§ 72. St. Dominic and the Dominicans.
§ 72. St. Dominic and the Dominicans.
Literature.—The earliest Life by Jordanus, Dominic’s successor as head of the order: de principiis ordinis praedicatorum in Quétif-Echard, who gives five other early biographies (Bartholomew of Trent, 1244–1251, Humbert de Romanis, 1250, etc.), and ed. by J. J. Berthier, Freib., i. Schw., 1892.—H. D. Lacordaire, d. 1861: Vie de S. Dominique, Paris, 1840, 8th ed. 1882. Also Hist. Studies of the Order of S. Dom. 1170-1221, Engl. trans., N. Y., 1869.—E. Caro: S. Dom. et les Dominicains, Paris, 1853.—A. T. Drane: Hist. of St. Dom., Founder of the Friar Preachers, London, 1891.—Balme et Lelaidier: Cartulaire ou hist. diplomatique de S. Dom., Paris, 1892.—J. Guiraud: S. Dom., Paris, 2d ed., 1899.—For titles of about thirty lives, see Potthast, II. 1272.—Quétif-Echard: Script. ord. Praedicatorum, 2 vols. Paris, 1719–1721.—Ripoll and Bermond: Bullarium ord. Praed., 8 vols. Rome, 1737 sqq.—Mamachi: Annal. ord. Praed., Rome, 1756.—Monumenta ord. fratrum Praed. hist., ed. by B. M. Reichert, Louvaine and Rome, 10 vols., 1897–1901. Vol. III. gives the acts of the general chapters of the order, 1220–1308.—A. Danzas: Etudes sur les temps primitifs de l’ordre de S. Dom., Paris, 1873–1885.—*Denifle: Die Constitutionen des Predigerordens vom Jahre 1228, and Die Constitutionen des Raymunds von Peñaforte 1238–1241 in Archiv für Lit. und Kirchengesch., 1885, pp. 165–227 and 1889, 530–565.—Helyot: Bel. Orders.—Lea: Hist. of Inquisition, I. 242–304, etc. Wetzer-Welte, art. Dominicus, III. 1931–1945.—W. Lescher: St. Dominic and the Rosary, London, 1902.—H. Holzapfel: S. Dom. und der Rosenkranz, Munich, 1903.
The Spaniard, Dominic, founder
of the order of preachers, usually called the Dominicans,858 lacks the genial personal
element of the saint of Assisi, and his career has little to correspond to the
romantic features of his contemporary’s career. Dominic was of resolute
purpose, zealous for propagating the orthodox faith, and devoted to the Church
and hierarchy. His influence has been through the organization he created, and
not through his personal experiences and contact with the people of his age.
This accounts for the small number of biographies of him as compared with the
large number of Francis.
Domingo, or Dominic, was born 1170 at Calaroga, Spain, and died Aug. 6, 1121, in Bologna.859 His mother, Juana of Aza, is worshipped as a saint in the Dominican ritual. At seven the son passed under the priestly instruction of an uncle. Ten years were subsequently spent at Palencia in the study of philosophy and theology, and he is said to have excelled as a student. About 1195, he was made canon at Osma, which gives its name to the episcopal diocese, within whose bounds he was born. In 1203 he accompanied his bishop, Diego d’Azeveda, to France860 on a mission to secure a bride for the son of Alfonzo VIII. of Castile. This and subsequent journeys across the Pyrenees brought him into contact with the Albigenses and the legates despatched by Innocent III. to take measures to suppress heresy in Southern France. Dominic threw himself into the movement for suppressing heresy and started upon a tour of preaching. At Prouille in the diocese of Toulouse, he erected an asylum for girls to offset the schools established by the Albigenses, for the training of the daughters of impoverished noblemen. He was on intimate terms with Simon de Montfort, but, so far as is known, he took no active part in the Albigensian crusade except as a spiritual adviser.861 His attempt to establish a mission for the conversion of heretics received the support of Fulke, bishop of Toulouse, who in 1215 granted him one-sixth of the tithes of his diocese. Among the first to ally themselves to Dominic was Peter Cellani, a citizen of Toulouse, who gave him a house.
An epoch in Dominic’s career was his visit in Rome during the sessions of the Fourth Lateran Council, when he received encouragement from Innocent III. who declined to assent to the proposal of a new order and bade him adopt one of the existing monastic constitutions.862 Dominic chose the rule of the canons regular of St. Augustine,863 adopted the black dress of the Augustinians, and built the convent of St. Romanus at Toulouse. He was again in Rome from September, 1216, to Easter, 1217. Honorius II. in 1216 approved the organization, and confirmed it in the possession of goods and houses. An unreliable tradition states that Honorius also conferred upon Dominic the important office of Master of the Palace, magister palatii. The office cannot be traced far beyond Gregory IX.864
The legendary accounts of his life represent the saint at this time as engaged in endless scourgings and other most rigorous asceticisms. Miracles, even to the raising of the dead, were ascribed to him.
In 1217 Dominic sent out monks to start colonies. The order took quick root in large cities,—Paris, Bologna, and Rome,—the famous professor of canon law at Paris, Reginald, taking its vows. Dominic himself in 1218 established two convents in Spain, one for women in Madrid and one for men at Seville. The first Dominican house in Paris, the convent of St. Jacques, gave the name Jacobins to the Dominicans in France and Jacobites to the party in the French Revolution which held its meetings there. In 1224 St. Jacques had one hundred and twenty inmates. The order had a strong French element and included in its prayers a prayer for the French king. From France, the Dominicans went into Germany. Jordanus and other inmates of St. Jacques were Germans. They quickly established themselves, in spite of episcopal prohibitions and opposition from other orders, in Cologne, Worms, Strassburg, Basel, and other German cities.865 In 1221 the order was introduced into England, and at once settled in Oxford.866 The Blackfriars Bridge, London, carries in its name the memory of their great friary in that city.
The first General Chapter was held 1220 in Bologna. Dominic preached with much zeal in Northern Italy. He died, lying on ashes, at Bologna, Aug. 6, 1221, and lies buried there in the convent of St. Nicholas, which has been adorned by the art of Nicholas of Pisa and Michael Angelo. As compared with the speedy papal recognition of Francis and Anthony of Padua, the canonization of the Spanish saint followed tardily, thirteen years after his death, July 13, 1234.867
At the time of Dominic’s death, the preaching friars had sixty convents scattered in the provinces of Provence, Northern France, Spain, Lombardy, Italy, England, Germany, and Hungary, each of which held its own chapter yearly. To these eight provinces, by 1228, four others had been added, Poland, Denmark, Greece, and Jerusalem.868 Combined they made up the General Chapter. Each of the provinces was presided over by a provincial or provincial prior, and the convents by a prior or sub prior. The title and dignity of abbot were not assumed. At the head of the whole body stands a grand-master.869 Privilege after privilege was conferred by the Holy See, including the important right to preach anywhere and everywhere.870 The constitutions of 1228 are the earliest we possess, but they are not the oldest. They were revised under Raymund de Peñaforte, the third general.871
Mendicancy was made the rule of the order at the first General Chapter, 1220.872 The example of St. Francis was followed, and the order, as well as the individual monk, renounced all right to possess property. The mendicant feature was, however, never emphasized as among the Franciscans. It was not a matter of conscience with the Dominicans, and the order was never involved in divisions over the question of holding property. The obligation of corporate poverty was wholly removed by Sixtus IV., 1477. Dominic’s last exhortation to his followers was that, they should have love, do humble service, and live in voluntary poverty."873 But the precept never seems to have been taken much to heart by them.
Unlike the man of Assisi, Dominic did not combine manual labor with the other employments of his monks. For work with their hands he substituted study and preaching. The Dominicans were the first monastics to adopt definite rules of study. When Dominic founded St. Jacques in Paris, and sent seventeen of his order to man that convent, he instructed them to "study and preach." Cells were constructed at Toulouse for study.874 A theological course of four years in philosophy and theology was required before a license was given to preach,875 and three years more of theological study followed it.
Preaching and the saving of souls were defined as the chief aim of the order.876 Humbert de Romanis, its fifth general, declared that the end of the order was not study, but that study was most necessary for preaching and the salvation of souls. Study, said another, is ordained for preaching, and preaching for the salvation of men, and this is the final end.877 No one was permitted to preach outside the cloister until he was twenty-five.878 And for preaching they were not to receive money or other gifts, except food. As Vincent Ferrer and Savonarola were the most renowned of the Dominican preachers of the Middle Ages, so Lacordaire was their most renowned orator in the nineteenth century. The mission of the Dominicans was predominantly with the upper classes. They represented the patrician element among the orders.
The annals of the Inquisition give to the Dominican order large space. The Dominicans were the most prominent and zealous, "inquisitors of heretical depravity." Dante had this in mind when he characterized Dominic as "Good to his friends, dreadful, to his enemies," "Benigno ai suoi ed ai nimici crudo."879
In 1232 the conduct of the Inquisition was largely committed to their care. Northern France, Spain, and Germany fell to their lot.880 The stern Torquemada was a Dominican, and the atrocious measures which were afterwards employed to spy out and punish ecclesiastical dissent, have left an indelible blot upon the name of the order. The student of history must regard those efforts to maintain the orthodox faith as heartless, even though it may not have occurred to the participants to so consider them. The order’s device, given by Honorius, was a dog bearing a lighted torch in his mouth, the dog to watch, the torch to illuminate the world. The picture in their convent S. Maria Novella, at Florence, represents the place the order came to occupy as hunters of heretics. It portrays dogs dressed in the Dominican colors, black and white, chasing away foxes, which stand for heretics, while pope and emperor, enthroned and surrounded by counsellors, look on with satisfaction at the scene. It was in connection with his effort to exterminate heresy that Dominic founded, in 1220, the "soldiery of Christ," composed of men and women, married and unmarried. Later, the order called itself the Brothers and Sisters of Penitence, or the Third Order, or Tertiaries of St. Dominic. As was the case with the Franciscan Tertiaries, some of them lived a conventual life.
The rosary also had a prominent place in the history of the Dominicans. An untrustworthy tradition assigns to Dominic its first use. During the crusades against the Albigenses, Mary, so the story runs, appeared to Dominic, and bade him use the rosary as a means for the conversion of the heretics. It consists of fifteen pater nosters and one hundred and fifty ave Marias, told off in beads. The Dominicans early became devotees of the rosary, but soon had rivals in the Carmelites for the honor of being the first to introduce it. The notorious Dominican inquisitor and hunter of witches, Jacob Sprenger, founded the first confraternity of the rosary. Pius V. ascribed the victory of Lepanto, 157l, to its use. In recent times Pius IX. and Leo XIII. have been ardent devotees of the rosary. Leo, in his encyclical of Sept. 1, 1883, ascribed its introduction to the great Dominic, as a balm for the wounds of his contemporaries." This encyclical represents Mary as "placed on the highest summit of power and glory in heaven … who is to be besought that, by her intercession, her devout Son may be appeased and softened as to the evils which afflict us."881
Leo XIII. paid highest honor to the Dominicans when he pronounced Thomas Aquinas the authoritative teacher of Catholic theology and morals, and the patron of Catholic schools.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa, II. (2), 188, 6 sqq., Migne, III. 1372 sqq., combines the active and contemplative features of the monastic life, as did Benedict of Nursia, but laying more stress than the latter upon the active feature. It must be remembered that Thomas was a Dominican, and had had full experience of the practical activity of the two great mendicant orders.
This is the classification of Harnack, Monasticism, 44 sqq. Denifle, Luther und Lutherthum, I. 199 sqq., who fiercely combats Harnack, says "it is the height of misunderstanding, Unverstand, to speak of Jesuitism as monastic."
Dial., I. 21; Strange ed. I. 28.
Dial., I. 18.
Dial., I. 24.
Dial., I. 17; Strange ed. I. 24.
See Church, Life of St. Anselm, chap. III., The Discipline of a Norman Monastery.
In England the gentry class was especially drawn upon. See Jessopp, p 161. At Morimond, Otto son of the margrave of Austria stopped overnight with fifteen young nobles. The sound of the bells and the devotions of the monks made such an impression that they prayed to be received into the brotherhood. Henry, son of Louis VI., was so moved by what he saw on a visit to Clairvaux that he determined to take the vow. See Morison, Life of St. Bernard, p. 195.
Montalembert lays stress upon intercessory prayer as the chief service rendered by the monastery of the West. "They prayed much, they prayed always for those whose prayers were evil or who prayed not at all."Monks of the West, Engl. trans., I. 42 sq.
Canon 13.
This has been sufficiently shown by Lea, Absolution Formula of the Templars, in Papers of Am. Soc. of Ch. Hist., vol. V.; also Hefele, V. 381. As late, however, as the thirteenth century there were monks in England who had not received priestly ordination. See Stevenson, Life of Grosseteste, 158.In the fifth century the consecration of the monk was treated in some quarters as a distinct sacrament.
It would be difficult to find more attractive pictures of earthly happiness than are given in the descriptions of mediaeval convents by eye-witnesses, as of the convent of Clairvaux by William of St. Thierry, Migne, 185, 248, and Peter de Roya, Migne, 182, 710.
It was even compared to the conversion of St. Paul. See Eicken, 324. Caesar of Heisterbach devotes a chapter of his Dialogus to conversion, that is, the assumption of the monastic vow. Canon 13 of the Fourth Lateran, Mansi, XXII. 1002, speaks of monastics as "the religious," of the orders as "religions," and of entering a convent as "being converted to religion." So Martin V. at the Council of Constance, 1418, charges Wyclif with declaring that "all religions owe their origin to the devil," that is, all orders. Mirbt, Quellen, 158.
St. Bernard, Ep.; 112; Migne, 182, 255 sq.
Chronicle, VII. 35, where he passes a lengthy panegyric upon monks. For another pleasing description of a convent and its appointments, see the account which Ingulph, abbot of Croyland, gives of the burning of his abbey in 1091. He does not forget to mention that "the very casks full of beer in the cellar were destroyed." See Maitland, 286-292.
Ep., II. 29; Migne, 158, 1182.
Ep., II. 28; Migne, 1180, conspirituales as well as consanguinei. A similar exhortation he directs to his two uncles. Ep., I. 45. See Hasse, Life of Anselm, I. 93 sqq. Anselm, however, knew how to make, an exception where a layman was devoting himself entirely to religious works. Visiting the Countess Matilda, shortly before her death, he recommended her not to take the veil, as she was doing more good in administering her estates than she might be able to do behind convent walls. Nevertheless he recommended her to have a nun’s dress within reach so that she might put it on when dying.
De vita claustrali, Migne, 172, 1247.
Sermo de diversis 37, quomodo non jam nunc estis sicut angeli Dei in caelo, a nuptiis penitus abstinentes, etc. Migne, 183, 641. Comp. 184, 703 sq.
Ordericus Vitalis, VII. 14. For the case of Hugh of Grantmesnil, see Order. Vit., VII. 28.
See Caesar of Heisterbach, Dial., XI. 6, 19, etc.; pulsata est tabula defunctorum pro eo. Strange ed. II. 274, also Hodges, Fountains Abbey, p. 115.
Guido said of his brother St. Bernard, "One thing I know and am assured of by experience that many things have been revealed to him in prayer." Migne, 185, 262.
Eos sibi derisiorie astitisse.
Praeterea quosdam nocturnis horis, aliis quiescentibus sancta orationum furta quaerentes et eadem causa claustrum et ecclesiam peragrantes, multis aliquando terroribus appetebant ita ut in eorum aliquos visibiliter, irruerent et ad terram verberando prosternerent. De miraculis, I. 17; Migne, 189, 883.
De mirac., I. 14; Migne, 189, 877.
Caesar of Heisterbach, Dial., IV. 30, VII. 24. See Kaufmaun’s ed., II. 87, note.
Ep., II. 12; Migne, 158, 1161 sqq.
Temple Classics ed., vol. VII.
Qui claustra construit vel delapsa reparat coelum ascensurus scalam sibi facie, quoted by Hurter, IV. 450. The Norman convent Les deux Amoureux got its name and foundation from the disappointed love of a poor knight and a young lady whose father refused her to the lover except on condition of his carrying her to the top of a distant hill. The knight made the attempt and fell dead on accomplishing the task, she quickly following him.
See Montalembert, I. 66.
Casa Dei, House of God; Vallis Domini, the Lord’s Valley, Portus Salutis, Gate of Salvation; Ascende Coelum, Ascent of Heaven; Lucerna; Claravallis, etc. Map, I. 24; Wright’s ed., p. 40.
The luxury and pomp of Cluny called forth the well-known protest of St. Bernard.
See art. Abbey, in "Enc. Brit.," by Dr. Venable, and also Jessopp, and especially Gasquet, pp. 13-37.
The term "convent" primarily means a society of persons. In legal instruments the usual form in England in the Middle Ages was "the prior and convent of." See Jessopp, p. 119, who calls attention to the endless bickerings and lawsuits in which the mediaeval convents of England were engaged. For the monk in his monastery, see Taunton, I. 65-96.
At one time Cluny cared for 17,000 poor. In the famine of 1117 the convent of Heisterbach, near Cologne, fed 1500 a day. In a time of scarcity Bernard supported 2000 peasants till the time of harvest
Hauck, IV. 312.
Hauck, IV. 401 sqq., says that there were not many abbesses in Germany like Hildegard and Elizabeth of Schönau. The complaints of corrupt monks and nuns came from Saxony, Swabia, Lorraine, the Rhine land, and Switzerland. See quotations in Hauck.
Gesta pontificum, Rolls Series, p. 70, as quoted by Taunton, I. 22. William says, "The monks of Canterbury, like all then in England, amused themselves with hunting, falconry, and horse racing. They loved the rattle of dice, drink, and fine clothes, and had such a retinue of servants that they were more like seculars than monks."
Religio peperit divitias, divitiae, religionem destruxerunt, Hom. III. 96. Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, says that in England the monks of the thirteenth century were better than their age, which is not difficult of belief.
Monks, were declared by the synod of Nismes, 1096, to be better qualified for ruling than the secular clergy. Hefele, V. 244.
For lists, see Helyot and Dr. Littledale’s art. Monachism, "Enc. Brit."
Ep., III. 38; Migne, 214, 921.
Ep., 97; Migne, 207, 304 sq. Speaking of the variety of expression which Christ allows, he says in a way worthy of a modern advocate of the Evangelical Alliance, ipsa varietas est uniformitatis causa.
See the remarkable passage quoted by Seeberg, Duns Scotus, 478 sq.
Matthew Paris gives one case after the other, as do the other English chroniclers. Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, says that the history of mediaeval English monasticism is made up of stories of everlasting litigation. The convents were always in trouble with their bishops.
Bishop Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. 329, says of the English monasteries that they were the stronghold of papal influence which the pope supported as a counterpoise to that of the diocesan bishops. For this reason the popes never made appointments of English abbots, and seldom, if ever, interfered with the elections by the monks
Dr. Jessopp, p. 155, says of the English monks: "After all, it must be confessed that the greatest of all delights to the thirteenth-century monks was eating and drinking. The dinner in a great abbey was clearly a very important event of the day. It must strike any one who knows much of the literature of this age, that the weak point in the monastic life of the thirteenth century was the gormandizing." He says, however, that little is heard of drunkenness. The ale brewed in the convents was an important item in the year’s menu. Richard of Marisco, bishop of Durham, gave the Abbey of St. Albans the tithes of Eglingham, Northumberland, to help the monks make a better ale, "taking compassion upon the weakness of the convent’s drink."
See Hauck, III. 493. "Das Mönchthum," he says, "war in Lothringen die führende Macht."
The Fourth Lateran instructed them to meet every three years.
Hauck, III. 442.
So also were the abbots of Bury St. Edmunds, St. Augustine at Canterbury, Croyland, Peterborough, Evesham, Glastonbury, and Gloucester; but the abbot of Glastonbury had the precedence, till Adrian IV. gave it to the abbot of St. Albans.
M. Paris and other English chroniclers are continually damning these Mendicant tax gatherers for their extortion. They were raising money for the pope in England as early as 1234.
Hurter, Innocent III., IV. 238. Gasquet gives an elaborate list of the monastic houses of England, pp. 251-318, and an account of the religious orders represented in England, together with instructive engravings, 211 sqq. According to Gasquet’s list there were more than fifteen hundred conventual houses in England alone.
The town now has four thousand inhabitants.
Hauck, III. 596, thinks there is no doubt Gregory was a Cluniac.
Hauck, III. 345 sqq.
A list of the German convents adopting the rule of Cluny, or a modified form of it, is given by Hauck, III. 863.
William erected new buildings at Hirschau to accommodate the large accessions of monks and founded a scriptorum and a library. Among his writings was a work on music, de musica et tonis. Hirschau was turned into a Protestant school by Duke Christoph, 1556. Its buildings were destroyed by the army of Louis XIV. The ruins are among the most venerable monuments of Württemberg.
Gundrada had visited Cluny. On her tombstone was placed the inscription Intulit ecclesiis Anglorum balsama morum, "she brought the balm of good manners to the churches of England." See Stephens, p. 254.
When the monasteries were repressed by Henry VIII., there were thirty-two Cluniac houses in England. Gasquet, 218. Taunton, I. 27, speaks of thirty-eight houses and three hospitals in London belonging to the Cluniacs.
The wide-sleeved over-garment stretching to the feet. The mitre, the distinctive cap of the bishop, was also frequently sent to abbots. One of the first instances was its presentation by Alexander II. to the abbot of St. Augustine of Canterbury. The abbot of Fulda received it and also the ring from Innocent II., 1137.
See Migne, 189, 1026 sqq. The volume contains Peter’s works.
Liber duo illustrium miraculorum. A translation of the Koran was made under Peter’s patronage. A revised edition by Bibliander was published at Basel, 1543. These works are contained in Migne, vol. 189, 507-903, which also prints Peter’s letters and sermons, and the hymns which are ascribed to him.
Apologia ad Guillelmum. Migne, 182, 895-918.
To this charge Peter replied that such property was much better in the hands of the monks than of wild laymen.
Ep., I. 28; Migne, 189, 156. A number of Peter’s letters to Bernard are preserved, all of them laying stress upon the exercise of brotherly affection. In strange contrast to his usual gentleness, stands his sharp arraignment of the Jews. See § 77 on Missions to the Jews.
The election of the abbot was taken out of the hands of the monks. During the Avignon captivity the popes, and later the French king, claimed the right to appoint that official. The Guises had the patronage of the abbey for nearly a hundred years. In 1627 Richelieu was appointed abbot.
The Hotel de Cluny was a stopping place for distinguished people. There Mary, sister of Henry VIII. of England, resided during her widowhood and there James V. of Scotland was married, 1537, to Madeleine, daughter of Francis I. The municipality of Cluny purchased the abbey buildings and in part dismantled them.
See Schaff, Christ in Song, and Julian, Hymnology.
Cardinal Hergenröther says, "The Cistercians reached a much higher distinction than the order of Cluny." Kirchengesch., II. 351.
In England they were careful breeders of horses (Giraldus Cambrensis, Speculum ecclesiae, IV. 130, and Brewer’s Preface, IV. 24) and were noted for their sheep and wool. Their wool was a popular article of royal taxation. John seized a year’s product to meet the payment of Richard’s ransom. M. Paris, Luard’s ed., II. 399. Henry III. forbade the monks to sell their wool. Henry II., 1257, taxed it heavily, etc. M. Paris, IV. 324, V. 610. See Stubbs, Const. Hist., I.541, II. 181, 200.
The name comes from the stagnant pools in the neighborhood.
He died on a Crusade. At his request his bones were taken back and buried at Citeaux, which became the burial place of his successors.
See Helyot, V. 404. According to Hauck, IV. 337, the Cistercians were the first to introduce into Germany the exaggerated cult of the Virgin.
He was a man of much administrative ability. William of Malmesbury, IV. 1, speaks of Stephen as "the original contriver of the whole scheme, the especial and celebrated ornament of our times." It is related that on a journey to Rome, and before entering Citeaux, he repeated the whole Psalter. Basil had enjoined the memorizing of the Psalter. According to the biographer of abbot Odo of Cluny, the monks of Cluny daily repeated 138 Psalms. Maitland, p. 375.
Janauschek has shown that 1800, the number formerly given, is an exaggeration.
Hurter, IV. 184 sqq.
Peter de Roya, Ep. St. Bernard, 492; Migne, 182, 711.
Hauck, IV. 336.
One of the regulations of the chapter of 1134 enjoined silence in the scriptorium. In omnibus scriptoriis ubicunque ex consuetudine monachi scribunt silentium teneatur sicut in claustro. Maitland, p. 450.
The Cistercians are said to have produced the first Swedish translation of the Bible. Hurter, IV. 180.
St. Bernard declared that the office of the monk is not to preach, but to be an ascetic, and that the town should be to him as a prison, and solitude as paradise, quod monachus non habet docentis sed plangentis officium, quippe cui oppidum carcer esse debet et solitudo paradisus. A monk who goes out into the world, he said, turns things round and makes his solitude a prison and the town paradise. Ep., 365; Migne, 182, 570.
Called at Hirschau also barbati, the bearded.
See Hauck, IV. 326 sqq., for the names of the German houses.
Shortly after Harding’s death, William of Malmesbury, IV. I, Rolls ed., II. 385, describes the order "as a model for all monks, a mirror to the studious, and a goad to the slothful." Gasquet, p. 221, says that three-fourths of the hundred Cistercian houses suppressed by Henry VIII. were founded in the 12th century.
The ruins of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire is described by Motley (correspondence, I. 359) as "most picturesque, and the most exquisite, and by far the most impressive ruins I have ever seen, and much more beautiful than Melrose Abbey." For the ground plan, see Dr. Venables, art. Abbey, in Enc. Brit.," I. 19, and photographs of the walls (as they are). Hodges.
Stephens, Hist. of Engl. Church, p. 201.
As early as 1223 such Cistercians are called fugitives by the General Chapter. Contrasting the Cistercians with the Dominicans, Matthew Paris, an. 1255, Luard’s ed., V. 529, says of them, "They do not wander through the cities and towns, but they remain quietly shut up within the walls of their domiciles, obeying their superior."
Ep., 126; Migne, 182, 271.
Vita prima, III. 1; Migne, 185, 303. Gaufrid, the biographer, presents an elaborate description of his qualities. He says, Bernard was magnanimus in fide, longanimis in spe, profusus in charitate, summur in humilitate, praecipuus in pietate. Alanus in Vita secunda, XVII. 47, Migne, 185, 497, gives this high praise, humanissimus in affectione, magis tamen forte in fide.
This was the judgment of Philip Schaff, Literature and Poetry, p. 282. Bernard not seldom used in his letters such expressions as this, Nonne ego puer parvulus, Am I not as a little child? Ep., 365; Migne, 182, 570.
The document is given in Migne, 185, 622 sq.
Calvin says, Inst. IV. 2, 11, "in his de consideratione Bernard speaks as though the very truth itself were speaking." Luther, directed to Bernard by Staupitz, studied his works, and often appealed to his words. Köstlin, Life of Luther, I. 81. He praised Bernard for not having depended upon his monk’s vow, but upon the free grace of Christ for salvation. Denifle, Luther und Lutherthum, I. 56-64, tries to make out that Luther falsified when he represented Bernard as putting aside, as it were, his monastic profession as a thing meritorious. Luther, in an animated passage, declared that at the close of his life Bernard had exclaimed, tempus meum perdidi quia perdite vixi, "I have lost my time because I have lived badly, but there is one thing that consoles me, a contrite and broken heart Thou dost not despise." You see, said Luther, how Bernard hung his cowl on the hook and returned to Christ. It seems, according to Denifle, that the two clauses were not uttered at the same time by Bernard. The exclamation, "I have lost my life," was made in a sermon on the Canticles, Migne, 183, 867, and the other part was said by Bernard in a time of severe sickness. This is not the place to take up Denifle’s charge that Luther was playing fast and loose with Bernard’s ut-terances to make out a case, but it is sufficient to say that Luther was inten-ding to emphasize that Bernard depended solely upon grace for salvation, and this position is justified by expressions enough in Bernard’s writings.
Her piety is greatly praised by contemporaries. The abbot of St. Benignus at Dijon begged her body for his convent. William of St. Thierry said of her that "she ruled her household in the fear of God, was urgent in works of mercy, and brought up her sons in all obedience," enutriens filios in omni disciplina. Vita prima, I. 1.
Migne, 185, 260.
Virtus vehementius in infirmitate ejus refulgens, etc. Vita prima, VIII. 41; Migne, 185, 251.
To an Englishman, Henry Murdoch, Ep., 106; Migne, 182, 242. Aliquid amplius invenies in silvis quam in libris. Ligna et lapides docebunt te, quod a magistris audire non possis. An non putas posse te sugere mel de petra oleumque de saxo durissimo? etc. The words remind us of Shakespeare’s oft-quoted lines:
books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Vita prima, III. 2; Migne, 185, 306. A mediaeval description of the beauties of nature is a rare thing. The Canticle of the Sun, by Francis d’Assisi, is an exception. Otto of Freising accompanied Frederick Barbarossa on his journey to Rome to receive the imperial crown, and speaks with much enthusiasm about the military display of the Germans, but had not a word to say about the glories of Rome or its monuments. See Fisher, Med. Empire, II. 229.
Vita prima, I. 5.
Apud vallem quae prius dicebatur vallis absinthialis et amara, coeperunt montes stillare dulcedinem, etc. Vita prima, XIII. 61; Migne, 185, 260. See also Alanus, Vita secunda, VI. 18.
His letters include long compositions abounding in allegory and moralizations and brief pithy statements, which approach the subject in hand with modern directness. Alanus gives a list of churchmen high in position going forth from Clairvaux. Vita secunda, XX. 54; Migne, 185, 154
Vacandard, vol. II., Appendix, gives a list of sixty-eight convents founded by Bernard.
William was born at Liège about 1085, and died about 1149. In 1119 he was made abbot of the Cistercian convent of Thierry near Rheims. We meet him frequently in the company of Bernard, and in the controversies over Abaelard and Gilbert of Poitiers.
Vita prima, I. 7; Migne, 182, 268.
The genuineness of the letter is questionable. Ep., 492; Migne, 182, 706-713.
Ep., 142; Migne, 182, 297.
Si despicit frater meus carnem meam, ne despiciat servus Dei animam meam. Veniat, proecipiat, quicquid praecperit, facere parata sum. Vita secunda, VII. 22; Migne, 185, 482. Was ever sister’s appeal more tender?
De consideratione, II. 1; Migne, 182, 743.
Bernard refers to this election in a letter to Eugenius, Ep., 256. "Who am I," he writes, "to establish camps and march at the head of armed men?"
It was on this journey that St. Bernard performed the miracle which has a humorous side. While he was crossing the Alps, the devil broke one of his carriage wheels. Bernard repaired the damage by commanding the devil to take the place of the broken wheel, which he did, and the wagon moved on again to the traveller’s comfort.
Vita prima, II. 7, 45; Migne, 185, 294 sq.
Migne, 182, 727-808.
"Une sorte d’examen de conscience d’un pape." Vie de S. Bernard, II. 454.
Bernard’s view of the functions of the papacy is given in the chapter on the Papacy.
Bindseil, Colloquia, III. 134.
Deutsch, Herzog, II. 634, says Er besass eine Bibelerkenntniss wie wenige.
For translation see Morison, p. 227 sqq., who calls it, "among funeral sermons assuredly one of the most remarkable on record."
See Dr. Storrs’s description, p. 461 sqq.
Storrs, p. 388.
Vita prima, III. 13; Migne, 185, 306,
I. 24, Wright’s ed., p. 20.
Ego mihi nec perfectionis conscius sum nec fictionis. Vita prima, III. 7; Migne, 185, 314 sq
Vita prima, I. 13; Migne, 185, 262.
Ep., 242; Migne, 182, 436.
Verecundia, de consid. II. 1; Migne, 185, 744. The word used here is signa. See also Vita prima, I. 9; Migne, 185, 252.
William of St. Thierry, in Vita prima, I. 9; Migne, 186, 253.
Febricitantibus multis sanctus manus imponens et aquam benedictam porrigens ad bibendum, sanitatem o btinuit, etc., Migne, 185, 278.
The only case I have found which was not a case of healing in Bernard’s miracles occurred at the dedication of the church of Foigny, where the congregation was pestered by swarms of flies. Bernard pronounced the words of excommunication against them and the next morning they were found dead and people shovelled them out with spades.
Vita prima, VI.; Migne, 185, 374 sqq.
Vita prima, IV. 5 sqq.; Migne, 185, 338-359. See Morison’s remarks, 372 sqq.
A strange story is told of Bernard’s throwing dice with a gambler. The stake was Bernard’s horse or the gambler’s soul. Bernard entered into the proposition heartily and won. The gambler is said to have led a saintly life thereafter. Gesta Romanorum, Engl. trans. by Swan, p. 317.
Life of Bernard, p. 66. Dr. Morison died 1905.
Der Heilige Bernhard, I. 135-141; II. 92-95. See also Neander’s Ch. Hist, Engl. trans. IV. 256 sq.
"When such works," Neander says in his history, "appear in connection with a governing Christian temper actuated by the spirit of love, they may perhaps be properly regarded as solitary workings of that higher power of life which Christ introduced into human nature." These words are adopted by Dr. Storrs, who says "it cannot be doubted that a most extraordinary force operated through Bernard on those who sought his assistance." Life of Bernard, p. 199 sq.
De gratia et libero arbitrio.
Ep., 174; Migne, 182, 332.
De baptismo aliisque questionibus.
See chapter on Mysticism.
Domus ipsa incutiebat reverentiam sui ac si ingrederer ad altare Dei, Vita prima, VII. 33; Migne, 185, 246.
Concordia, V. 38. See Schott, Die Gedanken des Abtes Joachim, Brieger’s Zeitschrift, 1902, 171.
Hildegard’s Works, Ep., 29; Migne, 197, 189.
Morison, p. 242.
Mortuus vivere et vivens mortuus putabatur, Vita St. Malachy, XXXI. 74; Migne, 185, 1116. Tender as he is to his Irish friend, Bernard described the Irish people as utter barbarians in that age.
Herzog, II. 634.
Dogmengeschichte, III. 301.
Bindseil, Colloquia, III. 152. Bernhardus hat den Jesus so lieb als einer sein mag.
Vita secunda, XVII.; Migne, 185, 498.
See art. Augustiner, in Herzog, II. 254 sqq., and in Wetzer-Welte, I. 1655 sqq. Theod. Kolde, D. deutsche Augustiner Congregation und Joh. von Staupitz, Gotha, 1879.
At Campell, near Paris, there were not less than fifty priests, whose number was reduced by Innocent III. to twenty-two. See Hurter, III. 375. The terms canonicus saecularis and regularis do not occur before the twelfth century. Up to that time they were known as clerici religiosi, clerici regulares, clerici professi, clerici communiter viventes, etc. So Denifle, Archiv für Lit. und Kirchengeschichte for 1886, p. 174. He quotes Amort, Vetus disciplina canonicorum regul et saecul., Venice, 1747, I. 333.
Chrodegana provided a common table for the clergy of his chapter, and a common dormitory. The Roman synods of 1059, 1063, recommended priests to have their revenues in common.
The tradition runs that this rule was prescribed by Innocent II., 1139, for all canons regular. Helyot, II. 21.
In a bull, Dec. 16, 1243, Innocent speaks of the regula S. Augustini et ordo. See Potthast, p. 954. The most distinguished convent of regular canons in France was the convent of St. Victor.
The cathedral of Bristol is built up from the old abbey of St. Augustine. The Augustinian, or Austin, canons were also called the Black Canons in England. They were very popular there. St. Botolph’s, Colchester, their first English house, was established about 1100. At the suppression of the monasteries there were one hundred and seventy houses in England, and a much larger number in Ireland. Gasquet, p. 225. See W. G. D. Fletcher, The Blackfriars in Oxford.
See Hurter, III. 238.
In England they had thirty-two friaries at the time of the dissolution. Gasquet, 241.
The Gilbertines, founded by St. Gilbert, rector of Sandringham, about 1140, were confined to England. There were twenty-six houses at the time of the suppression of the monasteries. The convents for men and women used a common church.
Norbert’s Works and Life are given in Migne, vol. 170, and his Life in Mon. Ger. XII., 670 sqq.; Germ. trans. by Hertel, in Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit, Leipzig, 1881. See also Hauck, IV. 350-66; J. von Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, vol. II. Leipzig, 1906, pp. 119-129, and the art. Praemonstratenser, X. 267 sqq., and Norbert, IX. 448 sqq., in Wetzer-Welte, and Praemonstratenser, in Herzog, XV. 606 sqq., and the literature there given; and Gasquet, The Engl. Praemonstratensians, in transactions of the Royal Hist. Soc., vol. XVII. London, 1903.
Walter puts Norbert in the group of the itinerant preachers of the age.
Pratum monstratum.
Hurter, IV. 206.
Bernard, Sermon, XXII.; Ep., 56
See Hurter, IV. 208.
In England there were more than thirty Premonstrant convents at the suppression of the monasteries. Bayham and Easley are their best preserved abbeys.
Consuetudines Carthusienses, printed among Bruno’s Works in Migne, 153, 651-759. Peter Dorland, Chronicon Carthusianae, Col. 1608. For literature see Wetzer-Welte, art. Karthäuser, VII. 203, and the art. Bruno, vol. II. 1356-63. Bruno’s Works in Migne, 152, 153. In his Com. on the Romans he anticipates Luther by inserting sola, "alone" in Rom. 3:28, "a man is justified by faith alone, without the works of the law." See Dr. Fr. Duesterdieck, Studien u. Kritiken, 1903, p. 506.
The device of the order is a globe surmounted by a lion with the motto Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, "The cross stands while the globe turns."
The following legend was invented to account for Bruno’s decision. In 1082 he was present at the mortuary services over Raymond, canon of Notre Dame, Paris. When the words were said, "Quantas habes iniquitates et peccata?""how many sins and iniquities hast thou?" the dead man rose up and replied, "justo dei judicio accusatus sum," "I am accused by the just judgment of God." The next day at the repetition of the words, the dead rose again and exclaimed, "justo dei judicio judicatus sum," "I am judged by the just judgment of God." The third day the dead man rose for the third time and cried out, "justo dei judicio condemnatus sum," "I am condemned by the just judgment of God." This incident was inserted into the Roman Breviary, but removed by order of Urban VIII., 1631. Hergenröther says the legend is still defended by the Carthusians. Kirchengesch., II. 353.
Peter the Venerable says of a visit to Chartreuse, Ep., VI. 24, inaccessibiles pene nivibus et glacie altissimas rupes non abhorrui, "I shrank not back from the high rocks made inaccessible by snow and ice." Hurter’s description, IV. 150, makes the location attractive.
Nova collectio statutorum Ord. Carthusiensis, Paris, 1682.
For the plan of a Carthusian monastery, see Dr. Venables’ art. Abbey, in "Enc. Brit.," I. 20 sq.
Vestes vilissimas ac super omne religionis propositum abjectissimas ipsoque visu horrendas assumpserunt. Pet. Ven., De miraculis, II. 28.
A movement among the Carthusians to pass over into other orders, where the discipline was less rigid, was severely rebuked by Innocent III. Hurter, IV. 161.
Medicinis, excepto cauterio et sanguinis minutione perraro utimur, quoted by Hurter, IV. 154, from the Constitutions of Guigo. Bleeding for medicinal purposes seems to have been common in convents. It was practised in the convent of Heisterbach, Caesar of Heisterbach, Dial., XI. 2. According to the life of Bernard of Thiron, it was the custom in some convents for monks suffering from headache or other physical ailments to have the abbot place his hands on their bodies, trusting to his miraculous power for healing. See Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, Leipzig, 1906, II. p. 50.
And yet they have furnished at least four cardinals, seventy archbishops and bishops, and have had rich churches noted for their works of art like the one in Naples, or the church at Pavia, where lapis lazuli is freely used. See Hurter, IV. 158.
Pet. Ven., Epp., I. 24, IV. 38. Peter gives a list of the books he sent.
"The discipline was too rigid, the loneliness too dreadful for our tastes and climate." Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, p. 125.
The order was suppressed in France at the time of the Revolution. The monks, however, were permitted to return to Grand Chartreuse in 1816, paying a rental of 3000 francs to the government. The mother convent has again been broken up by the Associations Law of 1903. There were at that time one hundred and fifty monks in the house. Some of them went to Piedmont, and others to Tarragona, Spain, where they have set up a distillery for their precious liqueur.
Ordo B. M. V. de Monte Carmelo is the name given by Innocent IV. The brethren are called fratres eremiti de monte Carmelo, by Honorius III., in his sanction of the order, 1226. The art. Carmelite, in Wetzer-Welte, II. 1966-1976, and Karmeliter, in Herzog, X. 84-88, give a good account and contain lists of literature. Potthast, I. No. 7524.
The convent on Mt. Carmel is a conspicuous object as you approach the coast from the Mediterranean, and from the hills round about Nazareth. The present building was erected in 1828, and is an hour’s walk from Haifa. Napoleon used the former buildings for a hospital during his Syrian campaign.
Speculum Carmelitarum seu historia Eliani ordinis, 4 vols. Antwerp, 1680.
Benedict XIII., in 1725, gave quasi-sanction to the order’s claim by permitting it to erect a statue to Elijah in St. Peter’s. It bears the inscription Universus ordo Carmelitarum fundatori suo St. Eliae prophetae erexit.
The Carmelites are often called the Brotherhood of the Scapulary. The scapulary is a sleeveless jacket covering the breast and back, and was originally worn over the other garments when the monk was at work. The garment has been the frequent subject of papal decree down to Leo XIII., 1892. July 16 has been set apart since 1587 as a special festival of the scapulary, and is one of the feasts of the Virgin. A work has been written on the proper use of the scapulary, by Brocard: Recueil des instructions sur la devotion au St. Scapulaire de Notre Dame de Monte Carmelo, Gand, 4th ed. 1875. Simon Stock was one hundred when he died.
Hergenröther-Kirsch, Kirchengesch., II. 362, says it is introduced as a matter of "pious opinion," fromme Meinung.
The original bull has not been found, and its authenticity has been a subject of warm dispute, in the Catholic church. The pertinent words of Mary are Ego mater gratiose descendam sabbato post eorum mortem et, quot inveniam in purgatorio, liberabo. "I, mother, will graciously descend on the Sabbath after their death, and whomever I find in purgatory I will free." One ground for doubting the authenticity of the bull is that Mary promises to forgive sins. Paul V., in 1613, decreed that this "pious faith" should be preached. See art. Sabbatina, in Wetzer-Welte, X. 1444-1447
By the decision of Clement VIII., 1593, the Barefoot monks became an independent order, and elect their own general superior. Hurter, IV. 213, concludes his short account of the Carmelites by saying, that among other things which they used to exaggerate to a ridiculous extent was the number of their houses, which they gave at 7500, and of their monks, which they gave as 180,000.
Falco, Antonianae Hist. compendium, Lyons, 1534. Uhlhorn, D. christl. Liebesthätigkeit d. Mittelalters, Stuttg. 1884, 178-186, 343 sqq.
The Antonites regarded St. Anthony as the patron of stable animals, a view popularly held in Italy. An example of this belief is given in the Life of Philip Schaff, 56 sq.
The Trinitarians were also called Maturines, from their house in Paris near St. Mathurine’s chapel. They had a few houses in England. A Spanish order with the same design, the Ordo B. V. M. de Mercede redemptionis captivorum, was founded by Peter Nolasco and Raymond of Pennaforte. See Hurter, IV. 219.
The last abbess died 1799. Since 1804 the abbey of Font Evraud has been used as a house for the detention of convicts. Henry II. of England and Richard Coeur de Lion were buried at Font Evraud. For the literature of the order, see Herzog, VI. 125, and J. von Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, Studien zur Gesch. des Mönchthums, Robert von Abrissel, I. Leipzig, 1903.
Ut capillos non nutriant suos. Walter, Wanderprediger, II. 112.
Hurter, IV. 140. See art. Grammont, in Wetzer-Welte, VI. 990 sqq.
Walter, II. 143.
Fratres saccati, fratres de sacco, saccophori, etc. See art. Sackbrüder, in Herzog, XVII. 327. Gasquet, 241 sq.
See Coulton, p. 301.
Among others who were expecting the millennium soon to dawn, was Norbert, who wrote to St. Bernard that the age in which he lived was the age of antichrist. Bernard, Ep., 56; Migne, 182, 50, wrote back taking a contrary view.
The name of Héloïse was perhaps as widely known, but it was for her connection with Abelard, not for her works in the Church. The Latin form of Hildegard is Hildegardis. M. Paris, Luard’s Ed., V. 195, in his summary of the events of 1200-1250, mentions Hildegard and Elizabeth of Thuringia as the prominent religious female characters of the period, but Hildegard died 1177.
Ep., XXVI. sq.; Migne, 197, 185 sq.
Ep., XXII. On the other hand, Hildegard asked Bernard to pray for her.
animam meam sicut flammam comburens, Migne, 197, 190. St. Bernard, writing to Hildegard, spoke of the "sweetness of her holy love," and Hildegard compares the abbot of Clairvaux to the eagle and addresses him as the most mild of fathers, mitissime pater.
non visiones in somnis, nec dormiens, nec in phrenesi, nec corporeis oculis aut auribus exterioris, nec in abditis locis percepi, sed eas vigilans, circumspiciens in pura mente oculis et auribus interioris hominis, etc. Scivias, I. Praefatio, Migne, 197, 384.
Scivias. See Migne, 197, 93. This is the chief collection of her visions. Migne, 197, 383-739.
Ep., I.; Migne, 197, 146.
Migne, 197, 117.
de plantis, Migne, 197, 1139.
Migne, 197, 1210.
Her writings are given in Migne, 195, 119-196. First complete edition by F. W. C. Roth: Die Visionen der heiligen Elizabeth, Brünn, 1884. See Preger: Gesch. d. deutschen Mystik, 1, 37-43.
Migne, 195, 146.
acorpore rapta sum in exstasim, p. 135, oreram in exstasi et vidi, p. 145.
Migne, 195, 146.
After the convent St. Johannes in Flore, which he founded. The members of Joachim’s order are called in the papal bull, Florentii fratres, Potthast, No. 2092, vol. I. 182.
When Richard Coeur de Lion was in Sicily on his way to Palestine in 1190, he was moved by Joachim’s fame to send for him. The abbot interpreted to him John’s prophecy of anti-christ, whom he declared was already born, and would in time be elevated to the Apostolic chair and strive against everything called of God. De Hoveden, Engl. trans., II. pp. 177 sqq.
Joachim had set forth his views against the Lombard in a tract to which the council referred. See Mansi, xxii., and Hefele-Knöpfler, V. 880 sq.
Joachim, in a list, 1200, gives these three writings and also mentions works against the Jews and on the articles of the Christian faith. Schott, p. 170, counts twenty-four works, genuine and ungenuine, which are ascribed to him. Among those pronounced ungenuine are the commentaries on Jeremiah and Isaiah which were much used by the Franciscans from the middle of the thirteenth century on. They call Rome, Babylon and show a bitter hostility to the pope, representations which are in conflict with Joachim’s genuine writings. They also abound in detailed prophecies of events which actually occur-red. "If these books were genuine," says Döllinger, p. 369, "the exact fulfilment of the many predictions would present the most wonderful phenomenon in the history of prophecy."
principium, fructificatio, finis.
See Denifle, pp. 53 sqq.
spiritualis ecclesia, also called ecclesia contemplativa, Denifle, pp. 56 sqq.
Parvuli Christi or parvuli de latina ecclesia, a name for monks.
In some passages Joachim also speaks of two orders. See Döllinger, 376.
So Schott, p. 180, Die Fructification ist nichts anders als ein neuer Ausdruck für den Entwicklungsgedanken.
See Schott, 175.
Döllinger, 379; Schott, 178, etc.
The Fourth Lateran Council, Canon II.
He also quotes freely from Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory the Great, and other Fathers.
Introductorius in Evangelium aeternum.
Or the "Gospel of the Holy Spirit." See Denifle, p. 60.
The practical English monk, M. Paris, speaks of Joachim’s doctrines as "new and absurd." III. p. 206.
Coulton’s Reproduction, pp. 105, 163.
Ordines mendicantium..
The practice of mendicancy was subsequently adopted by the Carmelites, 1245, the Augustinian friars, 1256, and several other orders. In 1274 Gregory X. abolished all mendicant orders except the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinian friars, and Carmelites.
Wilhelm Kothe: Kirchliche Zustände Strassburgs im 14ten Jahrhundert, Freib. im Br., 1903, says the mendicant monks were distrusted in Strassburg from the beginning and the Dominicans had to remain outside of the walls till 1250, and their attempt at that time to build a chapel stirred up a warm conflict.
Paradiso, canto XI. Longfellow’s trans.
Harnack says: "If ever man practised what he preached, that man was Francis." Monachism, p. 68.
Karl Müller accepts the evidence which Sabatier gives. See Literatur-Zeitung, 1895, p. 181.
This does not mean that the Franciscans in their early period were idlers. They were expected to work. Sabatier, S. François, VIII. p. 138.
nudus nudum Christum in cruce sequi, Walter, Wanderprediger.
Pauperem dominum ad mortem pauper spiritu pauper sequebatur, Walter, II. 44.
Leve jugum Christi per apostolorum vestigia ferre decrevit, Walter, II. 83.
Walter, Wanderprediger Frankreichs, p. 168, has brought this out well.
Hergenröther says, "Chivalry reappeared in them in a new form. In happy unison were blended peace and battle, contemplation and active life, faith and love, prudent moderation and flaming enthusiasm." Kirchengeschichte, II. 369.
"Of one thing," says Trevelyan, "the friar was never accused. He is never taunted with living at home in his cloister and allowing souls to perish for want of food." England in the Age of Wycliffe, p. 144.
So called in the bull of Gregory IX., 1228; Potthast, I. p. 703.
See the quotations from the Speculum andVita secunda of Celano, in Seppelt, pp. 234 sqq. Also Sabatier, S. François, ch. XVI.
For the relations of the mendicant orders with the University of Paris, see Denifle, Chartularium Univ. Parisiensis, I.; Seppelt, Der Kampf der Bettelorden an der Univ. Paris in der Mitte des 13ten Jahrh.; Felder, Gesch. der wissenschaftlichen Studien im Franciskanerorden bis c. 1250.
Chartul., I. 285.
Chartul., I. 309-313, gives Humbert’s long letter.
Chartul., I. 381. See chapter on Universities.
Villani, V. 25, says, "This vision was true, for it was evident the Church of God was falling through licentiousness and many errors, not fearing God."
Bishop Creighton, Hist. Lectures, p., 112, says, "The friars were far more destructive to ecclesiastical jurisdiction than any Nonconformist body could be, at the present day, to the influence of any sensible clergyman." He is speaking of the Anglican Church.
The bulls are dated March 7 and 29. See Potthast, I. 590. The same privilege was conceded to the Carmelites, April 9, 1229.
Potthast, I. 697, 721.
Potthast, I. 701, 706.
June 10, 1228, Potthast, I. 707.
See Potthast, Nos. 6508, 6542, 6654, etc.
Potthast, II. 1280. Innocent died a few weeks after issuing this bull and, as is said, in answer to the prayers of the mendicants. Hence came the saying, "from the prayers of the Preachers, good Lord, deliver us." A litanis praedicatorum libera nos, Domine.
In his treatise de periculis novissorum temporum, "The Perils of the Last Times," Basel, 1555, William has been held up as a precursor of Rabelais and Pascal on account of his keen satire. He was answered by Bonaventura and by Thomas Aquinas in hiscontra impugnantes religionem. Alexander IV. ordered William’s treatise burnt, and in the bull, dated Oct. 5, 1256, declared it to be "most dangerous and detestable," valde perniciosum et detestabilem. See Potthast, II. 1357. When an edition of Williaim’s treatise appeared at Paris, 1632, the Mendicants secured an order from Louis XIII. suppressing it. William was inhibited from preaching and teaching and retired to Franche-Comte, where he died. See Chartularium Univ. Parisiensis, I. Nos. 295, 296, 314, 318, 321, 332, 339, 343, 315, etc.
Matthew Paris in his résumé of the chief events of 1200-1250 has this to say of the decay of the orders, "These Preachers and Minorites at first led the life of poverty and greatest sanctity and devoted themselves assiduously to preaching, confessions, divine duties in the church, reading and study, and abandoned many revenues, embracing voluntary poverty in the service of God and reserving nothing in the way of food for themselves for the morrow, but within a few years, they got themselves into excellent condition and constructed most costly houses, etc." Luard’s ed., V. 194.
The former unfavorable view of most Protestant historians concerning Francis is no longer held. Hallam, Middle Ages, II. 197, called him "a harmless enthusiast, pious and sincere, but hardly of sane mind." Lea, representing the present tendency, goes far, when he says. "No human creature since Christ has more fully incarnated the ideal of Christianity than Francis." Hist. of Inquis., I. 260. Harnack says, "If ever a man practised what he preached, it was St. Francis." An anonymous writer, reviewing some of the Franciscan literature in the Independent, 1901, p. 2044, seriously pronounced the judgment that "Since the Apostles, Francis received into his being the love of Christ toward men and the lower creatures more fully than any other man, and his appearance has been an epoch of spiritual history only less significant than that of the original Good Tidings." More judicious is Sabatier’s verdict, Vie de S. Franc., p. viii., "that Francis is pre-eminently the saint of the Middle Ages. Owing nothing to the Church, he was truly theodidact."
The Speculum perfectionis, pp. 94 sqq., leaves no room for doubting the gift of the church to Francis. The gift was made on condition that the chapel should always remain the centre of the brotherhood.
That is, in the cell a few yards from Portiuncula. Both Portiuncula and the cell, which has been turned into a chapel, are now under the roof of the basilica.
Sabatier limits the Rule to these passages of Scripture. Thomas of Celano, Vita sec., II. 10, says that Francis "used chiefly the words of the Holy Gospel" but says further that "he added a few other things which were necessary for a holy life pauca tamen inseruit alia."
In case of necessity the wearing of sandals was permitted. Speculum, p. 8.
Speculum, 38; 2 Cel. 3, 35. The woman was expected to sell the book.
On the meaning of idiota, see Felder, p. 61, and Böhmer, p. xi. Felder, pp. 59 sqq., makes an effort to parry the charges that Francis lacked education and disparaged education for his order. Celano calls him vir idiota and says nullis fuit scientiae studiis innutritus. He also speaks of him as singing in French as he walked through a forest. See the notes in Felder.
See Böhmer, pp. xiii. sq., 69 sq.
Giotto has made the meeting with Innocent seated on his throne the subject of one of his frescoes. A splendid contrast indeed, the sovereign of kings and potentates and yet the successor of Peter, recognizing the humble devotee, whose fame was destined to equal his own! The date usually given is 1209. Sabatier gives reasons for the change to 1210. St. François, p. 100.
M. Paris, Luard’s ed., III. 132. Sabatier remarks that the incident has a real Franciscan color and is to be regarded as having some historic basis.
Spectulum, p. 49. See also Cel. 10; 2 Cel. 97. Sabatier insists that Francis had "no intention of creating a mendicant order, but a working order." S. François, p.138. Denifle also called attention to this feature, Archiv, 1885, p. 482.
Speculum, xvii.
Celano in his first Life speaks of the sacred intercourse between Francis and holy Poverty, commercium cum sancta paupertate. The work entitled Sacrum commercium, etc., relates in full the story accounting for Francis’ espousal of Poverty.
Jacopone da Todi took up the idea and represented Poverty going through the earth and knocking at the door of convent after convent, and being turned away. Hase, with reference to Francis’ apotheosis of Poverty, says, that Diogenes was called a mad Socrates, and so Francis was a mad Christ, ein verrückter Christus. KirchenGesch. II. 382. In its opening chapter the Commercium explains the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," to refer to the renunciation of worldly goods, and puts into the hands of Poverty the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
Francis was a deacon and never a priest. According to Thomas à Celano, Francis was austere in his relations to women, and knew only two women by sight. Sabatier, pp. 169 sq., pronounces this portraiture false and speaks of "the love of St. Francis and St. Clara." Here, as in other places, the biographer allows himself the license of the idealist. Francis’ last message to Clara is given in the Speculum Perfectionis, pp. 180 sqq. The Franciscan Rule of 1223 forbids, suspicious conferences with women, "but allows the friars to enter monastaries of nuns by permission of the Holy See. See Robinson, p. 73.
According to the Speculum, pp. 1-4, 76, Francis made three Rules. Sabatier defines them as the Rule of 1210, confirmed by Innocent III., the Rule of 1221, confirmed by Honorius III., which in part misrepresented Francis’ views. The Rule of 1223 went further in this direction and completely overthrew Francis’ original intention. The first clause of the Rule of 1228 runs, "Brother Francis promises obedience and reverence to the lord pope, Honorius, and his successors." This rule is still in force in the first Franciscan order. Madonnet substantially agrees with Sabatier as does Karl Müller. Father Robinson, himself a Franciscan friar, pp. 25-31, 182, following the Quaracchi editors, who are Franciscans also, denies the genuineness of the Rule of 1221, and holds that there were only two Rules, and that there is no conflict between them. This conclusion is in the face of Francis’ will and the plain statement of Leo’s Legenda which, however, Robinson pays little attention to.
See Sabatier, S. François, p. 23. Peter of Catana died March 10, 1221, a year after his elevation.
Almost everything done in the order after 1221 was done either "without Francis’ knowledge or against his, will and mind," are the words of Sabatier. S. François, p. 316.
For the Latin text of this remarkable writing see Speculum, 309-313. Sabatier gives a French trans., in his S. Francois, 389 sqq.
This designation was not original with Francis. In the fourth century Hilarion called his body the ass which ought to have chaff and not barley. Schaff, Ch. Hist. III., 190.
Nouvelles Etudes d’hist. rel., 2d ed., Paris, 1844, pp. 333-35l. No reasonable doubt is possible that Francis was the author of the Canticle, now that the Speculum has been published (pp. 234 sqq., and Sabatier’s remarks, 278-288).
Speculum, 223-226. See Longfellow’s poem, The Sermon of St. Francis.
Little Flowers of Francis, 93-99. Anthony of Padua, also a Franciscan, according to the same authority, pp. 166 sqq., preached to the fishes at Rimini and called upon them to praise God, seeing they had been preserved in the flood and saved Jonah. The fishes ascended above the water and opened their mouths and bowed their heads. The people of the city were attracted and Anthony used the occasion to preach a powerful sermon. In the legend of St. Brandon, it is narrated that when St. Brandon sang, the fishes lay as though they slept. Aurea Legenda, Temple Classics, vol. V.
Speculum, p. 241.
Quoniam, gratia Spiritus sancti cooperante, ita sum unitus et conjunctus cum Domino meo quod per misericordiam suam bene possum In ipso altissimo jocundari. Speculum, p. 237.
Mortem cantando suscepit. 2 Cel., 3, 139.
Speculum, 244 sq.
Potthast, 8236, 8240, vol. I. 709-710.
There, after much searching, it is said to have been found, 1818. Plus VII., in 1822, declared it to be the genuine body of Francis.
Sabatier gives a charming description of the region, showing his own intense sympathy with nature.
p. 194. It is at first sight striking that the author does not give a detailed description of this wonderful event. From another standpoint the passing reference may be regarded as a stronger testimony to its reality. See Sabatier’s observations, Speculum, pp. lxvi. sqq. It will be remembered that Sabatier places this document in 1227, only seven months after Francis’ death.
In three bulls, Potthast, 10307, 10308, 10309, vol. I. 875.
The evidence for the genuineness is accepted by Sabatier, S. François, 401 sqq. Among other testimonies he adduces a Benediction upon Leo ostensibly written by Francis’ own hand, and found among the archives of Assisi. See Speculum, p. lxvii. sq. On the margin of this document Leo has written his authentication. He vouches for the scene on the Verna and the stigmata. If this document be genuine, as Sabatier insists, it is the most weighty of all the testimonies. Hase stated, as strongly as it can be stated, the view that the whole tale was a fraud, invented by Elias, Francis of Assisi, 143-202, and Kirchengeschichte, II. 385 sqq. Elias was the only eye-witness, and it is contrary to all laws that he should have denied the people the privilege of looking at the marks, after the saint was dead, if they had really been there. On the contrary, he hurried the body to the grave. Hase makes a strong case, but it must be remembered that he wrote without having before him the later evidence brought to light by Sabatier
S. François, 401 sqq. Sabatier does not regard them as miraculous but as unusual, as, for example, are the mathematical powers and musical genius of youthful prodigies. According to Hase, this was also Tholuck’s explanation. See art. Stigmatization, in Herzog, XIV. 728-734, which takes the same view and compares the scars to the effects of parental states before childbirth.
So Hausrath. The first Franciscan chronicler, Salimbene, d. 1287, no doubt expressed the feeling of his age when he said, "Never man on earth but Francis has had the five wounds of Christ." The Dominicans claimed the stigmata for St. Catherine of Siena, but Sixtus IV., in 1475, prohibited her being represented with them.
Bonaventura’s legendary Life makes Francis a witness to the stigmata, but he evidently is seeking to establish the fact against doubts.
In his will he refers again and again to his divine appointment Deus mihi dedit, "God has given to me."
Monasticism, Engl. trans., p. 67, and S. François, p. viii.
The version of Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, 1st series. A recent translation is given in Robinson; the Writings of St. Francis, pp. 150 sqq., by the Franciscan, Stephen Donovan. Böhmer, p. 65, gives the Latin text.
Speculum, p. 76. Domine, said Francis, minores ideo vocati sunt fratres mei ut majores fieri non proesumant.
See Sabatier, S. François, pp. 80 sqq. Also Madonnet, Les Origines de l’ordo de Poenitentia, pp. 4, 21 sq. etc., who presents this feature of Francis’ society in its early days in a clear light.
See Sabatier, Vie de S. François, pp. 273 sqq.
This Rule has only recently been found and published in the Seraphicae legislationis textus originales, Quaracchi, 1897. See Robinson, pp. 76sqq.
See Speculum, p. 181 and note.
Finally by Urban IV., 1263. See Potthast, II. 1515. Affiliated houses were erected at Burgos, Spain, 1219; Rheims, France, 1220; Prague, 1235, etc.
Frates et sorores de poenitentia.
See Potthast, II. 1856.
Potthast, I. 703. Nicolas IV., however, speaks of a rule given by Francis.
See the art. Humiliaten in Herzog, VIII. 447-449, by Zöckler who quotes H. Tiraboschi, Memorie degli Humiliati, 3 vols. Modena, 1766. Sabatier, Regula antique, p. 15, upon the basis of Jacques de Vitry and other authorities, says the Humiliati were at the height of their zeal and activity in 1220. He confesses that the Tertiary Rule, the Regula Antiqua, is probably in part a copy of the Rule of the Humiliati sanctioned by Innocent III. and says, "Perhaps we have heretofore ascribed an undue originality to the Franciscan movement."
See Walter Goetz, Die Regel des Tertiarierordens, in Brieger’s Zeitschrift, 1902, pp. 97 sqq.
VI. 3, arma mortalia contra quempiam non recipiant vel secum ferant. This most interesting statement was changed by Nicolas IV. in 1289 so that it read, "The brethren shall not carry arms of attack except for the defence of the Roman Church, the Christian faith, or their country, or unless they have authority from their superiors." The Humiliati received papal exemption from Honorius III. against going to war. See Sabatier, Regula antiq., p. 22, Note.
The development of the Tertiary order is a matter of dispute. Sabatier has recently made known two rules of the Tertiary order; the first, found in Florence, the second which he himself discovered in the convent of Capistrano in the Abruzzi. To compare them with the Rule contained in Nicolas IV.’s bull, supra montem, 1289, the Rule of Nicolas has 20 chapters, the Florentine 19, that of Capistrano 13. See the table given by Walter Goetz, p. 100. Sabatier in his edition of the Capistrano Rule, Regula Antiqua, p. 12, puts it very close to the death of Francis, between 1228 and 1234. Les Règles, etc., p. 153, goes further and puts it back to 1221, thus making it the second Rule of St. Francis. At any rate, it must for the present be regarded as the oldest form of the Rule. Goetz, p. 105, while dating the Regula Antiqua much earlier than 1289, is inclined to regard it as a compilation. In 1517 Leo X. perfected the regulations concerning Tertiary orders and divided the members into two classes, those taking no vows and living in the ordinary walks of life and those who live in convents. The best general treatment of the subject is furnished by Karl Müller, Die Anf1nge des Minoritenordens., pp. 115-171, and Madonnet who gives a convenient list of the papal utterances on the Tertiaries, Les Règles, etc., pp. 146 sq.
The Observants looked to Portiuncula as the centre of the order, the Conventuals to the cathedral of Assisi.
Ubertino da Casale’s interpretation of Francis’ purpose is given by Knoth, pp. 99 sq.
Sabatier, Speculum, pp. li sq.
Potthast, II. 1746.
Ubertino, during seven days of rigid seclusion on the Verna, wrote the ascetic workArbor vitae crucifixae. See Knoth, 9-14.
2 Lempp, Anthony of Padua, p. 439.
The Franciscans became guardians of the holy places in Palestine. In answer to my question put to a Franciscan in Nazareth, whether the Church of the Annunciation there was the veritable place where Mary had received the message of the angel, he replied, "Most certainly! We Franciscans have been in this land 600 years and have thoroughly investigated all these matters."
See Hauck, IV. pp. 378 sq.
All that we know about his life is gotten from his account of the Franciscans in England. He died about 1260. Eccleston gives the names of the nine first missionaries. Mon. Franc., pp. 5 sqq. Agnellus of Pisa stood at their head. Three of the clerics were Englishmen.
Creighton, p. 107.
See the descriptions of Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, pp. 21 sqq., and Brewer’s Mon. Franc., pp. xv. sq.
54 Mon. Franc., p. xli.
He tells a comic story of William de Madeley, at Oxford, who, finding a pair of shoes, put them on and went to matins. Going to sleep be dreamt he was attacked by thieves, and thrust out his feet to show that he was a friar. But lo! the shoes were still on, and starting up he flung them out of the window. Another poor friar, Gilbert de Vyz, so he relates, was badly treated by the devil. It happened at Cornhill. The devil at his final visit exclaimed, "Sir, do you think you have escaped me?" De Vyz picked up a handful of lice and threw it at the devil, and he vanished. p. 13.
John L’Estrange says that, at the time they were falling out of favor, one English will out of every three conveyed property to the Franciscans. Quoted by Howlett in his Preface to Mon. Franc., II. p. xxvii.
According to Gasquet, p. 237, there were sixty-six Franciscan houses. Addis and Scannell’s Catholic Dict., p.388, gives a list of sixty-four. The first house of the Franciscan nuns, or Poor Clares, was founded outside of Aldgate, London, 1293, and was known as "the Minories," a name the locality still retains. At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries they had three houses in England.
858 Ordo praedicatorum, fratres praedicatores, or simply praedicatores, as in the papal bulls and the constitutions of the order.
859 His descent from the noble family of Guzman has been disputed by the Bollandists.
860 Jordanus says, they went ad Marchias, which probably refers to the domain of Hugo of Lusignan, Count de la Marche, and not to Denmark, as often represented.
861 The bull canonizing Dominic says, haereticos caritative ad poenitentiam et conversionem fidei hortabatur, he affectionately exhorted heretics to return to the faith.
862 Potthast, I. 436.
863 See Denifle, Archiv, 1885, p. 169, who says that Dominic took as the basis of his rule the rule of the Premonstrants and insists that his followers were canons regular. Denifle was a Dominican, and in his able article gives too much credit to Dominic for originality.
864 This important office according to Echard at first gave to the incumbent the right to fix the meaning of Scripture at the Pontifical court. It has since come to have the duty of comparing all matters with the catholic doctrine before they are presented to the pope, selecting preachers for certain occasions, conferring the doctors’degree, etc. Wetzer-Welte avoids giving offence to the Dominicans by making the ambiguous statement, III. 1934, that Dominicgewissermassen der erste Mag. palatii wurde.
865 Hauck, IV. 391-394.
866 At the suppression of the monasteries under Henry VIII., the Dominicans had 68 houses in England (Gasquet, p. 237), or 57 according to Addis and Scannell, Dict., p. 301.
867 Potthast, I. 810.
868 See the Constitution of 1228, Denifle, pp. 212, 215.
869 Magister generalis. In 1862 Pius IX. limited his tenure of office to twelve years. Since 1272 he has lived at St. Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.
870 May 16, 1227. See Potthast, I. 684. Denifle makes much of this point, pp. 176-180.
871 Denifle gives the best edition in Archiv for 1885, pp. 193-227.
872 Denifle, pp. 181 sqq., states that the idea of poverty was in Dominic’s mind before Honorius sanctioned the order, and that it was thoroughly as original with him as it was with Francis. This view seems to be contradicted by the bull of Honorius, 1216, which confirms Dominic and his followers in the possession of goods. Jordanus, c. 27, states that the principle of poverty was adopted that the preachers might be freed from the care of earthly goods, ne predicationis impediretur officium sollicitudine terrenorum. Francis adopted this principle as a means of personal sanctification; Dominic, in order that he and his followers might give themselves up unreservedly to the work of saving souls.
873 Caritatem habete, humilitatem servite, pauperitatem voluntariam possidete.
874 Denifle, pp. 185 sqq.
875 Nullus fiat publicus doctor, nisi per 4 annos ad minus theologiam audierit. Const., 1228, II. 30.
876 Ordo noster specialiter ob praedicationem et animarum salutem ab initio institutus. Prol. to Constitution of 1228.
877 Quoted by Denifle, p. 190.
878 Const. II. 31-33.
879 Paradiso, XII.
880 See Potthast, II. 9386, 9388 (Gregory IX., 1284), etc. The Franciscans were made inquisitors in Italy and Southern France. See chapter on the Inquisition.
881 Leo commended the rosary in repeated encyclicals, Aug. 30, 1884, 1891, etc., coupling plenary indulgence for sin with its use. He also ordered the title regina sanctissimi rosarii, "queen of the most holy rosary," inserted into the liturgy of Loreto. On the history of the rosary, see Lea, Hist. of Auric. Conf., III. 484 sqq., and especially the dissertation St. Dominikus und der Rosenkranz, by the Franciscan, Heribert Holzapfel. This writer declares, point blank, that the rosary was not invented nor propagated by Dominic. There is no reference to it in the original Constitution of 1228, which contains detailed prescriptions concerning prayer and the worship of the Virgin, nor in any of the eighteen biographical notices of the thirteenth century. Holzapfel makes the statement, p. 12, that the entire thirteenth and fourteenth centuries know nothing of any association whatsoever of St. Dominic with the rosary. Sixtus IV., 1478, was the first pope to commend the rosary; but Sixtus does not associate it with the name of Dominic. Such association began with Leo X. What has become of the author of this bold denial of the distinct statement of Leo XIII. in his encyclical of ten years before, September, 1883, I do not know. Holzapfel distinctly asserts his opposition to the papal deliverances on the rosary, when he says, p. 37, "High as the regard is in which the Catholic holds the authority of Peter’s successors in religious things, he must be equally on his guard against extending that authority to every possible question." Perhaps Father Holzapfel’s pamphlet points to the existence of a remainder of the hot feeling which used to exist between the Thomists and Scotists.