The History of Protestantism |
Table of Contents
BOOK FOURTH
CHRISTENDOM AT THE OPENING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
| Chapter 1 | . . . | PROTESTANTISM AND MEDIEVALISM Ancient Society Discarded – New Races brought on Stage – Their Capacity for Progress – The Reformation not Possible before the Sixteenth Century – Medievalism Revives – A Conflict – Odds – The Victory of the Weak. |
| Chapter 2 | . . . | THE EMPIRE Fall of Ancient Empire – Revived by the Pope – Charlemagne – The Golden Bull – The Seven Electors – Rules and Forms of Election – Ceremony of Coronation – Insignia – Coronation Feast – Emperor's Power Limited – Charles V. – Capitulation – Spain – Becomes One Monarchy on the Approach of the Reformation – Its Power Increased by the Discoveries of Columbus – Brilliant Assemblage of States under Charles V. – Liberty in Danger – Protestantism comes to Save it |
| Chapter 3 | . . . | THE PAPACY, OR CHRISTENDOM UNDER THE TIARA Complex Constitution of the Papacy – Temporal Sovereignty limited to Papal States – Pontifical Supremacy covers all Christendom – Governmental Machinery – Legate-a-latere – Interdict – The Concordat – Concordat with Austria – The Papacy in Piedmont – Indulgences – The Confessional – The Papacy Absolute in Temporals as in Spirituals – Enormous Strength |
BOOK FOURTH
CHRISTENDOM AT THE OPENING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER 1 Back to Top
PROTESTANTISM AND MEDIEVALISM
Ancient Society Discarded – New Races brought on Stage – Their Capacity for
Progress – The Reformation not Possible before the Sixteenth Century –
Medievalism Revives – A Conflict – Odds – The Victory of the Weak.
WE are now arrived at the sixteenth century. For a thousand
years the Great Ruler had been laying, in the midst of wars and great ethnical
revolutions, the foundations of a new and more glorious edifice than any that former ages
had seen. Ancient society was too enfeebled by slavery, and too corrupted by polytheism,
to be able to bear the weight of the structure about to be erected. The experiment had
been tried of rearing the new social edifice upon the old foundations, but the attempt had
turned out a failure. By the fourth century, the Gospel, so warmly embraced at first by
the Greek and Roman nations, had begun to decline – had, in fact, become greatly
corrupted. It was seen that these ancient races were unable to advance to the full manhood
of Christianity and civilization. They were continually turning back to old models and
established precedents. They lacked the capacity of adapting themselves to new forms of
life, and surrendering themselves to the guidance of great principles. What was to be
done? Must the building which God purposed to erect be abandoned, because a foundation
sufficiently strong and sound could not be found for it? Should Christianity remain the
half-finished structure, or rather the defaced ruin, which the fourth and fifth centuries
beheld it?
An answer was given to this question when the gates of the North were opened, and new and
hardy races, issuing from the obscure regions of Germany, spread themselves over Southern
and Western Europe. An invisible Power marched before these tribes, and placed each –
the Huns, the Vandals, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Lombards – in that quarter of
Christendom which best suited the part each was destined to play in that great drama of
which the stamping out of the laws, the religion, and the government of the old world was
the first act. The same Power which guided their march from the remote lands of their
birth, and chose for them their several habitations, continued to watch over the
development of their manners, the formation of their language, and the growth of their
literature and their art, of their laws and their government; and thus, in the slow course
of the centuries, were laid firm and broad the foundations of a new order of things. These
tribes had no past to look back upon. They had no storied traditions and observances which
they trembled to break through. There was no spell upon them like that which operated so
mischievously upon the Greek and Latin races. They were free to enter the new path.
Daring, adventurous, and liberty-loving, we can trace their steady advance, step by step,
through the convulsions of the tenth century, the intellectual awakening of the twelfth,
and the literary revival of the fifteenth, onward to the great spiritual movement of the
sixteenth.
It is at this great moral epoch that we are now arrived. It will aid us if we pause in our
narrative, and glance for a moment at the constitution of Europe, and note specially the
spirit of its policy, the play of its ambitions, and the crisis to which matters were fast
tending at the opening of the sixteenth century. This will enable us to understand what we
may term the timing of the Reformation. We have just seen that this great movement was not
possible before the century we speak of, for till then there was no stable basis for it in
the condition of the Teutonic nations. The rapid survey that is to follow will show us
further that this renewal of society could not, without the most disastrous consequences
to the world, have been longer delayed. Had the advent of Protestantism been postponed for
a century or two beyond its actual date, not only would all the preparations of the
previous ages have miscarried, but the world would have been overtaken, and society, it
may be, dissolved a second time, by a tremendous evil, which had been growing for some
time, and had now come to a head. Without the Protestantism of the sixteenth century, not
only would the intellectual awakening of the twelfth and the literary revival of the
fifteenth century have been in vain, but the mental torpor, and it may be the religion
also, of the Turk, would at this day have been reigning in Europe. Christendom, at the
epoch of which we speak, had only two things in its choice – to accept the Gospel,
and fight its way through scaffolds and stakes to the liberty which the Gospel brings with
it, or to crouch down beneath the shadow of a universal Spanish monarchy, to be succeeded
in no long time by the yet gloomier night of Moslem despotism.
It would require more space than is here at our disposal to pass in review the several
kingdoms of Europe, and note the transformation which all of them underwent as the era of
Protestantism approached. Nor is this necessary. The characteristic of the Christendom of
that age lay in two things – first in the constitution and power of the Empire, and
secondly in the organization and supremacy of the Papacy. For certain ends, and within
certain limits, each separate State of Europe was independent; it could pursue its own
way, make war with whom it had a mind, or conclude a peace when it chose; but beyond these
limits each State was simply the member of a corporate body, which was under the sway of a
double directorate. First came the Empire, which in the days of Charlemagne, and again in
the days of Charles V., assumed the presidency of well-nigh the whole of Europe. Above the
Empire was the Papacy. Wielding a subtler influence and armed with higher sanctions, it
was the master of the Empire in even a greater degree than the Empire was the master of
Europe.
It is instructive to mark that, at the moment when the Protestant principle was about to
appear, Medievalism stood up in a power and grandeur unknown to it for ages. The former
was at its weakest, the latter had attained its full strength when the battle between them
was joined. To see how great the odds, what an array of force Medievalism had at its
service, and to be able to guess what would have been the future of Christendom and the
world, had not Protestantism come at this crisis to withstand, nay, to vanquish the
frightful combination of power that menaced the liberties of mankind, and to feel how
marvelous in every point of view was the victory which, on the side of the weaker power,
crowned this great contest, we must turn first to the Empire.
CHAPTER 2 Back to Top
THE EMPIRE
Fall of Ancient Empire – Revived by the Pope – Charlemagne – The Golden
Bull – The Seven Electors – Rules and Forms of Election – Ceremony of
Coronation – Insignia – Coronation Feast – Emperor's Power Limited –
Charles V. – Capitulation – Spain – Becomes One Monarchy on the Approach of
the Reformation – Its Power Increased by the Discoveries of Columbus – Brilliant
Assemblage of States under Charles V. – Liberty in Danger – Protestantism comes
to Save it
THE one great Empire of ancient Rome was, in the days of
Valentinian (A.D. 364), divided into two, the Eastern and the Western. The Turk eventually
made himself heir to the Eastern Empire, taking forcible possession of it by his great
guns, and savage but warlike hordes. The Western Empire has dragged out a shadowy
existence to our own day. There was, it is true, a parenthesis in its life; it succumbed
to the Gothic invasion, and for awhile remained in abeyance; but the Pope raised up the
fallen fabric. The genius and martial spirit of the Caesars, which had created this Empire
at the first, the Pope could not revive, but the name and forms of the defunct government
he could and did resuscitate. He grouped the kingdoms of Western Europe into a body or
federation, and selecting one of their kings he set him over the confederated States, with
the title of Emperor. This Empire was a fictitious or nominal one; it was the image or
likeness of the past reflecting itself on the face of modern Europe.
The Empire dazzled the age which witnessed its sudden erection. The constructive genius
and the marvelous legislative and administrative powers of Charlemagne, its first head,
succeeded in giving it a show of power; but it was impossible by a mere fiat to plant
those elements of cohesion, and those sentiments of homage to law and order, which alone
could guarantee its efficiency and permanency. It supposed an advance of society, and a
knowledge on the part of mankind of their rights and duties, which was far from being the
fact. "The Empire of the Germans," says the historian Muller, "was
constituted in a most extraordinary manner: it was a federal republic; but its members
were so diverse with regard to form, character, and power, that it was extremely difficult
to introduce universal laws, or to unite the whole nation in measures of mutual
interest."[1] "The
Golden Bull," says Villers, "that strange monument of the fourteenth century,
fixed, it is true, a few relations of the head with the members; but nothing could be more
indistinct than the public law of all those States, independent though at the same time
united... Had not the Turks, at that time the violent enemies of all Christendom, come
during the first years of the reign of Frederick to plant the crescent in Europe, and
menaced incessantly the Empire with invasion, it is not easy to see how the feeble tie
which bound that body together could have remained unbroken. The terror inspired by
Mahomet II. and his ferocious soldiers, was the first common interest which led the
princes of Germany to unite themselves to one another, and around the imperial
throne."[2]
The author last quoted makes mention of the Golden Bull. Let us bestow a glance on
this ancient and curious document; it will bring before us the image of the time. Its
author was Charles IV., Emperor and King of Bohemia. Pope Gregory, about the year 997, it
is believed, instituted seven electors. Of these, three were Churchmen and three lay
princes, and one of kingly rank was added, to make up the mystic number of seven, as some
have thought, but more probably to prevent equality of votes. The three Churchmen were the
Archbishop of Treves, Chancellor for France; the Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor for
Germany; the Archbishop of Cologne, Chancellor for Italy. The four laymen were the King of
Bohemia, the Duke of Saxony, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, and the Marquis of
Brandenburg.
The Archbishop of Mainz, by letters patent, was to fix the day of election, which was to
take place not later than three months from the death of the former emperor. Should the
archbishop fail to summon the electors, they were to meet notwithstanding within the
appointed time, and elect one to the imperial dignity. The electors were to afford to each
other free passage and a safe-conduct through their territories when on their way to the
discharge of their electoral duties. If an elector could not come in person he might send
a deputy. The election was to take place in Frankfort-on-the-Maine. No elector was to be
permitted to enter the city attended by more than two hundred horsemen, whereof fifty only
were to be armed. The citizens of Frankfort were made responsible for the safety of the
electors, under the penalty of loss of goods and privileges. The morning after their
arrival, the electors, attired in their official habits, proceeded on horseback from the
council-hall to the cathedral church of St. Bartholomew, where mass was sung. Then the
Archbishop of Mainz administered an oath at the altar to each elector, that he would,
without bribe or reward, choose a temporal head for Christendom. Thereafter they met in
secret conclave. Their decision must be come to within thirty days, but if deferred beyond
that period, they were to be fed on bread and water, and prevented leaving the city till
they had completed the election. A majority of votes constituted a valid election, and the
decision was to be announced from a stage erected for the purpose in front of the choir of
the cathedral.
The person chosen to the imperial dignity took an oath to maintain the profession of the
Catholic faith, to protect the Church in all her rights, to be obedient to the Pope, to
administer justice, and to conserve all the customs and privileges of the electors and
States of the Empire. The imperial insignia were then given him, consisting of a golden
crown, a scepter, a globe called the imperial apple, the sword of Charlemagne, a copy of
the Gospels said to have been found in his grave, and a rich mantle which was presented to
one of the emperors by an Arabian prince.[3] The ceremonies enjoined by the Golden Bull to be observed at the
coronation feast are curious; the following minute and graphic account of them is given by
an old traveler: – "In solemn court the emperor shall sit on his throne, and the
Duke of Saxony, laying a heap of oats as high as his horse's saddle before the court-gate,
shall, with a silver measure of twelve marks' price, deliver oats to the chief equerry of
the stable, and then, sticking his staff in the oats, shall depart, and the vice-marshal
shall distribute the rest of the oats. The three archbishops shall say grace at the
emperor's table, and he of them who is chancellor of the place shall lay reverently the
seals before the emperor, which the emperor shall restore to him; and the staff of the
chancellor shall be worth twelve marks silver. The Marquis of Brandenburg, sitting upon
his horse, with a silver basin of twelve marks' weight, and a towel, shall alight from his
horse and give water to the emperor. The Count Palatine, sitting upon his horse, with four
dishes of silver with meat, each dish worth three marks, shall alight and set the dishes
on the table. The King of Bohemia, sitting upon his horse, with a silver cup worth twelve
marks, filled with water and wine, shall alight and give it the emperor to drink. The
gentleman of Falkenstein, under-chamberlain, the gentleman of Nortemberg, master of the
kitchen, and the gentleman of Limburch, vice-buffer, or in their absence the ordinary
officers of the court, shall have the said horses, basin, dishes, cup, staff, and measure,
and shall after wait at the emperor's table. The emperor's table shall be six feet higher
than any other table, where he shall sit alone, and the table of the empress shall be by
his side three feet lower. The electors' tables shall be three feet lower than that of the
empress, and all of equal height, and three of them shall be on the emperor's right hand,
three on his left hand, and one before his face, and each shall sit alone at his table.
When one elector has done his office he shall go and stand at his own table, and so in
order the rest, till all have performed their offices, and then all seven shall sit down
at one time."
"The emperor shall be chosen at Frankfort, crowned at Augsburg, and shall hold his
first court at Nuremberg, except there be some lawful impediment. The electors are
presumed to be Germans, and their sons at the age of seven years shall be taught the
grammar, and the Italian and Slavonian tongues, so as at fourteen years of age they may be
skillful therein and be worthy assessors to the emperor."[4]
The electors are, by birth, the privy councilors of the emperor; they ought, in the
phraseology of Charles IV., "to enlighten the Holy Empire, as seven shining lights,
in the unity of the sevenfold spirit;" and, according to the same monarch, are
"the most honorable members of the imperial body."[5] The rights which the emperor could exercise on his own authority,
those he could exert with the consent of the electors, and those which belonged to him
only with the concurrence of all the princes and States of the Empire have been variously
described. Generally, it may be said that the emperor could not enact new laws, nor impose
taxes, nor levy bodies of men, nor make wars, nor erect fortifications, nor form treaties
of peace and alliances, except with the concurrent voice of the electors, princes, and
States. He had no special revenue to support the imperial dignity, and no power to enforce
the imperial commands. The princes were careful not to make the emperor too powerful, lest
he should abridge the independent sovereignty which each exercised within his own
dominions, and the free cities were equally jealous lest the imperial power should
encroach upon their charters and privileges. The authority of the emperor was almost
entirely nominal. We speak of the times preceding the peace of Westphalia; by that
settlement the constitution of the Empire was more accurately defined.
Its first days were its most vigorous. It began to decline when no longer upheld by the
power and guided by the genius of Charlemagne. The once brilliant line of Pepin had now
ceased to produce warriors and legislators. By a sudden break-down it had degenerated into
a race of simpletons and imbeciles. By-and-by the Empire passed from the Frank kings to
the Saxon monarchs. Under the latter it recovered a little strength; but soon Gregory VII.
came with his grand project of making the tiara supreme not only over all crowns, but
above the imperial diadem itself. Gregory succeeded in the end of the day, for the issue
of the long and bloody war which he commenced was that the Empire had to bow to the miter,
and the emperor to take an oath of vassalage to the Pontiff. The Empire had only two
elements of cohesion – Roman Catholicism within, and the terror of the Turk without.
Its constituent princes were rivals rather than members of one confederacy. Animosities
and dissensions were continually springing up amongst them. They invaded each other's
territories, regardless of the displeasure of the emperor. By these wars trade was
impeded, knowledge repressed, and outrage and rapine flourished to a degree that
threatened society itself with destruction. The authors of these calamities at last felt
the necessity of devising some other way of adjusting their quarrels than by the sword.
The Imperial Council, the Aulic Diet, the Diet of the Empire, were the successive methods
had recourse to for obviating these frequent and cruel resorts to force, which were giving
to the provinces of the Empire the appearance of a devastated and uninhabited region. In
A.D. 1519, by the death of Maximilian, the imperial crown became vacant. Two illustrious
and powerful princes came forward to contest the brilliant prize – Francis I. of
France, and Charles of Austria, the grandson of Maximilian, and King of Spain. Henry VIII.
of England, the third great monarch of the age, also entered the lists, but finding at an
early stage of the contest that his chance of success was small, he withdrew. Francis I.
was a gallant prince, a chivalrous soldier, a friend of the new learning, and so frank and
affable in his manners that he won the affection of all who approached him. But the
Germans were averse to accept as the head of their Empire the king of a nation whose
genius, language, and manners were so widely different from their own. Their choice fell
on Charles, who, though he lacked the brilliant personal qualities of his rival, drew his
lineage from their own race, had his cradle in one of their own towns, Ghent, and was the
heir of twenty-eight kingdoms.
There was danger as well as safety in the vast power of the man whom the Germans had
elected to wear a crown which had in it so much grandeur and so little solid authority.
The conqueror of the East, Selim II., was perpetually hovering upon their frontier. They
needed a strong arm to repel the invader, and thought they had found it in that of the
master of so many kingdoms; but the hand that shielded them from Moslem tyranny might, who
could tell, crush their own liberties. It behooved them to take precautions against this
possible catastrophe. They framed a Capitulation or claim of rights, enumerating and
guaranteeing the privileges and immunities of the Germanic Body; and the ambassadors of
Charles signed it in the name of their master, and he himself confirmed it by oath at his
coronation. In this instrument the princes of Germany unconsciously provided for the
defense of higher rights than their own royalties and immunities. They had erected an
asylum to which Protestantism might retreat, when the day should come that the emperor
would raise his mailed hand to crush it.
Charles V. was more powerful than any emperor had been for many an age preceding. To the
imperial dignity, a shadow in the case of many of his predecessors, was added in his the
substantial power of Spain. A singular concurrence of events had made Spain a mightier
kingdom by far than any that had existed in Europe since the days of the Caesars. Of this
magnificent monarchy the whole resources were in the hands of the man who was at once the
wearer of the imperial dignity and the enemy of the Reformation. This makes it imperative
that we should bestow a glance on the extent and greatness of the Spanish kingdom, when
estimating the overwhelming force now arrayed against Protestantism.
As the Reformation drew nigh, Spain suddenly changed its form, and from being a congeries
of diminutive kingdoms, it became one powerful empire. The various principalities, which
up till this time dotted the surface of the Peninsula, were now merged into the two
kingdoms of Arragon and Castile. There remained but one other step to make Spain one
monarchy, and that step was taken in A.D. 1469, by the marriage of Ferdinand of Arragon
and Isabella of Castile. In a few years thereafter these two royal personages ascended the
thrones of Arragon and Castile, and thus all the crowns of Spain were united on their
head. One monarch now swayed his scepter over the Iberian Peninsula, from San Sebastian to
the Rock of Gibraltar, from the Pyrenees to the straits that wash the feet of the
mountains of Mauritania. The whole resources of the country now found their way into one
exchequer; all its tribes were gathered round one standard; and its whole power was
wielded by one hand.
Spain, already great, was about to become still greater. Columbus was just fitting out the
little craft in which he was to explore the Atlantic, and add, by his skill and
adventurous courage, to the crown of Spain the most brilliant appendage which subject ever
gave to monarch. Since the days of old Rome there had arisen no such stupendous political
structure as that which was about to show itself to the world in the Spanish Monarchy.
Spain itself was but a unit in the assemblage of kingdoms that made up this vast empire.
The European dependencies of Spain were numerous. The fertile plains and vine-clad hills
of Sicily and Naples were hers. The vast garden of Lombardy, which the Po waters and the
Alps enclose, with its queenly cities, its plantations of olive and mulberry, its corn and
oil and silk, were hers. The Low Countries were hers, with their canals, their fertile
meadows stocked with herds, their cathedrals and museums, and their stately towns, the
seats of learning and the hives of industry. As if Europe were too narrow to contain so
colossal a power, Spain stretched her scepter across the great western sea, and ample
provinces in the New World called her mistress. Mexico and Peru were hers, and the
products of their virgin soils and the wealth of their golden mines were borne across the
deep to replenish her bazaars and silver shops. It was not the Occident only that poured
its treasures at her feet; Spain laid her hand on the Orient, and the fragrant spices and
precious gems of India ministered to her pleasure. The sun never set on the dominions of
Spain. The numerous countries that owned her sway sent each whatever was most precious and
most prized among its products, to stock her markets and enrich her exchequer. To Spain
flowed the gums of Arabia, the drugs of Molucca, the diamonds of Borneo, the wheat of
Lombardy, the wine of Naples, the rich fabrics worked on the looms of Bruges and Ghent,
the arms and cutlery forged in the factories and wrought up in the workshops of Liege and
Namur.
This great empire was served by numerous armies and powerful fleets. Her soldiers, drawn
from every nation, and excellently disciplined, were brave, hardy, familiar with danger,
and inured to every climate from the tropics to the arctic regions. They were led by
commanders of consummate ability, and the flag under which they marched had conquered on a
hundred battle-fields. When the master of all these provinces, armies and fleets, added
the imperial diadem, as Charles V. did, to all his other dignities, his glory was
perfected. We may adapt to the Spanish monarch the bold image under which the prophet
presented the greatness of the Assyrian power. "The" Spaniard "was a cedar
in" Europe "with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high
stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set
him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little
rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the
trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because
of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth." (Ezekiel 31:3-5)[6]
The monarch of Spain, though master of so much, was laying schemes for extending the
limits of his already overgrown dominions, and making himself absolute and universal lord.
Since the noon of the Roman power, the liberties of the world had at no time been in so
great peril as now. The shadow of a universal despotism was persistently projecting itself
farther and yet farther upon the kingdoms and peoples of Western Europe. There was no
principle known to the men of that age that seemed capable of doing battle with this
colossus, and staying its advance. This despotism, into whose hands as it seemed the
nations of Christendom had been delivered, claimed a Divine right, and, as such, was
upheld by the spiritual forces of priestcraft, and the material aids of fleets and
legions. Liberty was retreating before it. Literature and art had become its allies, and
were weaving chains for the men whom they had promised to emancipate. As Liberty looked
around, she could see no arm on which to lean, no champion to do battle for her. Unless
Protestantism had arrived at that crisis, a universal despotism would have covered Europe,
and Liberty banished from the earth must have returned to her native skies. "Dr.
Martin Luther, a monk from the county of Mansfeld... by his heroism alone, imparted to the
half of Europe a new soul; created an opposition which became the safeguard of
freedom."[7]
CHAPTER 3 Back to Top
THE PAPACY, OR CHRISTENDOM UNDER THE TIARA
Complex Constitution of the Papacy – Temporal Sovereignty limited to Papal States
– Pontifical Supremacy covers all Christendom – Governmental Machinery –
Legate-a-latere – Interdict – The Concordat – Concordat with Austria –
The Papacy in Piedmont – Indulgences – The Confessional – The Papacy
Absolute in Temporals as in Spirituals – Enormous Strength
WE now ascend to the summit of the European edifice as
constituted at the beginning of the sixteenth century. There was a higher monarch in the
world than the emperor, and a more powerful kingdom in Christendom than the Empire. That
monarch was the Pope – that Empire, the Papacy.
Any view of Christendom that fails to take note of the relations of the Papacy to its
several kingdoms, overlooks the prominent characteristic of Europe as it existed when the
great struggle for religion and liberty was begun. The relation of the Papacy to the other
kingdoms of Christendom was, in a word, that of dominancy. It was their chief, their
ruler. It taught them to see in the Seven Hills, and the power seated thereon, the bond of
their union, the fountain of their legislation, and the throne of their government. It
thus knit all the kingdoms of Europe into one great confederacy or monarchy. They lived
and breathed in the Papacy. Their fleets and armies, their constitutions and laws, existed
more for it than for themselves. They were employed to advance the policy and uphold the
power of the sovereigns who sat in the Papal chair.
In the one Pontifical government there were rolled up in reality two governments, one
within the other. The smaller of these covered the area of the Papal States; while the
larger, spurning these narrow limits, embraced the whole of Christendom, making of its
thrones and nations but one monarchy, one theocratic kingdom, over which was stretched the
scepter of an absolute jurisdiction.
In order to see how this came to pass, we must briefly enumerate the various expedients by
which the Papacy contrived to exercise jurisdiction outside its own special territory, and
by which it became the temporal not less than the spiritual head of Christendom – the
real ruler of the kingdoms of medieval Europe. How a monarchy, professedly spiritual,
should exercise temporal dominion, and especially how it should make its temporal dominion
co-extensive with Christendom, is not apparent at first sight. Nevertheless, history
attests the fact that it did so make it. One main expedient by which the Papacy wielded
temporal power and compassed political ends in other kingdoms was the office of
"legate-a-latere." The term signifies an ambassador from the Pope's side. The
legate-a- latere was, in fact, the alter ego of the Pope, whose person he represented, and
with whose power he was clothed. He was sent into all countries, not to mediate but to
govern; his functions being analogous to those of the deputies or rulers whom the pagan
masters of the world were wont to send from Rome to govern the subject provinces of the
Empire.
In the prosecution of his mission the legate-a-latere made it his first business in the
particular country into which he entered to set up his court, and to try causes and
pronounce judgment in the Pope's name. Neither the authority of the sovereign nor the law
of the land was acknowledged in the court of the legate; all causes were determined by the
canon law of Rome. A vast multitude of cases, and these by no means spiritual, did the
legate contrive to bring under his jurisdiction. He claimed to decide all questions of
divorce. These decisions involved, of course, civil issues, such as the succession to
landed estates, the ownership of other forms of wealth, and in some instances the right to
the throne. All questions touching the lands and estates of the convents, monasteries, and
abbeys were determined by the legate. This gave him the direct control of one-half the
landed property of most of the kingdoms of Europe. He could impose taxes, and did levy a
penny upon every house in France and England. He had power, moreover, to impose
extraordinary levies for special objects of the Church upon both clergy and laity. He made
himself the arbiter of peace and war.[1] He
meddled in all the affairs of princes, conducted perpetual intrigues, fomented endless
quarrels, and sustained himself umpire in all controversies. If any one felt himself
aggrieved by the judgment of the legate, he could have no redress from the courts of the
country, nor even from the sovereign. He must go in person to Rome. Thus did the Pope,
through his legate-a-latere, manage to make himself the grand justiciary of the kingdom.[2]
The vast jurisdiction of the legate-a-latere was supported and enforced by the
"interdict." The interdict was to the legate instead of an army. The blow it
dealt was more rapid, and the subjugation it effected on those on whom it fell was more
complete, than any that could have been achieved by any number of armed men. When a
monarch proved obdurate, the legate unsheathed this sword against him. The clergy
throughout the length and breadth of his kingdom instantly desisted from the celebration
of the ordinances of religion. All the subjects were made partners with the sovereign in
this ghostly but dreadful infliction. In an age when there was no salvation but through
the priesthood, and no grace but through the channel of the Sacraments, the terrors of
interdict were irresistible. All the signs of malediction everywhere visible throughout
the land on which this terrible chastisement had been laid, struck the imagination with
all the greater force that they were viewed as the symbols of a doom which did not
terminate on earth, but which extended into the other world. The interdict in those ages
never failed to gain its end, for the people, punished for the fault, real or supposed, of
their sovereign, broke out into murmurs, sometimes into rebellion, and the unhappy prince
found in the long run that he must either face insurrection or make his peace with the
Church. It was thus the shadow of power only which was left the king; the substance of
sovereignty filched from him was carried to Rome and vested in the chair of the Pope.[3]
Another contrivance by which the Papacy, while it left to princes the name of king,
took from them the actual government of their kingdoms, was the Concordat. These
agreements or treaties between the Pope and the kings of Christendom varied in their minor
details, but the leading provisions were alike in all of them, their key-note being the
supremacy of Rome, and the subordination of the State with which that haughty power had
deigned to enter into compact. The Concordat bound the government with which it was made
to enact no law, profess no religion, open no school, and permit no branch of knowledge to
be taught within its dominions, until the Pope had first given his consent. Moreover, it
bound it to keep open the gates of the realm for the admission of such legates, bishops,
and nuncios as the Pope might be pleased to send thither for the purpose of administering
his spiritual authority, and to receive such bulls and briefs as he might be pleased to
promulgate, which were to have the force of law in the counter whose rights and privileges
these missives very possibly invaded, or altogether set aside. The advantages secured by
the contracting parties on the other side were usually of the most meager kind, and were
respected only so long as it was not for the interests of the Church of Rome to violate
them. In short, the Concordat gave the Pope the first place in the government of the
kingdom, leaving to the sovereign and the Estates of the Realm only the second. It bound
down the prince in vassalage, and the people in serfdom political and religious.[4]
Another formidable instrumentality for compassing the same ends was the hierarchy.
The struggle commenced by Hildebrand, regarding investitures, ended in giving to the Pope
the power of appointing bishops throughout all the Empire. This placed in the hands of the
Pontiff the better half of the secular government of its kingdoms. The hierarchy formed a
body powerful by their union, their intelligence, and the reverence which waited on their
sacred office. Each member of that body had taken a feudal oath of obedience to the Pope.[5] The bishop was no mere priest,
he was a ruler as well, being possessed of jurisdiction – that is, the power of law
– the law he administered being the canon law of Rome. The "chapter" was
but another term for the court by which the bishop exercised that jurisdiction, and as it
was a recognized doctrine that the jurisdiction of the bishop was temporal as well as
spiritual, the hierarchy formed in fact a magistracy, and a magistracy planted in the
country by a foreign power, under an oath of obedience to the power that had appointed it
– a magistracy independent of the sovereign, and wielding a combined temporal and
spiritual jurisdiction over every person in the realm, and governing him alike in his
religious acts, in his political duties, and in his temporal possessions.
Let us take the little kingdom of Sardinia as an illustration. On the 8th of January,
1855, a bill was introduced into the Parliament of Turin for the suppression of convents
and the more equal distribution of Church lands. The habitable portion of Sardinia is
mostly comprised in the rich valley of the Po, and its population amounts only to about
four and a half millions. Yet it appeared from the bill that in this small territory there
were seven archbishops, thirty-four bishops, forty-one chapters, with eight hundred and
sixty canons attached to the bishoprics; seventy-three simple chapters, with four hundred
and seventy canons; eleven hundred livings for the canons; and lastly, four thousand two
hundred and forty-seven parishes, with some thousands of parish priests. The domains of
the Church represented a capital of four hundred millions of francs, yielding a yearly
revenue of seventeen millions and upwards. Nor was even this the whole of the
ecclesiastical burden borne by the little State. To the secular clergy we have to add
eight thousand five hundred and sixty-three persons who wore cowls and veils. These were
distributed into six hundred and four religious houses, whose annual cost was two millions
and a half of francs.
There were thus from twelve to twenty thousand persons in Piedmont, all under oath, or
under vows equivalent to an oath, to obey only the orders that came from Rome. These held
one-fourth of the lands of the kingdom; they were exempt from the jurisdiction of the
laws. They claimed the right of dictating to all the subjects of the realm how to act in
every matter in which duty was involved – that is, in every matter absolutely –
and they had the power of compelling obedience by penalties of a peculiarly forcible kind.
It is obvious at a glance that the actual government of the kingdom was in the hands of
these men – that is, of their master at Rome.
Let us glance briefly at the other principalities of the peninsula – the Levitical
State, as Italy was wont to be called. We leave out of view the secular clergy with their
gorgeous cathedrals, so rich in silver and gold, as well as in statuary and paintings; nor
do we include their ample Church lands, and their numerous dues drawn from the people. We
confine ourselves to the ranks of the cloister. In 1863 a "Project of Law" was
tabled in the Italian Chamber of Deputies for their suppression.[6] From this "Project" it appeared that there were in Italy
eighty-four orders of monks, distributed in two thousand three hundred and eighty-two
religious houses. Each of these eighty-four orders had numerous affiliated branches
radiating over the country. All held property, save the four Mendicant orders. The value
of the conventual property was estimated at forty million lire, and the number of persons
made a grand total of sixty-three thousand two hundred and thirty-nine. This does not
include the conventual establishments of the Papal States, nor the religious houses of
Piedmont, which had been suppressed previous to 1863. If we take these into account, we
cannot estimate the monastic corps of Italy at less than a hundred thousand.[7]
Besides those we have enumerated there were a host of instrumentalities all
directed to the same end, the enforcement even of the government of Rome, mainly in things
temporal, in the dominions of other sovereigns. Chief among these was the Confessional.
The Confessional was called "the place of penitence;" it was, in reality, a seat
of jurisdiction. It was a tribunal the highest of all tribunals, because to the Papist the
tribunal of God. Its terrors as far transcended those of the human judgment-seat, as the
sword of eternal anathema transcends the gallows of temporal governments. It afforded,
moreover, unrivaled facilities for sowing sedition and organizing rebellion. Here the
priest sat unseen, digging, hour by hour and day after day, the mine beneath the prince he
had marked out for ruin, while the latter never once suspected that his overthrow was
being prepared till he was hurled from his seat. There was, moreover, the device of
dispensations and indulgences. Never did merchant by the most daring venture, nor
statesman by the most ingenious scheme of finance, succeed in amassing such store of
wealth as Rome did simply by selling pardon. She sent the vendors of her wares into all
countries, and as all felt that they needed forgiveness, all flocked to her market; and
thus, "as one gathereth eggs," to employ the language of the prophet, so did
Rome gather the riches of all the earth. She took care, moreover, that these riches should
not "take to themselves wings and flee away." She invented mortmain. Not a penny
of her accumulated hoards, not an acre of her wide domains, did her "dead hand"
ever let go. Her property was beyond the reach of the law; this crowned the evil. The
estates of the nobles could be dealt with by the civil tribunals, if so overgrown as to be
dangerous to the public good. But it was the fate of the ecclesiastical property ever to
grow – and with it, of course, the pride and arrogancy of its owners – and
however noxious the uses to which it was turned, however much it tended to impoverish the
resources of the State, and undermine the industry of the nation, no remedy could be
applied to the mischief. Century after century the evil continued and waxed stronger, till
at length the Reformation came and dissolved the spell by which Rome had succeeded in
making her enormous possessions inviolable to the arm of the law; covering them, as she
did, with the sanctions of Heaven.
Thus did Rome by these expedients, and others which it were tedious here to enumerate,
extend her government over all the countries of Christendom, alike in temporals as in
spirituals. "The Pope's jurisdiction," said a Franciscan, "is universal,
embracing the whole world, its temporalities as well as its spiritualities."[8] Rome did not set up the chair of
Peter bodily in these various countries, nor did she transfer to them the machinery of the
Papal government as it existed in her own capital. It was not in the least necessary that
she should do so. She gained her end quite as effectually by legates-a-latere, by
Concordats, by bishops, by bulls, by indulgences, and by a power that stood behind all the
others and lent them its sanction and force – namely, the Infallibility – a
fiction, no doubt, but to the Romanist a reality – a moral omnipotence, which he no
more dared disobey than he dared disobey God, for to him it was God. The Infallibility
enabled the Pope to gather the whole Romanist community dispersed over the world into one
army, which, obedient to its leader, could be put in motion from its center to its wide
circumference, as if it were one man, forming an array of political, spiritual, and
material force, which had not its like on earth.
Nor, when he entered the dominions of another sovereign, did the Pontiff. put down the
throne, and rule himself in person. Neither was this in the least necessary. He left the
throne standing, together with the whole machinery of the government tribunals,
institutions, the army – all as aforetime, but he deprived them of all force, and
converted them into the instrumentalities and channels of Papal rule. They were made
outlying portions of the Pontifical monarchy. Thus did Rome knit into one great federation
the diverse nationalities and kingdoms of Western Europe. One and the same character
– namely, the theocratic – did she communicate to all of them. She made all
obedient to one will, and subservient to one grand scheme of policy. The ancient Rome had
exhibited a marvelous genius for welding the nations into one, and teaching them obedience
to her behests; but her proudest triumphs in this field were eclipsed by the yet greater
success of Papal Rome. The latter found a more powerful principle of cohesion wherewith to
cement the nations than any known to the former, and she had, moreover, the art to imbue
them with a spirit of profounder submission than was ever yielded to her pagan
predecessor; and, as a consequence, while the Empire of the Caesars preserved its unity
unbroken, and its strength unimpaired, for only a brief space, that of the Popes has
continued to flourish in power and great glory for well-nigh a thousand years.
Such was the constitution of Christendom as fully developed at the end of the fifteenth
and beginning of the sixteenth century. The verdict of Adam Smith, pronounced on Rome,
viewed as the head and mistress of this vast confederation, expresses only the sober
truth: "The Church of Rome," said he, "is the most formidable combination
that ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government, as well as
against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind." It is no mere scheme of
ecclesiastical government that is before us, having for its aim only to guide the
consciences of men in those matters that appertain to God, and the salvation of their
souls. It is a so-called Superhuman Jurisdiction, a Divine Vicegerency, set up to govern
men in their understandings and consciences, in their goods, their liberties, and their
lives. Against such a power mere earthly force would have naught availed. Reason and
argument would have fought against it in vain. Philosophy and literature, raillery and
skepticism, would have shot their bolts to no purpose. A Divine assailant only could
overthrow it: that assailant was PROTESTANTISM.
FOOTNOTES
VOLUME FIRST
BOOK FOURTH
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK FOURTH- CHAPTER 1
none
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK FOURTH- CHAPTER 2
[1] Muller, Univ. Hist., vol. 2, p. 427; Lond., 1818.
[2] Villers, Essay on the Reformation, pp. 193 – 195.
[3] The insignia were kept in one of the churches of Nuremberg; Misson, who traveled 200 years ago, describes them. The diadem or crown of Charlemagne is of gold and weighs fourteen pounds. It is covered nearly all over with precious stones, and is surmounted by a cross. The scepter and globe are of gold. "They say," remarks Misson, "that the sword was brought by an angel from heaven. The robe called Dalmatick of Charlemagne is of a violet color, embroidered with pearls, and strewed with eagles of gold, and a great number of jewels. There are likewise the cope, the stole; the gloves, the breeches, the stockings, and the buskins." (Maximilian Misson, New Voyage to Italy, etc., vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 117; Lond., 1739.)
[4] An Itinerary written by Fynes Moryson, Gent., first in the Latin tongue, and then translated by him into English; containing his ten years travell through the twelve dominions of Germany, Bohmerland, Sweitzerland, Netherland, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Fol.; Lond., 1617. Pt. 3, p. 191.
[5] Muller, vol. 2, p. 432.
[6] Ezekiel 31:3-5
[7] Muller, Univ. Hist., vol. 3, sec. 1, p. 2; Lond., 1818. "If the tide of events had followed in the sixteenth century, and in those which succeeded, the course in which it had hitherto flowed, nothing could have saved Europe from approaching servitude, and the yoke of an universal monarchy." (Villers, Essay on the Spirit and Influence of the Reformation of Luther, sec. 4, p. 125; Lond., 1805.)
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK FOURTH- CHAPTER 3
[1] Sir James Melville informs us that the bloody war which broke out between France and Spain in the reign of Henry II. was preceded by the Papal legate absolving the King of France from all the oaths and treaties by which he had ratified the peace between the two kingdoms 1027
but a little before. "As legate," said Caraffa, "from God's Vicar [Paul IV.] he would give him full absolution, he having power to bind and loose." (Memoirs of Sir James Melvil, p. 38; Edin., 1735.)
[2] Details regarding the functions of the legate-a-latere, and the acts in which his powers were shown, will be found in Dupin, Biblioth., tom. 8, p. 56; also tom. 9, pp. 220, 223; and tom. 10, p. 126. Fleury, Eccl. Hist., tom. 18, p. 225. Maimbourg, Hist. du Pontific de S. Gregory le Grand; also in Words of Peace and Justice, etc., on the subject of "Diplomatic Relations with the Holy See," by the Right Rev. Nicholas Wiseman, D.D., Bishop of Melipotamus, Pro. V.A.L.D.; Lond., Charles Dolman, 1848.
[3] The interdict began to be employed in the ninth century; the practice of missioning legates-a-latere dates from the tenth; both expedients were invented and brought into use a little before the breaking out of that great war between the Papacy and the Empire, which was to decide the question which was the stronger. The interdict and the legate materially contributed to the success which attended the Church in that conflict, and which made the mitre triumphant over the Empire.
[4] Let us, by way of illustration, look at the Concordat framed so recently as 1855 with Southern Germany, then under the House of Austria. Besides the privileges specified above, that Concordat gave the bishops the sole government of the priests; they could punish them according to canon law, and the priest had no appeal from the penal jurisdiction of the Church. If any one dared to appeal to the civil tribunals, he was instantly smitten with excommunication. Equally in the power of the bishops were all schools and teachers, nor could one give religious instruction in even the university without the episcopal sanction. The bishops moreover had the independent administration of all the lands and property of the Church and of the religious houses. They were guaranteed in free communication with Rome, in the independent exercise of their own discipline irrespective of the civil law, which amounted to the enforcement of canon law on all the subjects of the realm, in all cases in which the bishops saw fit to apply it. And they were, in fine, reinstated in their ancient penal jurisdiction. On the principle Ex uno disce omnes, we are forced to the conclusion that the bondage of medieval Christendom was complete, and that that bondage 1028
was to a far greater degree spiritual than temporal. It had its origin in the Roman Church; it was on the conscience and intellect that it pressed, and it gave its sanction to the temporal fetters in which the men of those ages were held.
[5] We quote one or two of the clauses of the oath: – "I will be faithful and obedient to our lord the Pope and to his successors. . . . In preserving and defending the Roman Papacy and the regalia of St. Peter, I will be their assistant against all men. . . . Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our same lord, I will [pro posse pro persequar et impugnabo] persecute and attack to the utmost of my power." (Decretum Greg. IX., lib. 2, tit. 24.)
[6] Progetto di Legge relativo alla Soppressione di Corporazione Religiose e Disposizione sull' asse Eccesiastico – Camera dei Deputati, Sess. 1863, No. 159. Relazione della Commissione composta dei Deputati, etc., sul Progetto di Legge presentato dal Ministro di Grazia e Giustizia e dei Culti – Sess. 1863, No. 159, A. Resoconto dell Aministrazione della casa Ecclesiastica; presentato dall Presidente dal Consiglio dei Ministri, Ministro dell Finanze – Sess. 1863, No. 215, A. Progetto di Legge. Soppressione delle decime Eccles. – Sess. 1863, No. 158.
[7] Progetto di Legge relativo alla Soppressione di Corporazione Religiose e Disposizione sull' asse Ecclesiastico – Camera dei Deputati, Sess. 1863, No. 159. Relazione della Commissione composta dei Deputati, etc., sul Progetto di Legge presentato dal Ministro di Grazia e Giustizia e dei Culti – Sess. 1863, No. 159, A. These and the above-quoted documents were printed, but not published, and we owe the use of them to the politeness of Sig. Malau, formerly member of the Italian Parliament.
[8] "Jurisdictionem habet universalem in toto mundo papa, nedum in spiritualibus sed temporalibus." (Alvarus Pelagius, De Planctu Eccles., lib. 1, cap. 13.)