Catherine of Siena

by Sigrid Undset

  In Rome itself there was no authority which could control the aggressive members of the great baronial families, who continually waged war on each other, supported by their friends among the lesser nobility and the Roman citizenry. They had fortresses inside the city walls, often built on ruins that had come down from the Rome of the Emperors; and in the mountains round the Roman Campagna they had their castelli—fortified castles surrounded by villages. Muratori’s description in his Fragmenta Historiae Romanae III is famous:

  Naked power had taken the place of justice, there was no respect for the law, no protection for personal possessions, no security for the individual. Pilgrims who came to pray at the graves of the apostles were robbed, peasants attacked outside the city walls, women were raped, injustice sat on the throne of justice, debauchery dwelt in the holy places and want in the bosom of the family. The churches of the holy land were in ruins; in St. Peter’s and the Lateran cattle grazed at the foot of the altars. The Forum had become kitchen gardens, or lay unattended as a lair for wild animals. The Egyptian obelisks were overturned and smashed; fragments of them were buried among the remains of walls and rubble. As a result of the absence of the Popes, party war and enmity between small groups flourished unchecked. General confusion and depopulation followed, and the great poets of the once proud Rome hung their harps on the willows and broke into the lament of the prophets: “How deserted is the town which was once so full of people, the mistress of the peoples is become a widow.”

  But in spite of everything Rome was still the holy town of Christendom. Pilgrims still faced danger and exhaustion to come from distant lands to pray at the graves of the apostles, and to make the traditional visits to the holy places, within the city walls and outside in the lovely green Campagna, dedicated to the memory of saints and martyrs from the heroic days of the Church. They came home with indulgences they had won, with relics and pictures of the saints to be inherited by their children or their parish church, and with stories of how terrible everything was in the city of St. Peter and St. Paul.

  Cola di Rienzi created an interlude which for a short time seemed to be the prelude to the re-birth of Rome. Niccolo di Lorenzo was of bourgeois descent, a man of outstanding gifts, eloquent, imaginative, high-minded, full of a burning love for his native town, whose great past he knew and admired. He dreamed that he had been born to bring back that past. In 1344 one of his brothers was murdered, and when Cola had tried in vain to bring the murderer to justice and judgment, he travelled to Avignon at the head of an embassy of spokesmen for the thirteen districts into which Rome was divided. The drastic picture which he painted of the miseries of Rome and the tyranny of the barons caused Pope Clement VI to send Cola back home as the notary of the Holy See. His great oratorical gifts soon brought the Roman people to his feet, and in 1347 he started his revolution. From the Capitol he proclaimed the constitution of the Roman Republic—Cola was convinced in his soul that it was the old republic which had returned from the dead. The people gave him the titles of Tribune and Liberator, and Clement was intelligent enough to accept the new situation and allow his representative, Bishop Raimondo of Orvieto, to co-operate with Cola. Law and order were again restored, the ruined churches were rebuilt, and warehouses built to store corn for use in the times of inflation and want which visited the city at varying intervals. The power of the barons was greatly curtailed, and pilgrims to the Holy City could wander unmolested from place to place both within and without the city walls. It seemed too good to be true. It proved too good to last. The fickle Romans turned against their Tribune and drove him from the city.

  Most of what had been won through Cola di Rienzi’s revolution was lost when the Black Death overran Europe in the years 1348 and 1349 and decimated the peoples of every country in a way which has never been equalled either before or since. It has been estimated that as much as one half of the population of Italy died during the plague. Everywhere people felt sure that this was God’s punishment on a world which had rejected Him.

  The chorus of voices which demanded that the world should do penance and the Pope return to the city which was the rightful home of the Holy See—most ordinary Christians of that time considered that this return was an inevitable condition for a re-birth of Christianity—was joined by a resounding female voice from Christendom’s most northerly boundary. In vain poets, patriots and saints—for even in the blackest days the Church of Christ had never ceased to produce saints—begged the Holy Father to have mercy on his children and come home. In the jubilee year of 1350 a widow who has since become known as St. Birgitta of Sweden came to Rome with several pious Swedish priests and some relations and friends. St. Birgitta, prophetess and seer, commanded the Pope to leave Avignon, and prophesied God’s imminent wrath if he did not listen to her impassioned warnings.

  Her contemporaries in Italy and many of her later admirers have called Birgitta Birgersdatter a Swedish princess. In a letter of 1347 Catherine speaks of her as “the countess who lately died in Rome”. It is true that both Birgitta and her husband were related to almost all the great Swedish families which in Sweden’s blood-drenched Middle Ages had worn and lost the crown. But they themselves actually belonged to the ancient aristocracy which, untroubled by titles and the like, could trace their family tree back to pagan times, shrouded in the mists of age, and which had for centuries ruled the districts where they lived as chiefs of communities of free peasants. At the same time there was nothing to stop their sons from allowing themselves to be knighted by their king, if they liked him and felt that they could follow him; but they rather looked down on the parvenu aristocracy of counts and barons and had no desire themselves for that kind of title.

  Birgitta tells us how in one of her visions she was asked by the mother of Christ: “What do the proud ladies of your country say?” The saint replied: “I am myself one of them, therefore I am ashamed to tell you.” Mary answered, “I know that better than you, but I wish you to say it.” Then Birgitta said: “When they preached humility to us we replied ‘We have inherited great estates and the customs and ways of chieftains from our forefathers, why should we not be as they were? Our mothers moved among the greatest women in the land, magnificently dressed—they had many servants and they brought us up to positions of honour and dignity in the world. Why should not I give all this in turn to my daughter whom I have brought up carefully so that she may behave with noble dignity, live happily and die honoured and admired in the eyes of the world?’ ”

  But Birgitta had nevertheless been a pious child, a good and obedient wife to her pious and good husband, a loving and conscientious mother, a high-minded and wise housewife who ruled with care and competence over great estates. When her cousin, the young King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden, sent for her and asked her to manage his queen’s household, Birgitta tried, without great success it is true, to lead the young couple from frivolity and vanity to the paths of Christian virtue. When her husband died she made a vow to live in poverty, chastity and obedience to her spiritual advisers, and she fought valiantly to bow her proud and passionate soul in perfect humility and love of Christ. She could not alter her nature: her great kindness towards all who suffered, and her princely generosity were natural to her. Grace does not alter our natures, it perfects them. Grace sanctified Birgitta and made her a prophetess and seer.

  Before leaving Sweden Birgitta sent a letter to Pope Clement VI, in which she commanded him to make peace between France and England and return to Rome for the jubilee year. In the name of Christ she prophesied the terrible humiliations and misfortunes which would come upon the Pope if he did not begin a new life, if he did not think of what the Church had to suffer for his sake, while he took thought only for his physical well-being. “Search your conscience, and see if what I say is not true.”

  Two Swedish prelates brought this letter to Avignon. The Pope was deeply moved by the passionate language of the prophetess from the far North, which for the people of Europe seemed to be surrounded by a kind of mi
st of strangeness and romance—even though the connections between the North and Southern Europe were considerably more alive and intimate in Catholic times than they became after the Reformation. Moreover, Birgitta belonged to the royal family of her country, and she had been used to taking part in political life before she had turned her back on the world. But just at the moment Clement was in an usually difficult situation—in Germany Ludwig of Bavaria had quarrelled with the Curia, and consequently the Germans felt antagonistic towards the papal court at Avignon. In Spain the war between the kings of Castille and Aragon was raging, and the war between England and France had started again. In vain the Pope tried to make peace in a world where peace had become a stranger. The English accused him, and not without reason, of taking France’s side. He only succeeded in bringing about an armistice for three years—and this armistice was broken before long.

  When the Black Death came to Avignon, Pope Clement VI showed that he was not lacking in physical courage. In this time of disaster he tried to be a real father to his people. He was so shaken by the descriptions of the situation in Rome that he tried too to bring about a number of badly needed reforms—but he did this from Avignon. He refused point-blank to move to Rome. On the contrary, he strengthened the bonds between the Papacy and France, and created a number of French cardinals. When he died in 1352 Birgitta cried, “Blessed be this day, but not this Pope.”

  Cola di Rienzi returned to Rome like a meteor in the same year, and now he really came as the Pope’s ambassador. Two years later the meteor was burnt out. In 1354 Cola di Rienzi was killed during a riot in Rome.

  Birgitta had had great hopes of Clement’s successor, Innocent VI, but she was sadly disappointed. She wrote to him, thundered, begged and threatened him with temporal and eternal punishment if he did not return to Rome. But he too died in Avignon without having set foot on Italian soil. After him came Pope Urban V, and in spite of protests and persuasion from the French cardinals and the French king in 1367 he sailed from Marseilles and landed in Corneto, where he was received by thousands of Italians, almost mad for joy. “It was the most beautiful and the most edifying sight that has ever been seen”, wrote Blessed Giovanni Colombini to his friends at home—he had been there as representative of Siena.

  In the autumn of 1367 Urban V made his entry into Rome, and the joy of the Italians seemed to outdo anything that had been seen before. The following year the new Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire came to Rome to be crowned. The Pope placed the imperial crown on his head. But soon after, Urban V left Rome after having been there only three years and three months. In vain Birgitta tried to persuade him to stay; she told him of the terrible revelations she had had, of the fate in store for himself and the Church if he failed in his duty. A short while after he returned to Avignon, Urban V lay fatally ill. He remembered the prophecies of the Swedish visionary and solemnly vowed that he would return to Rome and never again leave the Holy City, if God would spare his life. A day or two later he was dead.

  Cardinal Pierre Roger de Beaufort was chosen as his successor. He was a nephew of Pope Clement VI, and at the court of Avignon had been well known for his deep piety and his pure life. When he ascended the papal throne under the name of Gregory XI all faithful Christians rejoiced. At last it seemed as though the most worthy man had been chosen as St. Peter’s successor. The new Pope was a relatively young man, not forty years old, but he had poor health, and in spite of his many noble and excellent qualities his natural indecision caused him at times to waver and fluctuate.

  Birgitta had seen in a vision the fate which awaited him if he failed in his duty and did not come to Rome, and she sent him a letter which made a violent impression on the emotional Pope. In his reply he sent her his apostolic blessing and a vow recording his determination to move to Rome. But when time passed and there were no signs of the Pope’s making any preparations for his journey Birgitta wrote to him again and told him of a new revelation which she had had concerning him. If he let the love of his friends and relations and his native land of France prevent him from leaving, God would take from him the supernatural consolation He had always given the Pope. Moreover France would never enjoy peace and happiness if the French did not repent of their great sins towards Christ. With regard to the crusade which the Pope had planned, Our Lady had said to Birgitta that her Son would like it no better if the Pope sent hordes of godless warriors to His sepulchre than He had liked it when the Israelites in ancient times had offered their gold to make into a golden calf. . . .

  It is very strange that Catherine later took a quite different attitude to the crusade in question. On the whole it seems as though the young Sienese Popolana saw political problems with a more realistic eye than the old Swedish aristocrat who was the daughter and the mother of warriors, and who from her youth upwards had been used to moving in circles which seethed with political intrigues. Both women knew that there was only one thing in the world worth living for—the love of God and all mankind for His sake. But Catherine was much more willing to hope that the best would triumph in all men, to take the world as she found it and to try to alter it with self-sacrifice, prayer and holy love, than the stern and passionate widow from Sweden.

  Once again Gregory replied that his greatest desire was to move the papal residence to Rome. But just at the moment it was impossible. The war between England and France made it necessary for him to remain in Avignon. But in Italy too circumstances cried aloud for him to come, if only to save the Popes’ temporal power in the Papal States. Most Christians of that time considered that this was a matter of great importance from the religious viewpoint also. In earlier days the fact that the Popes were princes of this world as well as being the Vicars of Christ had assured the liberty of spiritual authority as far as it is possible to assure it in a world where sinful men continually allow themselves to be led in any direction by their uninhibited lust for power. But the great Popes had defended the precedence and liberty of spiritual power against the German emperors and European princes who attempted to force the servants of religion into subjection to the lords of this world—an attempt which the Protestant Reformation some hundreds of years later helped the princes and monarchs to carry out.

  The frontiers of the Papal States were threatened from the North by Bernabò Visconti, tyrant of Milan; and the Tuscan republics, which had seen with apprehension how the Pope’s armies, under the leadership of the Spanish Cardinal Legate Albornoz, had vanquished the other Italian princes, wondered suspiciously whether their independence was threatened too. There were reasons enough, besides the chief one of all, to make it incumbent on Gregory to keep his promise to St. Birgitta and come to Rome. But the Frenchman still wavered.

  In the meantime Christ had told Birgitta in a revelation that she was to go to Palestine. He would fulfil her old wish to offer her prayers at the holy places where He had been born of a Virgin, and had died for the salvation of mankind. She was not to hesitate from the fear that she was too old and weak to undertake the long journey. . . . So Birgitta left for Jerusalem.

  Gregory had not yet come to Rome when Birgitta returned there, only to die a month or two later, on July 23, 1373. She was seventy years old. Birgitta and Catherine never met, but before Birgitta had closed her eyes in death the Sienese virgin had taken her work upon herself, and it was Catherine’s destiny to carry it out. She was to be the master tool in the hand of God to bring St. Peter’s successor back to his home beside the graves of St. Peter and St. Paul.

  XI

  AN EVER GROWING NUMBER of men and women, priests, monks and laymen, sought Catherine’s advice and direction in matters of the conscience, although she had no other authority than her burning love of God and her zeal for His kingdom on earth. This meant, among other things, that she had a steadily growing correspondence.

  She could not write, so she had to dictate her letters. It appears that at first Alessia Saracini and Francesca Gori managed her correspondence for her. But she was soon forced to take on more sec
retaries, and she never had any difficulty in finding the help she needed among her male disciples. All her secretaries have maintained that she was able to dictate two or even three letters at once, without for a moment losing the thread of each or confusing the different themes. As her mission as a peacemaker, and the reports of her holiness, spread beyond Siena, and men with power and influence among her countrymen in other parts of the land also began to consult her, Catherine must have understood that it was better for her letters to be written by a male secretary—she knew so well men’s prejudice against women who mix themselves up in their affairs. . . .

  It had gradually come about that Italian and European politics was one of the chief concerns of the Seraphic Virgin of Siena. The artificial division of religion and politics did not exist for the people of the Middle Ages. If they thought over the matter at all, they were completely aware that all the problems concerning the community—good or bad government, the welfare or misery of the people—are in the final instance religious problems. The fundamental question is, What do we believe a man to be? What is it he needs, first and foremost, so that he may be in a position to attain all his secondary needs—peace, justice, security, satisfactory relationships with his fellow men?

  Catherine never had any doubts about the answer. A man is nothing by himself, has nothing from himself. His existence is in his Creator, everything he is and owns is from his Creator. United with his Creator, who is boundless Love, eternal Truth, Wisdom personified, man receives his share of the qualities of the Divine—within the limits of humanity. If a man loves God, he will be able to love his neighbour, to attain wisdom, and to be just and truthful. Because God is our eternal blessedness, a child of God becomes a blessing for his fellows. Love for one’s own ego, for something which is in reality nothing, leads to an abyss of nothingness. The love of a selfish man is nothing, truth escapes between his hands, his wisdom will show itself to be foolishness, his justice injustice, and in the end a series of disappointments and mistakes will lead him to hell—to the devil who is the spirit of disappointment and barrenness. “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” Catherine knew the truth of these words.