ground, but they were not directly brought into collision with the monks. Nevertheless, the two looked upon one another with anything but friendly feelings, and many are the stories (most of which will not bear reproduction) which are found in friars' books directed against the monks. On the other hand, it is very remarkable, that no friars ever seem to get into any difficulties, or to do anything wrong, or to fall short in any point of the most consummate virtue. The rivalries between the four orders which are brought out so amusingly in Piers Ploughman's Creed'1 do not appear in their writings, where, with a wise esprit de corps, the whole of the mendicant orders are assumed to have a common cause and interest. The members of each order will, of course, be chiefly careful to exalt their own brethren; but should it fall to them to have to mention others, they will still remember that they are friars, and not lazy monks or secularized parish priests. A Franciscan would not vilify a Dominican openly to the people as he would a portly black Benedictine monk or a half-secularized canon of S. Austin; but he would indirectly cut the ground from under him by singing many a strain of praise in honour of his own founder and his own order. We must give a few specimens of the sort of stories that would be in his mouth when it became necessary for him to advance the claims of his own brotherhood. The saint at once perceived that it Holy Gospel of the Incarnation to greatest opponents of his progress." "And wherefore ?" 66 Because they There was a famous Anchoritess who lived near Shrewsbury, and who, being grievously ill, was warned by S. John the Baptist that she would experience a severe trial from the wiles of the serpent. Accordingly she is visited by the devil in the form of a physician, who desires that he may be allowed to examine her side where the pain was felt. was the devil, and ordered him by the reveal" what men they were who were the "The Friars Minor," replied the fiend. won't let us fix in men the darts of mortal sins, or if we do fix them in, they won't let them advance to profit." Of the same holy recluse a glorious vision is recorded as having been sent to bless her on the Feast of S. Francis. She chanced at the time to be lodging in her house two of the brethren of the order, and rising in the night to pay her devotions before the altar, she finds the lamp, which she had lighted, suddenly extinguished, and in the place of it a heavenly light of infinite glory illuminating the church. Then appeared S. John Baptist, who was often wont to converse with this saint, and soon afterwards four of the Minorite order-one of these was S. Anthony of Padua― who, clad in vestments of inconceivable beauty, proceeded to sing mass. Queen of Heaven is seen standing in visible form on the altar: but the saint asked S. John how it was that S. Francis was not there. She was answered, "He is so much engaged on this day, it is impossible for him to attend; for today he is constantly employed in Heaven in interceding for those who apply to him as their patron."—Lanercost Chronicle, p. 184. The 1 A poem of the fourteenth century, probably by the same author as 'The Complaint of the Ploughman,' edited by Mr. Wright, but not to be confounded with Langland's Vision of Piers Ploughman.' With such testimony as to the importance of his saint in the heavenly courts and the effective power of his followers here below, we can conceive the Franciscan making a profound impression; and he had numberless stories to the same purport. He could recount how two friars passing through a town about twelve miles from London were suddenly summoned to attend a dying youth, who had, by a miracle, from his sick bed seen them enter the place, and had directed his attendants to go and fetch them. How that, when they came, the youth demanded of them urgently to be invested in their habit, for he told them that he had seen a vision of purgatory, which was a mighty fire into which souls of every age and of both sexes were continually coming and being detained there; but, at length, he had seen two men clad in dresses like theirs, and these, instead of tarrying in the fire, had passed through at once, without a pause, and gone on their journey to heaven; wherefore he desired a right to wear the same habit, that it might fare with him likewise.1 Upon inquiry, it was found that just at this time two holy brethren, namely, William of Middleton, at Paris, and a famous brother of the house at Oxford, had passed to their rest. 2 The stories relating to the mass and the miraculous powers of the holy wafer are endless, and a choice collection of them is to be found in the treatise of Paschasius Radbert. These either represent some favoured saint being allowed to see with his bodily eyes the divine victim, or they show how the scoffer or unbeliever, venturing to receive, has a terrible vengeance inflicted on him. Thus, the Jew who went to mass has his teeth miraculously closed, and nothing can avail to open them, until he is penitent, and desirous to become a Christian, upon which they are immediately relaxed. There is a story of something of the same character in the Lanercost Chronicle,' and we may easily imagine the effect which such narratives would have in exciting the popular feeling against the Jews, just as the legend of the crucified boy,-which is not confined to Lincoln, but appears in divers medieval chronicles related of other places also, had in a still more terrible degree. The story runs as follows: : 'It chanced at Paris that, though it is forbidden by the Church for Christians to dwell with Jews, a certain Christian woman lived as a servant with a Jewish family. On Easter-day, as she was preparing herself to go to church, she was seen by the master of the family, who having derided her vain superstition, promises her a reward if she will bring back to him the holy bread, that he may see what it is that Christians worship. The wretched woman agrees to do So, and the Jew summons a large party of his friends; a table is prepared covered with a white cloth, and they wait for the arrival of the woman. When she comes, she 2 Ibid. 1 Lanercost Chronicle, p. 70. is bid to deposit what she had brought upon the cloth, and the Jew, seizing a knife, cries," Behold what the Christians call their God, and what was crucified by us!" Then he stabs the housel so fiercely that the knife enters the table. Immediately there flowed forth a stream of blood, which dyed the table, the cloth, the hand, and the knife of the impious one, and the garments of those who stood around. The blood flowed forth more copiously than it would from a large wound in a human body. Struck with terror, the spectators fled, but the impious Jew thought to wash away the stains with water. But soon he found that, instead of being able to do this, whatever the knife or the napkin touched, became blood. Desirous to hide the proofs of his crime, he then buried the Lord's Body in a deep well. Straightway the water in the well changes into blood and bubbles up to the top of the well. Everything that it touches becomes blood. The rumour of this wonder spreads, and the impious ones are brought to judgment, and burned; though, as some who were present repeat, the woman repented, and was pardoned, the Jew only was burned.'— Lanercost Chronicle, p. 134. This represents rather a numerous class of stories; but there is one told in the 'Book de la Tour-Laundry' on this subject, which is probably unique. 'There was a devout lady, and if hit happed her on a day that she herde no masse she wolde not that day ete fleshe nor fysshe; and yet she wolde be fulle of sorrow in hert; and hit happed on a day her chapelin was sike that he might not synge, where through she must go home withoute masse. And she yede wak oute her place crieng on God, saieng these wordes, "Lord, forgete not purueie me of thin holy seruice though this chapelein be syke;" and as she saide these wordes she saw comyng towardes her two freres, of the whiche she was gladde, and asked hem yef thei wolde saye her masse; and thei ansuered her, yee, if her lyked. And she prayed one of them shoulde go to. And she thanked God of her coming. And so the youngest of the freres yede to masse. And as he was afore the Agnus Dei the old frere loked on hym how he brake the oste in the iii parties. And he sawe one of the parties lepe into the good ladies mouthe in mannere of a gret clernesse or a light; and the frere that was atte the masse loked aboute hym where the iii parte of the oste was become, and trembled for ferde, and his felowe came to hym and saide, "Be not aferde, for that ye seke is in the good ladies mouthe." And thanne he held hym content, and thanked God of that miracle.'-Book de la Tour-Laundry, p. 45. Another numerous class of stories connected with the mass is that which dwells upon the power of the sacrifice to aid souls in purgatory. Sometimes also, but more rarely, this power is applied to persons in danger or distress in this life, as in Robert de Brune, where a miner who had been overwhelmed by a sudden falling in of earth is represented as being kept alive for a whole year by his wife coming daily with a pitcher of wine and some loaves for an offering at the church, and procuring a mass to be sung for him. As to behaviour at the mass, there are many stories, some of them of an amusing character. We gather from Robert de Brune that in his day (the beginning of the fourteenth century) there was a great deal of irreverence even at this, the most solemn, service of the Church. The lay 1 The same incident occurs in the legend of Little Saint Hugh. folk would press into the chancel, and the ladies would come so near the officiating priests, as to distract their attention. Thus, in the Instructions to Parish Priests,' by John Myrc, the people are to be directed— But that these decorous rules were not always observed we are shown by a story in the Handlyng Synne,' which tells us how that once the celebrating priest was suddenly interrupted in the holy office by a loud peal of laughter from his deacon. Stopping to investigate the cause of such indecorum, he is told that the joke is so good, it was impossible to help laughing at it— 66 "For," says the deacon, as I stood I saw two women eagerly 'jangling,' and between them stood a fiend with pen and parchment in hand, carefully taking down all that they said. It chanced, however, that the women talked so fast the fiend had quickly filled his roll of parchment, so he tried to pull it out longer with his teeth; and so hard he tugged that he broke his roll and drove his head violently against the wall. This made me to burst with laughter; and when the fiend perceived that I saw him, he drove his fist fiercely against the roll and vanished. "Tharfore y loghe and hadde gode game." "2 As respects the sin of absenting oneself from the holy offices of the Church, there is a good story in the Lanercost Chronicle.' 'In a village in England, near Richmond in Yorkshire, which was near to the forest, and very well suited for feeding cattle, a certain man named John Francis, of advanced age, had fallen into great contempt of the faith. For while his neighbours on the Lord's Day went to church, and sought the refreshment of the Holy Sacrament, this man was wont to go and visit his cattle. Traversing the hills and valleys one Sunday, having wandered from his way, he came upon a retired spot which was filled with the spirits of the air, who were all of small size like dwarfs, hideous to look at, and were dressed in the similitude of ecclesiastical garments, attending on one leader who was vested as a celebrating priest. Immediately they summon the astonished and confounded farmer and bid him hear the service for the Lord's Day. Then they begin hideous laughter instead of the chant, and a vile noise instead of music, making a frightful mockery of the service. At the point when holy water is sprinkled, the chief performer, after going round to his followers, comes at length to the living man, and instead of sprinkling him with water, he bruises his wretched body with a terrible shower of stones. The wicked spirits then begin to fly away, and the wretched man, although stiff and bruised so that he could not stir, is seized with the desire to fly with them. At that 1 Instructions for Parish Priests (ed. Peacock), 1. 265. moment, however, he remembered the Passion of the Lord, and sank to earth again. Again and again he is tempted to fly, but each time the remembrance of Christ avails to keep him back. He reached home with difficulty, and for eight days as he lay in his bed this disposition to fly continued, until, being brought to confession, he was loosed from his plague.'-Lanercost Chronicle, p. 127. The religious stories of the Middle Ages may not, perhaps, be very highly rated as vehicles of instruction, and, in the form in which we meet with them in the old chronicles and religious manuals, they may not be able to lay much claim to that which is the proper business of such compositions, namely, amusement. Nothing, indeed, can be more insipid and unattractive than the legends of the saints, and we may turn over the pages of the Golden Legend' in vain in the hope of finding a really good story. They are all of the same hue, a chain of causeless and senseless miracles, exhibiting the utmost depth of bathos in their conception and circumstances. We naturally resent the fact of having such tasteless fables put forward as true histories,1 and this probably hinders even that amount of amusement which their strange eccentricities might otherwise produce. Still, these stories are by no means to be rejected as utterly without value, for not only do they exhibit the opinions of their age, and throw light upon Church matters and social usages, but they are also one main part of the foundation upon which the grand superstructure of medieval poetry arose. When subjected to the powerful transforming influence of genius and wit, the grotesque legend of the friar becomes a poem, and the first link in a long and extended chain of imaginative conceptions. The great transformer of these stories to this more artistic use of them was Boccaccio. It was he who, while he unfortunately pursued the old indecency, gave the form of a story with incidents carefully arranged, and a catastrophe arrived at step by step, to these crude tales, while at the same time he relieved the narrative with wit and humour, and clothed the actors in them with life. In his hands the stories of Christendom begin to bear 1 What may be alleged in defence of retaining these legends in the Church services may be seen in Melchior Canus :-'I mean not to defend all the histories which are everywhere read in the church; I see there are so many of the vulgar sort, not only among the laity, but of the clergy also, that most willingly embrace these fables that the Church long since exploded. In this kind it behoveth the bishops to do something; but they must be wise as well as diligent, lest, while they go about to cure the looseness of the skin about the fingers, they hurt the head. These haply go about to put grave histories into the place of such as are apocryphal; but they change the divine service of the Church so much, that scarce any show of the old religion seemeth to be left in the daily prayers: wherefore this must stand firm, that the histories of the saints which are wont to be read in the church must not be despised, though some of them be uncertain, apocryphal, light, and false; for they are credible and true for the most part, and some of them certain.'-Quoted by Field, 'Of the Church,' p. 190. |