[1367] Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 611.
[1368] Consult. Imp. Ferdinand. (Le Plat, V. 235). It would be impossible to conceive a darker picture of clerical life than is given in this document. “Ejici autem nunc clerum, conculcari pedibus, pro nihilo haberi et tanquam publicum offendiculum devoveri diris aut paulo plus, tam verum est quam minime falsum, cleri mores insulsos esse, vanos esse, turpes esse, æque ecclesiæ perniciosos ac Deo execrabiles”—Ibid. p. 237.
[1369] Krasinski, Reformation in Poland, I. 190, 285.
[1370] Hosii Dialogus de ea, num Calicem Laicis et Uxores Sacerdotibus permitti etc. Dilingæ, 1558.
[1371] Pallavicini, Storia del Concil. di Trento, Lib. XIV. c. 13.
Twelve years before, his uncle, the Bishop of Liége, in promulgating the Augsburg formula of reformation, had made a similar assertion—“Preterquam quod hoc infœlici sæculo, quo omnis caro corrupit viam suam, præsertimque ordo clericorum et ecclesiasticorum, nimium degenerant, plus quam unquam est necessaria”—Concil. Leodiens. ann. 1548 (Hartzheim VI. 392). The increased emphasis of Ferdinand is a measure of the success which had attended the reformatory movements of Charles V. during the interval.
In such a condition of ecclesiastical morality it is no wonder that even in orthodox Vienna the most popular theme on which preachers could expatiate was the corruption of the church.—See the Emperor Ferdinand’s secret instructions to his envoy in Rome, March 6th, 1560, in Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 622.
[1372] Pallavicini, loc. cit. That the Catholic church of Germany had become widely infected with this Lutheran heresy is also shown by the fact that in 1548 the Archbishop of Cologne had found it necessary to prohibit throughout his province all marriages of priests, monks, and nuns, and had pronounced illegitimate the offspring of such unions.—Hartzheim VI. 357.
[1373] Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 644.
[1374] Pallavicini, Lib. XV. c. 5.—The duke, though no bigot, was a good Catholic.