me."[42]

"Divine justice," said St. Hildegarde ([Cross] 1178), "shall have its hour;
the last of the seven epochs symbolized by the seven days of creation
has arrived, the judgments of God are about to be accomplished; the
empire and the papacy, sunk into impiety, shall crumble away
together.... But upon their ruins shall appear a new nation of God, a
nation of prophets illuminated from on high, living in poverty and
solitude. Then the divine mysteries shall be revealed, and the saying
of Joel shall be fulfilled; the Holy Spirit shall shed abroad upon the
people the dew of his prophecies, of his wisdom and holiness; the
heathen, the Jews, the worldly and the unbelieving shall be converted
together, spring-time and peace shall reign over a regenerated world,
and the angels will return with confidence to dwell among men."

These hopes were not wholly confounded. In the evening of his days the
prophet of Fiore was able, like a new Simeon, to utter his _Nunc
dimittis_, and for a few years Christendom could turn in amazement to
Assisi as to a new Bethlehem.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Bull of June 8, 1198, _Quamvis_. Migne, i., col. 220;
Potthast, 265.

[2] For example, Pierre, Cardinal of St. Chryzogone and former
Bishop of Meaux, who in a single election refused the dazzling
offer of five hundred silver marks. Alexander III., Migne's
edition, _epist._ 395.

[3] _Fasciculus rerum expetend. et fugiend._, t. ii., 7, pp.
254, 255 (Brown, 1690).

[4] John of Salisbury, _Policrat._ Migne, v. 15.

[5] Among their sources of revenue we find the right of
_collagium_, by payment of which clerics acquired the right to
keep a concubine. Pierre le Chantre, _Verb. abbrev._, 24.

[6] Vide _Carmina Burana_, Breslau, 8vo, 1883; Political Songs
of England, published by Th. Wright, London, 8vo, 1893; _Poesies
populaires latines du moyen age_, du Meril, Paris, 1847. See
also Raynouard, _Lexique roman_, i., 446, 451, 464, the fine
poems of the troubadour Pierre Cardinal, contemporary of St.
Francis, upon the woes of the Church, and Dante, _Inferno_, xix.
If one would gain an idea of what the bishop of a small city in
those days cost his flock, he has only to read the bull of
February 12, 1219, _Justis petentium_, addressed by Honorius
III. to the Bishop of Terni, and including the contract by which
the in