Chapter IV: The Counter-Reformation (10)

§ 110.9. Only =Charles VII.= of France took advantage of the
reforming decree of Basel for the benefit of his country. He
assembled the most distinguished churchmen and scholars of his
kingdom at Bourges, and with their concurrence published, in
A.D. 1438, twenty-three of the conclusions of Basel that bore on
the Gallican liberties under the name of the =Pragmatic Sanction=,
and made it a law of his realm. For the rest he maintained an
attitude of neutrality towards both popes, as also shortly before
the electors convened at Frankfort had done. Those assembled at
the Diet of Mainz in A.D. 1439 recognised the reforming edicts
of Basel as applying to Germany. =Frederick IV.=, A.D. 1439-1493,
who as emperor is known as Frederick III., under the influence of
the cunning Italian Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (§ 118, 6), though
at first in the opposition, went over to the side of Eugenius IV.
in A.D. 1446 upon receiving 100,000 guldens for the expenses of
an expedition to Rome and certain ecclesiastical privileges for
his Austrian subjects. Some weeks later the electors of Frankfort
took the same steps, stipulating that Eugenius should recognise
the decrees of the Council of Constance and the reforming decrees
of Basel, and should promise to convene a new free council in
a German city to bring the schism to an end, which if he failed
to do they would quit him in favour of Basel. But at the diet,
held in September of that year at Frankfort, the legates of the
pope and of the king succeeded by diplomatic arts in coming to
an understanding with the electors met at Mainz. Thus it happened
that in the so-called =Frankfort Concordat of the Princes= a
compromise was effected, which Eugenius confirmed in A.D. 1447,
with a careful explanation to the effect that none of these
concessions in any way infringed upon the rights and privileges
of the Holy See. In the following year Frederick in name of the
German nation concluded with Eugenius’ successor, Nicholas V.,
the =Concordat of Vienna=, A.D. 1448. The advantages gained by
the German church were quite insignificant. Frederick received
imperial rank as reward for the betrayal of his country, and was
crowned in Rome, in A.D. 1452, as the last German emperor.

§ 110.10. =Nicholas V., Calixtus III., and Pius II.,
A.D. 1447-1464.=--With =Nicholas V.=, A.D. 1447-1455, a
miracle of classical scholarship and founder of the Vatican
Library, the Roman see for the first time became the patron of
humanistic studies, and under this mild and liberal pope the
secular government of Rome was greatly improved. The conquest of
Constantinople by the Turks, in A.D. 1453, produced excitement
throughout the whole of Europe. The eloquence of the pope
roused the crusading spirit of Christendom, and oratorical
appeals were thundered from the pulpits of all churches and
cathedrals. But the princes remained cold and indifferent.
After Nicholas, a Spaniard, the cardinal Alphonso Borgia, then
in his seventy-seventh year, was raised to the papal chair as
=Calixtus III.=, A.D. 1455-1458. Hatred of Turks and love of
nephews were the two characteristics of the man. Yet he could
not rouse the princes against the Turks, and the fleet fitted out
at his own cost only plundered a few islands in the Archipelago.
Calixtus’ successor was Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, the able and
accomplished apostate from the Basel reform party, who styled
himself, with intended allusion to Virgil’s “_pius Æneas_,”
=Pius II.=, A.D. 1458-1464. The pope’s Ciceronian eloquence
failed to secure the attendance of princes at the Mantuan
Congress, summoned in A.D. 1459 to take steps for the equipment
of a crusade. A war against the Turks was indeed to have been
undertaken by emperor Frederick III., and a tax was to have been
levied on Christians and Jews for its cost; but neither tax nor
crusade was forthcoming. Pius demanded of the French ambassadors
a formal repudiation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, and
when they threatened the calling of an œcumenical council, he
issued the bull _Execrabilis_, which pronounced “the execrable
and previously unheard of” enormity of an appeal to a council to
be heresy and treason. In A.D. 1461 the pope, by a long epistle,
attempted the conversion of Mohammed II., the powerful conqueror
of Constantinople. As the discovery of the great alum deposit
at Rome in A.D. 1462 was attributed to miraculous direction, the
pope was led to devote its rich resources to the fitting out of
a crusade against the Turks. He wished himself to lead the army
in person, in order to secure victory by uplifted hands, like
Moses in the war with Amalek. But here again the princes left him
in the lurch. Coming to Ancona in A.D. 1464 to take ship there
upon his great undertaking, only his own two galleys were waiting
him. After long weary waiting, twelve Venetian ships arrived,
just in time to see the pope prostrated with fever and excitement.

§ 110.11. =Paul II., Sixtus IV. and Innocent VII.,
A.D. 1464-1492.=--Among the popes of the last forty years of
the 15th century =Paul II.=, A.D. 1464-1471, was the best,
though vain, sensual, greedy, fond of show, and extravagant.
He was impartial in the administration of justice, free from
nepotism, and always ready to succour the needy. His successor,
=Sixtus IV.=, A.D. 1471-1484, formerly Franciscan general,
was one of the most wicked of the occupants of the chair of
Peter. His appeal for an expedition against the Turks finding no
response outside of Italy, his love of strife found gratification
in fomenting internal animosities among the Italian states.
In favour of a nephew he sought the overthrow in A.D. 1478 of
the famous Medici family in Florence. Julian was murdered, but
Lorenzo escaped, and the archbishop, as abettor of the crime,
was hanged in his official robes. The pope placed the city
under ban and interdict. It was only the conquest of Otranto in
A.D. 1480, and the terror caused by the landing of the Turks in
Italy, that moved him to make terms with Florence. His nepotism
was most shamelessly practised, and he increased his revenues
by taxing the brothels of Rome. His powerful government did
something towards the improvement of the administration of
justice in the Church States and his love of art beautified
the city. In A.D. 1482 Andrew, archbishop of Crain, a Slav by
birth and of the Dominican order, halted at Basel on his return
from Rome, where he had been as ambassador for Frederick, and,
with the support of the Italian league and the emperor, issued
violent invectives against the pope, and summoned an œcumenical
council for the reform of the church in its head and members. The
pope ordered his arrest and extradition, but this the municipal
authorities refused. After a volley of bulls and briefs, charges
and appeals, and after innumerable embassies and negotiations
between Basel, Vienna, Innsbrück, Florence, and Rome, in which
the emperor abandoned the archbishop and the papal legates
dangled an interdict over Basel, the authorities decided to
imprison the objectionable prelate, but refused to deliver him
up. After eleven months’ imprisonment, however, he was found
hanged in his cell in A.D. 1484. Sixtus had died three months
before and Basel was absolved by his successor =Innocent VIII.=,
A.D. 1484-1492. In character and ability he was far inferior to
his predecessor. The number of illegitimate children brought by
him to the Vatican gave occasion to the popular witticism: “_Octo
Nocens genuit pueros totidemque puellas, Hunc merito poterit
dicere Roma patrem_.” The mighty conqueror of half the world,
Mohammed II., had died in A.D. 1481. His two sons contested
for the throne, and Bajazet proving successful committed the
guardianship of his brother to the Knights of St. John in Rhodes.
The Grandmaster transferred his prisoner, in A.D. 1489, to the
pope. Innocent rewarded him with a cardinalate, and Bajazet
promised the pope not only continual peace, but a yearly
tribute of 40,000 ducats. He also voluntarily presented his
holiness with the spear which pierced the Saviour’s side. All
this, however, did not prevent the pope from repeatedly but
ineffectually seeking to rouse Christendom to a crusade against
the Turks. To this pope also belongs the odium of familiarizing
Europe with witch prosecutions (§ 117, 4).[327]

§ 110.12. =Alexander VI., A.D. 1492-1503.=--The Spanish cardinal
Roderick Borgia, sister’s son of Calixtus III., purchased the
tiara by bribing his colleagues. In him as Alexander VI. we have
a pope whose government presents a scene of unparalleled infamy,
riotous immorality, and unmentionable crimes, of cruel despotism,
fraud, faithlessness, and murder, and a barefaced nepotism, such
as even the city of the popes had never witnessed before. He
had already before his election five children by a concubine,
Rosa Vanossa, four sons and one daughter, Lucretia, and his one
care was for their advancement. His favourite son was Giovanni,
for whom while cardinal he had purchased the rank of a Spanish
grandee, with the title Duke of Gandia, and when pope he bestowed
on him, in A.D. 1497, the hereditary dukedom of Benevento. But
eight days after his corpse with dagger wounds upon it was taken
out of the Tiber. The pope exclaimed, “I know the murderer.”
Suspicion fell first upon Giovanni Sforsa of Pesaro, Lucretia’s
husband, who had charged the murdered man with committing incest
with his sister, but afterwards upon Cardinal Cæsar Borgia, the
pope’s second son, who was jealous of his brother because of the
favour shown him by Lucretia and by her father. Alexander’s grief
knew no bounds, but sought escape from it by redoubled love to
the suspected son. In A.D. 1498 the papal bastard resigned the
cardinalate as an intolerable burden, married a French princess,
and was made hereditary duke of Romagna. Suddenly at the same
time, and in the same manner, in A.D. 1503, father and son took
ill. The father died after a few days, but the vigour of youth
aided the son’s recovery. Cæsar Borgia was at a later period cast
into prison by Julius II., and fell in A.D. 1507 in the service
of his brother-in-law, the king of Navarre. It was generally
believed that Alexander died of poisoned wine prepared by his
son to secure the removal of a rich cardinal. The father as well
as the two brothers were suspected of incest with Lucretia. This
pope, too, did not hesitate to intrigue with the Turkish sultan
against Charles VIII. of France. With unexampled assumption,
during the contention of Portugal and Spain about the American
discoveries, he presented Ferdinand and Isabella in A.D. 1493
with all islands and continents that had been discovered or might
yet be discovered lying beyond a line of demarcation drawn from
the North to the South Pole. Once only, when grieving over the
death of his favourite son, had this pope a twinge of conscience.
He had resolved, he said, to devote himself to his spiritual
calling and secure a reform in church discipline. But when
the commission appointed for this purpose presented its first
reform proposals the momentary emotion had already passed away.
Nothing was further from his thought than the calling of an
œcumenical council, which not only the king of France, but also
the Florentine reformer Savonarola demanded (§ 119, 11).

§ 110.13. =Julius II., A.D. 1503-1513.=--Alexander’s successor,
Pius III., son of a sister of Pius II., died after a twenty-six
days’ pontificate. He was followed by a nephew of Sixtus IV.,
a bitter enemy of the Borgias, who took the name of Julius II.
He was essentially a warrior, with nothing of the priest about
him. He was also a lover of art, and carried on the works which
his uncle had begun. His youthful excesses had seriously impaired
his health. As pope, he was not free from nepotism and simony, in
controversy passionate, and in policy intriguing and faithless.
He transformed the States of the Church into a temporal despotic
monarchy, and was himself incessantly engaged in war. When
he broke with France, which held Milan from A.D. 1499 with
Alexander’s consent, =Louis XII.=, A.D. 1498-1515, convened
a French national council at Tours in A.D. 1510. This council
renewed the Pragmatic Sanction, which in a weak hour Louis XI.,
in A.D. 1462, had abrogated, and had in consequence obtained,
in A.D. 1469, the title _Rex Christianissimus_, and refused to
obey the pope. Also =Maximilian I.=, A.D. 1493-1519, who even
without papal coronation called himself “elected Roman emperor,”
directed the learned humanist Wimpfeling of Heidelberg to collect
the gravamina of the Germans against the Roman curia, and to
sketch out a Pragmatic Sanction for Germany. France and Germany,
with five revolting cardinals, convoked an œcumenical council at
Pisa, in A.D. 1511. Half in sport, half in earnest, Maximilian
spoke of placing on his own head the tiara, as well as the
imperial crown. The pope put Pisa, where only a few French
prelates ventured, under an interdict, and anathematized the
king of France, who then had medals cast, with the inscription,
_Perdam Babylonis nomen_. In a murderous battle at Ravenna, in
A.D. 1512, the army of the papal league was all but annihilated.
But two months later, the French, by the revolt of the Milanese
and the successes of the Swiss, were driven to their homes
ingloriously, and the schismatic council, which had been shifted
from Pisa to Milan, had to withdraw to Lyons, where it was
dissolved by the pope “on account of its many crimes.” Meanwhile
the pope had summoned a council to meet at Rome, the =fifth
œcumenical Lateran Council=, A.D. 1512-1517, at which however
only fifty-three Italian bishops were present. There the ban upon
the king of France was renewed, but a concordat was concluded
with Maximilian, redressing the more serious grievances of which
he had complained. The pope succeeded in freeing Northern Italy
from French oppression, and only his early death prevented him
from delivering Southern Italy from the Spanish yoke.

§ 110.14. =Leo X., A.D. 1513-1521.=--John, son of Lorenzo
Medici, who was cardinal in A.D. 1488, in his eighteenth year,
when thirty-eight years of age ascended the papal throne as
Leo X.; a great patron of the Renaissance, but luxurious and
pleasure-loving, extravagant and frivolous, without a spark
of religion (§ 120, 1), and a zealous promoter of the fortunes
of his own family. The attempt of Louis XII., with the help of
Venice, to regain Milan failed, and being hard pressed in his
own country by Henry VIII. of England, the French king decided
at last, in Dec., 1513, to end the schism and recognise the
Lateran Council. His successor, =Francis I.=, A.D. 1515-1547, was
more fortunate. In the battle of Marignano he gained a brilliant
victory over the brave Swiss, in consequence of which the
duchy of Milan fell again into the hands of France. At Bologna,
in A.D. 1516, the pope in person now greeted the king, who
proferred him obedience, and concluded a political league and
an ecclesiastical concordat with his holiness, abrogating the
Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII., but maintaining the king’s
right to nominate all bishops and abbots of his realm, with
reservation of the annats for the papal treasury. The Lateran
Council, though attended only by Italian bishops, was pronounced
œcumenical. During its five years’ sittings it had issued
concordats for Germany and France, the papal bull _Pastor
æternus_ was solemnly ratified, which renewed the bull _Unam
sanctam_ and by various forgeries proved the power of the
pope to be superior to the authority of councils, quieted the
bishops’ objections to the privileges of the begging friars by
a compromise, and as a protection against heresy gave the right
of the censorship of the press to bishops, while explicitly
asserting the immateriality, individuality, and immortality of
the human soul.[328]

§ 110.15. =Papal Claims to Sovereignty.=--From A.D. 1319 the
popes secured large revenues from the Annats, revenues for a
full year of all vacancies; the Reservations, the holding of
rich benefices and bestowing them upon payment of large sums;
the Expectances, naming for payment a successor to an incumbent
still living; the Offices held _in commendam_, provisionally
on payment of a part of the incomes; the _Jus spoliarum_, the
Holy See being the legitimate heir of all property gained by
Churchmen from their offices; the Taxing of Church property for
particularly pressing calls; innumerable Indulgences, Absolutions,
Dispensations, etc. The happy thought occurred to Paul II., in
A.D. 1469, to extend the law of Annats to such ecclesiastical
institutions as belonged to corporations. He reckoned the
lifetime of a prelate at fifteen years, and so claimed his tax
of such institutions every fifteenth year. The doctrine of the
papal infallibility in matters of faith, under the influence
of the reforming councils of the 15th century, was rather less
in favour than before. The rigid Franciscans opposed the papal
doctrine of poverty (§§ 98, 4; 112, 2); and John XXII. was almost
unanimously charged by his contemporaries with heresy, because
of his views about the vision of God. Even the most zealous
curialists of the 15th century did not venture to ascribe to
the pope absolute infallibility. A distinction was made between
the infallibility of the office, which is absolute, and that of
the person, which is only relative; a pope who falls into error
and heresy thereby ceases to be pope and infallible. This was the
opinion of the Dominican Torquemada (§ 112, 4), whom Eugenius IV.
rewarded at the Basel Council with a cardinalate and the title
of _Defensor fidei_, as the most zealous defender of papal
absolutism. From the 14th century the popes have worn the triple
crown. The three tiers of the tiara, richly ornamented with
precious stones, indicated the power of the pope over heaven by
his canonizing, over purgatory by his granting of indulgences,
and over the earth by his pronouncing anathemas. Until the papal
court retired to Avignon the Lateran was the usual residence of
the popes, and after the ending of the schism, the Vatican.[329]

§ 110.16. =The Papal Curia.=--The chief courts of the papal
government are spoken of collectively as the curia, their members
being taken from the higher clergy. The following are the most
important: the _Cancellaria Romana_, to which belonged the
administration of affairs pertaining to the pope and the college
of cardinals; the _Dataria Romana_, which had to do with matters
of grace not kept secret, such as absolutions, dispensations,
etc.; while the _Pœnitentiaria Romana_ dealt with matters which
were kept secret; the _Camera Romana_, which administered the
papal finances; and the _Rota Romana_, which was the supreme
court of justice. Important decrees issued by the pope himself
with the approval of the cardinals are called _bulls_. They are
written on parchment in the Gothic character in Latin, stamped
with the great seal of the Roman church, and secured in a metal
case. The word bull was originally applied to the case, then
to the seal, and at last to the document itself. Less important
decrees, for which the advice of the cardinals had not been asked,
are called _briefs_. The brief is usually written on parchment,
in the ordinary Roman characters, and sealed in red wax with the
pope’s private seal, the fisherman’s ring.

§ 111. THE CLERGY.

Provincial synods had now lost almost all their importance, and were rarely held, and then for the most part under the presidency of a papal legate. The cathedral chapters afforded welcome provision for the younger sons of the nobles, who were nothing behind their elder brothers in worldliness of life and conversation. For their own selfish interests they limited the number of members of the chapter, and demanded as a qualification evidence of at least sixteen ancestors. The political significance of the prelates was in France very small, and as champions of the Gallican liberties they were less enthusiastic than the University of Paris and the Parliament. In England they formed an influential order in the State, with carefully defined rights; and in Germany, as princes of the empire, especially the clerical elector princes, their political importance was very great. In Spain, on the other hand, at the end of the 15th century, by the ecclesiastico-political reformation endeavours of Ferdinand “the Catholic” and Isabella (§ 118, 7), the higher clergy were made completely dependent upon the Crown.

§ 111.1. =The Moral Condition of the Clergy= was in general
very low. The bishops mostly lived in open concubinage. The lower
secular clergy followed their example, and had toleration granted
by paying a yearly tax to the bishop. The people, distinguishing
office and person, made no objection, but rather looked on it
as a sort of protection to their wives and daughters from the
dangers of the confessional. Especially in Italy, unnatural vice
was widely spread among the clergy. At Constance and Basel it
was thought to cure such evils by giving permission to priests
to marry; but it was feared that the ecclesiastical revenues
would be made heritable, and the clergy brought too much
under the State.--The mendicant orders were allowed to hear
confession everywhere, and when John de Polliaco, a Prussian
doctor, maintained that the local clergy only should be taken
as confessors, John XXII., in A.D. 1322, pronounced his views
heretical.

§ 111.2. The French concordat of A.D. 1516 (§ 110, 14),
which gave the king the right of appointing commendator abbots
(§ 85, 5), to almost all the cloisters, induced many of the
younger sons of old noble families to take orders, so as to
obtain rich sinecures or offices, which they could hold _in
commendam_. They bore a semi-clerical character, and had the
title of =abbé=, which gradually came to be given to all the
secular clergy of higher culture and social position. In Italy
too it became customary to give the title =abbate= to the younger
clergy of high rank, before receiving ordination.

§ 112. MONASTIC ORDERS AND SOCIETIES.

The corruption of monastic life was becoming more evident from day to day. Immorality, sloth, and unnatural vice only too often found a nursery behind the cloister walls. Monks and nuns of neighbouring convents lived in open sin with one another, so that the author of the book _De ruina ecclesia_ (§ 118, 4, c) thinks that _Virginem velare_ is the same as _Virginem ad scortandum exponere_. In the Benedictine order the corruption was most complete. The rich cloisters, after the example of their founder, divided their revenues among their several members (_proprietarii_). Science was disregarded, and they cared only for good living. The celebrated Scottish cloister (§ 98, 1) of St. James, at Regensburg, in the 14th century, had a regular tavern within its walls, and there was a current saying, _Uxor amissa in monasterio Scotorum quæri debet_. The mendicants represented even yet relatively the better side of monasticism, and maintained their character as exponents of theological learning. Only the Carthusians, however, still held fast to the ancient strict discipline of their order.

§ 112.1. =The Benedictine Orders.=--For the reorganization of
this order, which had abandoned itself to good living and luxury,
Clement V., at the Council of Vienna, A.D. 1311, issued a set of
ordinances which aimed principally at the restoration of monastic
discipline and the revival of learning among the monks. But they
were of little or no avail. Benedict XII. therefore found it
necessary, in A.D. 1336, with the co-operation of distinguished
French abbots, to draw up a new constitution for the Benedictines,
which after him was called the Benedictina. The houses of Black
Friars were to be divided into thirty-six provinces, and each
of them was to hold every third year a provincial chapter for
conference and determination of cases. In each abbey there
should be a daily penitential chapter for maintaining discipline,
and an annual chapter for giving a reckoning of accounts. In
order to reawaken interest in scientific studies, it was enjoined
that from every cloister a number of the abler monks should be
maintained at a university, at the cost of the cloister, to study
theology and canon law. But the disciplinary prescriptions of the
Benedictina were powerless before the attractions of good living,
and the proposals for organization were repugnant to the proud
independence of monks and abbots. The enactments in favour of
scientific pursuits led to better results. The first really
successful attempt at reforming the cloisters was made, in
A.D. 1435, by the general chapter of the Brothers of the Common
Life, who not only dealt with their own institutions, but also
with all the Benedictine monasteries throughout the whole of
the West. The soul of this movement was Joh. Busch, monk in
Windesheim, then prior in various monasteries, and finally
provost of Sulte, near Hildesheim, A.D. 1458-1479. The so called
_Bursfeld Union_ or Congregation resulted from his intercourse
with the abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Bursfeld, on the
Weser, John of Hagen (ab Andagine). Notwithstanding the bitter
hostility of corrupt monks and nuns, there were in a short time
seventy-five monasteries under this Bursfeld rule, where the
original strictness of the monastic life was enforced. The rule
was confirmed by the council of A.D. 1440, and subsequently
by Pius II. Most of the cloisters under this rule joined the
Lutheran reformation of the 16th century, and Bursfeld itself is
at this day the seat of a titular Lutheran abbot.--A new branch
of the Benedictine order, the =Olivetans=, was founded by Bernard
Tolomæi. Blindness having obliged him to abandon his teaching of
philosophy at Siena, the blessed Virgin restored him his sight;
and then, in A.D. 1313, he forsook the world, and withdrew
with certain companions into almost inaccessible mountain
recesses, ten miles from Siena. Disciples gathered around him
from all sides. He built a cloister on a hill, which he called
the Mount of Olives, and founded under the Benedictine rule
a congregation of the Most Blessed Virgin of the Mount of Olives,
which obtained the sanction of John XXII. Tolomæi became its
first general, in A.D. 1322, and held the office till his death,
caused by infection caught while attending the plague stricken
in A.D. 1348. There were new elections of abbots every third
year. The Olivetans were zealous worshippers of Mary, and
strict ascetics. In several of their cloisters, which numbered
as many as one hundred, the study of theology and philosophy
was diligently prosecuted. They embraced also an order of nuns,
founded by St. Francisca Romana.

§ 112.2. =The Franciscans.=--At the Council of Vienna, in
A.D. 1312, Clement V. renewed the decree of Nicholas III., and
by the constitution _Exivi de paradiso_ decided in favour of
the stricter view (§ 98, 4), but ordered all rigorists to submit
to their order. But neither this nor the solemn ratification of
his predecessor’s decisions by John XXII. in A.D. 1317 put an
end to the division. The contention was now of a twofold kind.
The =Spirituals= confined their opposition to a rigoristic
interpretation of the vow of poverty. The =Fraticelli= carried
their opposition into many other departments. They exaggerated
the demand of poverty to the utmost, but also repudiated
the primacy of the pope, the jurisdiction of bishops, the
admissibility of oaths, etc. In the south of France within
a few years 115 of them had perished at the stake; and the
Spirituals also suffered severely.--The Dominicans were the
cause of a new split in the Seraphic order. The Inquisition
at Narbonne had, in A.D. 1321, condemned to the stake a Beghard
who had affirmed, what to the Dominicans seemed a heretical
proposition, that Christ and the apostles had neither personal
nor common property. The Franciscans, who, on the plea of a
pretended transference of their property to the pope, claimed
to be without possessions, pronounced that proposition orthodox,
and the Dominicans complained to John XXII. He pronounced
in favour of the Dominicans, and declared the Franciscans’
transference of property illusory; and finding this decision
contrary to decrees of previous popes, he asserted the right
of any pontiff to reverse the findings of his predecessors. The
Franciscans were driven more and more into open revolt against
the pope. They made common cause with the persecuted Spirituals,
and like them sought support from the Italian Ghibellines and
the emperor, Louis the Bavarian (§ 110, 3). The pope summoned
their general, Michael of Cesena, to Avignon; and while detaining
him there sought unsuccessfully to obtain his deposition by
the general synod of the order. Michael, with two like-minded
brothers, William Occam (§ 113, 3) and Bonagratia of Bergamo,
escaped to Pisa in a ship of war, which the emperor sent for
them in A.D. 1328. There, in the name of his order, he appealed
to an œcumenical council to have the papal excommunication and
deposition annulled which had now been issued against him. After
the disastrous Italian campaign in A.D. 1330, the excommunicated
churchmen accompanied the emperor to Munich, where they conducted
a literary defence of their rights and privileges, and charged
the pope with a multitude of heresies. Michael died at Munich,
in A.D. 1342.--After the overthrow of the schismatic Minorite
pope, Nicholas V. (§ 110, 3), the opposition soon gave in
its submission. But to the end of his life John XXII. was a
bloody persecutor of all schismatical Franciscans, who showed
a fanatical love of martyrdom, rather than abate one iota of
their opposition to the possession of property.

§ 112.3. The strict and lax tendencies were brought to light in
connection with successive attempts at reformation. In A.D. 1368
Paolucci of Foligni founded the fraternity of Sandal-wearers,
which embraced the remnants of the Cœlestine eremites
(§ 98, 4). This strict rule was soon modified so as to admit
of the possession of immovable property and living together
in conventual establishments. Those who adhered rigidly to the
original requirements as to seclusion, asceticism, and dress
were now called =Observants= and the more lax =Conventuals=.
Crossing the Alps in A.D. 1388, they spread through Europe,
converting heretics and heathens. Both sections received
papal encouragement. Their leader for forty years was =John
of Capistrano=, born A.D. 1386, died A.D. 1456, who inspired
all their movements, and as a preacher gathered hundreds of
thousands around him. His predecessor in office, Bernardino
of Siena, who died in A.D. 1444, was canonized after a hard
fight in A.D. 1450. John was deputed by the pope in that same
year to proceed to Austria and Germany to convert the Hussites
and preach a crusade against the Turks. His greatest feat was
the repulse, in A.D. 1456, of the Turks, under Mohammed II.,
before Belgrade, ascribed to him and his crusade, which delivered
Hungary, Germany, and indeed the whole West, from threatened
subjection to the Moslem yoke. Capistrano died three months
afterwards. Notwithstanding all the efforts of his followers,
his beatification was not secured till A.D. 1690, and the decree
of canonization was not obtained till A.D. 1724.--Continuation
§ 149, 6.

§ 112.4. =The Dominicans.=--The Dominicans, as they interpreted
the vow of poverty only of personal and not of common property,
soon lost the character of a mendicant order.--One of their most
distinguished members was =St. Catharine of Siena=, who died
in A.D. 1380, in her thirty-third year. Having taken the vow of
chastity as a child, living only on bread and herbs, for a time
only on the eucharistic elements, she was in vision affianced to
Christ as His bride, and received His heart instead of her own.
She felt the pains of Christ’s wounds, and, like St. Dominic,
lashed herself thrice a day with an iron chain. She gained
unexampled fame, and along with St. Bridget procured the
return of the pope from Avignon to Rome.--The controversy
of the Dominicans with the Franciscans over the _immaculata
conceptio_ (§ 104, 7) was conducted in the most passionate
manner. The visions of St. Catherine favoured the Dominican,
those of St. Bridget the Franciscan views; during the schism
the French popes favoured the former, the Roman popes the
latter. The Franciscan view gained for the time the ascendency.
The University of Paris sustained it in A.D. 1387, and made its
confession a condition of receiving academic rank. The Dominican
Torquemada combated this doctrine, in A.D. 1437, in his able
_Tractatus de veritate Conceptionis B. V._ In A.D. 1439, the
Council of Basel, which was then regarded as schismatical,
sanctioned the Franciscan doctrine. Sixtus IV., who had
previously, as general of the Franciscans, supported the views
of his order in a special treatise, authorized the celebration
of the festival referred to, but in A.D. 1483 forbade controversy
on either side. A comedy with a very tragical conclusion was
enacted at Bern, in connection with this matter in A.D. 1509.
The Dominicans there deceived a simple tailor called Jetzer, who
joined them as a novice, with pretended visions and revelation
of the Virgin, and burned upon him with a hot iron the wound
prints of the Saviour, and caused an image of the mother of
God to weep tears of blood over the godless doctrine of the
Franciscans. When the base trick was discovered, the prior and
three monks had to atone for their conduct by death at the stake.
(Continuation § 149, 13.) A new controversy between the two
orders broke out in A.D. 1462, at Brescia. There, on Easter Day
of that year, the Franciscan Jacob of Marchia in his preaching
said that the blood of Christ shed upon the cross, until its
reassumption by the resurrection, was outside of the hypostatic
union with the Logos, and therefore as such was not the subject
of adoration. The grand-inquisitor, Jacob of Brescia, pronounced
this heretical, and at Christmas, A.D. 1463, a three days’
disputation was held between three Dominicans and as many
Minorites before pope and cardinals, which yielded no result.
Pius II. reserved judgment, and never gave his decision.

§ 112.5. =The Augustinians.=--In A.D. 1432, =Zolter=, at the
call of the general of the Augustinians, reorganized the order,
and in A.D. 1438 Pius II. gave a constitution to the Observants.
The “Union of the Five Convents” founded by him in Saxony and
Franconia, with Magdeburg as its centre, formed the nucleus of
=regular Augustinian Observants=, which had =Andrew Proles= of
Dresden as their vicar-general for a second time in A.D. 1473.
Notwithstanding bitter opposition, the union spread through
all Germany, even to the Netherlands. In A.D. 1475 the general
of the order at Rome took offence at Proles for looking directly
to the apostolic see, and not to him, for his authority. He
therefore abolished the institution of vicars, insisted that all
Observants should return to their allegiance to the provincials,
and make full restitution of all the cloisters which they had
appropriated, and empowered the provincial of Saxony to imprison
and excommunicate Proles and his party, in case of their refusal.
Proles did not submit, and when the ban was issued appealed
directly to the pope. A papal commission in A.D. 1477 decided
that all Observant cloisters placed by the duke under the pope’s
protection should so continue, confirmed all their privileges,
and annulled all mandates and anathemas issued against Proles
and his followers. With redoubled energy and zeal Proles now
wrought for the extension and consolidation of the congregation
until A.D. 1503, when he resigned office in his 74th year,
and soon after died. He was one of the worthiest and most
pious men in the German Church of his time; but Flacius is
quite mistaken when he describes him as a precursor of Luther,
an evangelical martyr and witness for the truth in the sense
of the Reformation of the 16th century. Energetic and devoted
as he was in prosecuting his reformation, he gave himself
purely to the correcting of the morals of the monks and
restoring discipline; but in zeal for the doctrine of merits,
the institution of indulgences, mariolatry, saint and image
worship, and in devotion to the papacy, he and his congregation
were by no means in advance of the age.

§ 112.6. As his successor in the vicariate the chapter, in
accordance with the wish of Proles, elected =John von Staupitz=.
He had been prior of the Augustinian cloister at Tübingen, and
became professor of theology in the University of Wittenberg,
in A.D. 1502. Like his predecessor, he devoted himself to
the interests of the congregation, and by the union which he
effected between it and the Lombard Observant congregation,
he greatly increased its importance. In carrying out a plan
for uniting the Saxon Conventuals with the German Observants
by combining in his own hand the Saxon provincial priorate with
the German vicariate, he encountered such difficulties that he
was obliged to abandon the attempt; but he succeeded thus far,
that from that time the Conventuals and Observants of Germany
dwelt in peace side by side. He directed the troubled spirit of
Luther to the crucified Saviour (§ 122, 1), and thus became the
spiritual father of the great reformer. The new constitutions
for the German congregations, proffered by him and accepted
by the chapter at Nuremberg, A.D. 1504, are characterized by
earnest recommendations of Scripture study. But of a deep and
comprehensive evangelical and reformatory application of them
we find no traces as yet, even in Staupitz; neither do we
see any zealous study of Augustine’s writings, and consequent
appreciation of his theological principles, such as is shown
by the mystics of the 13th and 14th centuries. All this appears
later in his little treatise “On the Imitation of the Willingly
Dying Christ” of A.D. 1515. A discourse on predestination
in A.D. 1517 moves distinctly on Augustinian lines, and the
mysticism of St. Bernard may be traced in the book “On the
Love of God” of that same year. True as he was to Luther as
a counsellor and helper during the first eventful year of
struggle, the reformer’s protest soon became too violent for
him, and in A.D. 1520 he resigned his office, withdrew to the
Benedictine cloister at Salzburg, and died as its abbot in
A.D. 1524. His continued attachment to the positive tendencies
of the Reformation is proved by his “Fast Sermons,” delivered
in A.D. 1523.--His successor =Link=, Luther’s fellow student
at Magdeburg, was and continued to be an attached friend of
the reformer. Unsuccessful in his endeavours to remove abuses,
he resigned office in A.D. 1523, and became evangelical pastor
in Altenburg, and married. The very small opposition chose in
place of him Joh. Spangenberg, who, unable to withstand the
movement among the German Conventuals, as well as among the
Observants, resigned in A.D. 1529.

§ 112.7. =Overthrow of the Templars.=--The order of Knights
Templar, whose chief seat was now in Paris and the south of
France, by rich presents, exactions, and robberies in the
island of Cyprus, vast commercial speculations and extensive
money-lending and banking transactions with crusaders and
pilgrims and needy princes, had acquired immense wealth in
money and landed property in the East and the West. They
had in consequence become proud, greedy, and vicious. Their
independence of the State had long been a thorn in the eye
of Philip the Fair of France, and their policy was often at
variance with his. But above all their great wealth excited
his cupidity. In a letter to a visitor of the order Innocent III.
had in A.D. 1208 bitterly complained of their unspirituality,
worldliness, avarice, drunkenness, and study of the black art,
saying that he refrained from remarking upon yet more shameful
offences with which they were charged. Stories also were current
of apostasy to Mohammedanism, sorcery, unnatural vice, etc.
It was said that they worshipped an idol Baphomet; that a
black cat appeared in their assemblies; that at initiation
they abjured Christ, spat on the cross, and trampled it under
foot. A Templar expelled for certain offences gave evidence in
support of these charges. Thereupon in A.D. 1307 Philip had all
Templars in his realm suddenly apprehended. Many admitted their
guilt amid the tortures of the rack; others voluntarily did so
in order to escape such treatment. A Parliament assembled at
Tours in A.D. 1308 heartily endorsed the king’s opinion, and
the pope, Clement V., was powerless to resist (§ 110, 2). While
the pope’s commissioners were prosecuting inquiries in all
countries, Philip without more ado in A.D. 1310 brought to the
stake one hundred Templars who had retracted their confession.
The =œcumenical council at Vienne in A.D. 1311=, summoned for
the final settlement of the matter, refused to give judgment
without hearing the defence of the accused. But Philip threatened
the pope till a decree was passed disbanding the order because
of the suspicion and ill repute into which it had fallen. Its
property was to go to the Knights of St. John. But a great part
had already been seized by the princes, especially by Philip.
Final decision in regard to individuals was committed by the
pope to the provincial synods of the several countries. Judgment
on the grand-master, James Molay, and the then chief dignitaries
of the order, he reserved to himself. Philip paid no attention
to this, but, when they refused to adhere to their confession
of guilt, had them burnt in a slow fire at Paris in A.D. 1314.
Most of the other knights turned to secular employments, many
entered the ranks of the Knights of St. John, while others ended
their days in monastic prisons.--Scholars are to this day divided
in opinion as to the degree of guilt or innocence which may be
ascribed to the Templars in regard to the serious charges brought
against them.[330]

§ 112.8. =New Orders.=--In A.D. 1317 the king of Portugal,
for the protection of his frontier from the Moors, instituted
the =Order of Christ=, composed of knights and clergy, and to
it John XXII. in A.D. 1319 gave the privileges of the order
of Calatrava (§ 98, 13). Alexander VI. released them from the
vow of poverty and allowed them to marry. The king of Portugal
was grand-master, and at the beginning of the 16th century
it had 450 companies and an annual revenue of one and a half
million livres. In A.D. 1797 it was converted into a secular
order.--Among the new monkish orders the following are the most
important:

1. =Hieronymites=, founded in A.D. 1370 by the Portuguese
Basco and the Spaniard Pecha as an order of canons regular
under the rule of Augustine, and confirmed by Gregory XI.
in A.D. 1373. Devoted to study, they took Jerome as their
patron, and obtained great reputation in Spain and Italy.

2. =Jesuates=, founded by Colombini of Siena, who, excited
by reading legends of the saints, combined with several
companions in forming this society for self-mortification
and care of the sick, for which Urban V. prescribed the
Augustinian rule in A.D. 1367. They greeted all they met
with the name of Jesus: hence their designation.

3. =Minimi=, an extreme sect of Minorites (§ 98, 3), founded
by Francis de Paula in Calabria in A.D. 1436. Their rule
was extremely strict, and forbade them all use of flesh,
milk, butter, eggs, etc., so that their mode of life was
described as _vita quadragesimalis_.

4. =Nuns of St. Bridget.= To the Swedish princess visions of
the wounded and bleeding Saviour had come in her childhood.
Compelled by her parents to marry, she became mother of
eight children; but at her husband’s death, in A.D. 1344,
she adopted a rigidly ascetic life, and in A.D. 1363
founded a cloister at Wedstena for sixty nuns in honour
of the blessed Virgin, with thirteen priests, four deacons,
and eight lay brothers in a separate establishment. All were
under the control of the abbess. She also founded at Rome a
hospice for Swedish pilgrims and students, made a pilgrimage
from Rome to Jerusalem, and died at Rome in A.D. 1373.
The _Revelationes S. Brigittæ_ ascribed to her were in
high repute during the Middle Ages. They are full of bitter
invectives against the corrupt papacy; call the pope worse
than Lucifer, a murderer of the souls committed to him, who
condemns the guiltless and sells believers for filthy lucre.
There were seventy-four cloisters of the order spread over
all Europe. Her successor as abbess of the parent abbey was
her daughter, St. Catherine of Sweden, who died in A.D. 1381.

5. The French =Annunciate Order= was founded in A.D. 1501 by
Joanna of Valois, the divorced wife of Louis XII., and when
abolished by the French Revolution it numbered forty-five
nunneries.

§ 112.9. =The Brothers of the Common Life=, a society of pious
priests, gave themselves to the devotional study of Scripture,
the exercise of contemplative mysticism, and practical imitation
of the lowly life of Christ with voluntary observance of the
three monkish vows, and residing, without any lifelong obligation,
in unions where things were administered in common. Pious laymen
were not excluded from their association, and institutions for
sisters were soon reared alongside of those for the brothers. The
founder of this organization was Gerhard Groot, _Gerardus magnus_,
of Deventer in the Netherlands, a favourite pupil of the mystic
John of Ruysbroek (§ 114, 7). Dying a victim to his benevolence
during a season of pestilence in A.D. 1384, a year or two after
the founding of the first union institute, he was succeeded by
his able pupil and assistant Florentius Radewins, who zealously
carried on the work he had begun. The house of the brothers at
Deventer soon became the centre of numerous other houses from
the Scheld to the Wesel. Florentius added a cloister for regular
canons at Windesheim, from which went forth the famous cloister
reformer Burch. The most important of the later foundations of
this kind was the cloister built on Mount St. Agnes near Zwoll.
The famous Thomas à Kempis (§ 114, 7) was trained here, and
wrote the life of Groot and his fellow labourers. Each house was
presided over by a rector, each sister house by a matron, who was
called Martha. The brothers supported themselves by transcribing
spiritual books, the lay brothers by some handicraft; the sisters
by sewing, spinning, and weaving. Begging was strictly forbidden.
Besides caring for their own souls’ salvation, the brothers
sought to benefit the people by preaching, pastoral visitation,
and instructing the youth. They had as many as 1,200 scholars
under their care. Hated by the mendicant friars, they were
accused by a Dominican to the Bishop of Utrecht. This dignitary
favoured the brothers, and when the Dominican appealed to the
pope, he applied to the Constance Council of A.D. 1418, where
Gerson and d’Ailly vigorously supported them. Their accuser was
compelled to retract, and Martin V. confirmed the brotherhood.
Though heartily attached to the doctrines of the Catholic Church,
their biblical and evangelical tendencies formed an unconscious
preparation for the Reformation (§ 119, 10). A great number
of the brothers joined the party of the reformers. In the
17th century the last remnant of them disappeared.[331]

II. Theological Science.

§ 113. SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS REFORMERS.

The University of Paris took the lead, in accordance with the liberal tendencies of the Gallican Church, in the opposition to hierarchical pretensions, and was followed by the universities of Oxford, Prague, and Cologne, in all of which the mendicant friars were the teachers. Most distinguished among the schoolmen of this age was John Duns Scotus, whose works formed the doctrinal standard for the Franciscans, as those of Aquinas did for the Dominicans. After realism had enjoyed for a long time an uncontested sway, William Occam, amid passionate battles, successfully introduced nominalism. But the creative power of scholasticism was well nigh extinct. Even Duns Scotus is rather an acute critic of the old than an original creator of new ideas. Miserable quarrels between the schools and a spiritless formalism now widely prevailed in the lecture halls, as well as in the treatises of the learned. Moral theology degenerated into fruitless casuistry and abstruse discussion on subtly devised cases where there appeared a collision of duties. But from all sides there arose complaint and contradiction. On the one side were some who made a general complaint without striking at the roots of the evil. They suggested the adoption of a better method, or the infusion of new life by the study of Scripture and the Fathers, and a return to mysticism. To this class belonged the Brothers of the Common Life (§ 112, 9) and d’Ailly and Gerson, the supporters of the Constance reforms (§ 118, 4). Here too we may place the talented father of natural theology, Raimund of Sabunde, and the brilliant Nicholas of Cusa, in whom all the nobler aspirations of mediæval ecclesiastical science were concentrated. But on the other side was the radical opposition, consisting of the German mystics (§ 114), the English and Bohemian reformers (§ 119), and the Humanists (§ 120).

§ 113.1. =John Duns Scotus.=--The date of birth, whether
A.D. 1274 or A.D. 1266, and the place of birth, whether in
Scotland, Ireland, or England, of this Franciscan hero, honoured
with the title _doctor subtilis_, are uncertain; even the place
and manner of his training are unknown. After lecturing with
great success at Oxford, he went in A.D. 1304 to Paris, where
he obtained the degree of doctor, and successfully vindicated
the _immaculata conceptio B. V._ (§ 104, 7) against the Thomists.
Summoned to Cologne in A.D. 1308 to engage in controversy with
the Beghards, he displayed great skill in dialectics, but died
during that same year. His chief work, a commentary on the
Lombard, was composed at Oxford. His answers to the questions
proposed for his doctor’s degree were afterwards wrought up
into the work entitled _Quæstiones quodlibetales_. The opponent
and rival of Thomas, he controverted his doctrine at every point,
as well as the doctrines of Alexander and Bonaventura of his own
order, and other shining stars of the 13th century. In subtlety
of thought and dialectic power he excelled them all, but in
depth of feeling, profundity of mind, and ardour of faith he
was far behind them. Proofs of doctrines interested him more
than the doctrines themselves. To philosophy he assigns a purely
theoretical, to theology a pre-eminently practical character,
and protests against the Thomist commingling of the two. He
accepts the doctrine of a twofold truth (§ 103, 3), basing it
on the fall. Granting that the Bible is the only foundation
of religious knowledge, but contending that the Church under
the Spirit’s guidance has advanced ever more and more in the
development of it, he readily admits that many a point in
constitution, doctrine, and worship cannot be established from
the Bible; _e.g._ immaculate conception, clerical celibacy,
etc. He has no hesitation in contradicting even Augustine and
St. Bernard from the standpoint of a more highly developed
doctrine of the Church.

§ 113.2. =Thomists and Scotists.=--The Dominicans and Franciscans
were opposed as followers respectively of Thomas and of Scotus.
Thomas regarded individuality, _i.e._ the fact that everything
is an individual, every _res_ is a _hæc_, as a limitation and
defect; while Duns saw in this _hæcitas_ a mark of perfection
and the true end of creation. Thomas also preferred the Platonic,
and Duns the Aristotelian realism. In theology Duns was opposed
to Thomas in maintaining an unlimited arbitrary will in God,
according to which God does not choose a thing because it is
good, but the thing chosen is good because He chooses it. Thomas
therefore was a determinist, and in his doctrine of sin and
grace adopted a moderate Augustinianism (§ 53, 5), while Duns
was a semipelagian. The atonement was viewed by Thomas more in
accordance with the theory of Anselm, for he assigned to the
merits of Christ as the God-Man infinite worth, _satisfactio
superabundans_, which is in itself more than sufficient
for redemption; but Duns held that the merits of Christ were
sufficient only as accepted by the free will of God, _acceptatio
gratuita_. The Scotists also most resolutely contended for
the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, while
the Thomists as passionately opposed it.--Among the immediate
disciples of Duns the most celebrated was =Francis Mayron=,
teacher at the Sorbonne, who died in A.D. 1325 and was dignified
with the title _doctor illuminatus_ or _acutus_. The most notable
of the Thomists was =Hervæus Natalis=, who died in A.D. 1323
as general of the Dominicans. Of the later Thomists the most
eminent was =Thomas Bradwardine=, _doctor profundus_, a man of
deep religious earnestness, who accused his age of Pelagianism,
and vindicated the truth in opposition to this error in his _De
causa Dei c. Pelagium_. He began teaching at Oxford, afterwards
accompanied Edward III. as his confessor and chaplain on his
expeditions in France, and died in A.D. 1349 a few weeks after
his appointment to the archbishopric of Canterbury.[332]