the ancient canons unadvisable, and he announced that it had been decided to proceed gradually with the intended reforms. As to the morals of the clergy, he stated that everywhere the cure of souls was delegated to improper persons, many of them living in the foulness of concubinage, in perpetual drunkenness, and in other infamous vices, encouraged by the negligence of bishops and the thirst of archdeacons for unhallowed gains. The unions of those who, infected by the new heresies, did not hesitate to enter into matrimony, were of course pronounced illicit and impious, their offspring illegitimate, and the parents anathematised; but for those who remained in the Church, yet submitted to no restraint upon their passions, a more merciful spirit was shown, for the punishments ordered by the Diet of Augsburg were somewhat lightened in their favour. The extreme licence of the period may be understood from another canon directed against the comedians, who, not content with the ordinary theatres, were in the habit of visiting the nunneries, where their profane plays and amatory acting excited to unholy desires the virgins dedicated to God. No one acquainted with the coarseness of the drama of that rude age can doubt the propriety of the archbishop's reproof. Supplementary synods were also held, in October 1549 and February 1550, to perfect the details of a very thorough inquisitorial visitation of the whole province.

1

This visitation, so pompously heralded, did not take place. At a synod held in October 1550 the archbishop made sundry lame excuses for its postponement. Another synod was assembled in February 1551, at which we hear nothing more of it; but the prelates of the diocese were requested to collect such ancient and forgotten canons as they could find, which might be deemed advantageous

1 Concil. Coloniens. ann. 1549 cap. Quibus possint.-Cap. de Monach, conjugat. Cap. de Concub. Monach.-Cap. Comoedias.

1

in the future; 1 and with this the work of reformation in the province of Cologne appears to end.

In 1549, Ernest, Archbishop of Salzburg, assembled the synod of his extensive province, but when his clergy understood that it was intended to confirm the reformatory edict of the Emperor, they had the audacity to present a petition praying that the clause ordering the removal of their concubines should not be enforced. They declared that the attempt to do so would be attended with serious difficulty, and that it would lead to greater evils than it sought to remove, and they asked that the consideration of the matter should be referred to the general council, whose reassembling was no longer dreaded. The synod, with a proper sense of its dignity, refused to receive the shameless petition, and listened rather to those of its members who complained of the practice of the officials in receiving bribes for permitting illicit indulgences, and the representations of Duke William, of Bavaria, who asserted that the Lutheran heresy had been caused by the scandalous corruption of the Church. A canon was accordingly adopted which renewed the regulations of Basle and ordered the speedy removal of all recognised and notorious concubines.2

In October and November 1548, and April 1549, the Bishops of Paderborn, Wurzburg, and Strassburg held synods which adopted the reformatory measures decreed at Augsburg. These were preparatory to the metropolitan synod of Mainz, assembled in May 1549, which commanded that no one should be thereafter admitted to

3

1 Hartzheim VI. 767, 781.

2 Dalham; Concil. Salisburg. pp. 328, 337 (Concil. Salisburg. XLIV. can. vii.). 3 Gropp, Collect. Script. Wirceburg. I. 311.-Hartzheim VI. 359, 417. In the epistle convoking his council, Bishop Melchior of Wurzburg alluded passionately to the evils every where existing: "Videtis percussum pastorem; videtis oves dispersas; videtis impudentem peccandi licentiam ; videtis adversus pietatem audaciam tum loquendi tum disputandi impiissimam, et indies scelerata gliscere schismata" (Ibid. X. 753).

orders without a preliminary examination by his bishop on the subject of doctrine, and testimonials from the people as to purity of character. After thus wisely providing for the future, attention was directed to the present. It was declared intolerable that, in spite of the reiterated prohibitions of the fathers and councils, concubines should be universally kept; the Basilian canon was therefore revived, and its enforcement strictly enjoined on the ordinaries, who were forbidden in any manner to connive at these disorders for the sake of profit.1

The pressure was continued, for when Cambrai, which owed temporal obedience to the Emperor, while ecclesiastically it formed part of the province of Rheims, neglected to adopt the Formula of Augsburg for two years, it was not allowed to escape. In October 1550 a synod was finally assembled there under stringent orders from Charles, and the Formula was published, together with an elaborate series of canons which would have been well adapted to correct abuses that were not incorrigible."

Charles had thus exerted all the resources of his imperial supremacy, and, whether willingly or not, the powerful prelates who ruled the German Church had united in carrying out his views. The temporal and spiritual authorities had thus been concentrated upon the vices of the Church, and if its reformation had been possible, in the existing condition of its organisation, some improvement must have resulted from these combined and persistent efforts. How nugatory were the results may be guessed from a memorial presented in 1558, by the University of Louvain, to Philip II., exhorting him to grant no toleration to the heretics, but at the same time urging upon him the absolute necessity of some compre

1 Concil. Mogunt. ann. 1549 c. 82, 102.

2 Synod. Camerac. ann. 1550 (Hartzheim VI. 654).

hensive system of reform to purify the Church, all the orders of which were given over utterly to the twin vices of avarice and licentiousness.1 The same testimony is borne by a consultation drawn up in 1562 by order of the Emperor Ferdinand. After alluding to the efforts at reform made by Paul III. and Charles V., it declares that their only result has been to make the condition of clerical morality worse than before, exciting the hatred of the people for their priests to an incredible pitch, and doing more to inflame the ardour of heresy than all the teaching of Christian truth can do to restrain it.2

As the failure of all efforts to improve clerical morality under the existing rules of discipline was thus found to be complete, there arose in the minds of thinking men a conviction, such as Erasmus had already declared, that, since all other measures had proved fruitless, the only mode of securing a virtuous clergy was to remove the prohibition of marriage. At the Polish Diet of 1552 petitions praying for sacerdotal matrimony were presented, and, though they failed in their object, the Diet of 1556 authorised King Sigismund Augustus to address Paul IV. with a request, in the name of the nation, to grant it as well as communion in both elements.3

The dissension thus existing within the Church is exhibited in a volume published in 1558 by Stanislas Hosius, Bishop of Ermeland, earnestly arguing against communion in both elements, clerical marriage, and the use of the vulgar tongue in worship. As regards celibacy, he assumes that it had been maintained unbrokenly for

1 Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 611.

2 Consult. Imp. Ferdinand (Le Plat, V. 235). It would be impossible to conceive a darker picture of clerical life than is given in this document. "Ejici autem nunc clerum, conculcari pedibus, pro nihilo haberi et tanquam publicum offendiculum devoveri diris aut paulo plus, tam verum est quam minime falsum, cleri mores insulsos esse, vanos esse, turpes esse, æque ecclesiæ perniciosos ac Deo execrabiles "— Ibid. p. 237.

3 Krasinski, Reformation in Poland, I. 190, 285.

fifteen hundred years, and was not now to be abandoned to gratify a few disorderly monks. The example of the Greek Church he meets by pointing out that the Greeks were suffered to be persecuted by the Turks; the argument that marriage would purify the Church he silences with the observation that many married men are adulterers; and he holds it to be a doubting of God to suppose that the gift of continence would be denied to those who properly seek it.1 In spite of the logic of polemics such as Hosius, the opinions of the innovators continued to gain ground, until at length they won even the highest dignitaries of the empire, and in 1560 the Emperor Ferdinand himself undertook their advocacy with the Pope, after having for some years countenanced the practice within his own territories.

Almost immediately on the consecration of Pius IV., in addressing to him an argument for the reassembling of the Council of Trent, or the convocation of a new council, Ferdinand seized the opportunity to ask especially for the communication of the cup to the laity, and permission for the clergy to marry. The latter of these points he considered to be the only remedy for the fearful immorality of the Church, for, though all flesh was corrupt, the corruption of the priesthood surpassed that of all other men. That he had not waited for the papal assent to

2

1 Hosii Dialogus de ea num Calicem Laicis et Uxores Sacerdotibus permitti, etc. Dilinga, 1558.

2 Pallavicini, Storia del Concil. di Trento, Lib. XIV. c. 13.

Twelve years before, his uncle, the Bishop of Liége, in promulgating the Augsburg formula of reformation, had made a similar assertion: "Preterquam quod hoc infœlici sæculo, quo omnis caro corrupit viam suam, præsertimque ordo clericorum et ecclesiasticorum, nimium degenerant, plus quam unquam est necessaria "-Concil. Leodiens. ann. 1548 (Hartzheim VI. 392). The increased emphasis of Ferdinand is a measure of the success which had attended the reformatory movements of Charles V. during the interval.

In such a condition of ecclesiastical morality it is no wonder that even in orthodox Vienna the most popular theme on which preachers could expatiate was the corruption of the Church.-See the Emperor Ferdinand's secret instructions to his envoy in Rome, March 6, 1560, in Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 622.

VOL. II.

N