536 CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 



Sacred oratory had attained its apogee in the sermons of the twelfth 

 century (Fig. 401), from which time it hegan to suffer from the intrusion of 

 scholasticism, of the formula, and of vague subtleties. "We may say that 

 it already had begun its downward progress towards the decay into which 

 it fell before the end of the thirteenth century. Numerous abuses, too, crept 

 into the ecclesiastical system. Not only did certain simoniacal clerks make 

 money of their sermons, but mere laymen vied with them in making a trade 

 of preaching, and offered to take the place of the priests upon payment of a 

 certain sum. Associations of preachers, having no religious character, were 

 formed for the purpose of farming, so to speak, a parish, or even a diocese, 

 undertaking to supply as many preachers as might be wanted. The Church 

 would not countenance so scandalous a proceeding, but her most stremtous 

 efforts were not always sufficient to prevent these acts of simony. Many 

 priests and curates excused themselves for having allowed them upon the 

 ground of their incapacity to preach themselves. Some talented preachers 

 who had remained true to their mission, then conceived the idea of composing 

 manuals, or grades, in which the priests could obtain the materials for com- 

 posing their sermons. The most esteemed of these preachers' manuals were 

 those of Humbert de Romans and Alain of Lille. 



While this decadence of pulpit oratory was taking place, the art of 

 speaking, with regard to politics, jurisprudence, and scholastic teaching, had 

 come under the favourable influences of the intellectual progress which, from 

 the twelfth century, was universal in all spheres of civil society. History 

 has not, unfortunately, preserved any written record of the efforts of 

 eloquence which accompanied the establishment of communes, the drawing 

 up of charters of franchise, or the reunion of local and general assemblies, at 

 which were present the elected representatives of the nobility, clergy, and 

 bourgeoisie ; in a word, all the struggles of an incipient liberty against the 

 trammels of the feudal system. The oratory of the bar was doubtless still 

 enveloped in the fetters of scholasticism, and the advocates of the first 

 Parliaments are only known to us through the severe satires of which they 

 were made the subjects. An eminent theologian, Pierre Le Chantre, 

 reproaches them with having extorted money from both sides, with having 

 betrayed the cause of the widow and the orphan, with having employed their 

 talents in prolonging and multiplying suits, and inventing all manner of 

 cavils to obscure the truth and prevent the triumph of right. Another 



