§ 132. THE SERMON. 851
the thirteenth centuries have each contributed at least one pulpit orator of the first magnitude : St. Bernard, whom we think of as the preacher in the convent and the preacher of the Crusades, and Berthold of Regensburg, the Whitefield of his age, who moved vast popular assemblies with practical discourses.
Two movements aroused the dormant energies of the pul pit : the Crusades, in the twelfth century, and the rise of the Mendicant orders in the thirteenth century. The exam ple of the heretical sects preaching on the street and the roadside also acted as a powerful spur upon the established Church.
Ambrose had pronounced the bishop's chief function to be preaching. The nearest approach made to that definition by a formal pronouncement of these centuries is found in the tenth canon of the Fourth Lateran. After emphasizing the paramount necessity of knowing the Word of God, the coun cil commended the practice whereby bishops, in case of their incapacity, appointed apt men to take their place in preach ing. Pope Innocent III. himself preached, and fifty-eight of his sermons are preserved.1 The references to preaching in the acts of councils are rare. Now and then we hear an admonition from a writer on homiletics or a preacher in favor of frequent preaching. So Honorius of Autun, in an address to priests, declared that, if they lived a good life and did not publicly teach or preach, they were like the " watch men without knowledge" and as dumb dogs (Isa. 56 : 9). and, if they preached and lived ill, they were as blind leaders of the blind.2 Etienne de Bourbon speaks with commenda tion of a novice of the Dominican order who, on being urged to go into another order, replied: " I do not read that Jesus Christ was either a black or a white monk, but that he was a poor preacher. I will follow in his steps."
It is impossible to determine with precision the frequency with which sermons were preached in parishes. Probably
1 See Hurter's judgment of Innocent as a preacher, II. 729 sqq. 8 Spec, ecclea., Migne, 172. 862,
852 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
one-half of the priests in Germany in the twelfth century did not preach.1 The synod of Treves, 1227, forbade illit erate priests preaching. A sermon in England was a rarity before the arrival of the friars. A parson might have held a benefice fifty years without ever having preached a sermon. There were few pulpits in those days in English churches.2
In the thirteenth century a notable change took place, through the example of the friars. They were preachers and went among the people. Vast audiences gathered in the fields and streets to listen to an occasional popular orator, like Anthony of Padua and Berthold of Regensburg. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Franciscans received formal permission from Clement V., "to preach on the streets the Word of God."
Nor was the preaching confined to men in orders. Lay men among the heretics and also among the orthodox groups and the Flagellants exercised their gifts.3 Innocent III., in his letter to the bishop of Metz,1199, and Gregory IX., 1235, condemned the unauthorized preaching of laymen. There were also boy preachers in those days.4
The vernacular was used at the side of the Latin.5 Samson, abbot of Bury St. Edmunds, preached in English, and Grosseteste in the later years of his life followed his example. Bishop Hermann of Prague, d. 1122, preached in Bohemian.6 Of Berthold's sermons which are preserved, five hundred are in Latin and seventy-one in German.
Congregations were affected much as congregations are to-day. Csesar of Heisterbach, who himself was a preacher, tells of a congregation that went to sleep and snored during a sermon. The preacher, suddenly turning from the line of his discourse, exclaimed: " Hear, my brethren, I will tell you something new and strange. There was once a king called Artus." The sleepers awoke and the preacher continued, " See, brethren, when I spoke about God, you slept, but
1 Cruel, pp. 210, 262. 2 Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, p. 86.
8 Linsenmayer, p. 125 sqq. 4 Salimbene, Coulton's ed., p. 305.
5 Hurter, IV. 507 ; Cruel, p. 217.
6 His homiliarium was ed. by Hecht, 1863,