If we look at the general character of the centuries we have been studying, there is no denying that there was a great deal which was good in them. The people in the twelfth century had a great zeal for religion of an ascetic type, and amidst the violence and oppression of the times there was a great deal of religious feeling of an exalted character, and many a saintly life. It was the great age of the Latin hymns.
Early English architecture.
North-west transept of Beverley Minster.
In the thirteenth century, the enthusiasm for the ascetic life had cooled down, having been to some extent disappointed; the monks were not so highly thought of, and the more sober type of religion represented by the bishop and secular clergy came to the front. It was a great century of intense vitality; the spirit of freedom was moving the middle classes of the people, and the Church was in hearty sympathy with them. It was the age of organization of civil institutions. Very few monasteries were built, but every cathedral was enlarged, and churches were rebuilt; there was never so active an architectural period. The new religious spirit of the age showed itself in that rare event, the introduction of a new style of architecture, bold engineering skill in its construction, with pointed arches soaring heavenwards, ornamentations of acanthus leaves just unfolding in the vigour of the spring-time of a new year.
In the fourteenth century, the history of the Lollard movement is enough to show the strong religious feeling of the people and its tendency towards sounder views of religion. The saying that, “Where you saw three people talking together, two of them were Lollards,” was said by a Lollard, and may be an exaggeration; but there is no question that (while some went to extremes, as always in an age of great intellectual movement and strong feeling) the mass of the people was leavened by what there was—and there was much—that was true in the new ideas.[635]
It has been suggested by ingenious critics that Chaucer, being connected by marriage and sympathy with the leader of the party which favoured the opinion of the school of Wiclif, his famous description of “a poure parson of a town” is only the ideal of what a parish priest ought to be according to the view of that school. It may be maintained, on the other hand, that Chaucer’s sketches of the clergy of all orders are conceived in a spirit of genial satire; and that if the parish priests had been generally worldly-minded and negligent of their duties, unclerical in attire and weapons, attendants on field-sports and haunters of taverns, the great artist would have put a man of that type among his inimitable gallery of contemporary character sketches. We have no fear of being mistaken when we take it that his “poure parson of a town” (which does not necessarily mean a town but quite possibly a village rector[636]) had many prototypes among the parochial clergy of the fourteenth century.
A good man there was of religioun,
That was a poure parson of a toun;
But riche was of holy thought and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Christe’s Gospel treweley would preche.
His parishens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversity ful patient;
And such he was y proved often sithes,
Ful loth were he to cursen for his tithes,
But rather would he given, out of doubte,
Unto his poure parishens about,
Of his offering, and eke of his substance.
He could in litel thing have suffisance.
Wide was his parish, and houses fer asunder,
But he ne left nought, for no rain ne thunder,
In siknesse and in mischief to visite
The farthest in his parish much and lite,
Upon his fete, and in his hand a staff.
This noble example to his sheep he gaf,
That first he wrought and afterward he taught
Out of the gospel he the wordes caught,
And this figure he added yet thereto,
That if gold ruste what should iron do,
For if a priest be foul on whom we trust,
No wonder is a leude man to rust;
And shame it is if that a priest take kepe,
To see a filthy shepherd and clene shepe.
Well ought a priest example for to give
By his clenenesse how his shepe shulde live.
He sette not his benefice to hire,
And left his shepe accumbered in the mire,
And ran unto London unto Saint Poule’s
To seeken him a chanterie for souls,
Or with a brotherhede to be withold,
But dwelt at home and kepte well his fold,
So that the wolfe made him not miscarry.
He was a shepherd and no mercenarie,
And though he holy were and virtuous,
He was to sinful men not despitous,
Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne,[637]
But in his teaching discrete and benigne.
To drawen folk to heaven with fairenesse
By good ensample was his businesse.
But if it were any persone obstinat,
What so he were of highe or low estate,
Him wolde he snibben[638] sharply for the nones.
A better priest I trow nowhere non is.
He waited after no pomp ne reverence,
Ne maked him no spiced[639] conscience,
But Christes love and His apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he followed it himselve.
King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, 15th century.