the higher positions, and the clerical profession was that of all others which offered the easiest and idlest life, with the largest privileges and the least of corporate obligations. The Curia had abundantly provided for the universal security and impunity of the clergy. Where the heads themselves gave the example of contempt for all laws, human and divine, it could not be expected that their subordinates would submit to the oppressive yoke of continence, and so the contagion was sure to spread. Every one who came from Rome brought back word that in the metropolis of Christendom, and in the bosom of the great mother and mistress of all Churches, the clergy, with scarcely an exception, kept concubines.1

§ XXVIII.-The Opening of the Sixteenth Century.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, under Julius II., events took a turn which suggested an opportunity to the Curia for recovering the ground they had in theory lost. Louis XII. of France, and the German emperor Maximilian, who were at political

1. When the vicar of Innocent VIII. wanted to forbid this, the Pope made him withdraw his edict, propter quod talis effecta est vita sacerdotum et curialium ut vix reperiatur qui concubinam non retineat vel saltem meretricem." So too the Roman annalist, Infessura, in his diary, given in Eccard. Corp. Hist. ii. 1997.

enmity with the Popes, had recourse to the plan of holding ecclesiastical assemblies. First, a French National Synod was assembled at Tours, and then a General Council summoned to Pisa, which being almost entirely composed of French prelates, imitated the conduct of the Council of Basle towards the Pope. The quarrel, as all the world knew, was purely political, regarding the sovereignty in Italy, and thus the scheme of the Council came to nothing. Julius II., and Leo. X. after him, assembled their Lateran Council, with about sixty-five bishops, in opposition to it. The utter failure of the attempt made at Pisa encouraged the Curia in its turn to strike a blow at Councils, since during the period of increased confusion and uncertainty, from 1460 to 1515, the names of Constance and Basle were become obsolete. Francis L. surrendered the Pragmatic Sanction in return for the Church patronage bestowed upon him, whereby elections were abolished, and the fortunes of the superior clergy, who aimed at dignities and benefices, were placed absolutely in the hands of the King. Thus fell the main support of the authority of the Council of Basle in France, as it had already fallen in Germany through the Concordat of Vienna. Maximilian, herein a worthy son of his father, had

shortly before sacrificed the Council of Pisa, and given in his adherence to Julius II. and the Lateran Synod. But in Rome the Curia seized the opportunity to raise the clergy, who in France had just been so completely made dependent on the favour of the Court, from all subjection to civil ties, and accordingly, in the ninth session of the Lateran Council, it was ruled by the Pope and bishops that "by divine as well as human law the laity have no jurisdiction over ecclesiastical persons." This was a confirmation of the former decree issued by Innocent III. at the Synod of 1215 (the fourth Lateran), that no cleric should take an oath of fealty to the princes of whom he held his temporalities. It was next declared to be an obvious and notorious truth, attested by Scripture, Fathers, Popes, and Councils, that the Pope bas full authority over Councils, and can summon, suspend, or dissolve them at his pleasure.

We must presume that at a period when the most complete theological barbarism prevailed in Rome itself, and there was nothing but scholasticism as represented by some Dominicans like Prierio and Cajetan, the cardinals and bishops of the day did not even know what Eugenius IV., Nicolas v., and Pius II. had so often declared. For they could hardly have expected the autho

rity of a Leo X., with his hole-and-corner Council of sixty-five Italians, to outweigh the Councils of Constance and Basle, and the Popes above named, in the public opinion of Europe. The Curia, however, were further encouraged by their feeling of complete security, their consciousness that whatever they undertook, and however threatening or complicated might be the political situation in Italy, they had nothing to fear in Church matters. Nor was this confidence disturbed by reproaches and accusations, however loud; and however often the cry for a Council was raised, which always and chiefly meant only a limitation of the Papacy, the Curia took it quietly. So much stronger had the tie become during the last hundred years which bound the clergy to Rome; every cleric who showed signs of rebelling was crushed at once, and even the laity could not escape excommunication and its consequences. Even the bold Gregory of Heimburg only found a refuge with the Hussite King in Bohemia, and was at last obliged, even there, to supplicate for absolution at Rome, when a sick and broken-down old man, in 1472.1

Yet the Christian world had endured, without any revolt worth noting, or even the remonstrance of a Synod 1 Brockhaus, Gregor. von Heimburg (Leipzig, 1861), p. 383.

being raised, the rule of such Popes as Paul II., Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., and Alexander VI., each of whom had striven to exceed the vices of his predecessor. Paul II., according to the expression of a contemporary, made the Papal Chair into a sewer by his debaucheries.1 The same witness observes that he had gone to Rome and visited the various ecclesiastical communities, but had nowhere found a man of really religious life. What he says of the lives of the Popes, cardinals, and prelates, is stronger still.

Under Paul II., and still more under Sixtus v., the great clerical market was further extended, and principalities had to be found for nephews, and fortunes for natural sons and daughters. New offices were established in order to sell them, and the cardinalitial dignity was highly priced. Leo x. and Clement VII. sold a number of cardinal's hats, as the unbounded extravagance of the Medici had emptied even the Papal treasury, which before was held to be inexhaustible. From one end of Europe to the other it was again the cry, "Everything is made merchandise of at Rome." That had been said and written, indeed, in and out of Italy, for four centuries, but now, at the beginning of the

1 Attilio Alessio of Arezzo in Baluze and Mansi, iv. 519.