380 FOURTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
The first conspicuous examples of inflicting the Interdict occurred in France. Bishop Leudovald of Bayeux, after con sulting with his brother bishops, closed in 586 all the churches of Rouen and deprived the people of the consolations of religion until the murderer of Pretextatus, Bishop of Rouen, who was slain at the altar by a hireling of the savage queen Fredegunda, should be discovered.1 Hincmar of Laon inflicted the interdict on his diocese (869), but Hincmar of Rheims disapproved of it and removed it. The synod of Limoges (Limoisin), in 1031, enforced the Peace of God by the interdict in these words which were read in the church : " We excommunicate all those noble men (milites) in the bishopric of Limoges who disobey the exhortations of their bishop to hold the Peace. Let them and their helpers be accursed, and let their weapons and horses be accursed ! Let their lot be with Cain, Dathan, and Abiram ! And as now the lights are extinguished, so their joy in the presence of angels shall be destroyed, unless they repent and make satisfaction before dying." The Synod ordered that public worship be closed, the altars laid bare, crosses and ornaments removed, marriages forbidden ; only clergymen, beggars, strangers and children under two years could be buried, and only the dying receive the communion ; no clergyman or layman should be shaved till the nobles submit. A signal in the church on the third hour of the day should call all to fall on their knees to pray. All should be dressed in mourning. The whole period of the interdict should be observed as a con tinued fast and humiliation.2
The popes employed this fearful weapon against disobedient kings, and sacrificed the spiritual comforts of whole nations to their hierarchical ambition. Gregory VII. laid the province of Gnesen under the interdict, because King Bolislaw II. had murdered bishop Stanislaus of Cracow with his own hand.
1 Gregory of Tours, Hist, Franc. VIII. 31.
'Cone. Lemovicense II. See Mansi XIX. 541; Harduin VI. p. 1, 885; Hefele IV. 693-695; Gieseler II. 199 note 12.
I 87. PENANCE AND INDULGENCE. 381
Alexander II. applied it to Scotland (1180), because the king refused a papal bishop and expelled him from the country. Innocent III. suspended it over France (1200), because king Philip Augustus had cast off his lawful wife and lived with a concubine.1 The same pope inflicted this punishment upon England (March 23, 1208), hoping to bring King John (Lack land) to terms. The English interdict lasted over six years during which all religious rites were forbidden except baptism, confession, and the viaticum.
Interdicts were only possible in the middle ages when the church had unlimited power. Their frequency and the impos sibility of full execution diminished their power until they fell into contempt and were swept out of existence as the nations of Europe outgrew the discipline of priestcraft and awoke to a sense of manhood.
§ 87. Penance and Indulgence.
NATH. MARSHALL (Canon of Windsor and translator of Cyprian, d. 1729) : The Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church for the first 400 years after Christ, together with its declension from the fifth century downward to its present state. London 1714. A new ed. in the " Lib. of Anglo-Cath. Theol." Oxford 1844.
Eus. AMORT: De Origiiie, Progressu, Valore ac Fructu Indulgentiarum. Aug. Vindcl. 1735 fol.
MURATORI : De Redemtione Peccatorum et dc Indulgentiarum Origine, in Tom. V. of his Antiquitates Italicce Medii Aevi. Mediol. 1741.
Jon. B. HIRSCHER (R. C.) : Die Lehre vom Ablass. Tubingen, 5th ed. 1844.
G. E. STEITZ : Das romische Buss- Sacrament, nach seinem bibL Orunde und seiner gesch. Entwicklnng. Frankf. a. M. 1854 (210 pages).
VAL. GRONE (R. C.) : Der Ablass, seine Geschichte und BedeiUung in der Heilsbkonomie. Regensb. 1863.
DOMTX. PALMIERI (R. C.) : Tractat. de Pcenit. Romre 1879.
GEORGE MEAD : Art. Penitence, in Smith and Cheetham II. 1586-1608. WILDT, (R. C.): Ablass, in Wetzer and Welte2 I. 94^-111; Beichte and Beichtsiegel, II. 221-261. MEJER in Herzog2 I. 90-92. For ex tracts from sources cornp. Gieseler II. 105 sqq. ; 193 sqq. ; 515 sqq. (Am. ed.)
1 See the graphic description of the effects of this interdict upon the state of society, in Hurter's Innocenz III., vol. I. 372-386.