§ 132. THE SERMON. 853
when I began to tell a trivial story, you pricked up your ears to hear."1 Ca)sar was himself present on this occasion.
The accounts of contemporaries leave no room to doubt that extraordinary impressions were made upon great audi ences.2 The sermons that have come down to us are almost invariably based upon a text or paragraph of Scripture and are full of biblical instruction, doctrinal inference, and moral application. It was well understood that the personality of the preacher has much to do with the effectiveness of a discourse. Although the people along the Rhine did not understand the language of St. Bernard, they were moved to the very depths by his sermons. When his language was interpreted, they lost their power.
Four treatises have come down to us from this period on homiletics and the pulpit, by Guibert of Nogent, Alanus ab Insulis, Humbert de Romanis, and Hugo de St. Cher.3 Their counsels do not vary much from the counsels given by writers on these subjects to-day. Guibert, in his What Order a Sermon should Follow,4 insists upon the priest keeping up his studies, preparing his sermons with prayer, and cultivat ing the habit of turning everything he sees into a symbol of religious truth. He sets forth the different motives by which preachers were actuated, from a desire of display by ventriloquism to an honest purpose to instruct and make plain the Scriptures.
In his Art of Preaching,5 Alanus counsels preachers to court the good-will of their audiences by cultivating humil ity of manner and by setting forth useful instruction. He must so impress them that they will think not of who is talking, but of what is being talked about. He advises the use of quotations from Gentile authors, following Paul's example. After giving other counsels, Alanus in forty-
IV. 36.
2 Dargan, p. 229, says that " probably the largest audiences ever gathered to hear preaching" were gathered in the thirteenth century.
3 Speculum ecclesice, Lyons, 1554.
4 Quo online sermo fieri debeat, Migne, 157. 20-34.
5 6'umma de arte prcedicatoria, Migne, 210. 111-198.
854 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1204.
seven chapters presents illustrations of the treatment of different themes, such as the contempt of the world, luxury, gluttony, godly sorrow, joy, patience, faith. He then furnishes specimens of exhortations to different classes of hearers: princes, lawyers, monks, the married, widows, vir gins, the somnolent.
Humbert de Romanis, general of the order of the Domin icans, d. 1277, in a much more elaborate work,1 pronounced preaching the most excellent of a monk's occupations and set it above the liturgical service which, being in Latin, the people did not understand. Preaching is even better than the mass, for Christ celebrated the mass only once, but was constantly engaged in preaching. He urged the necessity of study, and counselled high thought rather than graceful and well-turned sentences, comparing the former to food and the latter to the dishes on which it is served.
To these homiletical rules and hints must be added the notices scattered through the sermons of preachers like Honorius of Autun and Caesar of Heisterbach. Csesar said,2 a sermon should be like a net, made up of texts of Scripture ; and like an arrow, sharp to pierce the hearts of the hearers ; straight, that is, without any false doctrine ; and feathered, that is, easy to be understood. The bow is the Word of God.
Among the prominent preachers from 1050 to 1200, whose sermons have been preserved, were Peter Damiani, d. 1072, Ivo of Chartres, d. 1116, Hildebert of Tours, d. 1133, Abselard, d. 1142, St. Bernard, d. 1153, and Maurice, archbishop of Paris, d. 1196. Of the eloquence of Arnold of Brescia, Norbert, the founder of the Premonstrant order, and Fulke of Neuilly, the fiery preacher of the Fourth Crusade, no speci mens are preserved. Another class of preachers were the itinerant preachers, some of whom were commissioned by popes, as were Robert of Abrissel and Bernard of Thiron who went about clad in coarse garments and with flowing beards, preaching to large concourses of people. They preached
1 De eruditione prcedicatorum. 2 Quoted by Cruel, p. 249.