The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain

of the papacy as an ally and its power as an enemy. Among the transalpine nations, at least, there was still enough reverence felt for the Vicar of Christ to render open rupture undesirable. Then there remained the sentence of excommunication and interdict, a force in reserve always to be borne in mind by hostile States. There was also the supreme authority to bind and to loose, whereby a Pope could always release himself from inconvenient agreements and was absolved from observing any compacts, while, if the conscience of an ally chanced to be tender, it could be relieved in the same manner. Still more important was the inexhaustible source of revenue derived from the headship of the Church and the power of the keys—the levying of annates and tithes and the sale of dispensations, absolutions and indulgences. These were exploited in every way that ingenuity could suggest, draining Europe of its substance for the maintenance of papal armies and fleets and of a Court unrivalled in its sumptuous magnificence, until the Holy See was everywhere regarded with detestation. It was this temporal sovereignty which rendered possible the existence of such a succession of pontiffs as disgraced the end of the fifteenth and commencement of the sixteenth century—such careers as those of Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia, such a catastrophe as the sack of Rome in 1527. Even before these evils had grown to such appalling magnitude, Dante had expressed the opinion of all thoughtful men in deploring the results which had followed the so-called Donation of Constantine. By the middle of the fifteenth century Lorenzo Valla, in his demonstration of the fraud, assumed that the corruption of the Church and the wars which desolated Italy were its direct consequence, and few more eloquent and powerful indictments of the papacy are to be found than the bold utterances in which he warned the Holy See that princes and peoples could not much longer endure its tyranny and wickedness. Remonstrances and warnings were in vain; the papacy became more and more secularised, and, as the pressure grew more inexorable, men asked themselves why, if the headship of St Peter were founded on Christ’s injunction to feed His sheep, St Peter’s successor employed that headship rather to shear and slaughter.

      Papal history, in fact, as soon as the Holy See had vindicated its supremacy over general councils, becomes purely a political history of diplomatic intrigues, of alliances made and broken, of military enterprises. In following it no one would conclude, from internal evidence, that the papacy represented interests higher than those of any other petty Italian prince, or that it claimed to be the incarnation of a faith divinely revealed to ensure peace on earth and goodwill to man—save when, occasionally in a papal letter, an unctuous expression is employed to shroud some peculiarly objectionable design. The result of this, even in the hands of a man like Pius II, not wholly without loftier impulses, is seen in his complaint, March 12, 1462, to the Milanese envoy. All the States of Italy, he said, were hostile, save Naples and Milan, in both of which the existing governments were precarious; his own subjects were always on the brink of revolt, and many of his Cardinals were on the side of France, which was threatening him with a Council and was ready to provoke a schism unless he would abandon Ferdinand of Naples for René of Anjou. France, moreover, dragged Spain and Burgundy with her, while Germany was equally unfriendly. The powerful Archbishop of Mainz was hostile and was supported by most of the princes, who were offended at the papal relations with the powerless Frederick III, and he, again, was at war with the King of Hungary, while the King of Bohemia was half a heretic. The position was no better under his successor, Paul II, who, at his death in 1471, left the Holy See without a friend in Italy; everywhere it was regarded with hatred and distrust. Under Sixtus IV there was no improvement; and, in 1490, Innocent VIII threatened to leave Italy and find a refuge elsewhere. He had not a friend or an ally; the treasury was exhausted; the barons of the Patrimony were rebellious; and Ferdinand of Naples openly talked of entering Rome, lance in rest, to teach the Pope to do justice. The Church had conquered heresy, it had overcome schism, there was no question of faith to distract men’s minds, yet this was the antagonistic position which the Head of Christendom had forced upon the nations whose allegiance it claimed.

      During the half-century preceding the Reformation there was constant shifting of scene; enemies were converted into allies and allies into enemies, but the spirit of the papacy remained the same, and, whatever might be the political combination of the moment, the Christian nations at large regarded it as a possible enemy, whose friendship was not to be trusted, for it was always fighting for its own hand—or rather, as the increasing nepotism of successive pontiffs ruled its policy, for the aggrandisement of worthless scions of the papal stock, such as Girolamo Riario or Franceschetto Cibò or Cesare Borgia. Julius II, it is true, was less addicted to nepotism, and made and broke treaties and waged war for the enlargement of the papal territories, producing on the awakening intelligence of Europe the impression which Erasmus condenses in such a way as to show how threatening was the spirit evoked by the secularisation of the Holy See. In the Encomium Moriae, written in 1510, he describes the spiritual and material weapons employed by the Popes, against those who, at the instigation of the devil, seek to nibble at the Patrimony of St Peter, fighting not only with bulls of excommunication but with fire and sword, to the shedding of much Christian blood, and believing themselves to be defending the Church against her enemies,—as if she could have any worse enemies than impious pontiffs. Leo X followed with a pale imitation of the policy of Alexander VI, his object being the advancement of the Medici family and the preservation of the papal dominions in the fierce strife between France and Spain. To him the papacy was a personal possession out of which the possessor was expected to make the most, religion being an entirely subordinate affair. His conception of his duties is condensed in the burst of exultation attributed to him on his election,—Let us enjoy the papacy since God has given it to us!

      Under the circumstances the Holy See could inspire neither respect nor confidence. Universal distrust was the rule between the States, and the papacy was merely a State whose pretensions to care for the general welfare of Christendom were recognised as diplomatic hypocrisy. When, in 1462, Pius II took the desperate step of resolving to lead in person the proposed crusade, he explained that this was the only way to convince Europe of his sincerity. When he levied a tithe, he said, for the war with the infidel, appeal was made to a future Council; when he issued indulgences he was accused of greed; whatever was done was attributed to the desire to raise money, and no one trusted the papal word; like a bankrupt trader, he was without credit. This distrust of the papacy with regard to its financial devices for the prosecution of the war with the Turk was universally entertained, and it lent a sharper edge to the dissatisfaction of those called upon to contribute. At the Diet of Frankfort in 1454 and at the Congress of Mantua in 1459, the overwhelming danger to Europe from the Turkish advance failed to stimulate the princes to action; for they asserted that the papal purpose was to get their money, and not to fight the infidel. In this some injustice was done to Calixtus III and Pius II who at heart were earnest in the crusading spirit, but it was justified in the case of their successors. Men saw large sums raised ostensibly for that object by tithes on ecclesiastical revenues, and by the innumerable crusading indulgences which were preached wherever the secular authorities would permit, while no effective measures were adopted to oppose the Turk. It is true that in 1480 the capture of Otranto caused a panic throughout Italy which forced the Italian States to unite for its recovery; but scarce was this accomplished, in 1481, when Sixtus IV, in alliance with Venice, plunged into a war with Naples, and, after he had been forced to make peace, turned his arms against his ally and gave 50,000 ducats to equip a fleet against the Republic—ducats probably supplied by the crusading indulgence which he had just published.

      Such had in fact been the papal practice, since in the thirteenth century Gregory IX had proclaimed that the home interests of the Holy See were more important than the defence of the Holy Land and that crusading money could be more advantageously expended in Italy than in Palestine. There was no scruple about applying to the needs of the moment money derived from any source whatever and, in spite of the large amounts raised under the pretext of crusades which never started, the extravagance of the papal Court and its military enterprises left it almost always poor. Popes and Cardinals rivalled each other in the sumptuousness of their buildings. Never were religious solemnities and public functions performed with such profuse magnificence, nor was greater liberality exercised in the encouragement of art and literature. Paul II had a sedia gestatoria built for the Christmas ceremonies of 1466 which was an artistic wonder, costing, according to popular report, more than a palace. Yet this Pope so managed his finances that on his death, in 1471, he left behind him an enormous treasure in money and jewels and costly works of