One good effect at least resulted from Erasmus's attacks on the ignorance of monks, and this was the revival of learning in most of the religious orders. Every inducement was offered by the Carmelite superiors in the Lower Rhine Province to cultivate a taste for study. Those who had gone through a three or four years' course of theology creditably had a distinct right to a post of some dignity, and took rank immediately after those priests of the order who had celebrated their jubilee, and before all conventuals who had an inferior record as to studies. The faithful discharge of offices for a prolonged period was also rewarded by honourable recognition. The sentiments thus appealed to may not have been of the loftiest, but it must be remembered that the reform was to be gradual, and higher motives could be suggested when the subject was ready for them. The superiors of this province were supported in all their efforts by the general, who was bent on a thorough renewal of the religious spirit throughout the Order; but in the midst of all these righteous aspirations it is a little startling to find that a decree of the Chapter-General was needed to put down drinking-bouts in sundry houses of the Rhine Province.*
* Dr. Alois Postina, Der Karmelit Eberhard Billick. Ein Lebensbild aus dem 16, Jahrhundert, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1901, p. 25.
In 1541, Eberhard Billick was appointed provincial, and almost immediately began to visit the houses in his jurisdiction. At Cologne he found a condition of things sufficient to make the boldest reformer quail. The Lutherans had entirely gained the upper hand, and a certain Count William of Neuenar and Mors, who had been for some tine a follower of the new doctrines, was bent on introducing them by force into Mors. He first forbade the practise of the Catholic religion among his tenants, and then tried to seduce the religious. They were forbidden to say Mass except on Sundays, and then even none outside the convent were to be admitted to it. Their church was given over to the Lutherans, and the friars were forced into being present at the Protestant sermons. Not content with this, Count William inflicted seven Lutheran beneficiaries upon them, obliging them to lodge and feed them gratis. Lutheran preachers and school teachers were salaried out of the convent revenues, which the Count managed by fraud and cunning to confiscate. That portion of the convent buildings which bordered on his property he turned into stables for his own horses, so that entrance to the friar's quarters was open to his servants, while the Carmelites were themselves forbidden to go in and out on that side.
The new Provincial succeeded in time by dint of courage and firmness, in getting back all that the Count had seized by force; but other houses were in as deplorable a condition, and little could be done to improve matters. Billick appealed to the Emperor, who had taken all the Carmelite convents in Lower Germany under his protection; but the Emperor's goodwill surpassed his power to help, the whole of his money and energy being needed to oppose the Turks, the French, and the Duke of Cleves.
The greatest danger and difficulty lay in the behaviour of Count Hermann of Wied, Archbishop and Elector of Cologne. From the outset his rule had been detrimental to the Church. The best that could be said of him in his youth was that he was "kind and peace-loving, fond of hunting, but not particularly learned." Charles V., in a letter to the landgrave Philip of Hessen, who had joined the Lutherans, says: "How should the good man be able to reform his diocese? He has no Latin, and has never said more than three Masses in his life. He does not even know the Confiteor." Philip replied: "I can assure your Majesty that he reads German industriously, and interests himself in religious questions."
Unfortunately, these "religious questions" threw the archbishop into the arms of the Lutherans, and already in 1536, Aleander considered him as much lost to the Church as Philip of Hessen himself, who made no secret of his apostasy. Melancthon was his dear friend already when he made the acquaintance of Martin Bucer at the Diet of Hagenau in 1540.
Two years later, Archbishop Hermann invited this violent and notorious heretic to preach in the minster at Bonn. Immediately, Cologne rose up in protest, and the Cathedral Chapter, the clergy and the Magistrate presented the archbishop with a remonstrance. Hermann replied by sending Melancthon to support Bucer at Bonn, and thus, by entrusting the work of reform to men whose sole aim was to subvert Catholic doctrine and to disorganise Christian society, proved himself faithless to the solemn promise he had made neither to introduce religious novelties into his diocese, nor to abolish customs founded on Catholic tradition.
The Chapter, fully alive to the critical nature of the situation, drew up a memorandum, dated 5th February 1543, in which they showed good reasons why Bucer could not be tolerated as a minister of religion in the diocese. His broken vows, his marriage, his open profession of Luther's doctrines, proved sufficiently that he was no longer a member of the Catholic Church. Further, his preaching at Strassburg had resulted directly in the wholesale destruction of images and altars, and ultimately in the abolition of the Mass in that place. The memorandum went on to affirm that, in patronising such a man the Archbishop was acting in direct disobedience to the Pope and to the Emperor.
Bucer's answer to these objections was devised in such a manner as to cause his opponents some embarrassment. It was written in the Swiss dialect, an unknown tongue to the clergy of Cologne, as well as to the university. Nevertheless, before long, an epitome of its purport was furnished to the Chapter, and the refutation of the doctrines therein set forth was entrusted to the Carmelite provincial, Billick.
The two champions were personally not unknown to each other, as they had met at the Diets of Worms and Regensburg, where Billick had made a point of studying the Strassburg heresiarch carefully. The Carmelite now skilfully exposed the weakness of Bucer's arguments, together with his frequent misinterpretation of Scripture and the Fathers, Billick showing himself to be an experienced polemical writer; but the taste and tone of his book are repugnant to modern ideas, and betray the same acrimony which characterises the writings of Luther against Erasmus, and vice versa. Accusations of hatred, cunning, lying, slandering, and double-dealing, are cast like a hail of bullets, with no especial aim at any of Bucer's arguments in particular. Interspersed with much able criticism are choice epithets of abuse and reflections on Bucer's personal character, which, although perfectly in accordance with sixteenth century methods of controversy, are quite beside the mark, and certainly not such as to promote peace in any age.