An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 20

77. For one cla.s.s at least, the Holy Land had great and permanent charms, namely, the Italian merchants, especially those from Genoa, Venice, and Pisa. It was through their early interest and supplies from their ships, that the conquest of the Holy Land had been rendered possible. The merchants were always careful to see that they were well paid for their services. When they aided in the successful siege of a town they arranged that a definite quarter should be a.s.signed to them in the captured place, where they might have their market, docks, church, and all that was necessary for a permanent center for their commerce. This district belonged to the town to which the merchants belonged. Venice even sent governors to live in the quarters a.s.signed to its citizens in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Ma.r.s.eilles also had independent quarters in Jerusalem, and Genoa had its share in the county of Tripoli.

[Sidenote: Oriental luxury introduced into Europe.]

This new commerce had a most important influence in bringing the West into permanent relations with the Orient. Eastern products from India and elsewhere--silks, spices, camphor, musk, pearls, and ivory--were brought by the Mohammedans from the East to the commercial towns of Palestine and Syria; then, through the Italian merchants, they found their way into France and Germany, suggesting ideas of luxury hitherto scarcely dreamed of by the still half-barbarous Franks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tomb of a Crusader]

[Sidenote: Results of the Crusades.]

Some of the results of the Crusades upon western Europe must already be obvious, even from this very brief account. Thousands and thousands of Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen had traveled to the Orient by land and by sea. Most of them came from hamlets or castles where they could never have learned much of the great world beyond the confines of their native village or province. They suddenly found themselves in great cities and in the midst of unfamiliar peoples and customs. This could not fail to make them think and give them new ideas to carry home. The Crusade took the place of a liberal education. The crusaders came into contact with those who knew more than they did, above all the Arabs, and brought back with them new notions of comfort and luxury.

Yet in attempting to estimate the debt of the West to the Crusades it should be remembered that many of the new things may well have come from Constantinople, or through the Saracens of Sicily and Spain, quite independently of the armed incursions into Syria.[132] Moreover, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries towns were rapidly growing up in Europe, trade and manufactures were extending, and the universities were being founded. It would be absurd to suppose that without the Crusades this progress would not have taken place. So we may conclude that the distant expeditions and the contact with strange and more highly civilized peoples did no more than hasten the improvement which was already perceptible before Urban made his ever-memorable address at Clermont.[133]

General Reading.--A somewhat fuller account of the Crusades will be found in EMERTON, _Mediaeval Europe_, Chapter XI. Their results are discussed in ADAMS, _Civilization_, Chapter XI. Professor Munro has published a number of very interesting doc.u.ments in _Translations and Reprints_, Vol. I, Nos. 2, 4 (Letters of the Crusaders), and Vol. III, No. 1 (The Fourth Crusade). See also his _Mediaeval History_, Chapter XI, on the Crusades. ARCHER and KINGSFORD, _The Crusades_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50), is probably the best modern work in English.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MEDIaeVAL CHURCH AT ITS HEIGHT

78. In the preceding pages it has been necessary to refer constantly to the Church and the clergy. Indeed, without them mediaeval history would become almost a blank, for the Church was incomparably the most important inst.i.tution of the time and its officers were the soul of nearly every great enterprise. In the earlier chapters, the rise of the Church and of its head, the pope, has been reviewed, as well as the work of the monks as they spread over Europe. We must now consider the mediaeval Church as a completed inst.i.tution at the height of its power in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

[Sidenote: Ways in which the mediaeval church differed from modern churches.]

We have already had abundant proofs that the mediaeval Church was very different from modern churches, whether Catholic or Protestant.

[Sidenote: Membership in the mediaeval church compulsory.]

1. In the first place, every one was required to belong to it, just as we all must belong to the state to-day. One was not born into the Church, it is true, but he was ordinarily baptized into it before he had any opinion in the matter. All western Europe formed a single religious a.s.sociation, from which it was a crime to revolt. To refuse allegiance to the Church, or to question its authority or teachings, was reputed treason against G.o.d and was punishable with death.

[Sidenote: The wealth of the Church.]

[Sidenote: The t.i.the.]

2. The mediaeval Church did not rely for its support, as churches usually must to-day, upon the voluntary contributions of its members. It enjoyed, in addition to the revenue from its vast tracts of lands and a great variety of fees, the income from a regular tax, the _t.i.the_.

Those upon whom this fell were forced to pay it, just as we all must now pay taxes imposed by the government.

[Sidenote: Resemblance of the Church to a state.]

3. It is obvious, moreover, that the mediaeval Church was not merely a religious body, as churches are to-day. Of course it maintained places of worship, conducted devotional exercises, and cultivated the spiritual life; but it did far more. It was, in a way, a state, for it had an elaborate system of law, and its own courts, in which it tried many cases which are now settled in our ordinary tribunals.[134] It had also its prisons, to which it might sentence offenders to lifelong detention.

[Sidenote: Unity of organization in the Church.]

4. The Church not only performed the functions of a state; it had the organization of a state. Unlike the Protestant ministers of to-day, all churchmen and religious a.s.sociations of mediaeval Europe were under one supreme head, who made laws for all and controlled every church officer, wherever he might be, whether in Italy or Germany, Spain or Ireland. The whole Church had one official language, Latin, in which all communications were dispatched and in which its services were everywhere conducted.

[Sidenote: The mediaeval Church a monarchy in its form of government.]

79. The mediaeval Church may, therefore, properly be called a monarchy in its government. The pope was its all-powerful and absolute head and concentrated in his person its entire spiritual and disciplinary authority. He was the supreme lawgiver. No council of the Church, no matter how large and important, could make laws against his will, for its decrees, to be valid, required his sanction.

[Sidenote: Dispensations.]

The pope might, moreover, set aside or abrogate any law of the Church, no matter how ancient, so long as it was not ordained by the Scriptures or by Nature. He might, for good reasons, make exceptions to all merely human laws; as, for instance, permit cousins to marry, or free a monk from his vows. Such exceptions were known as _dispensations_.

[Sidenote: The pope the supreme judge of Christendom.]

The pope was not merely the supreme lawgiver; he was the supreme judge.

As a distinguished legal writer has said, the whole of western Europe was subject to the jurisdiction of one tribunal of last resort, the pope's court at Rome. Any one, whether clergyman or layman, in any part of Europe, could appeal to him at any stage in the trial of a large cla.s.s of cases. Obviously this system had serious drawbacks. Grave injustice might be done by carrying to Rome a case which ought to have been settled in Edinburgh or Cologne, where the facts were best known.

The rich, moreover, always had the advantage, as they alone could afford to bring suits before so distant a court.

[Sidenote: The control of the pope over the clergy at large.]

The control of the pope over the clergy scattered throughout Christendom was secured in several ways. A newly elected archbishop might not venture to perform any of the duties of his office until he had taken an oath of fidelity and obedience to the pope and received from him the _pallium_, the archbishop's badge of office. This was a narrow woolen scarf made by the nuns of the convent of St. Agnes at Rome. Bishops and abbots were also required to have their election duly confirmed by the pope. He claimed, too, the right to settle the very frequent disputed elections of church officials. He might even set aside both of the rival candidates and fill the office himself, as did Innocent III when he forced the monks of Canterbury, after a double election, to choose Stephen Langton.

Since the time of Gregory VII the pope had claimed the right to depose and transfer bishops at will. The control of Rome over all parts of the Christian Church was further increased by the legates. These papal emissaries were intrusted with great powers. Their haughty mien often enough offended the prelates and rulers to whom they brought home the authority of the pope,--as, for instance, when the legate Pandulf grandly absolved all the subjects of King John of England, before his very face, from their oath of fealty to him.

[Sidenote: The Roman Curia.]

The task a.s.sumed by the pope of governing the whole western world naturally made it necessary to create a large body of officials at Rome in order to transact all the multiform business and prepare and transmit the innumerable legal doc.u.ments.[135] The cardinals and the pope's officials const.i.tuted what was called the papal Curia, or court.

[Sidenote: Sources of the pope's income.]

To carry on his government and meet the expenses of palace and retinue, the pope had need of a vast income. This he secured from various sources. Heavy fees were exacted from those who brought suits to his court for decision. The archbishops were expected to make generous contributions on receiving their palliums, and the bishops and abbots upon their confirmation. In the thirteenth century the pope began to fill many benefices throughout Europe himself, and customarily received half the first year's revenues from those whom he appointed. For several centuries before the Protestants finally threw off their allegiance to the popes, there was widespread complaint on the part of both clergy and laymen that the fees and taxes levied by the Curia were excessive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ecclesiastical Map of France in the Middle Ages]

[Sidenote: The archbishops.]

80. Next in order below the head of the Church were the archbishops. An archbishop was a bishop whose power extended beyond the boundaries of his own diocese and who exercised a certain control over all the bishops within his _province_.[136] One of the chief prerogatives of the archbishop was the right to summon the bishops of his province to meet in a provincial council. His court received appeals from the bishops'

courts. Except, however, for the distinction of his t.i.tle and the fact that he generally lived in an important city and often had vast political influence, the archbishop was not very much more powerful, as an officer of the Church, than the other bishops.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Costume of a Bishop, showing Miter and Crosier. From a ma.n.u.script of the twelfth century.]

[Sidenote: The importance of the bishops.]

There is perhaps no cla.s.s of persons in mediaeval times whose position it is so necessary to understand as that of the bishops. They were regarded as the successors of the apostles, whose powers were held to be divinely transmitted to them. They represented the Church Universal in their respective dioceses, under the supreme headship of their "elder brother," the Bishop of Rome, the successor of the chief of the apostles. Their insignia of office, the miter and crosier, are familiar to every one. Each bishop had his especial church, which was called a cathedral, and usually surpa.s.sed the other churches of the diocese in size and beauty.

[Sidenote: Duties of a Bishop.]

Only a bishop could ordain new members of the clergy or degrade the old.

He alone could consecrate churches or anoint kings. He alone could perform the sacrament of confirmation, though as priest he might administer any of the other sacraments.[137] Aside from his purely religious duties, he was the overseer of all the churchmen in his diocese, including the monks.[138] He held a court where a great variety of suits were tried. If he were a conscientious prelate, he traveled about his diocese visiting the parish churches and the monasteries to see if the priests did their duty and the monks behaved themselves properly.

[Sidenote: The bishop's temporal duties.]

In addition to the oversight of his diocese, it was the bishop's business to see to the lands and other possessions which belonged to the bishopric. He had, moreover, to perform those governmental duties which the king, especially in Germany, had thrown upon him, and he was conspicuous among the monarch's counselors. Lastly, the bishop was usually a feudal lord, with the obligations that that implied. He might have va.s.sals and subva.s.sals, and often was himself a va.s.sal, not only of the king but also of some neighboring lord. As one reads through the archives of a bishopric, it is hard to tell whether the bishop should be called, first and foremost, a churchman or a feudal lord. In short, the duties of the bishop were as manifold as those of the mediaeval Church itself.