knights and barons, because they fight for their country, and expose themselves to many dangers, and manfully to death, and prefer the common to all private and selfish good. How much more is Christ to be praised and to be loved who was crucified and slain for us all that we might live for ever and reign with him in heaven *." You perceive what were the motives that sunk the scale with men of these times, the wings by which their souls were raised aloft, and made the guests of heaven. The clergy of the middle ages have been condemned for preaching with great vehemence against customs which were in themselves trivial or indifferent. In the eleventh century, they opposed themselves to the extravagant fashion of men wearing long hair like women, floating down their shoulders. Robert, count of Flanders, who had so distinguished himself at the siege of Jerusalem, having gone to St. Omer, to celebrate the festival of Christmas, a number of prelates and lords repaired there. The holy Godefroi, bishop of Amiens, was of the number, and the count begged him to sing the mass of midnight, which he did. But when the lords came to the offering, a similar scene occurred as that which took place at Cremona, which was observed in the last book; for the bishop would not admit any one who wore this long hair. The courtiers began to murmur, and to ask who was this bishop that assumed such authority in a strange diocese ? Learning that it was Godefroi, so renowned for his extraordinary piety, they resolved to sacrifice the vain ornament of their hair rather than deprive themselves of the benediction of such a holy bishop. Immediately they began to cut off their hair, some with their knives, and others even with their swords t. Men ridicule the preachers and moralists of the middle ages, for laying such stress upon peculiar fashions of dress, and for opposing certain novelties with such vehemence; yet St. Clemens Alexandrinus, who saw the old civilization, does not think it unfitting to occupy several pages of his philosophic treatises with similar disquisitions; and against embroidered sandals, Attic and Sicyonian shoes and Persian buskins, he declaims with as much energy as any monk ever evinced in combating * Serm. III. Pars I. Recherches Hist. sur le Diocèse de Séez, p. 257. the shoes with long points*. The fact is, that even in what relates to the clothing of the body, men can be unjust, and therefore to condemn the zeal of ecclesiastics in combating particular innovations, without knowing on what grounds they opposed them, is both rash and unphilosophicalt. Every kind of absurd refinement or barbarism has been from age to age combatted by the clergy, who were the guardians of good taste as well as of religion and morals. Was it ridiculous to oppose the introduction of an effeminate costume, which of itself might have softened the character of a whole people? or to abolish indecent ceremonies at weddings, or the fashion of daubing the face with red and white paint? The statutes of the city of Verona record, that at the persuasion of St. Bernardine of Sienna, the games which used to be celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent, were transferred to the Thursday before Quinquagesima; and at Perugia, where many yearly lost their lives at certain tournaments, he prevailed on the magistrates to ordain that in future only blunted and inoffensive weapons should be used in the conflict. So also Bernardine Feltrensis persuaded the magistrates of Verona to put off to a less solemn day, a grand tournament which had been prepared for the festival of St. John the Baptist, and which the people were eagerly expecting. Did not such interference serve the cause of humanity and of religion, by keeping it pure from an association with passions of a doubtful character? Upon the whole, the preaching of the clergy, during the middle ages, as well as every other mode of extending their influence, was worthy of the ages of faith, in regard to the thirst and fulfilment of justice. Even considered merely as philosophic discussions, their sermons are entitled to all possible attention. They furnish proof that the ecclesiastical superiors of those days, with all their solicitude for the sacred deposit of faith, and all their reverence for antiquity, were not afraid of genius in the pulpit. No doubt to persons who only read them, there appears to be much repetition and unnecessary development; but it should be remembered, that they were addressed to different persons in Stromat. Lib. II. c. 11. + Drexelius de Cultu Corporis. Maillardi Sermones in die Sancti Joannis Baptistæ. succession, and that it entered not into the imagination of those who heard them to desire novelty. "Let us not be weary of repeating the same things, since we speak to new hearers," says St. Augustin. Does it not often happen that when we show to persons who have never before seen them, certain spacious and beautiful places, either in cities, or in the country, which from long habit of seeing we ourselves pass by without any pleasure, we find our delight revived in the pleasure which novelty inspires in them? and in proportion as they are more bound to us by the chains of love, these things that had been old and familiar become new to us. How much more then ought we to be delighted when we approach to learn respecting God, on account of whom all things whatever that are to be said, are said; so that our preaching, which had become frigid from being often heard, should be renovated by the impression of novelty upon them, and should grow fervent in consequence of their not being accustomed to hear it * ?" In regard not only to the traditions of the early church, but also to all the old and precious virtues of humanity, the desire of the clergy was that of the great Mantuan— "Ferre per antiquos patrum vestigia gressus, That the people were to be fed with the plain and vivifying food of apostolic doctrine, and not with the empty and unintelligible sounds of a vain philosophy, was proclaimed even by the material monuments of the middle age; for on the pulpit supported by eight columns, which bishop Tustin in the year 1180 placed in the cathedral of Mazara, in Sicily, might be read this inscription, “Prædica evangelium meum universæ creaturæ. Ad cœlum via non fuerat Babylonica turris +." But what matter could be found more abundant for a grave and copious discourse than the high themes of eternal providence, and the stupendous mysteries of human redemption? The great rhetorical masters of antiquity esteemed that they had chosen the grandest subjects, when they treated on * S. August. de catechizandis rudibus. virtue, on providence, on the origin of souls, on friendship. "These are the things" adds Quinctilian, "by means of which both the mind and the language are elevated, when we show what things are truly good, what mitigates fear, restrains cupidity. When we learn to despise the opinions of the vulgar, and to believe that the mind is celestial," all which certainly acquire an infinite exaltation, and wholly a divine character, as we find them in the Catholic doctors, whose discourses might dispense men from ever consulting the worthies whom he opposes to the world, the Fabricii, Curii, Reguli, Decii, and Mutii. What other men will be able to speak like the Gregories, the Bernards, the Anselms, the Bedes, the Fenelons, the Challoners, on fortitude, on justice, faith, continence, frugality, contempt of pain and death? And to what class of mankind, or to what regions did not their divine instructions extend? Through their lips did the Creator send his word to the earth, and it ran swiftly; he sent forth his voice and he melted the congealed hearts; at the breathing of his Spirit the waters flowed. No longer exclusively were Jacob and Israel to be satiated, but to every nation did he send the living streams of the true life, and manifest his justice and his judgments. CHAPTER VI. To the morality of the ages of faith, and to that of the middle ages in particular, there belonged many remarkable characteristics which cannot be mistaken or overlooked by any one who studies history with attention and fidelity. In the first place, according to the distinction of Nicholas de Lyra, it was heroic, which was to say much in brief. Principles, thoughts and deeds bore that stamp. Proof of this may be found in every work which transmits to us a knowledge of those times, not excluding even the testimonies of poets and painters, for they did but copy what they beheld around them when they imparted to those whom they represented that external dignity and grandeur which was only produced by the greatness of the heart within. What senatorial majesty in Titian's countenances ! What a divine serenity in Godfrey of Bouillon, as described by Tasso "His face and forehead full of noblesse were And on his cheek smiled youth's purple beams; As Spenser says, "All good and honour might therein be read, This proclaimed the presence of that heroic and divine virtue which Homer, in whose mind its ideal passed, makes Priam ascribe to Hector, saying that he was greatly good οὐδὲ ἐῴκει ̓Ανδρός γε θνητοῦ πάϊς ἔμμεναι, ἀλλὰ θεοῖο. In fact, the beatitudes to which the Catholic manners were wholly directed, involve of necessity actions eminently heroic, as St. Bernardine of Sienna remarks, accepting even the exact Homeric distinction of excellently good t. "The virtue of justice in man” saith he, "is twofold, common or political, by which he renders to others what is reasonably due; and excellent, attended with hunger and thirst, when he pays the debt of justice with a fervent desire, and speculates to work it with subtilty ." Instances of this subtle speculation to act justly, producing no doubt extraordinary effects—for spirits are not finely touched but to fine issues-are the occasion of many sublime and wondrous episodes in the history of the middle ages, but such as are completely unintelligible to the moderns, to whom they appear precisely the most striking * XX. 7. + Tom. III. s. IV. Tom. III. de Beatit. |