“‘Who are these who come amongst us,
Strangers to our speech and ways?
Passing by our joys and treasures,
Singing in the darkest days!
Are they pilgrims, journeying on
From a land we have not known?’
‘We are come from a far country,
From a land beyond the sun―
We are come from that great glory,
Round our God’s eternal throne:
Thence we come, and thither go,
Here no resting-place we know.
‘Far within the depth of glory,
In the Father’s house above,
We have learned His wondrous secret,
All the mystery of His love,
Known the welcome and the kiss
Of unutterable bliss.
‘We have seen the golden City
Shining as the jasper stone―
Heard the Song that fills the Heavens
Of the Man upon the throne.
Well that glorious One we know,
He has sent us here below.
‘We have drunk the living waters,
On the Tree of Life have fed,
Therefore deathless do we journey
‘Midst the dying and the dead;
And unthirsting do we stand
Here amidst the barren sand.’
‘Wherefore are ye come amongst us
From the glory to the gloom?’
‘Christ in glory breathed within us
Life, His life, and bid us come;
Here as living springs to be,
Fountains of that life are we.
‘Fountains of the life that floweth
Ever downwards from the throne,
Witnesses of that bright glory
Where, rejected, He is gone―
Sent to give the blind their sight,
Turn the darkness into light.
‘He hath sent us, that in sorrow,
In rejection, toil, and loss,
We may learn the wondrous sweetness,
The deep mystery of His cross―
Learn the depth of love that traced
That blest path across the waste.
‘He hath sent us highest honors
Of His cross and shame to win.
Bear His light through deepest darkness,
Walk in white ‘midst foulest sin.
Sing amidst the wintry gloom,
Sing the blessed songs of home.’”
BUT it was at first rather the loathing of sin, and bitter repentance, that marked the awakening of the soul of Richard Rolle; and it was only by degrees that he learned “the song of the joy of God.” For, he says, “From the beginning of the alteration in my mind and life, to the opening of the heavenly door, so that with unveiled face the eye of the heart might behold the things that are above, and see the way to seek the Beloved, and to sigh for Him, was a period of three years all but three or four months. Then, the door remaining open, up to the time that the warmth of eternal love was truly felt in the heart, about a year past away.”
Thus it would appear, if we attempt to fit together the scattered fragments of his history, his “alteration of mind” began at Oxford, and must have proceeded during the years that followed. For it was at the age of nineteen that he returned to Yorkshire, “lest he should be entangled in the snares of sin.”
By what means was it that, during his Oxford life, this change came to him—this passing of the soul from death to life?
He tells us nothing of teachers or friends, and we are left to gather from certain marks which stamp his writing, from what quarter the light shone to him. It could scarcely have been from the schools, where men were discussing whether a God existed. Could it have been from the abbeys, with their glorious churches and solemn services?
A general answer to this question is not wanting from the pages of history. It was already the case one hundred and fifty years before, that Bernard of Clairvaux lifted up his voice against the wickedness of the cloisters. “The whole Christian people, from the least to the greatest,” he said, “has conspired against God. It is not the time to say ‘as the people, so the priest,’ for the people are not even as the priest is. They are the ministers of Christ, but serve Antichrist. All that remains is, that this ‘man of sin’ should be revealed.”
But Bernard was a reformer of the Church? He would in this respect have gladly been a Reformer. But the reformation he wrought was but as a drop of pure water in an ocean of mire.
And a few years later, Cardinal Hugo, giving a parting address at Lyons to the General Council of the Church assembled there, remarked with shameless irony, that the Church dignitaries who were now leaving had been very useful to the city, for whereas there were there, when they came, three or four places of ill repute, now there was only one, but it was the whole city of Lyons, from the eastern gate to the western.
And later on, just after the death of Richard Rolle, the Rector of the University of Paris, after describing the avarice and debauchery of the highest clergy, writes― “If any is lazy, if any one hate work, he flees to the priesthood. As soon as he has attained to it, he diligently frequents taverns and houses of ill fame, and spends his time in drinking, feasting, singing, and playing at dice and games. Gorged and drunken, he fights and shouts, and makes riots, and execrates the Name of God and His saints with his most polluted lips.”
“And often,” wrote Richard Rolle himself, “do priests open to other men the gate of Heaven, whilst they for their ill life are barred out. For soothly many fail, and few are holy.”
Thus it may be supposed that it was not from the sacred precincts of the cloisters that the stream of living water flowed into the heart of Richard Rolle.
And yet, when we examine all possible channels through which God’s grace may have reached him, we find two suppositions which may cast a ray of light upon his history; and one of these is, that the Spirit of God may have spoken through faithful men in the great Abbey of Rewley.
It has been mentioned that Rewley had been built about the time of Richard’s birth by Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall. Edmund, the son of Richard Plantagenet, king of the Romans, had done a strange act, the like of which had not been done before in England. He had founded his College of Ashridge in Buckinghamshire not for any of the monks or friars who had convents already in England, but for some strange men whom he brought from over the seas, and who were called the Boni Homines, or in France, from whence they came, “les bonshomme’s,” though they had there and elsewhere other names, for they were of those known as “the Friends of God.”
“Of this religious order,” says the author of the History of Ashridge, “there was no establishment in England before this event. The Earl of Cornwall introduced them into the kingdom from the south of France, at a time when there prevailed in that country a sect who called themselves Boni Homines. The historian of the Abbey of S. Alban’s terms them a sect of mystics, and by some they were confounded with the Albigenses, but in truth were, according to Mosheim, a remnant of the ancient Paulicians.
“That the Bonhommes of Ashridge, however, were nearly allied to the Albigenses, has been supposed probable by what remained of the old paintings on the walls of the Cloisters of Ashridge; the subjects being all chosen to deride the preaching friars and minorites, who had at first pretended to absolute poverty and self-denial, yet they built nobly and lodged superbly, and had thus drawn much odium upon themselves.” Thus far the historian of Ashridge.
That the old paintings had no higher purpose than to deride the Dominican and Franciscan friars, seems however contradicted by facts, for of the forty compartments which were painted, twenty-nine contained only various incidents in the life of Christ, beginning apparently with the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem, and ending with the Ascension. The remaining eleven have been so defaced by time, the subjects remain unknown.
It must be remembered that the mother of Earl Edmund was one of the five daughters of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, being the sister of Eleanor, Queen of England, and of Marguerite, Queen of France, the wife of S. Louis. Edmund’s connection, therefore, with the south of France, sufficiently explains his relations with the Bonihomines, who were not Albigenses, but Catholics standing in close spiritual relationship with the Waldensian Brethren.
We know, especially from recent researches, how much of the evangelical teaching of the Waldensian “Brethren” had taken root in the hearts of those who still remained in outward communion with the Church of Rome, but who were united in inward communion with the “Friends of God” outside of it.
It is natural to suppose that during the twenty years which followed Earl Edmund’s importation of these suspected “mystics,” there must have been frequent communication between them and the monks of Rewley in the neighboring county. And that the belief and the language of the “Friends of God” should so strongly mark the writings of Richard Rolle might be thus explained.
The second supposition leads us into a subject of great interest, respecting which much more remains to be ascertained. But of that which seems hitherto to be proved as regards this point, a short account may be given. It is from an unexpected quarter that this ray of light shines upon our history.
It has been already mentioned that about the time of the birth of Richard Rolle, and during a period extending from the middle of the thirteenth into the following century, some of the most magnificent and extensive of the Oxford monasteries were built, besides which colleges were founded, with appropriate buildings, and churches either built or decorated, shrines being added, in some cases, of wonderful beauty. The shrine of S. Frideswyde, still existing, is one of these.
The number of masons and builders thus employed in and around the city was therefore considerable, and they were in fact a standing addition to the population, as they were not necessarily, or even probably, taken from the working classes-of the town, nor did they form a part of the trades guilds or fraternities, which were under municipal rule. They were, in fact, to a great extent foreigners, belonging to the widely-spread international organization of what may perhaps best be called “the building tabernacles,”―known in Germany, where this confederation seems first to have formed itself, “die Bau Mitten.”
To understand how this confederation arose, we must trace back the history of that which we call “Gothic architecture” to a period of several centuries earlier, when the great stone churches and convents began to take the place of thatched and wooden buildings.
For a considerable time these great architectural undertakings were entirely in the hands of the clergy. Not only were the designers and architects bishops and clergy of the higher orders, but the actual manual labor was carried on by monks and lay-brethren. Before the year 1000 there is no record of a church built under the direction of a layman. In fact there seems, in Germany at least, to be no really decisive evidence of the employment of laymen till the year 1099, when a fraternity of stone-masons is mentioned as existing at Lüttich, and from one of these the Bishop of Lüttich sought to gain information as to the building of a church, by bribing his son to reveal the secrets of his father’s art.
But as time went on, and churches were built in towns, whereas the convents were outside the walls, the exclusive employment of monks became a matter of difficulty, and in fact the numbers of the clergy did not suffice for the numerous building operations.
We then hear of men, and even women, of all classes coming to help in that part of the work which demanded no previous training. Ladies who in our days would seek to add to their stock of sanctity by cleaning or decorating churches, in those days carried mortar and bricks for the same purpose.
By the time we reach the thirteenth century, the numbers of clerical and lay architects began to be about equal, and consequently the lay-masons and builders consisted no longer of volunteer and amateur workmen, but of skilled laborers, and, in fact, only of those who were solemnly and regularly received into the building fraternity, with appropriate ceremonies and oaths of secrecy.
But this fraternity of the “Building Tabernacles” is by no means to be confounded with the fraternities of Freemasons. Nor must we regard them as forming a branch of the town guilds. On the contrary, having been originally composed of clergy only, and under the direction of the great architects who were high dignitaries in the Church, it was a fraternity exempted from ordinary rules, and from municipal supervision, and having special privileges, which made it an entirely autocratic body. It may be also observed that the reforms introduced by S. Bernard into monastic life tended to withdraw the monks more generally from secular pursuits, and threw open to laymen the employments which the monks deserted for a stricter convent life, but the privileges attached to the building fraternities rained unimpaired.
As the lay element increased, they shared in these privileges; and when by the end of the thirteenth century the clerical element to a great extent disappeared, this fraternity had become so widely spread, that it may correctly be called international.
Even before this, at the end of the eleventh century, we find communications existed between the German builders at Hirschau in the Black Forest, and those at Canterbury, Clugny, Dijon, and Marseilles. And when the “Building Tabernacles” became a fixed institution, this fraternal communication became so organized that the whole was in fact a cosmopolitan body. For this reason an interpreter was one of the invariable officials at each Tabernacle.
In the middle of the thirteenth century we find the architect who presided over the Utrecht Tabernacle sending out masons not only to German cities, but from the Zuyder Zee to Burgos, Miraflores, and Xante.
“Thus,” says Dr. Janner, “may we account for the masonic marks and regulations recognized by the builders alike from Sweden and England to Orvieto, so that a mason became as such a citizen of the world, and was transferred from one country to another as the need required.”
To explain the expression Tabernacle, we have but to take the word in its literal sense. When the church or cloister was to be erected, a hut, or tabernacle, was put up; if possible in a square. On the east side the master architect had his station. The tabernacle contained not only workshops, but a council chamber, a registry, a counting-house, and a magazine of implements. There was also in general a chapel attached, in which the chaplain of the Tabernacle said mass. But as the lay element took the place of the clerical, it often happened that the master builder took the place of the chaplain.
And we now reach the point at which the history of the Tabernacles becomes interwoven, in a manner most remarkable, with that of the Waldensian “Apostles” and “Brethren.” In the complaint made by Alvarus Pelagius of the swarms of “heretical Apostles and Beghards,” he charges them with having been nothing better than masons and builders, black smiths, weavers, and such like.
Have we no further reason for connecting the Tabernacles with the widely-spread, international community of “Brethren”?
The proofs given which lead to such a conclusion are clearly drawn out by Dr. Keller.
He remarks that in the writings handed down to us from some of the most well-known “Brethren,” no subject seems to be more familiar to them than architectural science, and in the case of the celebrated “Friend of God from the Oberland,” we find that he was consulted as to church building, and the erection of the “House of the Green Meadow,” as being evidently an expert in ecclesiastical building. He made architectural designs, as did also his friend Rulman Merswin, which prove him to have been an adept.
But the most convincing proofs on this head are those which do not lie upon the surface, but which are derived from a search into the mysterious origin of that wonderful architecture, which stood in contrast to all that preceded it in ancient art, and has had nothing to succeed it but distorted and inharmonious imitations in modern times.
“It borders, in fact, on the fabulous,” writes Reichensperger, “if we attempt to take a survey of all that from the twelfth century to the sixteenth was achieved in building, carving, and painting, as branches of Christian civilization. There stands yet, in spite of the assaults of later generations, a forest of cathedrals, for which modern resources scarcely avail to keep them in repair.
“What was the lever, by means of which this enormous work was accomplished, at a time when mechanical appliances were so little available in comparison with their power in modern times?
“The chief lever, as to architectural art and science, consists without a doubt in the existence of the mediæval tabernacles.”
What, then, was the form of Christian thought expressed by the builders? is the question we must consider.
“The preponderating influence,” writes Keller, “which inspired creative art in the Middle Ages, has been pointed out by the most distinguished art-historians as that religious tendency to which the name of ‘mysticism’ is usually given. Carl Schnaase says in plain words that only those are capable of understanding the art of the fourteenth century who are conversant with the writings of the ‘Friends of God.’ And conversely, he says of the theology of the Mystics, ‘It takes evidently an artistic character, and the more closely we examine medieval art, the more do we involuntarily realize its close connection with the Christianity of the Mystics.’”
“This similarity,” Keller proceeds to say, “does not consist in general impressions or sentiments, but on distinct and special facts. Symbolism played a very conspicuous part in mystical writings. Beliefs, counsels, maxims, which they dared not put into plain words for fear of the heretic tribunals, were expressed by them in a language of signs, which, generally speaking, was only understood amongst the ‘Brethren’ themselves. And they therefore often expressed in legendary or allegoric form” (as for example in the legends of the Holy Grail) that which they did not desire to be patent to those who kept a suspicious eye upon their writings.
“Symbols taken from architectural art play a great part in their writings. But natural objects in general served them as a secret language, and seldom, says Schnaase, do they speak Of God except in symbolic terms. They made much of mystical numbers, and described in the form of visions, the truths which they dared not write down in plain words.
“And when, in examining their writings, we compare their symbols and symbolic numbers, with those prevailing in the architecture and painting of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the relation between the two cannot escape us. And only in the light of mystical thought can we understand the meaning and purpose of contemporary Christian art.”
It would be extremely interesting to pursue this subject, did space permit. Suffice it now to say that the historical proofs which lead to the same conclusions are not wanting.
Such as, for example, is the declaration made in 1332 by the eleven German cities, that they would uphold the authority of the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria in defiance of the Pope. The cities solemnly assert that they have taken their stand upon the ground of Holy Scripture, denying the claims of the Pope to temporal power. “For the Scriptures declare that it is from Almighty God alone that all power and authority derive their existence.”
This declaration, as Dr. Keller observes, is so worded that it tells its own tale of having been composed by men versed in architecture and geometry, being marked by symbols taken from their craft, being, in fact, written in the current language of the Masters of the Tabernacles.
The fact of an influx of the Waldensian apostles and of the Friends of God into the building fraternity may be accounted for, by the safety which such an association assured them. The Tabernacles were sacred ground, into which inquisitors and town officials could not enter, and if the Master of the Tabernacle were himself one of the “Apostles,” he was free to conduct the worship of God himself, in the simple manner of the “Brethren,” reading the Bible, and praying with his workmen. None could interfere with his authority from outside.
And in all cases it would appear the daily reading of the Bible, forbidden and discouraged by the Romish clergy, formed a part of the Tabernacle services. From the ancient formularies still existing, we may suppose that extempore prayer was often offered by the “Brethren,” as it is specified that player may be longer or shorter as most befitting the occasion. It would appear also that whilst the Lord’s Prayer was in use, the Ave Maria was omitted, and only a few of the saints’ days recognized, those being the days kept in memory of the Twelve Apostles, John the Baptist, and the Virgin Mary. The Bible was always read in the mother tongue amongst the German and French “Brethren,” and was, as we know, translated for the English by Wiclif, translations of certain books, such as Richard Rolle’s Psalter, existing previously. It was a matter of necessity that those who were to draw their inspirations of Christian art from Christian sources, should in the first place make a study of the Word of God, and it is proved that in this great fraternity an exact acquaintance with the Old and New Testaments was regarded as indispensable. The builders never allowed their Bibles to be taken out of their hands.
Dr. Keller thus concludes: ― “According to my judgment, we can, by means of existing materials, arrive at the proof, not only that a spiritual connection, as before noticed, existed from early ages between the Tabernacles and the “Brethren,” but also that the forms, ceremonies, the whole constitution and organization of the Tabernacles, as of the whole fraternity were under the influence of those “Christian communities who are known in Church history as Waldensians or Beghards, in England as Lollards, later as Wycliffite’s.”
It is easy to understand that by this means a knowledge of the Bible, and of Gospel truth, could be widely spread through the whole of Western Europe. The Masters worked wherever they were called for building purposes, “going forth,” says Keller, “from their headquarters of Strasburg and Cologne to Brussels, Antwerp, London, York, or any other English city. And especially,” he adds, “when at the end of the thirteenth century England was relatively safe from the terrible persecutions of the Inquisition,” which went far to exterminate the Continental “Brethren,” and where soon after a distinct opposition to Rome marked the Lollard period of English history.
The question naturally arises, Why should the Waldensian “Brethren,” who stood under the ban of the Church of Rome, occupy themselves in the building of Romish cathedrals and churches?
The answer is not far to seek. It must be remembered that the object and purpose of the Waldensian apostles was not to form what we should call a Protestant Church, but to save the souls of men, and bring them into the innermost communion of the heart with God. And in proportion as the architects and masons were drawn from the Brethren’s communities, there appears to have been admitted into the Tabernacle fraternity “brethren and sisters” who became associates, without any intention of taking part in the work of building. In the old codes of the Tabernacle rules we find that such were received as “lovers of the work.”
And the common object of these brethren, sisters, and actual builders, was that which they spoke of as “spiritual building.”
“And from that time,” writes Keller, “the German Tabernacle fraternity built not only stately minsters and cathedrals, but they were at the same time inspired by the desire, which we have found so strongly marked in the ‘Christian communities,’ to build, not in the brat place temples of stone, but, as they expressed it to ‘build a Temple of God of the souls of men.’”
And therefore, the more the persecutions raged against the Friends of God, the more they took refuge, “like defenseless lambs,” in the shelter of the tabernacles, either as workmen, or as “lovers of the work”―the work of building the living Temple.
Nor did it seem to them that in building the cathedrals and abbeys, they were carrying out the purposes of their persecutors, or even doing their part in sensualizing the worship of God. They were no doubt mistaken in this, but there is evidence enough to show that to those who were truly the “Friends of God,” the art they had so marvelously acquired was regarded by them as a means of expressing in stone, by a language of symbols, that which they dared not express in speech or writing.
That a more distinctly Roman Catholic element also prevailed in the Tabernacles must, of course, be admitted; but it remains to be accounted for why so much that was simply Christian truth, as seen, for example, in the frescoes and mosaics of Gospel histories, should be found amongst the images and shrines, which tell as plainly of the corruption of the Church, as the Scriptural representations tell of true faith in God.
None can doubt that in painting his frescoes, da Fiesole truly and honestly desired to bring men to realize the love of Christ. In like manner those builders, who were believing men, sought with an ignorant, perhaps, but sincere intent to lead the thoughts of men up to God. And, therefore, when Reichensperger asserts that the soul and the explanation of the marvelous architecture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was the earnest faith of Catholicism, we may admit that it was earnest faith, but not of Catholicism. It was the faith of Christ, endeavoring to express itself in spite of that which was distinctly Roman Catholic. It was the living faith, which in the heart of the Roman Catholic Church was to become at last the destroyer of her superstitions, and to find a home outside of her pale, through the preaching of the later Reformers. And therefore the Roman Catholic Friends of God stood already in antagonism with that which they still called the Church, and brought down her curses and excommunications upon their heads.
And as the persecutions spread, and Rome destroyed out of her midst those who were of that which Richard Rolle called the “true Holy Church, the men who loved Christ,” the soul passed out of the architecture by which they had spoken, and those who followed could only imitate. But the imitations became, as a modern art-critic has described it, like science without a knowledge of mathematics, or music without a knowledge of thorough bass. The guiding principle had ceased to exist.
A similar degeneracy may be found if we read the writings of the Jesuit “Mystics,” which stand in the same relation to those of the Friends of God, as later architecture to that of the Tabernacles. It was not mysticism, but faith, so often called by that name by those who have it not, which brought the souls of the Friends of God into communion with Him.
Roman Catholicism lasted, though the architecture of the Tabernacle builders came to an end. In fact it not only lasted, but became more truly Roman Catholicism in later ages; and it became the more so, because those who had been as a river of life in the barren desert were burning at the stake, or being driven forth into Protestantism.
Would that Protestantism had retained, not only the doctrines for which they were condemned, but the love for which they died.
But we have to learn that whilst true doctrine is as necessary to Christian life (to use the figure of our art-critic) as thorough bass to music, or mathematics to science, it is only by the power of God the Holy Ghost, that the doctrine becomes to us more than a form of words or a theological system, and we may content ourselves with the form of words the more readily, the more they are true, and in a certain sense rational.
But to receive into the heart the living truth, to be transformed by it into the image of Christ, to be kept by it in continual intercourse with God Himself, is the great miracle of the grace of God, which is needed as much for the orthodox Protestant as for the superstitious Roman Catholic.
And because Protestants in so many cases accepted the “doctrines of grace,” and saw no need of the miracle which should make them to become living souls, they too became as a carcass out of which the life had departed, and the works of their hands told the tale of human skill and human knowledge, but not of the yearning of their hearts after God.
“The need is not that we should change our religion, but that our religion should change us,” said a former Roman Catholic who had for the first time heard and believed the Gospel.
It is true that the changed man will not be content with the old forms, for the new wine must be put into new bottles; he will either sorrowfully bear with them hoping for better things, as did the saints of medieval times, or he will come out into the freedom with which Christ has made him free.
This has been a long digression from the Oxford life of Richard Rolle―but it is perhaps an excusable digression, as casting a side-light upon his history, and bringing us too into sympathy with some of our Christian forefathers, who sought by means we cannot but think mistaken, to bring men to the same Lord and Saviour, who has received them into His presence, and whose Coming we are awaiting now.