View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, Vol. 3

by Henry Hallam

We are in general deprived of explicit testimonies in tracing the revolutions of popular opinion. Much must therefore be left to conjecture; but I am inclined to attribute a very extensive effect to the preaching of these heretics. They appear in various countries nearly during the same period, in Spain, Lombardy, Germany, Flanders, and England, as well as France. Thirty unhappy persons, convicted of denying the sacraments, are said to have perished at Oxford by cold and famine in the reign of Henry II. In every country the new sects appear to have spread chiefly among the lower people, which, while it accounts for the imperfect notice of historians, indicates a more substantial influence upon the moral condition of society than the conversion of a few nobles or ecclesiastics.[c]

But even where men did not absolutely enlist under the banners of any new sect, they were stimulated by the temper of their age to a more zealous and independent discussion of their religious system. A curious illustration of this is furnished by one of the letters of Innocent III. He had been informed by the bishop of Metz, as he states to the clergy of the diocese, that no small multitude of laymen and women, having procured a translation of the gospels, epistles of St. Paul, the psalter, Job, and other books of Scripture, to be made for them into French, meet in secret conventicles to hear them read, and preach to each other, avoiding the company of those who do not join in their devotion, and having been reprimanded for this by some of their parish priests, have withstood them, alleging reasons from the Scriptures, why they should not be so forbidden. Some of them too deride the ignorance of their ministers, and maintain that their own books teach them more than they can learn from the pulpit, and that they can express it better. Although the desire of reading the Scriptures, Innocent proceeds, is rather praiseworthy than reprehensible, yet they are to be blamed for frequenting secret assemblies, for usurping the office of preaching, deriding their own ministers, and scorning the company of such as do not concur in their novelties. He presses the bishop and chapter to discover the author of this translation, which could not have been made without a knowledge of letters, and what were his intentions, and what degree of orthodoxy and respect for the Holy See those who used it possessed. This letter of Innocent III., however, considering the nature of the man, is sufficiently temperate and conciliatory. It seems not to have answered its end; for in another letter he complains that some members of this little association continued refractory and refused to obey either the bishop or the pope.[d]

In the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Vulgate had ceased to be generally intelligible, there is no reason to suspect any intention in the church to deprive the laity of the Scriptures. Translations were freely made into the vernacular languages, and perhaps read in churches, although the acts of saints were generally deemed more instructive. Louis the Debonair is said to have caused a German version of the New Testament to be made. Otfrid, in the same century, rendered the gospels, or rather abridged them, into German verse. This work is still extant, and is in several respects an object of curiosity.[e] In the eleventh or twelfth century we find translations of the Psalms, Job, Kings, and the Maccabees into French.[f] But after the diffusion of heretical opinions, or, what was much the same thing, of free inquiry, it became expedient to secure the orthodox faith from lawless interpretation. Accordingly, the council of Toulouse in 1229 prohibited the laity from possessing the Scriptures; and this precaution was frequently repeated upon subsequent occasions.[g]

The ecclesiastical history of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries teems with new sectaries and schismatics, various in their aberrations of opinion, but all concurring in detestation of the established church.[h] They endured severe persecutions with a sincerity and firmness which in any cause ought to command respect. But in general we find an extravagant fanaticism among them; and I do not know how to look for any amelioration of society from the Franciscan seceders, who quibbled about the property of things consumed by use, or from the mystical visionaries of different appellations, whose moral practice was sometimes more than equivocal. Those who feel any curiosity about such subjects, which are by no means unimportant, as they illustrate the history of the human mind, will find them treated very fully by Mosheim. But the original sources of information are not always accessible in this country, and the research would perhaps be more fatiguing than profitable.

Lollards of England.

I shall, for an opposite reason, pass lightly over the great revolution in religious opinion wrought in England by Wicliffe, which will generally be familiar to the reader from our common historians. Nor am I concerned to treat of theological inquiries, or to write a history of the church. Considered in its effects upon manners, the sole point which these pages have in view, the preaching of this new sect certainly produced an extensive reformation. But their virtues were by no means free from some unsocial qualities, in which, as well as in their superior attributes, the Lollards bear a very close resemblance to the Puritans of Elizabeth's reign; a moroseness that proscribed all cheerful amusements, an uncharitable malignity that made no distinction in condemning the established clergy, and a narrow prejudice that applied the rules of the Jewish law to modern institutions.[] Some of their principles were far more dangerous to the good order of society, and cannot justly be ascribed to the Puritans, though they grew afterwards out of the same soil. Such was the notion, which is imputed also to the Albigenses, that civil magistrates lose their right to govern by committing sin, or, as it was quaintly expressed in the seventeenth century, that dominion is founded in grace. These extravagances, however, do not belong to the learned and politic Wicliffe, however they might be adopted by some of his enthusiastic disciples.[k] Fostered by the general ill-will towards the church, his principles made vast progress in England, and, unlike those of earlier sectaries, were embraced by men of rank and civil influence. Notwithstanding the check they sustained by the sanguinary law of Henry IV., it is highly probable that multitudes secretly cherished them down to the era of the Reformation.

Hussites of Bohemia.

From England the spirit of religious innovation was propagated into Bohemia; for though John Huss was very far from embracing all the doctrinal system of Wicliffe, it is manifest that his zeal had been quickened by the writings of that reformer.[m] Inferior to the Englishman in ability, but exciting greater attention by his constancy and sufferings, as well as by the memorable war which his ashes kindled, the Bohemian martyr was even more eminently the precursor of the Reformation. But still regarding these dissensions merely in a temporal light, I cannot assign any beneficial effect to the schism of the Hussites, at least in its immediate results, and in the country where it appeared. Though some degree of sympathy with their cause is inspired by resentment at the ill faith of their adversaries, and by the associations of civil and religious liberty, we cannot estimate the Taborites and other sectaries of that description but as ferocious and desperate fanatics.[n] Perhaps beyond the confines of Bohemia more substantial good may have been produced by the influence of its reformation, and a better tone of morals inspired into Germany. But I must again repeat that upon this obscure and ambiguous subject I assert nothing definitely, and little with confidence. The tendencies of religious dissent in the four ages before the Reformation appear to have generally conduced towards the moral improvement of mankind; and facts of this nature occupy a far greater space in a philosophical view of society during that period, than we might at first imagine; but every one who is disposed to prosecute this inquiry will assign their character according to the result of his own investigations.

Institution of chivalry.

But the best school of moral discipline which the middle ages afforded was the institution of chivalry. There is something perhaps to allow for the partiality of modern writers upon this interesting subject; yet our most sceptical criticism must assign a decisive influence to this great source of human improvement. The more deeply it is considered, the more we shall become sensible of its importance.