CHAPTER XXI

Influence of the development of modern states upon the position of the mediÃ¦val Church.

It is obvious that the strengthening of the royal power could hardly fail to alter the position of the mediÃ¦val Church. This was, as we have seen, not simply a religious institution but a sort of international state which performed a number of important governmental duties. We must, therefore, now turn back and review the history of the Church from the time of Edward I and Philip the Fair to the opening of the sixteenth century.

General Reading.â€”For the political history of this period,Lodge,Close of the Middle Ages(The Macmillan Company, $1.75), is the best work, although rather dry and cumbered with names which might have been omitted. For the general history of France, see in addition toAdams,Growth of the French Nation(The Macmillan Company, $1.25),Duruy,A History of France(T.Y. Crowell, $2.00). The economic history of England is to be found in the works mentioned at the end of Chapter XVIII. The following collections of documents furnish illustrative material in abundance:Lee,Source-book of English History(Holt, $2.00);Colby,Selections from the Sources of English History, (Longmans, Green & Co., $1.50);Adams & Stephens,Select Documents of English Constitutional History(The Macmillan Company, $2.25);Kendall,Source Book of English History(The Macmillan Company, 80 cents).

The problem of the relation of church and state.

112.The influence which the Church and its head exercised over the civil government in the Middle Ages was due largely to the absence of strong, efficient rulers who could count upon the support of a large body of prosperous and loyal subjects. So long as the feudal anarchy continued, the Church endeavored to supply the deficiencies of the restless and ignorant princes by striving to maintain order, administer justice, protect the weak, and encourage learning. So soon, however, as the modern state began to develop, difficulties arose. The clergy naturally clung to the powers and privileges which they had long enjoyed, and which they believed to be rightly theirs. On the other hand, the state, so soon as it felt itself able to manage its own affairs, protect its subjects, and provide for their worldly interests, was less and less inclined to tolerate the interference of the clergy and their head, the pope. Educated laymen were becoming more and more common, and the king was no longer obliged to rely upon the assistance of the clergy in conducting his government. It was natural that he should look with disfavor upon their privileges, which put them upon a different footing from the great mass of his subjects, and upon their wealth, which he would deem excessive and dangerous to his power. This situation raised the fundamental problem of the proper relation of church and state, upon which Europe has been working ever since the fourteenth century and has not completely solved yet.

Edward I and Philip the Fair attempt to tax the clergy.

The difficulty which the Church experienced in maintaining its power against the kings is excellently shown by the famous struggle between Philip the Fair, the grandson of St. Louis, and Boniface VIII, an old man of boundless ambition and inexhaustible energy who came to the papal throne in 1294. The first serious trouble arose over the habit into which the kings of England and France had fallen, of taxing the property of the churchmen like that of other subjects. It was natural after a monarch had squeezed all that he could out of the Jews and the towns, and had exacted every possible feudal due, that he should turn to the rich estates of the clergy, in spite of their claim that their property was dedicated to God and owed the king nothing. The extensive enterprises of Edward I led him in 1296 to demand one fifth of the personal property of the clergy. Philip the Fair exacted one hundredth and then one fiftieth of the possessions of clergy and laity alike.

The bullClericis laicosof Boniface VIII, 1296.

Against this impartial system Boniface protested in the famous bullClericis laicos(1296). He claimed that the laity had always been exceedingly hostile to the clergy, and that the rulers were now exhibiting this hostility by imposing heavy burdens upon the Church, forgetting that they had no control over the clergy and their possessions. The pope, therefore, forbade all churchmen, including the monks, to pay, without his consent, to a king or ruler any part of the Church's revenue or possessions upon any pretext whatsoever. He likewise forbade the kings and princes under pain of excommunication to presume to exact any such payments.

Boniface concedes a limited right to tax churchmen.

It happened that just as the pope was prohibiting the clergy from contributing to the taxes, Philip the Fair had forbidden the exportation of all gold and silver from the country. In that way he cut off an important source of the pope's revenue, for the church of France could obviously no longer send anything to Rome. The pope was forced to give up his extremeclaims. He explained the following year that he had not meant to interfere with the payment on the clergy's part of customary feudal dues nor with their loans of money to the king.[199]

The jubilee of 1300.

In spite of this setback, the pope never seemed more completely the recognized head of the western world than during the first great jubilee, in the year 1300, when Boniface called together all Christendom to celebrate the opening of the new century by a great religious festival at Rome. It is reported that two millions of people, coming from all parts of Europe, visited the churches of Rome, and that in spite of widening the streets many were crushed in the crowd. So great was the influx of money into the papal treasury that two assistants were kept busy with rakes collecting the offerings which were deposited at the tomb of St. Peter.

Boniface was, however, very soon to realize that even if Christendom regarded Rome as its religious center, the nations would not accept him as their political head. When he dispatched an obnoxious prelate to Philip the Fair, ordering him to free the count of Flanders whom he was holding prisoner, the king declared the harsh language of the papal envoy to be high treason and sent one of his lawyers to the pope to demand that the messenger be degraded and punished.

The Estates General of 1302.

Philip was surrounded by a body of lawyers, and it would seem that they, rather than the king, were the real rulers of France. They had, through their study of Roman law, learned to admire the absolute power exercised by the Roman emperor. To them the civil government was supreme, and they urged the king to punish what they regarded as the insolent conduct of the pope. Before taking any action against the head of the Church, Philip called together the representatives of his people, including not only the clergy and the nobility but the people of the towns as well. TheEstates General, after hearing a statement of the case from one of Philip's lawyers, agreed to support their monarch.

Nogaret insults Boniface VIII.

Death of Boniface, 1303.

Nogaret, one of the chief legal advisers of the king, undertook to face the pope. He collected a little troop of soldiers in Italy and marched against Boniface, who was sojourning at Anagni, where his predecessors had excommunicated two emperors, Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II. As Boniface, in his turn, was preparing solemnly to proclaim the king of France an outcast from the Church, Nogaret penetrated into the papal palace with his soldiers and heaped insults upon the helpless but defiant old man. The townspeople forced Nogaret to leave the next day, but Boniface's spirit was broken and he soon died at Rome.

Clement V, 1305â€“1314, and his subservience to Philip the Fair.

The popes take up their residence at Avignon.

King Philip now proposed to have no more trouble with popes. He arranged in 1305 to have the Archbishop of Bordeaux chosen head of the Church, with the understanding that he should transfer the papacy to France. The new pope accordingly summoned the cardinals to meet him at Lyons, where he was crowned under the title of Clement V. He remained in France during his whole pontificate, moving from one rich abbey to another. At Philip's command he reluctantly undertook a sort of trial of the deceased Boniface VIII, who was accused by the king's lawyers of all sorts of abominable crimes. A great part of Boniface's decrees were revoked, and those who had attacked him were exculpated. Then, to please the king, Clement brought the Templars to trial; the order was abolished and its possessions in France, for which the king had longed, were confiscated. Obviously it proved very advantageous to the king to have a pope within his realm. Clement V died in 1314. His successors took up their residence in the town of Avignon, just outside the French frontier of those days. There they built a sumptuous palace in which successive popes lived in great splendor for sixty years.

The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.

113.The prolonged exile of the popes from Rome, lasting from 1305 to 1377, is commonly called the Babylonian Captivity[200]of the Church, on account of the woes attributed to it. The popes of this period were for the most part good and earnest men; but they were all Frenchmen, and the proximity of their court to France led to the natural suspicion that they were controlled by the French kings. This, together with their luxurious court, brought them into discredit with the other nations.[201]

The papal taxation.

At Avignon the popes were naturally deprived of some of the revenue which they had enjoyed from their Italian possessions when they lived at Rome. This deficiency had to be made up by increased taxation, especially as the expenses of the splendid papal court were very heavy. The papacy was, consequently, rendered still more unpopular by the methods employed to raise money, particularly by the granting of benefices throughout Europe to the pope's courtiers, by the heavy contributions which were demanded for dispensations, for the confirmation of bishops, and for granting the pallium to archbishops, as well as the high fees for the trial of law suits.

Pope's control of church benefices.

Many of the church offices, such as those of the bishops and abbots, insured a more than ample revenue to their holders. It was natural, therefore, that the pope, in his endeavor to increase his income, should have tried to bring as many of these appointments as he could into his own hands. He did this by reserving to himself the filling of certain benefices so soon as they should become vacant. He then chose some one to whom he wished to do a favor and promised him the benefice upon the death of the one then holding it. Men appointed in this way were calledprovisorsand were extremely unpopular. They were very often foreigners, and it was suspected that they had obtained these positions from the pope simplyfor the sake of the revenue, and had no intention whatever of performing the duties connected with them.

Statute of provisors, 1352.

The papal exactions met with the greatest opposition in England because the popes were thought to favor France, with which country the English were at war. A law was passed by Parliament in 1352 ordering that all who procured appointments from the pope should be outlawed, that any one might injure such offenders at will, and that the injured should have no redress, since they were enemies of the king and his realm.[202]This and similar laws failed, however, to prevent the pope from filling English benefices to the advantage of himself and his courtiers. The English king was unable to keep the money of his realm from flowing to Avignon on one pretext or another. It was declared by the Good Parliament, held in 1376, that the taxes levied by the pope in England were five times those raised by the king.

John Wycliffe.

The most famous and conspicuous critic of the pope and of the policy of the Roman Church at this time was John Wycliffe, a teacher at Oxford. He was born about 1320; but we know little of him before 1366, when Urban V demanded that England should pay the tribute promised by King John when he became the pope's vassal.[203]Parliament declared that John had no right to bind the people without their consent, and Wycliffe began his career of opposition to the papacy by trying to prove that John's compact was void. About ten years later we find the pope issuing bulls against the teachings of Wycliffe, who had begun to assert that the state might appropriate the property of the Church if it was misused, and that the pope had no authority except as he acted according to the Gospels. Soon Wycliffe went further and boldly attacked the papacy itself, as well as indulgences, pilgrimages, and theworship of the saints; finally he even denied the truth of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Wycliffe's 'simple priests.'

He did not, however, confine his work to a denunciation of what he considered wrong in the teaching and conduct of the churchmen. He established an order of "simple priests" who were to go about doing good and reprove by their example the worldly habits of the general run of priests and monks.

Wycliffe the father of English prose.

Wycliffe's anxiety to reach the people and foster a higher spiritual life among them led him to have the Bible translated into English. He also prepared a great number of sermons and tracts in English. He is the father of English prose, and it has been well said that "the exquisite pathos, the keen, delicate irony, and the manly passion of his short, nervous sentences, fairly overmaster the weakness of the unformed language and give us English which cannot be read without a feeling of its beauty to this hour."

Influence of Wycliffe's teaching.

Wycliffe and his "simple priests" were charged with fomenting the discontent and disorder which culminated in the Peasants' War. Whether this charge was true or not, it caused many of his more aristocratic followers to fall away from him. But in spite of this and the denunciations of the Church, Wycliffe was not seriously interfered with and died peaceably in 1384. While his followers appear to have yielded pretty readily to the persecution which soon overtook them, his doctrines were spread abroad in Bohemia by another ardent reformer, John Huss, who was destined to give the Church a great deal of trouble. Wycliffe is remarkable as being the first distinguished scholar and reformer to repudiate the headship of the pope and those practices of the Church of Rome which a hundred and fifty years after his death were attacked by Luther in his successful revolt against the mediÃ¦val Church.[204]

The papal court moves back to Rome, 1377.

114.In 1377 Pope Gregory XI moved back again to Rome after the popes had been exiles for seventy years, during which much had happened to undermine the papal power and supremacy. Yet the discredit into which the papacy had fallen during its stay at Avignon was as nothing compared with the disasters which befell it after the return to Rome.

Election of Urban VI, 1378.

Gregory died the year after his return and the cardinals assembled to choose his successor. A great part of them were French. They had found Rome in a sad state of ruin and disorder and heartily regretted the gay life and the comforts and luxuries of Avignon. They determined therefore to select a pope who would take them back to the banks of the Rhone. While they were deliberating, the Roman populace was yelling outside the conclave and demanding that a Roman be chosen, or at least an Italian. A simple Italian monk was accordingly selected, Urban VI, who it was supposed would agree to the wishes of the cardinals.

Election of an anti-pope, Clement VII.

The new pope, however, soon showed that he had no idea of returning to Avignon. He treated the cardinals with harshness and proposed a stern reformation of their habits. The cardinals speedily wearied of this treatment; they retired to the neighboring Anagni and declared that they had been frightened by the Roman mob into selecting the obnoxious Urban. They then elected a new pope, who took the title of Clement VII, returned to Avignon, and established his court there. Urban, although deserted by his cardinals, had no intention of yielding and proceeded to create twenty-eight new cardinals.

The Great Schism.

This double election was the beginning of theGreat Schism, which was to last for forty years and expose the papacy to new attacks on every side. There had been many anti-popes in earlier centuries, set up usually by the emperors; but there had ordinarily been little question as to who was really the legitimate pope. In the present case Europe was seriously indoubt, for it was difficult to decide whether the election of Urban had really been forced and was consequently invalid as the cardinals claimed. No one, therefore, could be perfectly sure which of the rival popes was the real successor of St. Peter. There were now two colleges of cardinals whose very existence depended upon the exercise of their right of choosing the pope. It was natural that Italy should support Urban VI, while France as naturally obeyed Clement VII; England, hostile to France, accepted Urban; Scotland, hostile to England, supported Clement.

The Church divided within itself and the consequences.

Each of two men, with seemingly equal right, now claimed to be Christ's vicar on earth; each proposed to enjoy to the full the vast prerogatives of the head of Christendom, and each denounced, and attempted to depose, the other. The schism in the headship of the Church naturally extended to the bishoprics and abbeys, and everywhere there were rival prelates, each of whom could claim that he had been duly confirmed by one pope or the other. All this produced an unprecedented scandal in the Church. It emphasized all the abuses among the clergy and gave free rein to those who were inclined to denounce the many evils which had been pointed out by Wycliffe and his followers. The condition was, in fact, intolerable and gave rise to widespread discussion, not only of the means by which the schism might be healed, but of the nature and justification of the papacy itself. The discussion which arose during these forty years of uncertainty did much to prepare the mind of western Europe for the Protestant revolt in the sixteenth century.

Idea of the supremacy of a general council.

The selfish and futile negotiations between the colleges of cardinals and the popes justified the notion that there might perhaps be a power in Christendom superior even to that of the pope. Might not a council, representing all Christendom, and inspired by the Holy Ghost, judge even a pope? Such councils had been held in the East during the later RomanEmpire, beginning with the first general or ecumenical council of NicÃ¦a under Constantine. They had established the teachings of the Church and had legislated for all Christian people and clergy.[205]

Question whether the pope or a general council is the supreme authority in the Church.

As early as 1381 the University of Paris advocated the summoning of a general council which should adjust the claims of the rival popes and give Christendom once more a single head. This raised the question whether a council was really superior to the pope or not. Those who believed that it was, maintained that the Church at large had deputed the election of the pope to the cardinals and that it might, therefore, interfere when the cardinals had brought the papacy into disrepute; that a general assembly of all Christendom, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was a higher authority than even the successor of St. Peter. Others strenuously denied this. They claimed that the pope received his authority over the Church immediately from Christ, and that he had always possessed supreme power from the very first, although he had not always exercised it and had permitted the earlier councils a certain freedom. No council, they urged, could be considered a general one which was called against the will of the pope, because, without the bishop of the Roman or mother church, the council obviously could not lay claim to represent all Christendom. The defenders of the papal power maintained, moreover, that the pope was the supreme legislator, that he might change or annul the act of any council or of a previous pope, that he might judge others but might not himself be judged by any one.[206]

The Council of Pisa, 1409 adds a third rival pope.

After years of discussion and fruitless negotiations between the rival popes and their cardinals, members of both of the colleges decided in 1409 to summon a council at Pisa, which should put an end to the schism. While large numbers of churchmen answered the summons and the various monarchs took an active interest in the council, its action was hasty and ill-advised. Gregory XII, the Roman pope, elected in 1406, and Benedict XIII, the Avignon pope, elected in 1394, were solemnly summoned from the doors of the cathedral at Pisa. As they failed to appear they were condemned for contumacy and deposed. A new pope was then elected, and on his death a year later, he was succeeded by the notorious John XXIII, who had been a soldier of fortune in his earlier days. John was selected on account of his supposed military prowess. This was considered essential in order to guard the papal territory against the king of Naples, who had announced his intention of getting possession of Rome. Neither of the deposed popes yielded, and as they each continued to enjoy a certain support, the Council of Pisa, instead of healing the schism, added a third person who claimed to be the supreme ruler of Christendom.[207]

The Council of Constance meets, 1414.

115.The failure of the Council of Pisa made it necessary to summon another congress of Christendom. Through the influence of the emperor Sigismund, John XXIII reluctantly agreed that the council should be held in Germany, in the imperial town of Constance. The Council of Constance, which began to assemble in the fall of 1414, is one of the most noteworthy international assemblies ever held. It lasted for over three years and excited the deepest interest throughout Europe. There were in attendance, besides the pope and the emperor-elect, twenty-three cardinals, thirty-three archbishops and bishops, one hundred and fifty abbots, and one hundred dukes and earls, as well as hundreds of lesser persons.

The three great objects of the Council of Constance.

Three great tasks confronted the council: (1) the healing of the schism, which involved the disposal of the three existing popes and the selection of a single universally acknowledged head of the Church; (2) the extirpation of heresy, which, under the influence of Huss, was threatening the authority of the Church in Bohemia; (3) a general reformation of the Church "in head and members."

The healing of the schism.

The decreeSacrosancta, 1415.

1. The healing of the long schism was the most important of the council's achievements. John XXIII was very uncomfortable in Constance. He feared not only that he would be forced to resign but that there might be an investigation of his very dubious past. In March he fled in disguise from Constance, leaving his cardinals behind him. The council was dismayed at the pope's departure, as it feared that he would dissolve it as soon as he was out of its control. It thereupon issued a famous decree (April 6, 1415) declaring its superiority to the pope. It claimed that a general council had its power immediately from Christ. Every one, even the pope, who should refuse to obey its decrees or instructions should be suitably punished.

A long list of terrible crimes of which John was suspected, was drawn up and he was formally deposed. He receivedbut little encouragement in his opposition to the council and soon surrendered unconditionally. Gregory XII, the Roman pope, showed himself amenable to reason and relieved the perplexity of the council by resigning in July. The third pope, the obstinate Benedict XIII, flatly refused to resign. But the council induced the Spaniards, who were his only remaining supporters, to desert him and send envoys to Constance. Benedict was then deposed (July, 1417) and in the following November the cardinals who were at the council were permitted to elect a new pope, Martin V, and so the Great Schism was brought to an end.

John Huss.

2. During the first year of its sessions the Council of Constance was attempting to stamp out heresy as well as to heal the schism. The marriage of an English king, Richard II, to a Bohemian princess shortly before Wycliffe's death, had encouraged some intercourse between Bohemia and England and had brought the works of the English reformer to the attention of those in Bohemia who were intent upon the improvement of the Church. Among these the most conspicuous was John Huss (b. about 1369), whose ardent devotion to the interests of the Bohemian nation and enthusiasm for reform secured for him great influence in the University of Prague, with which he was connected.

Huss reached the conclusion that Christians should not be forced to obey those who were living in mortal sin and were apparently destined never to reach heaven themselves. This view was naturally denounced by the Church as a most dangerous error, destructive of all order and authority. As his opponents urged, the regularly appointed authorities must be obeyed, not because they are good men but because they govern in virtue of the law. In short, Huss appeared not only to defend the heresies of Wycliffe, but at the same time to preach a doctrine dangerous alike to the power of the civil government and of the Church.

The 'safe-conduct.'

Huss felt confident that he could convince the council of the truth of his views and willingly appeared at Constance. He was provided with a "safe-conduct," a document in which Emperor Sigismund ordered that no one should do him any violence and which permitted the bearer to leave Constance whenever he wished. In spite of this he was speedily arrested and imprisoned, in December, 1414. His treatment well illustrates the mediÃ¦val attitude towards heresy. When Sigismund indignantly protested against the violation of his safe-conduct, he was informed that the law did not recognize faith pledged to suspected heretics, for they were out of the king's jurisdiction. The council declared that no pledge which was prejudicial to the Catholic faith was to be observed. In judging Sigismund's failure to enforce his promise of protection to Huss it must be remembered that heresy was at that time considered a far more terrible crime than murder, and that it was the opinion of the most authoritative body in Christendom that Sigismund would do a great wrong if he prevented the trial of Huss.

Trial of Huss.

Huss was treated in what would seem to us a very harsh way; but from the standpoint of the council he was given every advantage. By special favor he was granted a public hearing. The council was anxious that Huss should retract; but no form of retraction could be arranged to which he would agree. The council, in accordance with the usages of the time, demanded that he should recognize the error of all the propositions which they had selected from his writings, that he should retract them and never again preach them, and that he should agree to preach the contrary. The council did not consider it its business to decide whether Huss was right or wrong, but simply whether his doctrines, which they gathered from his books, were in accordance with the traditional views of the Church.

Conviction and execution of Huss, July, 1415.

Finally, the council condemned Huss as a convicted and impenitent heretic. On July 6, 1415, he was taken out before the gates of the city and given one more chance to retract. Ashe refused, he was degraded from the priesthood and handed over to the civil government to be executed for heresy, which, as we have seen, the state regarded as a crime and undertook to punish.[208]The civil authorities made no further investigation but accepted the verdict of the council and burned Huss upon the spot. His ashes were thrown into the Rhine lest they should become an object of veneration among his followers.

The Hussite wars, 1419â€“1431.

The death of Huss rather promoted than checked the spread of heresy in Bohemia. A few years later the Germans undertook a series of crusades against the Bohemians. This embittered the national animosity between the two races, which has even yet by no means died out. The heretics proved valiant fighters and after several bloody wars succeeded in repulsing the enemy and even invaded Germany.

Opportunity of the council to reform the church.

3. The third great task of the Council of Constance was the general reformation of the Church. After John's flight it had claimed the right (in the decreeSacrosancta) to reform even the papacy. This was a splendid opportunity at least to mitigate the abuses in the Church. The council was a great representative body, and every one was looking to it to remedy the old evils which had become more pronounced than ever during the Great Schism. Many pamphlets were published at the time by earnest men denouncing the corrupt practices of the clergy. The evils were of long standing and have all been described in earlier chapters.[209]

The failure of the council to effect any definite reforms.

Although every one recognized the abuses, the council found itself unable to remedy them or to accomplish the hoped-for reformation. After three years of fruitless deliberations the members of the assembly became weary and hopeless. They finally contented themselves with passing a decree (Oct. 9, 1417) declaring that the neglect to summon generalcouncils in the past had fostered all the evils in the Church and that thereafter councils should be regularly summoned at least every ten years.[210]In this way it was hoped that the absolute power of the popes might be checked in somewhat the same way that the Parliament in England and the Estates General in France controlled the monarch.

Abuses enumerated by the council.

After the passing of this decree the council drew up a list of abuses demanding reform, which the new pope was to consider with certain of its members after the main body of the council had returned home. Chief among the questions which the council enumerated for consideration were the number, character, and nationality of the cardinals, the benefices to which the pope had a right to appoint, what cases might be brought before his court, for what reason and in what manner the pope might be corrected or deposed, how heresy might be extirpated, and the matter of dispensations, indulgences, etc.

Aside from the healing of the schism, the results of the Council of Constance were slight. It had burned Huss but had by no means checked heresy. It had considered for three years the reformation of the Church but had at last confessed its inability to carry it out. The pope later issued a few reform decrees, but the state of the Church was not materially bettered.

Council of Basel, 1431â€“1449.

116.The sturdy resistance of the Bohemians to those who proposed to bring them back to the orthodox faith by arms finally attracted the attention of Europe and called forth considerable sympathy. In 1431 the last of the crusades against them came to an ignominious end, and Martin V was forced to summon a new council in order to consider the policy which should be adopted toward the heretics. The Council of Basel lasted for no less than eighteen years. At first its prestige was sufficient to enable it to dominate thepope, and it reached its greatest authority in 1434 after it had arranged a peace with the moderate party of the Bohemian heretics. The council, however, continued its hostility towards Pope Eugene IV (elected in 1431), and in 1437 he declared the council dissolved and summoned a new one to meet at Ferrara. The Council of Basel thereupon deposed Eugene and chose an anti-pope. This conduct did much to discredit the idea of a general council in the eyes of Europe. The assembly gradually dwindled away and finally in 1449 acknowledged the legitimate pope once more.

Council of Ferrara-Florence, 1438â€“1439.

Union of Eastern and Western Churches.

Meanwhile the Council of Ferrara[211]had taken up the momentous question of consolidating the Eastern and Western Churches. The empire of the East was seriously threatened by the on-coming Ottoman Turks, who had made conquests even west of Constantinople. The Eastern emperor's advisers urged that if a reconciliation could be arranged with the Western Church, the pope might use his influence to supply arms and soldiers to be used against the Mohammedans. When the representatives of the Eastern Church met with the Council of Ferrara the differences in doctrine were found to be few, but the question of the headship of the Church was a most difficult one. A form of union was, nevertheless, agreed upon in which the Eastern Church accepted the headship of the pope, "saving the privileges and rights of the patriarchs of the East."

Results of the Council of Ferrara.

While Eugene received the credit for healing the breach between the East and the West, the Greek prelates, upon returning home, were hailed with indignation and branded as robbers and matricides for the concessions which they had made. The chief results of the council were (1) the advantage gained by the pope in once more becoming the recognized head of Christendom in spite of the opposition of the Council of Basel, and (2) the fact that certain learned Greeks remainedin Italy, and helped to stimulate the growing enthusiasm for Greek literature.

No more councils were held during the fifteenth century, and the popes were left to the task of reorganizing their dominions in Italy. They began to turn their attention very largely to their interests as Italian princes, and some of them, beginning with Nicholas V (1447â€“1455), became the patrons of artists and men of letters. There is probably no period in the history of the papacy when the head of the Church was more completely absorbed in forwarding his political interests and those of his relatives, and in decorating his capital, than in the seventy years which elapsed between 1450 and the beginning of the German revolt against the Church.

General Reading.â€”Creighton,History of the Papacy(Longmans, Green & Co., 6 vols., $2.00 each), Vol. I, is perhaps the best treatment of the Great Schism and the Council of Constance.Pastor,History of the Popes(Herder, 6 vols., $18.00), Vol. I, Book 1, gives the most recent and scholarly account from the standpoint of a Roman Catholic.

Italy the center of European culture in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

117.While England and France were settling their differences in the wretched period of the Hundred Years' War, and the little German principalities, left without a leader,[212]were busied with their petty concerns, Italy was the center of European culture. Its cities,â€”Florence, Venice, Milan, and the rest,â€”reached a degree of prosperity and refinement undreamed of beyond the Alps. Within their walls learning and art made such extraordinary progress that this period has received a special name,â€”theRenaissance,[213]or new birth. The Italian towns, like those of ancient Greece, were really little states, each with its own peculiar life and institutions. Of these city-states a word must be said before considering the new enthusiasm for the works of the Romans and Greeks and the increasing skill which the Italian artists displayed in painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Map of Italy in the fourteenth century.

The map of Italy at the beginning of the fourteenth century was still divided into three zones, as it had been in the time of the Hohenstaufens. To the south lay the kingdom of Naples. Then came the states of the Church, extending diagonally across the peninsula. To the north and west lay the group of city-states to which we now turn our attention.

Venice and its relations with the East.

Of these none was more celebrated than Venice, which in the history of Europe ranks in importance with Paris and London. This singular town was built upon a group of sandy islets lying inthe Adriatic Sea about two miles from the mainland. It was protected from the waves by a long, narrow sand bar, similar to those which fringe the Atlantic coast from New Jersey southward. Such a situation would not ordinarily have been deliberately chosen as the site of a great city; but its very desolation and inaccessibility had recommended it to its first settlers, who, in the middle of the fifth century, had fled from their homes on the mainland to escape the savage Huns.[214]As time went on the location proved to have its advantages commercially, and even before the Crusades Venice had begun to engage in foreign trade. Its enterprises carried it eastward, and it early acquired possessions across the Adriatic and in the Orient.[215]The influence of this intercourse with the East is plainly shownin the celebrated church of St. Mark, whose domes and decorations suggest Constantinople rather than Italy.

A Scene in VeniceA Scene in Venice

St Mark's, VeniceSt Mark's, Venice

Venice extends her sway on the Italian mainland.

The aristocratic government of Venice.

It was not until early in the fifteenth century that Venice found it to her interest to extend her sway upon the Italian mainland. She doubtless believed it dangerous to permit her rival, Milan, to get possession of the Alpine passes through which her goods found their way north. It may be, too, that she preferred to draw her food supplies from the neighborhood instead of transporting them across the Adriatic from her eastern possessions. Moreover, all the Italian cities except Venice already controlled a larger or smaller area of country about them. Although Venice was called a republic, there was a strong tendency toward a government of the few. About the year 1300 all the townsmen except the members of certain noble families were excluded from the Grand Council, which was supposed to represent the people at large.

In 1311 the famous Council of Ten was created, whose members were elected by the Grand Council for one year. The whole government, domestic and foreign, was placed in the hands of this smaller council, in conjunction with the doge (i.e., duke), the nominal head of the republic; but they were both held strictly accountable to the Grand Council for all that they did. The government was thus concentrated in the hands of a very few. Its proceedings were carried on with great secrecy, so that public discussion, such as prevailed in Florence and led to innumerable revolutions there, was unheard of in Venice. The Venetian merchant was a busy person who was quite willing that the state should exercise its functions without his interference. In spite of the aristocratic measures of the council, there was little tendency to rebellion, so common in the other Italian towns. The republic of Venice maintained pretty much the same form of government from 1300 until its destruction by Napoleon in 1797.

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