History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in ChristendomWhite, Andrew Dickson
Religion
History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
White, Andrew Dickson
Religion and science -- History
(95) For evidences of this widespread terror, see chronicles of
Raoul Glaber, Guillaume de Nangis, William of Malmesbury, Florence
of Worcester, Ordericus Vitalis, et al., passim, and the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle (in the Rolls Series). For very thrilling pictures of this
horror in England, see Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. iii, pp. 640-644,
and William Rufus, vol. ii, p. 118. For the Bayeau tapestry, see Bruce,
Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated, plate vii and p. 86; also Guillemin, World
of Comets, p. 24. There is a large photographic copy, in the South
Kensington Museum at London, of the original, wrought, as is generally
believed, by the wife of William the Conqueror and her ladies, and is
still preserved in the town museum at Bayeux.
Nearly every decade of years throughout the Middle Ages saw Europe
plunged into alarm by appearances of this sort, but the culmination
seems to have been reached in 1456. At that time the Turks, after a long
effort, had made good their footing in Europe. A large statesmanship
or generalship might have kept them out; but, while different religious
factions were disputing over petty shades of dogma, they had advanced,
had taken Constantinople, and were evidently securing their foothold.
Now came the full bloom of this superstition. A comet appeared. The
Pope of that period, Calixtus III, though a man of more than ordinary
ability, was saturated with the ideas of his time. Alarmed at this
monster, if we are to believe the contemporary historian, this
infallible head of the Church solemnly "decreed several days of prayer
for the averting of the wrath of God, that whatever calamity impended
might be turned from the Christians and against the Turks." And, that
all might join daily in this petition, there was then established that
midday Angelus which has ever since called good Catholics to prayer
against the powers of evil. Then, too, was incorporated into a litany
the plea, "From the Turk and the comet, good Lord, deliver us."
Never was papal intercession less effective; for the Turk has held
Constantinople from that day to this, while the obstinate comet, being
that now known under the name of Halley, has returned imperturbably at
short periods ever since.(96)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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