prayer, and their eyes suffused with tears-for such had been the instructions of Innocent. Their prayer was this:- That, according to the ancient custom and liberty of France, he would protect their father and pastor, the holy pontiff, against the insults of the emperor; that he would receive him, if necessary, into the bosom of his kingdom, as Alexander had formerly been received, while flying before the Emperor Frederic, and Thomas of Canterbury, in his persecution by Henry of England.' St. Louis descended from his seat, and placed himself in like manner upon his knees before the holy suppliants. But his reply was dictated by the calmest prudence and policy—that he would defend the Church, as his honour required, from the insults of the emperor; and no less willingly would he receive the exiled Pope into his kingdom, if his barons should so counsel him; but that a king of France could on no occasion dispense with the counsels of his nobles*. . It was no secret from the king, nor, perhaps, even from his monastic petitioners, that the barons of France would never consent to open their rich domains, as a refuge for the rapacious court of Innocent IV. If St. Louis, on the one hand, protected the liberties of his lay-subjects from the usurpations of the clergy, he was no less vigilant, on the other, in shielding all parties from the increasing exactions of Rome. Even from very early ages the Church of France had exhibited on some important occasions marks both of independence and good sense, above the level of other nations. The oriental absurdity of the Stylites was rejected by that more rational people. The rising authority of St. Leo was unable to silence the refractory bishops of France. The use of images was for some time discountenanced in that country. The Augustinian doctrine of predestination found, perhaps, its warmest adversaries among the divines of France. But most especially in the contest of Hinemar with Pope Nicholas, and some other occurrences of the ninth century, do we detect the spirit of a clergy not prepared to pay implicit obedience to the foreign autocrat of the Church. Nevertheless, no formal declaration of resistance-no national attempt to emancipate the Gallican Church from any of its fetters, or give it security by a separate constitution against further aggressions-had hitherto been made by any king of France. It was the last among the legislative acts of St. Louis to publish those institutions which formed the basis of the boasted' Liberties of the Gallican Church.' Just before his departure for Tunis, he issued his Pragmatic Sanction. It was founded on the necessity of distinguishing temporal from spiritual authority, and became, in after times, the foundation of a more extensive emancipation. Like those, however, which were built upon it, it was peculiarly directed against the pecuniary usurpations of Rome, and her claims to the patronage of the Church. The latter subject had indeed occasioned the earliest contentions between the empire and the Vatican, at a time when the rights of the dispute were on the side of the latter. But since the days of Innocent II., the usurpations, whether in the imposition of taxes, or the distribution of benefices, had proceeded from the court of Rome; and Louis IX. having acquired by his personal character, as well as his wise Establishments †,' the affection and fidelity of his subjects, felt strong enough to repress them. The Pragmatic *See Matthew Paris, ad ann. 1244. We must not confound this affair with a conference which did actually take place two years afterwards between the king and the Pope within the walls of Cluni. See Pagi, Vit. Innoc. IV., sec. xxxiii. + The Establishments of St. Louis' belong, for the most part, to civil history. It is - Accordingly, in the year 1269, that he might ensure the tranquillity of his Church and kingdom during his absence, and also secure for his enterprise the protection of God, he promulgated his celebrated Ordinance. It is comprised in six articles. (1.) The churches, the prelates, the patrons, and the ordinary collators of benefices, shall enjoy their rights to their full extent, and each shall be sustained in his jurisdiction. (2.) The cathedral and other churches shall possess the liberties of elections, which shall be carried into complete effect. (3.) We will, that simony, the pest of the Church, be wholly banished from our kingdom. (4.) Promotions, collations, provisions and dispositions of prelatures, dignities, and other ecclesiastical benefices and offices, whatsoever they may be, shall be made according to the institutions of common law, of the councils, and of our ancient Fathers. (5.) We renew and approve of the liberties, franchises, prerogatives, and privileges, granted by the kings our predecessors, and by ourselves, to churches, monasteries, and other places of piety, as well as to ecclesiastical persons. (6.) We prohibit any one from, in any manner, levying and collecting the pecuniary exactions and heavy charges which the Court of Rome has imposed, or may hereafter impose, upon the Church of our kingdom, and by which it has been miserably impoverished-unless it be for a reasonable and very urgent cause, or by inevitable necessity, and with the free and express consent of the king and of the Church *. Six years earlier, when the archbishop of Tyre arrived in France, as the legate of the Holy See, to impose a contribution on the clergy for the cost of a holy war, an assembly of bishops referred his Bull to the king, and ordained that, if any chose to accede to the claim, they would do so by their own free will, not through any legal compulsion from Rome. It is obvious, from these occasional ebullitions, to observe, that the sordid policy of Innocent IV. was already producing its effect, in disposing the secular clergy to resist the despotism of Rome. Fifty years had not yet elapsed from the death of that pontiff, when we find the prelacy of France placed in direct opposition to the Vatican, and a politic prince availing himself of that spirit to the disadvantage of the Holy See. As long as the only necessary to observe, that though many particular enactments were severe, and even barbarous, according to the estimation of a civilized age, they were founded upon principles of policy, and even humanity, far above those of the times in which they were promulgated. Le Roi (says Millot) devint législateur: l'anarchie féodale devoit finir. Another half century, and it did so. * Item exactiones et onera gravissima pecuniarum per Curiam Romanam Ecclesiæ regni nostri impositas vel imposita, quibus regnum nostrum miserabiliter depauperatum extitit, sive etiam imponendas vel imponenda, levari aut colligi nullatenus volumus, nisi duntaxat pro rationabili, pia et urgentissima causa, vel inevitabili necessitate, ac de spontaneo ac expresso consensu nostro et ipsius Ecclesiæ regni nostri.' There are some copies in which the last article does not appear. But there is more reason for the opinion, that it was curtailed in those, than interpolated in the rest. Though the other articles do not make express mention of the court of Rome, yet it seems clear that the second, third, fourth, and a part of the first, are levelled against it. See Fleury, liv. lxxxvi. sec. i. Dupin. Nouv. Biblioth., sec. xiii. chap. vii. The act was cited, as here given, by the Parliament to Louis XI., in 1483, and in the Act of Appeal of the University of Paris, in 1495. The Declaration of the bishops is given by Menard in his notes on Joinville, p. 287. The same spirit, of course, extended itself to the lower clergy. It was during this reign that a Curé at Paris thus addressed his congregation. You know, my brethren, that I am ordered to publish an excommunication against Frederic (II). I am ignorant of the motive. I am only certain that there has been a quarrel between that prince and the Pope-God alone knows which is right. I excommunicate him who has injured the other, and absolve him who has suffered the injury.' The congregation were amused with the sally. The emperor is said to have sent a present to the preacher; but the Pope condemned him to canonical penance; and he performed it accordingly. Popes were contented to make common cause with their clergy against the secular authorities, they were indeed strong and formidable. But when they openly distinguished between the interests of the court of Rome and of the rest of the hierarchy-when they proceeded to supply the luxuries, or forward the ambitious projects of the one by invading the revenues of the other-from that moment the despotism of the apostolical Chair, notwithstanding the swarm of Mendicants which it created for its defence, had parted with its only ground or hope of permanence. SECTION IV. On the Crusades. The report of the Council of Clermont wafted a cheering gale over the minds of Christians. There was no nation so remote, no people so retired, as did not respond to the papal wishes. This ardent wish not only inspired the continental provinces, but the most distant islands and savage countries *. Accordingly a mighty mass of fanaticism put itself in motion towards the East. The frame of society was convulsed, and seemingly dissolved; and as the will of Heaven is not uncommonly pleaded to justify the extravagance of man, the phenomena of the physical world were pressed into the same adventure: meteors and exhalations pointed out the road to Jerusalem, and the most ordinary signs of nature became portents and prodigies. The first burst of the storm fell upon some miserable Jews, who were living in peace under Christian protection, and many were massacred. It then rolled onwards; and the follies, the sufferings, and the crimes, which marked the progress of the first crusade, have not ever been equalled in the history of human madness. Nevertheless, as a military enterprize, it was successful. Some exploits were performed of extraordinary daring. The same agency which had lighted the flame was at hand to nourish it on every occasion of disaster; and the spirit that was chilled by famine or by fear, was immediately revived and inflamed by some new and stupendous miracle. Men who could be brought really to believe, while under the endurance of the most frightful reverses, that the favour of God was especially extended and continually manifested to them, were capable of more than human exertion; the entire abandonment of reason left space for the operation of energies which do not properly belong to man. The victory of Doryleum was followed by the siege of Antioch; the capture of that city led the way to the investment of Jerusalem itself; and the banner of the cross was finally planted on Mount Sion amidst horrors, which probably had not been paralleled since the triumph of Titus over the same devoted city. Respecting the double massacre inflicted upon the infidels, we shall merely remark, that it had not the excuse of hasty uncontrollable passion, but that it was designed and deliberate. A deeply settled resolution of revenge may have had some share in the deed, but the policy of extermination had probably more; and the spirit of religious persecution certainly directed the weapons and poisoned the wounds. In the mean time, Deux el volt-it is the will of God-was the watchword and the battle-shout of the Christians; it overpowered the prayers of the Malmsbury, p. 416. He continues: The Welshman left his hunting; the Scotch his fellowship with vermin; the Dane his drinking party; the Norwegian his raw fish. women and the screams of their dying children *; and was then loudest upon Sion and Calvary when the commandments of God and Christ were most insultingly violated. The loss of the Crusaders, in this first enterprize, is calculated with ✓ probability at about 1,200,000 lives; but the Holy Sepulchre was freed from the pollution of St. Bernard preaches the infidel; and, what perhaps was of more con- the Second Crusade. sequence, as respects the continuance of similar expeditions, a Latin kingdom was established in Jerusalem. It is remarkable, that not one of the sovereigns of Europe adventured his person, or even deeply risked his reputation, in the unknown perils of the first crusade. But, nearly fifty years afterwards, the loss of Edessa, and some other reverses in the East, awakened the sympathy of Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. of Germany, and they determined to aid an afflicted Christian and a brother king. For this purpose it was necessary to rouse the fury of Europe a second time; and the eager cooperation of St. Bernard secured success. A less powerful instrument might have answered the object. Any intemperate enthusiast † can excite his fellow-mortals to deeds of wickedness; the genius of St. Bernard was given him to do good to mankind-but it was contracted by the severity of monastic discipline; it was stained with the prejudices of an ignorant age; it was distorted by the very austerity of his virtues; it was misdirected even by his piety. He entered with ardour upon his mission of evil. He traversed fruitful provinces and populous cities. Vast multitudes everywhere assembled to applaud and to listen; and the energy of his delivery and the vehemence of his tones and action, roused the feelings of many, who were even ignorant of the language in which he addressed them ‡. Such excitement, in a matter where passion and not reason was engaged, produced every effect of persuasion; and if, besides, there were any so torpid, as to resist the natural eloquence of the holy man, he enjoyed that other resource, so potent in its influence where all the ordinary operations of the mind are suspended, he possessed the gift of miracles, and proved his heavenly mission (so his credulous panegyrists assert) by many preternatural signs. At the same time he affected, by a more dangerous assumption, the prophetic character; and, on the faith of Him, who can neither err nor deceive, he foretold and promised a splendid career of triumphs. Armed with so full and various a quiver against the feeble reason of a superstitious generation—with high personal celebrity and eloquence; with the support of powerful princes; with pontifical approbation; with the repute of supernatural aid, and pretensions to heavenly inspiration-what wonder was it that St. Bernard confounded the sense and broke up the repose of Europe; that he depopulated cities Christiani sic neci totum laxaverant animum, ut nec sugens masculus, aut fœmina, nedum infans unius anni vivens manum percussoris evaderet.-Albert, p. 283, cited by Mills, Hist. Crusades, chap. vi. + It is amusing to observe the contempt with which the Abbot of Clairvaux speaks of the hermit-preacher of the first crusade: Fuit in priori expeditione, antequam Hierosolyma caperetur, vir quidam, Petrus nomine, cujus et vos (ni fallor) sæpe mentionem audistis,' &c.-Bernard. Epist. 363, p. 328, vol. i. ed. Mabil. The reference is made by Mills, Hist. Crusades, chap. ix. Latin was the language which he indiscriminately addressed to the vulgar in all the provinces in which he preached. Since preternatural powers have been ascribed to him, it has been thought remarkable that the gift, of which he seemed to stand most in need, was perversely withheld, and provinces (such was his own rash boast), and sent forth the whole flower and vigour of Christendom on the holy enterprize! The history of religious war has not recorded any expedition at the same time more fatal and more fruitless, than the crusade of St. Bernard. After two or three years of suffering and disaster almost uninterrupted, a miserable remnant of survivors returned to relate their misfortunes and marvel at their discomfiture. A general outcry was raised against the author of those calamities; innumerable widows and orphans demanded of the prophet their husbands and their sires; or at least they claimed the sacred laurels which he had promised the triumphs which he had vouchsafed, in his dispensation of the boons of heaven, to the soldiers of the cross. The detected impostor was not ashamed to take shelter under the usual pretext of religious hypocrites. He asserted that his prophecies (the prophecies of God) were only conditional; that in foretelling the success of the crusaders, he had assumed their righteousness and the purity of their lives; that their own enormous crimes had diverted or suspended the designs of Providence, just as in ancient days the sins of the Jews in the wilderness had foiled the policy and foresight of Moses *. If at any time we can regard with levity any pious artifice of the meanest ecclesiastic for the most innocent purpose, still our smile is not unmixed with melancholy or contempt. But the crime of St. Bernard, the most enlightened prelate of his time, who usurped the attributes and forged the seal of God, in order to launch some hundreds of thousands of confiding Christians into probable destruction, or at best into successful massacre, excites a serious indignation, which it would be partial to suppress, and which neither his talents, nor his virtues, nor his piety, nor the vicious principles of his age, are sufficient to remove. Subsequent Crusades. Forty years after the departure of this expedition, in the year 1187, Saladin gained the battle of Tiberias, and soon afterwards recovered from the Christians the possession of the Holy City. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had struggled through eighty-eight years of precarious existence against internal dissension and tumult, and the perpetual aggressions of the infidel. Perhaps it must have yielded under any circumstances to the genius of Saladin; but its fate was precipitated by the feudal divisions of its defenders, the jealousy subsisting between the Knights of the Temple and those of the Hospital, and the violent quarrels in which the latter were engaged, through the effect of their papal immunities, with the avaricious hierarchy of Palestine †. The Third crusade (1189-92) was distinguished by the adventures of the lion-hearted Richard. The Fourth followed only three years after *This celebrated passage is in the beginning of the second book of his Treatise, 'De Consideratione,' addressed to Pope Eugenius III., and should be cited:- Moyses educturus populum de terra Ægypti meliorem illis pollicitus est terram. Nam quando ipsum aliter sequeretur populus, solam sapiens terram? Eduxit; eductos tamen in terram quam promiserat non introduxit. Nec est quod ducis temeritati imputari queat tristis et inopinatus eventus. Omnia faciebat Domino imperante, Domino cooperante, et opus confirmante sequentibus siguis. Sed populus ille, inquis, duræ cervicis fuit, semper contentiosè agens contra Dominum et contra Moysem servum ejus. Bene illi creduli et rebellesHi autem quid? Ipsos interroga. Quid me dicere opus est quod fatentur ipsi? Dico ergo unum- Quid poterant conficere, qui semper revertebantur, cum ambularent? Quando et isti per totam viam non redierunt corde in Ægyptum? Quod si illi ceciderunt et perierunt propter iniquitatem suam, miramur istos, eadem facientes, eadem passos! Sed numquid illorum casus adversus promissa Dei? Ergo, nec istorum. Neque enim aliquando promissiones Dei justitiæ Dei præjudicant.' This subject will be again mentioned in the twenty-sixth chapter. |