deplores the fact that while monasteries were everywhere being reformed, few if any of them maintained their morals, but returned to their old condition immediately on the death of the zealous fathers who had sought to improve them.1 That condition is described by a Benedictine abbot, the celebrated Trithemius, in general terms, as that of dens in which it was a crime to be without sin, their inhabitants for the most part being addicted to all manner of vices, and being monks only in name and habit.2

That the clergy, as a body, had become a stench in the nostrils of the people is evident from the immense applause which greeted all attacks upon them. In 1476 a rustic prophet arose in the hamlet of Niklaushausen, in the diocese of Wurzburg, who was a fit precursor of Muncer and John of Leyden. John of Niklaushausen was a swineherd, who professed himself inspired by the Virgin Mary. From the Rhinelands to Misnia, and from Saxony to Bavaria, immense multitudes flocked to hear him, so that at times he preached to crowds of twenty and thirty thousand men. His doctrines were revolutionary, for he denounced oppression both secular and clerical; but he was particularly severe upon the vices of the ecclesiastical body. A special revelation of the Virgin had informed him that God could no longer endure them, and that the world could not, without a speedy reformation, be saved from the divine wrath consequent upon them.3 The unfortunate man was seized by the Bishop of Wurzburg; the fanatical zeal of his unarmed followers was easily subdued, and he expiated at the stake his revolt against the powers that were.

1 Anon. Carthus. de Relig. Orig. cap. XL. (Martene Ampliss. Coll. VI. 93).

2 Johan. de Trittenheim Lib. Lugubris de Statu et Ruina Monast. Ordinis cap. III.

3 Annuntia populo fideli meo, et dic quod Filius meus avaritiam, superbiam et uxuriam clericorum et sacerdotum amplius sustinere nec possit nec velit. Unde nisi se quantocius emendaverint, totus mundus propter eorum scelera periclitabitur. -Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1476.

Such being the state of ecclesiastical morality throughout Europe, there can be little wonder if reflecting men sought occasionally to reform it in the only rational manner-not by an endless iteration of canons, obsolete as soon as published, or by ingeniously varied penalties, easily varied or compounded—but by restoring to the minister of Christ the right to indulge legitimately the affections which bigotry might pervert, but could never eradicate. Even as early as the close of the thirteenth century, the high authority of Bishop William Durand had acknowledged the inefficacy of penal legislation, and had suggested the discipline of the Greek Church as affording a remedy worthy of consideration.' As the depravity of the Church increased, and as the minds of men gradually awoke from the slumber of the dark ages, and shook off the blind reverence for tradition, the suggestion presented itself with renewed force. At the Council of Constance Cardinal Zabarella did not hesitate to suggest that, if the concubinary practices of the clergy could not be suppressed, it would be better to concede to them the privilege of marriage, and shortly after the failure of the council to effect a reform had became apparent, Guillaume Saignet wrote a tract entitled "Lamentatio ob Cælibatum Sacerdotum," in which he attacked the existing system, and called forth a rejoinder from Gerson. The Carmelite, Thomas Connecte, was a wandering preacher who filled France and the Low Countries with denunciations of popular vices, both lay and clerical. His eloquence won

2

1 Quum pene in omnibus conciliis et a plerisque Romanis pontificibus super cohi benda et punienda clericorum incontinentia, et eorum honestate servanda multa hactenus emanaverint constituta; et nullatenus ipsorum reformari quiverit correctio morum: . . . videretur pensandum an expediret et posset provideri quod in ecclesia Occidentali, quantum ad votum continentiæ, servaretur consuetudo ecclesiæ Orientalis, quantum ad promovendos, potissime quum tempore Apostolorum consuetudo ecclesiæ Orientalis servaretur.-Durand. de Modo General. Concil. P. II. rubr. 46 (Calixtus, p. 537).

2 Card. Zabarella Capit. Agend. in Concil. Constant. cap. XII. (Von der Hardt T. I. P. ix. p. 525).

1

immense applause, and his auditors were reckoned in crowds of from ten to twenty thousand souls. He was especially severe on the concubinage of all ranks of the clergy, and recommended a restoration of priestly marriage as the appropriate remedy; but when, in 1432, he ventured in Rome to lash the corruption of the Curia, he was found to be a heretic, and his career was ended at the stake. When the Council of Basle was earnestly engaged in the endeavour to restore forgotten discipline, the Emperor Sigismund laid before it a formula of reformation which embraced the restoration of marriage to the clergy. His orator drew a fearful picture of the evils caused by the rule of celibacy-evils acknowledged by every one in the assembly--and urged that, as it had produced more injury than benefit, the wiser course would be to follow the example of the Greek Church. A majority of the Council assented to the principle, but shrank from the bold step of adopting it. Eugenius IV. had just been forced to acknowledge the legitimacy of the body as an Ecumenic council; the strife with the papacy might again break forth at any moment, and it was not politic to venture on innovations too audacious. The conservatives, therefore, skilfully eluded the question by postponing it to a more favourable time, and the postponement was fatal.

2

One of the most celebrated members of the council, Cardinal Nicholas Tudeschi, surnamed Panormitanus, whose pre-eminence as an expounder of the canon law won for him the titles of "Canonistarum Princeps" and "Lucerna Juris," declares that the celibacy of the clergy was not essential to ordination or enjoined by divine law; and he records his unhesitating opinion that the question should be left to the option of the individual-those who had

1 Monstrelet, Chronique, 11., 53, 127.-Martene, Ampliss. Collect. VIII. 92.Altmeyer, Précurseurs de la Réforme, I. 237.

2 Zaccaria, Nuova Giustificaz. pp. 121-2.-Milman, Latin Christ. Book XIII. chap. 12.

2

resolution to preserve their purity being the most worthy, while those who had not would be spared the guilt which disgraced them.1 So Eneas Sylvius, who as Pius II. filled the pontifical throne from 1458 to 1464, and who knew by experience how easy it was to yield to the temptations of the flesh, is reported to have said that marriage had been denied to priests for good and sufficient reasons, but that still stronger ones now required its restoration. Indeed, when arguing before the Council of Basle in favour of the election of Amedeus of Savoy to the papacy, he had not scrupled to declare that a married priesthood would be the salvation of many who were damned in celibacy. And we have already seen that Eugenius IV. in 1441, and Alexander VI. in 1496, granted permission of marriage to several military Orders, as the only mode of removing the scandalous licence prevailing among them.

3

This question of the power of the Pope to dispense with the necessity of celibacy seems to have attracted some attention about this period. In 1505, Geoffroy Boussard, afterwards Chancellor of the University of Paris, published a tract wherein he argued that priestly continence was simply a human and not a divine ordinance, and that the Pope was fully empowered to relax the rule in special cases, though he could not abolish wholly an institution of such long continuance which had received the assent of so many holy fathers and general councils. At the same time, one of his arguments in favour of its enforcement shows how little respect was left in the minds of all thinking men for the claims of the Church to veneration. He quotes

1 Not having the works of Tudeschi to refer to, I give his remarks as quoted by Villadiego (Fuero Juzgo, p. 177, No. 85) from Gloss. in cap. olim, de cleric. conjug.— "Quod deberet ecclesia facere sicut bonus medicus, ut si medicina, experientia docente, potius officit quam prodit, eam tollat; sic eorum voluntati relinqueretur, ita ut sacerdos qui abstinere noluisset, posset uxorem ducere, cum quotidie illicito coitu maculentur."

2 Sacerdotibus magna ratione sublatas nuptias, majori restituendas videri.— Platina in Vit. Pii II.

3 Æneæ Sylvii de Concil. Basil. Lib. II.

Bonaventura to the effect that if bishops and archbishops had licence to marry they would rob the Church of all its property, and none would be left for the poor, for, he adds, "since already they seize the goods of the Church for the benefit of distant relatives, what would they not do if they had legitimate children of their own?"1

1

When the advantages and the necessity of celibacy thus were doubted by the highest authorities in the Church, it is no wonder if those who were disposed to question the traditions of the past were led to reject it altogether. In 1479 John Ruchrath, of Oberwesel, graduate of Tubingen, and doctor of theology, in his capacity of preacher at Worms openly disseminated doctrines which differed in the main but little from those of Wickliffe and Huss. He denied the authority of popes, councils, and the fathers of the Church to regulate matters either of faith or discipline. The Scripture was the only standard, and no one had a right to interpret it for his brethren. The received observances of religion, prayers, fasts, indulgences, were all swept away, and universal liberty of conscience proclaimed to all. Of course, sacerdotal celibacy shared the same fate, as a superstitious observance contrived by papal ingenuity in opposition to evangelical simplicity. Thus his intrepid logic far outstripped the views of his predecessors, and Luther afterwards acknowledged the similarity between his teachings and those of John of Oberwesel. Yet he had not the spirit of martyrdom, and the Inquisition speedily forced him to a recantation, which was of little avail, for he soon after perished miserably in the dungeon into which he had been thrust."

2

Still more remarkable as an indication of the growing

1 De Continentia Sacerdotum, Nurnb. 1510, Prop. 6, 7.

2 Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1479. D'Argentré, Collect. judic. de novis Erroribus, I., II., 291 sqq.

3 Serrarii Hist. Rer. Mogunt. Lib. I. c. 34.