If among those who pressed forward to the confessionals, there happened to be any one whose crime was publicly known, though of a kind which the civil law could not reach, he behoved, first of all, to do public penance. For this purpose they first led him to a chapel or sacristy, where they stripped him of his clothes, and took off his shoes, leaving him nothing but his shirt. His arms were crossed upon his breast, a light placed in one hand, and a rod in the other. Then the penitent walked at the head of the procession which proceeded to the red cross. He remained on his knees till the chant and the collect was finished. Then the commissary gave out the Psalm, Miserere mei. The confessors immediately approached the penitent, and led him across the church towards the commissary, who, taking the rod from his hand, and gently striking him thrice on the back with it,[318] said to him, "The Lord have pity on thee, and forgive thy sin." He then gave out the Kyrie Eleison. The penitent was led back to the front of the cross, and the confessor gave him the apostolic absolution, and declared him restored to the company of the faithful. Sad mummery, concluded with a holy expression, which, at such a moment, was mere profanation!
It is worth while to know the contents of one of those diplomas of absolution which led to the Reformation of the Church. The following is a specimen:—"May our Lord Jesus Christ have pity on thee, N. N., and absolve thee by the merit of his most holy passion. And I, in virtue of the apostolic power entrusted to me, absolve thee from all ecclesiastical censures, judgments, and penalties, which thou mayest have deserved; moreover, from all the excesses, sins, and crimes, which thou mayest have committed, how great and enormous soever they may have been, and for whatever cause, even should they have been reserved to our most holy Father the pope, and to the apostolic see. I efface all the marks of disability, and all the notes of infamy which thou mayest have incurred on this occasion. I remit the pains which thou shouldest have to endure in purgatory. I render thee anew a partaker in the sacraments of the church. I again incorporate thee into the communion of saints, and re-establish thee in the innocence and purity in which thou wert at the hour of thy baptism; so that, at the moment of thy death, the gate of entrance to the place of pains and torments will be shut to thee, and, on the contrary, the gate which leads to the heavenly paradise, will be opened to thee. If thou art not to die soon, this grace will remain unimpaired till thy last hour arrive. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
"Friar John Tezel, commissary, has signed it with his own hand."
How dexterously presumptuous and lying words are here intermingled with holy Christian expressions!
All the faithful required to come and confess at the place where the red cross was erected. The only exceptions were the sick, the aged, and pregnant women. If, however, there happened to be in the neighbourhood some noble in his castle, or some great personage in his palace, there was an exemption for him;[319] for he might not care to mingle with the crowd, and his money was worth the going for.
If there happened to be a convent whose heads were opposed to the traffic of Tezel, and prohibited their monks from visiting the places where the indulgence had erected its throne, means were still found to remedy the evil by sending them confessors, who were commissioned to absolve them against the will of their order and the will of their heads.[320] There was not a vein in the mine, however small, which they did not find means of working.
At length they arrived at the object and end of the whole affair, the summing up of the cash. For greater security, the strong box had three keys—one in the hands of Tezel, the second in those of the treasurer, appointed by the firm of Fugger of Augsburg, who had been appointed agents in this vast enterprise, while the third was entrusted to the civil authority. When the moment arrived, the counters were opened in the presence of a notary-public, and the whole was duly counted and recorded. Must not Christ arise and drive these profane sellers from the temple?
The mission being closed, the dealers relaxed from their labours. It is true the instructions of the commissary-general forbade them to frequent taverns and suspicious places;[321] but they cared little for this prohibition. Sin must have appeared a very trivial matter to people who had such an easy trade in it. "The mendicants," says a Roman Catholic historian, "led a bad life, expending in taverns, gaming-houses, and places of infamy, what the people retrenched from their necessities."[322] It is even averred, that in taverns they sometimes played at dice for the salvation of souls.[323]