The clergy of the Middle Ages and previous to the Reformation were secularized. To the spiritual wants of the masses they gave little heed, but spent the large portion of their time in riotous living, in ambitious schemes, and in devising means by which to retain their hold on the superstitions of the common people. The monks, whose chief vow was that of personal poverty, had become so wealthy in the aggregate, that the monasteries were seats of the most comfortable living to be found. They were composed of several different orders, the chief of which were the Franciscan and the Dominican, who hated each other so bitterly that Luther’s crusade against Tetzel was regarded by the Pope as merely one of the common quarrels between the two orders of monks. The fairest buildings, the best filled larders, the most fertile fields, the enormous revenue which poured into their coffers, and the patronage of the mighty hierarchy of Rome, all conspired to make pleasant the lives of the members of these powerful corporations.
The larger part of the expenses of these great establishments had to be borne by the lower classes of the people, to whom the monastic orders were supposed to minister. This was oppressive everywhere, but was complained of most bitterly in Germany. Here the extortions of the Romish Church left scarcely the means of sustenance and the poor peasant was continually harassed by demands for more money. No religious ceremony could be performed, nothing could be done for his benefit, nor even a Christian burial, without the dropping of gold into the hand of the priest, so that, in the language of a contemporary writer from among the people, it seemed indeed that Heaven itself was closed to those that had no money.
In other countries, also, these evils were great, more especially in Italy, where the Papal court was held. Here the supreme rulers of the Catholic Church, who should by their virtues have set the example of a consistent Christian life to those under them, devoted themselves, sometimes to political intrigues for the aggrandizement of themselves and their own house, sometimes in carousing and wild dissipation, in which under pontiffs like Alexander VI., the excess of their wickedness disgraced Christendom. Revenues extorted from all sides were squandered as freely as water on magnificent palaces and costly works of art. The monasteries, with all their abuses in the worst period of their existence never attained the height of wickedness which was developed at different periods by the highest dignitaries of the court of Rome.
Thus we would naturally conclude that the oppressive tendencies of the priesthood, and indeed of the whole machinery of the Romish Church, together with the unholy career so commonly led by men occupying its most sacred offices, to whom the people would justly look for an example of vastly different life, would have a powerful effect toward the alienation of the masses. These were supplemented by an evil of probably greater tendencies in the same direction, and of wider influence for mischief. This was the perversions and innovations which from time to time had been made in the original Christian doctrine by the priests. For several centuries back, indeed not long after the time of Christ, changes had begun to appear in the Christian religion. As it was introduced into foreign countries, it often absorbed some of the customs and traditions of the worship it had supplanted. Besides this, numberless saints were created, every prominent pope or martyr being canonized, days of the year were set bearing their names and observances in their honor, then fasts, feasts, anniversaries and jubilees, many of which were of heathen origin, followed. Many new requirements, such as celibacy, were laid upon the priests, and such ceremonies as the burning of candles and the saying of masses had become a prominent part of religion, so that, with these things and numerous others of a like nature, the life of the Catholics was burdened with onerous exactions, not one-tenth of which could have been justified by reference to the Holy Scriptures.
The reasoning of the early writers, which finally culminated in the abstruse discussions of the schoolmen, developed some remarkable doctrines. They discovered that all holding offices in the Church, from the priests up, were forbidden to marry, they ordered the shaving of their heads and denounced the wearing of beards as a sin, and they proclaimed, on the authority of certain documents known as the Isodorian Decretals alleged to have been miraculously found in the second century, that the Pope was the successor of St. Peter, and therefore under divine guidance and unable to err or do anything wrong, a doctrine, however, which the career of such a pope as Alexander VI. would be calculated to seriously upset. These writers, in recording the events of the past, sadly failed to adhere to strict accuracy of statement, and interwove with the facts astonishing tales of miraculous events and legends of martyrs, saints and devils, which, though now so palpably absurd as to be interesting only as relics of the Middle Ages, were then seized on with unhesitating faith by the larger portion of the people.
These and many other uncouth things were forced upon the credulity of the mediæval peoples and, as we have said, found such general acceptance among the common people that to disbelieve them implied a lamentable want of faith. Many of these outlandish legends, which once obtained so general credence, have been handed down to the present generation. Such are the legends of St. George, Prester John, the Wandering Jew, Antichrist and Pope Joan, the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
With the Church thus superstitious and oppressive, so warped and distorted from that pure religion which Christ gave to his disciples and to the world, it is not strange that learned men, who were above superstition should turn to humanism and to the doctrines of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, seeking in the works of the ancient philosophers a purer guide to holiness than that held out to them by the Church of Rome. Nor was this all. The common people, who had patiently endured it for centuries, were becoming restive under the grievous system, so that the sixteenth century opened with general signs of discontent and dissatisfaction among the peasantry, the unlearned, the agricultural and laboring classes of a large portion of Europe. They bewailed their hard lot and the severity of their rulers, they spoke in anger and scorn of the degeneracy and licentiousness of the clergy, and demanded indignantly to know why they were so absorbed in the world and so negligent of their duties and of the pressing spiritual wants of those around them. This feeling did not spring up suddenly, it was a slow but steady growth extending through many generations. That grand poet Geoffrey Chaucer, more than two hundred years before the time of which we speak, in the first great poems of the mother tongue that England had ever written, had sharply attacked the clerical abuses of his day. He transfixes with his indignant scorn the mummeries and chicanery, the extortions and oppressions practiced by the priesthood, those worthless officers of the Church, who devoted themselves to the pleasures of the chase and to riotous living and worldly schemes, and who spent their time amid the gaities of London, wholly regardless of their neglected charges. So plainly does he picture it to us that we can almost see the pompous monk, the clerk, the choleric reeve, the summoner, and the man whom he holds up for our admiration and reverence, the “poore persoun of a town,” a simple, honest man who faithfully performed his duties, who, living an exemplary Christian life might himself thus the more efficaciously teach it to others and who never divided his attention nor distracted his mind by meddling in ambitious schemes outside his appointed work. These works, voicing the formless opinions of the people had an influence.
Shortly previous to the reformation came from the pen of William Langland the “Vision of Piers Ploughman,” a long poem of several divisions, which also attacked the clerical abuses, the negligence and lax-mindedness of the clergy on moral principles and pointed out the imperative need of reform. This book contained much that was elevated and noble, and was at the time of its publication a power for good in England.
Already had the Bible been translated. Moreover, many were actively at work scattering the seed of reformation in the mother tongue, but time does not permit us to dwell on them now, as we must pass on to glance at the progress of this work in other nations.
In Germany, Ulrich von Hutten, a distinguished knight and a polished scholar, denounced the abuses of the Romish Church and wielded his poet’s pen in defense of the approaching revolution, while in Italy the Papal court had scarcely recovered from the bitter denunciations of popish tyranny and ecclesiastical vice, by which Savonarola had for a time aroused the Christian world. In Spain, Valdez, the brother of Charles V.’s private secretary, had also severely commented upon the evils of the same corrupt system, and it is certain that a condition of affairs could be found in Spain to justify the most severe condemnation that could be administered by the pen of man. That these writings exercised a wonderful influence in their time is beyond doubt. It is not too strong a figure to say that those men, who thus vividly pictured, in a language understood by the masses, the evils and wrongs they suffered, and pointed out in the future light of a brighter and a better day, were new John Baptists, arousing the Christian world to prepare itself for freedom from the tyranny and sin of the Roman Catholic Church.