CHAPTER XVIII

CATHOLIC EUROPE.

It does not enter into the scope of the present chapter to enlarge upon a subject treated elsewhere in this volume,-the causes which led up to the Protestant Reformation. But, as was made clear by the rise of the Jesuits, the decrees of Trent, the acts and virtues of a multitude of Saints, the renewed austerity of the papal Court, and the successful resistance to a further advance on the part of Lutheranism in Germany, and of Calvinism in France and the Belgic Provinces, there also existed a Catholic Reformation, within the Church, not tinged with heresy, but founded on a deeper apprehension of the dogmas in dispute, and on a passionate desire for their triumph. In one sense, this great movement might be described as a reaction, since it aimed at bringing back the past. In another, it was merely a development of principles or a more effectual realisation of them, whose beginnings are discernible long before Trent. Thus we may regard the fifteenth century as above all an era of transition. It exhibits violent contrasts, especially among the high clergy and in religious associations, between a piety which was fruitful in good works and a worldliness which has never been surpassed. Corruption on a scale so wide as, in the opinion of many, to justify revolt from Pope and bishops, was matched by remarkable earnestness in preaching necessary reforms, by devotion to learning in the service of religion, by an extraordinary flow of beneficence, attested by the establishment of schools, hospitals, brotherhoods, gilds, and asylums for the destitute, no less than by the magnificent churches, unrivalled paintings, and multiplied festivals, and by the new shrines, pilgrimages, miracle-plays, and popular gatherings for the celebration of such events as the Jubilees of 1475 and 1500, which fling over the whole period an air of gaiety and suggest that life in the days of the Renaissance was often a public masquerade.

From the days of Nicholas V down to those of Leo X, Rome was the world's centre. The Popes held in their hands the key of religion; they aspired to possess the key of knowledge. Along every line of enterprise and from every point of the compass, except one, they were visible. They would not dedicate themselves to the long-sought reformation in head and members, although they allowed its necessity again and again in the most emphatic terms. The plans which were laid before them by ardent churchmen like Cesarini we shall consider as we proceed. But they declined to take those measures without which no lasting improvement of the Curia was to be anticipated. They were loth to summon a representative Council; they refused to cross the Alps and meet the German people, or to listen when it drew up its grievances in formal array. Had the Fifth of Lateran fulfilled its task, instead of leaving it to the Council of Trent half a century later, the Diet of Worms might have never met, and Luther would perhaps have lingered out his years in a cell at Wittenberg.

The Maranos, or crypto-Jews, in Spain deserve separate consideration. Nor did the Waldensians ever cease to exist in Italy. But obstinate unbelief was rare: even a reprobate like Sigismondo Malatesta, the monstrous tyrant of Rimini, would not die without the last Sacraments. Machiavelli, who writes as if the Christian faith were an exploded superstition, had a priest with him when he expired. Of Caterina Sforza, whose crimes and profligacies were notorious, it is on record that, while she sinned, she endowed convents and built churches. Other examples of repentant humanists are Giovanni Pontano and Antonio Galatea. Among Germans who, after quarrelling with the papal authorities or questioning articles of the creed, came back to offer their submission, may be remarked Gregor Heimburg and in the next generation Conrad Mutianus of Erfurt. It has been stated elsewhere that the famous Wessel spent his last days in the cloister of the Agnetenberg. Revolt, followed by repentance, was a common feature in the Italian genius. But indeed the rules of the Inquisition, which allowed of easy retractation, imply that few heretics would persist in their opinion after once being called to account. During the ninety years with which we are concerned no popular uprising against the authorities of the Church on purely dogmatic grounds is recorded to have taken place anywhere outside Bohemia.

Intolerance was not a characteristic feature of an age abounding in hope, dazzled with discoveries and inventions, and far from ascetic in its habits of life, its outdoor spectacles, its architecture, painting, music, and popular diversions. The later fifteenth century was eclectic rather than critical. At Rome itself, an " incredible liberty " of discussion was allowed under all the Popes of the Renaissance. And though Paul II dealt severely with Platina and the Roman Academicians, whom he accused of unbelief, his motives seem to have been personal or political rather than religious. Philosophy, too, was undergoing a serious change. Plato had supplanted Aristotle in his influence over men's minds; and the high Doctors of the School-Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Scotus- had lost no little of their power since Occam brought into repute his logic of scepticism, which fixed between religion and metaphysics an impassable gulf where every human system disappeared in the void.

Yet no one has ventured to brand with that suspicion Thomas ä Kempis. From this Low-Dutch people we have received the Imitation of Christ; when a Catholic Reformation is spoken of, that little volume, all gold and light, will furnish its leaders with a standard not only of spiritual illumination but of piety towards the Sacrament of the Altar which took for granted the whole Catholic system. Since it was finally given to the world in 1441 it has been the recognised guide of every generation in the Western Church. But with its author we must associate Cusanus and Erasmus, both of the same stock; these three fill the spaces of transition between the decadent luxury of Avignon and the stern reaction which followed hard upon Trent. By their side appears Cardinal Ximenes, who attempted among Spaniards the same work of renovation that Cusanus set on foot among Germans and Netherlander s. To the Imitation corresponds, almost as an art to its theory, the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. And if Erasmus left no successor equal to himself, he trained a host of disciples or plagiarists in the Company of Jesus, where his memory has always evoked a fierce antagonism, and his writings have been put to the ban.

In these two Reformations, Catholic and Protestant, it will be observed that England, France and Italy play secondary parts. To the ideas which inspired Thomas ä Kempis, Luther, or Loyola-creative or revolutionary as they might be-no English thinker except Occam contributed. Nor did a single French writer anticipate Calvin. And the Italians, almost wholly given up to art or letters, and at no time much troubled with the problems which divided the Schools in Paris, might seem to have been incapable of grasping a spiritual principle in its pure form, until they were subjugated by the Jesuit masters who came in with the Spanish dominion.

Yet, as in England religion had no quarrel with learning but was revived in its train, so among Italians the impressive figure of Savonarola warns us that prophets after the manner of the Old Testament were not wanting, even to the heyday of a Classical Renaissance. True, the English humanism did but serve to usher in a period, Elizabethan or Jacobean, which was not Catholic according to the Roman style; and Savonarola was burnt. Yet on the eve of the Reformation these more spiritual influences were not extinct in the Church; they might have been turned to a saving use; and for a while the orthodox hoped it would be so. Frä Girolamo, Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, have always been regarded by those who shared their faith as martyrs in the cause of a true Christian morality and as harbingers of a reform which they did not live to see.

That "flight of the alone to the Alone," which we call Christian mysticism, had found no unworthy expression in St Thomas Aquinas, the Angel of the Schools, who reasons by set syllogism on all things in heaven and earth. He had sealed with his authority the books, translated by Scotus Erigena, which were long attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, but which are now known to be a production of the fifth century and of the Alexandrian, or even Monophysite, metaphysics. With severe negations, not wholly foreign to Plotinus, they limit, by exceeding them, the affirmations of the School theology; in the paradoxical phrase of Cusanus, their teaching is a " learned ignorance "; but they exalt the earthly as a shadow of the heavenly hierarchy ; and they leave to our adoring worship the man Christ Jesus. From the defilements of sense, the scandals of history, the misuse of holy things, they turn to an inward, upward vision and celebrate the hidden life. It is well known that Eastern hermits joined the work of their hands to prayer; that cenobites under the Rule of St Basil copied manuscripts, studied the Scriptures, and taught in schools, especially the children of the poor. Brought from the plains of the Euphrates to the wild heaths or grassy meadows of Rhine and Yssel, this secret doctrine found in Ruysbroek an Areopagite, in Gerard Groot and Florentius Radevynzon the masters of its practice, who combined meditation with handicraft, and both with sacred and secular studies.

Education was the daily work of many among the Brethren. Their school at Hertogenbosch is said to have numbered twelve hundred pupils. In Deventer they taught in the grammar-school, and " here in the mother-house I learned to write," says Thomas Bemerken, who came thither from Kempen as a lad of twelve. Florentius gave him books, paid his school fees, was a father to him. Unlike Groot, who had taken his degree at Paris, Thomas attended no University. He was taught singing; he practised the beautiful hand-in which he copied out the whole Bible; he travelled on business for the monastery, but was away only three years altogether; at Mount St Agnes he spent just upon seventy years. The key-note of his life was tranquillity; he perhaps called his book not, as we do, the Imitation of Christ, but the Ecclesiastical Music. A reformer in the deepest sense, he accepted Church and hierarchy as they existed, and never dreamed of resisting them. Everything that the sixteenth century called into question is to be found in his writings. He availed himself of an indulgence granted by Boniface IX; he held the Lateran teaching on the Eucharist; he speaks without a shadow of misgiving of the veneration of Saints, of masses for the dead, lay Communion in one kind, auricular confession and penance. To him the system under which he lived was divine, though men were frail and the world had fallen upon evil days. Those, therefore, who seek in The Imitation vestiges of Eckhart's pantheism, or pro-phesyings of Luther's justification by faith alone, fail to apprehend its spirit, nor have they mounted to its origin. For Ruysbroek is emphatic in asserting free-will, the necessity of works as fruits of virtue, the Grace which makes its recipient holy. Such is the very kernel of Thomas a. Kempis, in whom no enthusiast for antinomian freedom would find an argument. And in a temper as active, though retiring, as dutiful though creative, the movement went on which had begun at Deventer. Thomas records in a series of biographical sketches how his companions lived and wrought. When we arrive at Cusanus, we feel that there could have been no worthier preparation for measures of amendment in the Church at large than this quiet process of self-discipline.

This renowned progress of Cusanus which, beginning in Austria, was extended to Utrecht, certainly sheds lustre on the lowly-born Pope, who had invested him with the Roman purple, appointed him Bishop of Brixen, and bestowed on him the amplest powers to visit, reform, and correct abuses. Yet the Council of Basel, so anarchical when it attempted to govern the Church, must share in whatever credit attaches to the work of the Legate. For the Conciliar decree which ordered Diocesan Synods to be held every year and Provincial every three years, set on foot a custom fraught in the sequel with large and admirable consequences. We possess information with regard to some two hundred and twenty Synods which were held in various parts of Europe between 1431 and 1520. Of these Germany claims the larger number; France follows no long way behind; but Italy reckons few in comparison, nor are these so important as the Councils which were celebrated beyond the Alps. At Florence, indeed, East and West for a moment joined hands. But the union of the Churches was one of name rather than of fact; it melted away before popular hatred in the Greek provinces; and its gain to Latins may be summed up in the personality, the scholarship, and the library of Bessarion, who spent his days on the futile embassies by which he hoped to bring about a new crusade. The reform of discipline, which in almost every diocesan or provincial Synod became the chief subject of argument and legislation, was not undertaken at Florence.

When the century was ending, Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, celebrated Cusanus as an angel of light appearing to the fatherland. He restored, said Trithemius, the unity of the Church and the dignity of her Head; his mind embraced the whole circle of knowledge. The Cardinal, while not disdaining the tradition of the Schools, had busied himself in Italy with Plato and Aristotle; he encouraged the study of the classics, during his embassy to Constantinople collected Greek manuscripts, and won a reputation in astronomy and physics which entitles him to be named as a forerunner of Copernicus. With George Peurbach and John Müller of Königsberg, who died Bishop of Ratisbon, he kept up a correspondence on scientific and literary topics. His designs for the exaltation of the imperial power, though somewhat chimerical, stamp him as a patriot who would have prevented by timely changes the disorders which Charles V, a Fleming or a Spaniard rather than a true German Emperor, could not overcome. But he failed in politics, and his other reforms bore little fruit. Of the hundred and twenty-seven abbeys which accepted his statutes, not more than seventy observed them in 1493.

Here, we may remark, is evidence of the motives on which the Popes distrusted Conciliar action, because, if it could be invoked at any time and for any reason against them, their jurisdiction was paralysed.

A year later the Duke made the Cardinal his prisoner at Bruneck, and demanded a surrender of the points in dispute. Cusanus yielded, escaped, fled to Pius at Siena, and cried aloud for satisfaction. The Pope, after fruitless negotiations, excommunicated Sigismund, laid his dominions under interdict, and brought Gregor Heimburg once more into the field, who drew up a formal appeal to the Council. A war of pamphlets followed, bitter in its personalities on all sides, but especially damaging to Pius II, whose earlier years were little fitted to endure the fierce light of criticism now turned upon them. Heimburg's language, though moderate, was unsound from the papal point of view; it was coloured also by his personal dislike of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, with whomlhe had a long-standing quarrel. "Prelates of Germany," he exclaimed, "insist on the Council as the stronghold of your freedom. If the Pope carries it, he will tax you at his good pleasure, take your money for a Crusade, and send it to Ferrante of Naples.1' The Bishop of Feltre replied on behalf of Pius, while the German princes took part with Sigismund. No one regarded the interdict. Diether of Mainz, after being excommunicated and deposed, took up arms against the Curia, and a miserable war laid waste Germany. The Cardinal's death brought his troubles to an end in 1464. Heimburg passed over to George Podiebrad and the Bohemians, only at last to seek reconciliation with Rome. Sigismund received absolution. The Curia triumphed in the conflict at Mainz. An interval of quiet followed, during which the movement of learning went its way prosperously and religion kept the peace with humanism.

Bibra, published indulgences for the benefit of those who bought and sold printed books ; but that if we would measure the depth and extent : of civilisation as due to the diffusion of literature through the press, 1| we must look to the wealthy middle class and the Free Cities of Germany, -jg to Augsburg, Nürnberg, Ratisbon, and the Rhine bishoprics. ;|

Once more Deventer solicits our attention. Its occupation with the copying of manuscripts was to be ruined by Gutenberg's types; but so long as the Brethren lasted they did no small service to education, whether we regard its matter or its methods. To their school has been referred the illustrious Rudolf Agricola. Alexander Hegius presided over it; and among its disciples were Rudolf von Langen and Desi-derius Erasmus of Rotterdam. Agricola is often called the German Petrarch on the ground that he laboured incessantly during a short life (1443-85) to spread classical learning north of the Alps. With a passionate love of the ancients he combined deep devotion to the Sacred Scriptures; his last years were spent in religious meditation. Hegius, though an older man, looked up to him as a guide in all learning. And while it must be admitted that Hegius did not understand Greek, and was not an accomplished Latin scholar, yet, in the thirty-three years (1465-98) during which he ruled as headmaster at Deventer, he led the way to better things by his improvement of the German manuals. As is elsewhere told, he died poor, leaving only his books and his clothes. Rudolf von Langen, provost of the cathedral in Deventer, new-modelled the schools of Westphalia, drew crowds of students to Münster, and sent out teachers as far as Copenhagen, in which capital a University had been founded in 1479. He was sent on a mission to Rome in 1486, where his amazing knowledge of Latin excited the admiration of Sixtus IV. Not only the ancient classics, but their native antiquities, poetry and topography, engaged the attention of these Teutonic masters; but they were zealous above all to diffuse the knowledge of the Bible in the vernacular as in the Latin Vulgate, and are aptly termed the Christian Humanists.

Curia, Jewish financiers, and the "poets'" or literary pagans, as he deemed them, who were leading the Renaissance astray from orthodox paths. But education in theory and practice was his proper mission. Of his writings on the subject forty thousand copies, it is estimated, had been thrown into circulation by the year 1500. His Isidoneus Germanicus (Guide of the German Youth), dated 1497, is accounted the first methodical treatise on teaching by a German hand. It was followed three years later by a second work entitled Adolescentia, which marks an era in the science of pedagogics. His pamphlet On the Art of Printing (1507), offers a lively sketch of German culture; warns his countrymen against perils which were then rapidly approaching; and contains a hearty expostulation with princes, nobles, and lawyers, who were unprincipled enough to sacrifice the old freedom of their people to the Roman Law, and the national prosperity to their own covetousness.

Wimpheling offended many interests. As an Alsatian, he sounded the alarm against French ideas and French invasions. It was not to be expected that he would find favour in the eyes of Hebrews whom he charged with usury, of Roman courtiers, Lutheran controversialists, or self-indulgent men of letters, all of whom he assailed. Somewhat narrow in his views, and pedantic or harsh in expressing them, this vigorous partisan has suffered in the esteem of posterity. He may, nevertheless, be classed with Reuchlin as an enthusiastic student whose researches left his religion intact. He desired to see Germany free and independent, neither enslaved to the King of France nor burdened with the hundred gravamina, due to a bad ecclesiastical system of taxation, to papal nepotism, and other enormities, against which he reiterated the strong national protest of 1457. Had such men as Wimpheling been admitted to the confidence of the Roman Court; had their knowledge of German law and custom been turned to good account by Julius II or Leo X, a peaceful reformation might still have been effected. They resisted the encroachments of the new imperial legislation which was destroying the liberties of their towns, and the comfort of their yeomanry; they desired to protect the farmer from the money-lender; they abhorred paganism, even when it brought the gift of culture; and they taught every rank to read, to pray, to make fuller acquaintance with the open Bible. When the Church parted asunder and the War of the Peasants broke out, many must have looked up to Wimpheling as a true prophet. But his day was gone by.

The demand fell into five or six large categories. The public wanted grammars and aids to learning. They were eager to be told about their own history and antiquities. They welcomed every edition of a Latin classic. But above all they cried out for books of devotion and the Bible in their mother-tongue. To sum up with one of the biographers of Erasmus, the early printed books of Germany were in the main of a popular educational or a religious character.

Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes at Alcalä (Complutum) which, however, did not appear until 1520.

The earliest Bibles printed in any modern language were in German, issued by Mentelin and Eggesteyn of Strassburg not later than 1466. In 1471 appeared at Venice two Italian translations, the first by Malermi, a Camaldulese monk who died as far back as 1421, the second by Nicholas Jenson. Buyer at Lyons is responsible for the first French New Testament in 1477 ; the Old Testament in Dutch came out at Delft the same year. In 1480 the Low German Bible appeared at Cologne. The entire Bible, done into French paraphrase by Guiars de Moulin in the thirteenth century, was committed to type in 1487, and went through sixteen editions. The Bohemian version belongs to 1488. The Spanish had been made about 1405 by Boniface, brother of St Vincent Ferrer; it was printed at Valencia in 1478, and republished in 1515, of course with the imprimatur of the Inquisition. The standard French version of Jacques Lefevre (1512 to 1523-7) was revised by Louvain theologians and passed through forty editions down to the year 1700. Fourteen translations of the Vulgate into German, and five into Low Dutch, are known to have existed before Luther undertook the task ; from a collation of these with his Bible, it is evident that the reformer consulted previous recensions, and that his work was not entirely original. Prior to his first complete edition in 1534 no fewer than thirty Catholic impressions of the entire Scriptures or portions of them had appeared in the German vernacular. Eleven full Italian editions, with permission of the Holy Office, are counted before 1567. The Polish Bible was printed at Cracow in 1556 and many times afterwards with approbation of the reigning Popes.

Translations of the Psalms and Sunday Gospels had long been in use. From the Council of Constance, or even earlier, provincial synods laid the duty on priests of explaining these portions during Mass ; and Postils or Plenaria which comment upon them in the vernacular meet us everywhere. Metrical versions, such as that of de Moulins in France, or of Maerlant in the Netherlands (1225-1300), were well-known among all classes. But to what an enormous extent the Bible was now read the above dates and figures may indicate, not to mention the forms in which it was speedily issued, pocket or miniature editions for daily use. It is not until we come within sight of the Lutheran troubles, that preachers like Geiler of Kaisersberg hint their doubts on the expediency of unrestrained Bible-reading in the vernacular. One remarkable fact would seem to tell the other way. In this extensive catalogue we have not been able to discover a solitary English Bible. How did it happen, we must ask, that before Tyndale's New Testament of 1526 none was printed in our native tongue ?

It would be as unreasonable to suppose that the rank and file of the monks were classical scholars, as that the personal influence of the prelates was for the most part edifying. But bishops who lived in open defiance of decency enacted excellent laws in synod; and there were few monasteries in which a serious effort to attain learning would be absolutely in vain. The scholastic philosophy was now overladen with futile expositions and had sunk to unprofitable wrangling. But Erasmus, the glory of Deventer, is a witness beyond exception to the spirit which prevailed among churchmen of high degree, from Oxford to Basel, and from Cambray to Rome. In his Colloquies, his Encomium Moriae, and throughout his correspondence, he mocks or argues against many superstitions, irregularities, and fantastic opinions, which he had observed in the course of his travels. But nowhere does he hint, under no provocation is he tempted to imagine, that authority frowns upon " good letters,11 while he addresses the Archbishop of Mainz and the Pope himself in favour of reform. On these subjects the evidence of his residence in England is particularly instructive.

His most celebrated pupil was Linacre. Sent to Oxford about 1480, Linacre studied in Canterbury College, became Fellow of All Souls', and went with Selling in 1486 on an embassy from Henry VII to Pope Innocent. At Florence he shared in the lessons given by Politian to the children of Lorenzo de Medici. From Chalcondylas he learned more Greek than Selling had taught him. It was when Linacre had passed a year in Italy that he persuaded William Grocyn, whom he had known in Oxford, to come out and share his studies. Such was the origin of those famous lectures attended by Sir Thomas More. Of the names we have mentioned two, therefore, represent the Benedictine cloister at Canterbury; Grocyn was a doctor in theology, " almost superstitiously observant," says Erasmus, " of ecclesiastical custom"; Linacre, after graduating in the medical schools at Padua, became physician to Henry VIII, and in the decline of life took priest's orders. Selling translated a sermon of Chrysostom's from Greek into Latin as early as 1488. And the complete Homer as well as the plays of Euripides, once associated with the memory of Archbishop Theodore, which are still preserved in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, may have been among the manuscripts which Selling brought from Italy. In like manner the Livy, the Greek Psalter of the fifteenth century, and the Hebrew and Latin Psalms, in Trinity College Library, were Benedictine treasures.

Universities showed a falling off in their scholars. It is remarked that in 1547 and 1550 not a single degree was taken at Oxford. In 1545 Cambridge petitioned the Crown for fresh privileges in apprehension of the total decay of learning. Latimer in Edward YTs time, and Edgeworth under Mary, contrast this lamentable change with former flourishing years. Under Henry VIII the numbers fell off; the spirit of independence was broken; the Universities lay at the King's mercy. True, the Reformation had allied itself with Humanism; but these two great movements were not destined to follow the same path. Erasmus had complained of the harm which Luther was inflicting on letters; Bembo was all astonishment at the piety of Melanchthon. Neither the literary nor the scientific spirit was in its essence Protestant.

Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, founded Corpus Christi, Oxford, in 1516, with special reference to the study of Greek. Three years later, sermons and speeches were made against this innovation, but More and Pace engaged the King easily on their own side, and the " Trojans " were laughed out of court. At Cambridge, Fisher, the Chancellor, recalled his protege Richard Croke from Leipzig in 1519 to carry on the work of Erasmus, who had taught Greek in the University between 1511 and 1513. In the great humanist's flattering judgment, Cambridge had become equal to the best academy abroad since it had discarded the old exercises in Aristotle and put away Scotus. On the appearance of his New Testament, Warham assured Erasmus in an all but official letter that it had been gladly received by all the bishops to whom he had shown it. Fisher and More in 1519 helped in the correction of the second edition. Leo X accepted its dedication. The alarm which was raised in some parts, as if Greek studies were a prelude to Lutheranism, found no echo in England. Few signs of an approaching catastrophe in Church and State can be noted until the fall of Wolsey. The Lollards were extinct. Benevolence still continued to flow in ecclesiastical channels. As in Germany, schools, colleges, and gilds were multiplied. The people, who had during the last fifty or sixty years rebuilt so many parish churches, now adorned, endowed, and managed them. Printing-presses were set up under clerical patronage. Religious literature was in constant demand. Missals, manuals, breviaries, for the use of the clergy ; special treatises like Pars Oculi, dealing with their duties; and primers, prayer-books, Dives et Pauper, for the laity, were printed in great abundance. Sermons were much in request. Paul's Cross attracted famous preachers and vast audiences. But there was another side to the picture.

That religious men in England had somewhat degenerated from their ancient strictness and fervour of spirit, is one reason alleged by Cresacre More why Sir Thomas did not join the Carthusians or Franciscans. Unlike Erasmus, who suffered from the intemperate zeal which thrust vows upon him in his youth, More was a devoted adherent of monasticism. His biographer's judgment, however, is far too mild ; on the other hand, the sweeping inferences which have been drawn from the indictment laid before Cardinal Morton in 1489 against the Abbot of St Albans, cannot be accepted without proof.

Tower at Oxford in his bursar's days. With a revival of monastic discipline he intended to combine large schemes of study founded on the classics. Bishops as severe as Foxe of Winchester welcomed his clerical reform, which could not imply designs on the Catholic Faith. The nation did not repulse an English Legate. Various Benedictine houses put into Wolsey's hands the election of their superiors. The Dominicans would not resist. But with the Observantines there was great difficulty. For his own Province of York Wolsey drew up a Constitution (1515 or 1518) which has been termed a model of ecclesiastical government; how far it was carried out we have scanty means of determining. His measures with regard to education are better known. In 1515 the University of Oxford surrendered to him all its powers. He proceeded to found seven lectureships, one of which was held by Ludovico Vives. He planned the " College of Secular Priests" for five hundred students, which was then styled Cardinal College and is now Christ Church. It was to be fed from a richly-endowed school at Ipswich, where only a gateway remains to tell of that splendid undertaking. Twenty-two small convents, with less than six inmates apiece, were suppressed and their revenues applied to defray these enterprises. It was remarked afterwards that Wolsey's Legatine autocracy had paved the way for Henry's assumption of the Supreme Headship; and that a precedent had been given in dissolving the small monasteries for the pillage and spoliation that speedily followed by Act of Parliament. On the other side, if reformation was necessary, Wolsey's dealing can scarcely be judged inhumane; his hand would have been lighter than Thomas Cromwell's; and while he protected the ancient creed he was lenient with such dissenters as fell under his jurisdiction.

Other names deserve honourable mention. Cardinal Mendoza, Primate of Spain, had lived up to his high duties. Corillo, his predecessor, at the Synod of Aranda in 1473, had laid down twenty-nine chapters of reformation. Talavera, who held the see of Granada, would have converted the Moors by kindness and put into their hands a vernacular Bible, for which he fell under grave suspicion and was censured by Ximenes. Yet this ascetic Franciscan, who had been a secular priest, was himself a lover of learning, not cruel by temperament, though severe with the ungodly as in his own person. He lived like a hermit on the throne of Toledo, which he had accepted only out of obedience to the Pope. In 1494, with the aid of Isabel, against Alexander VTs terrified protestations, he corrected the Observantines with such rigour that thousands fled to Morocco sooner than obey. Of Arabic manuscripts deemed antichristian he made a famous holocaust. He risked his life at Granada in 1499; offered the Moors baptism or death; and brought over many thousands. His services to sacred and secular erudition were perpetuated in the restored University of Alcalä and the Polyglot Bible, first of its kind since Origen's Hexapla. Like Wolsey, the Spanish Cardinal obtained unlimited legatine faculties; he would hear of no exemptions and, being Primate, Grand Inquisitor, and chief of the government, he became irresistible. In two synods, of Alcalä in 1497 and Talavera in 1498, he published his regulations. Spain had been suffering from ruffianly nobles, undisciplined monks, immoral and insolent clerics. Bishops attempted to withstand Queen and Cardinal; they were compelled to give way. The result may be briefly stated. The worst abuses were purged out of the Iberian Church; and while other European clergy were accused of gross licentiousness, the Spanish priests became for the most part virtuous and devout.

That which revolutionaries aimed at,-John of Goch, John Rucherath of Oberwesel, Gansfort of Groningen, and finally, Luther, was the pulling down of the sacerdotal, Sacramental system ;-hence the abolition of the Mass and the Hierarchy. That which Catholic reformers spent their lives in attempting, was to make the practice of clergy and faithful harmonise with the ideals inherited from their past. Shrines, festivals, pilgrimages, devotions, brotherhoods, new religious Orders like the Minims of St Francis of Paola, and the Third Orders of Regulars, had no other design except to carry on a tradition which came down from St Benedict, St Augustine, St Jerome, the Fathers of the Desert, the ancient Churches. Justification by faith alone, the unprofitableness of Christian works and virtues, the right of free enquiry, with no appeal to a supreme visible tribunal, were all ideas unknown to the Catholic populations, abhorrent and anarchic in their eyes. From the general view which has been taken we may conclude that no demand for revolution in dogma was advanced save by individuals; that the daily offices and parochial ministrations were fulfilled with increasing attention; that abuses, though rife, were not endured without protest; that the source of mischief was especially in the Roman Court, which encouraged learning but made no strenuous effort to restore discipline; that the true occasions, whether of rebellion or reform, were not the discoveries and inventions of a progressive age, but deep-seated moral evils, and above all the avarice and ambition of worldly-minded prelates, thrust upon the sees of Christendom against the express injunctions of Canon Law; that the Bible was open, antiquity coming to be understood, an immense provision of charity laid up for the sick, the indigent, the industrial classes, for education and old age; that decrees of many Synods in every country of the West pointed out the prevailing diseases and their various remedies; and that if in course of time the Council of Trent yielded the essence and the sum of all these efforts, it is entitled to the glory of the Catholic Reformation.