CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING THE RITES AND CEREMONIES USED IN THE CHURCH PART II. 1. THE form of public worship, which was estab- CENT. XI. lished at Rome, had not as yet been universally received in the western provinces. This was looked upon by the imperious pontiffs as an insult upon their authority, and therefore they used their utmost efforts to introduce the Roman ceremonies every where, and to promote a perfect uniformity of worship in every part of the Latin world. Gregory VII. employed all his diligence, activity, and zeal in this enterprise, as appears from several passages in his letters, and he perhaps alone was equal to the execution of such an arduous attempt. The Spaniards had long distinguished themselves above all other nations by the noble and resolute resistance they made to the despotic attempts of the popes upon this occasion; for they adhered to their ancient gothic liturgy with the utmost obstinacy, and could not be brought to change it for the method of worship established at Rome. Alexander II. had indeed proceeded so far, in the year 1068, as to persuade the inhabitants of Arragon into his measures, and to conquer the aversion which the Catalonians had discovered for the Roman worship. But the honour of finishing this difficult work, and f See Mabillon, De Liturgia Gallicana, lib. i. cap. ii. p. 10. Jo. Bona, Rerum Liturgicarum, lib. i. cap. xi. p. 220, opp. Petr. le Brun, Explication des Ceremonies de la Masse, tom. ii. Diss. v. p. 272. Petr. de Marca, Histoire de Berne, liv. ii. cap. ix. PART II. CENT. XI. bringing it to perfection, was reserved for Gregory VII. who without interruption, exhorted, threatened, admonished, and entreated Sancius and Alphonso, the kings of Arragon and Castile, until, fatigued with the importunity of this restless pontiff, they consented to abolish the gothic service in their churches, and to introduce the Roman in its place. Sancius was the first who complied with the request of the pontiff, and, in the year 1080, his example was followed by Alphonso. The methods which the nobles of Castile employed to decide the matter were very extraordinary. First they chose two champions, who were to determine the controversy by single combat, the one fighting for the Roman liturgy, the other for the gothic. This first trial ended in favour of the latter; for the gothic hero proved victorious. The fiery trial was next made use of to terminate the dispute; the Roman and gothic liturgies were committed to the flames, which, as the story goes, consumed the former, while the latter remained unblemished and entire. Thus were the gothic rites crowned with a double victory, which however was not sufficient to maintain them against the authority of the pope, and the influence of the queen Constantia, who determined Alphonso in favour of the Roman service.1 Divine wor II. The zeal of the Roman pontiffs for introducing an uniformity of worship into the western reign tongue. churches, may be in some measure justified; but their not permitting every nation to celebrate divine worship in their mother tongue was absolutely inexcusable. While indeed the Latin language was in general use among the western nations, or at least was unknown to but a very small number, there was no reason why it should not be employed ship perform. ed in an un known and fo ↳ Bona, Rerum Liturgicar. lib. i. cap. xi. p. 216. Le Brun, loc. citat. p. 292. Jo. de Ferreras, Hist. de l'Espagne, tom. iii. p. 237, 241, 246. PART II. in the public service of the church. But when the CENT. XI. decline of the Roman empire drew on by degrees the extinction of its language in several places, and its decay in all the western provinces, it became just and reasonable that each people should serve the Deity in the language they understood, and which was peculiar to them. This reasoning, however evident and striking, had no sort of influence upon the Roman pontiffs, who, neither in this nor in the following centuries, could be persuaded to change the established custom, but persisted, on the contrary, with the most senseless obstinacy, in retaining the use of the Latin language in the celebration of divine worship, even when it was no longer understood by the people. This strange conduct has been variously accounted for by different writers, who have tortured their inventions to find out its secret reasons, and have imagined many that seem extremely improbable and far fetched. A superstitious and extravagant veneration for whatever carried the hoary aspect of a remote antiquity, was undoubtedly the principal reason that rendered the pontiffs unwilling to abolish the use of the Latin language in the celebration of divine worship. The same absurd principle produced a similar effect in the eastern churches; thus the Egyptian christians perform their religious service in the language of the ancient Copts, the jacobites and the nestorians in the Syriac, and the Abyssinians in the old Æthiopic, though all these languages have been long since obsolete, and are thereby become absolutely unintelligible to the multitude. II. It would be tedious to enumerate, in a cir- Ceremonies mult plied. cumstantial manner, the new inventions that were i Usserius, Historia Dogmatica de Scripturis et Sacris Vernaculis ab Hen. Whartono edita et aucta, Londini, 1690, in 4to. See Euseb. Renaudot, Dissertat. de Liturgiarum Oriental. origine et antiquitate, cap. vi. p. 40. PART 11. CENT. XI. imposed upon christians, in this century, under the specious titles of piety and zeal, by the superstitious despotism of an imperious clergy. It would be also endless to mention the additions that were made to former inventions; the multiplication, for example, of the rites and ceremonies that were used in the worship of saints, relics, and images, and the new directions that were administered to such as undertook pilgrimages, or other superstitious services of that nature. We shall only observe, that during the whole of this century, all the European nations were most diligently employed in rebuilding, repairing, and adorning their churches. Nor will this appear surprising, when we consider, that in the preceding century, all Europe was alarmed with a dismal apprehension that the day of judgment was at hand, and that the world was approaching to its final dissolution; for among the other effects of this panic terror, the churches and monasteries were suffered to fall into ruin, or at least to remain without repair, from a notion that they would soon be involved in the general fate of all sublunary things. But when these apprehensions were removed, things immediately put on a new face; the tottering temples were rebuilt, and the greatest zeal, attended with the richest and most liberal donations, was employed in restoring the sacred edifices to their former lustre, or rather in giving them new degrees of magnificence and beauty. Glaber. Rodolphus, Hist. lib. iii. cap. iv. in Duchesne's Scriptor. Franc. tom. iv. p. 217. "Infra millesimum tertio jam fere imminente anno contigit in universo pene terrarum orbe, præcipue tamen in Italia et in Galliis, innovari Ecclesiarum basilicas." CHAPTER V. CONCERNING THE DIVISIONS AND HERESIES THAT TROUBLED THE PART II. 1. THE state of the ancient sects, and particular- CENT. XI. ly of the nestorians and monophysites, who resided in Asia and Egypt under the mahometan gov- Ancient seets. ernment, was now much the same that it had been in the preceding century, neither extremely prosperous, nor absolutely miserable. The case of the manichæans, or paulicians, whom the Grecian em- Manichæans, perors had banished from the eastern provinces into Bulgaria and Thrace, was much more unhappy, on account of the perpetual conflicts they had to sustain with the Greeks, who persecuted and oppressed them with much keenness and animosity. The Greeks, as usually happens upon like occasions, laid the blame of their violent measures upon the manichæans, whom they represented as a turbulent, perfidious, and sanguinary faction, and as the declared and inveterate enemies of the Grecian empire. This however is by no means to be received as an impartial state of the case; at least, it appears from many circumstances, that if the manichæans were exasperated against the Greeks, their resentment was owing to the violent and injurious treatment they had received from them, The Grecian pontiffs and clergy were far from being destitute of the odious spirit of persecution and it is certain that the emperors, instigated and set on by them, had exhausted the patience of the paulicians by repeated cruelties and vexations, and m ➡ Anna Comnena Alexiados, lib. v. p. 105, lib. vi. p. 124, 126, 145. ; |