Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/342

Rh REFORMATION by the emperor Maximilian I. took place, with the object of re-establishing the imperial supremacy in Italy, an expedition which was in some respects the counterpart of that of Charles, and to which Julius II. opposed a vacillat- ing policy not unlike that of his predecessor. To the expedition of Maximilian succeeded the league of Cambray, designed to humble the republic of Venice, and warmly supported by Julius II. as a means whereby to gratify his resentment at the resistance offered by that powerful state to the encroachments of the popedom. No sooner was Venice sufficiently humiliated than Julius proceeded to concert measures for carrying out the great object of his ambition, the expulsion of the foreigner from Italy. Never before had the aims of the papacy seemed so completely in conflict with those of every European power. Reia- In France, Louis XII., on appealing to the representa- tions of tives of the Gallican Church (council of Tours, September popedom J51Q), soon found that national feeling entirely prevailed France over Ultramontane sympathies, and that he might count on their effectual support. Notwithstanding, therefore, the remonstrances of his devout consort, Anne of Brittany, he resolved upon a vigorous anti-papal policy. In concert with the emperor Maximilian, he revived the long-dormant demand for a general council ; and a mimic assembly, consisting of four cardinals, twenty Gallican prelates, cer- tain abbots and other dignitaries, was actually convened at Pisa in 1511. In this extremity Julius exhibited his usual fertility of resource by organizing the Holy League, and thus inducing Ferdinand of Aragon and the Venetians to combine with him in opposing the designs of schismatic France. The council, transferred to Milan, issued from thence in April 1512 an edict suspending Julius from all pontifical functions as a "notorious disturber of the council, the author of schism, contumacious, incorrigible, hardened " (Raynaldus, sub ann.). The pontiff thereupon excommunicated Louis XII., who rejoined by a formal protest and by causing coins to be struck and circulated bearing the arms of France and the ominous inscription Perdam Bahylonis nomen. In the meantime the fifth Lateran council, the rival council convened by Julius, commenced its sittings (May 1512), and forthwith de- clared the acts of the assembly held at Milan to be those of a schismatical body, while it proceeded to confirm the papal censure on the king of France. The expulsion of the French from Italy, after the fall of their heroic leader, Gaston de Foix, seemed to threaten only a further widening of the schism, when the death of Julius in 1513 opened the door for negotiation an opportunity of which Louis eagerly availed himself while the pliant disposition of the new pontiff, Leo X. (1513-1521), afforded additional facilities for arriving at an agreement. The French monarch now disavowed the proceedings of the council which he had before supported, and acknowledged the validity of the acts of the council at the Lateran. Other points were still under discussion when Louis died and was succeeded by Francis I., January 1515. In the following year the Catholic king Ferdinand of Aragon died. The relations of Spain to the papacy during his reign and before that time had been very far from representing a policy of complete subserviency. By a concordat made in the year 1482 Pope Sixtus IV. had conceded to the sovereigns of Castile and Aragon the right of nominating to the higher ecclesiastical offices, although he had reserved to himself a corresponding power in con- nexion with the inferior benefices, a privilege which soon resulted in the customary abuses and rendered the papal supremacy for a time scarcely more popular in Spain than in Germany. At nearly the same time the institution of the Inquisition in the former country is generally supposed to have first taken place (see INQUISITION), an event which must not, however, be construed into a proof of the ascendency of papal influence. In its earlier stage the Inquisition was quite as much a civil as an ecclesiastical tribunal, being especially directed against the exclusive privileges and immunities claimed by the hereditary nobility ; and, although under Cardinal Ximenes the re- pression of heresy became one of its chief functions, it was long regarded with no friendly feelings by Rome. The Roman doctrine and discipline were rigorously im- posed on the Spanish population, but Ferdinand himself showed little disposition to submit to the dictation of the Roman pontiff. In the year 1508 he sharply rebuked his viceroy, the count of Rivarzoga, for allowing a papal bull to be promulgated in the provinces without having previously obtained his sanction, and declared that if the bull were not forthwith withdrawn he would withdraw the two crowns from the obedience of the holy see. Five years later Cardinal Xinlenes, in a like spirit, openly denounced the abuses that accompanied the traffic in indulgences. The tone that Germany at this period was able to assume was very different. The several states and princi- palities, feebly protected by the imperial authority, which could no longer be asserted as of yore, yielded an easy prey to the extortion of the papal emissaries. The national clergy, perhaps more corrupt than in any other Teutonic country, showed themselves completely subservient to the worst malpractices of Rome. It was from the laity at large that the first warning came that either reform or revolution must before long ensue. In the year 1511 a notable document, purporting to emanate from the German people at large, was laid before the emperor. Drawn up in the form of a petition, it enumerated and described the various abuses associated with the prevailing ecclesiastical practice and suggested the remedies. Fore- most among the specified grievances it placed the utter want of good faith shown by successive pontiffs in the manner in which they were accustomed altogether to dis- regard (often at the instance of most unworthy favourites) the privileges and immunities solemnly granted by their predecessors. It complained of the frequent nullifying of the elections of prelates canonically elected by their respect- ive chapters, of a like disregard for such elections even in cases where large sums had been paid to the Curia by the chapters in order to secure the ratification of their choice, of the manner in which all the richest benefices were reserved for cardinals and proto-notaries, of the fre- quent anticipation of reversions (expectativx gratise) and of the concentration of numerous benefices in the hands of single individuals, of the incessant lawsuits generated by these malpractices and the consequent waste of con- siderable sums both on the lawsuits themselves and on the obtaining of bulls which eventually proved inoperative, "so that," said the petitioners, "it has become a common saying that, on obtaining a reversion from Rome, one ought to lay by one or two hundred gold pieces where- with to defend the actions to which the maintenance of one's rights will infallibly give rise." Other matters of complaint were the frequency with which annates were demanded; the bestowal of livings on those utterly in- competent for the discharge of their duties, " fitter," in fact, "to be muleteers than to be the instructors of their fellow-men"; the frequent issuing of new indulgences and revocation of the old, notwithstanding the repeated re- monstrances of the laity ; the levying of tenths under pre- text of an expedition against the Turks when no such expedition was designed ; and the petition closed with the complaint, which had been rife almost ever since the days of Hilary of Aries, of the continual summoning of suits Ger- man