131. THE \YORSHIP OF RELICS.
The resentment of relics at being mistreated frequently came within the range of Caesar's experience. One of St. Nicolas' teeth, kept at Brauweiler, on one occasion jumped out of the glass box which contained it, to show the saint's disgust at the irreverence of the people who were looking at it. Another case was of the relics of two virgins which had been hid in time of war and were left behind when other relics were restored to the reliquary. They were not willing to be neglected and struck so hard against the chest which held them that the noise was heard all through the convent, and continued to be heard till they were released.1
An organized traffic in relics was carried on by unscru pulous venders who imposed them upon the credulity of the pious. The Fourth Lateran sought to put a stop to it by forbidding the veneration of novelties without the papal sanction. According to Guibert of Nogent,2 the worshipper who made the mistake of associating spurious relics with a saint whom he wished to worship, did not thereby lose any benefit that might accrue from such worship. All the saints, he said, are one body in Christ (John 17 : 22), and in worshipping one reverence is done to the whole corporation.
The devil, on occasion, had a hand in attesting the genu ineness of relics. By his courtesy a nail in the reliquiary of Cologne, of whose origin no one knew anything, was dis covered to be nothing less than one of the nails of the cross.3 Such kind services, no doubt, were rare. The court-preacher of Weimar, Irenseus, 1566-1570, visiting Treves in company with the duchess of Weimar, found one of the devil's claws in one of the churches. The story ran, that at the erection of a new altar, the devil was more than usually enraged, and kicked so hard against the altar that he left a claw stick ing in the wood.4
1 Dial., VIII. 68, 85. 2 Migne, 156. 627. 3 Hauck, IV. 74.
4 Treves, Cologne, and Aachen were distinguished by the number of their reliquiary possessions. Gelenius, a Cologne priest, in his de admiranda sacra et civili magnitudine Colonice, 1645, enumerated a great number of relics to be found in Cologne, such as pieces of the true cross, the manger, some of the earth on which Mary stood when she received the angelic 3i
850 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The attitude of the Protestant churches to relics was ex pressed by Luther in his Larger Catechism when he said, " es ist alles tot Ding das niemand Jieiligen kann" They are lifeless, dead things, that can make no man holy.
§ 132. The Sermon.
LITERATURE : A. NEBE : Charakterbilder d. bedeutendsten Kanzelredner, Vol. I. Origen to Tauler, 1879.— J. M. NEALE : Med. Preachers, Lond., 1853, new ed., 1873. — J. A. BROADUS : The Hist, of Preaching, N.Y., 1876. A bare sketch.— *H. HERING : Gesch. d. Predigt. (pp. 55-68), Berlin, 1905. — E. C. DARGAN : Hist, of Preaching, from 70 to 1570, N.Y.,1905.
For the French Pulpit: *LECOY DE LA MARCHE : La chaire franc, au moyen age speciallement au XIHe siecle, Paris, 1868, new ed., 1886. — L. BOURGAIN : La chaire franc, au XHme siecle d'apres les Mss., Paris, 1879. — J. VON WALTER: D. ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, 2 parts, Leip., 1903, 1906.
For the German Pulpit: W. WACKERNAGEL : Altdeutsche Predigten und Gebete, Basel, 1876. — *R CRUEL : Gesch. d. deutschen Predigt im MtA., Detraold, 1879. — * A. LINSENMAYER (Rom. Cath.) : Gesch. der Predigt in Deutschland von Karl dem Grossen bis zum Ausgange d. 14ten Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1886. — HAUCK : Kirchengesch. — Collections of med. Ger. sermons. — H. LEYSER : Deutsche Predigten d. ISten und 14ten Jahrhunderts, 1838. — K. ROTH : Deutsche Predigten des XII. und XIII. Jahrhunderts, 1839. — F. K. GRIESHABER : Deutsche Predigt. d. XIII. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. Stuttg., 1844.— * A. E. SCHONBACH : Alt deutsche Predigten, 3 vols. Graz, 1886-1891 ; Studien zur Gesch. d. altdeutschen Predigt. (on Berthold of Regensburg), 3 parts, Vienna, 1904-1906. — A. FRANZ : Drei Minoritenprediger aus d. XIII. u. XIV. Jahrh., Freib., 1907.
For the English Pulpit : R. MORRIS : Old Engl. Homilies of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, 2 vols. Lond., 1868-1873. — See T. F. CRANE : Introd. to the Exempla of Jacob de Vitry, Folklore Soc., Lond., 1890.— RICHARDSON: Voragine as a Preacher, Presb. Rev., July,
: 1904.
Although the office of the preacher in the Middle Ages
was overshadowed by the function of the priest, the art of
preaching was not altogether neglected. The twelfth and
announcement, one of John the Baptist's teeth, a piece of his garment, hairs from the head of Bartholomew, and remains of the children of Bethlehem. As recently as Nov. 30, 1898, the archbishop of Cologne announced that one of St. Andrew's arms would be shown after having lain in repose for one hundred years. It was found in a chest with other relics which had been packed away during the French Revolution.