At the same time the spirit of asceticism was never more pronounced than in the early Cistercians, Carthusians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and other orders. Mysticism stood like a stone wall to stem the tide of worldliness, of wickedness, and of disbelief.[570:1] When St. Bernard preached to the students at Paris on the vanity of study and induced twenty of them to follow him into the cloister at Clairvaux he was attempting a very significant social revolution which culminated in St. Dominic and St. Francis. Nevertheless, in the very face of the ascendancy of the Roman hierarchy and notwithstanding the spiritual revival within the Church, there appeared a vast amount of heresy, of irreverence, and of independence. The spirit of individuality was abroad. Men became less obedient to authority and began to doubt the truth of what was taught them. This wide-spread distrust led to a shifting from one authority to another, rather than an entire rejection of all authority.[570:2]
The wealth and power of the clergy and nobility had decreased; the burghers had advanced to a position of influence and self-consciousness. Guilds, the awakened spirit of nationality, and self-governing communes were democratic factors to be taken into account. The rise of the lower classes, and the consequent decline of the upper classes, show that a new era is dawning over Europe. The bourgeois literature reveals a mocking contempt for nobles and bishops alike. There was a great deal of flippant wit which spared no topic and no individual. "God and the devil, Aristotle
and the Pope, canon and feudal law, Cistercians and priests were held up to ridicule."[571:1] The subjects of popular songs are no longer exclusively the virtues of asceticism and humility, obedience to God and the feudal lord; but love of woman and the carnal joys of life have become popular themes. Villains achieve paradise by trickery. Men continually outwit Satan. A famous jongleur even shakes dice with St. Peter, and beats him at the game. Verily a new chapter was opening in the history of Europe.
Severe criticism of the iniquity and depravity of the clergy, their greed for wealth and position, and particularly their contempt for their sacred obligations, came from several sources.
(1) The best men in the Church, among whom are Popes, bishops, abbots, priests, and monks. Their letters and sermons reveal flagrant abuses and an earnest cry for reform.
(2) The acts of Church councils and synods show the general recognition among the clergy of the presence of grave irregularities and evils, and also a consciousness of their destructive tendencies.
(3) The general impression of selfishness and wickedness, which the Church officials made, soon was reflected in the satirical poems of the popular troubadours and by the sprightly versifiers of the courts.[571:2]
(4) The laity of course were not slow to understand conditions and became scathing critics. These lay censors in many instances went far beyond the
clerical reformers. While the better clergy urged the elimination of current abuses not one of them dreamed of denying the fundamental doctrines of the Church or the efficacy of its ceremonies. On the contrary, the lay leaders became very extreme. They declared that the Church was the creation and home of the devil; that no one ought to believe any longer that salvation came only through sacerdotal ministrations; that all theatrical ceremonies were of no avail; that the masses, relics, holy water, and indulgences were mere priestly tricks for money-making purposes and not certain means of gaining paradise. These extreme opponents of the Church soon gained followers all over Christendom, from all social classes and on account of a great many reasons.
From the standpoint of ecclesiastical law, however, these drastic critics who questioned the teachings of the Church, and proposed to repudiate it, were guilty of the grave crime of heresy. The attempt to crush the wide-spread heresies of the thirteenth century forms an awful chapter in the history of the mediæval Church. The rise of the Albigenses, the Waldenses, and other heretical sects forced the Church to take drastic measures against these dangerous foes. Before the close of the twelfth century secular rulers were induced to take measures against heresy. In England Henry II. in 1166 ordered that no one should harbour heretics, and that any house in which they were received should be burned. In Spain the King of Aragon in 1194 decreed that any one who should listen to the Waldensians, or even give them food, should have his property confiscated and suffer death. These measures began a series of merciless decrees which even