The poorer noble, the "country gentleman," was hardly able to live so extravagant a life, and accordingly remained at home, sometimes making friends of the villagers, standing god-father to peasant-children, or inviting heavy-booted but light-hearted plowmen to dance in the castle courtyard. But often his life was dull enough, with rents hard to collect, and only hunting, drinking, and gossip to pass the time away.
[Sidenote: The Clergy]
A similar and sharper contrast was observable between the higher and lower clergy, in England as well as in Roman Catholic countries. Very frequently dissipated young nobles were nominated bishops or abbots: they looked upon their office as a source of revenue, but never dreamed of discharging any spiritual duties. While a Cardinal de Rohan with 2,500,000 livres a year astonished the court of France with his magnificence and luxury, many a shabby but faithful country curate, with an uncertain income of less than $150 a year, was doing his best to make both ends meet, with a little to spare for charity.
RELIGIOUS AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: The Catholic Church]
The great ecclesiastical organization that had dominated the middle ages was no longer the one church of Europe, but was still the most impressive. Although the Protestant Revolt of the sixteenth century had established independent denominations in the countries of northern Europe, as we have seen in Chapter IV, Roman Catholic Christianity remained the state religion of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, the Austrian Netherlands, Bavaria, Poland, and several of the Swiss Cantons. Moreover, large sections of the population of Ireland, Bohemia, Hungary, Asia, and America professed Catholic Christianity.
Orthodox Roman Catholics held fast to their faith in dogmas and sacraments and looked for spiritual guidance, correction, and comfort to the regular and secular clergy of their Church. The "secular" hierarchy of pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, did not cease its pious labor "in the world"; nor was there lack of zealous souls willing to forego the pleasures of this world, that they might live holier lives as monks, nuns, or begging friars,— the "regular" clergy.
[Sidenote: Relations of the Catholic Church with Lay States]
In its relations with lay states, the Roman Catholic Church had changed more than in its internal organization. Many Protestant rulers now recognized the pope merely as an Italian prince, [Footnote: The pope, it will be remembered, ruled the central part of Italy as a temporal prince.] and head of an undesirable religious sect—Roman Catholics were either persecuted, or, as in Great Britain, deprived of political and civil rights. The Pope, on the other hand, could hardly regard as friends those who had denied the spiritual mission and confiscated the temporal possessions of the Church.
In Roman Catholic countries, too, the power of the pope had been lessened. The old dispute whether pope or king should control the appointment of bishops, abbots, and other high church officers had at last been settled in favor of the king. The pope consented to recognize royal appointees, provided they were "godly and suitable" men; in return he usually received a fee ("annate") from the newly appointed prelate. Other taxes the pope rarely ventured to levy; but good Roman Catholics continued to pay "Peter's Pence" as a free-will offering, and the bishops occasionally taxed themselves for his benefit. In other ways, also, the power of the Church was curtailed. Royal courts now took cognizance of the greater part of those cases which had once been within the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts;[Footnote: Blasphemy, contempt of religion, and heresy were, however, still matters for church courts.] the right of appeal to the Roman Curia was limited; and the lower clergy might be tried in civil courts. Finally, papal edicts were no longer published in a country without the sanction of the king. These curtailments of papal privilege were doubtless important, but they meant little or nothing to the millions of peasants and humble workmen who heard Mass, were confessed, and received the sacraments as their fathers had done before them.