CHAP the Eucharistic gift, and that (2) greater reverence was maintained by the non-administration of the fluid element. Only three centuries previously the partial introduction of this practice had been distinctly condemned by the Council of Clermont, presided over by Pope Urban II., in 1095. When it began to creep into England (in its earliest form, that of steeping one element in the other), it was forbidden Resisted by the Convocation of Canterbury [A.D. 1175]. So by English late as 1281, the custom had made way only in the Bishops smaller churches; even later, a synodal decree at Exeter orders the clergy to instruct the laity that they receive Christ's blood as well as His body; and as late as 1515, communion in both kinds was the custom in some parishes (at least) in the diocese of Durham. The unconsecrated wine was, in fact, given to the laity to conciliate them; and the notification already referred to respecting it, shows that the belief was still widely spread among them that it was a legitimate part of the Holy Communion. As most readers will remember, the people of Bohemia utterly refused to adopt the novel custom; and the above evidence seems to show that it was far from being easily or universally established in England. Perhaps, it might have been even more generally resisted, and finally repudiated, at an earlier date than 1548, if there had not unhappily been so few communicants in the Church of England at that time. But the general tendency of the medieval theo 1 See a constitution of Archbishop Peckham in Wilkins' Concilia, ii. 52. • Wilkins' Concilia, ii. 131. Jarrow, Monkwearmouth, and Norham. See Notes and Queries II. i. 59. The North of England used to be tenacious of old customs I balance in mediæval about the logy respecting the Holy Eucharist was to diminish CHAP the number of communicants. It regarded the sacrificial aspect of the Blessed Sacrament with so intense a gaze as to be in some degree blinded to its communion aspect. It grasped with a tenacious want of hold the primitive and patristic theory that it is an offering for the living and the dead, but it loosened theology its hold upon the equally primitive and patristic Eucharist theory that it is the spiritual food of the Christian soul. The consequence was, that few of the laity ever communicated except at Easter, when the law of the Church positively required them to do so.1 At other times, when the Holy Sacrament was celebrated, the laity who were present stood or knelt to hear and to see, but did not go up to the altar to partake. This custom was so general that it made way even in religious communities, and even devout parish priests and spiritual directors taught their flocks that they as effectually received the benefit of the Holy Sacrament by so doing, as if they actually received it into their hands and mouths." Both the extravagances of doctrine and practice "Teche thy paresch thus & say, They schulen alle to chyrche come, Ye schule be hoselet alle & some." The following is from that excellent and devout book, "The Mirror of Our Lady," a "Rationale of Divine Service" written for the nuns of Sion about 1450: "And for asmoche as they yt ar presente & here masse may receyue our lorde spually at euery masse, lyke as the preste recyueth hym in ye sacramente, therefore in tyme of Agnus dei, & whyle the preste vsyth, ye oughte to dyspose you ful dylygently & deuoutly, and wt grete feruoure and gostly desyre, to stretche oute your loue and deuocio reuerently to our lorde, that ye lese not so grete a gostly fruyte & be not pryued of ye swetnes of that heuenly feaste wt whyche ye may be fed at eche masse that ye here, if ye wyl desyrously set your harte therto." I Restora tion of full communion on death of Henry VIII. As CHAP here indicated began to give way before the revival of theological learning and original thought. soon as ever the death of Henry VIII. had set the clergy free for action, the ancient system of the Church was resuscitated: liturgical provision was made for administering both elements to the laity, and they were exhorted to become frequent communicants. What the Church did was also endorsed by an Act of Parliament, but with such tender regard for others that it declared "this restoring the ancient practice, with reference to the Holy Sacrament, must not be interpreted to the condemning the usage of any Church out of His Majesty's dominions." Scarcely a remonstrance was heard against the reintroduction of the ancient custom; and this general acquiescence is a sign that the restoration fell in with the current of popular feeling. tive devo tion never § 3. SUPERSTITIOUS CUSTOMS WHICH NEEDED There were many customs received upon trust and tradition by medieval Englishmen which began at once to be called in question when the increasing intelligence of the Reformation age set Englishmen Imagina thinking. Among such customs were indulgences, image-worship, pilgrimages, the multiplication of acclima- holy-days, the invocation of saints in general, and England Mariolatry in particular. These customs had been imported from Southern Europe, and formed part of an imaginative religion which never took kindly to our northern climate. But the influences of Southern Europe on England had been very deeply tized in I rooted by the Normans; and a foreign accent had CHAP very largely changed the tone of the old native religion as well as of the old vernacular speech. Indulgences had been originally, in the Primitive IndulChurch, simple relaxations of penance to those who gences showed extreme sorrow for sin. At the time of the Crusades [A.D. 1118] they began to be granted by popes in the form of a general absolution, which would clear the possessor from the consequences of all his sins in case of death. "Since ye have determined," they ran, "to expose both yourselves and the things belonging to you to the most extreme perils, if any of you, having accepted the penance for your sins, shall die in the expedition, we, by the merits of the saints and by the prayers of the whole Catholic Church, absolve him from the chain of his sins." of absolu In later centuries such indulgences became The selling a regular article of traffic. They were procured at and buying wholesale prices from popes and other bishops, and tion were sold retail at so much percentage profit by a kind of ecclesiastical hawkers, called "Quæstionarii" in dignified Latin, and "Pardoners" in rough-andready English. No medieval writer has a good word to say for this class of men. Even synods reviled them as ignorant, dishonest, immoral hypocrites ;7 and what satirical poets could venture to say about them could hardly be said in more severe language. The true medieval character of the men and their wares is given in the Vision of Piers Ploughman :— "Then preched a pardoner, as he a prest were, Brought forth a bulle, with many bishopes' seles, And seide that himself might assolven them all Of falshod, of fastynge, of a-vowes y-broken." 6 Baronius, A.D. 1118, xviii.; A.D. 1127, v. 7 Wilkins' Concilia, ii. 154 CHAP I Images Relics This traffic was reorganized in the time of Leo X. for the purpose of getting money towards the building of St. Peter's; but the shamelessness of Tetzel and others aroused the utmost indignation, not only on the part of Luther, but on that of all thoughtful and honourable men. Such indignation had, in fact, produced some measure of reformation in England already as regarded indulgences, and the sale of them dwindled away even before they were finally condemned and swept away as foolish things, vainly invented, and contrary to the Word of God. 8 Image-worship was a widespread popular folly, from which it may be hoped that educated persons were always free. The latter, doubtless, worshipped Christ while they knelt before the crucifix, but the other, it is much to be feared, worshipped the crucifix itself; the one paid its reverential devotion in a greater or lesser degree to the Blessed Virgin and to the saints who were represented by images and pictures; the other paid the same devotion to the images and pictures. So also as regards relics, fragments of saints' bodies, or articles of attire, &c., which had belonged to them. The shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury, that of St. Cuthbert at Durham, the images of Our Lady at Walsingham and elsewhere, might be associated, and were associated, with an imaginative form of devotion in the minds of educated persons that did them no harm, and perhaps supplied a want that needed to be supplied. But among the ignorant classes they superseded and thrust aside the worship of our Lord: the real Saviour became to them little more than a namethe saint was looked upon by them as their saviour. 8 Bishop Gardiner called the sale of indulgences "the devil's craft." |