CHAPTER XIV.
I. THE SALE OF INDULGENCES (1517-18).
While Erasmus in 1517 was hard at work at the revision of his New Testament, publishing the first instalment of his Paraphrases,[652] recommending the ‘Utopia’ and the ‘Christian Prince’ to the perusal of princes and their courtiers,[653] expressing to his friends at the Papal Court his trust that under Leo X. Rome herself might become the centre of peace and religion,[654]—while Erasmus was thus working on hopefully, preparing the way, as he thought, for a peaceful reform, Europe was suddenly brought, by the scandalous conduct of princes and the Pope, to the very brink of revolution.
Leo X. wants money.
Leo X. was in want of money. He had no scruple to tax the Christian world for selfish family purposes any more than his predecessors in the Papal chair; but times had altered, and he thought it prudent, instead of doing so openly, to avoid scandal, by cloaking his crime in double folds of imposture and deception. It mattered little that a few shrewd men might suspect the dishonesty of the pretexts put forth, if only the multitude could be sufficiently deluded to make them part with their money.
Tenths and indulgences.
A war against the Turks could be proposed and abandoned the moment the ‘tenths’ demanded to pay its expenses were safe in the Papal exchequer. If indulgences were granted to all who should contribute towards the building of St. Peter’s at Rome, the profits could easily be devoted to more pressing uses. So, in the spring of 1517, the payment of a tenth was demanded from all the clergy of Europe, and commissions were at the same time issued for the sale of indulgences to the laity. Some opposition was to be expected from disaffected princes; but experience on former occasions had proved that these would be easily bribed to connive at any exactions from their subjects by the promise of a share in the spoil.[655]
Hence the project seemed to the Papal mind justified on Machiavellian principles, and, judged by the precedents of the past, likely to succeed.
Satire on indulgences in the ‘Praise of Folly.’
But the seeds of opposition to Machiavellian projects of this kind had recently been widely sown. More in his ‘Utopia,’ and Erasmus in his ‘Christian Prince,’ had only a few months before spoken plain words to people and princes on taxation and unjust exactions. Erasmus, too, in his ‘Praise of Folly,’ had spoken contemptuously of the crime of false pardons, in other words, of Papal indulgences.[656] And though Lystrius, in his recent marginal note on this passage, had explained that Papal indulgences are not included in this sweeping censure, ‘unless they be false, it being no part of our business to dispute of the pontifical power,’ yet he had almost made matters worse by adding:—