742 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
The encouragement, given at Rome to the worship of relics, had a signal illustration in the distinguished reception accorded the head of St. Andrew by the Renaissance pope, Pius II. In Germany, princes joined with prelates in making collections of sacred bones and other objects in which miraculous virtue was supposed to reside and whose worship was often rewarded by the almost infinite grace of indulgence. In Germany, in the 15th century as in Chaucer's day in England, the friars were the indefatigable purveyors of this sort of merchandise, from the bones of Balaam's ass to the^stra\v^of the manger and feathers from_St. MichaeFs wings. The Niirnberger, Nicolas Muffel, regretted that, after the effort of 33 years, he had only been able to bring together 308 specimens. Unfortunately this did not keep him from the crime of theft and the penalty of the gallows.^ In Vienna, were shown such rarities as a piecepf the ark, drops of sweat from Gethsemane and some of the incense offered by the Wise Men from the East. Albrecht, archbishop of Mainz, helped to collect no less than 8,133 sacred fragments and 42 entire bodies of saints. This collection, which was deposited at Halle, contained the host — that is, Christ's own body — which Christ offered while he was in the tomb, a statue of the Virgin with a full bottle of her milk hangi_ng^ from her neck^several of the pots which had been used at. Cana and a portion of the wine Jesus made, as well as some of the veritable maana which the Hebrews had picked up in the desert, and some of the earth from a field in Damascus frora^ which God made Adani.
A most remarkable collection was made by no less a persoiiage than Frederick the Wise of Saxonj.^ A rich description of its treasures has been preserved from the hand of Andreas Meinhard, then a new master of arts. On his way to Wittenberg, 1507, he met a raw student about to enter the university, Reinhard by name. The elector had made good use of tlie opportunities his pilgrimages to Jerusalem furnished and succeeded in obtaining the very respectable number of 5,005 sacred
1 Bezold, p. 99 ; Siebert, p. 59.
^ Die Universitdt Wittenberg nnch der Beschreihuny des May. Andreas Meinhard, ed. by J. Hausleiter, 2d ed., Leipz., 1903.
§ 78. POPULAR PIETY. 743
pieces. The collection was displayed for over a year in the Schlosskirche, where Meinhard and his travelling companion looked at it with wondering eyes and undoubting confidence. Among the pieces were a thorn from the crown of thorns, a tunic belonging to John the Evangelist^ milk from the Virgin's breast, a piece of Mt. Calvary, a piece of the table on which the Last Supper was eaten, fragments of the stones on which Christ stood when he wept over Jerusalem and as he was about to ascend to heaven, the entire body of one of the Bethlehem Innocents, one of the fingers of St. Anna, " the most blessed of grandmothers," — beatissimce avice, — pieces of the rods of Aaron and Moses, a piece of Mary's girdle and some of the straw from the Bethlehem manger. Good reason had Meinhard to remark that, if the grandfathers had been able to arise from the dead, they would have thought Rome itself transferred to Wittenberg. Each of these fragments was worth 100 days of indulgence to the worshipper. The credulity of Frederick, the collector, and the people betrays the atmosphere in which Luther was brought up and the struggle it must have cost him to attack the deep-seated beliefs of his generation.
The religious reverence paid to the Virgin could not well go beyond the stage it reached in the age of the greater Schoolmen nor could more flattering epithets be heaped upon her than were found in the works of Albertus Magnus and Bonaventura. Mary was more easily entreated than her Son. The Horticulus animce, — Garden of the Soul, — tells the story of a cleric, accustomed to say his Ave Marias devoutly every day, to whom the Lord appeared and said, that his mother was much gratified at the priest's prayers and loved him much but that he should not forget also to direct prayers to himself. The book, Heavenly Wagon, called upon sinners to take refuge in her mantle, where full mercy and pardon would be found. ^ Erasmus remarked that Mary's blind devotees, praying to her on all occasions, considered it manners to place the mother before the Son.2 In 1456, Calixtus III. commended the use
1 Siebert, p. 39.
2 Praise of Folly, p. 85.