It was the rose of the bloody field Rose of Jericho that grew in Bethlem, The fine roses pourtrayed in the shield 'Splayed in the banner at Jerusalem. The sun was clipse and dark in every reme When Christ Jesu five wellis list unclose, Toward Paradisé, called the red stream, Of whose five wounds print in your heart a rose. 120 The religious verse of John Lydgate includes a translation of the first part of a French poem by Guillaume de Guilevile, who was born at Paris about the year 1295, became prior of the Bernardine Abbey of Chalis, and died about the year 1360. Guilevile says that the popularity of the "Roman de la Rose" suggested to him the writing of his "Romaunt des Trois Pélerinages" ("Romance of the Three Pilgrimages"), namely, of Man in this Life; of the Soul severed from the Body; and of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, in the form of a Monotessaron. Lydgate translated into English verse the "Pilgrimage of Man in this World" for Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, in the year 1426. Guilevile's work was well known in England in the fifteenth century, and its sections of the "Pilgrimage of Man" and "Pilgrimage of the Soul" had more than one translator between 1413, the date of the earliest MS. translation of the "Pilgrimage of Man," and 1483, the date of Caxton's printed English version of the "Pilgrimage of the Soul." Le Pélerinage de l'Homme begins by saying, that in the year 1330 the writer, then a monk at Chalis, dreamed that he saw, as in a mirror, the reflection of the Heavenly Jerusalem. He was stirred to become a pilgrim to it, and to seek to enter by the narrow wicket-gate, of which Lydgate thus translated his description: "For such as died for his love By wickets entered in above, Up the gate high aloft, Though there the passage was not soft; A man be born in Earth here down And ravish like a champioun By virtue only and by grace. For virtue doth to a man assure Guilevile then sought staff and scrip, and rushed out of his house, weeping and lamenting, to know where he should find them. Then came to him a lady of great beauty, who seemed to be the daughter of an Emperor, and asked him why he wept. This is Gracedieu, the Grace of God. She learns his desire, and says that she is sent by the Lord of the Way to guide the weak but willing pilgrims, and open the eyes of the blind. She warns him of the dangers of the road, and bids him fix his eyes on the strait gate, which none enter until they have put off their clothing. "Homme vestu n'y pouvait passer;" the soul must put off its garment of the flesh. Gracedieu then takes the pilgrim to her House-the Churchbuilt 1330 years ago, where Scripture is interpreted. But the pilgrim comes to a stream without ferry or bridge, before the entrance of the Church, which represents the water of baptism. Why, he asks, must he bathe in this water? He is told; he is helped out on the other side; enters the House, where Moses represents the Law, and Reason, Prudence, Nature, Sapience, Repentance, Love, are personified. It is here that the scrip and staff for his pilgrimage are given to him: the name of the scrip is Faith; the staff is Hope, on which he is told that he may lean in all slippery places. And yet he must not go until he has been armed. He is then girt with a girdle of righteousness, a writing is given him, which is the Creed in rhyme. And, as Lydgate translates The coat of mail is Patience, the helmet Temperance, the gorget is Sobriety, the gauntlets are named Continence; the sword is Justice, and the true name of its scabbard is Humility. The pilgrim finds the arms too heavy for him, and asks to go forth like David. He does finally go forth with a sling only, bearing the pebbles David had in his scrip when he went forth to meet Goliath, and having Memory as armour-bearer, to equip him in the time of need. The pilgrim, when Memory first comes to him, is surprised to find her without eyes, and is told that her eyes are behind. But again he is told that he must wear his armour. Why then, he asks, did I put it off, only to put it on again? He put it off because he was too fat. He carries about and nourishes an enemy. It was his body that rebelled against the armour's weight. After teaching him of the light of the soul seen dimly through the cloud of flesh, Gracedieu says to the pilgrim, in Lydgate's version of the poem "But for thy sake, anon right, I n'ot whe'r that I slept or wook, And methought eke in my sight Tho wist I well that all was true That Gracedieu had said to me; And thanne I went for to see I find in him no breath at all, But dead and cold as a stone wall. And when I did all this espy, His governance I gan defy." The Pilgrim proceeds on his way till he comes to a place where the road divides into two paths. Industry, making nets, sits by the one, Idleness by the other. He is taught that in the way of Idleness perils are greatest; the way of Industry is safe to those who persevere in it, but many break through the hedge into the other road. Idleness describes her way, the Idler's way of life, and her enemy Repentance is said to have set the hedge, so that if any wished to turn from the other road into hers, they could not do so without being pierced with thorns. The Pilgrim takes the way of Industry; has encounters with Gluttony, Wrath, who carries a hawk called Murder; descends a hill, and is met by Tribulation, but he leans upon his staff, Faith, and escapes the danger. He meets afterwards with Heresy, Satan, Dame Fortune, and Gladness-of-the-World, a syren by a wild square tower, whence issued smoke and flame, while the whole tower "Turned about as a wheel Upon the floodés enviroun, That was the voice of Worldly-Gladness, by whom, after dialogue, the Pilgrim was seized, and cast into the midst of the great sea. He reached the shore of the perilous island, forsaken by Youth, who had been his companion, and pursued no more by Worldly-Gladness, who had gone off with Youth for her comrade. Then "Even amid of all my pain I saw amiddes of the sea I saw a cross stand and not flit, And in this ship, again all showers And sundry habitaciouns By resemblance and seeming Like the lodging of a King. And as I took good heed thereat, Gracedieu comes out of the ship to the Pilgrim's aid, and he learns that the name of the ship is Religion. The allegory of the "Pilgrimage of Man's Life" is continued in this manner till Old Age and Death have laid the Pilgrim gently on his couch, there to await Death's coming. Mercy takes him to her infirmary, which has Fear of God for porter, and where there are two messengers-Prayer and Almsgiving-whom he may send before him to the Heavenly Jerusalem. At last Death mounts upon his bed. Gracedieu reassures him. Death runs him through the body with her scythe. He started and awoke, dead or alive he knew not till he heard a cock crow and the ringing of the convent bell, and saw that he was awake in the morning in his own bed in the monastery of Chalis. The popularity of Guilevile's "Romaunt of the Three Pilgrimages" in England during the fifteenth century indicates the growth of the tendency to spiritual allegory, which had its source far back in regular canons of St. Augustine-made a collection. of "Sermons for the Greater Festivals of the Church," and in the middle of the fifteenth century put into English verse a Latin book of "Instructions for Parish Priests." 2 It began by admonishing priests to know their duties and live as they preach. It then explained in detail how a parishioner was to be dealt with from the cradle to the grave. Beginning at earliest, with birth and baptism, by taking the religious duties of the mother when the child is yet unborn, and the baptism of a child that is half-born to a dying mother, it proceeded to general rules that concern christening, confirmation, marriage, teaching of children, confession, how the people were to be taught as to the Communion, and trained to the right manner of receiving it: also how they were to be made to behave in church : the writings of Greek fathers of the Church and the spiritualizing of the love-conceits of troubadours by lettered monks, who shared the accomplishments of their time, but were restrained by their vows from rhyming of love, like the noblemen and gentlemen who were their neighbours. From English translations of Guilevile we pass, by natural transition, through an English poem of the same character, to Spenser's "Faerie Queene," and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress."1 John Mirk, who was a canon of Lilleshall, in Shropshire-a house associated with the order of the 1 Much interesting detail on the subject of Guilevile's allegory and its English versions will be found in these two volumes:-"The Ancient Poem of Guillaume de Guileville, entitled 'Le Pélerinage de l'Homme,' compared with the Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan, edited from notes collected by the late Mr. Nathaniel Hill, of the Royal Society of Literature, with illustrations and an Appendix." Pickering, 1858.-"The Booke of the Pylgremage of the Sowle, Translated from the French of Guillaume de Guileville, and Printed by William Caxton An. 1483, with Illuminations taken from the MS. Copy in the British Museum; edited by Katherine Isabella Cust." Pickering, 1859. OF BEHAVIOUR IN CHURCH. Yet thou mosté teach them mare That when they doth to churché fare, Then bid them leave their many wordes Their idle speech and nicé bordes,3 And put away all vanitye And say their Pater noster and their Ave. But faire on knees they shall them set, And bless them fairé as they con Teach them kneel both young and old "Jesu, Lord, welcome thou be In form of bread as I thee see; Jesu! for thy holy name, Shield me to-day fro sin and shame, Shrift and housel, Lord, thou grant me bo, Ere that I shall hennes go And vray contrition of my sin That I, Lord, ne'er die therein; And, as thou were of a maid i-bore, But when that I shall hennes wend Grant me the bliss withouten end. Amen." Whenever and wherever the sacred host was seen the people were to kneel; and a list was given of the evils from which any one was protected for the day on which he should have seen it. "Also within church and seyntwary Do right thus as I thee say; To prayen and to weepen for their sin." Witchcraft was to be forbidden the people; also usury. Husbands and wives were to be taught that both must consent before either could undertake a penance, or a vow of chastity, or a pilgrimage "Save the vow to Jerusalem, That is lawful to either of them." Twice or thrice in the year occasion must be taken to teach the whole parish the Pater noster, Ave, and 1 Sakering, consecration of the host. 2 Throwing the hatchet and putting the stone. Axtree may be axletree, which is said to have been used for throwing by the rustics. 3 Bars. Casting the bar was another of the athletic sports of the people; and Henry VIII., after he came to the throne, is said by Hall and Holinshed to have retained "casting the bar " among his amusements. In a paper of the Spectator, written by Eustace Budgell (No. 161), a country fair of the year 1711 is described; and the describer says: "Upon my asking a farmer's son, of my own parish, what he was gazing at with so much attention, he told me that he was seeing Betty Welch, whom I knew to be his sweetheart, pitch a bar." Chost, chest, "ceast," strife. Creed. English rhymed forms of these were given, and then followed instruction as to the teaching and explaining of the Articles of Faith, and the Seven Sacraments of the Church :-1. Baptism; 2. Contirmation; 3. The Eucharist; 4. Penance; 5. Priest's orders; 6. Matrimony; 7. Extreme Unction: "Lo! here the seven and no mo; Look thou preché ofté tho. The usage of the Church in the fifteenth century was set forth upon all these heads, and as Penance was associated with Confession, this gave rise to a section upon admonition against, and forms of penance for, the seven deadly sins. The seventh sacrament being extreme unction, the book ended with the last offices of the priest to his parishioner. Then added the author "Now, dear priest, I pray thee, For Goddés love, thou pray for me, Let other mo readé this boke; At the time when this was written, in the middle of the fifteenth century, for the instruction of the humbler clergy, the battle against neglect of duty by those who should be leaders of the Church was steadily continued. Followers of Wiclif were upholiing strenuously the Bible as the only rule of faith; were battling against what they believed to be traditions of men, injurious to discipline and doctrine: were contrasting the pride of the Court of Rome, of cardinals, and of lordly prelates, with the life and teaching of Christ, and with the unworldly zeal of the Apostles; were desiring in the Church pure 5 Myng, remember. 6 Leve, dear. 7 Hodymoke, equivalent to "hugger mugger," in concealment. So in Satiro-mastix, "One word, Sir Quintilian, in hugger mugger;" and of Polonius in Hamlet, "We have done but greenly in hugger-mugger to inter him." In Icelandic "hugr," the mind, genitive "bugar.” enters into such compounds as "hugar-angr" and "hugar-ekki,” fər grief and distress of mind, "hugar-glöggr," &c. "Mugga" mesa mistiness, and, formed in the same way, "hugar-mugga' "would be mugginess or mistiness of mind, a mind obscured in haze. 8 zerne, earnestly. Bible teaching from men who strove religiously themselves to follow it, with frequent instruction of the people, by preaching and explaining to them the Word of God. Reginald Pecock, who was born not long before the death of Chaucer, was a Welshman, who studied at Oxford, and became Fellow of Oriel in 1417. In 1421 he was admitted to priest's orders; and a few years later was thriving in London, because his learning won him the goodwill of a friend of literature who was then protector of the kingdom, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Pecock was made Rector of Whittington College, founded by the Sir Richard Whittington who was thrice Lord Mayor of London (in 1397, 1406, and 1419). The College, dedicated to the Holy Ghost, was in the Church of St. Michael Royal, rebuilt by him, and finished by his executors in 1424. It consisted of a Master and four Fellows, clerks, choristers, &c., and near it was an almshouse for thirteen poor people. The office of Master of this College was associated with that of Rector of the Church to which it belonged; and Pecock became Master of Whittington College and Rector of St. Michael Royal in 1431. Here he was resident for the next thirteen years, in the midst of the Lollard controversy, still active in study, and writing English tracts upon the religious questions of his time. In 1440 he published a "Donet," or Introduction to the Chief Truths of the Christian Religion. In 1444 his friend Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, gave Pecock the bishopric of St. Asaph. In this office his busy mind was still active, and there were many critics of the opinions he expressed. When Thomas Arundel was Archbishop of Canterbury, from 1396 to 1413, the action against the Lollards had been quickened, new provision had been made for the burning of heretics, and freedom of preaching had been checked throughout the Church. The reason for this was that, as preaching consisted in interpretation of the Scripture, the much interpreting by many minds would lead to diversities of explanation, encourage laymen to apply their reason to Church matters, spread confusion of opinion, and break up the oneness of the Church. Arundel's battle was for unity in Christendom. He died of a swelling of the tongue; and men said that was a judgment upon him for silencing the preachers. Three or four years after Arundel's death, Sir John Oldcastle (Lord Cobham), who had been a successful general in the French wars, but at home was a friend and supporter of the Lollards, was, on Christmas Day, 1417, suspended over a fire, and roasted alive as a Lollard. Such acts were meant to daunt the spirit of the Lollards, and did silence some, while it confirmed in them the spirit of opposition. But to the braver minds it gave new energy of resistance to the action of the bishops. Then Reginald Pecock began a defence of the bishops, which could not please the Lollards because it was directed against them, and displeased many of those whose champion he made himself, because he brought their case into court before the body of the laity, by writing in English, addressing himself to them, appealing to their judgment with such arguments as then passed for reason among scholastic men; and was led by the deeper sense of right in his impulsive nature, to make what those whom he defended looked upon as dangerous concessions. About the middle of the fifteenth century, perhaps in 1449, Reginald Pecock produced, on the religious struggle of his day, a long English book, entitled "The Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy." About the same time, in 1450, he was made Bishop of Chichester. In 1456 he was following up his "Repressor" with another English treatise designed to promote peace by the persuasion of the Lollards. It was called a "Treatise on Faith;" and Pecock, admitting it be vain to attempt to over-rule the Lollards by telling them that "the church of the clergy may not err in matters of faith," trusted to argument, and said: "The clergy shall be condemned at the last day if, by clear wit, they draw not men into consent of true faith otherwise than by fire and sword and hangment; although," he said, "I will not deny these second means to be lawful, provided the former be first used." He upheld the Bible as the only rule of faith, was accused of under-rating the authority of the Fathers, even of the four great fathers and doctors of the Church-Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory-the four stots of the allegory of Piers Plowman, who drew the harrow after the plough of the Gospel. It was urged that when the Fathers had been quoted to rebut an argument of Pecock's he had even been known to say, "Pooh, pooh!" In 1457, when, as Bishop of Chichester, Reginald Pecock took his place in a Council at Westminster, many temporal lords refused to take part in the business unless he were ejected. The divines called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to submit to them Pecock's books for scrutiny. He was required to come with his books to Lambeth on the eleventh of the next month, November. He was then ordered to quit the Council chamber. Twentyfour doctors, to whom Pecock's books were submitted, found heresies in them. John of Bury, an Austin friar, replied to the "Repressor" with a "Gladius Salomonis" ("Sword of Solomon "), attacking him for his appeal to reason, and opposing the conclusions which he held to be heretical. Finally, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bourchier (Archbishop from A.D. 1454 to A.D. 1486) pronounced a sentence which is thus reported : "Dear brother, Master Reginald, since all heretics are blinded by the light of their own understandings, and will not own the perverse obstinacy of their own conclusions, we shall not dispute with you in many words (for we see that you abound more in talk than in reasoning), but briefly show you that you have manifestly presumed to contravene the sayings of the more authentic doctors. For as regards the descent of Christ into hell, the Tarentine doctor, in an inquiry of his into the three creeds, says that it was left out of the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, because no heresy had then arisen against it, nor was any great question made about it. As to the authority of the Catholic Church, the doctor Augustine says, Unless the authority of the Church moved me, I should not believe the Gospel. As to the power of councils, the doctor Gregory says (and his words are placed in the Canon, Distinct. xv.), that the four sacred Councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon are not less to be 1 The four stots. See page 99, col. 2. |