Blanquerna

QUONIAM TU SOLUS SANCTUS

The Pope Blanquerna was with his Cardinals one day, and they considered if they could do aught whereby there should be profit in the exaltation of the Catholic Faith. While they were together, there entered a Cardinal who had

BLANQUERNA

preached to a great multitude of people, and the Pope en¬ quired of the Cardinal if he had seen any man weeping during his sermon. The Cardinal answered that he had not, but that he had seen many men sleeping while he preached to them. The Pope said to the Cardinals how great a marvel it was that men had so little devotion to sermons, and he enquired wherefore the Saracens, who are in error, weep during sermons. A scrivener in Arabic of the Pope answered that he had been born and brought up in a country beyond the seas, and that he was of the number of those Christians that were of heathen birth, and he said that among the Saracens they preach of devotion and of considerations upon the glory of Paradise and the pains of hell ; for the which reason they have devotion to sermons, and they weep by reason of the devotion which they have.

2. After these words the Cardinal said that it was very natural, and that it was a thing of utility to preach and to prove by natural reasons the manner wherein virtues and vices are contrary, and how one virtue agrees with another, and one vice with another, and in what manner a man may mortify a vice with a virtue, or with two, and how with one virtue a man can revive another virtue; and this manner is in the Brief Art of Finding Truth. Wherefore natural art and devotion and consideration and brevity of sermons accord with preaching, that men may ever have devotion and may not be wearied.

3. When the Cardinal had spoken these words, the Pope and the Cardinals made ordinance that as many sermons should be preached as there are days in the year, and that in these should be contained all the beit matter which is moil meet to be preached, and that they should be of seemly length, and understandable by the people, for through ignorance the minds of men are oftentimes without de¬ votion ; these three hundred and sixty-five sermons were to be general and to be preached one after another in every year. After this the Pope made ordinance that men that 394

TV SOLUS DOMINUS were devout and of holy life should go daily through the Greets of the cities and of the towns, telling aloud their reflexions upon Hell and its pains, and upon the glory of Heaven, that men might have daily in remembrance the pains of Hell and the glory of Paradise. When all these things had been ordained, the Pope committed this office to a Cardinal who should be the officer of Quoniam Tu Solus SanXus through the work of preaching and of telling aloud these reflcXions.

4. The Cardinal who was beneficed with the office afore¬ mentioned appointed advocates and officers who should go through every land crying aloud concerning the pains of Hell and the glories of Paradise and the death of this world, according as is recounted in the Book of Doflrine for Boys,1 the which book was written by a certain man for his beloved son. After this he made ordinance with religious, and with those that have the office of preaching, as to the manner wherein they should preach ; and if in this office of preach¬ ing there were any excesses, how these might be correXed ; and how through preaching the will might soar so high that God should be fervently loved and served through the fortifying and exalting of great devotion.