The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

SUPERSTITIOUS PRACTICES. 225
from the vigil of All Saints onwards, the church of S. Maria
ad Martyres, the ancient Pantheon, had remained open all
night for the purpose of gaining an indulgence, giving rise
to grave scandals.^ Both the ecclesiastical and the civil
authorities had already on previous occasions issued ordin-
ances against the profanation of the House of God,^ but no
one set himself against it with so much resoluteness or with
such grave threats as Pius V.,^ who found a powerful ally
in the reformed Orders, whose churches were for the most
part only frequented by those people to whom piety was a
matter of deep reality.'* In his fight against superstition
the new Pope was again helped by Ormaneto who, for example,
caused to be cut off from the Chair of St. Peter the cords which
some women, probably from superstitious motives, had tied
to it. 5 It is clear that almost all these ordinances were
suggested by the decrees of the Council of Trent on the worthy
celebration of mass.^
In the diocese of Calahorra, a remarkable exhibition of the
proverbial Spanish class feeling had led to disturbances and
damage even in the churches. There were two parties, the
hidalgos, who were exempt from taxes, and the pecheros,
who were not thus exempt. The hidalgos claimed precedence
over the others and the first places, even in the churches,
at mass, at the reception of the sacraments, and in processions.
This gave rise to endless strife and quarrels, and in the little
city of Oslo, during the procession of Corpus Domini, the mayor
^ Laderchi 1566. n. 65. *Avviso di Roma loc. cit.
- Tacchi Venturi I., 184.
•'' In
the bull already cited.
* Tacchi Venturi, I., 186.
^ *Avviso di Roma of Januarj^ 24, 1568, Urb. 1040, p. 479,
Vatican Library.
•'
Sess. 22, " de observandis et evitandis in celebratione Missae."
This decree is supported by the ordinance that Mass is to be
celebrated at a suitable time, and by a motuproprio forbidding its
celebration during the evening hours of the day preceding the
midnight mass of Christmas, and of the early morning mass of
Easter. Published March 2Q, 1366, Bull. Rom., VTI., 433.
VOL. XVII. 15