After reading the 'Decameron' and the novels of Franco Sacchetti, we might imagine that the vocabulary of abuse directed at the monks and nuns was exhausted.But towards the time of the Reformation this abuse became still fiercer.To say nothing of Aretino, who in the 'Ragionamenti' uses conventual life merely as a pretext for giving free play to his own poisonous nature, we may quote one author as typical of the rest--Masuccio, in the first ten of his fifty novels.They are written in a tone of the deepest indignation, and with the purpose to make this indignation general; and are dedicated to men in the highest position, such as King Ferrante and Prince Alfonso of Naples.The stories are many of them old, and some of them familiar to readers of Boccaccio.But others reject, with a frightful realism, the actual state of things at Naples.The way in which the priests befool and plunder the people by means of spurious miracles, added to their own scandalous lives, is enough to drive any thoughtful observer to despair.We read of the Minorite friars who travelled to collect alms:
'They cheat, steal, and fornicate, and when they are at the end of their resources, they set up as saints and work miracles, one displaying the cloak of St.Vincent, another the handwriting of St.
Bernardino, a third the bridle of Capistrano's donkey.' Others 'bring with them confederates who pretend to be blind or afflicted with some mortal disease, and after touching the hem of the monk's cowl, or the relics which he carries, are healed before the eyes of the multitude.
All then shout "Misericordia," the bells are rung, and the miracle is recorded in a solemn protocol.' Or else the monk in the pulpit is denounced as a liar by another who stands below among the audience; the accuser is immediately possessed by the devil, and then healed by the preacher.The whole thing was a prearranged comedy, in which, however, the principal with his assistant made so much money that he was able to buy a bishopric from a Cardinal, on which the two confederates lived comfortably to the end of their days.Masuccio makes no great distinction between Franciscans and Dominicans, finding the one worth as much as the other.'And yet the foolish people lets itself be drawn into their hatreds and divisions, and quarrels about them in public places, and calls itself "franceschino" or "domenichino." ' The nuns are the exclusive property of the monks.Those of the former who have anything to do with the laity, are prosecuted and put in prison, while others are wedded in due form to the monks, with the accompaniments of mass, a marriage-contract, and a liberal indulgence in food and wine.
'I myself,' says the author, 'have been there not once, but several times, and seen it all with my own eyes.The nuns afterwards bring forth pretty little monks or else use means to hinder that result.And if anyone charges me with falsehood, let him search the nunneries well, and he will find there as many little bores as in Bethlehem at Herod's time.' These things, and the like, are among the secrets of monastic life.The monks are by no means too strict with one another in the confessional, and impose a Paternoster in cases where they would refuse all absolution to a layman as if he were a heretic.'Therefore may the earth open and swallow up the wretches alive, with those who protect them.' In another place Masuccio, speaking of the fact that the influence of the monks depends chiefly on the dread of another world, utters the following remarkable wish: 'The best punishment for them would be for God to abolish Purgatory; they would then receive no more alms, and would be forced to go back to their spades.'
If men were free to write, in the time of Ferrante, and to him, in this strain, the reason is perhaps to be found in the fact that the king himself had been incensed by a false miracle which had been palmed off on him.An attempt had been made to urge him to a persecution of the Jews, like that carried out in Spain and imitated by the Popes, by producing a tablet with an inscription bearing the name of St.
Cataldus, said to have been buried at Taranto, and afterwards dug up again.When he discovered the fraud, the monks defied him.He had also managed to detect and expose a pretended instance of fasting, as his father, Alfonso, had done before him.The Court, certainly, was no accomplice in maintaining these blind superstitions.
We have been quoting from an author who wrote in earnest, and who by no means stands alone in his judgement.All the Italian literature of that time is full of ridicule and invective aimed at the begging friars.It can hardly be doubted that the Renaissance would soon have destroyed these two Orders, had it not been for the German Reformation and the Counter-Reformation which intervened.Their saints and popular preachers could hardly have saved them.It would only have been necessary to come to an understanding at a favourable moment with a Pope like Leo X, who despised the Mendicant Orders.If the spirit of the age found them ridiculous or repulsive? they could no longer be anything but an embarrassment to the Church.And who can say what fate was in store for the Papacy itself, if the Reformation had not saved it?
