Peter Abelard was born in 1079 at Le Pallet in Brittany
and
was the son of a knight.
He renounced his inheritance in order
to study philosophy in France.
Abelard argued with two teachers
of opposing views.
Roscelin as a nominalist believed that universal
ideas are
merely names, while William of Chapeaux was called a
realist
because he held that the Platonic ideas are real.
Abelard
took the moderate position that such ideas exist
as concepts,
which is the philosophical view of Aristotle;
but ironically Aristotle's writings on this
were not known in
Europe until later.
Abelard set up his own school at Melun
and
then at Corbeil near Paris.
Ill health from overwork caused him
to spend several years in Brittany.
Bernard, the master of the
cathedral school at Chartres from
1114 to 1119, said that they
have perceived more because
they have mounted on the shoulders
of giants who came before them.
Many in the twelfth century believed
in progress.
Gilbert of Tournai wrote that they would not find
the truth
if they contented themselves on what was already known.
What was written before should be guides, not laws,
because the
truth is open to all and is not yet fully possessed.
Abelard returned to France to study theology
with Biblical
scholar Anselm of Laon.
About 1117 Abelard tutored young Heloise;
they fell passionately in love, and he composed songs about her.
Though her uncle Fulbert, a church canon,
tried to separate them, they were found in bed together.
When Heloise became pregnant,
they went to Brittany,
where their son Astralabe was born
and
given to Abelard's sister to raise.
Heloise preferred to be his
mistress, because marriage
might ruin his reputation and ecclesiastical
career;
but apparently Abelard persuaded her to marry him secretly.
To escape her uncle, Heloise lived in a convent at Argentuil
near
Paris; but Fulbert sent his kinsmen,
who castrated Abelard.
The
servant of Abelard, who was bribed to let them
into his room was
castrated and blinded
as was one of the men who was caught.
Abelard
made the reluctant Heloise become a nun,
and he became a monk
at the royal abbey
of Saint-Denis near Paris in 1119.
Although
still married,
they apparently did not meet for many years.
Abelard demonstrated his dialectical method of arguing both
sides of religious questions in his Yes and No (Sic
et Non).
Abelard was influenced by Augustine, and in this
book on the
question whether it is lawful for Christians to kill
anyone
for any cause, he presented only the arguments of Augustine
that it is lawful when war or punishment make it necessary.
Abelard's book Theologia analyzed the Trinity and was
condemned for heresy at the Council of Soissons in 1121.
Abbot
Guibert of Nogent described a Soissons trial for heresy
that had
occurred in 1114 in which two local peasants had
been accused
of holding meetings outside the church.
After blessing a deep
vat of water, the accused
Clement was bound and tossed into the
tank.
Since Clement floated, it was believed
the "holy water"
had rejected him.
The threat of that ordeal induced
the other
accused peasant to confess.
Two others, whom Guibert called "established
heretics,"
came to witness these events and were imprisoned
with them.
Actually none of them admitted anything heretical,
and the only evidence was hearsay.
Yet Guibert recorded that people
broke into the prison
and burned them, showing what he called
a "righteous zeal."1
Abelard was also aware that his
teacher Roscelin had been
accused of heresy and had been nearly
killed in 1093,
and the influential Bishop of Ivo of Chartres
had said that he deserved it.
According to historian Otto of Freising,
Abelard was not
granted the opportunity of making a reply,
because
they mistrusted his skill in disputation.
Thus it is not surprising
that Abelard submitted to the
Council of Soissons and threw a
copy of his own book
into the flames; but he apparently
kept a
copy and later expanded the work.
After arguing that St. Denis of Paris was not the same person
as Dionysius the Areopagite, the convert of Paul,
Abelard faced
a trial before the King of France
and fled to Champagne.
In 1125
he accepted a position as abbot at the St. Gildas
de Rhuys monastery
on the remote coast of Brittany.
The monks there disliked Abelard,
and after two attempts on his life he returned to France.
In 1129
Heloise and nuns under her were expelled
from Argenteuil by Suger
of St. Denis.
Abelard had been provided land where his followers
could
gather, and he gave the nuns his hermitage he called the
Paraclete and became their abbot; he designed their rules
emphasizing
silence, composed hymns,
and encouraged literary progress.
In 1132 Abelard wrote his "Story of Troubles"
(Historia
calamitatum) so that the readers by comparison
would see that
their trials are slight and easier to bear.
Heloise responded
to this writing in a letter, admitting that
she was both wholly
guilty and wholly innocent.
Heloise expressed the ethical view
of pure intention that
Abelard would also promulgate when she
wrote,
"It is not the deed but the intention of the doer
which makes
the crime, and justice should weigh not what was done
but the spirit in which it is done."2
Abelard's ethical works were probably
written between 1135
and 1140.
In the short Know Yourself Abelard analyzed sin
and
concluded that actions alone do not make humans good
or bad in the sight of God; but the conscious intention
of the person is the factor of ethical importance.
Weaknesses can make one prone
to sin;
but guilt only comes with consenting to them.
He would
later be condemned for writing that neither
the action nor the
desire nor the pleasure is a sin,
and he would not wish to extinguish
it.
For Abelard sin is contempt for the will of God,
either in
not doing what we believe God would have us do
or in doing what
we believe God does not approve.
According to Abelard people are
not guilty for committing
evil deeds out of ignorance,
as Jesus forgave those who crucified
him.
He defined venial sins as momentarily forgetting that
our
consent should be withheld,
while mortal sins are more deliberate.
Thus all sin is subjective, and repentance is subjective as well.
Abelard believed that fear and the spirit of bondage
can never
be pure motives of love.
Both Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux
believed that
Jesus came
to teach people how to love.
Abelard suggested that the redemption
of Christ
enables us to move from motivation by fear to love,
because in true freedom as children of God
we are liberated from
the servitude of sin.
In his Dialog of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian
Abelard described the ethical philosophies of what Hugh of
St.
Victor had called the three periods of the world—
the natural
law of the philosophers, the written law of Moses,
and the grace of Christ.
In the dialog the philosopher inquires
about the scriptures of the other two.
All three agree that the
true love of God is sufficient
for every virtue; but the philosopher
questions
the limitations of the Jewish law.
The philosopher seeks
the supreme good
and agrees that it is God.
He notes that Augustine wrote that
charity
includes all the virtues.
The philosopher emphasizes that virtue
alone makes us blessed,
and he analyzes the four classical virtues
of Socrates—
prudence, justice,
courage, and temperance.
Prudence is defined as the knowledge
of good and evil,
and Aristotle considered it a science,
which
he distinguished from the virtues.
Like faith and hope, prudence
is a guide to the virtues.
Justice is the virtue that gives to
every person what is due
while preserving the common good.
The
public interest should be held above domestic advantage,
and Socrates
even argued that everything should be held
in common, including
wives, by which he meant
not the carnal pleasures but their children.
The philosopher describes courage as a shield against fear
and says temperance is a bridle to restrain lustful desire.
These
powers are the virtues that can help to carry out justice.
He
also describes courage as the reasonable endurance
of trials and
taking on dangerous tasks.
For the philosopher temperance is a
firm and moderate
control exercised by reason over lust and other
impulses.
Reverence is the part of justice that respects God
and
those deserving veneration.
Beneficence assists those in distress
and consists of generosity
that grants necessities to those in
need and of clemency that
liberates those who are unjustly oppressed
by violence.
Mercy aids all who are afflicted.
Veracity is keeping
promises, and vindication is punishing faults.
Each person should
imitate God by taking care of all
just as God is the governor
of the entirety
of the one great republic.
The philosopher distinguishes
the natural justice of these
virtues from the positive justice
that is based
on the written laws of human institutions.
The philosopher
also emphasizes humility and frugality,
which bridles excess.
The Christian argues that deserved punishment is just and
therefore
good; what is bad is what makes people worse.
As loving God is
the supreme good,
so hating God is the supreme evil.
The Christian
believes that the vision of God
is what makes people good.
Bernard of Clairvaux believed that Abelard was allied
to the
revolutionary Arnold of Brescia.
Bernard wrote to Pope Innocent
II that Abelard's mouth
should be shattered with cudgels rather
than rebutted
with arguments, and he asked if he did not provoke
all men's hands against him.
Arnold of Brescia led the radicals
that gathered around
Abelard in the Paris area, and he urged Abelard
to
debate his critic Bernard at the Council of Sens in 1140;
but
instead of an open discussion,
Bernard charged Abelard with heresy.
Aware that Tanchelm of Utrecht had been put to death
for heresy in 1115 and also Peter de Bruys about 1132,
Abelard refused to
defend or renounce his writings,
appealed to the Pope, and left
the Council,
which condemned nineteen of Abelard's points
that Bernard had presented during a banquet.
Bernard wrote to Pope
Innocent II emphasizing
Abelard's pride and refusal to acknowledge
authority.
On the way to Rome Abelard stopped and stayed with
Peter the
Venerable at Cluny in Burgundy.
There Abelard learned that the
Pope silenced him as a heretic,
excommunicated his followers,
ordered him and
Arnold of Brescia to be confined in religious
institutions,
and his books were to be burned.
Peter the Venerable's
request asking the Pope to let
Abelard remain at Cluny as a monk
was accepted,
and the sentence was later lifted.
Retired from
teaching, Abelard wrote defenses of his views,
accusing Bernard
of perverting justice.
Abelard died at Cluny about 1142.
A new order of nuns and monks was founded by the hermit
Robert
of Arbrissel under an abbess at Fontevrault
and was approved by
Pope Paschal II in 1106.
Its other houses extended into Anjou,
Touraine, Berri,
and Poitou, and by 1145 it was said that
Fontevrault
alone had as many as 5,000 nuns.
In 1098 Abbot Robert of the Benedictine
monastery
at Molesme and six monks, dissatisfied with the lack
of discipline, had migrated to the desolate Citeaux
to begin a
new house also based on the Rule of Benedict.
Its legislator,
the Englishman Stephen Harding,
came there in 1109, and four years
later Bernard arrived
with his brothers and thirty companions.
The Cistercian Order established its principles in the
Charter
of Love (Carta Caritatis) by Stephen Harding
that was confirmed
by Pope Calixtus II in 1119.
By then there were twelve Cistercian
monasteries,
including two in Clairvaux.
The Charter of Charity
renounced the avarice of worldly
advantage and was intended to
maintain peace between
the houses; but Citeaux was less autocratic
than Cluny
as each house had some autonomy
within the Cistercian
pattern.
Stephen simplified the rituals by eliminating gold
and
most silver and ornamental embroidery.
Bernard was born in 1091 into an aristocratic
family of Burgundy
near Dijon.
His mother Aleth was considered a virtuous influence
on him,
and her death in 1107 turned him more toward a religious
life.
Bernard entered the Citeaux community in 1113,
and two years
later he was confirmed as abbot
by Bishop William of Champeaux.
In 1117 Stephen Harding appointed Bernard to lead a small
group
that founded a Cistercian monastery
at Clairvaux in difficult
circumstances.
Two years later William of Champeaux arranged for
Bernard
to live outside the monastery in a hut.
In 1125 Bernard
tried to intervene in an internal conflict
at Cluny, and he wrote
his Apologia.
The next year Bernard wrote a letter answering the question,
"Why and how God should be loved?"
He believed that
God is so great as to
deserve our love beyond measure.
There are
rewards for loving God,
but earthly things cannot satisfy the
human heart.
Bernard defined four degrees of love.
The first is
loving oneself for one's own sake
and is a carnal love.
The second
degree is to love God but still for one's own sake,
and the third
is to love God for God's sake.
Finally, in the fourth stage a
person does not even
love oneself except for the sake of God.
When the mind is inebriated with divine love, self is forgotten
as one becomes joined as one spirit with God.
However, Bernard
believed that this perfect love was not
attainable even by souls
liberated from their bodies
until the resurrection.
Bernard participated in the Council of Troyes in 1128 about
the Templars, and he wrote "Praise to the New Militia"
though
he refused to establish an abbey for the knights in Palestine.
When two Popes were elected in 1130, Bernard defended
the claim
of Innocent II, and for several years he traveled
in France, Germany,
and Italy urging his recognition.
Innocent II visited Clairvaux
in 1131 and exempted the
Cistercians from the duty of paying tithes.
In 1135 Bernard supported the papal party in Germany
at Bamberg
and urged Emperor Lothar to launch
a military campaign against
Roger II of Sicily.
Two years later Bernard persuaded Cardinal
Peter of Pisa
to join the party of Pope Innocent.
After getting Abelard condemned for heresy,
Bernard opposed
Bishop William FitzHerbert of York.
Bernard warned the bishop
of Constance about the dangerous
Arnold of Brescia, and the radical
monk
was soon expelled from Zurich.
After Pope Lucius II was killed
in Rome by those resisting
papal authority, in 1145 the cardinals
elected Cistercian abbot
Bernard Paganelli to be Pope Eugenius
III.
Since he knew him quite well, Bernard of Clairvaux felt that
he had been called back from the dead to worldly influence.
Three
days after his election Eugenius fled from armed
Romans to France,
and Bernard became his chief advisor.
This Pope made Bernard the
main orator for the second
crusade in 1146, and the next year
Bernard traveled to
Germany to promote the crusade and to stop
the
persecution of Jews by crusaders.
Bernard persuaded the Council
of Rheims to condemn
the teachings of Gilbert de la Porrée
in 1148.
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote five letters to Pope Eugenius
published
as On Consideration.
In the first letter Bernard advised
the Pope how to avoid the
pressures of the office so that he would
not be distracted,
and so his heart would not become hardened.
Why should he spend the entire day
listening to the verbal wrangling
of litigants?
This sophistry subverting judgment has more to do
with the laws of Justinian than of the Lord.
The Pope should have
time to pray, meditate, and think.
Action suffers if it is not
preceded by consideration.
The virtue of patience does not mean
allowing yourself to be enslaved.
His devotion to mankind is not
complete
if it does not consider himself.
Bernard reminded the
Pope that his power
is over sin and not property.
Bernard argued
that consideration purifies the mind and also
"controls the
emotions, guides actions, corrects excesses,
improves behavior,
confers dignity and order on life,
and even imparts knowledge
of divine and human affairs."3
He believed that temperance
rejects what is excessive
and accepts what is necessary.
He wrote
that justice is not doing to another what one
would not wish done
to oneself
and not denying another what one wishes for oneself.
He asked if not to give time for pious and beneficial leisure
is not to lose your life.
He found fraud, deceit, and violence
running rampant
in the land as the powerful oppress the poor.
He recommended that Eugenius refuse some business,
assign some
to others, and decide
with deliberation what he does hear.
In the second letter to Pope Eugenius in 1149 Bernard
defended
himself after the failure of the crusade that left
Christians
prostrate in the desert,
slain by the sword or destroyed by hunger.
Bernard defined consideration as thought searching for truth,
and in the last four letters he told the Pope to consider yourself,
what is below you, what is around you, and what is above you.
Bernard emphasized self-examination and the testimony of
conscience
so that he may know his deficiencies.
He warned that discretion
can be blinded
by anger and extreme soft-heartedness.
The third
letter considered what is below him, and Bernard
suggested that
the Pope preside in order to
provide, counsel, administer, and
serve.
Lift up the oppressed and restrain the ambitious.
Bernard
warned against excessive appeals and wrote that
they must be from
a court decision
unless it is a clear case of injury.
In the fourth
letter on things around him Bernard mentioned
the sword that is
at his command although it is not to be
drawn by his hand but
by the hand of the knight at the bidding
of the priest and at
the command of the Emperor.
The last letter on things above him
advised the Pope
how he should relate to God and the angels.
In 1150 the Council of Chartres appointed Bernard
to lead another
crusade;
but the Cistercians refused to give him permission.
In
his last years Bernard wrote 86 sermons on the
Biblical Song
of Solomon, using the allegorical method
to give his mystical
interpretations.
Bernard died a few weeks after
Pope Eugenius
passed on in 1153.
Under the influence of the anti-intellectual
Bernard
the Cistercians emphasized labor and choir according to
strict schedules that left monks little time for anything else.
In the 11th and 12th centuries the monastery schools were
surpassed
by the cathedral schools at Tours, Orleans, Utrecht,
Liege, Rheims,
Chartres, and Paris;
the development of liberal arts at Paris
about 1170 began the
rise of the great medieval universities.
Philip II granted the University of Paris a charter in 1200.
Aelred came from a family of married priests in
Northumberland, and as a youth he was sent to be raised
with the sons of King
David at the Scottish court.
Aelred became a Cistercian monk at
Rievaulx about 1134
and an abbot at Revesby in 1143,
returning
to Rievaulx as abbot four years later.
Aelred advised Henry II
to support Louis VII
and Pope Alexander III in 1162, and he died
in 1167.
He wrote a biography of Edward the Confessor,
and in A Rule of Life for a Recluse Aelred warned
anchoresses
about gossiping, manipulating children with
slaps and kisses,
and moral lapses
in the chapter on the outer person.
In discussing
the inner person he examined various
motivations, and the third
chapter gave advice on meditation.
His last work was on the soul,
but he is most famous for his Spiritual Friendship.
Aelred of Rievaulx's first major work was
The Mirror of
Charity on monastic life.
He was urged to write this book
by Bernard of Clairvaux
in 1142 to help monks who are struggling
with the stricter ways of the Cistercians.
Aelred began by noting
that nothing is more deserved
than a creature's love for its Creator,
and he refuted the fool who says there is no God.
He observed
that humans withdraw from God
because of mental attachments,
but
God's image may be restored by charity.
Human love tends to be
split between the opposites
of being charitable or self-centered.
Humans try to find rest in bodily pleasure or in worldly power,
but it can only be found in the easy yoke of charity.
Those who
complain about the weight of the Lord's burden
are really suffering
from the world's burden.
Other virtues serve charity in this life,
and after this life
they are absorbed in the fullness of love.
The desire to dominate corrupts the mind and leads
to tyranny, and only God's help can free one from its power.
Our love is moved
to desire and action
either by attachment or by reason.
Aelred
explained that attachment can be spiritual, rational,
irrational,
dutiful, natural, or physical.
One can be attached to good or
evil spirits.
Rational attachment arises from love for the virtue
of another person, but irrational attachment
is an inclination
to someone's defects.
Dutiful attachment arises from service or
deference.
Natural attachment is to a family relative,
and physical
attachment is to someone attractive.
Ultimately the mind is moved
to reason by love of God
and one's neighbor as to oneself,
and
these can regulate the various attachments.
In the prolog of Spiritual Friendship Aelred confesses
that
he has been devoted to love from his youth when
he discovered the work on friendship by Cicero.
When he became abbot at Rievaulx, he decided to write
on spiritual
friendship as a guide for chaste and holy love.
In the first book
he described
the nature and origin of friendship.
In a dialog
with Ivo he hopes that Christ is present also.
Ivo asks him how
friendship can be preserved
according to the spirit of Christ.
Aelred related Cicero's definition that
"Friendship is mutual
harmony in affairs human
and divine coupled with benevolence and
charity."4
He also noted that Jerome wrote that a friendship
that ceases was never a true friendship.
Aelred argued that whoever
loves iniquity hates
one's own soul and therefore does not love.
Carnal love is mutual harmony in vice,
and worldly love is motivated
by hope for gain;
but spiritual love is based on similarity of
life, morals,
and pursuits among the just.
He distinguishes charity
from friendship, because it should
extend to the hostile and perverse
whereas friendship
cannot exist between the good and the wicked.
Only the few good truly know friendship,
and he goes so far as
to write that
those who abide in friendship also abide in God.
After the passage of several years Aelred discussed in the
second book of Spiritual Friendship its fruits and excellence.
He was careful to differentiate true friendship from flattering
subservience, agreement on vices,
and the commerce of mutual advantages.
Nothing should be denied to a friend unless it involves sin,
which
separates God from the soul.
Ultimately as Jesus
demonstrated, one may even go so far
as to lay down one's life
for a friend.
In the third and last book Aelred conversed on the
conditions
and character of friendship.
His foundation is love of God.
Since
nothing is worse than injuring friendship, Aelred warned
that
a friend must be chosen with care and tested so that
in the friendship
there will be no division of
minds, feelings, wills, or judgments.
Aelred described four stages toward perfect friendship as
selection,
probation, admission, and harmony
in charity and benevolence.
In the selection process he warned against the quarrelsome,
the
fickle, the suspicious, and the talkative.
Five vices that can
damage friendship enough to dissolve it
are upbraiding, slander,
pride, disclosing a secret,
and treacherous persecution or secret
detraction.
Aelred believed in continuing to love even if one
is offended;
although bad conduct may cause one to withdraw friendship,
love should continue.
He added a sixth cause for ending friendship
if the friend
injures those whom one loves equally well.
The four
elements Aelred found in friendship are
love, affection, security,
and happiness.
He explained,
Love implies the rendering of services with
benevolence; affection an inward pleasure
that manifests itself exteriorly; security,
a revelation of all counsels and confidences
without fear and suspicion; happiness,
a pleasing and friendly sharing of all events
which occur, whether joyful or sad, of all
thoughts, whether harmful or useful,
of everything taught or learned.5
Friendship makes love pure because of reason
and sweet because
of affection.
In excluding the quarrelsome, fickle, suspicious,
and loquacious, Aelred does not mean anyone having
those characteristics
but only those
who are unwilling or unable to control them.
One
must break off with anyone who imperils one's father,
country,
fellow citizens, dependents, or friends,
because love for one
person
should not take precedence over many.
The four qualities that Aelred would test are
loyalty, right
intention, discretion, and patience.
Loyalty may be hidden during
prosperity
but becomes conspicuous in adversity.
Aelred asks if
there is any human being
who does not wish to be loved.
Jesus
said, "You are my friends if you do
the things that I command
you."6
Loyalty is the foundation of stability and constancy,
and it is supported by frankness, congeniality, and sympathy.
Suspicion is poisonous to friendship and should be avoided.
Aelred
also recommended affable speech, a cheerful
countenance, suave
manners, and serene eyes.
Friendship also depends on reverence
and respect.
Ambrose advised friends to correct each other's vices
secretly.
If one does not listen, then the correction can be done
openly;
but Aelred warned against clothing bitterness and rage
with the names of zeal and liberty.
Correction based on impulse
rather than reason can cause harm.
A friend should correct humbly
and sympathetically.
Friendship means admonishing freely but not
harshly
and being admonished patiently without resentment.
In
conclusion Aelred reminded us that one cannot
love another any
more than one loves oneself,
and one must chastise oneself in
order to improve oneself.
Finally Aelred observed that praying
for a friend can unite
both with God and Christ in this life and
the future one.
John was born in Salisbury between 1115 and 1120.
He began
studying under Abelard in 1136 and spent a
dozen years in the
cathedral schools of Paris and Chartres.
John attended the Council
of Rheims in 1148 and became
a clerk in the household of Archbishop
Theobald of Canterbury.
For the next twelve years John went back
and forth from
Canterbury, serving the Roman Curia in Apulia
from
1148 to 1153 and then as Theobald's secretary.
He certainly knew
well Thomas Becket
and Nicholas Breakspear, who became Pope Adrian
IV.
John supported Henry II's effort to become king,
but he was
banished from court in 1156 and 1157
for advocating ecclesiastical
independence.
When Becket became archbishop, John served as his
secretary.
John was exiled shortly before Becket to France,
where
he stayed from 1163 to 1170
though he also criticized Becket's
provocative zeal.
In his many letters John recommended two main
principles:
holding to honesty and equity
while trying to find
solutions peacefully.
Evidence is ambiguous as to whether John
was present
when Becket was assassinated,
but afterwards he organized
Becket's correspondence.
In 1176 Louis VII appointed John bishop
of Chartres,
and he died there in 1180.
John of Salisbury described the years 1148-1152 in his
Historia
pontificalis.
His Metalogicon discusses the burgeoning
philosophy of logic and liberal education.
He satirized courtiers
and philosophers in his poem
Indicator of Philosophers' Doctrine
(Entheticus de Dogmate Philosophorum).
In this work he
criticized threefold pride.
Pride of reason delights in error;
pride of will bends the mind to evil;
and pride of life undermines
virtue.
He noted that mental power cannot reach the last things,
and only the one who made them can see the first things.
John
wrote this to Chancellor Becket, hoping that he could
change the
proud court, for the world hungering after gain
corrupts both
young and old, blinding those given power.
The fire of greed scorches
the wise and defiles the churches.
All lovers of the world suffer
from this pest, and it is rare
to find someone who despises money
on earth.
Human law that is contrary to God's law condemns
its
author and perishes as he perishes.
John noted that the safety
of hospices
cannot be trusted by the traveler.
He also satirized
such human types as the niggard,
the plaintive, the flattering,
the intriguing, the jealous,
the slanderer, and the boasting.
Only pure love removes fear and makes one free.
John coined a word for his book on politics by naming it
Policraticus
and completed it in 1159, dedicating it to
Chancellor Thomas Becket,
who was with Henry II
fighting a war in Toulouse at the time.
A shorter poem also called "The Indicator"
prefaces
the Policraticus.
John called upon the chancellor as the
right hand of the king
and the model of goodness to cancel unjust
laws and carry
out the equitable commands of a pious prince
in
order to lessen harm to people.
He realized that virtue does not
please all people;
free judgment should be given to all,
though
only a few good ones will be pleased.
The peace which patience
gives cannot be driven out;
although unarmed, patience can shatter
arms
and crush wicked wars.
A patient person is better than a
strong man,
and conquering a city is less than conquering the
mind.
Spurn the bad, revere the good, and pardon those
who long
to harm, for no revenge
is more becoming for the brave.
Unjust
power provokes crimes
and does not attract the subjects' devotion.
One must be more on guard
against a greedy friend than a greedy
enemy.
In the prolog of Policraticus: Of the Frivolities of Courtiers
and the Footprints of Philosophers John of Salisbury stated
that he will concentrate on the more burdensome distractions
and
let the readers decide which vestiges of the philosophers
to follow
and which to avoid.
He began by warning the fortunate from being
allured by the
desires for sensuous pleasures,
which can cause
the inner goodness to decay.
John advised moderation and only
condemned hunting,
gambling, and theatrical performances
if one
indulges in them excessively.
He warned against presuming to have
God's knowledge
by using magic in the occult arts such as fortune
telling,
dream interpretation, astrology, and augury.
John of Salisbury distinguished the body from the soul
and
suggested that God occupies totally
the soul that lives perfectly.
All virtue comes from the divine
and is impressed on rational
creatures.
Humans enlightened by knowledge and inspired by love
of
honor and the cultivation of virtue may find true security.
To gain self-knowledge one must estimate one's own strength
and
not be ignorant of others either.
He believed that pride is the
root of all evil
and warned against passionate desires.
Nothing
is more pernicious to virtue than flattery.
If flatterers multiply,
they may even
push the honorable out of houses.
John wrote, "The
bitter truth is more useful and is more
esteemed by a mind of
integrity than
the distilled honey of a prostitute's speech."7
John condemned the tyranny of a single pre-eminent will
that deprives
the people individually and collectively
of their free will, and
he believed that it is just
to slay tyrants because those who
receive the sword
deserve to perish by the sword.
The ruler who
receives power from God
serves the laws as the servant of justice.
So the usurper of power who suppresses justice
and has contempt
for law deserves to have justice
armed against him for having
disarmed the laws,
for public power is harsh to those
who put
aside the public hand.
The true prince does nothing inconsistent with the equity
of
justice and accepts the sword
from the spiritual authority of
the Church.
John wrote that in war the human body is injured by
the sword,
but in peace it is harmed by pleasure.
Those in authority
must be especially careful so that inferiors
will not be corrupted
by their example
if they abuse their power.
Princes are not forbidden
wealth but only avarice,
for the wealth of the prince belongs
to the people
and should not be considered his private property.
John emphasized that the prince should be aware
of the laws of
God, and his ordinances should
conform to ecclesiastical discipline.
He cited the examples of the Christian emperors
Constantine, Theodosius,
Justinian, and Leo.
Law will be respected if the prince does not
exempt
his own hands nor the hands of his subjects.
John recommended
the one law of the golden rule
in both its negative and positive
forms:
"What you would not have done to yourself,
do not
do to others;" and
"What you would have done to yourself,
this do to others."8
If there is love without respect,
people
retreat into illegalities when justice ceases.
John of Salisbury referred to a letter from Plutarch to Trajan
which he probably invented as an educational device.
Though a
pagan, Trajan is cited because
he built his reign on the practice
of virtue.
The prince should dedicate himself diligently
to the
whole republic.
John's four precepts for rulers are reverence
for God,
self-discipline, education of officials,
and love and
protection for the subjects.
Comparing the republic to a body,
the prince is the head,
but the priests are the soul.
The heart
is the senate, and the courtiers represent the sides.
They should
keep their distance from the
iniquitous, arrogant, and greedy.
He observed that justice or truth or piety are seldom with
those
selling everything; those who do everything for a price
and nothing
for free flee from divine grace.
John protested the venality of
courtiers
who sell what costs them nothing.
Entrapping one magistrate
with presents is usually not
advantageous unless his is the greatest
power,
because the envy of others is aroused.
The more powerful
a court is the more pernicious
are its scourges, for it receives
or creates vicious men
to become intimates of the powerful.
John
asked who is so resolute that he cannot be
corrupted by the frivolities
of courtiers?
The only way to maintain virtue is to turn aside
from the
courtly life, for he found the
philosopher-courtier to
be a monstrous contradiction.
John related the eyes, ears, and tongue of the republic
to
the provincial governors and judges.
Once again they should have
knowledge
of equity and execute justice.
He has seen judges ignorant
of law and devoid of good will
as their love of presents serves
the greedy.
Governors must be careful not to let the powerful
assail the innocent, persecute their wards,
and extort exactions
with violence.
John lamented that so many strive after riches
like
shipwrecked people who think they can escape
by swimming
with heavier loads.
Philosophy does not drive away wealth
but
treats gold like clay to be used.
The beauty of morals is far
superior to material objects,
and physical goods can never glorify
what is shameful.
The road to salvation is still safest
for those
free of riches and material possessions.
John described the armed hand of the republic
as the military
and the unarmed hand as civil justice.
The armed hand should refrain
from exactions and rapine,
the unarmed hand from presents.
John
quoted Bishop Laurence of Milan
that the tax collector is a shameless
plunderer.
Bad princes enhance the crimes they see by adding
to
them to take their share of the profit.
If the prince does not
resist the evils, there is no peace;
thus no one can be more harmful
than the prince.
From studying history John, one of the best educated
Europeans of the 12th century, observed that human
disturbances,
wars, and disasters
either accompany or follow luxury.
The feet of the republic are the humble workers who serve all.
These include farmers but also weavers
and artisans of wood and
metals.
Their duty is not to exceed the law
and to concentrate
on public utility.
Since there are so many humbler people,
it
is better for the few to submit to them.
The duty of the greater
men is to protect the humbler.
Yet attacking the prince goes against
the head and is treason,
because the just prince is the instrument
of God.
He found treasonable plotting to kill a prince or magistrate,
opposing one's country with arms, fleeing from a public war,
deserting
the prince, soliciting people to revolt,
deceitfully aiding the
public's enemies with weapons, supplies,
or money, or releasing
a convicted criminal.
A prince becomes mild when the people are
innocent,
and an innocent prince restrains the people's passions.
John described his friendship with Pope Adrian IV
and his criticism
of the Roman pontiff, who is burdensome
and intolerable for erecting
palaces and parading himself in
gilded clothes, picking clean
the spoils of the provinces.
John agreed with the cardinal Guido
Dens,
who found duplicity and avarice in the Roman Church.
In
John's philosophy virtue is
the highway that leads to happiness.
Most important is charity that leads to honor, modesty,
sobriety, chastity, and other venerable virtues.
Ambition is what usually
leads people to injustice and tyranny,
and it is found in the
Church too.
John complained that in his time things are purchased
openly
as avarice threatens the holy altars.
In the beginning
religion rejoiced in poverty,
but the monastic orders have become
favored with privileges
and snub charity, becoming instruments
of avarice rather than religion.
Adrian observed this and tried
to restrict
their license with moderation.
Those who preach living
by price and pleasure
instead of grace falsify God's message.
John of Salisbury valued the liberty that is not afraid
to
censure what opposes sound moral character,
and for him only virtue
is more glorious than freedom.
Virtues free us while vices subject
people
to miserable servitude.
The practice of liberty is excellent,
and it displeases only those who would live like slaves.
John
recognized the legal right to express the truth in speech.
When
one falls into vice, that which was born to rule
is abased by
the servile devotion.
In the Epicurean philosophy of lust John
found a flood
in the four rivers of love of possessions, luxury,
tyranny,
and the desire for renown.
The tyrant oppresses the people
by violent domination,
but the just prince rules by laws for the
liberty of the people.
The tyrant cancels the laws and subjugates
the people.
The just prince is to be loved and respected;
but
the tyrant may even be killed.
John also warned against division and schisms in the Church.
To build the Church on the liberty of the Spirit they must settle
conflicts within a framework of unity
and let the schismatics
fight only among themselves.
Priestly wars do harm even to just
men who participate in them.
He asked who could be more iniquitous
than those
who cast the ministry of peace into quarrels and torments?
John observed the Pope's dilemma; for if he does not succumb
to
avarice, he faces a revolt from the Romans.
Justice is subverted
by the love of presents,
favoring some persons, and a trusting
disposition.
He believed the Pope had a most burdensome job
to
care for all the churches as the "servant of servants."
He was horrified by those who forced their way into the office
by blind ambition and the blood of brothers
in opposition to the
ministers of Christ.
John concluded his exposition of the frivolities
with prayer
for guidance in the serious concerns of goodness.
Hildegard was born in Mainz in 1098, and she was only
about eight years old when she was dedicated to a religious
life in
the cell of an anchoress named Jutta at Disibodenberg.
By the
age of 15 Hildegard was bewildered by her
extraordinary perceptions,
but she eventually confided them to Jutta.
Until Jutta died in
1136, Hildegard had little contact
with the world; but then she
was
appointed prioress by Abbot Kuno.
She apparently had visions
often, but her life changed
dramatically in 1141 after a blinding
vision by a very
brilliant light helped her understand her religious
reading.
When she did not obey the call to write, she eventually
became so sick that she told Volmar, who got permission
for her
to begin writing her major work Scivias
that took ten years
to complete.
Bernard of Clairvaux brought her writing to the attention
of Pope Eugenius, and in 1148 the Pope sent her
a letter encouraging
her to record her visions.
In 1147 Hildegard had proclaimed that
God commanded that her nunnery move to Rupertsberg.
At first her
proposal was dismissed;
but Hildegard withdrew in silence to her
bed.
They rebuilt the ruins of Rupertsberg and moved there in
1150,
gaining autonomy but compromising on property settlements.
Hildegard also resisted the leaving of her friend and assistant
Richardis, who was appointed an abbess;
but Hildegard later repented
of this attachment.
Hildegard described her own era as an effeminate time,
and
she prophesied that the churches would have their
temporal powers
confiscated
as a just punishment for their greed.
She wrote to
Pope Anastasius IV
prophesying the ruin of Rome;
but, like Joachim
of Fiore, she foresaw rising from the
ruins a new nation in which
pagans, Jews, the worldly,
and the unbelievers will be converted
in a regenerated world of peace.
In 1158 Hildegard began writing
her
Book of the Rewards of Life and traveling
o preach
despite her poor health.
In 1163 she undertook her cosmological
Book of the Divine Works, which was also based
on visions and took about eleven years to write.
A biography of her by Godfrey
of Disibodenberg
described at length how Hildegard exorcised a
woman
who had been suffering from an evil spirit for eight years.
After Godfrey died, Guibert of Gembloux replaced him
in 1177 as
Hildegard's secretary and as provost to the nuns.
In the last
year of her life before she died in 1179
Hildegard struggled to
keep undisturbed the grave of an
excommunicated man even though
the district of Mainz
was put under interdict for a time.
The title Scivias means "know the ways,"
and
this long book is a visionary theology.
Hildegard criticized the
clergy who polluted church buildings
with murders or fornication.
She recommended repentance and confession to a priest.
She approved
of marriage but condemned homosexual
behavior as a sin against
God and the ordained union of
man and woman; she also criticized
masturbation and bestiality.
To reduce sexual lust she advised
replacing the
meat of mammals with that of birds.
Many of the
virtues are described as being feminine.
In the vision of the
tower anticipating God's will the
five strong virtues that occur
in people by God's will are
heavenly love, discipline, modesty,
mercy, and victory.
In her vision of the stone wall of the old
law
Hildegard described figures representing the eight virtues
of abstinence, liberality, piety, truth, peace,
beatitude, discretion,
and salvation.
In the final vision of the symphony of the blessed
the virtues fight for the king of kings
to win victory over the
devil's arts.
This vision was adapted into an operatic morality
play called
The Play of Virtues (Ordo virtutum), which
is an allegorical
presentation of the soul tempted by the devil
but rescued by the virtues.
Hildegard also composed canticles
and chants for religious services.
Hildegard also wrote about nature and medicine,
describing
more than 200 herbs in her Physica,
and she discussed healing
and herbs
further in Causes and Cures.
She described the
four humors as choleric (yellow bile)
that is hot and relates
to fire, sanguine (blood) that is dry
and relates to air, phlegmatic
(phlegm) that is moist
and relates to water, and melancholic (black
bile)
that is cold and relates to earth.
According to this theory
illness is caused
by an imbalance of these humors.
Essentially
all Hildegard's writings derive from her visions
of what she called
the light of life that she said
she perceived not with her senses
but within her soul.
In The Book of the Rewards of Life
(Liber
vitae meritorum) Hildegard described 35 vices,
and to counter
them she recommended
fasting, flagellation, and ascetic prayer.
For each vice she advised
the response of an appropriate virtue.
One could respond to worldly love with heavenly love,
to impudence
with discipline, to jesting with shyness,
to hard-heartedness
with mercy, to slothfulness with
divine victory, to anger with
patience,
and to foolish joy with sighing for God.
She noted that
impudence leads people away from
honesty and explained how foolish
joy can follow anger,
which she considered the worst fault.
She
wrote that one could respond to gluttony with
abstinence, to bitterness
with bountifulness,
to impiety with piety,
to falseness with truth,
to strife with peace,
to unhappiness with blessedness,
to immoderation
with discretion,
and to destruction of souls with the salvation
of souls.
It is best to respond to pride with humility,
to envy
with charity
to vainglory with fear of the Lord,
to disobedience
with obedience,
to unfaithfulness with faith,
to despair with
hope, and to luxury with chastity.
Her visions showed how God
responds to
injustice with justice, to numbness with strength,
to forgetfulness with holiness,
to changeableness with steadiness,
to care of earthly things with heavenly desire,
to obstinacy with
sorrow of the heart,
to desire with contempt for the world,
and
to discord with concord.
She also saw how one could respond
to
scurrility with reverence,
to aimlessness with quiet stability,
to wrong doing with true care of God,
to avarice with pure contentment,
and to the sorrow of time with heavenly joy.
She observed that
good masters, like good air,
guide their disciples with discretion
and immediate correction.
She concluded this visionary book
with
descriptions of heavenly joys and blessings.
Intolerance for what Church authorities called heresy had
led to only occasional persecution for many centuries;
but in the
13th century authorities of the Catholic Church
would launch major
efforts to eliminate heresy.
A village priest named Peter de Bruis
from the Alps
preached there and influenced
the Rhone Valley for
about twenty years.
He rejected infant baptism and opposed veneration
of the cross, preferring the teachings of the Gospels
to the traditions
of the Church.
About 1140 he was killed at St. Gilles
when he
was pushed into the fire
in which he was burning crucifixes.
A
priest and monk named Henry, who began his radical
preaching about
1116 at Le Mans, became known as a
Petrobrusian; but he was ordered
to stop preaching
by a council at Pisa in 1133.
Pope Eugenius
III sent Bernard of Clairvaux and others
in 1145 to preach against
Henry,
who was imprisoned by the bishop of Toulouse.
Peter Valdes was a successful merchant and money-lender
at
Lyons and asked his friend Stephen d'Anse to translate
the scriptures
into the vernacular language.
After Stephen died in an accident
in 1173,
Peter suddenly gave away his wealth for a life of poverty
in order to practice the Gospels.
His followers were called Waldensians.
They preached and had the scriptures
translated into the vernacular
Occitan.
Both male and female Waldensians preached, were celibate,
and owning nothing, they lived on alms.
They memorized portions
of the vernacular Bible
to enhance their preaching.
They did not
believe in taking oaths nor in killing,
not even as judicial punishment.
Peter Valdes attended the third Lateran council in 1179,
signed
an orthodox statement required of suspected heretics,
and was
confirmed in his poverty by Pope Alexander III;
but the next year
Lyons archbishop Jean de Bellesmains
forbade the Waldensians to
preach, and in 1182 they were
excommunicated and driven from the
city.
Two years later the Waldensians and the Humiliati
of Lombardy
were condemned by a papal synod at Verona.
Waldensians believed
the Roman Church fell into heresy
when Sylvester was Pope (314-335),
and they criticized the corruption of clergy and rejected
Church
authority and some sacraments.
Yet many of them spoke against
the Cathars,
and in 1205 the Italian and French Waldensians separated.
In 1208 those led by Durand of Huesca returned to orthodoxy
and
were known as Poor Catholics,
and Pope Innocent III allowed them
to preach on moral behavior.
Cathars, meaning the pure ones, believed in a dualistic
theology
that derived from the Manichaeans
by way of the Paulicians and Bogomil.
From Bulgaria they spread
west; by 1143 a well organized
group in Cologne was reported to
Bernard of Clairvaux for
rejecting the mass, because they believed
the papacy
and priesthood were so corrupt.
Cathars spread south
into Italy and France.
They participated in a public debate near
Albi in 1165.
At a council there Narbonne archbishop Pons d'Arsac,
six bishops, eight abbots, provosts, archdeacons,
Louis VII's
sister Constance of Toulouse,
and Viscount Trencavel of Albi and
Béziers confirmed
the condemnation of the Cathars as heretics.
In 1167 some Cathars were burned at Vézelay.
That year
Cathars met at Saint Felix south of Toulouse,
and Nicetas from
Constantinople consecrated bishops
for Toulouse and Carcasonne
and perhaps Agen to add
to one Cathar bishop in northern France
and another at Albi.
In 1177 Toulouse count Raymond V wrote to
the Cistercians
that heresy was spreading.
Perhaps because Cathar
believers did not have to renounce
their wealth, many of the nobility
joined the movement.
Cathars did not preach against usury, and
they had less
restrictions on marriage than the Catholic Church,
which had increasingly complicated
prohibitions against consanguinity.
Cathars held that the evil in the world
was created
by Satan
and not God.
Like some Gnostics they identified the creator God
of the
Old Testament with Satan while accepting the divine
Christ of the New Testament as an angel sent from God
to
help trapped souls find release.
They recognized the sacrament
of communion but believed
that any good person could consecrate
the host.
Confession could be made to anyone,
but Cathars did
not go in for physical penance.
Yet their beliefs made them disciplined
as their initiated
perfecti renounced sexual intercourse,
violence, and all animal food.
In this way souls could be liberated
from the Devil's world,
while other souls would have additional
opportunity through reincarnation.
Cathars rejected the priesthood,
because they believed
everyone could contact God directly by prayer.
They criticized the worldly power and corruption
of the Church
though they did have bishops
and deacons for leadership.
Like the Waldensians, the perfecti refused
to take oaths,
fight, or kill anyone.
The Cathar perfecti also practiced
apostolic poverty
and expected to be persecuted as Jesus
had warned them
they would be hated by the world
because they
are not of the world.
After a year or more of training, the laying
on of hands
in the consolamentum initiated the perfecti.
The perfecti wore black or dark blue,
and the men let their
hair and beards grow.
Like Manichaeans, the perfecti devoted
their lives to prayer
and preaching and were supported by the
believers.
The perfecti lived and traveled in pairs of
the same sex.
Although the believers were allowed to eat meat,
have sex,
and fight in wars, they were expected to live peacefully
and do good without lying, stealing, committing violence,
or taking
oaths; before they died,
believers hoped to receive the consolamentum
and salvation.
The perfecti often worked as craftsmen or
physicians, which
explains the laws barring heretics from practicing
medicine.
At the third Lateran council of 1179 Cathars were
damned as
heretics, and anathema was declared
for anyone giving them hospitality.
Vassals no longer had to do homage to nobles supporting
Cathars,
and the Church offered two years' indulgence
to those taking up
arms against them.
Archbishop Pons sent letters ordering all bishops
to
excommunicate heretics and their supporters.
In 1181 Henri
de Marsiac led local knights against Lavaur,
where the Cathar
bishop of Toulouse resided.
Viscountess Adela surrendered the
town,
and Bernard Raymond and Raymond de Baimiac
were captured,
taken to Le Puy, abjured their beliefs,
and were made Catholic
canons.
In 1184 the papal bull of Lucius III issued at Verona
condemned all heretics, including Cathars and Waldensians.
After Innocent III became Pope in 1198, he sent two legates
to preach against heresy in Languedoc and Barcelona;
in 1200 he
pronounced loss of property
as the penalty for heresy.
Innocent
renewed the excommunication of heretics
and the indulgence for
those using arms against them.
In 1203 the Pope appointed the
Langedoc native
Pierre of Castelnau to preach, and the next year
he was
joined by the Cistercian abbot of Clairvaux, Arnald-Amalric.
They were authorized to suspend bishops
who failed to excommunicate
heretics.
The bishop of Béziers was suspended in 1203
and
was killed by his own people two years later.
The corrupt Raymond
Rabastens, bishop of Toulouse,
was replaced by Fulk of Marseilles
in 1206.
Narbonne archbishop Raymond-Berenger resisted
several attempts to depose him and managed
to stay in office until 1212.
Yet the Cathar movement continued to flourish,
and an assembly
of 600 Cathar perfecti at Mirepoix
in 1206 resolved their
internal differences.
As papal legates traveled around preaching with their
elaborate retinues, the poverty of their rival perfecti
offered a
stark contrast.
The legates were ridiculed and abused until Diego
of Osma
and Dominic of Guzman persuaded them
to adopt a simpler
approach.
Pierre of Castelnau became so unpopular
in Béziers
that he fled for his life.
At Montreal Cathars accused Diego and
Dominic of
representing the Church of the Devil, and in the debate
at Foix Catholic missionaries told Count Raymond-Roger's
sister
Esclarmonde, who had become a Cathar,
that she should attend to
her spinning.
Most of the abbots gave up preaching.
Dominic said
that where gentle persuasion failed,
a thick stick would succeed
when they roused the princes
and prelates against them; he predicted
that nations
assembled would cause many to perish by the sword.
Dominic did make some conversions, notably the
Waldensian Durand
of Huesca,
who founded the orthodox Poor Catholics.
Dominic founded
a convent at Prouille for poor daughters
and continued his missionary
work there during the war.
After the Albigensian crusade the convent
was enriched
by the spoils from wealthy heretics.
Innocent III wrote to French king Philip Augustus in 1204
and
1205 offering indulgence if he would attack the heretics;
but
Philip II was too busy fighting the English
to launch a crusade
in the south.
Toulouse count Raymond VI agreed to persecute heretics
and dismiss his mercenaries; but the Count was
excommunicated by legate Pierre after refusing
to drive out heretics in the name
of peace.
In 1208 after an angry meeting Pierre
was murdered by
one of the Count's officers.
Innocent reacted by proclaiming a
crusade
that became known as the Albigensian crusade
after Albi, a center for Cathars.
Arnald-Amalric was appointed to lead it,
and at the annual meeting of the Cistercians
he promulgated the
Pope's bull offering a full indulgence
for only forty days military
service.
In May 1209 King Philip II summoned a parliament
but
refused to join the war.
However, the duke of Burgundy
and several
counts and bishops volunteered.
The army organized was reported
to be
the largest ever in the Christian world.
Toulouse count Raymond VI sought reconciliation
by offering seven castles, and he was publicly flogged
by papal legate Milo
before taking the cross.
Raymond denied that he had favored heretics,
and he promised to obey the Church, including not supporting
mercenaries,
not allowing Jews to hold public office,
and abolishing new tolls.
By joining the crusade, Raymond's lands
in Languedoc would not
be attacked.
However, his nephew Raymond-Roger Trencavel
was not
reconciled with Milo.
Viscount Trencavel and the Jews left Béziers
for Carcasonne before it was attacked.
Béziers had successfully
resisted pressure to surrender
heretics in 1205 and tried to hold
out;
but camp followers without orders quickly broke
into the
city and massacred all the inhabitants.
The Cistercian abbot Arnald-Amalric
was
reported to have said to kill them all,
because God would
know his own.
The day after he did write to Pope Innocent,
"Nearly
twenty thousand of these people were
put to the sword, without
regard for age or sex."9
His figure is probably exaggerated
since modern scholars
estimate Béziers to have had about
10,000 people.
Simon de Montfort was rewarded for his role
in
the slaughter and was later elected commander.
Narbonne submitted and promised to give up heretics
and the
property of Béziers Jews.
As the crusaders marched to Carcasonne,
Arnald-Amalric
reported that more than a hundred fortified villages
surrendered.
In August 1209 the suburbs of Carcasonne were destroyed,
and King Pedro II of Aragon arrived to mediate for his vassal
Raymond-Roger; but the viscount refused the offer made,
and the
king withdrew.
After their water was exhausted and Raymond-Roger
was captured, the city capitulated.
The viscount died in prison
in November, and Pedro II,
suspecting the new leader de Montfort
of his murder,
refused at first to accept his homage but invested
him
in 1211 so he could campaign against the Moors.
Southern towns
surrendered, and in the north Albi submitted.
Then most crusaders
returned to northern France,
and Simon had to pay about
500 remaining
soldiers double wages.
Persecution began with the burning of Cathars
when the town
of Castres capitulated.
In the next spring new crusaders arrived
from the north.
Crusaders besieged Minerve in June 1210;
after
it surrendered, 140 perfecti were burned.
A year later
after a siege of one month Simon de Montfort
ordered the Lavaur
leaders, a brother and sister,
and eighty knights executed; he
recorded that then
more than 400 heretics were burned
to the joy
of the crusaders.
Simon deliberately used terror; a garrison at
Bram had all
their eyes but one put out so they could be led to
Cabaret.
At the University of Paris logic teacher Amalric taught
that
a new age was coming that would supersede the
Catholic Church;
nine clergy who shared his views
were burned for heresy in 1210.
Meanwhile Toulouse refused to surrender heretics
and was put
under an interdict.
Arnald-Amalric ordered preaching against usury in order to
get at wealthy supporters of the Cathars in Toulouse,
where Bishop Fulk organized a "white fraternity;"
but
they lost credibility after joining the persecution at Lavaur.
As they attacked the houses of money-lenders,
a "black fraternity"
sprung up in opposition.
Simon de Montfort continued
to capture
castles and burn Cathars.
After sixty heretics were burned at
Casses, the perfecti
stopped seeking refuge in fortresses.
Apparently these initiates still did not turn to violence,
but
they gave up their distinctive dress
and hid among the people.
Simon assaulted Toulouse in 1211;
but it was too strong, and he
withdrew
after twelve days to devastate the county of Foix.
As
the crusading army dissolved again in September,
Raymond VI gathered
resistance fighters in the south.
Another crusade was preached
in northern France that winter,
and Simon once again had fresh
troops in the spring of 1212.
In December of that year he held
a parliament at Pamiers
and imposed French laws on Languedoc.
Heresy was made a crime that could be judged by the Church.
Property
on which heretics were living could be forfeited.
Daughters were
excluded from inheritance,
and women with rights to fortresses
were forbidden to marry southerners.
Pedro II was commended by the Pope for helping
to defeat Muslims
at Tolosa;
but his offer to mediate in Toulouse was declined.
In 1213 the combined armies of Aragon and Toulouse greatly
outnumbered
Simon de Montfort's crusaders near Muret;
but Pedro was killed
early in the battle, and Raymond VI fled.
In 1215 King Philip's
son Louis led a southern crusade.
That November at the Fourth
Lateran Council Simon was
given the conquered lands; Raymond VI
received only a
pension of 400 marks, though his son Raymond VII
when he came of age would get the unconquered lands
now controlled
by the Church.
Raymond VI went to Aragon for aid.
Honorius succeeded
Innocent as Pope in 1216
and proclaimed another Albigensian crusade.
After more destruction Simon made a truce with Raymond VII,
whose
father returned in 1217 and gained support
from nobles dispossessed
by Simon.
Fulk of Marseilles brought crusaders from the north;
but Simon de Montfort was killed in 1218.
His son Amaury could
not pay the soldiers
and withdrew to Carcasonne.
Now many Provence
troubadours criticized the crusade
as an invasion of the south
by northerners.
Prince Louis led another crusade and massacred
the surrendered inhabitants of Marmande in 1219.
In the next two
years southerners regained many castles,
but Raymond VI died in
1222.
In 1226 Cardinal Romanus excommunicated Raymond VII
and preached
another crusade,
imposing a clerical tax of a tenth.
King Louis
VIII led this crusade but died.
Yet that year the Cathar bishop
of Toulouse summoned
a council of a hundred perfecti that
appointed a new bishop for Razés.
Raymond VII made peace
at Meaux with the Pope and the
French crown in 1229 by promising
to enforce heresy laws.
The count also had to agree to destroy
the walls of Toulouse
and was imprisoned in the Louvre for six
months
until this was accomplished.
That November at the council
of Toulouse papal legate
Romanus obliged Count Raymond VII to
contribute
4,000 silver marks annually for the Catholic university
there,
and strict rules for pursuing heretics were devised.
In
each parish a priest and two or three lay persons
were to search
every house and hiding place.
Where a heretic was found,
the house
was to be burned and the property forfeited.
Negligent bailiffs
were to lose their post and their goods.
Any heretic who returned
to the Catholic faith
out of fear of death was to be imprisoned.
Every person from the age of puberty up had to abjure
heresy and
swear loyalty to the Catholic Church.
Heads of households were
required to attend
Mass on Sundays and holidays or pay a fine
unless they had a legitimate excuse.
Lay people were not allowed
to possess an
Old Testament nor a New Testament.
Two prominent perfecti were arrested by Count Raymond
VII.
The Albigensian bishop was burned as Romanus watched,
but
William de Solier converted to Catholicism and denounced
other
Cathars. Toulouse bishop Fulk became so unpopular for
persecuting
heretics that he could not raise tithes and
died in 1231, succeeded
by the Dominican Raymond de Fauga.
That year a high mountain fortress
at Montségur became
a Cathar refuge and an arsenal, and
the next year
Guilhabert de Castres presided over a meeting there.
More Cathars gathered at the Roquefort castle in 1232
to hear
William Vidal preach; but after that the
three Cathar bishops
of Toulouse, Agen, and Razes
resided at Montségur.
During
the persecution of the 1230s
many Cathars emigrated to Lombardy.
In 1233 Pope Gregory IX appointed Stephen de Burnin
legate for southern France and northern Spain, giving the
Dominican Order
responsibility to launch
the Inquisition against heretics.
At
Toulouse Peter Seila and William Arnald
were chosen to be the
first official Inquisitors.
They began by capturing, trying, and
executing
the leading heretic Vigoros de Baconia.
Peter Seila
stayed in Toulouse while
William Arnald toured the province.
The
Inquisitors acted as prosecutors and judges,
and the suspected
heretics were not allowed lawyers.
In fact lawyers could lose
their right to practice law
if they helped a heretic.
Trials were
held in secret, and no appeals were allowed.
They offered light
penance to get people to come forward
voluntarily; but only those
whose information led to the
arrest of perfecti and believers
were given indulgence.
Those who converted back to Catholicism
were required
to wear two yellow crosses on their clothes, which
resulted
in ostracism; or they could volunteer to
go on a crusade
for a number of years.
Some were only required to take care of
a poor person
for years or the rest of their life.
Dominicans
also established tribunals at Albi, Cahors,
and Moissac, where
210 persons were burned to death.
Two Inquisitors were murdered in Cordes during an uprising
as early as 1233, and the terror of the Inquisition caused riots
to break out at Narbonne in 1234.
At Toulouse three consuls refused
to cooperate in enforcing
the dictates of Arnald, who was compelled
to leave the city;
he went to Carcassonne and excommunicated the
consuls.
The consuls ordered the Dominican monks to leave Toulouse
and had them thrown out into the street;
since no one was allowed
to take them in, they left.
Bishop Raymond de Fauga was also expelled.
Count Raymond VII wrote to the Pope asking
that the inquisitorial
powers be curtailed.
In 1236 Pope Gregory wrote to his legate
to curb him,
but little changed.
Posthumous trials were held,
and corpses were dug up
to be burned so that their estates could
be confiscated.
Prisoners could be held for years without being
condemned,
and anyone was subject to re-arrest.
Eventually at
least 5,600 people would be interrogated
by the Inquisition in
Toulouse alone.
By the time King Philip III granted amnesty to
heretics
in 1279 as many as 507 people had been condemned
at Toulouse,
most losing their property.
Many more had to wear the yellow crosses.
In 1235 Count Raymond VII sent knights and bailiffs
to Montségur,
but they did nothing.
A third attempt resulted in a deacon and
three perfecti
being taken away to Toulouse, where they
were burned.
The Inquisition returned to Toulouse in 1236;
but
Count Raymond's protests got it suspended
by the Pope from 1238
to 1241.
The Inquisition had been established at Barcelona in
1233,
and in 1238 it was authorized in Castille, Leon, and Navarre.
In 1239 the Count of Champagne, the King of Navarre,
and sixteen
bishops presided over the
burning of 183 Cathars at Montwimer.
The next year Raymond Trencavel led a revolt with Catalan
and
Aragonese troops and was joined by Occitan rebels
in liberating
Limoux, Alet, Montreal, and the region.
They besieged Carcassonne
for a month,
and the people murdered 33 priests there.
A French
army forced Trencavel to lift the siege,
and then he was besieged
at Montreal.
Raymond VII stayed neutral and mediated a truce
by
which his cousin Trancavel returned to Spain.
Towns that had rebelled
were sacked, and Toulouse count
Raymond pledged fealty to young
Louis IX,
promising to drive out heretics and capture Montségur.
Lacking a son, Raymond VII tried to arrange
a diplomatic marriage
but failed.
He did join a coalition against France with Henry
de Lusignan
of Poitou and Henry
III of England while making alliances
with the kings of Aragon,
Navarre, Castile,
and even Friedrich
II.
In March 1242 Raymond VII fell seriously ill but was
supported
in the revolt by the counts of Armagnac,
Comminges, Rodez, Foix,
and several viscounts.
Louis IX invaded Saintonge with his French
army.
In May while hosting Dominican inquisitors,
Raymond d'Alfro
sent for knights from Montségur
led by Pierre-Roger of
Mirepoix.
The seven monks and their four servants at Avignonet
were murdered with axes,
and the murderers escaped to Montségur.
The war was on, and Raymond Trencavel gained territory;
but the
revolt soon ended after Hugues de Lusignan
and Henry
III were defeated that summer.
The count of Foix deserted
the cause,
and in January 1243 Count Raymond VII once again
promised
to fulfill the terms of 1229.
In 1243 the archbishop of Narbonne, the bishop of Albi,
and
the royal seneschal in Carcassonne besieged Montségur
with
an army; but they could not prevent supplies getting in,
and the
siege lasted ten months.
In March 1244 surrender followed a short
truce.
The fighting believers were pardoned,
even for the murders
at Avignonet.
They were given only light penances if they abjured
their
heretical beliefs; but the nearly two hundred nonresisting
perfecti and the six women and eleven knights,
who took
the consolamentum rather than recant,
were all burned at
the stake.
Four Cathars did escape to carry the secrets
of their
treasures to others.
Languedoc became part of France.
In 1246
Raymond Trencavel submitted to Louis IX,
received a pension, and
went on the crusade.
A council at Béziers in 1246 instructed
Inquisitors to
imprison heretics for life, and that year
King
Louis ordered special prisons constructed.
In 1248 many prisoners
were released
to go on crusade with Louis.
In 1249 the Count of
Toulouse had eighty Cathar believers
burned at Agen before he
died that year.
Louis IX's brother Alphonse of Poitiers became
count of Toulouse and made his vassals in Languedoc
enforce the
laws against heresy.
The first handbook with instructions for
conducting
an inquisition was published by 1249.
In 1252 Pope Innocent IV issued the bull Ad Extirpanda
that
first authorized the use of torture to gain information
but
not
recantation since forced confession was considered worthless.
The torture was not to shed blood, mutilate, nor cause death.
Toulouse and Carcassonne were relieved of the Inquisition
in 1249;
but it was restored with greater powers
by Pope Alexander IV in
1255.
One of the last Cathar refuges in Languedoc was captured
that year when Quéribus was taken.
The Cathars continued
to flourish in Italy and Bosnia.
Although Friedrich
II detested heresy,
he had not allowed the Inquisition to
operate in his empire;
his policy was continued by most of his
successors
until Louis' brother Charles of Anjou
became king of
Sicily in 1266.
He enabled the Church to institute the Inquisition
in his
Sicilian kingdom in 1269.
Voices of dissent were squelched
by the Albigensian crusade
and the Inquisition; even the eminent
theologian
Thomas Aquinas justified such persecution of heresy.
The della Scalas of Verona attacked Sirmione in 1276
and imprisoned
174 perfecti, who were burned with other
Cathars in the
Verona amphitheater two years later.
Peter Autier and his brother
Guillem were trained as perfecti
in Lombardy and began
a revival in western Languedoc
in 1298; but the Inquisition regained
its powers,
and Peter Autier was executed in 1311.
Domingo de Guzman was born at Caleruega
in Castile not long
after 1170.
He was raised by his uncle,
who was the archpriest
of Gumiel d'Izan.
Dominic studied at Palencia from the age of
14 for ten years.
During a famine in 1191 he sold all his possessions
including
his treasured books in order to help the starving get
food.
He became a canon in the religious community
of the Osma cathedral and was ordained
a priest at the minimum age of 25 about
1196.
Dominic became subprior in 1201,
the year Diego was made
bishop of Osma.
Two years later Diego took Dominic with him on
a diplomatic mission to Denmark to arrange a marriage
for King
Alphonso IX's son.
On their way at Toulouse
Dominic spent a night
converting a heretic.
In Denmark on a second journey Diego and
Dominic were
so caught up in the zeal of converting pagans that
at Rome
they asked the Pope to send them on such a mission.
However,
Innocent III sent them to assist his legates,
who were preaching
against the Albigensian heretics.
The two Castilians found the
legates were not having
much success and advised them to reduce
their grand style
of traveling in order to preach like the poor
Cathar
perfecti in emulation of the instructions
Jesus
gave to his apostles in Luke 10.
The Cistercians were ashamed
to beg,
but Diego volunteered to set the example.
In 1206 at Prouille Dominic converted nine poor women and
established
a convent where they could live.
That year Dominic found his vocation
in preaching.
After the successful debate at Pamiers,
some Waldensians
returned to orthodoxy.
Durand of Huesca led a group of Waldensians,
who criticized Cathar dualism but wanted
to live and preach in
apostolic poverty.
In 1208 his Poor Catholics were approved by
the Pope.
The previous year Bishop Diego had died while returning
to Castile to raise money.
Dominic continued preaching with a
few devoted followers.
Sensing the violence of the coming crusade,
he was reported to have said,
I have sung words of sweetness to you for
many years now, preaching, imploring, weeping.
But as the people of my country say, where
blessing is of no avail, the stick (bagols) will prevail.
Now we shall call forth against you leaders
and prelates who, alas, will gather together
against this country the power of the nations
and will cause many people to die by the sword,
will ruin your towers, overthrow and destroy your
walls and reduce you all to servitude—oh, what sorrow!
Thus the bagols, that is, the force of the stick,
will prevail where sweetness and blessing
have been able to accomplish nothing.10
Some people mocked him and even spit at him.
When asked what
he would do if they ambushed him,
Dominic replied,
I should have asked you not to kill me quickly
or easily, but to do it bit by bit, mutilating my limbs
one by one, then gouging out my eyes,
then leaving my truncated body half dead,
wallowing in its own blood, or finishing it off
in whatever way you liked.11
According to his first biographer this amazed the heretics
so much that they stopped pursuing him.
The self-sacrificing Dominic
even wanted to sell himself
into slavery to convert a poor heretic
or
to rescue a woman's captured brother.
During Lent he fasted
on bread and water,
and he slept on wooden boards in a hair shirt.
During the Albigensian war the papal legate gave Dominic
authority
to reconcile converted heretics to the Church,
and his only recorded
acts during this period
were of reconciliation.
Only one incident
was reported of his being present at the
burning of heretics,
and in that case Theodoric of Apoldia
stated that Dominic saved
one of the victims from the fire.
After the victory of Simon de Montfort at Muret in 1213,
the
Catholics were welcomed into Toulouse by Bishop Fulk;
Dominic
was established as a diocesan preacher.
He attended the Lateran
Council with Fulk in 1215 and
asked Pope Innocent to approve his
new order of preachers.
Since in that era the primary preachers
were bishops,
the Pope wondered if he wanted an entire order of
bishops.
Dominic agreed to follow an already accepted order
and
chose the Rule of St. Augustine.
His sixteen brothers in the order
were eight Frenchmen,
seven Spaniards, and one Englishman.
After
Innocent died the next year, Pope Honorius III
granted their new
Order of Preachers.
As a mendicant Dominic never agreed to accept
traditional
Church authority as a bishop or an abbot.
The first
Dominican community was established at Toulouse
in the former
home of one of his first disciples, Peter Seila.
Their charter
was confirmed in Rome in 1217,
and there the Pope gave Dominic
the church of St. Sixtus.
Previous attempts to assemble the nuns
into one house had failed, but Dominic accomplished this
by giving
them that church as a convent,
establishing the friars at the
church of St. Sabina.
Dominic sent Friar Matthew to the University of Paris
and other
brothers to the University of Bologna.
At Rome Dominic met Reginald
of Orleans,
and this talented teacher was guided by visions
to
the new preaching order.
After preaching abroad, Reginald made
many converts
at Bologna and helped form the schools of theology
there and at Paris, where he died.
Dominic traveled in Spain,
France, and Italy establishing
friaries and then made his residence
at Bologna in 1219.
The first general conference was held there,
and the democratic constitution was written
for the Friars Preachers.
Six friars (brothers) were assigned to administer
each convent despite the burden that would cause
as their number increased,
especially in Germany.
All officers of the Order were elected
by a majority of those authorized to vote.
In 1220 the decision
was made that the brothers
should have no property and live on
alms.
Also that year Dominic founded a third order that included
married and unmarried men and women to eradicate
heresy called
the soldiery of Christ that later became
the Brothers and Sisters
of Penitence.
By the second general conference in 1221 there were
sixty friaries
organized in eight provinces that now included
Poland, Scandinavia,
and Palestine along with
Spain, Provence, France, Lombardy, and
the Roman province.
After visiting Venice,
Dominic died at Bologna
on August 6, 1221.
That year the Black Friars, as they were called
in England,
crossed the channel and soon had houses
in Canterbury,
London, and Oxford.
In France they were called Jacobins because
of the Paris home.
By 1223 Hungary and Germany
had also become
Dominican provinces.
By the next year 120 Dominicans
were studying
at the University of Paris.
Four years of philosophy and theology
were required
before they were allowed to preach,
and this was
followed by three more years of study.
The Dominicans were not
to study science or the liberal arts
unless they got a special
dispensation to do so;
this restriction was abandoned in 1259.
Dominic emphasized study and preaching
rather than manual labor,
and they approached the upper classes much more
than the Franciscans,
who ministered more to the poor.
Dominic was canonized as a saint
by the Catholic Church in 1234.
Dominicans were given the leading role in the Inquisition
beginning
in 1232. Pope Honorius III had given their
Order the device of
a dog bearing a torch in his mouth.
Their Florence convent depicted
them hunting heretics,
portrayed as foxes, while the Pope and
Emperor
looked on with approval.
In 1237 Pope Gregory IX assigned
a Franciscan to mitigate
with gentleness the Dominican inquisitors
of Toulouse
with apparently little effect.
After some inquisitors
were murdered in 1242,
the Dominicans asked the Pope to release
them from the office.
Pope Innocent IV refused, but two years
later he authorized
them to remove or replace any Dominican inquisitor
though he often vetoed their attempts to do so.
Some inquisitors
threatened to accuse their superiors
of heresy if they tried to
remove them.
To avoid such problems, the Franciscans
limited the
terms of their inquisitors.
Pope Clement IV had to prohibit inquisitors
from
prosecuting each other, and then different jurisdictions
were given to the Dominicans and Franciscans.
Raymond of Peñafort taught at the University of Bologna
and worked on canon law, publishing his
Summa de casibus penitentiae
to help solve moral cases.
He discussed sins against God and neighbors
and provided
a method for examining one's conscience
in relation
to the seven capital sins.
Raymond compiled the Decretals of
Gregory IX,
completing it in 1234.
William of Rennes, a Dominican
in Brittany, wrote a
commentary on Raymond's Summa, applying
it
to the moral problems in France.
Raymond of Peñafort
was elected master general in 1238
and established schools to
teach Dominican missionaries
Hebrew and Arabic about 1250.
The
Frenchman William Peyraut (Peraldus) was a Dominican
in the priory
at Lyons and wrote a comprehensive
Summa on the Virtues and
Vices.
Peyraut did not use Aristotle
at all
but referred to the Bible and Latin literature.
The first
part was completed about 1236 and discussed
41 vices in relation
to the seven deadly sins.
The second part published by 1249 further
elucidated
the virtues and added forty subsidiary virtues.
Both
parts developed ideas for sermons,
and he provided 200 examples.
William also published about 500 sermons and treatises
on monastic
rules and practices.
Finally he wrote De eruditione to
define a prince's
duties to God, the Church, self, officials,
children, subjects, and enemies.
Born at Assisi in Umbria probably in September 1181,
his mother
Pica had her first son baptized
Giovanni after John the Baptist.
His father Pietro di Bernardone was a cloth merchant
traveling in France; when he returned,
he re-named the boy Francesco after
that country.
According to the earliest biography by Thomas of
Celano,
Francis received little or no religious instruction
when
he was young and thus was under the sway of his vices.
Brought
up with servants, the wealthy young Francis
worked in his father's
lucrative business and was
generous to his friends in games and
entertainment,
becoming a leader among his peers.
In 1199 a civil war broke out in Assisi.
The burghers and lower
classes (minores) revolted
against the nobles, who were
defeated and fled to Perugia,
including the families of Clare
and Leonardo.
Francis may have learned how to use brick and mortar
in the wall around Assisi then erected.
Francis fought for Assisi
against their rival Perugia
in November 1202 at the battle of
Collestrada;
but they were defeated, and he was captured
and held
prisoner for a year.
When he became ill, Francis was ransomed
by his father.
After two years of illness he still dreamed of
becoming a knight;
he outfitted himself better than most knights
and went to join
the papal forces led by Count Gentile against Friedrich II
in Apulia;
but in 1205 at Spoleto he had a vision guiding him
to return to
Assisi to serve God instead of a lower master.
Thomas of Celano
wrote that Francis began to despise himself
and feel contempt
for the things he had valued and loved before.
He was promised
a most beautiful spouse,
who would excel all in wisdom.
He prayed
in solitude to learn the will of God and went
on a pilgrimage
to Rome, where mingling with beggars
he overcame his loathing
of leprosy by kissing a leper.
While praying in the ruins of the San Damiano church
near Assisi,
Francis received the message that
he should repair the broken-down
church.
So he went home, gathered some cloth,
and sold it with
his horse at Foligno,
planning to give the money to the priest
at San Damiano.
His father complained and locked him up for several
days;
but while his father was gone, his mother released him.
When his father took him to the bishop,
Francis gave everything
he had back to his father,
even stripping off his clothes so that
the bishop
was moved to cover him with a mantle.
He once was thrown
into a ditch of snow by robbers,
and he worked for a few days
as a scullion in a monastery.
Francis lived with lepers and washed
them at Gubbio in 1206.
One day he upbraided a poor man for begging;
but later he repented, reproached himself, and vowed
he would
never again refuse anyone
who asked for the love of God.
Living
in poverty and dressing like a hermit,
Francis worked restoring
San Damiano
and the Porziuncula chapel.
On February 24, 1208 he
heard a mass that included
the instructions Jesus
gave to his disciples
going out to preach.
So Francis reduced
himself to even simpler poverty,
giving up his extra cloak and
sandals,
and he began to preach repentance.
In April 1208 Francis gained his first companions or disciples
that included Bernard, Peter Catanii, and Giles.
Bernard set the
example of selling all his goods
and giving the money to the poor.
Francis and Giles went on a mission to the Marches of Ancona.
Philip and two others joined the band that summer,
and soon four
pairs went on missions with
Bernard and Giles going to Florence.
In 1209 Francis wrote his first rule for his eleven companions,
and they went to Rome to gain
the approval of Pope Innocent III.
Sabina bishop John became their advocate and argued that
if the
pontiff refused their request because he considered it
too difficult,
he would be offending the teaching of Jesus.
Francis told a parable about a rich king who had children
by a
beautiful but poor woman.
Francis said that he was that woman
and that the Eternal
King would provide for the poor children,
his followers.
The Pope told Francis to preach penance to all.
As they traveled through the Spoleto valley,
they begged from
door to door as needed.
They practiced holy simplicity, which
Francis
called the daughter of grace, the sister of wisdom,
and
the mother of justice.
He noted that pleasure is short, but punishment
is eternal;
suffering is small compared to infinite glory;
retribution
comes to all.
Few writings of Francis exist.
Among his Admonitions
is the following:
Where there is charity and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
Where there is patience and humility,
there is neither anger nor disturbance.
Where there is poverty with joy,
there is neither covetousness nor avarice.
Where there is inner peace and meditation,
there is neither anxiousness nor dissipation.
Where there is fear of the Lord to guard the house,
there the enemy cannot gain entry.
Where there is mercy and discernment,
there is neither excess nor hardness of heart.12
Francis preached boldly without flattery
or seductive blandishments.
He reproved himself sternly and disciplined others similarly,
saying that he corrected and chastised those whom he loved.
He
named his Order Friars Minor,
because he considered them lesser
brothers.
Thomas of Celano described the group as having chaste
embraces, gentle feelings, pleasing conversation,
modest laughter,
joyous looks, submissive spirits,
peaceable tongues, mild answers,
oneness of purpose,
ready obedience, and unwearied hands.
They
did not resist insults, ridicule, beatings,
robbing nor imprisonment,
and they did not seek patronage for protection.
Francis taught
his companions to consider money like dung,
and so they avoided
it.
They despised all worldly things and strove for
peace and
gentleness.
Francis slept on the bare ground and rarely ate cooked
food.
If he saw someone with garments worse
than what he was wearing,
he would give them his.
He preached to the birds and other animals
that they should be grateful to their Creator.
Francis believed
that the safest guard against
the devil's temptations is inner
spiritual joy.
Thus he made a point of keeping joy in his heart.
He avoided the miserable illness of dejection.
If he felt it creeping
into his mind even a little,
he would quickly have recourse to
prayer.
In 1211 Francis embarked for Palestine
but was shipwrecked
in Dalmatia.
The next year Clare of Favarone (1194-1253) came
back
to Assisi, and after staying in convents for a few weeks
she moved into San Damiano while Count Orlando
offered Francis
Mount La Verna as a hermitage.
Clare was joined by her cousin
Pacifica of Guelfuccio
and her own younger sister Agnes, and the
religious
community of Clare and her poor sisters was soon organized.
Francis once wrote to her,
"Live always in the truth, that
you may die in obedience.
Do not look at the life outside,
for
that of the Spirit is better."13
Some time before attending
the Fourth Lateran Council,
Francis visited Spain but was too
ill to go to Morocco.
In 1217 missions were sent beyond the Alps
and abroad.
Giles went to Tunis and Elias to Syria;
but Francis
was stopped on his way to France
by Cardinal Hugolino of Ostia.
In 1219 Hugolino wrote the Rule for the Poor Ladies
that
was approved by Francis
and confirmed by Pope Honorius.
In 1219 Francis wrote a letter to the rulers of the peoples
warning them to pause and reflect
because the day of death is
approaching.
Those who are wiser and more powerful in this world
will have greater punishments in the next.
He urged them to remember
God and follow the
commandments, suggesting that a town crier
be appointed
to exhort people to thank and praise God.
John of
La Penna led sixty brothers to Germany,
and the troubadour Pacifico,
who had been crowned king
of the poets by the Emperor, went to
France.
Giles went to Tunis, and the five brothers
who went to
Morocco suffered martyrdom.
Also in 1219 Francis went to the crusade
at Damietta,
where after being insulted and beaten he tried
to
convert the Egyptian sultan Malik al-Kamil.
Francis despised the
many rich gifts bestowed upon him,
impressing the sultan as unique.
According to a companion, Francis had a vision that the
Christians
would lose the battle that was about to occur;
but his warnings,
forbidding of the war,
and denunciations of its reasons were to
no avail.
In the defeat it was reported that
6,000 Christians
were killed or captured.
Francis visited Palestine, and during
these travels
he contracted an eye infection.
When Francis returned to Italy by way of Venice,
Cardinal Hugolino
was appointed Protector of the Order.
Brothers were established
in a house in St. Denis near Paris,
where they were led by the
theologian Aymon of Faversham.
Francis recovered from malaria
but gave up the leadership
to Peter Catanii and obeyed him; but
Peter died in March 1221.
Elias became vicar, and 3,000 brothers
attended
the Pentecost chapter that year.
Cardinal Hugolino also
protected the Order of Poor Ladies
founded by Clare, and the third
Order for married men
and women called the Penitential Brothers
was approved by Pope Honorius III.
They were to be in the world
but not of the world.
Those joining pledged to give back all unjustly
acquired goods,
to pay tithes owed, to make their wills,
and not
to swear nor hold public office.
They wore a distinctive poor
habit and spent their time
in prayer and works of charity.
Francis
and Hugolino, who was living in Bologna,
wrote their first Rule
that prohibited the carrying of weapons
and required women to
gain
their husbands' consent before joining.
The Rule Francis wrote for the Lesser Brothers states
that
brothers must live without anything of their own
and in chastity
and obedience.
Anyone wanting to accept their life should sell
all his
possessions and give them to the poor.
The brothers should
not become involved in these
temporal affairs nor should they
accept money.
After a probation of one year the brother
may be
accepted into obedience.
All brothers should wear poor clothes
that can be patched with sackcloth.
The brothers are to pray the
divine office and fast
from All Saints until Christmas and from
Epiphany until Easter.
Brothers are assigned to provinces but
may meet once a year.
No one is bound to obey anything that is
contrary to their life
or against their conscience, but they should
reasonably
and diligently consider the actions of ministers and
servants,
admonishing them if they are not according to the Spirit.
Any brother wishing to live according to the flesh
is to be admonished,
instructed,
and corrected humbly and diligently.
The Rule further states that no one is to be called
Prior
as they are all Lesser Brothers.
In their work none should
be administrators or managers;
they may have tools for their trades.
They are not to receive nor carry money for any purpose
except
what is needed to care for sick brothers.
Alms are a legacy from Jesus
and are the due
right of the poor.
Everything people leave behind in the world
will perish,
but they will be rewarded by the Lord
for the charity
they have done.
Brothers are not to murmur nor detract from others.
They should avoid impure glances
and association with women.
A
brother committing the sin of fornication
is to be expelled from
the Order.
Brothers are not to ride horses
except for an extreme
necessity or sickness.
No brother is to preach contrary
to the
Church and only if authorized.
Yet all brothers may preach by
their deeds.
Francis wrote the second rule two years later;
it
was discussed in Rome
and also approved by Pope Honorius,
whom
Francis promised to obey.
In 1224 a mission was sent to England,
and that summer Elias
received the message
that Francis only had two years to live.
After fasting, Francis was believed to have received
the stigmata of nail wounds in the hands and feet
and a spear wound in the
side as though
he had been crucified; but he kept it secret.
He
showed his love of nature in his famous
"Canticle to Brother
Sun."
In the various biographies many incidents are described
in which Francis performed healings or showed
with his words that
he understood spiritually
things that occurred during his absence.
He prophesied that Perugia would fall into a civil war;
soon after
that the citizens of Perugia fought the knights,
and the nobles
attacked the common people,
each destroying the vineyards and
fields of the other.
Francis wanted all his brothers to work,
and he encouraged them to learn a craft.
He would reproach anyone
who was idle and vagrant,
calling him Brother Fly, because he
did nothing good himself,
poisoned the good of others,
and was
useless and obnoxious to all.
He referred to his body as Brother
Ass,
for he subjected it to heavy labor, beating it with whips,
and feeding it the poorest food.
Francis suffered frequent infirmities, because he chastised
his body and was exhausted traveling with little sleep.
Although
he taught that brother body should be provided
with discretion,
Thomas of Celano wrote that this was his
only teaching in which
his actions differed from his words;
for Francis would subject
his innocent body to scourgings
and want, multiplying its wounds
without cause.
By 1225 he was so ill that he had to ride a donkey.
For a long time Francis refused to see a doctor.
Finally Brother
Elias persuaded him to do so.
His head was cauterized; his veins
were bled;
and plasters and eye-salves were applied;
but his condition
became worse.
Nearly blind, Francis kept on, saying,
"Let
us begin, brothers, to serve the Lord God,
for up to now we have
made little or no progress."14
He warned that it was dangerous
to rule,
especially in such a wicked era.
Six months before his
death, Francis became even
more ill with a serious stomach condition
and an infected liver that caused him to vomit blood.
Before he
died on October 3, 1226, Francis gave
Brother Elias his special
blessing and warned his disciples
of coming tribulations and scandals
that would separate some.
Many miraculous healings were attributed
to Francis,
and he was proclaimed a saint in 1228
after Hugolino
became Pope Gregory IX.
Also in 1228 the Pope issued a document allowing Clare
and
her sisters to live in poverty and reject worldly goods.
They
followed the principles of Francis but stayed within
their communities
instead of going out into the world.
After 1234 Clare wrote letters
to Bohemian king Ottokar's
daughter Agnes, who supported her efforts
for a more strict
rule in line with the poverty ideals of Francis
rather than the Benedictine Rule.
Pope Innocent IV gave
the Poor Ladies a new Rule in 1247.
Clare also practiced
such severe asceticism and penance
that her health was poor for
28 years.
She wrote a Rule calling for more intense poverty
and died two days after Innocent IV approved it
with the papal
bull Solet annuere in 1253.
When Clare died, the Poor Ladies
had 68 nunneries in Italy,
21 in Spain, 14 in France, and 8 in
the Germanic countries.
Isabel, sister of Louis IX, got a special Rule approved by
Pope Alexander IV for her convent at Longchamps in 1259.
Many
of the women who joined convents were
from noble families, and
most nunneries
would only accepted women bringing a dowry.
In
1266 Pope Urban IV promulgated a new Rule for the
Order of St.
Clare, and after that the houses either
followed that "Urbanist
Rule" or the more zealous
held to the "First Rule"
of Clare.
The end of the crusades resulted
in some nuns being
massacred.
In 1289 the Egyptian Muslims murdered all the Poor
Clares
in Tripoli, and two years later at Tolemaida the
mother-general led the women in disfiguring themselves
to preserve their virginity before they were massacred.
About 1300 there were 413 nunneries
following the First Order.
After strife at the general chapter of 1227,
Elias was replaced as minister general by John Parenti.
In 1230 Pope Gregory IX issued
the bull Quo elongati
that nullified the Testament
of Francis and exempted the
Lesser Brothers from the obligation
to perform manual labor,
and the next year the Orders were freed
from
episcopal jurisdiction, assuring them of self-government.
Elias was employed by Gregory to build
a church in honor of Francis.
When the body of Francis was transferred in 1230,
Elias offended
the brothers and spent the next two years
in penance; but he was
elected minister general again in 1232.
Elias spent much time
on the new basilica and was later
criticized for the ways he raised
money; contributions
came from Latin emperors John of Brienne
and Baldwin II,
Bohemian king Wenceslas, and Emperor Friedrich
II.
The numbers of Minor Friars steadily grew,
and in 1233
Pope Gregory issued five bulls
on their missionary activities.
That year Elias arbitrated a dispute between
the communes of Spoleto
and Cerreto.
In 1234 a seminary was established at St. Germain
des Pres
near Paris to accommodate 214 students,
and soon there
was a waiting list.
Later they moved to a convent at Cordeliers
and were called by that name.
Their theology was pioneered by
Alexander of Hales,
but his work was unfinished when he died in
1245.
In 1238 Elias tried to mediate between Pope Gregory and
Emperor
Friedrich.
Although the basilica was later criticized by the Spiritual
party,
the brothers Bernard, Masseo, Angelo, Rufino,
and Leo all
chose to be buried there.
Elias was severely criticized for living
in luxury
and acting like an autocratic prince.
He had a personal
cook and a retinue of servants with livery.
His friendship with
the Emperor
jeopardized his relationship with the Pope.
He was
accused of appointing unsuitable laymen.
He never held a general
chapter, treated others as inferiors,
punishing and deposing them
arbitrarily.
Even the reliable Eccleston in England wrote that
Elias
by his cruelty drove others to rebellion.
Elias ignored
complaints and tried to sway
a general chapter with local lay
brothers.
Some zealots devoted to Franciscan ideals of poverty
were opposed to learning and intellectual pursuits;
but it was
Alexander of Hales, the first Franciscan professor
at the University
of Paris, along with Jean de La Rochelle
and Aymon of Faversham,
who succeeded in getting Elias deposed in 1239.
Pope Gregory IX supervised the election of Albert of Pisa
as
minister general, but he died a few months later.
The Englishman
Aymon (Haymo) of Faversham had gained
the release of the critics
Elias had imprisoned,
and he was elected minister general in 1240.
He then imprisoned Gregory of Naples,
who had been provincial
minister for France.
Aymon made it a policy that only the literate
could be officers in the Order.
Lay brothers were also excluded
from positions of authority
and were relegated to domestic service.
Manual work outside the monastery was forbidden.
Begging, which
Francis only used as a last resort,
became the main source of
subsistence
as the Order became truly mendicant.
Aymon consulted
others and presided over the general chapter
of 1242 that promulgated
conservative constitutional reforms
that limited the powers of
the executive.
Pope Innocent IV intervened to relax the Rule in
1245
with his Ordinem vestrum bull that allowed brothers
to rely on spiritual friends not just for necessities
but for useful and convenient things.
Property of the Order not reserved by the benefactors
was declared the possession of the Holy See.
Another bull two years later gave provincial friars
the authority to replace proctors.
Aymon's successor Crescentius was deposed in 1247
though he was then elected bishop of Assisi.
John of Parma was elected minister general
and served ten years.
Robert Grosseteste opened the door to scientific activity
by
developing a scientific method that would
eventually transform
civilization.
He was born about 1170 and spent many years studying
at Paris and Oxford, where he became
chancellor by about 1220.
Grosseteste became the first to lecture to the Franciscans
at
Oxford in 1229, but he gave up his academic teaching
when he became
bishop of Lincoln in 1235.
Grosseteste was strongly influenced
by the revival of Aristotle
as well as by Muslims like Avicenna
and the Jewish Avicebron (Ibn
Gabirol).
Grosseteste translated Aristotle's
Ethics and emphasized
the inductive logic of science,
writing commentaries
on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics
and Physics.
He based his cosmology and theology on his
theory of light,
and he noted the importance of mathematics in
science.
He developed scientific method by suggesting that problems
be broken down into their simplest parts by analysis;
then through
synthesis one may frame a hypothesis that
could be tested by a
controlled experiment
to eliminate all other possible causes of
the effect.
However, with his active ecclesiastical career Grosseteste
was not able to carry out many experiments
before he died in 1253.
1. The Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent tr. C. C.
Swinton Bland, p. 214.
2. "Letter 1. Heloise to Abelard" tr. Betty Radice in
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, p. 115.
3. Bernard of Clairvaux, Five Books On Consideration 1:8
tr. John D. Anderson and Elizabeth T. Kennan, p. 38.
4. Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship 1:11 tr. Mary
Eugenia Laker, p. 53.
5. Ibid., 3:51, p. 103.
6. John 15:14.
7. John of Salisbury, Policraticus 3:6 tr. Cary J. Nederman,
p. 20.
8. Ibid. 4:7, p. 47.
9. Oldenbourg, Zoé, Massacre at Montségur
tr. Peter Green, p. 184.
10. Jean de Mailly, The Life of St. Dominic in Early
Dominicans ed. Simon Tugwell, p. 55.
11. Quoted in Vicaire, M.-H., Saint Dominic and His Times
tr. Kathleen Pond, p. 146.
12. Francis of Assisi, The Admonitions 27
tr. Regis J.
Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady in Francis and Clare: The Complete
Works, p. 35.
13. Francis of Assisi, "The Canticle of Exhortation to Saint
Clare and Her Sisters" 2-3
tr. Regis J. Armstrong and Ignatius
C. Brady in Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, p. 40.
14. Thomas of Celano, The First Life of St. Francis 103,
book 2, chapter 6, tr. Placcid Hermann, p. 94.
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