III. The Period of the Middle Ayes. — The terms -Middle Ages" and "Dark Ages" have long been nearly synonymous; but historians have not often pointed out with sufficient clearness the extent to which the dark- ness of those ages was chargeable to the incompetence and unfaithfulness of those who, as Christian teachers, ought to have been the light of the world. The causes of the prevailing ignorance and degradation were nu- merous and complicated, but nothing would have more certainly or powerfully tended to remove them than true and zealous utterances from the clergy in the char- acter of Christian preachers. Churches, and even cathe- drals, existed in great numbers, but the idea of preach-
PULPIT ELOQUENCE
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PULPIT ELOQUENCE
ing hail fallen so low that postils came to be substituted for sermons. The term postil, primarily meauing a note u | mi i ,i i, \i or texts '/' ■ ■■'' ■'■"• came to designate a re- ligious discourse follow ing the reading (in Latin » of the Gospel and Epistle of the day at public mass. The term diminutive, showing thai preaching was re- garded as "i small account in comparison with the cere- monials of worship. The postil in its best form — that of a running comment on the verses of a Scripture les- son resembled the homily. Ii continued in use, both among Roman Catholics and Protestants, for several generations after the dawn of the Reformation. Persons specially skilful in delivering postils were called postil- lists, or postillators. Specimens of the postil abound in siastical Literature of the period under consider- ation, bul few of them are of much presenl value. The
besl sermons of the period that hav< me down to us
are several discourses delivered by bishops in connection with the festivals of the Church, such as the Advent, Whitsuntide, ( Shristmas, the < Irucifixion, and the Ascen- sion. As these topics involved Scripture narrations, thej rose in character far above those treated in connec- tion with the festivals of the saints, of which tradition furnished the staple material. The most tangible, though sinister, results of preaching in mediaeval times were produced by the so-called preachers of the ( Irusades. Those results were not the peaceable fruits of righteous- ness, bul passion, strife, and bloodshed. Peter the Her- mit, a fanatical monk of the 11th century, was the preach- er and prime instigator of the first Crusade. On this warlike mission lie traversed Europe from country to country, enlisting high and low in his desperate scheme, lie even induced pope Urban II to join him in ha- ranguing a vast multitude assembled at Clermont, in the south of franco, preparatory to the tirst great movement towards the Holy Land. It was under I lie hortations of Urban that the multitude cried out Dew id cult, and thus initiated the war-cry of all the Crusades. Ber- nard ofClairvaux, subsequently canonized as St. Ber- nard, preached the second Crusade. He was not only appointed by Louis VII, king of France, for that pur- pose, bul commissioned by pope Eugenius III to offer plenary indulgence to those who would join the new Crusade. He also provided himself with badges in the form of a cross to be attached to the shoulders of all who would eiili-t. Whereas Peter stirred the lowest dregs of the populace. Bernard succeeded in enlisting kings, emperors, barons, and knights to attempt " to rescue the home and sanctuary of David from the hands of the Philistines." Parliaments and mass-meetings were held and addressed by Bernard from a loftj pulpit, and at these the response t.> Ids appeals was the reiterated ■shout ]), us id mil. In such circumstances, and backed by such influences, it was said that the eloquence of Bernard "raised armies and depopulated cities." Ac- cording to his own Statement, towns were deserted so thai the only people left iii them were widows and or- phans whose husbands and fathers were yet living. The third and fourth Crusades were set in motion by the ordinary influences of papal power and kingly au- thority, without any special co-operation of the pulpit. The tilth, however, was brought into action by a preach- er named bulk, a Frenchman, As a result of previous i Ii -asters, the spirit of crusading had so far declined that for two years the preaching Of Fulk seemed unavailing.
length it began to be said thai miracles attested his exhortations, and soon after pope Innocent III senl : umi roiis nuncios, who traversed Europe of-
fering absolutions and indulgences to stimulate enlist- ments. Robert de Courcon, an Englishman by birth.
was the preacher of the sixth Crusade. lie bad been an assistant to Fulk, under whom he bad learned the art of exciting lie p( ripli . Uthough inferior in talents to the earlier preachers ol the Crusades, he was equal to any of them in zeal and fanaticism, and if history does not misrepresenl him, heal length became so unscrupu- lous as to embezzle the alms of his followers. The sev-
enth and eighth Crusades followed like receding waves of the sea, growing smaller and weaker as the impulses ot fanaticism abated. They were without any preach- ers of distinction, and may be regarded as result- ol the earlier agitation.
The general decadence of preaching throughout the Roman < 'liurch became a pretext, during the latter part of the mediaeval period, for the organization of several preaching orders of monks. Had these orders devoted themselves to intelligent activity in proclaiming the truths of t o.d's Wdrd and the practical duties of Chris- tianity, the best of results might have been expected. Bul their zeal was devoted to very different obji cts. It was, in fact, absorbed in efforts to excite persecution against the Albigenses and other supposed heretics, to- gether with general exertions to promote the schemes of the papacy and the inquisition. Heme it is not sur- prising that the preaching orders as Buch failed to make any valuable contribut ions to the eloquence of the pulpit or to stimulate activity in preaching among the clergy at large. < )i the ecclesiastical celebrities of the tnedia-