at first armed pilgrimages. The popes favoured
them in hope of extending their power over Asia.
They exercised, therefore, all means to induce
people to take the cross. The chief inducement
was the promise of indulgence. The pope
ordered it to be preached through the Christian
world, that all sins committed, were they ever
so great, would be forgiven "as soon as the sinner
took the cross." This invention of
indulgences was now worked by the popes in the
most ingenious manner, ana became their gold
mine.

As there were some people who would hardly
believe in the power of the nope to forgive sins,
Clement the Sixth explained his right to it, and
the whole theory of indulgence in this manner,
by a bull of the year thirteen hundred and forty-
two. He said in it: "The whole human kind
might have been saved by one single drop of the
blood of Christ, but having shed so much, and
certainly not for nothing, this excess formed an
inexhaustible Church treasure, which was still
increased by the not superfluous merits of the
saints and martyrs. The pope is the keeper of
this treasure, and may dispense of it to any
degree without fear of exhausting it." Whoever
made a pilgrimage to this or that image of a
saint, or to this or that place of grace, and paid
money enough to the altar, received, not only
indulgence for the sins he had committed, but
even for those he might commit in years to come.

In Germany alone, there were about a
hundred images of the Virgin to which pilgrims
went. One single author enumerates twelve
hundred in sundry lands. The most celebrated
in the whole world is that of Loretto, horribly
carved in wood (it was said) by the hands of St.
Luke. The next in form is that of St. Iago de
Compostella, where, on high church feasts, thirty
thousand devotees assemble. Waldthuren, in
Baden, is celebrated for the wonder-working
corporate. This is a napkin, upon which to place
the chalice with the plate of wafers. In the
fourteenth century, a priest spilt some of the
consecrated wine, and every drop of it made a
stain like a divine head with the thorny crown.
Before and after Corpus-Christi day, some forty
thousand pilgrims fetch from the church red silk
threads, which have been rubbed against this
corporate. They are said to be a cure for erysipelas.
More profitable still are those places of
pilgrimage at which are kept the very holy relics
to be seen once only in every seven years. The
most precious treasure of this kind is in Aix-
la-Chapelle; it contains a very large frock of
Mary, the swaddling-clothes of Christ, made of
a brownish-yellow felt, and the cloth on which
was laid the head of John the Baptist. At the
end of the fifteenth century, nearly a hundred
and fifty thousand pilgrims came to Aix-la-
Chapelle, and the harvest of the priests was very
good; but in the present century, when the
relics were shown only for a fortnight after a
long intermission, they were visited only by
forty thousand of the faithful. However, only
sixteen years ago, about a million of people went
to Trèves to kiss one of the many Holy Coats.

That the pope sheared the Christian sheep is
allegory; but it is fact also that he is a breeder
of real four-legged ewes and rams, and knows
how to sell his wool at a price that would
astonish all our farmers. He keeps a little flock
of lambs, which have been consecrated over the
graves of the Apostles, and from the wool of
which the bishops' palls are woven.

The pallium, or pall, is originally a Roman
cloak. Emperors, as a token of their grace,
used to present such a cloak, dyed in purple and
embroidered with gold, to the patriarchs and
other bishops. The price set on a pall was
very high indeed; the revenue got from this
source pleased the popes well, and John the
Eighth ordained that every archbishop who had
not obtained his pall from Rome after three
months' time was to be considered as deposed.

The popes gave, however, in the cloak some
little value for the treasure of a price they set
upon it; this was yet to be saved, so the cloak
dwindled away into a worsted ribbon, a few
inches wide, with a red cross for its ornament.
Such ribbons are woven by nuns from the
consecrated wool, and weigh about three ounces.
The wool of the pope's little flock of four-
legged lambs would fetch about three millions
of florins.

The palls are the more profitable because
archbishops are generally old men, who soon die
out, and each archbishop is required to pay for
a new pall. Nay, he must even do so when
transferred to a new place. Some German
bishops, those of Würzburg, Bamberg, and
Passau, enjoyed like popes this precious right of
the pall. The archbishop Marculf of Mayence
was compelled to sell the left leg of a golden
Christ to pay for his pall. The archbishop
Arnold of Trèves was very much at a loss when
he received, together with the bills, two palls
at once, sent to him by two opposition popes
disputing each other.

A very golden idea crossed the holy brains of
Boniface the Eighth. He was inventor of the
Jubilee. They who made a pilgrimage to Rome
in such a year, and deposited a certain sum on
the altar of St. Peter, were to receive indulgence
for all sins committed during the course of their
lives. Who would not profit by such an
opportunity? Sinners from all parts of Europe
flocked to Rome. The year thirteen hundred
brought two hundred thousand strangers there,
who filled the pockets of the inhabitants, as
well as the coffers of his Holiness. Some
millions of pounds sterling were brought to
the Pope. The harvest surpassed expectation,
and it is no wonder that every pope, in
his turn, longed to repeat the experiment. A
hundred years is a long time. Clement the Sixth
ordered that there should be jubilees every fifty
years, because St. Peter had appeared to him and
said, with a threatening gesture, "Open the gate!"
Pope Urban the Sixth contrived three jubilees
to the century by shortening the period to thirty-
three years, in remembrance of the age of Our
Lord. Sixtus the Fourth counted four jubilees to
the century by fixing the period at five-and-twenty