The Press.
London, England, 1856-01-26 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

model for imitation is offered to Mr. Macaulay,
by which we wish that he would profit.
Nearly half of the fourth volume is occupied
with the history of Innocent 111. Much has
been written in modern times on that cele-
brated Pope, and no lack of materials was
wanted to Dean Milman. The tendency of
the Papacy to Autocracy, the delusion result-
ing from the splendid fidlacy of " unity," and
the grand effects of the Crusades upon Chris-
tendom, are all closely and consecutively
portrayed by the author. The chivalry of
Richard 1., the tyranny of John, and the inde-
pendence of Stephen Langton, diversify the
period. We shall take some extracts, which
will prove how successfully the author has
contrived to vivify his extended narrative.
In describing the effects of the interdict
passed by the tyrant John, Dean Milman
writes :

Thus throughout England, as throughout France,
without exception, without any privilege to church or
monastery, ceased the divine offices of the Church. From
Berwick to the British Channel, from the Land's-end to
Dover, the churches were closed, the bells silent ; the only
clergy who were seen stealing silently about were those
who were to baptise new-born infants with a hasty cere-
mony ; those who were to hear the confession of the dying,
and to administer to them, and them alone, the holy
Eucharist. The dead (no doubt the most cruel affliction)
were cast out of the towns,buried like dogs in some uncon-
secrated place—in a ditch or a dungheap—without prayer,
without the tolling oell, without funeral right. Those only
can judge the effect of this fearful maledieion who con-
sider how completely the whole life of all orders was
affected by the ritual and daily ordinances of the Church.
Every important act was done under the counsel of the
priest or the monk. Even to the less serious, the festivals
of the Church were the only holidays, the processions of
the Church the only spectacles, the ceremonies of the
Church the only amusements. To those of deeper reli-
gion, to those, the far greater number. of abject supersti-
tion, what was it to have the child thus almost furtively
baptised. marriage unblessed, or hardly blessed; the obse-
quies denied; to hear neither prayer nor chant ; to sup-
pose that the world was surrendered to the unrestrained
power of the devil and his evil spirits, with no saint to in-
tercede, no sacrifice to avert the wrath of God; when no
single image was exposed to view, not a cross unveiled :
the intercourse between man and God utterly broken off;
souls left to perish, or but reluctantly permitted absolution
in the instant of death!

In that passage may be seen a good instance
of the art of affecting the reader's mind by a
moral, as distinct from a picturesque, descrip-
tion. The panoramic powers of Mr. Macaulay
would have expanded the foregoing descrip-
tion into a dozen glittering pages. It is
obvious that compression, while preserving
fulness, is one of the most difficult arts of the
historian. It is one of the merits of this
" History of Latin Chistianity," that details
are not neglected by Dean Milman. His
parrative of the proceedings of the Church in
reference to Magna Charts is ample in matter.
It is curious to observe how instinctively the
Pope recoiled from the Great Charter :

Pope Innocent saw in this movement only the tur-
bulence of a few factious barons; he received the re-
presentations of John's ambassadors with great indigna-
tion ; he knit his brow (so writes the historian ), and broke
out into the language of astonishment " What, have the
barons of England presumed to dethrone a King who has
taken the Cross, and placed himself under the protection of
the Apostolic See? Do they transfer to others the patri-
mony of the Church of Rome? By St. Peter, we cannot
leave such a crime unpunished." If such unseemly lan•
gnage was attributed to the Pope, the formal acts of
Innocent might almost justify such reports of his conduct.
In his Bull he attributes the rebellion of the barons, after
John had been reconciled to the Church, to the enemy
of mankind. He is astonished that the barons have not
humbly brought their grievances before his tribunal, and
implored redress. The act describes the conduct of the
King as throughout just, conciliatory. " Vassals, they have
conspired against their lord—knights, against their king :
they have assailed his lands, seized his capital city, which
has been surrendered to them by treason. tinder their
violence, and under fears which might shake the firmest
man, he has entered into a treaty with the barons; a
treaty not only base and ignominious, but unlawful and
unjust; in flagrant violation and diminution of his rights
and honour. Wherefore, as the Lord has said by the
month of his prophet—' I have set thee above the nations,
and above the kingdoms, to pluck up and to destroy, to
build up and to plant;' and by the mouth of another
prophet—' break the leagues of ungodliness, and loose the
heavy burthens; ' we can no longer pass over in silence
such audacious wickedness, committed in contempt of the
Apostolic See, in infringement of the rights of the King,
to the disgrace of the Kingdom of England. to the great
peril of the. Crusade. We, therefore, with the advice of
our brethren, altogether reprove and condemn this charter,
prohibiting the King, under pain of anathema, from ob.
serving it, the barons from exacting its observaa in ; we
declare the said charter, with all its obligations and guaran-
tees, absolutely null and void."

The Great Charter of the liberties of England was b
lutel,y, peremptorily annulled, by the supreme ant he

87

of the Pope, as Pope and as liege lord of the realm. The
King was absolutely released from his oath to the statute ;
the King threatened with anathema if he observed, the
barons if they exacted the observance. Still the rebukes,
promises, threats of spiritual censure, the annulling edict,
were received with utter disregard by the sturdy barons.
They retorted the language of the Scripture, the phrase of
Isaiah is said to have been current among them—" Woe
unto him who justifieth the wicked fur reward ! "

Yet there were some political excuses for the
shortsighted views of the Pope. He did not
make allowance for the mingled effects of
knightly institutions in an insular realm along
with a popular tradition in favour of freedom.
Bolingbroke is right in affirming that in all
periods there was " a spirit of liberty" in
England. _ _

S-olue of the sketches of religious characters
introduced in these pages are miniatures
executed with considerable skill. We think
that, if he chose, Dean Milman could give as
" interesting " pictures of individuals as Sir
James Stephen, the most successful of pic-
torial ecclesiologists. The sketches of St. Do-
minic, and St. Francis of Assisi, are very
effective, though the artist was able to take but
small room. He seizes the spirit of Dominic
with keen apprehension :

Though Dominic himself was of high birth, and many
of his followers 3f noble blood, St. Francis of decent even
wealthy parentage, according to the irrepealable constitu-
tion of both orders, they were still to be the poorest of
mankind, instructing or consorting in religious fellowship
with the very meanest outcasts of society. Both the new
orders differed in the same manner, and greatly to the ad-
vantage of the hierarchical faith, from the old monkish
institutions. Their primary object was not the salvation
of the individual monk, but the salvation of others through
him. Though, therefore, their rules within their
monasteries were strictly and severely monastic, bound by
the common vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience,
seclusion was no part of their discipline. Their business
was abroad rather than at home; their dwelling was nc4.
like that of the old Benedictines or others, in the unculti-
vated swamps and forests of the North, on the dreary
Apennine, or the exhausted soil of Italy, in order to subdue
their bodies, and occupy their dangerously unoccupied
time, merely as a secondary consequence to compel the
desert into fertile land. Their work was among their
fellow men; in the village, in the town, in the city, in the
market, even in the camp. In every Dominican convent
the superior had the power to dispense even with the or-
dinary internal discipline, if he thought the brother might
be more usefully employed in his special avocation of a
preacher. It might seem the ambition of these men,
instead of cooping up a chosen few in high-walled and
secure monasteries, to subdue the whole world into one
vast cloister; monastic Christianity would no longer
flee the world, it would subjugate it, or win it by gentle
violence.

In Dominic Spain began to exercise that remarkable
influence over Latin Christianity, to display that peculiar
character which culminated as it were in Ignatius Loyola,
in Philip 11., and in Torquernada, of which the code of the
Inquisition was the statutary law; of which Calderon was
the poet. The life of every devout Spaniard was a per-
petual crusade. By temperament and by position he was
in constant adventurous warfare agai.,st the enemies of the
Cross : hatred of the Jew, of the Mohammedan, was the
herrban under which he served; it was the oath of his
chivalry : that hatred, in all its intensity, was soon and
easily extended to the heretic. Hereafter it was to com-
prehend the heathen Mexican, the Peruvian. St. Dominic
was, as it were, a Cortez, bound by his sense of duty,
urged by an inward voice, to invade older Christendom.
And Dominic was a man of as profound sagacity as of ad-
venturous enthusiasm.

In anotuer place we get to " the spiritual
interior" of St. Francis of Assisi, upon whom
M. de Montalembert has written with such
eloquence and sectarian zeal :
St. Francis is among the oldest vernacular poets of
Italy. His poetry, indeed, is but a long passionate ejacu-
lation of love to the Redeemer in rude metre : it has not
even the order and completeness of a hymn : it is a sort of
plaintive variation on one simple melody ; an echo of the
same tender words, multiplied again and again, it might
be fancied, by the voices in the cloister walls. But his
ordinary speech is more poetical than his poetry. In his
peculiar language he addresses all animate, even inanimate,
creatures as his brothers; not merely the birds and beasts ;
he had an especial fondness for lambs and larks, as the
images of the Lamb of God and of the cherubim in
heaven. I know not if it be among the " Conformities,"
but the only malediction I find him to have uttered was
against a fierce swine which had killed a young lamb.
Of his intercourse with these mute animals we are told
many pretty particularities, some of them miraculous.
But his poetic impersonation went beyond this. When
the surgeon was about to cauterise him. he said, " Fire, my
brother, be thou discreet and gentle to me." In one of his
Italian hymns he speaks of his brother the sun, his sister
the moon, his brother the wind, his sister the water. No
wonder that in this almost perpetual extatic state, un-
earthly music played around him, unearthly light shone
round his path. When he died, he said, with exquisite
simplicity, " Welcome, sister Death."

In these portraits there is no phrase-making.
There is always matter kept before the reader's
mind, and he is not cheated with "a hubbub
"of fine words." Again, let us exhibit the

88

author's talent in compressed narrative.
Here is " The Sicilian Vespers" descrioed by
the Dean of St. Paul's in the fifth volume :

At this juncture the crisis was precipitated by one of
those events which no sagacity could have foreseen, which
all the übiquitous activity ascribed to John of Procida
could not have devised—an outburst of popular fury ex-
cited by one of those acts of insulting tyranny which goad
an oppressed people to madness. The insurrection of
Palermo received the darkly famous name of the " Sicilian
Vespers."
The Sicilians still crowded to their religious festivals
with all the gaiety and lightheartedness of a southern
people. Even their churches, where they assembled for
the worship of that God whose representative on earth
had handed them over to their ruthless tyrant, where alone
they found consolation under the grinding tyranny, were
not secure against the all present agents of that tyranny.
The officers of the revenue watched the doors of those
churches: as all who had not paid their taxes went in or
carne forth, even from within the sanctuary itself they
dragged off their miserable victims, whom they branded
with the name of heretics—" Pay, ye Paterins, pay ! "
It was at a festival on Easter Tuesday that a multitude
of the inhabitants of Palermo AO the neighbourhood had
thronged to a church, about half a mile out of the town,
dedicated to the Holy Ghost. The religious service was
over, the merriment began; tables were spread, the amuse-
ments of all sorts, games, dances under the trees, were
going gaily on ; when the harmony was suddenly inter.
rupted, and the joyousness chilled by the appearance of a
body of French soldiery, under the pretext of keeping the
peace. The French mingled familiarly with the people,
paid court, not in the most respectful manner, to the
women ; the young men made sullen remonstrances,
and told them to go their way. The Frenchmen be-
gan to draw together. " These rebellious Paterins mast
have arms, or they would not venture on such inso-
lence." They began to search some of tbem for arms.
The two parties were already glaring at each other in
angry hostility. At that moment the beautiful daughter of
Roger Mastrangelo, a maiden of exquisite loveliness and
modesty, with her bridegroom, approached the church. A
Frenchman named Drouet, either in wantonness or insult,
came np to her, and, under the pretence of searching for
arms, thrust his hand into her bosom. The girl fainted
in her bridegroom's arms. He uttered in his agony the
fatal cry, " Death to the French!" A youth rushed for-
ward, stabbed Drouet to the heart with his own sword, was
himself struck down. The cry, the shriek, ran through
the crowd, " Death to the French!" Many Sicilians fell;
but of two hundred on the spot, not one Frenchman
escaped. The cry spread to the city: Mastrangelo took
the lead ; every house was stormed. every hole and corner
searched; their dress, their speech, their persons, their
manners, denounced the French. The palace was forced :
the Justiciary. being luckily wounded in the face, and
rolled in the dust, and so undetected, mounted a horse, and
led with two followers. Two thousand French were slain.
They denied them decent burial, heaped them together in
a great pit. The horrors of the scene were indescribable;
the insurgents broke into the convents, the churches. The
friars, especial objects of hatred, were massacred ; they
slew the French monks, the French priests. Neither old
age, nor sex, nor infancy, was spared; it is a charge more
than once repeated in the papal acts, that they ripped up
Sicilian women who were pregnant by Frenchmen, in or ler
to exterminate the hated brood. A government was
hastily formed; Roger Mastrangelo, Arrigo Barresi, Nic-
caloso d'Ortoleva ( knights), with Niccolo de Ebdemonia,
were summoned by acclamation to be captains of the
people. They then proclaimed the " Good estate and
liberty," unfolded the banner of the city, an eagle on a
field of gold; the keys of the Church were still quartered
upon it.
The Justiciary was pursued to Vicari, thirty miles
distant; the people rose at the cry of "Death to the
French!" The garrison at first refused to capitulate, and
to he sent safe to Provence ; it was now too late, the
Justiciary was shot down by a random arrow, every French-
man massacred. Sicily was everywhere in arms; Corleone
first followed the example of Palermo. Everywhere the
French were hunted down and murdered. One man alone
was spared.

No one will deny the variety and vigour of
that description, yet it occupies but a small
space. The circumstances both before and
after the foregoing scene receive all adequate
treatment from the historian, who thoroughly
understands the method of being " classical
and compendious "
In the same volume the history of the disso
lution of the Knight Te►nplars is treated at
full length, about eighty pages being assigned
to it, and it forms the most interesting ep►sode
in the whole volumes The subject is a
remarkable one, and iu English literature we
have no adequate work upon it. Mr. C. G.
Addison's treatise has a certain formalised air
of professional legality in its pages, and his
volume is neither profound nor brilliant. 'We
may remark that in England historical writers
become dull when they treat of remote topics,
while on the other hand the French writers
glow with ardour in illustrating medieval
history, and the Germans display extraordi-
nary profundity in their discussion of it. On
the subject of the Knight • Templars, Von
Hammer's (Count Purgstall) " Mysterium
Baphometis RevOatum" is a most singular
exhibition of far...qought erudition, whatever