Besides that the clergy contributed greatly to the fertilizing of uncultivated lands, they protected the labourers with the whole power of the Church. The Truce of God, which was the work of the clergy, placed under the safeguard of Heaven, the inhabitants of the fields, the oxen, the companions of their labours, and even the instruments of their tillage. The Church went still further; it multiplied the festivals of the calendar, for the sake of the people. By augmenting the number of religious solemnities, the Church had two motives: the first, to bring more frequently to the foot of the altar an ignorant and gross multitude, who there found the instruction necessary for the amelioration of their morals and the consolation of their evils; the second, to procure some days of repose for that crowd of serfs, condemned by the avarice of their masters to labours which had no end, and of which they did not gather the fruit.[109]
Amidst wars which revived without ceasing, the peasantry often found an asylum near a monastery inhabited by peaceful men, and protected by the opinions of the times. Nothing can prove better the ascendancy of the Church, than seeing, on one side, the nobility shut up in their strong castles, and on the other, cenobites dwelling in cloisters scarcely closed, and defended only by faith and confidence. As might be expected, the peace which reigned in the neighbourhood of monasteries attracted a numerous population around them. Many towns, and even cities, owed their origin to the vicinity of a monastery, whose name they still preserve.
The maxims of the clergy, more perhaps than their example, contributed to the enfranchisement of serfs. Gregory the Great, when giving liberty to some slaves, said that the Redeemer came upon earth to release men from slavery, and to substitute the rights of the people for the code of servitude. In the middle ages, many charters of liberty were granted for “the love of God,—for the salvation of the soul,—for the remission of sins.” It was at the hour of death, and by testamentary dispositions, that most enfranchisements were granted; from which we may conclude that it was the work of the priests who assisted the dying. The clergy represented the enfranchisement of slaves as a thing agreeable to God; the ceremony of manumission was performed in the church as a solemn religious act. It was at the foot of the altars that the holy words were pronounced which broke the bonds of slavery. Thus everything announced that the spirit of the Gospel was everywhere mingled with the progress of civilization, and that the liberty of modern nations was to be one of the blessings of Christianity.
There was another mode of gaining liberty, which was by entering into holy orders, or to take vows in a monastery. So great a number of slaves escaped by that means from the yoke of their masters, that this custom was obliged to be restrained, and at last entirely abolished, in almost all the states of Europe. The crusades often bestowed upon the serfs the same privileges that the clergy did. Beneath the banners of the cross, serfs found the enfranchisement they had before found in monasteries. This facility which peasants possessed, of breaking their chains by going to the Holy Land, would have depopulated the plains, if new regulations had not placed restrictions and limits to it.
It has been said that the clergy became enriched by the crusades. This assertion, which has been so often repeated by the writers of the last century, requires to be examined by the impartiality of history. The clergy were rich at the period of the first crusade. Their enemies accused them for a long time of having usurped immense properties. In France, under the two first races, their wealth had given umbrage to the barons, who had several times despoiled them, under the pretext that they did not defend the state, and that the property they held belonged to them whose bravery watched over the safety of the kingdom.
If the crusades enriched the clergy, it might be supposed that the clergy would be most rich in countries which took the greatest part in the crusades. Now, the clergy of Germany, and several other states of Europe, surpassed in wealth the clergy of the kingdom of France, where the crusades excited so much enthusiasm, and caused so many warriors to take arms. The clergy, it is true, found new possessions in the East; but, after the crusades, nothing of them was left but vain titles.
The first crusade must have been, as we have said, very profitable to the clergy; they were not obliged to pay the expenses of it; the zeal of the faithful furnished them. Nevertheless they did take part in this crusade; and the priests who set out, with the other Crusaders, certainly did not enrich themselves in their pilgrimage. Many, no doubt, shared the fate of Robert, abbot of St. Remi, the historian of the first crusade, who, on his return from Jerusalem, was expelled by his monks for having ruined his convent.
At the second crusade, contributions were levied upon the churches, without any regard to the warm remonstrances of the ecclesiastics. From that time an opinion, which became very injurious to the clergy, was established throughout the Christian world, which was, that wars undertaken for the glory of Jesus Christ and the deliverance of the holy places, ought to be paid for by the Church. Tributes were at once levied upon the clergy, without consulting any other authority, or following any other regulations than those of necessity and circumstances. To reckon from the third crusade, after the publication of the Saladin tenth, more regular imposts were established, which were fixed by the popes or councils, and which were collected with such rigour, that churches were despoiled of their ornaments, and sometimes the sacred vases were put up to sale. It is true that the clergy sometimes received offerings and bequests from those who went to the Holy Land, or had made a vow to go; but what did such tributes of piety amount to when compared to the tributes they themselves were compelled to pay? We do not hesitate to affirm that, in the space of two hundred years, the clergy paid towards the holy wars more money than would have been required to purchase all their property; and thus the zeal of ecclesiastics for the deliverance of the holy places was observed perceptibly to cool; and it may be said that the indifference which followed among Christian nations the ardour for the crusades, began by the clergy. In Germany, and many other countries, their discontent was carried so far, that at last the popes did not dare to trust the preaching of crusades to the bishops, and only gave this mission to the mendicant orders, who possessed nothing, and had nothing to pay for the expeditions against the infidels.[110]
It has been said that the clergy took advantage of the crusades to buy at low prices the property of the nobility, as, in our days, we have seen many people take advantage of a revolution, to purchase at a moderate price the property of the clergy themselves. We find, in fact, examples of such acquisitions in the first crusades; but these examples must have been more rare in the holy wars, of which the clergy were obliged to pay the expenses.[111] The great advantage that the clergy had over the nobility was, that the nobles were able to pawn or alienate their possessions, and that ecclesiastics were never allowed to pledge or alienate their property. Another advantage the clergy possessed was, that they formed a body always animated by the same spirit, and always governed by the same laws. Whilst everything changed around them, they never changed. It was thus they resisted the revolution which was effected in property.
We have seen, that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a great number of monasteries were established. By that means wild, uncultivated places became fertile lands; and these conquests made over the desert added to the domains of the clergy. We must likewise add, that the jurisdiction of the clergy, which every day made fresh progress, was for them a source of wealth. It was in the nature of things, as we have already remarked, that the most enlightened class should become the richest. The clergy had therefore no need of profiting by the ruin of the Crusaders in order to become rich; their knowledge, their spirit of order and economy, with the ascendancy they possessed over the people, offered them ample means for increasing or preserving their possessions.