A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.

by Carlton J. H. Hayes

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AT THE OPENING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Differences between Religious Bodies in 1500 and Those in 1900]

Four hundred years ago, practically all people who lived in central or western Europe called themselves "Christians" and in common recognized allegiance to an ecclesiastical body which was called the "Catholic Church." This Catholic Church in 1500 differed from any present-day religious society in the following respects: (1) Every child was born into the Church as now he is born into the state; every person was expected to conform, at least outwardly, to the doctrines and practices of the Church; in other words the Catholic Church claimed a universal membership. (2) The Church was not supported by voluntary contributions as now, but by compulsory taxes; every person was compelled to assist in defraying the expenses of the official religion. (3) The state undertook to enforce obedience on the part of its subjects to the Church; a person attacking the authority of the Catholic Church would be liable to punishment by the state, and this held true in England and Germany as well as in Spain or Italy.

[Sidenote: Rise of Protestantism]

Then, within fifty years, between 1520 and 1570, a large number of Catholic Christians, particularly in Germany, Scandinavia, Scotland, and England, and a smaller number in the Low Countries and in France, broke off communion with the ancient Church and became known as Protestants. Before the year 1500 there were no Protestants; since the sixteenth century, the dominant Christianity of western and central Europe has been divided into two parts—Catholic and Protestant. It is important that we should know something of the origin and significance of this division, because the Christian religion and the Christian Church had long played very great roles in the evolution of European civilization and because ecclesiastical and religious questions have continued, since the division, to deserve general attention.

[Sidenote: "Catholic" Christianity]

Let us understand clearly what was meant in the year 1500 by the expression "Catholic Christianity." It embraced a belief in certain religious precepts which it was believed Jesus of Nazareth had taught at the beginning of the Christian era, the inculcation of certain moral teachings which were likewise derived from Jesus, and a definite organization—the Church—founded, it was assumed, by Jesus in order to teach and practice, till the end of time, His religious and moral doctrines. By means of the Church, man would know best how to order his life in this world and how to prepare his soul for everlasting happiness in the world to come.

[Sidenote: The Catholic Church]

The Catholic Church was, therefore, a vast human society, believed to be of divine foundation and sanction, and with a mission greater and more lofty than that of any other organization. Church and state had each its own sphere, but the Church had insisted for centuries that it was greater and more necessary than the state. The members of the Church were the sum-total of Christian believers who had been baptized —practically the population of western and central Europe—and its officers constituted a regular governing hierarchy.

[Sidenote: Head of the Church]

At the head of the hierarchy was the bishop of Rome, styled the pope or sovereign pontiff, who from the first had probably enjoyed a leading position in the Church as the successor of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and whose claims to be the divinely appointed chief bishop had been generally recognized throughout western Europe as early as the third century—perhaps earlier. The bishop of Rome was elected for life by a group of clergymen, called cardinals, who originally had been in direct charge of the parish churches in the city of Rome, but who later were frequently selected by the pope from various countries because they were distinguished churchmen. The pope chose the cardinals; the cardinals elected the pope. Part of the cardinals resided in Rome, and in conjunction with a host of clerks, translators, lawyers, and special officials, constituted the Curia, or papal court, for the conduct of general church business.

[Sidenote: Local Administration of the Church]
[Sidenote: Secular Clergy]

For the local administration of church affairs, the Catholic world was divided under the pope into several territorial subdivisions, (1) The patriarchates had been under patriarchs who had their sees [Footnote: "See," so called from the Latin sedes, referring to their seat or chair of office. Similarly our word "cathedral" is derived from the Latin cathedra, the official chair which the bishop occupies in his own church.] in such ancient Christian centers as Rome. Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch. and Constantinople. (2) The provinces were divisions of the patriarchates and usually centered in the most important cities, such as Milan, Florence, Cologne, Upsala, Lyons, Seville, Lisbon, Canterbury, York; and the head of each was styled a metropolitan or archbishop. (3) The diocese—the most essential unit of local administration—was a subdivision of the province, commonly a city or a town, with a certain amount of surrounding country, under the immediate supervision of a bishop. (4) Smaller divisions, particularly parishes, were to be found in every diocese, embracing a village or a section of a city, and each parish had its church building and its priest. Thus the Catholic Church possessed a veritable army of officials from pope and cardinals down through patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, to the parish priests and their assistants, the deacons. This hierarchy, because it labored in the world (sæculo), was called the "secular clergy."

[Sidenote: "Regular" Clergy]

Another variety of clergy—the "regulars"—supplemented the work of the seculars. The regulars were monks, [Footnote: The word "monk" is applied, of course, only to men; women who followed similar rules are commonly styled nuns.] that is, Christians who lived by a special rule (regula), who renounced the world, took vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and strove to imitate the life of Christ as literally as possible. The regular clergy were organized under their own abbots, priors, provincials, or generals, being usually exempt from secular jurisdiction, except that of the pope. The regulars were the great missionaries of the Church, and many charitable and educational institutions were in their hands. Among the various orders of monks which had grown up in the course of time, the following should be enumerated: (1) The monks who lived in fixed abodes, tilled the soil, copied manuscripts, and conducted local schools. Most of the monks of this kind followed a rule, or society by-laws, which had been prepared by the celebrated St. Benedict about the year 525: they were called therefore Benedictines. (2) The monks who organized crusades, often bore arms themselves, and tended the holy places connected with incidents in the life of Christ: such orders were the Knights Templars, the Knights Hospitalers of St. John and of Malta, and the Teutonic Knights who subsequently undertook the conversion of the Slavs. (3) The monks who were called the begging friars or mendicants because they had no fixed abode but wandered from place to place, preaching to the common people and dependent for their own living upon alms. These orders came into prominence in the thirteenth century and included, among others, the Franciscan, whose lovable founder Saint Francis of Assisi had urged humility and love of the poor as its distinguishing characteristics, and the Dominican, or Order of the Preachers, devoted by the precept of its practical founder, Saint Dominic, to missionary zeal. All the mendicant orders, as well as the Benedictine monasteries, became famous in the history of education, and the majority of the distinguished scholars of the middle ages were monks. It was not uncommon, moreover, for regulars to enter the secular hierarchy and thus become parish priests or bishops, or even popes.

[Sidenote: Church Councils]
[Sidenote: Conciliar Movement]

The clergy—bishops, priests, and deacons—constituted, in popular belief, the divinely ordained administration of the Catholic Church. The legislative authority in the Church similarly was vested in the pope and in the general councils, neither of which, however, could set aside a law of God, as affirmed in the gospels, or establish a doctrine at variance with the tradition of the early Christian writers. The general councils were assemblies of prelates of the Catholic world, and there had been considerable discussion as to the relative authority of their decrees and the decisions and directions of the pope. [Footnote: Papal documents have been called by various names, such as decretals, bulls, or encyclicals.] General church councils held in eastern Europe from the fourth to the ninth centuries had issued important decrees or canons defining Christian dogmas and establishing ecclesiastical discipline, which had been subsequently ratified and promulgated by the pope as by other bishops and by the emperors; and several councils had been held in western Europe from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries under the direct supervision of the bishop of Rome, all the canons of which had been enacted in accordance with his wishes. But early in the fifteenth century a movement was inaugurated by certain Catholic bishops and scholars in favor of making the councils superior to the pope and a regular source of supreme legislation for the Church. In this way, the councils of Constance (1414-1418) and Basel (1431 ff.) had endeavored to introduce representative, if not democratic, government into the Church. The popes, however, objected to this conciliar movement and managed to have it condemned by the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1442). By the year 1512 the papal theory had triumphed and Catholics generally recognized again that the government of the Church was essentially monarchical. The laws of the Catholic Church were known as canons, and, of several codes of canon law which had been prepared, that of a monk named Gratian, compiled in the twelfth century, was the most widely used.

[Sidenote: The Pope and his Powers]

We are now in a position to summarize the claims and prerogatives of the bishop of Rome or pope. (1) He was the supreme lawgiver. He could issue decrees of his own, which might not be set aside by any other person. No council might enact canons without his approval. From any law, other than divine, he might dispense persons. (2) He was the supreme judge in Christendom. He claimed that appeals might be taken from decisions in foreign courts to his own Curia, as court of last resort. He himself frequently acted as arbitrator, as, for example, in the famous dispute between Spain and Portugal concerning the boundaries of their newly discovered possessions. (3) He was the supreme administrator. He claimed the right to supervise the general business of the whole Church. No archbishop might perform the functions of his office until he received his insignia—the pallium—from the pope. No bishop might be canonically installed until his election had been confirmed by the pope. The pope claimed the right to transfer a bishop from one diocese to another and to settle all disputed elections. He exercised immediate control over the regular clergy—the monks and nuns. He sent ambassadors, styled legates, to represent him at the various royal courts and to see that his instructions were obeyed. (4) He insisted upon certain temporal rights, as distinct from his directly religious prerogatives. He crowned the Holy Roman Emperor. He might depose an emperor or king and release a ruler's subjects from their oath of allegiance. He might declare null and void, and forbid the people to obey, a law of any state, if he thought it was injurious to the interests of the Church. He was temporal ruler of the city of Rome and the surrounding papal states, and over those territories he exercised a power similar to that of any duke or king. (5) He claimed financial powers. In order to defray the enormous expenses of his government, he charged fees for certain services at Rome, assessed the dioceses throughout the Catholic world, and levied a small tax—Peter's Pence—upon all Christian householders.

[Sidenote: Purpose of the Church]

So far we have concerned ourselves with the organization of the Catholic Church—its membership, its officers, the clergy, secular and regular, all culminating in the pope, the bishop of Rome. But why did this great institution exist? Why was it loved, venerated, and well served? The purpose of the Church, according to its own teaching, was to follow the instructions of its Divine Master, Jesus Christ, in saving souls. Only the Church might interpret those instructions; the Church alone might apply the means of salvation; outside the Church no one could be saved. [Footnote: Catholic theologians have recognized, however, the possibility of salvation of persons outside the visible Church. Thus, the catechism of Pope Pius X says: "Whoever, without any fault of his own, and in good faith, being outside the Church, happens to have been baptized or to have at least an implicit desire for baptism, and, furthermore, has been sincere in seeking to find the truth, and has done his best to do the will of God, such an one, although separated from the body of the Church, would still belong to her soul, and therefore be in the way of salvation.">[ The salvation of souls for eternity was thus the supreme business of the Church.

[Sidenote: Theology]

This salvation of souls involved a theology and a sacramental system, which we shall proceed to explain. Theology was the study of God. It sought to explain how and why man was created, what were his actual and desirable relations with God, what would be the fate of man in a future life. The most famous theologians of the Catholic Church, for example, St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), studied carefully the teachings of Christ, the Bible, the early Christian writings, and the decrees of popes and councils, and drew therefrom elaborate explanations of Christian theology—the dogmas and faith of the Catholic Church.

[Sidenote: The Sacramental System]

The very center of Catholic theology was the sacramental system, for that was the means, and essentially the only means, of saving souls. It was, therefore, for the purpose of the sacramental system that the Church and its hierarchy existed. The sacraments were believed to have been instituted by Christ Himself, and were defined as "outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace." The number generally accepted was seven: baptism, confirmation, holy eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony. By means of the sacraments the Church accompanied the faithful throughout life. Baptism, the pouring of water, cleansed the child from original sin and from all previous actual sins, and made him a Christian, a child of God, and an heir of heaven. The priest was the ordinary minister of baptism, but in case of necessity any one who had the use of reason might baptize. Confirmation, conferred usually by a bishop upon young persons by the laying on of hands and the anointing with oil, gave them the Holy Ghost to render them strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ. Penance, one of the most important sacraments, was intended to forgive sins committed after baptism. To receive the sacrament of penance worthily it was necessary for the penitent (1) to examine his conscience, (2) to have sorrow for his sins, (3) to make a firm resolution never more to offend God, (4) to confess his mortal sins orally to a priest, (5) to receive absolution from the priest, (6) to accept the particular penance—visitation of churches, saying of certain prayers, or almsgiving—which the priest might enjoin. The holy eucharist was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the consecration of bread and wine by priest or bishop, its miraculous transformation (transubstantiation) at his word into the very Body and Blood of Christ, and its reception by the faithful. It was around the eucharist that the elaborate ritual and ceremonies of the Mass developed, that fine vestments and candles and incense and flowers were used, and that magnificent cathedrals were erected. Extreme unction was the anointing at the hands of a priest of the Christian who was in immediate danger of death, and it was supposed to give health and strength to the soul and sometimes to the body. By means of holy orders,—the special imposition of hands on the part of a bishop,—priests, bishops, and other ministers of the Church were ordained and received the power and grace to perform their sacred duties. Matrimony was the sacrament, held to be indissoluble by human power, by which man and woman were united in lawful Christian marriage.

Of the seven sacraments it will be noticed that two—baptism and penance—dealt with the forgiveness of sins, and that two—holy orders and matrimony—were received only by certain persons. Three—baptism, confirmation, and holy orders—could be received by a Christian only once. Two—confirmation and holy orders—required the ministry of a bishop; and all others, except baptism and possibly matrimony, required the ministry of at least a priest. The priesthood was, therefore, the absolutely indispensable agent of the Church in the administration of the sacramental system. It was the priesthood that absolved penitents from their sins, wrought the great daily miracle of transubstantiation, and offered to God the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

[Sidenote: Various Objections to the Church]

It must not be supposed that either the theology or the organization of the Catholic Church, as they existed in the year 1500, had been precisely the same throughout the Christian era. While educated Catholics insisted that Christ was indirectly the source of all faith and all practice, they were quite willing to admit that external changes and adaptations of institutions to varying conditions had taken place. Moreover, it must not be supposed that the proud eminence to which the Catholic Church had attained by 1500 in central and western Europe had been won easily or at that time was readily maintained. Throughout the whole course of Christian history there had been repeated objections to new definitions of dogma—many positively refused to accept the teaching of the Church as divine or infallible— and there had been likewise a good deal of opposition to the temporal claims of the Church, resulting in increasing friction between the clergy and the lay rulers. Thus it often transpired that the kings who vied with one another in recognizing the spiritual and religious headship of the pope and in burning heretics who denied doctrines of the Catholic Church, were the very kings who quarreled with the pope concerning the latter's civil jurisdiction and directed harsh laws against its exercise.

[Sidenote: Sources of Conflict between Church and State]

As strong national monarchies rose in western Europe, this friction became more acute. On one side the royal power was determined to exalt the state and to bring into subjection to it not only the nobles and common people but the clergy as well; the national state must manage absolutely every temporal affair. On the other side, the clergy stoutly defended the special powers that they had long enjoyed in various states and which they believed to be rightly theirs. There were four chief sources of conflict between the temporal and spiritual jurisdictions, (1) Appointments of bishops, abbots, and other high church officers. Inasmuch as these were usually foremost citizens of their native kingdom, holding large estates and actually participating in the conduct of government, the kings frequently claimed the right to dictate their election. On the other hand the popes insisted upon their rights in the matter and often "reserved" to themselves the appointment to certain valuable bishoprics. (2) Taxation of land and other property of the clergy. The clergy insisted that by right they were exempt from taxation and that in practice they had not been taxed since the first public recognition of Christianity in the fourth century. The kings pointed out that the wealth of the clergy and the needs of the state had increased along parallel lines, that the clergy were citizens of the state and should pay a just share for its maintenance. (3) Ecclesiastical courts. For several centuries the Church had maintained its own courts for trying clerical offenders and for hearing certain cases, which nowadays are heard in state courts— probating of wills, the marriage relations, blasphemy, etc. From these local church courts, the pope insisted that appeals might be taken to the Roman Curia. On their side, the kings were resolved to substitute royal justice for that of both feudal and ecclesiastical courts: they diminished, therefore, the privileges of the local church courts and forbade the taking of appeals to Rome. (4) How far might the pope, as universally acknowledged head of the Church, interfere in the internal affairs of particular states? While the pope claimed to be the sole judge of his own rights and powers, several kings forbade the publication of papal documents within their states or the reception of papal legates unless the royal assent had been vouchsafed.

[Sidenote: Royal Restrictions on the Church]

Gradually the national monarchs secured at least a partial control over episcopal appointments, and in both England and France papal jurisdiction was seriously restricted in other ways. In England the power of the ecclesiastical courts had been reduced (1164); no property might be bestowed upon the Church without royal permission (1279); the pope might not make provision in England for his personal appointees to office (1351); and appeals to Rome had been forbidden (1392). [Footnote: All these anti-papal enactments were very poorly enforced.] In France the clergy had been taxed early in the fourteenth century, and the papacy, which had condemned such action, had been humiliated by a forced temporary removal from Rome to Avignon, where it was controlled by French rulers for nearly seventy years (1309-1377); and in 1438 the French king, Charles VII, in a document, styled the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, solemnly proclaimed the "liberties of the Gallican Church," that a general council was superior to the pope, that the pope might not interfere in episcopal elections, that he might not levy taxes on French dioceses. The Pragmatic Sanction was condemned by the pope, but for three-quarters of a century after its issuance there were strained relations between the Church in France and the sovereign pontiff.

[Sidenote: Political Differences Distinct from Religious Differences]

Similar conflicts between spiritual and temporal jurisdictions were common to all Christian states, but the national strength and the patriotism of the western monarchies caused them to proceed further than any other state in restricting the papal privileges. Despite the conflict over temporal affairs, which at times was exceedingly bitter, the kings and rulers of England and France never appear to have seriously questioned the religious authority of the Church or the spiritual supremacy of the pope. Religiously, the Catholic Church seemed in 1500 to hold absolute sway over all central and western Europe.

[Sidenote: Religious Opposition to Catholicism]

Yet this very religious authority of the Catholic Church had been again and again brought into question and repeatedly rejected. Originally, a united Christianity had conquered western Asia, northern Africa, and eastern Europe; by 1500 nearly all these wide regions were lost to Catholic Christianity as that phrase was understood in western Europe. The loss was due to (1) the development of a great Christian schism, and (2) the rise of a new religion—Mohammedanism.

[Sidenote: The Schism between the East and the West]

Eastern Europe had been lost through an ever-widening breach in Christian practice from the fifth to the eleventh century. The Eastern Church used the Greek language in its liturgy; that of the West used the Latin language. The former remained more dependent upon the state; the latter grew less dependent. Minor differences of doctrine appeared. And the Eastern Christians thought the pope was usurping unwarrantable prerogatives, while the Western Christians accused the Oriental patriarchs of departing from their earlier loyalty to the pope and destroying the unity of Christendom. Several attempts had been made to reunite the Catholic Church of the West and the Orthodox Church of the East, but with slight success. In 1500, the Christians of Greece, the Balkan peninsula, and Russia were thought to be outside the Catholic Church and were defined, therefore, by the pope as schismatics.

[Sidenote: Mohammedanism]

Far more numerous and dangerous to Catholic Christianity than the schismatic Easterners were the Mohammedans. Mohammed himself had lived in Arabia in the early part the seventh century and had taught that he was the inspired prophet of the one true God. In a celebrated book,— the Koran,—which was compiled from the sayings of the prophet, are to be found the precepts and commandments of the Mohammedan religion. Mohammedanism spread rapidly: within a hundred years of its founder's death it had conquered western Asia and northern Africa and had gained a temporary foothold in Spain; thenceforth it stretched eastward across Persia and Turkestan into India and southward into central Africa; and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as we have seen, it possessed itself of Constantinople, the Balkans, Greece, and part of Hungary, and threatened Christendom in the Germanies and in the Mediterranean.

[Sidenote: Western Heresies]

Even in western Europe, the Catholic Church had had to encounter spasmodic opposition from "heretics," as those persons were called who, although baptized as Christians, refused to accept all the dogmas of Catholic Christianity. Such were the Arian Christians, who in early times had been condemned for rejecting the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, and who had eventually been won back to Catholicism only with the greatest efforts. Then in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Albigensian heretics in southern France had assailed the sacramental system and the organization of the Church and had been suppressed only by armed force. In the fourteenth century, John Wycliffe appeared in England and John Hus in Bohemia, both preaching that the individual Christian needs no priestly mediation between himself and God and that the very sacraments of the Church, however desirable, are not essentially necessary to salvation. The Lollards, as Wycliffe's English followers were called, were speedily extirpated by fire and sword, through the stern orthodoxy of an English king, but the Hussites long defied the pope and survivals of their heresy were to be found in 1500.

[Sidenote: Skeptics]

In addition to these heretics and the Jews, [Footnote: For detailed accounts of the Jews during the middle ages as well as in modern times, see the Jewish Encyclopædia, ed. by Isidore Singer, 12 vols. (1901-1906).] many so-called skeptics no doubt existed. These were people who outwardly conformed to Catholicism but inwardly doubted and even scoffed at the very foundations of Christianity. They were essentially irreligious, but they seem to have suffered less from persecution than the heretics. Many of the Italian humanists, concerning whom we shall later say a word, [Footnote: See below] were in the fifteenth century more or less avowed skeptics.