Of all the friars, the Carmelites got the name of being the most audacious story-tellers, and they are especially reproached for their introduction of the Blessed Virgin into their stories, and their claims to stand in a peculiarly favoured position towards her.

Thei maketh them Maries men (so thei men tellen),
And lieth on our Ladie many a long tale.' 1

Thei ne precben nought of Powell, ne penaunce for synne,
But all of mercy and mensk, that Mary may helpen.' "

But we don't imagine that the Carmelites were the only offenders in this way; every wherein this sort of literature the Blessed Virgin is made to play a degrading part in these stories. She is introduced as the especial patroness of the most vicious and abandoned, if, perchance, they have, in the midst of their evil courses, performed any acts of devotion to her. Thus, in the Book de la Tour-Laundry,' we have an account of an

'Evil woman that fasted the Friday and Saturday in the worship of Christ's passion and the virginity of our Lady, and alle way that woman wolde kepe her selff clene thilke two days. Hit happed her on a derke night she yede towardes her leeman to foly, she felle into a welle that was twenty fadom deppe, and in her fallyng cried helpe on oure lady; and whanne she come to the water she fonde it harde underne the her fete, and a voyse came to her saieng, "Thou hast in the worship of oure Lady kepte thin flesshe clene in her fast, and therfor now thou shalt be saued of this perile." And so on the morow folke came to feche and wynde up water at that welle, and thei herde and sawe her thereinne, and thanne thei drawe her up, hauyng moche meruaile how she might be saved; and she said it was for loue of her fast the Friday and the Saturday. And thus as ye haue herde God and our Lady saued her.'-Book de la Tour-Laundry, p. 10.

If such stories as this were recited to stimulate devotion, what influence could they have had on the morality of the audience? Observe also the strange inconsistency with which this ever ready supporter of the views of the friars is made to do duty. At one time she is quoted as the avenger of a love of dress, at another she is made to send terrible plagues upon a lady who was so perverse that she would not wear her best clothes on Lady-day. But the medieval stories were not only remarkable for their audacity and irreverence; they are also to be noted as having in them nothing moral, in the proper sense of the term. It may, indeed, not unfairly be said that medieval religious stories have no moral basis whatever. They seem to be fables skilfully adapted by the preacher or teacher to enforce the particular duty or observance which he is anxious for the moment to inculcate, without any regard to their general moral bearing. Thus, in Robert de Brune, the hard and bitter usurer,

1 Piers the Ploughman's Crede, 1. 58.
3 Book de la Tour-Laundry, p. 47.

2 Ibid, 1. 80.

who throws a loaf of bread at a beggar's head because he can't find a stone ready to his hand, is represented as being reclaimed and made a distinguished saint from the merit of this rather questionable act. A man might be stirred up by this to give a donation to the particular object for which the friar was pleading; but what would be its effect on his moral life? It may perhaps be said that it is out of the question to expect a moral aim in those who use essentially immoral means. Does any one ever really strive to recommend pure and disinterested conduct by fictitious and incredible stories, which the narrator could never have possibly himself believed in? It is very possible that specific acts of devotion may be thus recommended, but hardly so that sound general moral teaching should be thus inculcated. And hence it will follow that the very method of teaching used by the friars in fact precluded them from being useful instructors, and led them, of necessity, to devote their energies to enforce acts of a more or less distinctly superstitious character. What the sermons of the ordinary parish priest in the Middle Ages were, we may get a fair notion from various directions of medieval bishops, and from some specimens of such sermons which have survived. They were a short and, if bald, perhaps practical, instruction on the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the seven virtues, the seven works of mercy, and the seven deadly sins; but the friar aspired to much bolder flights than this. He came to excite and awaken, and not so much to contribute towards the amending of daily life as to introduce new methods of devotion and greater zeal in what he declared to be the cause of God and Holy Church. Having to deal with an ignorant audience he naturally resorted to stories, and as the topics he handled were more or less of a sensational character, he was driven to employ sensational stories. Regarding truth as a very secondary matter, even if he regarded it at all, he drew readily upon his imagination and memory, and by the help of purgatory, saints, angels, and fiends, he compounded those wonderful narrations with which the literature of the Middle Age teems. As in the mediæval view he would be a very poor saint indeed who did not begin to work miracles from his very infancy, so he would be nothing of a friar, in the estimation of his fellows, who was not ready with these instruments for influencing the popular mind. But as his object was not moral improvement, but religious excitement, such also was the cast of his stories; and hence no phase of the wildest and most grotesque superstition can be

1 Handlyng Synne, 1. 5720.

be

found which is not plentifully recommended by strange and startling tales. Dropping then the moral element as well as the conditions of verisimilitude and probability, it may interesting to see what sort of religious acts and duties were enforced by these stories of the friars, for thus we should seem to gain a glimpse at the mediæval mind. In a book written, as the Chronicle of Lanercost,' by Minorite friars, we should expect to see plentiful glorifications of the order at the same time that we have disparaging tales of the parochial clergy. The rivalry between the two was notorious, and, indeed, necessitated by the state of the case, for the parish priest could not see his domain intruded on, his richer parishioners taken from him in their confessions and offerings, and his influence and authority weakened, without violently opposing the aggression. Hence arose ill blood and numerous quarrels, and the friar would not be slow to record, and perhaps invent, disparaging stories against his old-established rival. In these stories the focaria or concubina of the priests, usually play a prominent part. Sometimes, indeed, higher game is aimed at than the mere parish priest; as, for instance, in the 'Lanercost Chronicle,' where we are told of

'A certain vicar, notorious for his irregularity, who openly kept a mistress, though often admonished. It chanced that the bishop going his rounds on visitation, the priest was brought before him and suspended for his sin. He goes to his house full of heaviness, and bitterly reproaches his mistress for the trouble she has brought upon him. She inquires the cause, and on hearing it, bids him be of good cheer, for that she would subdue the bishop. In the morning then the bishop going to the church meets this woman carrying a large quantity of chickens and eggs he asks her whither she is going. "I am hastening," says she, "to the wife of the bishop, who, being ill, requires these delicacies for her support." Upon this, the bishop, conscience-stricken, immediately frees the vicar from the suspension which he had inflicted on him.'-Lanercost Chronicle, p. 92.

In another place we have an account of a parish priest who, at Easter-tide, excited his parishioners to perform immodest dances, and for inflicting degrading penances upon them was at length stabbed in his own churchyard. A certain priest at Wells sinned yet more atrociously, for, being taken with grievous sickness, and certain Friars Minor having been sent for to minister to him, he manages to make them leave the room to get some refreshment, and in the meantime he calls for his money-box and endeavours to secrete his cherished goldpieces by putting them in his mouth. The attendant, who sees it, at once summons the friars, who rush to the room where the unfortunate ecclesiastic is beheld lying dead, his body the colour of lead, and bristling from head to foot with coins, which stick

1 Lanercost Chronicle, p. 109.

out of it like pieces of lard in a ragout.1 Let none, therefore, presume to defraud the holy brethren of their alms, or venture to cherish their worldly goods, when, by giving them to pious uses, they may make redemption for their soul.' Hear the story of the steward of the Lady of Valenor, who lived near Newcastle :

:

'He being near the end of life was counselled by the priest to make a pious disposition of his goods. Whereupon he obstinately declared that he had none to dispose of: "If I have any more than this little of which I have told you, I bequeath the remainder to Satan," said he, impiously. No sooner was he dead and about to be laid in the grave, than, as they moved the coffin, a fire burst out and instantly consumed his house. They carry him hastily to the church, but as they go the fire follows them, consuming the whole streets through which they pass. They reach the church, and hardly had they deposited their burden, when the church also is in flames, and this and the neighbouring church is burnt completely to the ground. This is known to all the country, and I myself have seen the traces of the conflagration.'—Lanercost Chronicle, p. 119.

Hear again the story of a man famous in his time, one Francis, a wealthy usurer of Milan. This man was greatly in arrear for tithes and church-dues, and being pressed to pay, and threatened with the Pope's letters of excommunication, he asks the priest to dinner, and receives him with a splendid show of feasting:

"Now," says the usurer, "if you think you can compel me to pay your dues, show your power by cursing that loaf of bread." The priest hesitated; but being excited by the gibes of his companion, at length he solemnly cursed the bread. Instantly it is turned into an old mouldly lump. "You have shown me the power of your curses," exclaims Francis; "now show the power of your blessing." The blessing is spoken, and instantly the bread returns to its former state. Upon this the usurer pays his dues and is absolved.'-Lanercost Chronicle, p. 132.

It is, of course, to be expected that the duty of giving liberally to good works will form a very prominent topic in mediæval stories; but there is one kind of tales under this head which we imagine must have been specially popular, inasmuch as they represent the doing of one good act of almsgiving, even if done unconsciously, as making all the difference to the sinner between purgatory and hell. The doors of purgatory were open to the widest possible extent in the medieval legends, and in fact scarce any were denied entrance there save those who died under the ban of the church, or priest's wives, or other perpetrators of ecclesiastical offences; this class of sins being, in the estimation of the medieval story-teller, of far deeper dye than ordinary transgressions against morality. But the bold religious romancer was not to be utterly quelled even by the doom to

1 Lanercost Chronicle, p. 153.

hell itself. The well-known story of S. Gregory represents him as delivering his mother from the very place of everlasting torment, and the writer of the legend actually appends the receipt by which the effect may be produced. In the Staeyons of Rome' it is said that a mass sung in the chapel Scala Cali delivers from hell.

Who-so syngeth masse yn that chappelle

For any friend, he loseth hym fro helle.'

1

This, however, is strange doctrine, and not in harmony with the ordinary legend, which is orthodox on this point. With respect to the doom to everlasting woe, there is one particular of medieval stories worthy of being noted, and which might be illustrated by a thousand examples. It is that the body on earth attests by some terrible outward appearance or strange catastrophe happening to it the state of the condemned soul. Sometimes the body of the sinner is carried off before the eyes of the awestruck beholders. Thus, in the 'Lanercost Chronicle,' an excommunicate person of great wealth dies at Rome, and is taken to the church of the Friars Minor for sepulture. The friars refuse, but the attendants of the body force their way into the church and begin to prepare a grave: when, lo, at the door of the church a huge wolf of many colours appears, and stalking gauntly up to the coffin tears it open, and seizing the body of the sinner, disappears with it in his mouth, and is seen no more.2 At another time, a wicked 'playtour of Milan,' who had been actually buried in the church, is dragged out of his tomb by devils. The husband who hears from a holy hermit of his wife's condemnation, which had been revealed to him in a vision, has the coffin opened, and finds the face black and distorted.* A very remarkable legend as to the body of a condemned sinner is recorded in the 'Lanercost Chronicle.'

'An excommunicated and sacrilegious man had died and was buried, when, lo! to the horror of all beholders, he is seen again in his natural body, wearing the habit of a black monk, taking up his position either on the roofs of houses or on corn-stacks. Darts and arrows are aimed at him, but whatever touches him is instantly reduced to ashes. If any ventured to lay hands on him, he received such a terrible shock that all his bones seemed to be broken. At length a brave esquire is determined to try a vigorous combat with him, but, terrible to relate, he was slain by the hideous apparition.'-Lanercost Chronicle, p. 164.

The mention of the habit of the black monk as worn by this apparition is suggestive and amusing. The friars bore no great love to the parish priest, as being continually poaching on his

1 Staeyons of Rome (ed. Furnivall), p. 119. 3 Robert de Brune: Handlyng Synne.'

2 Lanercost Chronicle, p. 98. 4 Book de la Tour-Laundry, p. 69.