328 FOUKTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
were even invigorated by the infusion of fresh and barbaric blood. The history of the Merovingian rulers, as we learn from Bishop Gregory of Tours, is a tragedy of murder, adultery, and incest, and ends in destruction.1
The church was unfavorably affected by the state of sur rounding society, and often drawn into the current of prevailing immorality. Yet, upon the whole, she was a powerful barrier against vice, and the chief, if not the only promoter of educa tion, virtue and piety in the dark ages. From barbaric and semi-barbaric material she had to build up the temple of a Christian civilization. She taught the new converts the Apos tles7 Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments — the best popular summaries of faith, piety, and duty. She taught them also the occupations of peaceful life. She restrained vice and encouraged virtue. The synodical legislation was nearly always in the right direction. Great stress was laid on prayer and fasting, on acts of hospitality, charity, and benevo lence, and on pilgrimages to sacred places. The rewards of heaven entered largely as an inducement for leading a virtuous and holy life ; but it is far better that people should be good from fear of hell and love of heaven, than ruin themselves by immorality and vice.
A vast amount of private virtue and piety is never recorded on the pages of history, and is spent in modest retirement. So the wild flowers in the woods and on the mountains bloom and fade away unseen by human eyes. Every now and then incidental allusion is made to unknown saints. Pope Gre gory mentions a certain Servulus in Rome who was a poor cripple from childhood, but found rich comfort and peace in the Bible, although he could not read himself, and had to ask pious friends to read it to him while he was lying on his couch ;
1 lt It would be difficult," says Gibbon of this period, " to find anywhere more vice or less virtue.'1 The judgments of Hallam, Milman, and Lecky are to the same effect. Compare also the description of Montalembert, quoted above, p. 82 sq.
$74. GENERAL CHARACTER OF MEDIAEVAL MORALS. 329
he never complained, but was full of gratitude and praise ; when death drew near lie requested his friends to sing psalms with him ; then stopped suddenly and expired with the words : "Peace, hear ye not the praises of God sounding from heaven?" This man's life of patient suffering was not in vain, but a benediction to many who came in contact with it. " Those also serve who only stand and wait."
The moral condition of the middle age varied considerably. The migration of nations was most unfavorable to the peaceful work of the church. Then came the bright reign of Charle magne with his noble eiforts for education and religion, but it was soon followed, under his weak successors, by another period of darkness which grew worse and worse till a moral reforma tion began in the convent of Cluuy, and reached the papal chair under the lead of Hildebrand.
Yet if we judge by the number of saints in the Eoman Calendar, the seventh century, which is among the darkest, was more pious than any of the preceding and succeeding centuries, except the third and fourth (which are enriched by the martyrs).
NOTES.
The following is the table of saints in the Roman Calendar (accord ing to Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints] : SAINTS.
First Century 53
Second Century 43
Third Century 139
Fourth Century 213
Fifth Century 130
Sixth Century 123
Seventh Century 174
Eighth Century 78
Ninth Century 49
Tenth Century 28
Eleventh Century 45
Twelfth Century 54
Thirteenth Century 49
Fourteenth Century 27
Fifteenth Century 17
330 FOUKTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
SAINTS.
Sixteenth Century 24
Seventeenth Century 15
Eighteenth Century 20
In the first centuries the numerous but nameless martyrs of the Neronian and other persecutions are not separately counted. The Holy Innocents, tht Seven Sleepers (in the third century), the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (fourth century,) and other groups of martyrs are counted only one each. Lecky asserts too confidently that the seventh century was the most prolific in saints, and yet the most immoral. It is strange that the number of saints should have declined from the seventh century, while the church increased, and that the eighteenth century of infidelity should have produced five more saints than the seventeenth century. It would therefore be very unsafe to make this table the basis for general estimates.