CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
HISTORICAL APPENDIX.
The sorrowful story of Gerhardt's Mission is told by William of Newburyand Ranulph de Diceto. It seems strange that a company of thirty Germanpeasants should have set forth to bring England back to the pureprimitive faith; yet not stranger than that four hundred years earlier,Boniface the Englishman should have set out to convert Germany fromheathenism. Boniface succeeded; Gerhardt failed. The reason for thefailure, no less than for the success, is hidden in the counsels of Himwho worketh all things according to His own will. The time was not yet.
It was in 1159 that this little company arrived in England, and forseven years they preached without repression. Gerhardt, their leader,was the only educated man amongst them, the rest being described as"rustic and unpolished." Some have termed them Publicani or Paulikians;whether they really belonged to that body is uncertain. William ofNewbury says they were a sect which came originally from Gascony, andwas scattered over Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Germany. They seem thereforeto have been true descendants of the old Gallican Church--the Church ofIrenaus and Blandina--which we know retained her early purity far longerthan the Church of Rome. Their defence, too, when examined, was that ofBlandina--"I am a Christian, and no evil is done amongst us."
Their preaching was singularly unsuccessful, if the monkish writers areto be trusted. "They added to their company, during a sojourn of sometime in England, only one girl (_muliercula_), who, as report says, wasfascinated by magic." Perhaps their work was of more value thanappeared on the surface. After seven years of this quiet evangelising,the King and the clergy interfered. Considered as a "foreign sect,"they were cited before a council held at Oxford in 1166, the Kingstating his desire neither to dismiss them as harmless, nor to punishthem as guilty, without proper investigation.
Gerhardt was the chief spokesman. To the questions asked he repliedthat they were Christians, and "revered the doctrine of the Apostles,"but he expressed abhorrence of certain Romish tenets--_e.g._, Purgatory,prayers for the dead, and the invocation of saints. He is said to haveshown detestation for the sacraments and for marriage: which, comparedwith similar accusations brought against the Albigenses, and theirreplies thereto, almost certainly means that he objected to the corruptview of these institutions taken by Rome. If Gerhardt deniedconsubstantiation, baptismal regeneration, and the sacramental characterof matrimony, the priests were sure to assert that he denied thesacraments and marriage. The Albigenses were similarly accused, andalmost in the same sentence we are told that they had their wives withthem. When "the Scriptures were urged against them," the Germansdeclined disputation. They probably saw that it would be of no avail.Indeed, what good could be gained by disputing with men who confessedthat they received Scripture only on the authority of the Church (whichthey held superior to the Word of God), and who allowed no explanationof it save their own private interpretation?--who were so illogical asto urge that the Church existed before the Scriptures as a reason forher superiority, and so ignorant as to maintain that _pulai adou_signified the power of Satan! Asked if they would do penance, theGermans refused: threatened with penalties, they held firm. Theirpunishment was terrible. They were, of course, by Rome's cruel fictionthat the Church punishes no man, delivered over to the secular power;and the sentence upon them was that of branding on the forehead, theirgarments being cut down to the girdle, and being turned into the openfields. Proclamation was made that none should presume to receive themunder his roof, nor "to administer consolation." The sentence wascarried out with even more barbarity than it was issued, for Gerhardtwas twice branded, on forehead and chin, all were scourged, and werethen beaten with rods out of the city. No compassion was shown even tothe women. Not a creature dared to open his door to the "heretics."Their solitary convert recanted in terror. But the Germans wentpatiently and heroically to their death, singing, as they passed on, thelast beatitude--"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecuteyou, and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for Mysake." Their suffering did not last long. It was in the depth ofwinter that they were cast out, and they soon lay down in the snow andyielded up their martyr-souls to God.
According to the monkish chroniclers, not one survived. But oneelaborate argument may be found, by an eminent antiquary (_Archaologia_,nine 292-309), urging that survivors of this company were probably theancestors of a mysterious group entitled "Waldenses," who appear in thePublic Records in after years as tenants, and not improbably vassals, ofthe Archbishop of Canterbury. They paid to that See 4 shillings perannum for waste land; 3 shillings 4 pence for "half a plough of land ofgable;" 5 shillings 4 pence at each of the four principal feasts, with32 and a half pence in lieu of autumnal labours--_i.e._, mowing,reaping, etcetera. When the Archbishop was resident on the manor ofDarenth, they had to convey corn for his household, in consideration ofwhich they received forage from his barns, and a corrody or regularallowance of food and clothing from a monastery. I am not competent tojudge how far the contention of the writer is valid; but the possibilityof such a thing seemed to warrant the supposition in a tale that one ortwo of the company might have escaped the fate which undoubtedlyovertook the majority of the mission.
The story may be found in a condensed form in Milner's Church History,Three, 459.
Every one of the singular names, as well as prices, and various otherdetails, has been taken from the Pipe Rolls of Henry Second, from thefirst to the twenty-seventh year. All the characters are fictitiousexcepting the Royal Family, the Earl and Countess of Oxford, the membersof the Council, Gerhardt himself, and--simply as regards theirexistence--Osbert the porter, his wife Anania, and Aliz de Norton, whoare entered on the Pipe Roll as inhabitants of Oxford at this date.
The language spoken at that time, whether French or English, would bewholly unintelligible to read, if enough of it had come down to us tomake it possible to be written. It seemed best, therefore, to useordinary modern English, flavoured with the Oxfordshire dialect, and nowand then varied by antique expressions.
THE END.
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