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to blood and rapine wail aloud their wrongs. defends him from what he terms "the misrepresentations of sentimental pigmies," and declares that "it was a generous and glorious idea, which gave birth to the enterprise and made it successful." "Tell me not," he continues, "of the thousands who fell on his expedition, tell me not of his own early death: what greater deed was now left for him after he had realized his idea than to die?" How a student conversant with the scholastic philosophers would start if he came to such a sentence as this, on the pages of St. Thomas, or of any other Catholic writer of the middle ages! Truly the highest praise that could be elicited for such heroes, from the lips of the schoolmen, would not exceed that of the poet

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"He is gone whom the world preferred to peace *." Oh, with what solemn earnestness, with what majesty did they admonish kings! "That man carried with him to his grave," says the English Chronicler, William of Newbridge, speaking of his contemporary Henry II., no part of those Irish spoils he had coveted so eagerly in life, risking his eternal salvation to amass them. He left to unthankful heirs all that he had acquired with such toil and danger, and thus afforded a salutary lesson to many +." Ratherius of Verona cites the words of our Lord, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for the other," and then adds, "I love God, each one will now reply, even the worst of all, even a tyrant, for, alas! hatred so much abounds, that no one has more glory than, O horrible to say it, a murderer; but no murderer or hater of his brother, however glorious in the eyes of the world, hath any part in the kingdom of Christ and of God t." He calls murderers men who made war through avarice or pride. St. Aldhelm, of Sherburn, denounced in solemn verse vain glory, and all the vices which lead to horrid war§. But in general, men who instructed kings in the middle ages, after they had sung their Litanies, in some of which was added, "Ab appetitu inanis gloriæ ||," * Lucan. ix. Rer. Angl. ii. 26. Ratheris Ver. Epist. ad Omnes Fideles, ap. Martene vet. Script. ix.

§ S. Ald. de Octo Princip. Vitiis, ap. Canis. Lect. Antiq. i. Ritus Vet. Senensis Ec. ap. Baluze Mis.

they never supposed it necessary to say that wars for glory were sinful; but, appealing to the conscience in general terms, they asked, with Alcuin, "where will be the proud ambition of secular pomp when the spirit returns to the Lord who gave it * ?"

"O, wondrous and miserable condition of men," exclaims Bartholomew de Neo Castro, "O, wondrous prodigy of divine power! Those whom we so lately beheld in glory are now prostrated. O ye, therefore, who glory in the world, learn that the turnings of this earth are in the hand of the Most High, and that besides the law of the Lord there is nothing durable. What profit is there in the favour and pomp of the sons of men, if, laying aside the fear of Christ, you begin to rage against the innocent, and afterwards are struck and removed by the hand of the Lord? Learn whom you ought to fear in heaven, and whom to love on earth, that you may dread the Lord of heaven, and never rise up against your brethren +."

The school, however, had its formal decisions, following the holy Fathers, which it adduced in all treatises on government. "To wage war upon neighbouring countries," it said with St. Augustin, "and then to proceed against others, like Ninus, who was the first to wage such wars, and to attack and subdue nations through the desire of empire, is nothing but robbery on a great scale. Kingdoms so extended are great robberies, just as robberies are little kingdoms. Only when the evil gains such increase that places are seized, cities occupied, and peopled subdued, the name of kingdom is applied to them, which changes nothing, for the cupidity is the same, only in this case there is added impunity ‡. "If with the wish of killing another," says St. Bernard, addressing the Templars, and alluding to secular warfare, you should happen to be slain, you will die guilty of homicide. If you prevail, and with the will of conquering, or of punishing, should slay a man, you will live guilty of homicide: but it is not expedient for you, whether dead or alive, conqueror or conquered, to be guilty

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* Epist. Iviii. ap. Canisii Lectiones Antiq. ii.

+ Historia Siciliæ, c. 36. ap. Mur. Rer. It. Script. xiii. De Civ. Dei, iv. 6. Palatius, Aquila inter Lilia, i. 2.

of homicide." The church knew the evils consequent on peace, but her voice was that of St. Augustin, who said that "it was better to pay the penalty of indolence than to seek the glory of arms, and afford the impious spectacle of nation warring against nation *."

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Writing to king Æthelred, and to the princes and people of Northumberland, Alcuin says, "The sweetness of holy love often compels me to admonish you to maintain that peace which ought to be between you." To the former he says, Amongst the good works, by which you can ascend to heaven, are the charity of God, the love of men, and mercy to men, and patience and benignity to all men. Let no secular ambition, no desire of vengeance upon enemies impede your course, but run while you have light, work while it is day, that you may come to eternal light, and with Christ and his saints to everlasting glory. A king must not desire to seize the inheritance of others, for the rapacious shall never possess the kingdom of God. See how your predecessors perished on account of their rapines. Alas! how miserably will they be tormented in eternal pains! peace with each other, and benignity, and mercy, and justice; and by concord let your kingdom be maintained t."

Have

The sermon of John Gerson, chancellor of Paris, before the king of France and his nobles in 1408, beginning with the words of Isaiah, "Veniat pax," will show with what eloquence the scholastic and mystic wisdom of peace was announced to monarchs down to the close of the middle ages. Indeed many of the ancient laws and ordinances commence with declaring that nothing better than peace can be obtained in this life §. But let us hear what was taught by laymen respecting this beatitude. "War," says Savedra, 'is a violence opposed to the nature and end of man, whom God has formed in His own image, and to whom He has imparted a share of His power over all things for their preservation, but not for their destruction ." That kings must

* De Civ. Dei, iii. 14.

Gersonii Op. tom. iv.

§ Carol. v. in Procem. Leg. Reg. Capit. || Christian Prince, ii. 321.

† Ap. id.

prefer an honest peace to a useful war was the maxim of every writer who touched upon the subject *.

Petrarch, in a letter to Andrew Dandolo, doge of Venice, after reminding him that he had from the first exhorted him to preserve Italy from war, continues thus: "Beware, lest when Nature has made you mild and pacific, and not you only, but all your people, whose happiness depends, not on the success of wars, but on the maintenance of peace and justice, you should seem to be of the herd of those who, as the psalmist says, thought iniquity in their hearts, and all day long urged battles." For nothing, I think, is more odious to God than when He has adorned you with some especial gift or virtue, of your own accord, to endeavour to become evil. Follow then, not the fury of the vulgar, but your own nature, and withdraw your foot while there is time, while, as yet, between the bitter and horrible threats of war, one can still hear pronounced the sweetest name of peace, that you may be called the peace-maker of Italy, and transmit that glorious title to posterity. I beseech and implore you; I conjure you, by the love of virtue, by the love of your country, by the five wounds of Christ, through which issued that most sacred and innocent blood which has redeemed us, not to despise this counsel t." In another letter to the same duke, he says, Though armed, think of peace, love peace, and be assured that you can win no more brilliant triumph, and endow your country with no richer spoil than peace. When it is a question of war, I would use the words of Hannibal, who, though of all men the most warlike, said, as if the words were extorted from his lips by Truth, that a certain peace is better and safer than a hoped-for victory.' And if he, who burned with such a desire of conquering, and who disturbed peace throughout the whole world, said this, what will be urged by the friend of peace? Will he not say, better and holier is a certain peace than a certain victory; because the one is replete with calm, and brightness, and grace, and the other with labour, and crime, and insolence? What is pleasanter than peace ? what sweeter? what happier? Never can I understand what

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Joan. Palatius, Aquila inter lilia, x. 2.

VOL. IX.

E

+ Epist. ix. 15.

pleasure there can be in making war upon men, who, under other circumstances, would expose their breasts for your safety as for their own. They can tell this who feel an effeminate delight in the revenge of injuries. But it is better to forget than to punish, to appease than to destroy an enemy. Gentleness is the part of men, rage of wild animals, and of those only the most ignoble. If my voice can be heard in your grave deliberations, not only you will not reject peace when it approaches, but you will go forth to meet, and, with a close embrace, to welcome it, that it may remain with you for ever

That the new law of forgiveness was binding even upon states, and that public measures opposed to it were the evil deeds of worldly men, was a lesson taught by the great Dominican who filled the see of Genoa: "It would be long," he says, "to tell of the victorious deeds of our state; therefore, we shall only speak of four of these; for every city has duties to fulfil towards God, towards itself, towards its friends, and towards its enemies. It is bound to evince honour to God, to procure common benefits for itself, to give consolation to its friends, and, according to the evangelic rule, to show love to its enemies; but as worldly men desire rather to have victories over enemies than to show them charity, after relating how well our city has fulfilled the three first of these obligations, we shall have to speak of its victories_by arms in ancient and modern times t." In fact, novel as the assertion may seem to those who only read Froissart, the historians of the middle ages speak in general with regret of all warlike deeds. It is not in their volumes that we should find a parallel to the seventh book of Cæsar's Commentaries, where he describes, in the polished, easy style of Madame de Sevigné, the terrible wars of conquest in Gaul, which led to such immense results, so smoothly relating the numbers of the slain, and the shocking amounts of amputated limbs. In relation to such events they might have chosen for their motto the verse referring to a battle in Ireland, cited by "the Four Masters," which says, "the poet sung not the slaughter

Id. Var. Epist. i.

† Jacobi de Voragine Chronic. Januens. ap. Mur. Rer. Ital. Script. ix.