German Marsilio of Padua and William of Ockham against the Papal or hierarchical authority, and the wild revolt of the Fraticelli; there was likewise at once an acknowledgement of and an attempt to satisfy that yearning of the religious soul for what the Church, the Latin Church, had ceased to supply, which was no longer to be found in the common cloister-life, which the new Orders had ceased to administer to the wants of the people. During this time, too, while Germany luxuriated in the Romance Legend as well as in the Chivalrous Romance, and the Hymn still in degree vied with the Lay of the Minnesinger, German prose had grown up and was still growing up out of vernacular preaching. From the earliest preaching. period some scanty instruction, catechetical or oral, from the glosses or from fragments of the Scripture, had been communicated in German to the people : some German homilies, translated from the Latin, had been in use. But the great impulse was given by the new Orders. The Dominican, Conrad of Marburg, had been forced at times to leave the overcrowded church for the open air, on account of the multitudes which gathered round the fierce Inquisitor, to hear his sermons, to witness the conclusion of his sermons, the burning of a holocaust of heretics. Far different was the tone of the Franciscan Bertholdt of Winterthur, who from 1247 to 1272 preached with amazing success throughout Bavaria, Austria, Moravia, Thuringia. His sermons, taken down by the Bertholdt. f Compare Leyser, Einleitung, Deutsche Predigten des viii. und xiv. Jahrhundert, Quedlinburg, 1838, p. xvi., for the life of Bertholdt. Gervinus (Deutsche Poesie) writes, " Die Vortreff lichkeit der Berthold'schen Predigten, die weit die Schriften Taulers übertrifft."-Vol. ii. p. 142. Schmidt, Joannes Tauler, p. 82. zeal of his hearers, were popular in the best sense; he had the instinct of eloquence; he is even now by the best judges set above Tauler himself. In earnestness, in energy, in his living imagery from external nature, Bertholdt was the popular preacher in the open field, on the hill-side, Tauler the contemplative monk in the pulpit of the cloister-chapel. Nor did Bertholdt stand alone in these vivid popular addresses. That which, notwithstanding these examples, was at least inefficiently bestowed by the Church, stirring and awakening vernacular instruction, was prodigally poured forth from other quarters. The dissidents under their various names, and the Beghards, were everywhere. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Alsace was almost in possession of the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit; they were driven out and scattered, but expulsion and dispersion, if it does not multiply the numbers, usually increases the force and power of such communities. Mysticism within the Church strove to fill the void caused by their expulsion. Of these Mystics the most famous names are Rysbroeck of Cologne, Master Eckhart, John Tauler, Nicolas of Suso. The life of Tauler will show us the times and the personal influence of these men, and that of their opinions. It occupies all the early part of the fourteenth century. h John Tauler' was born in Strasburg in 1290. At the age of eighteen the religious youth entered the Dominican cloister. He went to study at Paris; but at Paris the Doctors were ever turning over the leaves of huge books, they cared not for the one book of life.k Leyser, Deutsche Predigten. Schmidt, Tauler, p. 7. In 1317, there was a violent persecution by John of Ochsenstein, Bishop of Strasburg. 1 Joannes Tauler von Strasburg, von D. Carl Schmidt. Hamburg, 1841. k Tauler, p. 3. Quotation from Tauler's Sermon in note. Probably on his return to Strasburg he came under the influence of Master Eckhart. This remarkable man preached in German; countless hearers thronged even to Eckhart's vernacular sermons. But Eckhart was a Schoolman in the incongruous office of a popular preacher; he was more than a Schoolman, he aspired to be a philosopher. His was not a passionate, simple, fervent theology, but the mystic divinity of Dionysius the Areopagite; it approached the Arabic Aristotelian philosophy. He held, indeed, the Creation out of nothing, and in theory repudiated the Eternity of Matter; but Creation seemed a necessity of the divine nature. The Universal could not but be particular; so God was all things, and all things were God. The soul came forth from God, it was an emanation; it had part of the light of God, in itself inextinguishable, but that light required kindling and quickening by divine grace. Thus man stands between the spiritual and the corporeal, between time and eternity. God will reveal himself fully, pour himself wholly into the reasonable soul of man. It is not by love but by intelligence that the mystic reunion takes place with God; by knowledge we are one with God; that which knows and that which is known are one. Master Eckhart is the parent of German metaphysical theology. But if Tauler was caught with the glowing language in which Eckhart clothed these colder opinions, he stood aloof from the kindred teaching of the Beghards, with their more pas m m See the Chapter on Eckhart, Ritter, Christliche Philosophie, iv. p. 498, &c. "Eckhart ist mit den Theologen seiner Zeit von der Ueberzeugung durchdrungen, dass die vernünftige Seele des Menschen dazu bestimmt sei in der innigsten Verbindung mit Gott, 1 sionate, more religious Pantheism-the same in thought with Eckhart, more bold and fearless in expression. But if of itself the soul of Tauler sought a deeper and more fervent faith, the dark and turbulent times would isolate or make such a soul seek its sympathy within a narrower circle. It was the height of the war between John XXII. and Louis of Bavaria, and nowhere did that war rage more violently than in Strasburg. The Bishop John of Ochsenstein was for the Pope, the Magistrates and the people, for the Emperor, or rather for insulted Germany. The Bishop laid his interdict on the city; the Magistrates, the Town Council, declared that the Clergy who would not perform their functions must be driven from the city." The Clergy, the Monks, the Friars, were divided here the bells were silent, the churches closed; there they tolled for prayers, and the contumacious Clergy performed forbidden services. No wonder that religious men sought that religion in themselves which they found not in the church or in the cloister; they took refuge in the sanctuary of their own thoughts, from the religion which was contesting the world. In all the great cities rose a secret unorganised brotherhood, bound together only by silent infelt sympathies, the Friends of God. This appellation was a secession, a tacit revolt, an assumption of superiority. God was not to be worshipped in the church alone, with the Clergy alone, with the Monks alone, in the Ritual, even in the Sacraments; he was within, in the heart, in the life. This and kindred brotherhoods embraced all orders, Priests, Monks, Friars, Nobles, Burghers, Peasants; they had their Prophets and Prophetesses, above VOL. IX. "Do soltent su ouch fúrbas singen, -Konigshofer Chronicle, 128-9. Schmidt, p. 14. S all, their Preachers. Some convents were entirely in their power. In one thing alone they sided with the On the "Friends of God," see Schmidt, Anhang. M. Carl Schmidt has now discovered and printed some very curious documents, which throw more full but yet dubious light on the "Friends of God," and their great leader, Nicolas of Basle. They were Mystics to the height of Mysticism: each believer was in direct union with God, with the Trinity, not the Holy Ghost alone. They were not Waldensians. They were faithful to the whole mediæval imaginative creed, Transubstantiation, worship of the Virgin and Saints, Purgatory. Their union with the Deity was not that of Pantheism, or of passionate love; it was rather through the phantasy. They had wonders, visions, special revelations, prophecies. Their peculiar heresy was the denial of all special prerogative to the Clergy, except the celebration of the Sacraments; the layman had equal sanctity, equal communion with the Deity, saw visions, uttered prophecies. Their only sympathy with the Waldensians was Anti-Sacerdotalism. Neither were they Biblical Christians; they honoured, loved the Bible; but sought and obtained revelation beyond it. They rejected one clause of the Lord's Prayer. Temptations were marks of God's favour not to be deprecated. But though suffering was a sign of the Divine Love, it was not self-inflicted suffering. They disclaimed asceticism, self-maceration, self-torture. All things to the beloved were of God; all therefore indifferent, seclusion, poverty. In 1367 Nicolas of Basle, with his twelve friends or disciples (so commanded by a dream), set forth from the Oberland under the guidance of a dog to find a domicile. After a wild journey over moss and moor, the dog barked and scratched up the earth. They determined to build (with the permission of the Duke of Austria to whom the land belonged) a chapel, with a pleasant chamber for each; here they dwelt, recluses, not monks, under no vows, withdrawn from the world, but well informed of what passed in the world. Eight of them afterwards went into foreign lands, to Hungary, to Italy. They had other places of retreat, and it should seem multitudes of followers attached to them with more or less intimacy. Nicolas of Basle, es specially inspired, held boundless influence and authority over all, whether "Friends of God," or not, over Tauler, Rulman Merswin, and others. As the days of the Church grew darker under the later Popes at Avignon, and during the Schism, visions, dreams multiplied and darkened around them. Nicolas visited Gregory XI. at Rome; he reproved the Pope's inertness, his sins. Gregory, at first indignant, was overawed by the commanding holiness of Nicolas. In 1278 Nicolas with his followers prayed together from the 17th to the 25th of March to God, to dispel the dark weather which overhung the Church. They were directed to "wait." The time of "waiting" lasted to March 25th, 1383. In the mean time they scrupled speak with the utmost freedom of the Pope and the Clergy. They disclaimed both Popes. Many awful not to |