Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 12

There were numerous helps to preachers. aelfric, towards the end of the Saxon period, freely translated forty homilies from Augustine, Jerome, Bede, Gregory, and other great ancient writers, which were put forth for the use of the clergy under the authority of Archbishop Siric; he afterwards added forty others of a more legendary character; and there are many other Saxon sermons still extant, printed by Wanley, Sharon Turner, Thorpe, the Early English Text Society, etc. Of a later period there are series of sermons by Grostete of Lincoln, FitzRalph of Armagh, and literally hundreds of other writers, some for all the Sundays of the year, some for the great festivals only. A series of sermons for Sundays and feast days, by John Felton, Vicar of St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford, c. 1450, seems to have been popular, since many ma.n.u.scripts of it remain. The "Liber Festivalis" of John Myrk, Canon of Lillieshall, was also popular; Caxton's printed "Liber Festivalis" was founded upon it. The "Summa Predicantium" is a book of sermon notes for preachers; the "Alphabetum Exemplarium" is a collection of ill.u.s.trations and anecdotes from which the preacher might cull examples.

The "Speculum Christiani," by John Watton, in the fourteenth century, was intended, as is stated in the preface, to help the parish priests to carry out Peckham's injunctions. A great part of it is in English, and it contains rhymed versions of the Commandments to help the memory. Several editions of it (one in 1480, at the cost of a London merchant) are among the earliest printed books. The "Flos Florum" was another book of the same cla.s.s explaining the Lord's Prayer, Virtues, and Vices, etc. There were also many private manuals instructing the clergy in all their duties: as the "Pars Oculi Sacerdotis" of W. Parker, about 1350 A.D.; and the revised edition of it, under the t.i.tle of "The Pupilla Oculi" of Burgh, in 1385.

These series of authoritative instructions are open to the criticism that they are dry and formal, lacking evangelical tone and unction, manuals of theology are apt to be dry and formal; the treatment of sins and virtues is perhaps pedantic and fanciful, but it proves a searching a.n.a.lysis of the human heart and conduct, and contains much which is striking and true.

But there was another cla.s.s of English books, like "The p.r.i.c.k of Conscience" and other works of Richard the Hermit of Hampole[216] (died in 1349), and the "Speculum" of Archbishop St. Edmund Rich, in which we find a vein of pious meditation, intended in the first instance for the use of the clergy; but the pious thoughts of the clergy are not long in finding their way to their tongues, and so to the ears and hearts of their people.

The religious poem of William of Ma.s.sington, an advocate of the Court of York, "On the Works of G.o.d and the Pa.s.sion of our Lord Jesus Christ,"

etc., and a number of short poems, which have been printed in various collections, give examples of the existence of the emotional element in the popular religion in strains of considerable poetical and religious merit.

It is a very curious circ.u.mstance that many of these books are cast into a poetical mould--Dom Johan Graytrigg's work is in the alliterative poetry of Saxon and early English literature, and John Myrk's "Instructions" and the "Lay Folks' Ma.s.s-book" are in rhyme, no doubt with the twofold purpose of making them more attractive and more easily remembered.

A remarkable feature of the moral teaching of the Middle Ages was its minute a.n.a.lysis of sin. It divided sin into the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Covetousness, Gluttony, Luxury; the list of them is sometimes slightly varied. Then it divided each sin into its various branches. It will be enough to quote from the "Argenbite of Inwit" the a.n.a.lysis of the first of them--Pride.

_Pride_ has seven boughs: Untruth, Contempt, Presumption, Ambition, Vainglory, Hypocrisy, Wicked Dread.

_Untruth_ has three twigs: Ingrat.i.tude, Foolishness, Apostasy.

_Contempt_ is of three sorts: not praising others as they deserve; not giving reverence where one ought; not obeying those who are over us.

_Presumption_ has six twigs: Singularity, Extravagance, and also Strife, Boasting, Scorn, Opposition.

_Vainglory_ has three small twigs: G.o.d's gifts of Nature, Fortune, and Grace.

_Hypocrisy_ is of three kinds: Foul, Foolish, Subtle.

The seventh bough of Pride is Wicked Fear and Shame.

And so with the rest of the deadly sins.

_Envy_ poisons the heart, mouth, and head.

_Hatred_ has seven twigs: Chiding, Wrath, Hate, Strife, Vengeance, Murder, War.

_Sloth_ means yielding to our natural disinclination to good and p.r.o.neness to evil, and has six divisions: Disobedience, Impatience, Murmuring, Sorrow, Desire of Death, Despair.

_Avarice_ has ten divisions: Usury, Theft, Robbery, False Claim, Sacrilege, Simony, Fraud, Chaffer, Craft, Wicked Gains.

_Gluttony_ has five kinds; _Lechery_ fourteen. It is very pedantic in form; but there is a keen insight into human frailty, and there are many shrewd hits and pithy sayings, and it is lightened by anecdotes and ill.u.s.trations. Men nowadays would not have the patience to read it; but if they did read and digest it, they might gain a great amount of self-knowledge.

Some similar treatises at the end of every deadly sin give its remedy, also minutely a.n.a.lyzed.[217] Other subjects are treated by the same method--the Seven Virtues, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, etc.

It is all dry reading, but it gives the patient reader valuable knowledge of the att.i.tude of men's minds in those days towards Christian faith and practice. An evidence of the popularity of these treatises is given by the fact that "The Parson's Tale" in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" is nothing more or less than such a treatise on penitence, divided into three parts, viz. Contrition, Confession, and Satisfaction; in the course of which the Seven Deadly Sins, with their remedies, are dealt with in the usual manner.

People bestowed a great deal of ingenuity in representing these systems of teaching by diagrams. A MS. Psalter of the thirteenth century (Arundel, 83) gives a number of them;[218] at f. 129 _verso_ is the _Arbor Vitiorum_, a tree with seven princ.i.p.al branches, viz. the Seven Deadly Sins, and their subordinate boughs and twigs as above. At f. 120 is the _Arbor Virtutum_, treated in a similar way. At f. 130 the Seven Pet.i.tions of the Lord's Prayer, the Seven Sacraments, the Seven Vices, and the Seven Virtues, are arranged in a device so as to give their relations to one another; and there are similar devices on f. 2 _verso_, and the two following pages. Such devices were sometimes painted on the walls of churches.

GRATIA.

Pax. || Contricio.

Indulgencia. || Compa.s.sio.

Concordia. || Miserecordia.

----------------- || /---------------------/ || / CARI||TAS.

|| Virginitas. || Contemplatio.

|| Puritas. | Munditia. || Paciencia. | Contricio.

Continentia. | Simplicitas. || Gaudium. | Confessio.

Cast.i.tas. | Devotio. || Disciplina. | Penitentia.

|| FIDES. || SPES.

---------------- || /------------------/ ||/ Donat' || Spiritus.

|| Vita. || Moralitas.

|| Lex. | Correctio. || Jejunium. | Moderatio.

Judicium. | Severitas. || Sobrietas. | Benignitas.

Juris | Rect.i.tudo. || Contemptus | Tolerantia.

observantia.| || mundi. | || JUSt.i.tIA. || TEMPERANTIA.

----------------- || /----------------/ ||/ Via || Vitae.

|| Timor Dei. || Quies.

Vigilancia. | Racio. || Stabilitas. | Perseverancia.

Consilium. | Tractabilitas. || Silencium. | Non deject' in | || | prosperis.

Providencia. | Discretio. || Longanimitas. | Non excess' in || prosperis.

|| PRUDENCIA. || FORt.i.tUDO.

------------------ || /-----------------/ ||/ || [Picture of [Picture of || [Picture of [Picture of Prudencia.] Justicia.] || Fort.i.tudo.] Temperancia.]

-------------------------------------------- Radix Virtutum Humilitas.

-------------------------------------------- ARBOR VIRTVTVM.

PRECIPITATIO.

|| Amor sui. || Odium dei.

Inconsideratio. || Instabilitas.

Incontinentia. || Affect' Seculi.

|| ------- Lux||uria. ------------ / || / / || / GULA. || / ACCIDIA.

|| / Eletuso sensis. | Immundicia. || /Mentis vagacio. | Pusillanimitas.

Saurilitus. | Multiloquium.||/ Occositas. | Error in fide.

Inepta Let.i.tia. | c.r.a.pula. || Tristicia. | Bonor' omissio.

|| Ebrietas. || Desperacio.

--------- || ----------- / || / / || / IRA. || / INANIS GLORIA.

|| / Rixa. | Metus Timor. || / In.o.bedientia. | Presumpcio.

Clamor. | Indignacio. ||/ Singularitas. | Jactantia.

Blasfemie. | Furor. || Discordia. | Obstructio.

|| Odium. || Ypocrisis.

|| -------- || ---------- / || / / || / AVARICIA. || / INVIDIA.

|| / Serpent/ Fraus. | Rapina. || /Doli machinatio.|Detractio.

Furta. | Prodicio. || / Scelus. |Dolor in prosperis.

Penuria. | Usura. ||/ Susurium. |Plaus in adversis.

|| Simonia. || Homicidium.

|| Figure of the angel. || Figure of B.V.M.

|| [Picture of Dives Avarus.] || [Picture of Pauper Superbus.]

------------------------------------ Radix Viciorum Superbia.

-------------------------------- ARBOR VICIORVM.