indicating an ever-increasing endeavour on the part of the priests to raise new barriers between themselves and those who were not in holy orders. Thence sprang the fervent devotion of the Bohemians to the chalice which has surprised many writers, and has exposed the Bohemians to the ridicule of both ultramontanes and agnostics ever since the days of Hus. To the Hussites the chalice was an emblem signifying the equality of all true Christians.
The ideal object of all mediæval opponents of the Church of Rome was a return to the simplicity of the primitive church, and the poverty of the clergy which that return was considered to imply. All those who, in mediæval times, wished to rescue the church from the evil plight into which it had fallen—whether they remained in the Church of Rome or were excluded from it—felt and expressed profound veneration for poverty. As Cardinal Newman writes:[1] “It will not be denied that, according to the Scripture view of the church, though all are admitted into her pale, and the rich inclusively, yet the poor are her members with a peculiar suitableness and by a special right. Scripture is ever casting slurs upon wealth and making much of poverty.”
It has often been noted that, during the long struggle between the popes and the rulers of Germany, known as the contest about investitures, the German emperors very rarely appealed to the popular feeling in their contest with the Roman pontiffs. We find, of course, an exception in the case of Frederick II., who, after his deposition by Pope Innocent IV. at the Council of Lyons in 1245, appealed to the sovereigns of Europe against the pontiff.[2]This case is, however, an isolated one, and though the victory of the papacy over Germany cannot be
- ↑ Cardinal Newman, Historical Sketches, vol. i. p. 341, ed. of 1894.
- ↑ In the course of this letter the emperor writes: “Semper fuit nostrae voluntatis intentio clericos cujusumque ordinis ad hoc inducere, et praecipue ad ilium statum reducere ut tales persevereut in fine quales fuerunt in ecclesia primitiva apostolicam vitam ducentes et humilitatem dominicam imitantes. (Huillard Bréholles, Historia diplomatica Frederici Secundi, quoted by Lechler.)
