History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution Volume I Part 2

[1] Sandys, /History of Cla.s.sical Scholarship/, 2nd edition, 1906.

Rogers, /L'Enseignement des lettres cla.s.siques d'Ausone a Alcuin/, 1905. Gougaud, /Les Chretientes Celtiques/, 1911, chap. viii. (An excellent bibliography.) Esposito, /Greek in Ireland during the Middle Ages/ (/Studies/, i., 4, 665-683).

[2] Monnier, /La Renaissance de Dante a Luther/, 1884.

[3] Guirard, /L'Eglise et la Renaissance/, chap. iii.

[4] Nolhac, /Petrarque et l'Humanisme/, 1892.

[5] Mancini, /Vita di Lorenzo Valla/, 1891.

[6] Pastor, /History of the Popes/, i., pp. 12-33.

[7] Pastor, op. cit., p. 24.

[8] Muntz, /Les arts a la cour des Popes pendant le XVe. et le XVIe.

siecle/, 1878-9.

[9] Muntz-Fabre, /La Bibliotheque du Vatican au XVe. siecle/, 1887.

[10] Pastor, op. cit., vol. vii. Conforti, /Leone X. ed il suo secolo/, 1896. Roscoe, /Life and Pontificate of Leo X./, 1883.

[11] Delprat, /Die Bruderschaft des gemeinsamen Lebens/, 1840.

[12] Strauss, /Ulrich von Hutten/, 2 auf., 1871 (Eng. Trans., 1874).

[13] /Clarorum virorum Epistolae latinae graecae et hebraicae/, 1514.

[14] Janssen, /History of the German People/, iii., pp. 44-79.

[15] Capey, /Erasmus/, 1901.

[16] /Lefevre d'Etaples son influence sur les origines de la reforme Franc./, 1900.

[17] Lalanne, /Memoires de Me. de Valois/, etc., 1858.

[18] On the Humanist movement in England, cf. Gasquet, /Eve of the Reformation/, 1900, chap. ii. Seebohm, /Oxford Reformers/ (Colet, Erasmus, More), 1867. Einstein, /The Italian Renaissance in England/, 1902.

(b) Political and Social Condition of Europe.

See the works of Pastor, Janssen and Gasquet cited in section (a).

/The Cambridge Modern History/, vol. i (gives an excellent bibliography). Hergenrother-Kirsch, /Handbuch der Allgemeinen Kirchengeschichte/, Bd. 2 (pp. 996-1002). Ranke, /Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation/, 1844 (Eng. Trans. by Austin, 1845-7). Idem., /Geschichte der Romanischen und Germanischen Volker/ (1419-1514). Kaser, /Deutsche Geschichte zur Zeit Maximilians I./ (1486-1519), 1912. Cherrier, /Histoire de Charles VIII./, 1868. Prescott, /Ferdinand and Isabella/, 1887.

Busch-Todd, /England under the Tudors/, 1892-5. Hunt-Poole, /The Political History of England/, vol. v., 1910 (chap. v.).

The struggle between the Papacy and the Empire, ending, as it did, in the downfall of the House of Hohenstaufen, put an end to the old conception of the universal monarchy presided over by the Emperor and the Pope. A new tendency began to make itself felt in European politics. Hitherto the feudal system, on which society was based, had served as a barrier against the development of royal power or the formation of united states. Under this system the king was sometimes less powerful than some of his nominal subjects, and was entirely dependent upon the good-will of the barons for the success of any action he might take outside his own hereditary dominions. This was the real weakness of the system, and so long as it remained the growth of Nationalism was impossible.

Gradually, however, by the exertions of powerful sovereigns the power of the barons was broken, the smaller states were swallowed up in the larger ones, and the way was prepared for the rise of the nations of Modern Europe. In France the policy of centralisation begun in the thirteenth century, was carried to a successful conclusion in the days of Louis XI. (1461-83). The English provinces, Aquitane, Burgundy, and Brittany, were all united to form one state, knowing only one supreme ruler. In Spain the old divisions disappeared almost completely with the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand (1479-1516) and Isabella the Catholic (1474-1504), and with the complete destruction of the Moorish power by the conquest of Granada (1492). In England the slaughter of the n.o.bility in the Wars of the Roses left the way ready for the establishment of the Tudor dominion. As part of the same movement towards unification Henry VIII. was declared to be King of Ireland instead of Feudal Lord, and serious attempts were made to include Scotland within his dominions. Inside the Empire similar tendencies were at work, but with exactly opposite results. The interregnum in the Empire and a succession of weak rulers left the territorial princes free to imitate the rulers of Europe by strengthening their own power at the expense of the lower n.o.bility, the cities, and the peasantry; but, having secured themselves, they used their increased strength to arrest the progress of centralisation and to prevent the development of a strong imperial power.

As a direct result of this centralisation tendency and of the increase in royal authority that it involved, the rulers of Europe initiated a campaign against all const.i.tutional restrictions on the exercise of their authority. The feudal system with all its faults was in some senses wonderfully democratic. The sovereign was dependent upon the decisions of the various representative a.s.semblies; and though the lower cla.s.ses had little voice except in purely local affairs, yet the rights and privileges of all cla.s.ses were hedged round so securely by written charters or immemorial usage that any infringement of them might be attended with serious results. In England the Parliament, in Spain the Cortes, in France the States General, and in Germany the Diet, should have proved a strong barrier against absolute rule. But the authority of such a.s.semblies was soon weakened or destroyed. Under the Tudors the English Parliament became a mere machine for registering the wishes of the sovereign; the Cortes and States General were rarely consulted in Spain and France; and, though the Diet retained its position in the Empire, it was used rather to increase the influence of the princes than to afford any guarantee of liberty to the subject.

In bringing about such a complete revolution the rulers were a.s.sisted largely by the introduction of the Roman Code of Justinian.[1]

According to the principles of the Roman Code the power of the sovereign was unlimited, and against his wishes no traditional customs or privileges could prevail. Such a system was detested especially by the Germans, who clung with great pertinacity to their own national laws and customs; but the princes, supported by the universities, carried through the reform on which they had set their heart. They succeeded in strengthening their own power and in trampling down the rights guaranteed to their subjects by the old Germanic Code, while at the same time they were untiring in their resistance to imperial reforms, and were unwilling to do anything to increase the power of the Emperor.

As a result of the development of arbitrary rule the lower cla.s.ses had great reason to complain of the increase of taxation and of the difficulties of obtaining justice in the ordinary courts of law. They were ready to listen to the advice of interested leaders, who urged them to band together in defence of their rights against the usurpation of land owners and kings. As a result nearly every country in Europe found itself involved in a great struggle. The Peasants' War in Hungary (1514), the revolt against Charles V. in Spain (1520), the resistance of the Flemish Communes, led by Ghent, to the ordinances of the Dukes of Burgundy, the discontent of the lower cla.s.ses in France with the excessive taxes levied by Louis XI., and the secret a.s.sociations which prepared the way for the great uprising of the lower cla.s.ses in Germany (1524), were clear indications that oppression and discontent were not confined to any particular country in Europe.

With all these political developments the interests of religion and of the Church were closely connected. Even though it be admitted that in themselves there is no real opposition between Nationalism and Catholicism, yet in the circ.u.mstances of the time, when national rivalry was acute, the dependence of the Holy See upon any particular nation was certain to excite serious jealousy. From that time nations began to regard the Pope as an ally or an enemy according to the side he favoured instead of looking to him as a common father, and consequently the danger of a conflict between national patriotism and loyalty to the Head of the Church was rendered less improbable. This feeling was increased by the residence of the Popes at Avignon, when the Holy See was so completely a.s.sociated with the interests of France, and by the policy pursued by Sixtus IV. and his successors in regard to the Italian States. Nowhere, however, was this opposition to the Papacy manifested more clearly than in Germany. This was due partly to the growing feeling of antipathy between the Teutonic and the Latin races, partly to the tradition of the great struggle of the thirteenth century in which the Emperors were worsted by the Popes, and partly also to the discontent excited amongst all cla.s.ses of the German people, lay and cleric, by the taxations of the Curia. The att.i.tude of the three ecclesiastical electors in 1455, the complaints of the clergy in 1479, and the list of /Gravamina/ presented to Maximilian in 1510 were harbingers of the revolution that was to come.

Besides, the growth of absolutism in Europe was likely to prove dangerous to the liberties of the Church. Rulers, who aimed at securing for themselves unlimited authority, were not blind to the importance of being able to control the ecclesiastical organisation, and to attain this result their legal advisers quoted for them the maxims of the old Roman Code, according to which the king was the source of all spiritual as well as temporal power. Their predecessors had usurped already a strong voice in the appointments to benefices, but now civil rulers claimed as a right what those who had gone before were glad to accept as a privilege. Hence they demanded that the Holy See should hand over to them the nomination of bishops, that it should modify the old laws regarding exemption of ecclesiastical property from taxation, trial of clerics, and right of sanctuary, and that it should submit its p.r.o.nouncements for the royal /Exequator/ before they could have the force of law in any particular state. The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438) and the Concordat wrung from Leo X. by Francis I. of France in 1516, the Concordat of Princes in 1447, and the new demands formulated by the Diet of the Empire, the Statutes of /Provisors/ and /Praemunire/ in England (1453), and the concessions insisted upon by Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain (1482), were clear proofs that absolutism was destined to prove fatal to the liberty of the Church and the authority of the Holy See.

Finally, the universal discontent of the ma.s.ses, and the great social revolutions of the first quarter of the sixteenth century were likely to prove dangerous to ecclesiastical authority. In all revolutions the most extreme men are certain to a.s.sume control at least in the earlier stages of the movement, and their wildest onslaughts on Church and State are sure to receive the applause of the crowd. But there was special danger that these popular outbreaks might be turned into anti- religious channels at a time when so many of the bishops were secular princes, and when the Church appeared to be so closely identified with the very interests against which the peasants took up arms. In these circ.u.mstances it was not difficult for designing men to push forward their plans of a religious reform under guise of a campaign for liberty and equality.[2]

[1] /Cambridge Modern History/, ii., p. 176. Janssen, op. cit., Eng.

Trans., ii., chap. ii.

[2] Janssen, op. cit. Eng. Trans., vols. i.-iii. Pastor, op. cit., Eng. Trans., vols. i.-iii.

(c) The Religious Condition of Europe.

Pastor, op. cit. Janssen, op. cit. Creighton, /History of the Papacy from the Great Western Schism to the Sack of Rome/, 2nd edition, 1897. Ranke, /Die Romische Papste im 16 und 17 jahrhunderten/ (x.x.xvii-x.x.xix), 1900 (Eng. Trans., 3 vols., 1866).

Haller, /Papsttum und Kirchenreform/, 1904. Mansi, /Sacrorum Conciliorum Collectio/, 1900. Hefele, /Conciliengeschichte/ 2 auf.

1873-90 (Eng. Trans. in part, French Trans.). Imbart de la Tour, /Les origines de la Reforme/, ii., 1909. Thomas, /Le Concordat de 1516/, 1910. Ullman, /Reformatoren vor der Reformation/, 1866 (Eng. Trans. by Menzies, 1855).

The withdrawal of the Popes from the capital of Christendom and the unfortunate schism, for which their residence at Avignon is mainly responsible, proved disastrous to the authority of the Holy See. The Avignon Popes were Frenchmen themselves. Their cardinals and officials belonged for the most part to the same favoured nation. They were dependent upon the King of France for protection, and in return, their revenues were at times placed at his disposal in order to ensure victory for the French banners. Such a state of affairs was certain to alienate the rulers and people of other nations, especially of Germany and England, and to prepare the way for a possible conflict in the days that were to come.

The Great Western Schism that followed upon the residence at Avignon divided Christian Europe into hostile camps, and snapped the bond of unity which was already strained to the utmost by political and national rivalries. Sincere believers were scandalised at the spectacle of two or three rival Popes, each claiming to be the successor of St. Peter, and hurling at his opponents and their supporters the severest censures of the Church. While the various claimants to the Papacy were contending for supreme power in the Church, they were obliged to make concession after concession to the rulers who supported them and to permit them to interfere in religious affairs, so that even when peace was restored and when Martin V. was universally recognised as the lawful Pope, he found himself deprived of many of the rights and prerogatives, for which his predecessors from Gregory VII. to Boniface VIII. had struggled so bravely.

Nor was this all. In their efforts to bring about a reunion, and despairing of arriving at this happy result by an agreement among the contending Popes, many honest theologians put forward principles, which, however suitable to the circ.u.mstances of the schism, were utterly subversive of the monarchical const.i.tution of the Church. They maintained that in case of doubtful Popes the cardinals had the right to summon a General Council to decide the issue, and that all Christians were bound to submit to its decrees. In accordance with these principles the Council of Constance was convoked, and, elated with the success of this experiment, many of the more ardent spirits seemed determined to replace, or at least, to limit the authority of the Popes by the authority of General Councils summoned at regular intervals. The Pope was to be no longer supreme spiritual ruler. His position in the Church was to be rather the position of a const.i.tutional sovereign in a state, the General Council being for the Pope what modern Parliaments are for the king.

Fortunately for the Popes such a theory was completely discredited by the excesses of its supporters at the Council of Basle, but it served to weaken the authority of the Holy See, and to put into the hands of its opponents a weapon which they were not slow to wield whenever their personal interests were affected. Henceforth appeals from the Pope to a General Council, although prohibited, were by no means unfrequent.

Yet in spite of all these reverses, had the Church been blessed with a succession of worthy Popes burning with zeal for religion, free to devote themselves to a thorough reform, and capable of understanding the altered political and social conditions of the world, the Papacy might have been restored to its old position. But unfortunately the Popes from Nicholas V. to Leo X. were not the men to repair the damage that was done, or to ward off impending danger. The calamities that threatened Europe from the advance of the Turks, and the necessity of rousing its rulers to a sense of their responsibilities occupied a large share of their attention; while the anxiety which they displayed in the miserable squabbles of the Italian kingdoms, sometimes out of disinterested regard for the temporal States of the Church, as in the case of Julius II., more frequently from a desire of providing territories for their unworthy relations, left them little time to safeguard the general well-being of the Church. In case of some of them, too, if one may judge them by their actions, the progress of Humanism seemed to be nearer to their hearts than the progress of religion.

In his personal life Nicholas V. (1447-55) was not unworthy of his exalted position, but the necessity of repairing the damage that had been done by the unruly a.s.sembly at Basle, which arrogated to itself the authority of an independent General Council, the removal of the last obstacle to the Turkish invasion of Europe in the fall of Constantinople, and the importance of securing for Rome a pre-eminent position in the great cla.s.sical revival, engaged all his energies to the exclusion of necessary reforms. Calixtus III. (1455-58) was too old to do much, yet, notwithstanding his advancing years and the indifference of the European rulers, he threw himself into the struggle against the Turks, aiding and encouraging Hungary and Albania in their resistance, and it is due largely to his efforts that the victorious advance of Mahomet II. was checked by the overthrow of his forces at Belgrade (1456). Pius II.[1] (1458-64), though in his youth not the most exemplary of the Humanist school, devoted himself with earnestness and zeal to the duties of his sacred office. He published a Bull retracting all the attacks which he had made against the Papacy in his capacity as secretary to the /Concilabulum/ at Basle. He set himself to study the Scriptures and the early Fathers in place of the Pagan cla.s.sics, and he showed his approbation of the Christian Humanists. But he was unable to undertake the work of reform. In view of the danger that still threatened Europe he convoked an a.s.sembly of the princes at Mantua to organise a crusade against the Turks, but they turned a deaf ear to his appeals, and, at last weary of their refusals and indifference, he determined to place himself at the head of the Christian forces for the defence of Europe and Christianity. He reached Ancona broken down in spirits and bodily health, and died before anything effective could be done. Paul II. (1464-71), who succeeded, made some efforts to purify the Roman Court. He suppressed promptly the College of Abbreviators who were noted for their greed for gold and their zeal for Paganism, and closed the Roman Academy. On account of his severity in dealing with the half Christian Humanists of the Curia he has been attacked with savage bitterness by Platina, one of the dismissed officials, in his /Lives of the Popes/,[2] but n.o.body is likely to be deceived by scurrilous libels, the motives of which are only too apparent. The worst that can be said against Paul II. is that he was too fond of appointing his relatives to high positions in the Church; but in mitigation of that it is well to remember that his reforms had raised up so many enemies against him in Rome, and disaffection was so rife amongst even the highest officials of his court, that he may have deemed it prudent to have relatives around him on whom he could rely.

Sixtus IV. (1471-84) was the first of the political Popes, Leo X.

being the last. They are so called on account of the excessive interest they displayed in Italian politics of the period, to the neglect of the higher interests with which they were entrusted. Most of them, with the exception of Alexander VI., were not positively unworthy men, but they were too much concerned with secular pursuits to undertake a reform of the gross abuses which flourished at the very gates of their palace. The papal court was no worse and very little better than the courts of contemporary rulers, and the greed for money, which was the predominant weakness of the curial officials, alienated the sympathy of all foreigners, both lay and cleric.

Julius II. (1503-13) did, indeed, undertake the difficult task of restoring the States of the Church that had been parcelled out into petty kingdoms by his predecessors, but his policy soon brought him into conflict with Louis XII. of France. Louis demanded that a General Council should be convoked, not so much out of zeal for reform as from a desire to embarra.s.s the Pope, and when Julius II. refused to comply with his request the king induced some of the rebellious cardinals to issue invitations for a council to meet at Pisa (Sept. 1511). Most of the bishops who met at Pisa at the appointed time were from France.

The Emperor Maximilian held aloof, and the people of Pisa regarded the conventicle with no friendly feelings. The sessions were transferred from Pisa to Milan, and finally to Lyons. As a set off to this Julius II. convoked a council to meet at Rome, the fifth Lateran Council (May 1512), for the threefold purpose of healing the French schism, of proscribing certain doctrinal errors, and of undertaking the work of reform. The earlier sessions were taken up almost entirely with the schism, and before the work of reform was begun Julius II. pa.s.sed away.

He was succeeded by the young and learned John de' Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence, who took the name of Leo X.

(1513-21). Like his father, the new Pope was a generous patron of art and literature, and bestowed upon his literary friends, some of whom were exceedingly unworthy, the highest dignities in the Church.

Humanism was triumphant at the Papal Court, but, unfortunately, religion was neglected. Though in his personal life Leo X. could not be described as a deeply religious man, yet he was mindful of his vows of celibacy, attentive to the recitation of the divine, office, abstemious, and observant of the fasts of the Church. As a secular ruler he would have stood incomparably higher than any of the contemporary sovereigns of Europe, but he was out of place considerably as the head of a great religious organisation.

Worldliness and indifference to the dangers that threatened the Church are the most serious charges that can be made against him, but especially in the circ.u.mstances of the time, when the Holy See should have set itself to combat the vicious tendencies of society, these faults were serious enough.

The defeat of the French forces at Novara (1513), and the loyalty of the other rulers of Europe to the Holy See induced Louis XII. of France to make peace with the new Pope, and to recognise the Lateran Council. But on the accession of Francis I. (1515-47) a fresh expedition into Italy was undertaken; the Swiss troops were overthrown at Marignano (1515) and Leo X. was obliged to conclude a Concordat[3]