History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, Volume 1

by J. H. Merle d'Aubigné

The rural districts became the theatre of numerous excesses. The places where priests resided were often the abodes of dissoluteness. Corneille Adrian at Bruges,[30] and Abbot Trinkler at Cappel,[31] imitated the manners of the East, and had their harems. Priests associating with low company, frequented taverns and played at dice, crowning their orgies with quarrels and blasphemy.[32] The Council of Schaffhausen issued an order forbidding priests to dance in public except at marriages, or to carry more than one kind of weapon. They, moreover, ordered that such priests as were found in houses of bad fame should be stript of their cassocks.[33] In the archbishopric of Mayence, they leapt the walls at night, and then shouted and revelled in all sorts of debauchery within taverns and inns. Doors and locks were not secure from their attacks.[34] In several places, each priest was liable to the bishop in a certain tax for the female he kept, and for every child she bore him. One day, a German bishop, who was attending a great festival, openly declared that in a single year, the number of priests who had been brought before him for this purpose amounted to eleven thousand. This account is given by Erasmus.[35]

Among the higher orders of the priesthood, the corruption was equally great. The dignitaries of the Church preferred the turmoil of camps to chanting at the altar, and to take lance in hand, and reduce those around them to obedience, was one of the first qualities of a bishop. Baldwin of Tours, who was constantly warring with his vassals and neighbours, razed their castles, built others of his own, and thought of nothing but enlarging his territory. It is told of a certain bishop of Eichstadt, that when he sat in his court, he had a coat-of-mail under his gown, and a large sword in his hand. One of his sayings was, that in fair fight he was not afraid of five Bavarians.[36] The bishops and the inhabitants of the towns where they resided were perpetually at war. The burghers demanded freedom, while the priests insisted on absolute obedience. When the latter proved victorious, they punished revolt, and satiated their vengeance with numbers of victims; but the flame of insurrection burst forth at the very moment when they imagined they had suppressed it. And what a spectacle was presented by the pontifical throne at the period immediately preceding the Reformation! To say the truth, even Rome was not often witness to such infamy.

Roderigo Borgia, after he had lived with a lady of Rome, continued the same illegitimate intercourse with her daughter, Rosa Vanozza, and had five children by her. This man, a cardinal and an archbishop, was living at Rome with Vanozza, and other females besides, frequenting churches and hospitals, when the pontifical chair became vacant by the death of Innocent VIII. Borgia secured it by buying each cardinal for a regular price. Four mules loaded with gold publicly entered the palace of Cardinal Sforza, the most influential among them. Borgia became Pope under the name of Alexander VI, and was delighted at having thus reached the pinnacle of pleasure.

On his coronation-day, he appointed his son Cæsar, a youth of ferocious temper and dissolute habits, Archbishop of Valentia and Bishop of Pampeluna. Then, when his daughter Lucretia was married, he celebrated the occasion in the Vatican with fêtes which were attended by his mistress, Julia Bella, and enlivened by comedies and obscene songs. "All the ecclesiastics," says a historian,[37] "had mistresses, and all the convents of the capital were houses of bad fame." Cæsar Borgia espoused the faction of the Guelphs, and when, by their assistance, he had destroyed the Ghibelins, he turned round upon the Guelphs, and, in like manner, destroyed them. But he was unwilling that any should share the spoil with him, and, therefore, after Alexander had, in 1497, made his eldest son Duke of Benevento, the Duke disappeared. George Schiavoni, a dealer in wood on the banks of the Tiber, one night saw a dead body thrown into the river, but said nothing; such occurrences were common. The dead body proved to be that of the Duke, who had been murdered by his brother Cæsar.[38] Nor was this enough. Having taken offence at his brother-in-law, he made him be stabbed on the stair of the pontifical palace. The wounded man, covered with blood, was carried to his apartment, where he was constantly watched by his wife and sister, who, dreading Cæsar's poison, prepared his food with their own hands. Alexander placed sentinels at his door, but Cæsar laughed at their precautions, and as the pope was going to see his son-in-law, Cæsar said to him, "What is not done at dinner will be done at supper." In short, he one day forced his way into the room, drove out the wife and sister, and calling in his executioner, Michilotto, the only person to whom he showed any confidence, looked on while his brother-in-law was strangled.[39] Alexander had a favourite, named Peroto. The pope's partiality for him offended the young Duke. He pursued him, and Peroto, taking refuge under the pontifical mantle, clasped the pope in his arms. Cæsar stabbed him, and the blood of his victim sprung into the pontiffs face.[40] "The pope," adds a contemporary witness to these scenes, "loves his son the Duke, and is much afraid of him." Cæsar was the handsomest and most powerful man of his age. He fought with six wild bulls, and despatched them with ease. Every morning at Rome persons were found who had been assassinated during the night, while poison carried off those whom the sword could not reach. Men dared not to move or breathe in Rome, every one trembling till his own turn should arrive. Cæsar Borgia was the hero of crime. The spot of earth where iniquity attained this dreadful height was the pontifical throne. When once man has given himself over to the powers of darkness, the higher the station he pretends to occupy in the sight of God, the deeper he sinks into the abysses of hell. The dissolute fêtes which were given in the pontifical palace by the pope, his son Cæsar, and his daughter Lucretia, cannot be described, or even thought of, without horror. The impure groves of antiquity, perhaps, never saw the like. Historians have accused Alexander and Lucretia of incest, but the proof seems defective. The pope had prepared poison for a rich cardinal, in a small box of comfits which were to be served after a sumptuous repast. The cardinal being put on his guard, bribed the steward, and the poisoned box was placed before Alexander, who ate of it and died.[41] The whole city ran to see the dead viper, and could not get enough of the sight.[42]

Such was the man who occupied the pontifical see at the beginning of the century in which the Reformation commenced.

The clergy having thus brought religion and themselves into disrepute, a powerful voice might well exclaim, "The ecclesiastical state is opposed to God and to his glory. The people well know this, and but too well do they show it, by the many songs, proverbs, and jests, against priests, which are current among the lower classes, and by all those caricatures of monks and priests which we see on all the walls, and even on playing cards. Every man feels disgust when he sees or when he hears of an ecclesiastic." These are Luther's words.[43]

The evil had spread through all ranks. A spirit of error had been sent to men, corruption of manners kept pace with corruption of faith, and a mystery of iniquity lay like an incubus on the enslaved Church of Jesus Christ.

There was another consequence which necessarily resulted from the oblivion into which the fundamental doctrine of the gospel had fallen. Ignorance was the companion of corruption. The priests having taken into their own hands the distribution of a salvation which belongs only to God, deemed this a sufficient title to the respect of the people. What occasion had they to study sacred literature? Their business was not to expound the Scriptures, but to give diplomas of indulgence—a ministry which called not for the laborious acquisition of extensive knowledge.

In the rural districts, says Wimpheling, the persons selected for preachers were miserable creatures, who had been previously raised from beggary, cast-off cooks, musicians, huntsmen, grooms, and still worse.[44]