The olden Church had painted an ideal picture of the virgin. By this, though not alone by this, she voiced her respect for woman, from that Christian standpoint which differs so much from that of the world. From the earliest times she, like the Gospel and the Apostle of the Gentiles, set up voluntary virginity as a praiseworthy state of life. Hereby she awakened in the female sex a noble emulation for virtue, in particular for seclusion, purity and morality—woman’s finest ornaments—and amongst men a high respect for woman, upon whom, even in the wedded state, the ideal of chastity cast a radiance which subdued the impulse of passion. Virgin and mother alike were recommended by the Church to see their model and their guide in the Virgin Mother of our Saviour. Where true devotion to Mary flourished the female sex possessed a guarantee of its dignity, from both the religious and the human point of view, a pledge of enduring respect and honour.
How the Church of olden days continued to prize matrimony and to view it in the light of a true Sacrament is evident from the whole literature of the Middle Ages. Such being its teaching it is incomprehensible how a well-known Protestant encyclopædia, as late as 1898, could still venture to say: “As against the contempt for marriage displayed in both religious and secular circles, and to counteract the immorality to which this had given rise, Luther vindicated the honour of matrimony and placed it in an entirely new light.”
In those days Postils enjoyed a wider circulation than any other popular works. The Postils, however, do not teach “contempt of marriage,” but quite the contrary. “The Mirror of Human Conduct,” published at Augsburg in 1476, indeed gives the first place to virginity, but declares: “Marriage is good and holy,” and must not be either despised or rejected; those who “are mated in matrimony” must not imagine that the maids (virgins) alone are God’s elect; “Christ praises marriage, for it is a holy state of life in which many a man becomes holy, for marriage was instituted by our Lord in Paradise”; from Christ’s presence at the marriage at Cana we may infer that “the married life is a holy life.”
Other works containing the same teaching are the “Evangelibuch,” e.g. in the Augsburg edition of 1487, the “Postils on the Four Gospels throughout the year,” by Geiler of Kaysersberg († 1510), issued by Heinrich Wessmer at Strasburg in 1522, and the important Basle “Plenarium” of 1514, in which the author, a monk, writes: “The conjugal state is to be held in high respect on account of the honour done to it by God”; he also appends some excellent instructions on the duties of married people, concluding with a reference to the story of Tobias “which you will find in the Bible” (which, accordingly, he assumed was open to his readers).
The “Marriage-booklets” of the close of the Middle Ages form a literary group apart. One of the best is “Ein nützlich Lehre und Predigt, wie sich zwei Menschen in dem Sacrament der Ehe halten sollen,” which was in existence in MS. as early as 1456. “God Himself instituted marriage,” it tells us, “when He said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply!’ The Orders, however, were founded by Bernard, Augustine, Benedict and Dominic; thus the command of God is greater than that of the teacher,” i.e. the Sacrament excels all Rules made by men, even by Saints. It also gives a touching account of how marriage is founded on love and sustained by it.[424]
Another matrimonial handbook, composed by Albert von Eyb, a Franconian cleric, and printed at Augsburg in 1472, lavishes praise on “holy, divine matrimony” without, however, neglecting to award still higher encomium to the state of virginity. Erhard Gross, the Nuremberg Carthusian, about the middle of the 15th century, wrote a “Novel” containing good advice for married people.[425] The hero, who was at first desirous of remaining unmarried, declares: “You must not think that I condemn matrimony, for it is holy and was established by God.”[426]
Among the unprinted matrimonial handbooks dating from the period before Luther’s time, and containing a like favourable teaching on marriage, are the “Booklet on the Rule of Holy Matrimony,”[427] “On the Sacrament of Matrimony,”[428] and the excellent “Mirror of the Matrimonial Order,” by the Dominican Marcus von Weida.[429] Fr. A. Ebert, the Protestant bibliographer, remarks of the latter’s writings: “They effectually traverse the charges with which self-complacent ignorance loves to overwhelm the ages previous to the Saxon Reformation,” and what he says applies particularly to the teaching on marriage.[430]
To come now to the preachers. We must first mention Johann Herolt, concerning whose influence a recent Protestant writer aptly remarks, that his “wisdom had been listened to by thousands.”[431] The passage already given, in which he describes marriage as an Order instituted by Christ (p. 129 f.), is but one instance of his many apt and beautiful sayings. In the very next sermon Herolt treats of the preparation which so great a Sacrament demands. In the same way that people prepare themselves for their Easter Communion, so they, bride and bridegroom, must prepare themselves for matrimony by contrition and confession; for “marriage is as much a Sacrament as the Eucharist.”