Early European History Part 114

Boniface had employed the exalted language of Gregory VII in dealing with Henry IV, but he found an opponent in a monarch more resolute and resourceful than any Holy Roman Emperor. This was Philip the Fair, [2]

king of France. Philip answered the first bull by refusing to allow any gold and silver to be exported from France to Italy. The pope, thus deprived of valuable revenues, gave way and acknowledged that the French ruler had a limited right to tax the clergy. Another dispute soon arose, however, as the result of Philip's imprisonment and trial of an obnoxious papal legate. Angered by this action, Boniface prepared to excommunicate the king and depose him from the throne. Philip retaliated by calling together the Estates-General and asking their support for the preservation of the "ancient liberty of France." The n.o.bles, the clergy, and the "third estate" rallied around Philip, accused the pope of heresy and tyranny, and declared that the French king was subject to G.o.d alone.

ANAGNI, 1303 A.D.

The last act of the drama was soon played. Philip sent his emissaries into Italy to arrest the pope and bring him to trial before a general council in France. At Anagni, near Rome, a band of hireling soldiers stormed the papal palace and made Boniface a prisoner. The citizens of Anagni soon freed him, but the shock of the humiliation broke the old man's spirit and he died soon afterwards. The poet Dante, in the _Divine Comedy_, [3]

speaks with awe of the outrage: "Christ had been again crucified among robbers; and the vinegar and gall had been again pressed to his lips". [4]

The historian sees in this event the end of the temporal power of the Papacy.

THE "BABYLONION CAPTIVITY," 1309-1377 A.D.

Soon after the death of Boniface, Philip succeeded in having the archbishop of Bordeaux chosen as head of the Church. The new pope removed the papal court to Avignon, a town just outside the French frontier of those days. The popes lived in Avignon for nearly seventy years. This period is usually described as the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Church, a name which recalls the exile of the Jews from their native land. [5] The long absence of the popes from Rome lessened their power, and the suspicion that they were the mere va.s.sals of the French crown seriously impaired the respect in which they had been held.

THE "GREAT SCHISM," 1378-1417 A.D.

Following the "Babylonian Captivity" came the "Great Schism." Shortly after the return of the papal court to Rome, an Italian was elected pope as Urban VI. The cardinals in the French interest refused to accept him, declared his election void, and named Clement VII as pope. Clement withdrew to Avignon, while Urban remained in Rome. Western Christendom could not decide which one to obey. Some countries declared for Urban, while other countries accepted Clement. The spectacle of two rival popes, each holding himself out as the only true successor of St. Peter, continued for about forty years and injured the Papacy more than anything else that had happened to it.

COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE, 1414-1418 A.D.

The schism in western Christendom was finally healed at the Council of Constance. There were three "phantom popes" at this time, but they were all deposed in favor of a new pontiff, Martin V. The Catholic world now had a single head, but it was not easy to revive the old, unquestioning loyalty to him as G.o.d's vicar on earth.

THE RENAISSANCE POPES

From the time of Martin V the Papacy became more and more an Italian power. The popes neglected European politics and gave their chief attention to the States of the Church. A number of the popes took much interest in the Renaissance movement and became its enthusiastic patrons.

[6] They kept up splendid courts, collected ma.n.u.scripts, paintings, and statues, and erected magnificent palaces and churches in Rome. Some European peoples, especially in Germany, looked askance at such luxury and begrudged the heavy taxes which were necessary to support it. This feeling against the papacy also helped to provoke the Reformation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, THE GREAT SCHISM, 1378-1417 A.D.]

COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE CLERGY

The worldliness of some of the popes was too often reflected in the lives of the lesser clergy. Throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries the Church encountered much criticism from reformers. Thus, the famous humanist, Erasmus, [7] wrote his _Praise of Folly_ to expose the vices and temporal ambitions of bishops and monks, the foolish speculations of theologians, and the excessive reliance which common people had on pilgrimages, festivals, relics, and other aids to devotion.

So great was the demand for this work that it went through twenty-seven large editions during the author's lifetime. Erasmus and others like him were loyal sons of the Church, but they believed they could best serve her interests by effecting her reform. Some men went further, however, and demanded wholesale changes in Catholic belief and worship. These men were the heretics.

229. HERESIES AND HERETICS

PERSECUTION OF HERETICS

During the first centuries of our era, when the Christians had formed a forbidden sect, they claimed toleration on the ground that religious belief is voluntary and not something which can be enforced by law. This view changed after Christianity triumphed in the Roman Empire and enjoyed the support, instead of the opposition, of the government. The Church, backed by the State, no longer advocated freedom of conscience, but began to persecute people who held heretical beliefs.

MEDIEVAL ATt.i.tUDE TOWARD HERESY

It is difficult for those who live in an age of religious toleration to understand the horror which heresy inspired in the Middle Ages. A heretic was a traitor to the Church, for he denied the doctrines believed to be essential to salvation. It seemed a Christian duty to compel the heretic to recant, lest he imperil his eternal welfare. If he persisted in his impious course, then the earth ought to be rid of one who was a source of danger to the faithful and an enemy of the Almighty.

PUNISHMENT OF HERESY

Although executions for heresy had occurred as early as the fourth century, [8] for a long time milder penalties were usually inflicted. The heretic might be exiled, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property and his rights as a citizen. The death penalty was seldom invoked by the Church before the thirteenth century. Since ecclesiastical law forbade the Church to shed blood, the State stepped in to seize the heretic and put him to death, most often by fire. We must remember that in medieval times cruel punishments were imposed for even slight offenses, and hence men saw nothing wrong in inflicting the worst of punishments for what was believed to be the worst of crimes.

THE ALBIGENSES

In spite of all measures of repression heretics were not uncommon during the later Middle Ages. Some heretical movements spread over entire communities. The most important was that of the Albigenses, so called from the town of Albi in southern France, where many of them lived. Their doctrines are not well known, but they seem to have believed in the existence of two G.o.ds--one good (whose son was Christ), the other evil (whose son was Satan). The Albigenses even set up a rival church, with its priests, bishops, and councils.

CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES, 1209-1229 A.D.

The failure of attempts to convert the Albigenses by peaceful means led the pope, Innocent III, [9] to preach a crusade against them. Those who entered upon it were promised the usual privileges of crusaders. [10] A series of b.l.o.o.d.y wars now followed, in the course of which thousands of men, women, and children perished. But the Albigensian sect did not entirely disappear for more than a century, and then only after numberless trials and executions for heresy.

THE WALDENSES

The followers of Peter Waldo, who lived in the twelfth century, made no effort to set up a new religion in Europe. They objected, however, to certain practices of the Church, such as ma.s.ses for the dead and the adoration of saints. They also condemned the luxury of the clergy and urged that Christians should live like the Apostles, charitable and poor.

To the Waldenses the Bible was a sufficient guide to the religious life, and so they translated parts of the scriptures and allowed everyone to preach, without distinction of age, or rank, or s.e.x. The Waldenses spread through many European countries, but being poor and lowly men they did not exert much influence as reformers. The sect survived severe persecution and now forms a branch of the Protestant Church in Italy.

JOHN WYCLIFFE, 1320-1384 A.D.

Beliefs very similar to those of the Waldenses were entertained by John Wycliffe, (or Wyclif) master of an Oxford college and a popular preacher.

He, too, appealed from the authority of the Church to the authority of the Bible. With the a.s.sistance of two friends Wycliffe produced the first English translation of the Scriptures. Ma.n.u.script copies of the work had a large circulation, until the government suppressed it. Wycliffe was not molested in life, but the Council of Constance denounced his teaching and ordered that his bones should be dug up, burned, and cast into a stream.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN WYCLIFFE After an old print.]

THE LOLLARDS

Wycliffe had organized bands of "poor priests" to spread the simple truths of the Bible through all England. They went out, staff in hand and clad in long, russet gowns, and preached to the common people in the English language, wherever an audience could be found. The Lollards, as Wycliffe's followers were known, not only attacked many beliefs and practices of the Church, but also demanded social reforms. For instance, they declared that all wars were sinful and were but plundering and murdering the poor to win glory for kings. The Lollards had to endure much persecution for heresy.

Nevertheless their work lived on and sowed in England and Scotland the seeds of the Reformation.

JOHN HUSS, 1373(?)-1415 A.D.

The doctrines of Wycliffe found favor with Anne of Bohemia, wife of King Richard II, [11] and through her they reached that country. Here they attracted the attention of John Huss, (or Hus) a distinguished scholar in the university of Prague. Wycliffe's writings confirmed Huss in his criticism of many doctrines of the Church. He attacked the clergy in sermons and pamphlets and also objected to the supremacy of the pope. The sentence of excommunication p.r.o.nounced against him did not shake his reforming zeal. Finally Huss was cited to appear before the Council of Constance, then in session. Relying on the safe conduct given him by the German emperor, Huss appeared before the council, only to be declared guilty of teaching "many things evil, scandalous, seditious, and dangerously heretical." The emperor then violated the safe conduct--no promise made to a heretic was considered binding--and allowed Huss to be burnt outside the walls of Constance. Thus perished the man who, more than all others, is regarded as the forerunner of Luther and the Reformation.

THE HUSSITE WARS

The flames which burned Huss set all Bohemia afire. The Bohemians, a Slavic people, regarded him as a national hero and made his martyrdom an excuse for rebelling against the Holy Roman Empire. The Hussite wars, which followed, thus formed a political rather than a religious struggle.

The Bohemians did not gain freedom, and their country still remains a Hapsburg possession. But the sense of nationalism is not extinct there, and Bohemia may some day become an independent state.

230. MARTIN LUTHER AND THE BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY, 1517- 1522 A.D.

MARTIN LUTHER, 1483-1546 A.D.

Though there were many reformers before the Reformation, the beginning of that movement is rightly a.s.sociated with the name of Martin Luther. He was the son of a German peasant, who, by industry and frugality, had won a small competence. Thanks to his father's self-sacrifice, Luther enjoyed a good education in scholastic philosophy at the university of Erfurt.

Having taken the degrees of bachelor and master of arts, Luther began to study law, but an acute sense of his sinfulness and a desire to save his soul soon drove him into a monastery. There he read the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers and found at last the peace of mind he sought. A few years later Luther paid a visit to Rome, which opened his eyes to the worldliness and general laxity of life in the capital of the Papacy. He returned to Germany and became a professor of theology in the university of Wittenberg, newly founded by Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony. Luther's sermons and lectures attracted large audiences, students began to flock to Wittenberg; and the elector grew proud of the rising young teacher who was making his university famous.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARTIN LUTHER After a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger.]

TETZEL AND INDULGENCES

But Luther was soon to emerge from his academic retirement and to become, quite unintentionally, a reformer. In 1517 A.D. there came into the neighborhood of Wittenberg a Dominican friar named Tetzel, granting indulgences for the erection of the new St. Peter's at Rome. [12] An indulgence, according to the teaching of the Church, formed a remission of the temporal punishment, or penance [13] due to sin, if the sinner had expressed his repentance and had promised to atone for his misdeeds. It was also supposed to free the person who received it from some or all of his punishment after death in Purgatory. [14] Indulgences were granted for partic.i.p.ation in crusades, pilgrimages, and other good works. Later on they were granted for money, which was expected to be applied to some pious purpose. Many of the German princes opposed this method of raising funds for the Church, because it took so much money out of their dominions. Their sale had also been condemned on religious grounds by Huss and Erasmus.

POSTING OF THE NINETY-FIVE THESES, 1517 A.D.

Luther began his reforming career by an attack upon indulgences. He did not deny their usefulness altogether, but pointed out that they lent themselves to grave abuses. Common people, who could not understand the Latin in which they were written, often thought that they wiped away the penalties of sin, even without true repentance. These criticisms Luther set forth in ninety-five theses or propositions, which he offered to defend against all opponents. In accordance with the custom of medieval scholars, Luther posted his theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, where all might see them. They were composed in Latin, but were at once translated into German, printed, and spread broadcast over Germany. Their effect was so great that before long the sale of indulgences in that country almost ceased.