§ 118. PENANCE AND INDULGENCES. 739
The construction of bridges over rivers, the building of churches, and the visiting of shrines were favorite and meri torious grounds for the gifts of indulgence. Innocent III., 1209, granted full remission for the building of a bridge over the Rhone ; Innocent IV. for rebuilding the cathedrals of Cologne, 1248, and Upsala, 1250, which had suffered from fire.1 According to Matthew Paris, Gregory IX., in 1241, granted an indulgence of forty days to all worshipping the crown of thorns and the cross in the chapel at Paris and, in 1247, the bishop of Norwich, speaking for the English prelates, announced a remission of all penances for six years and one hundred and forty days to those who would worship the Holy Blood at Westminster.2 Indulgences for building bridges and roads were common in England.3
To the next period belongs the first cases of indulgence granted in connection with the Jubilee Year by Boniface VIII., 1300. Among the more famous indulgences granted to private parties and localities was the Portiuncula indul gence giving remission to all visiting the famous Francis can shrine at Assisi on a certain day of the year,4 and the Sabbatina, granting to all entering the Carmelite order or wearing the scapulary deliverance from purgatory the Satur day after their death.5
The practice of dispensing indulgences grew enormously. Innocent III. dispensed five during his pontificate. Less than one hundred years later, Nicolas IV., in his reign of two years, 1288-1290, dispensed no less than four hundred. By that time they had become a regular item of the papal exchequer.
On what grounds did the Church claim the right to remit the works of penance due for sins or, as Alexander of Hales put it, grant abatement of the punishment due sin ? 6
1Potthast, 3799, 12938, 14122. 2Luard's ed., IV. 90, 643.
3 See Jusseraud, Engl. Wayfaring Life in the M. Ages, London, 1890, pp. 41 sqq., for many cases of indulgence for building bridges.
4 Sabatier, F. Bartholi de Assisio tractatus de indulgentia S. Mariw de Portiuncula, 1900.
5 See p. 366, Lea, III. 270 sqq., and Wetzer-Welte, Sabbatina.
6 Summa, IV. 83. 1, relaxatio poznce debitce pro peccato, quoted by Brieger.
740 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The statement was this : Christ's passion is of infinite merit. Mary and the saints also by their works of patience laid up merit beyond what was required from them for heaven. These supererogatory works or merits of the saints and of Christ are so abundant that they would more than suffice to pay off the debts of all the living.1 Together they constitute the thesaurus meritorum, or fund of merits ; and this is at the disposal of the Church by virtue of her nuptial union with Christ, Col. 1:24. This fund is a sort of bank account, upon which the Church may draw at pleasure. Christ relaxed the punishment due the woman taken in adul tery, not requiring her to do the works of satisfaction which her offences would, under ordinary circumstances, have called for. So, likewise, may the pope, who is Christ's vice gerent, release from sin by drawing upon the fund of merit. Thus the indulgence takes the place of the third element of penance, works of satisfaction.
These statements of the Schoolmen received explicit papal confirmation at the hands of Clement VI. in 1343. This pontiff not only declared that this "heap of treasure," — cumulus thesauri^ — consisting of the merits of " the blessed mother of God and the saints," is at the disposal of the suc cessors of Peter, but he made, if possible, the more astounding assertion that the more this storehouse is drawn upon, the more it grows.2 Like the wood of the true cross, it has the power of infinite self-expansion. It is, however, fair to say that the papal briefs granting this saving grace almost inva riably gave it on condition of contrition and confession of the recipient.3
Down to the latter part of the thirteenth century, the theory prevailed that an indulgence dispensed with the usual works of penance by substituting some other act. Before the
1 Th. Aq., Summa, III. 83, 1. quorum meritorum tanta est copia quod omnem poenam debitam nunc viventibus excedunt. See Gottlob, pp. 271 sqq.
2 Quanta plures ex ejus applicatione trahuntur ad justitiam, tanto mag is accrescit ipsorum cumulus meritorum. See Friedberg, Corp. jur. can., II. 1304 sq.
8 Vere pcenitentibus et confessis was the common formula.