It is not to be wondered therefore that the Christian world had long and earnestly demanded the convocation of an Ecumenic council which should represent all parties, should have full powers to reconcile all differences, and should give to the ancient Church the purification thus recognised as the only efficient means of healing the schism. This was a remedy to the last degree distasteful to the Holy See. The recollections of Constance and Basle were full of pregnant warnings as to the almost inevitable antagonism between the Vicegerent of Christ and an independent representative body, believing itself to act under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, claiming autocratic supremacy in the Church, and convoked for the special purpose of reforming abuses the most of which were fruitful sources of revenue to the papal court. Such a body, if assembled in Germany, would be the Pope's master; if in Italy, his tool; and it behoved him to act warily if he desired to meet the unanimous demand of Christendom without risking the sacrifice of his most cherished prerogatives. Had the council been called in the early days of the Reformation, it could hardly have prevented the separation of the Churches; yet, in the temper which then existed, it would probably have effected as thorough a purification of the ecclesiastical establishment as was possible in so corrupt an age. By delaying it until the reactionary movement had fairly set in, the chances of troublesome puritans gaining the ascendency were greatly diminished, and the papal court exposed itself to little danger when, under the urgent pressure of the Emperor, it at length, in 1536, proposed to convoke the long desired assembly at Mantua.1

A place so completely under papal influence was not

1 Charles was careful to put on record his ceaseless endeavours with Clement and Paul to obtain the convocation of a council and the numberless promises made to him, for the evasion of which reasons were always found.-Commentaires de Charles-Quint, pp. 96-7 (Paris, 1862).

likely to meet the views of the opposition, and it is not surprising that both the Lutherans and Henry VIII. refused to connect themselves with such a council. The latter, indeed, in his epistle of 8 April, 1538, to Charles V., expressed himself more forcibly than elegantly :-" Nowe, if he [the Pope] calle us to one of his owne townes, we be afraid to be at suche an hostes table. We saye, Better to ryse a hungred, then to goo thense with oure bellyes fulle." 1 The formality of its opening, 17 May, 1537, was therefore an empty ceremony; its transfer to Vicenza was little more; and, as no delegates presented themselves up to 1 May, 1538, it was prorogued until Easter 1539, with the promise of selecting a satisfactory place for the meeting. The pressure still continued until, in May 1542, Paul finally convoked it to assemble at Trent. The Reformers were no better satisfied than before. They had so long professed their readiness to submit all the questions in dispute to a free and unbiassed general council, that they could not refuse absolutely to countenance it; but they were now so completely established as a separate organisation that they had little to hope and everything to fear from the appeal which they had themselves provoked, and nothing which Rome could now offer would have brought them into willing attendance upon such a body. They accordingly kept aloof, and on the assembling of the council, 22 November, 1542, its numbers were so scanty that it could accomplish nothing, and it was accordingly suspended in July 1543. When again convoked, 15 March, 1545, but twenty bishops and a few ambassadors were present; these waited with what patience they might command for accessions, which were so tardy in arriving

1 Select. Harl. Miscell., London, 1793, p. 137.

2 The temper with which the Protestants now viewed the council is well expressed in a letter from Aonio Paleario written in 1542 or 1545, from Rome to Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, and Calvin, urging them by no means to sanction the assembly with their presence-(Published by Illgen, 4to, Leipzig, 1833.)

that when at length the assembly was formally opened, on December 13, the number had increased by only five. For fifteen months the council continued its sessions, completely under the control of the Pope, and occupied for the most part with formulating as Catholic doctrine the speculations of the schoolmen, which thus far had been generally accepted without authoritative confirmation save incidentally at the Council of Florence in 1439. As these constituted the principal dogmas against which the Reformation was a protest, the labours of the fathers were directed, not to effect a reunion of the Church, but to erect an impassable barrier between Latin and Reformed Christianity.

The appeals of the German bishops and of the imperial ambassadors for some effective efforts at reform became at length too pressing, and to evade them, in March 1547, the council was transferred to Bologna, against the earnest protest of the Emperor and the Spaniards, who refused to follow.1 At Bologna little was done except to dispute over the sharp protests of the Emperor and to adjourn the council from time to time, until, after falling into universal contempt, it was suspended in 1549. Julius III., who received the tiara on 22 February, 1550, signalised his accession by convoking it again at Trent; and there it once more assembled on 1 May, 1551.

At that time Lutheranism in Germany was under the heel of Charles V.; Maurice of Saxony was ripening his schemes of revolt, and concealing them with the dexterity in which he was unrivalled; it was the policy of both that Protestant theologians should take part in the discussions -of the one, that they should there receive their sentence; of the other, that their presence might assist in cloaking his

1 There is something very amusingly suggestive in the guarded manner in which Charles alludes to the translation of the Council: "O ditto Papa Paulo por respeitos, que o moveram (os quaes Deus permitta que forsem bons) tratton de avocar e transferir a Bolonha "-(Commentaires, p. 98.)

designs. The flight from Innsbruck, followed by the Transaction of Passau, changed the face of affairs. The Lutheran doctors rejoicingly shook the dust from their feet as they departed from Trent, complaining that they had been treated as criminals on trial, not as venerable members of a body assembled to decide the gravest questions relating to this life and that to come. Other symptoms of revolt among the Catholic nations were visible, and on 28 April, 1552, the council again broke up.1

Ten years passed away; the faithful impatiently demanded the continuation of the work which had only been commenced, and at last the pressure became so strong that Pius IV. was obliged to reassemble the council.' His bull bears date November 1560, but it was not until twenty years after Trent had witnessed the first convocation that the holy men again gathered within its walls, and on 18 January, 1562, the council resumed its oftinterrupted sessions. The states of the Augsburg Confession had been politely invited to participate in the proceedings, but they declined with the scantest of courtesy.3

During these long-protracted preliminaries there were times when those who sincerely desired the restoration of

1 That the complaints of the Protestants were well founded is evident from the secret instructions given, 20 February, 1552, by Julius III. to the Bishop of Monte Fiascone, when sending him as legate to Charles V. He was to explain to the Emperor that the council would not discuss the propositions of the heretics "nimirum quod judex non respondet parti, ne ex judice se partem constituat"; and he is further to explain that "petentes commune concilium hæretici et schismatici repellendi sunt a conciliis universalibus . . . nullo modo communicandum esse concilium cum hæreticis et schismaticis, qui sunt extra ecclesiam . . . sed bene possunt admitti, ut possint interesse pro convincendis etiam pluries eorum erroribus." -Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. T. IV. p. 534-5.

2 The feeling entertained by Pius towards the council is shown by his remark, in December 1561, to M. de Lisle, the French ambassador, that it had been called simply for the benefit of France: "dautant que ledit concile, qui est de peu de besoin pour le reste de la chrestienté, superflu aux Catholiques et non desiré des papes" (Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 742).

3 The characteristic correspondence is in Le Plat, IV. 678–87.

the Church could not restrain their impatience. In 1536, Paul III., who earnestly admitted the necessity of some reform, called to his aid nine of his prelates most eminent for virtue and piety, as a commission to prepare a scheme for internal reformation. According to a papal historian, his object in this was to stop the mouths of the heretics who found in the Roman court an inexhaustible subject of declamation. For two years the commission laboured at its work, and finally produced the "Consilium de emendanda ecclesia," to which allusion has been made above.

The stern and unbending Cardinal Caraffa was head of the commission, assisted by such men as Contarini, Sadoleto, and Reginald Pole. They seem to have been inspired with a sincere desire to root out the chief abuses which gave such power to the assaults of the Protestants, and the result of their labours affords us a picture of ecclesiastical corruptions almost as damaging to the Church as the complaints of the Diet of Nürnberg. As regards celibacy, they were disposed to make no concession; indeed, they protest against the facility with which men in holy orders were able to purchase from the Roman Curia dispensations to marry. It is significant, however, that they had so little confidence in the possibility of purifying the conventual religious Orders that they actually recommended their abolition. To prevent individual cases of suffering they proposed that the convents should not be immediately abolished, but that all novices should be discharged and no

1 Charles declares that at the commencement of his pontificate Paul was earnestly desirous of reforming the abuses of the Church, but that his zeal rapidly diminished, and he followed the example of Clement in contenting himself with empty promises.-"Com tudo despois com o tempo aquellas mostras e ardor primeiro se foi esfriando, e seguindo os passos e exemplo do Papa Clemente, com boas palavras prolongon e entretene sempre a convoção e ajuntamento do concilio" (Commentaires, p. 97).

2 Per serrar la bocca agl' heretici i quali non facevano altro in voce et in scritto che dir male della corte di Roma.-Carraciolo, Vita di Paolo III. MS. Br. Mus. (Young, Life and Times of Aonio Paleario, I, 261.)