CHAPTER XVII.

THE COUNCIL OF THE LATERAN.

 

LEO X’s devotion to literature and art and his keen political activity have thrown into the background, in a manner hardly befitting the history of a spiritual ruler, the efficiency of his ecclesiastical government. Nevertheless, the latter was by no means insignificant ; within the first half of his reign two ecclesiastical events of the most far-reaching importance occurred : the Lateran Council and the Concordat with France. With the proceedings of the former, Leo's church policy was closely interwoven, especially with regard to his efforts towards reform.

In spite of the difficulties which beset him, Leo X was determined to carry on and complete the conciliar work of his predecessor. Immediately after his accession he hastened to answer, in terms of the highest approval, the letter addressed to Julius II. by the pious Duke George of Saxony, regarding the appointment of a Procurator at the Council. On the 11th of April, 1513, the day of his solemn occupation of the Lateran, he issued a Constitution which proclaimed his earnest intention of proceeding with the Council, and prorogued the sixth session until the 27th of April. There assembled twenty-two Cardinals, two Patriarchs, twelve Assistants at the Throne, sixty-two Bishops, and a detached group of thirteen Prelates, among whom were not a few who, like the ardent reforming Bishop of Chieti, Pietro Caraffa, appeared in the Council for the first time. The States of Lower Italy and the Venetian Republic were the best represented, being under the powerful protection of the Emperor, Spain, Venice, Milan, and Florence. Mario de Perusco acted as Procurator ­Fiscal, the humanist Tommaso Inghirami as Secretary. At the opening ceremony Bishop Simon Begnius of Modrussa preached on the two principal subjects before the Council, the Turkish difficulty and church reform. In an historical survey, beginning with the great Schism, he reviewed the Church's losses to the Turks, pointed out the grievous blows dealt to faith and morals in the Church, and what attempts had hitherto been made to avert the evil. Now, when freed from error, they were living in peace, the time had come to restore the head of the faith, the Roman Church, to a better position, since from the head health as well as sickness flowed down to the members. Now had come the Lion from the tribe of Juda, the Solomon whom God had raised up to deliver the daughter of Sion, the people of God, out of the hands of the persecutor and destroyer. But, urged the preacher, the assembled fathers must work together with one mind to reform the deformed, that doubt may be dispelled, faith exalted, and religion established : yet reform must begin with themselves, each one, and they must cleanse their own dwellings before those of others.

The Pope in his allocution also called upon the members of the Council to fix their attention first and foremost on the good of Christendom. At the same time he expressed his wish that the assembly might continue to sit until peace had been established in the Church. To the proposal of the Procurator of the Council, that proceedings should be taken against the absentee members, Leo did not assent ; on the other hand, he publicly offered safe­conducts to all except the schismatics, and exhorted the princes to do the same. No other matters of importance were transacted in this session.

The first thing to be done was to settle the method of procedure. In general the business of the sessions was prepared beforehand in the Consistories and then in the Papal Chancery. Further, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Raffaello Riario, proposed the formation of separate congregations which should treat beforehand with the Pope and the Sacred College. Leo was unwilling to appoint the members of these congregations himself, as his predecessor had done; he handed over the choice to the Fathers of the Council, who forthwith elected four-and- twenty Prelates by a majority of votes. The latter were subdivided into three committees, but in such a way that the Pope added to each group of eight thus chosen, eight Cardinals and four representatives for those who were absent when the votes were taken (of which representatives two for each group were Generals of religious orders). Of these committees, which sat repeatedly, the first was occupied with the restoration of peace and the healing of the Schism, the second with Curial reform, and the third with the Pragmatic Sanction and questions of faith. Much else remained over for discussion in the general congregation which was independent of the committees. In the sessions each one was free to utter his opinions on the decrees, to bring forward objections, and propose alterations. The free participation of the members in the transactions of the Council was thus fully guaranteed.

At the date of the seventh session (June 17, 1513) seventy-seven Bishops were already assembled, four of whom represented England, Poland, Savoy, and Ferrara. At the beginning of the sitting citations were issued by the Procurator to Poland, Masovia, Milan, and Mantua. The preacher spoke of the Turkish danger and described Leo, in terms of panegyric, as the King of Kings who wielded the two swords over the whole earth : under him, who had been as wonderfully chosen as he had been wonderfully brought out of captivity, all ought to rally together. Hereupon the Pope ordered a Bull to be read f in which he promised to send embassies^ of peace to the princes, and, in consideration of the growing inclination of the French to make submission, he adjourned the session until the month of November. Up to this point the various committees had not been idle ; the Pope, Cardinals, and Bishops were assiduous in their co-operation, and Leo only left Rome for a short time.

In a decree of the 20th of September the Pope defined his attitude towards the Hussites of Bohemia; concessions were held out as regards the chalice and the confiscated church property, none as regards the punishment of sinners and the license to preach. On the 13th of October the Reform Commission broke up into five subdivisions, to each of which was assigned a special department of the Curia. A report which they had prepared dealt with the question of benefices, urged upon the members of the Papal household a worthy mode of life and corresponding seemliness in dress, and denounced exactions and other abuses.

Leo was meanwhile busily engaged in Consistory in preparing material for the next (the eighth) session. This was held on the 19th of December, 1513. The official entrance of the French into the Council immediately followed. On this occasion the sermon was preached by a Johannite father ; his main theme was the warfare of Christ, whose captain and standard-bearer Leo was ; like a true physician, he was healing the ills of the Church by means of the Council, which would bring back a golden age. After a penal mandate against the French officials in Provence for encroachments on the Church had received the Papal approval, there ensued the proclamation of a Bull, destined to be famous, which was directed against a one-sided and erroneous philosophy.

The three condemned propositions were : that the human soul is mortal ; that one soul is common to all men ; that the truth of this assertion holds good at least in philosophy. The propositions thus condemned aimed at a tendency of thought which threatened to destroy all positive Christianity, and which, having started from a false mediaeval philosophy, culminated in that of the 18th century, and partially survives at the present day. Further, they had come into conjunction with that erroneous side of the Renaissance in which classical, cabbalistic, and rationalist elements were linked together in a strange alliance. The first two propositions were specially defended by the Paduan Professor, Pietro Pomponazzi, who avowed himself to be a disciple of the new peripatetic school which had arisen along with the Arabic recension of Aristotle by Averroes. Even if the controversial defence of his views was not put into writing until a later date, and no recantation was demanded of him until 1518,f yet he had before that denied the complete individual immortality of the soul. The question at issue was the great problem of individuality which had already occupied the thought of the Middle Ages, and had come to a point with the growth of nominalism. Even the theory of “twofold truth” had already sprung up in the schools of the 12th century logicians, had found aliment in nominalism, and had crept into the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa. This teaching caused an artificial breach between philosophy and theology, between dogma and reason, which was to be widened by the impress of the future rationalism. In relation to this development the decision of the Council had a special importance. It was dogmatically affirmed, in agreement with the earlier pronouncements of the Council of Vienne, that the soul is the “forma corporis”, that each man has an individual soul, and that every assertion contrary to the truth, as contained in the faith, is false. These definitions supplied a standard which was as important as it was necessary ; to a certain extent they relieved Leo from responsibility for those who were open to the charge of anti-Christian extravagances, and whose tastes and interests he nevertheless shared in other respects and to a great extent encouraged.

At the same time the Bull was a practical weapon against the inroads which a paganized humanism was making among the clergy, for the University professors were directed to give a foremost place to what is now called apologetic theology, and priests who were desirous of following the humanist curriculum were enjoined to complete a five years’ course of theology or canon law as the most effectual breakwater to oppose to a false philosophy. Even in the Council-hall itself the atmosphere of the new ideas seems to have made itself felt ; thus the objection raised by the Bishop of Bergamo had a tinge of the condemned propositions. The general of the Dominicans, Cajetan, pleaded for a freer treatment of philosophy, because, apparently, he dreaded an intermixture of this science with theology.

During this important session measures were also proposed for the best means of restoring peace to Christendom, for the inauguration of a Crusade, and for the reconciliation of the Bohemians to the Church. Finally, a regulation for the reform of the Curia was brought forward which made great reductions in taxation and was directed against other official abuses. It was far from giving satisfaction, however, to those who wished for more sweeping reforms. This dissatisfaction often found expression in the Council. Paris de Grassis, Bishop of Pesaro, exclaimed : “I am for a general reformation, including that of the reformers themselves”; whereupon the Pope replied, with a touch of humour, that “he would think the matter over, and see how he could satisfy everybody”.

How wide were the differences of opinion on the question of reform, how great the conflict of opposing interests, is shown clearly in the following transactions. The Bishops were separated from the religious orders by divisions as great as those which separated them from the Cardinals, and the work of the Council was thus impeded. The Pope had to appear in person in the general congregation and exhort to a more brotherly gentleness. When several Bishops refused to give their assent to the draft introduced by the Cardinals, Leo praised them, and said laughingly that they were cleverer than he, since no one was more bound by his obligations to the Cardinals than he was.

The ninth session was not held until the 5th of May, 1514. Once more the private chaplain, Antonio Pucci, in the customary sermon at the beginning of the sitting, exhorted those present, and especially the Pope, to keep to the work of church reform, since it was the Council’s duty to inquire into disorders and remove them. Scathing was his description of the moral degradation into which the laity, the orders, and the clergy had sunk. The upshot, accordingly, of the session was the acceptance of a very stringent Bull on the reform of Church and Curia.

The first part insisted on the appointment of fit persons to bishoprics and abbatial posts in accordance with canon law, regulated commissions and the consistorial procedure, put a check on deprivations and translations, forbade the pernicious system of in commendam, and restricted the union of benefices, dispensations, and reservations ; whoever, after four years, was still in possession of four livings, was to be deprived of all. The second part dealt with the Cardinals, their mode of life, their surroundings, their households, their functions, their titular churches and commends, their position towards their relations, their legateships, their residential and discretionary duties. The prescriptions for the members of a Cardinal's house hold applied also to the Papal and Curial retainers The last section of the Bull aimed at the religious and moral elevation of the priesthood and of the laity: the religious instruction of the young was to be duly carried out, heavy penalties were assigned to blasphemers and to incontinent, negligent and simoniacal priests, church revenues were no longer to be confiscated, the privileges of the clergy were to be observed, all kinds of superstition abolished and all impostors, passing as Christians, to be prosecuted, especially at the Papal Court. We can see that in this document a whole legion of abuses was attacked. The necessity for such a step met with general recognition ; the Bull was accepted by an overwhelming majority—130 votes against 10; nor was the opposition made with any great show of conviction. Searching as the Bull appeared to be, yet it did not go far enough. In many instances it stopped short with half measures ; what was still worse, most of its prescriptions remained on paper and were never put into practice.

It was not long before symptoms appeared in the Council which made it evident that the hopes of a radical restoration of the Church to its pristine integrity must be abandoned. Throughout the remainder of the sessions the attention of the Fathers was engrossed by the scandalous strife between the Bishops and Regulars. This unholy quarrel had lasted for centuries ; it had been a source of the greatest weakness and discredit to the Church, but never before had the waters of controversy risen so high as now. The Episcopate was gathering together all its strength to make an end, once and for all, of the privileges, especially the Mare Magnum, which thwarted its action at every step : in spite of their utmost resistance, the Regulars threatened to succumb, a situation which would have entailed incalculable results. “We are in the heart of a terrific storm”, relates the General of the Augustinians, Egidio Canisio. “The attack upon us and all the mendicant orders by the Bishops in the Lateran Council has now raged furiously for three years. During this period we have had no rest, no truce ; day by day we have been subjected to examination, day by day we have been summoned, sometimes to listen to our accusers, some times to plead our cause. Now our appeal is to the Holy Father, now to the Cardinal Protector, now to other Cardinals, now to the Ambassadors of the princes ; first on this hand and then on that we turn for counsel, help, and support”. Leo X himself was unwilling to check the free course of things by flinging into the scales, as his predecessor had done, the whole weight of his apostolic authority, from which alone the monastic orders could still receive support ; a proceeding which Egidio ascribes solely to the mildness and gentleness of the Pope’s character.

As in the contest between the Bishops and the Cardinals, Leo's policy consisted in an adroit mediation between the two parties, with each of whom he liked to treat separately. With regard to the misuse by the Minorites of the right to proclaim the Indulgence of St. Peter's, he sanctioned a compromise with the Bishops. When he also, towards the end of the Council, agreed that the two points on which the monks were most sensitive—exemptions and freedom from taxation—should no longer be interfered with, it was on the distinct understanding, by which he held fast, that in other matters they should be compliant. To this impartial attitude towards the contending parties it is mainly due that the practical result of the controversy was an earnest determination on the part of the monastic orders, thus brought to bay, to undertake their own reform and to enforce strongly the observance of their rules.

On both sides the debate was carried on with great ability. The Bishops' attacks were levelled in the first place at the vicious lives of many of the Regulars and then at their encroachments on the cure of souls and the constituted jurisdiction. The Orders replied in their defence with eloquence and much dialectical skill, laying great stress on the superiority of the Pope over the Council, and making fiery appeals to the “sagacious piety of their Papal protector”. The chief object of their defence was cleverly to cause division among their opponents by a reference to the considerable number of Bishops who were not in agreement with the proposals of their colleagues. The complaints of relaxed monastic discipline they strove to neutralize by calling attention to scandals in the Episcopate and among the parochial clergy. “Before you call upon us to observe the laws of right common to man, see that you observe them yourselves”, they exclaimed to their antagonists. On the other hand, the religious orders did not omit to set forth their services to Christian people, especially their assiduity in preaching and in hearing confessions. In Italy especially, which was the chief seat of opposition, had it not been for the Regulars, the name of Christ would hardly have escaped oblivion, so few Italians were there, outside the cloister, who had any knowledge of theology. No enticements, they further insisted, had kept them back, no danger had dismayed them from visiting hostile lands, confronting princes, and exposing their bodies to ill-usage in order to defend the See of Peter and the Council of the Lateran : and was that same Council now to bring its own champions to ruin ! Yet another point of view was turned to account. “Those who are hankering after the great wealth of the Church will, in order to avoid the suspicion of acting as the enemies of religion, as soon as they hear that the monastic orders have been attacked and worsted by the Bishops, see an excellent and creditable opportunity for taking up the cause of the former, which previously they would not have done out of goodwill.”

A suspension but not a conclusive settlement of this embittered controversy was reached in the tenth session of the Council, on the 4th of May, 1515. Once again the call for reform rang from the pulpit. The knowledge, declared the Archbishop of Patras, how to effect a swift reform of the whole Church, belonged to the Apostolic See alone. If the all-embracing authority of the Pontiff were more cordially supported by the combined members of the Episcopate, fewer contraventions of the Church's law would be possible. But, as already four patriarchal churches had been severed from the body, so he also who sat on Peter's chair could not escape judgment if he did not obey his eternal Judge. Great was the danger that yet other portions of Christendom would be lost through dis obedience to God and the Holy See. Therefore, Pope and Council must work together for the true reform and re generation of Christendom.

A single Bull comprised the enactments relating to the limitation of exemptions, the strengthening of the Bishops' authority, and the maintenance of ecclesiastical liberties. Of importance was the transference, in the case of negligence on the part of the special visitor, of suits against exempts to the Bishop, who was to sit as judge-delegate with apostolic powers ; this provision was again adopted by the Council of Trent ; the episcopal privilege of visiting convents, in immediate obedience to the Pope, once a year, was renewed, also the refusal to allow an appeal to Rome in matters concerning benefices pending the judgment in the Bishop's court. The Bishops were ordered to hold provincial and diocesan synods, the former every three years, with the participation of the exempts. This institution, which was to have such a wholesale influence on church reform, was also one of the measures anticipated by the Lateran Council.

Of not less capital importance were two other decrees passed in this session. The first gave sanction to the pawnshops or Monti di Pieta, which had been called into existence as a protection for the necessitous poor against extortionate interest on loans. As a matter of fact these agencies, introduced into Italy under Pius II, had already been recommended by many strictly orthodox preachers, and had in many instances received Papal approbation. This was the first occasion on which the payment of interest was recognized as permissible in theory. Leo recalls the theological and juridical controversies on the subject, and pronounces, in view of his obligations to support useful and modern institutions, that such loan­ offices are to be recommended ; all who teach the contrary are excommunicate. He evidently regards the Monti which lend without interest as the more deserving.

The influence of the second constitution on the new era that had dawned was trenchant and purifying. The power of the printing press had surpassed all expectations and was proving in many cases a blessed, and in many cases a baneful, gift to man. In highly enthusiastic terms the Pope celebrates the benefits to mankind and the Church conferred through “the favour of heaven” by this discovery which had come down as a gift from God to earth. By means of printing everyone for little money can buy many books, the study of gifted minds is made easy. Catholic scholars too (and the Catholic Church prays that they may be many) can be educated thereby and thus win over unbelievers to the truth. But in different countries many masters of this new craft misuse it by the circulation of works containing errors of faith and attacks on persons in high station, which are not only unedifying to their readers, but injurious to their religious and moral life, as experience has shown and in the time to come will show more clearly still. But the Head of the Church must take heed that that which was invented for God's glory, for the exaltation of the faith, and for the diffusion of art and learning, does not become a curse instead of a blessing, and endanger the salvation of the faithful, that the good seed and the cockle, the medicine and the poison, are not mingled together. Therefore the Pope forbids, with the approval of the Council, under pain of excommunication and of heavy fines, the printing of any book without the approbation of the Bishop and the Inquisitor, and in Rome of the Cardinal Vicar and the Master of the Palace. Every book printed contrary to these regulations shall be burned.

Yet another weighty question had been reserved for decision in this session : the reform of the Calendar.At the beginning of his reign Leo had bestowed much attention on this important subject as on so many other scientific inquiries. In February, 1514, he had invited the learned scholar, Paul von Middelburg, the author of an exhaustive treatise on the computation of Easter, to Rome; in July, 1514, special letters had been addressed to the Universities of Europe and to the leading princes requesting them to send reports on the reform of the Calendar to Rome. Answers were received from Vienna, Tubingen, Louvain, and Ingoldstadt. In Italy Antonio Dolciati, Raggio, Giovanni Maria Tolosani, Antonio Albizzi, Basilio Lapi, and Cipriano Beneti dedicated writings on this topic to the Pope. J The opinions, however, were so divergent that Leo had to withdraw the question, as not yet ripe for discussion, from the agenda of the tenth session. But he did not on this account dismiss the matter altogether. A special commission made most careful scrutiny of the reports forwarded, and made use of them in the preparation of new proposals which were to serve as the foundation for a further treatment of the question. These propositions were sent in July, 1516, to many princes, bishops, and universities, with the request that fresh reports should be sent in or scholars despatched to Rome to confer. No decision on the matter, however, was then reached ; nor was this the fault of Leo X; on the contrary, his exertions on behalf of the reform of the Calendar form a pleasing episode in the history of his Pontificate.

After the leading measures of importance had been settled in the tenth session, the adjournment of the Council until the end of the following year became possible. The interval was filled with political agitation, the conclusion of the Concordat with France, the negotiations with the Eastern churches—all things which diverted men's minds from the Council as the centre of interest.

A project fraught with danger to the constitution of the Church, but in which many of the fathers of the Council were then implicated, must not pass unnoticed. The latter formed the idea of uniting themselves more closely in a fraternal sodality for the purpose of safeguarding their common interests. This confraternity, which was to be represented by a standing committee, was directed in the first instance against the regular clergy. But how easily might this have developed by an inevitable sequence into a sort of oligarchical constitution, and have led, through a system of episcopalianism, to the weakening of the apostolical authority ? That this was foreseen by the Curia is shown by the reply to the twelve points which the Bishops advanced on behalf of their sodalitium. At the head of all stood the statement that “the Pope is Bishop of the Universal Church, and has, in the first place, the oversight of the collective churches committed to him”. But this proposition means nothing else than that the individual churches would be better governed, and the rights of their diocesans more strictly defended, by bishops with plenipotentiary powers than by the Pope, who, along with the Sacred College, cares best for the interests of the Church. “If the violator of episcopal rights cannot be kept within bounds by the majesty of the Roman Bishop and the most sacred General Council, is it likely that he will allow himself to be bridled by the efforts of a couple of bishops who are the deputies of an association?” Let the inferior clergy once attempt to obtain permission from the Pope and Council to set up associations of this sort in the Bishop's own city, and it will very soon become plain what the object of such an attempt is.

The danger of the situation did not escape the Pope ; the Cardinals were against the scheme from the beginning, as one that would only give rise to divisions among the Bishops. Leo X told the envoys of the Bishops in plain language that if they insisted on their demands, he would postpone the next session from year to year, and in the meantime maintain the privilege of the monastic orders to the fullest extent ; the Bishops Assistant at the Papal throne sufficed to bring before him the wishes of their colleagues in the Episcopate. The Bishops now begged the Pope to grant them leave to hold meetings for the discussion of their affairs and to have a special fund of their own, also that he would appoint as assistants at the throne some prelates not of Italian birth. Leo was not indisposed to grant the last request, but he thought the establishment of a special fund superfluous. He returned the petition and ordered the Cardinals to make a thorough examination of all writings for and against the scheme. After these had given their opinion, the unanimous verdict of the Consistory was declared : that the interests of the Episcopate had been largely cared for by the canon law and by certain decrees of the existing Council ; if any things remained over, the Pope and Cardinals were more competent to settle them than any sodalitium. It was made plain to the petitioners that they must accept as their answer that which, under like circumstances, they would have given to their own clergy. That in this way, on the eve of the disruption of Christendom, a decentralizing tendency should have been arrested, marks a victory of the monarchical principle on which Christ founded His Church, the importance of which is not to be lightly prized.

These disagreements had taken up so much time that the eleventh session could not assemble before the 19th of December, 1516. The preliminary general congregation (on December 15th) had witnessed the appearance of the first American member of the Council, Bishop Alessandro Gerardini of San Domingo, who nine years later, after a life of assiduous literary labour, died in the odour of sanctity. The eleventh session also saw the visit of three envoys from the Maronites, who came to offer obedience. They presented a letter of homage from their Patriarch, Simon Peter, dated the I4th of February, 1515, which was at once read to the assembly. In the previous year a representative of the Patriarch had already visited Rome. His arrival was closely followed by a letter in which the latter, after certain dogmatic and liturgical discussions, requested the Pope to ratify his position, and to confer upon him Papal marks of distinction and other favours ; he also invited his mediation in the affairs of the Maronites in Cyprus and Venice. This new embassy was the result of the conciliatory letters which Leo had sent to the Patriarch and his flock for purposes of instruction, and to the guardian of the Minorites at Beyrout. The Patriarch thanked the successor of St. Peter for his costly gifts and for the instruction tendered through his envoy on the subjects of the chrism, the deferment of baptism, the sacrament of marriage, ordinations, the words of consecration, the procession of the Holy Ghost, purgatory, confession, and Easter Communion. The Pope gave a cordial assent to the Patriarch’s requests in accordance with the assurance he had given him in August. The correspondence between Leo and the Emperor of Ethiopia, David III., which was carried on at the same time, was less productive of results. The Russians also remained outside the Roman influence : that they were not, at any rate, neglected is shown by the report which the Archbishop of Gnesen prepared for the ninth session on the errors of the Ruthenians in White and Red Russia.

The eleventh session, which was of especial importance as regards the establishment of the Concordat with France and the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction, was also occupied with questions affecting the pastoral work of the Church. In a constitution, which was passed unanimously and was exceedingly well timed, the leading principles were laid down of a system of preaching calculated to bring forth fruitful results. Starting from the necessity for a united and authoritative ministry of preaching, the constitution began by setting forth how many preachers, unmindful of their mission and often contrary to the spirit of the Apostles and Fathers, sought only their own reputation, flattered the multitude, seduced their hearers from the truth, misinterpreted Holy Scripture, prophesied falsely, indulged in personal abuse, weakened the authority of the Church, and set an example of violent and senseless zeal. For the future, accordingly, none were to be allowed to preach who had not first been tested by the authorities and had given proof of competency. Each one was to be satisfied with preaching the pure Gospel according to the interpretation of the Fathers, and to refrain from prophesying the time of the evils to come. God, it cannot be denied, reveals in extraordinary ways the destinies of the Church : but, since all spirits cannot be trusted, matters of private revelation ought, before they are divulged, to be submitted to the judgment of the Holy See, or, if the case is urgent, to that of the Bishop. In case of disobedience to this ruling the offender shall be deprived of his license to preach, and come under excommunication. These extremely opportune restrictions were applied to a wide spread mischief to which, as the constitution declared, the pulpit was, from its very nature, exposed ; the superstitious belief in apocalyptic messages, the prevalence of unlicensed preachers and persons claiming to have a mission from God, were used as powerful weapons against the authority of the Church.

It was also of advantage to the pastoral office that in this same session certain limits were drawn, so far as the still open question of the privileges of the religious orders permitted, between the secular and the regular clergy. To the Bishops were given the power of visitation over clergy belonging to religious orders, the examination of candidates for holy orders, the conferring of ordination, and much besides ; the dispensation of the Sacraments and the administration of burial were, in the case of the regular clergy, accompanied by certain specified limitations, and mutual respect and charity were enjoyed on both parties. On this occasion also the session closed with the Te Deum. After that Leo spent some time, with marks of deep devotion, in the baptistery of S. Giovanni in Fonte, adjoining the Lateran basilica, the oldest baptismal chapel in Rome. His prayers were a thanks giving, for, with the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction, the Holy See had won a momentous victory after passing through many a stormy time.

The strained condition of politics decided the Pope to take into consideration the early closing of the Council. The Emperor was, on the whole, in favour of its prolongation, but the vehemence with which he had expressed his wishes, seems to have been the direct cause of its immediate dissolution. The question came up for discussion in Consistory on the 1st of February, 1517. Cardinal Grimani made a determined opposition, but Leo X. would not give way. On the 4th of March, in a protracted Consistory, the decision was taken. According to the Venetian Envoy, the fear of the Emperor's interference weighed so strongly in the scales that it was definitely settled that the Council should forthwith be closed. The motion, which, along with three draft decrees, was placed before the Council, in the name of the Cardinals, on the I3th of March, also met at first with opposition, and a fresh summons of the Bishops was called for. At last, however, all, with the exception of the Bishops of Imola and Salamanca, expressed their concurrence, which encouraged the hope that, as soon as peace should be restored to Christendom, the prelates who had hitherto been prevented from attending, would participate in much greater numbers. The Governor of Rome, on his own account, expressed a wish that marriages privately contracted should be disallowed, as was later effected by the Council of Trent.

Shortly before the close of the Council, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola delivered before the Pope and the assembled fathers his remarkable speech on the reform of morals, in which he drew a frightful picture of existing conditions among the clergy. Pico confines his demands within the narrowest compass ; he only asks that the priest hood shall not be altogether as salt that has lost its savour. He does not even require that they should be men of learning, so long as they at least understand the duties of their office; he does not call upon them to do penance and mortify their bodies in the manner of a Jerome or a Benedict, but at least to withdraw their presence from voluptuous banquets and to refrain from decking their concubines with precious stones; he would rather have them clothe the naked with their garments, as did Martin, than cover their horses and mules with costly trappings; he wishes to see the Houses of God no longer like hovels or stables, while the dwellings of His priests glitter with gold and are spread with purple. From Leo, who had mounted to the summit of priestly dignity, not, as many supposed, by evil arts and shameful intrigues, he had hoped better things. “If we are to win back the enemy and the apostate to our faith, it is of more consequence to us that we should restore fallen morality to its ancient rule of virtue than that we should sweep with our fleet the Euxine Sea”. It is the Popes task to quell the grievous intestine strife, to bar the way against wicked­ness, to stem by strict continence of life the luxury, the ambition, the greed, the self-indulgence, the corrupt practices of the clergy. His it is to demand restitution of the squandered property of the Church, to chastise or remove the guilty, to abolish the accumulation of ecclesi­astical offices; for “the so-called dispensations had had the effect of conferring not many, nor a plurality, but a very host of benefices on men who were not worthy even to receive the office of a deacon”. Ceremonies also and daily offices called for revision, and “true historical narrative ought to be separated from apocryphal fable.” Thus would the Pope rescue the Church from destruction and win for himself not a fleeting but a permanent renown. If, however, reform was neglected, heavy and searching would be the judgment which would visit the Church. In his speech, which preceded the final sitting of the Council on the 16th of March, 1517, Bishop Massimo Corvino of Isernia spoke in the same sense but in tones of greater encouragement. He acknowledged how much the clergy owed to the Church, but also how much the Church was indebted to the clergy. In their combat with the dis loyalty and wickedness among Christians who, unthankful towards God and His Church, placed the wisdom of the heathen before the wisdom of Christ, they urged a return to the Gospel, which contained the only true wisdom and was the well-spring of right knowledge and every virtue. In this way, after the example of the Apostles, the Church should be protected and adorned with might, grace, and freedom and restored to its authority and dignity. The orator saw in the teaching of the Council the whole mind of heaven, of Christ, and of the Spirit. Nevertheless, the gravity of the situation could not be dissembled under such fair-sounding phrases.

In this twelfth and final session of the Council on the 1 6th of March, there were present, besides the Pope and eighteen Cardinals, three Patriarchs, thirteen Assistants at the Throne, ten Archbishops, sixty-four Bishops, and six heads of religious orders, while Germany, Spain, Portugal, Venice, Mantua, and Bologna sent their representatives. The programme announced by Leo was approved. Only one Bull remained to be published ; it was directed against the disorderly custom of the Roman populace in breaking into and looting the houses of the Cardinals during a vacancy in the Holy See. The Patriarch of Aquileia then read out the Bull imposing a tithe for three years for the Turkish wars; this having been confirmed, the Council proceeded to close. After a short review of the history and purpose of the assembly, the chief tasks with which it had been engaged were recited : the Schism had been ended, the disputes among the princes were being brought near a settlement, the congregations had finished their work, the Bishops were desirous of returning to their dioceses ; the Pope ratified the decisions of the Council and would give heed to their being carried out. He forbade any alterations in them without special permission, and dismissed the members of the Council. The majority gave their “placet”, only the titular Bishop of Krain (Granea), who also on other occasions appears as leader of opposition, spoke against the dissolution. After the Te Deum and the Pontifical blessing, Leo X returned with great pomp to the Vatican.

Was the closing of the fifth Council of the Lateran really premature, as so many have asserted, in view of the tempest which broke loose in the following autumn ? In answering this question, attention has been justly called to the hopeless prospects of a really larger attendance at the Council, to the insistent demand of many of the princes for the return of the members, to the threats of war, and the unsettled condition of Italy. Certainly all this weighed in the scale, as well as Leo’s fear of intervention and uncertainty as to the part the Emperor would take. But it cannot be denied that, as far as securing practical reform was concerned, there was very little else that could have been done. Most of the enactments were only old regulations in a more stringent form, while the needs of the Church called for measures of a much more decisive character. If so far the Lateran Council fell short of a root-and-branch reform, yet it produced many laws of a most opportune character on which the Council of Trent was afterwards able to enlarge and improve. But the exaltation of the Primacy gave to this Council, even in the field of practical action, a much higher importance than the Synods of Constance and Basle, with their many reforming decrees, were able to reach. The decrees of the Lateran Council contain besides such ample reforms that the whole moral and religious condition of the clergy and laity in Rome and Christendom might have been elevated by them. But of what avail were all these laws if they were allowed to remain a dead letter? In this respect, unfortunately, the omissions were many.

The reform decrees of the Council were despatched far and wide, but only in Spain and Portugal, and in some parts of Italy, were they practically administered, but even there only partially ; the example set by the Roman Curia stood in the way of reform. In spite of the conciliar decrees, the gross abuse of giving benefices and church dignities to children in the fullest sense of the word continued. Candidates with good recommendations were dispensed from the laws, which prescribed that no one should be raised to the Episcopate who had not fully attained his twenty-seventh year ; children continued, as before, to hold the highest ecclesiastical offices, even the Cardinalate. In like manner the scandalous pluralism of benefices and the obnoxious system of in commendam remained almost unaltered, even in the Roman Curia itself. If, in con sequence of the decrees passed in the ninth session, many resignations of livings were tendered by the Cardinals, “yet, on the whole, these decrees failed to be observed”. Laxity of discipline and indolence were far too deeply rooted !  Leo X himself, in particular cases, repeatedly disregarded the enactments of the Council. |No wonder that the un principled among the Bishops, especially the large number who had not even appeared at the Council, should have gone on in their accustomed way, without a twinge of conscience. An honourable exception was Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the Archbishop of Florence, who endeavoured forthwith, by the holding of a provincial council (1517­1518) to give practical effect to the rulings of the Lateran. Ximenes took the same course in Spain, as did also Christoph von Stadion, Bishop of Augsburg, and Konrad III von Thüngen, Prince Bishop of Würzburg.

In Rome Leo certainly allowed the civic officials to insist, especially within the boundaries of the city, on the observance of the decrees of the Council, but the proceedings were not carried out in a thorough way. The authorities were satisfied with half measures and external observance ; although, especially at the beginning of the German revolt, far-seeing men urged the removal at least of those abuses which were deplored by good Catholics themselves. “Would to God”, wrote Aleander in the middle of December, 1520, “that we might make an end at last of these many innovations, such as reservations, dispensations, derogations from the German Concordat, the com positions, and suchlike ; the insatiable pluralists also, who would seize the German benefices too, if they could have hold of the reins ; for the German people associate all these things with Luther's business, and in this way we suffer grievous injury to the Catholic faith, which is our chief concern.”

 

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FRENCH CONCORDAT.— ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY.— CHARACTER AND PONTIFICATE OF LEO X.