ediaval experience was an awful sense of
another life and an invisible world." A most piteous illustration
of the conjoined faith and fear of that age is furnished by an old
dialogue between the "Soul and the Body" recently edited by
Halliwell, an expression of humble trust and crouching horror
irresistibly pathetic in its simplicity.28 A flood of revealing
light is given as to the energy with which the doctrine of
purgatory impressed itself on the popular mind, by the two facts,
first, that the Council of Auxerre, in 1578, prohibited the
administration of the eucharist to the dead; and, secondly, that
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries "crosses of absolution" that
is, crosses cut out of sheet lead, with the formula of absolution
engraved on them were quite commonly buried with the dead.29 The
eager sincerity of the mediaval belief in another life is
attested, too, by the correspondence of the representations of the
dead in their legends to the appearance, disposition, and pursuits
they had in life. No oblivious draught, no pure spiritualization,
had freed the departed souls from earthly bonds and associations.
Light pretexts drew them back to their wonted haunts. A buried
treasure allowed them no rest till they had led some one to raise
it. An unfinished task, an uncancelled obligation, forced them
again to the upper world. In ruined castles the ghosts of knights,
in their accustomed habiliments, held tournaments and carousals.
The priest read mass; the hunter pursued his game; the spectre
robber fell on the benighted traveller.30 It is hard for us now to
reproduce, even in imagination, the fervid and frightful
earnestness of the popular faith of the Middle Age in the
ramifying agency of the devil and in the horrors of purgatory. We
will try to do it, in some degree, by a series of illustrations
aiming to show at once how prevalent such a belief and fear were,
and how they became so prevalent.

First, we may specify the teaching of the Church whose authority
in spiritual concerns bore almost unquestioned sway over the minds
of more than eighteen generations. By the logical subtleties of
her scholastic theologians, by the persuasive eloquence of her
popular preachers, by the frantic ravings of her fanatic devotees,
by the parading proclamation of her innumerable pretended
miracles, by the imposing ceremonies of her dramatic ritual,
almost visibly opening heaven and hell to the over awed
congregation, by her wonder