was a gay life. There is a tradition that to him is due the origin of the proverb, " As drunk as a pope." non. Rienzi. In the subsequent pontificate of Clement VI., A.D. 1342, the court at Avignon became the most voluptuous Voluptuousin Christendom. It was crowded with knights ness of Avigand ladies, painters and other artists. It exhibited a day-dream of equipages and banquets. The pontiff himself delighted in female society, but, in his weakness, permitted his lady, the Countess of Turenne, to extort enormous revenues by the sale of ecclesiastical promotions. Petrarch, who lived at Avignon at this time, speaks of it as a vast brothel. His own sister had been seduced by the holy father, John XXII. During all these years the Romans had made repeated attempts to force back the papal court to their city. With its departure all their profits had gone. But the fatal policy of electing Frenchmen into the College of Cardinals seemed to shut out every hope. The unscrupulous manner in which this was done is illustrated by the fact that Clement made one of his relatives, a lad of eighteen, a cardinal. For a time the brief glories of Rienzi cast a flickering ray on Rome; but Rienzi was only a demagogue -an impostor. It was the deep impression made upon Europe that the residence at Avignon was an abandonment of the tomb of St. Peter, that compelled Urban V. to return to Rome. This determination was strengthened by a desire to escape out of the power of the kings of France, and to avoid the free companies who had learned to extort bribes for sparing Avignon from plunder. He left Avignon, A.D. 1367, amid the reluctant grief of his cardinals, torn from that gay and dissipated city, and in dread of the recollections and of the populace of Rome. And well it might be so; for not only in Rome, but all over Italy, piety was held in no respect, and the discipline of the Church in derision. When Urban sent to Barnabas Visconti, who was raising trouble in Tuscany, a bull of excommunication by the hands of two legates, Irreverence of Barnabas actually compelled them, in his pre- Barnabas sence, to eat the parchment on which the bull was written, together with the leaden seal and the silken string, and, telling them that he hoped it would sit as Visconti. lightly on their stomachs as it did on his, sent them back to their master! In a little time-it was but two years -absence from France became insupportable; the pope returned to Avignon, and there died. It was reserved for his successor, Gregory XI., finally to end what turn to Rome. was termed, from its seventy years' duration, the Babylonish captivity, and restore the papacy to the Eternal City, A.D. 1376. But, though the popes had thus returned to Rome, the Causes of the effects of King Philip's policy still continued. great schism. On the death of Gregory XI., the conclave, meeting at Rome for the conclave must meet where the pope dies-elected Urban VI., under intimidation of the Roman populace, who were determined to retain the papacy in their city; but, escaping to Fondi, and repenting of what they had thus done, they proclaimed his election void, and substituted Clement VII. for him. They were actually at one time on the point of choosing the King of France as pope. Thus began the great schism. It was, in reality, a struggle between France and Italy for the control of the papacy. The former had enjoyed it for seventy years; the latter was determined to recover it. The schism thus rested originally on political considerations, but these were doubtless exasperated by the conduct of Urban, whose course was overbearing and even intolerable to his supporters. Nor did he amend as his position became more consolidated. In A.D. 1385, suspecting his cardinals of an intention to seize him, declare him a heretic, and burn him, he submitted several of them to torture in his own presence, while he recited his breviary. Escaping from Nocera, where he had been besieged, he caused the Bishop of Aquila to be killed on the roadside. Others he tied in sacks, and threw into the sea at Genoa. It was supposed, not without reason, that he was insane. If there had formerly been pecuniary difficulty in supporting one papal court, it, of course, became ce-sities of the greater now that there were two. Such trourival popes. bles, every day increasing, led at length to unhappy political movements. There was an absolute necessity for drawing money to Rome and also to Avignon. The device of a jubilee was too transitory and inadequate, Pecuniary ne even though, by an improvement in the theory of that festival, it was expedited by thirty-three years, answering to our Saviour's life. At Avignon, the difficulty of Clement, who was of amiable and polished manners, turned on the French Church being obliged to support him; and it is not to be wondered at that the French clergy looked with dislike on the pontifical establishment among them, since it was driven by its necessities to prey on all their best benefices. Under such circumstances, no other course was possible to the rival popes and their successors than a thorough reorganization of the papal financial system-the more complete develop- Organization ment of simony, indulgences, and other im- of simony. proper sources of emolument. In this manner Boniface IX. tripled the value of the annates upon the papal books. Usurers or brokers, intervening between the purchasers of benefices and the papal exchequer, were established, and it is said that, under the pressing difficulties of the case, benefices were known to have been sold, many times in succession, to different claimants in one week. Late applicants might obtain a preference for appointments on making a cash payment of twenty-five florins; an increased preference might be had for fifty. It became, at last, no unusual thing to write to kings and prelates for subsidies-a proof how greatly the papacy had been weakened by the events of the times. Europe. But religious Europe could not bear with such increasing scandals. The rival popes were incessantly Indignation accusing each other of falsehood and all man- of religious ner of wickedness. At length the public sentiment found its expression in the Council of Pisa, called by the cardinals on their own responsibility. This council summoned the two popes-Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII.-before it; declared the crimes and excesses imputed to them to be true, and deposed them both, appointing in their stead Alexander V. There were now, therefore, three popes. But, besides thus rendering the position of things worse than it was before in this respect, the council had taken the still more extraordinary step of overthrowing the autocracy of the pope. It had been compelled by the force of circumstances to II.—7 Three popes. destroy the very foundation of Latin Christianity by assuming the position of superiority over the vicar of Christ. Now might be discerned by men of reflexion the purely human nature of the papacy. It had broken down. Out of the theological disputes of preceding years a political principle was obviously emerging; the democratic spirit was developing itself, and the hierarchy was in rebellion against its sovereign. Dissatisfac Nor was this great movement limited to the clergy. In every direction the laity participated in it, pecuniary questions being in very many instances the incentive. Things had come to such a condition that it seemed to be of little moment what might be the personal character of the pontiff; the necessities of the position irresistibly drove him to replenish the treasury by shameful means. Balthazar Cos- Thus, on Alexander's death, Balthazar Cossa, sa made pope. an evil but an able man, who succeeded as John XXIII., was not only compelled to extend the existing imoniacal practices of the ecclesiastical brokers' offices, but actually to derive revenue from the licensing of prostitutes, gambling-houses, and usurers. In England, for ages a mine of wealth to home, the tendency of things was shown by such facts as the remonstrance of the Commons with the crown on the appointment of ecclesiastics to all tion in the great offices; the allegations made by the England. "Good Parliament" as to the amount of money drawn by Rome from the kingdom. They asserted that it was five times as much as the taxes levied by the king, and that the pope's revenue from England was greater than the revenue of any prince in Christendom. It was shown again by such facts as the passage of the statutes of Mortmain, Provisors, and Præmunire, and by the universal clamour against the mendicant orders. This dissatisfaction with the clergy was accompanied by a desire for knowledge. Thousands of persons crowded to the universities both on the Continent and in England. In a community thus well prepared, Wiclif found no difficulty in disseminating his views. He had adopted in many particulars the doctrines of Berengar. He taught that the bread in the Eucharist is not the real body of Christ, but only its image; that the Wiclif, the English reformer. Roman Church has no true claim to headship over other churches; that its bishop has no more authority than any other bishop; that it is right to deprive a delinquent Church of temporal possessions; that no bishop ought to have prisons for the punishment of those obnoxious to him; and that the Bible alone is a sufficient guide for a Christian man. His translation of the Bible He translates into English was the practical carrying out of the Bible. that assertion for the benefit of his own countrymen. All classes of society were becoming infected. The government for a season vacillated. It was said that every other man in England was a Lollard The Lollards were Wiclifites. But the Church at last persuaded the government to let her try her hand, and the statute "de heretico comburendo" was passed A.D. 1400. William Sautree, a priest who had turned Wiclifite, was the first English martyr. John Badbee, a tailor, who English denied transubstantiation-accused of having said that, if it were true, there were 20,000 gods in every corn-field in England-next suffered in like manner at the stake, in presonce of the Prince of Wales. Lord Cobham, the head of the Lollards, who had denounced the pope as Anti-Christ, the Son of Perdition, was imprisoned; but escaping, became involved in political movements, and suffered at length the double penalty for heresy and treason, being hung on a gallows with a fire blazing at his feet. It is interesting to remark the social rank of these three early martyrs. Heresy was pervading all classes, from the lowest to the highest. Burning of heretics. The Council of Constance met A.D. 1415. It had a threefold object: 1. The union of the Church under one pope; 2. The reformation of the clergy; 3. The suppression of heresy. Its policy from the first was determined. It proclaimed itself supreme. It demanded the abdication of the pope John XXIII.; exhibited articles of The Council accusation against him, some of them of such of Constance enormity as almost to surpass belief, and justi- deposes the fying the epithet that he was "a devil incarnate." The suffrage of the council was changed. The plan of voting by nations, which reduced the Italians to a single vote, was introduced. These incidental facts may pope, |