[48] The famous Benedictine monastery just outside the city of Bamberg.
[49] The proposal made at Constance (see above, p. 82, note 2) was more generous. It suggested a salary of three to four thousand gulden.
[50] As early as the XIV Century both England and France had enacted laws prohibiting the very practices of which Luther here complains. It should be noted, however, that these laws were enforced only occasionally, and never very strictly.
[51] The papal court or curia consisted of all the officials of various sorts who were employed in the transaction of papal business, including those who were in immediate attendance upon the person of the pope, the so-called "papal family." On the number of such officials in the XVI Century, see Benrath, p. 88, note 18, where reference is made to 949 offices, exclusive of those which had to do with the administration of the city of Rome and of the States of the Church, and not including the members of the pope's "family." The Gravamina of 1521 complain that the increase of these offices in recent years has added greatly to the financial burdens of the German Church (Wrede, Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V, II, 675).
[52] On the annates, see Vol. I, p. 383, note 1. Early in their history, which dates from the beginning of the XIV. Century, the annates (fructus medii temporis) had become a fixed tax on all Church offices which fell vacant, and the complaint of extortion in their appraisement and collection was frequently raised. The Council of Constance restricted the obligation to bishoprics and abbacies, and such other benefices as had a yearly income of more than 24 gulden. The Council of Basel (1430) resolved to abolish them entirely, but the resolution of the Council was inoperative, and in the Concordat of Vienna (1448) the German nation agreed to abide by the decision of Constance. On the use of the term "annates" to include other payments to the curia, especially the servitia, see Catholic Encyclopedia, I, pp. 537 f.
Luther here alleges that the annates are not applied to their ostensible purpose, viz., the Crusade. This charge is repeated in the Gravamina of the German Nation presented to the Diet of Worms (1521), with the additional allegation that the amount demanded in the way of annates has materially increased (A. Wrede, Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V., II, pp. 675 f.). Similar complaints had been made at the Diet of Augsburg (1518), and were repeated at the Diet of Nürnberg (Wrede, op. cit., III, 660). Hutten calls the annates "a good at robbery" (Ed. Böcking, IV, 207). In England the annates were abolished by Act of Parliament (April 10, 1532)
[53] On the crusading-indulgences, see Vol. I, p. 18.
[54] i. e., As was done by the Council of Basel. See above, p. 84, note i.
[55] The canons are the clergy attached to a cathedral church who constituted the "chapter" of that cathedral, and to whom the right to elect the bishop normally belonged.
[56] This whole section deals with the abuse of the "right of reservation," i. e., the alleged right of the pope to appoint directly to vacant church positions. According to papal theory the right of appointment belonged absolutely to the pope, who graciously yielded the right to others under certain circumstances, reserving it to himself in other cases. The practice of reserving the appointments seems to date from the XII Century, and was originally an arbitrary exercise of papal authority. The rules which came to govern the reservation of appointments were regarded as limitations upon the authority of the pope, The rule of the "papal months," as it obtained in Germany in Luther's time, is found in the Concordat of Vienna of 1448 (Mirbt, Quellen, 2d ed., No. 261, pp. 167 f.). It provides that livings, with the exception of the higher dignities in the cathedrals and the chief posts in the monasteries, which all vacant in the months of February, April, June, August, October and December, shall be filled by the ordinary method—election, presentation, appointment by the bishop, etc.—but that vacancies occurring in the other months shall be filled by appointment of the pope.