Just as men grew restless under supreme authority of an emperor, so they rebelled against the authority of the Pope. The popes wished to keep supreme religious command over all Christians. The only way to do this was to make the people believe that the Pope stood much nearer to God than they did, and that he received holy secrets and commands straight from heaven. To keep up this belief, there must be much mystery and strangeness in religion. It would not do for people to know everything. The priests must keep the great secrets, they must stand between God and the masses. And this was the way in which the Catholic Church ruled Christendom. The Bible was a mysterious holy book which the common people never saw, and which they could never read if they did see it, for it was written in Latin. Sometimes the priests read them little pieces: about the heavens opening, or about the stones rolling back from the Sepulchre as Jesus rose from the dead. And it seemed terrible and wonderful. It seemed to the people as if the priests knew great, deep mysteries, of which only a fragment was revealed to ordinary men. The ordinary Christians read nothing and knew nothing by themselves. Everything was told to them by the priests. And so, as when we tell tales to children, they heard vivid and marvellous stories of miracles and wonders, terrible accounts of the devil and the horrors of hell, lovely descriptions of heaven. All was real and actual to them. They really believed that devils lurked in houses, or possessed the souls of neighbours or friends.
They really believed that the priests and saints could speak to these devils. They could almost see the devils cringing as a priest approached making the sign of the cross, they could almost hear the imps whimpering with pain if they were touched with a drop of holy water. As nowadays children sometimes believe in fairies, and imagine they see them, so in the early days all men and women really believed in devils and angels. And if the. ordinary priest, with his mysterious knowledge and his magical Latin, had such power over devils, how much more had the Pope? The Pope was master of Satan himself. Archangels talked with the Pope. He was lord of Christendom, he held the keys of heaven and hell. If the Pope excommunicated a man, that man was condemned to burn for ever in fire and brimstone, tortured by legions of imps. So all men believed quite simply. Hcnce the great power of the popes. And hence we call the Middle Ages the Age of Faith.
After the Age of Faith dawned the Age of Reason. Very early, students and thoughtful priests began to study the New Testament. They found nothing about the grandeur of a pope or the rich splendour of bishops, nothing about the power of priests. They only saw the plain lesson, that Christians must give their goods to the poor, think nothing of the pleasures of the body, and everything of saving the soul.
Before 1200 some people in the south of France, that old, cultured land, got hold of a translation of the Bible, and began to form their own opinion from it. They believed in poverty, they would not marry, they fasted and denied the body. The rich luxury of the bishops was denounced.
These new people were called ‘ the Poor Men of Lyons.’ The Pope saw that if such sects increased the whole power of the Church would collapse. So the Poor Men of Lyons were bitterly persecuted. A crusade was preached against them, by the Pope’s orders. In 1209 Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, set out against them. The ‘ Poor Men’
were massacred in hundreds, the old towns of the Languedoc destroyed. Only Toulouse, the old Gothic capital, at this time headquarters of the new people, held out against the besieging armies, and Simon de Montfort was killed by a stone thrown from an engine which was worked by women on the walls of the city.
After this crusade the Court of the Inquisition was established, to examine and punish men guilty of heresy — that is, guilty of false beliefs. In 1233 the learned Spanish monks of the new order of Dominicans were made Papal Inquisitors, the Court of Inquisition was in their hands. They punished witches, wizards, heretics, burning them at the stake. For the Ages of Faith were ages also of deplorable cruelty.
At the same time another great religious movement began. St. Francis of Assisi, a young Italian of well-to-do family, frail in health but passionate in soul, suddenly realised in his own way what the Christian life meant. He gave away all his goods, and said he would own nothing. He declared he was wedded to Our Lady Poverty. He was very happy in his new discovery. Whilst Italy was torn between struggling emperor and pope, Francis went about joyously telling all men how sweet and delightful it was to live for love alone, to own nothing, to be defenceless and helpless, but always to love and to help and to rejoice, looking forward to the life with Jesus.
Many men were attracted by St. Francis’ way of life. They left everything and came with him, as the disciples had followed Christ. Then St. Clare, who loved Francis, gathered the women about her. And soon there were many Franciscans, men and women.
Pope Innocent III., the greatest of all the popes, had, like his predecessors, preached the Crusade in which the Poor Men of Lyons were massacred. But Innocent loved Francis, and gave him the right to establish the great Franciscan Order, that order of wandering friars afterwards so famous in Europe, and such a great help to the Church.
The Franciscans were not like other monks. They did not shut themselves up. Their duty was to wander the earth, teaching, helping, loving all men — possessing nothing themselves, and giving love to all men. The older monks were dark, loveless men, who never looked at the earth. The great St. Bernard once sailed down the beautiful Lake of Lucerne without even glancing around him, his mind was so bent on his own affairs. But Francis taught differently. He loved the sky and the grass and all living things. He once stood and preachcd a sweet sermon to the birds that fluttered round him, calling them, ‘ my little sisters, the birds.’
The Dominicans also wandered about teaching. But they were learned monks, and they taught strict morality and obedience. The Franciscans taught joyousness and sweet love. They taught hope. They told men that the reign of love was at hand.
All over Europe began a great ferment in the souls of men, towards the end of the thirteenth century. The fearful struggles of the emperors were over, the crusades were more or less finished. A strangeness seemed to hang in the air. Men felt that something was going to happen. There was a feeling of fear, of calamity; and at the same time a feeling of frightened hope or expectation. Something terrible and wonderful was going to take place. The little poems of the Middle Ages constantly chime—’ The fear of death oppresses me.’
Out of the ruin and chaos which followed the death of Innocent III. and Frederick II., strange thoughts arose. Men came forward declaring themselves prophets. They told curious and terrible things, and people were filled with dread. In 1251 a book was published called ‘ Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel,’ supposed to contain the teaching of a famous seer or prophet, the Abbot Joachim, who had died at Naples in 1202. In this book it said that Judaism was the revelation of the Father: Christianity was the revelation of the Son: now men must prepare for the revelation of the Holy Ghost.
Wild ideas spread everywhere. Men began to expect the reign of the Holy Ghost. They said that before Jesus was born the Father had reigned: after this, until their own day, the Son had reigned; now the Holy Ghost would reign. In the Everlasting Gospel it was stated that when the Holy Ghost began to reign the papacy and the priesthood would cease to exist. There would be no more Church to govern the souls of men. So the popes condemned the Everlasting Gospel as wicked, heretical, false doctrine. None the less it had a great power over the minds of men.
In 1260 Gerard Sagarelli, a workman of Parma, sat in the market-place of his town and flung away all he had among the crowd. Then he stripped himself naked, had himself wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a cradle. After this he declared himself born again, an apostle sent from God. He started a new Order, the Order of Apostles. He went about, wild and strange, preaching mad doctrines. People flocked to him from North Italy. But he was burned in Parma as a heretic, in 1300, by the Dominican Inquisition.
One of his disciples was called Dolcino of Novara. He said men should hold no earthly possession, no earthly connection. Wife should leave husband, a father should leave his children, nothing human should stand in the way of the perfect union of the soul with the Holy Ghost. These men prayed no more to Jesus. They felt the Holy Ghost coming upon them, filling them with strange bliss, and with sheer perfection.
Several thousands of people retired to a lovely valley in the Alps, the Val di Sesia, in Piedmont. There they lived half naked, fasting, praying, hoping for the Holy Ghost to come upon them, prophesying and seeing visions when they felt themselves at last filled with the Spirit. They did no work, but depended on the frightened, awe-stricken peasants to bring them food. This manner of life sent many demented, and they were all beside themselves.
In 1305 they were excommunicated and threatened with the Inquisition. The governor of the nearest town, and the Bishop of Vercelli, with armed forces marched against them. These apostles of the Holy Ghost, mad with unnatural excitement, retired to a steep hill. There with frenzy they hurled and rolled stones and masses of rock upon the attacking force, holding them back. Then they fled up steep precipices, where armies could not follow them.
They were now really mad, no longer human beings. No peasants would come near them with food, they were always starving. They came down on villages and lonely houses, robbing, plundering, devouring food like wild beasts. Their eyes glared with strange light. If any one opposed them, they rushed with terrifying looks and stabbed him and slashed him with knives. Then they disappeared again up the secret paths of their precipices, gathering together to call on the Holy Ghost to fill them with power and fury.
At last in 1307 their fastness on Mount Zerbal was stormed. The apostles with their wild, waving hair and mad eyes were slaughtered or scattered, some were captured. Women were there, shrieking and fighting like wolves: for each apostle had a chosen heavenly sister. Both the apostle Dolcino and his heavenly sister were taken. The woman was slowly burned before Dolcino’s eyes, and then his flesh was torn bit by bit with red-hot pincers. But he never murmured.
After the Apostles, a great sect formed after the Franciscan idea, called the Fraticelli, was pursued and destroyed by the Church.
In 1320 the shepherds and peasantry of France were strangely stirred. At first little groups of ignorant peasants were remarked wandering barefoot and begging.
No one took much notice. Then the groups became more numerous. Every day bands of barefooted men were passing through the streets of towns and villages, crying aloud for alms and gifts, and declaring that they were going to win back the Holy Places. Then swarms filled the land. No one knew what inspired them, nor whence they came. Band after band gradually flocked together, all possessed as it seemed by the same madness. The educated people looked on in terror as these ragged crowds drew together, masses of ignorant people who had left all work, abandoned everything, and were moving they knew not whither. They were named the Pastoureaux, or Shepherds.
The swarms grew into a great army. They turned to Paris, and by their very masses burst into the city. Then they went through the streets, breaking down the doors of prisons, breaking into houses and shops, taking what they wanted. After this, moved by some herd instinct, they departed southwards, towards Palestine, they said.
As they went they massacred all Jews they came across, recognising them by their distinctive dress. They broke into the castles of nobles, into rich houses, into the houses of priests and bishops, taking whatever they wanted, and saying it was for a holy mission. More bands joined them from every side. The great, blind, dirty host rolled down the valley of the Rhone.
But when they came to the coast they were stopped from entering Italy by the governor of Carcassonne. The Pastoureaux turned and began to spread over the countryside, and over low, swampy districts. They were in such masses that no one dared attack them. Watchful armies waited to prevent their streaming forth. As the weeks went by starvation and exposure brought on deadly fevers. The sickening Pastoureaux died like flies.
At last so many had died that the armies dared attack them. They were slaughtered and captured and subdued, and then the remainder were taken back to work.
This rising of the Pastoureaux was something like the risings of the Gallo-Roman slaves and peasants in the day? before the Franks, and similar to other terrible peasant risings which have taken place in France. It seems as if the French poor were liable to these attacks of unaccountable uneasiness.
All these later movements and madnesses, however, took place whilst the popes were in Avignon, during the period called the Babylonish Captivity. Men hoped for better things when the papal court returned to Rome.
But it was not to be so. Gregory xi. returned to Rome in 1376. When he died in 1378, the populace of Rome cried loudly for an Italian pope, so a Neapolitan archbishop became Urban vi. Urban was severe, strict, and conscientious. He was very stern with the dissolute cardinals. Therefore many, and the French cardinals in particular, began to cry out against this Italian pope, and to declare he was not properly elected. They went so far, that in September 1378 the French cardinals elected Robert of Geneva to be Clement VII.
Thus there were two popes. Urban held his court at Rome, Clement at Avignon. There were two sets of cardinals, two governments for one church. This divided all Europe. And this division is called The Great Schism.
Each pope called on all nations to obey him. France, Scotland, Castile, Aragon, Naples, followed the French pope; England, Germany, Scandinavia, Poland and Portugal followed the Italian pope. Then began a great commotion. Both popes loudly declared themselves to be the one and only pope. Then they began to revile each other in letters and public proclamations. Then they excommunicated each other. And at last it went so far, that each preached a crusade against the other. The priests of one half of Christendom preached a crusade against the priests of the other half.
Such a situation was madness. The crusade was never begun, for neither pope had any money. Each court incurred the usual expenses, with not half the income to meet these expenses. So both the popes tried squeezing the countries that remained faithful to them. But none of the countries was willing to be squeezed. There was no money for the popes.
They had recourse to other methods. The sale of indulgences began. On little scraps of parchment were written pardons for such and such sins. Priests and friars filled their wallets with these scraps of parchment, which were sent by pack-load to every bishopric, and set off to preach indulgences. Standing in some open place, or even in a church, they would preach to men and women how the Pope had power to pardon all sins: how he had written out on parchment such pardons; and now all good Christians were called upon to purchase a pardon which would wipe out for ever from the Judgment Book any sin that had been committed. Small sins cost small sums, greater sins cost greater sums.
When Urban died a new Italian pope was elected, Boniface ix. When Clement died, a Spaniard, Peter de Luna, was elected Benedict XIII. But France did not like a Spanish pope at Avignon, so he was blockaded in his palace by Marshal Boucicault and starved into surrender. He was kept in prison for five years by the French before he escaped.
The Schism was now becoming a real nuisance. All churchmen wished to end it. A great Council of the Church was called at Pisa in 1409, and though it decided nothing, yet now a new ecclesiastical power arose, a power greater than the Pope himself. This was the council of all great churchmen, called the Great Council. The Great Council claimed the power even to depose a pope. It was therefore much dreaded by the later popes, who were kept a little in check by their fear.
Meanwhile new heresies had arisen. About 1380 John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English and began to teach the real meaning of the Scriptures. He denounced the wickedness of the clergy and attacked the authority of the Pope. Many followers came to him, and they got the name of Lollards. But the Lollards were moving spirits in Wat Tyler’s rebellion, so the English Government began to attack them. Wycliffe’s bones were burned at Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, in 1428, and his ashes scattered on the river, so that the spirit of such a heretic should never find its body at the Resurrection.
His teachings, however, spread to the Continent. Thousands of English students went to France to hear the great teacher Abelard. Many wandered on from monastery to monastery, university to university. So they carried the Lollard or Wycliffe writings with them, and the new doctrines spread.
One of the greatest disciples of Wycliffe was the Bohemian, John Huss. Huss was the son of prosperous peasants, who had given him a good education. He entered the Church, became a priest. But he was very clever. He took his Master of Arts degree in 1396, and became a teacher in the university and a preacher in his town. Soon he was the most honoured teacher in the university and the most famous preacher in Prague. The chapel where he preached was called Bethlehem. There the people flocked to hear him, for he was a passionate, brave man. He told his people that Christ was the Head of the Church, not the Pope, and that it was Christ’s teaching they must follow. He also told them that the sale of indulgences was a scandalous money-making trick. But this was not enough to make him a heretic. However, the bishops were furious.
At this time Europe was making a determined effort to end the Schism. The two popes had now become three, Gregory XII., Benedict XIII., and Pope John XXIII. The Emperor Sigismund demanded that another General Council should be called. The free imperial city of Constance was chosen for the meeting-place.
In October 1414 the members of the Council began to arrive. The beautiful little city that stands where the Rhine runs out through low banks from Lake Constance had never seen anything so brilliant as this gathering. Pope John opened the Council in November. But it was not till Christmas Eve that Sigismund arrived. His boats, flickering with gay lights, came sailing across the lake in the wintry darkness. At two hours after midnight the Emperor with his brilliant retinue landed at Constance, and marched to the palace, torches flaming everywhere. On Christmas day Pope John preached in the cathedral to a vast number of townsfolk, nobles, doctors, cardinals, whilst the Emperor read the lessons from the Gospel—’ There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus—’
The Council met for three purposes: to end the Schism, to reform abuses in the Church, to extirpate heresy. For the last purpose, John Huss was summoned to Constance. He received his summons when he was in Prague, and his heart sank. He felt he would never return. His people clamoured round him, saying he should not go. But then the Emperor Sigismund promised a safe-conduct. So Huss began to put his affairs in order. He still felt he would not return.
At last he set off across South Germany, and arrived in Constance. He had received the Emperor’s safe-conduct, but was none the less kept fast in prison. In the spring he was brought out for trial for heresy.
They could prove nothing against him. But they wanted to make him say he had erred, and he refused, for he felt he had done only what was right. And so they condemned him to be burned. On 6 July 1415 the noble-minded Huss was burned in the market-place of Constance. The Emperor Sigismund stood looking on, remarking that the safe-conduct which he had given held good only for tne journey, he had not meant it to protect the heretic from just condemnation in Constance.
Next year, in May 1416, they burned Jerome of Prague, the follower of Huss, also in Constance. An eye-witness writes: ‘ Both met their death with a constant mind, and hastened to the fire as if invited to a feast, uttering no sound that could reveal their agony. When they began to burn they sang a hymn, which the flame and the crackling of the fire could scarcely prevent.’
The Council sat on. It kept Pope John prisoner, then charged him with many crimes. He was deposed from the papacy, and ended his days peacefully as a cardinal. The old Pope Gregory XII. resigned, and died in 1417. But the Spaniard, Benedict XIII., refused all persuasion. He insisted that he was still Pope, and fortified himself in his rock-fortress on his own estate. The Council, however, declared he was no longer Pope, and men decided to take no further notice of him. At last, in 1417, the Roman nobleman, Cardinal Colonna, was elected Pope, and became Martin v.
Thus the Schism was ended. But the power of the popes was also finished. They were no longer absolute — they might be deposed by a General Council. They no longer claimed universal power over Europe, but remained in Italy, and took part in Italian politics rather than in European.
The Bohemians, however, were up in arms after the burning of Huss. The Czechs determined not to submit to Sigismund, who had burned their leader so treacherously. Armed with their deadly scythes, or ‘ flails,’ and led by the famous blind general, Ziska, they rose in a revolt which shook Europe. Crusades were preached against them. Henry, Bishop of Winchester, came to take part in the Holy War against the Hussites. For years the fighting went on. Through long practice the peasants became very fierce and expert. They were hard, vindictive veterans. They could give twenty or thirty strokes with their terrible flail in a minute, and each stroke was enough to cut a man down. They hated the Emperor’s men and the Pope’s men with a perfect hatred, branding their prisoners with a cross upon the forehead. Then the imperialists took to branding a cup on the forehead of any captured Hussite, because the Bohemians demanded to drink of the sacramental wine at the Communion Supper, whereas the Catholics allowed only the bread to the communicant.
Ziska died in 1424. In 1431 Sigismund invaded Bohemia with a great army, but was defeated because his German peasant soldiery sympathised with the Hussites and would not fight for him. So the war dragged on, till at last the Pope invited the Bohemians to send representatives to the Council of Basle, to patch things up. This was done, and in 1434 Sigismund was accepted King of Bohemia, and the Hussites received liberty of worship. They alone, of all the catholic nations, were allowed to partake of the sacred wine, as well as of the wafer, at Communion. It was the first victory against the Church.
In Italy the popes had lost their sacred power. When Urban vi. sent two legates to excommunicate the Tyrant Bernabd Visconti at Milan, Bernab6 received the legates and rode with them to the bridge over the river Naviglio. There he took out the papal Bulls of Excommunication, and looking at the legates, asked them whether they preferred to eat or to drink. The legates turned pale, for the river was rushing swiftly below. They looked at the dangerous flood, and at the tough parchment of the papal Bulls. Then they said faintly they preferred to eat. And Bernabd made them eat the Bulls they had brought. What did he care for excommunication!
The Church was not reformed. Popes and cardinals were more rich, lavish, and openly wicked than ever they had been. Reformers rose up in Italy, preaching a purer life. The greatest of these preachers was Savonarola. In 1490 Lorenzo the Magnificent, hearing of the fame of this preaching friar, invited him to Florence to add to the renown of the city. Savonarola came. He was a swarthy, narrow-browed, hulking friar, haggard with fasting so that his great bones showed and his dark eyes burned. His voice was weak, and his movements were clumsy and ugly.
Yet he had a truly magnetic power over the people. They thronged in crowds to hear him. He preached in San Marco in Florence and then in the Duomo, the domed cathedral. He wished to purify the land from the flaunting gay wickedness he saw around him. Using strange, gruesome language, he pictured the horrors that would come on Italy as a judgment for her lusts and vices, all the ghastly plagues and burnings and death. He harshly denounced from his pulpit the Pope, the clergy, and even his patron Lorenzo di Medici.
Lorenzo had a gay and beautiful court in Florence, thronged with the most exceptional people. The Italians of the later Renaissance, having studied Latin and Greek, were fascinated with the beautiful old pagan myths, they became indifferent or careless of Christianity and its severe teaching. They loved beautiful, rich things, and delicious pleasures. Beauty, pleasure, knowledge, skill, these were their aim. So Savonarola, who wished all men to go in sackcloth and ashes, for fear of hell, abused the witty Lorenzo, and tried to work up the citizens against their tyrant, to restore the liberty of Florence. When Lorenzo was dying, in 1492, Savonarola was his confessor. The dark, fanatic monk bent over the dark, subtle Lorenzo, who was so wise in the wisdom of the world and the ages. Lorenzo confessed his sins and affirmed his ‘ perfect faith.’
‘ Wilt thou restore Florence to liberty, and to the enjoyment of her popular government as a free commonwealth? ‘ sternly said the fanatic friar. Lorenzo turned his dying face away, as if weary at this question, and said no more.
In 1494 Charles VIII. of France invaded Italy and the Medici fled from Florence. Savonarola had been prophesying that tyrants would flee before a deliverer. The people went wild, thinking the prophecy had come true. Savonarola, who was now Prior of the Dominican House of San Marco, swayed all Florence. The city was completely under his spell now the Medici were gone.
A strange change took place. After all the games and sports and carnivals of the Medici days, men became desperately religious. The city looked suddenly grey, for none wore bright clothes any more. Bands of men went about wringing their hands, lamenting their sins, and destroying sinful objects. Bands of children clothed in white patrolled the streets singing hymns, entering the palaces and smashing those statues they thought were immoral, slashing up the lovely pictures. These holy children assumed authority over the citizens, and none dared oppose them. For the followers of Savonarola, called the Weepers or Snivellers, were masters of the town.
Then Jesus Christ was proclaimed King of Florence, and the citizens went round crying loudly ‘ Viva Cristo! Viva Cristo! ‘ — Long live Christ! When carnival came, the time for wild festivity, a great Bonfire of Vanities was arranged. Savonarola’s followers, the Weepers, marched in solemn procession through the streets, and the Innocents, the children, made their rounds of inspection. People brought their silks and ornaments, their books of stories such as the Decameron, and their books of profane poetry, their fans, perfumes, mirrors, statues, statuettes, the classic books supposed to be immoral, and some priceless pictures. Sandro Botticelli, an old, lame man now, threw on the heap in the public square many of his drawings and paintings — and then, to loud chanting, the whole pile of worldly treasures was burned, many exquisite things that could never be replaced.
Meanwhile Savonarola’s preaching became more and more wild, the city was going mad in intense religious excitement. Savonarola prophesied in the pulpit, a worn, hectic, strange figure. He listened to an epileptic monk in his convent, asking the poor epileptic, whom he supposed to be inspired, for advice. And then he told the people the real reign of Christ was at hand, that angels came down and told him so.
Alexander vi., the great but wicked Borgia pope, tried to lure Savonarola to Rome. He did not succeed, so he suspended the friar from preaching. Savonarola was silent for a time, but in 1496 he preached his Lent sermons, denouncing the wickedness of the Pope and clergy, threatening an end, and promising strange, stupendous miracles. The end of the world was near, the Saviour was to come to Florence. The Florentines were beside themselves with excitement, though sane men did not like this return to the dreadful superstitions of the early Middle Ages. The governors of the city, seeing their town out of hand and beside itself, turned against the fanatic friar. Taking advantage of this, the Pope excommunicated Savonarola, in 1497. For six months the friar ceased to preach, remaining in his convent. On Christmas Day he Celebrated Mass in San Marco, and in February preached once more. The populace were drunk with frenzied excitement. The Signory, that is, the Gonfaloniere of Justice and the Council of Eight Priors, suspended Savonarola from preaching.
Savonarola now wrote letters to the sovereigns of Europe, calling for a general council. In Florence he had continually spoken of miracles that were to come. His opponents, even his followers, demanded the miracle. A Franciscan monk offered to pass through flames, if Savonarola would do the same. Savonarola was still sensible enough to see that this was tempting Providence. But he had gone too far. His friends wildly believed in his power to perform a miracle: his enemies urged him to try. He agreed.
Tremendous preparations were made, the stacks ready to be ignited for the passage through the fire were built in the great square. On April 7, 1498, thousands of people assembled in the early morning, waiting to see the miracle. The nobles and rich had platforms and reserved places. Slowly, towards midday, the Franciscans approached from one direction, the Dominicans with Savonarola from another. The masses could hardly contain themselves.
They were going to see a miracle, a miracle like those recorded in the New Testament.
But then started a long quibbling. The Dominicans raised objections, saying the Franciscan monk’s clothing had been charmed by magic against fire, and he must change everything. This was done, and then the Franciscans began to raise objections, saying that Savonarola should not carry the Host in his hand as he passed through the fire, as this would be burning the body of the Lord. Savonarola would not agree. The argument went on before the wildly excited mob. The city authorities prepared to stop the ordeal. Then the bright sky clouded, thunder was heard, and a heavy shower fell, soaking the piles of wood. All was abandoned for the day.
The mob were furious. Next day they attacked San Marco. Savonarola and his two chief supporters, Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro, the epileptic, were arrested. At the Pope’s command Savonarola, worn with excitement, fasting, anxiety, and frenzy, was tortured to make him confess his errors. Perhaps he cried out in his agony that he was no true prophet: how shall we know what he confessed in the secret torture-chamber? He and his two followers were declared heretics and schismatics, traitors to the state, and condemned to execution.
Three high gibbets were erected in the great square. ‘ From the Church militant and triumphant I separate thee,’ said the Bishop of Vasona as he unfrocked Savonarola. ‘ From the Church militant, yes; from the Church triumphant, no; that is not yours to do,’ answered the doomed Prior of San Marco’s.
So the three were hanged on the high gibbets, and fires were lighted under the bodies, as they hung in chains, to consume them. The people in the square, looking on the three crosses, were reminded of Calvary. But they did nothing to save their prophet. They hated him now.
Savonarola had tried to reform the abuses and wickedness of the Church, and to make life pure and moral, but he had gone the wrong way about it. Instead of making men understand with all their soul and with all their mind what they were doing, and what was good to do, he had gone back to the old methods. He talked as if he knew magical secrets, as if he had magical powers. He made the people believe he could Gpen heaven and earth. He filled them with a wicked madness of destruction, and an ugly lust for exciting events. He set them craving for supernatural powers and supernatural scenes. They ceased to be human men and women. Under the spell of Savonarola they were like frenzied demons. Truth, beauty, happiness, wisdom, these meant nothing to such fanatics. They wanted magical violence and wonderful horrors. They were greedy for pains and penalties and severities, instead of for pleasures and delights such as the Borgia pope lusted for.
And so Savonarola’s great movement was felt only as a shock, horrifying Italy and yet further weakening the old order. Savonarola, the last, almost degenerate representative of the Dark Age of Faith, perished and was detested and despised as a fraud.