Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/525

Rh P P E D M 505 Id: of -ass. closing years of the 16th century an episode of which the 7th book of Ranke s History of the Popes supplies a comprehensive sketch. Sixtus conciliated the great landed proprietors whom his predecessor had driven into insur rection by calling in question the validity of their title- deeds and by attempts to re-appropriate their lands ; he repressed the prevailing brigandage with merciless severity ; notwithstanding his lowly extraction, he suc ceeded in winning the favour of the great houses the Colonnas and Orsinis ; he developed the industries and manufactures of the States ; no pontiff ever effected so much for the improvement and adornment of the capital; its population, which under Paul IV. had sunk to forty-five thousand, rose to one hundred thousand ; &quot; for the third time,&quot; says Ranke, &quot;Rome stood forth to view as the chief city of the world.&quot; Another reform introduced by Sixtus was that by which the college of cardinals, before a fluctuating body, was definitely fixed at seventy. The inconsistencies of his foreign policy are probably to be partly explained by the fact that, although the promo tion of the interests of the church was his most cherished object, he had conceived a thorough distrust of Philip II. At the same time, while he believed that those interests would be most effectually served by the establishment of peace and order, he necessarily regarded with aversion the revolutionary doctrines of the League, democratic in poli tics although ultramontane in doctrine. From Henry of Navarre, indeed, he could not withhold his tribute of admiration; and on the death of Henry III. he revoked the sentence of excommunication which he had pronounced against the great Huguenot leader, and by his general policy facilitated his return to the communion of the church. In like manner, although he sanctioned the scheme of the Spanish Armada, and even promised a mag nificent subvention to the enterprise, as soon as he learned that, if successful, it might result in the annexation of England to the crown of Spain, he withdrew his support, and, when the failure of the expedition was known, could not conceal his satisfaction. From the time of Sixtus V. the chief importance and interest of papal history are to be found in its relations to France and Spain and to the Jesuit order (see JESUITS, vol. xiii. pp. 652-656) and, somewhat later, to Jesuitism and Jansenism (see JANSENISM, vol. xiii. p. 566) combined. During the rest of the reign of Henry IV. France witnessed a virtual triumph of Gallican principles ; and, although he himself became a humble suppliant for readmission within the communion of the Roman Church, it was only to give more effectual expression to the principles of religious toleration. The edict of Nantes (1598) was promulgated, in fact, in defiance of the strongly expressed disapproval of CLEMENT VIII. (1592-1605). The per mission accorded to the Jesuits to return to France (1603) was a measure resolved upon by Henry in op position to the advice of both De Thou and Sully. He appears to have been actuated simply by motives of ex pediency, but his expectations proved singularly fallacious. The Jesuits turned the opportunity thus afforded them to signal account, and succeeded in establishing a powerful ascendency in France throughout the 17th and the first half of the 18th century. The pontificate of Clement was distinguished by two other events, the one memorable in politics, the other in literature. Of these, the former was the reversion of the duchy of Ferrara, claimed from the house of Este by the apostolic see as an escheated fief ; the other was the publication of the greater part of the Annales Ecdesiastici of Baronius, a work of immense labour and research, which, although it could not sta-nd the test of later criticism, rendered material support to the pretensions of the papacy. Baronius himself always maintained that the papacy was more indebted to France than to any other European power ; and on the death of Clement his claim to the papal chair was strongly supported by the French party in the conclave, his election being, however, lost through the opposition of the party of Spain. It was chiefiy by skilful manoeuvring that, after the few days pontificate of LEO XL, the election of the Car dinal Borghese, as PAUL V. (1605-21), was carried, not- Paul V. withstanding the opposition of the same party. Paul s election had really been in no small measure owing to the fact that his previous career had not happened to involve him in enmity with any of the cardinals. It is stated that Cardinal Bellarmine would have been chosen in his place, but the conclave dreaded the consequences of raising a Jesuit to the papal chair. Paul affected, how ever, himself to regard his election as owing to the special intervention of Providence, and assumed the air and de meanour which he held suitable to one divinely commis sioned to restore the pontifical office to its former dignity. No pontiff ever insisted with more inflexible rigour on the attributes and exclusive powers of his office. In the measures which he initiated for the purpose of extending the influence and possessions of the church, Paul soon found himself involved in a conflict with the powerful and flourishing republic of Venice. He accused the Signory of The re- opposing the institution of monastic and other religious P u U ic of foundations, of conniving at the alienation of ecclesiasti- Venlce- cal property and at the suspension of the authority of the ecclesiastical courts. Finding those whom he addressed less amenable to his wishes than he anticipated, he pro ceeded to lay the whole republic under an interdict. Such a sentence rendered it obligat6ry on the religious orders throughout the province to discontinue all the customary religious services; the republic, however, en joined them, under pain of -banishment, to continue those services as before. The Jesuits, along with two other newly-founded orders, the Capuchins and the Theatines, alone ventured to disobey, and were banished from the province. A fierce controversy ensued, in which the con duct of the republic was vindicated by the able pen of Fra Paolo Sarpi (better known as &quot;Father Paul&quot;), while Fra Paolo Baronius and Bellarmine defended the cause of Rome. Sarpi. By Englishmen at that time resident in Italy, such as Sir Henry Wotton and the eminent Bedell (afterwards bishop of Ardagh), and by the English court, the contest was watched with lively interest as affording hopes of an Italian Reformation. The quarrel was skilfully fomented by Spain, and actual hostilities were averted only by the mediation of Henry IV. of France. The later years of Paul s pontificate present him in the more favourable light of a reformer of many abuses which had crept into the law-courts of the States, and the author of numerous im provements in the capital. He enlarged both the Vatican and the Quirinal ; and the Borghese family from his time ranked as one of the wealthiest in the city. The protection extended to the Jesuits by Paul was continued by his successor, GREGORY XV. (1621-23), and Gregory was well repaid by their devotion and energy as pro- x ^. pagandists. Gradually, in kingdom after kingdom, in principality after principality, the ground won by Pro- Services testantism, whether of the Lutheran or the Reformed con- r eni ; ere fession, was in a great measure recovered. In Bohemia, j esu jt s. in Silesia, and in Moravia the Protestant ministers, if not put to death or imprisoned, were driven out, their churches closed, and their congregations forbidden to assemble. Even in the United Provinces numerous converts were made, and a footing regained for Catholic teaching which has never since been lost, while in Asia and in America new territories were won which might fairly seem to com pensate the church for all that had been wrested from XIX. 64