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Council, and God himself must come to our aid in some way unknown to us."1

The Germans at that period looked with great envy on the French, English, Scotch, and other nations, who were not so shamefully abused and recklessly plundered as the barbarous but "humble and patient" Germans, who were sacrificed by their own princes. Æneas Silvius, or Pius II., had reminded them before, that, considering their barbarism, they must account it properly an honour they had to be thankful for, that the Court of Rome, in virtue of its long attested civilizing mission for Germany, was undertaking their affairs, and indemnifying itself richly for the trouble.2

When the Elector, Jacob of Trèves, advised King Frederick to gain the favour of the German nation by urging the new Pope, Calixtus III., to remedy their grievances, Æneas Silvius persuaded him rather to unite himself with the Pope than with the German people for a common object, for, said the Italian, between king and people there is an inextinguishable hatred, and it is

1 Cf. Hottinger, Hist. Eccl. Sæc. xv. p. 413.

2 Respons. et Repl. Wimphel. ad Eneam Silvium, in Freher, Script. Rer. Germ. (ed. Struv.) ii. 686-98. As late as 1516 the patriotic Wimpheling thought it necessary to defend his country and its spokesman, Chancellor Martin Maier of Mayence, against the Siennese Pope.

therefore wiser to secure the favour of the new Pope by rendering services to him.1

Rome thus became the great school of iniquity, where a large part of the German and Italian clergy went through their apprenticeship as place-hunters, and returned home loaded with benefices and sins, as also with absolutions and indulgences.

There is something almost enigmatical about the universal profligacy of that age. In whole dioceses and countries of Christian Europe clerical concubinage was so general that it no longer excited any surprise; and it might be said of certain provinces that hardly one clergyman in thirty was chaste, while in our own day there are countries where the great majority of the clergy are free even from the suspicion of incontinence. This distinction is to be explained by the universally corrupt state of the ecclesiastical administration. There could be no thought of any selection or careful training for the ministry where everything was matter of sale, where both ordination and preferment were bought and begged in Rome, where the conscientious, who would not be tainted with simony, had to stand aside, while the men of no conscience prospered, and rapidly attained

1 Gobellin. Comment. Pii II. p. 25.

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 I. 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 oyer 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 has 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

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