Part 42 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Large Number of ”Privileges”]

This small upper cla.s.s was distinguished from the common herd by rank, possessions, and privileges. The person of n.o.ble birth, _i.e._, the son of a n.o.ble, was esteemed to be inherently finer and better than other men; so much so that he would disdain to marry a person of the lower cla.s.s. He was addressed in terms of respect--”my lord,” ”your Grace”; common men saluted him as their superior. His clothes were more gorgeous than those of the plain people; on his breast glittered the badges of honorary societies, and his coach was proudly decorated with an ancestral coat of arms. His ”gentle” birth admitted him to the polite society of the court and enabled him to seek preferment in church or army.

More substantial than marks of honor were the actual possessions of n.o.bles and clergy. Each n.o.ble bequeathed to his eldest son a castle or a mansion with more or less territory from which to collect rents or feudal dues. Bishops, abbots, and archbishops received their office by election or appointment rather than by inheritance, and, being unmarried, could not transmit their stations to children. But in countries where the wealth of the Church had not been confiscated by Protestants, the ”prince of the Church” often enjoyed during his lifetime magnificent possessions. The bishop of Stra.s.sburg had an annual income approximating 500,000 francs. Castles, cathedrals, palaces, rich vestments, invaluable pictures, golden chalices, rentals from broad lands, t.i.thes from the people,--these were the property of the clergy. It is estimated that the clergy and n.o.bility each owned one-fifth of France, and that one-third of all the land of Europe, one- half the revenue, and two-thirds the capital, were in the hands of Christian churches.

The n.o.ble families, possessing thousands of acres, and monopolizing the higher offices of church and army, were further enriched, especially in France, by presents of money from the king, by pensions, by grants of monopolies, and by high-salaried positions which entailed little or no work. ”One young man was given a salary of $3600 for an office whose sole duty consisted in signing his name twice a year.”

[Sidenote: Exemption from Taxation]

With all their wealth the first two orders contributed almost nothing to lighten the financial burdens of the state. [Footnote: Exemption from taxation was often and similarly granted to bourgeois inc.u.mbents of government offices.] The Church in France claimed exemption from taxation, but made annual gifts to the king of several hundred thousand dollars, though such grants represented less than one per cent of its income. The n.o.bles, too, considered the payment of direct taxes a disgrace to their gentle blood, and did not hesitate by trickery to evade indirect taxation, leaving the chief burdens to fall upon the lower cla.s.ses, and most of all upon the peasantry.

[Sidenote: Failure of the Privileged to Perform Real Services]

[Sidenote: The Higher n.o.bility]

All these advantages, privileges, and immunities might be looked upon as a fitting reward which medieval Europe had given to her n.o.bles for protecting peaceable plowmen from the marauding bands then so common, and which she had bestowed upon her clergy for preserving education, for encouraging agriculture, for fostering the arts, for tending the poor, the sick, and the traveler, and for performing the offices of religion. But long before the eighteenth century the protective functions of feudal n.o.bles had been transferred to the royal government. No longer useful, the hereditary n.o.bility was merely burdensome, and ornamental. Such as could afford it, spent their lives in the cities or at the royal court where they rarely did anything worth while, unless it were to invent an unusually delicate compliment or to fas.h.i.+on a flawless sonnet. Their morals were not of the best--it was almost fas.h.i.+onable to be vicious--but their manners were perfect.

Meanwhile, the landed estates of these absentee lords were in charge of flint-hearted agents, whose sole mission was to squeeze money from the peasants, to make them pay well for mill, bridge, and oven, to press to the uttermost every claim which might give the absent master a larger revenue.

[Sidenote: The Country Gentry]

The poorer n.o.ble, the ”country gentleman,” was hardly able to live so extravagant a life, and accordingly remained at home, sometimes making friends of the villagers, standing G.o.d-father to peasant-children, or inviting heavy-booted but light-hearted plowmen to dance in the castle courtyard. But often his life was dull enough, with rents hard to collect, and only hunting, drinking, and gossip to pa.s.s the time away.

[Sidenote: The Clergy]

A similar and sharper contrast was observable between the higher and lower clergy, in England as well as in Roman Catholic countries. Very frequently dissipated young n.o.bles were nominated bishops or abbots: they looked upon their office as a source of revenue, but never dreamed of discharging any spiritual duties. While a Cardinal de Rohan with 2,500,000 livres a year astonished the court of France with his magnificence and luxury, many a shabby but faithful country curate, with an uncertain income of less than $150 a year, was doing his best to make both ends meet, with a little to spare for charity.

RELIGIOUS AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: The Catholic Church]

The great ecclesiastical organization that had dominated the middle ages was no longer the one church of Europe, but was still the most impressive. Although the Protestant Revolt of the sixteenth century had established independent denominations in the countries of northern Europe, as we have seen in Chapter IV, Roman Catholic Christianity remained the state religion of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, the Austrian Netherlands, Bavaria, Poland, and several of the Swiss Cantons. Moreover, large sections of the population of Ireland, Bohemia, Hungary, Asia, and America professed Catholic Christianity.

Orthodox Roman Catholics held fast to their faith in dogmas and sacraments and looked for spiritual guidance, correction, and comfort to the regular and secular clergy of their Church. The ”secular”

hierarchy of pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, did not cease its pious labor ”in the world”; nor was there lack of zealous souls willing to forego the pleasures of this world, that they might live holier lives as monks, nuns, or begging friars,-- the ”regular” clergy.

[Sidenote: Relations of the Catholic Church with Lay States]

In its relations with lay states, the Roman Catholic Church had changed more than in its internal organization. Many Protestant rulers now recognized the pope merely as an Italian prince, [Footnote: The pope, it will be remembered, ruled the central part of Italy as a temporal prince.] and head of an undesirable religious sect--Roman Catholics were either persecuted, or, as in Great Britain, deprived of political and civil rights. The Pope, on the other hand, could hardly regard as friends those who had denied the spiritual mission and confiscated the temporal possessions of the Church.

In Roman Catholic countries, too, the power of the pope had been lessened. The old dispute whether pope or king should control the appointment of bishops, abbots, and other high church officers had at last been settled in favor of the king. The pope consented to recognize royal appointees, provided they were ”G.o.dly and suitable” men; in return he usually received a fee (”annate”) from the newly appointed prelate. Other taxes the pope rarely ventured to levy; but good Roman Catholics continued to pay ”Peter's Pence” as a free-will offering, and the bishops occasionally taxed themselves for his benefit. In other ways, also, the power of the Church was curtailed. Royal courts now took cognizance of the greater part of those cases which had once been within the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts;[Footnote: Blasphemy, contempt of religion, and heresy were, however, still matters for church courts.] the right of appeal to the Roman Curia was limited; and the lower clergy might be tried in civil courts. Finally, papal edicts were no longer published in a country without the sanction of the king. These curtailments of papal privilege were doubtless important, but they meant little or nothing to the millions of peasants and humble workmen who heard Ma.s.s, were confessed, and received the sacraments as their fathers had done before them.

[Sidenote: Surviving Privileges of the Church]

Besides their incalculable influence over the souls of men, the clergy were an important factor in the civil life of Roman Catholic countries.

Education was mostly under their auspices; they conducted the hospitals and relieved the poor. Marriages were void unless solemnized in the orthodox manner, and, in the eye of the law, children born outside of Christian wedlock might not inherit property. Heretics who died unshriven, were denied the privilege of burial in Catholic cemeteries.

Of the exemption of the clergy from taxation, and of the wealth of the Church, we have already spoken, as well as of the high social rank of its prelates--a rank more in keeping with that of wealthy worldly n.o.blemen than with that of devout ”servants of the Lord.” But we have yet to mention the influence of the Church in suppressing heresy.

In theory the Roman Catholic religion was still obligatory in Catholic states. Uniformity of faith was still considered essential to political unity. Kings still promised at coronation faithfully to extirpate heretical sects. In Spain, during the first half of the eighteenth century hundreds of heretics were condemned by the Inquisition and burned at the stake; only toward the close of the century was there an abatement of religious intolerance. In France, King Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and in the eighteenth century one might have found laws on the French statute-books directing that men who attended Protestant services should be made galley-slaves, that medical aid should be withheld from impenitent heretics, and that writers of irreligious books should suffer death. Such laws were very poorly enforced, however, and active religious persecution was dying out in France in the second half of the eighteenth century. But toleration did not mean equality; full civil and political rights were still denied the several hundred thousand Huguenots in France.

[Sidenote: Summary of Weaknesses in the Catholic Church]