avoided it carefully, as a source of vanity and danger, and had no intercourse with them even by letter, except to assist them in their necessities and their misfortunes. Nilus died soon after, in 1002, aged ninety-five.

CHAPTER XIV.

ON THE ABUSES AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THIS PERIOD.

A.D. 680-1054.

HE ignorance caused by the disorganised condition of society during these ages could not fail to produce many irregularities, abuses, and superstitions. I have already alluded to the mischiefs resulting from the use of images, which were of the most afflicting character. In many places the superstitious honour which was paid to them approached the verge of idolatry, and was even sometimes absolutely idolatrous. Such evils chiefly existed in the East; for the western Churches still rejected the veneration of images. The honours paid to the remains of the saints also became excessive. What had arisen from love and a just admiration of their virtues degenerated into superstition. The relics of saints were carried with great magnificence from their original burial-places to churches founded to their honour. Enthusiasm fancied that their touch wrought miracles; and as their possession attracted crowds of pilgrims and great benefactions, it became the interest of covetous and ambitious monks and priests to obtain as many relics as possible for their churches, and to ascribe numerous miracles to those

of which they were possessed. Hence arose a variety of artifices irreconcilable with honesty and religion; fictitious relics, the acquisition of relics by stratagem and theft, false and exaggerated legends of saints, which were read on their feast-days. Too many instances of such unchristian conduct are to be found in the history of these days; but, at the same time, it would be unjust to attribute them to all the Church. Without doubt there were still many who could not approve of conduct so irreconcilable with Christian wisdom and morality. The invocation of saints was also frequent, though we do not find that direct prayers were, as yet, addressed to them, or their aid sought, except with a desire for their prayers to God. The litanies of the western Churches began to include such invocations; but they did not find their way into the usual services of the Church. We have seen, in the last chapter, the lamentable want of information on religion which existed in some countries, where the Scriptures and the offices of religion were unintelligible even to the clergy. It was a mistaken reverence for antiquity which led Augustine and Boniface to employ the ancient Latin liturgies in the Churches which they founded amongst the heathen. They had not calculated that the knowledge of that language would be so limited, or that the people would be so badly instructed. Succeeding generations wanted ability or courage to correct a mistake sanctioned by such respectable authority. Still some means of instruction existed, though these were not universally found. Such were, the sermons of the bishops and presbyters; the exhortations of the monks; the discipline of penance, which still continued, though much impaired; the system of catechising the young; and the instruction which was conveyed by parents and godfathers, who were also reminded of their duties.

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And if, as we have reason to believe, a large portion of the community were accustomed to receive the holy eucharist three times a-year, we may trust that the state of religion was in those ages not so bad as it has been sometimes represented; and the present age, with all its advantages of civilisation, peace, and education, would perhaps scarcely be able to prove its greater attention to known duties, or its more conscientious obedience to the impulse of conscience. As time advanced, indeed, we see the words of our Lord verified. The tares began to grow thickly in the field of the Church, and the wheat was oppressed by their multitude. The pure gold of the early times, tried seven times in the fire, was now mingled with the alloy of this earth; and the human heart betrayed daily its tendency to fall away from the service of its Creator. The very chosen resorts of religious zeal and self-denying piety exemplified most lamentably this tendency to decay. The way of life in which an Antony and a Benedict had shewn such eminent virtues was now filled with lukewarm professors. The simple piety, the poverty, and the industry of St. Benedict's rule, gradually gave way before the influence of too ample endowments. Abuses of all kinds arose. The cupidity of barbarians was attracted by the wealth of monasteries and the splendour of their ornaments. Powerful barons usurped their territories or intruded into their precincts, spreading disorder and licentiousness amongst those former seats of religion and learning. When Odo, about 920, was desirous to devote himself to the monastic life, he went himself or sent messengers to all the celebrated monasteries of France; but he could not find a single house in which sufficient regularity and order were observed. He then founded the monastery and order of Clugny, in which the strictness of ancient discipline was re

vived. Indeed, the observance of St. Benedict's rule had, even in the preceding century, become so much relaxed, that Benedict of Anianum was employed to reform a number of monasteries in France and Italy.

The vast possessions which were bestowed on the Church by the sovereigns of the West, and which were held by feudal tenure, obliged bishops and abbots to attend the courts of princes, to absent themselves from their dioceses, and to mingle in scenes of war and civil commotion, which were little consistent with their sacred characters. Hence too arose that mutual interference of Church and State, of which these ages furnished several examples. Princes seized on the temporalities of churches, kept them vacant to enjoy their revenues, or insisted on the appointment of bishops who were altogether unworthy. On the other hand, the bishops began to assume temporal authority. The council of Toledo, in 681, deposed Wamba, king of the Visigoths, because, as they pretended, he had taken the monastic habit. The emperor Louis le Débonnaire was deposed, and restored again by councils of bishops. When the patriarchs of Rome had obtained from Pepin, Charlemagne, and their successors, considerable grants of territory in Italy, those powerful prelates assumed a still loftier tone of authority, and began to interfere in the disputes and other affairs of princes. Thus Adrian II. forbade the emperor Charles the Bald to possess himself of the dominions of king Lothaire under pain of excommunication, but in this he was resisted by the bishops of France; and when Gregory IV., about 830, had taken part with Lothaire against his father the emperor Louis, and threatened to excommunicate the latter, the bishops of France informed that prelate, that if he came to excommunicate the emperor, he should return home ex

communicated himself; and they even threatened to depose him from his see. It is plain that these bishops had no idea of its being necessary to be at all times in the communion of the bishop of Rome.

The extreme abuses which had arisen in the Churches of France during the ages preceding the time of Charlemagne were vigorously assailed by that illustrious prince. The capitularies or codes of ecclesiastical law of Charlemagne and his successors consisted chiefly of selections from the ancient canons, suited to the condition of the Church at that time and they were collected and enforced in those large councils of the bishops and peers of his kingdom, which in after-ages assumed the name of parliaments. Most of the synods or councils of the western Church, during this period, were of this mixed character, and decided equally on temporal and spiritual affairs. Such a system was not without serious inconveniences, and could not by any means be recommended as the best model for imitation in other times. The presence of a large body of turbulent barons in the synods of the Church could not contribute much to the peace of their proceedings, or to the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. This system, however, was gradually put an end to by the usurpations of the see of Rome, which at the close of this period began to arrogate the power of legislating for all the Church.

A great evil in these times was the facility with which excommunications were denounced. A sentence, which ought only to be passed on those who have been guilty of most serious offences against God or their brethren, was used on many trifling and unworthy occasions; and hence we need not wonder at the complaints frequently made in those times, that excommunication was disregarded.

The power of the Roman see in the western