He wished to reform the Church from within. All are perversely asleep, a sleep of death[100]. Many prayers do not suffice without almas limpas e puras[101]. Men must be judged by their works[102]. In the Auto da Fé (1510) we have a simple declaration of faith:
Fé he amar a Deos só por elle
Quanto se pode amar,
Por ser elle singular,
Nam por interesse delle;
E se mais quereis saber,
Crer na Madre Igreja Santa
E cantar o que ella canta
E querer o que ella quer[103].
But four years earlier and ten before Luther's formal protest against the papal indulgences we find Vicente in his lay sermon referring to the question 'whether the Pope may grant so many pardons' and laughing at the hair-splitting of preachers: was the fruit that Eve ate an apple, a pear or a melon[104]? His own religion certainly had a mystical and pantheistic tendency[105]. It was as deep as was his love of Nature. He would have the hearts of men dance with jocund May[106]:
Hei de cantar e folgar
E bailar c'os corações,
and he had an eye for the humblest flower that blows—chicory and camomile, hedge flowerets, honeysuckle and wild roses:
Almeirones y magarzas,
Florecitas por las zarzas,
Madresilvas y rosillas (I. 95. Cf. II. 29).
And he sympathized closely with what was nearest to Nature: peasants and children. Of the people of the towns he was probably less enamoured and he speaks of a desvairada opinião do vulgo and of the folly of pandering to it[107]. At Court he certainly had many friends. A friendly rivalry in art and letters bound him to Garcia de Resende for probably over forty years and he was no doubt on excellent terms with the dadivoso Conde de Penella (II. 511), the muito jucundo Conde de Tentugal (III. 360) and the Conde de Vimioso. High rank was no certain shelter from the shafts of Vicente's wit, but when it was a case of princes he was more careful:
Agora cumpre atentar
Como poemos as mãos,
as he ingenuously remarks[108]. King João II had seen to it that no class or individual should dispute the power of the throne, and now the King reigned supreme. Kings, says Vicente, are the image of God[109]. That was in 1533, when it might seem to him that the authority of the throne was more than ever necessary to cope with the confusion of the times. The King's power stood for the nation, that of a noble might mean mere private ambition or power in the hands of one unworthy, and Gil Vicente asks nobly:
Quem não é senhor de si
Porqué o será de ninguem?
(Who himself cannot control
Why should he o'er others rule?)