The Century of Columbus Part 13

Any century that does not display an important evolution of works for the benefit of the poor whom we have "always with us," of organized effort for the ailing who are inevitable in the present state of man's existence, as well as some general recognition of social duty towards the great body of men and women who must always be helped to make something out of their lives, because they lack initiative and power of accomplishment for themselves, does not deserve a place among the great centuries of human existence. Columbus' Century is in this regard one of the notable periods of human history. It saw the building of magnificent hospitals in many countries, a phase of its history so full of importance that we have had to reserve its treatment for a special chapter on hospitals. It saw the organization of many means of helping the poor, and particularly of definite methods for the care of the old and the young, for the disabled and unfortunate, and the origin of the inst.i.tutions through which the poor for their little pledges might secure loans to tide them over the recurring crises of existence. Besides there were many asylums, in the best sense of the word, founded for the care of the insane and chronic sufferers of other kinds, and many other inst.i.tutions of charity were organized and established in such forms as to do the greatest possible amount of good. Above all, this century saw the establishment of a number of religious orders which were to accomplish social reforms of many kinds, and the founders of which were to provide by their example and {170} advice the proper encouragement for many charitable foundations.

The most interesting development of helpfulness at this time came in connection with the many guilds which reached their highest development at the end of the fifteenth century. These guilds took care of the disabled, supported the old, took charge of orphans, gave technical training to the children, founded schools in many places and often sent the more intelligent boys even to the university, and provided various entertainments during the year for the members of the guilds and their neighbors and townsfolk. How universal was their effect upon the life for instance of the English people will be best appreciated from the calculation of Toulmin Smith, whose authority in all that relates to the history of the English guilds is unquestioned, that there were some thirty thousand of these brotherhood inst.i.tutions in existence in England about the beginning of the sixteenth century.

They touched every phase of the social life of the time and helped in the solution of many of the social problems. They provided insurance for their members against loss by fire, by robbery, at sea, by the fall of a house, by imprisonment and even against loss from flood.

There was insurance against the loss of sight, against the loss of limb or any other form of crippling. The deaf and dumb might be insured so as to secure an income for them and corresponding relief for leprosy might be obtained, so that if one were set apart from the community by the law requiring segregation of lepers there might be provision for food and lodging even though productive work had become impossible. [Footnote 18] There was also insurance for the farmer against the loss of cattle and farm products.

[Footnote 18: Walsh, "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries,"

Catholic Summer School Press Appendix, fifth edition, New York, 1912.]

There were no poorhouses and no orphan asylums. We have just come to recognize once more that the best possible guardian, as a rule, for children is their mother, if she is alive. It is cheaper in the end to help her to keep the family together than to put them into inst.i.tutions, and the home training is almost infinitely better. They recognized this fact very {171} clearly in the later Middle Ages and in Columbus' Century, and if mother were dead, and father could not keep the children, which was very rarely the case, or if both parents were dead, the children were distributed in families which adopted them with the specific agreement that they should be looked upon as members of the family. The guild officials looked after these children and saw that they were not abused and obtained special opportunities for their training, and supplied a dowry very often for the girls when they married. Indeed, there was a tradition that "the children of the guild," as these orphans were called, were likely to have better opportunities in life than those whose parents were still living.

In spite of all their care for the poor, the time had, as every time has had, the problem of the ne'er-do-well, the man with the _wanderl.u.s.t,_ who will not settle down anywhere and cannot be expected to keep steadily at work. They dealt with what we have come to call the tramp rather well. Above all, they avoided many of the abuses of public begging. The method is worth while noting. When a member of the guild died every member was expected to attend his funeral. Those that did not were fined a small sum, but yet sufficient to deter them from neglecting this obligation unless compelled by some necessity. These fines went into the common fund for the benefit of the poor and were given as alms for the intention of the dead brother's soul. Besides, every member was expected to give a small coin as further alms for the dead, and this sum of money was deposited with the treasurer of the guild for this special purpose. Each one who gave an alms was handed a token, which he might use as he saw fit. When a member of a guild met someone who looked as though he needed help, instead of giving him money he handed him this token and then the beggar might obtain whatever he needed most--food, lodging or clothing--by presenting the token to the treasurer of the guild, the s.e.xton of the church or any of the church wardens or the clergy. This prevented the abuse of charity, gave immediate relief where it was needed and did not pauperize, because the person benefited knew that the intention in what was given him was the benefit of a dead brother's soul and not merely pity for him.

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The number and efficiency of the activities of the guild can be best understood from a study of the history of the Guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford. Owing to the fact that interest in Shakespeare has led to a very careful study of every possible sc.r.a.p of information with regard to the life of the town during the century before his time, we are in possession of many details with regard to it. The Guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford came to represent nearly every form of initiative for the good of the townspeople. They had their periodic banquets, provided pageants, took care of the poor, built almshouses that were very different from poorhouses, cared for the orphans and disabled and supported the grammar school as well as helping some of their members to the higher education. The guild became so famous for its benefactions to the life of the town that distinguished members of the n.o.bility and judges, members of the professions and prominent merchants from all the surrounding neighborhood asked and obtained the privilege of becoming members. The guild acquired property and had a definite income. We know that in 1481 it acquired the rectory of Little Wilmcote, where the Ardens, the ancestors of Shakespeare's mother, had property, with all its profits.

One very interesting development in Stratford shows the difference between the poorhouses of subsequent centuries and the almshouses of Columbus' Century. Just next to the Guild School and Chapel in Stratford there is a row of little houses rather strange looking now, but not so unlike the houses of the time in which they were erected as to be noticeable. There are a dozen or more of these in which the aged poor were to live, husband and wife occupying the ground floor of a little house by themselves. Places were also provided in the upper stories of these houses for the widowers, spinsters and old bachelors who had become too old for work. They are neat little quarters, in which the old folks still live contented and which the visitor to Stratford finds of very great interest. The guild chapel not being far away, a few hundred feet from the farthest of them, even the feeblest of the old people who were not actually bedridden could have the consolation of going to church and special services at convenient hours {173} were held for them. As a matter of fact, after the rebuilding of the chapel by Sir Hugh Clopton, a great many of the townspeople, except on high festival days, used to go to the guild chapel because of its convenience rather than to Trinity Church outside the town. The boys at the guild school hard by played in their yard, where the old folk could see them, thus providing the best possible pastime for their elders, while during the day the busy traffic of a main travelled road went by them, furnishing further distraction.

The grammar school which was founded and supported by the guild deserves particular mention. It was free to the children of the members of the guild, and the schoolmaster was forbidden to take anything from his pupils. The master of the guild paid him an annual salary. The date of its origin used to be set down as 1453, but it is now known to have been in existence much earlier, though a thorough reorganization took place at this time, giving rise to the idea of its actual foundation. How successful it was in its work may be gathered from the number of Stratford men who came to hold high positions in England--there being no less than three Lord Chancellors in one century--and from what we know of it in Shakespeare's time. It was suppressed under Henry VIII, but owing to the disaffection among the people it, as well as a number of other inst.i.tutions of the kind, were reestablished under Edward VI and have come to be known as Edward VI Grammar Schools. As Gairdner has emphasized, there is very little reason for this designation. The new foundations were made most grudgingly and economically, considering the vast funds that had been confiscated. The grammar school was so effective in its teaching, however, that even the merchants' sons in Stratford wrote to one another in rather good Latin. Some of the letters are extant.

Some of these details serve to show very well the character of the social work accomplished by the guild, especially in its school and its almhouses. Sir Sidney Lee continues: "But in 1547 all these advantages ceased: The guild was dissolved and all the property came into the royal treasure." The account of what happened to some of these long-established funds for the benefit of the poor and of education is to be {174} found in his chapter. They were transferred to favorites of the King, who used them for various unworthy purposes and, above all, merely to keep up with the pampered luxury of the time.

Rev. Augustus Jessop, the Anglican rector of Seaming, in his volume of essays, "Before the Great Pillage," tells of other parts of England and that "the almshouses in which old men and women were fed and clothed were robbed to the last pound, the poor almsfolk being turned out in the cold at an hour's warning to beg their bread. Hospitals for the sick and needy, sometimes magnificently provided with nurses and chaplains, whose very _raison d'etre_ was that they were to look after the care for those who were past caring for themselves, these were stripped of all their belongings, the inmates sent out to hobble into some convenient dry ditch to lie down and die, or to crawl into some barn or hovel, there to be tended, nor without fear of consequences, by some kindly man or woman who could not bear to see a suffering fellow-creature drop down and die at their own door-posts."

How all this fine organization of social work ended has often been a mystery to students of the social history of this time. It is not difficult to understand, however, when the happenings of the latter part of Columbus' Century are recalled. Sir Sidney Lee, in his "Stratford-on-Avon," has told the story of the end of things so far as Stratford is concerned. I prefer to let him tell the story (page 101):

"The politicians who surrounded Henry VIII and Edward VI found the destruction of religious corporations not more satisfactory to their consciences than to their purses. In 1545 and in 1547 commissioners came to Stratford to report upon the possessions and const.i.tution of the Guild of the Holy Cross. The income was estimated at fifty pounds, one shilling, eleven pence halfpenny, of which twenty-one pounds, six shillings and eight pence was paid as salary to four chaplains. There was a clerk, who received four shillings a year; and Oliver Baker, who saw to the clock (outside the chapel), received thirteen shillings and four pence. 'Upon the {175} premises was a free school, and William Dalam, the schoolmaster, had yearly for teaching ten pounds. 'There is also given yearly,' the report runs, 'to xxiiij poor men, brethren of the said guild, lxiijs:iijd; vz. xs. to be bestowed in coals, and the rest given in ready money; besides one house there called the Almshouse; and besides v. or vjli. given them of the good provision of the master of the same guild.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHAPEL OF GUILD AT STRATFORD AND ALMHOUSES (RESTORED BY SIR HUGH CLOPTON, 1500)]

A typical instance of the way that wealthy men looked at their social duties during Columbus' Century is to be found in the case of Sir Hugh Clopton of Stratford-on-Avon. He was the Lord Mayor in 1492 and, having never married, he devoted his leisure and his wealth to philanthropy. Earlier in life he had made his fortune as a merchant in London. It was he who built New Place, which afterwards became Shakespeare's property. Just across the street stood the chapel of the guild and, as Sir Hugh was a prominent member when this edifice sadly needed restoration at the end of the fifteenth century, he provided for this. The chancel was left untouched, but the nave and tower as we have it were rebuilt by him. He died before the work was finished, but left enough money to secure its completion. It is a charming example of the perpendicular Gothic of the time and was decorated by elaborate paintings ill.u.s.trating the history of the Holy Cross. {176} These paintings were afterwards covered with whitewash, because the "reforming" spirit could not tolerate such representations, but in recent years some of them have been partly uncovered, disclosing how interestingly the work was done.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR HUGH CLOPTON'S BRIDGE AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON]

Still more interesting, and perhaps the present generation will consider it more practical, was Sir Hugh's rebuilding in solid stone of the old wooden bridge over the Avon at Stratford. It was constructed of free stone, with fourteen arches, and a long causeway also of Stone, well walled on each side, was added to it. How much this was needed can be judged from what Leland the antiquary, who visited Stratford about 1530 on a tour through England, noted in his account of his journey as to the great value of this gift. "Afore the time of Hugh Clopton," he wrote, "there was but a poor bridge of timber, and no causeway to come to it, whereby many poor folks either refused to come to Stratford when the river was up, or coming thither stood in jeopardy of life." The bridge is still standing to convince us of the workmanlike thoroughness with which its foundations were laid.

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When Sir Hugh Clopton came to make his will, Stratford largely benefited in other ways, as Mr. Sidney Lee, to whom we owe most of these details, has noted in his "Stratford-on-Avon" (London: Seeley & Co., 1907, page 94):

"He bequeathed also C. marks to be given to xx. poor maidens of good name and fame dwelling in Stratford, i.e., to each of them five marks apiece at their marriage; and likewise CI. to the poor householders in Stratford; as also Lli. to the new building, 'the cross aisle in the Parish Church there' (Dugdale). The testator did not, at the same time, forget the needs of the poor of London, or their hospitals; and on behalf of poor scholars at the Universities, he established six exhibitions at Cambridge and Oxford, each of the annual value of four pounds for five years." [Footnote 19]

[Footnote 19: It might possibly be thought that there were few opportunities for the making of fortunes of any significance in England at this time, and that therefore Sir Hugh Clopton's example would mean very little. As a matter of fact, however, this was the time when above all, fortunes were made rapidly and money flowed into England more than ever before. Taine in his "History of English Literature" quotes Acts of Parliament, the "Compendious Examination," by William Strafford, and other government doc.u.ments which make this clear. He sums the situation up by saying:

"Towards the close of the fifteenth century, the impetus was given commerce and the woollen trade made a sudden advance, and such an enormous one that cornfields were changed into pasture lands, 'whereby the inhabitants of the said town (Manchester) have gotten and come into riches and wealthy livings' so that in 1553, forty thousand pieces of cloth were exported in English ships. It was already the England which we see to-day a land of meadows, green, intersected by hedgerows, crowded with cattle, abounding in ships, a manufacturing, opulent land, with a people of beef-eating toilers, who enrich it while they enrich themselves. They improved agriculture to such an extent, that in half a century the produce of an acre was doubled."]

Sir Hugh Clopton's many benefactions ill.u.s.trate very thoroughly the feeling of many of those who had made money at this time, that they were stewards of their wealth for the benefit of the community. Civic philanthropy is sometimes supposed to be a much more modern idea than this century, and what was given for charity is sometimes thought to have been but poorly directed. As a matter of fact, wealthy men were {178} at least as thoughtful of their benefactions in that time as in our own. If Sir Hugh Clopton's varied works for his towns-people are to be considered as typical, and everything points to such a conclusion, they were even more likely to do enduring good. He did not specialize, but where he found a good work to do he did it. Indeed, the whole story of doing good for others in this time deserves the study of the modern time, because of its solution of many problems that we are facing now.

An interesting phase of their collections for charity was the continuance of the old custom which had existed for several centuries, of having a special day on which everyone who was approached by certain solicitors for charity was expected to give something. This was usually the day after Whit-Sunday. Sometimes in the English villages, at the entrance to a bridge, or across a market place or the main street of the town, a rope was stretched and everyone who pa.s.sed had to pay a toll for charity. Our modern "tag day" was a revival of this custom, though in the mediaeval towns, where everybody knew everybody else, there were less social dangers in the custom.

The Low Countries were very prosperous at this time and took up seriously the problem of helping the poor. As we have told more in detail in the chapter on "Hospitals and Care for the Insane," the order of Beguines took up the nursing and the visiting of the poor, and in many places the Beguinages a.s.sumed the character to some extent of inst.i.tutions for the care of the poor. The word poorhouses has becomes so unfortunate in its connotations that one would scarcely think of using it in connection with these almost separate village-like communities, with abundance of air and light, in which the young women of the better cla.s.ses took up their own life in small, neat, attractive houses and cared for the aged poor and children in little houses not far from their own. A great number of dependents were maintained mainly out of the revenues derived from the incomes which these young women of the better cla.s.ses brought with them into the inst.i.tution and from the funds contributed by friends who were interested in their good work. Our modern settlements are like them in certain {179} ways, but there are so many differences in favor of the older inst.i.tutions, which represent indeed an almost ideal way of exercising charity, that the contrast is striking.

Many of the religious orders that were doing such good work in Columbus' time have gone through many vicissitudes. Governments have often turned to enrich their favorites at the expense of charitable foundations in their hands, and it has been an easy way for politicians to get money. In spite of all this, some of them continue to do their work even at the present time. Among these the Beguines are particularly worthy of note. After the union of Holland and Belgium, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, William of Holland attempted to abrogate many of the rights of the Beguines and confiscate much of their property. The munic.i.p.ality of Ghent, in which the largest Beguinage was situated, sent a protest, in which they catalogued the great services of the order in times of war and epidemics, and the unfriendly purpose of the Holland Government was changed. In the nineteenth century the list of good works accomplished by the Beguines is very striking and some of them have been listed by Miss Nutting and Miss Dock in their "History of Nursing":

"In 1809-10 the Beguines of Belgium had devoted their whole strength to the service of the army during an epidemic of fever. During the war of 1813 their buildings were turned into hospitals, and after Waterloo they literally gave all they had to relieve the overwhelming distress. In 1832, 1849, and 1853 they again served n.o.bly in cholera epidemics. Besides their readiness as nurses, they have likewise not been wanting as good citizens. In 1821 they contributed a generous sum toward the establishment of munic.i.p.al industrial workshops, and have often acted as an aid society in dispensing contributions to sufferers from natural disasters, such as inundations and fires." That is a brief nineteenth-century chronicle of a charitable organization that was at an acme of its usefulness in Columbus' Century.

Such functions of helpfulness for those in need are now exercised by various organizations which are of comparatively {180} recent date.

Because these organizations are new, it is often supposed that the duties which they now fulfil were either quite unknown or almost entirely overlooked in the older time. It only requires a little study of the details of the social life and the organization of charity before the Reformation to appreciate how much was accomplished by the various religious orders. It has been so much the custom in English-speaking countries particularly to think that the religious were mainly occupied in their own little concerns, selfishly intent on the acc.u.mulation of means to enable them to live in idleness, that their real place in the life of the olden time has been almost entirely lost sight of. They represented the charitable organizations of all kinds that have come into prominence during this last few generations and that were so sadly needed. Their duties were accomplished by men and women who resigned all hope of profit for themselves and gave themselves entirely to these good works, thus obviating many of the abuses that are now beginning to be so manifest in charity organization.

The story of the establishment of the Monti di Pieta, lending inst.i.tutions for the poor in Italy, is one of the most interesting chapters not alone in the social work of this period, but of all periods. The original suggestion for them came from that great scholar, preacher and worker for the good of the people, St.

Bernardine of Siena, who died just before the opening of Columbus'

Century. Their organization, however, we owe to Blessed Bernardine of Feltre, that worthy son of St. Francis of a.s.sisi, who is generally represented in his pictures with that symbol of a Monte di Pieta, a little green hill composed of three mounds and on the top either a cross or a standard, with the inscription, _"Curam illius habe"_ (Have the care of it). As thus established these inst.i.tutions, the Monti di Pieta, were charitable lending houses, where the poor could obtain money readily for pledges and usually with very little cost to them beyond the repayment of the loan. At that time it was felt that charity might well care for the poor to this extent, and it was the custom for wealthy people who died to leave legacies by which unredeemed pledges of household necessaries might be restored to the poor without {181} the repayment of the loan. Such legacies, by the way, are not unusual even yet in the Latin countries, and at least two have been chronicled within the year. The spirit of these inst.i.tutions was excellent and they accomplished great good, spreading all over Italy and finding their way in some form into the Latin countries at least during Columbus' period.

St. Catherine of Genoa, whose work was done just about the beginning of Columbus' Century, is a typical example of the organizer of charity of this time. As a young widow she began to visit the patients in the hospital, and finally came to spend all of her time there, except such as was devoted to the visiting of the sick in their homes and the bringing of them into the hospitals. Soon she organized a number of others, or at least they gathered round her until a great work for charity was being done. Many of the n.o.blewomen of the time devoted some hours at least every week to visiting the sick in the hospitals.

There is a touching story told of Frances, d.u.c.h.ess of Brittany, who nursed through a severe illness her husband's successor on the ducal throne, who had treated her with great injustice. She afterwards retired to a Carmelite convent, where during an epidemic she nursed the stricken nuns through its whole course, and at the end of it laid down her own life. In the next century Evelyn, in his "Diary," tells of his surprise on visiting the hospitals in Paris to see how many n.o.ble persons, men and women, were waiting on them and "how decently and Christianly the sick in Charite [one of the great hospitals] were attended even to delicacy." This was only a continuation of the fine traditions of the older time, surprising to Evelyn because they had gone out entirely in Protestant England.

The period was particularly rich in social workers, especially those who used Christianity as the basis by which to enable men to help themselves. One of the greatest of these, whose influence so lives on even in our own time that Cardinal Newman loved to speak of him as his beloved Father Philip, was Philip Romolo Neri (1515-1595), better known as St. Philip Neri, the Apostle of Rome. He proved a rather brilliant scholar as a young man, but when a successful {182} business career was opening up for him he gave it all up and in 1533 arrived in Rome without any money, without having informed his father of the step that he was taking and after having deliberately cut himself off from the patronage of an uncle who had resolved to make him his heir. For a while he tutored and wrote poetry and Latin and Italian, and then studied philosophy at the Sapienza and theology in the school of the Augustinians. When he was about thirty he became the close friend of St. Ignatius Loyola, and many of the young men that gathered round him, because of his attractive, amiable character, found a vocation for the intellectual and spiritual life in the infant Society of Jesus.

In 1548, together with his confessor, he founded the confraternity of the Most Holy Trinity for the care of pilgrims and convalescents in Rome. Its members met for communion once a month and there was exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, a practice which was introduced by Philip. He sometimes preached even as a layman, and in 1551, at the command of his confessor, for nothing short of this would have overcome his humility, he entered the priesthood. He devoted his attention particularly to men and boys and succeeded in making them close personal friends. In the midst of this work priests gathered round him, and finally Gregory XIII recognized the little community as the Congregation of the Oratory. Pope Gregory XIV, who had previously been a great personal friend of Philip's, would have made him a cardinal only for the saint's great reluctance.

His little band of oratorians, among whom the most conspicuous was Baronius, the Church historian, did wonderful work in Rome and many other houses of this congregation came into existence. Few men that ever lived had so much influence over all those who came in contact with him as St. Philip Neri, and it is this personal influence that characterized the work of his congregation in the after-time. Newman and Faber and many of the distinguished converts of the Tractarian movement in England became members of the Oratory, and St. Philip's work has come down to our generation through them with very wonderful success. His career represents another example of the marvellous power of the {183} men of this time to create things of all kinds which influence all succeeding generations.

St. Philip Neri's contemporary and intimate friend, St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, is always thought of as a great organizer in education, seldom as a social worker. There was no phase of social need in Rome, however, to which he did not give his personal attention in spite of the many calls that there were on his time. He taught little children catechism and insisted that this should be a special feature of the work of his order in spite of its devotion to the higher education. He organized various inst.i.tutions for the poor and secured by his efforts the foundation of a home for fallen women in Rome and himself personally conducted through the streets to it some of those who were to enter. His example in this matter must be taken as a type of what many thoughtful persons of this time were ready to do in the accomplishment of what they saw as their social duties.

One of the great social reformers of the time whose unfortunate death has made him the subject of wide attention ever since was Savonarola, the Dominican monk, whose fate has been a sad stumbling-block of misunderstanding of the time. He used his great powers of oratory to bring about a social reform. It was sadly needed. Contact with the old pagan ideas through the new learning had made many of the people of the time even more selfish than usual. In the midst of the luxury and worldly interests of the time there had come a neglect of the old fellow-feeling of kindness and of charity that had characterized the Middle Ages. This affected mainly the so-called better cla.s.ses. It was this, above all, that Savonarola tried to reform. He succeeded in stirring up the people wonderfully, and it is probable that no one has ever succeeded in working such a revolution in the social feelings of a whole city as Savonarola did.

As a consequence of his ardent appeals people began a great reformation of city life by reforming themselves. The confessionals were thronged with penitents, the audiences outgrew the capacity of the largest church in Florence, that city of ample churches, and the very streets that had listened to nothing but pagan poetry for years resounded to the music {184} of hymns and psalms. A really important step in reform, however, was the great change in the att.i.tude of mind of men towards others, and especially those needy or in suffering. Men sold their goods and gave the proceeds to the poor. Women gathered together their vanities of all kinds, burned them in the market place and devoted themselves to the care of the ailing. Old feuds were made up, and thoughts of revenge put aside, though they had been the dearest traditions in families for generations. For some time there was probably never a happier community than Florence. No one was in want, selfishness was almost at an end and lawlessness quite unknown.

The conditions were too good to last among ordinary humanity.

Political bickering began and political factors of all kinds obtruded themselves on the movement. The citizens formed themselves into a Christian commonwealth, over which they wished Savonarola to rule.

After a time, intoxicated by the apparent success of the movement, not a few hoped to raise themselves to power in the midst of the rather quixotic political conditions that had developed, and almost needless to say they were urged on by certain of the ruling princes of Italy, who hoped themselves to benefit by conditions in Florence.

Long ago Horace said, "You may put away nature as with a fork, but she will come back." The supernatural ruled for a time in Florence, but the natural rea.s.serted itself and then the trouble began. Savonarola was its victim, but not before he had shown clearly what the evils of the time were and pointed out the path along which they might be reformed, though the sudden reformation of them could not be hoped for.

Savonarola was a social, and not a religious, reformer. He has often been proclaimed a pre-Reformation reformer, but there was no doctrine of the old Church that Savonarola did not accept, and it was for political and not theological reasons that he was put to death, though ecclesiastics had so much to do with it. All the characteristic doctrines of the Church--devotion to the Saints and to the Blessed Virgin, the Blessed Sacrament, Transubstantiation--are dwelt on in his writings, and he is even the author of a hymn to the Blessed Virgin {185} and of a treatise on devotion to her. Nor was he at all carried away with the idea of self-judgment and independence in religion. No one teaches more emphatically than he the power of the Pope and the necessity for obedience to Rome. Nothing stronger or more explicit in this regard has ever been written than some pa.s.sages that have been found in his writings.

It is too bad that his great social influence for good was not allowed to work itself out into important social reforms. Great churchmen of the after-time have recognized the sad misfortune of his death, and Pope Benedict XIV, whose authority in the matter of the canonization of Saints and the honor to be paid them is the highest, made use of an expression which shows in what lofty veneration Savonarola was held by one of the greatest of the popes. As Cardinal Lambertini, Pope Benedict said: "If G.o.d gives me the grace to get to Heaven, as soon as I shall have consoled myself with the Beatific Vision my curiosity will lead me to look for Savonarola." Half a century later a parallel expression, which is almost more striking, was reported to have been used by Pope Pius VII, who said: "In Heaven three serious questions will be solved: The Immaculate Conception, the suppression of the Society of Jesus and the death of Savonarola." [Footnote 20]

[Footnote 20: How soon this vindication of Savonarola began to be felt in the minds of high ecclesiastics will perhaps be best realized from the fact that when, some ten years after the friar's death, Raphael was asked to decorate the stanze of the Vatican, he introduced Savonarola beside St. Thomas Aquinas, among the great doctors of the Church in the very first fresco that he painted. This fresco was seen and studied carefully by the Pope and greatly praised by him. Almost needless to say Raphael's action in the matter would never have been permitted, only that the reaction in favor of Savonarola had set in very strongly.]

As a matter of fact, all the sentiment of the great Catholic scholars and historians of modern times has been intent on vindicating Savonarola's character. It is not the Church but churchmen who condemned him and not for religious but political reasons.