Part 63

§ 87.4. Among the many spurious documents which the Pseudo-Isidore included in his collection of ecclesiastical laws, we find an =Edictum Constantini Imperatoris=. In the first part of it, the so-called _Confessio_, Constantine makes a confession of his faith, and relates in detail in what a wonderful way he was converted to Christianity by pope Sylvester, and cured of leprosy (§ 42, 1). Then in the second part, the so-called _Donatio_, he confers upon the chair of Peter, with recognition of its absolute primacy over all patriarchates of the empire, imperial power, rank, honour, and insignia, as all privileges and claims of imperial senators upon its clergy. In order that the possessor of this gift may be able to all time to maintain the dignity of his position, he gives him the Lateran palace, transfers to him independent dominion over “_Romanam urbem et omnes Italiæ seu_ (in Frankish Latin of the 8th and 9th centuries this means ‘as well as’) _occidentalium regionum provincias, loca et civitates_” (therefore not merely Italy but the whole West Roman empire); he removes his own imperial residence to Byzantium, “_quoniam ubi principates Sacerdotum et Christ. religionis Caput ab Imperatore cœlesti constitutum est, justum non est, ut illic Imperator terrerum habeat potestatem_.” In a letter of Hadrian I. to Charlemagne in A.D. 788, in which he salutes the emperor as a second Constantine who is called upon by God not only to restore to the apostolic chair the “_potestas in his Hesperiæ partibus_,” which had been already assigned it by the first Constantine, but also all later legacies and donations “of various patricians and other God-fearing men,” which the godless race of the Longobards in course of time tore from it, we have the first hint at the idea of a _Donatio Constantini_. The same pope, too, according to the _Vita Hadriani_ in the Romish Pontifical, on the occasion of Charles’ visit to Rome in A.D. 774 is said to have reclaimed from him an enormous grant of land (§ 82, 2). It seemed therefore an extremely probable supposition that assigned Rome as the place where this document originated, and the period of the overthrow of the Longobard empire, whether actually accomplished or on the eve of taking place, as the date of its fabrication (§ 82, 1, 2). Against this view, almost universally prevalent, quite recently Grauert has advanced a vast array of powerful arguments, _e.g._, the limitation of the _Donatio_ of Constantine to Italy which is here suggested contradicts its own express statement. The words of the letter of Hadrian referred to speak not of a dominion =over= Italy, and which they could have read, “_in has H. partes_,” but of a dominion in Italy which was founded upon Constantine’s munificence and enlarged by many subsequent presents. They do not, therefore, refer like the words of the _Donatio_ to sovereign territorial authority, but to the exceedingly wide-spread and rich property included in the _Patrimonium Petri_ (§ 46, 10). The “potestas,” said to have been assigned by Constantine to the Roman see, does not exceed the authority which even according to the _Vita Sylvestri_ of the Pontifical had been given by Constantine to that pope.--Thus the donation document is met with first in the Pseudo-Isidore. It was often afterwards referred to by the Frankish government. By Rome, on the other hand, although even Nicholas I. was made acquainted with the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals by Rothad, and referred to them in A.D. 865, they are never used, either against the Franks or against the Byzantines until, in A.D. 1053, we meet an allusion to them in a letter from Leo IX. to the patriarch Michael Cærularius (§ 67, 3). Grauert accounts for this by saying that there were two recensions of Pseudo-Isidore, a shorter, which had only the first part of the document, the so-called _Confessio_; and a longer, which had also the _Donatio_, and that Rothad took probably only the shorter one to Rome. From these and other data adduced by Grauert it seems more than probable that the foundry in which the document was forged was not in Rome, but rather in France among the high church party there, from which also the full-fledged forgery proceeded. It would also seem that a double purpose was served by its composition. On the one hand, over against the Greeks it represented the chair of Peter as raised above all the patriarchates of the empire, and the Western empire as a thoroughly legitimate one transferred by Constantine the Great to the pope, and then by him to the kings of the Franks. And, on the other hand, it also made it clear to the Frankish princes that all temporal power in the West essentially, and from of old, belonged to the pope, and is bestowed upon them by means of their coronation by the pope’s hands.--That from the time when they met with the document unto the 11th century the Byzantines did not contest its genuineness, need not surprise us when we consider the uncritical character of the age. They would also be the less disposed to do so as they could only thereby hope to win that perfect equality in spiritual authority as well as in secular rank with the Roman bishop which the fourth œcumenical council had assigned to their patriarchal see. But while the Byzantines may be regarded as inconsiderately incorporating this donation of Constantine into their historical and legal books, blotting out indeed the passages which seemed to them to favour the pretensions of the pope to universal sovereignty, it is a more difficult task to secure for it acceptance among Western diplomatists. Even in A.D. 999 a state paper of Otto III. describes it as a pure fiction. High church tendencies, however, raised their standard also in the West during the 11th century (§ 96, 4, 5). Indeed, even in A.D. 1152, an Arnoldist (§ 108, 7), named Wetzel, wrote to the Emperor Frederick I.: “Their lies and heretical fables are now so completely exploded that even day-labourers and cow-men could prove to scholars their emptiness, and the pope with his cardinals ventures not for shame to show himself in the city of Rome.” The victory, however, of the papacy over the Hohenstaufen gained currency for it again, and it was the treatise of Laurentius Valla, “De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio,” which Ulrich von Hutten issued in multitude from the press, gave it the death blow (§ 120, 1). When, thereafter, even Baronius admitted the spuriousness of the document, though assigning its fabrication to the Greeks, who wished by it to prove that the Roman primacy was not of Christ but from Constantine, it found no longer a vindicator even in the Roman Catholic church.

III. THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE.

§ 88. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND ART.

The German Arians undoubtedly used the language of the people in their services. The adoption of Catholicism, however, led to the introduction of the Latin tongue. The last trace of acquaintance with Ulfilas’ translation of the Bible is found in the 9th century. The nations converted directly to Catholicism had from the first the Latin language in public worship. Only the Slavs still retained the use of their mother tongue (§ 79, 2). The Roman liturgy, as well as the Roman language, was adopted in all churches with the exception of those of Milan and Spain. After Pepin had entered into closer relations with the popes, he endeavoured, in A.D. 754, at their desire, to bring about a uniformity between the Frankish ritual and the Roman pattern; and Charlemagne, whom Hadrian I. presented with a Roman Sacramentarium, carried it out with relentless energy. The slightness of the liturgical contributions of the Germans is to be accounted for partly by the fact that the Roman liturgy was already presented to them in a richly developed and essentially complete form, but also partly by the exclusion of the national languages and the refusal to give the people a share in the liturgical services. Under the constraint of a foreign tongue the Germans could not put the impress of their national character on a department in which language plays so important a part.

§ 88.1. =Liturgy and Preaching.=--Alongside of the Roman or Gregorian =Liturgy= many others also were in use. The people and clergy of Milan so determinedly adhered to their old Ambrosian liturgy, that even Charlemagne could not dislodge it, and down to the present day Milan has preserved this treasure. No less energetically did the Spaniards hold by their national liturgy, the so-called Mozarabic (§ 81, 1). It has a strong resemblance to the oriental liturgies, but was further elaborated by bishops Leander and Isidore of Seville (§ 80, 2), and was recognised by the National Synod of Toledo in A.D. 633 as valid for the whole of Spain. The Gallican liturgies too of the Carolingian times betrayed a certain dependence upon the oriental rituals. =Preaching=, in the services of the Western churches was always subordinate to the liturgy, and the relapse into savagery occasioned by the migrations of the peoples drove it almost completely out of the field. The missionary fervour in the Western church during the 7th century was the first thing to re-awaken a sense of its importance. But then very few priests could compose a sermon. Charlemagne, therefore, about A.D. 780, had a Latin Homiliarium compiled by Paulus Diaconus [Paul Warnefrid] (§ 90, 3) from the fathers for all the Sundays and Festivals of the year, as a model for their own composition, or, where that was too much to be expected, for reading in the original or in a translation. During the whole Middle Ages and beyond the Reformation it continued to be one of the most read and most diligently used books in the Roman Catholic church. Missionaries naturally preached themselves or through interpreters in the language of the people; even in constituted churches preaching was generally conducted in the speech of the country. Charlemagne and the Synods of his time insisted at least upon German or Romanic preaching.

§ 88.2. =Church Music= (§ 59, 4, 5).--After Gregory’s ordinance church music continued to be restricted to the clergy. Charlemagne indeed insisted, but unsuccessfully, that all the people should take part in singing the _Gloria_ and the _Sanctus_. In the 7th-9th cent. a number of Latin hymn-writers flourished, of whom the most distinguished were Bede, Paul Warnefrid, Theodulf of Orleans, Alcuin, Rabanus Maurus, and Walafrid Strabo. The beautiful Pentecost hymn _Veni creator Spiritus_ is ascribed to Charlemagne. The old classical form and colouring were more and more lost, but all the more the essentially Christian and Germanic character of simplicity and spirituality became prominent. Toward the end of our period the composition of Latin hymns obtained a new and fruitful impetus from the adoption of the so-called =Sequences= or =Proses= in the Mass. Under the long series of notes, hitherto without words attached, which were appended to the Alleluia to express inarticulate jubilation, hence called _jubilationes_, were now placed appropriate rhythmical words in Latin prose, which, however, soon assumed the form of metre, rhyme and strophes. The first famous writer of Sequences was the monk Notker Balbulus of St. Gall, who died in A.D. 912. Connected in form with the Latin Sequences were the more recently introduced Old Frankish _Lais_ (Celtic=verse, song) and the Old German _Leiche_ (=melody, song), to simple airs that had been used for popular songs. The only one which the church allowed to the people, and that only in services outside of the church, in processions, rogations and pilgrimages, in going to the church, at translations of relics, funerals, consecrations of churches, popular religious festivals, etc., was the singing or rather reciting of the _Kyrie eleison_ from the great Litany. The fondness of the Germans for singing and composing hymns led, in the second half of the 9th century, to the attaching to these words short rhyming sacred verses in their mother tongue, and this in such a manner that the _Kyrie eleison_ always formed the refrain of a strophe, so that they were called =Leisons=. This was the beginning of German church music. Of the Leisons only one hymn to St. Peter in the Old High-German dialect has come down to our day.--=The Gregorian Music=, _Cantus firmus_ or _choralis_, won a most complete victory over the Ambrosian (§ 59, 5). In A.D. 754 Pepin at the request of Stephen II. ordered that in France only the Roman singing should be allowed, and Charlemagne secured for it complete and exclusive ascendency in all the West by violently extirpating the already very degenerate Ambrosian music, by establishing the celebrated singing schools of Metz, Soissons, Orleans, Paris, Lyons, etc., at the head of which he placed teachers brought from Rome, and by introducing instruction in singing in all the higher and lower schools. The first =Organ= came to France in A.D. 757 as a present to Pepin the Short from the Greek emperor Constantinus Copronymus; the second to Aachen with an embassy from the emperor Michael I. in Charlemagne’s time. From that time they became more common. They were still as instruments very imperfect. They had only from 9 to 12 notes, and the keys were so stiff that they had to be beaten down with the fist.[246]--Continuation, § 104, 10, 11.

§ 88.3. =The Sacrifice of the Mass.=--As the idea of sacrifice gained place there sprang up in addition to the masses for the souls of the departed (§ 58, 3) private masses for various other purposes, for the success of some undertaking, for the recovery of a sick person, for good weather and a good harvest, etc. To some extent the multiplication of masses was limited by the ordinance that celebration should be made at the same altar and by the same priest only once in the day. From the wish to secure that as many masses as possible should be said for their souls after death, churches and monasteries were formed into fraternities with a stipulated obligation to celebrate a certain number of masses for each deceased member of the fraternity in all the churches and monasteries belonging thereto. Fraternities of this kind, into which as a special favour princes and nobles were received, were called =Confederacies for the Dead=.

§ 88.4. =The Worship of Saints= (§ 57).--This practice found a very ready response from the Germans. It afforded some compensation for the abandoned worship of their ancestors. But over all other saints towered the mother of God, the meek and gentle queen of heaven. In her the old German reverence for woman found its ideal and full satisfaction. In respect of =Image Worship= (§ 57, 4) the Germans lagged behind, partly from the scarcity of images, partly from national aversion to them. The Frankish church of the Carolingian age protested formally against them (§ 92, 1). But all the greater was the zeal shown in the =Worship of Relics= (§ 57, 5) in which the worshipper had the saint concretely and bodily. The relics of the West were innumerable. Rome was an inexhaustible storehouse; and from the successive missionaries, from the deserts and solitudes, from the monasteries and bishops’ seats, there went forth crowds of new saints whose bones were venerated with enthusiasm. The gaining of a new relic for a church or monastery was regarded as a piece of good fortune for the whole land, and amid thousands assembled from far and near the translation was carried out, accompanied with liberal gifts of money. The Frankish monastery of Centula could show in the 9th century an immensely long list of the relics which it possessed, from the grave of the Innocents, the milk of the Holy Virgin, the beard of Peter, his cloak, the _Oratorium_ of Paul, and even from the wood of the three tabernacles that Peter wished to build on Tabor. The custom of making =Pilgrimages= (§ 57, 6) also found great favour among the travel-loving Germans, especially among the Anglo-Saxons. The places most frequented by pilgrims were the tomb of the chief Apostles at Rome, then the tomb of Martin of Tours, and, toward the end of our period, that of St. James of Compostella, _Jacobus Apostolus_ the elder, the supposed founder of the Spanish church, whose bones were discovered there by Alfonso the Chaste. The immoralities consequent upon pilgrimages, about which even the ancient church complained, were also only too apparent in this later age. On account of them Boniface urges that his countrywomen should be forbidden to go on pilgrimages, since this only served to supply the cities of Gaul and Italy with prostitutes. The idea of =Guardian Angels= (§ 57, 3) was eagerly adopted by the Germans. They were specially drawn to the warlike Archangel Michael, the conqueror of the great dragon (Dan. xii. 1; Jude 9; Rev. xii. 7 ff.).--Continuation, § 104, 8.

§ 88.5. =Times and Places for Public Worship.=--The beginning of the church year was changed from Easter to Christmas. All Saints’ Day (§ 57, 1), originally a Roman local festival, was made a universal ordinance by Gregory IV. who, in A.D. 835, fixed its date at 1st Nov. The abundance of relics and the multitude of masses that were said made it necessary to increase the number of altars in the churches beyond what Charlemagne had enjoined. Afterwards they were usually limited to three. The high altar stood out by itself in the middle of the choir recess. The side altars leant on pillars or on the chief altar. A relic shrine generally from the 8th century formed the back of the altar. No trace of a chancel is found, not even of a confessional chair. In churches which had the right of baptizing (§ 84, 2) there were as a rule separate baptistries. In place of these, after the right of baptizing was conferred on all churches, the baptismal font was introduced, either on the left side of the main entrance or at the point where the transepts crossed the nave. This change required the substitution of sprinkling for immersion. Clocks and towers became always more common. The latter, at first separate from the buildings, were from Charlemagne’s time attached to the church edifice. The baptism of bells, their consecration with water, oil and chrism, with the bestowing on them of some saint’s name, was forbidden by Charlemagne, but it was nevertheless continued, and is common to this day in the Roman Catholic church.

§ 88.6. Most attention was paid to ecclesiastical architecture and painting, south of the Alps during the Ostro-gothic period, north of the Alps during the Carolingian period. The Anglo-Saxons, however, in their island home also developed a taste for art. During the 9th century it received special attention in the German monasteries of St. Gall and Fulda. The monk Tutilo of St. Gall, d. A.D. 912, was pre-eminently distinguished both as a master in architecture, painting and sculpture, and in poetry and scholarship. The old Roman basilica style still maintained the front rank in church building. Yet at Ravenna, the Byzantium of Italy, during the Gothic domination there were several beautiful churches in the Byzantine cupola style. Einhard received from Charlemagne the rank of a court architect. Of all the churches built in Charlemagne’s time the most important was the cathedral of Aachen. It was built in the cupola style after the pattern of the cathedral church of Ravenna. Intended as a royal chapel, it was connected by a pillared passage with the palace. It was therefore also of only moderate dimensions. Its being appropriated as the coronation church led subsequently to its enlargement by the addition to it in A.D. 1355 of a large choir in the Gothic style. The church afforded abundant scope for the use of the art of the statuary. Costly shrines for relics were required, crucifixes, lamps, _ciboria_, incense vessels, etc., on which might be lavished all the refinements of artistic skill. The church books had artistically carved covers. Church doors, episcopal thrones, reading desks, baptismal fonts, afforded room for practice in _relievo_ work. Among the various kinds of pictorial representations miniature painting was most diligently practised upon copies of the church books.--Continuation, § 104, 12, 14.

§ 89. NATIONAL CUSTOMS, SOCIAL LIFE AND CHURCH DISCIPLINE.

The remains of Christian popular poetry of this period afford a convincing proof of the powerful and profound manner in which the truths of Christianity (§ 75, 1) had been grasped by the German races. The great mass of the people indeed had adopted the new faith in a purely historical fashion. Only gradually did it make its way into the inner spiritual life, and meanwhile out of the not fully conquered paganism there grew up a rich crop of superstitions in connection with the Christian life. It must be confessed that the state of morality among the Germans had fallen very low as compared with that which prevailed before Germany’s conversion to Christianity. A sadder contrast is scarcely conceivable than that presented by a comparison of the description in Tacitus of the old German customs and discipline and the account of Gregory of Tours of colossal criminality and brutish sensuality in the Merovingian Age. But never more than here does the fallacy: _Post hoc ergo propter hoc_, require to be guarded against. The moral deterioration of the German peoples was carried out independently of their contemporaneous, merely external, Christianization. The cause of it lies only in the overturning of the foundations of German life by the migration of the peoples. Severed from their original home, the most powerful guardian of ancestral customs, and set down as conquerors in the midst of rich countries with morally base surroundings, which had a poisonous effect upon them, with that eagerness and tenacity which characterize children of nature, they seized upon the seductive treasures and enjoyments, and their unfettered passion broke through all restraints of discipline and morality. The clearest proof of this view lies in the fact that the moral decay appeared in so remarkable a degree only among such peoples as settled in the corrupt Roman world and became amalgamated with it, most conspicuously among the Franks in Gaul and the Longobards in Italy, whereas among the Anglo-Saxons and the inhabitants of Germany the moral development was more normal.