Sketches of Church History Part 18

About the same time another great begging order was founded by Francis, who was born in 1182 at a.s.sisi, a town in the Italian duchy of Spoleto.

The stories as to his early days are very strange; indeed, it would seem that, when he was struck with a religious idea, he could not carry it out without such oddities of behaviour as in most people would look like signs of a mind not altogether right. When Francis heard in church our Lord's charge to His apostles, that they should go forth without money in their purses, or a staff, or scrip, or shoes, or changes of raiment (_St. Matt._ x. 9, 10), he went before the bishop of a.s.sisi, and, stripping off all his other clothes, he set forth to preach repentance without having anything on him but a rough gray woollen frock, with a rope tied round his waist. He fancied that he was called by a vision to repair a certain church; and he set about gathering the money for this purpose by singing and begging in the streets. He felt an especial charity for lepers, who, on account of their loathsome disease, were shut out from the company of men, and were subject to miseries of many kinds; and, although many hospitals had already been founded in various countries for these unfortunate people, the kindness which Francis showed to them had a great effect in lightening their lot, so far as human fellow-feeling could do so.

Francis wished his followers to study humility in all ways. They were to seek to be despised, and were told to be uneasy if they met with usage of any other kind. They were not to let themselves be called _brethren_ but _little brethren_; they must try to be reckoned as less than any other persons. They were especially to be on their guard against the pride of learning; and, in order to preserve them from the danger of this, Francis would hardly allow them even a book of the Psalms. But, in truth, all these things might really be turned the opposite way, and in making such studied shows of humility it was quite possible that the Franciscans might fall under the temptations of pride.

Francis was very fond of animals, which he treated as reasonable creatures, speaking to them by the names of brothers and sisters. He used to call his own body _brother a.s.s_, on account of the heavy burdens and the hard usage which it had to bear. He kept a sheep in church, and it is said that the creature, without any training, used to take part in the services by kneeling and bleating at proper times. He preached to flocks of birds on the duty of thanking their Maker for His goodness to them; nay, he preached to fishes, to worms, and even to flowers.

Perhaps the oddest story of this kind is one about his dealing with a wolf which infested the neighbourhood of Gubbio. Finding that every one in the place was overcome by fear of this fierce beast, Francis went out boldly to the forest where the wolf lived, and, meeting him, began to talk to him about the wickedness of killing, not only brute animals, but men; and he promised that, if the wolf would give up such evil ways, the citizens of Gubbio would maintain him. He then held out his right hand; whereupon the wolf put his paw into it as a sign of agreement, and allowed the saint to lead him into the town. The people of Gubbio were only too glad to fulfil the promise which Francis had made for them; and they kept the wolf handsomely, giving him his meals by turns, until he died of old age, and in such general respect that he was lamented by all Gubbio.

There is a strange story that Francis, towards the end of his life, received in his body what are called the _stigmata_ (that is to say, the marks of the wounds which were made in our Lord's body at the crucifixion). And a great number of other superst.i.tious tales became connected with his name; but with such things we need not here trouble ourselves.

When Dominic and Francis each applied to Pope Innocent for his approval of their designs to found new orders, he was not forward to give it; but, on thinking the matter over, he granted them what they asked. Each of them soon gathered followers, who spread into all lands. The Franciscans, especially, made converts from heathenism by missions; and these orders, by their rough and plain habits of life, made their way to the hearts of the poorest cla.s.ses in a degree which had never been known before. And the influence which they thus gained was all used for the papacy, which found them the most active and useful of all its servants.

In the year 1215, Innocent held a great council at Rome, what is known as the fourth Lateran Council, and is to be remembered for two of its canons; by one of which the false doctrine of the Roman Church as to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was, for the first time, established; and by the other, it was made the duty of every one in the Roman Church to confess to the priest of his parish at least once a year.

CHAPTER XIV.

FREDERICK II.--ST. LEWIS OF FRANCE.

A.D. 1220-1270.

PART I.

The popes still tried to stir up the Christians of the West for the recovery of the Holy Land; and there were crusading attempts from time to time, although without much effect. One of these crusades was undertaken in 1228 by Frederick II., an emperor who was all his life engaged in struggles against one pope after another. Frederick had taken the cross when he was very young; but when once any one had done so, the popes thought that they were ent.i.tled to call on him to fulfil his promise at any time they pleased, no matter what other business he might have on his hands. He was expected to set off on a crusade whenever the pope might bid him, although it might be ruinous to him to be called away from his own affairs at that time.

In this way, then, the popes had got a hold on Frederick, and when he answered their summons by saying that his affairs at home would not just then allow him to go on a crusade, they treated this excuse as if he had refused altogether to go; they held him up to the world as a faithless man, and threatened to put his lands under an interdict,[81] and to take away his crown. And when at last Frederick found himself able to go to the Holy Land, the pope and his friends set themselves against him with all their might, saying that he was not hearty in the cause, and even that he was not a Christian at all. So that, although Frederick made a treaty with the Mahometans by which a great deal was gained for the Christians, it came to little or nothing, because the popes would not confirm it.

[81] See page 219.

I need not say much more about Frederick II. There was very much in him that we cannot approve of or excuse; but he met with hard usage from the popes, and after his death (A.D. 1250) they pursued his family with constant hatred, until the last heir, a spirited young prince named Conradin, who boldly attempted to recover the dominions of his family in Southern Italy, was made prisoner and executed at Naples in 1268.

PART II.

At the same time with Frederick lived a sovereign of a very different kind, Lewis IX. of France, who is commonly called St. Lewis, and deserves the name of _saint_ better than very many persons to whom it is given. There was a great deal in the religion of Lewis that we should call superst.i.tion; but he laboured very earnestly to live up to the notions of Christian religion which were commonly held in his time. He attended several services in church every day, and when he was told that his n.o.bles found fault with this, he answered, that no one would have blamed him if he had spent twice as much time in hunting or in playing at dice. He was diligent in all other religious exercises, he refrained from all worldly sports and pastimes, and, as far as could be, he shunned the pomp of royalty. He was very careful never to use any words but such as were fit for a Christian. He paid great respect to clergy and monks, and said that if he could divide himself into two, he would give one half to the Dominicans and the other half to the Franciscans.

It is even said that at one time he would himself have turned friar, if his queen had not persuaded him that he would do better by remaining a king and studying to govern well and to benefit the Church.

But with all this, Lewis took care that the popes should not get more power over the French Church than he thought due to them. And if any bishop had tried to play the same part in France which Becket played in English history, we may be sure that St. Lewis would have set himself steadily against him.

In 1244 Jerusalem was taken by the Mongols, a barbarous heathen people, who had none of that respect which the Mahometans had shown for the holy places of the Jewish and Christian religions; thus these holy places were now profaned in a way which had not been known before, and stories of outrages done by the new conquerors, with cries for help from the Christians of the Holy Land, reached the West.

Soon after this King Lewis had a dangerous illness, in which his life was given over. He had been for some time speechless, and was even supposed to be dead, when he asked that the cross might be given to him; and as soon as he had thus engaged himself to the crusade he began to recover. His wife, his mother, and others tried to persuade him that he was not bound by his promise, because it had been made at a time when he was not master of himself; but Lewis would not listen to such excuses, and resolved to carry it out faithfully. The way which he took to enlist companions was very curious. On the morning of Christmas day, when a very solemn service was to be held in the chapel of his palace (a chapel which is still to be seen, and is among the most beautiful buildings in Paris), he caused dresses to be given to the n.o.bles as they were going in; for this was then a common practice with kings at the great festivals of the Church. But when the French lords, after having received their new robes in a place which was nearly dark, went on into the chapel, which was bright with hundreds of lights, each of them found that his dress was marked with a cross, so that, according to the notions of the time, he was bound to go to the holy war.

PART III.

The king did what he could to raise troops, and appointed his mother, Queen Blanche, to govern the kingdom during his absence; and, after having pa.s.sed a winter in the island of Cyprus, he reached Damietta, in Egypt, on the 5th of June, 1249. For a time all went well with the Crusaders; but soon a change took place, and everything seemed to turn against them. They lost some of their best leaders; a plague broke out and carried off many of them; they suffered from famine, so that they were even obliged to eat their horses; and the enemy, by opening the sluices of the Nile, let loose on them the waters of the river, which carried away a mult.i.tude. Lewis himself was very ill, and at length he was obliged to surrender to the enemy, and to make peace on terms far worse than those which he had before refused.

But even although he was a prisoner, his saintly life made the Mahometans look on him with reverence; so that when the Sultan to whom he had become prisoner was murdered by his own people, they thought of choosing the captive Christian king for their chief. Lewis refused to make any treaty for his deliverance unless all his companions might have a share in it; and, although he might have been earlier set free, he refused to leave his captivity until all the money was made up for the ransom of himself and his followers. On being at length free to leave Egypt, he went into the Holy Land, where he visited Nazareth with deep devotion. But, although he eagerly desired to see Jerusalem, he denied himself this pleasure, from a fear that the crusading spirit might die out if the first of Christian kings should consent to visit the holy city without delivering it from the unbelievers.

After an absence of six years, Lewis was called back to France by tidings that his mother, whom he had left as regent of the kingdom, was dead (A.D. 1254). But he did not think that his crusading vow was yet fulfilled; and sixteen years later he set out on a second attempt, which was still more unfortunate than the former. On landing at Tunis, he found that the Arabs, instead of joining him, as he had expected, attacked his force; but these were not his worst enemies. At setting out, the king had been too weak to bear armour or to sit on horseback; and after landing he found that the bad climate, with the want of water and of wholesome food, spread death among his troops. One of his own sons, Tristan, who had been born during the king's captivity in Egypt, fell sick and died. Lewis himself, whose weak state made him an easy victim to disease, died on the 25th of August, 1270, after having shown in his last hours the piety which had throughout marked his life. And, although his eldest son, Philip, recovered from an attack which had seemed likely to be fatal, the Crusaders were obliged to leave that deadly coast with their number fearfully lessened, and without having gained any success. Philip, on his return to France, had to carry with him the remains of his father, of his brother, of one of his own children, and of his brother-in-law, the king of Navarre. Such was the sad end of an expedition undertaken by a saintly king for a n.o.ble purpose, but without heeding those rules of prudence which, if they could not have secured success, might at least have taught him to provide against some of the dangers which were fatal to him.

CHAPTER XV.

PETER OF MURRONE.

A.D. 1294.

In that age the papacy was sometimes long vacant, because the cardinals, who were the highest in rank of the Roman clergy, and to whom the choice of a pope belonged, could not agree. In order to get over this difficulty, rules were made for the purpose of forcing the cardinals to make a speedy choice. Thus, at a council which was held by Pope Gregory X. at Lyons, in 1274 (chiefly for the sake of restoring peace and fellows.h.i.+p between the Greek and Latin Churches), a canon was made for the election of popes. This canon directed that the cardinals should meet for the choice of a new pope within ten days after the last pope's death; that they should all be shut up in a large room, which, from their being locked in together, was called the _conclave_;[82] that they should have no means of speaking or writing to any person outside, or of receiving any letters; that their food should be supplied through a window; that, if they did not make their choice within three days, their provisions should be stinted, and if they delayed five days more, nothing should be given them but bread and water. By such means it was thought that the cardinals might be brought to settle the election of a pope as quickly as possible.

[82] _Con_ meaning _together_, and _clavis_ meaning _a key_.

We can well believe that the cardinals did not like to be put under such rules. They contrived that later popes should make some changes in them, and tried to go on as before, putting off the election so long as seemed desirable for the sake of their own selfish objects. At one time, when there had been no pope for six months, the people of Viterbo confined the cardinals in the public hall of their city until an election should be made. At another time, the cardinals were shut up in a Roman monastery, where six of them died of the bad air. But one cardinal, who was more knowing than the rest, drove off the effect of the air by keeping up fires in all his rooms, even through the hottest weather; and at length he was chosen pope.

On the death of this pope, Nicolas IV. (A.D. 1292), his office was vacant for two years and a quarter; and when the cardinals then met, it seemed as if they could not fix on any successor. But one day one of them told the rest that a holy man had had a vision, threatening heavy judgments unless a pope were chosen within a certain time; and he gave such an account of this holy man that all the cardinals were struck at once with the idea of choosing _him_ for pope. His name was Peter of Murrone. He lived as a hermit in a narrow cell on a mountain; and there he was found by certain bishops who were sent by the cardinals to tell him of his election. He was seventy-two years of age; roughly dressed, with a long white beard, and thin from fasting and hard living. He could speak no other tongue than the common language of the country-folks around, and he was quite unused to business of any kind, so that he allowed himself to be led by any one who would take the trouble. The fame of Peter's holiness had been widely spread, and he was even supposed to do miracles; so that his election was welcomed by mult.i.tudes. Two hundred thousand persons flocked to see his coronation, where the old man appeared in the procession riding on an a.s.s, with his reins held by the king of Naples on one side and by the king's son on the other (A.D. 1294).

This king of Naples, Charles II., got the poor old pope completely into his power. He made him take up his abode at Naples, where Celestine V.

(as he was now called) tried to carry on his old way of life by getting a cell built in his palace, just like his old dwelling on the rock of Fumone; and into this little place he would withdraw for days, leaving all the work of his office to be done by some cardinals whom he trusted.

Other stories are told which show that Celestine was quite unfit for his office. The cardinals soon came to think that they had made a great mistake in choosing him; and at length the poor old man came to think so too. One of the cardinals, Benedict Gaetani, who had gained a great influence over his mind, persuaded him that the best thing he could do was to resign; and, after having been pope about five months, Celestine called the cardinals together, and read to them a paper, in which he said that he was too old and too weak to bear the burden of his office; that he wished to return to his former life of quiet and contemplation.

He then put off his robes, took once more the rough dress which he had worn as a hermit, and withdrew to his old abode. But the jealousy of his successor did not allow him to remain there in peace. It was feared that the reverence in which the old hermit was held by the common people might lead to some disturbance; and to prevent this he was shut up in close confinement, where he lived only about ten months. The poorer people had all manner of strange notions about his holiness and his supposed miracles; and about twenty years after his death, he was admitted into the Roman list of saints.

CHAPTER XVI.

BONIFACE VIII.

A.D. 1294-1303.

PART I.

In Celestine's place was chosen Benedict Gaetani, who, although even older than the worn-out and doting late pope, was still full of strength, both in body and in mind. Benedict (who took the name of Boniface VIII.) is said to have been very learned, especially in matters of law; but his pride and ambition led him into attempts which ended in his own ruin, and did serious harm to the papacy.

In the year 1300 Boniface set on foot what was called the Jubilee. You will remember the Jubilee which G.o.d in the Law of Moses commanded the Israelites to keep (Leviticus xxv.). But this new Jubilee had nothing to do with the law of Moses, and was more like some games which were celebrated every hundredth year by the ancient Romans. Nothing of the sort had ever before been known among Christians; but when the end of the thirteenth century was at hand, it was found that people's minds were full of a fancy that the year 1300 ought to be a time of some great celebration. Nay, they were even made to believe that such a way of keeping every hundredth year had been usual from the beginning of the Church, although (as I have said) there was no ground whatever for this notion; and one or two lying old men were brought forward to pretend that when children they had attended a former jubilee a hundred years before!

How the expectation of the jubilee was got up we do not know. Most likely Boniface had something to do with it; at all events, he took it up and reaped the profits of it. He sent forth letters offering extraordinary spiritual benefits to all who should visit Rome and the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul during the coming year; and immense numbers of people flocked together from all parts of Europe. It is said that all through the year there were two hundred thousand strangers in Rome; for as some went away, others came to fill up their places. The crowd is described to us as if, in the streets and on the bridge leading to the great church of St. Peter's, an army were marching each way.