It would be impossible, in a few words, to tell the whole story of this Albigensian movement. Undoubtedly the term stood for a variety of theological opinions, all of which were in opposition to the teachings of Rome. "From the very invectives of their enemies," says Hallam, "and the acts of the Inquisition, it is manifest that almost every shade of heterodoxy was found among these dissidents, till it vanished in a simple protestation against the wealth and tyranny of the clergy." Many of the tenets of these enthusiasts were undoubtedly borrowed from the ancient Manicheism, and would be pronounced heretical by every modern evangelical denomination. But associated with those holding such doctrines were numerous reformers, whose chief offense consisted in their incipient Protestantism. However heretical any of these sects may have been, it is impossible to make them out enemies to the social order, except as all opponents of established religious traditions create disturbance. "What these bodies held in common," says Hardwick, "and what made them equally the prey of the inquisitor, was their unwavering belief in the corruption of the medieval church, especially as governed by the Roman pontiffs."

In 1208 Dominic visited Languedoc a second time, and on his way he encountered the papal legates returning in pomp to Rome, foiled in their attempt to crush this growing schism. To them he administered his famous rebuke: "It is not the display of power and pomp, cavalcades of retainers, and richly-houseled palfreys, or by gorgeous apparel, that the heretics win proselytes; it is by zealous preaching, by apostolic humility, by austerity, by seeming, it is true, but by seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth." It is extremely unfortunate for the reputation of Dominic that he ever departed from the spirit of these noble words, which so clearly state the conditions of true religious progress.

Dominic now gathered about him a few men of like spirit and began his task of preaching down heresy. But "the enticing words of man's wisdom" failed to win the Albigensians from what they believed to be the words of God. So, unmindful of his admonition to the papal legates, Dominic obtained permission of Innocent III. to hold courts, before which he might summon all persons suspected of heresy. When eloquence and courts failed, the pope let loose the "dogs of war." Then followed twenty years of frightful carnage, during which hundreds of thousands of heretics were slain, and many cities were laid waste by fire and sword. "This was to punish a fanaticism," says Hallam, "ten thousand times more innocent than their own, and errors which, according to the worst imputations, left the laws of humanity and the peace of social life unimpaired." Peace was concluded in 1229, but the persecution of heretics went on.

What part Dominic personally had in these bloody proceedings is litigated history. His admirers strive to rescue his memory from the charge that he was "a cruel and bloody man." It is argued that while the pope and temporal princes carried on the sanguinary war against the heretics, Dominic confined himself to pleading with them in a spirit of true Christian love. He was a minister of mercy, not an avenging angel, sword in hand. It has to be conceded that the constant tradition of the Dominican order that Dominic was the first Inquisitor, whether he bore the title or not, rests upon good authority. But what was the nature of the office as held by the saint? As far as Dominic was concerned, it is argued by his friends that the office "was limited to the reconciliation of heretics and had nothing to do with their punishment." It is also claimed that while Dominic did impose penances, in some cases public flagellation, no evidence can be produced showing that he ever delivered one heretic to the flames. Those who were burned were condemned by secular courts, and on the ground that they were not only heretics but enemies of the public peace and perpetrators of enormous crimes.

But while it may not be proved that Dominic himself passed the sentence of death or applied the torch to the faggots with his own hand, he is by no means absolved from all complicity in those frightful slaughters, or from all responsibility for the subsequent establishment of the Holy Inquisition. The principles governing the Inquisition were practically those upon which Dominic proceeded; the germs of the later atrocities are to be found in his aims and methods. By what a narrow margin does Dominic escape the charge of cruelty when it is boasted "that he resolutely insisted on no sentence being carried out until all means had been tried by which the conversion of a prisoner could be effected." Another statement also contains an inkling of a significant fact, namely, that secular judges and princes were constantly under the influence of the monks and other ecclesiastical persons, who incited them to wage war, and to massacre, in the Albigensian war as in other crusades against heresy. No word from Dominic can be produced indicating that he remonstrated with the pope, or that he tried to stop the crusade. In a few instances he seems to have interceded with the crazed soldiery for the lives of women and children. But he did not oppose the bloody crusade itself. He was constantly either with the army or following in its wake. He often sat on the bench at the trial of dissenters. He remained the life-long friend of Simon de Montfort, the cruel agent of the papacy, and he blessed the marriage of his sons and baptized his daughter. Special courts for trying heretics were established, previous to the more complete organization of the Inquisition, and in these he held a commission.

The Holy Office of the Inquisition was made a permanent tribunal by Gregory IX., in 1233, twelve years after the death of Dominic, and curiously enough, in the same year in which he was canonized. The Catholic Bollandists claim that although the title of Inquisitor was of later date than Dominic, yet the office was in existence, and that the splendor of the Holy Inquisition owes its beginning to that saint. Certain it is that the administration of the Inquisition was mainly in the hands of Dominican monks.

In view of all these facts, Professor Allen is justified in his conclusions respecting Dominic and his share in the persecution of heretics: "Whatever his own sweet and heavenly spirit according to Catholic eulogists, his name is a synonym of bleak and intolerant fanaticism. It is fatally associated with the blackest horrors of the crusade against the Albigenses, as well as with the infernal skill and deadly machinery of the Inquisition."

In 1214, Dominic established himself, with six followers, in the house of Peter Cellani, a rich resident of Toulouse. Eleven years of active and public life had passed since the Subprior of Osma had forsaken the quietude of the monastery. He now resumed his life of retirement and subjected himself and his companions to the monastic rules of prayer and penance. But the restless spirit of the man could not long remain content with the seclusion and inactivity of a monk's life. The scheme of establishing an order of Preaching Friars began to assume definite shape in his mind. He dreamed of seven stars enlightening the world, which represented himself and his six friends. The final result of his deliberations was the organization of his order, and the appearance of Dominic in the city of Rome, in 1215, to secure the approval of the pope, Innocent III. Although some describe his reception as "most cordial and flattering," yet it required supernatural interference to induce the pope to grant even his approval of the new order. It was not formally confirmed until 1216 by Honorius III.

Dominic now made his headquarters at Rome, although he traveled extensively in the interests of his growing brotherhood of monks. He was made Master of the Sacred Palace, an important official post, including among its functions the censorship of the press. It has ever since been occupied by members of the Dominican order.

Throughout his life Dominic is said to have zealously practiced rigorous self-denial. He wore a hair shirt, and an iron chain around his loins, which he never laid aside, even in sleep. He abstained from meat and observed stated fasts and periods of silence. He selected the worst accommodations and the meanest clothes, and never allowed himself the luxury of a bed. When traveling, he beguiled the journey with spiritual instruction and prayers. As soon as he passed the limits of towns and villages, he took off his shoes, and, however sharp the stones or thorns, he trudged on his way barefooted. Rain and other discomforts elicited from his lips nothing but praises to God.

Death came at the age of fifty-one and found him exhausted with the austerities and labors of his eventful career. He had reached the convent of St. Nicholas, at Bologna, weary and sick with a fever. He refused the repose of a bed and bade the monks lay him on some sacking stretched upon the ground. The brief time that remained to him was spent in exhorting his followers to have charity, to guard their humility, and to make their treasure out of poverty. Lying in ashes upon the floor he passed away at noon, on the sixth of August, 1221. He was canonized by Gregory IX., in 1234.



The Dominican Orders

The origin of the Order of the Preaching Friars has already been described. It is not necessary to dwell upon the constitution of this order, because in all essential respects it was like that of the Franciscans. The order is ruled by a general and is divided into provinces, governed by provincials. The head of each house is called a prior. Dominic adopted the rules laid down by St. Augustine, because the pope ordered him to follow some one of the older monastic codes, but he also added regulations of his own.

Soon after the founding of the order, bands of monks were sent out to Paris, to Rome, to Spain and to England, for the purpose of planting colonies in the chief seats of learning. The order produced many eminent scholars, some of whom were Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Echard, Tauler and Savonarola.

As among the Franciscans, there was also an Order of Nuns, founded in 1206, and a Third Order, called the Militia of Jesus Christ, which was organized in 1218.



The Success of the Mendicant Orders

In 1215, Innocent III. being pope, the Lateran council passed the following law: "Whereas the excessive diversity of these [monastic] institutions begets confusion, no new foundations of this sort must be formed for the future; but whoever wishes to become a monk must attach himself to some of the already existing rules." This same pope approved the two Mendicant orders, urging them, it is true, to unite themselves to one of the older orders; but, nevertheless, they became distinct organizations, eclipsing all previous societies in their achievements. The reason for this disregard of the Lateran decree is doubtless to be found in the alarming condition of religious affairs at that time, and in the hope held out to Rome by the Mendicants, of reforming the monasteries and crushing the heretics.

The failure of the numerous and varied efforts to reform the monastic institution and the danger to the church arising from the unwonted stress laid upon poverty by different schismatic religious societies, necessitated the adoption of radical measures by the church to preserve its influence. At this juncture the Mendicant friars appeared. The conditions demanded a modification of the monastic principle which had hitherto exalted a life of retirement. Seclusion in the cloister was no longer possible in the view of the remarkable changes in religious thought and practice.

Innocent III. was wise enough to perceive the immediate utility of the new societies based upon claims to extraordinary humility and poverty. The Mendicant orders were, in themselves, not only a rebuke to the luxurious indolence and shameful laxity of the older orders, but when sanctioned by the church, the existence of the new societies attested Rome's desire to maintain the highest and the purest standards of monastic life. Hence, the Preaching Friars were permitted to reproach the clergy and the monks for their vices and corruptions.

"The effect of such a band of missionaries," says John Stuart Mill, "must have been great in rousing and feeding dormant devotional feelings. They were not less influential in regulating those feelings, and turning into the established Catholic channels those vagaries of private enthusiasm which might well endanger the church, since they already threatened society itself."

Two novel monastic features, therefore, now appear for the first time: 1. The substitution of itineracy for the seclusion of the cloister; and 2. The abolition of endowments.

1. The older orders had their traveling missionaries, but the general practice was to remain shut up within the monastic walls. The Mendicants at the start had no particular abiding place, but were bound to travel everywhere, preaching and teaching. It was distinctly the mission of these monks to visit the camps, the towns, cities and villages, the market places, the universities, the homes and the churches, to preach and to minister to the sick and the poor. They neither loved the seclusion of the cell nor sought it. Theirs to tramp the dusty roads, with their capacious bags, begging and teaching. Only by this itinerant method could the people be reached and the preachers of heresy be encountered.

2. One of the chief sources of strength in the heretical sects was the justness of their attack upon the Catholic monastic orders, whose immense riches belied their vows of poverty. The heretics practiced austerities and adopted a simplicity of life that won the hearts of the people, by reason of its contrast to the loose habits of the monks and clergy. Since it was impossible to reform the older orders, it became absolutely essential to the success of the Mendicants that they should rigorously respect the neglected discipline. As the abuse of the vow of poverty was particularly common, the Mendicants naturally emphasized this vow.

While it is true that a begging monk was by no means unknown, yet now, for the first time, was the practice of mendicity formally adopted by entire orders. Owing to the excessive multiplication of mendicant societies, Pope Gregory X., at a general council held at Lyons in 1272, attempted to check the growing evil. The number of Mendicant orders was confined to four, viz., the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites and the Augustinians or Hermits of Augustine. The Council of Trent confined mendicity to the Observantines and Capuchins, since the other societies had practically abandoned their original interpretation of their vow of poverty and had acquired permanent property.

When Francis tried to enforce the rule of poverty, his rigor gave rise to most serious dissensions, which began in his own lifetime and ended after his death in open schism. Some of his followers were not pleased with his views on that subject. They resisted his extreme strictness, and after his death they continued to advocate the holding of property. The popes tried to settle the quarrel, but ever and anon it broke out afresh with volcanic fierceness. They finally interpreted the rule of poverty to mean that the friars could not hold property in their own names, but they might enjoy its use. Under this interpretation of the rule, the beggars soon became very rich. Matthew of Paris said: "The friars who have been founded hardly forty years have built even in the present day in England residences as lofty as the palaces of our kings." But the better element among the Franciscans refused to consent to such a palpable evasion of the rule. A portion of this class separated themselves from the Franciscans, rejected their authority, and formed a new sect called the Fratricelli, or Little Brothers. It is very important to keep the history of this name clearly in mind, for it frequently appears in the Reformation period and has been the cause of much misunderstanding. The word "Fratricelli" came to be a term of derision applied to any one affecting the dress or the habits of the monks. When heretical sects arose, it was applied to them as a stigma, but it was used first by a sect of rigid Franciscans who deserted their order, adopted this name as their own, and exulted in its use. The quarrel among the monks led to a variety of complications and is intricately interwoven with the political and religious history of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. "These rebellious Franciscans," says Mosheim, "though fanatical and superstitious in some respects, deserve an eminent rank among those who prepared the way for the Reformation in Europe, and who excited in the minds of the people a just aversion to Rome."

The Mendicants were especially active in educational work. This is to be attributed to several causes. Unquestionably the general and increasing interest in theological doctrines and the craving for knowledge affected the monastic orders. Europe was just arousing from her medieval slumbers. The faint rays of the Reformation dawn were streaking the horizon. The intellect as well as the conscience was touched by the Spirit of God. The revolt against moral iniquity was often accompanied by skepticism concerning the authority and dogmas of the church. Questions were being asked that ignorant monks could not answer. Too long had the church ignored these symptoms of the approach of a new order of things. The church was forced to meet the heretics on their own ground, to offset the example of their simplicity and purity of life by exalting the neglected standards of self-denial, and to silence them, if possible, by exposing their errors. Then came the Franciscans, with their austere simplicity and their insistence upon poverty. Then also appeared the Dominicans, or as they were called, "The Watch-dogs of the Church," who not only barked the church awake, but tried to devour the heretics.

Francis halted for some time before giving encouragement to educational enterprises. A life of devotion and prayer attracted him, because, as he said, "Prayer purifies the affections, strengthens us in virtue, and unites us to the sovereign good." But, he went on, "Preaching renders the feet of the spiritual man dusty; it is an employment which dissipates and distracts, and which causes regular discipline to be relaxed." After consulting Brother Sylvester and Sister Clara, he decided to adopt their counsel and entered upon a ministry of preaching. The example and success of the Dominicans probably inspired the Franciscans to give themselves more and more to intellectual work.

Both orders received appointments in all the leading universities, but they did not gain this ascendency without a severe conflict. The regular professors and the clergy were jealous of them for various causes, and resisted them at every point. The quarrel between the Dominicans and the University of Paris is the most famous of these struggles. It began in 1228 and did not end until 1259. The Dominicans claimed the right to two theological professorships. One had been taken from them, and a law was passed that no religious order should have what these friars demanded. The Dominicans rebelled and the University passed sentences of expulsion. Innocent IV., wishing to become master of Italy, sided with the University, but the next month he was dead,—in answer to their prayers, said the Dominicans, but rumor hinted an even blacker cause. The thirty-one years of the struggle dragged wearily on, disturbed by papal bulls, appeals, pamphlets and university slogans. At last Alexander IV., in 1255, decided that the Dominicans might have the second professorship and also any other they thought proper. The noise of conflict now grew louder and boded ill for the peace of the church. The pulpits flashed forth fiery utterances. The monks were assailed in every quarter. William of Amour published his essay on "The Perils of the Last Times," in which he claimed that the perilous times predicted by the Apostle Paul were now fulfilled by these begging friars. He exposed their iniquities and bitterly complained of their arrogance and vice. His book was burned and its author banished. Although meaning to be a friend of Rome, he unconsciously contributed his share to the coming reform. In 1259, Rome thundered so loud that all Europe was terrified and the University was awed into submission.

Another interesting feature in the history of their educational enterprises is the entrance of the Mendicants into England, where they acted a leading part in the educational and political history of the country. The Dominicans settled first at Oxford, in 1221. The Franciscans, after a short stay at Canterbury, went to Oxford in 1224. The story of how the two Gray friars journeyed from Canterbury to Oxford runs as follows: "These two forerunners of a famous brotherhood, being not far from Oxford, lost their way and came to a farmhouse of the Benedictines. It was nearly night and raining. They gently knocked, and asked admittance for God's sake. The porter gazed on their patched robes and beggarly aspect and supposed them to be mimics or despised persons. The prior, pleased with the tidings, invited them in. But instead of sportively performing, these two friars insisted, with sedate countenances, that they were men of God. Whereat the Benedictines in jealousy, and displeased to be cheated out of their expected fun, kicked and buffeted the two poor monks and turned them out of doors. One young monk pitied them and smuggled them into a hay-loft where we trust they slept soundly and safe from the cold and rain." The two friars finally reached Oxford and were well received by their Dominican brothers. Such was the simple beginning of a brilliant career that was profoundly to affect the course of English history. Both at Cambridge and Oxford the monastic orders exercised a remarkable influence. Traces of their labors and power may still be seen in the names of the colleges, and in the religious portions of the university discipline. They built fine edifices and manned their schools with the best teachers, so that they became great rivals of the regular colleges which did not have the funds necessary to compete with these wealthy beggars. Another cause of their rapid progress was the exodus of students from Paris to England. During the quarrel at Paris, Henry III. of England offered many inducements to the students, who left for England in large numbers. Many of them were prejudiced in favor of the friars, and they naturally drifted to the monastic college. The secular clergy charged the friars with inducing the college students to enter the monasteries or to turn begging monks. The pope, the king, and the parliament became involved in the struggle, which grew more bitter as the years passed. After a while Wyclif appeared, and when he began his mighty attack upon the friars the joy with which the professors viewed the struggle can be appreciated.



The Decline of the Mendicants

The Mendicant friars won their fame by faithful and earnest labors. Men admired them because they identified themselves with the lowest of mankind and heroically devoted themselves to the poor and sick. These "sturdy beggars," as Francis called his companions, were contrasted with the lazy, rich, and, too often, licentious monks of the other orders. Everywhere the friars were received with veneration and joy. The people sought burial in their rags, believing that, clothed in the garments of these holy beggars, they would enter paradise more speedily.

Instead of seeking the seclusion of the convent to save his own soul, the friar displayed remarkable zeal trying to save mankind. He became the arbiter in the quarrels of princes, the prime mover in treaties between nations, and the indispensable counselor in political complications. The pope employed him as his authorized agent in the most difficult matters touching the welfare of the church. His influence upon the common people is thus described by the historian Green: "The theory of government wrought out in the cell and lecture-room was carried over the length and breadth of the land by the Mendicant brother begging his way from town to town, chatting with the farmer or housewife at the cottage door and setting up his portable pulpit in village green or market-place. The rudest countryman learned the tale of a king's oppression or a patriot's hope as he listened to the rambling, passionate, humorous discourse of the beggar friar."

By these methods the Mendicants were enabled to render most efficient service to their patrons at Rome in their efforts to establish their temporal power. They were, in fact, before the Reformation, just what the Jesuits afterwards became, "the very soul of the hierarchy." Yes, they were immensely, prodigiously successful. The popes hastened to do them honor. Because the friars were such enthusiastic supporters of the church, the popes poured gold and privileges into their capacious coffers. Thankful peasants threw in their mites and the admiring noble bestowed his estates.

The secular clergy, with envy and chagrin, awoke to the alarming fact that the beggars had won the hearts of the people; their hatred was increased by the fact that when the Roman pontiffs enriched these indefatigable toilers and valiant foes of heresy, they did so at the expense of the bishops and clergy, which, perhaps, was robbing Paul to pay Peter.

Baluzii says: "No religious order had the distribution of so many and such ample indulgences as the Franciscans. In place of fixed revenues, lucrative indulgences were placed in their hands." So ill-judged was the distribution of these favors that discipline was overturned. Many churchmen, feeling that their rights were being encroached upon, complained bitterly, and resolved on retaliation. It is just here that a potent cause of the Mendicant's fall is to be found. He helped to dig his own grave.

Having elevated monasticism to the zenith of its power, the Mendicant orders, like all the other monastic brotherhoods, entered upon their shameful decline. The unexampled prosperity, so inconsistent with the original intentions of the founders of the orders, was attended by corruptions and excesses. The decrees of councils, the denunciations of popes and high ecclesiastical dignitaries, the satires of literature, the testimony of chroniclers and the formation of reformatory orders, constitute a body of irrefragable evidence proving that the lowest level of sensuality, superstition and ignorance had been reached. The monks and friars lost whatever vigor and piety they ever possessed.

It is again evident that a monk cannot serve God and mammon. Success ruins him. Wealth and popular favor change his character. The people slowly realize the fact that the fat and lazy medieval monk is not dead, after all, but has simply changed his name to that of Begging Friar. As Allen neatly observes: "Their gray gown and knotted cord wrapped a spiritual pride and capacity of bigotry, fully equal to the rest."

Here, then, are the "sturdy beggars" of Francis, dwelling in palatial convents, arrogant and proud, trampling their ideal into the dust. Thus it came to pass in accordance with the principle stated at the beginning of this chapter, that when the ideal became a cloak to cover up sham, decay had set in, and ruin, even though delayed for years, was sure to come. The poor, sad-faced, honest, faithful friar everybody praised, loved and reverenced. The insolent, contemptuous, rich monk all men loathed. So a change of character in the friar transformed the songs of praise into shouts of condemnation. Those golden rays from the morning sun of the Reformation are ascending toward the highest heaven, and daybreak is near.



VI

THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

In many respects it would be perfectly proper to consider the Mendicant orders as the last stage in the evolution of the monastic institution. Although the Jesuitical system rests upon the three vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience, yet the ascetic principle is reduced to a minimum in that society. Father Thomas E. Sherman, the son of the famous general, and a Jesuit of distinguished ability, has declared: "We are not, as some seem to think, a semi-military band of men, like the Templars of the Middle Ages. We are not a monastic order, seeking happiness in lonely withdrawal from our fellows. Our enemies within and without the church would like to make us monks, for then we would be comparatively useless, since that is not our end or aim.... We are regulars in the army of Christ; that is, men vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience; we are a collegiate body with the right to teach granted by the Catholic church[G]."

[Footnote G: Appendix, Note G.]

The early religious orders were based upon the idea of retirement from the world for the purpose of acquiring holiness. But as has already been shown, the constant tendency of the religious communities was toward participation in the world's affairs. This tendency became very marked among the friars, who traveled from place to place, and occupied important university positions, and it reaches its culmination in the Society of Jesus. Retirement among the Jesuits is employed merely as a preparation for active life. Constant intercourse with society was provided for in the constitution of the order. Bishop John J. Keane, a Roman Catholic authority, says: "The clerks regular, instituted principally since the sixteenth century, were neither monks nor friars, but priests living in common and busied with the work of the ministry. The Society of Jesus is one of the orders of clerks regular."

Other differences between the monastic communities and the Jesuits are to be observed. The Jesuit discards the monastic gown, and is decidedly averse to the old monastic asceticism, with its rigorous and painful treatment of the body. While the older religious societies were essentially democratic in spirit and government, the monks sharing in the control of the monastic property and participating in the election of superiors, the Jesuitical system is intensely monarchical, a despotism pure and simple. In the older orders, the welfare of the individual was jealously guarded and his sanctification was sought. Among the Jesuits the individual is nothing, the corporate body everything. Admission to the monastic orders was encouraged and easily obtained. The novitiate of the Jesuits is long and difficult. Access to the highest grades of the order is granted only to those who have served the society many weary years.



But in spite of such variations from the old monastic type, the Society of Jesus would doubtless never have appeared, had not the way for its existence been paved by previous monastic societies. Its aims and its methods were the natural sequence of monastic history. They were merely a development of past experiences, for the objects of the society were practically the objects of the Mendicants; the vows were the same with a change of emphasis. The abandonment of austerities as a means of salvation or spiritual power was the natural fruit of past experiments that had proved the uselessness of asceticism merely for the sake of acquiring a spirit of self-denial. The extirpation of heresy undertaken by Ignatius had already been attempted by the friars, while the education of the young had long been carried on with considerable success by the Benedictine and Dominican monks. The spirit of its founder, however, gave the Society of Jesus a unique character, and monasticism now passed out from the cell forever. The Jesuit may fairly be regarded as a monk, unlike any of his predecessors but nevertheless the legitimate fruit of centuries of monastic experience.



Ignatius de Loyola, 1491-1556 A.D.

Inigo Lopez de Recalde, or Loyola, as he is commonly known, was born at Guipuzcoa, in Spain, in 1491. He was educated as a page in the court of Ferdinand the Catholic. He afterwards became a soldier and led a very wild life until his twenty-ninth year. During the siege of Pamplona, in 1521, he was severely wounded, and while convalescing he was given lives of Christ and of the saints to read. His perusal of these stories of spiritual combat inspired a determination to imitate the glorious achievements of the saints. For a while the thirst for military renown and an attraction toward a lady of the court, restrained his spiritual impulses. But overcoming these obstacles, he resolutely entered upon his new career.

Sometime after he visited the sanctuary of Montserrat, where he hung his shield and sword upon the altar of the Virgin Mary and gave his oath of fealty to the service of God. A tablet, erected by the abbot of the monastery in commemoration of this event, reads as follows: "Here, blessed Ignatius of Loyola, with many prayers and tears, devoted himself to God and the Virgin. Here, as with spiritual arms, he fortified himself in sackcloth, and spent the vigil of the night. Hence he went forth to found the Society of Jesus, in the year MDXXII."

After spending ten months in Manresa, Loyola went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, intending to remain there, but he was sent home by the Eastern monks, and reached Italy in 1524.

Now began his struggle for an education. At the age of thirty-three he took his seat on the school-bench at Barcelona. In 1526 he entered the University at Alcala. He was here looked upon as a dangerous innovator, and was imprisoned six weeks, by order of the Inquisition, for preaching without authority, since he was not in holy orders. After his release he attended the University of Salamanca, but he finally took his degree of Master of Arts at the University of Paris, in 1533.

During this period he was several times imprisoned as a dangerous fanatic, but each time he succeeded in securing a verdict in his favor. The hostility to Ignatius and his work forms a strange parallel to the bitter antagonism which his society has always encountered.

Nine men, among whom was Francis Xavier, afterwards widely renowned, had been chosen with great care, as the companions of Ignatius. He called them together in July, 1534, and on August 15th of the same year he selected six of them and bade them follow him to the Church of the Blessed Virgin, at Montmartre, in Paris. There and then they bound themselves to renounce all their goods, and to make a voyage to Jerusalem, in order to convert the Eastern infidels; if that scheme proved impracticable, they agreed to offer themselves to the sovereign pontiff for any service he might require of them. War prevented the journey to the Holy Land, and so, after passing through a variety of experiences, Ignatius and his companions met at Rome, to secure the sanction of Pope Paul III. for the new society. After a year and a half of deliberation and discussion a favorable decision was reached, which was, no doubt, partly facilitated by the growth of the Reformation. The new society was chartered on September 27, 1540, for the "defence and advance of the faith."

Ignatius was elected as the general of the order and entered upon his duties, April 17, 1541. He soon prepared a constitution which was not adopted until after his death, and then in an amended form. Loyola ended his remarkable and stormy career, July 31, 1556.



Constitution and Polity of the Order

The Institutum, which contains the governing laws of the society, is a complex document consisting of papal bulls and decrees, a list of the privileges which have been granted to the order, ten chapters of rules, decrees of the general congregations, the plan of studies (ratio studiorum), and three ascetic writings, of which the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius constitute the chief part.

The society is distributed into six grades: novices, scholastics, temporal coadjutors, spiritual coadjutors, professed of the three vows, and professed of the four vows.

The professed form only a small percentage of the entire body, and constitute a sort of religious aristocracy, from which the officers of the society are selected. Only the professed of the fourth vow, who add to the three vows a pledge of unconditional obedience to the pope, possess the full rights of membership. This final grade cannot be reached until the age of forty-five, so that if the candidate enters the order at the earliest age permissible, fourteen, he has been on probation thirty-one years when he reaches the final grade.

The society is ruled by a general, to whom unconditional obedience is required. The provinces, into which the order is divided, are governed by provincials, who must report monthly to the general. The heads of all houses and colleges must report weekly to their provincials. An elaborate system of checks and espionage is employed to ensure the perfect working of this complex ecclesiastical machinery. Fraud or evasion is carefully guarded against, and every possible means is employed to enable the general to keep himself fully informed concerning the minutest details of the society's affairs.

The Vow of Obedience

That which has imparted a peculiar character to the Jesuit and contributed more than any other force to his success, is the insistence upon unquestioning submission to the will of the superior. This emphasis on the vow of obedience deserves, therefore, special consideration. Loyola, in his "Spiritual Exercises," commanded the novice to preserve his freedom of mind, but it is difficult for the fairest critic to conceive of such a possibility in the light of Loyola's rule of obedience, which reads: "I ought not to be my own, but His who created me, and his too by whose means God governs me, yielding myself to be moulded in his hands like so much wax.... I ought to be like a corpse, which has neither will nor understanding, or like a small crucifix, which is turned about at the will of him who holds it, or like a staff in the hands of an old man, who uses it as may best assist or please him."

As an example of the kind of obedience demanded of the Jesuit, Loyola cited the obedience of Abraham, who, when he believed that Jehovah commanded him to commit the crime of infanticide, was ready to obey. The thirteenth of the rules appended to the Spiritual Exercises says: "If the Church shall have defined that to be black which to our eyes appears white, we ought to pronounce the thing in question black."

Loyola is reported as having said to his secretary that "in those who offer themselves he looked less to purely natural goodness than to firmness of character and ability for business." But that he did not mean independent firmness of character is clearly seen in the obvious attempt of the order to destroy that noble and true independence which is the crowning glory of a lofty character. The discipline is marvelously contrived to "scoop the will" out of the individual. Count Paul von Hoensbroech, who recently seceded from the society, has set forth his reasons for so doing in two articles which appeared in the "Preussische Jahrbuecher." A most interesting discussion of these articles, in the "New World," for December, 1894, places the opinions of the Count at our disposal. It is quite evident that he is no passionate, blind foe of the society. His tone is temperate and his praises cordially given. While recognizing the genius shown in the machinery of the society and the nobility of the real aims of the Jesuitical discipline, and while protesting against the unfounded charges of impurity, and other gross calumnies against the order, Count Paul nevertheless maintains that it "rests on so unworthy a depreciation of individuality, and so exaggerated an apprehension of the virtue of obedience, as to render it unfit for its higher ends." The uniform of the Jesuit is not an external garb, but such freedom is insignificant in the light of the "veritable strait-jacket," which is placed upon the inward man. The unformed and pliable novice, usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty, is subjected to "a skillful, energetic and unremitting assault upon personal independence." Every device that a shrewd and powerful intellect could conceive of is employed to break up the personal will. "The Jesuit scheme prescribes the gait, the way to hold the hands, to incline the head, to direct the eyes, to hold and move the person."

Every novice must go through the "Spiritual Exercises" in complete solitude, twice in his life. They occupy thirty days. The "Account of the Conscience" is of the very essence of Jesuitism. The ordinary confession, familiar to every Catholic, is as nothing compared with this marvelous inquiry into the secrets of the human heart and mind. Every fault, sin, virtue, wish, design, act and thought,—good, bad or indifferent,—must be disclosed, and this revelation of the inner life may be used against him who makes it, "for the good of the order." Thus, after fifteen years of such ingenious and detailed discipline, the young man's intellectual and moral faculties are moulded into Jesuitical forms. He is no longer his own. He is a pliable and obedient, even though it may be a virtuous and brilliant, tool of a spiritual master-mechanic who will use him according to his own purposes, in the interest of the society.

The Jesuits have signally failed to convince the world that the type of character produced by their system is worthy of admiration. The "sacrifice of the intellect"—a familiar watchword of the Jesuit—is far too high a price to pay for whatever benefits the discipline may confer. It is contrary to human nature, and hence to the divine intention, to keep a human soul in a state of subordination to another human will. As Von Hoensbroech says of the society: "Who gave it a right to break down that most precious possession of the individual being, which God gave, and which man has no authority to take away?"

It is true that no human organization has so magnificently brought to perfection a unity of purpose and oneness of will. It is also true that a spirit of defiance toward human authority is often accompanied by a disobedience of divine law. But the remedy for the abuses of human freedom is neither in the annihilation of the will itself, nor in its mere subjection to some other will irrespective of its moral character. Carlyle may have been too vehement in some of his censures of Jesuitism, but he certainly exposed the fallaciousness of Loyola's views concerning the value of mere obedience, at the same time justly rebuking the too ardent admirers of the perverted principle: "I hear much also of 'obedience,' how that and kindred virtues are prescribed and exemplified by Jesuitism; the truth of which, and the merit of which, far be it from me to deny.... Obedience is good and indispensable: but if it be obedience to what is wrong and false, good heavens, there is no name for such a depth of human cowardice and calamity, spurned everlastingly by the gods. Loyalty? Will you be loyal to Beelzebub? Will you 'make a covenant with Death and Hell'? I will not be loyal to Beelzebub; I will become a nomadic Choctaw rather, ... anything and everything is venial to that."



The Casuistry of the Jesuits

It is often asserted, even by authoritative writers, that a Jesuit is bound by his vows to commit either venial or mortal sin at the command of his superior; and that the maxim, "The end justifies the means," has not only been the principle upon which the society has prosecuted its work but is also explicitly taught in the rules of the order. There is nothing in the constitution of the society to justify these two serious charges, which are not to be regarded as malicious calumnies, however, because the slovenly Latin in one of the rules on obedience has misled such competent scholars as John Addington Symonds and the historian Ranke. Furthermore, judging from the doctrines of the society as set forth by many of their theologians and the political conduct of its representatives, the conclusion seems inevitable that while the society may not teach in its rules that its members are bound to obedience even to the point of sin, yet practically many of its leaders have so held and its emissaries have rendered that kind of obedience.

Bishop Keane admits that one of the causes for the decline and overthrow of the society was its marked tendency toward lax moral teaching. There can be but little doubt that the Jesuits have ever been indulgent toward many forms of sin and even crime, when committed under certain circumstances and for the good of the order or "the greater glory of God."

To enable the reader to form some sort of an independent judgment on this question, it is necessary to say a few words on the subject of casuistry and the doctrine of probabilism.

Casuistry is the application of general moral rules to given cases, especially to doubtful ones. The medieval churchmen were much given to inventing fanciful moral distinctions and to prescribing rules to govern supposable problems of conscience. They were not willing to trust the individual conscience or to encourage personal responsibility. The individual was taught to lean his whole weight on his spiritual adviser, in other words, to make the conscience of the church his own. As a result there grew up a confused mass of precepts to guide the perplexed conscience. The Jesuits carried this system to its farthest extreme. As Charles C. Starbuck says: "They have heaped possibility upon possibility in their endeavors to make out how far there can be subjective innocence in objective error, until they have, in more than one fundamental point, hopelessly confused their own perceptions of both[H]."

[Footnote H: Appendix, Note H.]

The doctrine of probabilism is founded upon the distinctions between opinions that are sure, less sure, or more sure. There are several schools of probabilists, but the doctrine itself practically amounts to this: Since uncertainty attaches to many of our decisions in moral affairs, one must follow the more probable rule, but not always, cases often arising when it is permissible to follow a rule contrary to the more probable one. Furthermore, as the Jesuits made war upon individual authority, which was the key-note of the Reformation, and contended for the authority of the church, the teaching naturally followed, that the opinion of "a grave doctor" may be looked upon "as possessing a fair amount of probability, and may, therefore, be safely followed, even though one's conscience insist upon the opposite course." It is easy to see that this opens a convenient door to those who are seeking justification for conduct which their consciences condemn. No doubt one can find plausible excuses for the basest crimes, if he stills the voice of conscience and trusts himself to confusing sophistry. The glory of God, the gravity of circumstances, necessity, the good of the church or of the order, and numerous other practical reasons can be urged to remove scruples and make a bad act seem to be a good one. But crime, even "for the glory of God," is crime still.

This disagreeable subject will not be pursued further. To say less than has been said would be to ignore one of the most prominent causes of the Jesuits' ruin. To say more than this, even though the facts might warrant it, would incur the liability of being classed among those malicious fomentors of religious strife, for whom the writer has mingled feelings of pity and contempt. The Society of Jesus is not the Roman Catholic Church, which has suffered much from the burden of Jesuitism—wounds that are scarcely atoned for by the meritorious and self-sacrificing services on her behalf in other directions. The Protestant foes have never equaled the Catholic opponents of Jesuitism, either in their fierce hatred of the system or in their ability to expose its essential weakness. A writer in the "Quarterly Review," September, 1848, says: "Admiration and detestation of the Jesuits divide, as far as feeling is concerned, the Roman Catholic world, with a schism deeper and more implacable than any which arrays Protestant against Protestant."



The Mission of the Jesuits

The Society of Jesus has been described as "a naked sword, whose hilt is at Rome, and whose point is everywhere." It is an undisputed historical fact that Loyola's consuming passion was to accomplish the ruin of Protestantism, which had twenty years the start of him and was threatening the very existence of the Roman hierarchy. It has already been shown that the destruction of heresy was the chief aim of the Dominicans. What the friars failed to attain, Loyola attempted. The principal object of the Jesuits was the maintenance of papal authority. Even to-day the Jesuit does not hesitate to declare that his mission is to overthrow Protestantism. The Reformation was inspired by a new conception of individual freedom. The authority of tradition and of the church was set at naught. Loyola planted his system upon the doctrine of absolute submission to authority. The partial success of the Jesuits, for they did beat back the Reformation, is no doubt attributable to their fidelity, virtue and learning. Their devotion to the cause they loved, their willingness to sacrifice life itself, their marvelous and instantaneous obedience to the slightest command of their leaders, made them a compact and powerful papal army. Their methods, in many particulars, were not beyond question, and, whatever their character, the order certainly incurred the fiercest hostility of every nation in Europe, and even of the church itself.

Professor Anton Gindely, in his "History of the Thirty Years' War," shows that Maximilian, of Bavaria, and Ferdinand, of Austria, the leaders on the Catholic side, were educated by Jesuits. He also fixes the responsibility for that war partly upon them in the plainest terms: "In a word, they had the consciences of Roman Catholic sovereigns and their ministers in their hands as educators, and in their keeping as confessors. They led them in the direction of war, so that it was at the time, and has since been called the Jesuits' War."

The strictures of Carlyle, Macaulay, Thackeray, and Lytton have been repeatedly denounced by the Jesuits, but even their shrewd, sophistical defences of their order afford ample justification for the attitude of their foes. For example, in a masterful oration, previously quoted from, in which the virtues of the Jesuits are extolled and defended, Father Sherman says: "We are expelled and driven from pillar to post because we teach men to love God." He describes Loyola as "the knightly, the loyal, the true, the father of heroes, and the maker of saints, the lover of the all-good and the all-beautiful, crowned with the honor of sainthood, the best-loved and the best-hated man in all the world, save only his Master and ours." "'Twas he that conceived the daring plan of forging the weapon to beat back the Reformation." No one but a Jesuit could reconcile the aim of "preaching the love of God" with "beating back the Reformation," especially in view of the methods employed.

Numerous gross calumnies have been circulated against the Society of Jesus. The dread of a return to that deplorable intellectual and moral slavery of the pre-Reformation days is so intense, that a calm, dispassionate consideration of Jesuit history is almost impossible. But after all just concessions have been made, two indisputable facts confront the student: first, the universal antagonism to the order, of the church that gave birth to it, as well as of the states that have suffered from its meddling in political affairs; and second, the complete failure of the order's most cherished schemes. France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Great Britain and other nations, have been compelled in sheer self-defence to expel it from their territories. Such a significant fact needs some other explanation than that the Jesuit has incurred the enmity of the world merely for preaching the love of God.

Clement XIV., when solemnly pronouncing the dissolution of the order, at the time his celebrated bull, entitled "Dominus ac Redemptor Noster" which was signed July 21, 1773, was made public, justified his action in the following terms: "Recognizing that the members of this society have not a little troubled the Christian commonwealth, and that for the welfare of Christendom it were better that the order should disappear," etc. When Rome thus delivers her ex cathedra opinion concerning her own order, an institution which she knows better than any one else, one cannot fairly be charged with prejudice and sectarianism in speaking evil of it.

But while there is much to be detested in the methods of the order, history does not furnish another example of such self-abnegation and intense zeal as the Jesuits have shown in the prosecution of their aims. They planted missions in Japan, China, Africa, Ceylon, Madagascar, North and South America.

In Europe the Mendicant friars by their coarseness had disgusted the upper classes; the affable and cultured Jesuit won their hearts. The Jesuits became chaplains in noble families, learned the secrets of every government in Europe, and became the best schoolmasters in the age. They were to be found in various disguises in every castle of note and in every palace. "There was no region of the globe," says Macaulay, "no walk of speculative or active life in which Jesuits were not to be found." That they were devoted to their cause no one can deny. They were careless of life and, as one facetiously adds, of truth also. They educated, heard confessions, plotted crimes and revolutions, and published whole libraries. Worn out by fatigue, the Jesuits still toiled on with marvelous zeal. Though hated and opposed, they wore serene and cheerful countenances. In a word, they had learned to control every faculty and every passion, and to merge every human aspiration and personal ambition into the one supreme purpose of conquering an opposing faith and exalting the power of priestly authority. They hold up before the subjects of the King of Heaven a wonderful example of loving and untiring service, which should be emulated by every servant of Christ who too often yields an indifferent obedience to Him whom he professes to love and to serve.

Francis Parkman, in his brilliant narrative of "The Jesuits in North America," presents the following interesting contrast between the Puritan and the Jesuit: "To the mind of the Puritan, heaven was God's throne; but no less was the earth His footstool; and each in its degree and its kind had its demands on man. He held it a duty to labor and to multiply; and, building on the Old Testament quite as much as on the New, thought that a reward on earth as well as in heaven awaited those who were faithful to the law. Doubtless, such a belief is widely open to abuse, and it would be folly to pretend that it escaped abuse in New England; but there was in it an element manly, healthful and invigorating. On the other hand, those who shaped the character, and in a great measure the destiny, of New France had always on their lips the nothingness and the vanity of life. For them, time was nothing but a preparation for eternity, and the highest virtue consisted in a renunciation of all the cares, toils and interests of earth. That such a doctrine has often been joined to an intense worldliness, all history proclaims; but with this we have at present nothing to do. If all mankind acted on it in good faith, the world would sink into decrepitude. It is the monastic idea carried into the wide field of active life, and is like the error of those who, in their zeal to cultivate their higher nature, suffer the neglected body to dwindle and pine, till body and mind alike lapse into feebleness and disease."

Notwithstanding the success of the Jesuits in stopping the progress of the Reformation, it may be truthfully said that they have failed. The principles of the Reformation dominate the world and are slowly modifying the Roman church in America. "In truth," says Macaulay, "if society continued to hold together, if life and property enjoyed any security, it was because common sense and common humanity restrained men from doing what the order of Jesus assured them they might with a safe conscience do." Our hope for the future progress of society lies in the guiding power of this same common sense and common humanity.

The restoration of the order by Pius VII., August 7th, 1814, while it renewed the papal favor, did not allay the hostility of the civil powers. Various states have expelled them since that time, and wherever they labor, they are still the objects of open attack or ill-disguised suspicion. Although the order still shows "some quivering in fingers and toes," as Carlyle expresses it, the principles of the Reformation are too widely believed, and its benefits too deeply appreciated, to justify any hope or fear of the ultimate triumph of Jesuitism.



Retrospect

So the Christian monk has greatly changed since he first appeared in the deserts of Nitria, in Egypt. He has come from his den in the mountains to take his seat in parliaments, and find his home in palaces. He is no longer filthy in appearance, but elegant in dress and courtly in manner. He has exchanged his rags for jewels and silks. He is no longer the recluse of the lonely cliffs, chatting with the animals and gazing at the stars. He is a man of the world, with schemes of conquest filling his brain and a love of dominion ruling his heart. He is no longer a ditch-digger and a ploughman, but the proud master of councils or the cultured professor of the university. He still swears to the three vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience, but they do not mean the same thing to him that they did to the more ignorant, less cultured, but more genuinely frank monk of the desert. Yes, he has all but completely lost sight of his ancient monastic ideal. He professes the poverty of Christ, but he cannot follow even so simple a man as his Saint Francis.

It is a long way from Jerome to Ignatius, but the end of the journey is nigh. Loyola is the last type of monastic life, or changing the figure, the last great leader in the conquered monastic army. The good within the system will survive, its truest exponents will still fire the courage and win the sympathy of the devout, but best of all, man will recover from its poison.



VII

THE FALL OF THE MONASTERIES

The rise of Protestantism accelerated the decline and final ruin of the monasteries. The enthusiasm of the Mendicants and the culture of the Jesuits failed to convince the governments of Europe that monasticism was worthy to survive the destruction awaiting so many medieval institutions. The spread of reformatory opinions resulted in a determined and largely successful attack upon the monasteries, which were rightly believed to constitute the bulwark of papal power. So imperative were the popular demands for a change, that popes and councils hastened to urge the members of religious orders to abolish existing abuses by enforcing primitive rules. But while Rome practically failed in her attempted reformations, the Protestant reformers in church and state were widely successful in either curtailing the privileges and revenues of the monks or in annihilating the monasteries.

Since the sixteenth century the leading governments of Europe, even including those in Catholic countries, have given tangible expression to popular and political antagonism to monasticism, by the abolition of convents, or the withdrawal of immunities and favors, for a long time a source of monastic revenue and power. The results of this hostility have been so disastrous, that monasticism has never regained its former prestige and influence. Several of the older orders have risen from the ruins, and a few new communities have appeared, some of which are distinguished by their most laudable ministrations to the poor and the sick, or by their educational services. Yet notwithstanding the modifications of the system to suit the exigencies of modern times, it seems altogether improbable that the monks will ever again wield the power they possessed before the Reformation,

In the present chapter attention will be confined to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII., in England. The suppression in that country was occasioned partly by peculiar, local conditions, and was more radical and permanent than the reforms in other lands, yet it is entirely consistent with our general purpose to restrict this narrative to English history. Penetrating beneath the varying externalities attending the ruin of the monasteries in Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, and other countries, it will be found that the underlying cause of the destruction of the monasteries was that the monastic ideal conflicted with the spirit of the modern era. A conspicuous and dramatic example of this struggle between medievalism, as embodied in the monastic institution, and modern political, social and religious ideals, is to be found in the dissolution of the English monasteries. The narrative of the suppression in England also conveys some idea of the struggle that was carried on throughout Europe, with varying intensity and results.

There is no more striking illustration of the power of the personal equation in the interpretation of history than that afforded by the conflicting opinions respecting the overthrow of monasticism in England. Those who mourn the loss of the monasteries cannot find words strong enough with which to condemn Henry VIII., whom they regard as "unquestionably the most unconstitutional, the most vicious king that ever wore the English crown." Forgetting the inevitable cost of human freedom, and lightly passing over the iniquities of the monastic system, they fondly dwell upon the departed glory of the ancient abbeys. They recall with sadness the days when the monks chanted their songs of praise in the chapels, or reverently bent over their books of parchment, bound in purple and gold, not that they might "winnow the treasures of knowledge, but that they might elicit love, compunction and devotion." The charming simplicity and loving service of the cloister life, in the days of its unbroken vows, appeal to such defenders of the monks with singular potency.

Truly, the fair-minded should attempt to appreciate the sorrow, the indignation and the love of these friends of a ruined institution. Passionless logic will never enable one to do justice to the sentiments of those who cannot restrain their tears as they stand uncovered before the majestic remains of a Melrose Abbey, or properly to estimate the motives and methods of those who laid the mighty monastic institution in the dust.



The Character of Henry VIII

Before considering the actual work of suppression, it may be interesting to glance at the royal destroyer and his times. The character of Henry VIII. is utterly inexplicable to many persons, chiefly because they do not reflect that even the inconsistencies of a great man may be understood when seen in the light of his times. A masterly and comprehensive summary of the virtues and vices of the Tudor monarch, who has been described as "the king, the whole king, and nothing but the king," may be found in "A History of Crime in England," by Luke Owen Pike. The distinguished author shows that in his brutality, his love of letters, his opposition to Luther, his vacillation in religious opinions, King Henry reflects with remarkable fidelity the age in which he lived, both in its contrasts and its inconsistencies. "It is only the previous history of England which can explain all the contradictions exhibited in his conduct,—which can explain how he could be rapacious yet sometimes generous, the Defender of the Faith yet under sentence of excommunication, a burner of heretics yet a heretic himself, the pope's advocate yet the pope's greatest enemy, a bloodthirsty tyrant yet the best friend to liberty of thought in religion, an enthusiast yet a turncoat, a libertine and yet all but a Puritan. He was sensual because his forefathers had been sensual from time immemorial, rough in speech and action because there had been but few men in Britain who had been otherwise since the Romans abandoned the island. He was superstitious and credulous because few were philosophical or gifted with intellectual courage. Yet he had, what was possessed by his contemporaries, a faint and intermittent thirst for knowledge, of which he himself hardly knew the meaning." Henry was shrewd, tenacious of purpose, capricious and versatile. In spite of his unrestrained indulgences and his monstrous claims of power, which, be it remembered, he was able to enforce, and notwithstanding any other vices or faults that may be truthfully charged against him, he was, on the whole, a popular king. Few monarchs have ever had to bear such a strain as was placed upon his abilities and character. Rare have been the periods that have witnessed such confusion of principles, social, political and religious. Those were the days when liberty was at work, "but in a hundred fantastical and repulsive shapes, confused and convulsive, multiform, deformed." Blind violence and half-way reforms characterized the age because the principles that were to govern modern times were not yet formulated.

Judged apart from his times Henry appears as an arrogant, cruel and fickle ruler, whose virtues fail to atone for his vices. But still, with all his faults, he compares favorably with preceding monarchs and even with his contemporaries. If he had possessed less intelligence, courage and ambition, he would not now be so conspicuous for his vices, but the history of human liberty and free institutions, especially in England, would have been vastly different. His praiseworthy traits were not sufficiently strong to enable him to control his inherited passions, but they were too regnant to permit him to submit without a struggle to the hierarchy which had dominated his country so many centuries. Such was

"the majestic lord, That broke the bonds of Rome."



Events Preceding the Suppression

Many causes and incidents contributed to the progress of the reformation in England, and to the demolition of the monasteries. Only a few of them can be given here, and they must be stated with a brevity that conveys no adequate conception of their profound significance.

Henry VIII. ascended the throne, in the year 1509, when eighteen years of age. In 1517, Luther took his stand against Rome. Four years later Henry wrote a treatise in defence of the Seven Sacraments and in opposition to the German reformer. For this princely service to the church the king received the title "Defender of the Faith" from Pope Leo X.

About 1527 it became known that Henry was questioning the validity of his marriage with Catharine of Aragon, whom he had married when he was twelve years old. She was the widow of his brother Arthur. The king professed conscientious scruples about his marriage, but undoubtedly his desire for male offspring, and later, his passion for Anne Boleyn, prompted him to seek release from his queen. In 1529, Henry and Catharine stood before a papal tribunal, presided over by Cardinal Wolsey, the king's prime minister, and Cardinal Campeggio, from Rome, for the purpose of determining the validity of the royal marriage. The trial was a farce. The enraged king laid the blame upon Wolsey, and retired him from office. The great cardinal was afterwards charged with treason, but died broken-hearted, on his way to the Tower, November 29, 1530.

The breach between Henry and Rome, complicated by numerous international intrigues, widened rapidly. Henry began to assume an attitude of bold defiance toward the pope, which aroused the animosity of the Catholic princes of Europe.

Notwithstanding the desire of a large body of the English people to remain faithful to Rome, the dangers which menaced their country from abroad and the ecclesiastical abuses at home, which had been a fruitful cause for complaint for many years, tended to lessen the ancient horror of heresy and schism, and inclined them to support their king. Another factor that assisted in preparing the English people for the destruction of the monasteries was Lollardism. As an organized sect, the Lollards had ceased to exist, but the spirit and the doctrines of Wyclif did not die. A real and a vital connection existed between the Lollards of the fourteenth, and the reformers of the sixteenth, centuries. In Henry's time, many Englishmen held practically the same views of Rome and of the monks that had been taught by Wyclif[I].

[Footnote I: Appendix, Note I.]

A considerable number of Henry's subjects, however, while ostensibly loyal to him, were inwardly full of hot rebellion. The king was surrounded with perils. The princes of the Continent were eagerly awaiting the bull for his excommunication. Henry's throne and his kingdom might at any moment be given over by the pope to invasion by the continental sovereigns.

Reginald Pole, afterwards cardinal, a cousin of the king, and a strong Catholic, stood ready to betray the interests of his country to Rome. Writing to the king, he said: "Man is against you; God is against you; the universe is against you; what can you look for but destruction?" "Dream not, Caesar," he encouragingly declared to Emperor Charles V., "that all generous hearts are quenched in England; that faith and piety are dead. In you is their trust, in your noble nature, and in your zeal for God—they hold their land till you shall come." Thus, on the testimony of a Roman Catholic, there were traitors in England waiting only for the call of Charles V., "To arms!" Pole was in full sympathy with all the factions opposed to the king, and stood ready to aid them in their resistance. He publicly denounced the king in several continental countries.

The monks were especially enraged against Henry. They did all they could to inflame the people by preaching against him and the reformers. Friar Peyto, preaching before the king, had the assurance to say to him: "Many lying prophets have deceived you, but I, as a true Micah, warn you that the dogs will lick your blood as they did Ahab's." While the courage of this friar is unquestioned, his defiant attitude illustrates the position occupied by the monks toward those who favored separation from Rome. The whole country was at white heat. The friends of Rome looked upon Henry as an incarnate fiend, a servant of the devil and an enemy of all religion. Many of them opposed him with the purest and best motives, believing that the king was really undermining the church of God and throwing society into chaos.

In 1531, the English clergy were coerced into declaring that Henry was "the protector and the supreme head of the church and of the clergy of England," which absurd claim was slightly modified by the words, "in so far as is permitted by the law of Christ." Chapuys, in one of his despatches informing Charles V. of this action of convocation, said that it practically declared Henry the Pope of England. "It is true," he wrote, "that the clergy have added to the declaration that they did so only so far as permitted by the law of God. But that is all the same, as far as the king is concerned, as if they had made no reservation, for no one will now be so bold as to contest with his lord the importance of the reservation." Later on, Chapuys says that the king told the pope's nuncio that "if the pope would not show him more consideration, he would show the world that the pope had no greater authority than Moses, and that every claim not grounded on Scripture was mere usurpation; that the great concourse of people present had come solely and exclusively to request him to bastinado the clergy, who were hated by both nobles and the people." ("Spanish Despatches," number 460.)

Parliament, in 1534, conferred on Henry the title "Supreme Head of the Church of England," and empowered him "to visit, and repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, or amend all errors, heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, which fell under any spiritual authority or jurisdiction." The "Act of Succession" was also passed by Parliament, cutting off Princess Mary and requiring all subjects to take an oath of allegiance to Elizabeth.

It was now an act of treason to deny the king's supremacy. All persons suspected of disloyalty were required to sign an oath of allegiance to Henry, and to Elizabeth as his successor, and to acknowledge the supremacy of the king in church and state. This resulted in the death of some prominent men in the realm, among them Sir Thomas More. In the preamble of the oath prescribed by law, the legality of the king's marriage with Anne was asserted, thus implying that his former marriage with Catharine was unlawful. More was willing to declare his allegiance to the infant Elizabeth, as the king's successor, but his conscience would not permit him to affirm that Catharine's marriage was unlawful.

The life of the brilliant and lovable More is another illustration of the mental confusions and inconsistencies of that age. As an apostle of culture he favored the new learning, and yet he viewed the gathering momentum of reformatory principles with alarm, and cast in his lot with the ultra-conservatives. Four years of his young manhood were spent in a monastery. He devoted his splendid talents to a criticism of English society, and recommended freedom of conscience, yet he became an ardent foe of reform and even a persecutor of heretics, of whom he said: "I do so detest that class of men that, unless they repent, I am the worst enemy they have." When a man, whom even Protestant historians hasten to pronounce "the glory of his age," so magnificent were his talents and so blameless his character, was tainted with superstition, and sanctioned the persecution of liberal thinkers, is it remarkable that inferior intellects should have been swayed by the brutality and tyranny of the times?

The unparalleled claims of Henry and his attitude toward the pope made the breach between England and Rome complete, but many years of painful internal strife and bloodshed were to elapse before the whole nation submitted to the new order of things, and before that subjective freedom from fear and superstition without which formal freedom has little value, was secured.

The breach with Rome was essential to the attainment of that religious and political freedom that England now enjoys. But the first step toward making that separation an accomplished fact, acquiesced in by the people as a whole, was to break the power of the monastic orders. It may possibly be true that the same ends would have been eventually attained by trusting to the slower processes of social evolution, but the history of the Latin nations of Europe would seem to prove the contrary. As the facts stand it would appear that peace and progress were impossible with thousands of monks sowing seeds of discord, and employing every measure, fair or foul, to win the country back to Rome. Gairdner and others argue that Henry was far too powerful a king to have been successfully resisted by the pope, unless the pope was backed by a union of the Christian princes, which was then impracticable. That fact may make the execution of More, Fisher and the Charterhouse monks inexcusable, but it by no means proves that Henry would have been strong enough to maintain his position if the monasteries had been permitted to exist as centers of organized opposition to his will. Many of the monks, when pressed by the king's agents, took the oath of allegiance. Threats, bribes and violence were used to overcome the opposition of the unwilling.



The Monks and the Oath of Supremacy

It is quite evident that the king's purpose to destroy the whole monastic institution was partly the result of the determined resistance which the monks offered to his authority. The contest between the king and the monks was exceedingly fierce and bloody. Many good men lost their lives and many innocent persons suffered grievously. Perhaps the most pathetic incident in the sanguinary struggle between the king and the monks was the tragic fall of the Charterhouse of London. The facts are given at length by Froude, in his "History of England," who bases his account on the narrative of Maurice Channey, one of the monks who escaped death by yielding to the king. The unhappy monk confesses that he was a Judas among the apostles, and in a touching account of the ruin that came upon his monastic retreat he praises the boldness and fidelity of his companions, who preferred death to what seemed to them dishonor.

The pages of Channey are filled with the most improbable stories of miracles, but his charming picture of the cloister life of the Carthusians is doubtless true to reality. The Carthusian fathers were the best fruit of monasticism in England. To a higher degree than any of the other monastic orders they maintained a good discipline and preserved the spirit of their founders. "A thousand years of the world's history had rolled by," says Froude, "and these lonely islands of prayer had remained still anchored in the stream; the strands of the ropes which held them, wearing now to a thread, and very near their last parting, but still unbroken." In view of the undisputed purity and fearlessness of these noble monks, a recital of their woes will place the case for the monastic institution in the most favorable light.

Channey says the year 1533 was ushered in with signs,—the end of the world was nigh. Yes, the monk's world was drawing to a close; the moon, for him, was turning into blood, and the stars falling from heaven.

More and Fisher were in the Tower. The former's splendid talents and noble character still swayed the people. It was no time for trifling; the Carthusian fathers must take the oath of allegiance or perish. So one morning the royal commissioners appeared before the monastery door of the Charterhouse to demand submission. Prior Houghton answered them: "I know nothing of the matter mentioned; I am unacquainted with the world without; my office is to minister to God, and to save poor souls from Satan." He was committed to the Tower for one month. Then Dr. Bonner persuaded the prior to sign with "certain reservations." He was released and went back to his cloister-cell to weep. Calling his monks together he said he was sorry; it looked like deceit, but he desired to save his brethren and their order. The commissioners returned; the monks were under suspicion; the reservations were disliked, and they must sign without conditions. In great consternation the prior assembled the monks. All present cried out: "Let us die together in our integrity, and heaven and earth shall witness for us how unjustly we are cut off." Prior Houghton conceived a generous idea. "If it depends on me alone; if my oath will suffice for the house, I will throw myself on the mercy of God; I will make myself anathema, and to preserve you from these dangers, I will consent to the king's will." Thus did the noble old man consent to go into heaven with a lie on his conscience, hoping to escape by the mercy of God, because he sought to save the lives of his brethren. But all this was of no avail; Cromwell had determined that this monastery must fall, and fall it did. The monks prepared for their end calmly and nobly; beginning with the oldest brother, they knelt before each other and begged forgiveness for all unkindness and offence. "Not less deserving," says Froude, "the everlasting remembrances of mankind, than those three hundred, who, in the summer morning, sate combing their golden hair in the passes of Thermopylae." But rebellion was blazing in Ireland, and the enemies of the king were praying and plotting for his ruin. These monks, with More and Fisher, were an inspiration to the enemies of liberty and the kingdom. Catholic Europe crouched like a tiger ready to spring on her prostrate foe. It is sad, but these recluses, praying for the pope, instilling a love for the papacy in the confessional, these honest and conscientious but dangerous men must be shorn of their power to encourage rebels. There was a farce of a trial. Houghton was brought to the scaffold and died protesting his innocence. His arm was cut off and hung over the archway of the Charterhouse, as other arms and heads were hideously hanging over many a monastic gate in Merry England. Nine of the monks died of prison fever, and others were banished. The king's court went into mourning, and Henry knotted his beard and henceforth would be no more shaven—eloquent evidence to the world that whatever motive dominated the king's heart, these bloody deeds were unpleasantly disturbing. Certainly such a spectacle as that of a monk's arm nailed to a monastery was never seen by Englishmen before.

The Charterhouse fell, let it be carefully noted, because the monks could not and would not acknowledge the king's supremacy, and not because the monks were immoral. Some spies in Cromwell's service offered to, bring in evidence against six of these monks of "laziness and immorality." Cromwell indignantly refused the proposal, saying, "He would not hear the accusation; that it was false, wilfully so."

The news of these proceedings, and of the beheading of More and Fisher, awakened the most violent rage throughout Catholic Europe. Henry was denounced as the Nero of his times. Paul III. immediately excommunicated the king, dissolved all leagues between Henry and the Catholic princes, and gave his kingdom to any invader. All Catholic subjects were ordered to take up arms against him. Although these censures were passed, the pope decided to defer their publication, hoping for a peaceful settlement. But Henry knew, and the Catholic princes of Europe knew, that the blow might fall at any time. He had to make up his mind to go further or to yield unconditionally to the pope. The world soon discovered the temper of the enraged and stubborn monarch. He might vacillate on speculative questions, but there were no tokens of feeble hesitancy in his dealings with Rome. The hour of doom for the monasteries had struck.

Having thus glanced at the character of Henry VIII., the prime mover in the attack upon the monasteries, and having surveyed some of the events leading up to their fall, we are now prepared to consider the actual work of suppression, which will be described under the following heads: First, The royal commissioners and their methods of investigation; Second, The commissioners' report on the condition of affairs; Third, The action of Parliament; Fourth, The effect of the suppression upon the people; and Fifth, The use Henry made of the monastic possessions. These matters having been set forth, it will then be in order to inquire into the justification, real or alleged, of the suppression.



The Royal Commissioners and Their Methods of Investigation

The fall of Sir Thomas More left Thomas Cromwell the chief power under the king, and for seven years he devoted his great administrative abilities to making his royal patron absolute ruler in church and state.

Cromwell, Earl of Essex, was of lowly origin, but his energy and shrewdness, together with the experience acquired by extensive travels, commanded the attention of Cardinal Wolsey, who took him into his service. He was successively merchant, scrivener, money-lender, lawyer, member of parliament, master of jewels, chancellor, master of rolls, secretary of state, vicar-general in ecclesiastical affairs, lord privy seal, dean of Wells and high chamberlain.

Close intimacy with Wolsey enabled Cromwell to grasp the full significance of Henry's ambition, and his desire to please his royal master, coupled with his own love of power, prompted him to throw himself with characteristic energy into the work of centralizing all authority in the hands of the king and of his prime minister. In secular affairs, this had already been accomplished. The task before him was to subdue the church to the throne, to execute which he became the protector of Protestantism and the foe of Rome. Green says: "He had an absolute faith in the end he was pursuing, and he simply hews his way to it, as a woodman hews his way through the forest, axe in hand." Froude says: "To him ever belonged the rare privilege of genius to see what other men could not see, and therefore he was condemned to rule a generation which hated him, to do the will of God and to perish in his success. He pursued an object, the excellence of which, as his mind saw it, transcended all other considerations, the freedom of England and the destruction of idolatry, and those who, from any motive, noble or base, pious or impious, crossed his path, he crushed and passed on over their bodies."

There seems to be a general agreement that Cromwell was not a Protestant. His struggle against the temporal power of the pope fostered the reformatory movement, but that did not make Cromwell a Protestant any more than it did his master, Henry VIII. Foxe describes Cromwell "as a valiant soldier and captain of Christ," but Maitland retorts "that Foxe forgot, if he ever knew, who was the father of lies."

Without doubt Cromwell ruled with an iron hand. He was guilty of accepting bribes, and, as some maintain, "was the great patron of ribaldry, and the protector of the low jester and the filthy." But, sadly enough, that is no serious charge against one in his times. It is said that Henry used to say, when a knave was dealt to him in a game of cards, "Ah, I have a Cromwell!" Francis Aidan Gasquet, a Benedictine monk, in his valuable work on "Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries," says of Cromwell: "No single minister in England ever exercised such extensive authority, none ever rose so rapidly, and no one has ever left behind him a name covered with greater infamy and disgrace."

In 1535, Henry, as supreme head of the church, appointed Cromwell as his "Vicegerent, Vicar-General and Principal Commissary in causes ecclesiastical." His immediate duty was to enforce recognition of the king's supremacy. The monks and the clergy were now to be coerced into submission. A royal commission, consisting of Legh, Layton, Ap Rice, London and various subordinates, was appointed to visit the monasteries and to report on their condition.

Henry Griffin says in his chronicle: "I was well acquainted with all the commissioners; indeed I knew them well; they were very smart men, who understood the value of money, for they had tasted of adversity. I think the priests were the worst of the whole party, although they had a good reputation at the time, but they were wicked, deceitful men. I am sorry to speak thus of my own order, but I speak God's truth." "It is a dreadful undertaking," said Lord Clinton. "Ah! but I have great faith in the tact and judgment of the men I am about to select," retorted Cromwell.

Dr. John London was a base tool of Cromwell, and a miserable exponent of the reform movement. He joined Gardiner in burning heretics, was convicted of adultery at Oxford, was pilloried for perjury and died in jail. The other royal agents were also questionable characters. Dean Layton wrote the most disgusting letters to Cromwell. Once he informed his patron that he prayed regularly for him, prefacing this information with the remark, "I will now tell you something to make you laugh."

Father Gasquet sums up his view of the commissioners in the words of Edmund Burke: "It is not with much credulity that I listen to any when they speak ill of those whom they are going to plunder. I rather suspect that vices are feigned, or exaggerated, when profit is looked for in the punishment—an enemy is a bad witness; a robber worse." Burke indignantly declares: "The inquiry into the moral character of the religious houses was a mere pretext, a complete delusion, an insidious and predetermined foray of wholesale and heartless plunder."

Such are the protests from the defenders of the monasteries even before a hearing is granted. "What," say they, "believe such perjurers, adulterers and gamblers; men forsworn to bring in a bad report; men who were selected because they were worthless characters who could be relied on to return false charges against an institution loved by the people?"