Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History; Mysticism; Patarines
Guido attended a council held in Rome (April 1059), shortly after
this visitation. Ariald also was present, to accuse the Archbishop
of favouring simony and concubinage. The legates had dealt too
leniently with the scandal. Guido was defended by his suffragans of
Asti, Novara, Turin, Vercelli, Alba, Lodi, and Brescia. "Mad bulls,
they," says Bonizo; and Ariald was forced to retire, covered with
confusion. The Council pronounced a decree that no mercy should be
shown to the simoniacal and married clergy.[23] An encyclical was
addressed by Nicholas II. to all Christendom, informing it that the
Council had passed thirteen canons, one of which prevented a layman
from assisting at a mass said by a priest who had a concubine or a
_subintroducta mulier_. Priests, deacons, and sub-deacons who should
take "publicly" a concubine, or not send away those with whom they
lived, were to be inhibited from exercising all ministerial acts and
receiving ecclesiastical dues.
[23] "Nulla misericordia habenda est."
On the return of the bishops to their sees, one only of them,
Adelmann of Brescia, ventured to publish these decrees. He was
nearly torn to pieces by his clergy; an act of violence which
greatly furthered the cause of the Patarines.[24]
[24] Bonizo. It is deserving of remark that Bonizo, an ardent
supporter of Hildebrand and the reforming party, calls that Papal
party by the name of _Patari_, thus showing that it was really
made up of the Manichean heretics.
In the same year Pope Nicholas sent legates into different countries
to execute, or attempt to execute, the decrees passed against simony
and concubinage--as clerical marriage was called. Peter Damiani
travelled through several cities of Italy to exhort the clergy to
celibacy, and especially to press this matter on the bishops. Peter
Damiani was not satisfied with the conduct of the Pope in assuming
a stern attitude towards the priests, but overlooking the fact that
the bishops were themselves guilty of the same offence. A letter
from him to the Pope exists, in which he exhorts him to be a second
Phinehas (Numb. xxv. 7), and deal severely with the bishops, without
which no real reform could be affected.[25]
[25] _Opp._ t. iii.; _Opusc._ xiii. p. 188.
Anselm de Badagio, Bishop of Lucca, the instigator of Landulf and
Ariald, or at least their staunch supporter, was summoned on the
death of Nicholas to occupy the throne of St. Peter, under the title
of Alexander II. But his election was contested, and Cadalus, an
anti-Pope, was chosen by a Council of German and Lombard prelates
assembled at Basle. The contests which ensued between the rival
Pontiffs and their adherents distracted attention from the question
of clerical marriage, and the clergy recalled their wives.
In 1063, in Florence, similar troubles occurred. The instigator of
these was St. John Gualberto, founder of the Vallombrosian Order.
The offence there was rather simony than concubinage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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