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(7.) Even as early as the fourth century, some of the evils attendant on the general practice of pilgrimage had been noticed by Gregory of Nyssa and others;" and strong complaints of a like kind continue to be found from time to time. Gregory the Great tells Rusticiana, a lady of the imperial court, that, while she had been on a pilgrimage to Sinai, her affections had been at Constantinople, and expresses a suspicion that the holy objects which she had seen with her bodily eyes had made no impression on her heart." But the idle spirit in which pilgrimages were often undertaken was not the worst mischief connected with them. Boniface writes to Archbishop Cuthbert, that of the multitude of English women who flocked to Rome, only a few escaped the ruin of their virtue ; that it was rare to find a town of Lombardy or France in which some dishonoured English nun or other female pilgrim had not taken up her abode, and by her misconduct brought disgrace on the church of her native land. Another unhappy effect of pilgrimage was, that for the sake of it bishops and abbots absented themselves for years from their proper spheres of labour, to the great injury of religion and discipline among those committed to their care.

From Britain, pilgrimages were most commonly made to Rome, where the English had a quarter of their own, known, as the biographer of the popes informs us, by the Saxon name of the Burg. Some pilgrims from our island even found their way to the Holy Land. In France, the chief place of pilgrimage was the shrine of St. Martin, at Tours; but the resort from that country to Rome became greater after the accession of the Carolingian dynasty. The lives of pilgrims were regarded as sacred; many hospitals were built for their reception,—among them, one for Latin pilgrims, which was founded at Jerusalem by Charlemagne." The emperor in 802 orders that no one, whether rich or poor, shall refuse to pilgrims a roof, fire, and water, and encourages those who can afford more to greater hospitality by a consideration of the recompense which Scripture promises. There are, however, canons against some of the abuses connected with pilgrimage. The Council of Verne, in 755, orders that monks shall not be allowed to wander to Rome without their abbot's consent. The

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Council of Châlons, in 813, forbids the clergy to go either to Rome or to Tours without leave from their bishop; and while it acknowledges the benefit of pilgrimage for those who have confessed their sins and have obtained directions for penance, who amend their lives, give alms, and practise devotion, it denounces the error of such as consider pilgrimage a license to sin, and begs the emperor to take measures against a common practice of nobles who extorted from their dependents the means of paying the expense of their own pilgrimages."

In some cases, persons who had been guilty of grievous sin were condemned by way of penance to leave their country, and either to wander for a certain time, or to undertake a pilgrimage to some particular place. Many of them were loaded with chains, or with rings which ate into the flesh and inflicted excessive torture." Ethelwulf, the father of Alfred the Great, at his visit to Rome in 855, obtained from Benedict III. the privilege that no Englishman should ever be obliged to leave his own country for this sort of penance; but long before his time impostors had found their account in going naked and in irons under the pretence of having been sentenced to pilgrimage. The capitulary of 789 forbids such vagabonds to roam about the country, and suggests that those who have really been guilty of some great and unusual offence may perform their penance better by remaining in one place.

(8.) The discipline of the Church in dealing with sin was now regulated by Penitential Books. These books were of eastern origin; the earliest of them was drawn up by John, patriarch of Constantinople, the antagonist of Gregory the Great; the first in the western church was that of Theodore, the Greek archbishop of Canterbury, which soon gained a great authority in the continental churches as well as in England. The object of Theodore was to reduce penance to something practicable, as the impossibility of fulfilling the requirements of the ancient canons had led to a general evasion or disregard of them. While the penalties which

Z Cc. 44-5.

a Notices of this are found as early as Gregory of Tours, in the end of the sixth century. De Glor. Confess. 87; see Martene, i. 268; Ducange, s. v. Peregrinatio.

b Th. Rudborne, Hist. Winton., in Wharton, i. 202; Lingard, H. E. i. 177. According to Gaimar, this privilege was obtained for the English by Canute, on his visit to Rome in 1027 or 1031 (Mon. Hist. Brit. 821).

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he appointed were at least as severe as in earlier times, a scheme of commutation was introduced; for example, a certain amount of fasting might be redeemed by the recitation of a prescribed number of psalms. From this the transition was easy to a system of pecuniary commutations-a system recommended by the analogy of the wehr. That institution had been extended from its original character of a composition for life to the case of lesser bodily injuries, so that the loss of a limb, an eye, a finger, or a tooth was to be atoned for by a fixed pecuniary fine; and the principle was now introduced into the penitentials, where offences were rated in a scale both of exercises and of money nearly resembling that of the civil damages. As yet, however, these payments were not regarded as a source of profit to the Church, but were to be given to the poor, according to the penitent's discretion. In England, the rich were able to relieve themselves in their penance by associating with themselves a number of poor persons for the performance of it. By such means, it was possible to clear off seven years of penitence within a week; and, although the practice was condemned by the Council of Cloveshoo," it was afterwards formally sanctioned."

The necessary effect of the new penitential system was not only to encourage the fatal error of regarding money as an equivalent for sin an error against which some councils protested in vain," while the language of others seems to countenance it P-but to introduce a spirit of petty traffic into the relations of sinners with their God. In opposition to this spirit Gregory III. said that canons ought not to lay down exactly the length of time which should be assigned to penance for each offence, forasmuch as that which avails with God is not the measure of time but of sorrow. The Council of Châlons denounces the penitential books, of which it says that "the errors are certain and the authors uncertain ;" it

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but one not possessing means may not so proceed, but must seek it in himself the more diligently; and that is also justest, that every one avenge his own misdeeds on himself, with diligent bōt (compensation). Scriptum est enim, Quia unusquisque onus suum portabit."

• Conc. Clovesh. c. 26; Conc. Cabil. A.D. 813, c. 36.

P Conc. Agath. A.D. 506, c. 6; Conc. Matisc. A.D. 585, c. 4. The Capit. Aquisgr. A.D. 816, c. 1, speaks of "pretia peccatorum." See vol. i. p.

Turner, Hist. Anglos. iii. 86; Lingard, A. S. C. i. 338-9. See the chapter "Of powerful Men" in Edgar's canons (Thorpe, 414-5). The conclusion is 553. "This is the alleviation of the penance of a man powerful, and rich in friends;

Hard. iii. 1870; cf. Halitgar. Præf. ad Pœnitent. (Patrol. cv. 654, 657).

charges them with "sewing pillows to all arm-holes," and requires that penance should be restored to the footing of the ancient canons; and there are similar passages in other French councils of the ninth and tenth centuries."

Confession of secret sins was much insisted on; but the priest was regarded rather as an adviser than as a judge, and the form of his absolution was not judicial but deprecatory. Absolution was usually given immediately after confession, and the prescribed penance was left to be performed afterwards, so that, whereas in earlier ages the penitents had been excluded for a time from the full communion of the Church, they now remained in it throughout."

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The penalty of excommunication became in the Frankish church much more severe than it had formerly been. The Council of Verne lays down that an excommunicate person "must not enter the church, nor partake of food or drink with any Christian; neither may any one receive his gifts, or kiss him, or join with him in prayer, or salute him." It has been supposed that the new terrors of this sentence were borrowed from the practice of the Druids, with a view to controlling the rude converts who would have disregarded a purely spiritual penalty. The power of wielding it must doubtless have added greatly to the influence of the clergy, although this effect did not yet appear so fully as at a later period.

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(9.) The trial of guilt or innocence by means of a solemn appeal to heaven had been practised among many heathen nations, including those of the north. The Mosaic law had sanctioned it in certain cases; it fell in with the popular appetite for miracles,b and the Church now for a time took the management of such trials into her own hands. The Ordeal, or Judgment of God, was not to be resorted to where the guilt of an accused person was clear, but in cases of suspicion, where evidence was wanting or insufficient. The appeal was conducted with great solemnity. The accuser swore to the truth of his charge; the accused (who

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for three days had been preparing himself by fasting and prayer) asserted his innocence in the same manner; and he was adjured in the most awful terms not to approach the Lord's table if he were conscious of any guilt in the matter which was to be submitted to the Divine judgment. Both parties then communicated ; and after this, the clergy anointed the instruments with which the trial was to be made.d

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The ordeal was of various kinds. That by judicial combat or wager of battle was introduced into the Burgundian law by the Arian king Gundobald, the contemporary of Clovis, against the remonstrances of Avitus, bishop of Vienne. It was not uncommon among the Franks, but appears to have been unknown in England until after the Norman conquest. Persons who were disqualified for undergoing this ordeal by age, sex, bodily weakness, or by the monastic or clerical profession, were allowed to fight by champions, who were usually hired, and were regarded as a disreputable class. In the trial by hot iron, the accused walked barefoot over heated ploughshares, or (which was the more usual form), he carried a piece of glowing iron in his hand nine times the length of his foot. The foot or the hand (as the case might be) was then bound up and sealed until the third day, when it was examined, and according to its appearance the guilt or innocence of the party was decided. The trial of hot water consisted in plunging the arm

d A collection of forms used in the ordeal is given in Baluze's edition of the Capitularies, and is reprinted by Bouquet, v. 595-609, and in the Patrologia, lxxxvii. 929, seqq. See too Martene, ii. 332; Patrol. cxxxviii. 1127, seqq. The fullest code is that in Athelstane's laws (which may be found in Thorpe), Planck, iii. 540.

927.

See Ducange, s. v. Duellum, Grimm,

f Agobard adv. Legem Gundobaldi, c. 13; adv. Judicium Dei, c. 5; Datt, 4. For this there is no ritual in the churchbooks. Augusti, x. 298.

Lingard, A. S. C. ii. 136; Phillips, ii. 127. For the Anglo-Norman laws on this subject, see the 'Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ,' 1. ii. c. 3, in Phillips' Appendix. For the early Scottish laws as to the combat and other ordeals, see Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages, 185 seqq.

Ducange, s. v. Campiones. Atto, bishop of Vercelli, in the tenth century, complains that clergymen and monks were obliged to fight by proxy. The judicial combat, he says, belongs to lay

men only, and is not a sure test in any case. (De Pressuris Eccles. Patrol. cxxxiv. 58, 61.) In later times, the privilege of exemption from the combat was often granted by emperors or other sovereigns to the inhabitants of particular cities or districts. In Scotland, the burgesses of royal burghs might claim the combat against those of burghs dependent on subjects, but could not in their turn be obliged to grant them the combat (Leges IV. Burgarum, c. 14, in Acts of Parl. of Scotland, i. 23).

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Knights and free tenants might do battle by proxy, but those of foul kin were obliged to fight in person." Innes, 185.

Ducange, s. v. Vomeres; Grimm, 914. * Grimm, 915; Lingard, ii. 136. There is a question how this trial could ever have been successfully borne. Mr. Soames supposes that the hand was fortified against the heat by some sort of preparation, and that this, with the shortness of the distance, and the interval of three days before the inspection, might be enough to account for it (A.S.C. 293). Mr. Hallam, although less con

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