| Albert the Great by Sr. M. Albert Hughes, O.P.
3 Provincial of Germany |
  Autumn 1987 Vol. 39 Supplement |
ALTHOUGH the general chapter had commissioned Albert to devote all his energies to the establishment of the new studium generale at Cologne, he was not for long allowed to confine his activity to a single priory. When the chapter held at Worms elected him Provincial of Germany, the whole of Austria, Serbia, Bavaria, Saxony, the Rhineland, Holland, Brabant, Silesia, Frisia, Westphalia, and Prussia became his responsibility, and a vast new sphere of influence was opened to him. "The Capitular Fathers were well aware of their need," wrote Pius XI, "and they knew the times in which they lived. They knew how the vanity of the world can sometimes creep into the cloister; they knew, therefore, that their ruler must be a man of holy life, of strong will, and conspicuous for prudence and every kind of virtue. Their hopes were not disappointed in Albert."
His apostolic spirit and his devotion to the virtue of holy poverty, in imitation of Our Lord and the Apostles and his father St. Dominic, now manifested themselves anew in his mode of journeying through his province. He went always on foot, pilgrimwise with staff and scrip, taking no provisions but relying on the charity of the faithful, and he demanded a similar spirit of poverty from his brethren. At the Chapter of 1257 the prior of Minden received a penance of five days on bread and water, five masses, three psalters, and three disciplines for having come to the chapter on horseback, and it was ordained that anyone at any time making use of any form of transport without necessity and leave should be punished as for a grievous fault. (1)
The same love of poverty inspired his letter to the province, in which he directed that any brother who spent money or retained in his possession any superfluous object should be deemed guilty of the vice of proprietorship. In a further provincial letter Albert enjoined upon the province the admonition made by the previous general chapter that every brother should once a year open his conscience to his own prior, disclosing to him all the faults found therein, so that the prior should be familiar with his inmost soul. This presumably was inspired by the decree of the Lateran Council that all the faithful should confess once a year to their own parish priest. The Chapter of Erfurt in 1256 repeated this injunction, ordaining also that no one should be allowed to preach outside the convent who had not frequently done so before his own brethren, and even then preachers were to be chosen from the elder religious, and it exhorted the religious to confine their conversation to God and subjects useful to the soul avoiding all useless and worldly gossip.
These extracts will serve to show the spirit of Albert's rule as provincial. It was also his guiding principle to "observe the Rule himself with the greatest possible strictness, and to see that others did likewise," but while he exacted perfect fidelity to their views from those who had solemnly professed them, he was strongly opposed to the imposition of burdens not demanded by the rule, and which were more than human nature could bear. He was most assiduous in making visitations of convents both of men and women, of his own or other orders, both as provincial and bishop, as well as in the capacity of legate. His strictness in correcting abuses where they existed, and in procuring fidelity to the rule, has led some people to consider him over-severe. His own statement that any superior, while maintaining humility as regards his person, should relax nothing of the dignity due to the office may seem to confirm this view. Yet the testimony of contemporaries makes it quite apparent that the seeming severity was tempered by gentleness and the mildness of his character and by the burning charity towards God and neighbor which inspired all his actions; and that those who received his corrections -- provided that they were men of goodwill -- felt no resentment at his reproof.
Like a true son of St. Dominic and a disciple of Blessed Jordan, Albert did not confine his attentions to the brethren of the order, but extended his ministrations to the sisters also. According to the oral tradition of the order the first friars who entered Germany had found groups of holy women, some living in poverty as recluses, some also living in poverty and wearing a kind of religious habit, all of whom they grouped in monasteries receiving pecuniary assistance from the wealthy maidens and widows who hastened to join them. These religious wore a white woollen habit, having a long and ample tunic, a long scapular, a cloak and a small veil of coarse texture. These convents increased in number very rapidly, especially in the Rhineland, so that when the Province was divided into Saxony and Germany about a year before St. Albert's death there were sixty-five convents in Germany alone, more than those of all the other provinces together.
Perhaps the most famous of all these monasteries was that of Colmar, the history of whose supernatural favors so interested Albert that when he was bishop he commissioned one of the brethren to compile an account of all he had observed there. Another convent with which the saint had dealings was that founded at Marienthal in 1232. There, in 1237, had fled Iolanda, daughter of the Count of Vianden, who was nephew of the Emperor of Constantinople. She succeeded in being clothed in the habit before her family, whose wrath at the proceedings knew no bounds, invaded the cloister, and bore her back to the ancestral castle. The young girl refused to be intimidated and when Albert arrived at the castle, armed with full powers to decide her fate, she cast herself at his feet and begged him to receive her vows there and then. He hesitated for time but, vanquished by her generous ardor, decreed that she should be allowed to follow her vocation and like another Diana d'Andalo, she returned in triumph to the convent, being then eighteen years old. Her sacrifice had its reward, for her father died a crusader in the Holy Land, her mother took the veil in the same convent, where her daughter had become prioress, and a brother became a Friar Preacher.
Another convent with which the saint was connected was that of Soest, where a father of the Cologne Priory had assembled a group of pious women under a rule approved by the Master without, however, constituting them a proper community. Many noble ladies entered the community which flourished exceedingly, and Albert was requested to give the religious a complete rule of life. This he did willingly, and on the appointed day, after offering mass, he led them processionally through the town accompanied by clergy and laity to the spot chosen for their habitation -- Alvenhausen by name -- later called Paradise. The sisters went barefoot, clad in humble attire, singing hymns. In an ancient chapel dedicated to Our Lady, Albert received the sisters' vows to live henceforward according to the Rule of St. Augustine and the constitutions of St. Dominic. He addressed them in words full of spirit, instructing them in the mode of life they were to follow -- to renounce all things, deny themselves, obey humbly -- and promised them in God's name eternal life if they persevered to the end. Then, having blessed them, he closed the cloister door while the sisters changed the antiphon Regnum mundi, the onlookers being moved with emotion. Albert remained with them for some days giving further instructions. Later he revisited them as bishop to consecrate the church.
In 1254 a vision concerning the saint was granted to a member of a regular order, who had come to Rome from Bavaria and was praying in St. Peter's. He beheld a horrible serpent which invaded the church, and filled not only the church but the whole of Rome with its hissing. Suddenly a man in the habit of a Friar Preacher, whom an interior voice revealed to the religious as being named Albert, entered the Church. The serpent, hissing vilely, flung itself upon him, entwining itself around him from head to foot, so that his whole body was imprisoned in its coils. But the friar, shaking himself free, mounted the pulpit from which the gospel of the day was usually read and read the Gospel of John as far as the words: Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis. The serpent, ceasing its hissing, fled, and peace reigned everywhere. The religious was mystified by the vision and when he communicated it to Albert, who arrived at Rome about that time, he too could offer no explanation. It was only later when the struggle between the University of Paris and the mendicant orders, in which Albert played a determining part, came to a head that the meaning of the vision became apparent.
This quarrel, which for a time seemed to threaten the very existence of the Friars Preachers and the sons of St. Francis, had its root, we are assured by many writers of unquestioned integrity, in the jealousy which the secular masters at the University of Paris felt at the amazing growth and popularity of the Preachers and Friars Minor. Hitherto the secular masters had held the monopoly of theological learning; now the friars, armed with the mandate of the Holy See, had beaten them on their own ground and had likewise attracted many of their most brilliant members into their ranks. The privilege of preaching had also been the monopoly of masters of the University, but here was an order whose very raison d'être, expressed in its name, was to teach and to preach. Moreover the popularity of the friars was enormous and they were everywhere in demand as confessors and directors. This was due to a large extent to the obvious sanctity and fervor of their lives, which were a silent condemnation of the lives led by so many of the secular clergy, especially among the higher ranks.
In February 1254 the university expressed its grievances in a book full of venom and hatred, and the quarrel became public and general. Even at this stage the nature of the attack on the friars was very thinly veiled: "They came to us and received mental and bodily food. But having enticed many of our masters into their ranks they have developed enormously in knowledge and numbers and now fill the whole world." Pope Innocent IV, who had at first supported the friars, eventually sided with the university and called the case to Rome (at which the university had made a levy of a week's dues on all students to pay its expenses). In July and November of the same year he issued two Bulls revoking all the privileges previously granted to the Dominicans. The work of Dominic, Jordan, Raymund, and John the Teuton, which had been carried out with the cordial approval and under the protection of the Holy See, was undone at a single stroke.
At the end of the year, however, the pope died. He was succeeded by Cardinal Rinaldo, who, as Alexander IV, showed his devotion to the order on the second day of his pontificate by officially announcing his elevation to Blessed Humbert de Romans, the Master, requesting the prayers of all the religious and cassating the dispositions of his predecessor. This he followed up in April 1255 with the Bull Quasi Lignum, wherein he administered a severe castigation to the Parisian masters, cancelled all the measures which had been taken against the friars, and restored all their rights. But the end was not yet. The university was unquelled and the condemnation of the Friars Minor still held. The whole order betook itself to fervent prayer, especially to its own saints and holy doctors, and manifested an obvious desire to compromise as far as possible with its opponents, desiring however the removal of the ban against the Friars Minor. On the occasion of the general chapter held in Paris in 1256, the sympathy of a vast number of people with the Dominicans was shown and the King himself, St. Louis IX, visited the convent and was admitted to participation in the suffrages of the order. The veneration of the relics of St. Peter Martyr attracted enormous crowds, who realized full well the difference in sanctity, culture, and greatness between the persecutors and the persecuted.
Meanwhile the university had returned to the attack, formulating its accusations in a book entitled The Eternal Gospel, which William of St. Amour, the leading protagonist, followed up with another On the Danger of the Last Days. The arrival of this book in Rome moved the pope to nominate a commission of four cardinals who would hear the representatives of both sides and bring the whole controversy to an end by impartial judicial decision. Nor was it inappropriate that the questions should be so fought out and decided before the representatives of the pope himself, since it had become a struggle to the death for the rights of the religious orders to indulge in pastoral and apostolic work. Had the Parisians triumphed, religious would for generations, perhaps to the end of time, have been confined to their cloister, leaving all active work to the secular clergy.
The position of the friars certainly seemed grave. William of St. Amour had already been some time in Rome and had won over to his cause most of the clergy and people, and the pope himself seemed to be faltering in his support of the Dominicans. The master, however, directed the order to recite the litanies for an end to be brought to the war -- those litanies which had inspired the proverb "beware of those Preachers' litanies, for they work miracles." His choice to defend the friars' case alighted on Albert, to be seconded by his pupil Thomas Aquinas.
Thomas of Chantimpré described the effect of the saint's presence:
Before the Venerable Albert came to the Roman Curia, Master William, the chief author of so many calumnies, had together with his accomplices amazingly seduced the Roman clergy and people by many fine discourses and had won them over to their course. But when Master Albert had by request of the Pope and all the Cardinals expounded in a stupendous and unheard-of fashion St. John's Gospel and the Canonical Epistles, he brought the ugly dispute to so successful a conclusion that all the Friars' enemies were put to confusion, while the supporters of truth were left in peace and joy.
James of Soest gives a more detailed account of the finale of the dispute.
William of St. Amour's book was condemned and burned by Pope Alexander IV in the Cathedral Church of Anagni, both for the heresy it contained, and for its seditious and malicious attacks on religious. For he taught therein that religious who did not apply themselves to manual labors but subsisted on alms, could not be saved. When the author had been cited to appear before the Pope, Brother Albert the Teuton of the Order of Preachers came to the Curia to reply to the contents of the book. When Albert arrived at Anagni where the Curia was at that time, he with much sagacity made enquiries to discover if any one possessed the book and, quickly finding a transcriber, he paid the sum necessary for a copy to be made. Albert, therefore had the book for a whole day and a night preceding the consistory, which sat on the question on 6th October. The book was first read, and such was the eloquence of Albert's reply and his words so telling that all present were filled with amazement and glorified God who had chosen such a man to defend his Order from evil tongues. Albert's reply was faithfully reported and has been published in an abbreviated form by St. Thomas Aquinas in that valuable book which is entitled Thomas versus William. (2)
Albert's victory secured for the future the recognition of certain principles which had indeed been accepted since the time of Our Lord, but which the adversaries of the mendicant orders had denied, and which would be denied again, but never seriously questioned by those in authority. It established the right of religious to take literally Christ's precepts regarding evangelical poverty and to depend entirely on the alms of the faithful for their livelihood. It also removed the confusion between religious friars and monks, of which those who denied the former all right to pastoral activity were guilty. William of St. Amour, like the Jansenists later, wished to confine the religious within the cloister and to keep the monopoly of preaching and teaching to the secular clergy. This, says Chantimpré, was the real object of the campaign: to exclude the friars from all intellectual and pastoral activity. The memory of Bernard, Peter Damian, and Hildebrand was, however, still fresh and Albert secured for future generations of religious the right of the pope to make use of these most powerful instruments for the salvation of souls.
If modern religious orders owe to St. Dominic a debt of gratitude as to the originator of the mode of life which they practice with such beneficial results, they are equally indebted to St. Albert, St. Thomas, and the Franciscans St. Bonaventure and Thomas of York.(3) by whose efforts that mode of life was officially and permanently approved by the Church when the attempts of its critics to secure its condemnation seemed very near to success. We are not surprised to find that this triumph was attributed to the intercession of our blessed Lady. Seeing that the friars of those days had a very special devotion to the blessed Virgin through whose patronage they were delivered from their tribulations, it was fitting that it was she, our Mistress and especial patron who, when the enemy was seeking to bring about the ruin of her sons, caused his defeat through the medium of Albert, her votary and bedesman.
The masters of Paris and the bishops who had supported them writhed under their defeat, which Alexander IV rendered finally effective by issuing twenty-seven Bulls between October 1256 and October 1257 which exacted obedience in every detail. On 23rd October 1257, by the express order of the Holy See, Thomas and Bonaventure received the recognition of their doctorates at Paris. (Bonaventure had become a master in 1252, Thomas in 1256.) By its defeat, the university was forced to bestow her highest honor on two of her noblest sons and greatest glories. And at last the friars could rest from their famous Litanies!
Albert seems to have remained about a year in Italy, for his presence in Cologne is not mentioned until March 1258. During this sojourn the pontifical court profited by his presence to obtain from him the exposition of St. John's Gospel and the Epistles mentioned above and also a public disputation against the errors of Averroes. Many historians declare that he was invested as Master of the Sacred Palace, but modem critics are inclined to deny this detail. Before his return to Germany he was relieved of the charge of provincial by the General Chapter of Florence, 1257. The reasons for this change, though not specified, may probably be accurately divined. Apart from his own humility, which would seek to escape from such an office, his great intellectual talents and the necessity for the development of the studium generale at Cologne were doubtless the reasons which moved the capitulars to make possible for him again a life of study and writing. The wisdom of this measure became apparent in the following year, 1259, when at the Chapter of Valenciennes, which discussed at length the question of the studies in the order, Blessed Humbert appointed a commission to draw up an exhaustive and uniform plan of studies.
The members of the commission -- all of them masters of Paris, three raised to the altars of the Church while one became pope -- were Brothers Buonhomo of Florence, Albert, Thomas Aquinas, and Peter of Tarantasia, later Pope and Blessed Innocent V. All combined depths of learning with practical experience of teaching and a perfect knowledge of the needs of the order and of the Church. Their findings, embodied in a code which was promulgated throughout the whole order, may be classified under the following heads:
1. Those relating to the provisions of facilities for study in each province. Every convent was to have, if possible, its own lectors in theology, but if this were impossible the young religious were to be sent to other convents so equipped to complete their studies. Each province was to have a Studium of Arts.
2. Those relating to the students and professors. The priors were to keep an eye open for young men who would profit by the studies; and any voyaging on other activities of a disturbing nature was forbidden to them. The lectors were not to occupy themselves with any ministrations, even of a religious nature, which would keep them from their duties, and no religious functions were to be held during the time allotted to study. All the brethren, even the prior so far as he could manage it, were to attend the lectures; each lector delivering an official course was to have a bachelor under him; and revision classes were to be held every week if possible. Provision was also made for the necessary books and for the furnishing of the students' expenses.
3. The priors and provincials were solemnly ordered to secure conformity with all these injunctions and if necessary to punish severely those students or lectors who neglected their studies. Visitators were ordered to inquire diligently into the observance of every article of the code.
This was the first rule of studies of so comprehensive and concrete a nature which the Church had ever seen, and it proves the seriousness and conscientiousness with which the order regarded its doctrinal mission. True, there was also a contrary current of thought within the order, represented by Gerard de Frachet, which looked with deep suspicion upon any learning other than theological, above all upon the "witch," philosophy. Yet such was not the opinion of these builders of the order's life of study; it was not the opinion of Albert, who said in words which seem harsh coming from one so gentle, "Mere are those ignorant people who wish to combat by every means possible the use of philosophy, and especially among the preachers, where no one opposes them; senseless animals who blaspheme that of which they know nothing."
To St. Albert every form of knowledge was good, as also to St. Thomas who declared that it is good even to have a knowledge of evil. Every sphere of learning which could possibly contribute to the strengthening and defense of the Church and the conquest of ignorance and error was to be cultivated with assiduity. Thus he supported with all his might the measures which were being taken to forge the order into a worthy instrument for the propagation of that mighty legacy of learning which he and his pupil Thomas were between them to bestow upon the Church and the world. (4)
1. The punishment was a discipline to be received before all and a meal of bread and water to be eaten in the middle of the refectory, for each day's journey by any conveyance. The Chapter of Worms defined the cases of necessity which were exceptions to the law: when the journey was through uninhabited places where food and lodging were unobtainable; when a sick person was obliged to travel and delay would be dangerous, or when a brother had to be carried to the monastery; or again, if a superior sent an urgent summons, which had to be answered as speedily as possible.
2. This statement is, however, incorrect. St. Thomas's Contra Impugnantes Dei Cultum et Religionem is an independent work.
3. All save St. Albert wrote their apologies for the mendicant orders, or, if he did so too, it has not come down to us. Different historians assign the lion's share of the credit to different protagonists, according to their affiliations, but in view of St. Albert's outstanding position, it seems most probable that he was the leader of the group.
4. Rudolph of Nymegen assigns to this period the saint's mission, in the capacity of papal legate, to Poland and Saxony, which were still largely pagan. Albert refers in his Politicorum to two of the abuses which were there prevalent, the exposure of unwanted children and the murder of the aged and the infirm, which he managed to abolish either by the authority of his word or the force of his touching exhortations. Rudolph remarks that he was particularly distressed by the fact that such abominable customs were regarded as acts of filial piety so that a son would himself point out the grave of a parent whom he had killed.
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