Henry Denifle - Work On The Hundred Years' War

Work On The Hundred Years' War

A work of another kind suggested itself to him while gathering in the Vatican archives materials for his annotations on the Chartularium . Denifle noticed in the three hundred volumes of Registers of Petitions addressed to Clement VI and Urban V, between 1342 and 1393, that many came from France during the Hundred Years' War between that country and England. So for the sake of a change of occupation, or un travail accessoire as he called it, Denifle went again through these volumes (each about 600 pages folio). In 1897 he published: La désolation des églises, monasteres, hôpitaux, en France vers le milieu du XVe siècle. It contains a harrowing description of the state of France, based on 1063 contemporary documents, most of which were discovered in the Vatican. Then, in order to give an explanation a similar account of the cause of all these calamities, he published in 1889: La guerre de cent ans et la désolation des églises, monastères, et hôpitaux, tom. I, jusqu'à la mort de Charles V (1385). Though the work was not continued the enormous amount of recondite information brought together and illustrated for the first time makes the volume indispensable to historians (see e.g., his account of the Battle of Crécy and the Black Prince).

Denifle had for years been studying the history of medieval theology and mysticism, as well as the lives of saints and scholars by whom in both departments progress had been effected, on the other hand his investigations revealed the decadence of ecclesiastical life during the Hundred Years' War and caused him to amass documents (about 1200) showing the many abuses then prevalent among the clergy both secular and regular. The contrast was marked. As was his wont he resolved to solve the problem that arose, to see what could have been the result of such moral corruption. These new researches were not confined to France, they gradually extended to Germany. Denifle found proof that in both countries, with praiseworthy exceptions, during the 14th century things went from bad to worse, but he saw that the end had not been reached yet. He traced the downward course of profligacy to the third decade of the 16th century, and there he stopped for he had found the abyss. Crimes which ecclesiastics and religious were ashamed of in the preceding era now became to one section a cause of self-glorification, and were even regarded as miracles and signs of sanctity. At the beginning of this painful investigation Denifle had not a thought about Luther, but now he saw that he could not avoid him; to estimate the new departure it was necessary to understand Luther. So Denifle devoted many years to the task of ascertaining for himself how, and why, and when Luther “fell”. The Vatican archives and various libraries supplied original documents to which this independent study was confined. As usual Denifle made a series of discoveries. His work, which is divided into three parts, if we take its second edition, is in no sense a biography. The first part is a critique of Luther's treatise on monastic vows. It examines his views on the vow of chastity in detail, and convicts him of ignorance, mendaciousness, etc. The second part which is entitled a contribution to the history of exegesis, literature and dogmatic theology in the Middle Ages, refutes Luther's assertion that his doctrine of justification by faith, i.e. his interpretation of Rom., i, 17v, was the traditional one, by giving the relevant passages from no fewer than sixty-five commentators. Of these works many exist only in manuscript. The third part claims that the year 1515 was the turning point in Luther's career, and that his own account of his early life is utterly untrustworthy.