Volume II Part 3 (1/2)

[Sidenote: The punishment of Constantinople.] So fell Constantinople, and fell by the parricidal hands of Christians. The days of retribution for the curse she had inflicted on Western civilization were now approaching. In these events she received a first instalment of her punishment. Three hundred years previously, the historian Luitprand, who was sent by the Emperor Otho I. to the court of Nicephorus Phocas, says of her, speaking as an eye-witness, ”That city, once so wealthy, so flouris.h.i.+ng, is now famished, lying, perjured, deceitful, rapacious, greedy, n.i.g.g.ardly, vainglorious;” and since Luitprand's time she had been pursuing a downward career. It might have been expected that the concentration of all the literary and scientific treasures of the Roman empire in Constantinople would have given rise to great mental vigour--that to Europe she would have been a brilliant focus of light.

[Sidenote: The literary worthlessness of that city.] But when the works on jurisprudence by Tribonian, under Justinian, have been mentioned, what is there that remains? There is Stepha.n.u.s, the grammarian, who wrote a dictionary, and Procopius, the historian, who was secretary to Belisarius in his campaigns. There is then a long interval almost without a literary name, to Theophylact Simocatta, and to the Ladder of Paradise of John Climacus. The mental excitement of the iconoclastic dispute presents us with John of Damascus; and the ninth century, the Myriobiblion and Nomacanon of Photius. Then follows Constantine Porphyrogenitus, vainly and voluminously composing; and Basil II.

doubtless truly expresses the opinion of the time, as he certainly does the verdict of posterity respecting the works of his country, when he says that learning is useless and unprofitable lumber. The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, and the history of Byzantine affairs by Nicephorous Bryennius, hardly redeem their age. This barrenness and worthlessness was the effect of the system introduced by Constantine the Great. The long line of emperors had been consistent in one policy--the repression or expulsion of philosophy; and yet it is the uniform testimony of those ages that the Eastern convents were full of secret Platonism--that in stealth, the doctrines of Plato were treasured up in the cells of Asiatic monks. The Byzantines had possessed in art and letters all the best models in the world, yet in a thousand years they never produced one original. Millions of Greeks never advanced one step in philosophy or science--never made a single practical discovery, composed no poem, no tragedy worth perusal. The spirit of their superficial literature--if literature it can be called--is well shadowed forth in the story of the patriarch Photius, who composed at Bagdad, at a distance from his library, an a.n.a.lysis of 280 works he had formerly read. [Sidenote: The absurdity of its intellectual pursuits.] The final age of the city was signalized by the Baarlamite controversy respecting the mysterious light of Mount Thabor--the possibility of producing a beatific vision and of demonstrating, by an unceasing inspection of the navel for days and nights together, the existence of two eternal principles, a visible and an invisible G.o.d!

[Sidenote: Cause of all this.] What was it that produced this barrenness, this intellectual degradation in Constantinople? The tyranny of Theology over Thought.

But with the capture of Constantinople by the Latins other important events were occurring. Everywhere an intolerance of papal power was engendering. [Sidenote: Heresy follows literature.] The monasteries became infected, and even from the holy lips of monks words of ominous import might be heard. In the South of France the intellectual insurrection first took form. There the influence of the Mohammedans and Jews beyond the Pyrenees began to manifest itself. [Sidenote: Spread of gay literature from Spain.] The songs of gallantry; tensons, or poetical contests of minstrels; satires of gay defiance; rivalry in praise of the ladies; lays, serenades, pastourelles, redondes, such as had already drawn forth the condemnation of the sedate Mussulmen of Cordova, had gradually spread through Spain and found a congenial welcome in France.

[Sidenote: The Troubadours and Trouveres.] The Troubadours were singing in the langue d'Oc in the south, and the Trouveres in the langue d'Oil in the north. Thence the merry epidemic spread to Sicily and Italy. Men felt that a relief from the grim ecclesiastic was coming. Kings, dukes, counts, knights, prided themselves on their gentle prowess. The humbler minstrels found patronage among ladies and at courts: sly satires against the priests, and amorous ditties, secured them a welcome among the populace. When the poet was deficient in voice, a jongleur went with him to sing; and often there was added the pleasant accompaniment of a musical instrument. The Provencal or langue d'Oc was thus widely diffused; it served the purposes of those unacquainted with Latin, and gave the Italians a model for thought and versification, to Europe the germs of many of its future melodies. While the young were singing, the old were thinking; while the gay were carried away with romance, the grave were falling into heresy. [Sidenote: Commencing resistance of Rome.] But, true to her instincts and traditions, the Church had shown her determination to deal rigorously with all such movements. Already, A.D. 1134, Peter de Brueys had been burned in Languedoc for denying infant baptism, the wors.h.i.+p of the cross, and transubstantiation.

Already Henry the Deacon, the disciple of Peter, had been disposed of by St. Bernard. Already the valleys of Piedmont were full of Waldenses.

Already the Poor Men of Lyons were proclaiming the portentous doctrine that the sanct.i.ty of a priest lay not in his office, but in the manner of his life. They denounced the wealth of the Church, and the intermingling of bishops in bloodshed and war; they denied transubstantiation, invocation of saints, purgatory, and especially directed their hatred against the sale of indulgences for sin. The rich cities of Languedoc were full of misbelievers. They were given up to poetry, music, dancing. Their people, numbers of whom had been in the Crusades or in Spain, had seen the Saracens. Admiration had taken the place of detestation. Amid shouts of laughter, the Troubadours went through the land, wagging their heads, and slyly winking their eyes, and singing derisive songs about the amours of the priests, and amply earning denunciations as lewd blasphemers and atheists. [Sidenote: Innocent III. alarmed at the spread of heresy.] Here was a state of things demanding the attention of Innocent. The methods he took for its correction have handed his name down to the maledictions of posterity.

He despatched a missive to the Count of Toulouse--who already lay under excommunication for alleged intermeddling with the rights of the clergy--charging him with harbouring heretics and giving offices of emolument to Jews. The count was a man of gay life, having, in emulation of some of his neighbours across the Pyrenees, not fewer than three wives. His offences of that kind were, however, eclipsed by those with which he was now formally charged. It chanced that, in the ensuing disputes, the pope's legate was murdered. There is no reason to believe that Raymond was concerned in the crime. [Sidenote: He proclaims a crusade against the Count of Toulouse,] But the indignant pope held him responsible; instantly ordered to be published in all directions his excommunication, and called upon Western Christendom to engage in a crusade against him, offering, to him whoever chose to take them, the wealth and possessions of the offender. So thoroughly was he seconded by the preaching of the monks, that half a million of men, it is affirmed, took up arms.

[Sidenote: and disciplines him.] For the count there remained nothing but to submit. He surrendered up his strong places, was compelled to acknowledge the crimes alleged against him, and the justice of his punishment. He swore that he would no longer protect heretics. Stripped naked to his middle, with a rope round his neck, he was led to the altar, and there scourged. But the immense army that had a.s.sembled was not to be satisfied by these inflictions on an individual, though the pope might be. They had come for blood and plunder, and blood and plunder they must have. Then followed such scenes of horror as the sun had never looked on before. The army was officered by Roman and French prelates; bishops were its generals, an archdeacon its engineer.

[Sidenote: Atrocities of the Crusaders in the South of France.] It was the Abbot Arnold, the legate of the pope, who, at the capture of Beziers, was inquired of by a soldier, more merciful or more weary of murder than himself, how he should distinguish and save the Catholic from the heretic. ”Kill them all,” he exclaimed; ”G.o.d will know his own.” At the Church of St. Mary Magdalene 7000 persons were ma.s.sacred, the infuriated Crusaders being excited to madness by the wicked a.s.sertion that these wretches had been guilty of the blasphemy of saying, in their merriment, ”S. Mariam Magdalenam fuisse concubinam Christi.” It was of no use for them to protest their innocence. In the town twenty thousand were slaughtered, and the place then fired, to be left a monument of papal vengeance. At the ma.s.sacre of Lavaur 400 people were burned in one pile; it is remarked that ”they made a wonderful blaze, and went to burn everlastingly in h.e.l.l.” Language has no powers to express the atrocities that took place at the capture of the different towns. Ecclesiastical vengeance rioted in luxury. The soil was steeped in the blood of men--the air polluted by their burning.

[Sidenote: Inst.i.tution of the Inquisition.] From the reek of murdered women, mutilated children, and ruined cities, the Inquisition, that infernal inst.i.tution, arose. Its projectors intended it not only to put an end to public teaching, but even to private thought. In the midst of these awful events, Innocent was called to another tribunal to render his account. He died A.D. 1216.

[Sidenote: Establishment of mendicant orders.] It was during the pontificate of this great criminal that the mendicant orders were established. The course of ages had brought an unintelligibility into public wors.h.i.+p. The old dialects had become obsolete; new languages were forming. Among those cla.s.ses, daily increasing in number, whose minds were awakening, an earnest desire for instruction was arising.

Mult.i.tudes were crowding to hear philosophical discourses in the universities, and heresy was spreading very fast. But it was far from being confined to the intelligent. The lower orders furnished heretics and fanatics too. To antagonize the labours of these zealots--who, if they had been permitted to go on unchecked, would quickly have disseminated their doctrines through all cla.s.ses of society--the Dominican and Franciscan orders were founded. They were well adapted for their duty. It was their business to move among the people, preaching to them, in their own tongue, wherever an audience could be collected. The scandal under which the Church was labouring because of her wealth could not apply to these persons who lived by begging alms. Their function was not to secure their own salvation, but that of other men.

[Sidenote: St. Dominic.] St. Dominic was born A.D. 1170. His birth and life were adorned with the customary prodigies. Miracles and wonders were necessary for anything to make a sensation in the West. His was an immaculate conception, he was free from original sin. He was regarded as the adopted son of the Virgin; some were even disposed to a.s.sign him a higher dignity than that. He began his operations in Languedoc; but, as the prospect opened out before him, he removed from that unpromising region to Rome, the necessary centre of all such undertakings as his.

Here he perfected his organization; inst.i.tuted his friars, nuns, and tertiaries; and consolidated his pretensions by the working of many miracles. He exorcised three matrons, from whom Satan issued forth under the form of a great black cat, which ran up a bell-rope and vanished. A beautiful nun resolved to leave her convent. Happening to blow her nose, it dropped off into her handkerchief; but, at the fervent prayer of St.

Dominic, it was replaced, and in grat.i.tude, tempered by fear, she remained. St. Dominic could also raise the dead. Nevertheless, he died A.D. 1221, having worthily obtained the t.i.tle of the burner and slayer of heretics. To him has been attributed the glory or the crime of being the inventor of ”the Holy Inquisition.” In a very few years his order boasted of nearly 500 monasteries, scattered over Europe, Asia, Africa.

[Sidenote: St. Francis.] St. Francis, the compeer of St. Dominic, was born A.D. 1182. His followers delighted to point out, as it would seem not without irreverence, a resemblance to the incidents that occurred at the birth of our Lord. A prophetess foretold it; he was born in a stable; angels sung forth peace and good-will in the air; one, under the form of Simeon, bore him to baptism. In early life he saw visions and became ecstatic. His father, Peter Bernardini, a respectable tradesman, endeavoured to restrain his eccentricities, at first by persuasion, but eventually more forcibly, appealing for a.s.sistance to the bishop, to prevent the young enthusiast from squandering his means in alms to the poor. On that functionary's gently remonstrating, and pointing out to Francis his filial obligations, he stripped himself naked before the people, exclaiming, ”Peter Bernardini was my father; I have now but one Father, he that is in heaven.” At this affecting renunciation of all earthly possessions and earthly ties, those present burst into tears, and the good bishop threw his own mantle over him. When a man has come to this pa.s.s, there is nothing he cannot accomplish.

[Sidenote: Authorization of these orders.] It is related that, when application was first made to Innocent to authorize the order, he refused; but, very soon recognizing the advantages that would accrue, he gave it his hearty patronage. So rapid was the increase, that in A.D.

1219 it numbered not fewer than five thousand brethren. It was founded on the principles of chast.i.ty, poverty, obedience. They were to live on alms, but never to receive money. After a life of devotion to the Church, St. Francis attained his reward, A.D. 1226. Two years previous to his death, by a miraculous intervention there were impressed on his person marks answering to the wounds on our Saviour. These were the celebrated stigmata. A black growth, like nails, issued forth from the palms of his hands and his feet; a wound from which blood and water distilled opened in his side. It is not to be wondered at that these prodigies met with general belief. This was the generation which received as inestimable relics, through Andrew of Hungary, the skulls of St. Stephen and St. Margaret, the hands of St. Bartholomew and St.

Thomas, a slip of the rod of Aaron, and one of the water-pots of the marriage at Cana in Galilee.

[Sidenote: Influence derived from these orders.] The papal government quickly found the prodigious advantage arising from the inst.i.tution of these mendicant orders. Vowed to poverty, living on alms, hosts of friars, begging and barefoot, pervaded all Europe, coming in contact, under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, with the lowest grades of society. They lived and moved among the populace, and yet were held sacred. The accusations of dissipation and luxury so forcibly urged against the regular clergy were altogether inapplicable to these rope-bound, starving fanatics. Through them the Italian government had possession of the ear of Europe. The pomp of wors.h.i.+p in an unknown tongue, the gorgeous solemnities of the Church, were far more than compensated by the preaching of these missionaries, who held forth in the vernacular wherever an audience could be had. Among the early ones, some had been accustomed to a wandering life. Brother Pacificus, a disciple of St. Francis, had been a celebrated Trouvere. In truth, they not only warded off the present pressing danger, but through them the Church retained her hold on the labouring cla.s.ses for several subsequent centuries. The pope might truly boast that the Poor Men of the Church were more than a match for the Poor Men of Lyons. Their influence began to diminish only when they abandoned their essential principles, joined in the common race for plunder, and became immensely rich.

[Sidenote: Introduction of auricular confession.] Not only did Innocent III. thus provide himself with an ecclesiastical militia suited to meet the obviously impending insurrection, he increased his power greatly but insidiously by the formal introduction of auricular confession. It was by the fourth Lateran Council that the necessity of auricular confession was first formally established. Its aim was that no heretic should escape, and that the absent priest should be paramount even in the domestic circle. In none but a most degraded and superst.i.tious society can such an infamous inst.i.tution be tolerated. It invades the sacred privacy of life--makes a man's wife, children, and servants his spies and accusers. When any religious system stands in need of such a social immorality, we may be sure that it is irrecoverably diseased, and hastening to its end.

[Sidenote: Development of casuistry.] Auricular confession led to an increasing necessity for casuistry, though that science was not fully developed until the time of the Jesuits, when it gave rise to an extensive literature, with a lax system and a false morality, guiding the penitent rather with a view to his usefulness to the Church than to his own reformation, and not hesitating at singular indecencies in its portion having reference to married life.

[Sidenote: Att.i.tude of Innocent III.] Great historical events often find ill.u.s.trations in representative men. Such is the case in the epoch we are now considering. On one side stands Innocent, true to the instincts of his party, interfering with all the European nations; launching forth his interdicts and excommunications; steeped in the blood of French heretics; hesitating at no atrocity, even the outrage and murder of women and children, the ruin of flouris.h.i.+ng cities, to compa.s.s his plans; in all directions, under a thousand pretences, draining Europe of its money; calling to his aid hosts of begging friars; putting forth imposture miracles; organizing the Inquisition, and invading the privacy of life by the contrivance of auricular confession.

[Sidenote: Att.i.tude of Frederick II.] On the other side stands Frederick II., the Emperor of Germany. His early life, as has been already mentioned, was spent in Sicily, in familiar intercourse with Jews and Arabs, and Sicily to the last was the favoured portion of his dominions.

To his many other accomplishments he added the speaking of Arabic as fluently as a Saracen. He delighted in the society of Mohammedan ladies, who thronged his court. His enemies a.s.serted that his chast.i.ty was not improved by his a.s.sociations with these miscreant beauties. The Jewish and Mohammedan physicians and philosophers taught him to sneer at the pretensions of the Church. [Sidenote: His Mohammedan tendencies.] From such ridicule it is but a short step to the shaking off of authority. At this time the Spanish Mohammedans had become widely infected with irreligion; their greatest philosophers were infidel in their own infidelity. The two sons of Averroes of Cordova are said to have been residents at Frederick's court. Their father was one of the ablest men their nation ever produced: an experienced astronomer, he had translated the Almagest, and, it is affirmed, was the first who actually saw a transit of Mercury across the sun; a voluminous commentator on the works of Plato and Aristotle, but a disbeliever in all revelation. Even of Mohammedanism he said, alluding to the prohibition which the Prophet had enjoined on the use of the flesh of swine, ”That form of religion is dest.i.tute of every thing that can commend it to the approval of any understanding, unless it be that of a hog.” [Sidenote: He cultivates light literature and heresy.] In the Sicilian court, surrounded by such profane influences, the character of the young emperor was formed.

Italian poetry, destined for such a brilliant future, here first found a voice in the sweet Sicilian dialect. The emperor and his chancellor were cultivators of the gay science, and in the composition of sonnets were rivals. A love of amatory poetry had spread from the South of France.

With a view to the recovery of the Holy Land, Honorius III. had made Frederick marry Yolinda de Lusignan, the heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem. It was not, therefore, to be wondered at that Frederick's frivolities soon drew upon him the indignation of the gloomy Pope Gregory IX., the very first act of whose pontificate was to summon a new crusade. [Sidenote: Refuses to go on a crusade, and then goes.] To the exhortations and commands of the aged pope the emperor lent a most reluctant ear, postponing, from time to time, the period of his departure, and dabbling in doubtful negotiations, through his Mohammedan friends, with the Sultan of Egypt. He embarked at last, but in three days returned. The octogenarian pope was not to be trifled with, and p.r.o.nounced his excommunication. Frederick treated it with ostensible contempt, but appealed to Christendom, accusing Rome of avaricious intentions. [Sidenote: Presumes to rebuke the pontifical government.]

Her officials, he said, were travelling in all directions, not to preach the Word of G.o.d, but to extort money. ”The primitive Church, founded on poverty and simplicity, brought forth numberless saints. The Romans are now rolling in wealth. What wonder that the walls of the Church are undermined to the base, and threaten utter ruin.” For saying this he underwent a more tremendous excommunication; but his partisans in Rome, raising an insurrection, expelled the pope. And now Frederick set sail, of his own accord, on his crusading expedition. On reaching the Holy Land, he was received with joy by the knights and pilgrims; but the clergy held aloof from him as an excommunicated person. The pontiff had despatched a swift-sailing s.h.i.+p to forbid their holding intercourse with him. [Sidenote: His friends.h.i.+p with the sultan,] His private negotiations with the Sultan of Egypt now matured. The Christian camp was thronged with infidel delegates: some came to discuss philosophical questions, some were the bearers of presents. Elephants and a bevy of dancing-girls were courteously sent by the sultan to his friend, who, it is said, was not insensible to the witcheries of these Oriental beauties. He wore a Saracen dress. In his privacy he did not hesitate to say, ”I came not here to deliver the Holy City, but to maintain my estimation among the Franks.” To the sultan he appealed, ”Out of your goodness, surrender to me Jerusalem as it is, that I may be able to lift up my head among the kings of Christendom.” [Sidenote: who gives up Jerusalem to him.] Accordingly, the city was surrendered to him. The object of his expedition was accomplished. But the pope was not to be deceived by such collusions. He repudiated the transactions altogether, and actually took measures to lay Jerusalem and our Saviour's sepulchre under interdict, and this in the face of the Mohammedans. [Sidenote: The pope denounces him.] While the emperor proclaimed his successes to Europe, the pope denounced them as coming from the union of Christ and Belial; alleging four accusations against Frederick: 1. That he had given the sword which he had received from the altar of St. Peter for the defence of the faith, as a present to the Sultan of Babylon; 2. That he had permitted the preaching of the Koran in the holy Temple itself; 3. That he had excluded the Christians of Antioch from his treaty; 4.

That he had bound himself, if a Christian army should attempt to cleanse the Temple and city from Mohammedan defilements, to join the Saracens.

Frederick crowned himself at Jerusalem, unable to find any ecclesiastic who dared to perform the ceremony, and departed from the Holy Land. It was time, for Rome was intriguing against him at home, a false report of his death having been industriously circulated. He forthwith prepared to enter on his conflict with the pontiff. [Sidenote: Frederick establishes Saracen posts in Italy.] His Saracen colonies at Nocera and Luceria, in Italy, could supply him with 30,000 Mussulman soldiers, with whom it was impossible for his enemies to tamper. He managed to draw over the general sentiment of Europe to his side, and publicly offered to convict the pope himself of negotiations with the infidels; but his antagonist, conveniently impressed with a sudden horror of shedding blood, gave way, and peace between the parties was made. It lasted nearly nine years.

[Sidenote: His political inst.i.tutions.] In this period, the intellectual greatness of Frederick, and the tendencies of the influences by which he was enveloped, were strikingly manifested. In advance of his age, he devoted himself to the political improvement of Sicily. He inst.i.tuted representative parliaments; enacted a system of wise laws; a.s.serted the principle of equal rights and equal burdens, and the supremacy of the law over all, even the n.o.bles and the Church. He provided for the toleration of all professions, Jewish and Mohammedan, as well as Christian; emanc.i.p.ated all the serfs of his domains; inst.i.tuted cheap justice for the poor; forbade private war; regulated commerce--prophetically laying down some of those great principles, which only in our own time have been finally received as true; established markets and fairs; collected large libraries; caused to be translated such works as those of Aristotle and Ptolemy; built menageries for natural history; founded in Naples a great university; patronized the medical college at Salernum; made provisions for the education of promising but indigent youths. All over the land splendid architectural triumphs were created.