Chapter XI: Front Matter (11)

_J. C. Robertson,
History of the Christian Church,
book 8, chapter 8 (volume 7)._

PAPACY: A. D. 1431.
Election of Eugenius IV.

PAPACY: A. D. 1431-1448.
The Council of Basle.
Triumph of the Pope and defeat, once more, of Church Reform.

"The Papacy had come forth so little scathed from the perils
with which at one time these assemblies menaced it, that a
Council was no longer that word of terror which a little
before it had been. There was more than one motive for
summoning another, if indeed any help was to be found in them.
Bohemia, wrapt in the flames of the Hussite War, was scorching
her neighbours with fiercer fires than those by which she
herself was consumed. The healing of the Greek Schism was not
yet confessed to be hopeless, and the time seemed to offer its
favourable opportunities. No one could affirm that the
restoration of sound discipline, the reformation of the Church
in head and in members, had as yet more than begun. And thus,
in compliance with the rule laid down at the Council of
Constance,—for even at Rome they did not dare as yet openly to
set at nought its authority,—Pope Eugenius IV. called a third
Council together [1431], that namely of Basle. … Of those who
sincerely mourned over the Church's ills, the most part, after
the unhappy experience of the two preceding Councils, had so
completely lost all faith in these assemblies that slight
regard was at first yielded to the summons; and this Council
seemed likely to expire in its cradle as so many had done
before, as not a few should do after. The number of Bishops
and high Church dignitaries who attended it was never great. A
democratic element made itself felt throughout all its
deliberations; a certain readiness to resort to measures of a
revolutionary violence, such as leaves it impossible to say
that it had not itself to blame for much of its ill-success.
At the first indeed it displayed unlooked-for capacities for
work, entering into important negotiations with the Hussites
for their return to the bosom of the Church; till the Pope,
alarmed at these tokens of independent activity, did not
conceal his ill-will, making all means in his power to
dissolve the Council. This, meanwhile, growing in strength and
in self-confidence, re-affirmed all of strongest which had
been affirmed already at Pisa and Constance, concerning the
superiority of Councils over Popes; declared of itself that,
as a lawfully assembled Council, it could neither be
dissolved, nor the place of its meeting changed, unless by its
own consent; and, having summoned Eugenius and his Cardinals
to take their share in its labours, began the work of
reformation in earnest. Eugenius yielded for the time;
recalled the Bull which had hardly stopped short of
anathematizing the Council; and sent his legates to Basle.
Before long, however, he and the Council were again at strife;
Eugenius complaining, apparently with some reason, that in
these reforms one source after another of the income which had
hitherto sustained the Papal Court was being dried up, while
no other provision was made for the maintenance of its due
dignity, or even for the defraying of its necessary expenses.
As the quarrel deepened the Pope removed the seat of the
Council to Ferrara (September 18, 1437), on the plea that
negotiations with the envoys of the Greek Church would be more
conveniently conducted in an Italian city; and afterwards to
Florence. The Council refused to stir, first suspending
(January 24, 1438), then deposing the Pope (July 7, 1439), and
electing another, Felix V., in his stead; this Felix being a
retired Duke of Savoy, who for some time past had been playing
the hermit in a villa on the shores of the lake of Geneva.

See SAVOY: 11-15th CENTURIES.

The Council in this extreme step failed to carry public
opinion with it. It was not merely that Eugenius denounced his
competitor by the worst names he could think of, declaring him
a hypocrite, a wolf in sheep's clothing, a Moloch, a Cerberus,
a Golden Calf, a second Mahomet, an anti-christ; but the
Church in general shrank back in alarm at the prospect of
another Schism, to last, it might be, for well-nigh another
half century. And thus the Council lost ground daily; its
members fell away; its confidence in itself departed; and,
though it took long in dying, it did in the end die a death of
inanition (June 23, 1448). Again the Pope remained master of
the situation, the last reforming Council,—for it was the
last,—having failed in all which it undertook as completely
and as ingloriously as had done the two which went before."

_R. C. Trench,
Lectures on Medieval Church History,
lecture 20._

"In the year 1438 the Emperor John and the Greek Patriarch
made their appearance at the council of Ferrara. In the
following year the council was transferred to Florence, where,
after long discussions, the Greek emperor, and all the members
of the clergy who had attended the council, with the exception
of the Bishop of Ephesus, adopted the doctrine of the Roman
church concerning the possession of the Holy Ghost, the
addition to the Nicene Creed, the nature of purgatory, the
condition of the soul after its separation from the body until
the day of judgment, the use of unleavened bread in the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and the papal supremacy. The
union of the two churches was solemnly ratified in the
magnificent cathedral of Florence on the 6th of July 1439,
when the Greeks abjured their ancient faith in a vaster
edifice and under a loftier dome than that of their own
much-vaunted temple of St. Sophia. The Emperor John derived
none of the advantages he had expected from the simulated
union of the churches. Pope Eugenius, it is true, supplied him
liberally with money, and bore all the expenses both of the
Greek court and clergy during their absence from
Constantinople; he also presented the emperor with two
galleys, and furnished him with a guard of 300 men, well
equipped, and paid at the cost of the papal treasury; but his
Holiness forgot his promise to send a fleet to defend
Constantinople, and none of the Christian princes showed any
disposition to fight the battles of the Greeks, though they
took up the cross against the Turks.
{2441}
On his return John found his subjects indignant at the manner
in which the honour and doctrines of the Greek church had been
sacrificed in an unsuccessful diplomatic speculation. The
bishops who had obsequiously signed the articles of union at
Florence, now sought popularity by deserting the emperor, and
making a parade of their repentance, lamenting their
wickedness in falling off for a time from the pure doctrine of
the orthodox church. The only permanent result of this
abortive attempt at Christian union was to increase the
bigotry of the orthodox, and to furnish the Latins with just
grounds for condemning the perfidious dealings and bad faith
of the Greeks. In both ways it assisted the progress of the
Othoman power. The Emperor John, seeing public affairs in this
hopeless state, became indifferent to the future fate of the
empire, and thought only of keeping on good terms with the
sultan."

_G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires,
book 4, chapter 2, section 6 (volume 2)._

Pope "Eugenius died, February 23, 1447; … but his successors
were able to secure the fruits of the victory [over the
Council of Basel] for a long course of years. The victory was
won at a heavy cost, both for the Popes and for Christendom;
for the Papacy recovered its ascendancy far more as a
political than as a religious power. The Pope became more than
ever immersed in the international concerns of Europe, and his
policy was a tortuous course of craft and intrigue, which in
those days passed for the new art of diplomacy. … To revert to
a basis of spiritual domination lay beyond the vision of the
energetic princes, the refined dilettanti, the dexterous
diplomatists, who sat upon the chair of St. Peter during the
age succeeding the Council of Basle. Of signs of uneasiness
abroad they could not be quite ignorant; but they sought to
divert men's minds from the contemplation of so perplexing a
problem as Church reform, by creating or fostering new
atmospheres of excitement and interest; … or at best (if we
may adopt the language of their apologists) they took
advantage of the literary and artistic movement then active in
Italy as a means to establish a higher standard of
civilisation which might render organic reform needless."

_R. L. Poole,
Wycliffe and Movements for Reform,
chapter 12._

ALSO IN:
_J. E. Darras,
General History of the Catholic Church, 6th period,
chapter 4 (volume 3)._

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1438; and 1515-1518.

PAPACY: A. D. 1439.
Election of Felix V. (by the Council of Basle).

PAPACY: A. D. 1447-1455.
The pontificate of Nicolas V.
Recovery of character and influence.
Beginning of the Renaissance.

See ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.

PAPACY: A. D. 1455.
Election of Callistus III.

PAPACY: A. D. 1458.
Election of Pius II., known previously as the learned
Cardinal Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, historian and diplomatist.

PAPACY: A. D. 1464.
Election of Paul II.

PAPACY: A. D. 1471-1513.
The darkest age of Papal crime and vice.
Sixtus IV. and the Borgias.
The warrior Pontiff, Julius II.

"The impunity with which the Popes escaped the councils held
in the early part of the 15th century was well fitted to
inspire them with a reckless contempt for public opinion; and
from that period down to the Reformation, it would be
difficult to parallel among temporal princes the ambitious,
wicked, and profligate lives of many of the Roman Pontiffs.
Among these, Francesco della Rovere, who succeeded Paul II.
with the title of Sixtus IV., was not the least notorious.
Born at Savona, of an obscure family, Sixtus raised his
nephews, and his sons who passed for nephews, to the highest
dignities in Church and State, and sacrificed for their
aggrandisement the peace of Italy and the cause of Christendom
against the Turks. Of his two nephews, Julian, and Leonard
della Rovere, the former, afterwards Pope Julius II., was
raised to the purple in the second year of his uncle's
pontificate." It was this pope—Sixtus IV.—who had a part in
the infamous "Conspiracy of the Pazzi" to assassinate Lorenzo
de' Medici and his brother.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492.

"This successor of St. Peter took a pleasure in beholding the
mortal duels of his guards, for which he himself sometimes
gave the signal. He was succeeded [1484] by Cardinal Gian
Batista Cibò, a Genoese, who assumed the title of Innocent
VIII. Innocent was a weak man, without any decided principle.
He had seven children, whom he formally acknowledged, but he
did not seek to advance them so shamelessly as Sixtus had
advanced his 'nephews.' … Pope Innocent VIII. [who died July
25, 1492] was succeeded by the atrocious Cardinal Roderigo
Borgia, a Spaniard of Valencia, where he had at one time
exercised the profession of an advocate. After his election he
assumed the name of Alexander VI. Of 20 cardinals who entered
the conclave, he is said to have bought the suffrages of all
but five; and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, whom he feared as a
rival, was propitiated with a present of silver that was a
load for four mules. Alexander's election was the signal for
flight to those cardinals who had opposed him. … Pope
Alexander had by the celebrated Vanozza, the wife of a Roman
citizen, three sons: John, whom he made Duke of Gandia, in
Spain; Cæsar and Geoffrey; and one daughter, Lucretia."

_T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, pages 105, 108, 175, 177-178._

Under the Borgias, "treasons, assassinations, tortures, open
debauchery, the practice of poisoning, the worst and most
shameless outrages, are unblushingly and publicly tolerated in
the open light of heaven. In 1490, the Pope's vicar having
forbidden clerics and laics to keep concubines, the Pope
revoked the decree, 'saying that that was not forbidden,
because the life of priests and ecclesiastics was such that
hardly one was to be found who did not keep a concubine, or at
least who had not a courtesan.' Cæsar Borgia at the capture of
Capua 'chose forty of the most beautiful women, whom he kept
for himself; and a pretty large number of captives were sold
at a low price at Rome.' Under Alexander VI., 'all
ecclesiastics, from the greatest to the least, have concubines
in the place of wives, and that publicly. If God hinder it
not,' adds this historian, 'this corruption will pass to the
monks and religious orders, although, to confess the truth,
almost all the monasteries of the town have become
bawd–houses, without anyone to speak against it.' With respect
to Alexander VI., who loved his daughter Lucretia, the reader
may find in Burchard the description of the marvellous orgies
in which he joined with Lucretia and Cæsar, and the
enumeration of the prizes which he distributed.
{2442}
Let the reader also read for himself the story of the
bestiality of Pietro Luigi Farnese, the Pope's son, how the
young and upright Bishop of Fano died from his outrage, and
how the Pope, speaking of this crime as 'a youthful levity,'
gave him in this secret bull 'the fullest absolution from all
the pains which he might have incurred by human incontinence,
in whatever shape or with whatever cause.' As to civil
security, Bentivoglio caused all the Marescotti to be put to
death; Hippolyto d' Este had his brother's eyes put out in his
presence; Cæsar Borgia killed his brother; murder is consonant
with their public manners, and excites no wonder. A fisherman
was asked why he had not informed the governor of the town
that he had seen a body thrown into the water; 'he replied
that he had seen about a hundred bodies thrown into the water
during his lifetime in the same place, and that no one had
ever troubled about it.' 'In our town,' says an old historian,
'much murder and pillage was done by day and night, and hardly
a day passed but some one was killed.' Cæsar Borgia one day
killed Peroso, the Pope's favourite, between his arms and
under his cloak, so that the blood spurted up to the Pope's
face. He caused his sister's husband to be stabbed and then
strangled in open day, on the steps of the palace; count, if
you can, his assassinations. Certainly he and his father, by
their character, morals, open and systematic wickedness, have
presented to Europe the two most successful images of the
devil. … Despotism, the Inquisition, the Cicisbei, dense
ignorance, and open knavery, the shamelessness and the
smartness of harlequins and rascals, misery and vermin,—such
is the issue of the Italian Renaissance."

_H. A. Taine,
History of English Literature,
volume 1, pages 354-355._

"It is certain … that the profound horror with which the name
of Alexander VI. strikes a modern ear, was not felt among the
Italians at the time of his election. The sentiment of hatred
with which he was afterwards regarded arose partly from the
crimes by which his Pontificate was rendered infamous, partly
from the fear which his son Cesare inspired, and partly from
the mysteries of his private life which revolted even the
corrupt conscience of the 16th century. This sentiment of
hatred had grown to universal execration at the time of his
death. In course of time, when the attention of the Northern
nations had been directed to the iniquities of Rome, and when
the glaring discrepancy between Alexander's pretension as a
Pope and his conduct as a man had been apprehended, it
inspired a legend, which, like all legends, distorts the facts
which it reflects. Alexander was, in truth, a man eminently
fitted to close an old age and to inaugurate a new, to
demonstrate the paradoxical situation of the Popes by the
inexorable logic of his practical impiety, and to fuse two
conflicting world forces in the cynicism of supreme
corruption. … Alexander was a stronger and a firmer man than
his immediate predecessors. 'He combined,' says Guicciardini,
'craft with singular sagacity, a sound judgment with
extraordinary powers of persuasion; and to all the grave
affairs of life he applied ability and pains beyond belief.'
His first care was to reduce Rome to order. The old factions
of Colonna and Orsini, which Sixtus had scotched, but which
had raised their heads again during the dotage of Innocent,
were destroyed in his pontificate. In this way, as Machiavelli
observed, he laid the real basis for the temporal power of the
Papacy. Alexander, indeed, as a sovereign, achieved for the
Papal See what Louis XI. had done for the throne of France,
and made Rome on its small scale follow the type of the large
European monarchies. … Former Pontiffs had raised money by the
sale of benefices and indulgences: this, of course, Alexander
also practised—to such an extent, indeed, that an epigram
gained currency; 'Alexander sells the keys, the altars,
Christ. Well, he bought them; so he has a right to sell them.'
But he went further and took lessons from Tiberius. Having
sold the scarlet to the highest bidder, he used to feed his
prelate with rich benefices. When he had fattened him
sufficiently, he poisoned him, laid hands upon his hoards, and
recommenced the game. … Former Popes had preached crusades
against the Turk, languidly or energetically according as the
coasts of Italy were threatened. Alexander frequently invited
Bajazet to enter Europe and relieve him of the princes who
opposed his intrigues in the favour of his children. The
fraternal feeling which subsisted between the Pope and the
Sultan was to some extent dependent on the fate of Prince
Djem, a brother of Bajazet and son of the conqueror of
Constantinople, who had fled for protection to the Christian
powers, and whom the Pope kept prisoner, receiving 40,000
ducats yearly from the Porte for his jail fee. … Lucrezia, the
only daughter of Alexander by Vannozza, took three husbands in
succession, after having been formally betrothed to two
Spanish nobles. … History has at last done justice to the
memory of this woman, whose long yellow hair was so beautiful,
and whose character was so colourless. The legend which made
her a poison-brewing Mænad, has been proved a lie—but only at
the expense of the whole society in which she lived. … It
seems now clear enough that not hers, but her father's and her
brother's, were the atrocities which made her married life in
Rome a byeword. She sat and smiled through all the tempests
which tossed her to and fro, until she found at last a fair
port in the Duchy of Ferrara. … [On the 12th of August, 1503],
the two Borgias invited the Cardinal Carneto to dine with them
in the Belvedere of Pope Innocent. Thither by the hands of
Alexander's butler they previously conveyed some poisoned
wine. By mistake they drank the death-cup mingled for their
victim. Alexander died, a black and swollen mass, hideous to
contemplate, after a sharp struggle with the poison."

_J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Age of the Despots,
chapter 6._

The long-accepted story of Pope Alexander's poisoning, as
related above by Mr. Symonds, is now discredited. "The
principal reason why this picturesque tale has of late been
generally regarded as a fiction is the apparent impossibility
of reconciling it with a fact in connexion with Pope
Alexander's last illness which admits of no dispute, the date
of its commencement. The historians who relate the poisoning
unanimously assert that the effect was sudden and
overpowering, that the pope was carried back to the Vatican in
a dying state and expired shortly afterwards. The 18th of
August has hitherto been accepted without dispute as the date
of his death: it follows, therefore, that the fatal banquet
must have been on the 17th at the earliest.
{2443}
But a cloud of witnesses, including the despatches of
ambassadors resident at the papal court, prove that the pope's
illness commenced on the 12th, and that by the 17th his
condition was desperate. The Venetian ambassador and a
Florentine letter-writer, moreover, the only two contemporary
authorities who assign a date for the entertainment, state
that it was given on the 5th or 6th, … which would make it a
week before the pope was taken ill. … It admits … of absolute
demonstration that the banquet could not have been given on
the 12th or even on the 11th, and of proof hardly less cogent
that the pope did actually die on the 18th. All the evidence
that any entertainment was ever given, or that any poisoning
was ever attempted, connects the name of Cardinal Corneto with
the transaction. He and no other, according to all respectable
authorities (the statement of late writers that ten cardinals
were to have been poisoned at once may be dismissed without
ceremony as too ridiculous for discussion), was the cardinal
whom Alexander on this occasion designed to remove. Now,
Cardinal Corneto was not in a condition to partake of any banquet
either on 11 August or 12 August Giustiniani, the Venetian
ambassador, who attributes the pope's illness to a fever
contracted at supper at the cardinal's villa on 5 August,
says, writing on the 13th, 'All have felt the effects, and
first of all Cardinal Adrian [Corneto], who attended mass in
the papal chapel on Friday [11 August], and after supper was
attacked by a violent paroxysm of fever, which endured until
the following morning; yesterday [the 12th] he had it again,
and it has returned to-day.' Evidently, then, the cardinal
could not give or even be present at an entertainment on the
12th, and nothing could have happened on that day to throw a
doubt on the accuracy of Burcardus's statement that the pope
was taken ill in the morning, which would put any banquet and
any poisoning during the course of it out of the question. …
There is, therefore, no reason for discrediting the evidence
of the two witnesses, the only contemporary witnesses to date,
who fix the supper to 5 August or 6 August at the latest. It
is possible that poison may have been then administered which
did not produce its effects until 12 August; but the
picturesque statement of the suddenness of the pope's illness
and the consternation thus occasioned are palpable fictions,
which so gravely impair the credit of the historians relating
them that the story of the poisoning cannot be accepted on
their authority. … The story, then, that Alexander
accidentally perished by poison which he had prepared for
another—though not in itself impossible or even very
improbable—must be dismissed as at present unsupported by
direct proof or even incidental confirmation of any kind. It
does not follow that he may not have been poisoned
designedly."

_R. Garnett,
The Alleged Poisoning of Alexander VI.
(English Historical Review, April, 1894)._

"Of Pius III., who reigned for a few days after Alexander, no
account need be taken. Giuliano della Rovere was made Pope in
1503. Whatever opinion may be formed of him considered as the
high-priest of the Christian faith, there can be no doubt that
Julius II. was one of the greatest figures of the Renaissance,
and that his name, instead of that of Leo X., should by right
be given to the golden age of letters and of arts in Rome. He
stamped the century with the impress of a powerful
personality. It is to him we owe the most splendid of Michael
Angelo's and Raphael's masterpieces. The Basilica of St.
Peter's, that materialized idea, which remains to symbolize
the transition from the Church of the Middle Ages to the
modern semi-secular supremacy of Papal Rome, was his thought.
No nepotism, no loathsome sensuality, no flagrant violation of
ecclesiastical justice stain his pontificate. His one purpose
was to secure and extend the temporal authority of the Popes;
and this he achieved by curbing the ambition of the Venetians,
who threatened to enslave Romagna, by reducing Perugia and
Bologna to the Papal sway, by annexing Parma and Piacenza, and
by entering on the heritage bequeathed to him by Cesare
Borgia. At his death he transmitted to his successors the
largest and most solid sovereignty in Italy. But restless,
turbid, never happy unless fighting, Julius drowned the
peninsula in blood. He has been called a patriot, because from
time to time he raised the cry of driving the barbarians from
Italy: it must, however, be remembered that it was he, while
still Cardinal di San Pietro in Vincoli, who finally moved
Charles VIII. from Lyons; it was he who stirred up the League
of Cambray [see VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509] against Venice, and
who invited the Swiss mercenaries into Lombardy [see ITALY: A.
D. 1510-1513]; in each case adding the weight of the Papal
authority to the forces which were enslaving his country. …
Leo X. succeeded Julius in 1513, to the great relief of the
Romans, wearied with the continual warfare of the old
'Pontefice terribile.'"

_J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Age of the Despots,
chapter 6._

ALSO IN:
_J. C. Robertson,
History of the Christian Church,
book 9, chapter 5 (volume 8)._

_M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy,
book 5, chapters 3-17._

_W. Gilbert,
Lucrezia Borgia._

_P. Villari,
Life and Times of Machiavelli,
introduction, chapter 4 (volume 1);
book 1, chapters 6-14 (volumes 2-3)._

PAPACY: A. D. 1493.
The Pope's assumption of authority
to give the New World to Spain.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1493.

PAPACY: A. D. 1496-1498.
The condemnation of Savonarola.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1490-1498.

PAPACY: A. D. 1503 (September).
Election of Pius III.

PAPACY: A. D. 1503 (October).
Election of Julius II.

PAPACY: A. D. 1508-1509.
Pope Julius II. and the League of Cambrai against Venice.

See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.

PAPACY: A. D. 1510-1513.
The Holy League against France.
The pseudo-council at Pisa.
Conquests of Julius II.

See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.

PAPACY: A. D. 1513.
Election of Leo X.

PAPACY: A. D. 1515-1516.
Treaty of Leo X. with Francis I. of France.
Abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII.
The Concordat of Bologna.
Destruction of the liberties of the Gallican Church.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1518.

{2444}

PAPACY: A. D. 1516-1517.
Monetary demands of the court and family of Pope Leo X.,
and his financial expedients.
The theory of Indulgences and their marketability.

"The position which the pope [Leo X.], now absolute lord of
Florence and master of Siena, occupied, the powerful alliances
he had contracted with the other powers of Europe, and the views
which his family entertained on the rest of Italy, rendered it
absolutely indispensable for him, spite of the prodigality of
a government that knew no restraint, to be well supplied with
money. He seized every occasion of extracting extraordinary
revenues from the church. The Lateran council was induced,
immediately before its dissolution (15th of March, 1517), to
grant the pope a tenth of all church property throughout
Christendom. Three different commissions for the sale of
indulgences traversed Germany and the northern states at the
same moment. These expedients were, it is true, resorted to
under various pretexts. The tenths were, it was said, to be
expended in a Turkish war, which was soon to be declared; the
produce of indulgences was for the building of St. Peter's
Church, where the bones of the martyrs lay exposed to the
inclemency of the elements. But people had ceased to believe
in these pretences. … For there was no doubt on the mind of
any reasonable man, that all these demands were mere financial
speculations. There is no positive proof that the assertion
then so generally made —that the proceeds of the sale of
indulgences in Germany was destined in part for the pope's
sister Maddelena—was true. But the main fact is indisputable,
that the ecclesiastical aids were applied to the uses of the
pope's family."

_L. Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

"Indulgences, in the earlier ages of the Church, had been a
relaxation of penance, or of the discipline imposed by the
Church on penitents who had been guilty of mortal sin. The
doctrine of penance required that for such sin satisfaction
should be superadded to contrition and confession. Then came
the custom of commuting these appointed temporal penalties.
When Christianity spread among the northern nations, the
canonical penances were frequently found to be inapplicable to
their condition. The practice of accepting offerings of money
in the room of the ordinary forms of penance, harmonized with
the penal codes in vogue among the barbarian peoples. At first
the priest had only exercised the office of an intercessor.
Gradually the simple function of declaring the divine
forgiveness to the penitent transformed itself into that of a
judge. By Aquinas, the priest is made the instrument of
conveying the divine pardon, the vehicle through which the
grace of God passes to the penitent. With the jubilees, or
pilgrimages to Rome, ordained by the popes, came the plenary
indulgences, or the complete remission of all temporal
penalties—that is, the penalties still obligatory on the
penitent—on the fulfillment of prescribed conditions. These
penalties might extend into purgatory, but the indulgence
obliterated them all. In the 13th century, Alexander of Hales
and Thomas Aquinas set forth the theory of supererogatory
merits, or the treasure of merit bestowed upon the Church
through Christ and the saints, on which the rulers of the
Church might draw for the benefit of the less worthy and more
needy. This was something distinct from the power of the keys,
the power to grant absolution, which inhered in the priesthood
alone. The eternal punishment of mortal sin being remitted or
commuted by the absolution of the priest, it was open to the
Pope or his agents, by the grant of indulgences, to remit the
temporal or terminable penalties that still rested on the head
of the transgressor. Thus souls might be delivered forthwith
from purgatorial fire. Pope Sixtus IV., in 1477, had
officially declared that souls already in purgatory are
emancipated 'per modum suffragii'; that is, the work done in
behalf of them operates to effect their release in a way
analogous to the efficacy of prayer. Nevertheless, the power
that was claimed over the dead, was not practically diminished
by this restriction. The business of selling indulgences had
grown by the profitableness of it. 'Everywhere,' says Erasmus,
'the remission of purgatorial torment is sold; nor is it sold
only, but forced upon those who refuse it.' As managed by
Tetzel and the other emissaries sent out to collect money for
the building of St. Peter's Church, the indulgence was a
simple bargain, according to which, on the payment of a
stipulated sum, the individual received a full discharge from
the penalties of sin or procured the release of a soul from
the flames of purgatory. The forgiveness of sins was offered
in the market for money."

_G. P. Fisher,
The Reformation,
chapter 4._

The doctrine concerning indulgences which the Roman Catholic
Church maintains at the present day is stated by one of its
most eminent prelates as follows: "What then is an Indulgence?
It is no more than a remission by the Church, in virtue of the
keys, or the judicial authority committed to her, of a
portion, or the entire, of the temporal punishment due to sin.
The infinite merits of Christ form the fund whence this
remission is derived: but besides, the Church holds that, by
the communion of Saints, penitential works performed by the
just, beyond what their own sins might exact, are available to
other members of Christ's mystical body; that, for instance,
the sufferings of the spotless Mother of God, afflictions such
as probably no other human being ever felt in the soul, —the
austerities and persecutions of the Baptist, the friend of the
Bridegroom, who was sanctified in his mother's womb, and
chosen to be an angel before the face of the Christ,—the
tortures endured by numberless martyrs, whose lives had been
pure from vice and sin,—the prolonged rigours of holy
anchorites, who, flying from the temptations and dangers of
the world, passed many years in penance and contemplation, all
these made consecrated and valid through their union with the
merits of Christ's passion,—were not thrown away, but formed a
store of meritorious blessings, applicable to the satisfaction
of other sinners. It is evident that, if the temporal
punishment reserved to sin was anciently believed to be
remitted through the penitential acts, which the sinner
assumed, any other substitute for them, that the authority
imposing or recommending them received as an equivalent, must
have been considered by it truly of equal value, and as
acceptable before God. And so it must be now. If the duty of
exacting such satisfaction devolves upon the Church,—and it
must be the same now as it formerly was,—she necessarily
possesses at present the same power of substitution, with the
same efficacy, and, consequently, with the same effects. And
such a substitution is what constitutes all that Catholics
understand by the name of an Indulgence. … Do I then mean to
say, that during the middle ages, and later, no abuse took
place in the practise of indulgences? Most certainly not.
{2445}
Flagrant and too frequent abuses, doubtless, occurred through
the avarice, and rapacity, and impiety of men; especially when
indulgence was granted to the contributors towards charitable
or religious foundations, in the erection of which private
motives too often mingle. But this I say, that the Church felt
and ever tried to remedy the evil. … The Council of Trent, by
an ample decree, completely reformed the abuses which had
subsequently crept in, and had been unfortunately used as a
ground for Luther's separation from the Church."

_N. Wiseman,
Lectures on the Principal Doctrines and
Practices of the Catholic Church,
lecture 12._

PAPACY: A. D. 1517.
Tetzel and the hawking of Indulgences through Germany.

"In Germany the people were full of excitement. The Church had
opened a vast market on earth. The crowd of customers, and the
cries and jests of the sellers, were like a fair—and that, a
fair held by monks. The article which they puffed off and
offered at the lowest price, was, they said, the salvation of
souls. These dealers travelled through the country in a
handsome carriage, with three outriders, made a great show,
and spent a great deal of money. … When the cavalcade was
approaching a town, a deputy was dispatched to the magistrate:
'The grace of God and St. Peter is before your gates,' said
the envoy; and immediately all the place was in commotion. The
clergy, the priests, the nuns, the council, the schoolmasters,
the schoolboys, the trade corporations with their banners, men
and women, young and old, went to meet the merchants, bearing
lighted torches in their hands, advancing to the sound of
music and of all the bells, 'so that,' says a historian, 'they
could not have received God Himself in greater state.' The
salutations ended, the whole cortege moved towards the church,
the Pope's bull of grace being carried in advance on a velvet
cushion, or on a cloth of gold. The chief indulgence-merchant
followed next, holding in his hand a red wooden cross. In this
order the whole procession moved along, with singing, prayers,
and incense. The organ pealed, and loud music greeted the
hawker monk and those who accompanied him, as they entered the
temple. The cross he bore was placed in front of the altar;
the Pope's arms were suspended from it. … One person
especially attracted attention at these sales. It was he who
carried the great red cross and played the principal part. He
wore the garb of the Dominicans. He had an arrogant bearing
and a thundering voice, and he was in full vigour, though he
had reached his sixty-third year. This man, the son of a
goldsmith of Leipsic, named Dietz, was called John Dietzel, or
Tetzel. He had received numerous ecclesiastical honours. He
was Bachelor in Theology, prior of the Dominicans, apostolic
commissioner and inquisitor, and since the year 1502 he had
filled the office of vendor of indulgences. The skill he had
acquired soon caused him to be named commissioner-in-chief. …
The cross having been elevated and the Pope's arms hung upon
it, Tetzel ascended the pulpit, and with a confident air began
to extol the worth of indulgences, in presence of the crowd
whom the ceremony had attracted to the sacred spot. The people
listened with open mouths. Here is a specimen of one of his
harangues:—'Indulgences,' he said, 'are the most precious and
sublime gifts of God. This cross (pointing to the red cross)
has as much efficacy as the cross of Jesus Christ itself.
Come, and I will give you letters furnished with seals, by
which, even the sins that you may have a wish to commit
hereafter, shall be all forgiven you. I would not exchange my
privileges for those of St. Peter in heaven; for I have saved
more souls by my indulgences than the Apostle by his
discourses. There is no sin so great, that an indulgence
cannot remit it. Repentance is not necessary. But, more than
that; indulgences not only save the living, they save the dead
also. Priest! noble! merchant! woman! young girl! young
man!—harken to your parents and your friends who are dead, and
who cry to you from the depths of the abyss: "We are enduring
horrible tortures! A small alms would deliver us. You can give
it, and you will not!"' The hearers shuddered at these words,
pronounced in the formidable voice of the charlatan monk. 'The
very instant,' continued Tetzel, 'the piece of money chinks at
the bottom of the strong box, the soul is freed from
purgatory, and flies to heaven.' … Such were the discourses
heard by astonished Germany in the days when God was raising
up Luther. The sermon ended, the indulgence was considered as
'having solemnly established its throne' in that place.
Confessionals were arranged, adorned with the Pope's arms; and
the people flocked in crowds to the confessors. They were
told, that, in order to obtain the full pardon of all their
sins, and to deliver the souls of others from purgatory, it
was not necessary for them to have contrition of heart, or to
make confession by mouth; only, let them be quick and bring
money to the box. Women and children, poor people, and those
who lived on alms, all of them soon found the needful to
satisfy the confessor's demands. The confession being over—and
it did not require much time—the faithful hurried to the sale,
which was conducted by a single monk. His counter stood near
the cross. He fixed his sharp eyes upon all who approached
him, scrutinized their manners, their bearing, their dress,
and demanded a sum proportioned to the appearance of each.
Kings, queens, princes, archbishops, bishops, had to pay,
according to regulation, twenty-five ducats; abbots, counts,
and barons, ten; and so on, or according to the discretion of
the commissioner. For particular sins, too, both Tetzel in
Germany, and Samson in Switzerland, had a special scale of
prices."

_J. N. Merle D'Aubigne,
The Story of the! Reformation,
part 1, chapter 6
(or History of the Reformation, book 3, chapter 1)._

ALSO IN:
_M. J. Spalding,
History of the Protestant Reformation,
part 2, chapter 3._

PAPACY: A. D. 1517.
Luther's attack upon the Indulgences.
His 95 Theses nailed to the Wittenberg Church.
The silent support of Elector Frederick of Saxony.
The satisfaction of awakened Germany.

"Wittenberg was an old-fashioned town in Saxony, on the Elbe.
Its main street was parallel with the broad river, and within
its walls, at one end of it, near the Elster gate, lay the
University, founded by the good Elector—Frederic of Saxony—of
which Luther was a professor; while at the other end of it was
the palace of the Elector and the palace church of All Saints.
The great parish church lifted its two towers from the centre
of the town, a little back from the main street.
{2446}
This was the town in which Luther had been preaching for
years, and towards which Tetzel, the seller of indulgences,
now came, just as he did to other towns, vending his 'false
pardons'—granting indulgences for sins to those who could pay
for them, and offering to release from purgatory the souls of
the dead, if any of their friends would pay for their release.
As soon as the money chinked in his money-box, the souls of
their dead friends would be let out of purgatory. This was the
gospel of Tetzel. It made Luther's blood boil. He knew that
what the Pope wanted was people's money, and that the whole
thing was a cheat. This his Augustinian theology had taught
him, and he was not a man to hold back when he saw what ought
to be done. He did see it. On the day [October 31] before the
festival of All Saints, on which the relics of the Church were
displayed to the crowds of country people who flocked into the
town, Luther passed down the long street with a copy of
ninety-five theses or Statements [see text below] against
indulgences in his hand, and nailed them upon the door of the
palace church ready for the festival on the morrow. Also on
All Saints' day he read them to the people in the great parish
church. It would not have mattered much to Tetzel or the Pope
that the monk of Wittenberg had nailed up his papers on the
palace church, had it not been that he was backed by the
Elector of Saxony."

_F. Seebohm,
The Era of the Protestant Revolution,
part 2, chapter 3 (c)._

"As the abuse complained of had a double character, religious
and political, or financial, so also political events came in
aid of the opposition emanating from religious ideas.
Frederick of Saxony [on the occasion of an indulgence
proclaimed in 1501] … had kept the money accruing from it in
his own dominions in his possession, with the determination
not to part with it, till an expedition against the infidels,
which was then contemplated, should be actually undertaken;
the pope and, on the pope's concession, the emperor, had
demanded it of him in vain: he held it for what it really
was—a tax levied on his subjects; and after all the projects
of a war against the Turks had come to nothing, he had at
length applied the money to his university. Nor was he now
inclined to consent to a similar scheme of taxation. … The
sale of indulgences at Jüterbock and the resort of his
subjects thither, was not less offensive to him on financial
grounds than to Luther on spiritual. Not that the latter were
in any degree excited by the former; this it would be
impossible to maintain after a careful examination of the
facts; on the contrary, the spiritual motives were more
original, powerful, and independent than the temporal, though
these were important, as having their proper source in the
general condition of Germany. The point whence the great
events arose which were soon to agitate the world, was the
coincidence of the two. There was … no one who represented the
interests of Germany in the matter. There were innumerable
persons who saw through the abuse of religion, but no one who
dared to call it by its right name and openly to denounce and
resist it. But the alliance between the monk of Wittenberg and
the sovereign of Saxony was formed; no treaty was negotiated;
they had never seen each other; yet they were bound together
by an instinctive mutual understanding. The intrepid monk
attacked the enemy; the prince did not promise him his aid—he
did not even encourage him; he let things take their course. …
Luther's daring assault was the shock which awakened Germany
from her slumber. That a man should arise who had the courage
to undertake the perilous struggle, was a source of universal
satisfaction, and as it were tranquillised the public
conscience. The most powerful interests were involved in
it;—that of sincere and profound piety, against the most
purely external means of obtaining pardon of sins; that of
literature, against fanatical persecutors, of whom Tetzel was
one; the renovated theology against the dogmatic learning of
the schools, which lent itself to all these abuses; the
temporal power against the spiritual, whose usurpations it
sought to curb; lastly, the nation against the rapacity of
Rome."

_L. Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_J. Köstlin,
Life of Luther,
part 3, chapter 1._

_C. Beard,
Martin Luther and the Reformation,
chapter 5._

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1517-1523.

PAPACY: A. D. 1517.
The Ninety-five Theses of Luther.

The following is a translation of the ninety-five theses:

"In the desire and with the purpose of elucidating the truth,
a disputation will be held on the underwritten propositions at
Wittemberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin
Luther, Monk of the Order of St. Augustine, Master of Arts and
of Sacred Theology, and ordinary Reader of the same in that
place. He therefore asks those who cannot be present and
discuss the subject with us orally, to do so by letter in
their absence. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying: 'Repent ye,'
etc., intended that the whole life of believers should be
penitence.

2. This word cannot be understood of sacramental penance, that
is, of the confession and satisfaction which are performed
under the ministry of priests.

3. It does not, however, refer solely to inward penitence; nay
such inward penitence is naught, unless it outwardly produces
various mortifications of the flesh.

4. The penalty thus continues as long as the hatred of
self—that is, true inward penitence—continues; namely, till
our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

5. The Pope has neither the will nor the power to remit any
penalties, except those which he has imposed by his own
authority, or by that of the canons.

6. The Pope has no power to remit any guilt, except by
declaring and warranting it to have been remitted by God; or
at most by remitting cases reserved for himself; in which
eases, if his power were despised, guilt would certainly
remain.

7. God never remits any man's guilt, without at the same time
subjecting him, humbled in all things, to the authority of his
representative the priest.

8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and
no burden ought to be imposed on the dying, according to them.

9. Hence the Holy Spirit acting in the Pope does well for us,
in that, in his decrees, he always makes exception of the
article of death and of necessity.

10. Those priests act wrongly and unlearnedly, who, in the
case of the dying, reserve the canonical penances for
purgatory.

11. Those tares about changing of the canonical penalty into
the penalty of purgatory seem surely to have been sown while
the bishops were asleep.

12. Formerly the canonical penalties were imposed not after,
but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.

{2447}

13. The dying pay all penalties by death, and are already dead
to the canon laws, and are by right relieved from them.

14. The imperfect soundness or charity of a dying person
necessarily brings with it great fear, and the less it is, the
greater the fear it brings.

15. This fear and horror is sufficient by itself, to say
nothing of other things, to constitute the pains of purgatory,
since it is very near to the horror of despair.

16. Hell, purgatory, and heaven appear to differ as despair,
almost despair, and peace of mind differ.

17. With souls in purgatory it seems that it must needs be
that, as horror diminishes, so charity increases.

18. Nor does it seem to be proved by any reasoning or any
scriptures, that they are outside of the state of merit or of
the increase of charity.

19. Nor does this appear to be proved, that they are sure and
confident of their own blessedness, at least all of them,
though we may be very sure of it.

20. Therefore the Pope, when he speaks of the plenary
remission of all penalties, does not mean simply of all, but
only of those imposed by himself.

21. Thus those preachers of indulgences are in error who say
that, by the indulgences of the Pope, a man is loosed and
saved from all punishment.

22. For in fact he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty
which they would have had to pay in this life according to the
canons.

23. If any entire remission of all penalties can be granted to
anyone, it is certain that it is granted to none but the most
perfect, that is, to very few.

24. Hence the greater part of the people must needs be
deceived by this indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of
release from penalties.

25. Such power as the Pope has over purgatory in general, such
has every bishop in his own diocese, and every curate in his
own parish, in particular.

26. The Pope acts most rightly in granting remission to souls,
not by the power of the keys (which is of no avail in this
case) but by the way of suffrage.

27. They preach man, who say that the soul flies out of
purgatory as soon as the money thrown into the chest rattles.

28. It is certain that, when the money rattles in the chest,
avarice and gain may be increased, but the suffrage of the
Church depends on the will of God alone.

29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory desire to be
redeemed from it, according to the story told of Saints
Severinus and Paschal.

30. No man is sure of the reality of his own contrition, much
less of the attainment of plenary remission.

31. Rare as is a true penitent, so rare is one who truly buys
indulgences—that is to say, most rare.

32. Those who believe that, through letters of pardon, they
are made sure of their own salvation, will be eternally damned
along with their teachers.

33. We must especially beware of those who say that these
pardons from the Pope are that inestimable gift of God by
which man is reconciled to God.

34. For the grace conveyed by these pardons has respect only
to the penalties of sacramental satisfaction, which are of
human appointment.

35. They preach no Christian doctrine, who teach that
contrition is not necessary for those who buy souls out of
purgatory or buy confessional licences.

36. Every Christian who feels true compunction has of right
plenary remission of pain and guilt, even without letters of
pardon.

37. Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has a share
in all the benefits of Christ and of the Church, given him by
God, even without letters of pardon.

38. The remission, however, imparted by the Pope is by no
means to be despised, since it is, as I have said, a
declaration of the Divine remission.

39. It is a most difficult thing, even for the most learned
theologians, to exalt at the same time in the eyes of the
people the ample effect of pardons and the necessity of true
contrition.

40. True contrition seeks and loves punishment; while the
ampleness of pardons relaxes it, and causes men to hate it, or
at least gives occasion for them to do so.

41. Apostolic pardons ought to be proclaimed with caution,
lest the people should falsely suppose that they are placed
before other good works of charity.

42. Christians should be taught that it is not the mind of the
Pope that the buying of pardons is to be in any way compared
to works of mercy.

43. Christians should be taught that he who gives to a poor
man, or lends to a needy man, does better than if he bought
pardons.

44. Because, by a work of charity, charity increases, and the
man becomes better; while, by means of pardons, he does not
become better, but only freer from punishment.

45. Christians should be taught that he who sees anyone in
need, and, passing him by, gives money for pardons, is not
purchasing for himself the indulgences of the Pope, but the
anger of God.

46. Christians should be taught that, unless they have
superfluous wealth, they are bound to keep what is necessary
for the use of their own households, and by no means to lavish
it on pardons.

47. Christians should be taught that, while they are free to
buy pardons, they are not commanded to do so.

48. Christians should be taught that the Pope, in granting
pardons, has both more need and more desire that devout prayer
should be made for him, than that money should be readily
paid.

49. Christians should be taught that the Pope's pardons are
useful, if they do not put their trust in them, but most
hurtful, if through them they lose the fear of God.

50. Christians should be taught that, if the Pope were
acquainted with the exactions of the preachers of pardons, he
would prefer that the Basilica of St. Peter should be burnt to
ashes, than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh,
and bones of his sheep.