the great Innocent in raising two such armies for the future defence of the Church as those furnished to him by St. Dominic and St. Francis. To them it was mainly owing that Rome came forth conqueror from those awful struggles of the Thirteenth Century, in which she had to contend, first with a wide-spread revolt among her own flock, and then with one of the greatest Emperors who ever sat in the seat of Charlemagne. One however of these two spiritual armies already stood in need of reform. Elias, the General of the Minorites, was engaged in the hard task of striving to serve two masters; he was, by his own statement, friendly in an equal degree to the Pope and to the Emperor. An early opportunity was seized of cashiering this half-hearted officer from the Papal service. The particulars of his dismissal are worth relating, as English influence is traceable throughout the whole affair. Shortly before this time, Elias had sent a German Visitor into England, who had thrown the whole Franciscan Order into confusion by his harsh interpretation of the duties of the Confessional. A Provincial Chapter, held at Oxford, appealed against their General. Arnulf, the Pope's English Peniten CHAP. XII. 1237-1239. |