ON THE REVIVAL OF LITERATURE. 



349 



ever happened to be the civil magistracy of the state, but were often in a 

 condition to set the authority of the crown itself at defiance. 



As the tenure by which the lands were held was military ; as there 

 was no art or science to occupy the mind ; as reading was seldom culti- 

 vated, and writing a still rarer accomplishment ; every landed proprietor 

 was a mere soldier ; and being expert and strong by the daily use of arms, 

 was eager for an opportunity of showing his prowess. Nor was such 

 opportunity ever wanting ; for, when not employed in expeditions against 

 a public enemy, he was commonly engaged in some petty enterprise at 

 home, prompted by pride, avarice, or revenge. Hence feuds^ as indeed 

 the term itself imports, were the peculiar characteristic of feudal power ; 

 vice and idleness were perpetually engendering animosities ; gross igno- 

 rance disabled the different parties from adjusting them by the address of 

 argument and fair reason ; brutal obstinacy rendered them hereditary ; 

 and the son who succeeded to his father's estate succeeded also to his 

 quarrels. 



While such was the ready aid which the political system of the times 

 administered to the gloomy reign of mental darkness and disorder, the 

 gross misconduct of the church was still more instrumental in promoting 

 the same direful effect. Although nothing is more clear than that, through 

 the whole of this desolate period, God never left himself without a witness 

 of the truth, the purity, and the power of the genuine doctrines of 

 Christianity ; although nothing is more clear than that, even in the deepest 

 midnight of this desolate period, a few honest, zealous, and conscientious 

 ecclesiastics, and even laymen, are to be met with who sedulously and 

 manfully opposed themselves to the general corruption of their contem- 

 poraries ; it is equally clear, that the great mass of the priesthood assumed 

 the sacred habit for the mere purpose of indulging more effectually in the 

 worst and most licentious passions and appetites ; and surpassed all the 

 rest of the community in the irregularity and scandal of their lives. Many 

 of them were professed infidels, and exclaimed openly to each other, 

 " Quantas divitias nobis peperit h<Bc Christi fahula r"* — " What wealth 

 does this fiction of Christ obtain for us !" a sentiment generally ascribed to 

 the fi-ee-thinking genius of Leo X., but which, whether ever uttered by him 

 or not, was in frequent use long before this era ; while nearly all concurred 

 in the well-known motto that " ignorance is the mother of devotion." 



In truth, it requires no ordinary stock of temper to wade through the 

 scenes of abominable filth and bare-faced hypocrisy which characterized 

 the holy fathers of the church, as they were impiously denominated, at 

 the period immediately before us. Crusades, indeed, had long been in 

 use for the extirpation of infidelity, and there were occasional triumphs of 

 the Cross over the Crescent ; but, like most other pretensions to ecclesias- 

 tical zeal and devotion, even these had for the most part been perverted 

 to the sinister purposes of avarice, temporal authority, or revenge ; while 

 plenary indulgences and remissions of sin, for given periods of time, or in 

 other words, formal licenses to live a life of unrestrained debauchery, and 

 gratify every hbidinous appetite and inclination for the term specified, had, 

 during the existence of many crusades, been openly granted at the Vati- 

 can, as well as distributed for this purpose by its commissaries, all over 

 Europe, to every one wlio would either consent to join the sacred standard 

 in person or hire a substitute to fight for him. And similai* indulgences 

 were continued after their cessation, and were notoriously bought and 

 sold at a settled or market-price. 



