The enormous influence exercised by these preachers made it important,
both for the clergy and for the government, at least not to have them
as opponents; one means to this end was to permit only monks or priests
who had received at all events the lesser consecration, to enter the
pulpit, so that the Order or Corporation to which they belonged was, to
some extent, responsible for them. But it was not easy to make the rule
absolute, since the Church and pulpit had long been used as a means of
publicity in many ways, judicial, educational, and others, and since
even sermons were sometimes delivered by humanists and other laymen.
There existed, too, in Italy, a dubious class of persons who were
neither monks nor priests, and who yet had renounced the world--that is
to say, the numerous class of hermits who appeared from time to time in
the pulpit on their own authority, and often carried the people with
them. A case of this kind occurred at Milan in 1516 after the second
French conquest, certainly at a time when public order was much
disturbed. A Tuscan hermit, Hieronymus of Siena, possibly an adherent
of Savonarola, maintained his place for months together in the pulpit
of the Cathedral, denounced the hierarchy with great violence, caused a
new chandelier and a new altar to be set up in the church, worked
miracles, and only abandoned the field after a long and desperate
struggle.
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