From “The Liturgical Year” By Dom Gueranger
Let us resume our history, and seek our edification in studying the fervour wherewith the Christians of former times used to observe Lent. We will first offer to our readers a few instances of the manner in which dispensations were given. In the thirteenth century, the archbishop of Braga applied to the reigning Pontiff, Innocent III., asking him what compensation he ought to require of his people, who, in consequence of a dearth of the ordinary articles of food, had been necessitated to eat meat during the Lent. He at the same time consulted the Pontiff as to how he was to act in the case of the sick, who asked for a dispensation from abstinence. The answer given by Innocent, which was inserted in the Canon Law, is, as we might expect, full of considerateness and charity; but we learn from this fact that such was then the respect for the law of Lent, that it was considered necessary to apply to the sovereign Pontiff when dispensations were sought for. We find many such instances in the history of the Church. Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, being seized with a malady which rendered it dangerous to his health to take Lenten diet, applied, in the year 1297, to Pope Boniface VIII., for leave to eat meat. The Pontiff commissioned two Cistercian abbots to inquire into the real state of the prince's health; they were to grant the dispensation sought for, if they found it necessary, but on the following conditions: that the king had not bound himself by a vow, for life, to fast during Lent; that the Fridays, the Saturdays, and the vigil of St. Mathias, were to be excluded from the dispensation; and, lastly, that the king was not to take his meal in presence of others, and was to observe moderation in what he took. In the fourteenth century we meet with two briefs of dispensation, granted by Clement VI., in 1351, to John, king of France, and to his queen consort. In the first, the Pope, taking into consideration that during the wars in which the king is engaged he frequently finds himself in places where fish can with difficulty be procured, grants to the confessor of the king the power of allowing, both to his Majesty and to his suite, the use of meat on days of abstinence, excepting, however, the whole of Lent, all Fridays of the year, and certain vigils; provided, moreover, that neither he, nor those who accompany him, are under a vow of perpetual abstinence. In the second brief the same Pope, replying to the petition made him by the king for a dispensation from fasting, again commissions his Majesty's present and future confessors, to dispense both the king and his queen, after having consulted with their physicians. A few years later—that is, in 1376—Pope Gregory XI. sent a brief in favor of Charles V., king of France, and of Jane, his queen. In this brief, he delegates to their confessor the power of allowing them the use of eggs and milk- meats during Lent, should their physician think they stand in need of such dispensation; but he tells both physicians and confessor that he puts it upon their consciences, and that they will have to answer before God for their decision. The same permission is granted also to their servants and cooks, but only as far as it is needed for tasting the food to be served to their Majesties.
The fifteenth century, also, furnishes us with instances of applications to the holy See for Lenten dispensations. We will cite the brief addressed by Sixtus IV., in 1483, to James III., king of Scotland, in which he grants him permission to eat meat on days of abstinence, provided his confessor considers the dispensation needed. In the following century, we have Julius II. granting a like dispensation to John, king of Denmark, and to his queen Christina; and, a few years later, Clement VII. giving one to the emperor Charles V., and again, to Henry II. of Navarre, and to his queen Margaret. Thus were princes themselves treated, three centuries ago, when they sought for a dispensation from the sacred law of Lent. What are we to think of the present indifference wherewith it is kept? What comparison can be made between the Christians of former times, who, deeply impressed with the fear of God's judgments and with the spirit of penance, cheerfully went through these forty days of mortification, and those of our own days, when love of pleasure and self- indulgence are for ever lessening man's horror for sin? Where there is little or no fear of having to penance ourselves for sin, there is so much the less restraint to keep us from committing it. Where is now that simple and innocent joy at Easter, which our forefathers used to show, when, after their severe fast of Lent. They partook of substantial and savoury food? The peace, which long and sharp mortification ever brings to the conscience, gave them the capability, not to say the right, of being light-hearted as they returned to the comforts of life, which they had denied themselves in order to spend forty days in penance, recollection, and retirement from the world.
