Holy things, religious privileges, had become merchandise with which the Popes trafficked. The chronicler Burchardus relates: "In those days the following couplet was sung in nearly the whole Christian world:
"Vendit Alexander claves, Altaria, Christum,
Emerat ista prius, vendere juste potest."
The meaning of this satire is: Alexander sells the power of the keys of heaven, the right to officiate at the altar, yea, Christ Himself; he had first bought these things himself, therefore he has a right to sell them again. Unblushing perfidy was practised by this Pope in his dealings with kings who were his religious subjects. In a quarrel with Charles VIII of France he threatened the king with excommunication, and sought aid from the Turkish Sultan. "However, when Charles appeared in Rome, the Pope went over to his side immediately, and delivered up to him Prince Dschem; but he took care to have him poisoned immediately, that he might not lose the price set upon his head by the Sultan." Thus he conciliated the French monarch and filled his purse by one and the same act. "By traffic in benefices, sale of indulgences, exercise of the right of spoils, and taxes for the Turkish war, as well as by the murder of rich or troublesome persons, Alexander was seeking to scrape together as much money as possible to support the wanton luxury and shameful licentiousness of his court, and provide treasures for his children." In their correspondence men who had dealings with him would refer to him in such terms as these: "That monstrous head—that infamous beast!" ("Hoc monstruoso capite—hac infami belua!")
"At length the poison which the Pope had meant for a rich cardinal, in order to make himself master of his wealth, brought upon himself well-deserved death." The Pope's butler had been bribed and exchanged the poison-cup intended for the Pope's victim for the Pope's cup, and the Pope took his own medicine.
On the basis of Alegretti's notes, Ranke has drawn a fine pen-picture of the reign of terror which Caesar Borgia, the favorite son of Alexander VI, inaugurated at Rome. "With no relative or favorite would Caesar Borgia endure the participation of his power. His own brother stood in his way: Caesar caused him to be murdered and thrown into the Tiber. His brother-in-law was assailed and stabbed, by his orders, on the steps of his palace. The wounded man was nursed by his wife and sister, the latter preparing his food with her own hands, to secure him from poison; the Pope set a guard upon the house to protect his son-in-law from his son. Caesar laughed these precautions to scorn. 'What cannot be done at noonday,' said he, 'may be brought about in the evening.' When the prince was on the point of recovery, he burst into his chamber, drove out the wife and sister, called in the common executioner, and caused his unfortunate brother-in-law to be strangled. Toward his father, whose life and station he valued only as a means to his own aggrandizement, he displayed not the slightest respect or feeling. He slew Peroto, Alexander's favorite, while the unhappy man clung to his patron for protection, and was wrapped within the pontifical mantle. The blood of the favorite flowed over the face of the Pope.—For a certain time the city of the apostles and the whole state of the Church were in the hands of Caesar Borgia. . . . How did Rome tremble at his name! Caesar required gold, and possessed enemies. Every night were the corpses of murdered men found in the streets, yet none dared move; for who but might fear that his turn would be next? Those whom violence could not reach were taken off by poison. There was but one place on earth where such deeds were possible—that, namely, where unlimited temporal power was united to the highest spiritual authority, where the laws, civil and ecclesiastical, were held in one and the same hand."
Pope Julius, who came into power after the twenty-six days' reign of Pius III, was a warlike man. "He engaged in the boldest operations, risking all to obtain all. He took the field in person, and having stormed Mirandola, he pressed into the city across the frozen ditches and through the breach; the most disastrous reverses could not shake his purpose, but rather seemed to waken new resources in him." "He wrested Perugia and Bologna from their lords. As the powerful state of Venice refused to surrender her conquests, he resolved at length, albeit unwillingly, to avail himself of foreign aid; he joined the League of Cambrai, concluded between France and the Emperor, and assisted with spiritual and temporal weapons to subdue the republic. Venice, now hard pressed, yielded to the Pope, in order to divide this overwhelming alliance. Julius, already alarmed at the progress of the French in Italy, readily granted his forgiveness, and now commenced hostilities against the French and their ally, Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. He declared that the king of France had forfeited his claim on Naples, and invested Ferdinand the Catholic with the solo dominion of his realm. He issued a sentence of condemnation against the Duke of Ferrara. Lewis XII strove in vain to alarm him by the National Council of Tours,—Germany, by severe gravamina (complaints of national grievances against the Papal See), and by the threat of the Pragmatic Sanction (an imperial order to confirm the decrees of such reform councils as that of Basel). Not even a General Council, summoned at Pisa by the two monarchs for the first of September, 1511, with the dread phantom of a reform of the Church, could bend the violent Pope." The Council of Pisa the Pope neutralized by convening a Lateran Council, which at the Pope's bidding hurled its thundering manifestos in the name of the Almighty against the Pope's enemies. He died while this conflict was raging. Luther was in Rome while the Pope was engaged as just related.
What elements of appalling greed and levity had entered the holiest transactions of the Church can be seen from the following summing up of the situation daring Luther's time: "A large amount of worldly power was at this time conferred in most instances, together with the bishoprics; they were held more or less as sinecures according to the degree of influence or court favor possessed by the recipient or his family. The Roman Curia thought only of how it might best derive advantage from the vacancies and presentations; Alexander extorted double annates or first-fruits, and levied double, nay, triple tithes; there remained few things that had not become matter of purchase. The taxes of the papal chancery rose higher from day to day, and the comptroller, whose duty it was to prevent all abuses in that department, most commonly referred the revision of the imposts to those very men who had fixed their amounts. For every indulgence obtained from the datary's office, a stipulated sum was paid; nearly all the disputes occurring at this period between the states of Europe and the Roman Court arose out of these exactions, which the Curia sought by every possible means to increase, while the people of all countries as zealously strove to restrain them.
"Principles such as these necessarily acted on all ranks affected by the system based on them, from the highest to the lowest. Many ecclesiastics were found ready to renounce their bishoprics; but they retained the greater part of the revenues, and not unfrequently the presentation of the benefices dependent on them also. Even the laws forbidding the son of a clergyman (!) to procure induction to the living of his father, and enacting that no ecclesiastic should dispose of his office by will (!), were continually evaded; for as all could obtain permission to appoint whomsoever he might choose as his coadjutor, provided he were liberal of his money, so the benefices of the Church became in a manner hereditary.
"It followed of necessity that the performance of ecclesiastical duties was grievously neglected. . . . In all places incompetent persons were intrusted with the performance of clerical duties; they were appointed without scrutiny or selection. The incumbents of benefices were principally interested in finding substitutes at the lowest possible cost; thus the mendicant friars were frequently chosen as particularly suitable in this respect. These men occupied the bishoprics under the title (previously unheard of in that sense) of suffragans; the cures they held in the capacity of vicars." (!)
In order not to extend this review too long, we shall refer only to one other Pope, Leo X. It was in the main a prosperous reign that was inaugurated by Leo X. A treaty was concluded with France, which had invaded Italy. By a diplomatic maneuver the Pragmatic Sanction was annulled, and the Lateran Council was ordered to pronounce its death-warrant. France was humbled. "All resistance was vain against the alliance of the highest spiritual with the highest temporal power. Now, at last, the papacy seemed once more to have quelled the hostile spirit which had grown up at Constance and Basel (two church councils which tried to reform the papacy, but failed), and found its stronghold in France, and at this very time it was near its most grievous fall." Two years later Luther, not fathoming as yet the depths of iniquity which he was beginning to lay bare, published his Ninety-Five Theses.