732 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
and, in the last, the marks of a good Christian man. The first edition appeared before 1476 ; the 23d at Delfft, 1518.^
Many of the manuals expressly set forth the value of the family religion and call upon parents to teach their children the Creed, the 10 Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, to have them pray morning and evening and to take them to church to hear the mass and preaching. The SouVs Guide says, " The Christian home should be the first school for young children and their first church."
The Path to Heaven,'^ written by Stephen von Landskron or Lanzkranna, dean of Vienna, d. 1477, presents a very attractive picture of a Christian household. As a model for imitation, the head of a family is represented as going to church with his wife, children and servants every Sunday and listening to the preaching. On returning home, he reviews the subject of the sermon and hears them recite the Commandments, Lord's Prayer and Creed and the 7 mortal sins. Then, after he has refreshed himself with a draught, Trhikleiriy they sing a song to God or Mary or to one of the saints. The SouVs Comfort counsels parents to examine their households about the articles of faith and the precepts the children had learned at school and at church. The Table of a Christian Life^ urges the parents to keep their children off the streets, send them to school, making a selection of their teachers and, above all, to live well themselves and "go before " their children in the practice of all the virtues.
Of the penitential books, designed distinctly as manuals of preparation for the confessional, the work of John Wolff is the most elaborate and noteworthy. This good man, who .was chaplain at St. Peter's, Frankfurt, wrote his book 1478.* He was deeply interested in the impartation of religious instruction. His tombstone, which was unearthed in 1896, calls hira
1 Bahlmann, pp. 17-19. The first dated MS. copy is 1470.
2 Bahlmann, p. 7, gives as the probable date of composition, 1450. The 1st printed ed., Augsburg, 1484. See also Geffcken, pp. 107-110.
8 Bahhnaiui gives it in full, pp. G3-74.
4 See Falk : Drei BeichthadiMn. The text of Wolffs manual fills pp. 17-75. Falk also gives a penitential book, printed at Nurnberg, 1475, pp. 77-81, and a manual printed at Augsburg, 1504, pp. 82-0(5.
§ 78. POPULAR PIETY. 733
the " doctor of the 10 Commandments " and gives a representation of the 10 Commandments in 10 pictures, each Commandment being designated by a hand with one or more fingers uplifted. Such tables it was not an uncommon thing, in the last years of the Middle Ages, to hang on the walls of churches.
Wolff's book, which is a guide for daily Christian living, sets forth at length the 10 Commandments and the acts and inward thoughts which are in violation of them, and puts into the mouth of the offender an appropriate confession. Thus, confessing to a violation of the 4th Commandment, the offender says, " I have done on Friday rough work, in farming, dunging the fields, splitting wood, spinning, sewing, buying and selling, dancing, striking people at the dance, playing games and doing other sinful things. I did not hear mass or preaching and was remiss in the service of Almighty God." Upon the exposition of the Decalogue follow lists of the five baser sins,' — usury, killing, stealing, sodomy and keeping back wages, — the 6 sins against the Holy Ghost, the 7 works of mercy such as visiting the sick, clothing the naked and burying the dead, the sacraments, the Beatitudes, the 7 gifts of the Holy Ghost and an exposition of repentance. The work closes with a summary of the advantages to be derived from the frequent repetition of the 10 Commandments and mentions 13 excuses, given for not repeating them, such as that the words are hard to remember and the unwillingness to have them as a perpetual monitor.
These manuals, having in view the careful instruction of adults and~chtMren, indicate^a new era in the history orfeTig'ious training. No catechisms have come down to us from the ancient Church. The catechumens to whom Augustine and Cyril addressed their catechetical discourses were adults. In the 13th century, synods began to caUior_ the. preparation of summaries of religious knowledge for lawmen. So a synod at Lambeth, 1281, Prag, 1355, and Lavaur, France, 1368. The Synod of Tortosa, 1429, ordered its prelates to secure the preparation of a brief compendium containing in concise paragraphs all that it was necessary for the people to know and that might be explained to them every Sunday during the