The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler...

JOHN TAULER, who appears as “the Master” in the foregoing History, was born at Strasburg in the year 1290. His father was most probably Nicolas Tauler, whose name occurs among those of the senators of Strasburg in 1313. At all events, he belonged to a tolerably wealthy family, and might have lived on his patrimony since he tells us in one of his sermons: “Had I known when I lived as my father’s son, all that I know now, I would have lived on his heritage and not upon alms.” He devoted himself, however, in early years to a clerical life, and entered the Dominican Order in Strasburg, taking up his abode in the handsome, spacious convent belonging to that Order, the church of which was consecrated in the year 1308. A sister of his was a nun in the convent of St. Nicolas at Krautenau, likewise belonging to the Dominican Order. In what year Tauler renounced the world cannot be determined with precision, but there can be little doubt that he did so at the same time with his friend John von Dambach, in 1308. From allusions in his writings, it seems probable that he soon after, with the same friend, betook himself to Paris, the great metropolis of Christian learning in that age, in order to study theology in the famous Dominican College of St. Jacques, from which the monks of that Order were called Jacobins in France.

The University concentrated within its precincts representatives of the varied intellectual tendencies of the age. Up to the middle of the thirteenth century, it had been distinguished by the freedom of thought which prevailed among its teachers, unshackled as they were by any episcopal, almost by any regal jurisdiction over their doctrine, and acknowledging only the authority of the Pope himself, directly exercised. The influence of the all-questioning Abelard, the subtle Gilbert de la Porée, the pantheistic Amaury de Bene, and other free-thinking teachers, was not extinct, though they lay under the censure of heresy. The works of Aristotle, condemned in 1209, had been gradually introduced into the schools, with the Arabian commentaries of Avicenna and Averrhoes. The Dominican Order, founded for the extirpation of heresy, early recognised the prime necessity of providing instruction which should purify the streams of human thought at their fountain-head; and in spite of the opposition raised by the heads of the University, succeeded, in 1228, in establishing theological chairs in their convent in Paris, from which to combat the heathenising philosophers of Christendom with their own weapons of reason; and in Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas they may be said to have reconquered philosophy for the Church, and Christianised Aristotle, who thenceforth became the established master of philosophy, but was studied through the commentaries of the great Dominican luminary.

But the colossal volumes of the schoolmen, embracing as they did within the vast sweep of their speculation disquisitions upon the nature of the Godhead, upon the universe of superhuman intelligence revealed by the pseudo-Dionysius, and upon the nature of man and matter,—while affording a tremendous gymnastic discipline to the human intellect, were barren in actual practical results, and might well be unsatisfactory to one whose soul craved to be something more than a logical athlete. And it is evident that, in his later life, Tauler did not look back upon the scholastic theology which he studied during his sojourn in Paris as having taught him that which answered to the needs of his spirit. Thus, in one passage of his sermons he says: “These great masters of Paris do read vast books, and turn over the leaves with great diligence, which is a very good thing; but these [spiritually enlightened men] read the true living book, wherein all things live: they turn over the pages of the heavens and the earth, and read therein the mighty and admirable wonders of God.” He seldom cites any of the schoolmen in his writings, with the exception of “Master Thomas;” but he not unfrequently refers to Aristotle, under the title of the “Natural Master,” or the “Master of Nature.”

The authors who seem to have had the greatest attraction for him, and whom he must have early made the subject of his study, judging from the acquaintance with them displayed in his writings, and the little leisure which he could have had for such pursuits during the busy activity of his later years, were the more mystical and speculative among the ecclesiastical writers, the pseudo-Dionysius, the Monks of the school of St. Victor, St. Bernard, and above all St. Augustine. Neither was he a stranger to the Neo-platonists,—Proclus is referred to several times in his writings.

While the whole bent of Tauler’s mind thus appears to have disposed him to contemplation on the great spiritual questions immediately affecting man’s actual destiny, rather than more purely intellectual theses, he must, on returning from Paris to Strasburg, have come in contact with several of the mystical teachers whom we know to have flourished there about this time, and who certainly cannot have been without influence on the course of his mental development. The most eminent of these was the celebrated Master Eckart, a brother of his own Order, who, after having filled the important offices of Provincial in Saxony and Vicar-General in Bohemia, had returned to Strasburg, where, with the earnestness of profound conviction, he was now discoursing to the people in their native tongue, on lofty philosophical themes, till then only deemed fit to be treated of in Latin before learned assemblies; and which he handled in a way that he himself confesses to be contrary to what any of the Masters had taught hitherto. Yet it is clear, from the accusations afterwards brought against him of misleading the vulgar, that the metaphysical speculations which form the staple of his sermons, though they would seem to us utterly beyond the range of ordinary thinkers, must have touched some chords in the hearts of the multitude, expressed as they are, not only in a sharp, clear, forcible style, but often clothed in a thoroughly popular form, and illustrated by metaphors appealing to the eye, and allegorical interpretations of Scripture histories.6

The man himself and his doctrines were equally calculated to make a powerful impression on the mind of the youthful Tauler, already dissatisfied with the frigid subtleties of the dialecticians, and arriving at an age when he was called on to exercise his vocation as a preaching friar in times of extraordinary commotion and perplexity.

Eckart’s keen and soaring intellect had been trained by a close study of the Fathers and the Schoolmen before he became a professor in the convent at St. Jacques at Paris, in which position he soon acquired no ordinary fame; being esteemed (according to the statement of the Abbot Trithemius in his great encyclopædia of ecclesiastical writers) “the most learned man of his day in the Aristotelian philosophy.” The vivid remembrance of such a master would be still lingering in the hearts of many pupils when Tauler came to Paris; though Eckart himself must have quitted his professorship some years before, as, on account of the severity of his morals and the firmness of his character, he was appointed, in 1304, Provincial of the Dominican Order in Saxony, where he laboured with such success in the restoration of discipline, that three years later he was made Vicar-General of Saxony, with the express commission to undertake any improvements and reforms in the Order that he might judge necessary. In this new sphere of action, likewise, he soon became celebrated as a preacher and metaphysical teacher.

From this date, when he was held in reverence by the Church, he disappears from our view for a space of some years; after which we find him in Strasburg, divested of his dignities, but preaching with great effect his peculiar doctrines, now in his mature life elaborated into a system which has been claimed by Hegel and some of his disciples as the parent of the German philosophy.7 To say whether this claim is just would require a knowledge of Hegel and his school, which I do not possess.8 That which was the aim of all Eckart’s reasonings, to which all else was but a means, was the perfect repose of a spirit in absolute union with God, and dwelling in a region far above the clouds and tempests of this changeful, barren life of sense. He himself appears to have attained in a high degree to this state of abiding peace; yet his writings are pervaded by a strain of deep lamentation over the imperfections of this earthly sphere, and the misery arising from a sense of separation from God. In fact, he certainly retains a positive and vivid sense of the nature of sin; whether this be consistent with Pantheism or Hegelianism, I leave those better qualified to judge. In the passionate endeavour to free himself from the entanglements of the creature, and to enter into living union with God, he, however, undoubtedly does not escape the danger of merging created existence in the one uncreated Essence which alone has true Being, and forgetting the limits that bar our approach to the Infinite.

Thus he says; “That word, I am, can none truly speak but God alone.” “He has the Substance of all creatures in Himself; He is a being that has all Being in Himself.” “All things are in God, and all things are God.” “All creatures in themselves are naught; all creatures are a speaking of God.” “Dost thou ask me what was the purpose of the Creator when He made the creatures? I answer, Repose. Dost thou ask again what all creatures seek in their spontaneous aspiration? I answer again, Repose. Dost thou ask a third time what the soul seeks in all her motions? I answer, Repose. Consciously or unconsciously all creatures seek their proper state. The stone cannot cease moving till it touch the earth; the fire rises up to heaven: thus a loving soul can never rest but in God, and so we say God has given to all things their proper place,—to the fish the water, to the bird the air, to the beast the earth, to the soul the Godhead.” “Simple people conceive that we are to see God, as if He stood on that side and we on this. It is not so; God and I are one in the act of my perceiving Him.” “O noble soul, put on these wings to thy feet and rise above all creatures, and above thine own reason, and above the angelic choirs, and above the light that has given thee strength, and throw thyself upon the heart of God; there shalt thou lie hidden from all creatures.”

But if, in thus denying a separate existence to the creature, he uses expressions which logically conduct to Pantheism, on the other hand his God is clearly a living God; not a mere object of philosophical thought, but an actual and working reality.9 So, again, some of his expressions might seem to imply Antinomianism, as when he says: “Whenever a man enters into this union with God, that God is so dear to him that he forgets himself, nor seeks himself either in time or in eternity, so oft does he become free from all his sins and all his purgatory, though he should have committed all the sins of all mankind:” and we can hardly doubt, from what we read of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, that some did abuse Eckart’s doctrine of the inward freedom of the spirit to justify sin in pretenders to piety. But it does not seem that even his enemies ever doubted of his own high morality; while Quétif and Echard, in their Scriptores ordinis Prædicatorum, praise him as a virum moribus et scientia probatissimum, omni laude superiorem, and add that a hundred years after him a brother of his Order says of him, that he was vita purissimus, expedites Doctor Ecclesiæ, suo tempore incomparabilis eruditione, fide, conversatione et moribus insignis.

Eckart always endeavours to bring his speculations into combination with the theology of the Church; but the interpretation which he puts upon the received dogmas often deviates widely from their spirit.10 He evidently regards, nay, openly proclaims outward rites and observances as not necessary to the essence of piety. Traces of his familiarity with the Schoolmen may be found in his subtile and often purely formal distinctions and syllogisms; but their spirit was utterly repugnant to his. On this point Professor Schmidt says:—“Regarding Neoplatonism as by no means incompatible with Christianity, his philosophical views resemble in their general tendency those of Dionysius Areopagita, combining with them the mystical elements contained in the writings of St. Augustine. The theory of that great Father respecting the total corruption of human nature does not, however, occur in his writings in the sense in which it is understood by the Church. With Plato himself he is not unacquainted, but cites him several times, calling him ‘the great Parson’ (Der grosse Pfaffe). Scotus Erigena, the translator of the Platonizing Dionysius, though not named in his writings, must be regarded as furnishing the starting point for his theories. Of the other mystics of the middle ages he only names St. Bernard. But he has not rested within the systems advanced by any of the philosophers he studied; he made all the ideas that he may have derived from them his own, and gave them a further development, so that his position is that of a thoroughly original thinker.”

After preaching some time in Strasburg, Eckart appears to have removed to Cologne. It is not known whether or not he had found it necessary to leave the former city; but it seems not improbable that he may have fallen under accusation of heresy there, from the circumstance that many of the propositions condemned, by the Bishop (John of Ochsenstein) in 1317, as the doctrines of the Strasburg Beghards, agree, often word for word, with propositions to be found in Eckart’s writings. In Cologne he preached publicly for a few years in the church of his convent, and taught in the university; but he was not suffered to remain long unmolested. The way in which his writings were used by the Beghards, who were condemned by the Archbishop of Cologne in 1322, appears to have drawn the attention of the latter to his preaching. He cited Eckart to appear before him, and accused him of heresy; but as Eckart refused to submit to his sentence, and continued to preach, the Archbishop appealed to the Pope. His writings were at length condemned in a bull dated March 1329, from which it appears that he was then no more, as it is stated that he had returned to the Catholic faith before his death. It seems utterly inconsistent with the deep conviction that pervades his writings, and the inflexibility of his character, to suppose that he should have recanted any of his doctrines; but probably he merely expressed his adherence to the doctrines of the Church, which he never seems to have intended to impugn, but to place upon what he regarded as their true foundation.

He never separated from the communion of the Church, and gathered round him in Cologne a circle of ardent admirers, among whom was probably Tauler11 (who seems to have often visited Cologne), and certainly Suso, whose biographer relates: “After these dreadful sufferings (of conscience) had lasted near upon ten years, . . . he came to the holy Master Eckart, and told him of his pain, . . . and the Doctor helped him out of it.”12

Tauler’s influence upon his countrymen has been so much more powerful and enduring than that of Eckart, that he has often been called erroneously the first of the German Mystics, and Eckart represented as his pupil. While, however, in his general cast of thought and language, Tauler bears traces of Eckart’s influence, his views do not appear at any period to have been identical with those of his forerunner. Though inclined to speculation, his whole turn of mind and character was more practical than that of Eckart, and his attention more directed to the application of religious principles to real life. Even the sermon which, as we have read, he preached before the remarkable change wrought in him through the agency of the great Layman, though displaying more formality and subtlety with less of tenderness, unction, and spirituality than generally characterize his later sermons, is yet far less abstruse and metaphysical, and has far more bearing upon morals and life, than is the case with Eckart’s discourses.

There was, however, another famous Dominican preacher at Strasburg, in Tauler’s youthful days, Nicolas of Strasburg, who though also a mystic, and possessing a very powerful intellect, was a man of a very different stamp from Eckart, and who appears to have always stood in high favour with the heads of the Church. He was the author of several works, and was appointed by Pope John XXII. Nuncio, with the oversight of all the Dominican convents in the province of Germany. I have not had the opportunity of reading any of his productions; Professor Schmidt describes his preaching as less speculative and much more popular, intelligible, and practical than Eckart’s, and says that “his sermons are rather mystical and ascetic than, strictly speaking, metaphysical; they breathe a profound yearning after inward peace and a glowing love to God, but do not display an intellect so lofty as that of the great mystic.” That he was, however, a man of extraordinary learning is evinced by a work which he wrote on the coming of Anti-Christ, and the second Advent of Our Lord, in order to prove that the numerous legends and prophecies current in that age, as in all times of great calamity and mighty convulsions, were unworthy of credit, and that nothing positive was to be learnt from Holy Scripture respecting the date of future events.13

There were many other mystics in Strasburg at this date, of whom nothing is known beyond their names, but this very fact is sufficient to prove the wide diffusion of such doctrines in that city. The same phenomenon also meets us in a heretical guise, among the fanatical Beghards who since the close of the thirteenth century had filled the Rhenish provinces with their doctrines of the absolute freedom of the spirit, and the abolition of all distinctions between the Creator and the creature. They were denominated (most likely by the title of their own choosing) the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, and made proselytes equally among the laity and clergy. In the year 1317, Bishop Ochsenstein complains that Alsace was full of them, and in a circular to the clergy of his diocese, he condemns the mystical and pantheistic doctrines of this sect, whose members were given over to the secular authorities, and by them apparently punished with imprisonment. Whether or no Eckart was connected with them, they do not seem to have exercised any influence upon Tauler; for in his sermons he repeatedly inveighs against “The Free Spirits,” who he says, “striving after a false freedom, and on pretext of following the inward light, follow only the inclinations of their own nature.”

But besides the Beghards, there were still lingering in Southern Germany and Italy, remains of the Albigenses and Waldenses and Manichean Cathari,—reverers of the Abbot Joachim’s Eternal Gospel of the Holy Ghost (that was to overthrow the Gospel of the Son),—believers in the visions of the Prophetess Hildegard,—adherents of the revolutionary Oliva and Fra Dolcino. There were, indeed, many reasons why heresies and religious divisions should abound in these regions at this period. Not only was the German Empire, as we shall soon see, torn by political dissensions, which in many ways were interwoven with the religious controversies then afloat, but there was variance between the heads of the Church and its most efficient servants,—the devoted, hard-working, enthusiastic Franciscans. The two Mendicant Orders were formed to reclaim for the Papacy her empire over the human mind, which in the twelfth century was threatened on the one hand by the moral purity and elevation of the Albigenses, who almost occupied the fairest provinces of France, on the other by the learning and civilisation no less than the arms of the Mahometan infidels; and faithfully had they accomplished their vocation, by turns refuting heretics by their learning or dazzling them by miracles, outshining them in ascetic purity, crushing them by the Inquisition, or winning them by self-devoted charity.

While the higher ecclesiastics, above all the Papal court, were enormously wealthy, and, with few exceptions, absorbed in secular objects and pleasures,—the parochial clergy likewise often worldly and vicious, generally ignorant and inert,—the wandering friars came among the neglected flocks, roused them from the sleep of sin, reclaimed the vicious, convinced the scoffer, brought hope to the wretched, consolation to the sick and dying; and, as a natural result, the people were eager to express their gratitude by placing their property in the hands of the Order which had shown such zeal for their souls. And thus, though forbidden by their original constitution to hold property, in a few years the amount of wealth which they accumulated from the bequests of the dying was so large as to excite the jealousy of the regular clergy, already irritated by the friars’ denunciation of worldliness, and the tacit censure of themselves implied in the ascetic lives and burning zeal of their rivals, and they repeatedly demanded the suppression of the two Orders.

But within the Orders themselves had soon sprung up the old strife and division that seems to threaten the life of all spiritual organizations in the second generation, arising from the innate antagonism between the self-indulgence, prudence, and acquisitiveness inherent in human nature, and the pure but unreasoning spiritual impulses to which they have owed their existence. The Dominicans, with their characteristic address, retained the conflicting elements within their own bosom, and equally availed themselves of fervent piety or worldly power. The Franciscans, more enthusiastic and less far-sighted, divided into two parties,—those who consented to hold property in trust for the See of Rome, and those termed Spiritual Franciscans, who adhered rigidly to the literal interpretation of their rule of absolute poverty. From the latter sprang numerous spiritual and mystical sects, differing in their tenets, but all coinciding in their fervid faith and their inculcation of poverty and asceticism, all democratic as regarded hierarchical authority, and many involving all the wealthy and noble in their hatred to wealth and power. Doctrines of this kind were indeed sure to find acceptance among the oppressed serfs and lower classes in general; and by their very essence the Franciscans had entirely cast in their lot with the people. Among these sects the Fraticelli, who flourished at the beginning of this century, foretold the overthrow of the corrupt and carnal Papacy, and the establishment of a spiritual kingdom ruled over by “the Perfect.”

The eremitical Cœlestines, the charitable Beguines, who originally devoted themselves to works of mercy, the devotional Lollards, nay, probably the brethren and sisters of the Free Spirit, seem also to have been offshoots from these Spiritual Franciscans.

The Pope now ruling had, however, put himself in opposition with those of the Spiritual party who remained within the bounds of their Order, and were guilty of no heresy but that of asserting the absolute poverty of Christ and His Apostles. He deposed the General of the Order, and caused the inmates of many convents to be persecuted for maintaining a doctrine which struck at the root of the Papal authority. In return, they boldly denounced the Pope as a heretic, and became important auxiliaries to the Emperor Louis IV. in that long struggle which occupies the period we are considering. They found powerful coadjutors in the profoundly learned and able politicians,—William of Ockham and Marsilio of Padua, whose writings taught men to investigate the origin of the Papal power. But not only from the princes with whom the Pope interfered, and the miserable populace whose passions were at the mercy of fanatical preachers or demagogues; from the burghers in the cities there also arose a strenuous opposition to the outrageous claims and the arbitrary tyranny of the hierarchy. This class had long been rising in wealth and importance; and in the earlier half of this fourteenth century they succeeded in obtaining a share of the government in nearly all the chief cities of Germany; and the men who had emancipated themselves from the temporal rule of the Bishop and his aristocracy, and were rejoicing in the fresh air of freedom and the sense of manhood, were not inclined to follow any longer blindly and unquestioningly their spiritual masters.

With the double election of Frederic of Austria and Louis of Bavaria, who were both crowned on the 25th of November 1314, at Aix-la-Chapelle, began a desolating warfare, which lasted for eight years, till the Battle of Muehldorf in 1322 left Frederic a prisoner in the hands of Louis. Strasburg was divided between the rival Emperors. The Bishop and the important family of the Zorn were adherents of Frederic; but the no less important family of the Muellenheim declared for Louis; and the latter had the greater part of the citizens on their side. Thus, when Frederic ascended the Rhine and arrived in Strasburg in January 1315, he was not received as their sovereign by the citizens, but merely treated as an illustrious guest; while, on the contrary, the Bishop and clergy paid him regal honours, which procured them various proofs of his favour. Louis, on hearing in his camp at Spires the conduct of the citizens, confirmed the liberties and privileges of the city. When, five years later, in August 1320, Louis came with his army to Strasburg, the burghers solemnly tendered him allegiance in the cathedral, in return for which he again confirmed their privileges; but the clergy had suspended the offices of public worship, and the greater part of the nobles still sided with them.

On the captivity of Frederic, most of the imperial cities of Alsace came over to Louis; but this did not restore concord to the afflicted land: for Pope John XXII., bent upon the humiliation of Louis, whose popularity and power were such as threatened to render him too independent of the Holy See, now interfered in the affairs of the Empire, and by his persistent refusal to acknowledge Louis, brought down unspeakable calamities on Europe, while he stirred up the people to a resistance which could not but in the end prove fatal to their reverence for the Papal Chair. So long as the strife lasted between Frederic and Louis, John XXII., while claiming it as his right to decide between them, had refrained from pronouncing any actual decision for either party; but as soon as the former was subdued, and there was a prospect of peace, he instituted a process against the victorious Louis for assuming the title of King of the Romans before receiving the Papal sanction, admonished him to lay down all his powers, and forbade his subjects to render further fealty to him. But when in the following year it appeared that the real object of the Pope was to depose Louis altogether, and raise the King of France to the throne, the Diet assembled at Frankfurt declared almost unanimously for their brave Emperor, in defiance of the unrighteous claims of the Romish See. The Pope in return laid all who had acknowledged Louis under interdict in July 1324, from which some places were not released for six-and-twenty years.

It must not be forgotten what this sentence involved, how intimately its consequences were felt in every parish and every home, when the churches stood silent and empty for years, the lawless and wicked were left unwarned, and the pious deprived of the consolation of worship and the holy communion during all this most dark and troubled period. But, in spite of its terrors, the German people, and even the greater part of the clergy, took part with their princes, with the exception, however, of the Bishops of Passau and Strasburg. The city of Strasburg, however, remained faithful to Louis, resisting by force the officers who attempted to proclaim the Papal fulmination against the Emperor, and sending troops to his assistance. The Bishop John von Ochsenstein died in 1338; but his successor, Berthold von Bucheke, trod in his footsteps. Strasburg itself, like most of the German cities, took but little heed of the Interdict and the repeated sentences of excommunication hurled against Louis by the Pope. The internal division still continued, headed by the two families of Zorn and Muellenheim, till in 1332 a sanguinary contest took place, which resulted in the overthrow of the old constitution of the city, and the introduction of the craftsmen into the Senate. But the new magistrates and the Bishop remained as much at variance as ever.

In 1338, the latter induced his Metropolitan, the Archbishop of Mayence, to convene an assembly of German Bishops at Spires, from which the prelates despatched an address to the Pope Benedict XII., earnestly beseeching him to be reconciled with Louis, and put an end to this lamentable state of discord. Their petition was supported by envoys from the Estates of the Empire, moved thereto by Louis, who declared himself ready to yield all obedience to the Holy See which was consistent with God’s glory, his own just right, and the weal of the Empire. But as, in spite of these and similar efforts, the Pope continued to prescribe conditions which made a reconciliation impossible, the Bishop of Strasburg continued to withstand the Emperor, and do all that lay in his power to injure the imperial cause in Alsace. Louis now resolved to resort to decisive measures against this restless adversary, and in 1329 commanded the Rhenish cities to join the Duke Rudolf of Bavaria and Conrad Lord of Kinkel, in attacking Berthold. The latter, having for allies the Duke of Austria, the Count of Wurtemberg, the Bishop of Basle, and other nobles, took the field, beleaguered several cities of Alsace, and laid waste the surrounding country: his opponents carried reprisals into his territories.

Strasburg, wearied out with the misery caused by this never-ceasing contention, at length declared to the Bishop that it would no longer yield him obedience unless he made peace with the Emperor; and the Prelate, whose arms had moreover met with reverses, and whose finances were exhausted, fearing lest the other towns of his diocese should follow the example of Strasburg, resolved to do homage to Louis and receive investiture from him, under the reservation of absolute obedience to the Pope, while he sent an envoy to Benedict XII. representing his desperate condition, and requesting permission to sheathe the sword. Both Emperor and Pope conceded his requests; and from this time forward he did all that he could to maintain tranquillity within his bishopric, which was the more necessary, as the controversy between the Empire and the Papacy grew more envenomed.

After the famous meeting of the Electoral College at Rhense, near Coblenz, in July 1338, had declared that the King of the Romans received his dignity and power solely from the free choice of the Electors, and the Imperial Diet, held immediately after, had made it a fundamental law of the Empire, that “the imperial dignity is bestowed directly by God, and he who has been legitimately chosen by the Electoral Princes, becomes thereby King and Emperor without further confirmation by the Pope or any other,”—Louis published a Manifesto to all Christendom, refuting at full length the accusations brought against him by the previous Pope, and proving that the Pope has no authority to sit in judgment on the Emperor. He further commanded that none should observe the papal excommunication and interdict, and sentenced all those, whether individuals or whole cities and communities, who should continue to submit to the bann, to be deprived of their rights and liberties.

Great was the impression made by this bold Edict upon the German people, who rallied more and more universally around the Emperor who thus defended his own rights and the honour of the Empire. But concord was banished further than ever, for the clergy in many cases resisted the Emperor’s command to resume the services which had been so long suspended, while the citizens, who had borne with impatience their terrible deprivation of the sacred rites, now on the strength of the Edict issued orders that all the clergy who refused to perform service should be banished. Many priests left their churches and removed into other provinces, numerous convents stood empty of their inmates; still in most places there remained a sufficient number of priests and monks to fulfil the duties of their vocation. This was the case in Strasburg; the city had already suffered all the calamities consequent on the Interdict: the clergy had split into two parties; the larger number obeyed the Pope’s commands; the Augustinians especially had for many years suspended the performance of all religious services. The Dominicans and the Franciscans had availed themselves of the privilege early granted to their Orders of celebrating mass during a time of interdict. But now, when the Emperor so openly set himself in opposition to the Pope, they too, terrified by the sentence of excommunication hanging over them, refused in many instances to say mass, on which the Senate of Strasburg proclaimed:—