Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/250

 238 THE AGE OF HAPSBURG ASCENDENCY Meanwhile, however, the way was being prepared for a revolu- tion, which was to split Europe into two camps on an entirely 3. Two new line, under the banners of the Papacy and of Revolutions. t h e Reformation; commonly and conveniently, if by no means accurately, labelled as Catholic and Protestant. The inaccuracy must be emphasised, because the term Protestant properly applied only to one section of the Reformers ; while a very large body of the anti-papal group claimed that they had as good a title as the Romanists to the title of Catholic. In fact, however, no one has ever been able to suggest designations which represent with anything like accuracy the nature of the division which took place; and the popular names remain on the whole the least misleading and the most intelligible as political labels. But besides the approach of the Reformation, another revolution was in progress. The horizon of Europe was suddenly extended; the ocean was converted into a high-road to a newly-discovered world in the west and a rediscovered world in the east, and a new battle-field was entered upon. For half a century after the Council of Constance, the popes had done much to restore their own moral prestige ; but politi- The Pa ca ^ ^ e P a P ac y nac * assumed more and more the character of an Italian principality. The revival of General Councils had given prominence to the conception of a spiritual authority on earth higher than that of the pope. Then in 147 1 there began with Sextus iv. a series of popes whose personal vices and crimes were a scandal to all Christendom. The culminating point was reached in the person of the Borgia, Alexander vi., who ruled from 1492 to 1503. The family of the Borgias, whose aggrandisement this pope made his main object, have an unenviable notoriety in the annals of crime. Iniquity in high places led to a general degradation of religion, and at the The same time aroused a zeal for moral reform, which Reformation, however did not carry at first with it any inclination to challenge the doctrines of the Church or the existing ecclesias- tical order. It followed rather two parallel courses : one directed to the spread of knowledge, culture, and rational criticism, as providing a rational basis for the higher life ; the other seeking directly to raise the moral standard of practice.