636 



POPE. 



tension of this privilege, to which, under different 

 pretences, the other Christian kingdoms were ob- 

 liged to submit, the popes in the fifteenth century, 

 had gone so far, that full half of the ecclesiastical 

 revenues of the West flowed into their coffers, under 

 various pretences. Assistance against the Turks 

 was the most common pretext ; but rarely were 

 any of the immense sums thus collected so employed. 

 It was necessary to buy the favour of the parties in 

 Rome, among which the old families of Colonna 

 and Ursini had long been rivals ; and so much was 

 spent on their relations (see Nepotism), that very 

 little remained for the common good of Christen- 

 dom. 



In care for his family, no pope ever surpassed 

 Alexander VI., between 1492 and 1503, whose 

 policy and whose private life were equally stran- 

 gers to morality and religion. His successor, 

 Julius II., between 1503 and 1513, employed all 

 his powers in politics, and in a war with France, 

 in which he commanded his own army, but was 

 obliged to fly before Bayard. Fortunately for him 

 and for his successor, Leo X., Maximilian I. was 

 prevented by circumstances, and finally by death, 

 from uniting upon his own head the papal and 

 imperial crowns. The circumstance that Austria, 

 France, and Spain were 'fighting for Lombardy 

 and Naples, and, therefore, sought alternately the 

 favour of the pope, had caused the latter to rise 

 anew in political importance towards the end of 

 the fifteenth century ; but the spirit of the times 

 was acquiring an irresistible strength, and the 

 policy of Leo X. was of no avail against it. 

 Luther, Zuinglius, and Calvin were the heralds of 

 an opposition which tore almost half of the West 

 from the popes, while the policy of Charles V. was 

 at the same time diminishing their power. What 

 the ages of ignorance had allowed to the pope, the 

 council of Trent, indeed, now ratified ; and the 

 society of the Jesuits came forward as the guards 

 of his throne, striving to erase all traces of the 

 reformation in the states which had remained 

 Catholic, and to regain by missions among the 

 heathen what had been lost in Europe ; yet neither 

 this new support, nor the policy of artful popes, 

 such as Clement VII., between 1523 and 1534 

 (whom Charles of Bourbon, the general of the 

 emperor, drove, in 1527, into the castle of St 

 Angelo), and Paul III., between 1534 and 1549, 

 who gained for his family Parma and Piacenza ; 

 nor the monkish devotion of Paul IV., between 

 1555 and 1559 ; nor the moderation of Pius IV., 

 between 1559 and 1566, who condescended to 

 grant the cup to the Bohemian Hussites : nor the 

 severity of Pius V., between 1566 and 1572 (who 

 offended both princes and people by his bull In 

 cwna Domini, worthy of his previous character as 

 a proud Dominican, and furious persecutor of 

 heretics, although his severe austerity obtained 

 him the honour of canonization) ; still less the use- 

 ful activity of Gregory XIII., between 1572 and 

 1585, who gave to the world the amended calendar 

 (Gregorian); the magnanimity and wisdom of 

 Sixtus V., between 1585 and 1590; the good 

 fortune of Clement VIII. (Aldobrandini), between 

 1592 and 1 605, who, in 1597. added Ferrara to the 

 States of the Church ; the learning of Urban VIII., 

 between 1623 and 1 644, who added Urbino to his 

 dominions, and obliged Galileo to abjure his doc- 

 trine of the motion of the earth round the sun, 

 could restore the old authority of the papal throne. 

 In vain did the court of Rome employ the language 

 of Gregory VII. and Innocent III.; even in Catholic 

 states, the distinction between ecclesiastical and 

 political affairs had been perceived so clearly, that 



the influence of the popes upon the latter was now 

 very limited. 



Since the middle of the sixteenth century, no 

 German emperor had been crowned by a pope. 

 The princes, who had learned his policy, withdrew 

 themselves from his authority. The national 

 churches obtained their freedom, in spite of all 

 opposition, and the peace of Westphalia, which (lie 

 papal see never acknowledged, gave public legality, 

 guaranteed by all the powers of Europe, to a system 

 of toleration which was in direct contradiction to 

 the papal doctrines. Under such circumstances, 

 the question no longer was, how to extend the 

 papal authority, but how to prevent its utter 

 destruction ; and the vicar of Christ, who, when 

 he began to call himself servant of servants, was 

 lord of lords, was obliged to play the part of a 

 suppliant, who claims compassion and toleration, 

 rather than obedience. Jansenism, also, took from 

 the popes a considerable part of the Netherlands ; 

 their bulls were no longer of avail, beyond the 

 States of the Church, without the consent of the 

 sovereigns, and the revenues from foreign kingdoms 

 grew smaller and smaller. In France, and soon 

 after in Germany, they became the objects of 

 ridicule ; and the excellent men who occupied the 

 pontifical chair in the eighteenth century, the 

 learned Lambertini, from 1740 to 1758 (see Bene- 

 dict XII'.), and the enlightened Ganganelli, from 

 1769 to 1774 (see Clement XIF.), were forced to 

 expiate the guilt of their predecessors, and sought 

 to obtain by patience, condescension, and personal 

 merit, the esteem which the others had haughtily 

 claimed. 



Still greater misfortunes fell upon their succes- 

 sors, Pius VI., from 1775 to 1798. and Pius VII., 

 1800 to 1823. The first, after a bitter experience 

 of the progress of knowledge, just when the death 

 of Joseph II., had inspired him with new hopes (see 

 Nuncio), was witness of the revolution, which tore 

 from him the French church, and deprived him of 

 his dominions. The other was forced to buy his 

 personal freedom, and the possession of his dimin- 

 ished states, by an equivocal concordate w.ith Bona- 

 parte, in 1801, and by much personal humiliation, 

 and lost them both again in 1809. He owed his 

 restoration, in 1814, not to the excommunication 

 which he had pronounced against Napoleon, but to 

 a coalition of temporal princes, among whom were 

 two heretics (the English and Prussian) and a 

 schismatic (the Russian). Nevertheless, he not 

 only restored the inquisition, the order of the 

 Jesuits, and other religious orders, but advanced 

 claims and principles entirely opposed to the ideas 

 and resolutions of his liberators. The return of 

 this pope to the spirit of the eleventh and twelfth 

 centuries agreed with what was always the principal 

 maxim of the Roman court, "never to give up the 

 slightest of its claims, but to wait only for oppor- 

 tunities." When the archives of the popes were 

 carried to Paris, in 1S09, among other surprising 

 things, a practice came to light which the popes 

 had, of declaring null and void, by secret mental 

 reservation, the contracts which were made in 

 public. Thus Alexander VII., February 18, 1664, 

 made such a reservation with regard to the treaty 

 of Pisa, of the 12th of the same month, and Clement 

 XIII., September 3, 1764 (see Clement XIII.), 

 with regard to the banishment of the Jesuits from 

 France. Pius VII. openly declared against tlte 

 tolerance of the philosophic sects, against Bible 

 societies, and translations of the Bible. (See Pius 

 FIL) In the mean time, there appeared in the 

 French and German Catholic churches, a spirit of 

 freedom, and an increasing wish for an independent 



