2

reform the concubinarian priests, his resolution gave way, for they repelled his interference so energetically that he was forced to fly for his life. Pope and Emperor were invoked, and he was enabled to return, but we hear no more of any effort on his part to meddle with the clergy and their partners.' That matters remained unaltered is shown by two synods of Gran, one in 1450 and the other in 1480, which reiterate the complaint, not only that the archdeacons and other officials kept the whole fine to themselves, but also, what was even worse, that they permitted the criminals to persevere in sin, in order to make money by allowing them to go unpunished. This state of affairs was not to be wondered at if the description of his prelates by Matthias Corvinus be correct. They were worldly princes, whose energies were devoted to wringing from their flocks fabulous revenues to be squandered in riotous living on the hordes of cooks and concubines who pandered to their appetites. The morals of the regular clergy were no better, for a diet held by Vladislas II. in 1498 complained of the manner in which abbots and other monastic dignitaries enriched themselves from the revenues of their offices, and then, returning to the world, publicly took wives, to the disgrace of their order.1

3

In Pomerania the evil had at length partially cured itself, for the female companions of the clergy seem to have been regarded as wives in all but the blessing of the Church. Benedict, Bishop of Camin, in 1492 held a synod in which he quaintly but vehemently objurgates his ecclesiastics for this wickedness; declares that no man can part such couples joined by the devil; alludes to their offspring as beasts creeping over the earth, and has

1 Wadding, Annal, Minorum, ann. 1437, n. 6-12.

2 Synod. Strigonens. ann. 1382, 1450, 1480 (Batthyani III. 275, 481, 557).

3 Galeoti Martii de dictis et factis Matthiæ Regis cap. XI. (Schwandtneri Rer. Hungar, Script.).

4 Synod. Reg. ann. 1498 c. 16. (Batthyani I. 551).

his spleen peculiarly stirred by the cloths of Leyden and costly ornaments with which the fair sinners were bedecked, to the scandal of honest women.' His indignation was wasted on a hardened generation, for his successor, Bishop Martin, on his accession to the see in 1499, found the custom still unchecked. The new bishop promptly summoned a synod at Sitten in 1500, where he reiterated the complaints of Benedict, adding that the priests convert the patrimony of Christ into marriage portions for their children, and procure the transmission of benefices from father to son, as though glorying in the perpetuation of their shame. What peculiarly exasperated the good prelate was that the place of honour was accorded as a matter of course to the priests and their consorts at all the merry-makings and festivities of their parishioners, which shows how fully these unions were recognised as legitimate, and apparently, for prudential reasons, encouraged by the people.2

Similar customs, or worse, doubtless prevailed in Sleswick, for when Eggard was consecrated bishop in 1494, he signalised the commencement of his episcopate by forbidding his clergy to keep such female companions. The result was that before the year expired he was forced to abandon his see, and five years later he died, a miserable exile in Rome.3

In fact, so loose had become the conception as to celibacy that in some places priestly marriage was quietly

1 Wiæ Hist. Episc. Camin. c. 41.-These irregularities were not of recent introduction. The canon referred to is copied almost literally from a synod held nearly forty years before by Bishop Henning. In fact, from the description given by the latter of the drinking, gambling, trading, and licentiousness of the ecclesiastics of Camin, there was little of the clerical character about them.-Synod. Camin. ann. 1454 (Hartzheim V. 930).

2 Wia Hist. Episc. Camin. c. 42.-Synod. Sedinens. c. 5.

In West Prussia, in 1497, the synod of Ermeland expresses itself as scandalised by the priests taking their companions publicly to fairs and other gatherings, and, to put a stop to the practice, it offers to secret informers one-half of the fine imposed on such indiscretions.-Synod. Warmiens. ann. 1497 c. xxxix. (Hartzheim V. 668). 3 Boissen Chron. Slesvicens, ann. 1494.

resumed, subject to the condition of resigning benefices. In a formulary of the fifteenth century there are formulæ for conferring parish churches, canonries, and precentorships thus vacated by the wedlock of the incumbent.1 Other churches had become established as hereditary, descending from father to son, and only in default of male issue did their collation revert to the bishop. The old rule rendering the bastards of priests incapable of preferment still remained on the books, but dispensations removing such disabilities for benefices without cure of souls were remanded to episcopal jurisdiction; a regular formula was provided for such cases, and, in the prevalent venality of the period, we may assume that they could be had by any applicant at a moderate price.2

The monastic Orders were no better than the secular clergy. When Ximenes was made Provincial of the Franciscan Order in Spain, he set himself earnestly at work to force the brethren to live according to the rule. The " Conventuals," as the great body of the Order was called to distinguish them from the "Observantines,” led disorderly lives, almost purely secular, and refused absolutely to submit to the observance of their vows. King Ferdinand being appealed to, pronounced sentence of banishment upon them, and they absolutely preferred existence in exile to the insupportable yoke of their Order. Yet they considered themselves so aggrieved that when they left Toledo they marched in procession through the Puerta Visagra with a crucifix at their head, singing the 113th Psalm, “In exitu Israel de Egypto." When Ximenes was promoted to the primatial see of Toledo,

1 Formularium Instrumentorum ad usum Curie Romane, fol. 20a, 91a, 101b (s.l.c.a., Hain 7276.)—“ Cum itaque parochialis ecclesia N. loci de N. quam nuper dilectus noster N. de N. ipsius ecclesie rector obtinebat ex eo vacet et va care noscatur ad presens quod dictus P[resbyter] matrimonium per verba de presenti legitime cum quadam mulieri contraxit illudque secundum morem patrie solemnizavit et per carralem copulam confirmavit," etc.

2 Ibid., fol. 20b, 21a.

the malcontents appealed to the Vicar General of the Order in Rome, who came to Spain and warmly espoused their cause, being only forced to desist by the decided stand taken by Queen Isabella in favour of Ximenes.1 It was the same with the other monastic Orders. A bull of Alexander VI., issued in 1496 for the purpose of reforming the Benedictines, describes the inhabitants of many establishments of both sexes in that ancient and honoured institution as indulging in the most shameless profligacy; and marriage itself was apparently not infrequently practised. Savonarola did not hesitate to declare that nuns in their convents became worse than harlots. Even the strictest of all the orders-the Cistercian-yielded to the prevailing laxity. A general chapter, held in 1516, denounces the intolerable abuse indulged in by some abbots, who threw off all obedience to the rule, and dared to keep women under pretence of requiring their domestic services. To fully appreciate the force of this indication. it is requisite to bear in mind the stringency of the regula

2

1 Robles, Vida del Card. Ximenes de Cisneros, cap. XII., XIII. Cf. Wadding, Annal Minor, ann. 1495, n. 34-36; ann. 1496, n. 10-15.

When the Franciscan general expressed to Isabella at great length the unworthiness and demerits of Ximenes, she quietly asked him whether he was sane and knew to whom he was speaking.-Gomesius de Rebus gestis Fr. Ximenii, Lib. I. fol. 14.

This reformation was not lasting. In 1545 Philip II. threatened to expel them all from Spain: Pius IV. proposed that they should gradually become extinct, by forbidding the reception of novices; but he finally empowered his legate to reduce them to observance of the rule or to extinguish them, as Philip might prefer.-Döllinger, Beiträge zur politischen, kirchlichen u. Cultur-Geschichte, I. 617 (Regensburg, 1862). 2 Rursus in certis monasteriis dicti ordinis, ipsæ moniales apertis claustris, indifferenter omnes homines etiam suspectos intromittunt, ac extra monasteria in curiis, castris et plateis vagantes, plura scandala committunt. . . Similiter religiosi qui in sacris ordinibus constituti non sunt, relicto habito regulari, matrimonium contrahere dicuntur. . . . Præterea omnes et singulos monachos et moniales regulam S. Benedicti hujusmodi expresse vel tacite professos, qui habitum monasticum sine dispensatione legitima reliquerunt aut matrimonia contraxerunt, ad monasteria, si illa exiverunt, redire et habitum monasticum ac velum nigrum reassumere dicta auctoritate compellatis.-App. ad Chron. Cassinens. Ed. Dubreul, pp. 902-3.

...

The words italicised would seem to indicate that monks and nuns occasionally married without even quitting their monasteries.

3 Perrens, Jérome Savonarole, p. 84.

4 Statut. Ord. Cisterc. ann. 1516 (Martene Thesaur. IV. 1636-7).

tions which forbade the foot of woman to pollute the sacred retirement of the Cistercian monasteries.1

The efforts constantly made to check these abuses produced little result. A Carthusian monk, writing in 1489,

1 Thus, in 1193, the general chapter of the Order promulgated the rule--" Si contigerit mulieres abbatiam ordininis nostri ex consensu intrare, ipse abbas a patre abbate deponatur absque retractatione. Et quicumque sine conscientia abbatis introduxerit, de domo ejiciatur, non reversurus, nisi per generale capitulum."-(Capit. General. Cisterc. ann. 1193 cap. 6-apud Martene Thesaur. IV. 1276.) The strictness with which this was enforced is illustrated by the proceedings in 1205 against the abbot of the celebrated house of Pontigny, because he had allowed the Queen of France and her train to be present at a sermon in the chapel and a procession in the cloisters, and to spend two nights in the infirmary. He adduced in his defence a special rescript of the Pope and a permission from the head of the Order in favour of the Queen, but these were pronounced insufficient, and sentence was passed that he merited instant deposition "quia tam enorme factum sustinuit, in totius ordinis injuriam," but that, in consequence of the powerful intercession of the Archbishop of Rheims and other bishops, he was allowed to escape with lighter punishment.(Hist. Monast. Pontiniac.-Martene Thesaur. III. 1245.)

This rule, indeed, was almost universal in the ancient monasteries. The great abbey of St. Martin of Tours preserved it inviolate until the incursions of the Northmen rendered the house an asylum for the inhabitants of the surrounding territory, and the prohibition was subsequently revived and formally approved by Leo VII. in 938 (Leonis P.P. VII. Epist. vi.). In that of Sithieu, from the time of its foundation early in the seventh century, it was preserved without infraction for more than three centuries. Even the licence of the Carlovingian revolution did not cause its inobservance; and when, amid the disorders of the tenth century, the Counts of Flanders became lay abbots of the convent, and discipline was almost forgotten, the mediation of two bishops was required to obtain permission, about the year 940, for Adela, Countess of Flanders, prostrated with mortal sickness, to be carried in and laid before the altar, where she miraculously recovered.-(De Mirac. S. Bertin. Lib. II. c. 12.-Chron. S. Bertin. c. 23, 24.)

So when Boniface founded the abbey of Fulda, he prohibited the entrance of women in any of the buildings, even including the church. The rule was preserved uninfringed through all the licence of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and when, in 1132, the Emperor Lothair came to Fulda to celebrate Pentecost, his empress was not allowed to witness the ceremonies. So when Frederick Barbarossa, in 1135, spent his Easter there, he was not permitted to enter the town because his wife was with him. In 1370 Boniface IX., at the request of the Abbot John Merlaw, relaxed the rule and permitted women to attend at the services of the church-shortly after which it was destroyed by lightning, as a warning for the future.-(Paullini Chron. Badeslebiens. § viii.)—An equally convincing indication of the favour with which this regulation was regarded by Heaven was afforded when Abbot Helisacar, about the year 830, introduced it in the celebrated monastery of St. Riquier, and immediately the number of miracles worked by the relics of the saint increased in a notable degree (Chron. Centulensis Lib. III. cap. iv.).—At the Grande Chartreuse, founded by St. Bruno towards the end of the eleventh century, women were not even allowed to enter on the lands of the community.-Chart. S. Hugon, Gratianopolit. (Patrolog. T. 166, p. 1571).