A provincial synod of Gnesen, of which the date is uncertain, but which was probably held in 1577, deplored the insane audacity displayed by ecclesiastics in marrying, and threatened them with the Tridentine anathema.[1438] This warning appears to have been completely disregarded, for the Bishop of Breslau, a suffragan of the metropolis of Gnesen, in opening his diocesan synod in 1580, still complained that many of his clergy were guilty of this perversity, and he was at some pains to disavow any complicity with it, or any connivance at the licentiousness which was prevalent among the unmarried.[1439] In 1591 the synod of Olmutz asserted that many clerks in holy orders contracted pretended marriages, and were not ashamed of the families growing up publicly around them, while others indulged in scandalous concubinage with women, whom they styled house-keepers or cooks. In endeavoring to put an end to this state of affairs, the synod manifested its estimation of the morals of the priesthood by renewing the hideous suggestions which we have seen in the tenth and twelfth centuries, for pastors were allowed to have near them the female relatives authorized by the Nicene canons, but, in view of the assaults of the tempter, were prudently advised not to let them reside in their houses.[1440] The disregard of the Tridentine canon continued, and as late as 1628, at the synod of Osnabruck, the orator who opened the proceedings inveighed in the vilest terms against the female companions of the clergy, who not only occupied the position of wives, but were even dignified with the title.[1441]
Even in Spain, under Philip II., the new ideas had penetrated, and priestly marriages became sufficiently numerous to render it necessary for the Inquisition to add to its “Edict of Denunciations,” which was read during Lent in every church, a command to reveal to the authorities any case of marriage on the part of monks or of ecclesiastics in holy orders.[1442]
We have seen above that the highest authorities in the church did not hesitate openly to attribute the origin and success of the Reformation to the scandalous corruption of the ecclesiastical body. The council of Trent had not resulted in removing the scandal, and clear-sighted prelates were not wanting who proclaimed that the same causes continued to operate and to produce the same effect. Anthony, Archbishop of Prague, in his synod of 1565, took occasion to declare that the misfortunes of the church were attributable to the dissoluteness of the clergy, and that the extirpation of heresy could best be effected by reforming the depraved morals and filthy lives of ecclesiastics.[1443] At the council of Salzburg, in 1569, Christopher Spandel, in the closing address, asked the assembled prelates what title was more contemptible or more odious than that of priest in consequence of the license in which the clergy as a body indulged.[1444] The clergy of France, assembled at Melun in July, 1579, when addressing Henry III. with a request for the publication of the council of Trent, assured him that the heresy which afflicted Christendom was caused by the corruption of the church, and that it could only be eradicated by a thorough reformation.[1445] Though the Inquisition took care that Spain should not be much troubled by heretics, yet the synod of Orihuella, in 1600, declared that the concubinage practised by ecclesiastics was the principal source of popular animosity and complaint against them.[1446] These complaints were general. In 1599, Cuyck, Bishop of Ruremonde, published a work aimed at concubinary priests, in which he assured them that they and their predecessors were the cause of the ruin and devastation of the Netherlands for the last thirty years, for their vices had led to the contempt felt for the clergy, and thus to the heresy which had caused the civil wars. Those who kept their vows he asserts to be as rare as the grapes that can be gleaned after the vintage or the olives left after gathering the crop; but the only remedy he can suggest is increased vigilance and severity on the part of the prelates.[1447] Evidently, the Tridentine canons had thus far been a failure. In 1609, at the synod of Constance, the Rev. Dr. Hamerer, in an official oration to the assembled prelates, deplored the continued spread of heresy, which he boldly told them was caused by the perpetually increasing immorality that pervaded all classes of the priesthood. The Reformation had begun, had derived its strength, and was still prospering through their weakness, which rendered them odious to the people, and made the Catholic religion a by-word and a shame.[1448] In 1610, the Bishop of Antwerp, in a synodal address, agreed with Bishop Cuyck in attributing the evils which had so grievously afflicted the church of Flanders for nearly half a century, to the same cause, and, while recounting the various successive efforts at internal reform made since the council of Trent, he pronounced each one to have been a failure in consequence of the incurable obstinacy of the clergy.[1449] Damhouder, a celebrated jurisconsult of Flanders, whose unquestioned piety and orthodoxy gained for him the confidence of Charles V. and Philip II., does not hesitate to speak of the clergy of his time as men who rarely lived up to their professions, and who as a general rule were scoundrels distinguished for their indulgence in all manner of evil.[1450] In a similar mood the Bishop of Bois-le-Duc, in opening his synod of 1612, declared that the scandalous lives of the ecclesiastics were a source of corruption to the laity and a direct encouragement of heresy.[1451] So, in 1625, the synod of Osnabruck gave as its reason for endeavoring to enforce the Tridentine canons that the true religion was despised on account of the depraved morals of its ministers, whose crimes were a sufficient explanation of the stubbornness of the heretics. So little concealment of their frailty was thought necessary that they openly enriched their children from the patrimony of the church, and decked their concubines with ornaments and vestments taken from the holy images, even as we have seen was the custom among the Anglo-Saxons of the tenth century.[1452]
The Thirty Years’ War proved a more effectual bar to the spread of heresy than these fruitless efforts to cure the incurable malady of the church. After the Peace of Westphalia, there was no further need to appeal to the dread of proselyting Lutheranism as a stimulus to virtue, but still the same process of reasoning appears in exhortations to regain the forfeited respect of the community. Thus, in 1652, the Bishop of Munster expressed his horror at the obstinacy with which, in spite of fines, edicts, and canons, his clergy persisted in retaining their concubines, and he declared that the discordance between the professions and the practice of the priesthood rendered them a stench in the nostrils of the people and destroyed the authority of religion itself;[1453] and in 1662 the synod of Cologne deplored that the notorious want of respect felt for the ministers of Christ was the direct result of their own immorality.[1454] A doctrine even sprang up to the effect that it was not requisite to force a concubinarian to eject his companion if she was useful to him in his housekeeping or if it would be difficult for him to obtain another servant; and this became sufficiently formidable to entitle it to a place among the errors of belief formally condemned by the Roman Inquisition in its decree of March, 1666.[1455]
In France the influence of the Tridentine canons had been equally unsatisfactory. At a royal council held in 1560, which resolved upon the assembly of the States at Orleans, Charles de Marillac, Bishop of Vienne, declared that ecclesiastical discipline was almost obsolete, and that no previous time had seen scandals so frequent or the life of the clergy so reprehensible.[1456] From the proceedings of the Huguenot Synod of Poitiers, in 1560, it is evident that priests not infrequently secretly married their concubines, and, when the woman was a Calvinist, her equivocal position became a matter of grave consideration with her church.[1457] The only result of the Colloquy of Poissy, in 1561, was that Catherine de Medicis prevailed upon the bishops to present a request to the king asking him to use his influence with the pope to concede the marriage of priests and the use of the cup by the laity. Means were found, as we have seen, to prevent the former of these demands from being made, while the latter, when presented, was peremptorily refused.[1458] In the existing condition of affairs, the council of Trent could not reasonably be expected to effect much, for, as the orthodox Claude d’Espence informs us, the French prelates, like the Germans, were in the habit of collecting the “cullagium” from all their priests and informing those who did not keep concubines that they might do so if they liked, but must pay the license-money, whether or no.[1459] In 1564, the Cardinal of Lorraine, not long after his return from the council, held a provincial synod at Rheims, where he contented himself with declaring that the ancient canons enjoining chastity should be enforced.[1460] The next year, 1565, a synod held at Cambray reduced the penalties to a minimum, and afforded every opportunity for purchasing immunity, by enacting that those who consorted with loose women, and who remained obdurate to warnings and reprehension, should be punished at the pleasure of the officials.[1461] In two years more the same council was fain to ask the aid of the secular arm to remove the concubines of its clergy[1462]—a course again suggested as late as 1631.[1463] The terms in which Claude, Bishop of Evreux, at his synod of 1576, announced his intention of taking steps to eject those who for the future should persist in their immorality show not only that such measures were even yet an innovation, but also indicate little probability of their being successful.[1464] The council of Rheims, in 1583, while proclaiming that the Tridentine canons shall be enforced on all concubinary priests, manifests a reasonable doubt as to the amount of respect which they will receive in threatening that those who are contumacious shall be subdued by the secular arm.[1465] The council of Tours, in the same year, deplores that the whole ecclesiastical body is regarded with aversion by the good and pious on account of the scandals perpetrated by a portion of them. To cure this evil, the residence of suspected women, even when connected by blood, is forbidden, as well as of the children acknowledged to be sprung from such unions, and various penalties are denounced against offenders.[1466] The council of Avignon, in 1594, declares that the numerous decrees relative to the morals and manners of the clergy are either forgotten or neglected, and then proceeds to forbid the residence of suspected women.[1467] That of Bordeaux, in 1624, earnestly warns the clergy of the province not to allow their sisters and nieces to live in their houses, and especially not to sleep in the same room with them;[1468] and various other synods held during the period repeated the well-known regulations on the subject, which are only of interest as showing how little they were respected.[1469]
No one, in fact, who is familiar with the popular literature of France during that period can avoid the conviction that the ecclesiastical body was hopelessly infected with the corruption which, emanating from the foulest court in Christendom, spread its contagion throughout the land. If Rabelais and Bonaventure des Periers reflect the depravity which was universal under Francis I., Brantôme, Beroalde de Verville and Noël du Fail continue the record of infamy under Catherine de Medicis and her children.[1470] The genealogy of sin is carried on by Tallemant des Réaux, Bussy-Rabutin, and the crowd of memoir writers who flourished in the Augustan age of French literature. Into these common sewers of iniquity it is not worth our while to penetrate; but, when the high places in the hierarchy were filled with men to whom the very name of virtue was a jest, we need not hesitate to conclude that the humbler members of the church were equally regardless of their obligations to God and man.
It is evident from all this that the standard of ecclesiastical morals had not been raised by the efforts of the Tridentine fathers, and yet a study of the records of church discipline shows that with the increasing decency and refinement of society during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the open and cynical manifestations of license among the clergy became gradually rarer. It may well be doubted, nevertheless, whether their lives were in reality much purer. A few spasmodic efforts were made to enforce the Nicene canon, prohibiting the residence of women, but they were utterly fruitless, and were so recognized by all parties; and the energies of the arch-priests and bishops were directed to regulating the character of the handmaidens, who were admitted to be a necessary evil. The devices employed for this purpose were varied, and repeated with a frequency which shows their insufficiency; and it would be scarce worth our while to do more than indicate some sources of reference for the curious student who may wish to follow up the reiteration which we have traced already through so many successive centuries.[1471] Among them, however, one new feature shows itself, which indicates the growing respect paid to the appearance of decency—complaints that concubines are kept under the guise of sisters and nieces.