The Portable Medieval Reader

by James Bruce Ross

  Also, the aforesaid friar preached the day of St. Mark following at Boulogne-la-Petite; and there were as many people there as mentioned before. And in truth that day, on returning from the said sermon, the people of Paris were so turned to piety and moved, that in less than three or four hours you would have seen more than a hundred fires, in which men burnt gaming tables and boards, cards, billiard balls and cues, and all kinds of things which make one angry and blasphemous at greedy games.

  Also, the women that day and the next burned, before all, the adornments of their heads like padding, ornaments, trifles, pieces of leather or of whalebone, which they put in their head-dresses to make them stiff or turned up in front; the young women left their horns and their tails and a great harvest of their luxuries. And truly ten sermons which he preached in Paris, and one in Boulogne, turned more people to devotion than all the preachers who had preached in Paris for a hundred years....

  Also, in truth, the friar, who had assembled so many people at his sermon, as told above, went riding off with them [the Armagnacs]; and as soon as those in Paris [partisans of the duke of Burgundy] were certain that he was in truth riding off with them thus, and that by his language he was deflecting cities which had taken oaths to the regent and his agents, they cursed him in the name of God and His saints; and what is worse, the games which he had forbidden began again despite him; and even a medal of pewter on which was carved the name of Jesus, which he had made them wear, they abandoned, and took the cross of St. Andry.

  EXTORTIONATE TAXES

  1437. In this month of September 1437, they imposed at Paris the strangest tax that had ever been imposed; for no one in all Paris was excepted from it, no matter of what estate he was, neither bishop, abbot, prior, monk, nuns, canon, priest with or without benefice, nor sergeants, musicians, nor parish clerks, nor any person of any estate. And first was imposed a big tax on the clergy, and afterwards on the big merchants, men and women; and the one paid four thousand francs, the other three thousand, or two thousand eight hundred, six hundred, each according to his condition; afterwards from other rich hands, up to one hundred francs or sixty, fifty or forty; everywhere the lesser folk paid twenty francs or above; other smaller folk paid less than twenty francs or more than ten, none exceeded twenty francs, nor paid less than ten; of others even lesser, none exceeded one hundred sous nor less than forty Parisian sous. After this dolorous tax they imposed another very dishonest one; for the rulers took from the churches the vessels of silver, such as censers, patens, chalices, candle-sticks, pyxes, in short, all the church vessels which were of silver they took without asking; and afterwards they took the greatest part of all the coined silver which was in the treasury of the brotherhoods. In short they took so much money in Paris that one would scarcely believe it, and all this under the pretence of taking the chateau of Montereau and the city.

  THE MENACE OF THE WOLVES

  1439. Also, at this time, especially while the king was in Paris, the wolves were so mad to eat the flesh of men, women, or children that, in the last week of September, they strangled and ate fourteen persons, both large and small, between Montmartre and the Porte St. Antoine, both in the vineyards and within the swamps; and if they found a flock of animals, they assailed the shepherd and left the beasts. On the Eve of St. Martin there was chased a wolf so terrible and horrible that they said that he alone had done more of the aforesaid horrors than all the others. On that day he was taken, and he had no tail, and for this he was named Courtaut [short tail]; and they talked as much about him as one does about a bandit or a cruel soldier, and they said to the people who were going out to the fields: “Beware of Courtaut!” On that day he was put in a wheelbarrow, his jaws open, and taken within Paris; and the people left everything they were doing, drinking, eating, or any other necessary thing whatsoever, to go to see Courtaut; and in truth, he was worth to them more than ten francs.

  THE INSECURITY OF LIFE

  1444. Also, at the beginning of July, there came a great company of thieves and murderers who lodged in the villages around Paris, and it was such that, up to six or about eight leagues from Paris, no man dared go out to the fields or come to Paris, nor dared to pick in the fields anything at all; for no vehicle was taken by them which was not ransomed at eight or ten francs; nor any beast seized, whether ass, cow, or pig, which was not ransomed at more than it was worth; nor could a man of any estate, whether monk, priest, or religious of some order, or nun, or musician, or herald, or woman, or child of any age go outside Paris that he was not in great peril of his life. But if they did not take his life, he was stripped bare, all without exception, regardless of estate; and when one complained to the rulers of Paris, they replied, “They must live; the king will put a quick end to it.” And of this company there were chiefly Pierre Regnault, Floquart, l’Estrac and several others, all followers of Antichrist, for they were all thieves and murderers, sowers of sedition, violators of women, they and all their company.

  THE SHAME OF ACNES SOREL

  1448. Also, the last week of April, there came to Paris a young woman who was said to be loved publicly by the king of France, without faith and without law, and without truth to the good queen whom he had married ; and it was apparent that she went in as great state as a countess or duchess; and she came and went often with the good queen of France, without having any shame for her sin. On this account the queen had much sorrow in her heart, but suffering was then her lot. And the king, to show and manifest even more his great sin and his great shame, gave her the castle of Beauty, the most beautiful and delightful, and the best located in the Isle de France. And she called herself and had herself called “the beautiful Agnes.” And because the people of Paris did not show her such reverence as her great pride demanded, which she could not conceal, she said on her departure that they were only villeins, and that if she had believed that they would not do her greater honour than they had shown, she would certainly never have entered nor put her foot within the city; which would have been a pity, but a small one. Thus went off the beautiful Agnes, the tenth day of May following, to her sin as before. Alas ! what a pity when the head of the kingdom gives such a bad example to his people; for if they do as bad or worse, one would not dare speak of it; for it is said in a proverb: “Like master, like valet” ... for when such a great lord or lady sins so greatly in public, his knights and his people are bolder to sin because of it.

  From Journal d‘un bourgeois de Paris sous Charles VI et Charles VII, A. Mary, ed. (Paris: H. jonquières, 1919); trans. J.B.R.

  II.

  THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH

  The Spiritual Authority

  The Superiority of the Spiritual Authority

  POPE BONIFACE VIII

  1302

  WE ARE compelled, our faith urging us, to believe and to hold—and we do firmly believe and simply confess—that there is one holy catholic and apostolic Church, outside of which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins; her Spouse proclaiming it in the canticles, “My dove, my undefiled is but one, she is the choice one of her that bare her”; which represents one mystic body, of which body the head is Christ, but of Christ, God. In this Church there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. There was one ark of Noah, indeed, at the time of the flood, symbolizing one Church; and this being finished in one cubit had, namely, one Noah as helmsman and commander. And, with the exception of this ark, all things existing upon the earth were, as we read, destroyed. This Church, moreover, we venerate as the only one, the Lord saying through His prophet, “Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog.” He prayed at the same time for His soul—that is, for Himself the head, and for His body— which body, namely, he called the one and only Church on account of the unity of the faith promised, of the sacraments, and of the love of the Church. She is that seamless garment of the Lord which was not cut but which fell by lot. Therefore of this one and only Church there is one body and one head—not two heads as if it were a monster: Christ, nam
ely, and the vicar of Christ, St. Peter, and the successor of Peter. For the Lord Himself said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” My sheep, He said, using a general term, and not designating these or those particular sheep; from which it is plain that He committed to Him all His sheep. If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ; for the Lord says, in John, that there is one fold, one shepherd, and one only. We are told by the word of the Gospel that in this His fold there are two swords—a spiritual, namely, and a temporal. For when the apostles said, “Behold here are two swords”—when, namely, the apostles were speaking in the church—the Lord did not reply that this was too much, but enough. Surely he who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter wrongly interprets the word of the Lord when He says, “Put up thy sword in its scabbard.” Both swords, the spiritual and the material, therefore, are in the power of the Church; the one, indeed, to be wielded for the Church, the other by the Church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the will and sufferance of the priest. One sword, moreover, ought to be under the other, and the temporal authority to be subjected to the spiritual. For when the apostle says “there is no power but of God, and the powers that are of God are ordained,” they would not be ordained unless sword were under sword and the lesser one, as it were, were led by the other to great deeds. For according to St. Dionysius the law of divinity is to lead the lowest through the intermediate to the highest things. Not, therefore, according to the law of the universe, are all things reduced to order equally and immediately; but the lowest through the intermediate, the intermediate through the higher. But that the spiritual exceeds any earthly power in dignity and nobility we ought the more openly to confess the more spiritual things excel temporal ones. This also is made plain to our eyes from the giving of tithes, and the benediction and the sanctiflcation; from the acceptation of this same power, from the control over those same things. For, the truth bearing witness, the spiritual power has to establish the earthly power, and to judge it if it be not good. Thus concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power is verified the prophecy of Jeremiah: “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms,” and the other things which follow. Therefore if the earthly power err it shall be judged by the spiritual power; but if the lesser spiritual power err, by the greater. But if the greatest, it can be judged by God alone, not by man, the apostle bearing witness. A spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one. This authority, moreover, even though it is given to man and exercised through man, is not human but rather divine, being given by divine lips to Peter and founded on a rock for him and his successors through Christ Himself whom he has confessed; the Lord Himself saying to Peter: “Whatsoever thou shalt bind,” etc. Whoever, therefore, resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordination of God, unless he makes believe, like the Manichean, that there are two beginnings. This we consider false and heretical, since by the testimony of Moses, not “in the beginnings,” but “in the beginning” God created the heavens and the earth. Indeed we declare, announce, and define that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff. The Lateran, November 14, in our eighth year. As a perpetual memorial of this matter.

  The Bull, “Unam Sanctam,” Select Historical Documents, E. Henderson, ed. (London: Bohn, 1892).

  The Election and Coronation of a Pope

  ADAM OF USK

  1404

  For the election of a new pontiff of Rome the cardinals entered the conclave [established in 1274], which was entrusted to the safekeeping of the king of Naples and six thousand of his soldiers.

  The baleful Roman people rose divided into the two parties of Guelphs and Ghibellines, and for the space of three weeks with slaughter and robbery and murder did they torment each other, either party seeking the creation of a pope on its own side; yet by reason of the said guard could they not come near to the palace of Saint Peter nor to the conclave. And so their partisanship caused the election, as pope, of one who was after the heart of neither side, namely Innocent the Seventh, a native of Solmona. And, when his election was made known, the Romans attacked his palace, and, after their greedy fashion, nay rather from festering corruptness, they sacked it, leaving therein not so much as the bars of the windows.

  The conclave is a close-built place, without anything to divide it, and is set apart to the cardinals for the election of the pope; and it must be shut and walled in on all sides, so that, excepting a small wicket for entrance, which is afterwards closed, it shall remain strongly guarded. And therein is a small window for food to be passed in to the cardinals, at their own cost, which is fitted so as to open or shut as required.

  And the cardinals have each a small cell on different floors, for sleep and rest; and three rooms alone in common, the privy, the chapel, and the place of election. After the first three days, while they are there, they have but one dish of meat or fish daily, and after five days thence bread and wine only, until they agree....

  Such advancement of my lord Innocent I thus saw In a vision, how he went up from the sacristy of St. Peter’s to the altar to celebrate mass, robed in the papal vestments of scarlet silk woven with gold.

  The dead pope, after the proclamation of the election, was carried to the church of St. Peter for the funeral rites, which lasted for nine days....

  On the feast of St. Martin the new pope went down from the palace to the church of St. Peter for the ceremony of his coronation, and at the altar of St. Gregory, the auditors bringing the vestments, he was robed for the mass. And at the moment of his coming forth from the chapel of St. Gregory, the clerk of his chapel, bearing a long rod on the end of which was fixed some tow, cried aloud as he set it aflame: “Holy father, thus passeth the glory of the world”; and again, in the middle of the procession, with a louder voice, thus twice: “Holy father! Most holy father!” and a third time, on arriving at the altar of St. Peter, thrice: “Holy father! Holy father! Holy father!” at his loudest; and forthwith each time is the tow quenched. Just as in the coronation of the emperor, in the very noontide of his glory, stones of every kind and colour, worked with all the cunning of the craft, are wont to be presented to him by the stone-cutters, with these words: “Most excellent prince, of what kind of stone wilt thou that thy tomb be made?” Also, the new pope, the mass being ended, ascends a lofty stage, made for this purpose, and there he is solemnly crowned with the triple golden crown by the cardinal of Ostia as dean of the college. The first crown means power in temporal things; the second, fatherhood in things spiritual; the third, pre-eminence in things of heaven. And afterwards, still robed in the same white vestments, he, as well as all the prelates likewise in albs, rides thence through Rome to the church of St. John Lateran, the cathedral seat of the pope. Then, after turning aside out of abhorrence of Pope Joan, whose image with her son stands in stone in the direct road near St. Clement’s, the pope, dismounting from his horse, enters the Lateran for his enthronement. And there he is seated in a chair of porphyry, which is pierced beneath for this purpose, that one of the younger cardinals may make proof of his sex; and then, while a “Te Deum” is chanted, he is borne to the high altar.

  On his way to the church, the Jews offered to him their law, that is the Old Testament, seeking his confirmation; and the pope took it gently in his hands, for by it we have come to the knowledge of the Son of God and to our faith, and thus answered: “Your law is good; but ye understand it not, for the old things have passed away, and all things are made new.” And, as if for a reproach, since they being hardened in error understand it not, he delivers it back to them over his left shoulder, neither annulling nor confirming it.

  There rode with the pope not only those of his court and the clergy, but also the thirteen quaestors of the city with their captains and standards at their heads. During the progress, in ord
er to ease the thronging of the people, small coin was thrice cast among the crowd, and a passage was thus cleared while it was being gathered up.

  Now I rejoice that I was present and served in that great solemnity, as also I did in the coronation of King Henry the Fourth of England and in the confirmation of the empire spoken of above.

  From Chronicle, trans. E. M. Thompson (London: Murray, 1876).

  The Creation of Cardinals

  POPE PIUS II

  1460

  PIUS [II], having appointed Saturday [March 8, 1460] for the consistory in the cathedral, commanded that the three new cardinals already at Rome should be summoned and before they arrived he spoke at length about the election and the merits of each, proving that the creation of all had been just and necessary. Then when they entered, he bade them take their places at the chancel and addressed them as follows: “My sons, you have received a most high and exalted dignity. In being called to the Apostolic College you will become our counsellors and co-judges of the world. It will be your duty to decide between cause and cause, blood and blood, leprosy and leprosy. As successors of the apostles you will sit around our throne; you will be senators of the city and the equals of kings, in very truth the hinges of the world, which must turn and regulate the gate of the Church Militant. Consider what men, what minds, what integrity this dignity demands. This office calls for humility, not pride; generosity, not greed; temperance, not drunkenness; self-control, not lust; knowledge, not ignorance; every virtue, no vice. If heretofore you have been vigilant, you must now practise vigilance against a malignant foe who never sleeps for thinking whom he may devour. If you have been generous, pour out now your wealth in noble causes and especially in succouring the poor. If temperate in food and drink, now especially shun luxury. Refrain from avarice, do away with cruelty, banish arrogance. Have holy books ever in your hands. Day and night be learning something or teaching others. So act that your light shall shine before all men and, finally, be such as you thought cardinals ought to be before you yourselves rose to this eminence.”