In this absorption of patronage the feature most provocative of friction with the sovereigns was the claim gradually advanced to nominate bishops; for these prelates were mostly temporal lords of no little influence, and in the political schemes of the papacy the character of its nominees might well create uneasiness in the State. Quarrels over the exercise of this power were of frequent occurrence. Venice, for instance, which was chronically in open or concealed hostility to Rome, was very sensitive as to the fidelity of its acquisitions on the mainland, where a bishop who was the agent of an enemy might be the source of infinite mischief. Thus, in 1485, there was a struggle over the vacant see of Padua, in which Venice triumphed by sequestrating other revenues of Cardinal Michiel, appointed by Innocent VIII. Again, in 1491, a contest arose over the patriarchate of Aquileia, the primatial see of Venetia, resulting in the exile of the celebrated humanist Ermolao Barbaro, on whom Innocent had bestowed it, and the see remained vacant until Alexander VI accepted Niccolò Donato, the Venetian nominee. In 1505 Julius II refused to confirm a bishop appointed by the Signoria to the see of Cremona, as he designed the place for his favourite nephew Galeotto della Rovere; he held out for two years and finally compromised for a money payment to the Cardinal. So, when the latter died in 1508, Venice filled his see of Vicenza with Jacopo Dandolo, while Julius gave it to another nephew, Sisto Gara della Rovere, and the unseemly contest over the bishopric lasted for years. Matters were scarce better between the Holy See and its crusader Matthias Corvinus. A serious breach was occasioned, in 1465, by the effort of Paul II to enforce his claims; but Matthias took a position so aggressive that finally Sixtus IV conceded the point and confirmed his appointments. The quarrel was renewed in 1480, over the see of Modrus, which Sixtus wanted for a retainer of his nephew, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. The King told Sixtus that Hungary, in her customary spirit, would rather, for a third time, cut herself loose from the Catholic Church and go over to the infidel than permit the benefices of the land to be appropriated in violation of the royal right of presentation; but, after holding out for three years, he submitted. He was more successful, in 1485, when he gave the archbishopric of Gran to Ippolito d’Este, who was a youth under age, and when Innocent VIII remonstrated he retorted that the Pope had granted such favours to many less worthy persons; any person appointed by the Pope might bear the title, but Ippolito should enjoy the revenues. He carried his point and, in 1487, Ippolito took possession.
Spain was still less patient. Even under so weak a monarch as Henry IV Sixtus failed to secure for his worthless nephew, Cardinal Piero Riario, the archbishopric of Seville, which fell vacant in 1473 through the death of Alfonso de Fonseca. Although he had been regularly appointed the Spaniards refused to receive Riario, and the see was administered by Pero Gonzalez Mendoza, Bishop of Sigiienza, until 1482, when it was filled by Iñigo Manrique. The stronger and abler Ferdinand of Aragon was even more recalcitrant. He adopted the most arbitrary measures to secure the archbishopric of Saragossa for his natural son Alfonso against Ausias Dezpuch, the nominee of Sixtus IV. Still more decisive was the struggle in Castile over the see of Cuenca, in 1482, to which Sixtus appointed a Genoese cousin. Ferdinand and Isabel demanded that Spanish bishoprics should be filled only with Spaniards of their selection, to which Sixtus replied that all benefices were in the gift of the Pope and that his power, derived from Christ, was unlimited. The sovereigns answered by calling home all their subjects resident at the papal Court and threatening to take steps for the convocation of a General Council. This brought Sixtus to terms; he sent a special nuncio to Spain, but they refused to receive him and stood on their dignity until Cardinal Mendoza, then Archbishop of Toledo, intervened, when, on Sixtus withdrawing his pretensions, they allowed themselves to be reconciled. Ferdinand and his successor Charles V displayed the same vigour in resisting the encroachments of the cardinals when they seized upon vacant abbacies which happened to belong to the patronage of the Crown. It marks the abasement to which the Holy Roman Empire had fallen when we hear that Sixtus confirmed to Frederick III and his son Maximilian a privilege granted by Eugenius IV to nominate to the sees of Brixen, Trent, Gurk, Triest, Coire, Vienna, and Wiener-Neustadt, adding thereto the presentation to three hundred benefices.
These cases have a double interest as illustrating the growing tension between the Holy See and secular potentates and the increasing disposition to meet its claims with scant measure of respect. It was constantly arrogating to itself enlarged prerogatives and the sovereigns were less and less inclined to submission. But, whether exercised by King or Pope, the distribution of ecclesiastical patronage had become simple jobbery, to reward dependents or to gain pecuniary or political advantage, without regard to the character of the incumbent or the sacred duties of the office. These evils were aggravated by habitual and extravagant pluralism, of which the Holy See set an example eagerly imitated by the sovereigns. Bishoprics and benefices were showered upon the Cardinals and their retainers, and upon the favourites of the Popes in all parts of Europe, whose revenues were drawn to Rome, to the impoverishment of each locality; while the functions for which the revenues had been granted remained for the most part unperformed, to the irritation of the populations. Rodrigo Borgia (subsequently Alexander VI), created Cardinal in his youth by his uncle Calixtus III, accumulated benefices to the aggregate of 70,000 ducats a year. Giuliano della Rovere (Julius II) likewise owed his cardinalate to his uncle Sixtus IV, who bestowed on him also the archbishopric of Avignon and the bishoprics of Bologna, Lausanne, Coutances, Viviers, Mende, Ostia, and Velletri, with the abbeys of Nonantola and Grottaferrata. Another Cardinal nephew of Sixtus was Piero Riario, who held a crowd of bishoprics yielding him 60,000 ducats a year, which he lavished in shameless excesses, dying deeply in debt. But this abuse was not confined to Rome. A notable example is that of Jean, son of René II, Duke of Lorraine. Born in 1498, he was in 1501 appointed coadjutor to his uncle Henri, Bishop of Metz, after whose death in 1505 Jean took possession in 1508, and held the see until 1529. He then resigned it in favour of his nephew Nicholas, aged four, but reserved the revenues and right of resumption in case of death or resignation. In 1517 he became also Bishop of Toul and in 1518 of Térouanne, besides obtaining the cardinalate. In 1521 he added the sees of Valence and Die, in 1523 that of Verdun. Then followed the three archbishoprics of Narbonne, Reims, and Lyons in 1524, 1533 and 1537. In 1536 he obtained the see of Alby, soon afterwards that of Macon, in 1541 that of Agen, and in 1542 that of Nantes. In addition he held the abbeys of Gorze, Fécamp, Cluny, Marmoutiers, St Ouen, St Jean de Laon, St Germer, St Médard of Soissons, and St Mansuy of Toul. The see of Verdun he resigned to his nephew Nicholas on the same terms as that of Metz and when the latter, in 1548, abdicated in order to marry Marguerite d’Egmont, he resumed them both. The archbishopric of Reims he resigned in 1538 in favour of his nephew Charles, and Lyons he abandoned in 1539. In spite of the enormous revenues derived from these scandalous pluralities his extravagance kept him always poor and we can imagine the condition, spiritual and temporal, of the churches and abbeys thus consigned to the negligence of a worldly prelate whose life was spent in Courts. It was bad enough when these pluralists employed coadjutors to look after their numerous prelacies, but worse when they farmed them out to the highest bidder.
Another ecclesiastical abuse severely felt by all sovereigns who were jealous of their jurisdiction and earnest in enforcing justice was the exemption enjoyed by all ranks of the clergy from the authority of the secular tribunals. They were justiciable only by the spiritual Courts, which could pronounce no judgments of blood, and whose leniency towards clerical offenders virtually assured to them immunity from punishment—an immunity long maintained in English jurisprudence under the well-known name of Benefit of Clergy. So complete was the freedom of the priesthood from all responsibility to secular authority that the ingenuity of the doctors was taxed to find excuses for the banishment of Abiathar by Solomon. The evil of this consisted not only in the temptation to crime which it offered to those regularly bred to the Church and performing its functions, but it attracted to the