A Source Book of Mediaeval History Part 56

I possessed a well-balanced rather than a keen intellect--one p.r.o.ne to all kinds of good and wholesome study, but especially inclined to moral philosophy and the art of poetry. The latter, indeed, I neglected as time went on, and took delight in sacred literature.

Finding in that a hidden sweetness which I had once esteemed but lightly, I came to regard the works of the poets as only amenities.

[Sidenote: Admiration for antiquity]

Among the many subjects that interested me, I dwelt especially upon antiquity, for our own age has always repelled me, so that, had it not been for the love of those dear to me, I should have preferred to have been born in any other period than our own. In order to forget my own time, I have constantly striven to place myself in spirit in other ages, and consequently I delighted in history. The conflicting statements troubled me, but when in doubt I accepted what appeared most probable, or yielded to the authority of the writer.

[Sidenote: Att.i.tude toward literary style]

My style, as many claimed, was clear and forcible; but to me it seemed weak and obscure. In ordinary conversation with friends, or with those about me, I never gave thought to my language, and I have always wondered that Augustus Caesar should have taken such pains in this respect. When, however, the subject itself, or the place or the listener, seemed to demand it, I gave some attention to style, with what success I cannot pretend to say; let them judge in whose presence I spoke. If only I have lived well, it matters little to me how I talked. Mere elegance of language can produce at best but an empty renown....

FOOTNOTES:

[601] Dante represents the commentaries composing the _Convito_ as in the nature of a banquet, the "meats" of which were to be set forth in fourteen courses, corresponding to the fourteen _canzoni_, or lyric poems, which were to be commented upon. As a matter of fact, for some unknown reason, the "banquet" was broken off at the end of the third course. "At the beginning of every well-ordered banquet" observes the author in an earlier pa.s.sage (Bk. II., Chap. 1) "the servants are wont to take the bread given out for it, and cleanse it from every speck."

Dante has just cleansed his viands from the faults of egotism and obscurity,--the "accidental impurities"; he now proceeds to clear them of a less superficial difficulty, i.e., the fact that in serving them use is made of the Italian rather than the Latin language.

[602] The date of the composition of the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ is unknown, but there are reasons for a.s.signing the work to the same period in the author's life as the _Convito_. Like the _Convito_, it was left incomplete; four books were planned, but only the first and a portion of the second were written. In it an effort was made to establish the dominance of a perfect and imperial Italian language over all the dialects. The work itself was written in Latin, probably to command the attention of scholars whom Dante hoped to convert to the use of the vernacular.

[603] The author conceives of the _canzoni_ as masters and the commentaries as servants.

[604] That is, any poetical composition.

[605] Some students of Dante hold that this phrase about Homer should be rendered "does not admit of being turned"; but others take it in the absolute sense and base on it an argument against Dante's knowledge of Greek literature.

[606] The Book of Psalms.

[607] The _canzoni_ were in Italian and a Latin commentary would have been useless to scholars of other nations, because they could not have understood the _canzoni_ to which it referred.

[608] The Provencal language--the peculiar speech of southeastern France, whence comes the name Languedoc. _Oc_ is the affirmative particle "yes."

[609] _Si_ is the Italian affirmative particle. In the _Inferno_ Dante refers to Italy as "that lovely country where the _si_ is sounded"

(x.x.x., 80).

[610] That is, prose shows the true beauty of a language more effectively than poetry, in which the attention is distracted by the ornaments of verse.

[611] The author refers to Cicero's philosophical treatise _De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum_.

[612] For example, Pope Innocent IV. (1243-1254) declared: "Two lights, the sun and the moon, illumine the globe; two powers, the papal and the royal, govern it; but as the moon receives her light from the more brilliant star, so kings reign by the chief of the Church, who comes from G.o.d."

[613] The arguments disposed of by the author, in addition to those treated in the pa.s.sages here presented, are: the precedence of Levi over Judah (Gen., xxix. 34, 35), the election and deposition of Saul by Samuel (1 Sam., x. 1; xv. 23; xv. 28), the oblation of the Magi (Matt., ii. 11), the two swords referred to by Peter (Luke, xxii. 38), the donation of Constantine, the summoning of Charlemagne by Pope Hadrian, and finally the argument from pure reason.

[614] This was the common mediaeval designation of Aristotle.

[615] For Dante's conception of the terrestrial and the celestial paradise see the _Paradiso_ in the _Divina Commedia_.

[616] These were the lay and ecclesiastical princes in whom was vested the right of choosing the Emperor. The electoral college was first clearly defined in the Golden Bull issued by Charles IV. in 1356 [see p. 409]. Its composition in Dante's time is uncertain.

[617] Dante's ideal solution was the harmonious rule of the two powers by the acknowledgment of filial relations.h.i.+p between pope and emperor, on the basis of a recognition of the different and essentially irreconcilable character of their functions.

[618] George B. Adams, _Mediaeval Civilization_ (New York, 1904), pp.

375-377.

[619] "There was no apparatus for the study of Greek at that time.

Oral instruction from Greek or Byzantine scholars was the only possible means of access to the great writers of the past. Such instruction was difficult to secure, as Petrarch's efforts and failure prove."--Robinson and Rolfe, _Petrarch_, p. 237.

[620] This is a humorous allusion to the fact that Petrarch had recently received an injury from the fall of a heavy volume of Cicero's _Letters_.

[621] A renowned Greek physician of the fifth century B.C.

[622] A famous Arabian astronomer of the ninth century A.D.

[623] Leo Pilatus, a translator.

[624] Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 B.C.), one of the literary lights of the Augustan Age, was a younger contemporary of Cicero. His _Ars Poetica_ was a didactic poem setting forth the correct principles of poetry as an art.

[625] Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, is noted chiefly as the author of an Ecclesiastical History which is in many ways our most important source of information on the early Christian Church. He lived about 250-339. St. Jerome was a great Church father of the later fourth century. His name is most commonly a.s.sociated with the translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek into the Latin language. The resulting form of the Scriptures was the _Editio Vulgata_ (the Edition Commonly Received), whence our English term "Vulgate."

[626] Eyegla.s.ses were but beginning to come into use in Petrarch's day.

[627] Petrarch's father and Dante were banished from Florence upon the same day, January 27, 1302 [see p. 446].

[628] Marcus Gavius Apicius was a celebrated epicure of the time of Augustus and Tiberius. He was the author of a famous cook-book intended for the gratification of high-livers. Though worth a fortune, he was haunted by a fear of starving to death and eventually poisoned himself to escape such a fate. There was another Apicius in the third century who compiled a well-known collection of recipes for cooking, in ten books, ent.i.tled _De Re Coquinaria_. It is not quite clear which Apicius Petrarch had in mind.

CHAPTER XXVII.

FORESHADOWINGS OF THE REFORMATION

83. The Reply of Wyclif to the Summons of Pope Urban VI. (1384)

The fourteenth century was an era of religious decline in England, as indeed more or less generally throughout western Europe. The papacy was at its lowest ebb, unable to command either respect or obedience, except among the clergy and certain of the common people; bishops and abbots had grown wealthy and worldly and were often utterly neglectful of their religious obligations; and among the ma.s.ses the services of wors.h.i.+p had frequently become mere hollow formalities. There were still many good men in the Church, men who in an unpretentious way sought to do their duty faithfully; but of large numbers--possibly the majority--of both the higher and lower clergy this could not be said.

The dissatisfaction of the people with industrial conditions which prompted the uprising of 1381 was accompanied by an almost equal discontent with the shortcomings of the selfish and avaricious clergy.

It was harder, of course, to arouse men to an active hostility to the existing ecclesiastical system than to the industrial regime, because the Church still maintained a very close hold upon the sentiments and attachments of the average individual. Still, there were people here and there who were outspoken for reform, and chief among these was John Wyclif.

Wyclif was born in Yorks.h.i.+re about 1320 and was educated at Oxford, where in time he became a leading teacher. He was one of those who saw clearly the evils of the times and did not lack the courage to speak out plainly against them. As early as 1366 he had denounced the claims of the papacy, in a pamphlet, _De Dominio Divino_, declaring that the pope ought to have no authority whatsoever over states and governments. This position he never yielded and it became one of the cardinal features of his teaching. He attacked the clergy for their wealth, their self-seeking, and their subservience to the pope, and hurled denunciation at the whole body of friars and vendors of indulgences with whom England was thronged. He even a.s.sailed the doctrines of the Church, particularly as to transubstantiation, the efficacy of confession to priests, and the nature of the sacraments.

His teachings were very acceptable to large numbers of people who were disgusted with existing conditions, and hence he soon came to have a considerable body of followers, known as the Lollards, who, though not regularly organized into a sect, carried on in later times the work which Wyclif and his "poor priests" had begun.

In 1377 Pope Gregory XI. issued a bull in which he roundly condemned Wyclif and reproved the University of Oxford for not taking active steps to suppress the growing heresy; but it had little or no effect.

In 1378 Gregory died and two popes were elected to succeed him--Clement VII. at Avignon and Urban VI. at Rome [see p. 389]. The Schism that resulted prevented further action for a time against Wyclif. In England, however, the uprising of 1381 aroused the government to the expediency of suppressing popular agitators, and in a church council at London, May 19, 1382, Wyclif's doctrines were formally condemned. In 1383 Oxford was compelled to banish all the Lollards from her walls and by the time of Wyclif's death in 1384 the new belief seemed to be pretty thoroughly suppressed. In reality it lived on by the more or less secret attachment of thousands of people to it, and became one of the great preparatory forces for the English Reformation a century and a half later. The doc.u.ment given below is a modernized version of a letter written by Wyclif to Pope Urban VI. in 1384 in response to a summons to appear at Rome to be tried for heresy. The letter was written in Latin and the English translation (given below) prepared by the writer's followers for distribution among Englishmen represents somewhat of an enlargement of the original doc.u.ment. When Wyclif wrote the letter he was in the last year of his life and was so disabled by paralysis that a journey to Rome was quite impossible.

Source--Text in Thomas Arnold, _Select English Works of John Wyclif_ (Oxford, 1869), Vol. III., pp. 504-506. Adapted, with modernized spelling, in Guy Carleton Lee, _Source Book of English History_ (New York, 1900), pp. 212-214.

I have joyfully to tell what I hold, to all true men that believe, and especially to the pope; for I suppose that if my faith be rightful and given of G.o.d, the pope will gladly confirm it; and if my faith be error, the pope will wisely amend it.

I suppose over this that the gospel of Christ be heart of the corps [body] of G.o.d's law; for I believe that Jesus Christ, that gave in His own person this gospel, is very G.o.d and very man, and by this heart pa.s.ses all other laws.