IV. The Church and the People.
§ 104. Public Worship and Art.
Public worship had for a long time been popularly regarded as a performance fraught with magical power. The ignorant character of the priests led to frequent setting aside of preaching as something unessential, so that the service became purely liturgical. But now popes and synods urged the importance of rearing a race of learned priests, and the carefully prepared and eloquent sermons of Franciscans and Dominicans found great acceptance with the people. The Schoolmen gave to the doctrine of the sacraments its scientific form. The veneration of saints, relics, and images became more and more the central point of worship. Besides ecclesiastical architecture, which reached its highest development in the 13th century, the other arts began to be laid under contribution to beautify the ceremonial, the dresses of the celebrants, and the inner parts of the buildings.
§ 104.1. The Liturgy and the Sermon.—The Roman Liturgy was universally adopted except in Spain. When it was proposed at the Synod of Toledo in A.D. 1088 to set aside the old Mozarabic liturgy (§ [88, 1]), the people rose against the proposal, and the ordeals of combat and fire decided in favour of retaining the old service. From that time both liturgies were used side by side. The Slavic ritual was abandoned in Moravia and Bohemia in the 10th century. The language of the church services everywhere was and continued to be the Latin. The quickening of the monkish orders in the 11th century, especially the Cluniacs and Cistercians, but more particularly the rise of the Franciscans and Dominicans in the 13th century, gave a great impulse to preaching. Almost all the great monks and schoolmen were popular preachers. The crowds that flocked around them as they preached in the vernacular were enormous. Even in the regular services the preaching was generally in the language of the people, but quotations from Scripture and the Fathers, as a mark of respect, were made in Latin and then translated. Sermons addressed to the clergy and before academic audiences were always in Latin.—As a preacher of repentance and of the crusades, Fulco of Neuilly, † A.D. 1202, regarded by the people as a saint and a miracle worker, had a wonderful reputation (§ [94, 4]). Of all mediæval preachers, however, none can be compared for depth, spirituality, and popular eloquence with the Franciscan Berthold of Regensburg, pupil and friend of David of Augsburg (§ [103, 10]), one of the most powerful preachers in the German tongue that ever lived. He died in A.D. 1272. He wandered from town to town preaching to crowds, often numbering 100,000 men, of the grace of God in Christ, against the abuse of indulgences and false trust in saints, and the idea of the meritoriousness of pilgrimages, etc. His sermons are of great value as illustrations of the strength and richness of the old German language. Roger Bacon too (§ [103, 8]), usually so chary of praise, eulogises Frater Bertholdus Alemannus as a preacher worth more than the two mendicant orders together.
§ 104.2. Definition and Number of the Sacraments (§§ [58]; [70, 2]).—Radbert acknowledged only two: Baptism including confirmation, and the Lord’s Supper. Rabanus Maurus by separately enumerating the bread and the cup, and counting confirmation as well as baptism, made four. Hugo St. Victor again held them to be an indefinite number. But he distinguished three kinds: those on which salvation depends, Baptism, Confirmation, and the Supper; those not necessary and forming important aids to salvation, sprinkling with holy water, confession, extreme unction, marriage, etc.; those necessary for particular callings, the ordination of priests, sacred vestments. Yet he prepared the way for the final ecclesiastical conception of the sacraments, by placing its Elementa Corporalia under the threefold category as divinam gratiam ex similitudine repræsentantia, ex institutione significantia, and ex consecratione continentia. Peter the Lombard took practically the same view, but fixed the number of the Sacraments at seven: Baptism, Confirmation (§ [35, 4]), the Supper, Penance, Extreme Unction, Marriage, and Ordination (§ [45, 1]). This number was first officially sanctioned by the Florentine Council of A.D. 1439 (§ [67, 6]). Alexander of Hales gave a special rank to Baptism and the Supper, as alone instituted by Christ, while Aquinas gave this rank to all the seven. All the ecclesiastical consecrations and benedictions were distinguished from the sacraments as Sacramentalia.—The Schoolmen distinguished the sacraments of the O.T., as ex opera operante, i.e. efficacious only through faith in a coming Redeemer, from the sacraments of the N.T. as ex opera operato, i.e. as efficacious by mere receiving without the exercise of positive faith on the part of all who had not committed a mortal sin.Against old sectaries (§§ [41, 3]; [63, 1]) and new (§§ [108, 7], [12]) the scholastic divines maintained that even unworthy and unbelieving priests could validly dispense the sacraments, if only there was the intentio to administer it in the form prescribed by the church.[309]
§ 104.3. The Sacrament of the Altar.—At the fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215 the doctrine of Transubstantiation was finally accepted (§ [101, 2]). The fear lest any of the blood of the Lord should be spilt led to the withholding from the 12th century of the cup from the laity, and its being given only to the priests. If not the cause, then the consequence, of this was that the priests were regarded as the only full and perfect partakers of the Lord’s table. Kings at their coronation and at the approach of death were sometimes by special favour allowed to partake of the cup. The withdrawal of the cup from the laity was dogmatically justified, specially by Alex. of Hales, by the doctrine of concomitantia, i.e. that in the body the blood was contained. Fear of losing any fragment also led to the substitution of wafers, the host, for the bread that should be broken.—A consecrated host is kept in the Tabernaculum, a niche in the wall on the right of the high altar, in the so-called liburium or Sanctissimum, i.e. a gold or silver casket, often ornamented with rich jewels. It is taken forth, touched only by the priests, and exhibited to the kneeling people during the service and in solemn processions.
§ 104.4. Penance.—Gratian’s decree (§ [99, 5]) left it to the individual believer’s decision whether the sinner could be reconciled to God by heart penitence without confession. But in accordance also with the teaching of the Lombard, confession of mortal sins (Gal. v. 19 ff. and Cor. v. 9 f.), or, in case that could not be, the desire at heart to make it, was declared indispensable. The forgiveness of sins was still, however, regarded as God’s exclusive prerogative, and the priest could bind and loose only in regard to the fellowship of the church and the enjoyment of the sacraments. Before him, however, Hugo St. Victor had begun to transcend these limits; for he, distinguishing between the guilt and the punishment of the sinner, ascribed indeed to God alone the absolution from the guilt of sin on the ground of sincere repentance, but ascribed to the exercise of the priestly function, the absolution from the punishment of eternal death, in accordance with Matthew xviii. 18 and John xx. 23.Richard St. Victor held that the punishment of eternal death, which all mortal sins as well as venial sins entail, can be commuted into temporal punishment by priestly absolution, atoned for by penances imposed by the priests, e.g. prayers, fastings, alms, etc.; whereas without such satisfaction they can be atoned for only by the pains of purgatory (§ [61, 4]). Innocent III., at the fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215, had the obligation of confession of all sins raised into a dogma, and obliged all believers under threat of excommunication to make confession at least once a year, as preparation for the Easter communion. The Provincial Synod at Toulouse in A.D. 1229 (§ [109, 2]) insisted on compulsory confession and communion three times a year, at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. The three penitential requirements, enforced first by Hildebert of Tours, and adopted by the Lombard, Contritio cordis, Confessio oris, and Satisfactio operis continued henceforth in force. But Hugo’s and Richard’s theory of absolution displaced not only that of the Lombard, but, by an extension of the sacerdotal idea to the absolution of the sinner from guilt, led to the introduction of a full-blown theory of indulgence (§ [106, 2]). As the ground of the scientific construction given it by the Schoolmen of the 13th century, especially by Aquinas, the Catholic Church doctrine of penance received its final shape at the Council of Florence in A.D. 1439. Penance as the fourth sacrament consists of hearty repentance, auricular confession, and satisfaction; it takes form in the words of absolution, Ego te absolvo; and it is efficacious for the forgiveness of sins. Any breach of the secrecy of the confessional was visited by the fourth Lateran Council with excommunication, deposition, and lifelong confinement in a monastery. The exaction of a confessional fee, especially at the Easter confession, appears as an increment of the priest’s income in many mediæval documents. Its prohibition by several councils was caused by its simoniacal abuse. By the introduction of confessors, separate from the local clergy, the custom fell more and more into disuse.
§ 104.5. Extreme Unction.—Although as early as A.D. 416 Innocent I. had described anointing of the sick with holy oil (Mark vi. 13; Jas. v. 14) as a Genus Sacramenti (§ [61, 3]), extreme unction as a sacrament made little progress till the 9th century. The Synod of Chalons in A.D. 813 calls it quite generally a means of grace for the weak of soul and body. The Lombard was the first to give it the fifth place among the seven sacraments as Unctio extrema and Sacramentum exeuntium, ascribing to it Peccatorum remissio et corporalis infirmitatio alleviatus. Original sin being atoned for by baptism, and actual sins by penance, Albert the Great and Aquinas describe it as the purifying from the Reliquiæ peccatorum which even after baptism and penance hinder the soul from entering into its perfect rest. Bodily healing is only a secondary aim, and is given only if thereby the primary end of spiritual healing is not hindered. It was long debated whether, in case of recovery, it should be repeated when death were found approaching, and it was at last declared to be admissible. The Council of Trent defines Extreme Unction as Sacr. pœnitentiæ totius vitæ consummativum. The form of its administration was finally determined to be the anointing of eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands, as well as (except in women) the feet and loins, with holy oil, consecrated by the bishop on Maundy Thursday. Confession and communion precede anointing. The three together constitute the Viaticum of the soul in its last journey. After receiving extreme unction recipients are forbidden again to touch the ground with their bare feet or to have marital intercourse.
§ 104.6. The Sacrament of Marriage (§ [89, 4]).—When marriage came generally to be regarded as a sacrament in the proper sense, the laws of marriage were reconstructed and the administration of them committed to the church. It had long been insisted upon by the church with ever-increasing decidedness, that the priestly benediction must precede the marriage ceremonial, and that bridal communion must accompany the civil action. Hence marriage had to be performed in the immediate vicinity of a church, ante ostium ecclesiæ. As another than the father often gave away the bride, this position of sponsor was claimed by the church for the priest. Marriage thus lost its civil character, and the priest came to be regarded as performing it in his official capacity not in name of the family, but in name of the church. Christian marriage in the early times required only mutual consent of parties (§ [39, 1]), but the Council of Trent demanded a solemn agreement between bride and bridegroom before the officiating priest and two or three witnesses. In order to determine more exactly hindrances to marriage (§ [61, 2]) it was made a law at the second Lateran Council in A.D. 1139, and confirmed at the fourth in A.D. 1215, that the parties proposing to marry should be proclaimed in church. To each part of the sacrament the character indelibilis is ascribed, and so divorce was absolutely forbidden, even in the case of adultery (in spite of Matt. v. 32 and xix. 9), though separatio a mensa et toro was allowed. Innocent III. in A.D. 1215 reduced the prohibited degrees from the seventh to the fourth in the line of blood relationship (§ [61, 2]).