i THE CHURCH IN GERMANY BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A., If ' AUTHOR OF "MEHALAH," "GERMANY, PAST AND PRESENT," "OLD COUNTRY LIFE," ETC. Wiit]) IHap^. NEW YORK: JAMES POTT AND CO., ASTOR PLACE. 1 89 1 «- 5 ,r <■ THE CHURCH IN GERMANY BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A., I ; AUTHOR OF "mEHALAH," "GERMANY, PAST AND PRESENT," "OLD COUNTRY LIFE," ETC. OTitl; fHap^g. NEW YORK: JAMES POTT AND CO., ASTOR PLACE. 1 89 1 12 3 189I. PREFACE. In writing a history of the Church in Germany, one encounters several difficulties. Abundance of valuable and exhaustive works on the ecclesiastical history of Germany exist, from the dawn of Christianity to the end of the Carolingian period, but almost none concerning the subsequent history, till we come to the Reformation period. Among those that treat of the early period, I would mention especially Hauck, " Kirchen-Geschichte Deutschlands." The first vol. extends to the death of S. Boniface, published 1887. The second, in two parts, unfortunately reached me too late for consultation. These parts were published in 1889 and 1890 only. They give the history under the Carolingians. Another good book on the same period is Ellendorf, " Die Karolinger," 1838. For the history of the Church at the Reformation from the Roman Catholicside, there is Riffel, " Kirchengeschichte der neuesten Zeit," 1842 ; and of course from the Protestant side there are numbers, more or less good. But the intermediate period has been sadly over- looked, the reason being that ecclesiastical history 305603 vi PREFACE. was so interwoven with political history that the story of one was actually the story of the other. The deficiency will eventually be filled by Hauck, and my great regret is that I have had to undertake this task without his masterly guidance further than to the death of S. Boniface. The difficulty of writing the history of the Church in Germany during the mediaeval period is, as has been said, the fact that it is almost inextricably inter- laced with the history of the empire. As the space accorded me did not allow of a history of Germany, I have done what appeared to me to be the right thing to do under the circumstances, that is, I have indicated the general condition of affairs ecclesiastical, and then given salient instances illustrative of the situation. An English Churchman regards the Reformation in Germany from his own peculiar standpoint. He is not in cordial sympathy with a movement which destroys the very foundations of historic Christianity, and formulates a doctrine of free justification, that exercises a paralysing effect on the conscience ; and yet he cannot deny that the exasperation caused by the wrong-doing of the Papacy provoked it, and that it was inevitable. EDITOR'S PREFACE. The object of this series of works is to lay before English Churchmen unbroken narratives of the chief events in the history of the National Churches of Christendom, from the time when they were first founded, to the present day. Twenty-five years ago the idea of producing such a series was mooted by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, the learned editor of " The Annotated Book of Common Prayer," but the plan was abandoned. It has at length been revived, and the name of one at least of the authors who were invited, a quarter of a century ago, to con- tribute to the proposed series, appears now on our list of ecclesiastical historians. It is remarkable that no attempt has hitherto been made to give a complete history of church life and work in the various European countries. Not even in the languages of many of the nations themselves do we find such histories, and it has been left to English writers to produce, for the first time, a con- secutive account of the actual growth, decay, and revival of Christian faith and practice in many of the nations of Christendom. There are voluminous works viii EDITORS PREFACE, of ecclesiastical history, which contain the records of the progress of Christianity in Europe, but it is a difficult and perplexing task for the reader to gather from these scattered records any clear conception of the consecutive events in the history of any one branch of the Catholic Church. It is hoped that these volumes will supply the want of a trustworthy record of the history of each National Church. Some of the ablest ecclesiastical writers of the day have been invited to contribute, and their names are a guarantee of the accuracy and lasting value of the works. It is, perhaps^ necessary to explain that the title of the series is not intended to imply that the Church in any country, whose history we are considering, is, at the present time, the community to which the greater mass of the inhabitants of that country' belong. In some countries the remains of the old National Church are small and, in the eyes of the world, in- significant. In the United States of America, where there are so many sects and divisions, it would be extremely rash to say that the " Protestant Episcopal Church," although the oldest community of Christians in the northern part of the New World, was in any sense the Church of the whole nation. We are attempting to follow the history of the true Catholic Church in each country, to trace its origin and primal growth, to notice the gradual development of Papal power, the internal weakness, the reform movements, the heresies which arose and caused endless divisions and confusion, the revivals of truer knowledge and EDITORS PREFACE. ix purer faith, the severing of some branches of the true Vine, and all the events which constitute the ab- sorbingly interesting and varied details in the annals of each Church. Perchance as we mark the errors men have made, and mourn over the divisions, rents, and schisms of the severed robe of the Church of Christ, we may be enabled, in some measure, to repair the torn garment of the Bride. Perchance by the help of the Heavenly Bridegroom we may be enabled to forge at least one link of that chain which, we trust, will hereafter bind together all the Churches of a United Christendom. The Editor. CONTENTS. I. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. Christianity among the Germans at the end of the 2nd Century— Claims of certain Churches to have been founded by Disciples of the Apostles not to be sub- stantiated—The Population of what is now called Germany in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries— The Celts on the IVloselle, in Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemberg— The Germanic Races, where first found — Alamanni, Bur- gundians, Marcomanni, Goths, Franks — The only flourishing Churches in Noricum and Rhsetia— The Church in Germania I. and II.— Christianity at Treves — Ausonius — Sidonius ApoUinaris — Many cultured Christians very indifferent— Cologne— Mainz— Aletz— Worms — Corruption of Morals in Roman Colonies — Rhaetia— Augsburg— The Martyrdom of S. Afra— Chur —Ratisbon— Noricum— S. Severinus— The Alamanni overflow Swabia — The Goths — Their Arianism— Ulfilas II. THE ALAMANNI, EURGUNDIANS AND FRANKS. The Huns move West— Displace the German Tribes— Goths— Alamanni— The Agri Decumates occupied— The Burgundians — Occupy Germania I. — Accept Christianity— Driven South— The Franks — Fall on PAGE xii CONTENTS, PAGE Gaul — Occupy Batavia — Chlodovech defeats the Romans at Soissons — Progress of the Frank Kingdom — Its Division among the Sons of Chlodovech — Austria, Neustria, and Burgundia i8 III. THE FRANKS AND CHRISTIANITY. The Condition of the Gallo-Romans under the Franks — The Character of the Franks — Childerich's Treatment of the Church — The Marriage of Chlodovech — His Conversion — His conduct after Baptism — The General Consequences of his Baptism — Law against Heathen Practices — The Reverence of the first Frank Kings for the Bishops — Lavish Bounty shown to the Church — Loyalty of the Bishops to the Kings — Causes which tended to enrich the Church — The Activity of the Church IV. THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. Royal Interference in the Affairs of the Church — The Kings appoint Bishops — The Bishops protest — But in vain — The Importance and Wealth of the Sees made them to be coveted by the Nobles — The Conversion of the Alamanni — S. Columbanus and S. Gall — The Bavarians — First Missionaries among them — The Thuringians — Clergy under no Episcopal Supervision — The Irish Missions — Founding of Luxeuil — Influence of Luxeuil in the East — S. Kihan of Wurzburg— The Irish Missionaries failed to effect much — Their Lack of Organising Power — Social Transformation in the Frank Monarchy — Rise of the great Feudal Lords — Degradation of the Freemen — After the Death of Dagobert I., the great Vassals strive for Supreme Power — -The Bishoprics and Abbeys given to Partisans — Pippin of Heristal — Charles Martell — Degradation and Demoralisation of the Church complete. ... 40 CONTENTS. xiii V. THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE. PAGE Early life of Boniface— He sails for Frisia— Returns to England — Goes to Rome — Is sent into Thuringia — The Scheme of Gregory II.— Makes a second attempt in Frisia — His missionary success in Hesse — He revisits Rome— Consecrated bishop— With metropolitan powers —Charles Martell suffers him to proceed— Resumes work in Hesse — Fells the oak of Geislar —Appeals to England for helpers— Response— Monks and Nuns come to his assistance — First visit to Bavaria, and failure— Gregory III. — Boniface revisits Rome— Again goes to Bavaria, and reorganises the Church there — Founds bishoprics and abbeys — Founds bishoprics in Thuringia and Hesse— Death of Charles ?^Iartell — Carlmann invites Boniface to reform the Frank Church Calls synods — Odilo of Bavaria revolts, and is defeated — Eichstadt founded — Gewiliep of Mainz deposed — Mainz created the MetropoHtan See — Carlmann resigns — Boniface's letters to Fuldrad— Resolves to make another attempt in Frisia— His death — The services he rendered to the German Church 58 VI. CHARLES THE GREAT. Providence raises up special men to execute special work —Such a man, Charles the Great— Decay of Discipline since the death of S. Boniface — The Clergy and Hunting— Schools instituted — The " Missi" — Epis- copal Visitations— Charles strengthens the position of Metropolitans and Bishops— Synods— His Rule as head of the Church— The Arch-chaplain's office . . 76 VII. THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. Two Germanies : one Christian, the other heathen— The arrival of the Saxons— The Contests with the Saxons— xiv CONTENTS. PAGE Charles the Great attempts to subdue them — Revolt again and again — Wittekind heads the Saxons — Their stubborn Resistance to Charles — Defeat of Wittekind — Submits to Baptism — A fresh revolt — Bishopric of Bremen founded — The Saxons, once converted, become zealous Christians — Translations and Versifications — The Bishoprics of Bremen, Paderborn, Minden, Osna- briick 86 vni. CHARLES CROWNED EMPEROR. The Coronation of Charles as Emperor of the West — Charles unconscious of the intention of Leo III. — The Mosaic of the triclinium at the Lateran — What the Coronation implied — Disastrous both to the Empire and to the Papacy — It provoked the Reformation . . 99 IX. THE LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. The Character of Louis the Pious — Reaction — The Discontent of the great vassals — Discontent of the Hierarchy — Breaking out of Revolt — Defects in the Carolingian Constitution — The Herr-bann — Dis- appearance of the Freeholders — Union of Civil and Military powers in the hands of the Counts — What Charles had done for the Church — Could not blind the eyes of the Bishops to the fact that he had made the Crown supreme — Wealth of the Church — The Col- legiate Churches — Reform by Chrodegang — The two aims of the Hierarchy — Limitation of Royal Power — Exaltation of the Papacy — The forged Capitularies — The forged Decretals — Their acceptance — Writers of the Period — The Frank Church and Image worship 104 X. THE CHURCH AT THE EXTINCTION OF THE CAROLINGIANS. The result to the Church of Papal Supremacy — Of the decline of the Royal Power — Abuse of their office by CONTENTS. XV PAGE the Arch-deacons — The Canons recover their Inde- pendence — The parochial Clergy — Enforcement of Celibacy — The Permanency of the Conditions in which the Church was placed — Louis the Child — Hatto of Mainz — The Babenberg feud — Bishop Solomon of Constance — The feud with the Vice-Dukes of Swabia . 122 XI. THE MONASTERIES. The Utility of the Monasteries — The services they rendered to Culture and Science — The transcription of Books — The Abbey of S. Gall — Its Scribes — The principal room in S. Gall in the 9th and loth centuries — I so — Moengal — The Song-school — Notker Balbulus — Tutilo — Walram — The abbey Library — The abbey Schools — The outer and the inner Schools — The Trivium and Quadrivium — Ser\-ice done to Philology 136 XII. THE CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. The Saxon dynasty — Henry I. refuses to be crowned by the Archbishop of Mainz — Coronation of Otto I. — Transformation of the Monarchy into one aristocratico- monarchical — The Dukes recover power — How the Saxon emperors attempted to limit it — Their reliance on the Church — Investiture — Meinwerk, bishop of Pader- born — His rapacity — Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim — Willigis, archbishop of Mainz — The contest over Gandersheim — The Synod of Pohlde — Writers of the Epoch : Widukind, Dietmar, Roswitha — Cultural advantage of intercourse with Romie 155 XIII. THE CHURCH UNDER THE FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. The policy of Carolingian and Saxon emperors the same — The Church under the various races — The Bishops xvi CONTENTS. PAGE become princes of the Empire — And military leaders — Simony — The divided authority in the Church — The Popes purposely excite rebellion in Germany — S. Anno, Archbishop of Cologne — Kidnaps the young prince Henry — Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen — Rapacity of these Prelates — Anno and the Citizens of Cologne — Contest between the Abbot of Fulda and the Bishop of Hildesheim — Arnold, archbishop of Mainz — Murdered — The Abbess Hildegarde — The ecclesias- tical provinces of Germany — The foundation of Bamberg — Gregory VII. and the celibacy of the Clergy — Gregory and Investitures — Pilgrimages — The Crusades — The moral result of the encouragement of the Crusades— Massacre of the Jews— Conquest of Sclav races in the East — The Brotherhood of the Sword — The Teutonic Order — Retrospect : . 169 ( XIV. THE HIERARCHY IN THE I2TH CENTURY. S. Bernard lays bare the causes of Corruption in his age — S. Bernard on the Encroachments of the Papacy — On Appeals to Rome — How these destroy all Discipline — Hildebert of Tours on Appeals — The parallel opera- tions of Church and State — Confusion produced by investing the same Officer with functions in both — Simony — Gerohus of Reigersperg on the Bishops — S. Bernard on the Bishops — The Canons — The Clergy generally 207 XV. THE CHURCH IN THE I3TH [AND I4TH CENTURIES. The factors of Modern Civilization — The Church preserves its Classic Culture during the inroads of Teutonic Bar- barians — Chivalry, the regulation of Destructive Force — The Burgessdom, the development of Trade and Manufacture — The Nursery of the Homely and Social Virtues — The rise of the German Cities — The Consti- CONTENTS. xvii PAGE tution therein — The Patricians — The Guilds — The Bishops and the Cities — The story of Archbishops Conrad and Engelbert of Cologne — The story of Arch- bishop Burkhard III. of Magdeburg — The Prelates and the Empire — Encourage Disorder — Opposition Kings — The history of Archbishop Gerhard of Mainz and the Election of Adolf of Nassau and of Albert of Austria 225 XVI. THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. Peoples, like Individuals, have their Times of Childhood and Adolescence — The Renaissance, the Epoch when Germany passed out of Infancy — The Renaissance, the Revolt of Individualism — The new Birth of Paganism — Corruption of the Mediaeval Clergy exaggerated — The study of Classic Antiquity in Italy — It is carried into Germany — yEneas Sylvius Piccolo- mini — Humanism — Its rapid spread — Philosophy and Theology — Attempt to combine them in Scholasticism — The German Humanists — Reuchlin — Erasmus — Zwingli — Ulric von Hutten — Epistolie obscurorum virorum — Mysticism — The double Nature in Man — The function of the Soul — Forms of Mysticism — The German Mystics — Eckhart — Nicolas of Basle — Tauler — The Friends of God — The main Forces that brought about the Reformation, Humanism and Mysticism — Inevitable Consequences of the Revolt 259 XVII. THE PRELUDE TO THE REFORMATION. Necessity for the Reformation of the Empire — The Insti- tution of Prince-bishops and Prince-abbots — Efforts made by Berthold, Archbishop of Mainz, to strengthen and consolidate the Empire — Frustrated by Maxi- milian I. — The love of the Germans for the Hohen- stauffen family — They considered the Papacy guilty of h xviii CONTENTS. Page the Extinction of that Family — Frederick II.'s Appeal to Christendom against the Pope — Intolerable Exactions of the See of Rome — Respect for the Apostohc Throne ceases — The Schism — John XXIII. — His abandoned Life — Sale of Indulgences — Council of Constance — Huss — Deposition of the Pope — He withdraws his Abdication — Election of Martin V. — Mistaken Policy — He sets himself to neutralise the Efforts of the Council — It dissolves — The Council of Pavia — The Council of Basle— Eugenius IV. — The Hussite Wars — Eugenius dissolves the Council — It refuses to be dissolved — He summons the Council of Florence — Failure and Dispersion of the Council of Basle — Confidence of Christendom in Councils shaken — Church and State — The Pragmatic Sanction . . 281 XVHI. THE REFORMATION. Martin Luther — His sincerity — His Deficiency in Culture and in Political Insight — Luther's great Doctrine of Free Justification — Compared with the CathoHc Doctrine of Justification — The dangerous Nature of his Doctrine — Indulgences : the Doctrine of — Luther's Appeal to the German Nobility — Burns the Bull of Excommunication — The Diet of Worms — The Wart- burg Retreat — Luther's System essentially one of In- dividualism — Niirnberg — Carlstadt — Spread of the Reformation — The Peasants' War — Further spread of Lutheranism — The Episcopal Jurisdiction transferred to the Princes — The Augsburg Confession — Political questions involved — Miinzer defeated — The Ana- baptists of Miinster — Wiirtemberg, Basle, Geneva accept the Reformation — Brandenburg and Thuringia — The Schmalcald Union — The Holy AUiance — The demand for a General Council — Evaded, postponed by the Popes — The Council of Trent summoned — The Protestants refuse to acknowledge it — Calvinism — Zwinglianism — Lutheranism 302 CONTENTS. xix XIX. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. PAGE Popularity of the Reformation — Reasons for this — Strife about Secular and Ecclesiastical territories — The cooling of Enthusiasm among the Protestants — Revival of Zeal among the Catholics — Disturbance of Ideas by rapid Changes in Religion — Aristocratic tendency of Lutheranism — Luther impatient of Opposition — His Subserviency to the Princes — Moral Degeneration of the Protestants — The Result of Free Justification — Increased Strictness of Life among Catholics — The Jesuits — Theologic Controversies among the Pro- testants — The Spread of the Jesuits — The Capuchins — The Thirty Years' War — The Peace of Westphalia — Petrifaction 'X'X'x XX. RELIGIOUS STAGNATION. Condition of Religion after the Thirty Years' War — General Religious Indifference — Pietism — Spenner- — Franke — Zinzendorf — Gottfried Arnold — The Magde- burg Centuriators — Arnold follows their Steps — The Roman Church in Germany — Futile Attempts at Union — Conversions — No Famous Preachers — Ac- cumulation of Bishoprics in the same hands — Appoint- ment of Nuncios — Hontheim — Reforms of Maria Theresa — Of Joseph II. — The Congress of Ems — The Archbishops insincere — The Archbishop of Treves— Of Cologne— The University of Bonn — The Archbishop of Mainz — The Archbishop of Salzburg — Expulsion of Protestants — The Court at Salzburg — Protestantism in Prussia — Rationalism 349 XX CONTENTS. XXI. FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE PRESENT TIME. I'AGE The French Revolution — Suppression of the Ecclesiastical Electorates after the Peace of Luneville — The Empire comes to an end — Congress of Vienna — The Resettle- ment of the Dioceses in Germany by Papal Bulls — The Schism of Ronge — The " German-Catholic Church " — Its End — The Decree of Papal Infallibility —The " Alt-Katholik Church "— Its Decline — The Kultur-Kampf — Despotic Conduct of the Princes in the matter of Religion — The Suppression of the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches and Erection of an Evangelical Church — Decline of Faith among German Protestants — What Prospect is in Store for Religion in Germany 370 ) J » « > » > > HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. ■♦<>•■ I. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. Christianity among the Germans at the end of the 2nd Century — Claims of certain Churches to have been founded by Disciples of the Apostles not to be substantiated — The Population of what is now called Germany in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries — The Celts on the Moselle, in Bavaria, Baden, and Wiirtemberg — The Germanic Races, where first found — Alamanni, Burgundians, Marcomanni, Goths, Franks — The only flourishing Churches in Noricum and Rhaetia — The Church in Germania I. and II. — Christianity at Treves — Ausonius — Sidonius Apollinaris — Many cultured Christians very indifferent — Cologne — Mainz — Metz — Worms — Corruption of Morals in Roman Colonies — Rhaetia — 'Augsburg — The Martyrdom of S. Afra — Chur — Ratisbon — Noricum — S. Severinus — The Alamanni overflow Swabia — The Goths — Their Arianism — Ulfilas. The beginnings of the Church in what we now call Germany are obscure rather than uncertain. We know that Christianity had found foothold on the Danube, on the Rhine, and on the Moselle ; but we have no record as to who brought it there, nor do we know much as to the fortunes of those Christian communities that did exist on these rivers. B 2 HIST on V OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. The first notice we have of Christianity among the Germans is from the pen of Irenseus, Bishop of Lyons — Bishop among the Celts, as he says of himself (a.d. 177-202) — who in his treatise against Heresies, in a beautiful passage in which he compares the One Faith, spread throughout the world, to the one sunlight, everywhere diffused by the one solar orb of heaven, says, "Though the languages of the world differ, yet is their tradition one. For the churches that have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down aught different, nor do those in Spain, in Gaul, in the East, in Libya, &c." (i. 10, 3). Tertullian, much about the same time, in his treatise against the Jews, reckons the Germans among those who had bowed the neck to the yoke of Christ. This passage may be merely rhetorical, but such is not the case with that of Irenaeus, who must have had certain information as to the progress of the Gospel in Germany. We can, however, draw no other conclusion from his words than that, at such an early period, there was no more than the rudest beginnings of a church among the Germans, that the Church had, indeed, extended beyond the Roman colonists living on their confines, and that these beginnings were to be found only at rare intervals. When Irenaeus wrote, he meant no more than that Christianity in some sort was to be found in the two Roman provinces of Germania I., or Superior, of which Moguntiacum (Mainz) was the capital, and Germania II., or Inferior, of which the capital was THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. 3 Colonia Agrippina (Cologne). He certainly did not mean that it had penetrated into Germanic Transrhenana, or Barbarica, which was untouched by Roman civilization. Treves, Cologne, Mainz, Metz, etc., claim to have had their churches founded by emissaries of the Apostles, Treves by Maternus, a disciple of S. Peter, Metz by Clemens and Patiens, disciples of S. Peter and S. John, Mainz by Crescens, the companion of S. Paul ; but such claims must be rejected : these founda- tions belong to ecclesiastical fiction. The earliest bishop of whom anything authentic is known at Treves, is Agricius, who died in 332. It is true that an inscription of the 5th century has been discovered, set up by Cyril, Bishop of Treves, in which he mentions an oratory there dedicated to SS. Eucharius and Valerius, whom he believed to have been earlier bishops of the see ; but it does not follow that they were what he supposed, certainly not that they belonged to the Apostolic age. Arnobius, who wrote at the beginning of the 4th century, mentions the fact that there were Christians among the Alamanni. The superscription of the Book on Synods, which S. Hilary of Poictiers addressed in A.D. 358 to " Dominis et beatissimis Fratribus et Coepiscopis Provincias Germaniae Primas, et Germaniae Secundse, et Primae Belgicse, &c.," shows us that in the middle of the 4th century there were organised churches under bishops in these Roman provinces, probably, if not certainly, at Cologne, Mainz, and Treves. B 2 4 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Let us now very briefly consider of what the popu- lation consisted in what is now called Germany. The whole of the Moselle district was inhabited by the Belgae ; Gauls and the Celtic race occupied Alsatia, the Vosges, the Black Forest, the whole of modern Switzerland, and the high table-land of Upper Bavaria, from the Lech to Passau, which had the genuine Celtic name of Boiodurum. But the German races were pressing upon them from north and east. The Marcomanni occupied the north bank of the Danube and the basin of Bohemia. The Alamanni were crushing them together from the Main ; this was a coalition of several tribes, the Teucterii and the Usipii. They first appear in history in the 3rd century. Caracalla fought them on the Main, A.D. 211, but did not defeat them. The Burgundians, originally planted on the Baltic, were sliding south ; they were soon well inland between the Oder and Vistula. In the 3rd century they were on the Rhine, and there, in 277, the Emperor Probus defeated them. The Goths were echeloned along the Sarmatian frontier from the Baltic to the Black Sea, soon to be sent in wild fury of fear and rage flying westward and southward before the Huns. The Lombards, once much further north, were halting about the Werra and Upper Weser, pausing before they made their plunge over the Alps upon Northern Italy. The Franks, unheard of by name before the middle of the 3rd century, began their incursions into Gaul when Aurelian was stationed at Mainz as tribune of the sixth legion. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. 5 The name was new, but not the race. They comprised all those Germanic tribes that lay along the middle and lower Rhine. They formed two great tribes, the Ripuarian and the Salic Franks, the former on the Rhine, the latter on the Yssel. They comprised all those tribes that were known to Tacitus as Bructeri, Chamavi, Ampsivarii, Chatti, and Chatuarii. Carausius, who should have defended the frontier against their invasion, obtained his own election as emperor in Britain in 287, and allowed the Salic Franks unmolested to take possession of the Batavian islands and the country up to the Scheld. The Celtic wave, that had rolled over Europe, and occupied Northern Italy, modern Bavaria, Alsatia and Gaul, Belgium and Britain, had flowed from the East up the Danube. It had left its representatives along the Danube, and when colonies of Roman soldiers had been planted among them, the Celts, with that curious aptitude for giving up their own tongue and taking that of their conquerors, which was after- wards seen in Gaul, had come to speak Latin. It was the same elsewhere. They became Romanised, and as they became Romanised were prepared to accept Christianity, which came to them with the Roman colonists in their midst. Of that more presently. Rhaetia and Noricum had flourishing Christian com- munities in these provinces, when the Church was making little way among the Germans on the Rhine. We shall probably get a tolerable notion of the condition of the Church in Germania Prima and Secunda, of which we have no records, if we see what 6 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. it was at Treves. Treves (Augusta Trevirorum), since the reign of Augustus had been one of the most important stations for the defence of the frontier. It was connected by a main highway with Lyons, and from it radiated other main roads to Cologne, Mainz, &c. It was not merely a military post : it was a great centre of trade. It was adorned with such splendid palaces, temples, and other public buildings that it was called the second Rome. After the division of the empire under Diocletian (a.D. 287), it became the residence of several emperors. There may have been Christians in the city at the end of the 1st century, but we have no evidence to prove it. It did not begin to decline till the 5th century. There was certainly a Christian community in it at the close of the 2nd century, but the first bishop whose name can at all be fixed was Agricius, w^ho attended the Council of Aries in A.D. 314. At the beginning of the 4th century the number of Christians must have been few, for only a small church fulfilled the require- ments of the community till A.D. 336. It was not rebuilt till S. Athanasius was there in exile. No doubt that, in the reign of Constantine, a considerable accession of numbers came to the Church ; yet when, in 385, S. Martin came to Treves, it would appear from his life by Sulpicius Severus, that one church still suf^ced for the community. It was not till the beginning of the 5th century that a second church was built. And perhaps it may be allowable to judge of the quality of the adherents to the Church from Ausonius, the Christian poet, who was count, quaestor, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. 7 praefect, and, in 379, consul. Valentinian I. made him the tutor to his son Gratian. He was a friend of S. PauHnus, afterwards Bishop of Nola. He wrote a poem on the Moselle, and his compositions are valuable as showing how old ideas and new got melted together in the mind of a luxurious, easy-going, indifferent adherent to the new religion that was favoured by the State. He invokes Janus, speaks of God's presence everywhere as an expression allowable as a poetic exaggeration, and makes the question of life after death an open one. The emperor was to him " a visible god," and yet he talks of the Creator of the world. Religious expressions were to him empty rhetorical phrases. It was hardly otherwise with many cultured Romans who adopted Christianity as a fashion, and such were not the men to strive to advance the Gospel among the heathen. Sidonius Apollinaris, who is even reckoned as a saint, in like manner mixed up mythological expressions with Christian phrases ; even for an inscription for a tombstone he used words more suitable to a heathen than to a Christian. When he became a bishop, he employed more Christian phraseology, but turned from the Gothic conquerors with loathing, and with- out a thought of making an effort to bring them to the knowledge of the truth.* On sarcophagi, Cupid and Psyche balance figures of the Good Shepherd ; and, on a casket in the British Museum, a Christian inscription is associated with a representation of the * A charming account of Sidonius Apollinaris is in Hodgkin's * Italy and her Invaders.' 8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. toilette of Venus. This was inevitable, when men and women of the upper classes joined the Church without conviction. That the Christian Church at Treves was composed of Romans only is rendered probable by the fact that among the Christian inscriptions there discovered, there is not to be found a single name that belongs to a German or to a Celt. What was the case at Treves was the case else- where — at Cologne, at Mainz, at Tongern. Such Christians as were found there were residents come from elsewhere, and brought their religion with them. Cologne was held to be the largest city on the Rhine. Since A.D. 51 it was a colony, and, like Treves, a great centre of trade, frequented by numerous merchants from Italy and Gaul, who there met the barbarians from the north. The Church of Cologne pretends to have had as its founder Mater- nus, who is also claimed by Treves. The real Maternus of history was, however, no disciple of S. Peter, but a Bishop of Colonia Agrippina, who attended a synod in 313 at Rome held against the Donatists, and in the following year one held at Aries. He was succeeded by Euphrates, who assisted at the Sardican Council (A.D. 343 or 344). Mogun- tiacum (Mainz) was the most important military station in Upper Germany ; it was the place of residence of the Roman Governor, and the head-quarters of the Legio XXII. Primigenia. The assumption that Crescens, disciple of S. Paul, founded the Church there is not older than the 12th or 13th century, and THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES, 9 is absolutely worthless. No bishop from Mainz attended the synod of Aries, at which was Maternus of Cologne ; none took part in the Arian disputes that then raged, and the first bishop of Mainz whose name is known to us is Martin, who attended a synod at Cologne in 346. But the greatest uncertainty reigns as to the genuineness of the acts of this synod, in which twelve Gallican bishops are said to have taken part. If we could accept these acts as genuine, then we would allow that in the middle of the 4th century Tongern, Speyer, Worms, Strasburg, and Augusta Rauracorum (near Basle) were sees occupied by \ bishops. The first bishop of Metz may have been a Clemens, certainly not the disciple of S. Paul, but a man of that name who ruled there about A.D. 260. At the Sardican Council, Victor, Bishop of Metz, was present. The first notice we have of a Christian community at Mainz we owe to the heathen, Ammianus Marcel- linus, who tells us that the Alamanni took advantage of the day being Sunday, when most of the citizens were in church, to make their assault on the town. This was in A.D. 368. At the beginning of the 5th century, when the city was taken by the Germans, S. Jerome informs us that many thousands who had taken refuge in the church were slaughtered. That there were Christians at Worms at an early date we know from inscriptions found there. Moreover, from the towns Christianity spread along the banks of the river, as is shown by the number of Christian inscrip- tions of the 4th and 5th centuries that have been 10 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. found at Bingen, Boppard, Riidesheim, &c.* We can hardly doubt that by the end of the 5th century, or beginning of the 6th, Christianity prevailed in the towns, though, as we may gather from a curious poem on the Rinderpest of the 5th century by Severus Sanctus Endelechius, the majority of the rustics in the country remained heathens. No great effort to convert the pagans in the district about the Moselle appears to have been made before S. Maximin (a.D. 332-349), who was assisted by his successor in the see of Treves, S. Paulinus, and by Castor, Lubentius, and Quiriacus. Salvian, a native of either Cologne or Treves, who became a priest at Marseilles in the 5th century, gives us a terrible picture of the general demoralisation in the colonial cities ; so utter and radical was it, that he deemed the Gothic invasion to be God's scourge on the cultured world, which had become Christian in name, but had not renounced heathen vices. Now let us turn our eyes to the east — to Rhsetia and Noricum. Rhaetia may be said to have extended from the Upper Rhine to the gates of the Danube at Passau. Since the end of the ist century, Vindelicia had been united with it, and its capital was Augsburg, a great centre of traffic. The Vindelicians, on the high table-land, were Celts ; the Rhaetians, south of them, in the mountains, were Celts mingled with remnants of an earlier population akin to the Etruscans. The Norici, east of these, in the Pusterthal, Pinzgau, * The German early Christian inscriptions are now in process of publication by Dr. E. X. Kraus, Herder, Freiburg i. B. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. ii and Salzburg land were Celts, remnants of that flood which had overflowed the Alps, and spilt itself into Northern Italy, forming Gallia Cisalpina. The Celts had travelled up the Danube, the Germans had swept along from the east to their north. Augsburg, at an early date, was a flourishing Roman colony, and an important mart. In the reign of Marcus Aurelius (268-270), the highest civil and military powers were united in the hands of the Legatus pro prsetore, who was stationed at Augsburg, and by that time both Rhaetia and Noricum were thoroughly Romanised. That there were Christians at Augsburg, with an organised Church, is certain from the authentic acts of S. Afra, who suff'ered martyrdom there in 304. These acts are in two parts : those of the martyrdom, which may be regarded as genuine, and the earlier part, concerning her conversion, a later and apocry- phal addition. She and several companions suffered by fire under the Governor Caius. There must have been at that date priests in Augsburg, and a bishop, who is said to have come from Gerona, but who was probably a regionary bishop, named Narcissus. That he was Bishop of Augsburg does not appear, and we have no mention of successors. Nor does the list of bishops of Augsburg begin earlier than about A.D. 590 with a certain Sosymus, after whom the names are German. Soon after 297 Rhsetia was divided into two pro- vinces — Rhsetia Prima, with Chur (Curia) as its capital, and Rhsetia Secunda, with its capital at 12 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, Augsburg. Chur venerates a certain Lucius as its founder, but his date is uncertain. At Ratisbon inscriptions have been found of the latter half of the 3rd century, bearing Christian symbols. Noricum had early become Latinised ; under Diocletian it was divided into two provinces — Noricum Ripense on the Danube, and Noricum Mediterraneum. It received Christianity from Aqui- leia and Pannonia. Lorch (Laureacum) on the Enns was the most important city in Riparian Noricum in the 2nd century. The first apostle of this district is said to have been S. Maximilian, a regionary bishop in the 3rd century ; but of him little or nothing is known. S. Florian suffered a martyr's death by drowning in the Enns, in A.D. 304. S. Athanasius testifies to the organisation of the Church in Noricum.* Later, Lauriacum and Tiburnia are mentioned as episcopal sees. In Rhastia, in addition to Augsburg, there was a Christian community and a bishop at Sabonia (Seben). Emona, the present Laibach, was the seat of a bishop in the 4th century. Christianity became the dominant faith in Noricum, and remained so till the great Rugian devastations at the close of the 5th century, after which only relics of Christian communities and of a Romance population remained. The precious life of S. Severinus, a contemporary work, gives us a graphic picture of the condition of Noricum and its church at this period, when the Roman power broke down on the Danube and in the Alps. * Apol. cont. Arian. i ; Hist. Arian. 28. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES, 13 Not only were there churches at Juvavum, the present Salzburg, but the other towns on the Danube, Joviacum, Astura, and Commagena, places that disappeared with the retreat of the Romans, Castellum Cucullae (Kuchel on the Salzach), Batava (now Passau), Boiodurum (opposite it), Quintana (Plattling), and other places. Laureacum had several churches. Alamanni, Rugii, Heruli troubled the Roman frontier on north and west ; from the east the Goths threatened, and the Empire was unable to resist them. The troops on the Danube were without their pay ; they were even left insufficiently supplied with weapons. As the barbarian waves swept onwards, the Latin-speaking population de- serted the cities with their priests and their sacred vessels, and sought a refuge in Italy. The epoch was between 455 and 460. Attila, the great king of the Huns, was dead, his empire had broken up. The whole centre of Europe was in a state of anarchy and war, when there appeared in Noricum a stranger ; his speech showed him to be an African Roman. He had certainly spent some time among the hermits of the East ; he would tell none whence he came, and what was his family. " If you take me to be a runaway slave," said he, smiling, ''get ready money to redeem me when my master comes to ask me back." He settled first at a town which his biographer calls Casturis ; and, lodging with the warden of the church, lived there a hermit's life. He ate nothing till set of sun, except on festivals, went barefoot in the 14 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. deepest snow, and had no other bed than his mantle cast on the earth. His name was Severinus, and that was all he would say about himself. He soon acquired an amazing influence over the population. Year by year the misery, the poverty in the province increased, the barbarians carried away captives and held them to ransom. Severinus boldly undertook to organise charity on a large scale to relieve the necessitous, and recover the captives. He persuaded the people voluntarily to pay tithes, and these tithes he employed for charitable purposes. The Romance population revered him as a prophet, even the heathen and Arian invaders were overawed by his personality. Severinus made no disguise of the vastness of the religious difference that separated him from the Arian chiefs and princes ; but they respected him for his holiness and his sincerity. He stood as a mediator between the invaded and the invaders, and softened the horrors of war and conquest. He died before Odoacer, in 488, withdrew the Latin popu- lation from their cities on the Danube. He had foreseen that the barbarians must master the country, and his last request to his disciples was, when the retreat took place, to carry his bones with them. Though the bulk of the Romans left the country, the entire Latinised population did not go. In church matters there was no alteration. In 591, Tiburnia was still the seat of a bishop. In Tyrol a Romance people still remained, speaking a Latin tongue, thoughout the middle ages. The Church THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. 15 and Christianity did not disappear till the Sclavs swept over Noricum and Rhsetia. After the retreat of the Romans, the Alamanni spread to the East — the Lech did not always form the limit of Swabia ; and when this expansion of the Alamanni took place, by being brought in contact with the Goths they were in part converted to Arianism. Then came the Bavarians — the old Marcomanni — who left their ancient seat in Bohemia, driven west- ward by the Sclavs, and they rolled over the high tableland north of the Tyrolese Alps and the Allgau. In all likelihood they were, at the time, Arians. We must now cast a hasty glance at the Goths. These, the ancient Getae,* the greatest of the Teutonic nations, were originally planted in north- eastern Prussia. In the later years of the 2nd century they began to move away, and they made themselves felt, not only along the Danube, but also on the northern coast of the Euxine ; but it was the advance of the Huns (A.D. 370) which brought the Goths finally in an overwhelming wave on the Roman Empire. The Ostro or Eastern Goths, who were the first to encounter the Huns, yielded and became their subjects. TheWisi or Western Goths, panic-stricken, obtained leave from the Emperor Valens to cross the Danube into Mcesia, where a number of their fellow- * This question has been discussed, and the identity disputed, but the overwhelming balance of probability is in favour of the identification. See Ramsay, 'The Gothic Handbook/ 1889. i6 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, countrymen had been previously allowed to settle at a time when, being Christians, they were persecuted, and had in consequence migrated with their Bishop Wulfila. The Ostro-Goths, after the defeat of Attila at Chalons (a.D. 451), revolted and recovered their independence, and invaded Italy under Theodoric, who had received a sort of commission from the Emperor Zeno to recover Italy from Odoacer and the Heruli, and to govern it under the name of the Emperor. The Heruli were overpowered, Rome received Theodoric as a deliverer, and Italy a line of Gothic kings whose rule extended, with more or less completeness, over a period of sixty years. The Goths were Arians. With them in Italy we have nothing more to do. One word must, however, be given to Ulfilas, or Wulfila, before we dismiss the Goths. This remarkable man was born among the Wisi- Goths, north of the Danube, A.D. 311, and at the age of twenty-one was sent to Constantinople as one of a party of hostages. Most likely a Christian from the first, he there cultivated letters, and was ordained first lector and then bishop. His people were still north of the Danube, and he laboured among them for several years previous to the migrations into Moesia. The general rush of the Wisi-Goths across the Danube followed in A.D. 376, when acceptance of Christianity was one of the conditions imposed on them by the Emperor Valens. Arianism was, at the time, the prevailing faith of the THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES. 17 Empire, and it was that form of Christianity to which Ulfilas leaned, according to his own declarations, and his influence over his people was so great that they accepted his creed without demur. He died in 381 ; to him is universally ascribed the Gothic version of the Scriptures, portions of which still remain and are the most precious, if not the only monuments of the tongue that remain to us.* * See * Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths, together with an account of the Gothic churches,' by C. A. A. Scott, Cambridge, 1885 ; also Ramsay, 'The Gothic Handbook/ 1889. i8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, II. THE ALAMANNI, BURGUNDIANS AND FRANKS. The Huns move West — Displace the German Tribes — Goths — Alamanni — The Agri Decumates occupied — The Bur- gundians — Occupy Germania I. — Accept Christianity — Driven South — The Franks — Fall on Gaul — Occupy Batavia — Chlodovech defeats the Romans at Soissons — Progress of the Frank Kingdom — Its Division among the Sons of Chlodovech — Austria, Neustria, and Burgundia. From remote times, in the highlands of the Altai, had lived the Huns, a wild nomad race, some belonging to the Mongol stock, others to the great Turkish stock. The rulers of China in vain sought to stem the advance of these devastating barbarians, partly by building a wall against them, partly by coming to terms with them and paying them tribute. In the 1st and 2nd centuries of the Christian era the Chinese succeeded in breaking the abhorred yoke off their necks, as the Hun empire began to dissolve through intestine quarrels. Some of the hordes under Chinese domination submitted to learn the arts of peace, but the wilder and more vigorous hordes turned to the west to seek new fields where to devastate. Their host speedily divided into two branches. One settled down on the fertile plains watered by the Oxus and Jaxartes, before they poured their THE ALAMANNI.BURGUNDIANS AND FRANKS. 19 waters into the Caspian Sea, and, under the name of the White Huns, abandoned some of their ferocity, and assumed milder and more civilized modes of life. The other continued its wanderings towards the north-west, and followed their wonted nomad life on the vast plains of the Volga. In the 4th century, pressed on from the rear by other races, excited by the rumours they heard of the wealth of the west, they mounted their horses, packed up their tents, and prepared for a new migration. In the year 375 they swarmed over the Volga, like a flight of locusts, and fell on the Alani, who were the pos- sessors of the land between the Volga and the Don. The Alani, a gallant pastoral race akin in blood to the Medo-Persians, who worshipped, as their god of war, a naked sword planted upright in the soil, after a desperate resistance gave way before the countless hordes of invaders. One branch fled to the Caucasus, as to a tower of refuge, but another paused for awhile on the borders of the Baltic, where they united with German races to break into the Roman Empire, and find for themselves fresh homes in Gaul and Spain. The Huns, of hideous aspect and barbarous manner, remorseless in their cruelty, and without the elements of nobility in their character, filled their neighbours in the west with terror. United with such of the Alani as they had forced into submission, they rolled down on the Ostro-Goths, between the Don and the Dnieper, and crushed them into sub- jection. The Wisi-Goths we have already followed in their flight before them. C 2 20 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Other Germanic races were set in motion. There ensued a general rush westward. But indeed they had begun to move before the Goths broke in on the Empire, probably impelled forward by similar causes. The Alamanni threatening the Romans beyond the Rhine, had been met, but not defeated, by Caracalla in 218 at Mainz. Hardly fifty years more, and they sent their parties of plunderers under the walls of Ravenna. The Agri Decumates, the high table- land of the springs of the Danube, and the basin of the Neckar, fell to them under Gallienus. The Rhine became the frontier of the Empire ; the achievements of Julian and Valentinian did not avail further than to keep them off from the Imperial cities on the left bank. S. Jerome knew the Rhine as the frontier stream of the Empire, and so completely forgotten were the old regions of the Agri Decumates, that Ausonius was able, without provoking a laugh, to say that Valentinian, by his campaign against the Ala- manni, had discovered the sources of the Danube. Before the Romans withdrew from the Agri De- cumates Christianity had been planted there, no doubt, but not firmly, and not a single Christian inscription of that period has been found in Baden and Wiirtem- berg. With the withdrawal of the Romans, the feeble seeds of Christianity expired. The invading Ala- manni did not come on German inhabitants in this region. The earlier population had been Celtic ; but all those who had participated in Roman civilization, retreated with the legions. The last struggle with the Alamanni on the German side of the Rhine was THE ALAMANNI.BURGUNDIANS AND FRANKS. 21 in 378; At the beginning of the 5th century the Alamanni had crossed the Rhine and taken the left bank as far as the Vosges. By the second half of that century they had conquered and occupied all that part of Switzerland that lies north of the Alps, and had driven the Helvetii from the sources of the Rhone. Moreover, they spread eastwards, and occu- pied a portion of Vindelicia. Here they came in contact with the strongest rooted plants of Christianity. It does not appear that they eradicated them. In Augsburg certainly Christianity lingered on ; so also did the church of Windisch, and on the Rhine, Augusta Rauracorum (Augst near Basle), and Chun We hear in the 5th century of a Christian Alamannic chief called Gibald ; but the mass of the people remained heathen till much later. The north-eastern neighbours of the Alamanni were the Burgundians. Although bitter enemies of the Roman Empire, they were brought, by their proximity to the Alamanni, into conflict with them also. The Alamanni stood in their way, and moreover held the salt mines, and the trade route by which alone salt could reach them. In 406 and 407, when the Vandals and Alani broke into Gaul, the Burgundians associated themselves with them. They ravaged Gaul with the utmost ruthlessness till the usurper Constantine succeeded in checking them. He came to terms with them, and the Burgundians settled down on Gallic soil. Their king, Gondicar, in 41 1 supported Jovinus in his assumption of the purple, and joined forces with him when he marched into Southern Gaul. 22 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. When the Burgundians settled along the left bank of the Rhine, from Mainz to Worms, the Roman em- perors sought to use them as protectors against the Alamanni. They held the old province of Germania Prima, and were brought at once in contact with well-established and flourishing Christian churches. Orosius, who wrote his Chronicle very soon after they had taken possession of the province (413-417), says, " By God's providence they became Catholic Christians, attended to our clergy, lead lives gentle and peaceful and innocent, and do not treat the Gauls as subjects, but as Christian brothers." The Eastern Burgundians, also a quiet people, occupied chiefly with hewing timber in their vast forests, but who had much to suffer from the Huns, determined, in 430, to become Christians, sent for a Gaulish bishop, received instruction, and were baptized in a body. "Since then," says Socrates, "the people are devoted with warm attachment to Christianity." The bishop who instructed and baptized them is believed to have been Crotoald of Worms. This was the first German race that passed over bodily into the Catholic Church, and the conversion was full of promise, for the Burgundian was a race like that of the Goths, highly susceptible to culture. But Providence had ordered otherwise. The German Church was not to begin its life among the Bur- gundians. The conversion of the Burgundians remained without result. The reason was that the strength of the race was exhausted before it could unfold. When in 435 the Burgundians attacked the THE ALAMANNI,BURGUNDIANS AND FRANKS, 23 province of Belgica Prima, they were overthrown by Aetius ; the Romans called in the Huns to their aid against them, and treacherously breaking the peace concluded with them in the following year, fell on them and overwhelmed them with that des.truction which has assumed so fantastic and so tragic a form in the great national epic of the Niebelungen Noth. The Burgundians now withdrew to other quarters, and planted themselves on the Rhone, with Lyons and Vienne as chief cities. For Church history the Christian realm of the Burgundians on the Rhine is an episode of importance, only because it assured continuity to the churches established at Mainz and Worms till the middle of the 5th century. We come now to the Franks, that race which has left its indelible stamp on history and in Europe. The name of the Franks first meets us, as already said, in the middle of the 3rd century. The Frank name implies Free-men ; it was a proud title under which many German races combined. They com- prised those Teutonic groups on the right bank of the Rhine, some of which had owed a sort of allegiance to Rome, as included in the vaguely-defined Ger- mania Transrhenana. It was a loose allegiance, soon broken when the strength of Rome gave way. These Germans crossed the Rhine, at first in quest of booty, and then to occupy more fertile lands than the sandy and peaty flats of Hanover and Westphalia, and the rugged hills on the German side of the Rhine. The Romans fought with the fury of despair. They massacred all who fell into their hands ; the 24 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Franks treated their captives taken in war with humanity. Not so the Romans ; they cast them to the wild beasts in the circus, or armed them to fight each other in the arena. The Franks took Batavia (Holland), then Toxandria (Zealand) and Brabant ; in A-D. 355 Cologne fell into their hands; it was re- covered from them, but they again took and occupied it half a century later. At the opening of the 5th century Andernach was the most northerly station held by the Romans on the Rhine. A line drawn thence through Tongern to Arras and Amiens shows the northern limit of the Empire. In 409 both Arras and Amiens fell into the hands of the Franks, then Cambrai. Although Treves had been four times attacked by them, it still remained Roman till 475, when it also fell. Ten years later the youthful Chlodovech (Clovis) destroyed the last remnants of a dominion that had lasted in Gaul for five hundred years. In the battle of Soissons, A.D. 486, fell Sya- grius, who, under the title of Patrician, had governed that portion of Gaul that still called itself Roman, the district north of the Loire ; all south of that river was included in the realm of the Wisi-Goths and that of the Burgundians. As already said, the Franks were divided into two main stocks, the Salic and the Ripuarian. It was the Salic that penetrated to the heart of Gaul and converted it into France ; the Ripuarian Franks remained in the land between the Rhine, Moselle and Meuse. The Salic Franks came to the fore under Clovis ; but the Ripuarian made themselves THEALAMANNI, B URG UNDIANS AND FRANKS, 25 felt later under the mayors of the palace, the great Arnulphing family. The first mythic king of the Salic Franks was Chlodio ; the royal race took its name of Merovingian from his son Merowech. Chlodovech (Clovis), the grandson of Merowech, after having defeated and taken the realm north of the Loire, entered into treaty with the Armoricans between the Loire and Somme, and obtained their submission. Then he defeated the Alamanni who had invaded the territory of the Ripuarian Franks, and again defeated them in the decisive battle of Tolbiach (Ziilpich), A.D. 496 ; then he extended his realm over all the land between the Rhine and the Vosges, that is, over Alsatia, as well as over the Alamanni who occupied the old Agri Decumetes, on the middle Neckar and Main basins, and that part of his territory thenceforth bore the name of Franconia. It was not an original seat of the Franks, it was peopled by the Alamanni ; but the conquest of the Alamanni and the incorporation of their territory gave to it the designation of Franconia. Then Chlodovech crossed the Loire and fell upon the realm of the Wisi-Goths. By his victory over Alaric 11. at Voullon, near Poictiers, A.D. 507, he extended his empire to the Pyrenees. By getting rid of the Salic kings of Amiens and Cambrai, and of the Ripuarian king Sigebert at Cologne, and his son, he united all their territories into one great Frank empire. Under the four sons of Chlodovech (Theodorich of Rheims, d. 534 ; Chlodomer of Orleans, d. 524 ; 26 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Childebert I. of Paris, d. 559; and Chlothar I. of Soissons), the realm was divided with regard to the originally independent districts of the Salic Franks, the Ripuarian Franks, Armorica, and the Gauls who had been under West Gothic sovereignty, so as to make the large towns of Paris, Orleans, Soissons and Metz the royal capitals of several races under Frank domination. In 533 the Bur- gundian kingdom was overcome, the Ostro-Goths gave up Provence to the Franks, and the whole of Gaul, with the exception of Septimania, was now Frank. Moreover, their sovereignty extended over all German lands with the exception of Saxony and Frisia. As Chlothar I., who died in 561, survived his brothers and their successors, the kingdom was again united (559-561) under one sceptre ; but another sub-division took place among his four sons (Charibert of Paris, d. 567 ; Guntram of Orleans, d. 593 ; Sigebert I. of Metz, d. 575, and Chilperich of Soissons, d. 584), and after the death of Charibert three realms were constituted — Austrasia or the East Franks, with the capital at Metz ; Neustria or the new Franks, with Paris and Soissons as capitals ; and Burgundy, with the capital at Orleans. Bloody internecine wars and domestic murders made the time of these kings one of utter brutality and horror. A third union of the parts of the realm took place A.D. 613, under Chlothar II. He and his son Dagobert I. (628-638) brought the Merovingian kingdom to the summit of its power, but only to suffer a rapid and complete eclipse. THE ALAMANNI.BURGUNDIANS AND FRANKS. 27 It has been necessary, very summarily, to give the history of the Merovingian succession to Dagobert I. and the divisions of the realm, that the history of religion in this epoch may be followed with under- standing, for it is mixed up, not a little, with the political changes. 28 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. III. THE FRANKS AND CHRISTIANITY. The Condition of the Gallo-Romans under the Franks — The Character of the Franks — Childerich's Treatment of the Church — The Marriage of Chlodovech — His Conversion — His Conduct after Baptism — The General Consequences of his Baptism — Law against Heathen Practices — The Rever- ence of the first Frank Kings for the Bishops — Lavish Bounty shown to the Church — Loyalty of the Bishops to the Kings — Causes which tended to enrich the Church — The Activity of the Church. In the Isle of Batavia and in Toxandria the Franks met with no Christians, or very few ; but it was otherwise when they captured Cologne. The first letter of Salvian shows us how they behaved towards the conquered city. They did not expel the Roman inhabitants, but they deprived them of most of their possessions. A widow, a kinswoman of Salvian, who had been in comfortable circumstances, was now forced to earn her bread by daily toil. Such of the inhabitants as could, escaped, but the majority remained. Gregory of Tours names a Severinus as Bishop of Cologne about this time, and probably he remained and gathered round him and consoled the Christians who suffered and continued to reside in the town. At Tongern, also, the episcopal see remained occupied without interruption. Gregory of Tours names Aravatius as the bishop at the time THE FRANKS AND CHRISTIANITY, 29 when the Huns burst over the Netherlands. Before them the bishopric was swept down, and ceased to exist. In Tournai, Arras, and Cambrai all traces of Christianity disappeared before the Franks. But as they spread further, their dealings with the Romanised inhabitants became more forbearing. Treves was treated v/ith more consideration than Cologne. The bishops entered into communication with the Frankish chiefs : they were men to inspire respect, and the rude Germans had ever in them a reverence for what is noble and good. They neither maltreated the clergy nor destroyed the churches. The Franks not only revered the bishops, but they were influenced by Roman civilization, by the magnificent buildings, by the objects of art, by the general superiority in manner and knowledge and intelligence that they encountered in Romanised Gaul. They began to feel ashamed of their barbarism. Though a strong people, they had that innate modesty which is the accompaniment of true greatness. They acknowledged their own deficiencies, and were ready to learn at the feet of those they had conquered. The instance of the younger Arbogast is instructive ; he was probably grandson of Count Arbogast. His father was a heathen chieftain in Treves ; but he himself submitted to become a Christian, and strove to acquire the Roman language and Roman culture. He entered into correspondence with Sidonius Apollinaris and Auspicius of Toul, who flattered him with praise at his success in acquiring the art of Latin composition. 30 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. A parallel to the relation of Arbogast to the Church is that assumed by King Childerich. He never became a Christian, but his behaviour to Christian bishops and saints was invariably respectful. He made donations of lands to the Church ; he was courteous and even kind to S. Genoveva of Paris. He entered into confederacy with the Romans to fight the Arian Goths and the heathen Saxons. The Frank nobles did not embrace Christianity ; they held aloof in pride, but they respected it. The little court at Tournai was wholly Frank; but when, under Chlodovech, the kingdom expanded vastly, and the population under his authority was made up of three- parts Romanised Gauls and one part heathen Franks — the latter barbarous, the former highly civilized — the question was no longer whether the Franks would become Christians, but when the conversion should take place. The conquering race turned its eyes on the sovereign and waited the signal he would give. Whilst prosecuting his course of war and conquest in Belgica Prima, Chlodovech heard of the fame of Chrodechild,* niece of Gundebald, King of Burgundy. She was a Christian and a Catholic. He resolved to marry her. Her father, Chilperich, and her two brothers had been put to death by Gundebald, who had also caused her mother to be thrown into the Rhone with a stone round her neck and drowned. That Chlodovech had a political end in view in marry- ing Chrodechild is hardly to be doubted. He was a man with foresight, and he had set before him the * In French, S. Clothilde. THE FRANKS AND CHRISTIANITY. 31 scheme of uniting all Gaul under his sceptre. By his union with the niece of the murderer, he had ready at hand, whenever he chose to use it, an occasion of quarrel with Gundebald, and an excuse for falling upon and annexing Burgundy. It was, moreover, to the interest of Chlodovech to stand well with the Church. It was not indeed possible for him to prevent the plunder of churches when cities were carried by storm, but he spared them as far as he might. An instance will suffice. At the taking of a certain city several costly vessels were carried away from the church. The bishop appealed to the king. His royal authority did not extend so far as to enable him to order its prompt restoration, but at the division of the plunder, which took place at Soissons, he asked for one of the costliest Church vessels to be given him as his share. At his demand, one surly Frank replied, " Thou shalt have naught but what falls to thee by lot, according to ancient custom," and he struck the vessel with his battle-axe. The king, however, received the chalice and restored it to the bishop, and took no notice of the affront. A year after, at a parade, he summoned all to show their arms. Having passed in review all other warriors, he came to him who had struck the vase. " None," said he, " hath brought his weapons so ill-kept," and wresting from him his axe, he cast it on the ground. The man stooped to pick it up, when the king smote him to the earth with his own battle- axe, cleaving his skull, with the taunt, " Thus didst thou to the chalice at Soissons." 32 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Chlodovech suffered both his firstborn and his next son to be baptized. He was perhaps still uncertain whether to embrace Christianity himself, but he was willing that his sons should reign as Christian kings after him. The urgency and example of his wife, however, prevailed over his hesitation, and he announced to S. Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, his readiness to be baptized. A striking incident is told to account for the conversion of the Frank king. It is said that in a desperate battle with the Alamanni, when fortune inclined against him, he made a vow to Christ to become His pupil should he win the day. The vow was heard, and the tide of battle turned. There may possibly be something in the story, but it is unnecessary. All the motives for determining Chlodovech's conversion were at hand. His wife certainly exercised extraordinary influence over him, and there was clear indication in which direction his policy pointed. His baptism was, indeed, dictated by policy, hardly by more than a rude conviction that the God of the Christians was the best God for the Franks. It is not always the case that a contemporary has the faculty of seeing and rightly measuring the importance of the events that take place in his time. But S. Avitus of Vienne was gifted with this excep- tional faculty. He sent a letter of congratulation to the Frank king on his baptism, which is remarkable for the penetration with which the bishop saw into the future, and saw what would follow on this conversion. That it would lead to the triumph of Christianity over THE FRANKS AND CHRISTIANITY. 33 heathenism among the Franks, of Catholicism over Arian heresy, was indeed obvious ; but almost with the foresight of a prophet did Avitus declare that now the Frank king stood opposed to the Greek Emperor, face to face, as ruler of the West, that he was the inheritor of the great legacy of the Western Empire of Rome. Nor was that all ; he saw in Chlo- dovech's baptism the earnest of the evangelization of Germany, and the union of all the Germanic races under one sceptre. At every point has history ful- filled the prophecy of the Bishop of Vienne. The baptism of Chlodovech was followed by the wholesale conversion of the Franks. No compulsion was used to bring the heathen into the Church. As a heathen, Chlodovech had treated the Church with forbearance ; he was equally tolerant to heathenism when he was a Christian. But his example worked, and thousands of noble Franks crowded to the water of regeneration. Gregory of Tours reckons the Franks as Christians after the baptism of their king^ which took place at Christmas, A.D. 496. His conversion made no alteration in the policy and conduct of Chlodovech ; he remained the same mixture of cunning and audacity, of cruelty and sensuality, that he was before. His new religion restrained him from no crimes ; he stirred up the son of a kinsman and confederate, Sigebert of Cologne, to murder his father, in order that he might himself be the better able to destroy the parricidal son. Though a Christian, he bought with false coin the treachery of the servants of Ragnaehar of Cambrai D 34 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. against their legitimate lord and master, and though a Christian he slew his own kinsmen, Ragnachar and Richar, with his own hand. But, though his baptism was to him of no moral import, its consequences were wide spreading. When Gregory of Tours compares the conversion of Chlo- dovech with that of Constantine the Great, he was fully in the right. Constantine's conversion pro- claimed the end of a long and desperate conflict between the Roman State and Christianity, and the initiation of a new era in the development of man- kind under the influences of the new ideas introduced by the Gospel. And the baptism of Chlodovech declared to the world that the new blood being poured into the veins of the old and expiring civilization, had been quickened by the same elements, and would unite with the old in the new development. Not so only. The Church to which Constantine extended protection was a Church within the confines of the Empire. The conversion of Chlodovech proclaimed that it had burst through those confines and had gone forth to conquer entire humanity. There was some- thing present in Christianity acknowledged by the Frank king, a force he felt and submitted to, the import of which he was far from conceiving. He saw the strength of the Church, but that the Church would be an impermm in imperio, a force independent of the State, one that might obstruct it in its course, was what Chlodovech did not, indeed could not, conjecture. That many of those who were baptized carried with them into their new Christianity their old heathen THE FRANKS AND CHRISTIANITY. 35 superstitions as well as their barbarism is certain ; and the times were not those in which the growth of the great Christian graces was encouraged ; the germs, however, of a new life were laid. About sixty years after the baptism of Chlodovech, his son Childebert L, who reigned in Paris, issued an order, in which, after proclaiming his belief that the general conversion of his people to Christianity was essential to their welfare, he declared that, as the unaided efforts of his bishops seemed unequal to the task, it became necessary for him to use his authority as king to further the good cause. He therefore threatened with his anger and with chastisement all such owners of land as suffered idols to remain on their ground, and he forbade the performance of all heathen rites of any kind. This constitution was the first attempt to interfere with liberty of conscience ; it shows, not only that the royal power had gained since the time of Chlodovech, but also that Christianity was regarded as the true and lawful religion of the realm. Unquestionably Childebert issued this con- stitution with the sanction of the bishops, with whom he associated often and intimately. When Childebert died in 558, the entire realm was united under the sceptre of his brother Chlothachar I. This prince stood to the Church in a very different relation to that occupied by Childebert, and he looked with jealousy and suspicion on the power and wealth acquired by the bishops. The bishoprics founded in the time of the Roman Empire continued to exist. Treves, and probably also Cologne, were metropolitan sees ; a see D 2 36 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. was founded at Maestricht, in place of that which had been destroyed at Tongern. No new see was, how- ever, planted on the right bank of the Rhine, for indeed heathenism reigned there undisturbed till the close of the 6th century. The respect, the admiration which the sons of Chlodovech and their successors felt for the Church, made them lavish many favours on it. Childebert gave to it extensive domains, the spoil of war, and large gifts in money. Even Chlothachar, in spite of his jealousy, followed the conduct of the others, and made grants to churches. Theudebert I. was lavish in his bounty ; his sister Theudechild built numerous churches at her own cost. The wealth of the Church grew so great that Chilperich, the grandson of Chlodo- vech, complained that the treasury was impoverished, as : all riches flowed into the Church. This was an exaggeration, but it was nevertheless true that not kings only, but nobles gave estates and money to enrich benefices. Gregory of Tours tells us of a Duke Chrodinus who in generosity could hardly be surpassed ; after he had cultivated barren wastes, planted vineyards, and built houses, he made over whole manors thus enriched to such bishops as had sees poorly endowed. This was the conduct of one man. What he did largely, others did in a smaller degree. Many gave estates in their lifetime others bequeathed them in their wills. Men of large properties who died without heirs, made over all their possessions, to the Church ; they made Christ, as they said, their heir. Whereas THE FRANKS AND CHRISTIANITY. 37 kings and nobles wastefully gave away their lands, the bishops took the utmost pains to safeguard the estates thus acquired ; they collected and treasured the deeds of grant, they cultivated and encouraged the development of their estates, they even went so far as to become manufacturers on their lands. At Strassburg a number of tiles have been found stamped, " These I, Arbogastes, Bishop, made." This is S. Arbo- gast, whose date is 630. The exuberant liberality of the newly converted Franks testifies at all events to one thing — the great and continued veneration in which the bishops were held. They must have been men of high culture and saintly lives, or there would not have been this enthusiasm in lavishing gifts upon them. These bishops readily accepted the grants made them, for, in the first place, the serfs living on the lands thus acquired were certain of protection against violence, and in the next place they believed that, with such ^means at command, they would be better able to erect stately churches and to advance the Kingdom of God. If they were mistaken, it was not their fault ; they could not foresee what in a few years would be the dire consequences of this enrichment. The kings of the Franks acknowledged the moral authority of the great and good men who occupied the episcopal thrones ; they never wearied of showing them honour ; they delighted in bringing themselves into spiritual relationships with them, by making them godfathers to their children. They retained them in their courts, consulted them, and entrusted them with political missions. The bishops were given a sort J 8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. of supervision over the administration of justice, and in the courts of justice occupied the place of supreme honour. Nothing that the bishops in the early Frank kingdom did was likely to arouse suspicion in the minds of the kings that the power they were en- couraging might become dangerous to the Crown. The bishops never forgot that they were subjects. The behaviour of S. Remigius towards Chlodovech is an instance. The most loyal subject could not have behaved with greater obedience at the call of his sovereign than did this powerful and independent- minded prelate. When the king asked him to give a bishopric to a man he recommended, Remigius at once complied. When the wish of Chlodovech and an ec- clesiastical prescription clashed, he obeyed the former. His conduct called down on him the rebuke of Bishops Leo of Sens, Heraclius of Paris, and Theodosius of Auxerre ; but he was not alone in his dutiful obedience to the Crown. Most bishops followed his example. The king and the bishops stood to each other as two powers, each of which saw its own importance, but each equally recognised that of the other. The ecclesiastical estates paid taxes to the State ; the retainers of the Church were bound to bear arms as well as those of secular nobles. As we have already said, throughout the epoch when the Franks came over to Christianity, the dona- tions of lands to the Church were very great. These territories became better tilled, more populous and prosperous than others. They were less subject to suffer through the devastations of war. The tenants THE FRANKS AND CHRISTIANITY. 39 were not overburdened with charges. Numbers of freed men came on to Church land and settled there ; moreover numbers of free landholders, to obtain the protection that they saw was accorded to Church property, made over voluntarily their estates to the Church, doing homage, or doing some feudal service for them in exchange for that protection. How active, how zealous, the prelates were in that period we may judge from the fact that we know of thirty synods held in the Frank realm, between the first synod of Orleans in the year of the death of Chlodovech, A.D. 511, and the synod of Paris in 614. 40 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. IV. THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. Royal Interference in the Affairs of the Church — The Kings appoint Bishops — The Bishops protest — But in vain — The Importance and Wealth of the Sees made them to be coveted by the Nobles — The Conversion of the Alamanni — S. Columbanus and S. Gall — The Bavarians — First Missionaries among them — The Thuringians — Clergy under no Episcopal Supervision — The Irish Missions — Founding of Luxeuil — Influence of Luxeuil in the East — S. Kilian of Wiirzburg — The Irish Missionaries failed to effect much — Their Lack of Organising Power — Social Transformation in the Frank Monarchy — Rise of the great Feudal Lords — Degradation of the Freemen — After the Death of Dagobert I., the great Vassals strive for Supreme Power — The Bishoprics and Abbeys given to Partisans — Pippin of Heristal — Charles Martell — Degradation and Demoralisation of the Church complete. The seeds of evil were present from the very first. The bishops saw them and desired to cast them forth ; but their efforts were unavailing. Uninten- tionally, without for an instant suspecting it, they took a course certain to foster their growth, to the almost certain ruin of the Church. The evil was this — the interference of the Frank kings in Church matters. Chrodechild — the saintly Clothilde as she is usually called — saw nothing outrageous in nominating two bishops banished from THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. \\ Burgundy to be simultaneously Bishops of Tours, This was an unheard-of innovation, an affront to the ecclesiastical view of the relations in which a bishop stood to his see. The sons of Chlodovech paid quite as little regard to ecclesiastical right. Theuderich I. gave away bishoprics to whom he would. His brothers did likewise. It was believed that in many cases the nomination was bought of the kings with heavy coin. In vain did the Council of Orleans in 535 condemn simony. Simony flourished under lawless kings. They appointed laymen to the churches. This the third Council of Orleans, in 538, also condemned, but it was powerless to enforce its condemnation. Synod after synod protested that the right of nomination to a vacant see was in the hands of the widowed diocese. The kings disregarded the canons of these councils, and sent their own creatures to occupy the empty thrones, regardless of the rights of the see. Finally, in 549, the fifth Council of Orleans sought to effect a compromise. It upheld the right of free election, but gave the right of confirmation of an election to the king. The 8th canon of the Council of Paris was a bold assertion of the rights of the Church (A.D. 557). It forbade the reception in a see of any bishop who was not elected by the clergy and people conjointly ; it forbade his enthronisation at the order of the sovereign ; it required not merely the election by the diocese, but the confirmation by the metropolitan and the com- provincials. It enjoined that if any bishops were appointed by the king alone, the comprovincial 42 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. bishops were not to receive him, under pain of excommunication. But Chlothachar I. was not the man to regard with respect the canons of a synod. Since 555 he ruled in the kingdom of Theudebald as well as in his own, and on the death of Childebert was sole sovereign over the whole Frank kingdom. As long as he lived the decrees of Orleans and Paris remained dead letters. But matters altered under his sons. Guntchram of Orleans (d. 592) boasted that he had never sold a bishopric, nor given one to a layman, and the canon of Orleans, 549, was fairly observed during his reign both in his realm and in that of Soissons, which he governed during the minority of his nephew. His elder brother, Sige- bert, was, in his fashion, pious, yet he nominated to bishoprics without regard to the rights of election possessed by the diocese, and he at his own caprice divided Chateaudun from the diocese of Chartres, and erected it into a separate see. The bishop, Pappolus, and the 4th Council of Paris, remonstrated ; but their remonstrances were disregarded. In 576 Sigebert was murdered, his son Childebert II. was but a boy of six, and the power fell into the hands of his widow, Brunichild. Then it became the rule to sell the bishopric to the highest bidder, and to nominate laymen to the episcopal thrones. Chilperich of Soissons was a man of some talent and scholar- ship ; he appointed to every see that fell vacant, and usually appointed a layman. To prevent the protest of councils, he did not suffer them to meet ; in 584 Chilperich was murdered, and his successor, Chlotha- THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. 43 char 11. was not a year old. Guntchram acted as regent. Childebert II. died in 595, after having united three years previously his uncle's realm with his own of Austrasia. His two sons Theudebert and Theuderich, children of ten and eight, divided the realm between them under the regency of Brunichild. Then ensued disturbances ; in 599 Brunichild was flying. One day, when on foot and in rags, she encountered a beggar as squalid as herself. She asked him to accompany her to her nephew Theuderich. He did so. Theuderich received his aunt, and Brunichild rewarded the beggar for his services by giving him a bishopric. It has been said that the bishops of the Frank kingdom saw the evil and strove to remedy it ; but did so in the wrong way. They fought against it in council, but it did not occur to them to cut away the occasion for the royal interference by making the sees not worth having. The bishoprics had jDecome so important through their territorial possessions, and the number of retainers living on them, that the nobles, the favourites about the court, had their greed excited, asked for, and obtained these ecclesiastical principalities. They asked for them because, they desired wealth and power, and were supremely indifferent to the sacred obligations that the tenure of a diocese imposed on them. By degrees, the Church came to be filled with prelates living disorderly lives, reckless of their spiritual obligations, loving war, and ambitious of extending their power. Nevertheless, the Frank Church possessed men of 44 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. apostolic virtue and devotion to the cause of Christ. Such were Arnulf of Metz (d. 640) ; Eligius of Noyon(d.658); Audoenusof Rouen (d. 683); Amandus of Maestricht (d. circ. 661) ; Sulpicius of Bourges (d. 644) ; Desiderius of Cahors (d. 660) ; Wolfram of Sens (d. 695) ; and many others. We must now see what was going on beyond the Rhine, where the heathen Alamanni had swept over ancient churches, which were left, if not dead, yet with only a flicker of life in them. Agathias, the Byzantine historian who wrote about A.D. 575, described the Alamanni as heathens worshipping trees and offering horses in sacrifice to their gods. At the beginning of the 7th century paganism was general in Austrasia. S. Columbanus, an Irish abbot, was driven from the monastery of Luxeuil by the ferocious Brunichild ; he came to Theudebert 11. at Metz in A.D. 610, desiring leave to cross his territories on his way into Italy. Theudebert dissuaded him from his purpose, told him that the Alamanni were heathens, and urged him to attempt their conversion. After sixty years of labour devoted to a struggle against lawless kings and nations already Christian, he began the second phase of his life — that of preaching to the Pagans. He embarked on the Rhine, and ascending the river and its tributary as far as the Lake of Ziarich, halted a while at Tuggen, then went to Arbon on the Lake of Constance, and finally established himself at the head of that lake at Bregenz, amid the ruins of an ancient Roman town. His principal assistant was another Irishman, named Gall, who was not less THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. 45 daring than himself. In announcing the Gospel to the heathen, Columbanus exhibited all that impetuosity of temper which belonged to his nationality, and which age had not altered. He broke the boilers in which the pagans prepared beer to offer to Woden, he burned their temples, and threw their gilded idols into the lake. Such proceedings naturally excited against him the fury of the natives, and he was compelled to fly. Then he heard (a.d. 612) of the defeat and death of King Theudebert, and he resolved to abandon his mission and end his days in peace in Italy. Not so his companion Gall, who remained on, founded a settlement where now stands the monastery that bears his name ; he became the apostle of the Alamanni round about, and the spiritual father of other men of missionary spirit who carried on the work he had begun. Two other labourers in the same field deserve mention, Fridolin, the founder of the monastery of Sackingen on the Rhine between Schaffhausen and Basle, and Trudpert, w^ho carried the lamp of the Gospel into the valleys of the Black Forest. Somewhat later, under Charles Martell, Perminus, a stranger in episcopal orders, founded, A.D. 724, the Abbey of Reichenau on an island in the Rhine below Constance, and then retired into the Vosges. Little is known of him, but one work that he wrote has been preserved, in atrocious Latin, but of curious interest as giving us a picture of the superstitious rites against which the clergy had to struggle among the Alamanni who were already Christians in name. 46 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. The Bavarians were the old Marcomanni, who had left their seats in Bohemia, and had occupied the high tableland at the foot of the Alps. They were already in part Christians — Arians, when they took up their new positions. A Catholic family, probably Frank, the Agilulfings, obtained the Dukedom of Bavaria. Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, who worked so zealously and so well at the conversion of her husband's people to the Church, was a daughter of this house. On the death of Dagobert (A.D. 638), the tie that bound Bavaria to the Frank realm was relaxed, and the Agilulfings asserted their independence. The first Duke of Bavaria who can be fixed historically was Garibald, in the second half of the 6th century. He was married to Wildehad, widow of the Frank King Theudebald, and their daughter was Theode- linda (Theudelinde). The first missionaries from the West who worked among the Bavarians were Eustasius, abbot of Luxeuil (d. 625), and Agilus from Bobbio (d. 635), both pupils of S. Columbanus. They were commis- sioned at the Diet of Bonnelles {615-616), by Clotha- char II. and the there assembled bishops, to go among "the Boji, now called Bavocarii," and "an- nounce Christ to those still heathen," and direct unto the truth those lost in error, i.e., in Arianism. S. Amandus also, afterwards (649), Bishop of Maestricht, banished by Dagobert in 630, preached among the Bavarians as he passed through on his way to the Sclaves. In the middle of the 7th century S. Emmeran, THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. 47 a regionary bishop from Poictiers, came in 649 to Ratisbon, and was detained by Duke Theodo L, who entreated him to stay in the land, and work for the enlightenment of his people. He, however, remained there only three years, and can have effected but little. Rupert, related to the Merovingian royal house, was Bishop of Worms, and was invited into Bavaria by Duke Theodo ; he worked long there as a missionary. He baptized the duke and many of the nobles, and founded a bishop's see at Salzburg, Juvavium, where lingered on a Christian Romance speaking people. There also he built the church of S. Peter, and founded a nunnery, which he placed under the guidance of his niece Ehrentrud. He consecrated Vitalis to be his successor. The exact period of the labours of S. Rupert is undecided ; some authorities have placed it as early as between 580 and 620, but it was almost certainly as late as 696-715. Lorch alone remained as the seat of a bishop from former times. The see was removed about 731 to Passau, owing to the inroads of the Sclavic Avars on the Danube, below Linz. In 7 1 6 the old Duke Theodo went to Rome, full of longing to see the holy sites, but also to obtain some advantage for his people. At his petition Gregory H. sent three legates into Bavaria, Bishop Martinian, a priest, and a subdeacon, with in- struction to regulate church matters there ; but as the duke died in the following year, nothing was done, and the legates probably returned, finding Theodo's son Grimoald opposed to their designs. The condition of the Church in Bavaria at the 48 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. beginning of the 8th century was in as great confusion as at the beginning of the 7th century. There were no fixed episcopal thrones, with their dioceses deter- mined ; those bishops who are named were strangers who had been ordained elsewhere, and were without jurisdiction. They lived as abbots with those who associated themselves to them as monks. Priests there were in the land, some Arian, some Catholic ; it was doubtful where, when, and by whom they had been ordained. They were without theological teaching, hardly understood the Latin tongue, except when they were taken from among the old Roman population, and in the sacred functions employed the vernacular. If ecclesiastical reform was needed any- where, it was in Bavaria. We will now turn our eyes to Thuringia. The Thuringian kingdom came to an end in the battle on the Unstrut (530), when Theuderich I. and Chlothachar I. defeated Hermenefrid. Theuderich united Thuringia to his kingdom, and it remained a portion of the Austrasian kingdom in the time of Dagobert. The dukes appointed by the Frank kings were not always Christians. No efforts seem to have been made by the Frank Church for the conversion of the Thuringians. The confusion, the struggle, that went on at home held the bishops from missionary enterprise. But the Franks who settled in Thu- ringia, especially along the Main, were Christians. Duke Radulf in the time of Dagobert became a Christian. The work done among the Thuringians was done by an Irish missionary, Kilian, at Wiirz- THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. 49 burg ; he and two companions suffered martyrdom there {6%Z). The picture we obtain of the ecclesiastical condition of Thuringia at the beginning of the 8th century is as cheerless as elsewhere in Germany ; the clergy were under no control, ignorant and licentious. Priests baptized without asking for the Creed to be recited ; some were ready at will to perform a Christian function or offer a heathen sacrifice. Baptism was regarded merely as a charm, and was administered even by heathens. The common people mingled a little Christian knowledge with much heathenish superstition, and had no idea whatever of the require- ments of the Gospel as to the conduct of their lives. Here and there, unquestionably, there were devout and earnest priests ; but the Church was entirely without organization, the clergy absolutely without supervision. A word must now be said relative to the Irish missions. Ireland, in which no pro-consul ever set foot, was the only place in the world where the Gospel conquered without resistance and effusion of blood. The first enthusiasm of faith, which elsewhere swept the be- lievers to martyrdom, in Ireland drove the neophites into monasteries, and S. Patrick rejoiced to see the sons and daughters of the chiefs adopt the eremitical life in such numbers that he could not count them. The West had never seen anything like those great foundations, true monastic capitals, of Banchor, Clon- fert, and Clonard, in each of which were assembled E 50 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. over three thousand monks. But the enthusiasm of the Irish Christians could not be quenched in the retreats of these monastic institutions. They were seized with a passion for missionary work. In dreams and ecstasies they saw the heathen Germans calhng to them to come over and help them, and the sea open to make a way for them in answer to this call. They left Ireland in shoals ; they carried the light of the Gospel into Scotland, to Northumbria to Neustria, to Flanders. When, later, the Norsemen landed in Ice- land, they found Irish hermits there, gone there to find men to convert, before the island had got in- habitants. These missionaries penetrated the forests of Germany, climbed the Alps, entered Italy and Spain. Christianity in Ireland was wholly monastic. In every abbey were many bishops, and the abbot ruled the community as abbot, and the diocese as bishop. Jurisdiction was in abbatial not episcopal hands, and the bishops were confined to the functionjof conferring orders. In 590, S. Columbanus, who issued from Banchor, appeared at the Court of Guntchram, attended by twelve disciples, and asked leave to settle in his land. The king gave his consent, and Columbanus founded the three monasteries of Anegrai, Luxeuil and Fon- taine among the Vosges, on the ruins of old Roman settlements, devastated by the incursions of the Alamanni. Driven from Luxeuil by Brunichild, he went into Austrasia and preached at the head of the Lake of Constance, as we have already seen. But Luxeuil remained ; and thence in the 7th century THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. 51 issued the reformers of the Austrasian clergy, Rag- nachar of Basle, Cagnoald of Laon, Achar of Noyon, Audomar (Omer) of Therouanne ; then the Frank Romaric, who built Remiremont ; Theudefrid, first abbot of Corbie; the Irishman Dichuill, honoured under the name of S. Die ; the Aquitanian Remacle, who, after having ruled Solignac, founded Staveloo and Mal- medi. Two Irish priests, Cadoc and Fricor, converted a Frank noble named Riquier (Reichar) ; he freed all his slaves, and founded the abbey of Centule. At the same time the Irish monk Roding established himself at Beaulieu. Sidonius took up his quarters at Calais ; the monks Ultan and Foilan planted a monastic colony at Fosses ; S. Fursey, their brother, penetrated Neustria, and founded Lagny ; Livinus worked and died at Ghent ; Fridolinus, another Irishman, was found at Sackingen ; Fintan, another, ended his life at Reichenau ; S. Gall we have seen in Switzerland ; S. Kilian, with his disciples Colman and Totnan, founded a church at Aschaffenburg, on a rock of red sandstone, above the Main, then denounced the local chiefs marriage with his deceased wife's sister, and met with his death in consequence at Wiirzburg ; the hermit Alto laboured in Bavaria, and over his cell rose the monastery of Altmiinster ; Dobda, sur- named the Greek, from his knowledge of the Greek language, also an Irishman ; Corbinian, who founded Freisingen, and Virgil, bishop of Salzburg, a Franco- Gallic monk — all worked in Bavaria, inspired by the teaching of the Irish monastic centre of Luxeuil, and obeying the rule laid down by S. Columbanus. E 2 52 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. But for the labours of these Irish and their disciples, the light of true religion would have died out through- out the Frank realm ; the laicising of the episcopate by the kings had utterly debased it, and nothing whatever was done by the Frank Church for the conversion of the heathen. But the work of the Irish missionaries did not have that enduring effect which might have been expected. They exhibited the utmost devotion, but their work was marred by the charac- teristic Celtic incapability for organization. Their work was sporadic and personal. The men toiled in their several spheres without keeping in touch with each other. They founded Christian com.munities, but not provincial Churches. They laboured, and it was left for others to enter on their labours and systematise where they had diffused some knowledge of the truth. In the meantime a vast social transformation was being effected in the Frank Empire. When Chlodovech extended the petty kingdom of Tournai into a great Frank realm, he ruled over a people of freemen. The organization of all the Germanic peoples, as revealed to us in their ancient codes, was much the same. There were the freemen, who bore arms, held land, allodial possessions, and were all equal in the eye of the law. Then came the lazzi (villains), men who had forfeited their position as freemen, by failing in the fulfilment of their obligations to the state, or were the issue of a freeman and serf The third class were the serfs, originally the vanquished race, and it was unlawful for a freeborn THE FALL Oh THE FRANK CHURCH. 53 German to unite in marriage with such ; if he did so, his family lost the position of the father and took that of the unfree. But under the Frank kings a great change took place. The kings took to their courts a number of favourites, and appointed them to offices that gave them power, and occasion for personal enrichment. The kings who had taken certain districts, in the distribution of the conquered land, as royal domains, handed these over in fee to their vassals, to rule under them. In the reign of Chlothachar II. the transformation of the social condition of the people had already taken place. On the one side a number of families, favoured by the kings, had risen to princely power and wealth, possessing vast territories and thousands of serfs ; on the other side the freeborn had greatly declined in numbers in consequence. Unable to protect themselves in the furious internecine struggles of the time, they had voluntarily given up their land to the nearest royal vassal or bishop, and had received it back in fee, and thus had fallen from their position of freemen into that of feudal servants under a lord. They became, in fact, much what the lazzi, the villains of the earlier age, had been. From forming the first order in the commonwealth, they had declined to become commoners. When Dago- bert I. died in 639, he left two sons, one nine, the other six, and the epoch of feeble Merowings began — of long-haired, effeminate, powerless monarchs, incap- able of exercising rule, and of holding in constraint the great vassals who fought against each other in 54 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. jealousy of power and dominion. The kings after Dagobert no longer found themselves face to face with the people, but with the great nobles. By degrees the Church had become the greatest possessor of land in the realm of the Franks. The kings had given the bishoprics to whom they would, men unscrupulous and thirsty for power. The masters of the palace now rose. In Neustria appeared Ebroin ; over against him stood Leodegar, Bishop of Autun, each ambitious. The struggle between them was not about religion, about Church matters, but for sovereign power. The majordomus gained the mastery, and the bishop was put to death. He drove Bishop Landebert from Maestricht, and his successor, Faramund, was expelled by Pippin. Chramlier, Bishop of Embrun, had got his see by a forged deed, and had never received episcopal consecration. Agil- bert of Paris, and Reolus of Rheims, who were of the party of Ebroin, deceived the Austrasian Duke Martin by taking oath over an empty shrine, and then de- claring themselves not bound by their oath, because the relics had been previously withdrawn by them. The bishops, worldly and selfish, put forth their hands to enlarge their domains. Madelgar of Laon tried to get hold of the convent founded by Salaberga, and was only prevented taking it by the interference of Pippin. Disorders broke out in the monasteries. The monks of Rebais revolted against their abbot and drove him away. The abbot Berchar was mur- dered by his monks because he rebuked them. Synods were no longer held ; or, when held, were THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. 55 occupied, not with the reform of the clergy, but with devising means for securing landed estates to the Church against all eventualities. Only four coun- cils were held between the death of Dagobert and 742 — a period of nearly a century. Bishoprics were given by the kings and the mayors of the palace to young men not thirty years old. They were bought openly. Bishops regarded their dioceses as their private estates, and bequeathed them away. Two bishops occupied at the same time the same throne, and two abbots the same abbey. The clergy in the churches in country places were under no control, for the bishops made no visitations. Patrons of livings kept them vacant for many years, that they might draw the revenues into their own hands, and then sold them to the highest bidder. Bishops and abbots not only neglected their duties, but deserted their palaces and abbeys to live as laymen, and, donning helmet and breastplate, to go to war, or else spend their time in hunting and revelry. Pippin of Heristal was a man of religious feeling. He was the grandson of a man of saintly life, S. Arnulf, Bishop of Metz. He was ready to encourage S. Willibrord in the conversion of the Frisians ; but otherwise he let Church matters take their course. He gave the command of an army to a military- minded bishop ; and he took care that the most important bishoprics should be kept in his own famil)-. He allowed an uncle and nephew simultaneously to occupy the episcopal throne of Treves, Count Aga- theus of Nantes and Rennes to lay hold of the two 56 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. bishoprics in these cities, and Linturis to retain as his own Treves, Rheims, and Laon. Matters were no better under his son, Charles Martell. He drove bishops from their sees if they displeased him, or threw them into prison. He gave away abbeys and sees to his favourites ; he elevated his nephew Hugo, son of his stepbrother Drogo, to the archbishopric of Rouen, which Drogo had occu- pied under Pippin ; and he was given in addition the bishoprics of Paris and Bayeux, and the Abbey of S. Wandrille. Rouen was next given to Grimo, who could not read ; and after him to Ragnfried, a godson of Pippin, also unable to read, and he received also the abbacy of S. Wandrille. Linturis, who with his nephew Basin had held the see of Treves, was succeeded in it by his son Milo. It is doubtful whether he ever received episcopal orders. He was killed in a boar-hunt. Gerald of Mainz accompanied Charles on his wars against the Saxons, and fell in battle at the head of his retainers. Charles gave the see to his son Gewiliep, of whom we shall hear more presently. He was a passionate lover of the chase. The position of Charles Martell was a difficult one. The Crown domains had already been given away ; he was constrained, in order to retain adherents, to bribe them with what alone he could grasp — Church property. But the inevitable result was the utter and radical demoralisation of the entire Frank Church. Nearly every bishopric was in the hands of a layman, or of a clerk, who valued it only for what he could get out of it. The corruption went through every grade. THE FALL OF THE FRANK CHURCH. 57 There were deacons who kept from four to five, and even more, concubines ; and that did not prevent their ordination as priests, and their consecration as bishops. A general complaint against the clergy was that they loved to hunt, to drink, and to fight better than to minister at the altar, and to teach the people. Whence was reform to come ? Not from the Celtic missionaries. They could but use personal influence, acting in independence of each other, at wide inter- vals. The necessary reformation was to come from men of another race, with the faculty of organization in them. 58 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE. Early life of Boniface — He sails for Frisia — Returns to England — Goes to Rome — Is sent into Thuringia — The Scheme of Gregory II. — Makes a second attempt in Frisia ^His missionary success in Hesse— He revisits Rome — Consecrated bishop — With metropolitan powers — Charles Martell suffers him to proceed — Resumes work in Hesse — Fells the oak of Geislar — Appeals to England for helpers — Response — Monks and nuns come to his assistance — First visit to Bavaria, and failure — Gregory III. — Boniface revisits Rome — Again goes to Bavaria, and reorganises the Church there — Founds bishoprics and abbeys — Founds bishoprics in Thuringia and Hesse — Death of Charles Martell — Carlmann invites Boniface to reform the Frank Church — Calls synods — Odilo of Bavaria revolts, and is defeated — Eichstadt founded — Gewiliep of Mainz deposed — Mainz created the Metropolitan See — Carlmann resigns — Boniface's letters to Fuldrad — Resolves to make another attempt in Frisia — His death — The services he rendered to the German Church. Whilst the Frank Church fell, the Anglo-Saxon rose ; whilst the light of the Gospel suffered eclipse in the former, in the latter it poured forth its rays with redoubled lustre. Wynfrith, afterwards called Boniface, was the son of Saxon parents, of noble birth, in the extreme west of the kingdom of Wessex. Crediton has been THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE. 59 supposed to have been the place where he first saw the hght, but there is no evidence that this was so. He began his monastic studies in Exeter. Here, side by side, lay the British and the Saxon cities, each with its churches — the former dedicated to Celtic saints, the other with more general dedications. The conquering Saxon and the subjugated Briton were brought into daily contact ; and probably the ecclesiastical peculiarities of the Celtic Church kindled the wrath, or at least awoke the aversion, of the Roman-minded Saxon ecclesiastic. Wynfrith was proud of his race. He regarded himself as of one flesh and bone with the Saxons on the continent. From Exeter he went to Nutschelle, a Benedictine Abbey, under Abbot Wynbrecht. He may have heard, he almost certainly must have heard, of the mission work that was being done in Friesland by S. Willibrord. No stories were listened to at this time in the Anglo-Saxon monasteries with greater avidity than those connected with the adventures of Willibrord, and other brave pioneers of the Gospel in Frisia. Boniface persuaded three companions to accompany him. He received the sanction of his abbot, and of Archbishop Berchtwald. He took ship, and, crossing the sea, landed at Doerstadt — then a flourishing emporium, now almost obliterated from historical memory. But the time of his coming was unpropitious (a.D. 716). Radbod, the Frisian king, was engaged in furious conflict with Charles Martell, and Willibrord had to desert the field of his labours for the time. Boniface recognised the im- 6o HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. possibility of his doing anything then and there, and returned to Nutschelle. In 718 Boniface again left England, this time not to return to Friesland — where Charles was engaged in driving Radbod into submission before he pro- ceeded against the Saxons — but to go to Rome, to confer with Pope Gregory II., and perhaps to await the turn of affairs in Friesland. He remained in Rome till the spring of 719, and then Gregory gave him com- mission to go and preach to the heathen, but Gregory sent him, not to Friesland, but into Thuringia. Willibrord had returned to his work among the Frisians, now humbled by Charles. Three years before, Gregory had sent a legate into Bavaria, there to organize the Church, and bring it into closer relations with the Holy See. Boniface was to do for him the same work in Thuringia, and forge the link between Bavaria and Frisia. This was not what Boniface desired, but he did as he was bidden. Throughout his life he carried with him the conviction that he had been called to work the evangelization of the Frisians, and he perished finally in pursuance of this mistaken idea ; he never saw that his true calling was to exercise his natural capacity for organization, in bringing the disorderly elements of Christianity in Middle Germany into discipline, and under spiritual control. But he was obedient ; he went into Thu- ringia, and found that there was no longer a duke there. He turned to the clergy and to the people, and energetically began his reforms. He encountered much opposition, partly from the Celtic priests, partly THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE, 6i from those leading dissolute lives. But his energy, his firmness, his transparent sincerity, his radiant goodness, cast a spell over the people, and they followed him with enthusiasm. Boniface soon felt that he could effect nothing lasting unless he came to an understanding with Charles Martell. He therefore undertook a journey to the court ; but on his way he heard the tidings of the death of the barbarian Radbod, and at once the fire of missionary ardour made him forget the task imposed on him by the Pope, to follow that inner conviction which impelled him to ^o to the Frisians. He went to Utrecht, met Willibrord, and worked awhile with him. Neverthe- less, he would not stay. Perhaps he saw that he was not then so much needed in Friesland as elsewhere and he turned and entered among the Hessians. They were heathens, though here and there he may have found some Christians among them. They were a people then wrung with sufferings, owing to their proximity to the Saxons who invaded and harried their land. Very soon his work told. He was able to write home of the numerous conversions that ensued on his preaching ; even wealthy chiefs, he names Dettic and Deorulf of Amoeneburg, were his humble disciples, desirous of giving up their land that he might found a monastery or a church upon it. It was a basaltic rock, suitable for protection against a Saxon onslaught, and on it Boniface founded his first monastery. He destined it to be the nursery of the clergy for the Church in Hesse. But though he was gaining fresh fields to the Church, he could not forget 62 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. that his commission, given him by Gregory II., was to the Thuringians. He sent a messenger to Rome to inform the Pope of what had been done. The answer was a summons to appear in person before Gregory. Gregory saw, what Boniface did not, the importance of the step taken, and he knew that he had in Boniface the right man to accomplish a work he had at heart — the reconstruction of the German Church. Boniface did not go the direct route to Rome ; he went first into France, to see Charles Martell, and ask his help. Then he went on to Rome. There, on November 30th, 722, Gregory consecrated him bishop ; he was to abandon his missionary enterprise, and to become an ecclesiastical organiser. Gregory had taken a bold step, likely to bring him into conflict with Charles Martell ; he had ordained a bishop, without consulting him, to take a position of authority in the dominions of the Frank prince, and to bring discipline to bear, not only on the Celtic missionaries about whom Charles was indifferent, but also on the Frank bishops who were his creatures. Thus elevated to the episcopal dignity, with letters of commendation to Charles Martell, to the bishops of Bavaria and Germany, and to the native chiefs of the countries where he w^as about to labour, Boniface recrossed the Alps, and visited Charles, that he might ask his permisson to work in Hesse. He dare not exercise the extensive powers entrusted to him without having first sounded the mind of Charles. Gregory had acted in a manner un- THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE. 63 precedented, had assumed a right which had not been exercised previously. But Charles does not seem to have resented the step taken, probably he did not measure its importance. There were no wealthy churches in that region where Boniface was to work, and Charles was indifferent so long as he did not conceive that an impediment was put in the way of his political course. In the spring of 723 Boniface arrived at the Court of Charles in Valenciennes, and Charles accorded him a letter of safe conduct, in which, however, he passed over un- noticed the papal claim, and authorised Boniface to proceed by his royal authority alone. Boniface at once returned to Hesse, where he confirmed the converts he had previously baptized ; and then he proceeded to hew down the sacred oak of Geislar, which was venerated by the heathen of all the country round. The tree was felled in solemn manner. The pagans assembled in multitudes to behold this trial of strength between their ancient gods and the God of the stranger. They awaited the issue in profound silence. A succession of bold strokes, and the tree-top shivered. There was a rush of wind in the branches. Some more vigorous blows, and the huge tree cracked and came down, toppling over with its own weight, and split into four pieces, leaving a great patch of light in the green leafy vault, through which the sun fell on the triumphant Christian prelate. The shuddering pagans bowed at once before the superior might of Christianity. But the want of 64 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, labourers was great, and Boniface turned to his native land for a supply of nfiissionaries. The Anglo- Saxon monasteries responded at once, their gates were thrown open, and many zealous servants of God came to offer themselves to Boniface — Lull, who was to succeed Boniface one day ; Willibald, just returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem ; Wunnibald, and Witta. Wigbert he placed at the head of a monastic colony at Fritzlar. Denehard entered so closely into the feelings of Boniface, that he was used by him repeatedly on his most delicate embassies to Rome. His sphere of work was in Thuringia. Bur- chard became later Bishop of Wiirzburg ; we know nothing of his early life. A nobleman of Noricum came to offer Boniface his son, to be educated in the service of God, This son was Sturm, who became the founder of the abbey of Fulda. From the convents of England, as from a hive, issued likewise a swarm of widows and virgins, the mothers, sisters, and kins- women of the missionaries, eager to share their labours and perils. Chief of these is Lioba, a kinswoman of Boniface, one of the sweetest characters in ecclesiastical biography, " beautiful as the angels, fascinating in her speech, learned in the Holy Scriptures and canons ; " she was set as abbess at Bischofsheim. The gentle Walpurgis settled near her brother at Eichstadt ; Chunihild and her daughter Berathgith were stationed in Thuringia ; Chunidrat was sent into Bavaria ; Thecla to Kitzingen on the Main. " Providence " — beautifully says M. Ozanam — *' has placed women beside all cradles." THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE. 65 And Boniface needed all the assistance that could be given him, for he met with opposition, not so much from the heathen, as from the Irish missionaries and those trained under them, and from the Frank bishops. Boniface represents not only Roman obedience in opposition to Celtic independence, but also the Benedictine rule which was set in opposi- tion to that of S. Columbanus. The names of several of those who resisted him are given ; they are not Celtic names, but they belonged to men, perhaps Franks, who had been reared in all the peculiarities and prejudices of the Celtic missionaries. This resistance came to an end in 726. Boniface set to work to regulate all kinds of disorders in Thuringia, and to establish the Church on a firm basis in Hesse. As he gained power and brought order into the confusion, so did he occasion uneasiness in the minds of the w^orldly-minded Frank bishops. For nearly ten years did he work in Hesse and Thuringia. He could as yet do nothing with the reformation of the Frank Church : Charles Martell stood in his way. Several years had elapsed since Gregory H., at the request of Duke Theodo, had sent a legation into Bavaria to organize the Church there ; but, owing to the death of the duke, and the opposition of his successor, nothing had been done. Hucbert who was duke now, was amenable to Charles Martell, and the letter of safe conduct Boniface had received would protect him in Hucbert's dominions. He therefore now adventured himself in Bavaria. We know, however, little of what he did there, except that F 66 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. he visited several churches, and deposed a schis- matic. Hucbert cannot have regarded him with a favourable eye : he helped him in no way, and Boniface, though he recognized that Bavaria needed sorely episcopal supervision, was unable to arrange for it. His efforts in Bavaria were not absolutely fruitless, but he left the duchy unable to accomplish what was necessary, because of the indifference or opposition of the duke ; and Charles Martell was not the man to do anything to soften opposition. Boniface had now reached a turning-point in his life. The papal commission given to him had been dis- charged ; he had done his work as thoroughly as it could be done under the circumstances, and now he resolved to resign his episcopal office as administrator of Hesse and Thuringia and devote himself to mission work among the Saxons, who were still heathen, and were the terror of their Christian neighbours. He therefore went again to Rome, in the summer of 738. His friend Gregory H. was dead, and Gregory HI. occupied the chair of S. Peter. Gregory HI. did not respond to the wish of Boni- face : he judged the position of affairs otherwise than did Boniface. He was most anxious that the Church in Bavaria should also be taken in hand and reformed by the man who had dealt so faithfully in Thuringia. After a stay of a year in Rome, Boniface was sent back into Germany. Hucbert was dead, and Charles Martell had given the dukedom to Odilo, a member of the Agilulf family, who had married his daughter THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE, 67 Hiltrude, and Charles had taken Sonichild, niece of Odilo, as his concubine. Odilo was a born prince, haughty, brave, a man of council and of action. And yet the choice was not happy, for he bore the dependence on the Frank Empire with impatience. Before long he was the determined opponent of the Amulfings. He united Swabia, Saxony, Aquitania, and the Sclaves against the Frank domination. With regard to Church matters he was not indifferent. He treated the Church with favour, he made donations to churches, and favoured the servants of God. He resolved to call Boniface to his aid to reform the Church in his duchy. He wrote to him, and Boniface responded with alacrity. Supported by Duke Odilo, Boniface set to work at once with his characteristic energy. Vivilo was the only bishop he found in the duchy : he was at Passau. He had been consecrated in Rome in 731 by Gregory HI. to the bishopric of Lorch ; but in 738 he was forced along with his clergy to fly from it before the Avars, and he took refuge at Passau. When in 739 Boniface began to divide Bavaria into dioceses, this man was allowed to remain where he had taken up his residence, and Passau became his see. Boniface did not like the man, but he was obliged to let him remain, and Odilo and his son Thassilo made over to him for the support of the Church all their own possessions in and near Passau, together with the tolls on the market. A second bishopric was founded at Ratisbon, the Bavarian capital, and the first bishop was Wicterp, F 2 68 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. according to one authority a member of the Agilulfing family. He is described in 754 as an old man, almost blind, of ninety years, who, on showing dissatisfaction with the changes Boniface was then introducing, was presently turned out of his see by Boniface, who put in his room Garibald. But there is some uncertainty about Wicterp. He seems to have been in bishop's orders before, and perhaps the truth of the matter is that his discontent and opposition to Boniface arose out of the fact that he was passed over, and the diocese given to another man not yet in episcopal orders. On the throne of S. Rupert, Boniface placed a certain John, who was probably one of his companions, a man of British origin, but little else is known of him. John was succeeded in 743 by Virgilius, an Irishman, who after having been with Pippin was recommended by him to Duke Odilo for the see of Salzburg. Boni- face disliked him, and brought exaggerated accusa- tions against him to the Pope, at one time that he had allowed the validity of a baptism by a priest in bad grammar, " in nomine Patria et Filia et Spiritua Sancta," * then that he stirred up the duke against him, and lastly that he believed in antipodes, not that the earth was round, but that trolls and dwarfs inhabited the mines underground, that is to say, shared the common belief of the mountain people. A fourth bishopric was erected at Freising, and to this Boniface was obliged to consent to nominate * Boniface insisted on re-baptism, but Pope Zacharias wisely decided against him, as the baptism was performed " with right intent." THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE. 69 Erembert brother to a certain Corbinian, a regionary bishop who had been highly reverenced by the Bavarians. Both the arranging of the bounds of the bishoprics and the nomination to the sees took place with the consent of the duke, consequently Boniface met with no open hostility. He exhorted the new bishops to examine into the condition of the belief and morals of the clergy, and to call synods in which canons might be passed as need required. Hand in hand with the foundation of bishoprics went the establish- ment of monasteries, Altaich and Benedictbeuren. Boniface, having thus ordered the Church in Bavaria, returned into Thuringia with the intention of doing the same work there. Gregory HI. had been urgent on Charles Martell to assist him against the Lombards. Charles refused, but to soften the harshness of this refusal agreed so far to meet the wishes of the Pope in another direction, as to allow of the erection of three new bishoprics in Thuringia and Hesse. Boniface chose Buraburg (the site of which is now lost), Wiirzburg, and Erfurt, and the ordination of the first bishops to these sees took place in 741. S. Adeiar was the first and sole bishop who occupied Erfurt. After his death — he was killed with S. Boni- face in Friesland — no other bishop was appointed. S. Burchard occupied the new See of Wiirzburg ; and over Buraburg was placed the Englishman Witta. S. Boniface had reached the age of sixty-five, an ro HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, age at which most men's active work is over. But with it for him opened a new sphere of activity for which he had long looked and hoped in vain — the reformation of the Frank Church in Germany. In the year 741 died quickly one after another Charles Martell and Gregory III. Charles had ruled despotically over the Frank kingdom ; after his death the realm was divided by his will between his sons Carlmann and Pippin. Carlmann had Austrasia, Swabia, and Thuringia ; Pippin had Neustria and Burgundy. Boniface was therefore brought into immediate relation with Carlmann. The new ruler was a man full of religious enthusiasm, and eager to do all he could for the welfare of the Church. Boni- face's opportunity had arrived. As the proverb says, *' Everything comes to him who can wait." Carlmann sent for Boniface, and exhorted him to undertake the reformation of the Church in his dominions. Boniface at once seized the occasion. A synod was called for April, 742, by Carlmann, the first that had been held in the Frank Church for many years. It was a diet as well ; the nobles assembled with the bishops. Of these latter, however, few appeared save those who had been appointed by Boniface. Gewiliep of Mainz and Milo of Treves kept away. The bishops declined to attend because they had no desire for reform. As there was no opposition, Boni- face carried all his points. Synods were required thenceforth to meet annually, every priest was made subject to the bishop in whose diocese he was, and was required every year to give an account of his THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE, 71 stewardship to his spiritual overseer. The bearing of arms by the clergy was forbidden. On the monasteries the rule of S. Benedict was imposed. For ten years Boniface had borne the title of Arch- bishop conferred on him by the Pope. Carlmann ignored this, and appointed Boniface archbishop at the synod. However well disposed Carlmann was towards the Church, he was not in the smallest degree inclined to relinquish the royal prerogative that had been exercised by the kings, and since the death of Dagobert by the mayors of the palace. Boniface had the advantage of the Church too much at heart to demur on this occasion. A second important synod was held in 743 at Lestinnes. Unfortunately we do not know the names of the bishops who attended. This council carried on the work of reform begun the year before. In the meantime there had been trouble in Bavaria, and Pope Zacharias had played there a double game. He had encouraged Odilo to revolt, and then, when he saw that Odilo's was the losing side, withdrew, equivo- cated, and denied any participation. Eichstadt was now made a see under S. Willibald (a.d. 471), a kinsman of S. Boniface. The defeat of Odilo had its advantages. Had he succeeded, the Bavarian Church would have been separated from that in Germany ; as it was, it con- tinued to be a member of the whole German Church, and Boniface exercised metropolitan jurisdiction over it. But he was an archbishop without a seat. Again all comes to him who knows how to wait. His most 72 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. bitter opponents were Milo of Treves and Gewiliep of Mainz, and they were too powerful for him to oppose. Milo he never was able to reach, but the occasion came at last when he could humble Gewiliep. In a war of Charles' against the Saxons, Bishop Ceroid of Mainz had gone out to battle with his chief and had been slain. His son Gewiliep succeeded him. He was a man of decent morals, but was addicted to hawks and hounds, and he opposed in every way he could the efforts made by Boniface to reform the Church. He had been a layman, but was given the see in compensation for the loss of his father. Gewiliep cherished the sacred hereditary duty of revenging his father's death. He discovered the man by whose hand Ceroid had fallen, lured him to an amicable interview in an island on the river, and stabbed him to the heart. Neither king nor nobles thought this exaction of blood for blood the least disqualification for a Christian bishop. But the Christianity of S. Boniface was superior to the dominant barbarism. The blood-stained bishop was deposed by the act of a synod ; and then, as vacated, the see was constituted metropolitan, and was assumed by Boniface, who thence exercised juris- diction over the whole of Germany. In 747 Carlmann resigned his power and place, and retired into a monastery at Rome, bequeathing his son to the perilous guardianship of his brother Pippin. And now the conviction deepened in the mind of Boniface that the day of his departure was at hand. THE WORK OF S, BONIFACE, 73 Lull had, indeed, been appointed his coadjutor in the See of Mainz ; but his appointment had not yet received the royal sanction, and till this was secured, Boniface could not feel free from anxiety for the welfare of his flock. One of his latest letters, there- fore, was addressed to Fuldrad, Pippin's arch- chaplain, soliciting his protection, and that of his master, in behalf of his clergy and his ecclesiastical foundations. " Nearly all my companions," he wrote, " are strangers in the land. Some are priests distributed in various places to celebrate the offices of the Church, and minister to the people ; some are monks living in different monasteries, engaged in teaching the young ; some are aged men, who have long borne with me the burden and heat of the day. For all these I am full of anxiety, lest after my death they should be scattered as sheep without a shepherd. Let them have a share of thy countenance and pro- tection. Suffer also. Lull, my son and coadjutor, to preside over the churches, that both priests and people may find in him a guide. I have many reasons for making these requests. My priests on the heathen borders are in deep poverty ; bread they can obtain, but not clothing. Let me know whether thou canst promise the granting of my request, that, whether I live or die, I may have some assurance of the future." The royal permission that Lull should succeed him arrived, and his mind was relieved from its load of anxiety. And now, fully persuaded that throughout 74 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. his life he had not followed that course which had been marked out for him by the Divine finger, that he had failed in the special mission entrusted to him, though seventy-five years of age, his conscience goaded him to resume his missionary work among the Frisians. With a retinue of three priests, three deacons, four monks, and forty-one laymen, he embarked on board a vessel (a.d. 755), and sailed down the Rhine. At Utrecht he was joined by Edban, an old pupil, whom he had placed in charge of the see, and then together they advanced into the eastern part of Frisia, and commenced their labours. There he met his death, surrounded and cut down, along with most of his comrades, by a party of enraged heathens. Well may Germany reverence the memory of her great apostle. He did not, indeed, carry the light like W^illibrord where it had never shone before, but he reduced to order what was in confusion, dissipated the last shadows of heathenism, and left the Church behind his death furnished with admirable men, having the fear of God before their eyes, and the land parcelled out into episcopal sees, and decided steps had been taken towards rectifying those abuses which had brought this Church to the dust of the earth. That Boniface subjected the Church to the Papal authority, exerted in a manner unheard of before, there can be no doubt. He had to fight against many foes, and he must set his back against some- thing firm. Charles Martell was not the man to help him, but to stand in the way of reform, though he did not object to the conversion of heathens. To THE WORK OF S. BONIFACE, 75 whom else could Boniface appeal but to the Pope? He had not only the Frank demoralised clergy to deal with, he had also ranged against him the Celtic missionaries ; he must have some source of authority to appeal to against the pretensions of the Irish, and to weight his censures of the degenerate Frank clergy. Directly that Carlmann succeeded Charles Martell, Boniface had little to say to Rome ; he claimed help for his work from the king, and he did not scruple to rebuke Pope Stephen when he, on his visit to Pippin, presumed to ordain a bishop to Metz, without the consent of himself, with whom the canonical right lay. Boniface was not a man of large mind, but he was a man of a single heart. A greater man in intellect and breadth was that Virgilius of Salzburg whom he disliked and misunderstood. But he was a man who sought as the one end of his life the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom. 76 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. VI. CHARLES THE GREAT. Providence raises up special men to execute special work — Such a man, Charles the Great — Decay of DiscipHne since the death of S. Boniface — The Clergy and Hunting — Schools instituted — The " Missi " — Episcopal Visitations — Charles strengthens the position of Metropolitans and Bishops — Synods — His Rule as head of the Church — The Arch- chaplain's office. When it is the will of Divine Providence that the development of mankind, brought to a halt, should again be set in motion, that what lags should be brought into line, and that fresh directions should be taken in the forward march, when Providence would lay the bases on which future generations should build, slowly, may be, and at intervals — then it calls forth those men whom history, and not the flattery of courtiers, designates great. These men are the living tools with which Eternal Providence works, men working upon men, as is God's method of procedure. These men are the axles round which all turns in their epoch, the pillars on which all that is great in their age rests, the motive force which sets the whole mass of men in motion over whom they have influence. Nothing great happens without them, nothing that does not bear theistamp and colour of their individuality. CHARLES THE GREAT, 77 But this manifestation of grandeur is not without its sad intermixture. Greatness cannot be bequeathed. When the great men die, Hfe and spirit evaporate from what they have summoned into existence : the fabric totters and falls. It is well, however, for man- kind, that usually, if not always, the foundations remain intact, so that after-generations can recom- mence the structure in a more humble manner, but following the same lines. What has passed away belongs to history, what remains, to the present ; but the present can look back on the image of the past, and encourage itself thereat to proceed with vigour and with the judgment bred of experience. Among the great men of history, probably no man has ever better merited the epithet of " the Great " than did Charlemagne. Not because he made great conquests and widely extended the Empire ; for Alexander and Attila did as much ; his greatness lies in quite another direction. He was the restorer of the political, intellectual, and religious life of his time. He provided for his realm the most admirable code of laws ; with marvellous foresight and judgment he ruled the Empire and the Church, correcting what was wrong in each, organizing in each, caring for the welfare of all in their several grades in each. He selected and nominated to their offices the best men in both State and Church, and guided the whole political and religious life in his Empire. Endowed by nature with a lofty intelligence, with a passionate love for all that was great, good, and beautiful, he restored the broken-down civilization of the West, 78 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. and sought to do for it, what had not been sought by any of his predecessors, to root it into the very national life of his people. He was as great in small matters as in large. His clear practical common- sense neglected no side of human existence ; he cared alike for the material, the social, the spiritual, and the intellectual well-being of men. He laid down as careful and sensible rules for the conduct of one of his farms as he did for the government of a great realm. It is not our place here to write either the history of the times in which Charles lived, or his biography. We will consider solely the relations in which he stood to the Church. When Charles the Great began to reign (A.D. ^(i^), he found that in the thirteen years since the death of S. Boniface, matters ecclesiastical in Germany had fallen back greatly from the high position to which that great reformer, supported by Carlmann, had brought them. Beyond the range of the influence and operations of Boniface, nothing had been done ; the clergy of Neustria and of Burgundy had not been reformed at all. Charles found that the majority of the episcopal sees and abbeys were occupied by men who were drunkards, roysterers, turbulent warriors, and passionate hunters, who had neither the will nor the faculty to fulfil decently the obligations of their sacred calling. Charles, earnestly resolved to liberate his people from the chains of ignorance and savagery, and to elevate them to a higher stage of culture, moral and social, saw that he must begin with the CHARLES THE GREAT. yg clergy, the first estate in his realm, the mainstay of his throne, which by its position and calling was calculated to exercise an enormous sway over the people for good or for bad. The improvement of the moral and intellectual condition of the clergy was the main object of his attention throughout his entire reign, and he left no means untried to reach his end. His first step was to wean the clergy from their love of war and the chase, and to cut off occasion for their bearinsf arms ; he released the bishops and abbots from their obligation to follow the host when called out for a campaign. He also forbade all hunting with hawks and hounds. But this command could not be enforced. To a free German the chase was as necessary as the air he breathed, and after several vain efforts, Charles was obliged to permit it under the condition that the skins of the wild beasts slain should be employed for binding the books in the libraries. The clergy had also delighted in the turmoil and adventure of battle, as it gave them opportunity of becoming illustrious through bold achievements, and of enriching themselves on the spoil of the enemy. But they resigned this occupa- tion more readily than the chase, especially since a new field of activity and of gaining honour and influence was opened to them. Under the guidance of his friend Alcuin, Charles founded schools in which the young clergy might be trained, who were afterwards to be invested with positions of responsibility, and these schools turned So HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. out a number of learned, conscientious, and sincerely religious men whom Charles delighted to advance to the highest ecclesiastical offices. Through his and Alcuin's indefatigable efforts, in time, the worldly- minded and ignorant prelates were weeded out, and their places filled with men of learning and exemplary lives, men in whom he was able to place such confidence that he not only gave up to them the charge of the secular courts of justice in their dioceses, but he also associated them with his legates whom he sent annually through the provinces to see that the dukes and counts in their several spheres executed justice aright. Moreover, from among them he selected his privy councillors, his chancellors, and his ambassadors. In order to free his people from oppression at the hands of the dukes and counts, and to see that his commands were promptly and properly executed, the Emperor Charles despatched annually into every part of the realm, persons of proved integrity and intelligence, invested with supreme authority, to investigate into the rule of the dukes and counts, to hear the complaints of the people, and to rectify all abuses. These men were called Missi doi?iinici, and usually two were appointed for each province, whereof one was a layman of his court, and the other -a bishop. Only in extraordinary cases was there a single missus. Distinct from these visits of inspection were the visitations the bishops were required to conduct in their dioceses, in order to hold therein spiritual courts in which spiritual cases might be CHARLES THE GREAT. 8i heard and judged. These visitations also had to be made annually. Every bishop was required by Charles to make a yearly tour of inspection through his diocese. He might not, however, act as sole and arbitrary judge in his courts, for he was required to have with him seven assessors. That the bishops on these visitations were attended by a considerable retinue even in the reign of Charles is apparent from the regulations laid down for the entertainment of the bishop and his followers on such occasions. According to the capitularies of Ludwig the Pious in 819, a bishop received as his "pro- curation " daily, forty loaves, one pig, three young porkers, three fowls, fifteen eggs, three tuns of ale, and four sacks of oats for the horses. Charles strengthened the position of the metro- politans, and assured to them their rights. " The bishops shall," he ordered, "according to canonical right, obey those whom we have invested with metropolitan authority." An appeal from a bishop was to the metropolitan, from the sentence of a metropolitan only to himself. Of appeal to the Pope there is no mention in the capitularies of Charles ; such appeals were unnecessary, as all questions were discussed in synod by the emperor and the bishops together. Charles regarded the bishops as the mainstay of his whole ecclesiastical order, the centre of all religious life in the dioceses. He issued numerous injunctions to consolidate the authority of the bishop ; he allowed no priest, no abbey, no convent to be exempt from G 82 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. his jurisdiction. Only by such means could discipline be maintained among the clergy, and a high tone of morals in the monastic houses. In after years, the popes interfered with diocesan organization, weakened the authority of the metropolitans, and withdrew abbeys from the jurisdiction of the bishops and placed them under their own immediate authority. Charles had recourse to synods and diets as the most efficacious means of carrying out his reforms. In these he met the bishops and abbots face to face ; he laid before them the purposes that were so much at his heart, with all the warmth of his pious eagerness, for the advancement of true religion, and with all that personal influence which his greatness, his sincerity, as well as his position lent him. They obeyed at first sullenly, but their consciences told them he was in the right. They began to see how advantageous his reforms were ; gradually they were drawn within the vortex of his enthusiasm, and worked with right goodwill. Fifty-six diets and synods, held in the thirty-three years of his reign, in which the conditions of Church and realm were discussed and regulated, are the imperishable testimony to Charles's right to a high place in the world's history as an epoch-making man. And be it remembered in all the years of his reign his sword was never sheathed. Charles made a great point of preaching. In a circular to the archbishops of his realm, he wrote : " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Charles, etc., to the Archbishop CHARLES THE GREAT. 83 Odilbert, that God may bless him. It has often been my innermost desire to converse with you and your colleagues in confidence over the welfare of the holy Church of God, when without inconvenience you can come to us. However assured I may be that your holiness serves the Lord with all zeal, yet I desire by means of this letter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to urge and exhort you to still further exert yourself in the Church of God, to be even more watchful than heretofore in declaring the Divine Word and whole- some doctrine, that through your faithful efforts the true Word of life may spread, and the number of Christian people may abound to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, I desire that you will inform us, through a letter or a missus, in what manner you and your suffragans instruct the clergy committed to your charge, and the people under you, and how you administer the sacrament of baptism, etc." He urged that preaching should be simple and popular, that all the people should be required to send their children to the parish priest or into the abbey schools to be grounded in learning, at least in the Creed and the Lord's Prayer and Commandments in the vulgar tongue. He ordered the putting aside of all fantastical legends, and arbitrary veneration of saints. Sometimes he sent round to the bishops a subject on which he required them to preach, then he laid before them test questions to prove their competence. Thus no ignorant prelate remained undiscovered, none lax in his duties unrebuked, and precautions were taken that no man incompetent G 2 84 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. through lack of learning or bad morals could be advanced to any place of importance in the Church. A story told of him, perhaps grounded on fact, shows at all events what was thought of the manner in which he acted in the appointment to bishoprics. He had once lost his way when hunting, and was obliged to pass the night in the house of a poor priest, who ministered in a little lonely church in the forest to a few poor woodcutters. The priest entertained him, not knowing who was his guest, with the best he had, and next morning, as the king would go, urged him first to hear mass in his little church. Charles offered his host a piece of gold in reward for his hospitality, but this was declined. " Your gold I need not," said the priest ; " but if you will do me a favour, give me the skin of some beast wherewith to cover my breviary." Charles was so pleased with the lack of greed in the man that he elevated him to a bishopric. If this story be true, then the man was Amalarius of Treves, whom he ever after highly valued. A remarkable instance of Charles's exercise of almost papal power in the Frank Church is the fact that he issued a corrected edition of the Vulgate, and authorised its use in the Church, and that he revised both the Missal and Breviary without consulting the bishops, other than those whom he perfectly relied on as competent scholars, and he did this certainly without asking leave of the Pope. The king summoned the councils on his own authority, issued disciplinary laws to, and executed judgment on, the clergy, acting as head of the Church in his realms. Spiritual matters CHARLES THE GREAT. 85 formed a special department of the State, and over them was set the arch-chaplain, who administered them in the king's name. As gradually, later, spiritual affairs became more and more dissociated from those of the State, the office of Arch-chaplain was changed into that of Chancellor, who however continued to be an ecclesiastic. 86 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. VII. THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. Two Germanies : one Christian, the other heathen — The arrival of the Saxons — The Contests with the Saxons — Charles the Great attempts to subdue them — Revolt again and again — Wittekind heads the Saxons — Their stubborn Resistance to Charles — Defeat of Wittekind — Submits to Baptism — Afresh revolt — Bishopric of Bremen founded — The Saxons, once converted, become zealous Christians — Translations and Versifications — The Bishoprics of Bremen, Paderborn, Minden, Osnabriick. There were now two Germanies, one Christian and under settled government, organized into a state, the other heathen, and broken into several peoples. The Christian Germany extended from the Rhine, a little below Cologne, to those high lands, the very umbel of Germany, the Fichtelgebirge, and then swept down along the Bohmer Wald to Passau. It included the Hessians and the Thuringians and Bavarians. It may be said that approximately the Frank Christian kingdom was coextensive with Upper Germany, the hill country that reaches to the Teutoberger Wald, the Harz, and the Thuringian Forest. North of this natural frontier the vast weariful plains that reached to the North Sea and Baltic were in the hands of the Saxons, divided into the Westphalian, the Eastphalian, THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. 87 and the Angivarian branches. To the east of the Elbe were the Sclavic hordes pressing on, Wends, Serbs, Avars, Czechs, the latter already in Bohemia, whence the Bavarians had issued. A story was told to explain the existence of the Saxons who occupied all this northern tract. They had come by sea. The Thuringians had previously ex- tended to the coast. One day a shipload of Saxons arrived on the beach, and one of the number landed, and met a young Thuringian, to whom he offered his gold torque and bracelets if he might be given a little land. The Thuringian presented to him a handful of earth, and received the gold ornaments in return. He took them to his comrades, laughing at the folly of the strangers, when to his and their surprise, they saw all the shipload of Saxons disembark, and, scattering the handful of dust about them in a wide circle, declare, "We bought this with our gold, and we will defend it with our blood." Thenceforth, having obtained a foothold, they rolled the Thuringians back to the hills. The Saxons were a sturdy, obstinate, and warlike people. Their invasion caused the Frank kings and mayors much annoyance. Charles deemed it essential for the security of the realm to subject these unruly people, and to extend the frontier of his kingdom to the Elbe. But he could not hope for a lasting peace till the Saxons had been brought within the fold of the Church. He therefore considered himself justified in the employment of force to compel these turbulent neighbours to receive the Gospel. A national war was engaged in, on both 88 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. sides fought out with equal passion and bitterness. The Saxons contended for their ancient freedom, for their faith, and for the customs of their fathers ; the Franks for sovereignty, for Christ, for the Church, and for civiHzation. And although we may admire the dauntless heroism of the Saxons in their prolonged contest for their most sacred possessions, their political freedom, and their liberty of conscience, nevertheless the final conquest by the Franks and by Christianity was an inevitable necessity and advantage, for so alone could they be elevated from savagery into a con- dition of culture, and to the adoption of nobler forms of life, which, without this conquest, they would never have acquired of themselves. It remains a fact that in later times it was precisely the Saxons who made the very kernel of the German people, and it was among them that the Gospel most influenced the inner life. In the year 772, Charles crossed the Rhine from Worms at the head of a large Frank army, then penetrated to those regions among forests and morasses where, under Arminius, the Cherusci had made such a desperate stand against the Romans. Without much opposition he penetrated into Saxony proper, stormed the citadel of Eresburg (now Stadt- burg), on the Diemel, and destroyed the Irmensul, the great national idol of the people, a symbol of the Worldtree, the all-sustaining principle of life. By this act he stamped his campaign as a religious one from the outset ; he pushed on to the Weser, the Saxons submitted, took an oath of allegiance, and THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. 89 swore not to oppose the teachers of the new faith to be sent into their midst. Charles Httle supposed that his contest against the Saxons would occupy him for thirty-two years, when events in Italy obliged him to leave the Rhine and hasten across the Alps. Desiderius, king of the Lombards, had fallen on the Roman lands and threatened Rome itself In his distress Pope Hadrian appealed to Charles ; Charles in vain endeavoured to reconcile the contending parties ; Desiderius rejected all overtures of peace, believing that Charles was fully engaged with the Saxons. In 774 the Franks crossed the Alps in two columns, one by the great S. Bernard, the other over Mont Cenis. Desiderius was defeated with great slaughter, and Charles entered Rome. Desiderius was banished to Liege or Corbie, and there ended his days. With him disappears the entire Lombard royal race from history, and Charles assumed the iron crown and title of King of Lombardy. The Pope consti- tuted him likewise protector of the Roman Church. No sooner was Charles in Italy, than the Saxons revolted, fell upon Hesse and devastated it with fire and sword ; under Duke Wittekind, a man of noble racie and large possessions, they retook the Eresburg, and came down on the lower Rhine. Charles flew back (775) across the Alps, and organized another campaign against the Saxons. He marched up the Ruhr, and took the Saxon fortress of Siegburg at the confluence of the Lenne and the Ruhr, recaptured Eresburg, crossed the Weser, and penetrated to the Eastphalians, as far as the Ocker. 90 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, Whilst he was engaged in Germany, the Lombards rose in insurrection {yj^), and Charles had to return to Italy. Immediately the Saxons retook Eresburg and destroyed all the defences Charles had erected. He speedily subjugated the revolted Lombards and returned to Saxony, where he rebuilt Eresburg, and founded a fortress at the source of the Lippe. The Saxons gave up hostages, and submitted to be baptized. Charles was now so confident that their resistance was broken, that, in a diet held at Paderborn in the land of the Angivari, he divided up the conquered country into districts after the Frank pattern. The Saxons attended in great numbers, and made promises of obedience ; but the absence of Wittekind, the heroic Duke of Westphalia, who had fled to his brother-in-law, the king of the Danes, gave warning that the peace then concluded would be of no long continuance. Whilst Charles was at Paderborn, a strange embassy arrived. Messengers from the Arab viceroy of Saragossa, who had been banished by the Calif of Cordova, came to Charles and desired his assistance for Abderrahman. Charles grasped at the occasion, and in 'j'jZ crossed the Pyrenees, stormed Saragossa, and conquered the land up to the Ebro. On his return, however, he was harassed in the defiles of the Pyrenees, and met with a great disaster that cost him an army at Roncesvalles. No sooner did the news of this disaster, magnified by rumour, reach the Saxons, than they threw their oaths to the winds and again invaded Frank THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. 91 territory. Wittekind had returned, and, convinced that the secret of the failure of the Saxons lay in their lack of unity, he had succeeded in bringing them to agree to combined action. A general rising of all the Saxon branches of the stock took place. Plundering, murdering, burning, the host swept forward, the smoke of the convents and castles marked their course, and before them fled the priests and monks and Franks settled in the country. The Saxons had reached the left bank of the Rhine, devastating all before them (A.D. 77^), when they were encountered by the Herr-bann, hastily called together, and were driven back. Then they turned aside, ravaged Thuringia and Hesse with fire and sword, and the monks of Fulda were constrained to fly, carrying with them the bones of S. Boniface. Embittered by this insurrection of the stubborn, intractable Saxons, Charles in the following spring (779) led an army over the Rhine, defeated the Saxons at Rocholt, and again drove them back to the Weser, and in the following year (780) to the Elbe, took hostages, built fortresses, and had great numbers baptized. So confident was he now that the Saxons were subdued, that in the following year (781) he undertook a journey to Rome, when the Pope crowned his son Pippin, king of the Lombards, and his son Ludwig, king of Aquitania. In the mean- time in Saxony, the introduction of Christianity was actively pursued. Churches and monasteries were erected, bishops' sees constituted, and the tithe 92 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. appointed to be collected for the maintenance of the clergy. For two years the Saxons had been at peace, but the exaction of tax and tithe reminded them that they had lost their independence. Between the Elbe and the Saale lived a Sclavonic race, the Serbs. As this race gave trouble, Charles sent an army against them. Whilst thus engaged, Wittelrind summoned his countrymen to rise once more, and was obeyed with alacrity. The division sent against the Serbs was recalled, and another division despatched to unite with it against the insurgents. According to Charles's instructions both divisions were to unite, but instead of so doing, the first attacked the camp of Wittekind, and was defeated (A.D. 782). The army was annihilated, and with it perished both com- manders, four counts, and about twenty nobles. The Saxons, after their victory, destroyed the newly- erected churches, and slew or drove away all the clergy that had been sent among them. The patience of Charles was exhausted, he treated the Saxons as insurgents who had broken their oaths, and established a court at Werden on the Alien Wittekind had fled, but 4500 of his adherents were delivered over by the Saxon chiefs, cowed by the presence in their midst of the great king. Hitherto, Charles had conducted his campaigns with humanity, and had done his utmost by gentleness and persuasion to induce the Saxons to accept Christianity, and his rule ; but now his anger led him to reprisals for what he regarded as their treachery, reprisals that were cruel and unchristian. THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. 93 He had all the 4500 Saxons, who had been delivered over to him, put to death in one day ; and he issued a command that henceforth the performance of any pagan rite, the evasion of baptism, or apostasy, or any desecration of a church, should be dealt with capitally. The bloody day at Werden had filled the Saxons with the wildest hostility. Frenzied with resentment, they summoned to a general insurrection against Frank rule, and even those branches of the race which had not hitherto taken an active part in resistance to Charles, now joined against the common foe. Wittekind again placed himself at the head of the insurgents. But victory declared for the Franks, and after a tremendous battle (a.d. 'j'^^ on the Haase, in Osnabriick, the power of the Saxons was so completely and irretrievably broken, that Wittekind himself saw that further resistance was unavailing. With some other nobles he sought the king at Attigny in Champagne, was received with respect, and there he and they submitted to be baptized (A.D. 785). Thenceforth they remained as steadfast in their allegiance and Christian belief, as they had been resolute before in their contest for independence and for their ancient gods. Thousands of nobles and freemen followed their example in Saxony. After the conversion of Wittekind the Saxons remained tranquil for seven years. The old laws of the Saxons were made to give way for the introduc- tion of Frank law, and the people were forced in 94 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. every manner to feel that they were a subjugated race. What especially angered them seems to have been the exaction of tithe, and compulsory military service in wars beyond their frontiers. Saxon and Frisian hosts followed the standard of Charles with reluctance, over the Pyrenees, and into Istria and Pannonia. The bitterness grew more intense with every year, and when a levy was held to form an army against the Sclaves and Avars, the torch of war again blazed and was carried from hand to hand. Throughout the whole of Northern Saxony insurrec- tions broke out, priests and bishops were driven away, churches were destroyed, and pagan worship was restored with wild enthusiasm. This new revolt filled the Frank sovereign with wrath, and strengthened him in the resolve to use all the force of the Frank monarchy to break the strength of the stubborn Saxons, and drive them under the yoke. His position at the time was difficult. He was at war with the Avars ; in Bavaria there was a feeling of impatience and resistance awake. However, he never swerved from his deter- mination for a moment, and met his difficulties with firmness and ability. Two large armies were sent over the Rhine, and formed a camp between Eresburg and Paderborn, and he inspired such terror into the Saxons, that the insurrection ceased, and they sent hostages, and again swore allegiance. But now Charles removed vast numbers of the Saxons from their native habitations, and transplanted them to other parts of his realm, and sent Frank settlers to THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. 95 colonize the deserted homesteads. Moreover, he maintained an army for long in Saxony, which was occupied in traversing it from end to end, terrorising the people and watching against any outbreak of revolt. But Charles tempered his severity with mildness. He restored to the Saxons the use of their ancient laws, customs, and their personal freedom. After the final subjugation of the Saxons, the ecclesiastical organization of the country was completed. Already in yZZ the Bishopric of Bremen had been founded. Now six others were constituted. Bremen, Paderborn and Minden, were for the Angivaric Saxons ; Miinster and Osnabriick for the Northern Westphalians ; the Westphalians of the South, near the Rhine, were placed under Cologne ; Werden and Hildesheim were for the Eastphalians, and Halber- stadt for the Thuringian Saxons. Out of these episcopal seats flourishing cities sprang up in the course of time. Pious missionaries, among whom were those who issued from Fulda, roused and nourished in the people a spirit of Christian devotion, and little by little the stubbornness of old Saxon paganism yielded to the mild and healing influence of the Gospel. Although Christianity had been imposed by the sword, yet, nevertheless, it took deep root in the hearts of the people, and assumed among the Saxons a remarkably vigorous and original life. The sacred story was committed to verse by a Saxon monk, commonly called Heliand, in the reign of Ludwig the Pious, the son of Charles the Great, and is 96 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. almost the sole relic that remains of the language of the Saxons in the 9th century ; it is interesting as a sample of the folk-poetry of the period. It was composed because the Saxons delighted in heroic lays ; and the Saxon monk undertook to tell them the story of the Old and New Testament in the metre and manner that delighted them. The Saxons remained after their subjugation a genuine German people, but only after their subjugation and conversion did they enter into that great confederacy of the German races which enabled the whole to develop its national character, independently of Roman influence. The union of all the Germanic races, moreover, served to hold in check the wave of Sclav immigration which threatened to overflow Germany. The first Bishop of Bremen was Willehad, a Frisian, who had been sent there in 780 by Charles, but had been driven away in 782, when his companion Gerwal, a priest, was put to death. In 788 he returned to Bremen, and was succeeded in 789 by his disciple Willerich, who was driven from his see by the unruly Saxons, but returned in 804. The wooden church erected by his predecessor had been burnt down. He built the first stone church in Bremen, and dedicated it to S. Peter. The first two Bishops of Paderborn, Hathumar and Badurad, were taken from amongst the members of the Chapter of Wiirzburg. Thence also was taken the first Bishop of Minden, a Saxon convert who had been there trained. Already, in 780, a certain missionary named Bernrad had worked THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. 97 among the Westphalians ; on his death, in 791, he was succeeded by Ludger, a noble Frisian, who had been trained at Utrecht, and then had visited York, where he won the regard of Alcuin. He was sent by Charles to succeed Bernrad in his work among the Westphalians, and made Mimigardevord his head- quarters, which afterwards, under the newer name of Miinster, became the wealthiest and most important of the West Saxon dioceses. His success was great, and in 802 he was consecrated first Bishop of Miinster, with jurisdiction over Saxons and Frisians. About Wiko, first Bishop of Osnabriick, almost nothing is known, and great uncertainty prevails as to the first who occupied the See of Werden. The first Bishop of Hildesheim was not consecrated till 822, but he had laboured there previously. His name was Gunther, and he came from Rheims. Although Charles fixed on the site for a see, and appointed the limits of the diocese afterwards entitled Halberstadt, yet the -first bishop, a Frieslander, was not appointed till 814 by Louis the Pious. He was a younger brother of S. Ludger of Miinster. It will be seen that not a single Frank was appointed to these sees, with the possible exception of Gunther of Hildesheim, of whose parentage we know nothing. This was wisely done, for the Saxons had too many causes for bitterness against the Franks to be readily won by missionaries of the race that had dealt them such wounds. Therefore Charlemagne sent among them Anglo-Saxons and Frisians. The bishops' seats became colonies round H 98 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, which the converts gathered, centres from which the clergy went forth on their missions, and to which they returned with reports of what had been their success, and what was their further need ; and thus, in an astonishingly short period, paganism had wholly disappeared, and the Saxons were both civilized and Christianized. ( 99 ) VIII. CHARLES CROWNED EMPEROR. The Coronation of Charles as Emperor of the West — Charles unconscious of the intention of Leo IIL — The Mosaic of the triclinium at the Lateran — What the Coronation implied — Disastrous both to the Empire and to the Papacy — It provoked the Reformation. The Christmas Day of the last year in the 8th cen- tury of Christ had come. Charles the Great was in Rome. He attended the services of the Nativity with devotion at S. Peter's, accompanied by his court, and in all the pomp, somewhat barbaric, of a Frank king. The Pope himself, Leo IIL, sang High Mass, and the king knelt near the foot of the altar-steps. Suddenly, after the deacon had chanted in shrill tones the he, missa est, Leo turned, took a jewelled crown from off the altar, descended the steps, placed it on the brow of Charles, and proclaimed him Caesar Augustus. The Roman people burst forth in a roar of approval. Then Leo proceeded to anoint Charles and his son Pippin. Afterwards the great king solemnly assured Egin- hard, his secretary, that the scene had not been pre- concerted — that, indeed, he had not been consulted — and that, had he known the intention of Leo, he H 2 loo HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, would not have come to church that day. Charles was not a man to speak the untruth ; there was no hypocrisy in him, and we may accept this disclaimer as a true statement of facts. Why did the pope thus openly and daringly take this step of vast importance ? He probably had no idea of how far-reaching this act would be. He and the Romans generally were weary of nominal sub- jection to the Eastern Caesars. At Byzantium now reigned a woman, Irene, and she was rendered odious as the murderess of her son, and in her the Byzantine Empire seemed to be tottering to its fall. The Pope had obtained material help from the Frank king. Desiderius, the Lombard, had been crushed by Charles, and Leo was most desirous of obtaining strong help against other dangerous elements, not least of which were the turbulent citizens of Rome over whom he reigned spiritually. He enlisted on the side of the Papacy the strongest arm and most far-reaching sword of the time. It seemed to the Pope that a great future was opening before the mighty conqueror, and that heaven itself was declaring that a new Empire of the West was about to arise, as mighty as the old empire had been ere the barbarian invasions had brought it to ruin. But Charles, on his side, cannot have been unwilling to receive the crown and unction conferred on him. This was not merely an accession of vague and in- definite grandeur, but it conferred on him substantial DOwer, It was the consolidation of all Western Christendom, under one monarchy. 1 > J 3 > ' ' CHARLES CROWNE'D ^'KlfFlkCP. loi As one stands in the great narthex of the basihca of S. John Lateran, looking out over some of the crumbhng walls of ancient Rome, on to the Campagna, one sees on the left a fragment, a sort of apse, inlaid with mosaic. On closer inspection this mosaic proves to be a representation of S. Peter, holding in one hand a stole, in the other a banner ; at his feet kneel two men, on the right a clerk, on the left a warrior ; S. Peter is delivering the stole to the former, and to the latter the banner. That clerk is Leo III, and that warrior is Charles the Great. This mosaic was set up in a triclinium erected by Leo at the Lateran, and it enables us to understand what was in his mind when he conferred the crown on Charles. He had formu- lated a doctrine that S. Peter was the dispenser of all spiritual and temporal authority, and that he had conferred supremacy in spiritual matters on the Pope, and in temporal matters on the emperor, and that the empire had now passed to the king of the Franks. What the coronation actually implied was not clearly perceived ; but perhaps in this very vagueness dwelt much of the majesty of the act. " In some un- known, undefined manner, the Empire of the West flowed from the Pope ; the successor of S. Peter named, or sanctioned the naming of, the successor of Augustus and of Nero. The enormous power of Charle- magne, as contrasted with that of the Pope, disguised or ennobled the bold fiction, quelled at least all present inquiry, silenced any insolent doubt. If Charlemagne acknowledged the right of the Pope to bestow the empire by accepting it at his hands, who I02 RrST0Ry:O.ETHE CHURCH IN GERMANY. should presume to question the right of the Pope to define the Hmits of the Imperial authority thus bestowed and thus received ? And Charlemagne's elevation to the empire invested his protection of the Pope in the more sacred character of a duty belonging to his office, ratified all his grants, which were now those not only of a conqueror, but of a successor to all the rights of the Caesars. On one side the Teuton became a Roman, the King of the Franks was merged in the Western Emperor ; on the other, Rome created the sovereign of the west, the sovereign of Latin Christianity." * Each, Leo and Charles, looked to immediate advantage : Leo to the assertion and acceptation of a new and unheard-of claim, and also to obtaining protection against turbulent citizens ; Charles to a spiritual sanction for his claim to empire, to a right which allowed him to interfere in Rome itself. Neither saw, and neither could see, that this momentous act of December 25, 800, would in the consequences be fatal to the empire, and disastrous to the last degree to the Papacy. This, after history shows. The emperors, instead of labouring to consolidate their power, to compact the entire German nation into one people, were distracted with vain ambitions that sprang out of the vague rights claimed by them as sovereigns of Italy. Their empire was torn by rival parties fomented by the popes, who felt that their only safety from the preponderating weight of power lodged in the hands of the emperors lay in sowing discord among their * Milman, ' Latin Christianity,' bk. iv. c. 12. CHARLES CROWNED EMPEROR. 103 subjects ; and, on the other hand, the popes were morally and spiritually degraded. They stood over against the great Germanic Empire, which filled them with fear and jealousy, and instead of concerning themselves with spiritual matters, they occupied themselves first of all with political intrigue, and at length so hammered into the German conscience the perception that the one paramount enemy to German unity was the Roman Pontiff, that the revolt which we call the Reformation became general throughout the empire. It was the rising-up of the German nation, almost as one man, on which the perception had at last broken, that the Papacy had for seven centuries stood in the way of national independence, national unity, and the fulfilment of the national destiny. I04 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. IX. THE LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. The Character of Louis the Pious — Reaction — The Discontent of the great vassals — Discontent of the Hierarchy — Breaking out of revolt — Defects in the Carolingian Constitution — The Herr-bann — Disappearance of the Freeholders — Union of Civil and Military powers in the hands of the Counts — What Charles had done for the Church — Could not blind the Eyes of the Bishops to the fact that he had made the Crown supreme — Wealth of the Church — The Collegiate Churches — Reform by Chrodegang — The two aims of the Hierarchy — Limitation of royal Power — Exaltation of the Papacy — The forged Capitularies — The forged Decretals — Their acceptance — Writers of the Period — The Frank Church and Image worship. To govern that great empire built up by Charlemagne was no easy task. Only one equal to that man who had called it into existence could have held it to- gether ; and his son, Louis (Ludwig) the Pious, who succeeded him was not the man to do so. He was a good man, who would have made a benignant and beloved prince in a small realm ; but he was incapable of ruling the vast empire, full of conflicting elements, that his father had left to him. It lay in the nature of the case that under such a rule, a reaction must set in against an imperial con- stitution, to which Charles had given a form foreign to the traditions of those embraced within his empire. LA TER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. 105 and one that hampered their liberty and imperilled their interests in many ways. Charles, as had, indeed, his father before him, laboured to break the power of the great nobles. The Dukes of Bavaria, Aquitain, Allemania, and Friesland had been crushed, and their peoples bereft of an independence of which they had been proud, and to which their fondest reminiscences were linked. Having subdued them, the iron arm of Charles held them in subjection, held them in a provincial position ; but they were restive, and strove impatiently to snap the chain that tied them to their neighbours, and to shake off the weight of the imperial hand that rested on their necks. Throughout the realm, the great vassals had been cast down and humbled ; they had lost their power, their freedom ; in the place of the old hereditary chiefs, there were only counts and margraves, nominated by Charles from among his courtiers, with small circles in which to exercise their authority, removable at the will of the monarch, and under constant check by the missi ; wholly dependent for everything — position, wealth, authority — on the will of the king. Then, again, the new Planta, or Diets, were different from what the people had been accustomed to under the Merovin- gians. Formerly the kings were powerless, and the great nobles and prelates imposed what laws pleased them, and these always in their own interests ; now they were summoned before a man of overwhelming moral, intellectual, and physical supremacy, who held the vassals at a distance from his throne, made his will to be the law, against which none, they least of io6 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. all, might kick ; who allowed to them indeed a voice in council, but who retained to himself the right to act in accordance with, or contrary to, their opinions and wishes. We can picture to ourselves the great body of dethroned vassals, chafing with resentment, fomenting dissatisfaction, waiting their opportunity, and certain to force on a reaction as soon as the strong arm was withdrawn. The hierarchy, moreover, though vastly enriched and extended by Charles, were dissatisfied. He had arrogated to himself supreme authority in eccle- siastical matters as well as secular. He had, indeed, given to the bishops the first place in the realm after himself, given them the first place at the diets, invested bishops and abbots with the offices of chancellor and first councillors, had nominated them his missi, had given them counties to rule ; but they could not in their consciences admit his right to act to them as a supreme head of the Church, to order them what to teach, to issue to them pastoral letters, and revise for them their Bibles and Breviaries. Charles had undoubtedly inherited this method of treatment of the Church from the kings before Dagobert, and the Palace mayors after Dagobert. The utterly worldly and indifferent prelates had acquiesced without a murmur ; but Boniface had introduced into Germany the idea that the ultimate appeal should be to the Pope and not to the king, and good and noble as were the bishops appointed by Charles, their very goodness and nobility made them LA TER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. 107 uneasy at the assumption, which, though tolerable in a man of exceptional character and genius like Charlemagne, was fraught with danger to the Church in any other hands. Moreover, they knew well by terrible experience that this royal supremacy was mischievous ; it was that which had brought the Frank Church to the degradation in which it lay till roused by Boniface. They saw, and they saw rightly, that the power that had been exercised by Charles might, under an unworthy successor, bring the Church back into the same condition of infamy. They must look for some other centre of authority, and where else could they find it but at Rome? Charles had accepted the crown from the hands of the Pope. The successor of S. Peter had given to him the crown and banner, not the staff and the keys — these latter he had assumed. Naturally, inevitably, the bishops turned to Rome as the spiritual power by means of which they might check and control the overweening claims of the sovereign. The first fifteen years of the reign of Louis passed off without any serious opposition ; it was as though the shadow of his father fell over his throne and over- awed the turbulent elements that menaced it. But this state of peace could not endure ; the constitution of the Frank kingdom, however skilfully ordered it may have been by Charles, however healthy it may have been at core, yet contained in it elements of error, defects certain to produce disruption after a time. When these defects became apparent, then the io8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. great dethroned vassals, and the discontented bishops as well, combined against the crown. Their time had arrived, an infamous conspiracy of the sons against their feeble father was encouraged by the bishops, to their eternal disgrace. Louis was humbled, the dignity of the throne subjected to dishonour, and the whole realm was thrown into anarchy, and riven to its foundations. In the wild turmoil of the times, the hierarchy was careful to assert and maintain its power, its independence, its rights ; and what additional power and independence they were able to obtain for their order in the universal broil, they were careful to assert as normal, and insist on as their due for all times. There were defects in the Carolingian constitution which came into prominence after the death of Charles. One was this : — formerly the Herr-bann, or Landwehr, was the force of all the manhood raised for the protection of home when menaced. As soon as the danger was past, those called to arms laid them aside and returned to their ploughs. But Charles made of the Herr-bann a regular army, and carried the bread-winners from their families, the farmers from their glebe, to serve under his banners far away from their native lands. So great was the disadvantage to the freemen, owners of their own allodial lands, who were liable to be thus called out, that in tens of thousands of cases they delivered themselves over to the abbots, the bishops, the counts and margraves, to receive their lands back in fee, so as to escape the necessity of following the banner. LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. 109 Charles issued prohibitions against these traditiones ; but in vain. The number of freeholders in the realm was enormously reduced ; but what was worst of all, the hunger in the abbots and bishops for the goods of the freeholders was whetted so that they left no means untried to force into obedient vassalage those who would not willingly surrender their freedom. And thus in time the whole estate of the freemen dis- appeared, and there were no other conditions left in the realm, save those of serfs and of noble vassals, or wealthy prelates. There were none left to resist the encroachments of the nobles. All the vast popu- lation of independent men had fallen into servitude, lost the right to bear arms, and the king was without any helpers to enable him to resist the nobles. Land and inhabitants, profits and rights, were all in the hands of those who trampled law under foot, and exercised as the only right that of the strongest, the Fist-right, as the Germans call it. The second defect in the Carolingian constitution consisted in this : the military and civil powers were comprised in the persons of the counts, who had been appointed to rule the provinces in the place of the dukes. This afforded occasion for the counts to exploit their offices to their own advantage, which they were able to do under weak kings, and to free themselves from irksome submission to the throne. They were often planted far away from the sovereign, and all the opportunities of satisfying avarice and ambition were at their command. Was there a bishop near ? He was no check ; it was a race no HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. between them which should obtain the greatest power, and extend his territories widest, not, perhaps, always on the part of the bishop, out of avarice, but out of fear, lest, should he prove too poor and too weak, the secular noble would deal roughly with him, and wrest from him, also, some of the lands of the see. Crown lands had been given out in fee to the counts ; these they transformed into hereditary possessions. The missi did not interfere, for they were chosen out of those very secular and clerical classes which were engaged in this unworthy rivalry. After the death of Charles these evils grew to a head. The whole constitution, as called into ex- istence by him, had been maintained by his strong will as a central pillar, and when he was gone his creation collapsed. It is not our place, nor is it our intention, to give the history of the times, to tell the miserable story of the revolt, the intrigues that took place under the later Carolingians. We must content ourselves with a general aspect of the state of the Church, and the changes that took place in it during the period. Charles had done all that lay in his power to magnify the Church ; he had enriched it beyond what had been done before his days, with the lively confi- dence that thereby he was increasing its power of doing good, of advancing civilization, and elevating the character and morals of the people. And so long as the bishops were men of his own selection, men of approved virtue, this worked well ; but Charles, in his eagerness to put the best men into their LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH, in right spheres, had disregarded the old canonical right of election by the clergy and people of the diocese, and thus left in the hands of his successors the means of doing all the harm that had been done previously under the Merovingians. When there was rebellion, the king was forced to repay with ecclesiastical bene- fices those who had served him, and once more men of greed and ambition, of secular life, of indifference to religion, were placed at the head of the sees. And as the bishops so the clergy. The former did not scruple once more to sell benefices — had they not bought their own with their services ? And the simoniacal clergy endeavoured to recoup themselves not only out of their tithe, but by usury among their flock. According to a decree of Charles two adjoining parishes were provided with one manse {mansus). A mansiis was a farm of moderate size * ; but Louis the Pious ordered that each parish priest should have his separate manse. Churches, however, with two, three, and more manses became not uncommon. A collegiate, or cathedral church of smaller size not unusually possessed two hundred or three, hundred farms, and a wealthy endowment as many as from three thousand to eight thousand farms. A rich church was equal to a rich county ; and, in addition the churches drew the tithes, and sometimes ninths as well. Complaints were loud in the reign of Charles on the growing wealth of the Church ; these became louder and more angry in that of Louis. The monas- * That is, which would support one family and two serfs. 112 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. teries were not behindhand with the sees. When this wealth was in good hands, as in those of S. Ansegis, it was well employed in founding libraries, hospitals, schools ; but in later times, when the wealth and power of the abbot made his position ' one to be coveted, then a great many men were appointed over the abbeys, who spent their riches in luxury. A little later still, and half the national revenue was in the hands of the Church, and the Church lands being free from taxation, the burden fell with redoubled weight on the shoulders of the poor. But the fact that the wealth of the abbeys, collegiate churches and bishoprics was absorbed by men who did not command respect roused a stolid opposition in the m.inds of the people, which found expression sometimes in satire, sometimes in acts of violence. Moreover, the wealth of the Church drew on it the covetous eyes of the nobles, and they attacked and endeavoured to get possession of some of the lands in the hands of the clergy. The Church was in distress, in "each council the complaints of the plundered were raised ; but the plunderers were not men disposed to give ear to the canons of councils. In vain were stories spread of the terrible and miraculous judgments that had overtaken men who had laid their hands on the patrimony of the Church : the stories were listened to and disbelieved. The crown was powerless, or at all events the wearer of the crown was powerless to enforce restitution of stolen goods, and to protect against fresh aggression. Two courses were open to the clergy, either they took LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. 113 up arms themselves in defence of their estates, at the head of their armed followers and vassals, or else they invited some noble to become " Protector " (schirm-vogt) of the see, or the abbey, and he received a certain payment and enjoyed certain privileges for his serv^ices. But, as in the fable, when the horse invited the man to mount him to assist him in his feud with the stag, the man once in his seat refused to leave it and to take the bit out of the mouth of the horse, so was it now. These protectors of the Church became masters in its territories, and worried the clerks with their exactions, their lawless- ness, and their insolence. There were a very large number of richly endowed collegiate churches in Germany and the rest of the kingdom of the Franks, to which were attached a large number of clergy. The attempt made by S. Augustine to introduce the monastic life among the clergy attached to large churches had not succeeded generally. It is doubtful if it had been attempted among the Franks ; but if it had, it had failed com- pletely. The canons lived independently of each other, followed their own courses. They made no good use of their revenues, did no active work, neglected study, were free from the obligations of the parochial clergy, and the bishops were themselves too much occupied with worldly concerns to attend to the affairs of the chapters. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, a man who had been elevated to this important see when a layman, but who was full of righteous zeal and the fear of God, undertook to reform the abuse (a.d. 762). 114 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. His reformation consisted in 'this, the reduction of the stipends of the canons to what was necessary for their support, supervision, and active work, and the imposi- tion upon them of certain duties. With the assistance of Louis, some attempt was made to introduce the rule of Chrodegang into all the collegiate churches. In the great turmoil and general wreckage that ensued when the creation of Charlemagne broke up, a cleavage took place, distinct and permanent, between the Romance West and the Teutonic East. Louis was upheld by the Gallic Franks, his rebellious son, Lothar, by the Teutonic nations east of the Rhine. Gaul was about to become France, and the Teutonic peoples to unite in one Germany, and un- happily for them the proud title of Emperor and King of the Romans was to become the heritage of the sovereign who ruled in Germany, and not of the King of the French. During the civil broils the hierarchy never swerved from following two ends, and they succeeded com- pletely in gaining what they aimed at. These points were, first, the limitation of the royal prerogative in all its relations to the Church ; secondly, the shifting to Rome of the court of ultimate appeal. As already pointed out, the supreme authority over the Church claimed by the crown had not worked well at all times ; by its nature it could not do so. The state of the Church could not be made to depend on the political exigencies of the king, or on his religious sense of his duties. When there was a good LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. 115 and strong king, it might and did operate beneficially ; when the sovereign was indifferent and feeble, the evil was felt at once through every fibre of the Church's constitution. The best men in the Church felt that this condition was intolerable, and they strove to use the present perplexities and confusion as an occasion for effecting the emancipation of the Church from civil control. But it was not sufficient to be emancipated when the kings were weak ; they must have some principle on which to fall back and assure them against relapse into the same condition, should another Charles Martell, or even Charles the Great, arise, and this principle they found in the papal claim to universal authority over the Church. But how was this claim to be established ? It was true that Gregory III. had made a bold inroad into the rights of the sovereign when he appointed Boniface as his legate in Germany and gave him supremacy over the Church there, and it was also true that Charles Martell had not rejected the claim. But Charles the Great had ignored it, and had acted as if it had never been made. The plain unequivocal manner in which Charlemagne had set aside the papal authority, and had not only exercised all that authority over the Church which had been arrogated by the Frank kings before him, but had still further extended it, was a difficulty to be met, and met it was. Benedict the Levite, of Mainz, forged a series of decrees of Charles and inserted them among the genuine capitulary decrees, and in these new orders I 2 Ii6 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Charles was made to admit and bow before the most astounding claims formulated by the Pope. Now, as a matter of fact, Hadrian I. had advanced such claims in 785, in eighty chapters, which he sent to Angelram, bishop of Metz, who had been accused before a synod and had appealed to the Pope. These chapters Charles either never saw, or deliberately ignored. In the forged capitularies he was made to acknowledge them all. But this was not enough ; some further justification for the assumption was required ; and now a whole series of papal decrees purporting to have emanated from the twenty earliest popes, from S. Clement to Melchiades, in all ninety-eight decrees, also several unauthentic conciliar canons, were thrust into already existing compilations of papal decrees and canons of councils. Dionysius the Little had made the first collection towards the close of the 4th century. To this compilation others had been added, and this addition was attributed to Isidore Mercator. The object of the forgery was to counter- act the oppression and disorder of the clergy, as well as ecclesiastical irregularities generally, the consequence of the political confusion under the successors of the great Charles. These decretals consisted of admonitions, instructions and regulations, compiled for the most part from existing ecclesiastical literature, but thrown back to an early age of Christianity and given the sanction of the names of the first bishops of Rome.* They tended to the * More was done : As the decrees of the Council of Nic^a did not suit the views of the forger, the audacious compiler falsified them. LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. 117 exaltation of episcopal dignity, to the securing of the clergy, and in particular the bishops, from attacks ; to the limitation of the power of the metropolitans, and in particular, to the enlargement of the privileges of the Roman see. The forgery was done between 829 and 845, and the False Decretals were first published by Archbishop Autcar of Mainz (826-847), and we can be hardly wrong in suspecting that the cunning and unscrupulous hand of Benedict the Levite had to do with the fabrication of these, as well as the falsification of the capitulars. Those whose position was most affected by the false decretals were, unquestionably, the metro- politans ; but the only man among them who spoke out against them was Hincmar of Rheims, and he had not the learning and critical acumen to discover their falsity.* The bishops hated the judicial authority exercised over them by the archbishops and synods, and they gladly seized on an excuse for making their appeal to a far distant judge who was incapacitated from seeing and knowing all the particulars that told against them. The abbots desired to withdraw from under the supervision of the bishops, and they also furthered the ends of the Papal see, for the same selfish and disingenuous motives. The forgery had been concocted on the Rhine, and in the interests of the German prelates and abbots and clergy ; the Roman see, without question, * He designated the decretals as a mouse-trap in which to catch the unwary metropolitans. ii8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. without investigation, without scruple, seized on the fraud, gave it the sanction of its authority, and based the throne of its supremacy on this hollow and rotten substructure of lies and falsifications. " Here was a whole series of letters and decrees of the popes from the beginning, and the archives of Rome could show no vestige of their having been ever there. There was not present even a tradition of their having existed. Pope Nicolas I. in one year knew nothing of them, in the following, he quoted them authoritatively ; and yet one can hardly believe him so sunk in ignorance, so incapable of forming a reasonable judgment, as to think that he quoted them in good faith." They were a fraudulent composition, but they served his purpose, and that sufficed. Nor is it possible to deny that, at least by citing these forgeries without reserve, or hesitation, the Roman pontiffs after Nicolas down to the Reformation, gave their deliberate sanction to a gross historic fraud. The immediate consequence of the publication of the decretals was the complete establishment of the authority of the popes over archbishops and bishops, over kings and churches. " Every one of these papal epistles was a canon of the Church ; every future bull therefore rested on the same irrefragable authority, commanded the same implicit obedience." * In this epoch of rampant self-seeking, there, however, still lingered on some of the fragrance of culture, and taste for literature that had been introduced by the disciples of Alcuin into the German * Milman, 'Latin Christianity,' bk. v. c. 4. LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. 119 monasteries. Hrabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda, and afterwards Archbishop of Mainz, desired the introduction of the German language into the Church service. He wrote commentaries on the books of Scriptures, and translated homilies into German for the edification of the unlearned in parish churches ; also an encyclopaedia of knowledge ; against Gode- schalc he wrote on predestination, and he likewise composed hymns and sacred poems. He died in 856, after having laboured energetically to maintain a decent standard of knowledge, of morality and piety, among his clergy. His intimate friend was Haimo, bishop of Halber- stadt (d. 853), an Anglo-Saxon by birth, and kinsman of the venerable Bede, He was, like Hrabanus, a disciple of Alcuin. He also wrote commentaries on Scriptures, especially on the Sunday gospels for use among the clergy in parishes. Walafrid Strabo (d. 849) was a monk of Fulda, and then of Reichenau, a man of liberal views, who, in addition to theological composition, wrote a poem on garden herbs, and verses in honour of the saints. Atfried of Weissem- burg composed an evangelical harmony in German, and the Gospel story in verse, which, however, does not possess the poetical merit of the " Heliand." Notker Labeo, of whom more presently, monk of S. Gall, wrote the Psalms in German. He was a musician, poet, astronomer, and mathematician ; was read in the Greek and Latin classics, and was also skilled as a physician, and as a painter. Under his direction the school of S. Gall reached its highest I20 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. pitch of excellence. He died of the plague in 1022. Rhegino, abbot of Priim, wrote an universal chronicle ; and a Saxon poet, whose name is not known, wrote a poem on the achievements of Charlemagne. Thegan, choir-bishop of Treves (g. 835), wrote the life of Louis the Pious, and the dissensions of his sons were chronicled by Nithard, the grandson of Charlemagne. Before passing to another epoch of the Church history of Germany, it is necessary to briefly review the course taken by the Church under the Frank emperors concerning image worship. In the Council of Frankfort, held in 794, the controversy then raging between east and west, and indeed consuming the vitals of the Eastern Church, relative to the respect due to images, was discussed. The Council of Frankfort rejected the adoration of images with indignation. But Charles was not satisfied with that. In the famous Carolingian Books, probably composed by Alcuin under his direction, certainly issued with his approbation, all worship of images was condemned ; not only so, but all acts, such as the burning of lights before, and the kissing of sacred images, are forbidden. On the other hand, Charles was ready to admit pictures and statues into churches as ornaments, and according to the definition of Gregory the Great, as keeping alive the memory of just men. An embassy which Michael Balbus, the Byzantine emperor, sent to Louis and to Rome, led to a further declaration of the Frank Church, in the Synod of Paris (825) against image worship, and accom- LATER CAROLINGIANS AND THE CHURCH. 121 panying this was a censure levelled against the pope But the pope did not venture to deal as imperiously with the powerful Frank emperor because of the rejection of image worship, as he did with the incapable Emperor of the East. Throughout the 9th century the worship of images continued to be rejected in the Frank empire without Rome excom- municating any one on that account. 122 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. X. THE CHURCH AT THE EXTINCTION OF THE CAROLINGIANS. The result to the Church of Papal Supremacy — Of the decline of the Royal Power — Abuse of their office by the Arch- deacons — The Canons recover their Independence — The parochial Clergy — Enforcement of Celibacy — The Per- manency of the Conditions in which the Church was placed — Louis the Child — Hatto of Mainz — The Babenberg feud — Bishop Solomon of Constance — The feud with the Vice- Dukes of Swabia. We have seen how that a new element had been introduced into the affairs of the Church, how that the exaggerated pretensions of the Frank kings to overlordship above the Church had tended to drive the Frank bishops to encourage and strengthen the claims of the popes to absolute spiritual monarchy. Then came the forgery of the decretals of the pseudo- Isidore, that clinched their rivets to the chair of S. Peter. The result of this soon became apparent ; the independence of the metropolitans, of the synods, was gone — the inner force, that recuperative power which lies in the Divine organization of the Church, as in the human body, was taken from it. Every abuse grew till it became rampant, and the power to remove it had been taken out of the hands of, or had been CHURCH AT EXTINCTION OF CAROLINGIANS, 123 freely surrendered by, the hierarchy ; the popes were too much engrossed in their struggles after worldly power to give attention to the spiritual degradation of the national churches. The vast wealth of the hierarchy took from it care for the discharge of its spiritual obligations, and the consciousness that this was so not infrequently found sad expression. It was one of the great advantages of a synod that in it the best feelings and resolutions of wise and pious prelates found expression, and protest was raised against the growing corruption. But when all constraining power was taken from the metropolitans by the introduction of appeals to Rome, though abuses might be noted, the possibility of redeeming them was gone. As the royal power declined, so much the more were the bishops drawn within the vortex of political contentions and of secular cares. Men of noble character, men not forgetful of their sacred calling, shuddered at the prospect that opened before them ; but they could do nothing to improve it. On the one hand was the excessive wealth of the Church, luring men utterly unworthy of orders to enter them so as to be able to lay their grasp on the great benefices ; on the other, it was not in their power to exercise authority to correct what was wrong, when those incriminated could always escape punishment by appeal to Rome. It must not, however, be supposed that all the bad appointments to vacant sees were made by the king ; on the contrary, some of the worst were the result of 124 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. free elections by clergy and people. For Instance, at Beauvais, a certain Rodulf was so chosen, who could not read Latin. These popular elections gave occasion to intrigue, cabal, and bribery. The archdeacons gave great scandal, because they were entrusted with the conduct of the courts which formerly, under Charlemagne, had been entrusted to the bishops. The bishops handed their judicial position over to the archdeacons, who, when crimes were brought before them, sentenced to severe penances, and then sold release for heavy coin. What a torrent of corruption thus entered the Church, how this abuse undermined the Divine law of righteousness, and repentance for sins, may well be imagined. It found its culminating point subsequently in the in- famies of Tetzel. At this period only the seed of the evil began to show ; it took centuries to ripen to a pernicious harvest. We have seen how Chrodegang had reformed the canons of collegiate churches. His reforms Louis the Pious had enforced. All canons were brought to live together in a collegiate building, and to enjoy only so much of the income of the churches as was needful for their sustentation. This was not a condition of affairs to their taste, and they took advantage of the turmoil of the time to undo all that had been done for their reformation. The first chapter to effect this was that of Cologne (873), which wrung from the Archbishop Willibert the concession that they might live, each in his own house, and have full enjoyment of his share of the entire revenue. The archbishop yielded with the CHURCH AT EXTINCTION OF CAROLINGIANS. 125 greatest reluctance and with self-reproach. Very speedily all the other chapters followed the example of that of Cologne. The parish clergy, no doubt, had among them many devout and zealous men, as indeed there were to be found devout and zealous men among the bishops, and among the canons, but they were set in times that were against them. Wherever they turned their eyes they saw only greed after power and after wealth. The popes were involved in struggles to get possession of provinces, and to scrape together wealth, or to assert their authority to give away crowns — these popes hardly put forth a finger to redress the moral and spiritual grievances that were breaking the heart of Christendom. Germany was not so distant but that tidings of the abominations per- petrated in Rome could reach it — the misdeeds of a Stephen, a Sergius, and so forth. If the clergy looked at the bishops, what did they see? Men holding splendid courts, marshalling their forces, seeking their fortunes at court, and caring for their dioceses only so far as they were the sources whence they could draw means for enjoying life. And — who were the parochial clergy ? The great bulk of them were drawn from the lowest classes, the sons of small farmers, often even serfs. Very generally the nobles had one of their servants taught Latin, and then had him ordained to act as house chaplain. He was that, and also jester, and did menial work. When the master was tired of him, he gave him a living on his land, and had another serf ordained in his room. 126 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, Thegan says, " It was the great weakness of Louis that he did not prevent that worst of usages by which the basest slaves attained the highest dignities of the Church. He followed the fatal example of Jeroboam, who made of the lowest of the people priests of the high places. No sooner have they obtained elevation than they throw off the semblance of humility, give loose rein to their passions, become quarrelsome, evil speaking, ruling men's minds by alternate menaces and flatteries. Their first object is to raise their families from their own servile condition ; to some they give a good education, others they contrive to marry into noble families. No one can lead a quiet life who resents their demands and intrigues. Their relatives, thus advanced, treat the older nobles with disdain, and behave with the utmost pride and insolence." Such was the state of affairs under Louis the Pious ; but after his time the lowborn hardly ever attained to the rich benefices. These became the prerogative of the nobles ; but serfs and men of no birth entered orders for the supply of the parochial clergy. Such men were by no means to be despised. Where they were good they were doubtless very good, where bad, they were of the worst, boorish and brutal. A large number of the parochial clergy were married, married openly, and by religious rite, and the struggle to enforce celibacy was tough and long continued in Germany. S. Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg,* wrote a letter to the Pope on the subject, * In Martene and Durand, ' CoUectio Amplissima,' i., p. 449. \ CHURCH A T EXTINCTION OF CAROLINGIANS. 12 in which he sharply took him to task for attempting to enforce what was not sanctioned by any single passage in Holy Scripture. The apostle, said he, requires a bishop to be the husband of a wife, and therefore certainly no straiter rule can have been intended for the priesthood. As may well be supposed, the attempt to enforce celibacy on a priest- hood under so little discipline, with so little good example to stir it to holiness of life, resulted in infinite corruption of morals. It has been necessary to enter at some length into the condition of the German Church at this epoch, for to some extent it characterised the condition through- out the later Middle Ages. The German church was given its ineffaceable stamp. By degrees the cities acquired freedom, and citizen life became active, im- portant. The Crown recovered some of its dignity and power, the whole civil life went through vast modifications and expansion ; but the mould into which the Church had been run remained unbroken, unaltered in any way, unbroken and unaltered in Catholic Germany even by the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, only to be completely shattered by the strong arm of Napoleon, never again to be restored. Up to this point we have considered the broad principles upon which the Church in Germany was placed, and how they affected her for weal and woe. There is a difficulty. S. Ulrich's date is 924-973. The letter is supposed to be addressed to Nicolas I., but this is not possible, as Nicolas died in 867. It is not clear to which of the contemporary popes it was addressed. 128 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. We have seen how that, under the Merovingians up to Charles Martell, the Church could hardly maintain in- dependence ; she was controlled by the Crown, which treated her only as a department of the State. Then S. Boniface introduced anew element ; he endeavoured to detach the Church from her dependence on the Crown, and attach her to the chair of S. Peter. Pippin, who had obtained from Pope Zacharias an excuse for dethroning the last of the Merovingians and assuming his crown, did not care to resist the papal claims which had served him so conveniently ; but Charles the Great, though crowned and anointed to be Emperor of the West by Pope Leo, was by no means disposed to allow all spiritual authority to be withdrawn from his hands and taken into those of the popes. Whilst he lived, nothing could be done to further the papal assumption. It was otherwise under his feeble successors ; then the popes advanced their claims without fear of resistance, and the bishops, anxious for their selfish advantage, some, no doubt, actuated by real desire for the good of religion, favoured these claims. Thus, when the Carolingian dynasty became extinct with Louis the Child, the papal authority over the Church was generally acknow- ledged, to be used by unscrupulous prelates against the royal authority ; and forasmuch as they were temporal, as well as spiritual princes, they were in a position, when it suited their ends, to unite with the king against the pope. Their double position under two masters gave them the fatal advantage of being able to play off one against the other, and as the CHURCH AT EXTINCTION OF CAROLINGIANS. 129 prelates were on occasions men of no principle, they were quite ready so to abuse their opportunities. They gravitated to this side or to that, according as they saw advantage to themselves. The position of the Church thenceforth remained unchanged ; it became even more wealthy, more powerful, and that was an aggravation of the evil. The bishops were sovereign princes over large territories, drawing revenues from them, by taxation, by imposts, coining their own money, raising their own armies, waging their own wars, and in their position as territorial princes forgot too often that they were so only because they had been invested with a spiritual charge. The whole after history of the Church in Germany is but the exemplification of the mischief to religion arising from these causes. Our history therefore will henceforth deal with particulars, mentioning incidents illustrating this condition of affairs which had been brought about, and which remained unchanged. We will begin with Archbishop Hatto I. of Mainz. When in 899 King Arnulf died unexpectedly, in the flower of his age, the German realm was left in great difficulties, for the crown fell to his only legitimate son, Louis, a child of seven years. It had been his intention to bequeath the succession to his illegitimate son Zwentibold, whom he had elevated to be Duke of Lorraine, but his purpose was arrested before executed, by death, attributed at the time to poison. The estates of the realm at once elected Louis. In this election the clergy, especially Arch- K I30 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, bishop Hatto, had great influence ; and the regency was entrusted to the archbishop and to Otto, duke of Saxony. It was most important that the realm should be held in firm hands, to prevent Germany from breaking up into her constituent parts. Saxons, Franks, Thuringians, Alemanni (Swabians), Bavarians, and Lorrainers stood over against each other estranged and jealous ; as yet not even had the common name of Deutschland (Germany) been extended to embrace the whole Teutonic people. At the heads of these races stood old, richly-estated noble families, in whom the dukedoms, that Charles the Great had suppressed, had been re-established. They had not only retained their own territories, but had laid hands on and drawn into their own power the royal domains situated in their duchies. At the head of a race of ancient nobility, stood Adalbert of Babenberg, son of a duke who had fallen under the walls of Paris, the brother of Poppo, duke of Thuringia. Hatto had raised a creature of his own, Conrad of Rottenburg, to the duchy of Thuringia ; Conrad, unable to maintain himself in the stronghold of the Babenbergers, had voluntarily resigned, but carried away with him furious resentment against the rival family. Adalbert, Henry and Adelhardt, sons of Henry of Babenberg, finding themselves thwarted by the archbishop and his party, and pressed from the north by Otto and the Saxons, rose in arms, on the occasion of Rudolf, the brother of Conrad of Rotten- burg, supported by Hatto, abusing his authority to lay his hands on a considerable crown fief, to which the CHURCH AT EXTINCTION OF CAROLINGIANS. 131 Babenbergers preferred a family claim. Hatto had the ban of the empire proclaimed over Adalbert, who had succeeded in killing Conrad in battle, near Fritzlar. Then an army under Louis, the king, marched against the Babenbergers, Henry and Adelhardt were killed, and Adalbert was closely surrounded in his castle. Hatto now persuaded Adalbert to suffer him to act as intermediary between himself and the king, and for this purpose was admitted into the castle. There he invited Adalbert to accompany him to the king's tent, and solemnly swore that if he would go with him forth from his castle, he would bring him back to it in safety. Adalbert, relying on the oath of the archbishop, accompanied him forth, but no sooner had they crossed the threshold, than Hatto feigned a sudden faintness, and asked to be reconducted within, and given wine and food, as he had eaten nothing that morning. Adalbert at once complied, and when the archbishop had breakfasted, attended him forth once more, and this time into the hostile camp, where he was at once laden with chains and put to death. Hatto mockingly reproached him for his folly in allowing himself to be overreached. He had kept his word literally, though he had broken it in spirit. Hatto was a man risen from a low origin, through his great abilities, but was hated for his treachery, ambition and rapacity. Under King Arnulf his own citizens had risen in revolt against him, but had been forced to receive him again, by Arnulf, who laid K 2 132 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY siege to the city. He died about 913. The story of hard-heartedness, revenged by an army of mice attacking him in a tower on the Rhine, is told of a successor, Hatto II., who died in 970, and was an excellent bishop, but the old hatred against the first who bore the name attached itself to his memory, most unwarrantably. Another characteristic prelate of the same age was Solomon III., bishop of Constance (891-920) ; he was a baron of Ramschwag, and was privy councillor to five kings in succession, Louis IL, Charles the Fat, Arnulf, Louis III., and Conrad I. He was Provost of Ellwangen, and Abbot of S. Gall, Abbot of Pfaffers and Bishop of Constance. Indeed, at one time he held as many as twelve abbeys and other benefices, which he owed to the favour in which he stood with Archbishop Hatto. He was a man of learning, keenness of intellect, and general abilities ; was of majestic and handsome appearance, was courteous to all, hospitable, generous, and pure in life. He kept open table at Constance, and was famed for his eloquence as a preacher. The king, or rather Hatto, who ruled for the king, heaped on him royal manors, and thereby roused the jealousy of a good many, who had been deprived in order that he might be instated in their tenures. Among these were two Vice-Dukes of Swabia.' There was then no Duke of Swabia, but the duchy was governed and managed by two brothers, Frkinger and Berthold, whose territory reached to the Lake of Constance. As King Arnulf deprived them of considerable estates on the lake, i CHURCH A T EXTINCTION OF CAROLINGIANS. 133 which he gave to Solomon, they were dissatisfied, and fell on the Abbey of S. Gall, hoping to find him there, but were disappointed. At his complaint, they were arrested and kept in confinement for some time, till Solomon himself interfered ; he petitioned that they might be released, and obtained his request. Thus, for a while, cordiality was apparently restored. But it did not last long. One day the bishop and Erkinger met. With Erkinger was his nephew, and the fiery young man, who had inherited the family quarrel, took the occasion to insult the bishop. Solomon retaliated in a somewhat indecorous fashion. He dressed up one of his cowherds in a suit of mail, armed him with lance and shield, and sent him to the castle of the vice-dukes to ask entertainment as a knight of the imperial retinue. The brothers re- ceived him with marked respect, treated him to the best wine their cellars contained, and only found out their mistake when the bishop turned them into the laughing-stock of the country. At this their ire blazed forth into implacable fury. The brothers armed and invaded the lands of the bishop with steel and flame. The bishop called his brother Siegfried of Ramschwag to his aid, appealed to the emperor, summoned his friends, and overwhelmed the unfortunate officers. Berthold's castle was taken, Berthold himself was made prisoner, and carried off to the castle of Hohentwyl. But Bishop Solomon about the same time fell into the hands of Erkinger, who carried him in chains to his castle and delivered him to the custody of his wife Bertha, whilst he 134 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. returned to continue his conflict with the retainers of the prelate. Erkinger's wife, who was by no means pleased with the quarrel, struck off the bishop's chains and set him at liberty, imploring him with tears to forgive her husband and his brother Berthold, and appease the wrath of the emperor against the brothers, when the contest was over. This the bishop promised to do. Berthold also escaped from prison, or was released by the bishop in return for the favour accorded him ; but the brothers were immediately summoned to appear before the imperial diet at Altheim, and were placed under the ban of the empire, were excommunicated, taken and thrown into chains. The judgment was obscured by partiality, as most of the judges were bishops and friends of Solomon. The vice-dukes, however, managed to escape out of prison ; but on the emperor giving them a promise of safe-conduct, they appeared before the diet to appeal against the judgment. However, all the spiritual princes present were on Solomon's side, and the unfortunate brothers were condemned to death as peace-breakers and foes of the Church. They at once claimed the privilege of returning to their homes unmolested, having the emperor's safe- conduct ; but the prelates, headed by the crafty Hatto of Mainz, assured Conrad that his oath to men guilty of sacrilege was void, and should be regarded as of none effect ; and by the order of Conrad I. the unfortunate vice-dukes were beheaded at Oettingen, in 617. This breach of safe-conduct, a stain on CHURCH A T EXTINCTION OF CAROLINGIANS. 135 German history, was not repeated till 500 years later, when Huss was burnt at Constance in spite of the safe-conduct given him by the Emperor Sigismund. This story has been given at some extent, for it tends to show how that even one of the best prelates of his time was involved in quarrels and scandals utterly unworthy of his sacred profession. 136 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, XL THE MONASTERIES. The Utility of the Monasteries — The Services they rendered to Culture and Science — The Transcription of Books — The Abbey of S. Gall — Its Scribes — The principal room in S. Gall in the 9th and loth centuries — I so — Moengal — The Song- school — Notker Balbulus — Tutilo — Walram — The abbey Library — The abbey Schools — The outer and the inner Schools — The Trivium and Ouadrivium — Service done to Philology. During the 9th and loth centuries the monasteries were the nurseries of true religion and of science. Here the simplicity and unworldliness of primitive Christianity were to be found ; to them fled those whose hearts were of finer mould than the hearts of their contemporaries. At an epoch when violence, licen- tiousness, and barbarism were rampant, when the Church herself was invaded and dishonoured by self-seeking and pride, the monasteries were refuges to which virtue and love of learning escaped, and where they found shelter. But they were more than asylums ; they re-acted on the outer world. They were schools in which the young were trained in piety and knowledge, at least in respect for something better than brute force. At a period when society seemed to fall into general wreck, something more THE MONASTERIES. 137 was needful than an apostle of righteousness lifting his voice in condemnation of evil, here and there — what was needed was institutions which would stand the storms that swept the country, the violence of men, the anarchy, the wantonness of destruction, the dissolu- tion of the old order of society, and which could effect its reconstruction on other bases. The monks of the 9th and 1 0th centuries were the distributors of that blessing and that light which flow from the Gospel ; they were the veritable founders of the culture of the Middle Ages, and the preservers to us of the treasures of Classic antiquity. Printing was a discovery as yet unmade. There were no other means for multiplying copies of books than transcription, and this may be said to have been the main occupation of the monks. Over the scrip- torium of the Abbey of Fulda were written these words : — '' Let him sit here who writes the words of the Father, Or copies the holy words indited of old by the Spirit ! Let guard be kept on the mind, that nothing frivolous enter, Nor let the hand be stayed to indulge in frivolous converse ; Busily work at the page, and carefully guard against errors, That surely the end be reached that from the first was intended ! A work most noble it is, to copy the words of the Scriptures, To him that writeth aright, reward remains in the heavens." The monks wrote on parchment only, which they prepared from the skins of wild beasts with such skill that they became almost as fine and white as letter paper. Only those books that were intended for private and constant use were exceptions ; these were 138 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, often written on parchment neither sound nor clean, full of holes, and stitched together. Sometimes old MSS. were effaced, in order that new works might be written on the old pages. In the monastery library of S. Gall, the most important in Upper Germany, there remain nine of these latter codices rescripti^ fragments of the Old Testament, the letters of S. Leo, S. Hilary on the Psalms, etc., scraped out, that on them might be written the Homilies of S. Hilary, the life of S. Lucius, the dialogues of S. Gregory the Great, and two dictionaries. At the beginning of the 9th century the writing was debased by the introduction of many Merovingian and Lombardic characters ; but in or about 820 this cursive writing was exchanged everywhere for the Romano-Carolingian characters, which are little different from the Latin letters now in general use in type. When the monks desired to execute a work of great sumptuousness, they stained the parchment purple, and wrote with gold or silver ink, and adorned the initials and the titles richly with gold and with painted symbolic animals. Let us now imagine ourselves in the scriptorium of an abbey. We see countless hands busily engaged. Some prepare the parchment, others draw lines on the pages, others transcribe, others again illuminate with gold and colour the initials that others have drawn. Again, others compare the transcripts with the originals, and finally some are engaged in binding the completed books in covers of oak boards, almost an inch thick, which are to be overlaid with THE MONASTERIES. I39 ivory, metal, or leather — a laborious work, so that a scribe might, not without reason, exclaim at the con- clusion of his book, " Libro complete saltat scriptor pede laeto." Students also of the monastery school, who possessed less talent than the others, were engaged in the mechanical work of transcription, or in drawing the lines whereon the letters were to be written. But for works of importance the most skilful hand was always selected, in accordance with the injunction of Charles the Great — " When a book of the Gospels, or a missal has to be copied, then let men of a proper age be chosen, who may write with due correctness and diligence." Let us now select an abbey from the many in Germany, and illustrate monastic life from what we know of it through a series of valuable writers on the history of their house. We will take that of S. Gall. In this abbey, at the period of which we are now writing, the best hands at caligraphy were Sintram, Folkart, Gotzbert, Waldo, Bernwick, Alfart, and Notker. All these men thought like Notker, who says of himself that he considered it his great duty to enrich the library with all such books as he could get into his hands for the purpose of transcription. Waldo, the Abbot, when he desired to enforce some assertion, was wont to say, " As certain as these fingers of mine can write " ; for, adds Ratpert, " He was a famous scribe." Ekkehard, the chronicler, says of Sintram : " All the world on the side of the Alps marvels at the writing of our Sintram, who wrote the Gospel book we possess. It is a wonder how one man could copy I40 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. so many books — for his manuscripts are dispersed all over the realm. His writing was very fine, and hardly ever can one find that he made a mistake and was forced to a correction." This Gospel book still exists ; it is the so-called Evaiigelium Longiim,, and is in golden letters. Another treasure of these times in the library of S. Gall is Folkart's ' Book of Psalms ' (liber S. Galli aureus). The beautiful miniatures in fresh colours in many cases still exhibit the influence of classic art ; there is a grace in the forms and in the folds of drapery that show considerable artistic genius. The rich arabesques, and the architectural frames of the miniatures are valuable as giving an insight into the structural forms of a period whose monumental remains are scarce. In all these books the brilliancy of the gold, and the hues of the colours remain to the present day in such freshness that one might suppose them to have been recently laid on. It is impossible sufficiently to recognise the debt we owe to the monks for their diligence in transcrip- tion of books. The splendid MSS. of the 9th and lOth centuries throw a brilliant light on this age of barbarism. Never did caligraphy reach a higher standard than in the 9th and lOth centuries, and the elegance of the decoration shows a keen sense of the beauty of form. The monks may be said to have handed on the lamp of art to later ages. They did the same for science. The monks lived a very simple life, and were most abstemious in the matter of food. " Vegetables and THE MONASTERIES. 141 beans were their food, the spring furnished their draught, and the hard earth their bed," as the Vesper hymn says for all the saints of the Benedictine Order. In the year 912, on S. Stephen's Day, King Conrad I. surprised the Abbey of S. Gall with a visit. He was attended by two bishops. He sat down to the mid- day meal with the monks, taking the place of the abbot, and ate of all that was brought to table, after having given strict orders that nothing special should be prepared for him. The monks lamented that the king had not come on the morrow, when they would have had something better to give him than beans and bread. A brief sketch of some of the principal men in the Monastery of S. Gall will interest, and give us a lively notion of the sort of men who were to be found in all the abbeys of Germany at this period. Iso was a monk of noble birth, and is said by the chronicler Ekkehard to have been " the most learned man of his time." For some time he was at the head of the monastery school. When his kinsman Count Rudolf, who was made King of Upper Burgundy in Z^%, asked him of the abbot, the latter consented to yield him up with great reluctance. '' Sir," said he, " it is an exalted pleasure to listen to him for only an hour ; and all Burgundy and Gaul acknowledge his learning." The abbot, however, required Iso to return to S. Gall at the end of three years, and to revisit the abbey thrice every year during his enforced residence at the Burgundian count's castle. However, Iso died in 871, at the age of forty-two. We have from his 142 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. pen an account of the Translation and Canonization of S. Othmar. He was famed for his medical skill, and is said to have performed many wonderful cures of cases of leprosy, cataract, and gout. At the same time as Iso, lived Mcengal, an Irish monk, at S. Gall. He had gone with an uncle, Mark, a bishop, and his retinue, on pilgrimage to Rome. On their way home, they crossed the Alps, and halted at S. Gall, to visit the tomb of their countryman. Mcengal was so charmed with the life of the monks in the abbey that he resolved to remain there, and persuaded his uncle to do the same. Both gave their horses and their money to the servants who had attended them, and dismissed them to return home without them and report to their kinsfolk where they were. The two Irishmen "were learned in things human and divine," says the chronicler. Both Mcengal and Iso were famous musicians. In the 8th century a certain Romanus, a singer from Rome, had founded a school of music at S. Gall, and the monastery flattered itself to have preserved the Gregorian melodies in their primitive simplicity. Romanus had brought with him from Italy an antiphonary which was always regarded at S. Gall as a treasure, and an authority. Till the nth century it was preserved under the altar of the apostles ; and it was referred to, not only in the abbey, but appealed to by the song-school at Metz, and indeed throughout Allemania and Burgundy. This antiphonary still exists in the library, though not entire any longer, and is one of the earliest sources we possess for Roman THE MONASTERIES. 143 choral song, and Is certainly the purest and most genuine. It contains at present the gradual in its entirety, but the introits, offertories and communions only in part. This school of music founded by Romanus soon produced men whose fame was in all the churches : as Ekkehard says, " The Church of God, not in Allemania only, but from one sea to the other, was filled with joy and splendour through the hymns and sequences, the tropes and litanies, the songs and melodies, as also through the doctrine that flowed from these men." In the choir of S. Gall stood thirteen music-desks, on which were as many music-books, and the vaults of the abbey church resounded with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs from some hundred voices, old and young. The attention devoted to the singing transpires from the regulations impressed on the singers. There was to be no clipping of words, no jabbering of sentences, but the words were to be uttered with gravity and distinctness of utterance. Under Iso and Moengal the song-school of S. Gall produced scholars of distinction ; chief of which were Ratpert, Notker and Tutllo, who not only continued the tradition of accurate rendering of Gregorian melody, but also greatly enriched the music of their day. There were occasions other than the performance of daily worship for the composition of melody and poem, and such were eagerly seized on by these men. In 864, under Abbot Grimoald, Bishop Solomon I. 144 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. of Constance elevated the relics of S. Othmar, and at his request a litany was composed at S. Gall, as well as suitable hymns. Three years later the church erected to S. Othmar was completed, when the monks attended the translation of the relics singing their new hymns and litany. Not only so, but when, two days later, the Abbot of Kempten and the monks of Reichenau, who had been invited to the solemnity, took their leave, the singers of S. Gall accompanied them from the gates singing in their honour farewell lays composed and set to music by themselves for the occasion. So also, when kings and emperors visited (^ the abbey, they were received and dismissed with songs. In 883 when Charles the Fat, son of Ludwig the German, returning from Italy over the Rhaetian Alps, visited S. Gall, the monks and choristers went to meet him singing a greeting in Sapphic strophes. Later, when the Emperor Otho the Great visited S. Gall, the song of welcome composed in his honour by Notker, the physician, so delighted him that he sent for the old blind master of music, embraced him, and insisted on seating him by his own side at table. In the course of two hundred years there were as many as thirteen monks in the abbey of the name of Notker, but three have been distinguished for their merits and learning — Notker Balbulus, the Stammerer, Notker Physicus, and Notker Labeo, he with thick lips. First of all, about Notker Balbulus, son of noble parents, the Counts of Kyburg. He was born in 850 ; he was akin to the race of the Carolingians, through THE MONASTERIES. 145 his father, and, through his mother, allied to the princely house of Saxony. His parents brought him, when quite a child, to the Abbot Grimoald, and he was educated by the musicians Iso and Moengal, who taught him Latin, Greek, poetry and music. Although afflicted all life with a stammer, he was able to compose and sing his sacred hymns without difficulty. Even when a youth he made his essay, which so gratified his teachers that they encouraged him to proceed. In the preface to his book of Sequences, he says : " As I perceived even in my youth that the earliest melodies were being forgotten, I often considered how I might find a means of preserv^ing and collecting them. Then it fell out that a priest from Gimedion, which was devastated by the Normans, came to us and brought with him his antiphonary. In this I found some verses modulated after the fashion of sequences, but so corrupt, that they did not suit my taste at all. Nevertheless, I was stimulated thereby, and turned my hand to something of the sort, and set a good many tunes to words. When I showed these to my master Iso, he was very pleased, and had consideration for my ignorance, he praised what was good in them, and what he saw was wrong he bade me correct." With these words Notker dedicated his collection of fifty hymns and sequences, to be sung before the Gospel at the mass, to Luitwart, bishop of Vercelli. It will be understood that what he did was to com- pose words to early melodies that he had collected, and which had either unsuitable words to them, or words so corrupt in sense as to need re-edition. There L 146 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. was something wanted to be sung during the pro- duction of the Gospel with lights and incense, and the sequence filled this deficiency. Notker's hymn for Holy Innocents' Day is familiar to us through the translation that has found its way into most modern English hymnaries. As Notker was a man of truely poetical soul, he was much impressed by incidents common or uncommon that occurred, and some of these gave occasion to two of his most striking compositions. Near the abbey was a mill, the wheel of which, driven by a small stream, worked with a peculiar creak, long drawn and then a rapid clap. As Notker was listening to this one day, the sound aroused him to the composition of his famous hymn, " Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia," in which the melodious conclusion of each strophe represents the rush of the water out of the buckets of the wheel. When Abbot Ulrich of S. Gall went to Rome in 121 5, about the affairs of the emperor, he had this sung before Pope Innocent III., who was delighted with it, called the abbot to him, asked the name of the composer, and praised it warmly. On another occasion, Notker in a walk reached the Martinstobel, a ravine through which the river Goldach rushes boiling and throwing up spray. At the time some workmen were engaged in building a bridge over the chasm, and he saw one walk across the scaffolding balancing himself above the frightful abyss. The feeling that at any moment an accession of giddiness or a false step might precipitate the man to death had such an affect on Notker, that there rose THE MONASTERIES. 147 spontaneously in his soul the wonderful strain, ** Media vita in morte sumus." " In the midst of life we are in death ; of whom may we seek for succour but of Thee ? " &c., which has found its way into our Anglican burial service. The song took held of men's minds, and was chanted first in penitential processions, and then in all times of danger ; men sang it in storm at sea, they sang it when treading dangerous passes in the Alps. It was sung as a battle chant, and for many centuries remained a popular folk-song. It even passed into the service of superstition, for in a synod at Cologne in 13 16, a canon was issued to forbid the singing of it as a charm with intent to take away life. For many years the mid-day chimes of the Abbey of Salmansweiler played the melody, and throughout the diocese of S. Gall it is still sung in many village churches at evening prayer. Notker was in correspondence with the learned and the lovers of sacred minstrelsy, far and wide- Archbishop Ruodbert of Metz asked him to compose for him some hymns on the life of the protomartyr Stephen. Notker accordingly wrote four, which he sent him with the words, " I, the unworthy Notker, sick and stuttering, full of faults, have with faltering tongue sung the triumph of S. Stephen, at the request of the pious prelate. May Ruodbert, who now in the bloom of youth possesses the heart of an old man, attain to a green old age." Notker's wish was ful- filled ; the prelate reigned over his see for thirty-three years. Notker wrote a work on music, " De Musica et Symphonia," which was known in the 12th century, L 2 148 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, but which unfortunately has been lost. But we owe it to Notker that the pneumas of Romanus, which would otherwise have been absolutely unintelligible to us, have had their significance preserved.* Ekkehard, the Chronicler, describes Notker as " the gentlest of men, always kindly, and with peace in his heart." He died in 912. Another of this period was Tutilo, regarded as an universal genius, an eloquent preacher, whether in Latin or in German, a sculptor and a painter. He was called to Constance to carve a high altar ; to Metz, to sculpture statues of saints, and there the story circu- lated that he had been shown a vision of the Blessed Virgin, otherwise no man could have represented her with such supernatual beauty. At S. Gall are preserved two pieces of sculpture by this gifted man, a diptych of ivory, representing on one leaf the Lord in glory, the second the Assumption and two scenes from the life of S. Gall. The style is archaic. But Tutilo was also a poet and musician. He composed tropes. In the 9th century the custom sprang up to expand certain portions of the mass, especially the introit on festivals, with additions and enrichments. These were designated tropes. Probably the tropes had their origin in S. Gall, whence they spread. Certainly Tutilo is the first known composer of those peculiar melodies, which he was wont to accompany on the rote, the seven-stringed psaltery, for he was a * For the history of the music at S. Gall, see Schubiger : ' Die Sangerschule S. Gallens,' an admirable work, with repro- ductions of the old music in its various phases. THE MONASTERIES. 149 skilled musician on both stringed and wind in- struments, and instructed the young nobles of the outer school in the use of them. Another man of some note was Walram, who was librarian ; we possess two elegies composed by him, dedicated to the Abbot Solomon. But he wrote also greetings to the emperor and other distinguished persons who visited the monastery. In 912 the Emperor Conrad I. visited S. Gall, when he composed and set to music an ode in his honour, in hexameters : — " Come, worthiest monarch, and visit this cell of S. Gallus ! Under the shelter of Othmar, widely we open our portals, Lo in this temple of God treasures unnumbered are poured ; See the relics of saints — bodies of saints long departed ! " The emperor spent three whole days at S. Gall^ talked with the monks, sat at their table, and ate their food. During the meal the boys dedicated to the cloister read in order passages in Latin from the Holy Scriptures, from a desk set apart for the purpose. As soon as each boy had finished his paragraph, he stepped up to the emperor, who put a gold coin between his lips. When the youngest of the boys, on receiving the coin, spat it out, the emperor laughed, and said, " Ah ! I see — you are a thorough monk at heart." Conrad had come to the abbey at this time in order to attend the feast of the Holy Innocents, when the procession consisted of boys only, and only the boys sang in choir. On the morning of the festival, Conrad strewed the floor with red-cheeked apples where the procession must pass. Then he seated I50 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. himself in the choir and watched for the result. The procession advanced, the boy with cross, with the candles held by smaller children, one on each side, the rest of the boys behind, and reached the place where lay the apples. But so good was the discipline of the children, that not only did no single boy stoop and pick up an apple, but not a voice wavered in the song, as though distracted from attention to the psalm by the sight of the tempting fruit. The emperor was so pleased, that he asked for three days' holiday in the year perpetually for the scholars, and also begged that the monks might have something better to eat in the Christmas week than beans. We have already alluded to Sintram, the beautiful penman ; he was so big and fine a man, that the emperor complained to the abbot that he had with- drawn a fellow from military service eminently calcu- lated to do good work with sword and buckler. To the co-operation of these men was due the compilation of Solomon's Dictionary, an encyclopedic work that contains information on every kind of subject as far as science went in those days, a work for its time of great research and value, which was printed in the 15th century, but which even in that form is of extreme scarcity. The library of a monastery was called its ** armarium " (armoury), because thence the monks drew their weapons for spiritual warfare. In the 8th century the abbey of S. Gall possessed comparatively few books ; but the abbots Grimoald and Hartmuot gave to it their own private collections. The first I THE MONASTERIES. 151 gave it the Epistles of S. Paul, the Gospels, some books of Homilies, Works of the Fathers, Lives of Saints, a book on Astronomy, another on Medicine, a Virgil, a Chronica Julii Caesaris, a Life of Charles the Great, another on Ludwig the Pious, one on the History of the Merovingian Kings, and the Epistola Alexandri de situ Indiae. The abbots had books copied whenever they could borrow them, and money was expended in the purchase of others, so that at length the library contained four hundred volumes, of which several contained two or more works. These comprised Fathers of the Church, ecclesiastical and profane historians, liturgical books, legends, collec- tions of Roman, Allemanic and Salic laws, collections of councils and decrees, poems, grammars, books of medicine, and twenty-six books in Erse and Anglo- Saxon. Of the libri Scottice sci'ipti, the Irish works, all are lost but two ; but on the other hand, some others of like nature were acquired later that still exist in the library. In the latter half of the 9th century one of the monks drew up a catalogue which is of great interest. In the margin are notices on the contents, on their value, on the source whence derived. Thus in the margin we find such entries as these : volumen . optivniiUj or else iiuctile, corriLptum ; or nil est. Several of the legends of the saints are commented on as " lies " — " most utter lies." Another book is " given by Charles the King ; " other notes refer to whom they have been lent — " Habet Domna Richard ; " "Duo Luitwardus habet;" "Ad scholam ; " "Ad Rorbach," etc. 152 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. The library of S. Gall increased, so that in 1757 it had swelled to 30,000 volumes, of which 1725 MSS. are still extant. On high festivals at S. Gall, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo and Paternoster were sung in Greek, so as to familiarise the monks and scholars with Greek. The best students in this tongue went by the title of '' Fratres Ellenici." A word in conclusion on the schools. Of these there were two, the inner and the outer schools. In the plan of the abbey, drawn up by the Abbot Gotzbert in 820, we see the positions of the two schools. Both are symmetrical : " Hoc claustro oblati pulsantibus adsociantur." The pulsantes were the novices. On the plan are seen a court with a cloister running round it, dining-hall, the masters' apartment, the infirmary, all supplied with stoves. The kitchen of the students is separated from the main building by a lane, and near the kitchen is the bath-room, with four baths, and a hearth in the centre of the room. The outer school follows the same plan as the inner school, and is near the abbot's house, with an atrium in the midst divided in the middle into two by a pair of courts, in each of which is a quadrangular testiido^ i.e. a school-room. Round the court are twelve rooms, furnished with benches and tables, the class-rooms of the teachers. The outer school was for those boys, sons of nobles and others, who were educated at the abbey, but who were to go out unto the world, whereas this inner school was for the boys who had been given by their THE MONASTERIES. 153 parents to the monastery in childhood to be reared as monks. The course of education in the schools consisted of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music. The first three of these con- stituted the Trivium, the latter the Qiiadrivium, and together they formed the Seven free arts. Under grammar was taught the Latin tongue, to be read, spoken and understood with such perfection, that rarely was a fault made at the daily lections in hall by the scholars appointed to read during meals. The books read in the schools of S. Gall were Homer, Cicero, Quintilian, Virgil, Lucian, Horace, Statius, also Sallust, Livy, Frontinus, Varro, Juvenal, Terence, Persius, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Sophocles. In poetry, not much was produced, save metrical renderings of the lives of the saints. In dialectic the works used were Aristotle, Plato, Porphyry and Boethius. Of this latter, the Consolatio Philosophise was thought much of by the monks, and hardly a monastic library was without one or more copies. In that of Einsiedeln there remain as many as five. Notker Labeo translated Aristotle into German. In the Quadrivium, music, as already said, was taught with great diligence and success. The modern notation was of course unknown, and various signs and strokes and dots, called pneumas, indicated the notes, till Guido of Arezzo introduced the system since adopted with amplifications. In astromony, which was termed " astrologia," the instruction given was not only on the constellations 154 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. and the course of the sun, but actually a telescope was in use at S. Gall in the 9th or loth century; and in one of the MSS. there preserved is a representation of a monk exploring the heavens through one. The measuring of angles was understood, and the monks constructed a celestial globe, probably the first seen in Germany. The guide in astronomy was chiefly Aratus. Of a terrestrial globe they knew and would know nothing, for they regarded the doctrine of the antipodes as a profane dream of the philosophers or poets. A great obligation is owed to the monks of S. Gall for their labour in translating so many books into High German ; for by so doing they have given to us very valuable means of ascertaining what was the Allemanic tongue at that period. Not only so, but by their composing metrical pieces in it, they have enabled scholars to ascertain the accent, and length of sound on the syllables, and to note how the tongue has changed in the course of ten centuries. GERMANYin the Time of the SAXON ;md FRANCONIAN EMPERORS ( 155 ) XII. THE CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. The Saxon dynasty — Henry I. refuses to be crowned by the Archbishop of Mainz — Coronation of Otto I. — Transforma- tion of the Monarchy into one aristocratico-monarchical — The Dukes recover power — How the Saxon emperors attempted to limit it — Their rehance on the Church — Investiture — Meinwerk, bishop of Paderborn — His rapacity — Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim — Willigis, archbishop of Mainz — TJie contest over Gandersheim — The Synod of Pohlde — Writers of the Epoch : Widukind, Dietmar, Roswitha — Cultural advantage of intercourse with Rome. To the Carolingian House succeeded the Saxon ; and the first king of the Germans — or king of the Franks, as he was then styled — out of this house was Henry I., a man of very remarkable character and force. The story of the crown being offered to him when out hawking is late, and not borne out by contemporary historians, who say that he was elected at Fritzlar A.D. 919, when present. When, however, Heriger, archbishop of Mainz, offered to crown and anoint the new king, Henry emphatically refused. " It suffices me," said he, "that I have been elected, and that I bear a title never borne before by a Saxon. Let coronation and unction be given to men more worthy than myself." This speech pleased the people ( 155 ) XII. THE CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. The Saxon dynasty — Henry I. refuses to be crowned by the Archbishop of Mainz — Coronation of Otto I. — Transforma- tion of the Monarchy into one aristocratico-monarchical — The Dukes recover power — How the Saxon emperors attempted to limit it — Their reliance on the Church — Investiture — Meinwerk, bishop of Paderborn — His rapacity — Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim — Willigis, archbishop of Mainz — TJhe contest over Gandersheim — The Synod of Pohlde — Writers of the Epoch : Widukind, Dietmar, Roswitha — Cultural advantage of intercourse with Rome. To the Carolingian House succeeded the Saxon ; and the first king of the Germans — or king of the Franks, as he was then styled — out of this house was Henry I., a man of very remarkable character and force. The story of the crown being offered to him when out hawking is late, and not borne out by contemporary historians, who say that he was elected at Fritzlar A.D. 919, when present. When, however, Heriger, archbishop of Mainz, offered to crown and anoint the new king, Henry emphatically refused. " It suffices me," said he, "that I have been elected, and that I bear a title never borne before by a Saxon. Let coronation and unction be given to men more worthy than myself" This speech pleased the people 156 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. who swore allegiance ; but the clergy looked on with suspicion, for the rebuff was understood to mean that it was not the intention of the king to suffer himself to be dictated to by the great ecclesiastical princes, as had been his predecessor, Louis the Child, and before that Louis the Pious. Henry, by his tact, by his combined firmness and gentleness, disarmed the dukes of Swabia, Bavaria, and Lorraine, disposed to assume arms against him, and like a wise man he abandoned the dream of a restoration of the Carolingian empire, and contented himself with the consolidation of a German kingdom. His son Otto I., however, was not contented with having himself crowned king at Aachen, but he also crossed the Alps to receive the crown of emperor from the pope (962), and with his coronation was founded the Holy Roman Empire as united with the German nation. From thenceforth the imperial crown, and with it the highest temporal power in Christendom, fell to the King of the Germans, and every king, on his election, felt himself bound to undertake a journey to Rome, there to receive the imperial unction. With the restoration of the western empire, refounded by Constantine, was bound up the idea that a protectorate over the papacy had been acquired, and not only over the papacy, but over the whole Church, and the very symbols of coronation used served to foster this idea, for the king assumed semi-priestly vestments and the pastoral staff of a chief shepherd. Under the successors of the great Charles, his feudal monarchy had developed into an aristocratic CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. 157 monarchical government. With the reinstitution of the dukes, the crown was subjected to extreme danger. The races that constituted the realm clung to their great chiefs with warm attachment, and resented any attempt made to displace them. The ducal title and power had become hereditary, and each duke exercised sovereign authority within his duchy. The election of the king depended on the consent of the dukes, and on their practical support (as they held control over the Herr-bann in their several lands), all his success in war. Consequently the candidates for the crown had to bribe these dukes with promises of enlargement of privileges, which, when granted, left the crown so much the weaker. Whereas the French kings were able, after a struggle, to break the power of the great vassals and establish the supreme authority of the crown, the German sovereigns were hampered in the fulfilment of their proper destiny, on the one side by this incessant drainage of strength into the veins of the great electoral nobles, and on the other by the ever- haunting craving to realize the idle vision of a Western Roman Empire, drawing the kings away from Germany into Italy. The striving of the several dukes after independence was the ever-felt centrifugal force balancing and at times overmastering the centripetal force of the monarchy, and it required a strong will and considerable tact and talent to enable a king to keep this striving of the great vassals under control. It was the policy of the Ottos to weaken the ducal 158 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. powers. They managed to bring the duchies under members of their own family, and though this was achieved by Otto I. (950), yet it exposed him to revolt on the part of the races comprised in the several duchies, who resented being governed by other than their hereditary princes. The opposition encountered was so strong that the attempt was never thoroughly carried out, nor was it one that, even if carried out, could have served its end for more than half a century. The kings limited the powers of the dukes by the appointment of the palatines. These were none other than the old missi regii^ who were given charge of the royal domains throughout Germany, and with a sort of supervision over the administration of justice by the dukes. Over newly conquered lands margraves were appointed, indepen- dent of the dukes, having their own courts, and right of summoning up the Herr-bann. The counts were nominally dependent on the dukes in whose duchies they were planted, but as they were placed over large feudal estates and invested with very considerable power, they served to check the independence of the dukes. The Saxon emperors, however, relied chiefly on the Church to afford them support against the turbulent elements in the realm. They endowed the bishoprics and abbeys and convents with lands, mines, forests, rights of toll, immunities from taxation, emancipation from many of the charges which weighed on and almost crushed secular estates. The prelates were granted independence of royal courts of law ; often CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. 159 whole districts, entire counties were given to them with complete sovereignty over them. Henry II. went so far as to invest many churches with two and three counties, and the nunnery of Gandersheim was actually endowed by him with seven counties. No doubt that the kings acted thus partly out of piety, but their main motive was to place the bulk of power in the hands of those who by their calling were bound to seek peace and to maintain it. But at the same time the kings claimed and exercised the right of nominating to the sees and abbacies, or at all events of confirming or rejecting the nominees of the chapters. Moreover, the rapid vacation of their seats by the prelates made it easy for the king to fill them with his own faithful friends. Thus, whilst the dukes, in their private interests, were ever ready to prove recalcitrant, if not to rise up in open revolt, the clergy, taken generally, were disposed to hold with the king. But by thus converting the great abbots, the bishops, and even abbesses into princes of the realm, all feudal obligations were necessarily laid upon them also. The king desired and demanded their help with an armed band. The bishop or abbot on entering on his benefice was required to take oath of allegiance, and was then invested by the king with staff and ring.* * As example of the way in which the great benefices were filled, this list is instructive. Bruno, son of Henry I., was made Archbishop of Cologne ; Mathilda, daughter of Otto I., Abbess of Quedlinburg ; his son (illegitimate) William, Archbishop of Mainz ; Gerburga, niece of Otto I., Abbess of Gandersheim ; i6o HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Meinwerk, bishop of Paderborn, was one of the very best prelates of his time, and as we have a valuable contemporary life of him written by a friend, we are able to see what was the stuff of which the bishops of that epoch were made, who were good enough in the popular estimation to be reckoned as saints. S. Meinwerk is included in several calendars as one of the blessed. He was related through his mother to the Saxon house of which Henry I. was the first German king, and he was at school together with Henry II. at Hildesheim. He was made canon of Halberstadt and of Paderborn. When Henry H. offered him the bishopric of Paderborn, he answered scornfully — "What am I to do with such a beggarly benefice } " *' Enrich it," answered the emperor, " with your family estates." " You must help me then," said Meinwerk ; and he did his utmost to plunder the king. After he had wrung from him twelve manors, he demanded a thirteenth. " May God forgive you ! " exclaimed Henry. "You pillage me unmercifully." When the^ emperor presented himself at the altar to make his Christmas oblation, Meinwerk repulsed him and refused his offering, demanding the coveted manor, before the whole church, and forced the emperor to yield it up. One day Henry showed him a rich ermine mantle he had got ; Meinwerk snatched it from him, and carried it off, saying it was too good Bruno, brother of Henry II., Bishop of Augsburg; his half- brother Arnold (illegitimate), Archbishop of Ravenna. CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. i6i for a king, it must go to the Church. In Hke manner, when Henry had received a present of a beautifully wrought and enamelled goblet, he showed it to the bishop, who, when he had got it into his hands, refused to return it, but carried it off to the altar, and there consecrated it to sacred usages. The king resolved to be avenged. He persuaded a canon to erase a syllable from a versicle in the bishop's breviary in which he prayed for his church — " Domine, salvum fac famulum tuum," and in the collect, " pro famulis et famulabus tuis : " the bishop accordingly read out a prayer " salvum fac mulum tuum," and prayed " pro mulis et mulabus tuis " — for the mules and she- mules, and was greeted with an indecent outburst of laughter. The bishop in a rage fell on the canon and cudgelled him. Another practical joke was revenged more severely. King Henry caused a Latin scroll to fall from the ceiling into the bishop's plate, informing him he must die in five days. jMeinwerk believed the message, ordered his coffin, vested himself in a winding-sheet and prepared for death, when the emperor and his court burst into his room with laughter and informed him of the joke. Meinwerk, greatly embittered, on the next festival when the king presented himself at the cathedral door, met him and laid him under an interdict. The altar candles were extinguished, no mass was said, and the emperor was forced to do open penance, with bare feet, candle in hand, and make over more lands to the Church, before the wrathful prelate would remove the interdict. Meinwerk walled in the city of Paderborn, M i62 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. and built an episcopal castle there ; he took pains to encourage the cathedral school, and died in the odour of sanctity in 1036. Another bishop of the same period, also regarded as a saint, was Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim. He became bishop in 993, and at the same time Willigis was created Archbishop of Mainz, a man of low birth, but of considerable abilities. He was a wheelwright's son, and since his time Mainz has borne as city-arms a white cart-wheel* Willigis was entrusted by Otto U. with the education of his son Otto, afterwards the third of that name ; and he crowned Henry 11. in the Cathedral of Mainz. S. Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim, was consecrated by him. Very soon the wealthy Abbey of Gandersheim became a bone of contention between Bernward and Willigis, each claiming jurisdiction over it. Sophia, daughter of Otto H., had made up her mind to take the veil at Gandersheim, with the intention of becoming abbess, and she invited Willigis to perform the ceremony. Ostag was then Bishop of Hildes- heim, and he claimed the right to veil nuns in that abbey. On S. Luke's Day, the day appointed, both Willigis and Ostag appeared on the scene, and a loud and angry altercation ensued in the abbey-church. Suddenly Ostag bade his servants plant his throne in the midst of the apse, and took his seat there. Only * So the legend. Actually the wheel is found in the Mainz arms in the reign of his predecessor William, son of Duke William of Saxony. CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. 163 by the intervention of the empress was a riot pre- vented, and Willigis was authorized to say mass, hold one side of the veil, Ostag the other side, and to complete the ceremony. When, however, it came to the renunciation of the world by Sophia, Ostag demanded of the princess an oath of obedience to the See of Hildesheim, and this, after some hesitation, was taken ; and so matters rested, till the quarrel broke out afresh under Bernward. Relying on his influence with the emperor, and inspired with jealousy of Bernward, who was a favourite with Otto, Willigis resolved on reasserting his claim to the abbey, and of thereby at once extending his authority, and insulting and humiliating his young rival. Sophia was not long in affording him an occasion. She and Abbess Gerburga had allowed the discipline of the convent to become relaxed, and Sophia, though one of the nuns, defied the abbess, left the cloister, and spent from one to two years intriguing with Willigis at Mainz, living in his palace, and in such intimacy with him as to cause great scandal. When these stories reached the ears of Bernward, he remonstrated with her, and urged her to return to Gandersheim. She was furious, renounced all allegiance to him, and transferred it to Willigis. Then, probably, acting on the advice of the latter, she returned to the abbey, where she raised up a party to revolt against Bishop Bernward, and to effect the transfer of the cloister to the jurisdiction of Willigis. The church had been rebuilt, and the Abbess Gerburga, being too M 2 i64 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. old to act, Sophia took the conduct of affairs into her own hands, and invited Willigis to dedicate the new church. Bernward betook himself to Gandersheim, and was refused admission. He, however, forced his way into the church, celebrated mass there, and sent round the Eulogise, or blessed bread (not the Eucharist). The congregation present, gathered from the country around, received it with thankfulness ; not so the nuns, who stood scornful and defiant in their stalls ; they refused it with signs and expressions of contempt, and even threw it down on the church-floor, with loudly uttered curses on the bishop.* Bernward, ashamed at this indecent con- duct, burst into tears, finished mass with broken voice, blessed the congregation, and departed. Willigis now appeared on the scene, and was met by a party sent by Bernward to remonstrate and state that he had appealed to the Pope. Willigis convoked a synod to meet at Gandersheim, whilst Bernward sped over the Alps to lay his case before Silvester II. Silvester summoned a synod at Rome ; and by the decision of this council it was ordered that another synod should be gathered at Pohlde, in Saxony, under the presidence of a legate from the Holy See, to decide the question of the rival claims to Gander- shicm. Frederick, the papal legate, arrived on the day appointed at Pohlde. He was received with anything * " Oblalas incredibili furore projiciunt, sseva maledicta episcopo ingerunt." (Thankmar.)j CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. 165 but obsequiousness by the Archbishop of Mainz. The legate, on his entrance into the conclave, was greeted with hoots and groans from Willigis and his party. No proper seat was provided for him, and Bernw^ard and the Archbishop of Hamburg had to make room for him between them. It was with difficulty that the storm of curses and yells could be controlled. When at last silence was obtained, the legate urged all present to charity, and presented a letter from the Pope to the Archbishop of Mainz. Willigis refused to touch or look at it. The vicar apostolic then ordered it to be read publicly. It contained a rebuke to the archbishop for his conduct in the matter of Gandershein. At a signal, the doors of the church where the synod was assembled were thrown open, and the armed retainers of the arch- bishop burst in, shouting and threatening Bernward and the legate. The conclave broke up in disorder, and was adjourned by the legate till the following- day. The archbishop left the church with insolent contempt, but the legate pursued him, and threatened him with excommunication if he did not attend the conclave next day. The archbishop scornfully ignored the summons, and departed for Mainz at the head of his armed retainers. Next day the indignant legate pronounced excom- munication against Willigis, and then sped back to Rome to report his treatment to the Pope and the Emperor Otto III., who was then in Rome. Willigis, as he had disregarded the summons of the legate, i66 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. also disregarded the excommunication launched against him. At Hildwardshausen was a convent of nuns, under the jurisdiction of Bernward, and he was summoned there to consecrate the church ; but Willigis sent his servants beforehand, and they removed from the church all the altars and sacred vessels, beat the servants of Bernward whom he had sent before him, and prepared by force of arms to forbid the bishop's entry into the church. Bernward sorrowfully withdrew and went to Gandersheim. Sophia, hearing of his approach, summoned the vassals of the archbishop to her assistance, and when Bernward arrived, he found an armed multitude prepared to dispute his passage. Before the emperor could return to Germany, and by his presence pacify the unseemly contention, he was cut off, it is said, by poison in Italy ; and in the same manner died Silvester II. Henry II. was now elected and was crowned. In the meantime Gerburga, abbess of Gandersheim, had also died, and Sophia was elected .in her room. She at once sent for Willigis to institute her. But now Henry II. deter- mined to use his influence to put an end to the unseemly scandal. Willigis was unable, or unwilling, to provoke the new emperor by further persisting in a claim that was wholly unwarranted, and Ganders- heim was recognized as within the jurisdiction of the See of Hildesheim. Willigis died in loii, and is regarded as a saint : his festival is on February 23. Bernward has greater claims to a place in the CHURCH UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. 167 Calendar, and has been formally canonized. His day is October 25. Among the ecclesiastics who were writers in the epoch of the Saxon emperors, the most important were Widukind, who wrote three books of Saxon history, from 919-973, also Dietmar, bishop of Merseburg, the most important chronicler of the 1 0th century. He borrowed from Widukind, but continued his history through the reign of Otto H. to 1018. Roswitha, nun of Gandersheim, finding that Ovid, Virgil, and Terence were much read by the nuns, and thinking the reading, at all events of Terence and Ovid's Art of Love, unsuitable, composed several dramas in Latin, turning on Biblical subjects and the martyrdoms of maiden saints. The only known MS. of her compositions remained forgotten till in 1 501 Conrad Celtis extracted it from the dust of the convent library of S. Emmeran at Ratisbon, and gave it to the public. No doubt can be entertained that the abbess Ros- witha was both a mistress of Latin composition and also endowed with the poetic gift. Beside her comedies are her epic poems on the " Gesta Othonis " and the history of Gandersheim, both valuable. The works of Roswitha show us that no small amount of culture was to be found in the cloisters of Germany in this century ; and this was in a measure due undoubtedly to the intimate relation into which Germany was brought with Italy, through the kings of Germany bearing also the imperial crown, and the constant intercourse maintained on that ^account with Italy. i68 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Though the wearing of the imperial crown drained the emperors of half their powers, and prevented the unification and consolidation of the German realm, yet it served to keep alive in Teutonic lands an intellectual life which otherwise might not have developed there for many centuries. ( ibg > XIIL THE CHURCH UNDER THE FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. The policy of Carolingian and Saxon emperors the same — The Church under the various races — The Bishops become princes of the Empire — And military leaders — Simony — The divided authority in the Church — The Popes purposely excite rebellion in Germany — S. Anno, archbishop of Cologne — Kidnaps the young prince Henry— Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen — Rapacity of these Prelates — Anno and the Citizens of Cologne — Contest between the Abbot of Fulda and the Bishop of Hildesheim — Arnold, archbishop of Mainz — Murdered — The Abbess Hildegarde — The eccle- siastical provinces of Germany — The foundation of Bamberg — Gregory VII. and the celibacy of the Clergy — Gregory and Investitures — Pilgrimages — The Crusades — The moral result of the encouragement of the Crusades — Massacre of the Jews — Conquest of Sclav races in the East — The Brotherhood of the Sword — The Teutonic Order — Retrospect. The Saxon emperors, as we have seen, like the Carolingian dynasty that had preceded them, endeavoured to make the Church a buttress of the throne. Their policy was prudent, as, but for the Church, the Germans would have fallen asunder according to their races and dialects, into small princi- palities without a link of connection. The dukes, as heads of these races, were in opposition to the kings ; the counts resisted the dukes with greater bitterness than they did the emperor, whom they regarded as I70 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. their protector against the former, and only resisted him when he attemped to curtail their privileges. But family and national prejudices gave way in the Church, and the bishops felt bound to maintain the imperial authority to save themselves from being swallowed up by the dukes and counts. The Church laboured to consolidate the jarring elements of the constitution into a compact body, and, as a reward, was enriched and protected by the Crown. The close relation in which emperor and Church stood, the importance of the Church for the mainten- ance of balance against the lay nobles, was so clearly recognized by the emperors of the Saxon dynasty that, as we have seen, they lavished estates and privileges on bishops and abbots to increase their power, and reduce that of the ducal electors. This course, which had been adopted in the interests of the empire, by no means conduced to the advantage of religion. The bishops occupying the rank of princes, affected the dress and sports of lay- men, and rivalled the dukes in the number of their armed retainers and the splendour of their retinue. In spite of the laws of Charlemagne and his successors, bishops and abbots again appeared in worldly costume, with costly ornaments, hunting, giving magnificent entertainments, and making such a lavish expenditure of the income of their sees as to dazzle and eclipse many a temporal lord. It was by no means uncommon for a bishop to descend from his hunting-horse at his cathedral doors, and enter the sacred building hawk on wrist to attend the sacred FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 171 offices ; there are even instances on record of bishops booted and spurred, hastily vesting and saying mass. If the nobles invaded the rights of the sees, the bishops armed and marched to chastise them at the head of their vassals. In the great wars of the empire, or in the feuds of the dukes and counts, the bishops with their hosts took the field to fight for the side with which they sympathized through interest or relationship. At the imperial diets the bishops outshone the other princes by the magnificence with which their servants were apparelled. This, which was at first an exhibition of the pride of a few bishops, became at last so general that the most saintly and humble prelates were unable to break through the custom, without incurring the suspicion that they were wanting in offering proper respect to the emperor. The worldly life of the bishops was speedily copied by the canons. The stalls were filled with the younger sons of princely houses, who were thus, at expense of the Church, provided with handsome revenues without burdening the inheritance of the eldest son ; and when once a chapter was filled with men of high rank, they took care to keep it from invasion by plebeians. It became customary, before the election of a canon, to call for his pedigree, and satisfy the chapter that only the bluest blood flowed in the veins of the canon-elect. The Chapter of Liege at one time consisted of twenty sons of kings and princes. During the reign of the first Saxon emperors only 172 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. the most upright and worthy men were appointed to fill the bishops' sees ; but after that Church discipline had become relaxed under Otto III. and Henry II., mitres fell to the lot of men most undeserving, through favouritism and the influence of women. Matters had come to this pass when Conrad 11. ascended the throne. This prince found his exchequer empty, and he adopted the fatal expedient of making the offices of the Church disposable for money. This in- augurated the recrudescence of simony in the empire. It took this form. It was of old a custom for every one who came before the emperor to make him a present. He who desired a bishopric or an abbey offered large sums of money, which the emperor received, and rewarded with presentation to the next vacant throne or abbot's chair. The appointment to both had hitherto been nominally elective, but as the temporal advantages, the possession of the feudal lands, and right to claim the protection of the emperor, could only be given by the emperor, and could be withheld by him from the prelate elected by the chapter who was not conformable to his wishes, the Crown generally nominated, and w^hom it nominated the chapter submissively elected, precisely as at the present day in England. By degrees the presents were formulated into a table of fees, and each bishopric cost so much, and each abbey cost so much, according to its value. But though this was the beginning of the sale of the higher offices in the Church, lower ones had already been sold ; and to the disgrace of the Church, it must be added, those to inaugurate FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 173 simony were the bishops themselves, who, even under Otto III., had exacted fees from the clergy whom they ordained, and archbishops from the bishops they consecrated. This was quite indefensible, whereas the fees given to the kings could be excused as honorariums for investiture in the feudal rights bound up with those ecclesiastical. Matters of this sort were, however, far worse in France and Italy, where the sale of benefices and orders was carried on with unblushing effrontery, and nowhere worse than in the Papal Court, where every office had its price. That those who had bought their offices should have looked to them for the enjoyment of the emolu- ments they brought in, rather than for the duties they involved, is so natural that it became the means of terribly lowering and corrupting the moral tone and influence of the clergy. The dissolution of the morals of the clergy at this period surpassed everything that can be conceived. Not only did some of the wealthy prelates have concubines, but even whole harems. In the synods the most horrible charges were brought against certain of the bishops. Some swore on the Gospel or on sacred relics that they were innocent, and were let go ; others were, however, condemned and deposed. The best prelates struggled hard to stem the tide of irreligion which had invaded the ecclesiastical estate, but they met with the most bitter opposition ; and abbots who attempted to reform their monks were frequently poisoned, stabbed, or expelled by them. 174 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. The spark of strange fire that had been introduced into the German Church by S. Boniface, and had been fanned by the popes, broke into full flagrance when the occasion presented itself for its so doing. The system followed by the Carolingian and Saxon emperors of putting as much power as was possible into the hands of the bishops, as a counterweight to that exercised by the dukes, answered only so long as there was no rivalry for the imperial crown. No sooner, however, did there appear a split in the realm, and a contest break out between rival claimants to the throne, than the bishops threw themselves into opposite camps. The popes had discovered that the pressure of the hand of the emperors, as patricians of Rome, over them, was more than they could endure. Louis the Pious had assumed the right of trying a pope, accused before him of misdemeanour, and the Saxon emperors had asserted the right and exercised the power to dethrone and exalt whom they would to the chair of S. Peter. The popes, to weaken the imperial power, and to occupy the emperors on the other side of the Alps, had recourse to the most unworthy means ; they stirred up sons against their fathers, and blessed with their sanction this wicked rebellion ; they set up rival emperors, and filled Germany with contending factions ; they cast the ban of excommunication over sovereigns, and released their subjects from oaths of allegiance. By their wiles and unscrupulousness they filled Germany with warfare, soaked its fields with blood, and drove back the nascent civilization which had bidden fair to FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 175 outstrip that of every other part of Europe. Some bishops sided with the pope, others with the emperor ; councils of German prelates assembled, excommuni- cated and deposed popes, and popes put archbishops and bishops under the ban, and the churches of Germany under interdict. The story of that wretched struggle, renewed again and again, is told in the history of Germany, and need not be here repeated ; it is a portion of general history, and one of the saddest portions, covering the papacy with the blot of indelible infamy. It will suffice here to sketch some of the incidents in this long drawn-out epoch of civil broils, in which the bishops of Germany were involved, incidents that characterize the times and the condition of the Church. Anno, archbishop of Cologne, who is numbered among the saints, was chaplain to Henry III., by him appointed to the important see of Cologne, and invested by him with crosier and ring, 1056. His gratitude was forgotten in the pride of precedence over the haughty Archbishop of Mainz, accorded him by the emperor, and he forgot both gratitude and decency in his rebukes administered to Henry when he came to him for confession, before attending a diet of the empire. Anno even beat the emperor with his fists, slapped his face, and refused to allow him to wear his imperial crown next day, till he had dis- bursed a large sum of money, which Anno con- temptuously scattered among the poor. In 1056 the emperor died, leaving an infant son, Henry, to the care of his wife, Agnes of Poitou, and of Pope Victor 176 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Agnes, left alone at the head of the state, chose Henry, bishop of Augsburg, and Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, as her advisers. She was a pious, culti- vated woman, but deficient in the energy requisite for such a position. One aim of her policy was now the reverse of that of the Saxon emperors. She sought to keep the haughty prelates in check by means of the lay princes. Anno of Cologne, and Siegfried of Mainz, with Eckbert margrave of Meissen, resolved, if possible, to wrest the government from the hands of Agnes. The two archbishops were jealous of the Bishop of Augsburg, a good, but proud man, indis- posed to win them by bribes. They trumped up a vile accusation against him and the empress, and agitated men's minds with suspicion, to prepare them for the execution of the bold stroke they contem- plated. Agnes was celebrating the feast of Pentecost on the island of Kaiserswerth in the Rhine. The conspirators were also there. After the banquet, the Archbishop of Cologne invited the young prince to inspect a new ship he had lying against the wharf The boy was easily persuaded on board, when, at a signal, the vessel was cut adrift, and he was carried with rapid strokes of the oars up the river. This treacherous kidnapping of the young king filled all Germany with agitation, and loud demands were made to Anno, that he should restore the king to his rightful guardians ; above all others the Bishops of Freisingen and Halberstadt made their voices heard. Anno pacified them by giving to the Bishop of Freisingen FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 177 the archbishopric of Magdeburg, and that of Salzburg to the Bishop of Halberstadt. He stopped the mouth of the Duke of Saxony with munificent gifts of land taken from the royal domain ; and, of course, the confederates took good care to reward themselves abundantly. But perhaps the most outrageous inci- dent in the whole of this infamous proceeding was the revengeful murder of the Bishop of Augsburg, whom Anno and his confederates condemned, on notoriously false charges, to a horrible and ignominious death. The young king had acquired such an implacable disgust at his two self-constituted governors, and in reality gaolers, Anno and Siegfried, that they found he was becoming sullenly resolved not to countersign any of the donations they forced on him, to set him- self in opposition to their schemes, and to enter into secret correspondence with their enemies. Alarmed lest he should escape them, they sent him to Arch- bishop Albert of Bremen, a prelate of high birth, great accomplishments, and courteous manners. Arch- bishop Albert won the favour of the youthful king, who was only too glad to escape the cloistral monotony of the palace of Cologne for the splendid luxury of that of Bremen. Albert, in order to protect himself from the envy of powerful crown vassals, had recourse, like Anno, to bribery. Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz was given, along with several royal estates, the Abbey of Seligenstadt ; Archbishop Anno, who had already managed to appropriate a ninth part of the royal treasure, was further enriched with the Abbeys of Malmedy and Cornelis-Miinster. The Duke of N 178 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Saxony was given Ratzeburg. The Bishop of Speyer was granted two abbeys, and all the other bishops were given monasteries, lands, and privileges, at the expense of the Crown. Archbishop Albert, as may be supposed, took care to feather well his own nest. Archbishop Anno had used his time of power to enrich his relations and friends ; in defiance of the right of election belonging to chapters, he appointed his brother to the arch- bishopric of Magdeburg, his nephew Burkhard to the bishopric of Hildesheim, and he gave the sees of Minden and Utrecht to two personal friends. But Albert was too proud to distribute ecclesiastical bene- fices among his relatives at the cost of the empire. He desired that those whom he enriched should derive their benefits from himself alone. He became ex- travagant in his ostentation. If he felt a charitable impulse, he gave profusely ; on one occasion he presented a beggar with a hundred pounds of silver. At the same time he became violent in his temper, and struck with his fists, sometimes to blood, those — even priests — who offended him. His extravagance in time exhausted the revenues of the see and of the royal domains, and he had recourse to unworthy means of supplying himself with the means necessary for keeping up his sumptuous state and lavish expenditure. First he ground down his subjects with taxes, and after that sold bishoprics, abbeys, and every office in Church and State. The pride and avarice of the Archbishop of Bremen had stirred up against him many enemies, and a FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 179 conspiracy was formed to oppose and overthrow him, in which Anno of Cologne and Siegfried of Mainz, now become jealous, were members. At a diet at Tribur the king was forced to disgrace the Archbishop of Bremen. The fall of Albert reinstated Anno, who had no sooner resumed power than he appointed his nephew Cuno to the archbishopric of Treves. As the > people of Treves refused to receive him, Anno sent a body of armed men and the Bishop of Speyer to induct him into the see, but the archbishop elect was waylaid and murdered. In 1065, Henry had been, at Anno's advice, declared capable of bearing arms. No sooner was his sword girded on, than he drew it jestingly on Anno — an action at once indicative of dislike and levity. It would carry us too far to follow the miserable discords of the reign of Henry IV., and relate all the treasons, insurrections, and violences of the German bishops against him. His fifty years' reign was passed in contest and bloodshed. He fought sixty- two battles, and in each one of those a prelate was among his opponents. The many opposition kings who started up were all supported by the bishops, who even incited his own son to supplant him. It was in 1 104 that Henry, the best-loved and youngest son of the emperor now grown old, instigated by the pope and the prelates, raised his hand against his father. The touching appeals of the emperor to his son being disregarded, Henry IV. put himself at the head of his troops and marched against him ; but the emperor N 2 i8o HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. discovering that he was betrayed by his followers, fled to the Rhineland, where he had numerous adherents. His son proposed a conference at Coblenz, and to it came the aged emperor, whereupon he was overpowered and shut up in the Castle of Bingen by the Archbishops of Mainz and Cologne, and the Bishop of Worms, who visited him in his confine- ment and ordered him to surrender the imperial insignia of Charlemagne. The aged emperor placed them on his own person, and dared the prelates to deprive him of them. But to them nothing was sacred. The crown and mantle of Charlemagne were plucked off him, and they hasted to adorn therewith the rebellious son, at Mainz. The fallen emperor was given into the hands of Gebhard, bishop of Speyer, who took a fiendish pleasure in humbling and tormenting the prostrate monarch, then aged fifty-four. He kept him without sufficient food, so that the emperor was obliged to sell his boots in order to procure bread. Henry IV. had formerly bestowed large benefactions on the see of Speyer, so that the ingratitude was pointedly base. The king entreated that one of the prebendal stalls might furnish him with necessary support, and was refused by the bishop. At length he found means to escape, and took refuge at Liege, where he died. But the animosity of the prelates followed him after death, and they compelled Albert, bishop of Liege, who had buried him, to have his body exhumed and cast into unconsecrated ground. FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. i8i We have seen a good deal of the doings of Archbishop Anno, but we have not seen by any means all that darkens his character. One incident shall be given to show the manner in which a German prelate could treat his own subjects. In 1074 Archbishop Anno celebrated Easter at Cologne, and Bishop Frederick of Miinster was his guest. On the day of the bishop's departure Anno sent his servants to the Rhine to prepare a vessel for the accommodation of the bishop. The servants took the ship of a rich merchant, and ordered the sailors to unlade it of all the wares. The sailors refused, and the merchant's son, a bold young man, much esteemed in Cologne for his excellent qualities, called his friends to his assistance, and drove off the archbishop's servants and the town constable, who had been summoned to their assistance. The constable called out the mercenaries, and there would have been a bloody skirmish had not the archbishop threatened with his ban whoever broke peace. Anno was far too haughty to bear with equanimity the refusal of the vessel to his servants. On the ensuing feast of S. George he ascended the pulpit and rebuked in most violent terms the audacity of the city in denying him the vessel, and declared that if the citizens did not do penance therefor, they would become the prey of Satan and all his devils. The merchant's son, who was present during the sermon, was highly incensed. He hurried to his friends, stirred up the people, reminded them of the citizens of Worms, who, without being as powerful and 1 82 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. wealthy as those of Cologne, had driven away their bishop when he had taken part against the emperor, and urged the good folk of Cologne to do the same. Many young men, apprentices and sons of merchants, joined him, and attacked the archbishop's palace, where, at the moment. Anno was banqueting with the Bishop of Miinster and his friends. The mob broke the windows, penetrated into the courtyard, and threw stones into the hall. The servants of the archbishop were killed or driven back. Whilst the Cologne mob was storming the palace, the servants of the bishops conveyed the two prelates by a secret passage into the cathedral, and locked and barricaded the doors. A moment after the mob burst into the palace, and sacked it from the attic to the cellars. Some stove in the barrels and let the rich wine flow away ; others carried off all the costly goods they could lay hands on. Such an abundance of wine was let out that the cellar was flooded, and several men were drowned in it. A servant, mistaken for the archbishop in the scuffle, was murdered ; but when it was discovered that the archbishop had taken refuge in the cathedral, the people streamed towards it, surrounded it, and threatened to fire it unless the obnoxious prelate were given up. But the night was far spent, and Anno took advantage of the darkness to disguise himself in a lay dress, and to escape out of the cathedral and take refuge in the house of one of his servants, to whom he had shortly before accorded permission to break a doorway through the city walls from his house, which was built against FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 183 them. Through the door he fled from the town and escaped to Neuss. In the meantime, the rioters were storming the minster, and breaking open the doors with sledge-hammers. The servants within pretended that they were searching for the prelate but could not find him, and when they felt satisfied that he was safe, they threw open the door, and the mob rushed in to seek him themselves. After the people found that the archbishop was not there, they locked the city gates, and sent a deputa- tion to the emperor, who was then quarrelling with Anno, to inform him that they had been forced to maintain the honour of their city against the arch- bishop, and that they requested Henry to take possession of Cologne. But the news had spread through all the electorate, and the peasants, who had a great veneration for the sanctity and liberality of their archbishop, rose in his support against the citizens, with whom there had been a long-standing jealousy. Anno soon found himself at the head of an army, and he at once marched against his capital. The citizens, alarmed at the promptitude and power of the prelate, sent an embassy to him, asking pardon and promising amendment. The archbishop answered that he would not withhold forgiveness. He sang a High Mass at S. Gereon's, which was then outside the city walls, and after it ordered as a preliminary that all those who had taken part in the insurrection should be put to penance. They accordingly appeared before him barefoot, in white sheets, and he had the i84 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. greatest difficulty to restrain the peasants from falling upon them. He then commanded all to appear the next day in S. Peter's Church, and hear his ultimate decision. The night he spent in prayer in S. Gereon's Church. The citizens of Cologne were not at ease, for clemency was not a distinguished feature in his saintly character, and during the night six hundred of the wealthiest burghers fled for protection to the emperor. In the meantime, the servants of Anno entered the city, and pillaged the houses and murdered the citizens who resisted them ; but this was without Anno's knowledge, he was busy praying among the bones of the Theban martyrs, and knew nothing of what was taking place among his living subjects. Anno's final judgment, after long prayer, was that the young merchant and many of his companions should have their eyes plucked out, that many others should be publicly whipped, and that others should be expelled the city. All who remained in the town were to take oaths of allegiance to the archbishop. Although the people of Cologne were certainly guilty of insurrection, yet unquestionably Anno was to blame for forcing them to it, and his savage reprisals led to most disastrous results. The city, which, like Mainz, had been the most populous and wealthiest of the German cities, was suddenly re- duced to desolation. The streets were empty, the houses fell into ruin, and the markets were deserted. With what bloody severity Anno administered FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 185 justice may be gathered from another instance. A widow complained to him that the magistrates had given wrong judgment against her. The archbishop summoned the magistrates before him to Siegburg, where he held his court, and finding that the widow's appeal was just, he had all the magistrates blinded except one who was his kinsman. There were seven whose eyes were plucked out ; and by the arch- bishop's orders stone heads without eyes were built into the walls of their houses as a witness to all the town of his uncompromising love of justice. Under the Saxon emperors we have seen a fierce contest rage between the Archbishop of Mainz and the Bishop of Hildesheim for rights over the Abbey of Gandersheim ; a hardly less scandalous contest broke out under Henry IV. between the Bishop of Hildesheim and the Abbot of Fulda relative to precedence. The Abbey of Fulda, founded by S. Boniface, as a famous school, was endowed above every other religious house in Germany. It also possessed the privilege of seating its abbot next after the Arch- bishop of Mainz in the imperial diet. When King Henry IV. celebrated Christmas at Goslar, in 1062, Bishop Hezelo of Hildesheim insisted on asserting his right to the second place, as Goslar was in his diocese ; and when the seats were arranged for Vespers in the great church, his servants and those of the Abbot of Fulda were engaged in hot contest about it, so that it was only with difficulty that Duke Otto of Bavaria was able to quell the tumult, when it 1 86 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. had passed from words to blows. On this occasion the Abbot of Fulda secured his precedence. But the Bishop of Hildesheim was too proud and powerful a prelate to rest satisfied with his defeat. On the following Whitsuntide the emperor summoned a diet at Goslar, and the bishop prepared to assert his right by force of arms. Before Vespers he secreted an armed body of retainers behind the high altar, and by bribery and flattery obtained the promise of support from Count Eckbert of Brunswick, the kinsman and favourite of the emperor. When the servants of the abbot placed his stool next to that of the Archbishop of Mainz, it was plucked away by those of the Bishop of Hildesheim, and when the abbot's chamberlains replaced it, the servants of the bishop shouted for help, and the party in concealment rushed forth from behind the altar, fell upon the domestics of the abbot, and beat them out of the church. The retainers of the abbot thereupon assembled in great numbers, armed, and burst into the church. A furious fight ensued. The sacred walls rang with the shouts of the combatants and the cries of the dying. The Bishop of Hildesheim mounted the pulpit to animate his servants to the contest, and promise them absolution for the desecra- tion of the House of God. In vain did several of the princes of the empire enter the church to endeavour to allay the fury of the combatants ; the emperor himself went in and ordered peace to be observed, but the bishop was still screaming to his men from the pulpit, swords and FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 187 cudgels were still being brandished, and the attendants of the king with difficulty drew him out of the melee without receiving injury from one or other party. At length, when the pavement of the church was strewn with corpses, and the blood flowed from the doors in streams, the Fulda party gave way and were driven forth. Then the Hildesheimers closed the gates. The Fulda folk summoned assistance, and encircling the minster, prepared to besiege it, or to fall on and massacre the Hildesheimers as they left the church. On the following day tranquillity was established by the king and his princes by force of arms ; and as the bishop was favoured by the Duke of Brunswick, all the blame was laid on the Abbot of Fulda. The king was desirous of letting the quarrel blow over, and of effecting a reconciliation, or if he must judge the abbot, of only lightly punishing him, though the abbot was far less to blame than the bishop. This, however, did not suit the vindictive temper of Hezelo of Hildesheim, who excommunicated all the dead and living adherents of the abbot who had been mixed up in the fray, and forced the abbot to pay such exorbitant fines in compensation for the servants killed on his side, that the wealthiest German abbey sank into the direst poverty. Nor were the troubles of Abbot Widerad yet at an end. His scrupulous discipline and the reduction of diet in the monastery, rendered necessary by the poverty into which it had fallen, kindled the resentment of a large party of his monks, who, 1 88 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. when they found that their abbot was out of favour with the king, spread over the country venting their spite against him in mahcious words. The abbot vainly endeavoured to bring the turbulent brothers to reason : they would listen to none in their exaspera- tion at the loss of the wealth of the monastery through his means. He implored them with tears to consider their duty and his own necessity. They marched forth headed by a cross, chanting, one day when the abbot was at an imperial diet, and entering the royal hall, complained of their superior to the king. Their conduct, however, caused such indigna- tion that they were sharply reprimanded and ordered back to their cloisters, attended by a body of troopers to keep them in order. On the return of the abbot he tried the insurgents, ordered the ringleaders to be scourged and dismissed from the monastery, and the rest to be scattered through different houses of the same order in Germany. We will take one more instance of the character and conduct of a great prelate ; this time a hundred years later. In the middle of the I2th century Henry I. was Archbishop of Mainz. He had been dean of the cathedral, and was invested with the archbishopric in 1 142. He was an amiable, peace-loving, but feeble prince, who ran counter to many of the usages of the time, and had not the worldl}^ wisdom to keep the powerful Rhenish Electorate from embroilments, nor the skill to disentangle himself when he had fallen into them. FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 189 His feebleness of rule created a strong party in the city and the chapter opposed to him, and they col- lected numerous charges against him, which they laid before the Pope, in hopes of obtaining his deposition. It was only too well known that money, not right, won the decision of Rome, and Henry was obliged to collect a large sum, and send it to the Pope to buy his exculpation. He chose his confidential friend, Arnold of Selnhofen, provost of S. Peter's, to take the bribe to Rome and plead his cause. Arnold made the most solemn assurances of fidelity, and departed on his mission. He first opened communi- cations with Frederick I., and then going to Rome, brought additional charges against his friend, the archbishop, and used the money entrusted to him to purchase the see for himself. The Pope promised to give him the archbishopric of Mainz, and then, to lend a semblance of justice to the transaction, sent two cardinals into Germany to investigate the charges against the archbishop. As might have been antici- pated, they decided against him, and pronounced his deposition. When the unfortunate prelate heard the sentence, he exclaimed, " I might appeal from your judgment to that of the Pope, but what would that avail ? Therefore I appeal to a righteous Judge, to Jesus Christ, and I summon you before His judgment- seat." The cardinals scofifingly answered, " Go for- ward yourself, and we will follow." If we may believe the story, the two cardinals died within the year. Certain it is that the archbishop, who was deposed I90 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. on June 7, 1 153, died on the 5th September following. A saying of his was remembered, " Fui dives canoni- cus, pauper praepositus, mendicus episcopus." Arnold of Selnhofen was appointed to the see by the Pope himself, and was not elected by the chapter, and the Pope invested him the same day that his friend whom he had betrayed was degraded. The citizens received him with impatience and resentment, for they had learned to love his gentle predecessor. He speedily gave token of pride the most intoler- able. His court was magnificent, his servants were splendidly bedecked, and his table was noted for its luxury. Though he belonged to a patrician family in Mainz, he treated the citizens with unbending pride, and offended, by his discourtesy, the nobles who held fiefs of the archbishopric. He quarrelled with the neighbouring princes, and warred against Hermann, Count Palatine of the Rhine. The contest was long and bloody ; and as he was unable by force of arms to reduce his powerful opponent, he excom- municated him. The palatine revenged himself by making an inroad into the territories of the Elector of Mainz, and devouring all before him with fire and sword. Before this contest broke out, the Emperor Frederick, who had gone to Italy, had ordered the preservation of public tranquillity, but as the arch- bishop and the palatine had transgressed his com- mand, he ordered both the combatants on his return to appear before him to answer for their conduct. The palatine and his allies were condemned to FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 191 undergo the shameful sentence of carrying a dog attached to their necks. The archbishop only escaped undergoing the same sentence because he was an ecclesiastic, but his knights and vassals were obliged to submit to it. The count palatine so bitterly felt the ignominy that he retired to a monas- tery, and the emperor bestowed the palatinate on his brother Conrad. The humiliation that the vassals of the archbishop had undergone rankled in their breasts, and made them restless under his rule. The cost of the war and of his extravagant court was supported by heavy taxation, and when, on the occasion of his making a journey to Rome, he laid another tax on the elec- torate to defray his expenses, the subjects could endure it no longer. The Patrician Mengott, Burk- hard, provost of S. Peter's, and the Abbot Gottfried of Jakobsberg formed a conspiracy against him, and sent a deputation consisting of Emmerich, the son of Mengott, and the Abbot Gottfried, to the emperor to lodge formal complaint against the archbishop. They were driven away with disgrace, and the exasperation of the inhabitants of Mainz against Arnold reached its climax. The archbishop, who had by this time returned from Italy, found that his life was not secure in Mainz. The citizens had closed their gates against him when he appeared before them after his expe- dition to Italy, and later, when he held a synod in Mainz, an armed body of citizens broke into the archiepiscopal palace to capture the prelate, but 192 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Arnold escaped by boat with difficulty. His palace was set on fire, and the houses of all the clergy of his party were pillaged. Even the cathedral was not spared. To quell this insurrection, on the appeal of Arnold, the Emperor Frederick summoned a diet, in which he might hear the complaints on each side. The diet condemned the ringleaders to death, but the emperor softened the sentence, and, at the request of Arnold of Selnhofen, required the citizens to purify and repair the cathedral, rebuild the palace, and restore every damage that had been done. The heads of the conspiracy were banished Mainz. Before they departed, the conspirators exhorted the burghers to submit to the decision of the emperor, and to wait for their revenge till a more propitious moment. They then ostentatiously departed, but secretly returned, and were concealed by the citizens in their houses. At this time there lived in the convent of Bingen the saintly Abbess Hildegarde, whose prophecies and exhortations throw no small light on the condition of the Church and Empire in her day. She was universally respected, and was looked up to with something of the reverential awe wherewith the ancient heathen Germans had venerated their spae- women. A letter was brought to Arnold from the prophetess. It contained the message, curt and startling, " Turn to the Lord, for thy time is at hand." A friend of the archbishop, the Abbot of Erbach, also cautioned him that danger was in the wind. FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS, 193 " They are dogs, are these Mainzer," answered Arnold ; " they bark, but they do not bite." When Hildegarde heard this, she said, " The dogs have had their chains broken, they will tear you to pieces." But Arnold scorned these warnings, and in June, 1 160, went to Mainz, with the purpose of bringing the turbulent burghers into more complete subjec- tion. However, he took the precaution of sleeping in the monastery of Jakobsberg outside the city walls, instead of in his palace near the cathedral. His own private family mansion was close to the monastery, so that he thought himself in perfect security. But he had rushed, unwittingly, into the jaws of the lion, for the Abbot of S. Jakob was his bitterest enemy, and was in close league with the citizens. His infatua- tion is the more remarkable, as the abbot had pro- minently taken part against him in the deputation to the emperor. The abbot watched the archbishop as a cat watches a mouse, and sent tidings of all his movements into the city. Early in the morning of June the loth, a large party of armed conspirators marched out at the city gate headed by Emmerich, the son of Mengott, and noiselessly surrounded the abbey. But Dudo of Selnhofen, the brother of the arch- bishop, heard the tramp of feet, and hastened to the abbey to give Arnold the alarm, and make him take refuge in flight. The archbishop was paralysed with fear ; as cowardly in danger as he had been presump- tuous in security, he lost all self-possession, and at one moment vowed he would resign his office, and end his O 194 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. days under the cowl of a monk, at the next he urged his servants to resist the citizens by force, and then flew up a tower and fastened himself in, whilst his retainers bravely contested every step with the con- spirators. The citizens had broken open the abbey gates, and were throwing stones and lighted torches in at the windows. The servants of the archbishop were cut down in the cloisters, and the crowd, pouring in, broke into every cell in quest of the obnoxious prelate. When he was in their hands, the furious burghers maltreated him cruelly. A citizen named Heliger stabbed him with a dagger ; another, Bunger, a butcher, split his head with an axe. The dead body was hideously mangled with the hatchets, swords, and knives of the enraged citizens, and was then cast into a ditch. Nor was it suffered to remain there unmolested. The citizens refused to allow it to be buried, and the peasant-women, coming to market from the neighbouring villages, pelted it with rotten eggs and bad cheese. Some days elapsed before the canons of the Liebfrau Church could venture to remove and bury the corpse. By this time the con- spirators had come to their senses, and were aware that such an outrage as theirs could not be passed over with impunity. The only way in which to escape the chastisement of the emperor was to pro- ceed with the utmost rapidity to the election of a new archbishop. Their choice fell on Rudolf, duke of Zahringen, because he was at that time in opposi- tion to the emperor, who had quarrelled with the Pope, and they hoped in Rudolf to obtain an advocate FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 195 at the Court of Rome. To support his claim, and purchase friends in the Roman court, the citizens carried off a large piece of the gold cross, weighing 600 pounds, which Archbishop S. Willigis had given to the cathedral. But the Pope refused to acknow- ledge the election. The gold was not, however, returned to the cathedral. The Emperor Frederick I., who in the meantime had heard of the insurrection and murder, summoned a diet at Erfurt. The conspirators took the alarm and fled. The butcher Bunger alone was caught, and was cruelly put to death. The diet proclaimed the ban of the Empire against the city, the abbot of Jakobsberg was placed under ban, and the monks were condemned to imprisonment. The walls and towers of the city were thrown down, and all the liberties of the town were abolished. Half the citizens had fled, those who remained were powerless to protect themselves. They were probably guiltless, but on them the ban fell also. All manufactures and commerce came to an end, and wolves are said to have found their way into the desolate streets. The ecclesiastical divisions of Germany remained much the same from the nth to the i6th century. They were these. The province of Cologne embraced not only the Rhenish lowlands as far as Xanten, but also Friesland, Holland, Westphalia, and Brabant. The sufl'ragans were Miinster, Liege, Minden, Osna- brtick, Utrecht, and Bremen, till in 858 Pope Nicolas I. united Bremen to the metropolitan see of Hamburg. The formal transfer of the archiepiscopal seat from O 2 196 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. Hamburg to Bremen did not, however, take place till 1223 ; but the dioceses were always held together. The province of Mainz extended from the Alps to the Weser. In 748 Pope Zacharias gave to the Church of Mainz metropolitan authority over Tongern, Cologne, Worms, Speyer, and Utrecht ; but Pope John XXII., granted Mainz fourteen suffragans, Augsburg, Chur, Constance, Eichstadt, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Olmiitz, Paderborn, Prague, Speyer, Strasburg, Verdun, Worms, and Wurzburg. Of these it lost Olmiitz and Prague in 1343, when the latter was raised to be a metropolitan see. The province of Treves was comparatively small ; it ran like a wedge in between Cologne and Mainz, crossed the Rhine, and included Hesse. The bishops appear as metro- politans from the 6th century. Under Treves were Metz, Toul, and Verdun. The province of Salzburg was constituted in 798 by Pope Leo III. At the close of the 15th century it numbered as suffragans Brixen, since 798; Chiemsee, since 121 5 ; Freising, since 724 ; Gurk, since 1070 ; Passau, since 737 ; Ratisbon, since 697; Seckau, since 121 8; and Lavant, since 122 1. The province of Bremen-Hamburg had jurisdiction over the Scandinavian north, Schleswig, Denmark, and Norway. The province of Magdeburg was founded by Otto I. In 970 the Pope gave the arch- bishop equal rights with the Archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Treves. The suffragans under Magde- burg were Brandenburg, Havelberg, Meissen, Merse- burg, Posen, and Zeitz. FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS, 197 The province of Gnesen appears about 1000, with under it as suffragans, Breslau, Colberg, Camin, Cujavien, Cracau, Lebus ; in 1133 it passed under Magdeburg-, but only temporarily. The archbishops of Gnesen were legati nati of the Holy See. The population were almost wholly Sclavonic, — Pome- ranians and Poles.' In 1007, the Emperor, Henry H., founded the diocese of Bamberg ; it was independent of all archi- episcopal jurisdiction from the first, and placed immediately under the Holy See. The first bishop was Eberhard, a nephew of the founder, and his suc- cessor was Suidger, afterwards Pope Clement H. The question of the celibacy of the clergy had been suffered to sleep after the effort made to promote it in the loth century. When Hildebrand, in 1073, placed the tiara on his own brows under the name of Gregory VH., it was with the deliberate determination to enforce celibacy with all the powers at his com- mand, and hardly was he settled in his throne than he began the struggle. He commanded Siegfried of Mainz to summon a council in which to take measures for the carrying into effect of his stern and peremptory decrees relative to the married clergy. Siegfried, who knew the state of feeling on this head, shrank from the task imposed on him, and it was not till he was formally threatened with the papal censure that he consented to promulgate the decree of Gregory. He did not summon at once the clergy to put away their wives — he gave them six months' delay for considera- tion. Then the synod met, at Erfurt. The partisans 198 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. of the married clergy assembled in prevailing numbers. " The Pope," they exclaimed, " must be a heretic and a madman. Has he forgotten the saying of the Lord } Forgotten the words of S. Paul ? " Siegfried was unable to disguise the reluctance with which he acted ; there was a tumult, he feared for his life, and promised to remonstrate with the Pope, so only did he pacify the angry passions that had been roused. But Gregory was not to be moved to turn from his purpose. By his command a second synod was called at Mainz. The papal legate was present ; he dis- played the mandate of the apostolic see, requiring all bishops in their sees to compel the priests to put away their wives, or to desist from their sacred ministry. The whole assembly rose ; so resolute was their language, so fierce their gestures, that again the archbishop trembled for his life. He declared that he would no longer meddle in such matters, but leave the Pope to execute his own decrees as best he might. At Passau, Bishop Altman had already interdicted the married clergy from the altar. When he read the papal brief in his cathedral, the whole congregation rose in uproar, and he was compelled to fly his diocese, expelled by his chapter. Gregory rewarded him by placing his own mitre on his head at Rome. With some of the married clergy there was un- doubtedly a misgiving that they were living in a con- dition of life not allowed by the Church ; but with others there was, with equal certainty, a conviction that the marriage union was not against Scripture, not condemned by our Lord, the great Head of the Church, FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 199 nor by the usages of primitive Christianity. Where the mandate of the Pope was enforced, it caused unspeakable misery. The unhappy women, con- demned to be cast forth as harlots, their children bastardised, died in their beds of broken hearts, perished of starvation, and even by their own hands. But in the German dioceses the command was not rigidly enforced ; the bishops saw in it only a con- venient instrument for exacting money from their clergy. Strict inquiry was indeed made annually as to the morals of the parochial pastors, and if they kept in their houses wives or concubines, they were condemned to pay an annual tax for the privilege, which went into the episcopal exchequer. Another conflict engaged in by Hildebrand was that which concerned investitures. It had been cus- tomary for the king, when he conferred a benefice on a bishop or abbot, to give him ring and staff, as tokens of enfeofment. The Carolingian monarchs had un- doubtedly assumed an ecclesiastical headship over the Church beyond that which was legitimate, but the later emperors made no such assumption. The investiture was intended simply to mark that those invested were subject in things temporal to the sovereign. Gregory VI L, however, supposed, or pretended to suppose, that it implied a great deal more, and a desperate struggle was entered on between the chair of S. Peter and the thrones, not only in Germany, but elsewhere in Europe, for the abrogation of investiture by the kings. In a council held at Rome in 1075, Gregory brushed away by one 20O HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. decree the whole right of investiture by the temporal sovereign. It deposed every abbot, bishop, or inferior ecclesiastic who should receive investiture from any layman. It interdicted him who had so been granted his benefice from all communion with the apostolic see, until he should have resigned his benefice, and received it again from the Supreme Pontiff. And if any emperor, duke, or secular potentate should presume to grant such investiture, he was condemned to excommunication. This statute made, and was designed to make, a revolution in the positions of the great prelates. It annulled the power exercised by the sovereign over almost one-half of his subjects. All the bishops and abbots, who were at the same time temporal princes, and who were the leaders in the diets and national assemblies, became, to a large extent, independent of the crown ; and every bene- fice thus severed from the crown was held thenceforth at the pleasure of the Pope. No wonder that the kings of Germany stubbornly resisted this innovation. The contest rag-ed with bitterness on both sides till 1 128, through half a century, producing untold violences. A compromise was reached in the diet of Worms in 1122, and finally ratified in Rome in 1 128. By this concordat, the emperor surrendered the form of investiture with ring and staff, and granted to the clergy throughout the empire the right of free election of their bishops ; the Pope, on the other hand, allowed that all elections of bishops and abbots should take place in the presence of the emperor or his commis- sioners, and that the bishop elect should receive, by FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 201 the touch of the sceptre, all the temporal rights and possessions of the see, and should undertake faithfully to discharge to the emperor all duties incident on his position as a prince. When, at the close of the loth century, the belief spread that with the year one thousand from the birth of Christ, the Saviour would return in glory and hold judgment at Jerusalem, men became filled with pangs of sorrow for their sins, and with a restless desire to visit Jerusalem, and there await the coming of the Lord. When, however, the year passed away without this great event, the desire to make a visit to the Holy Land had already roused a love of adventure in the minds of many, that became a wide-spread all- embracing passion. In 1 074 Archbishop Siegfried of of Mainz, the tall and extraordinarily handsome Gunther, bishop of Bamberg, and the Bishops of Ratisbon and Utrecht placed themselves at the head of seven thousand pilgrims for the Holy Land. It was hardly piety that impelled them. Siegfried was a haughty, ostentatious, and unprincipled man. Moreover, the pilgrimage was not conducted in the spirit of humility and penance. On their way through Bohemia the prelates displayed all the lavish splendour of the most wealthy princes. When they halted for the night, the chambers were prepared for them by their servants with rich tapestries, and their tables were spread with gold and silver vessels. The people of the countries they traversed came in crowds to see these gorgeous prelates. Their wealth attracted the covetousness of the hordes that ranged over Syria, 202 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. and on Easter Eve they were attacked by a crowd of Arabs, one of whose sheiks came into the house where the bishops had taken refuge, and attempted to molest them, whereupon Gunther of Bamberg felled him to the ground. Of the seven thousand pilgrims conducted by the prelates to Jerusalem, only two thousand returned to their homes. Gotteschalk, a priest from the palatinate, marched with 15,000 men into Hungary, and after laying the country waste, was fallen upon with his host by the Hungarian king, and the great caravan was cut to pieces. This expedition was succeeded by another of still greater magnitude, which, proceeding from France, passed through Germany, gaining volume and force in its progress. Many Germans joined it under Volkmar, a priest, and Count Ernicho of Leiningen ; on their way they fell upon the Jews living on the Rhine, and massacred them without remorse. It was calculated that twelve thousand were thus put to death. At Mainz the Archbishop Rudhardt took the Jews under his protection, and gave them the great hall of his castle for an asylum ; the pilgrims, however, stormed the hall, and murdered seven hundred Jews under the eyes of the archbishop. The pilgrim horde, numbering two hundred thousand souls, reached Hungary, where their law- lessness roused the natives against them, and they were exterminated almost to a man. But this is not the place in which to ^\\q the history of the pilgrimages to the Holy Land, nor of FRANK AND HOHENSTAUFFEN EMPERORS. 203 the Crusades that sprang out of them ; but to point out the effects produced by them on the moral sense of Christendom. They established in the Christian mind the idea that it was the duty, the privilege of the soldier of Christ to give full range to his cruel love of destruction — a love that is in man, as in a beast of prey, and which Christianity is designed to control where it does not stamp it out. But then, the exercise of indiscriminate slaughter was allowed and commended as a privilege and duty only when the victims were unbelievers, Jews, or heretics. The Crusaders had no sooner arms in their hands than they forgot that they were bound to rescue the tomb of the Saviour, and turned them against the descendants of those who had slain Him ; and then, when they had learned the irksomeness and the danger of the journey to Jerusalem, and a contest with the Saracens, they asked why they should go in search of foreign foes of the Gospel, and leave in their own lands, not Jews only, but also heretics. The slaughter of the Jews on the Rhine, and then the whole hateful sequel of Crusades against heretics followed. But — and here was a further development — were not the foes of the Pope also deserving of massacre, even though baptized members of Christ, and sound in the faith } The popes scrupled not to unfold the banner of the Cross against any of their disobedient sons. " Every enemy of the political power of the Pope in Italy became as a heretic, or an unbeliever. Crusades were in later times levied against such as 204 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. dared to set bounds to the temporal aggrandisement of the Roman See, or to the personal or nepotic ambition of the ruling Pontiff." * The Crusading, combined with the commercial, spirit acquired for the German realm large provinces on the Baltic, peopled by Sclav and Finn races. In Ii6i the conquest and annexation of Finland by the Swedes roused the jealousy and cupidity of the Hanseatic towns, Bremen, Liibeck, and Hamburg, and they resolved on extending the German borders to the east, so as to obtain ports on the Pomeranian and Livonian shores. Hanseatic traders had visited these coasts, and with them had gone S. Meinhardt, who preached to the natives, and in 1187 founded the Bishopric of Yxkiill. His successor, Berthold, a violent and unbending man, so irritated the people that they killed him (1198) when he came to chastise them at the head of a body of Crusaders. On his death, Albert, a canon of Bremen, was elected Bishop of Yxkiill, and he went to take possession of his see with twenty- three ships full of armed men. He succeeded in founding the city of Riga, to which he transferred his seat; and in 1203 he founded an Order, the Brothers of the Sword, entirely composed of knights, whose duty it was to guard and extend the limits of the German possessions. A great rising of Lithuanians, Livonians, and Letts, took place on one occasion when Albert was absent in Germany, and a massacre of the Germans ensued. Albert returned at the head of a crowd of * Milman, ' Latin Christianity,' bk. viii. c. 6. FRANK AND HOHENSTA UFFEN EMPERORS. 205 Crusaders, took a fearful vengeance on the Sclav population, and extended still further the limits of the Empire. In 1 2 17 Count Bernard von der Lippe became first Bishop of Singallen ; he had two sons, Otto, bishop of Utrecht, and Gerhard, archbishop of Bremen. He was consecrated by his son Otto. The conquest of Esthonia was now resolved upon by the knights (Brothers of the Sword), and a battle took place, in which the Esthonians were completely routed. In 1218 the bishopric of Revel was founded, and that of Dorpat in 1223. The Pope was no sooner informed of the success of this Crusading Order, than he laid claim to the whole of the territory conquered by them. But Frederick II. refused to allow the claim ; he confirmed the Order in their conquests, which he converted into an imperial fief In 1237 the Order of the Brothers of the Sword was incorporated in that of Hospitallers, under the name of the Teutonic Order. The knights treated the subjugated Sclavs with unchristian ferocity, so that the bishops were constrained to make formal complaints of their conduct to the Pope, but their complaints were disregarded. The knights built the town of Memel. Ottocar, king of Bohemia, invaded Samland at the head of a horde of Crusaders, laid waste the country with fire and sword, and founded the towns of Konigsberg and Braunsberg (1255). The period we have been considering (1024-1270) bears its own mark, it was that of desperate, un- scrupulous contest waged by the papacy against 2o6 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. the Empire, not for the sake of righteousness and justice, not for religion, but simply for the sake of establishing the absolute, unquestionable, unassail- able supremacy of the chair of S. Peter over all the thrones of Christendom ; a contest waged to wrest from all Christendom the admission that, not spiritual authority only, but all temporal authority as well, flowed from the Pope as the Vice- gerent of Christ. To enforce this doctrine on the minds of men, the popes scrupled at employing no instruments however unworthy, using the thunders of the heavenly treasury with wanton prodi- gality. The degradation of the papacy under the harlot Maroizia was bad, but that did not produce the wide-spread desolation, violence, and crime, that were wrought by high-minded Pontiffs, such as Gregory VIL, Calixtus II., Innocent III., and Gregory IX. They rolled back for a century the wave of nascent culture, stirred up the brutal and bloodthirsty elements in the men who were being taught by the Gospel the blessings of peace, and prepared the material for that tremendous explosion of loathing and rage against the papacy which shook the apostolic throne in the i6th century, and tore the seamless robe of Christ into a thousand shreds. ( 207 ) XIV. THE HIERARCHY IN THE I2TH CENTURY. S. Bernard lays bare the causes of Corruption in his age — S. Bernard on the Encroachments of the Papacy — On Appeals to Rome — How these destroy all Discipline — Hildebert of Tours on Appeals — The parallel operations of Church and State — Confusion produced by investing the same Officer with functions in both — Simony — Gerohus of Reigersperg on the Bishops — S. Bernard on the Bishops — The Canons — The Clergy generally. We may be thought to have drawn a picture of the hierarchy of the nth, I2th, and 13th centuries unduly dark in colouring, taking only the worst instances of worldliness and rapacity ; but it can be hardly questioned by any who investigate the ecclesiastical history of this period, that worldliness and rapacity marked the conduct of almost all the prelates, both episcopal and abbatical. We have the testimonies of saintly writers of the time, who do not scruple to speak out very plainly, and make very sweeping charges. Such are S. Bernard, Gerohus of Reigers- perg, and S. Hildegarde. The picture of the condi- tion of religion which they offer to us is not cheering or consolatory ; but so much greater is the honour due to such writers who in evil days dared frankly to declare the truth, to stand up for Christian morality 2o8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. and ecclesiastical purity, in the face of Pope and curia and hierarchy. The remorseless disclosure of the evil in the Church was the only means whereby any recovery was possible. The wounds were laid bare, and it was no longer in the power of the interested to cover them over and deny their exis- tence, whilst the evil, thus hidden, ate deeper and ever deeper into the vitals of the Mediaeval Church. Truth is always healthful, falsehood ever disastrous, and falsehood lurks under the veil of hypocrisy and palliation of evil. The episcopal office had been ordained by Christ, that each bishop should be free and independent in his diocese, subject only to the control of the entire episcopate, and thus the episcopal office continued to be in the East, and so remained in the West for some centuries. In the West many of the churches owed their foundation, or supposed they did, to the motherly zeal of the See of Rome, and therefore paid to it a filial respect. The popes, however, gradually encroached on the independence of the national churches, sub- jected the bishops to more or less control, and made bold claim to supremacy. The false decretals, that fabrication of falsehood and fraud, accepted by the papacy that claims infallibility, must ever remain as a testimony against such claims. They had to be fabricated, because there was no evidence extant that such powers had been arrogated previously by the See of S. Peter. The false decretals paved the way for the introduction of the new doctrine proclaimed in all its boldness by Gregory VII. "The Roman THE HIERARCHY IN THE 12th CENTURY. 209 Church," said he, '' is the mother of all the churches of Christendom, and all are subject to her as daugh- ters. She, the mother of all, rules all and every several member of them ; archbishops, bishops and abbots. By virtue of the power of the keys, she can appoint and depose whom she will ; they all derive their office and power from the Roman Church. As the saving faith is one, so is the Church one, so is the Pope, its head, but one. The Pope alone is from God ; therefore, all powers, spiritual and temporal, are subject to him." Such doctrine was not taught by Christ, nor by the apostles, nor was it known to the primitive Church and the early fathers. It was the complete transformation of the ecclesiastical consti- tution. For the bishops became thenceforth the spiritual vassals of the Holy See, and as such they had an oath of allegiance imposed on them. The independent government of the churches by their metropolitans, bishops and synods came to an end ; the Pope exercised over them a sovereign and judicial authority, and he sent forth his' legates into all the nations of Christendom, like the proconsuls sent by the senate ad provincias inspiciendas, to order the affairs of churches, with the circumstances of which they were ignorant. Very usually they were men of little Christian virtue and wisdom, who sought only to use their office for the sake of gathering money into their hands. Gregory VII. has been regarded as a great reformer of the Church ; but S. Bernard did not view him in this light, and the condition in which the Church was, seventy years after Gregory, when his P 210 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. reforms had come into operation and were bringing forth their fruit, is not a favourable comment on his achievements. Gregory had shaken off all the influence exerted by the German emperors on the elections, an influence healthy when exerted by the Ottos in the loth, and by Henry III. and IV. in the nth century, and to which alone was due the recovery of the Roman See from the vile slavery into which it had fallen — a slavery so base, that the power of recovering itself seemed to be no longer inherent in it. Gregory called the Normans to his aid, as guardians of the Roman Church, and protectors of canonical liberty ; and the result was that Honorius 11. and Innocent II. were uncanonically elected, and that the Church was devastated by schisms, stirred up by factions among the cardinals ruled by the Roman nobility, or by the Normans. Later came the great schism, when the popes were carried into the Babylonish captivity at Avignon, by French and Neapolitan jealousy, and the Cardinals for seventy years filled the Church with heartburning and deso- lation. No German Emperor by his influence in Rome ever did any evil approaching to this. When S. Bernard first began to speak out against the dis- orders in the papacy and the hierarchy, Eugenius III. occupied the apostolic throne, a worthy man who had been elevated to it against his will. Eugenius had been a disciple of Bernard before his elevation ; the latter therefore deemed himself justified in point- ing out to him the unapostolic and illegitimate attempt being made by the papacy to gain power. THE HIERARCHY IN THE I2tk CENTURY. 211 *'Do not flatter yourself that you can say with the apostle, once I was free, now am I the servant of all, for these words do not apply to you. The apostle did not turn the services of men to disgraceful uses. Did the ambitious, the avaricious, the simoniacal, the sacrilegious, stream to him from all quarters of the earth } Or priests with concubines and harlots, seek- ing either to obtain or retain cures of souls by apostolic favour? " "By all means throw open your courts, but deal therein in seemly manner. But the way in which matters are carried on in your courts is accursed ; it is unbecoming a secular court, let alone one that is ecclesiastical." Gregory VII. it was who turned the Roman Church into a curia, in which political interest was more con- sidered than religion. He declared S. Peter to be the sovereign lord over eight kingdoms, and he, as the successor of S. Peter, meddled in the affairs of each He strove with the kings to obtain absolute power over the ecclesiastical revenues, which in Germany equalled pretty nearly half of what were the revenues of the State, and called this warfare a war for the liberty of the Church. In England, Alexander II. sacrificed the Anglo-Saxon Church to the tyrant William the Conqueror. In Germany, Gregory, forgetting his sacred calling, gave up the imperial power to be fought over, till it was reduced to almost destruction. " You are oblivious," wrote S. Bernard to the Pope, "of your vocation. Do not seek to command, but to effect what is really needed. Learn to use the spade, and not the sceptre, like a prophet P 2 212 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. who seeks not to rule but to dig up weeds. If you set about working in the Lord's field, do you not suppose you will find work there ? Most certainly — plenty." In the primitive ages of the Church, the archbishops and their suffragans formed the highest Court of Appeal in the provinces. If anything of importance occurred needing consideration, a synod was sum- moned, and after careful consideration decision was formed as to the procedure of the Church under the circumstances. But this independent action of the Churches — the essential requisite of health and progress — was a stone of stumbling to the popes. They succeeded, on the authority of the false decretals, in enervating the synods, and bleeding all fresh and vigorous life out of the Churches, and in suffering no synodal decrees to be enforced till they had been sub- scribed by the Pope. The jurisdiction of synods, metropolitans, and bishops, was brought to naught by the introduction of appeals to Rome. The synods met more rarely, and then ceased wholly ; the power of the metropolitans was broken by ex- emptions granted to the bishops, and the abbeys were withdrawn from the supervision of the bishops. Even the diocesan clergy could at any time defy their bishops by an appeal to Rome when called to account for their misdeeds. National churches lost all control over their own affairs, which were dealt with, not on the spot, but at the Lateran by congregations of cardinals, who were almost all THE HIERARCHY IN THE 12th CENTURY. 213 Italians and Romans. " I speak to you," writes S. Bernard to the Pope, " of the mutterings and complaints in the churches, that they are being mutilated and dismembered. There are almost no churches left that are not thus treated, or are expecting such treatment. Do you ask what I mean ? Why, this : that the abbots are withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the bishops, the bishops taken from under the authority of the archbishops, the archbishops exempted from that of the patriarchs and primates. Who can excuse such things ? As you deal thus at Rome, you show plainly enough that you possess power in full measure, but not righteousness. You do this because you find you are able to do it ; but whether you ought to do it, is quite another matter. You were placed where you are to keep watch and ward, that each should be maintained in honour in his proper place and rank, not that you should envy him these." " What right have you to make your will the law, and because none can appeal from it, to use violence, or to put common sense in the background ? Are you greater than the Lord, who said, ' I am not come to do My own will ' ? Nay, it is unworthy of any intelligent man to live like a beast (by violence and rapine) ; and who would have supposed that you, the guide of all, should have submitted to such infamy, such dishonour to your high office ? By your conduct you have merited the reproach, * Man that is come to honour hath no understanding, but is compared unto the beasts that perish.' What can be more unworthy than that you 214 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. who have got possession of all should not be content with what you have? Remember the parable of Nathan, and the vineyard of Naboth." " Don't tell me that any good comes of these emancipations and exemptions. They produce no other result than this, that the bishops become more insolent, and the monks more indisciplinable. Look where you will, wherever these exemptions exist, everywhere in pecuniary matters is confusion, and in spiritual, worldliness." " See how true that saying is, All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. Aye, and supposing they are not lawful. Excuse me, but I will not admit that it is lawful to do what is productive of so much evil. Do you consider yourself allowed to mutilate the churches in all their members ? To upset existing order ? To disturb every landmark which you forefathers planted ? You are grievously mistaken if you suppose that your apostolic power is the only one, as it is the highest, instituted by God." " I will give you one example of what comes of your appeals," says S. Bernard. "A wedding was prepared, the day of the marriage had arrived, the guests were invited, all was ready. When lo ! a fellow who lusted after his neighbour's bride inter- fered with an appeal. She had been promised to him before. The bridegroom is in dismay ; all is con- fusion ; the priest dare not pronounce the nuptial benediction ; all preparations are for naught ; the guests must disperse — and nothing can be done till the appeal has been heard at Rome. . . . From this THE HIERARCHY IN THE 12th CENTURY. 215 and countless other examples, it appears that abuse does not spring out of contempt (of the claim to be supreme Court of Appeal), but that the abuse springs out of the claim ; consequently, you may see what comes of your extending your protection so zealously over abuse, and caring nothing about the contempt that follows. Would you avoid being regarded with contempt? Then away with the abuse, and the excuse is removed." In like manner, Hildebert, archbishop of Tours, wrote to Honorius II. (1125) : " The growth of appeals to Rome is a novelty to us on this side of the Alps^ and unwarranted by holy tradition. If such a novelty becomes established, and all appeals without differ- ence go to Rome, then the papal censure will go to naught, and Church discipline be destroyed. For what robber, when condemned (by his bishop), will not appeal to the Pope } What clerk or priest will not take advantage of this method of checking interfer- ence with his evil course ? What bishop will be able henceforth to punish — I do not say every, but any disobedience ? Every appeal will be a snip out of his pastoral staff, weakening his confidence, shaking his uprightness, inasmuch as on him is laid constraint to be silent, and the guilty are encouraged to go their way unchastised. The end will be that sacrilege and robbery, harlotry and adultery will swell into a flood. The hinderance and delay of punishment will favour the growth of evil, and they who are allowed to sin unpunished will sink into the pit of destruction." "From all sides," says S. Bernard, in his 180th 2i6 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. letter, " but one cry is heard from all who have the care of souls, that righteousness is being ruined in the Church, that the (episcopal) power of the keys is de- stroyed, that episcopal respect is levelled with the dust, inasmuch as no bishop possesses power any longer to correct dishonour shown to the Lord, nor is it permitted any one of them to correct what is un- seemly, even in his own diocese. The whole blame they thrust on you and the Roman curia. You, say they, undo all the good they have done, you set up what they have thrown down. All the good-for- naughts, all the litigious among priests and people — aye, and among the monks, fly to you, and come back, boasting that they have obtained protection, where they ought to have found chastisement. Why is not the sword of Phinehas drawn to avenge the sin of Zimri and Cozbi ? It is blunted against the shield of apostolic protection extended over the wrongdoers. Shame! what mocking jeers are roused daily among the enemies of the Church. The friends of the Church are thrown into perplexity, the faithful are mocked at, and the bishops fall on all sides into contempt." Although Church and State both work for the good of mankind, yet are they distinct institutions, and their mode of operation is different, though aimed at the same object. The function of the Church is to mould the moral and religious life of man, and the State undertakes the modelling of his social life. No society is complete without morals and religion, and without the protection of the State it would be impos- sible for the Church to fully accomplish what she takes THE HIERARCHY IN THE 12th CENTURY. 217 in hand. Moreover, the State, without the assistance of the Church in nourishing an inner spirit of obedience and morality, will find her labour infinitely more diffi- cult. Church and State are complementary factors, necessary each to the other, each working in its own way and for its particular ends, and neither dominated over and paralysed by the supremacy of the other. When the German nations entered the Church, they were for the most part rude and undisciplined, and the upper clergy, in culture standing high above the mass of the people, were constrained to work, not only in their proper sphere at the spiritual and moral educa- tion of the people, but also at their social transforma- tion, their political organization and their intellectual culture. We have seen how that Charles the Great and his successors laid on them this double obligation ; and it was an obligation they fulfilled to the best of their abilities. Bishops and abbots had access to court, and sat as councillors to princes, and as judges in courts of justice. They exercised supreme author- ity in the diets, and the administration of government was in their hands. Through them the laws were codified, and the order of government became regular ; political life acquired order and stability. From the beginning, as we have already seen, the upper clergy in the German states occupied a double position ; the bishops and abbots were at one and the same time princes of the State and pastors in the Church. The estates of the forty German bishoprics and the countless abbeys in the 1 2th century, composed one-third 2i8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. of the whole territory of the realm, and the revenues of the Church, including the tithes, one-half of the national income. It was irksome to the prelates at the head of these great feudal lands, to have not only to appear continually at court, but also to have to lead troops to war, like the secular princes. But such an obligation was inevitable. If the bishops and abbots enjoyed the beneficia of the realm as did the secular princes, they must also bear the 07iera issuing from them. It was impossible that it should be otherwise than that the temporal sovereignty united with the spiritual charge in one man, should gain the pre-emin- ence and stifle the other. How could the bishop, who had to appear at numerous diets, who had to lead his troops to battle, to attend at court on the monarch, who had the administration of extensive territories, and who was involved in all kinds of political intrigues — how could such a bishop devote himself to the spiritual necessities of his flock? How could he fulfil his spiritual obligations ? Then, again, the vast wealth at his disposal, the temptations of exercising his political influence, the continuous whirl of secular cares and business, must lead to a secularising of the mind, and a blunting of the spiritual perception. And so it was. We find that the life of the bishops in their palaces was utterly worldly ; there was infinite luxury in clothing, in feasting ; their houses were crowded with retainers ; their courts sounded with the rattle of arms, the neighing of hunt- ing horses and the baying of hounds. Who could recognize a follower of the apostles in the bishop, or THE HIERARCHY IN THE 12th CENTURY. 219 a pattern of self-abnegation in the abbot who held such a noisy and splendid court, who rode in armour at the head of his soldiers, and went in splendid state to attend a diet of the realm ? The hand that to-day was extended at the altar, to-morrow brandished the sword ; the lips that to-day uttered the glad tidings of peace, on the morrow thundered the battle-cry. We have seen, and we shall see further, in the sequel, how ill this combination of offices worked. Here we will consider one of the evils it brought in its train that we shall not notice in another chapter : — this is simony. The temporal position of the bishops caused that position to be one greatly coveted. The evil began at Rome, where popes, in the loth and nth centuries, had sunk into the basest slavery to the political factions ; and the chair of S. Peter was filled with the most unworthy men, who began the miserable trade of selling orders and benefices. This example rapidly spread, first through the episcopate of Italy, then to France and Germany, but in Germany never reached that head it did elsewhere, as the Saxon and Frank kings appointed worthy men to the great sees, and the provincial and imperial synods operated for the correction of every such evil as it arose. It is true that we have complaints of simony raised in Germany, and that the sovereigns were accused of simoniacal conduct in exacting fees from the bishops and abbots on their appointment ; but the sovereigns exacted these fees on investing them with their temporal fiefs, and precisely similar fees were demanded of the secular nobles when they were invested with fiefs. 220 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, The only true simony was that in which clergy were concerned in the sale. Simony is the selling a divine gift for money, and the kings never arrogated to themselves the power to confer orders ; consequently, they could not commit simony. In a synod of German bishops, Henry III., the restorer of the papacy, was obliged to gravely remonstrate with the bishops for their simoniacal proceedings, and Rudolf Glaber, who gives his speech, adds, " Not only among the Gallic (German and Frank) bishops did this evil exist in great force, but in a far higher degree was Italy corrupted by it ; there, all spiritual offices were at this time sold like marketable wares." Gerohus of Reigersperg, in a letter to the bishops of Germany, paints their worldliness in darkest colours, but hardly more darkly than they deserved. " Have not the bishops," he asks, " been so mixed up with the secular princes, have they not become so schooled in their ways of life, that many of them know better how to storm a fortress, to general an army, and what becomes a duke rather than a bishop, than to fulfil the duties of their sacred calling ? As in the days of Zerubbabel the work of the building of the Temple was hindered by those who neglected or desecrated the law of the Lord, so is it now in our time. Let our bishops put away from them this worldly pomp which, like a foul garment, stains and disfigures their episcopal vest- ment. What has a bishop to do with splendid dress ? What with hosts of warriors ? Is Christ to be again seized and crucified, and the bishop lead the cohort, like the traitor Judas, rather than the pastor Peter? THE HIERARCHY IN THE 12th CENTURY. 221 And, as S. Paul says, they who sin against the brother for whom Christ died, sin against Christ, so does the bishop sin who spends the patrimony of the poor among fighting-men, and leaves the former to perish with want. The bishop who squanders among his men-at-arms the offerings that should be for the poor, loses his soul, and is worse than Judas. Yes ! he is a Judas, and not a Peter, when he snatches the bread out of the mouths of the poor wherewith to pamper his armed retainers at whose head he rides. Who empowered a bishop to collect warriors for battle, and to execute all the functions of a duke, which neither Sylvester nor any bishop ventured on under Constan- tine ? " " Do not these haughty prelates reign as kings, grasping after base worldly profit, without cessation, instead of seeking those things that are above ? As long as they sacrifice their high calling to their insatiable avarice, they prove oblivious of righteousness, turning the alms they receive, gifts to the Lord, to their own ends, and utterly disregarding the poor members of the poor Christ ! " " The bishops not only surren- der all the parcels of land into the hands of the fighting-men, but hand over with them the serfs of the Church into bitter slavery." " The Church is plundered by the bishops and the other prelates, in that they give over the serfs of the Church to their military vassals to be tortured by them, oppressed by them as though they were their own bondsmen." " O holy Church of God, thou one and simple dove ! what avails it to the poor serfs that thou dost not rend them with thine own claws, if thou spreadest not forth thy 222 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. wings to protect them, and deliver them from the claws of the hawks ? These military vassals, to whom they are handed over, rend and devour them as hawks and vultures, and the bishops who have handed them over to these 'birds of prey,' think they are justified in so doing." S. Bernard writes : *' A man blushes to be thought a simple priest in the Church ; he considers himself badly treated and without credit, so long as he has not mounted a step higher. School children, boys and beardless youths, because of their noble birth, are given ecclesiastical honours, and are set over worthy priests ; more heartily glad to have escaped the birch than to have gained such pre-eminence. They are not so much elated at becoming teachers, as at having escaped school. So they begin, then they go on to sell altars, to empty the purses of their subjects, obedient to the promptings of their ambition and avarice. On all sides men in orders are scrambling for benefices, as if striving to outdo each other. ... Is any one a dean, a provost, archdeacon or the like, he is not content with one office and one church — no ! he is ever striving to unite as many benefices as he can in his own hands, and his highest ambition is to become a bishop. But suppose he becomes one, is he satisfied ? He is scheming after an archbishopric. And when he has this, then, tormented by his dreams of vain glory, he goes at great cost to Rome, by expensive outlay to win profitable friendships. Others, not able to do this, turn their energies in another direction. If they are chief pastors over populous cities, and have, so to THE HIERARCHY IN THE 12M CENTURY. 223 say, whole nationalities under their sway in their dioceses, then they compass the robbing them of their old privileges, and endeavour to subject neighbouring cities to their control, so that two cities, to each of which one prelate would hardly suffice, are forced to be brought under the government of one. I ask, whence comes this hateful audacity, this fierce greed, to lord it over the earth — this unbridled ambition to take the first place ? " Of the cathedral chapters, the canons, Bernard writes with almost as great bitterness as he does of Pope and bishops. Among them, he says, " Pride of life rolls on the four wheels of gluttony, vulgar lust, idleness and luxury of dress. It is drawn by two horses — superfluity, and love of the pleasures of life. The drivers are crass idleness and treacherous security." Gerohus says much the same of the canons. " They are acephali (headless) ; like the hippocentaurs, which are neither horses nor men, so are these a mixed and confused breed, living neither wholly by ecclesiastical rule, nor by the law of the world. They are called clerks or canons, but they form the synagogue of Satan. In their greed they draw all Church offices either to themselves, or give them to their like, or worse. They are in possession of the chief honours and benefices, and grind down the citizens of Jerusalem so much the harder, as they serve the king of Babylon in Jerusalem, mixing worldly things with spiritual. You can know them neither by their clothing, nor by their conduct, nor by the society they keep." It can hardly be supposed that when the chief 224 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. shepherds of the Church were such worldlings, that the ordinary pastors were lights to the world. The evil that smote the head sickened the whole body. S. Bernard laments over the degradation of the parochial clergy, their idleness, their avarice, the way in which they combined with their sacred functions the profession of usury, their love of dress, their drunkenness, and general immorality. At a time when the lands were everywhere being taken from the freemen, the old yeomen, or Freisassen, as they were called, and given in lien to nobles, there was only the religious and ecclesiastical life open to this class, robbed of their liberties, rights, and position, in which to secure an existence. But not only did they enter the sacred orders, but also a large number of serfs were ordained — men over whom the bishops and their feudal lords could exercise control, to squeeze out of them the ecclesiastical revenues they drew. In addition to the beneficed clergy there were numbers of vagabond priests going about the country disposing of false relics and indulgences, causing scandal among the faithful by their dissolute lives and by the prepos- terous demands they made on the credulity of the people.* * See for numerous extracts from S. Bernard on the condition of the Church in his day, Ellendorf : ' Der heilige Bernhard v. Clairvaux und die Hierarchie seiner Zeit.' Essen. 1837. ( 225 ) XV. THE CHURCH IN THE 13TH AND 14TH CENTURIES. The factors of Modern Civilization — The Church preserves its Classic Culture during the inroads of Teutonic Barbarians — Chivalry, the regulation of Destructive Force — The Burgess- dom, the development of Trade and jManufacture — The Nursery of the Homely and Social Virtues — The rise of the German Cities — The Constitution therein — The Patricians — The Guilds — The Bishops and the Cities — The story of Archbishops Conrad and Engelbert of Cologne — The story of Archbishop Burkhard III. of Magdeburg — The Prelates and the Empire — Encourage Disorder — Opposition Kings — The history of Archbishop Gerhard of Mainz and the Election of Adolf of Nassau and of Albert of Austria. The civilization of modern Europe, but especially of Germany, is due to three factors, three institutions, two of which grew up in the Middle Ages. The first of these is the Church. At the time when the Teutonic races poured down on the old Roman world, with its stores of learning and art, all civiliza- tion was threatened with annihilation, and all would have been swept away leaving only dead relics behind, had it not been for the Church, which pre- served some of the old learning, much of the ancient culture, and, like the woman of the Gospel, took this leaven and put it into the measures of fresh and raw Q 226 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. meal of the Germanic races and therewith leavened them. Much is due to the patience, the diligence, and the devotion of the monks. They cleared the forests and drained marshes, they brought with them into barbaric lands the arts of horticulture and of tillage, and taught the wild and warlike peoples among whom they settled to beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. The monks and the clergy, by their virtues, by the real services they rendered, made themselves beloved and re- spected, and this love and respect were shown in the lavish profusion wherewith benefaction after benefaction was poured into their laps. As we have seen, the wealth thus acquired, never parted with, always growing, became the occasion of the fall of the hierarchy from its high calling, and with the hierarchy the lower clergy were also dragged into mundane and sordid cares, lost the love and respect of the people, and no longer served them as guides and enlighteners. In one direction only did they still carry the torch of progress, and that was in archi- tecture and the kindred arts. The wealth and pride of the bishops made them disposed to build stately churches, and yet — but one of the many Gothic minsters begun on a splendid scale in Germany in the Middle-pointed period was completed, that of Freiburg, and that was precisely one that was built by free citizens and not by a pomp-loving bishop. The Church certainly did much to soften the gross manners of the people, by holding up before them a THE CHURCH IN THE i^tJi &^ \\th CENTURIES. 227 lofty and pure ideal ; it exercised some restraint over warlike kings, and put some barriers in the way of the conversion of the feudal system into a despotism. It got rid of slavery, or so mitigated the lot of the villain that his condition was not insupportable ; thus, in spite of all the shortcomings of its pastors, and none fell shorter of their duty than the chief pastors, the flock of God was fed and watered after a fashion. It was inevitable that the unlimited power of the hier- archy must lead to abuse, and abuse on a large scale ; for how could men exercise an irresponsible and un- limited sovereignty over the minds, the souls of men, without exercising it in a tyrannous manner? The bishops were men, and men with human infirmities. That they were unable to bring the German people into complete mental and spiritual servitude was due to the second institution, one that sprang up, came to perfection, and then died away in the Middle Ages. This institution was chivalry. The suspicion that every force that is undisciplined contains within itself the seed of dissolution was the cause why the wa^- loving aristocracy of the German races laid down laws, and erected barriers, whereby the exercise of brute force was held in order, and directed to service - able purposes. Chivalry sprang out of the feeling of necessity for something of the sort. It had no founder, no law-giver, and yet it formed a well- defined and morally powerful whole, which could not be broken down by any extraneous attack. What cultured intelligence was to the clerk, that was Q 2 228 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. chivalry to the knight, direction given him in which to exert himself, a limitation of his liberty voluntarily submitted to, but without the reason being fully understood : it was a moral instinct, not a moral con- viction. The man, unaccustomed to govern himself, submitted to be controlled by an unwritten law. It was to the wild aristocracy of the Middle Ages what the laws of society are to gentlefolks of the present day, a something external that sustains them when they are individually lacking in moral resolution. The hierarchy gladly encouraged the formation of chivalry. It sought the same ends as the Church in another fashion — the protection of the weak, the redress of wrongs, self-restraint, and truth. Not only so, but it was, like the Church, though in a far less degree, a leveller of men. Every freeborn man, to the possessor of a few poor acres, was entitled to aspire to knighthood, and in knighthood there was no dis- tinction — from the king to Sir Lackland all stood on the same footing. But as the possession of a small allodial estate was an indispensable qualification for knighthood, chivalry came hardly at all in contact with the lowest class of men. The common serf or villain was influenced by the Church, and could rise in the Church to be a prince-bishop ; but he could not penetrate at all the frontier of chivalry, and learn anything from those men beyond ; they were as alien to him as men of another race. But there was a third institution, one of the might- iest and most enduring bases of our modern civiliza- tion, which was also a growth of the Middle Ages, THE CHURCH IN THE i^th &- 14M CENTURIES. 229 and was not destined to perish like chivalry. Chivalry has only perished in its external organization, in essence it remains ; it has leavened the German and Gallic races, and modern courtesy, deference to the weaker sex, and tenderness to children, that polish of manner and refinement of feeling which shrinks from causing another pain, are the result of the institution of chivalry in the Middle Ages. The third factor in modern culture is citizenhood — Burgessdom. The clergy had sunk into dull indifference to learning, the knights had forgotten the laws of chivalry and had run wild, free institutions had disappeared almost wholly from the land, when within the walls of the towns sprang up the corporate life of a city and developed the most — not splendid, but enduringly beneficial results. All the virtues in mankind, indi- vidual or social, have found their scope for expansion in this field. Whatsoever princes, prelates and knights wrought that was good was mostly indi- vidual, lasted but awhile and was lost : it depended on the force of the individual to sustain, to promote it ; but what the corporate life of the city has effected has been permanent, has hardly halted in its develop- ment, is inherited by us in rich abundance, and will be, in richer still, by our grandchildren. We have come now to that epoch in which the cities of Germany arrived at articulate and vigorous life. And we shall have first to arrive at a clear per- ception of what that life was, before we shall see how the prelates strove to stem it, even to neutralize it, and that will enable us to understand what the real 230 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. significance of the Reformation in the cities of Ger- many was : an inevitable revolt against forces that strove in every way to impede healthy growth, and to distort and stunt corporate life. To understand German Burgessdom we must go back to the beginning. When the Teutonic invaders overwhelmed the Roman provinces, they found there flourishing cities inhabited by Roman settlers. These did not all withdraw ; many remained and formed a nucleus of civilization in the midst of barbarism. Their superior intelligence enabled them, in time, to obtain offices of trust in the towns, and to carry on most of the busi- ness in them. When the Frank realm was formed, in each city were placed mmistrales, officers of the crown ; very probably a good many of these were chosen from among the descendants of the old Roman citizens who remained on as a caste, distinct from the Germans, like the Greeks in Turkish cities. The free Germans despised heartily all mercantile work, and the trade of the towns was left entirely in the hands of those citizens of Latin origin, or West Frank (half-Gallic) merchants, who had settled in the towns for purposes of trade. But in addition to the merchants there were two other classes held in some repute. These were, first, the freeholders who had estates near the city, but who, for safety, lived within its walls. In many a German town it is so still ; the town houses are provided with cattle-stalls in the basement, and with haylofts and cornsheds in the roof — there are no farmhouses to be seen round a town : THE CHURCH IN THE i^th &- \\th CENTURIES. 231 the town is actually a collection of farmhouses within walls. These freeholders, in almost all cases, had, however, sacrificed their freedom for the sake of pro- tection, and had received back their land subject to a light feudal tenure, either a payment in coin or in kind, or in discharging a service to the feudal lord. Secondly, there were in the towns the free artificers, employed on some craft, not regarded as by any means the equal of the merchant, who was probably an old Roman by descent, nor of the freeholder, of pure German blood, but distinct from the serf.* These classes formed the Gives, Biirgenses, the burghers, with legal rights, whereas the serfs under them had none. The superior class of all, that which arrogated to itself an hereditary right to offices under the crown, the ministrales and their descendants, held themselves very high ; they were often very rich, they bought lands, they held the traffic of the town in their hands, and they called themselves tJie Families (Geschlechter), later, patricians. They were city-nobility, with their pedigrees, their coats of arms, and their over- weening pretensions. They constituted the Rath, the Town Council ; the entire government of the city or town was in their hands. But during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, the makers of goods, woolcombers, weavers, shoe- makers, armourers, bakers — in a word, all the crafts were consolidated into guilds (Ziinfte), and these * Not at first, but in course of time. At first all artizans were of servile stock. 232 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. guilds were under the control of the master of each society, freely elected by the members. As these societies of craftsmen grew in power and in wealth, they endeavoured to wrest the management of town affairs from the hereditary councillors, and the German towns were repeatedly the scene of furious conflicts between the patricians and the guildsmen. Finally, a compromise was reached, a lower council was formed to which the craftsmen elected ; then the masters of the guilds forced their way into the upper house, and wrung the chief power from the hands of the patricians. To this day these ancient patrician families remain in many an old town, and their houses within are museums of mediaeval heirlooms ; the churches and cloisters are crowded with their heraldic memorials. They claim that they are the nobility of the city, just as the barons and counts are the nobility of the country. All the cities and towns throughout the realm re- garded the sovereign as their supreme head, even when they were the seats of princely bishops or abbots. And they were specially subject to him because he had charge of the defence of the realm, and the walled cities were the fortified centres for protection against invaders. In order that the king might exercise his sovereign rights over the cities, to each was appointed an officer who was his representa- tive as civil and criminal judge over all who were within the fortress, and who also was entrusted with the summoning of those liable to be called to arms when required. His title was Burggrave. But as THE CHURCH IN THE izth &^ \d,th CENTURIES. 233 the bishops had obtained, in nine cases out of ten, from the king, temporal jurisdiction over all the lands that belonged to them, there arose continual conflict between the double courts ; the citizens on one side, and the bishops on the other, used their utmost endeavours to obtain exclusive control of the courts of justice, and the bishops were usually successful. When in 953 the Emperor Otto I. gave to his brother Bruno the archiepiscopal throne of Cologne, he gave him and his successors supreme judicial rights over the city. He gave the same to the Bishop of Bremen in 966 ; to the Archbishop of Magdeburg in 968. Otto II. gave it to the Bishop of Strasburg in 983 ; and Otto III. to the Bishop of Speyer in 989. The bishops speedily tired of the exercise of the office in their own persons, and gave the discharge of the administration of justice to deputies. As these men were under no control by the city, the burghers were impatient thereat, and made many, but usually futile efforts to escape from the jurisdiction of the bishops in civil and criminal cases. When the power of the kings was insufficient to maintain security on the highways, the merchants who travelled to the fairs combined in caravans for mutual protection, and hired armed men to protect them on their way. The advantage of combination soon made itself felt, and guilds of merchants were constituted, into which admission was obtained by oath of conformity to the rules, and the payment of an annual subscription. The emperors confirmed these guilds, and they obtained for themselves ex- 234 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. traordinary privileges, established their own halls of merchandise, appointed their own officers, and had their own courts. The craftsmen were not slow to follow suit. Originally all hand labour was regarded as servile, and the craftsmen all belonged to the unfree class. They, however, obtained their freedom, and by combination gained great power, so great that, as already seen, they were able to break the absolute power of the aristocratic council of the towns. There existed so many jealousies in the cities between the hereditary families, the guilds, and the craftsmen's clubs, that the bishops were able on many occasions to play them off, one against the other, for their own ends, much as the Pope pitted one set of nobles and electors in the Empire against another set, for his ends. Such was the condition of affairs in the towns and cities in the period that immediately preceded the Reformation, We will now take some instances to illustrate the behaviour of the bishops towards the cities ; samples — perhaps extreme ones — of what went on wherever the bishops exercised or claimed judicial power in the cities where were their episcopal thrones. Conrad of Hochstetten (1237), as Archbishop of Cologne, largely extended the territory of his see. He obtained the castle and county of Hochstetten and Harth (1246) from his step-brother, and five important manors from the Countess Mathilda of Sayn. In 1248 he laid the foundation of the present Cathedral of Cologne, a witness to all time, not only THE CHURCH IN THE i^th \\th CENTURIES. 253 him under his charge ; then the archbishop sent to the cathedral chapter to require them to enter into negotiations with the town council for his release, They declined to interfere. Then the prelate was committed to the common prison for ordinary male- factors. There he managed to communicate with some of his friends, who introduced wine among his guards and made them drunk. The archbishop attempting to make his escape during their intoxica- tion, one of the guards, less drunk than the rest, started up, stopped his way, and when the prelate attempted by force to break past him, he struck him on the head with an iron ring, so that he fell dead on the ground. The corpse remained unburied in the prison nearly a twelvemonth, and the city councillors endeavoured to conceal his death. When, however, it became known, the Pope placed Magdeburg under an inter- dict, and the Emperor under the imperial ban. It cost the city enormous sums to obtain release from the excommunication and the ban. The successors in the see endeavoured to obtain the canonization of the archbishop as a martyr, but failed. These examples must suffice to illustrate the rela- tion in which the princely prelates stood to their sees, and these go far to explain the enthusiasm^with which the citizens rose against them, when Luther gave them the excuse of religious reformation. We have already alluded to the manner in which the great bishops were mixed up with the political contests that tore the heart of Germany, and filled it 254 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. at times with despair and humiliation. But we have \ not given any example, or none with anything \approaching to fulness, excepting that of Anno of Cologne, and his case hardly illustrated the way in Kvhich the bishops were mixed up in the contests of f rival emperors. The wretched and shameful story of ' the revolt of Henry V. against his father might have been told, or the contest for the succession after the death of Frederick II., but we will take briefly the story of the election of Adolf of Nassau, and of his successor, Albert of Austria, because it was character- istic of all — and one prelate, Gerhard II. of Mainz, was mixed up with both. The Archbishops of Mainz were arch-chancellors of the realm, and when the throne was vacant, it was their duty to convoke the electors to choose another king ; moreover, the arch- bishops had the first voice in the electoral college. This duty devolving on the archbishops, and their august position, gave them great influence in the election, and on many occasions they were thus enabled to direct the choice to the advantage of the empire when they found the princes full of envy of each other. But no archbishop exercised his influence so openly as Gerhard II. who occupied the throne of Mainz from 1288 to 1305. He belonged to the family of the Counts of Epstein, and was a man of great energy. He did what was no longer usual with these proud prelates, he made his visitations of the diocese in person, and held three great synods of the clergy, in 1292, 1293, and 1301. He granted to the town of THE CHURCH IN THE i^th &> i\th CENTURIES. 255 Erfurt the right to coin its own money, and he farmed to it the market tolls for eleven years, for the sum of a thousand marks of silver. According to ancient usage, the Germans, at the election of a king, were inclined to bestow the crown on a member of the family that had reigned hitherto, so long as a suitable representative was to be found. And this was observed regularly till the extinction of the house of Hohenstaufen. The opposition kings set \ up by the Popes never met with popular support and \ general recognition. When the Hohenstaufen race / came to an end, and indeed whilst the last emperors ■ of the stock still flourished, the electors had been urged by the Popes to use their privileges of election in other interests than those of the realm, and conse- quently most of them sold their votes, after William of Holland's death, to the highest bidder. But the evil was so gross, the disadvantage to the empire so great, that it was impossible to continue this disgraceful traffic of the crown ; and some of the electors had sufficient conscience to consider the weal of the realm rather than their private emolument. After the happy result of the election of Rudolf of Habsburg, it seemed certain that his son would succeed him, and that the crown would remain in the Habsburg family ; and so it would have happened, had not the electors feared Duke Albert of Austria, the son of Rudolf, on account of his great power, and hated him for his harshness and ambition ; and if the Archbishop of Mainz had not proposed to them a man in whose name he reckoned on governing the realm. 256 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, The man whom he proposed was his kinsman, Count Adolf of Nassau, a gallant knight of small estate, who never would have dreamed of elevation to the crown of Germany had he not been assured by Gerhard that he would obtain it for him. It was precisely the insignificance of Adolf which made him a suitable candidate in the eyes of the archbishop ; he believed he was a man whom he could direct as he willed, and that through his election he would be able to reap great profit for himself and for his see. To reach his ends, Gerhard alarmed the several electors by assuring them that personal enemies of theirs stood a great chance of being chosen. The Elector Palatine and the Elector of Saxony, allied to the Duke of Austria, would not have refused him their votes, had not Gerhard assured them that, should Albert be raised to the throne, he would not feel him- self bound to pay over to them the dowers of their wives, so notorious was his selfish greed, which aimed only 'at self-aggrandisement. When these princes, ren- dered uneasy, asked the archbishop whom he proposed, then he informed the Elector Palatine that the most promising candidate was King Wenceslas of Bohemia, and to the Elector of Saxony he said that all eyes were turning to the Duke of Brunswick, This alarmed both so seriously that they were ready to follow his counsel. In like manner, he dealt with the others, and finally summoned the electors to P>ankfort, where he asserted that the name of Count Adolf of Nassau had been miraculously revealed to him from heaven as that of the man whom the college should THE CHURCH IN THE izth &- \\th CENTURIES. 257 elect. The princes acquiesced, and elected the Count of Nassau. This election excited general amazement. Duke Albert of Austria had reckoned on the crown. The newly chosen king had not even the funds wherewith to pay the cost of his coronation, nor the credit to borrow the sum. Therefore Archbishop Gerhard borrowed ten thousand marks of the citizens of Frankfort on his own security for his kinsman. For the assistance he had rendered Adolf, the archbishop demanded exorbitant returns. He exacted of the new king the judicial rights over several districts, the Bachau and Seligenstadt, the Steward- ship of Miihlhausen and Nordhausen, right of toll at Lahnstein, the imperial rights over the Jews at Mainz, and over six districts in the archdiocese, and repay- ment of the sum borrowed to pay the expenses of the coronation. Adolf granted these things, but when the archbishop showed his intention of managing the realm through him as his puppet, he resisted ; and to his dismay, Gerhard discovered that in Adolf lay a force of character and independence which he had not expected. His disappointment knew no bounds ; he was filled with ra^e against the man he had elevated to the throne, although his kinsman, and with incredible malignity resolved to accomplish his overthrow. As one day Adolf refused him some demand, the archbishop is reported to have said scornfully, "Well, v/e will see if I do not keep another emperor in my pocket." He worked in the same underhand manner against Adolf as be had before to win his elevation, and when he considered 258 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. the opportunity was come, he called his confederate electors to Mainz, and there held a court upon the Emperor in his absence, and proclaimed him dethroned. This deposition was unconstitutional, for the Electors of Cologne, Treves, and the Palatinate were not present. The assembled princes then elected Albert of Austria. Both Adolf and Albert levied armies, and met in battle between Gellheim and Rosenthal ; Adolf was defeated and slain, and the archbishop fought against his own kinsman, on the side of Albert of Austria. He had gratified his revenge, but if he had expected to have reaped much profit by the elevation of the Duke of Austria, he was disappointed. The new king neither made over to him in reward any new privileges, nor allowed him any voice in the affairs of State. So disappointed was the archbishop that, when out hunting, he exclaimed, " I must see if I cannot puff another emperor out of this horn." These sayings may have been attributed to Gerhard without his having uttered them, but at all events they express what was the temper of his mind. He now called together the electors of the Rhine and brought charges against Albert, as he had against Adolf, and declared Albert also deposed. But this proceeding roused general disgust, the Emperor marched into the territories of the see of Mainz, attacked the confederates, and forced them to sub- mission. Gerhard made the most desperate resistance ; but his entire archdiocese was occupied, conquered and plundered, and the haughty prelate was finally forced to submission. ( 259 ) XVI. THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. Peoples, like Individuals, have their Times of Childhood and Adolescence — The Renaissance, the Epoch when Germany passed out of Infancy — The Renaissance, the Revolt of Individualism — The new Birth of Paganism — Corruption of the Mediaeval Clergy exaggerated — The Study of Classic Antiquity in Italy — It is carried into Germany — ^neas Sylvius Piccolomini — Humanism — Its rapid spread — Philosophy and Theology — Attempt to combine them in Scholasticism — The German Humanists — Reuchlin — Erasmus — Zwingli — Ulric von Hutten — Epistolasobscurorum virorum — Mysticism — The double Nature in Man — The Function of the Soul — Forms of Mysticism — The German Mystics — Eckhart — Nicolas of Basle — Tauler — The Friends of God — The main Forces that brought about the Reforma- tion, Humanism and Mysticism — Inevitable Consequences of the Revolt. There is an epoch in the life of all, when childhood is past, and the restraints that have been imposed during childhood are relaxed, when the youth feels his strength, the blood is hot in his veins, his head is full of hope, his heart inspired with self-confidence. The world is open before him, and he sees it with new eyes ; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the world, and the pride of life lay hold on him ; he either submits to the former restraints, turns his face away from the S 2 26o HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. dazzling prospect, and bows to work, or else draws his lungs full of air, his eye glitters, his pulses bound, and he plunges into all the intoxication of pleasure that offers. Religion, self-control, prudence, the thought of the morrow, reverence for the past, all are cast away, in the rapture of the present. And as with men so with peoples. They have their periods of infancy and of exuberant puberty. It was so with the Germans. The Middle Ages were to them the long period of national childhood, when they thought as a child, understood as a child, saw as a child ; they had simple faith in their teachers, meek submission to patriarchal government, and a childlike buoyancy of spirit that nothing could break. Then, almost suddenly, adolescence came on them. The whole aspect of the world was changed to them, they threw aside all faith in what they had believed, they rose up with impatience against teachers whom they despised ; the laws, the customs, the habits of mediaeval life were too strait for them. They would do away with their fetters, snap them as tow, as Samson snapped the cords that bound him, and like him when unbound, smite and slay those who had cast the cords about him. No fact in the epoch of the Renaissance is so characteristic of its tendency as the dethronement of the national Teutonic laws, to replace them with Roman Law. The German codes were all based on the principle that the state, the civitas, is the unit ; they were socialistic, the individual was bound hand and foot with obligations to the THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 261 corporate body to which he belonged. There was no freedom under it ; freedom was only conceivable within the narrow range allowed man after he had fulfilled, in every hour of the day, in every branch of activity, some duty to the state. But Roman law starts from the individual as the unit, and the common- wealth has no other claims on the individual except such as are essential for the preservation of the life and well-being of the corporate body. When a man is a child, he is one of the family, treated as a member, and has to conform to all the family rules, habits, and exactions ; but when he becomes a man, his individu- ality asserts itself, and he only so far conforms as is needful for the maintenance of the tie. The Renaissance was the emancipation of the individual. The very sculpture, the painting of the period declare it. In mediaeval art the human form was subsidiary. It was represented, but only for ornamental purposes, to decorate the building, to serve as a prop on which to hang gorgeous brocades in a picture, or in a window. But at the Renaissance, sculpture, painting laid hold of the human form, and made of it the great object to which attention was to be turned. The statue, the figure of the man or the woman — nude probably, in defiant assertion that the individual body was deserving of admiration — that was what the artist aimed to represent, and on which to expend his utmost skill. The Renaissance was the new birth of paganism. The Mediaeval Church — the Mediaeval state — the Mediaeval university — all alike may have treated, and 262 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. did treat, men as children after that they had grown too big, too strong, and too keen to endure such treat- ment. The Church has a double function, to insist on the individual responsibility of man to his Maker, and on his responsibilities to his fellow-men, members of the same ecclesiastical commonwealth. It is possible — it would be hard to prove it — that the Mediaeval Church neglected too much the enforcement of the first of these duties, and laid undue stress on the latter. If it did so, it did so because the teachers in the Mediaeval Church were imbued with the doctrine of the times in which they lived, a doctrine impressed upon them on every side^ by every political and social institution, that man is an unit in a great body, a link in a vast net, and that he is, like such a link, nothing except he forms part of the whole. So it may have been — though it would be hard to prove it, — but unquestionably the epoch of the Renaissance was the surging up of the individual in revolt against all restraints, and undoubtedly he carried individualism to a far greater extravagance than ever did the Church carry altruism. It has been asserted with such iteration that the very frequency of the assertion has been accepted as evidence of its substantial truth, that the clergy of the Catholic Church in Germany before the Refor- mation, and the monks and nuns, were utterly and irremediably demoralised ; that the laws of God were not taught the people, and were not enforced by the example of those set before them as teachers ; gross, contemptuous abuse of the clergy and of the religious THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 263 orders has been quoted and harped on as though all abuse was rigid statement of fact. We are shown what a complete revolt the Renaissance was against all that religion enjoined, and it is argued that the excesses of the Renaissance give evidence how completely the Catholic Church had lost her hold over the consciences of men. But, on the contrary, we rather hold that the swing of the pendulum in one direction gives us a means of judging the arc described by the pendulum on the other side. The flaunting, the audacious vice, and defiance of all that the Church had held sacred, which took place at the Renaissance, is rather to be taken as a proof that the Church had done her duty, had impressed the sacred obligations of the decalogue and of decency on men ; the Renaissance was the revolt against these restraints, by men who were pagans at heart, and would not endure them. They would not deny themselves in this world so as to be blessed in the next, they would bathe in pleasure here, and die as dogs in the end. The Renaissance will never be understood unless it be looked upon in this light. It was not a new birth in one particular only, in scholarship, in art, in science. It was a new birth in every particular, in religion, in the laws ; it was a revolt of the indi- vidual man against society, which had, perhaps — which had, undoubtedly — exacted of him more than was its due. And the Reformation is not to be con- sidered apart from the Renaissance. It was but the same spirit of revolt, the revolt of the individual against society in another department. It was the 264 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, casting away of bonds and restraints, here of more, there of less — it went so far in extreme instances as to cast away even the moral law. The Renais- sance was checked, it never was able to carry its principles to their logical conclusion, because, if it had, anarchy and the wreck of mankind in utter profligacy would have been the result, and in the domain of religion, the reformers threw down the Bible in the way of the wild enthusiasts breaking out of the Church, and that stayed all save those drunk with mysticism who set their inner light above the revealed word. It has been asserted that the Mediaeval Church was a sink of iniquity. All that was corrupt came as scum to the surface, was talked of and chronicled ; but the humble annals of the poor parish priests, their steady continuance in well-doing, their diligent discharge of their duties, all these were unrecorded. Of these none took note : such things are written in the Book of Life, the Book of Remembrance kept in the heavenly archives, and not in the chronicles of this world. If, four or five hundred years hence, writers desired to discover what manner of men we were at the close of the nineteenth century, and were to measure us by the records of the police courts and the gossip of the society papers, — they would describe us as it pleases those who glorify the Reformation to describe the Church before that revolution. The German people were found by the reformers to be full of piety, moral in life, and zealous for religion. How came that about ? How, but that THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 265 their former teachers had done their duty and had fed and quickened true religion in their hearts. How then, it is asked, was it that there was such a revolt against the Catholic Church ? The revolt was against the Pope and against the Bishops, not intentionally against the doctrines of the Church and its sacra- ments. The doctrines went down like a pack of cards before individual freedom, which allowed every man to believe anything he had a mind to, and placed no restraint upon him ; and the sacraments fell into disrepute, when every man justified himself by an ecstatic emotion. We shall return to this in the following chapter. In this we will consider the Renaissance as the emancipation of the individual, and how this took place, and how it acted in various departments of human activity. The study of classic antiquity in Italy had begun in the fourteenth century to be pursued with zest. The study bred enthusiasm, not only a literary enthusiasm for the style, the language, the genius of the classic authors, but for their religion, their manner of con- sidering life, their freedom from scruples, and what was admired was pursued. The Pagan gods and goddesses returned to the temples, the buoyant con- fidence with which the ancients enjoyed life was aroused, and restraints moral and theological were laid aside. It became fashionable to think as a heathen man, to talk as one, and to live as one. In vain did Dante with his truly Christian soul raise the vernacular poetry to a level never reached by any pagan of old, his " Divine Comedy " w^as not so much to the taste of 266 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. the literary men of Italy as the Decameron of Boccaccio, a work strewn with paganism, in which the clergy and the religious were held up to mockery. It has been supposed that the stories he and his imitators tell of profligate clerks are taken from the life. Nothing of the sort ; they are to a large extent old tales, told of Indian Brahmins, then told of Mussulman dervishes, brought into Europe by the Crusaders and by the Saracens of Spain, and served up afresh, the fakirs, the Brahmins being turned into Christian priests and monks. These stories made men laugh ; they laughed because they felt the ties of religion irksome, and wanted an excuse to shake them off. The cultured classes became indifferent and frivolous, and ready to laugh, not only at the teachers of religion, but at the most sacred things of religion. Luigi Pulci, in his poem of the great Morgant, made mock of the Christian mysteries under the thinnest disguise. The cultured world laughed. Machiavelli wrote a comedy, the Mandragola, in which he made scoff of casuistry, and put into the mouth of a pious priest the most ridiculous excuses for the indulgence of the passions. It was performed before the Holy Father, who laughed and applauded. In that great Italian rebirth of paganism, Christianity would have disappeared, cast aside altogether, but for the profit which it brought in to the pagan-hearted pontiffs and the curia. That alone saved the outer shell of the Church in Italy rom coming down in ruin. The Germans were much in Italy, they drew inspira- THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 267 tion from Italy, and the rampant paganism there affected the hearts of the Germans who aimed after culture. No man did more among the Germans to encourage the love of classic literature, and with that the light and wanton view of life, than ^neas Silvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., an Italian in his passions, under no severe self-control, his morals those of his age and country. He became secretary to the Emperor Frederick HI. who created him his poet laureate. At the council of Basle he had collected a circle of Germans about him whom he inspired with enthusiasm for classic study. Among his closest friends was Gregory of Heimsburg from Franconia, one of the clearest heads of his time, and one of the most conspicuous and energetic forerunners of the Refor- mation. Heimsburg planted Humanism in Niirnberg, where it took root and flourished, and where as a man of culture he contested with the obscurantists to his death the right of intellectual freedom, and as a statesman fought the particularists for the unity of the Empire. In consequence of his efforts, and the impulse given by ^neas Sylvius, the study of the classics made great advance in Germany. It was admitted frankly that the Germans could only be emancipated from barbarism by the study of humane letters. Moreover, wherever this study struck a root, there it throve in exuberance of life. It became defiant. It did not satisfy itself with the rejection of scholastic authority and method. It went further. It demanded that science should be freed from the restraint of the 268 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. school and should be brought into the midst of and energise actual life. The humanists claimed for the intellect a freedom that had never before been allowed it in the Mediaeval Church, and they represented this freedom as a necessity of existence for the intellect, without which it degenerated into pedantic drivel. Scholastic philosophy had done its work, occupied and exercised men's minds and had prevented them from drying up, but scholastic philosophy was unable to meet the exigencies of men's intellects at the close of the fifteenth century. To understand the situation it is necessary in a few words to give a description of the origin and purpose of scholasticism. A revolt of the reason against current traditional doctrine had taken place in the solitude of the monasteries. In the ninth century the German monk, Gotschalk, asserted predestination in its most rigid and monstrous form, such as was long after asserted again by Calvin. He endured the scourge and death in prison for the sake of his opinion. The presence of the Saracens in Spain offered an incessant provocation to the restless intellect of the West to indulge itself in daring exercise. Arabian philosophy, unseen and silently, diffused itself throughout Europe. From Eastern sources John Erigenahad learned the doctrine of the Eternity of Matter ; he lapsed into Pantheism, accepting the Oriental ideas of Emanation and Absorption not only as respects the soul of man, but likewise as respecting all material things. In Peter Abelard the insurgent spirit of the times spoke out most clearly. No subject was too profound or too sacred for THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 269 his daring investigation, and on nothing that had been revealed did he scruple to sit in judgment, and test its clairtls by the light of reason. It was necessary for those who held to the revelation of Christ to make an effort to meet these rationalists. They did so in two ways. S. Bernard of Clairvaux and Albert of Nogent asserted that the things of God were to be explored, not by the reason, critically, but by the soul, contemplatively. The written Revelation was explained by continuous revelation vouchsafed to the seeking soul. They founded Mystical Theology. But on the other hand, in the universities of Paris and Oxford, an attempt was made to reconcile Aristotle with Scripture and the canons of the Church, and with written and traditional theology. They founded Scholastic Theology. Each school aimed at the same end, each sought to save doctrine from rationalism, the former by den\'ing to reason its right of question, the latter by enlisting reason in its aid. We shall consider Mysticism presently. What now occupies us is Scholasticism. The schoolmen accepted the words of Scripture and the decisions of the Church just in the same way as Euclid lays down certain axioms and definitions, before he attacks a single problem. When the schoolmen had thus stated what were their grounds, then they began to reason on them. Aristotle was assumed as a sure guide in all matters of secular knowledge, and the methods of Aristotle were followed in the dis- cussion of matters of theologic revelation. Scholastic theology was pursued with enthusiasm, it occupied 270 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. minds, diverted them from dangerous questions, and it raised round orthodoxy an immense and impene- trable bulwark of what seemed to be profound learning. By this means it put off for a while the inevitable day in which philosophy and theology were to be brought into mortal conflict once more. Philosophy, said the schoolmen, was the handmaid of theology, ^^ Philosophia theologies ancella!' an assertion certain to be resented when men's hearts were turned from Christianity and intoxicated with paganism. The schoolmen had directed their energies to the elucidation of those paradoxes which either did, or seemed to lie in the doctrines of the Church, and thence there grew up a vast thicket of subtleties and dis- tinctions, some useful or necessary, but some entirely worthless or mischievous. With the greatest diligence every question in theology, in science generally, was debated and concluded upon ; and not theology only, but all knowledge of the universe was built up upon such a substratum by such methods. When every other matter was exhausted, then discussion was invited on, and trifled about questions gross and mon- strous, such as cannot even be mentioned without a shudder. Scholastic teaching had in the century of the Renaissance become formalism dead and rotten. The mind was driven round and round in the same mill, not grinding corn, but threshing chaff. When revolt came it was as complete as it was inevitable. Those who revolted rebelled, not in the interests of religion, but of paganism ; it was a revolt of the vigorous, living THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 271 human intellect against the depraving influence of useless routine. That gave it its cogency and its promise of victory. The scene of the conflict was laid in Germany. Rudolf Agricola, called to Heidel- berg in 1482, gave to the studies in that university the new direction and impulse. In Wurtemberg worked John Reuchlin (i 455-1521), a philological genius, who not only became an enthusiastic student of the classic Latin and Greek authors, but also broke ground as a Hebrew scholar. Conrad Celtes (born 1459), the dis- coverer of the only known text of Roswitha, lived a wandering life, but wherever he settled for a time there he stirred up a passion for classic studies, and a revolt against scholasticism. With astounding rapidity the love of humane studies spread throughout Germany, and an intellectual net was thrown over it ; the connec- tion of minds was preserved by incessant correspond- ence among the learned, and by their migration from centre to centre. Along the Rhine, in Switzerland, in Swabia, in Franconia, Bavaria, Austria, Saxony, in the lands on the Baltic, everywhere sprang up humanistic schools and societies, bent with heart and soul on expelling the native barbarism and establishing culture in its room. In Niirnberg lived Wilibald Pirkheimer (b. 1470), Avho used his hereditary wealth and his patrician position of authority and influence in his native city to advance the cause of Humanism by forming a library of all the classic authors he could procure from Italy, and by throwing himself, pen in hand, into the conflict with the obscurantists. To Wiirzburg the 272 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. cultured bishop Laurence von Bibra called the learned Abbot Trithemius, who had been forced to leave his cloister of Spanheim, driven away by his disorderly monks. Other illustrious humanists were Adelman of Adelmannsfelden at Eichstadt, John Regius ^stikam- pianus, who taught in Basle, Heidelberg, and Mainz ; John Wimpheling, a diligent historian, and Erasmus ( 1 465-1 536), born in Rotterdam, who settled in Ger- many and became so identified with his adopted country that he was coupled with Reuchlin as consti- tuting " the two eyes of Germany." Erasmus had the wit to see the follies of the scholastics, and the love for the new studies to make him pursue them with avidity, but he was not disposed, like so many of the other humanists, to cast Christianity overboard. With the rest, he partook of the feeling which filled the ancients, love of the world and of enjoyment of life, but he could not and would not turn his back on Christ and give his hands to the old gods of heathendom. A man of another sort was Ulrich of Hutten, a son of a noble Franconian family, born in 1488. He was a genial, witty, unscrupulous man, hating all the restraints of religion and morality, and garnished with a good deal of learning, and he had a ready hand at the pen. He died of a shameful disease brought on by his pagan vices ; but he has ever been looked on as one of the great champions of the Reformation, inasmuch as he was a destroyer of the reverence that had been given to the Church and to her doctrines. Different, altogether, from Erasmus was Ulrich Zwingli (born 1484), a man of clear and logical mind, of very dis- THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 273 reputable life in his early manhood, which had so tainted his heart that love and piety had almost died out of it, and his cold, clear intellect was unsoftened and uncontrolled. At heart a Pantheist, he became the reformer of religion at Zurich. He reduced Christi- anity to a form of faith from which, logically, Christ might very well have been omitted. The form was complete without Him. He died fighting heroically for his adopted state, in the battle of Kappel (1531). Erasmus poured forth the vials of his caustic wit over the scholastic method in his ' Praise of Folly,' 1508 ; but the death-blow was dealt the system by the ' Epistolae obscurorum virorum,' the first part of which appeared in 1 5 16, and the second part the following year. This epoch-making work purposed to be a collection of private letters sent from the leaders of the scholastic party to one Ortuinus Gratius, professor of Theology at Cologne. They have been attributed to Hutten, John Krotus, Peter Eberbach, and Hermann of Neuenar. The second series was almost certainly by Hutten. Hutten was determined to ruin, if he could, a converted Jew, Pfef- ferkorn, and his champion Gratius, who had trans- lated his pamphlets into Latin. To effect this most completely he devised the rascally — no other word will suffice — scheme of publishing a number of letters to Gratius from friends, professors, and monks. These letters were, of course, forgeries ; and the v/ork was done with such brutality as not to spare Gratius' mother and Pfefferkorn's poor wife, in the filth that T 274 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. was poured forth on them. By means of these letters Hutten designed to hold up the clergy, the monks, the scholars of the Catholic Church to the derision of mankind. They were so clever, so unspeakably nasty, that they delighted some and defiled the minds of others, and effectually shook confidence in the intelligence and morality of those held up to ridicule. We will now turn back to the Mystics, and consider their influence on the Reformation. The Imperial eagle is represented with two heads turned in opposite directions. So has man in his very being two tendencies, two natures, that are contradictory ; one, the spiritual, that strains after the unconditioned, the limitless ; the other, the physical that lives in the midst of conditions and limitations, and cannot exist without them. The spirit is ever aspiring after emancipation from all ties. It would hold direct communion with God, learn from Him immediately all truth, receive from Him immediately all grace. It is like Daedalus soaring on waxen wings, which melt in the blaze of the divine light, and the dazzled spirit falls precipitate. When Christ assumed human nature, then He united the physical and the psychical, the human and the divine, matter and spirit, not henceforth to be dissociated the one from the other, in His Church. Every extension of the Incarnation carries with it this stamp of duality. The authority of Christ is in His ministry. His truth in His Church, His grace in His Sacraments. In true Christianity there are and THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 275 there must be outward form and inward spiritual reality, the one is not without the other. The outward form is nothing if the grace be not there, and the grace evaporates without the vessel to contain it. This is a verity that the human spirit is reluctant to allow. It is impatient, it is proud, it kicks at out- ward forms, and would aspire to God without them ; but to aspire to God without them is to run counter to the ground-doctrine of Christianity — the Incar- nation of the Son of God. The first Mystics of the Middle Ages, S. Bernard and S. Norbert, were filled with reverence for the Church, and held her doctrines with firm grasp ; they sought illumination in spiritual ecstasy, not independently of these doctrines, but for the inter- pretation and unfolding of them and, they found personal application of them in spiritual experience. That in many, Christian life had degenerated into mere formalism is probable if not certain ; but a formal obedience to the Divine command, and a formal observance of the sacraments was something : though not a very elevated type of spiritual life, it was perhaps as much as some dull souls were capable of attaining to. But other spirits, more elastic, more effervescent, asked for a superabounding spiritual effusion of illumination and^nourishment. The Holy Scriptures did not satisfy their need of instruction, nor the Sacraments their requirements of nutrition. Some, in the vagaries of spiritual ecstasy believed they were enlightened on the history of our Lord, and T 2 276 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. were made acquainted with a thousand details of His life unrecorded by the Evangelists. They supple- mented the gospels with their revelations. Of such was S. Bridget. Others desired to attain through their elevation to God a sight into the future, and such became prophets ; we have an example in S. Hilde- garde. Others again sought only the rapture of personal spiritual union with God, and sensible delight in that union. We have an extreme case in S. Theresa. Others sought light to guide them in their conduct in this life, and brought their acts, their thoughts, before the bar of a spiritual tribunal which they set up for themselves in the clouds. Such were the moral mystics. But on the other hand, others followed the method of S. Bernard, and sought enlightenment as to theologic doctrines, and such were the mystic theologians. Now it is easy to see how that Mysticism, unless kept in severe control by the reason, may become drunk with self-conceit, and may lead to rebellion against all limitation, may, in a word, be a revolt against the Incarnation. It may, in its desire to be free for spiritual converse only, seek to undo all that was done for man, when God came down on earth and united the visible with the invisible, the outward form with the inward reality. That seeking after sensible satisfaction in the elevation of the soul, such as S. Theresa sought, is very liable to make the ecstatic think that such a rapture is all the soul needs, and therefore to make it despise sacramental institutions. So also the soul THE RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH. 277 that in its transports conceives it hears the voice of God instructinj.! 32, 33 130, 131 . 197 297-9, 327 • • 13 24, 28, 46-8 Bavaria . .15, 46, 51, 62, 65-9, 71 Beghards 277-8 Belgse 4 Benedict the Levite . . 115-7 S. Bernard . . . 207-216, 222-4 Bern ward, B. Hildesheim. 162-6 Berthold of Henneberg . 284-6 Bishops, Frank .... 38 ,, Two at Once . . 40, 55 Bockelsohn 322-6 Boiodurum 13 396 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. S. Boniface S8-75 Brabant 24 Brandenburg 313 Bregenz 44 Bremen . . .95, 96, 195-6, 233 Brenz 312, 327 Brothers of the Sword . . 204 Brunichild .... 42, 43, 51 Bucer 341 Buraburg 69 Burgessdom .... 229-32 Burgundians 4, 46, 51, 62, 65-9, 71 S. Burkhard .... 64, 69 Burkhard III., B. Magde- burg ...... 250-53 Cador 51 S. Cagnoald 51 Calvinism 330 Canisius, P 343 Canons. . . 113, 124, 223, 365 Capuchins 346 Carlman 70-2 Carlstadt 312-3 Castellum Cucullae ... 13 Centule 51 Charibert 26 Charles the Great 76-1 16, 120, 139 »> V 309-10 „ Martell . 56,59-70,115 Childebert I. . . . 26, 35, 42 . » . II 43 Childeric 30 Chilperic .... 30, 36, 42 Chivalry ..... 227-8 Chlodomer 25 Chlodovech . . .24, 25, 30-5 Chlothar 1 26 ,, II 26 Chlothachar 1 35-6, 42 S. Chrodechild. . . . 30, 40 S. Chrodegang, B. Metz . 113-4 Chur ....... II Clemens, B. Metz . . • 3, 9 PAGE Clement XIV 359 Clerical Marriage . . 126, 197-8 Cologne 3, 8, 24, 29, 124, 181-4 234-50, 316-8, 362, 370 S. Columbanus . . . 44, 50 Commagena 13 Concordats 301, 372 Conrad I., Emp. . . . 149-50 ,, of Hochstetten . . 234-8 Constance 292-6 S. Corbinian 51 Councils 39, 41, 42, 55, 82, 120, 290, 297, 381-2 Crescens, B. Mainz . . • 3, 8 Crusades 201-5 Cyril, B. Treves .... 3 Dagobert, K. . . 26, 27, 46, 53 Decretals, False . 11 5-8, 122, 208 Desiderius, K. Lombards 89 S. ,, B. Cahors . 44 S. Die .SI Dietmar of Merseburg 167 Diets 334 295 Dispensations . . . . 289, Dobda . 51 Dukes, Discontent of, 105, 130, 157 Ebroin 54 Eckhard, Master . . . 277-8 Eichstadt 7 1 S. Emmeran, B 46-7 Encyclical of 1864 . . . 379 Engelbert, B. Cologne . 238-50 Epistolae obs. Virorum . 273-4 Erasmus .... 272-3, 339 S. Erembert, B 89 Erkinger 132-4 Estates of the Church . .217-8 Esthonia .,..'.. 205 Eugenius IV 297-9 S. Eustasius, Ab 46 Evangelical Church founded 389 INDEX. 397 Febronius 357 Ferdinand II., Emp. . . .345 Finland 204 S. Fintan 51 Florence, Council of . . . 299 S. Florian 12 S. Foilan 51 Francis II., Emp 371 Franks. . . 4, 5> 23-7, 28, 29 Franz of Sickingen . . . 337 Freemen 52 Frederick II., Emp. . . . 287 ,, B. Miinster . . 181-2 „ II., K. Prussia. . 368 „ William, K. . . 368 Freising 51, 68 S., Fridolin 45i 51 Frisians • • • 5S> 59-6i, 74 Fritzlar 64, 155 Fulda . . .64, 95, 137, 185-8 S. Fursev 51 S. Gall 44-5, 51 „ Abbey .... 138-54 Gandersheim . . .159, 162-7 Garibald 46 Gebhard, Abb. Cologne . 317-9 ,, B. Speyer . . . 180 Geislar 63 S. Genoveva 30 Gerhard II., B. Magdeburg 254-8 Gerhous .... 207, 220-2 ** German Theology ". . . 279 Germania, Divisions of . . 2-6 Gewiliep, B. Mainz . . 70, 72 Gnesen 197 Gondecar, K 21 Goslar .185 Goths 4, 15, 20 Gotteschalk 202 Gregory, B. Tours . . 33, 34 „ II 60, 62 „ III 66-70 ,, VII . 197-200, 208-11 Gregory of Heimsburg . 267, 284 Grimoald 47 Gundebakl 30 Guntchram 42-3 Gunther, B. Bamberg. . . 201 Haimo, B. Halberstadt . . 119 Halberstadt 95 Hamburg .... 195-6 Hanseatic Towns . . . 204, 327 Hatto I., Abp. Mainz. . 129-32 Hedderich 363 Henry I., Abp, Mainz . 188-9 „ B. Augsburg . , . 176 ,, I. Emp. . . . 156-6 j» !!• ,, . • 159-161, 197 „ HI. „ . „ IV. „ . Heriger, Abp. Mainz. Hermann, Abp. Cologne 220 175-180, 185-7 129-32 31^7 Hermes 374 Heruli j^ Hesse 61, 63, 65, 69, 86, 196, 313 Hezelo, B. Halberstadt . 185-6 Hildebert, Abp. Tours . . 215 S. Hildegarde . . . 192-3, 207 Hildesheim .... 95-97 Hildwardshausen .... 166 Hohenstauffen House. . 287-8 Hontheim 357-8 Hrabanus Maurus. . . . 119 Humanism . . . 267, 286, 303 Huns ... 13, I&-19, 23, 29 Huss 293 Hussites 297, 298 Iconoclasm 120 . 307-8 . 199-200 . . 2 49-52, 65 . . 141 Indulgences Investitures S. Irenseus . Irish Missionaries . Iso Jesuits 335i 343-6, 372 398 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. PAGE Jews, slaughter of. . . 202-3 John XXII 228 „ XXIII 291-4 Joseph II., Emp 359 Joviacum 13 Judicial Rights given to Bishops 233 Justification by Faith . 304-6, 308 Juvavum 13? 47 Kaiserswerth 176 S. Kilian 48-9, 51 Knipperdolling . . .321, 323 Kultur Kampf 386 Landebert, B. Maestricht. . 54 Laureacum 13 Lazzi 52 League 345 Leo III 99-103 » X 328 S. Leoba 64 S, Leodegar 54 Lithuania 204-5 Lombards 4 Lorch .,.,•.. 12, 47 Louis the Child , . . 128-9 ,, ,, Pious .... 104 Lubeck 320, 337 Lull, Abp. Mainz .... 73 Luther, Martin, 302-15, 324, 327- 8, 337-8 Luxeuil 50 Madelgar, B. Laon ... 54 Maestricht 36 Magdeburg 250-3 ,, Centuriators . . 353 Mainz 8-9, 70, 73, 162, 188-95, 364-5, 370 Mansus in Marcomanni 15 S. Martin 6 S. Maternus, B. Treves . 3, 8, 9 S. Maximilian 12 PAGE Maximilian I., Emp, . . . 285 S. Maximin, B. Treves . . 10 Meinwerk, B. Paderborn. 160-2 Memel 205 Merswin 279 Metz 3, 9 Minden 96 Missus . .... 80, 105 Moengal 142, 145 Moesia 16 Moravians 35^-1 Miinster . • . 95, 97, 321-6 Munzer, Thomas . . . 313, 321 Mysticism . . 274-80, 286-7, 351 Neustria Noricum Notker Balbulus 5, Labeo . ,, Physicus Nuncios Niirnberg . Odilo, D. of Bavaria Old Catholics Osnabriick . . 95 Ostrogoths . Otho I., Emp Paderborn . Palatinate . Pappolus . Passau . Patricians . Peasants' War S. Perminus Philip of Hesse Pietism . Pirkheimer . Pippin of Herstal „ K. . Pius VI. . „ VIL . „ IX.. . . 26 10, 15 144-9 . 144 . 144 . 357 . 312 66-9, 71 383-5 97, 320,-348 15-16, 19 . 156, 158 95' 96 • Zl^ . 42 13' 67 . 237 314, zn . 45 321, 339 352, 369 271, 340 • 55-7 91, 128 .360-1 359, 372 . 379 INDEX. 399 Planta 105 Pluralities . 132, 326, 356-7» 3^2 Polygamy 323, 339 Pragmatic Sanction . . . 301 Radbod 59 S. Ragnacar, B. Basle . . 51 Ratisbon 12, 67 Rautenstrauch 360 Reichenau 45 S. Remade, B 5' S. Remigius, B. Rheims . 32, 38 Remiremont 5' Reuchlin 271 Rhaetia lO-ii Rhegino of Priim ... .120 Riga 204 S. Riquier, B 51 Romanus 142 S. Romaric 51 Ronge 375-6 Roswitha 167 Rugii 12-13 S. Rupert, B. Salzburg . . 68 Ruysbroeck 277 Sackingen . . . 45. Si» 3S4-S Salvian 10, 28 Salzburg . . .13, 47, 68, 366 Saxons 87-98 Saxony 313-15 Schneider 363-4 Scholasticism . . . 268-70, 277 Schonborn, Abp. . . . 355 Serfs 52 S. Severinus .... 12-13 Severus Sanctus .... 10 Sidonius ApoUinaris ... 7 Siegfried, Abp. Mainz 176-80, 197, 201 Sigismund, Emp. 292-3, 298, 300 Sintram . 139-140, 150 Solomon I., B. Constance . 144 ,, III 132-5 PAGE Songschools . . . 142-3, 145 Sophia of Gandersheim . 162-6 Spenner 35o-i Spinola 355 Spitz 363 Sturm 64 Syllabus 379 Tauler 277, 279 Teutonic Order . . . 205, 327 Thasillo, Duke .... 67 S. Thecla 64 Thegan 120 Theodelinda, Q 46 Theodoric 16 Theudebert 1 36 ,. n 43-5 Theudechild 36 Theudefrid, Ab. Corbie . . 51 Theuderich 1 43> 48 Thomasius 351, 354 Thuringia 4S-49, 62, 64-5, 69, 87, 328 Tiburnia 14 Tolbiac 25 Tongern .... 24, 28, 36 Toxandria 24, 28 Treves 3, 6, 8, 24, 29, 55, 362, 370 Tropes 14S Tuggen 44 Tutilo 148 Ulphilas 16, 17 S. Ulrich, B. Augsburg . 126-7 Ulrich, D. WUrtemberg . . 327 „ of Hutten . . 272-4, 308 Victor, B. INIetz . Vindelicia . Virgil, B. Salzburg Vivilo, B. Lorch . Walafrid Strabo . S. Walpurgis . . . 9 10 51. 68, 75 . . 67 . . 119 . . 64 400 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY, PAGR Walram 149 Werden 95 Westphalia, Peace of . . 347, 349 Wicterp, B. Ratisbon . . 67-8 Widukind 167 S. Willibald 71 S. Willibrord .... 55, 59 S. Willigis, Abp. Mainz . 162-7 Wisigoths .... 15-16, 19 Wittekind, Duke . . .89, 92-3 PAGE Worms, Diet .... 310-11 Wurtemberg .... 327, 373, Wurzburg 59, 69 Yxkiill 204 Zinzendorf 351 Ziinfte 231 Zwingle . 312, 313-4. 33i» 33^ LONDON: PRtNTBD BV WILLIAM CLOWKS AND SONS, LIMITBU^ STAMFORD STREET AND CUARINu CROSS. KJ 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 7Mav'65GB B-t© 'D LD P i ip^i 30 '69 -4PI I RCCPLP PEC 719g9 7g A P R 2 9 '65 9 PM ^80cp *^j3^^r^ tXXM- 6s. Rfegtffi ^ ■. li\^ REC'P LP m i3'65.2PM -rw^ *^4^u LD 21A-60ot-3.'65 (F2336sl0)176B ws: "> ■*■ < '» \ J AN 13 1970 8 IN 5 -70 -3 PM BEG. CML JUN2 5 1973 ^Wt 4498^ CB. JUN 6 1 982 General Library University of California Berkeley U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES i t ^