[1085] Statut. Synod. Joan. Episc. Ratispon. ann. 1512 (Hartzheim VI. 86).
[1086] Art. 18e “Item. Mais, Nous nous plaignions d’aucuns chanoines qui nous gâtent nôtre bordeau de la ville, car il y en a qui le tiennent en leurs maisons, privément, pour tous venans.”—Quoted from a contemporary MS. by Abraham Ruchat in his “Histoire de la Reformation de la Suisse,” T. I. p. xxxiii.-v. (Genève, 1727). According to Cornelius Agrippa, the Roman prelates derived a regular revenue from this source, the right to keep definite numbers of strumpets in the public brothels being partitioned out between them.—De Vanitate Scient, c. lxiv.
[1087] See, for instance, Novelle, P. III. Nov. lvi.
[1088] Reformat. Cleri German. (Hartzheim VI. 198).—“Hanc perditissimam hæresin ... non parvam habuisse occasionem, partim a perditis moribus et vita clericorum etc.”
There was no scruple in confessing this fact by those who spoke authoritatively for the Catholic church, and it long continued to be alleged as the cause of the stubbornness of the heretics. Thus the Bishop of Constance, in the canons of his Synod of 1567—“Estote etiam memores, damnatam et detestandam cleri vitam huic malo in quo, proh dolor! versamur, majori ex parte ansam præbuisse.... Omnes sapientes peritique viri unanimi sententia hoc asserunt, hocque efflagitant penitus, ut prius clerus ecclesiarumque ministri ac doctores a vitæ sordibus repurgentur, quam ulla cum adversariis nostris de doctrina concordia expectari queat.” And then, after describing in the strongest terms the vices of the clergy and their unwillingness to reform, he adds “Quæ sane morum turpitudo, vehementer et tantopere imperiti populi animos offendit ut subinde magis magisque a catholica nostra religione alienior efficiatur, atque sacerdotium una cum sacerdotibus doctrinam juxta atque doctores, execretur, dirisque devoveat: ita ut protinus ad quamvis sectam deficere potius paratus sit quam quod ad ecclesiam redire velit.”—Synod. Constant. ann. 1567 (Hartzheim VII. 455).
Pius V. himself did not hesitate to adopt the same view. In an epistle addressed to the abbots and priors of the diocese of Freysingen, in 1567, he says—“Cum nobiscum ipsi cogitamus quæ res materiam præbuerit tot tantisque pestiferis hæresibus ... tanti mali causam præcipue fuisse judicamus corruptos prælatorum mores, qui ... eandemque vivendi licentiam iis, quibus præerant permittentes et exemplo eos suo corrumpentes, maximum apud laicos odium contemptionem et invidiam non immerito contraxerunt.” (Hartzheim. VII. 586).
Alfonso de Castro in 1556 declares that the priesthood was one of the efficient causes of the spread of heresy. It would be difficult for orthodoxy to maintain itself without the direct interposition of God, in view of the scandalous lives, and general worthlessness of all orders of ecclesiastics, whose excessive numbers, ignorance, and turpitude exposed them to contempt.—Alph. de Castro de Just. Punit. Hæres. Lib. III. c. 5.
[1089] Reformat. Cleri German, cap. xv.—So when, in 1521, Conrad, Bishop of Wurzburg, issued a mandate for the reformation of his clergy, he described them as for the most part abandoned to gluttony, drunkenness, gambling, quarrelling, and lust.—Mandat. pro. Reformat. Cleri. (Gropp, Script. Rer. Wirceburg. I. 269).—In 1505 the Bishop of Bamberg, in complaining of his clergy, shows us how little respect was habitually paid to the incessant repetition of the canons.—“Condolenter referimus vitam et honestatem clericalem adeo apud quamplures nostrarum civitatis et dioceseos clericos esse obumbratam ut vix inter clericos et laycos discrimen habeatur: et ipsa statuta nostra synodalia in ipsorum clericorum cordibus obliterata et a pluribus non visa aut perlecta vilipendantur: nullam propter nostram, quam hactenus pii pastoris more tolleravimus patientiam, capientes emendationem.”—(Hartzheim VI. 66.)
[1090] Grillandi Tract. de Sortilegiis Quæst. xvii. No. 1.
[1091] Gravamin. Ordin. Imperii cap. xxi., lvii., lxx. (Goldast. I. 464).