Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance

by P. L. Jacob

Fig. 184.—Ancient Legend of Christmas, with the words of the old French plaint. The engravings represent the Sibyl prophesying the Birth of Christ; Jesus in the Stable at Bethlehem; one of the Magi; and John the Baptist announcing that Christ was born.—Fac-simile from a book of hours, printed with illuminations at Paris by Anthoine Vérard, towards the close of the Fifteenth Century.

The Petites Heures were known as Tierce, Sexte, and None; Prime, the first of the canonical hours, was not instituted till the twelfth century, but the other three appear to date from the earliest institution of Christianity. St. Cyprian, who lived in the third century, says that prayers were said at Tierce in honour of the descent of the Holy Ghost, at Sexte in memory of the Crucifixion, and at None to commemorate the death of Christ. Half a century earlier Tertullian wrote that, independently of the mystic traditions consecrated by prayer, the Church, in establishing the canonical hours, wished to conform to the secular division of the day.

Vespers (Vespera), so called from the star Vesper, which rises as the sun is setting, also dates from the origin of the liturgy. The hour of vespers was called lucernarium, because it was necessary to light the lamps at the performance of that service. A hymn exists entitled “Ad incensum lucernæ,” that is, “To the lighting of the lamp.” The Latins as well as the Greeks, until the eighth century, celebrated vespers after sunset; but since that period the usage of Rome, where vespers were said immediately after Nones, prevailed and became universal. Milan, however, still adhered to the primitive form of the rite; vespers were commenced as soon as the evening star appeared above the horizon, and terminated by torchlight. Until the fifth century vespers were the last prayers of the day, and included the psalms, which were said separately in the following century, as a last service, termed Compline, and which at first only contained three psalms—it was not till the ninth century that the thirtieth psalm was added.

The principal libraries of Europe possess several large manuscript volumes written on vellum, as remarkable for their illuminations (Fig. 185) as for the beauty of their calligraphy; they are termed the Evangeliarium, the Lectionarium, and the Liber Benedictionis, and were frequently bound with great magnificence. They belonged to different churches and dioceses which, while generally following the rules of the dogmatic liturgy established by the councils, used several modifications of their own invention. Some of these modifications were important ones, and were due either to local feeling and the peculiarities of the congregation, or arose during the anniversaries, the commemorative festivals of the diocesan ritual. The use of the Evangeliarium dates from St. Jerome. Before him each of the four Gospels formed a separate book, and the four were of different liturgical importance. St. Jerome collected them, arranged them in their proper order, and added marginal notes of the daily offices.

Fig. 185.—The Mystic Fountain, from an Evangeliarium of Charlemagne (Eighth Century), in the National Library of Paris. The jet of water represents the Church, the source of truth; the inner birds the souls of the elect; while those outside seem to personify souls attracted to baptism by divine grace.—From the large work of Count de Bastard.

A hierarchical order with defined powers and privileges existed from the date of the first establishment of Christianity. In his sixth epistle to the Magnesians, St. Ignatius, who had been a disciple of St. Peter, says, “I exhort you to behave, in all things, with that spirit of concord which comes from God; and to look upon the bishop as the representative of God himself in your midst, upon the priests as forming the august senate of the apostles, and upon the deacons as those to whom is intrusted the ministry of Jesus Christ.” The faithful bowed the head to none but the bishop, to ask his blessing; and in the church the bishop occupied a seat raised above that of the priests. The bishops wore a tunic and pallium, or long mantle, a chasuble or dalmatic, and a circlet of gold or polished metal upon the head. The latter was subsequently replaced by the mitre, which for some time was made of cloth, and was a circular pointed cap split at the top (Fig. 186). The primitive insignia of office worn by the bishops were the episcopal ring and the pastoral staff, made of wood, ivory, or metal. They are mentioned as wearing sandals for the first time in the ninth century, and gloves in the twelfth. The bishop of Rome, the first among his brethren (primus inter pares), wielded over the whole Church a supremacy formally enunciated by St. Irenæus, a disciple of St. Polycarp, a contemporary of the apostles. Originally, however, he wore no distinguishing mark of his pre-eminent rank; but towards the fifth century, the term “pope” began to be exclusively applied to him.

After the reformation of his clerks (clerici) by the famous Bishop of Hippona, the former were called canonici, whence the term chanoines, because they led a life in conformity with the canons of the Church. In Africa, in Spain, and in Gaul these canonical clerks lived together and boarded with the bishop, and devoted themselves to science, literature, art, music, and especially to calligraphy. They thus formed a sort of religious school, whence their title of scholastics (scholastici)—a title which they well deserved during the reign of Charlemagne, but which they had ceased to merit at the time of Charles the Bold. The priests attached to each church constituted what was termed the assembly of the presbytery (presbyterium), or the ecclesiastical senate of the bishop of the diocese (senatus ecclesiæ episcopi). It was permissible for the clerks at an early age to enter the minor degrees of their calling, such as those of porter, exorcist, reader, and acolyte; but they were not allowed to assume the higher grades until they had reached a ripe age. The minimum age for the diaconate was thirty years; for the priesthood, thirty-five; ordination, from the fourth century upwards, took place four times a year. We learn from St. Cyprian, who lived in the third century, that from that date it was decreed that this ceremony should only take place in the churches, publicly, at mass.

Fig. 186.—Chasuble, Mitre, and Stole of St. Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (1117–1170); preserved in the Cathedral of Sens.—Cloth and Embroidery of the Twelfth Century.