Contempt

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  On the other hand, he would make a point of visiting taverns and other places of ill repute, and supplying them with his custom. Of women he was as fond as dogs are fond of a good stout stick; in their opposite, he took greater pleasure than the most depraved man on earth. He would rob and pilfer as conscientiously as if he were a saintly man making an offering. He was such a prize glutton and heavy drinker, that he would occasionally suffer for his over-indulgence in a manner that was most unseemly. He was a gambler and a card-sharper of the first order. But why do I lavish so many words upon him? He was perhaps the worst man ever born. Yet for all his villainy, he had long been protected by the power and influence of Messer Musciatto, on whose account he was many a time treated with respect, both by private individuals, whom he frequently abused, and by the courts of law, which he was forever abusing. So that when Musciatto, who was well acquainted with his way of living, called this Ser Ciappelletto to mind, he judged him to be the very man that the perverseness of the Burgundians required. He therefore sent for him and addressed him as follows: ‘Ser Ciappelletto, as you know, I am about to go away from here altogether, but I have some business to settle, amongst others with the Burgundians. These people are full of tricks, and I know of no one better fitted than yourself to recover what they owe me. And so, since you are not otherwise engaged at present, if you will attend to this matter I propose to obtain favours for you at court, and allow you a reasonable portion of the money you recover.’ Ser Ciappelletto, who was out of a job at the time and illsupplied with worldly goods, seeing that the man who had long been his prop and stay was about to depart, made up his mind without delay and said (for he really had no alternative) that he would do it willingly. So that when they had agreed on terms, Ser Ciappelletto received powers of attorney from Musciatto and letters of introduction from the King, and after Musciatto’s departure he went to Burgundy, where scarcely anybody knew him. And there, in a gentle and amiable fashion that ran contrary to his nature, as though he were holding his anger in reserve as a last resort, he issued his first demands and began to do what he had gone there to do. Before long, however, while lodging in the house of two Florentine brothers who ran a money-lending business there and did him great honour out of their respect for Musciatto, he happened to fall ill; whereupon the two brothers promptly summoned doctors and servants to attend him, and provided him with everything he needed to recover his health.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘I shall see that he gets it, of course, but first I should like to make sure that it is all here.’ Whereupon she emptied the florins out on to a table, and on finding, to her great satisfaction, that they came to exactly two hundred, she put them away in a safe place. She then went back to Gulfardo and conveyed him to her bedroom, where, not only on that occasion but on many others before her husband’s return from Genoa, she placed her person freely at his disposal. No sooner did Guasparruolo return from Genoa than Gulfardo, having made certain that his wife would be with him, called upon him with his companion, and said to him in the lady’s presence: ‘Guasparruolo, those two hundred gold florins you lent me the other day were not needed after all, as I was unable to complete the transaction. So I brought them straight back and handed them over to your wife. Do remember to cancel my debt, won’t you?’ Turning to his wife, Guasparruolo asked her whether she had received the money, and since she could hardly deny the fact when the witness was staring her in the face, she said: ‘Yes, I did indeed receive the money, but forgot to tell you about it.’ ‘That settles it, then. Don’t worry, Gulfardo, I shall make quite sure that it’s entered up in the books.’ Having made a fool of the lady, Gulfardo took his leave, and she gave her husband the ill-gotten proceeds of her depravity; and thus the sagacious lover had enjoyed the favours of his rapacious lady free of charge. SECOND STORYThe priest of Varlungo goes to bed with Monna Belcolore, leaving her his cloak by way of payment; then, having borrowed a mortar from her, he sends it back and asks her to return the cloak which he had left with her as a pledge. The good woman hands it over, and gives him a piece of her mind. The gentlemen and ladies alike were still applauding Gulfardo’s treatment of the covetous Milanese lady when the queen turned, smiling, to Panfilo, and enjoined him to follow; so Panfilo began:

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In 1479, Wesel was arraigned for heresy before the Inquisition at Mainz.1169 Among the charges were that the Scriptures are alone a trustworthy source of authority; the names of the predestinate are written in the book of life and cannot be erased by a priestly ban; indulgences do not profit; Christ is not pleased with festivals of fasting, pilgrimages or priestly celibacy; Christ’s body can be in the bread without any change of the bread’s substance: pope and councils are not to be obeyed if they are out of accord with the Scriptures; he whom God chooses will be saved irrespective of pope and priests, and all who have faith will enjoy as much blessedness as prelates. Wesel also made the distinction between the visible and the invisible Church and defined the Church as the aggregation of all the faithful who are bound together by love—collectio omnium fidelium caritate copulatorum. In his trial, he was accused of having had communication with the Hussites. In matters of historical criticism, he was also in advance of his age, casting doubt upon some of the statements of the Athanasian Creed, abandoning the application of the term Catholic to the Apostles’ Creed and pronouncing the addition of the filioque clause—and from the Son—unwarranted. The doctrines of indulgences and the fund of merit he pronounced unscriptural and pious frauds. The elect are saved wholly through the grace of God—sola Dei gratia salvantur electi. At the request of Diether of Isenburg, archbishop of Mainz, the Universities of Cologne and Heidelberg sent delegates to the trial. The accused was already an old man, leaning on his staff, when he appeared before the tribunal. Lacking strength to stand by the heretical articles, he agreed to submit "to mother Church and the teachings of the doctors." A public recantation in the cathedral followed, and his books were burnt.1170 These punishments were not sufficient to expiate his offence and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the Augustinian convent of Mainz, where he died. Among Wesel’s reported sayings, which must have seemed most blasphemous to the devout churchman of the time, are the following: "The consecrated oil is not better than the oil used for your cakes in the kitchen." "If you are hungry, eat. You may eat a good capon on Friday." "If Peter established fasting, it was in order that he might get more for his fish" on fast days. To certain monastics, he said, "Not religion" (that is, monastic vows) "but God’s grace saves," religio nullum salvat sed gratia Dei.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The custom of reserving the higher offices of the Church for the aristocracy was widely sanctioned by law. As early as 1281 in Worms and 1294 in Osnabruck, no one could be dean who was not of noble lineage. The office of bishop and prebend stalls were limited to men of noble birth by Basel, 1474, Augsburg, 1475, Münster and Paderborn, 1480, and Osnabruck, 1517. The same rule prevailed in Mainz, Halberstadt, Meissen, Merseburg and other dioceses. At the beginning of the 16th century, it was the established custom in Germany that no one should be admitted to a cathedral chapter who could not show 16 ancestors who had joined in the tournament and, as early as 1474, the condition of admission to the chapter of Cologne was that the candidate should show 32 members of his family of noble birth. Of the 228 bishops who successively occupied the 32 German sees from 1400–1517, all but 13 were noblemen. The eight occupants of the see of Münster, 1424–1508, were all counts or dukes. So it was with 10 archbishops of Mainz, 1419–1514, the 7 bishops of Halberstadt, 1407–1513, and the 5 archbishops of Cologne, 1414–1515.1136 This custom of keeping the high places for men of noble birth was smartly condemned by Geiler of Strassburg and other contemporaries. Geiler declared that Germany was soaked with the folly that to the bishoprics, not the more pious and learned should be promoted but only those who, "as they say, belong to good families." It remained for the Protestant Reformation to reassert the democratic character of the ministry. A high standard could not be expected of the lower ranks of the clergy where the incumbents of the high positions held them, not by reason of piety or intellectual attainments but as the prize of birth and favoritism. The wonder is, that there was any genuine devotion left among the lower priesthood. Its ranks were greatly overstocked. Every family with several sons expected to find a clerical position for one of them and often the member of the family, least fitted by physical qualifications to make his way in the world, was set apart for religion. Here again Geiler of Strassburg applied his lash of indignation, declaring that, as people set apart for St. Velten the chicken that had the pox and for St. Anthony the pig that was affected with disease, so they devoted the least likely of their children to the holy office. The German village clergy of the period were as a rule not university bred. The chronicler, Felix Faber of Ulm, in 1490 declared that out of 1000 priests scarcely one had ever seen a university town and a baccalaureate or master was a rarity seldom met with. With a sigh, people of that age spoke of the well-equipped priest of, the good old times."

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  But the toleration of the Independents, especially after they obtained the ascendancy under Cromwell’s protectorate differed very little from that of the Presbyterians. They were spoiled by success.99 They excluded from their program Popery, Prelacy, and Socinianism. Dr. Owen, their most distinguished divine, who preached by command a sermon before Parliament on the day after the execution of Charles I., entitled "Righteous Zeal encouraged by Divine Protection" (Jer. 15:19, 20), and accepted the appointment as Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University at Oxford, laid down no less than sixteen fundamentals as conditions of toleration.100 He and Dr. Goodwin served on the Commission of the forty-three Triers which, under Cromwell’s protectorate, took the place of the Westminster Assembly. Cromwell himself, though the most liberal among the English rulers and the boldest protector of Protestantism abroad, limited toleration to Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists and Quakers, all of whom recognized the sacred Scriptures and the fundamental articles of Christianity; but he had no toleration for Romanists and Episcopal Royalists, who endangered his reign and who were suspected of tolerating none but themselves. His great foreign secretary, John Milton, the most eloquent advocate of liberty in the English language, defended the execution of the king, and was intolerant to popery and prelacy. Had Cromwell reigned longer, the Triers and the Savoy Conference which he reluctantly appointed, would probably have repeated the vain attempt of the Westminster Assembly to impose a uniform creed upon the nation, only with a little more liberal "accommodation" for orthodox dissenters except "papists" and "prelatists"). Their brethren in New England where they had full sway, established a Congregational theocracy which had no room even for Baptists and Quakers. 7. Cromwell’s reign was a brief experiment. His son was incompetent to continue it. Puritanism had not won the heart of England, but prepared its own tomb by its excesses and blunders. Royalty and Episcopacy, which struck their roots deep in the past, were restored with the powerful aid of the Presbyterians. And now followed a reaction in favor of political and ecclesiastical despotism, and public and private immorality, which for a time ruined all the good which Puritanism had done.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The most extravagant claims of the papacy still had defenders. Augustus Triumphus and Alvarus Pelayo declared there could be no appeal from the pope to God, because the pope and God were in agreement. He who looks upon the pope with intent and trusting eye, looks upon Christ, and wherever the pope is, there is the Church. Yea, the pope is above canon law. But these men were simply repeating what was current tradition. Dante struck another note, when he put popes in the lowest regions of hell, and Marsiglius of Padua, when he cast doubt upon Peter’s ever having been in Rome and insisted that the laity are also a part of the Church. The scandalous lives of the popes whose names fill the last paragraph of the history of the Middle Ages would have excluded them from decent modern circles and exposed them to sentence as criminals. They were perjurers, adulterers. Avarice, self-indulgence ruled their life. They had no mercy. The charges of murder and vicious disease were laid to their door. They were willing to set the states of Italy one over against the other and to allow them to lacerate each other to extend their own territory or to secure power and titles for their own children and nephews. Luther was not far out of the way when, in his Appeal to the German Nobility, he declared "Roman avarice is the greatest of robbers that ever walked the earth. All goes into the Roman sack, which has no bottom, and all in the name of God." In all history, it would be difficult to discover a more glaring inconsistency between profession and practice than is furnished by the careers of the last popes of the Middle Ages. Upon freedom of thought, the papacy continued to lay the mortmain of alleged divine appointment. Dante’s De monarchia was burnt by John XXII. The evangelical text-book, the Theologia Germanica has been put on the index. Erasmus’ writings were put on the Index. Curses were hurled against a German emperor by Clement VI. which it would almost be sacrilege to repeat with the lips. Eckart was declared a heretic. Wyclif’s bones were dug up and cast into the flames. Huss was burnt. Savonarola was burnt. And, from nameless graves in Spain and Germany rises the protest against the papacy as a divine institution.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  loudly applaud him with their mouths, and belie his exhortation by their works.49 One of these productions is still extant,50 in which he recommends Christianity in a characteristic strain, and in proof of its divine origin cites especially the fulfilment of prophecy, including the Sibylline books and the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil, with the contrast between his own happy and brilliant reign and the tragical fate of his persecuting predecessors and colleagues. Nevertheless he continued in his later years true upon the whole to the toleration principles of the edict of 313, protected the pagan priests and temples in their privileges, and wisely abstained from all violent measures against heathenism, in the persuasion that it would in time die out. He retained many heathens at court and in public office, although he loved to promote Christians to honorable positions. In several cases, however, he prohibited idolatry, where it sanctioned scandalous immorality, as in the obscene worship of Venus in Phenicia; or in places which were specially sacred to the Christians, as the sepulchre of Christ and the grove of Mamre; and he caused a number of deserted temples and images to be destroyed or turned into Christian churches. Eusebius relates several such instances with evident approbation, and praises also his later edicts against various heretics and schismatics, but without mentioning the Arians. In his later years he seems, indeed, to have issued a general prohibition of idolatrous sacrifice; Eusebius speaks of it, and his sons in 341 refer to an edict to that effect; but the repetition of it by his successors proves, that, if issued, it was not carried into general execution under his reign. With this shrewd, cautious, and moderate policy of Constantine, which contrasts well with the violent fanaticism of his sons, accords the postponement of his own baptism to his last sickness.51 For this he had the further motives of a superstitious desire, which he himself expresses, to be baptized in the Jordan, whose waters had been sanctified by the Saviour’s baptism, and no doubt also a fear, that he might by relapse forfeit the sacramental remission of sins. He wished to secure all the benefit of baptism as a complete expiation of past sins, with as little risk as possible, and thus to make the best of both worlds. Deathbed baptisms then were to half Christians of that age what deathbed conversions and deathbed communions are now. Yet he presumed to preach the gospel, he called himself the bishop of bishops, he convened the first general council, and made Christianity the religion of the empire, long before his baptism! Strange as this inconsistency appears to us, what shall we think of the court bishops who, from false prudence, relaxed in his favor the otherwise strict discipline of the church, and admitted him, at least tacitly, to the enjoyment of nearly all the privileges of believers, before he had taken upon himself even a single obligation of a catechumen!

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The chief interest in the disputation turned on the subject of the authority of the Pope and the infallibility of the Church. Eck maintained that the Pope is the successor of Peter, and the vicar of Christ by divine right; Luther, that this claim is contrary to the Scriptures, to the ancient church, to the Council of Nicaea,—the most sacred of all Councils,—and rests only on the frigid decrees of the Roman pontiffs. But during the debate he changed his opinion on the authority of Councils, and thereby injured his cause in the estimation of the audience. Being charged by Eck with holding the heresy of Hus, he at first repudiated him and all schismatic tendencies; but on mature reflection he declared that Hus held some scriptural truths, and was unjustly condemned and burnt by the Council of Constance; that a general council as well as a Pope may err, and had no right to impose any article of faith not founded in the Scriptures. When Duke George, a sturdy upholder of the Catholic creed, heard Luther express sympathy with the Bohemian heresy, he shook his head, and, putting both arms in his sides, exclaimed, so that it could be heard throughout the hall, "A plague upon it!"216 From this time dates Luther’s connection with the Bohemian Brethren. Luther concluded his argument with these words: "I am sorry that the learned doctor only dips into the Scripture as the water-spider into the water-nay, that he seems to flee from it as the Devil from the Cross. I prefer, with all deference to the Fathers, the authority of the Scripture, which I herewith recommend to the arbiters of our cause." Both parties, as usual, claimed the victory. Eck was rewarded with honors and favors by Duke George, and followed up his fancied triumph by efforts to ruin Luther, and to gain a cardinal’s hat; but he was also severely attacked and ridiculed, especially by Willibald Pirkheimer, the famous humanist and patrician of Nürnberg, in his stinging satire, "The Polished Corner."217 The theological faculties of Cologne, Louvain, and afterwards (1521) also that of Paris, condemned the Reformer. Luther himself was greatly dissatisfied, and regarded the disputation as a mere waste of time. He made, however, a deep impression upon younger men, and many students left Leipzig for Wittenberg. After all, he was more benefited by the disputation and the controversies growing out of it, than his opponents.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He maintained the stately Castilian etiquette of dining alone, though usually in the presence of his physician, secretary, and confessor, who entertained him on natural history or other topics of interest. Only once he condescended to partake of a scanty meal with the friars. He could not control, even in these last years, his appetite for spiced capons, pickled sausages, and eel-pies, although his stomach refused to do duty, and caused him much suffering. But he tried to atone for this besetting sin by self-flagellation, which he applied to his body so severely during Lent that the scourge was found stained with his blood. Philip cherished this precious memorial of his father’s piety, and bequeathed it as an heirloom to his son.329 From the beginning of his retreat, and especially in the second year, Charles fulfilled his religious duties with scrupulous conscientiousness, as far as his health would permit. He attended mass in the chapel, said his prayers, and listened to sermons and the reading of selections from the Fathers (Jerome, Augustin, Bernard), the Psalms, and the Epistles of Paul. He favored strict discipline among the friars, and gave orders that any woman who dared to approach within two bow-shots of the gate should receive a hundred stripes. He enjoyed the visits of Francisco Borgia, Duke of Gandia, who had exchanged a brilliant position for membership in the Society of the Jesuits, and confirmed him in his conviction that he had acted wisely in relinquishing the world. He wished to be prayed for only by his baptismal name, being no longer emperor or king. Every Thursday was for him a feast of Corpus Christi. He repeatedly celebrated the exequies of his parents, his wife, and a departed sister. Yea, according to credible contemporary testimony, he celebrated, in the presentiment of approaching death, his own funeral, around a huge catafalque erected in the dark chapel. Bearing a lighted taper, he mingled with his household and the monks in chanting the prayers for the departed, on the lonely passage to the invisible world, and concluded the doleful ceremony by handing the taper to the priest, in token of surrendering his spirit to Him who gave it. According to later accounts, the Emperor was laid alive in his coffin, and carried in solemn procession to the altar.330 This relish for funeral celebrations reveals a morbid trait in his piety. It reminds one of the insane devotion of his mother to the dead body of her husband, which she carried with her wherever she went. His Intolerance. We need not wonder that his bigotry increased toward the end of life. He was not philosopher enough to learn a lesson of toleration (as Dr. Robertson imagines) from his inability to harmonize two timepieces. On the contrary, he regretted his limited forbearance towards Luther and the German Protestants, who had defeated his plans five years before. They were now more hateful to him than ever.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The practice of priestly concubinage, uncanonical though it was, bishops were quite ready to turn into a means of gain, levying a tax upon it. In the diocese of Bamberg, a toll of 5 gulden was exacted for every child born to a priest and, in a single year, the tax is said to have brought in the considerable sum of 1,500 gulden. In 1522, a similar tax of 4 gulden brought into the treasury of the bishop of Constance, 7,500 gulden. The same year, complaint was made to the pope by the Diet of Nürnberg of the reckless lawlessness of young priests in corrupting women and of the annual tax levied in most dioceses upon all the clergy without distinction whether they kept concubines or not.1140 It is not surprising, in view of these facts, that Luther called upon monks and nuns unable to avoid incontinence of thought, to come forth from the monasteries and marry. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that no plausible charge of incontinence was made against the Reformer.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  When Irenaeus, bishop at Lyons (c. 180 C.E.), discovered among his own congregation a large group of such Christians who sought to exempt themselves from his authority and set out to know God directly through gnosis, or immediate experience, he recognized—and even grudgingly respected—their spiritual purpose,12 As bishop, however, he soon came into conflict with their determination to follow Christ in their own way. He decided that they were divisive and arrogant upstarts who threatened to undermine church unity and discipline, for they “disturb the faith of many by alluring them under a pretense of superior knowledge.”13 Above all, as we shall see, Irenaeus was concerned that gnostic teaching threatened the message of freedom that he and many others considered central to the gospel. Irenaeus read some of the writings of these gnostic Christians and engaged in conversation with several of them. He then composed a five-volume polemic against them, which he called “The Refutation and Overthrow of Falsely So-Called Knowledge (Gnosis)” The term “gnostics,” now often used descriptively for such dissident spiritual seekers, may have been their own term, or it may have originated as a derisive name for those Christians whom Irenaeus regarded as self-appointed “know-it-alls.”14 These so-called gnostics, then, did not share a single ideology or belong to a specific group; not all, in fact, were Christians. Those who did identify themselves as Christians included a wide variety of people who chose to follow their faith in their own way. Many gnostic Christians were members of Christian congregations, including both lay people and members of the clergy, who wanted no more than to supplement the teaching and worship common to all Christians with deeper insights derived from their own spiritual experience. Many gnostics also followed certain spiritual teachers who promised to initiate them into deeper mysteries of the faith. Irenaeus directed his polemic primarily at the group of gnostic Christians whom members of his own congregation found most attractive and powerful—a group the bishop considered especially dangerous and divisive. These were followers of a spiritual master called Valentinus, who some forty years before Irenaeus wrote, and while Justin was still teaching in Rome, had joined the Christian group there as a newcomer (c. 140–160 C.E.). Before coming to Rome, Valentinus had already established himself among Christians of the Egyptian city of Alexandria as a poet, visionary, and spiritual teacher; and in Rome, where his abilities were widely recognized, he was considered a likely candidate for bishop. Even Tertullian, who would bitterly denounce Valentinus’s followers a generation later, admitted that their teacher had been “a capable man, both in intelligence and eloquence.”15

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  While Linacre was studying in Florence, Grocyn arrived in that city. He was teaching Greek in Oxford before 1488 and, on his return from the Continent, he began, 1491, to give Greek lectures in that university. With this date the historian, Green, regards the new period as opening. Grocyn lectured on pseudo-Dionysius and, following Laurentius Valla, abandoned the tradition that he was the Areopagite, the pupil of St. Paul. He and Linacre were close friends of Erasmus, and that scholar couples them with Colet and More as four representatives of profound and symmetrical learning.1102 At the close of the 15th century, the English were still a "barbarous" people in the eyes of the Italians.1103 According to Erasmus, who ought to have known what a good school was, the schoolteachers of England were "shabby and broken down and, in cases, hardly in their senses." At the universities, the study of Duns Scotus ruled and the old method and text-books were in use. The Schoolmen were destined, however, soon to be displaced and the leaves of the Subtle Doctor to be scattered in the quadrangles of Oxford and trodden under foot. As for the study of Greek, there were those, as Wood says, who preached against it as "dangerous and damnable" and, long after the new century had dawned, Sir Thomas More wrote to the authorities at Oxford condemning them for opposition to Greek.1104 A course of sermons, to which More refers, had been preached in Lent not only against the study of the Greek classics but also the Latin classics. What right, he went on to say, "had a preacher to denounce Latin of which he knew so little and Greek of which he knew nothing? How can he know theology, if he is ignorant of Hebrew, Greek and Latin? "In closing the letter, More threatened the authorities with punishment from Warham, Wolsey and even the king himself, if they persisted in their course. Of the clergy’s alarm against the new learning, More took notice again and again. To Lily, the headmaster of St. Paul’s school, he wrote, "No wonder your school raises a storm; it is like the wooden horse for the ruin of barbarous Troy." But, if there were those who could see only danger from the new studies, there were also men like Fisher of Rochester who set about learning Greek when he was 60. For the venerable Sentences of the Lombard, the Scriptures were about to be instituted as the text-book of theology in the English universities. The man who contributed most to this result was John Colet. Although his name is not even so much as mentioned in the pages of Lingard, he is now recognized, as he was by Tyndale, Latimer and other Reformers of the middle of the 16th century, as the chief pioneer of the new learning in England and as an exemplar of noble purposes in life and pure devotion to culture.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  FIFTH STORY Three young men pull down the breeches of a judge from the Marches whilst he is administering the law on the Florentine bench. When Emilia had brought her story to an end, and the widow had been commended by all those present, the queen looked towards Filostrato, and said: ‘Now it is your turn to speak.’ Filostrato promptly replied that he was ready to do so, and began as follows: Delectable ladies, after hearing Elissa referring just now to the young man called Maso del Saggio, I have been prompted to discard the tale I was intending to relate in order to tell you one about Maso and some of his companions, which, though not improper, contains certain words that you ladies would hesitate to use. But since it is highly amusing, I am sure you would like to hear it. As all of you will doubtless have heard, the chief magistrates of our city very often come from the Marches, 1 and tend as a rule to be mean-hearted men, who lead such a frugal and beggarly sort of life that anyone would think they hadn’t a penny to bless themselves with. And because of their inborn miserliness and avarice, they bring with them judges and notaries who seem to have been brought up behind a plough or recruited from a cobbler’s shop rather than from any of the schools of law. Now, one of these March-men came here once to take up his appointment as podestà, and among the numerous judges he brought with him, there was one called Messer Niccola da San Lepidio, who looked more like a coppersmith than anything else, and he was assigned to the panel of judges that tried criminal cases. Now it frequently happens that people go to the law-courts who have no business to be there at all, and this was the case with Maso del Saggio, who had gone there one morning to look for a friend. His gaze being attracted to the place where this Messer Niccola was sitting, he was struck by the man’s curious and witless appearance, and began to scrutinize him carefully. And amongst the many strange features that he noted, unbecoming in any person of tidy habits and gentle breeding, he saw that die fur of his judge’s cap was thick with grime, that he had a quill-case dangling from his waist, and that his gown was longer than his robe. But the most remarkable thing of all, to Maso’s way of thinking, was a pair of breeches, the crotch of which, when the judge was sitting down and his clothes gaped open in front owing to their skimpiness, appeared to come halfway down his legs. Having seen all he wanted to see of the judge’s breeches, he abandoned the search for his friend and set off on a different quest, this time for two companions of his called Ribi and Matteuzzo, who were no less high-spirited than Maso himself.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  Although the deutero-Pauline letters differ from one another in many ways, on practical matters they all agree. All reject Paul’s most radically ascetic views to present instead a “domesticated Paul”43—a version of Paul who, far from urging celibacy upon his fellow Christians, endorses only a stricter version of traditional Jewish attitudes toward marriage and family. Just as Matthew juxtaposed Jesus’ more radical sayings with modified versions of them, so the New Testament collection juxtaposes Paul’s authentic letters with the deutero-Paulines, offering a version of Paul that softens him from a radical preacher into a patron saint of domestic life. The anonymous author of 1 Timothy, for example, makes “Paul” attack as demon-inspired those “liars … who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created” (1 Timothy 4:1–3), taking aim, presumably, at the preachers of asceticism, who depict Paul as one of themselves, indeed as their model.44 Denouncing the characterizations of Paul that appear in such works as the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the author of 2 Timothy almost goes so far as to take sides with Thecla’s mother, warning people to avoid those who make their way into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses, who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. (2 TIMOTHY 3:6–7) The conservative Paul of Timothy directly contradicts the advice Paul gives in 1 Corinthians, where he urges virgins and widows to remain unmarried. According to 1 Timothy, Paul, concerned that the presence of unmarried women among the Christians may arouse suspicions and scandalous gossip, declares, “I would have the younger widows marry, bear children, rule their households, and give the enemy no occasion to revile us” (1 Timothy 5:14). Dismissing ascetic discipline as mere “bodily training” (1 Timothy 4:8), worth little for developing piety, this “Paul” warns his readers to “have nothing to do with godless and silly myths” (1 Timothy 4:7). As Dennis MacDonald persuasively shows, the author of 1 Timothy is denouncing, in all probability, such stories as those of Thecla and Mygdonia, which circulated for generations, perhaps especially among women storytellers. (See notes 33 and 34, above.) Challenging those who, like Thecla herself, claim that women have the right to teach and baptize, the author of 1 Timothy recalls Eve’s sin and commands that women must learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. (1 TIMOTHY 2:11–15)

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘With a cacophonous voice like that, you could charm the vultures out of the trees.’ ‘If you hadn’t heard it with your own ears,’ said the Master, ‘you wouldn’t have believed it possible, would you?’ ‘I certainly wouldn’t,’ said Bruno. ‘I know lots of others,’ said the Master, ‘but let’s forget about those for the moment. Such as you see me, my father was a nobleman, though he lived in the country, and on my mother’s side I was born into a family from Vallecchio. 13 Furthermore, as you will have seen, I have a finer collection of books, and a more splendid wardrobe, than any other doctor in Florence. God’s faith! I have a robe that cost me nearly a hundred pounds in farthings, all told, ten years ago at the very least. So I do implore you to have me enrolled in your company; and if you get me in, God’s faith! you can be as ill as you like, and I’ll never charge you a penny for my services.’ Bruno was more than ever convinced, having listened to his prattle, that the man was a complete nincompoop, and said to him: ‘Shed a little more light up here, Master, and just be patient till I’ve finished putting the tails on these mice, then I’ll give you my answer.’ When he had finished off the tails, Bruno pretended to be very worried by the doctor’s request, and said: ‘I know about the great things you would do for me, Master, but nevertheless the favour you are asking, though it may seem trivial to a man of your rare intellect, is anything but simple to my way of thinking, and even if I were in a position to grant it, I know of no one in the world for whom I would do it, apart from yourself. And I would do it for you, not only because I love you as a brother, but because your words are seasoned with so much wisdom that they would startle a pious old lady out of her boots, let alone persuade me to change my mind; indeed, the more time I spend in your company, the wiser you appear. Besides, even if I had no other reason for loving you, I am bound to love you on seeing that you have lost your heart to such a beauty as the one you described. I must however point out that I am not as influential as you suppose in these matters, and it is not within my power to grant your request. But if you will give me your solemn pledge, as a gentleman and a moron, to keep my words a secret, I shall explain how you can achieve your aim without my assistance. And since you have all those fine books and the other things you were telling me about, I feel certain that your efforts will be crowned with success.’ ‘Have no fear, you may speak out,’ said the Master.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Moreover, because a young man will cover more miles in a single day, he seems to you a better rider. But whereas I admit that he will shake your skin-coat4 with greater vigour, the older man, being more experienced, has a better idea of where the fleas are lurking. Besides, a portion that is small, but delicately flavoured, is infinitely preferable to a larger one that has no taste at all. And a hard gallop will tire and weaken a man, however young, whilst a gentle trot, though it may bring him somewhat later to the inn, will at least ensure that he is still in good fettle on arrival. ‘Senseless creatures that you are, you fail to perceive how much evil may lie concealed beneath their handsome outward appearance. A young man is never content with one woman, but desires as many as he sets his eyes upon, thinking himself worthy of them all; hence his love can never be stable, as you can now bear witness all too clearly for yourself. Besides, they feel they have a right to be pampered and worshipped by their women, and take an enormous pride in boasting of their conquests – a failing which has caused many a woman to land in the arms of the friars, who keep their lips sealed about such matters. When you claim that your maid and I are the only people who know of your secret love, you are sadly mistaken. You deceive yourself if that is what you believe, for the people of the district where he lives, as well as of your own, talk about nothing else; but the person most closely involved is invariably the last to hear of these things. And you should also remember that young men will steal from you, whereas older men will give you presents. ‘And so, having made a bad choice, you may remain his to whom you gave yourself, and leave me, whom you spurned, to another; for I have found a lady who is far more worthy of my love, and understands me better than you ever did. It seems that you do not believe me when I tell you, here and now, that I long to see you dead: but if you want proof of my words in the life hereafter, why not throw yourself to the ground without any further ado, in which case your soul, which I truly believe to be nestling already in the arms of the Devil, will soon see whether or not your headlong fall has brought any tears to my eyes? But since you are unlikely to afford me so great a pleasure as this, I shall simply advise you, if you find yourself being scorched, to remember the freezing you gave me, and if you mix the hot with the cold, you will doubtless find the rays of the sun more bearable.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When the time came for them to reassemble, the queen saw that they were all summoned in the usual way, and they seated themselves round the fountain. But just as the queen was about to call for the first story, something happened which had never happened before, namely, that she and her companions heard a great commotion,2 issuing from the kitchen, among the maids and menservants. So the steward was summoned, and, on being asked who was shouting and what the quarrel was about, he replied that it was some dispute between Licisca and Tindaro. He was unable to explain its cause, as he had no sooner arrived on the scene to restore order than he had been called away by the queen. She therefore ordered him to fetch Licisca and Tindaro to her at once, and when they came before her, she demanded to know what they were quarrelling about. Tindaro was about to reply, when Licisca, who was no fledgeling and liked to give herself airs, rounded on him with a withering look, spoiling for an argument, and said: ‘See here, you ignorant lout, how can you dare to speak first, when I am present? Hold your tongue and let me tell the story.’ She then turned back to the queen, and said: ‘Madam, this fellow thinks he knows Sicofante’s3 wife better than I do. I’ve known her for years, and yet he has the audacity to try and convince me that on the first night Sicofante slept with her, John Thomas had to force an entry into Castle Dusk, shedding blood in the process; but I say it is not true, on the contrary he made his way in with the greatest of ease, to the general pleasure of the garrison. The man is such a natural idiot that he firmly believes young girls are foolish enough to squander their opportunities whilst they are waiting for their fathers and brothers to marry them off, which in nine cases out of ten takes them three or four years longer than it should. God in Heaven, they’d be in a pretty plight if they waited all that long! I swear to Christ (which means that I know what I’m saying) that not a single one of the girls from my district went to her husband a virgin; and as for the married ones, I could tell you a thing or two about the clever tricks they play upon their husbands. Yet this great oaf tries to teach me about women, as though I were born yesterday.’ While Licisca was talking, the ladies were laughing so heartily that you could have pulled all their teeth out. Six times at least the queen had told her to stop, but all to no avail: she was determined to have her say. And when she had come to the end of her piece, the queen turned, laughing, to Dioneo, and said:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The overt misogyny of the Corbaccio springs from a deeply rooted conviction (possibly implanted by some painful personal experience) of woman’s faithlessness, a theme that the author had already explored in considerable depth in his version of the story of Troilus and Cressida, the Filostrato. But whereas the Filostrato chronicles the delusion and bewilderment of the youthful and inexperienced idealist, the Corbaccio reflects the spleen and vindictiveness of one whose mature awareness of the instability of sexual relationships has conducted him to the wildest extremities of cynicism. In the Decameron, on the other hand, Boccaccio adopts a relatively objective posture towards the question of the effect upon human relationships of instinctive sexual forces. His mood may in fact be likened to that which prompted Shakespeare to declare that When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies. 34 The verbal ambiguity (‘Though I know she lies’) would have appealed to Boccaccio, and he would also have appreciated the consummate irony of Byron’s classic description of the surrender to sexual passion: A little still she strove, and much repented, And whispering ‘I will ne’er consent’ – consented. 35 Byron’s couplet comes repeatedly to mind when reading Boccaccio’s account of the successive couplings of Alatiel (II, 7), the Egyptian princess who, having been sent by her father to marry his wartime ally, the King of Algarve, is shipwrecked off the coast of Majorca and then passes through the hands of nine different men before being restored to her father, whom she convinces of her virginity before setting off once more to become the King of Algarve’s wife. Virginity, like honour, resides in appearances, as the author stresses in the proverbial sally with which he concludes this extraordinary narrative: A kissed mouth doesn’t lose its freshness: like the moon it turns up new again. 36

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The worship of classical forms led to the adoption of classical ideas. There were not wanting Humanists and artists who combined culture with Christian faith, and devoted their genius to the cause of truth and virtue. Traversari strictly observed the rules of his monastic order; Manetti, Lionardo Bruni, Vittorino da Feltre, Ficino, Sadoleto, Fra Angelico, Fra Bartolomeo, Michelangelo and others were devout Christian believers. Traversari at first hesitated to translate classic authors and, when he did, justified himself on the ground that the more the Pagan writers were understood, the more would the excellence of the Christian system be made manifest. But Poggio, Filelfo, Valla and the majority of the other writers of the Renaissance period, such as Ariosto, Aretino, Machiavelli, were indifferent to religion, or despised it in the form they saw it manifested. Culture was substituted for Christianity, the worship of art and eloquence for reverence for truth and holiness. The Humanists sacrificed in secret and openly to the gods of Greece and Rome rather than to the God of the Bible. Yet, they were not independent enough to run the risk of an open rupture with orthodoxy, which would have subjected them to the Inquisition and death at the stake.1038 Yea, those who were most flagrant in their attacks upon the ecclesiastics of their time often professed repentance for their writings in their last days, as Boccaccio and Bandello, and applied for extreme unction before death. So it was with Machiavelli, who died with the consolations of the Church which he undermined with his pen, with the half-Pagan Pomponius Laetus of Rome and the infamous Sigismondo Malatesta of Rimini, who joined to his patronage of culture the commission of every crime. Dangerous as it may be to pronounce a final judgment upon the moral purity of a generation, even though, as in the case of the 15th century, it reveals itself clearly in its literature and in the lives of the upper classes, literary men, popes and princes, nevertheless this it is forced upon us to do. The Renaissance in Italy produced no Thomas à Kempis. No devout mystics show signs of a reform movement in her convents and among her clergy, though, it is true, there were earnest preachers who cried out for moral reform, as voices crying in the wilderness. Nor are we unmindful of the ethical disintegration of the Church and society at other periods and in other countries, as in France under Louis XIV., when we call attention to the failure of religion in the country of the popes and at a time of great literary and artistic activity to bear fruits in righteousness of life.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Zwingli extended the hand of brotherhood to Luther, and hoped to meet even the nobler heathen in heaven, but had no mercy on the Anabaptists, who threatened to overthrow his work in Zürich. After trying in vain to convince them by successive disputations, the magistrate under his control resorted to the Cruel irony of drowning their leaders (six in all) in the Limmat near the lake of Zürich (between 1527 and 1532).74 Zwingli counselled, at the risk of his own life, the forcible introduction of the Reformed religion into the territory of the Catholic Forest Cantons (1531); forgetting the warning of Christ to Peter, that they who take the sword shall perish by the sword.75 Calvin has the misfortune rather than the guilt of pre-eminence for intolerance among the Reformers. He and Servetus are the best abused men of the sixteenth century; and the depreciation of the good name of the one and the exculpation of the bad name of the other have been carried far beyond the limits of historic truth and justice. Both must be judged from the standpoint of the sixteenth, not of the nineteenth, century. The fatal encounter of the champion of orthodoxy and the champion of heresy, men of equal age, rare genius, and fervent zeal for the restoration of Christianity, but direct antipodes in doctrine, spirit and aim, forms the most thrilling tragedy in the history of the Reformation. The contrast between the two is almost as great as that between Simon Peter and Simon Magus.76 Their contest will never lose its interest. The fires of the funeral pile which were kindled at Champel on the 27th of October, 1553, are still burning and cast their lurid sparks into the nineteenth century. Leaving the historical details and the doctrinal aspect for another chapter,77 we confine ourselves here to the bearing of the case on the question of toleration. Impartial history must condemn alike the intolerance of the victor and the error of the victim, but honor in both the strength of conviction. Calvin should have contented himself with banishing his fugitive rival from the territory of Geneva, or allowing him quietly to proceed on his contemplated journey to Italy, where he might have resumed his practice of medicine in which he excelled. But he sacrificed his future reputation to a mistaken sense of duty to the truth and the cause of the Reformation in Switzerland and his beloved France, where his followers were denounced and persecuted as heretics. He is responsible, on his own frank confession, for the arrest and trial of Servetus, and he fully assented to his condemnation and death "for heresy and blasphemy," except that he counselled the magistrate, though in vain, to mitigate the legal penalty by substituting the sword for the fire.78