Chapter IV: From Exile to Supremacy (2)

Other things coming on little agreeable to the pontiff, Eugenius concluded that this very audacious and troublesome council must either be removed into Italy or be curbed by another council in opposition to it. Therefore, when these fathers decreed, on May 7th, 1437, that on account of the Greeks the council should be held either at Bâle, or Avignon, or in some city of Savoy, the pontiff, on the contrary, by his legates, decided that the council should be held in Italy. Neither party would revoke its decision. Hence a violent conflict, from this time onward, existed between the pontiff and the council. On the 26th of July, 1437, the council ordered the pontiff to appear before them at Bâle, and give account of his conduct. The pontiff, on the other hand, dissolved the council, and appointed another at Ferrara. But the fathers, with the approbation of the emperor, the king of France, and other princes, continued their deliberations at Bâle; and on the 28th of September of the same year pronounced the pontiff contumacious for not obeying the decree of a council.

On the 10th of January of the next year, 1438, Eugenius IV, in person, opened the council which he had summoned to meet at Ferrara; and in the second session of it excommunicated the fathers assembled at Bâle. The chief business of this council was to negotiate a union between the Greeks and Latins. The Greek emperor himself, Joannes Palæologus, the patriarch of Constantinople, Joseph, and the principal theologians and bishops of the nation had come personally to Italy, in order to facilitate the success of this important negotiation. For the Greeks, now reduced to extremities by the Turks, indulged the hope that if their disagreements with the Roman pontiff were removed the Latins would afford them succour. The business proceeded tardily, and with little success at Ferrara; but afterwards rather better at Florence. For Eugenius in the beginning of the year 1439, on account of the pestilence at Ferrara, had ordered the council to remove to Florence. The fathers at Bâle, provoked by these and other acts of Eugenius, proceeded on the 25th of June, 1439, to deprive him of the pontificate; but this bold procedure of theirs was not approved by the kings and princes of Europe. Eugenius, on the 4th of September, by a very severe bull anathematised the Basilian fathers and rescinded all their acts. Despising these thunders, on the 17th of September, 1439, they elected a new pontiff, Amadeus, duke of Savoy, who then led a retired life at Ripaille on the Leman Lake (Lake of Geneva). He assumed the name of Felix V.

[Sidenote: [1439-1449 A.D.]]

Thus the lamentable schism, which had been extinguished after so much labour and toil at Constance, returned with new and greater misfortunes. For there were not only two pontiffs mutually condemning each other, but likewise, what was worse, two opposing councils, that of Bâle and that of Florence. The greater part of the church, indeed, adhered to Eugenius; but most of the universities, and particularly the first among them, that of Paris, as well as some kingdoms and provinces, chose to follow Felix V. The Council of Bâle continued to deliberate and to pass laws and decrees till the year 1443, notwithstanding all the opposition of Eugenius and his adherents. And although the fathers separated in that year, they nevertheless publicly declared that the council was not at an end, but would assemble again at a proper time, either at Bâle, or Lyons, or Lausanne. The Council of Florence was chiefly occupied in settling the disputes between the Latins and the Greeks. This great business was committed to selected individuals of both parties. The principal one on the part of the Greeks was Bessarion, a very learned man, who was afterwards admitted into the order of cardinals in the Roman church. This man, being gained by the favours bestowed on him by the pontiff, exerted his influence, and the pontiff employed rewards, threats, and promises to induce the other Greeks to accede to the proposed terms of accommodation, and to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit proceeded also from the Son, that departed souls undergo a purgation by fire before they are admitted to the vision of God, that bread which is without leaven may be used in the sacred supper, and lastly, what was most important of all, that the Roman pontiff is the head and the judge of the church universal. One of the Greeks, Mark of Ephesus, could not be persuaded, by entreaties or by bribes, to give his assent. After all, this peace, which was extorted by various artifices, was not stable. For the Greeks, on returning to Constantinople, stated to their fellow-citizens that everything had been carried at Florence by fraud, and they resumed their hostility. The Council of Florence itself put an end to its deliberations on the 26th of April, 1442. There were also negotiations in this council for bringing the Armenians, and the Jacobites, but especially the Abyssinians, into union with the Romish church; which were attended with the same result as those respecting the Greeks.

[Sidenote: [1447-1455 A.D.]]

The author of this new pontifical schism, Eugenius IV, died in the month of February, 1447, and was succeeded in the month of March by Nicholas V, who was previously Tommaso Parentucelli of Sarzana, bishop of Bologna, a man of learning himself and a great patron of learning, and likewise moderate in temper and disposed for peace. Under him, by means of the persevering labours and efforts of the kings and princes of Europe, especially of the king of France, tranquillity was restored to the Latin church. For Felix V, on the 9th of April, 1449, himself resigned the supremacy of the church, and retired to his former quiet at Ripaille; and the Basilian fathers, being assembled on the 16th of April at Lausanne, ratified his voluntary abdication, and by a solemn decree directed the whole church to obey Nicholas only. On the 18th of June Nicholas promulgated this pacification; and, at the same time, confirmed by his sanction the acts and decrees of the Council of Bâle. This Nicholas was particularly distinguished for his love of literature and the arts, which he laudably exerted himself to advance and encourage in Italy, especially by means of the Greeks that came from Constantinople. He died on the 24th of March, 1455, principally from grief, occasioned by the capture of Constantinople by the Turks.[c]

At this date Milman closes his splendid work on _The History of Latin Christianity_. It will be profitable to quote his summing up of the point reached by Nicholas V, eight and a half centuries after Gregory the Great.[a]

MILMAN ON NICHOLAS V AND THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

[Sidenote: [1447-1458 A.D.]]

The pontificate of Nicholas V is the culminating point of Latin Christianity. The papal power indeed had long reached its zenith. From Innocent III to Boniface VIII it had begun its decline. But Latin Christianity was alike the religion of the popes and of the councils which contested their supremacy. It was as yet no more than a sacerdotal strife whether the pope should maintain an irresponsible autocracy, or be limited and controlled by an ubiquitous, aristocratic senate. The most ardent reformers looked no further than to strengthen the hierarchy. The prelates were determined to emancipate themselves from the usurpations of the pope, as to their elections, their arbitrary taxation by Rome, the undermining of their authority by perpetual appeals; but they had no notion of relaxing in the least the ecclesiastical domination. It was not that Christendom might govern itself, but that themselves might have a more equal share in the government. They were as jealously attached as the pope to the creed of Latin Christianity. The council, not the pope, burned John Huss. Their concessions to the Bohemians were extorted from their fears, not granted by their liberality. The Vulgate was their Bible, the Latin service their exclusive liturgy, the Canon Law their code of jurisprudence.

Latin Christianity had yet to discharge some part of its mission. It had to enlighten the world with letters, to adorn it with arts. It had hospitably to receive (a gift fatal in the end to its own dominion) and to promulgate to mankind the poets, historians, philosophers of Greece. It had to break down its own idols, the schoolmen, and substitute a new idolatry, that of classical literature. It had to perfect Christian art. Already Christian architecture had achieved some of its wonders. The venerable Lateran and St. Paul’s without the Walls, the old St. Peter’s, St. Mark’s at Venice and Pisa, Strasburg and Cologne, Rheims and Bourges, York and Lincoln, stood in their majesty. Christian painting, and even Christian sculpture, were to rise to their untranscended excellence.

The choice of Nicholas V was one of such singular felicity for his time that it cannot be wondered if his admirers looked on it as overruled by the Holy Spirit. “Who would have thought in Florence,” so said Nicholas to his biographer Vespasiano,[e] “that a priest who rang the bells should become supreme pontiff?” Yet it seems to have been a happy accident. In Nicholas V, in three short years, the pope had become again a great Italian potentate. The pilgrims carried back throughout Europe accounts of the resuscitated majesty of the Roman pontificate, the unsullied personal dignity of the pope, the re-enthronement of religion in the splendid edifices, which were either building or under restoration. Nicholas V was to behold, as it were, the final act of homage to the popedom, from the majesty of the empire. He was to be the last pontiff who was to crown at Rome the successor of Charlemagne; Frederick III the last emperor who was so to receive his crown from the hands of the pope.

[Sidenote: [1452-1455 A.D.]]

Now came that event which, however foreseen by the few wiser prophetic spirits, burst on Europe and on Christendom with the stunning and appalling effect of absolute suddenness--the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. On no two European minds did this disaster work with more profound or more absorbing terror than on Pope Nicholas V and Æneas Sylvius (Enea Silvio Piccolomini); nor could anyone allege more sound reasons for that terror than the pope and the bishop of Siena. Who could estimate better than Æneas, from his intimate knowledge of all the countries of Europe, of Italy, Germany, France, England, the extent of the danger which impended over the Latin world? Never since its earlier outburst might Mohammedanism seem so likely to subjugate if not to swallow up distracted and disunited Christendom, as under the Turks. By sea and land they were equally formidable. If Christendom should resist, on what frontier? All were menaced, all in danger. What city, what kingdom, would arrest the fierce, the perpetual invasion? From this period throughout the affairs of Germany (at Frankfort he preached a crusade) to the end of his legatine power, of his cardinalate, of his papacy, of his life, this was the one absorbing thought, one passion, of Æneas Sylvius. The immediate advance of the victorious Muhammed through Hungary, Dalmatia, to the border, the centre of Italy, was stopped by a single fortress, Belgrade; by a preacher, John Capistrano; by a hero, John Hunyady. But it was not till, above a century later, when Don John of Austria, at Lepanto by sea, and John Sobieski, before Vienna, by land, broke the spell of Mohammedan conquest, that Europe or Christendom might repose in security.

The death of Nicholas V was hastened, it was said, by the taking of Constantinople. Grief, shame, fear, worked on a constitution broken by the gout. But Nicholas V foresaw not that in remote futurity the peaceful, not the warlike, consequences of the fall of Constantinople would be most fatal to the popedom--that what was the glory of Nicholas V would become among the foremost causes of the ruin of mediæval religion; that it would aid in shaking to the base and in severing forever the majestic unity of Latin Christianity.

Nicholas V aspired to make Italy the domicile, Rome the capital, of letters and arts. No sooner was Nicholas pope than he applied himself to the foundation of the Vatican library. Five thousand volumes were speedily collected. The wondering age boasted that no such library had existed since the days of the Ptolemies.

The scholars of Italy flocked to Rome, each to receive his task from the generous pope, who rewarded their labours with ample payment. He seemed determined to enrich the West with all that survived of Grecian literature. The fall of Constantinople, long threatened, had been preceded by the immigration of many learned Greeks. France, Germany, even England, the Byzantine Empire, Greece, had been ransacked by industrious agents for copies of all the Greek authors. No branch of letters was without its interpreters.

To Nicholas V, Italy, or rather Latin Christianity, mainly owes her age of learning, as well as its fatal consequence to Rome and to Latin Christianity, which in his honest ardour he would be the last to foresee. It was the splendid vision of Nicholas V that this revival of letters, which in certain circles became almost a new religion, would not be the bond-slave but the handmaid or willing minister of the old. Latin Christianity was to array itself in all the spoils of the ancient world, and so maintain (there was nothing of policy in his thought) her dominion over the mind of man. But Rome under Nicholas V was not to be the centre of letters alone; she was also to resume her rank as the centre of art, more especially of architectural magnificence. Rome was to be again as of old the lawgiver of civilisation; pilgrims from all parts of the world, from curiosity, for business, or from religion, were to bow down before the confessed supremacy of her splendid works.

The pope was to be a great sovereign prince, but above the sovereign prince he was to be the successor of St. Peter. Rome was to be at once the strong citadel, and the noblest sanctuary in the world, unassailable by her enemies both without and within from her fortifications; commanding the world to awe by the unrivalled majesty of her churches. The Jubilee had poured enormous wealth into the treasury of the pope; his ordinary revenues, both from the papal territory and from Christendom at large, began to flow in with peace and with the revival of his authority. That wealth was all expended with the most liberal magnificence. Already had it dawned upon the mind of Nicholas V that the cathedral of the chief of the apostles ought to rival, or to surpass, all the churches in Christendom in vastness and majesty. It was to be entirely rebuilt from its foundations. Julius II and Leo X did but accomplish the design of Nicholas V.

Thus in Nicholas V closed one great age of the papacy. In Nicholas the sovereign Italian prince and the pontiff met in serene and amicable dignity; he had no temptation to found a princely family. But before long the pontiff was to be lost in the sovereign prince. Nor was it less evident that the exclusive dominion of Latin Christianity was drawing to a close, though nearly a century might elapse before the final secession of Teutonic Christianity, and the great permanent division of Christendom. Each successive pontificate might seem determined to advance, to hasten that still slow but inevitable revolution: the audacious nepotism of Sixtus IV, the wickednesses of Alexander VI, which defy palliation; the wars of Julius II, with the hoary pope at the head of ferocious armies; the political intrigues and disasters of Clement VII.[b]

POPES TO 1503

[Sidenote: [1458-1503 A.D.]]

Nicholas’ successor, Alfonso Borgia (Borja), a Spaniard, whose pontifical name was Calixtus III, performed nothing great or splendid, if no account be taken of his anxiety to urge Christian princes upon a war against the Turks. He died in the year 1458. Much more celebrated was his successor, Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, bishop of Siena, who ascended the papal throne in 1458, and took the name of Pius II, a man of superior genius, and renowned both for his achievements and for his various writings and publications.

Yet posterity would have accounted him a much greater man, if he had not been guilty of gross inconsistency. For after strenuously maintaining the rights of councils against the pontiffs, and boldly defending the cause of the Council of Bâle against Eugenius IV, upon being made pontiff, he apostatised from himself; and January 18th, 1460, denied that a council is superior to a pontiff, and severely prohibited appeals to councils; and in the year 1461 obtained from Louis XI, king of France, the abrogation of the pragmatic sanction, which was favourable to councils; and finally, April 26th, 1463, he expressed a public disapproval of all that he had himself written in favour of the Council of Bâle, and decreed that Pius II was to be heard and obeyed, but that Æneas Sylvius was to be condemned. A short time after making this declaration he fell ill and died in the month of July, 1464.

Paul II, previously Pietro Barbo, a Venetian, who was raised to the chair of St. Peter in 1464, and died in 1471, performed some acts not unworthy of commendation, at least according to the views of that age; but he also did many things that are scarcely excusable, if they are so at all, among the least important of which is that he made a jubilee year come once in every twenty-five years, in 1470. Hence his reputation with posterity has remained equivocal.

The subsequent pontiffs, Sixtus IV, previously Francesco Albescola della Rovere, who died in 1484, and Innocent VIII,[108] previously Giovanni Battista Cibo, a Genoese, who died in 1492, were of the middle kind, being distinguished as popes neither for great virtues nor for great faults. Each, fearing for Italy and for all Europe, from the power of the Turks, both prepared himself for a war upon them and very earnestly urged one on the kings of Europe. But each met with such obstacles as disappointed an object so dear to his heart. Nothing else was done by them with much pretension to true greatness.

The pontifical series of this century is closed by Alexander VI, a Spaniard, whose true name was Rodrigo Borgia. He may not improperly be called the Nero of pontiffs. For the villainies, crimes, and enormities recorded of this man are so many and so great as to make it seem clear that he was destitute, we will not say of all religion, but even of decency and shame. Among the things charged upon him, though some may be false and others overstated, by his enemies, yet so many remain which are placed beyond all dispute as are sufficient to render the memory of Alexander execrable in the view of all who have even a moderate share of virtue. A large part of his crimes, however, originated from his excessive partiality for his children; for he had four sons by a concubine, among whom was the notorious Cesare Borgia, infamous for his enormous vices, and likewise one daughter named Lucrezia; and he was intent solely on bringing forward and enriching these, without regarding honesty, reason, or religion.[c]

ALEXANDER VI, THE BORGIA

[Sidenote: [1492-1503 A.D.]]

The great object of Alexander through his whole life was to gratify his inclination for pleasure, his ambition, and his love of ease. When at length he had attained to the supreme spiritual dignity, he seemed also to have reached the summit of happiness. Spite of his advanced years, the exultation he felt seemed daily to impart to him a new life. No painful thought was permitted to disturb his repose for a single night. His only care was to seize on all means that might aid him to increase his power, and advance the wealth and dignity of his sons; on no other subject did he ever seriously bestow a thought. This one consideration was at the base of all his political alliances, and of those relations by which the events of the world were at that time so powerfully influenced. How the pope would proceed, in regard to the marriages, endowments, and advance of his children, became a question affecting the politics of all Europe.

The son of Alexander, Cæsar Borgia, followed close on the footsteps of Riario. He began from the same point, and his first undertaking was to drive the widow of Riario from Imola and Forlì. He pressed forward to the completion of his designs with the most daring contempt of consequences; what Riario had only approached, or attempted, Cæsar Borgia carried forward to its utmost results. Let us take a rapid glance at the means by which his purposes were accomplished.

The ecclesiastical states had hitherto been divided by the factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the first represented in Rome by the family of Orsini, the second by the house of Colonna. The popes had usually taken part with one or the other of these factions. Sixtus IV had done so, and his example was followed by Alexander and his son, who at first attached themselves to the Guelf, or Orsini party. This alliance enabled them very soon to gain the mastery of all their enemies. They drove the house of Sforza from Pesaro, that of Malatesta from Rimini, and the family of Manfredi from Faenza. They seized on those powerful, well-fortified cities, and thus commenced the foundation of an extensive lordship. But no sooner had they attained this point, no sooner had they freed themselves from their enemies, than they turned every effort against their friends. And it was in this that the practice of the Borgias differed from that of their predecessors, who had ever remained firmly attached to the party they had chosen; Cæsar, on the contrary, attacked his own confederates, without hesitation or scruple. The duke of Urbino, from whom he had frequently received important aid, was involved, as in a network, by the machinations of Cæsar, and with difficulty saved his life, a persecuted fugitive in his own dominions. Vitelli, Baglioni, and other chiefs of the Orsini faction, resolved to show him that at least they were capable of resistance. But Cæsar Borgia, declaring that “it is permitted to betray those who are the masters of all treasons,” decoyed them into his snares with profoundly calculated cruelty, and mercilessly deprived them of life. Having thus destroyed both parties, he stepped into their place, gathered the inferior nobility, who had been their adherents, around him, and took them into his pay; the territories he had seized on were held in subjection by force of terror and cruelty.

The brightest hopes of Alexander were thus realised--the nobles of the land were annihilated, and his house about to found a great hereditary dominion in Italy. But he had already begun to acquire practical experience of the evil which passions, aroused and unbridled, are capable of producing. With no relative or favourite would Cæsar Borgia endure the participation of his power. His own brother stood in his way; Cæsar caused him to be murdered and thrown into the Tiber. His brother-in-law was assailed and stabbed, by his orders, on the steps of his palace. The wounded man was nursed by his wife and sister, the latter preparing his food with her own hands to secure him from poison; the pope set a guard upon the house to protect his son-in-law from his son. Cæsar laughed these precautions to scorn. “What cannot be done at noonday,” said he, “may be brought about in the evening.” When the prince was on the point of recovery, he burst into his chamber, drove out the wife and sister, called in the common executioner, and caused his unfortunate brother-in-law to be strangled. Towards his father, whose life and station he valued only as means to his own aggrandisement, he displayed not the slightest respect or feeling. He slew Peroto, Alexander’s favourite, while the unhappy man clung to his patron for protection, and was wrapped within the pontifical mantle. The blood of the favourite flowed over the face of the pope.

For a certain time the city of the apostles, and the whole state of the church, were in the hands of Cæsar Borgia. He is described as possessing great personal beauty, and was so strong that in a bull-fight he would strike off the head of the animal at a single blow; of liberal spirit, and not without certain features of greatness, but given up to his passions, and deeply stained with blood. How did Rome tremble at his name! Cæsar required gold, and possessed enemies; every night were the corpses of murdered men found in the streets, yet none dared move; for who but might fear that his own turn would be next? Those whom violence could not reach were taken off by poison. There was but one place on earth where such deeds were possible--that, namely, where unlimited temporal power was united to the highest spiritual authority, where the laws, civil and ecclesiastical, were held in one and the same hand. This place was occupied by Cæsar Borgia. Even depravity may have its perfection. The kindred of the popes have often distinguished themselves in the career of evil, but none attained to the eminence of Cæsar Borgia. He may be called a virtuoso in crime. Was it not in the first and most essential tendencies of Christianity to render such a power impossible? And yet, Christianity itself, and the very position of the supreme head of the church, were made subservient to its existence.

There needed, then, no advent of a Luther, to prove to the world that these things were in direct opposition to the spirit of Christianity. Even at that time men complained that the pope was preparing the way for antichrist, and labouring for the interest of Satan rather than the kingdom of God. We do not follow the history of Alexander in its minute details. He once purposed, as is but too well authenticated,[109] to destroy one of the richest cardinals by poison; but the latter contrived to win over the pope’s chief cook by means of promises, entreaties, and gifts. The confection, prepared for the cardinal, was set before the pontiff himself; and Alexander expired from the effects of that poison which he had destined for another.[f]

_Estimates of Alexander VI_

It is the pastime of historians to practise their technic impartially in besmirching the sanctified reputations of the saints of popular belief and in whitewashing the traditional villains. Alexander VI is too historic a monster to escape the efforts of some apologist, and in recent years Dr. Richard Garnett[g] and Frederick Baron Corvo[i] have come to his rescue. The former praises his great shrewdness, his learning and vigour, and finds him no worse than his times, which is at best damning with faint praise one who stood for St. Peter on earth. Dr. Garnett after his defence is however compelled to admit the following flaws in the pope’s character:[a]

“Cardinal Borgia had simply bought up the Sacred College. Although Alexander’s election was without question the most notorious of any for the unscrupulous employment of illegitimate influences, it is difficult to affirm that it was in principle more simoniacal than most of those which had lately preceded it or were soon to follow. Men said that Alexander had bribed the French ministers; probably he had. He had been tortuous, perfidious, temporising under stress of circumstances. Unrestrained by moral scruples, or by any spiritual conception of religion, he was betrayed into gross sensuality of one kind, though in other respects he was temperate and abstemious. In the more respectable guise of family affection it led him to outrage every principle of justice. The general tendency of investigation, which utterly shattering all idle attempts to represent him as the model pope, has been to relieve him of the most odious imputations against his character. There remains the charge of secret poisoning from motives of cupidity, which indeed appear established, or nearly so, only in a single instance, but this may imply others.”

In the same work Henry C. Lea[h] is more severe. “It is no wonder that Rome had become a centre of corruption whence infection was radiated throughout Christendom. In the middle of the fourteenth century Petrarch exhausts his rhetoric in describing the abominations of the papal city of Avignon, where everything was vile; and the return of the curia to Rome transferred to that city the supremacy in wickedness. In 1499 the Venetian ambassador describes it as the sewer of the world, and Machiavelli asserts that through its example all devotion and all religion had perished in Italy. In 1490 it numbered 6000 public women--an enormous proportion for a population not exceeding 100,000. The story is well known, how Cardinal Borgia, who, as vice-chancellor, openly sold pardons for crime, when reproved for this, replied, that God desires not the death of sinners but that they should pay and live. If the diary of Infessura[j] is suspect on account of his partisanship, that of Burchard is unimpeachable, and his placid recital of the events passing under his eyes presents to us a society too depraved to take shame at its own wickedness. The public marriage, he says, of the daughters of Innocent VIII and Alexander VI set the fashion for the clergy to have children, and they diligently followed it; for all, from the highest to the lowest, kept concubines, while the monasteries were brothels.”

And John Addington Symonds has been quite as emphatic:

“To describe him as the Genius of Evil, whose sensualities, as unrestrained as Nero’s, were relieved against the background of flames and smoke which Christianity had raised for fleshly sins, is justifiable. An epigram gained currency: ‘Alexander sells the keys, the altars, Christ. Well, he bought them; so he has a right to sell them.’ 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. His traffic in church dignities was carried on upon a grand scale, twelve cardinals’ hats, for example, were put to auction in a single day. This was when he wished to pack the conclave with votes in favour of the cession of Romagna to Cesare Borgia. Carnal sensuality was the besetting vice of this pope throughout his life. His relations to Vanozza Catanei and to Giulia Farnese were open and acknowledged. These two sultanas ruled him during the greater portion of his career, conniving meanwhile at the harem, which, after true oriental fashion, he maintained in the Vatican.”[l]

JULIUS II

[Sidenote: [1503-1513 A.D.]]

A pope followed who made it his object to assume a position in direct contrast with that of the Borgias; but who pursued the same end, though he took different, and from that very circumstance successful, means for his purpose. Julius II (1503-1513 A.D.) enjoyed the incalculable advantage of finding opportunity for promoting the interests of his family by peaceable means; he obtained for his kindred the inheritance of Urbino. This done, he could devote himself, undisturbed by the importunities of his kindred, to the gratification of that innate love for war and conquest which was indeed the ruling passion of his life. To this he was invited by the circumstances of the times, and the consciousness of his eminent position; but his efforts were all for the church--for the benefit of the papal see. Other popes had laboured to procure principalities for their sons or their nephews; it was the ambition of Julius to extend the dominions of the church. He must, therefore, be regarded as the founder of the papal states.

He found the whole territory in extreme confusion; all who had escaped by flight from the hand of Cæsar had returned--the Orsini, the Colonna, the Vitelli and Baglioni, Varani, Malatesta, and Montefeltri--everywhere throughout the whole land were the different parties in movement; murderous contests took place in the very Borgo of Rome. Pope Julius has been compared with the Neptune of Virgil, when rising from the waves, with peace-inspiring countenance he hushes their storms to repose. By prudence and good management he disembarrassed himself even of Cæsar Borgia, whose castles he seized and of whose dukedom he also gained possession. The lesser barons he kept in order with the more facility from the measures to this effect that had been taken by Cæsar, but he was careful not to give them such cardinals for leaders as might awaken the ancient spirit of insubordination by ambitious enterprise. The more powerful nobles, who refused him obedience, he attacked without further ceremony. His accession to the papal throne sufficed to reduce Baglioni (who had again made himself master of Perugia) within the limits of due subordination. Nor could Bentivoglio offer effectual resistance when required to resign that sumptuous palace which he had erected in Bologna, and whereon he had too hastily inscribed the well-known eulogy of his own good fortune; of this he saw himself deprived in his old age. The two powerful cities of Perugia and Bologna were thus subjected to the immediate authority of the pontifical throne.

But with all this, Julius was yet far from having accomplished the end he had proposed to himself. The coasts of the papal states were in great part occupied by the Venetians; they were by no means disposed to yield possession of them freely, and the pope was greatly their inferior in military power. He could not conceal from himself that his attacking them would be the signal for a commotion throughout Europe. Should he venture to risk this?

Old as Julius now was, worn by the many vicissitudes of good and evil fortune experienced through a long life; by the fatigues of war and exile, and most of all by the consequences of intemperance and licentious excess, he yet knew not what fear or irresolution meant; in the extremity of age, he still retained that grand characteristic of manhood, an indomitable spirit. He felt little respect for the princes of his time, and believed himself capable of mastering them all. He took the field in person, and having stormed Mirandola, he pressed into the city across the frozen ditches and through the breach; the most disastrous reverses could not shake his purpose, but rather seemed to waken new resources within him. He was accordingly successful; not only were his own baronies rescued from the Venetians, but in the fierce contest that ensued, he at length made himself master of Parma, Piacenza, and even Reggio, thus laying the foundation of a power such as no pope had ever possessed before him. From Piacenza to Terracina the whole fair region admitted his authority.

PREVALENCE OF SECULARISM IN THE CHURCH

[Sidenote: [1471-1503 A.D.]]

It was an inevitable consequence that the whole body of the hierarchy should be influenced by the character and tendencies of its chief, that all should lend their best aid to the promotion of his purposes, and be themselves carried forward by the impulse thus given. Not only the supreme dignity of the pontiff, but all other offices of the church, were regarded as mere secular property. The pope nominated cardinals from no better motive than personal favour, the gratification of some potentate, or even, and this was no unfrequent occurrence, for actual payment of money! Could there be any rational expectation that men so appointed would fulfil their spiritual duties? One of the most important offices of the church, the Penitenziaria, was bestowed by Sixtus IV on one of his nephews. This office held a large portion of the power of granting dispensations; its privileges were still further extended by the pope, and in a bull issued for the express purpose of confirming them, he declares all who shall presume to doubt the rectitude of such measures, to be a “stiff-necked people and children of malice.” It followed as a matter of course that the nephew considered his office as a benefice, the proceeds of which he was entitled to increase to the utmost extent possible.

A large amount of worldly power was at this time conferred in most instances, together with the bishoprics; they were held more or less as sinecures according to the degree of influence or court favour possessed by the recipient or his family. The Roman curia thought only of how it might best derive advantage from the vacancies and presentations; Alexander extorted double annates or first-fruits, and levied double, nay triple tithes; there remained few things that had not become matter of purchase. The taxes of the papal chancery rose higher from day to day, and the comptroller, whose duty it was to prevent all abuses in that department, most commonly referred the revision of the imposts to those very men who had fixed their amount. For every indulgence obtained from the datary’s office, a stipulated sum was paid; nearly all the disputes occurring at this period between the several states of Europe and the Roman court arose out of these exactions, which the curia sought by every possible means to increase, while the people of all countries as zealously strove to restrain them.

Principles such as these necessarily acted on all ranks affected by the system based on them, from the highest to the lowest. Many ecclesiastics were found ready to renounce their bishoprics; but they retained the greater part of the revenues, and not unfrequently the presentation to the benefices dependent on them also. Even the laws forbidding the son of a clergyman to procure induction to the living of his father, and enacting that no ecclesiastic should dispose of his office by will, were continually evaded; for as all could obtain permission to appoint whomsoever he might choose as his coadjutor, provided he were liberal of his money, so the benefices of the church became in a manner hereditary. It followed of necessity that the performance of ecclesiastical duties was grievously neglected. In this rapid sketch, we confine ourselves to remarks made by conscientious prelates of the Roman court itself.

In all places incompetent persons were intrusted with the performance of clerical duties; they were appointed without scrutiny or selection. The incumbents of benefices were principally interested in finding substitutes at the lowest possible cost, thus the mendicant friars were frequently chosen as particularly suitable in this respect. These men occupied the bishoprics under the title (previously unheard of in that sense) of suffragans; the cures they held in the capacity of vicars. Already were the mendicant orders in possession of extraordinary privileges, and these had been yet further extended by Sixtus IV, who was himself a Franciscan. They had the right of confessing penitents, administering the Lord’s Supper, and bestowing extreme unction, as also that of burying within the precincts, and even in the habit of the order. All these privileges conferred importance as well as profit, and the mendicant friars enjoyed them in their utmost plenitude; the pope even threatened the disobedient secular clergy, or others, who should molest the orders, more particularly as regarded bequests, with the loss of their respective offices.

The administration of parishes as well as that of bishoprics being now in the hands of the mendicant orders, it is manifest that they must have possessed enormous influence. The higher offices and more important dignities were monopolised, together with their revenues, by the great families and their dependants, shared only with the favourites of courts and of the curia; the actual discharge of the various duties was confided to the mendicant friars who were upheld by the popes. They took active part also in the sale of indulgences, to which so unusual an extension was given at that time, Alexander VI being the first to declare officially that they were capable of releasing souls from purgatory. But the orders also had fallen into the extreme of worldliness. What intrigues were set on foot among them for securing the higher appointments! what eagerness was displayed at elections to be rid of a rival, or of a voter believed unfavourable! The latter were sent out of the way as preachers or as inspectors of remote parishes; against the former, they did not scruple to employ the sword, or the dagger, and many were destroyed by poison. Meanwhile the comforts men seek from religion became mere matter of sale; the mendicant friars, employed at miserably low wages, caught eagerly at all contingent means of making profit.

While the populace had sunk into almost heathen superstition, and expected their salvation from mere ceremonial observances, but half understood, the higher classes were manifesting opinions of a tendency altogether anti-religious. How profoundly astonished must Luther have been, on visiting Italy in his youth! At the very moment when the sacrifice of the mass was completed, did the priests utter blasphemous words in denial of its reality! It was even considered characteristic of good society, in Rome, to call the principles of Christianity in question. “One passes,” says P. Ant. Bandino,[m] “no longer for a man of cultivation, unless one put forth heterodox opinions regarding the Christian faith.” At court, the ordinances of the Catholic church, and of passages from Holy Scripture, were made subjects of jest--the mysteries of the faith had become matter of derision.

We thus see how all is enchained and connected--how one event calls forth another. The pretensions of temporal princes to ecclesiastical power awaken a secular ambition in the popes, the corruption and decline of religious institutions elicit the development of a new intellectual tendency, till at length the very foundations of the faith become shaken in the public opinion.[f]

FOOTNOTES

[107] [For an account of the origin of the order of Templars and its destruction see the previous history of the Crusades.]

[108] See Muratori,[e] _ad ann._ 1478. Innocent VIII had lived so shamefully before he mounted the Romish throne that he had sixteen illegitimate children to make provision for. Yet on the papal throne he played the zealot against the Germans, whom he accused of magic, in his bull _Summis desiderantes affectibus_, etc., and also against the Hussites, whom he well-nigh exterminated.

[109] [Though Von Ranke[f] and others believe that Alexander VI was poisoned, Dr. Garnett[g] says: “His decease became the nucleus of a labyrinthine growth of legend and romance. Modern investigation has dispelled it all and left no doubt that his death was natural.”]

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS

[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]