Chapter XVII

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[576] In a Middle High German Marienleben, by Bruder Phillips (13th century) the young virgin is made herself to say to God:

“Du bist min lieber priutegam (bridegroom), Dir gib ich minen magetuom (maidenhood), Du bist min vil schoener man.

“Du bist min vriedel (lover) und min vriunt (ami); Ich bin von diner minne entzundt.”

Bobertag, _Erzählende Dichtungen des späteren Mittelalters_, p. 46 (Deutsche Nat. Litt.).

[577] _Vita B. Mariae Ogniacensis_, per Jacobum de Vitreaco, Bollandi, _Acta sanctorum_ t. 21 (June t. iv. pp. 636-666). Jacques had good reason to canonize her bones, since one of them, in his saddle-bags, had saved his mule from drowning while crossing a river in Tuscany.

[578] Cant. ii. 5. The translation in the English Revised Version is: “Stay me with cakes of raisins, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love.” The phrases of Canticles, always in the words of the Latin Vulgate, come continually into the minds of these ecstatic women and their biographers. The sonorous language of the Vulgate is not always close to the meaning of the Hebrew. But it was the Vulgate and not the Hebrew that formed the mediaeval Bible, and its language should be observed in discussing mediaeval applications of Scripture.

[579] “Dum esset Rex in accubitu suo,” Cant. i. 11, in Vulgate; Cant. i. 12, in the English version, which renders it: “While the King sitteth at His table.”

[580] _Vita B. Mariae, etc._, par. 2-8. Since we are seeing these mediaeval religious phenomena as they impressed contemporaries, it would be irrelevant to subject them to the analyses which pathological psychology applies to not dissimilar phenomena.

[581] It is reported of St. Catharine of Siena that she would go for weeks with no other food than the Eucharist.

[582] I am drawing from her _Vita_ by her contemporary, Thomas of Cantimpré, _Acta SS._, Bollandi, t. 21 (t. 3 of June), p. 234 _sqq._

[583] Cf. Canticles iii. 2; _Vita_, lib. iii. par. 42.

[584] Cant. iii. 1, 7; i. 16.

[585] _Vita_, lib. iii. pars. 9, 11. It is well known how great a love of her Lord possessed St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and how she sent her children away from her, that she might not be distracted from loving Him alone. The vision which came to her upon her expulsion from the Wartburg, after the death of her husband, King Louis of Thuringia, is given as follows, in her own words, according to the sworn statement of her waiting-women: “I saw the heaven open, and that sweet Jesus, my Lord, bending toward me and consoling me in my tribulation; and when I saw Him I was glad, and laughed; but when He turned His face, as if to go away, I cried. Pitying me, He turned His serene countenance to me a second time, saying: ‘If thou wishest to be with me, I wish to be with thee.’ I responded: ‘Thou, Lord, thou dost wish to be with me, and I wish to be with thee, and I wish never to be separated from thee’” (_Libellus de dictis quatuor ancillarum_, Mencken, _Scriptores Rerum Germ._ ii. 2020 A-C, Leipzig, 1728). The German sermon of Hermann von Fritzlar (cir. 1340) tells this vision in nearly the same words, putting, however, this phrase in Elizabeth’s mouth: “Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me, and when He turned from me, I cried, and then He turned to me, and I became red (blushed?), and before I was pale” (Hildebrand, _Didaktik aus der Zeit der Kreuzzüge_, p. 36, Deutsche Nat. Lit.).

[586] _Offenbarungen der Schwester Mechthild von Magdeburg oder das fliessende Licht der Gottheit_, ed. by P. G. Morel, Regensburg, 1869. See Preger, _Gesch. der deutschen Mystik_, i. 70, 91 _sqq._ Preger points out that the High-German version of this work, which we possess, was made from the Low-German original in the year 1344. Extracts from Mechthild’s book are given by Vetter, _Lehrhafte Literatur des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts_, pp. 192-199; and by Hildebrand, _Didaktik aus der Zeit der Kreuzzüge_, pp. 6-10 (Deutsche Nat. Lit.).

[587] We pass over these portions of Mechthild’s book which exemplify the close connection between ecstatic contemplation and the denunciation of evil in the world.

[588] Mechthild constantly uses phrases from the courtly love poetry of her time.

[589] _Das fliessende Licht, etc._, i. cap. 3. Hildebrand, _o.c._ p. 6, cites this apposite verse from the thoughtful and knightly Minnesinger, Reimar von Zweter:

“Got herre unuberwundenlich, Wie uberwant die Minne dich! Getorste ich, so spraech ich: Si wart an dir so sigerich.”

[590] _Das fliessende Licht, etc._, i. 38-44.

[591] “I would gladly die of love, might that be my lot; for Him whom I love I have seen with my bright eyes standing in my soul” (_ibid._ ii. cap. 2).

[592] Cf. ii. 22.

[593] See i. 10; ii. 23.

[594] i. 13.

[595] ii. 4.

[596] iii. 1, 10.

[597] It is quite true that in the earliest Christian times the marriage of priests was recognized, and continued to be at least connived at until, say, the time of Hildebrand. Yet the best thoughtfulness and piety from the Patristic period onward had disapproved of priestly marriages, which consequently tended to sink to the level of concubinage, until they were absolutely condemned by the Church.

[598] _Anecdotes, etc., d’Étienne de Bourbon_, ed. by Lecoy de la Marche, p. 249 (Soc. de l’Histoire de France, t. 185, Paris, 1877). This story refers to the years 1166-1171.

[599] Many bishops and abbots held definite secular rank; the Archbishop of Rheims was a duke, and so was the Bishop of Langres and Laon; while the bishops of Beauvais and Noyon were counts. In Germany, the archiepiscopal dukes of Cologne and Mainz were among the chief princes of the land.

[600] There were, however, some (naturally shocking) instances of inheritance, as where the Bishop of Nantes in 1049 admitted that he had been invested with the bishopric during the lifetime of his father, the preceding bishop. See Luchaire, in vol. ii. (2), pp. 107-117 of Lavisse’s _Hist. de France_, for this and other examples of episcopal feudalism.

[601] _Sermo in Cantica_, 33, par. 15 (Migne 183, col. 958-959). With this passage from St. Bernard, one may compare the far more detailed picture of the luxury and dissolute ways of the secular clergy in France given in the _Apologia of Guido of Bazoches_ (latter part of the twelfth century). W. Wattenbach. “Die Apologie des Guido von Bazoches,” _Sitzungsberichte Preussichen Akad._, 1893, (1), pp. 395-420.

[602] Ed. by T. Wright (Camden Society, London, 1841).

[603] The poem called _De ruina Romae_. It begins, “Propter Syon non tacebo.”

[604] _Post_,