VII.
THE REFORM MOVEMENT FROM THE DIET OF 1359 TO THE RETIREMENT OF THE GERMANS FROM THE PRAGUE UNIVERSITY.
(1359-1409.)
Many causes had paved the way for that revolution, both of thought and action, which marks the fourteenth century. The complete failure of the crusades had shaken the faith of the people generally in the leadership of those princes and nobles who had organised these expeditions. The insurrection of “the Shepherds” in France had been one of the first results of this feeling; while the extraordinary performances of the Flagellants or Scourging Friars showed yet more clearly the extravagances which the popular discontent might produce.
Nor, in the general whirl of thought and feeling, was it easy to foresee on which side any new development of this feeling should be classed; whether it should be condemned as a source of heresy and a disturbance of order, or applauded as a revival of stronger faith and stricter discipline. The Dominicans and Franciscans, called into existence to combat heresy and to strengthen the Papal power, were looked upon by the secular clergy as intruders on their lawful privileges and disturbers of the peace; while the Franciscan renunciation of property gradually led them on to the advocacy of doctrines, which were at least as inconvenient to Popes and Cardinals as to the secular nobles.
It is characteristic of the way in which anxiety for their temporal possessions was colouring all the feelings of the defenders of the Church, that, throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the name with which its champions were most eager to brand their opponents, as indicating the darkest shade of heresy, was the name of “Picard.” This word was a corruption of “Beghard,” the title of a Flemish sect, which had been distinguished for its devotion and zeal for prayer, but which had alarmed the rulers of the world by its advocacy of community of goods.
The confusion produced in men’s minds by the failure of the Church’s armies to recover Palestine, was still further increased by the retirement of the Popes to Avignon, and at a later time by that schism in the Papacy which followed the restoration of the Papal rule in Rome; and, along with the desire for the re-establishment of the unity of the Church, there grew the wish for a revival of peace and purity in the general life of Europe.
Of all the rulers of the fourteenth century Charles IV. seemed the most likely to guide these conflicting movements into channels, which should be at once favourable to the champions of the Papacy, and welcome to the promoters of peace and purity.
As King of Bohemia he had inherited, through his mother’s family, traditions of special devotion to the Church; and most of the circumstances of his career were of a kind to encourage the hopes of the Pope and the clergy. He had been elected to the Imperial throne, in opposition to the most bitterly anti-papal of Emperors, Louis of Bavaria; he had steadily opposed all the proposals which had been made to him, to induce him to assert his Imperial authority over the Italian cities; and he had prefaced the Majestas Carolina with an assertion of his adherence to the Catholic faith, and a denunciation of heresy. No doubt that clause in the Golden Bull which repudiated the necessity of a Papal sanction to the election of an Emperor, had drawn a protest from the Pope; but this error had surely been more than compensated for, by the zeal which Charles had shown for the restoration of the Pope to Rome, and for the maintenance of the Papal authority in Italy.
It must, then, have been with a shock of painful surprise that, in 1359, Pope Innocent VI. found himself suddenly opposed by this orthodox champion of the Church. The first cause of division had been a demand of Charles, that the Pope would repeal some decrees which hindered the Emperor from reforming the discipline of the clergy. Innocent had been so indignant at this demand, that he had tried to rouse the Electors against the Emperor; but he had wholly failed in that attempt, and had been forced to make some concessions to Charles.
The next point of difference was connected with a yet more burning question. Innocent had demanded new tithes from the princes of the Empire. Many of them had refused; and now, at an Assembly at Mainz, the Papal Legate again raised the question, possibly hoping to obtain Charles’s support. But the Emperor answered his demand by an expression of surprise, that the Pope was so much more zealous for collecting money than for reforming the morals of the clergy. Then, turning suddenly to the Dean of Mainz, who was wearing a splendid silken robe ornamented with gold, he made him exchange the magnificent dress for the simple cloth robe which Charles himself wore; and, as he put on the grand dress of the ecclesiastic, he appealed to the spectators to say if he did not now look more like a knight than a dean. This practical exhibition of clerical luxury the Emperor followed by a stern rebuke to the bishops for not enforcing a more strict decorum of life among the clergy; and he even threatened to tax their income for the support of the royal exchequer.
In Germany, unfortunately, there were many nobles who were ready to take advantage of the reforming movement to promote their own ends. That the clergy should live more simply seemed to these nobles a most desirable thing; and to help them to attain so satisfactory a condition, they proceeded to plunder their houses, and lay waste their lands. Such acts were utterly opposed to Charles’s intentions; and he checked these outrages so sternly that the Pope was once more forced to recognise him as his safest and strongest supporter. Perhaps this last circumstance made it easier for Charles to carry out his plans for reformation in Bohemia. In that kingdom, however, he worked by different methods, and with somewhat different objects from those at which he had aimed in his German schemes of reformation; for in Bohemia he trusted rather to the moral effect which could be produced by great preachers than to legislation or forcible repression.