In Spain, the most dangerous opponent of the Reformation, Ignatius Loyola, succeeded to some extent in repressing the public and unblushing manifestation of concubinage. His biographer states that the female companions of the Peninsular clergy were accustomed to pledge their faith to their consorts, as if united by the marriage-tie, and that they wore the distinguishing costume of married women, as though glorying in their shame.[1332] Scandalized by this, on his return to his native land, in 1535, Ignatius exerted himself to abolish it, together with other priestly peccadilloes, and his influence was sufficient to procure the enactment and enforcement by the temporal authorities of sundry laws which relieved the Spanish church from so great an opprobrium.[1333] Yet, though this semi-authorized cohabitation may have been checked, the custom of notorious concubinage continued to flourish. Bernardino Diaz de Luco, a Spanish jurist, not long afterwards, deplores the frequency of the vice, but warns judges that they should not be over-severe in repressing it, since so few are found guiltless, and there is danger that those who are restrained from it may be forced into darker sins.[1334]
About the same time, Hermann von Wied, Archbishop of Cologne, undertook the reformation of his extensive diocese. He assembled a council which issued a series of 275 canons, prescribing minutely the functions, duties, and obligations of all grades of the clergy. As regards the delicate subject of concubinage, he contented himself with quoting the Nicene canon prohibiting the residence of women not nearly connected by blood, and added that if the degeneracy of the times prevented the enforcement of a regulation so strict, at all events he forbade the companionship of females obnoxious to suspicion.[1335] The good bishop himself could hardly have expected that so mild an allocution would have much effect upon a perverse and hardened generation.
In 1537, Matthew, Archbishop of Salzburg, assembled his provincial synod, which, recognizing the urgent necessity of preserving the church and protecting the people, adopted a series of reformatory canons. Apparently afraid of promulgating them, however, it was resolved to suppress them for the present under the pretext that the approaching general council would regulate the discipline of the church at large, and the archbishop contented himself with a pastoral letter addressed to his suffragans, in which he urged upon them to consider the contamination to which the laity were exposed through the vices of their pastors, and timidly suggested that, if the clergy could not restrain their passions, they should at all events indulge them secretly, so that scandal might be avoided and the punishment of their transgressions be left to an avenging God.[1336]
Even in the council of Trent itself, the Bishop of St. Mark, in opening its proceedings with a speech, January 6th, 1546, drew a fearful picture of the corruption of the world, which had reached a degree that posterity might possibly equal but not exceed. This he assured the assembled fathers was attributable solely to the wickedness of the pastors, who drew their flocks with them into the abyss of sin. The Lutheran heresy had been provoked by their own guilt, and its suppression was only to be hoped for by their own reformation.[1337] At a later session, the Bavarian orator, August Baumgartner, told the assembled fathers that the progress of the Reformation was attributable to the scandalous lives of the clergy, whose excesses he could not describe without offending the chaste ears of his auditory. He even asserted that out of a hundred priests there were not more than three or four who were not either married or concubinarians[1338]—a statement repeated in a consultation on the subject of ecclesiastical reform drawn up in 1562 by order of the Emperor Ferdinand, with the addition that the clergy would rather see the whole structure of the church destroyed than submit to even the most moderate measure of reform.[1339]
It is not to be wondered therefore that the Christian world had long and earnestly demanded the convocation of an œcumenic council which should represent all parties, should have full powers to reconcile all differences, and should give to the ancient church the purification thus recognized as the only efficient means of healing the schism. This was a remedy to the last degree distasteful to the Holy See. The recollections of Constance and Bâle were full of pregnant warnings as to the almost inevitable antagonism between the Vicegerent of Christ and an independent representative body, believing itself to act under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, claiming autocratic supremacy in the church, and convoked for the special purpose of reforming abuses, the most of which were fruitful sources of revenue to the papal court. Such a body, if assembled in Germany, would be the pope’s master; if in Italy, his tool; and it behooved him to act warily if he desired to meet the unanimous demand of Christendom without risking the sacrifice of his most cherished prerogatives. Had the council been called in the early days of the Reformation, it could hardly have prevented the separation of the churches; yet, in the temper which then existed, it would probably have effected as thorough a purification of the ecclesiastical establishment as was possible in so corrupt an age. By delaying it until the reactionary movement had fairly set in, the chances of troublesome puritans gaining the ascendency were greatly diminished, and the papal court exposed itself to little danger when, under the urgent pressure of the emperor, it at length, in 1536, proposed to convoke the long desired assembly at Mantua.[1340]
A place so completely under papal influence was not likely to meet the views of the opposition, and it is not surprising that both the Lutherans and Henry VIII. refused to connect themselves with such a council. The latter, indeed, in his epistle of April 8, 1538, to Charles V., expressed himself more forcibly than elegantly:—“Nowe, if he [the pope] calle us to one of his owne townes, we be afraid to be at suche an hostes table. We saye, Better to ryse a hungred, then to goo thense with oure bellyes fulle.”[1341] The formality of its opening, May 17th, 1537, was therefore an empty ceremony; its transfer to Vicenza was little more; and, as no delegates presented themselves up to the 1st of May, 1538, it was prorogued until Easter, 1539, with the promise of selecting a satisfactory place for the meeting. The pressure still continued until, in May, 1542, Paul finally convoked it to assemble at Trent. The Reformers were no better satisfied than before. They had so long professed their readiness to submit all the questions in dispute to a free and unbiased general council, that they could not refuse absolutely to countenance it; but they were now so completely established as a separate organization, that they had little to hope and everything to fear from the appeal which they had themselves provoked, and nothing which Rome could now offer would have brought them into willing attendance upon such a body.[1342] They accordingly kept aloof, and on the assembling of the council, November 22d, 1542, its numbers were so scanty that it could accomplish nothing, and it was accordingly suspended in July, 1543. When again convoked, March 15th, 1545, but twenty bishops and a few ambassadors were present; these waited with what patience they might command for accessions, which were so tardy in arriving that when at length the assembly was formally opened, on the 13th of December, the number had increased by only five. For fifteen months the council continued its sessions, completely under the control of the pope, and occupied solely with measures designed to draw the line between the Catholic and the Reformed churches more sharply than ever.
The appeals of the German bishops and of the imperial ambassadors for some effective efforts at reform became at length too pressing, and to evade them, in March, 1547, the council was transferred to Bologna, against the earnest protest of the emperor and the Spaniards, who refused to follow.[1343] At Bologna little was done except to dispute over the sharp protests of the emperor and to adjourn the council from time to time, until, after falling into universal contempt, it was suspended in 1549. Julius III., who received the tiara on the 22d of February, 1550, signalized his accession by convoking it again at Trent; and there it once more assembled on the 1st of May, 1551.
At that time Lutheranism in Germany was under the heel of Charles V.; Maurice of Saxony was ripening his schemes of revolt, and concealing them with the dexterity in which he was unrivalled; it was the policy of both that Protestant theologians should take part in the discussions—of the one, that they should there receive their sentence; of the other, that their presence might assist in cloaking his designs. The flight from Innspruck, followed by the Transaction of Passau, changed the face of affairs. The Lutheran doctors rejoicingly shook the dust from their feet as they departed from Trent, complaining that they had been treated as criminals on trial, not as venerable members of a body assembled to decide the gravest questions relating to this life and that to come. Other symptoms of revolt among the Catholic nations were visible, and on the 28th of April, 1552, the council again broke up.[1344]
Ten years passed away; the faithful impatiently demanded the continuation of the work which had only been commenced, and at last the pressure became so strong that Pius IV. was obliged to reassemble the council.[1345] His Bull bears date November, 1560, but it was not until twenty years after Trent had witnessed the first convocation that the holy men again gathered within its walls, and on the 18th of January, 1562, the council resumed its oft-interrupted sessions. The States of the Augsburg Confession had been politely invited to participate in the proceedings, but they declined with the scantest of courtesy.[1346]