taken by the Turks. And the pontiffs in | On Heresies and Rites. From this book all their consultations on the subject of a it is evident that true religion being lost, a union since the overthrow of the Greek sort of splendid shadow was substituted in empire, have ever found the Greek bishops its place; and that every part of worship more obdurate and untractable than they was calculated for show or to gratify the were before. For there had grown up in the eyes and the senses of the people. They minds of the Greeks a hatred of the Latins, indeed offered reasons for all the ceremonies and especially of the pontiffs; because they and regulations which were called sacred. believed that the evils they experienced But in all these expositions of the reason of from their Turkish tyrants might have been the ceremonies, though there is something repelled, if the Latin pontiffs and kings of ingenuity and acuteness, yet there is had not refused to send them assistance little or nothing of truth and good sense. against the Turks. As often therefore as The origin of the numerous rites by which they deplore their misfortunes, so often also the native beauty of religion was obscured they throw blame on the Latins for their rather than adorned, is doubtful and not insensibility and their fatal tardiness to very creditable; and those who attempted afford them succour in distress. to add splendour to them by taxing their own ingenuity, were commonly forsaken by their wits at the time of the attempt. 14. Among the Latins, not to mention several minor contests, there sprang up again the celebrated controversy respecting the blood of Christ and the worship of it, which had been agitated between the Dominicans and the Franciscans in the preceding century, A.D. 1351, at Barcelona, and which had not been decided by Clement VI. James of Marchia, a celebrated Franciscan A.D. 1462, taught publicly at Brixen in a sermon to the people that the blood shed by Christ was distinct from his divine nature; and of course that it ought not to receive divine honours or the worship called latria. The contrary opinion was espoused by the Dominicans. Hence James of Brixen, the inquisitor, arraigned that Franciscan upon a charge of heresy. The pontiff Pius II. attempted in vain to suppress this controversy at the outset, and therefore he ordered it to be investigated by some select theologians. But there were many obstacles, especially the power and influence of the two orders who made this a party question between them, which prevented any final decision. Therefore after many altercations and disputes, Pius II. in the year 1464 imposed silence on the two contending parties, declaring that both opinions might be tolerated until the vicar of Christ should have leisure and opportunity for examining the subject, and determining which was the most correct opinion. Such an opportunity the pontiff's have not yet found. CHAPTER IV. HISTORY OF RITES AND CEREMONIES. 1. WITH what rites the Greeks thought God should be worshipped, may be learned from the treatise of Simeon of Thessalonica 1 Wadding's Annales Minor. tom. xiii. p. 58, &c.; Echard's Scriptores Prædicat. tom. i. p. 650, &c. Wadding's Annales Minorum, tom. xiii. p. 206, &c.; Natalis Alexander, Hist. Eccles. sæc. xv. p. 17. 2. Among the Latins, though all good men wished for a diminution of the multitude of ceremonies, feast-days, sacred places, and other minutia, yet the pontiff's considered it their duty to enact new laws and regulations respecting them. In the year 1456, Calixtus III. in perpetual remembrance of the raising of the siege of Belgrade by the Turkish emperor Mahomet II. ordered the festival of Christ's transfiguration which had previously been celebrated in some provinces by private authority, to be religiously observed over the whole Latin world. In the year 1476, Sixtus IV. by a special edict promised remission of sins to those who should religiously keep from year to year the memorial of the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin. No preceding pontiff had thought proper to ordain anything on the subject. The other additions which were made to the worship of the holy Virgin, to the public and private 6 time.-Mur. 5 The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, that is, of her being herself born free from original sin, was first advanced in the twelfth century by Peter Lombard. Thomas Aquinas disputed the doctrine, but Scotus maintained it and gave it general currency. The festival of her birth commenced as early as the eleventh century, and was then observed by certain bishops, as by Anselm of Canterbury. By other bishops of that age it was opposed.- Mur. 6 It was in this century that, among many other impious impostures connected with the worship of the Virgin Mary, the well-known legend of the transportation of her house by angels from Nazareth to Loretto took its rise, which Moore, in his View of Society and Manners in Italy, Lond. 1781, vol. i. p. 334, has so happily ridiculed. The original authorities for this silly story, which was first circulated between 1450 and 1480, may be seen in Gieseler's Lehrbuch, &c. Cunningham's transl. vol. iii. p. 314.-R. prayers, to the sale of indulgences, &c. are better omitted than enumerated particularly. For there is no need of proof that in this century religion was made to consist chiefly in mimic shows and trifling.' CHAPTER V. HISTORY OF HERESIES. 1. NEITHER the edicts of the pontiffs and emperors nor the vigilance and cruelty of the Inquisitors, could prevent the ancient sects from still lurking in many places, or even new sects from starting up. We have already seen the Franciscans waging war against the Romish church. In Bosnia and the neighbouring countries the Manichæans or Paulicians, the same as those called Cathari in Italy, organised their societies without molestation. Stephen Thomascus indeed, the king of Bosnia, abjured the heresy of the Manichæans, received baptism from John Carvaialus a Romish 1 The popes now caused indulgences to be preached in all the provinces. The ordinary price was five ducats: They promised to apply the money to a Turkish war; but they often expended it in wars against their Christian enemies, in enriching their family connexions, and supporting their voluptuous extravagance. Neither intelligent princes nor the clergy looked upon this sale of indulgences with approbation. They accordingly made ordinances of various kinds against it. For instance, the council of Soissons in the year 1456 say: "Prohibemus quibuscunque quæstionibus ne in hac provincia, prætextu indulgentiarum, prædicant verbum Dei-aut nihil in suo sermone quæstuosum exponant." In the council of Constance A.D. 1476, the clergy complained of the sale of indulgences as a grievance, and said of it: "Absurda et piarum aurium offensiva, in cancellis. verbum Dei evangelisando committunt." And they enacted, "ut deinceps quæstores ad ambones ecclesiarum non admittantur-et omnes debent quartam partem rectoribus et plebanis solvere." And in Harzheim's Concilia, tom. v. Suppl. p. 945, it is said of these venders of indulgences: "Tales collectores emunt et mercantur collecturas ab ecclesiis, x. xiii. libris denariorum, et per annum xl. 1. accumulant-multo ampliores pecunias colligunt; facinora et scandala committunt, bibunt, noctu ludunt, blasphemant, in tabernas per noctes integras turpiter consumentes, quod ad Dei honorem fideles porrexerunt."-- Schl. To clucidate this by a single example, I adduce the following from the Anecdotes Ecclesiastiques, Amsterd. 1771, 8vo, ad ann. 1499. Among the statutes of the cathedral church of Toul, there is an article with the title Sepelitur Halleluia. It is well known that during the seasons of fasting, Halleluia, as being an expression of joy, was not sung in the ancient church. Hence to honour this Halleluia, which in time of the fasts was as it were dead, a solemn funeral was instituted. On the Saturday night before Septuagesima Sunday, children carried through the chancel a kind of coffin to represent the dead Halleluia. The coffin was attended by the cross, incense, and holy water. The children wept and howled all the way to the cloister, where the grave was prepared. A custom equally ridiculous was introduced into a cathedral church near Paris. On the same day a boy of the choir brought into the church a top (toupie) around which was written Halleluia in golden letters. And when the hour arrived that Halleluia was sung for the last time, the boy took a whip in his hand and whipped the top along the floor of the church quite out of the house. And this was called the Halleluia | whip, fouetter l' Alléluia. So trifling was the character of the church ceremonies of that age, that they could even profane the churches by the plays of children.Schl. | cardinal, and then expelled the Manichæans from his kingdom. 3 But he soon after changed his mind; and it is certain that this sect continued to inhabit Bosnia, Servia, and the adjacent provinces, till the end of the century. The Waldenses collected friends and adherents in various countries of Europe, in lower Germany, and particu larly in the territories of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, and Thuringia. Yet it appears from unpublished documents that very many of them were seized by the Inquisitors, and delivered over to the secular authorities to be burned. 2. The Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, or the Beghards and Schwestriones, as they were called in Germany, or Turlupins as in France, that is, persons whose mystical views had thrown them into a species of frenzy, did not cease from wandering in disguise over certain parts of France, Germany, and the Netherlands, and especially of Swabia and Switzerland, beguiling the minds of the people. Yet few of their teachers escaped the eyes and the hands of the Inquisitors. Upon the 5 3 See Raph. Volaterranus, Comment. Urbanus, lib. viii. fol. 289, &c.; Æneas Sylvius, De Statu Europa sub Frederico III. cap. x. in Freher's Scriptores Rer. German. tom. ii. p. 104, &c. 4 The profler of indulgences to those who hunted down heretics contributed much to this. Boniface VIII. had already promised an indulgence to every one who should deliver over a heretic to the Inquisition; and he ordained that this should be considered as equally meritorious with a crusade to the Holy Land. This ordinance was renewed by the council of Pavia. See Harduin, Concilia, tom. viii. p, 1013, &c. So the provincial council of Constance A.D. 1483. promised indulgences to all those who should lend their personal aid against the heresies of Wickliffe and Huss. See Harzheim's Concilia German, tom. v. p. 546.- Schl. 5 Felix Malleolus or Hämmerlein in his Descriptio Lollhardorum, which is subjoined to his book Contra Falidos Mendicantes, Opp. signat. c. ii. a. has drawn up a catalogue, though an imperfect one, of the Beghards burned in Switzerland and the adjacent countries during this century. This Felix in his books against the Beghards and Lollhards (either intentionally or being deceived by the ambiguity of the terms), has confounded the three classes of persons on whom the appellation of Beghards or Lollhards was usually be stowed-namely (1) the Tertiaries of the more rigid Franciscans, (2) the Brethren of the Free Spirit, and (3) the Cellite Brethren or Alexians. The same error occurs in countless other writers. [See also Harzheim's Concil, German. tom. v. p. 464, where there is an ordinance of the provincial council of Constance, A.D. 1463, and another A.D. 1476, against the Lulhards and Begutte and especially the Tertiarii. Here doubtless belongs what John Nieder states in his Formicarium, lib. iii.:-"Fuit Fratricellus seu Beghardus secularis, qui in eremo austeram vitam vixit, et durissimam regulam tenuita Constantino episcopo captus per inquisitorem judicio seculari traditus et incineratus fuit. Alius fuit, qui velut Beghardus infra Rhenumtandem Vienna in Pictaviensi diœcesi incineratus est. Dicebat, 'Christum in se, et se in Christo esse.' Currit in partibus Suevice, inter personas utriusque sexus, seculares et ecclesiasticas, hæresis et hypocrisis tam enormis, ut eam ad plenum exprimere non audeam. Omnia licere; non jejunant, occulte laborant in festis ecclesiæ; ceremonias omnes, tanquam animalium hominum, spernunt; virginitatem-superstitiones esse; pro minimo ducunt, non obedire papæ aut pastcríbus aliis. Sacerdos quidam feminis persuasit, verecundiani breaking out of the religious war in Bohe- | also called Adamites, because they wished mia between the Hussites and the adherents to follow the example of Adam in his state of the pontiffs in the year 1418, a company of innocence. The ignominious name of of these piously-infatuated people, of whom Beghards, or as the Bohemians pronounced one John was the leader, went into Bohe-it Picards, which was the appropriate demia; and they held their secret meetings signation of this little company, was afterfirst at Prague, afterwards in other places, wards transferred by their enemies to all and lastly in a certain island. It was one those Hussites and Bohemians who conof the tenets of this sect, as has been already tended with the Romish church; for these stated, that those instincts of nature, bash- as is well known were called by the comfulness and modesty, indicate a mind not mon people the Picard Brethren. duly purified and not yet brought back to the divine nature whence it originated; and that those only are perfect and in close union with God who are unmoved by the sight of naked bodies, and who can associate with persons of a different sex in a state of nudity or with no clothing, after the manner of our first parents before their apostacy. Hence these Beghards who, by a slight change in the pronunciation of the name conformably to the harder utterance of the Bohemians, were called Picards, ordinarily went to their prayers and their religious worship without clothing. For this precept, so entirely accordant with their religion, was frequently upon their lips: They are not free (that is, not duly rescued from the bonds of the body and converted to God) who wear clothing, and especially breeches. Although these people in their assemblies committed no offence against chastity, yet as might be expected they fell under the greatest suspicion of extreme turpitude and unchastity. And John Ziska, the fierce general of the Hussites, giving credit to these suspicions, attacked the unhappy company of these absurdly religious and delirious people, in the year 1421, slew some of them and wished to commit the rest to the flames. The unhappy men submitted to execution cheerfully in the manner of their intrepid sect, which looked upon death with aston-land that this sect came, and that their leader gave ishing indifference.1 These people were abnegandam; coram clericis talibus se denudarunt, sed 3. In Italy, the new sect of the White Brethren or the Brethren in White (Fratres Albati seu Candidi) produced no little excitement among the people. Near the beginning of the century a certain unknown priest descended from the Alps, clad in a white garment, with an immense number of people of both sexes in his train, all clothed like their leader in white linen; whence their name of the White Brethren. This multitude marched through various provinces, following a cross borne by the leader of the sect; and he by a great show of piety so captivated the people, that numberless persons of every rank flocked around him. He exhorted them to appease the wrath of God, inflicted on himself voluntary punishments, recommended a war against the Turks who were in possession of Palestine, and pretended to have divine visions. Boniface IX. fearing some plot, ordered the leader of this body to be apprehended and committed to the flames. After his death the multitude gradually dispersed. Whether the man died in innocence or in guilt is not ascertained. For some writers of the greatest fidelity assert that he was by [See especially Æneas Sylvius, Historia Bohemica, cap. xli.-Schl The Germans also frequently pronounced the word Beghard, Pyckard. See Menkenius, Scriptores Germin. tom. ii. p. 1521. 3 Theodoric de Niem tells us that it was from Scot himself out for the prophet Elias. Sigonius and Platina inform us that this enthusiast came from France; and that he was clothed in white, carried in his aspect the greatest modesty, and seduced prodigious numbers of people of both sexes and of all ages; that his followers (called penitents), among whom were several cardinals and priests, were clothed in white linen down to their heels, with caps that covered their whole faces except their eyes; that they went in great troops of ten, twenty, and forty thousand persons from one city to another, calling out for mercy and singing hymns; that wherever they came they were received with great hospitality and made innumerable proselytes; that they fasted or lived upon bread and water during the time of their pilgrimage, which continued generally nine or ten days. See Annal. Mediol. ap. Muratori.-Niem, lib. ii. cap. xvi.-Macl 4 What Mosheim hints but obscurely here is further explained by Sigonius and Platina, who tell us that the pilgrims mentioned in the preceding note stopped at Viterbo, and that Boniface, fearing lest the priest who headed them designed by their assistance to seize upon the pontificate, sent a body of troops thither who apprehended the false prophet, and carried him to Roue where he was burned.—Macl. 5. In Germany, and particularly in Thus ringia and Lower Saxony, the Flagellantwere still troublesome; but they were very different from those earlier Flagellants who travelled in regular bands from province to province. These new Flagellants rejected almost all [practical] religion and the ex sacraments, and founded all their hopes of salvation on faith and flagellation; to which perhaps they might add some strange notions respecting an evil spirit, and some other things which are but obscurely stated by the ancient writers. The leader of the sect in Thuringia and particularly at Sangerhausen was one Conrad Schmidt, who was burned in the year 1414 with many others, by the zeal and industry of Henry Schönefeld, a famous Inquisitor at that time in Germany. At Quedlinburg, one Nicholas Schaden was committed to the flames. At Halberstadt A.D. 1481, Berthold Schade was seized, but escaped death it appears by retracting. And from the records of those times a long list might be made out of Flagellants who were committed to the flames in Germany by the Inquisitors. 4 no means a bad man, and that he was put to death from envy; but others say he was convicted of the most atrocious crimes.1 4. In the year 1411 there was discovered in the Netherlands, and especially at Brussels, a sect which was projected and propagated by Egidius Cantor, an illiterate man, and William of Hildenissen, a Car-ternal worship of God, together with the melite, and which was called that of the Men of Understanding. In this sect there were not a few things deservedly reprehensible, which were derived perhaps in great measure from the mystic system. For these men professed to have divine visions, denied that any one can correctly understand the holy Scriptures unless he is divinely illuminated, promised a new divine revelation better and more perfect than the Christian, taught that the resurrection had taken place already in the person of Christ, and that another of the bodies of the dead was not to be expected, maintained that the internal man is not defiled by the deeds of the external, and inculcated that hell itself will have an end, and that all, both men and devils, will return to God and attain to eternal felicity. This sect appears to have been a branch of the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit; for they asserted that a new law of the Holy Spirit and of spiritual liberty was about to be promulgated. Yet there were opinions held by its members which show that they were not entirely void of understanding. They inculcated for example-I. that Jesus Christ alone had merited eternal life for the human race, neither could men acquire for themselves future bliss by their own deeds; II. that presbyters to whom people confess their iniquities cannot pardon sins, but that only Jesus Christ forgives men their sins; III. that voluntary penances are not necessary to salvation. Yet these and some other tenets, Peter de Alliaco, the bishop of Cam-eternal salvation. [The same thing appears also from bray who broke up this sect, pronounced to be heretical, and commanded William of Hildenissen to abjure.❜ 1 See Lenfant's Hist. du Concile de Pise, tome i. p. 102: Poggius, Hist. Florentina, lib. iii. p. 122, Sabellicus, Enneades Rhapsodice Historia, Enneas IX, lib. ix. Opp. tom. ii. p. 839, Basil, 1560, fol. p. 2 See the records in Baluze's Miscellanea, tom. ii. 277, &c. [The mystical principles of these people are evinced by a passage of these records, in which Ægidius is said to have taught: "Ego sum salvator hominum; per me videbunt Christum, sicut per Christum Patrem,' and also by their coincidence with the Brethren of the Free Spirit, as teaching that the period of the old law was the time of the Father, the period of the new law the time of the Son, and the remaining period that of the Holy Ghost or Ellas. Yet it is manifest from these vain. On the contrary, whoever believes simply what the fifty Articles of this Flagellant, which were conin Von der Hardt's Acta Concilii Constant. tom. i. par. demned in the council of Constance, and may be seen i. p. 127. In the same Acts (tom. iii. p. 92. &c.) we find a letter of John Gerson addressed to Vincent Ferrerius, who was much inclined towards the sect of the Flagellants, dated July 9th, 1417. This letter is also in the works of Gerson published by Du Pin, tom Ii. par. iv. together with his tract, Contra Sectam Flagellantium.- Schl. [See several of the doctrines of the Flagellants in Gieseler's Lehrbuch, &c. Cunningham's transl. vol. iii. p. 133, &c. He refers to a work by Förstemann, entitled Die Christ. Geisslergesellschaften, Halle, 1828, royal 8vo, as the most recent on this fanatical sect.-R. 4 The records of this transaction were published by Kappius, in his Relatio de Rebus Theologicis Antiquis et Noris, A.D. 1747, p. 475, &c. END OF BOOK III. |