[1408] In 1560 Ferdinand addressed to Pius IV. an earnest request that a special dispensation might be granted to Maximilian, then king of Bohemia, authorizing him to receive the communion in both elements. In this he stated that his son’s scruples of conscience on the subject were so strong that he had abstained for three years from taking the sacrament. In the secret instructions to the Imperial ambassador accompanying this request, the latter is furnished with elaborate reasons to prove that the suspicions entertained at Rome of Maximilian’s orthodoxy were unfounded.—Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 619-23.
[1409] Le Plat, VI. 336.
[1410] Struvii Corp. Hist. German. II. 1097.
[1411] Bernardi Sermo. 66, in Cantica, cap. i.
[1412] Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. V. 340.
[1413] The council of Trent has never been received in France. For a résumé of the efforts made to obtain its adoption and their uniform lack of success, see Chavart, Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 507-12.
[1414] In August, 1564, Philip II. had ordered its publication in the Low Countries, but Margaret of Parma had hesitated to obey in consequence of the intense opposition excited by its interference with local liberties and franchises, as it completed and crowned the centralizing policy which rendered the papacy supreme over all local churches. It was not until Dec. 18, 1565, that it was finally promulgated, under imperative commands from Philip. It is characteristic of Philip’s habitual double-dealing, however, that while his public orders commanded the reception of the Council without exception, he secretly reserved the rights of himself and his subjects (Le Plat, Concil. Trident. VII. Præf. p. vi.).
[1415] By a Bull dated July 18, 1564, Pius IV. fixed May 1, 1564, as the time when the Tridentine canons became the law of the church. His letter to the Archbishop of Bremen with an official copy and directions as to its promulgation, is dated Oct. 3d of the same year (Hartzheim VII. 25).
It would seem to be a work of supererogation for a learned Italian lawyer to write an elaborate treatise, dedicated to Pius IV., against the abolition of celibacy, yet Marquardo dei Susani thought it worth while to do this in his “Tractatus de Cœlibatu Sacerdotum non abrogando,” 4to. Venice, 1565.
[1416] Bull. Cum primum § 12 (Mag. Bull. Roman. II. 180).