Italy^ showed that she could give her
enthusiasm only to individuals.
Strength of the Old Faith
If, apart from all that concerns the priests and the monks, we
attempt to measure the strength of the old faith, it will be found
great or small according to the light in which it is considered. We
have spoken already of the need felt for the Sacraments as something
indispensable. Let us now glance for a moment at the position of faith
and worship in daily life. Both were determined partly by the habits of
the people and partly by the policy and example of the rulers.
All that has to do with penitence and the attainment of salvation by
means of good works was in much the one stage of development or
corruption as in the North of Europe, both among the peasantry and
among the poorer inhabitants of the cities. The instructed classes were
sometimes influenced by the same motives. Those sides of popular
Catholicism which had their origin in the old pagan ways of invoking,
rewarding, and propitiating the gods have fixed themselves ineradicably
in the consciousness of the people. The eighth eclogue of Battista
Mantovano, which has already been quoted elsewhere, contains the prayer
of a peasant to the Madonna, in which she is called upon as the special
patroness of all rustic and agricultural interests. And what
conceptions they were which the people formed of their protectress in
heaven.
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