CHAPTER V.

FAMILY AND POPULAR RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE DECADES BEFORE THE REFORMATION.1

§ 1. The Devotion of Germany to the Roman Church.

THE real roots of the spiritual life of Luther and of the other Reformers ought to be sought for in the family and in the popular religious life of the times. It is the duty of the historian to discover, if possible, what religious instruction was given by parents to children in the pious homes out of which most of the Reformers came, and what religious influences confronted and surrounded pious lads after they had left the family circle. Few have cared to

1 To Sources given to Chapter IV. add: Wackernagel, Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zum Anfang des 17 Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1864-1877) vols. i. ii. ; "Rainerii Sachoni Summa de Catharis et Leonistis" in the Magna Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. xiii. (Col. Agrip. 1618), cf. "Comm. Crit. de Rainerii Sachoni Summa" (Göttingen Osterprogramm of 1834); Habler, Das Wallfahrtbuch des Hermann von Vach, und die Pilgerreisen der Deutschen nach Santiago de Compostella (Strassburg, 1899); Mirabilia Roma (reprint by Parthey, Berlin, 1869); Munzenberger, Frankfurter und Magdeburger Beichtbuchlein (Mainz, 1883); Hasak, Die letzte Rose, etc. (Ratisbon, 1883); Hasak, Der christliche Glaube des deutschen Volkes beim Schluss des Mittelalters (Ratisbon, 1868); Höfler, Denkwürdigkeiten der Charitas Pirckheimer (Quellensamml. z. fränk. Gesch. iv., 1858); Konrad Stolle, Thüringische Chronik (in Bibliothek d. lit. Vereins (Stuttgardt), xxxiii.).

LATER BOOKS: v. Bezold, Geschichte der deutschen Reformation (Berlin, 1890); Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkesseit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters (17th ed., 1897), vol. i.; Brück, Der religiöse Unterricht für Jugend und Volk in Deutschland in der zweiten Hälfte des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts; Cruel, Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter (Detwold, 1879); Dacheux, Jean Geiler de Keysersberg (Paris, 1876); Walther, Die deutsche Bibelübersetzung des Mittelalters (Brunswick, 1889); Uhlhorn, Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1887); Wilken, Geschichte der geistlichen Spiele in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1872).

prosecute the difficult task; and it is only within late years that the requisite material has been accumulated. It has to be sought for in autobiographies, diaries, and private letters; in the books of popular devotion which the patience of ecclesiastical archeologists is exhuming and reprinting; in the references to the pious confraternities of the later Middle Ages, and more especially to the Kalands among the artisans, which appear in town chronicles, and whose constitutions are being slowly unearthed by local historical societies; in the police regulations of towns and country districts which aim at curbing the power of the clergy, and in the edicts of princes attempting to enforce some of the recommendations of the Councils of Constance and Basel; in the more popular hymns of the time, and in the sermons of the more fervent preachers; in the pilgrim songs and the pilgrim guide-books; and in a variety of other sources not commonly studied by Church historians.

On the surface no land seemed more devoted to the mediæval Church and to the Pope, its head, than did Germany in the half century before the Reformation. A cultivated Italian, Aleander, papal nuncio at the Diet of Worms, was astonished at the signs of disaffection he met with in 1520.1 He had visited Germany frequently, and he was intimately acquainted with many of the northern Humanists; and his opinion was that down to 1510 (the date of his last visit) he had never been among a people so devoted to the Bishop of Rome. No nation had exhibited such signs of delight at the ending of the Schism and the re-establishment of the "Peace of the Church." The Italian Humanists continually express their wonder at the strength of the religious susceptibilities of the Germans; and the papal Curia looked upon German devotion as a never-failing source of Roman revenue. The Germans displayed an almost feverish anxiety to profit by all the ordinary and extraordinary means of grace. They built innumerable churches; their towns were full of conventual

1 Kalkoff, Die Depeschen des Nuntius Aleander, etc. (Halle a. S. 1897), pp. 26, 45-48.

foundations; they bought Indulgences, went on pilgrimages, visited shrines, reverenced relics in a way that no other nation did. The piety of the Germans was proverbial.

Church building

In the town of

The number of churches was enormous for the population. Almost every tiny village had its chapel, and every town of any size had several churches. and decoration was a feature of the age. Dantzig 8 new churches had been founded or completed during the fifteenth century. The "holy" city of Köln (Cologne) at the close of the fifteenth century contained 11 great churches, 19 parish churches, 22 monasteries, 12 hospitals, and 76 convents; more than a thousand Masses were said at its altars every day. It was exceptionally rich in ecclesiastical buildings, no doubt; but the smaller town of Brunswick had 15 churches, over 20 chapels, 5 monasteries, 6 hospitals, and 12 Beguine-houses, and its great church, dedicated to St. Blasius, had 26 altars served by 60 ecclesiastics. So it was all over Germany.

Besides the large numbers of monks and nuns who peopled the innumerable monasteries and convents, a large part of the population belonged to some semi-ecclesiastical association. Many were tertiaries of St. Francis; many were connected with the Beguines: Köln (Cologne) had 106 Beguine-houses; Strassburg, over 60, and Basel, over 30.

The churches and chapels, monasteries and religious houses, received all kinds of offerings from rich and poor alike. In those days of unexampled burgher prosperity and wealth, the town churches became museums and treasure-houses." The windows were filled with painted glass; weapons, armour, jewels, pictures, tapestries were stored in the treasuries or adorned the walls. Ancient inventories have been preserved of some of these ecclesiastical accumulations of wealth. In the cathedral church in Bern, to take one example, the head of St. Vincentius, the patron, was adorned with a great quantity of gold, and with one jewel said to be priceless; the treasury contained 70 gold and 50 silver cups, 2 silver coffers, and 450 costly

sacramental robes decked with jewels of great value. The luxury, the artistic fancy, and the wealth which could. minister to both, all three were characteristic of the times, were lavished by the Germans on their churches.

§ 2. Preaching.

The

On the other hand, preaching took a place it had never previously held in the medieval Church. Some distinguished Churchmen did not hesitate to say that it was the most important duty the priest could perform-more important than saying Mass. It was recognised that when the people began to read the Bible and religious books in the vernacular, it became necessary for the priests to be able to instruct their congregations intelligently and sympathetically in sermons. Attempts were made to provide the preachers with material for their sermon-making. earliest was the Biblia Pauperum (the Bible for the Pauperes Christi, or the preaching monks), which collects. on one page pictures of Bible histories fitted to explain each other, and adds short comments. Thus, on the twentyfifth leaf there are three pictures—in the centre the Crucifixion; on the left Abraham about to slay Isaac, with the lamb in the foreground; and on the left the Brazen Serpent and the healing of the Plague. More scholarly preachers found a valuable commentary in the Postilla of the learned. Franciscan Nicolas de Lyra (Lira or Lire, a village in Normandy), who was the first real exegetical scholar, and to whom Luther was in later days greatly indebted.1

Manuals of Pastoral Theology were also written and published for the benefit of the parish priests, the most famous, under the quaint title, Dormi Secure (sleep in safety). It describes the more important portions of the service, and what makes a good sermon; it gives the Lessons for the Sunday services, the chief articles of the Christian faith, and adds directions for pastoral work and the cure of souls. No fewer than six editions of his Postilla were published between 1471 and 1508.

of the preaching.

It is somewhat difficult to describe briefly the character Some of it was very edifying and deservedly popular. The sermons of John Herolt were printed, and attained a very wide circulation. No fewer than forty-one editions appeared. Much of the preaching was the exposition of themes taken from the Scholastic Theology treated in the most technical way. Many of the preachers seem to have profaned their office in the search after popularity, and mingled very questionable stories and coarse jokes with their exhortations. The best known of the preachers who flourished at the close of the fifteenth century was John Geiler of Keysersberg (in Elsass near Colmar), the friend of Sebastian Brand, and a member of the Humanist circle of Strassburg. The position he filled illustrates the eagerness of men of the time to encourage preaching. A burgher of Strassburg, Peter Schott, left a sum of money to endow a preacher, who was to be a doctor of theology, one who had not taken monk's vows, and who was to preach to the people in the vernacular; a special pulpit was erected in the Strassburg Minster for the preacher provided by this foundation, who was John Geiler. His sermons are full of exhortations to piety and correct living. He lashed the vices and superstitions of his time. He denounced relic worship, pilgrimages, buying indulgences, and the corruptions in the monasteries and convents. spoke against the luxurious living of Popes and prelates, and their trafficking in the sale of benefices. He made sarcastic references to the papal decretals and to the quibblings of Scholastic Theology. He paints the luxuries and vices he denounced so very clearly, that his writings are a valuable mine for the historian of popular morals. He was a stern preacher of morals, but his sermons contain very little of the gospel message. As we read them we can understand Luther's complaint, that while he had listened to many a sermon on the sins of the age, and to many a discourse expounding scholastic themes, he had never heard one which declared the love of God to man in the mission and work of Jesus Christ.

He