Page:Edinburgh Review Volume 158.djvu/330

1883. Prowe's Life of Copernicus. 315 unworthy to fill the see once occupied by Æneas Silvius Piccolomini.

Shortly after the death of his uncle, Copernicus resumed his place in the Chapter of Frauenburg. But here a fresh sorrow awaited him. His brother Andrew's early career had, as we have already in part seen, run strictly parallel with his own. They had been together at Cracow, at Bologna, at Rome ; they had obtained admittance to the same religious corporation, and together closed their years of study and travel. But, not long after their return from Italy, Andrew showed the first symptoms of a disease terribly familiar in medieval times, though in our part of the world now happily unknown. The number of leper hospitals in Europe in the thirteenth century was estimated by Matthew Paris at 19,000; religious orders were founded for the care of those afflicted with the loathsome malady, and their treatment was a prominent object of medical study. The disease had, however, before the close of the fifteenth century, ceased to be epidemic, and only kept alive the memory of its horrors by seizing upon an occasional victim. One of these was Andrew Copernicus. Few and dismal are the particulars known relative to the calamity by which he was overwhelmed. In 1508 he left Frauenburg to try the effect of southern air and southern skill. He returned only to encounter aggravated sufferings. In 1512 his infectious presence was dispensed with at the sittings of the Chapter. Whither he now carried his burden of misery is doubtful — probably once more to Italy — but it is certain that he finally laid it down some time between the years 1516 and 1519.

The life which Copernicus was henceforth to share with a score of other prebendaries at Frauenburg resembled a collegiate rather than an ecclesiastical one. It was learned, it was decorous, it was profitably occupied, but it was in little more than in name devoted to the service of religion. Here, as elsewhere, much of the laxity had crept in, which the stringent regulations of the Council of Trent were later directed to counteract. Very few of the canons were in priest's or even in deacon's orders; most of them (Copernicus, there is every reason to believe, amongst the number) had not passed beyond the preparatory stage of an acolyte. It can only occasion surprise to find so many admirable bishops — some of them still held in venerated memory — issuing from a body of men who were willing to take the wages, while reluctant to perform the work, of the Church.

The functions of the Chapter were largely administrative.