The reflecting man who found, by a comparison of the treasures of different churches within his own personal observation, that some of the pretended relics were frivolous or impossible, and that the same members of some favorite saint were reproduced at points widely distant, might well speculate upon the probable benefits to Christendom from a complete inventory of the contents of the churches of two or three thousand bishoprics, of twenty or thirty thousand abbeys, and of more than forty thousand convents.[88] He might find difficulty in believing that our Lord was crucified with fourteen nails; that "an entire hedge" should have been requisite to plait the crown of thorns; that a single spear should have begotten three others; or that from a solitary napkin there should have issued a whole brood of the same kind.[89] He would be scandalized on learning that each apostle had more than four bodies, and the saints at least two or three apiece.[90] And his faith in the genuineness of the objects of popular adoration would be still further shaken, if, on subjecting them to a closer examination, he discovered that, as was the case at Geneva, he had been worshipping a bone of a deer as the arm of Saint Anthony, or a piece of pumice for the brain of the apostle Peter.[91]
But, whatever sceptical conclusions might be reached by the learned and discerning, the devotion of the common people showed no signs of flagging. In the parish church of St. Stephen at Noyon, it was not the Christian proto-martyr alone that was decorated with a cap and other gewgaws, when his yearly festival came around, but likewise the "tyrants," as they were styled by the people, who stoned him. And the poor women, seeing them thus adorned, took them to be companions of the saint, and each one had his candle. The devil with whom St. Michael contended fared equally well.[92] The very stones that were the instruments of St. Stephen's death were adored at Arles and elsewhere.[93] It was, however, to the Parisians that the palm in this species of superstition rightfully belonged. The knife wherewith an impious Jew had stabbed a consecrated wafer was held in higher esteem than the wafer itself! And so marked was the preference that it aroused the displeasure of one of the most bigoted doctors of the Sorbonne, De Quercu, who reproached the Parisians for being worse than the Jews themselves, "inasmuch as they adored the knife that had served to rend the precious body of Jesus Christ."[94]
The consecrated wafer.
When such superstitious respect was paid to the relics of saints, it is not surprising that the consecrated wafer or host received the most extravagant marks of adoration. The king himself was often foremost in public demonstrations in its honor. Louise de Savoie, mother of Francis the First, relates in her quaint diary the pompous ceremonial observed in restoring to its original position a pyx containing the host which had been stolen from the chapel of the palace of St. Germain-en-Laye. The culprit had suffered the customary penalty, having had his hand cut off and being afterward burned alive. In the expiatory procession which took place a few days later, Francis himself walked with uncovered head and carrying a lighted taper in his hand, from Nanterre to St. Germain. If we may credit his mother's somewhat partial account, the sight of the monarch's signal piety was so touching as to bring tears to the eyes of admiring spectators.[95]
In view of the general prevalence of debasing forms of superstition among the people, it is not inappropriate to consider the condition of that class of the population which is wont to exert the most potent influence in forming the moral sentiments and moulding the character of the unlettered masses. We have already touched upon the external relations of the clergy to the king and to the Pope; let us now look more narrowly into its internal state.
Wealth and power of the clergy.
At the period of which I am now treating, the clergy, both regular and secular, had attained unprecedented wealth and power. Never, perhaps, had France been more fully represented in the "Sacred College." Assuredly never since the residence of the Popes in Avignon had the French members possessed such immense riches. Thirteen French cardinals sat in the papal consistory at one time in the reign of Francis the First; twelve at the accession of his son to the throne.[96] Their influence in the kingdom was almost beyond conception, both on account of the multitude of benefices they held, and the distinction of the families from whom they sprang and whose titles they retained. Some were the incumbents of as many as ten bishoprics and abbeys; while the cardinals of Bourbon, of Lorraine, of Châtillon, of Du Bellay, and of Armagnac were of the best blood in the realm, and enjoyed in their own right, or by reason of their office, very extensive jurisdiction.
Non-residence of the prelates.
A standing reproach against the prelates was their non-residence in the dioceses committed to their pastoral supervision. In fact, when the Council of Trent, by one of its first decrees, forbade a plurality of benefices and enjoined residence, its action was regarded as an open declaration of war against the French episcopate.[97] But if this abuse is deplored by Roman Catholic historians as the fruitful cause of the introduction and rapid progress of Protestantism,[98] the reformers, viewing their work as an instrument specially designed by heaven for the purification of a corrupt church, might well be justified in regarding the negligence of the bishops as a wise providential arrangement. Many a feeble germ of truth was spared the violence of persecution until the kindly sun and the plentiful showers had conferred greater powers of endurance. Happily for the reformers, the duty of watching for the first appearance of reputed heresy, which belonged properly to the bishops, was but poorly discharged by many of the deputies to whom they entrusted it. Nor could a delegated authority always accomplish what might have been done by a principal.[99]
Revenues of the clergy.