During this long-protracted farce there were times when those who sincerely desired the restoration of the church could not restrain their impatience. In 1536, Paul III., who earnestly admitted the necessity of some reform, called to his aid nine of his prelates most eminent for virtue and piety, as a commission to prepare a scheme for internal reformation.[1347] According to a papal historian, his object in this was to stop the mouths of the heretics who found in the Roman court an inexhaustible subject of declamation.[1348] For two years the commission labored at its work, and finally produced the “Consilium de emendanda ecclesia,” to which allusion has been made above.
The stern and unbending Cardinal Caraffa was head of the commission, assisted by such men as Contarini, Sadoleto, and Reginald Pole. They seem to have been inspired with a sincere desire to root out the chief abuses which gave such power to the assaults of the Protestants, and the result of their labors affords us a picture of ecclesiastical corruptions almost as damaging to the church as the complaints of the Diet of Nürnburg. As regards celibacy, they were disposed to make no concession; indeed, they protest against the facility with which men in holy orders were able to purchase from the Roman curia dispensations to marry. It is significant, however, that they had so little confidence in the possibility of purifying the religious orders that they actually recommended the abolition of the whole monastic system. To prevent individual cases of suffering they proposed that the convents should not be immediately abolished, but that all novices should be discharged and no more be admitted, thus allowing the orders to die out gradually, as had been done in Saxony; and meanwhile they urged that, to prevent further scandals, all nunneries should be removed from the supervision and direction of monks.[1349] The “Consilium,” in fact, was so candid a confession of most of the abuses charged upon the church by the reformers that Luther forthwith translated it and published it with a commentary, as an effective pamphlet in aid of his cause. Caraffa himself, after he had attained the papacy, under the name of Paul IV., quietly put his own work, in 1559, into the Index Expurgatorius.[1350]
The changes recommended in the “Consilium” attacked too many vested interests for Paul III., however earnest himself, to be able to give it effect. The project therefore was dropped and only resulted in rendering still more clamorous the call for a reform in the head and members of the church. As, moreover, it had shown the powerlessness of the papacy to overcome acknowledged abuses, the only hope of a radical change, such as was needful, was seen to lie in the untrammelled debates of a great assembly, which should meet as a parliament of the nations; and the prospect of this grew more and more distant. While the project of transferring the council from Trent was being matured, it occurred to the papal court that possibly the objections to that measure and the pressure on the council for a thorough reformation might be averted by showing a disposition on the part of Rome to undertake the task of cleansing the Augean stable. It was also recognized as an important gain if the council could be confined to the harmless task of defining questions of faith, while the substantial powers involved in reforming the corruptions of the church could be claimed and exercised by the Pope. Accordingly Pius III. drew up an elaborate Bull designed to limit some of the more flagrant pecuniary abuses which existed, and exhorting the bishops to correct the morals of their subordinates. This was sent to the legates at Trent, but they and their confidants unanimously agreed that, in the existing temper of the council, the promulgation of such a document would be in the highest degree imprudent. It was accordingly suppressed, and has only seen the light within the present century.[1351] In its failure the church lost but little, for it touched the evils of the time with a tender and hesitating hand, and would have proved utterly inefficacious.
At length, when shortly afterwards the unmannerly urgency of the Germans, clamoring for decided measures of reform, was met by the translation of the council to Bologna in 1547, and men despaired of further results from it, Charles V. resolved to take the matter into his own hands, and to effect, for his own dominions at least, that which had been vainly expected of the council for Christendom. The “Interim,” which has already been alluded to, was intended to answer this purpose as far as Lutheranism was concerned, in healing the breach of religion. The other great object of the council, the restoration of the neglected discipline of the church, he attempted to effect by means of the secular authority of the empire acting on the regular machinery of the Teutonic ecclesiastical establishment. How utterly neglected that discipline had become is inferable from an expression in the important and carefully drawn project which had been laid by Charles before the Diet of Ratisbon in 1541, to the effect that if the canon requiring celibacy was to be enforced, it would be necessary also to revive those canons which punished incontinence, thus admitting that there existed no check whatever upon immorality.[1352]
To accomplish this desirable revival of discipline he accordingly caused the adoption by the Diet of Augsburg of a code of reformation, well adapted, if enforced, to restore the long-forgotten purity of the church, while at the same time it acknowledged that the degeneracy of the times rendered impossible the resuscitation of the ancient canons in their strictness. Thus, after reciting the canon of Neocæsarea (see p. 51), it adds, that as such severity was now impracticable, those in holy orders convicted of impurity should be separated from their concubines, and visited with suspension from function and benefice proportioned to the gravity of the offence. A repetition of the fault was punishable with increased severity, and incorrigible sinners who were found to be incapable of reformation were finally to be deprived of their benefices. As concubines were threatened with immediate excommunication, it is evident that a severity was designed towards them which was not ventured on with respect to their more guilty partners. Relaxation of the rules is also observable in the section which, despite the Nicene canon, permitted the residence of women over forty years of age, whose character and conduct relieved them from suspicion.[1353] The imperative injunctions of chastity laid upon the regular clergy, canons, and nuns, show not only the determination to remove the prevailing scandals, but also the magnitude and extent of the evil.[1354]
Nor was this all. Local councils were ordered for the purpose of embodying these decrees in their statutes, and of carrying out with energy the reformation so earnestly desired. Thus, in November, 1548, about five months after the Diet, a synod assembled at Augsburg, which inveighed bitterly against the unclerical dress and pomp of the clergy, their habits of drunkenness, gluttony, licentiousness, tavern-lounging, and general disregard of discipline; and adopted a canon embracing the regulations enacted by the emperor.[1355] The Archbishop of Trèves did not wait for his synod, but issued, October 30th, a mandate especially directed against concubinary priests, in which he announced his intention of carrying out the reform commanded by Charles. He could find no reason more self-evident for the dislike and contempt felt by the people for so many of the clergy than the immorality of their lives, differing little, except in legality, from open marriage. “This vice, existing everywhere throughout our diocese, in consequence of the license of the times and the neglect of the officials, we must eradicate. Therefore all of you, of what grade soever, shall dismiss your concubines within nine days, removing them beyond the bounds of your parishes, and be no longer seen to associate with loose and wanton women. Those who neglect this order shall be suspended from office and benefice, their concubines shall be excommunicated, and they themselves be brought before our synod to be presently held.”[1356]
These were brave words, but when, some three weeks later, the synod was assembled, and the malefactors perchance brought before it, the good bishop found apparently that his flock was not disposed to submit quietly to the curtailment of privileges which had almost become imprescriptible. His tone accordingly was softened, for though he deprecated their immorality more strongly than ever, and asserted his intention of enforcing his mandate, he condescended to argue at much length on the propriety of chastity, and even descended to entreaty, beseeching them to preserve the purity so essential to the character of the church, the absence of which had drawn upon the clergy an odium which could scarce be described in words.[1357] How slender was his success may be inferred from the fact that the next year he felt it necessary to hold another synod, in which he renewed and confirmed the proceedings of the former one, and endeavored to reduce the monks and nuns of his diocese into some kind of subjection to the rules of discipline.[1358]
The Archbishop of Cologne was as energetic as his brother of Trèves, with about equal success. On September 1st he issued the Augsburg Formula of Reformation, with a call for a synod to be held on October 2d. At the same time he manifested his sense of the primary importance of correcting clerical immorality by promulgating a special mandate respecting concubinage. He asserted this to be the chief cause of the contempt popularly felt for the church,[1359] and he ordered all ecclesiastics to send their women beyond the bounds of their parishes within nine days, under the penalties provided in the imperial decree. The synod was held at the time indicated, and, though it adopted no regular canons, it accepted the Augsburg Formula and the mandate of the archbishop, with a trifling alteration.[1360]
This proved utterly ineffectual, for in March, 1549, he assembled a provincial council, in which he deplored the license of the times, which rendered the strictness of the ancient canons unadvisable, and he announced that it had been decided to proceed gradually with the intended reforms. As to the morals of the clergy, he stated that everywhere the cure of souls was delegated to improper persons, many of them living in the foulness of concubinage, in perpetual drunkenness, and in other infamous vices, encouraged by the negligence of bishops and the thirst of archdeacons for unhallowed gains. The unions of those who, infected by the new heresies, did not hesitate to enter into matrimony, were of course pronounced illicit and impious, their offspring illegitimate, and the parents anathematized; but for those who remained in the church, yet submitted to no restraint upon their passions, a more merciful spirit was shown, for the punishments ordered by the Diet of Augsburg were somewhat lightened in their favor. The extreme license of the period may be understood from another canon directed against the comedians, who, not content with the ordinary theatres, were in the habit of visiting the nunneries, where their profane plays and amatory acting excited to unholy desires the virgins dedicated to God.[1361] No one acquainted with the coarseness of the drama of that rude age can doubt the propriety of the archbishop’s reproof. Supplementary synods were also held in October, 1549, and February, 1550, to perfect the details of a very thorough inquisitorial visitation of the whole province.
This visitation, so pompously heralded, did not take place. At a synod held in October, 1550, the archbishop made sundry lame excuses for its postponement. Another synod was assembled in February, 1551, at which we hear nothing more of it; but the prelates of the diocese were requested to collect such ancient and forgotten canons as they could find, which might be deemed advantageous in the future;[1362] and with this the work of reformation in the province of Cologne appears to end.