A History of the Reformation Volume I Part 7

Chapter V. Family And Popular Religious Life in the Decades Before the Reformation.(67)

-- 1. Devotion of Germany to the Roman Church.

The real roots of the spiritual life of Luther and of the other Reformers ought to be sought for in the family and in the popular religious life of the times. It is the duty of the historian to discover, if possible, what religious instruction was given by parents to children in the pious homes out of which most of the Reformers came, and what religious influences confronted and surrounded pious lads after they had left the family circle. Few have cared to prosecute the difficult task; and it is only within late years that the requisite material has been acc.u.mulated. It has to be sought for in autobiographies, diaries, and private letters; in the books of popular devotion which the patience of ecclesiastical archaeologists is exhuming and reprinting; in the references to the pious confraternities of the later Middle Ages, and more especially to the _Kalands_ among the artisans, which appear in town chronicles, and whose const.i.tutions are being slowly unearthed by local historical societies; in the police regulations of towns and country districts which aim at curbing the power of the clergy, and in the edicts of princes attempting to enforce some of the recommendations of the Councils of Constance and Basel; in the more popular hymns of the time, and in the sermons of the more fervent preachers; in the pilgrim songs and the pilgrim guide-books; and in a variety of other sources not commonly studied by Church historians.

On the surface no land seemed more devoted to the mediaeval Church and to the Pope, its head, than did Germany in the half century before the Reformation. A cultivated Italian, Aleander, papal nuncio at the Diet of Worms, was astonished at the signs of disaffection he met with in 1520.(68) He had visited Germany frequently, and he was intimately acquainted with many of the northern Humanists; and his opinion was that down to 1510 (the date of his last visit) he had never been among a people so devoted to the Bishop of Rome. No nation had exhibited such signs of delight at the ending of the Schism and the re-establishment of the "Peace of the Church." The Italian Humanists continually express their wonder at the strength of the religious susceptibilities of the Germans; and the papal Curia looked upon German devotion as a never-failing source of Roman revenue. The Germans displayed an almost feverish anxiety to profit by all the ordinary and extraordinary means of grace. They built innumerable churches; their towns were full of conventual foundations; they bought Indulgences, went on pilgrimages, visited shrines, reverenced relics in a way that no other nation did. The piety of the Germans was proverbial.

The number of churches was enormous for the population. Almost every tiny village had its chapel, and every town of any size had several churches.

Church building and decoration was a feature of the age. In the town of Dantzig 8 new churches had been founded or completed during the fifteenth century. The "holy" city of Koln (Cologne) at the close of the fifteenth century contained 11 great churches, 19 parish churches, 22 monasteries, 12 hospitals, and 76 convents; more than a thousand Ma.s.ses were said at its altars every day. It was exceptionally rich in ecclesiastical buildings, no doubt; but the smaller town of Brunswick had 15 churches, over 20 chapels, 5 monasteries, 6 hospitals, and 12 Beguine-houses, and its great church, dedicated to St. Blasius, had 26 altars served by 60 ecclesiastics. So it was all over Germany.

Besides the large numbers of monks and nuns who peopled the innumerable monasteries and convents, a large part of the population belonged to some semi-ecclesiastical a.s.sociation. Many were tertiaries of St. Francis; many were connected with the Beguines: Koln (Cologne) had 106 Beguine-houses; Stra.s.sburg, over 60, and Basel, over 30.

The churches and chapels, monasteries and religious houses, received all kinds of offerings from rich and poor alike. In those days of unexampled burgher prosperity and wealth, the town churches became "museums and treasure-houses." The windows were filled with painted gla.s.s; weapons, armour, jewels, pictures, tapestries were stored in the treasuries or adorned the walls. Ancient inventories have been preserved of some of these ecclesiastical acc.u.mulations of wealth. In the cathedral church in Bern, to take one example, the head of St. Vincentius, the patron, was adorned with a great quant.i.ty of gold, and with one jewel said to be priceless; the treasury contained 70 gold and 50 silver cups, 2 silver coffers, and 450 costly sacramental robes decked with jewels of great value. The luxury, the artistic fancy, and the wealth which could minister to both, all three were characteristic of the times, were lavished by the Germans on their churches.

-- 2. Preaching.

On the other hand, preaching took a place it had never previously held in the mediaeval Church. Some distinguished Churchmen did not hesitate to say that it was the most important duty the priest could perform-more important than saying Ma.s.s. It was recognised that when the people began to read the Bible and religious books in the vernacular, it became necessary for the priests to be able to instruct their congregations intelligently and sympathetically in sermons. Attempts were made to provide the preachers with material for their sermon-making. The earliest was the _Biblia Pauperum_ (the Bible for the _Pauperes Christi_, or the preaching monks), which collects on one page pictures of Bible histories fitted to explain each other, and adds short comments. Thus, on the twenty-fifth leaf there are three pictures-in the centre the Crucifixion; on the left Abraham about to slay Isaac, with the lamb in the foreground; and on the left the Brazen Serpent and the healing of the Plague. More scholarly preachers found a valuable commentary in the _Postilla_ of the learned Franciscan Nicolas de Lyra (Lira or Lire, a village in Normandy), who was the first real exegetical scholar, and to whom Luther was in later days greatly indebted.(69)

Manuals of Pastoral Theology were also written and published for the benefit of the parish priests,-the most famous, under the quaint t.i.tle, _Dormi Secure_ (sleep in safety). It describes the more important portions of the service, and what makes a good sermon; it gives the Lessons for the Sunday services, the chief articles of the Christian faith, find adds directions for pastoral work and the cure of souls. It is somewhat difficult to describe briefly the character of the preaching. Some of it was very edifying and deservedly popular. The sermons of John Herolt were printed, and attained a very wide circulation. No fewer than forty-one editions appeared. Much of the preaching was the exposition of themes taken from the Scholastic Theology treated in the most technical way. Many of the preachers seem to have profaned their office in the search after popularity, and mingled very questionable stories and coa.r.s.e jokes with their exhortations. The best known of the preachers who flourished at the close of the fifteenth century was John Geiler of Keysersberg (in Elsa.s.s near Colmar), the friend of Sebastian Brand, and a member of the Humanist circle of Stra.s.sburg. The position he filled ill.u.s.trates the eagerness of men of the time to encourage preaching. A burgher of Stra.s.sburg, Peter Schott, left a sum of money to endow a preacher, who was to be a doctor of theology, one who had not taken monk's vows, and who was to preach to the people in the vernacular; a special pulpit was erected in the Stra.s.sburg Minster for the preacher provided by this foundation, who was John Geiler.

His sermons are full of exhortations to piety and correct living. He lashed the vices and superst.i.tions of his time. He denounced relic wors.h.i.+p, pilgrimages, buying indulgences, and the corruptions in the monasteries and convents. He spoke against the luxurious living of Popes and prelates, and their trafficking in the sale of benefices. He made sarcastic references to the papal decretals and to the quibblings of Scholastic Theology. He paints the luxuries and vices he denounced so very clearly, that his writings are a valuable mine for the historian of popular morals. He was a stern preacher of morals, but his sermons contain very little of the gospel message. As we read them we can understand Luther's complaint, that while he had listened to many a sermon on the sins of the age, and to many a discourse expounding scholastic themes, he had never heard one which declared the love of G.o.d to man in the mission and work of Jesus Christ.

-- 3. Church Festivals.

The Church itself, recognising the fondness of the people for all kinds of scenic display, delighted to gratify the prevailing taste by magnificent processions, by gorgeous church ceremonial, by Pa.s.sion and Miracle Plays.

Such scenes are continually described in contemporary chronicles. The processions were arranged for Corpus Christi Day, for Christmas, for Harvest Thanksgivings, when the civic fathers requested the clergy to pray for rain, or when a great papal official visited the town. We hear of one at Erfurt which began at five o'clock in the morning, and, with its visits to the stations of the Cross and the services at each, did not end till noon. The school children of the town, numbering 948, headed the procession, then came 312 priests, then the whole University,-in all, 2141 persons,-and the monks belonging to the five monasteries followed. The Holy Sacrament carried by the chief ecclesiastics, and preceded by a large number of gigantic candles, occupied the middle of the procession. The town council followed, then all the townsmen, then the women and maidens.

The troop of maidens was 2316 strong. They had garlands on their heads, and their hair flowed down over their shoulders; they carried lighted candles in their hands, and they marched modestly looking to the ground.

Two beautiful girls walked at their head with banners, followed by four with lanterns. In the centre was the fairest, clad in black and barefoot, carrying a large and splendid cross, and by her side one of the town councillors chosen for his good looks. Everything was arranged with a view to artistic effect.(70)

The Pa.s.sion and Miracle Plays(71) were of great use in instructing the people in the contents of Scripture, being almost always composed of biblical scenes and histories. They were often very elaborate; sometimes more than one hundred actors were needed to fill the parts; and the plays were frequently so lengthy that they lasted for two or three days. The ecclesiastical managers felt that the continuous presentation of grave and lofty scenes and sentiments might weary their audiences, and they mixed them with lighter ones, which frequently degenerated into buffoonery and worse. The sacred and severe pathos of the Pa.s.sion was interlarded with coa.r.s.e jokes about the devil; and the most solemn conceptions were profaned. These Mysteries were generally performed in the great churches, and the buildings dedicated to sacred things witnessed scenes of the coa.r.s.est humour, to the detriment of all religious feeling. The more serious Churchmen felt the profanation, and tried to prohibit the performance of plays interlarded with rude and indecent scenes within the churches and churchyards. Their interference came too late; the rough popular taste demanded what it had been accustomed to; sacred histories and customs coming down from a primitive heathenism were mixed together, and the people lost the sense of sacredness which ought to attach itself to the former. The Feast of the a.s.s, to mention one, was supposed to commemorate the Flight to Egypt. A beautiful girl, holding a child in her lap, was seated on an a.s.s decked with splendid trappings of gold cloth, and was led in procession by the clergy through the princ.i.p.al streets of the town to the parish church. The girl on her a.s.s was conducted into the church and placed near the high altar, and the Ma.s.s and other services were each concluded by the whole congregation braying. There is indeed an old MS. extant with a rubric which orders the priest to bray thrice on elevating the Host.(72) At other seasons of popular licence, all the parts of the church service, even the most solemn, were parodied by the profane youth of the towns.(73)

All this, however, tells us little about the intimate religious life and feelings of the people, which is the important matter for the study of the roots of the great ecclesiastical revolt.

When the evidence collected from the sources is sifted, it will be found that the religious life of the people at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries is full of discordant elements, and makes what must appear to us a very incongruous mosaic. If cla.s.sification be permissible, which it scarcely is (for religious types always refuse to be kept distinct, and always tend to run into each other), one would be disposed to speak of the simple homely piety of the family circle-the religion taught at the mother's knee, the _Kinderlehre_, as Luther called it; of a certain flamboyant religion which inspired the crowds; of a calm anti-clerical religion which grew and spread silently throughout Germany; of the piety of the praying-circles, the descendants of the fourteenth century Mystics.

-- 4. The Family Religious Life.

The biographies of some of the leaders of the Reformation, when they relate the childish reminiscences of the writers, bear unconscious witness to the kind of religion which was taught to the children in pious burgher and peasant families. We know that Luther learned the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer. He knew such simple evangelical hymns as "Ein kindelein so lobelich,"(74) "Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist,"

and "Crist ist erstanden." Children were rocked to sleep while the mothers sang:

"Ach lieber Heere Jhesu Christ Sid Du ein Kind gewesen bist, So gib ouch disem Kindelin Din Gnod und ouch den Segen den.

Ach Jhesu, Heere min, Behut diz Kindelin.

Nun sloff, nun sloff, min Kindelin, Jhesus der sol din bulli sin, Der well, daz dir getroume wol Und werdest aller Tugent vol.

Ach Jhesus, Heere min, Behut diz Kindelin."(75)

These songs or hymns, common before the Reformation, were sung as frequently after the break with Rome. The continuity in the private devotional life before and after the advent of the Reformation is a thing to be noted. Few hymns were more popular during the last decade of the fifteenth century than the "In dulci Jubilo" in which Latin and German mingled. The first and last verses were:

"In dulci jubilo, Nun singet und seid froh!

Unsers Herzens Wonne Leit in praesepio, Und leuchtet als die Sonne Matris in gremio.

Alpha es et O, Alpha es et O!

Ubi sunt gaudia?

Nirgends mehr denn da, Da die Engel singen Nova cantica, Und die Sch.e.l.len klingen In regis curia.

Eya, war'n wir da, Eya, war'n wir da!"

This hymn continued to enjoy a wonderful popularity in the German Protestant churches and families until quite recently, and during the times of the Reformation it spread far beyond Germany.(76) In the fifteenth-century version it contained one verse in praise of the Virgin:

"Mater et filia Du bist, Jungfraw Maria.

Wir weren all verloren Per nostra crimina, So hat sy uns erworben Celorum gaudia.

Eya, war'n wir da, Eya, war'n wir da!"

which was either omitted in the post-Reformation versions, or there was subst.i.tuted:

"O Patris charitas, O Nati lenitas!

Wir weren all verloren Per nostra crimina, So hat Er uns erworben Clorum gaudia.

Eya, war'n wir da, Eya, war'n wir da."(77)

Nor was direct simple evangelical instruction lacking. Friedrich Mec.u.m (known better by his Latinised name of Myconius), who was born in 1491, relates how his father, a substantial burgher belonging to Lichtenfels in Upper Franconia, instructed him in religion while he was a child. "My dear father," he says, "had taught me in my childhood the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed, and constrained me to pray always. For, said he, 'Everything comes to us from G.o.d alone, and that _gratis_, free of cost, and He will lead us and rule us, if we only diligently pray to Him.' " We can trace this simple evangelical family religion away back through the Middle Ages. In the wonderfully interesting Chronicle of Brother Salimbene of the Franciscan Convent of Parma, which comes from the thirteenth century, we are told how many of the better-disposed burghers of the town came to the convent frequently to enjoy the religious conversation of Brother Hugh. On one occasion the conversation turned upon the mystical theology of Abbot Giaocchino di Fiore. The burghers professed to be greatly edified, but said that they hoped that on the next evening Brother Hugh would confine himself to telling them the _simple words of Jesus_.

The central thought in all evangelical religion is that the believer does not owe his position before G.o.d, and his a.s.surance of salvation, to the good deeds which he really can do, but to the grace of G.o.d manifested in the mission and the work of Christ; and the more we turn from the thought of what we can do to the thought of what G.o.d has done for us, the stronger will be the conviction that simple trust in G.o.d is that by which the pardoning grace of G.o.d is appropriated. This double conception-G.o.d's grace coming down upon us from above, and the believer's trust rising from beneath to meet and appropriate it-was never absent from the simplest religion of the Middle Ages. It did not find articulate expression in mediaeval theology, for, owing to its enforced connection with Aristotelian philosophy, that theology was largely artificial; but the thought itself had a continuous and constant existence in the public consciousness of Christian men and women, and appeared in sermons, prayers, and hymns, and in the other ways in which the devotional life manifested itself. It is found in the sermons of the greatest of mediaeval preachers, Bernard of Clairvaux, and in the teaching of the most persuasive of religious guides, Francis of a.s.sisi. The one, Bernard, in spite of his theological training, was able to rise above the thought of human merit recommending the sinner to G.o.d; and the other, Francis, who had no theological training at all, insisted that he was fitted to lead a life of imitation simply because he had no personal merits whatsoever, and owed everything to the marvellous mercy and grace of G.o.d given freely to him in the work of Christ. The thought that all the good we can do comes from the wisdom and mercy of G.o.d, and that without these gifts of grace we are sinful and worthless-the feeling that all pardon and all holy living are free gifts of G.o.d's grace, was the central thought round which in mediaeval, as in all times, the faith of simple and pious people twined itself. It found expression in the simpler mediaeval hymns, Latin and German. The utter need for sin-pardoning grace is expressed and taught in the prayer of the _Canon of the Ma.s.s_. It found its way, in spite of the theology, even into the official agenda of the Church, where the dying are told that they must repose their confidence upon Christ and His Pa.s.sion as the sole ground of confidence in their salvation. If we take the fourth book of Thomas a Kempis' _Imitatio Christi_, it is impossible to avoid seeing that his ideas about the sacrament of the Supper (in spite of the mistakes in them) kept alive in his mind the thought of a free grace of G.o.d, and that he had a clear conception that G.o.d's grace was freely given, and not merited by what man can do. For the main thought with pious mediaeval Christians, however it might be overlaid with superst.i.tious conceptions, was that they received in the sacrament a _gift_ of overwhelming greatness. Many a modern Christian seems to think that the main idea is that in this sacrament one _does_ something-makes a profession of Christianity. The old view went a long way towards keeping people right in spite of errors, while the modern view does a great deal towards leading them wrong in spite of truth.

All these things combine to show us how there was a simple evangelical faith among pious mediaeval Christians, and that their lives were fed upon the same divine truths which lie at the basis of Reformation theology. The truths were all there, as poetic thoughts, as earnest supplication and confession, in fervent preaching or in fireside teaching. When mediaeval Christians knelt in prayer, stood to sing their Redeemer's praises, spoke as a dying man to dying men, or as a mother to the children about her knees, the words and thoughts that came were what Luther and Zwingli and Calvin wove into Reformation creeds, and expanded into that experimental theology which was characteristic of the Reformation.

When the printing-press began in the last decades of the fifteenth century to provide little books to aid private and family devotion, it is not surprising, after what has been said, to find how full many of them were of simple evangelical piety. Some contained the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and occasionally a translation or paraphrase of some of the Psalms, notably the 51st Psalm. Popular religious instructions and catechisms for family use were printed. The Catechism of Dietrich Koelde (written in 1470) says: "Man must place his faith and hope and love on G.o.d alone, and not in any creature; he must trust in nothing but in the work of Jesus Christ." The _Seelenwurzgartlein_, a widely used book of devotion, instructs the penitent: "Thou must place all thy hope and trust on nothing else than on the work and death of Jesus Christ." The _Geistliche Streit_ of Ulrich Krafft (1503) teaches the dying man to place all his trust on the "mercy and goodness of G.o.d, and not on his own good works." Quotations might be multiplied, all proving the existence of a simple evangelical piety, and showing that the home experience of Friedrich Mec.u.m (Myconius) was shared in by thousands, and that there was a simple evangelical family religion in numberless German homes in the end of the fifteenth century.