Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/723

 provided that no such annates nor confirmation of elections, nor collation of benefices, should be paid or reserved any more to the pope, for the first year's voidance. All which things, there agreed and concluded by them, were afterwards confirmed and ratified by the French king, Charles VII., with the full consent of all his prelates, in his high court of parliament in Bourges, and there called 'Pragmatica sanctio,' 1438; whereupon great utility ensued afterwards to the kingdom of France. Albeit in process of time divers friars there were, who wrote against the same.

Amongst many decrees of the said council of Basil, in the nineteenth session there was also a decree made touching the converting of Jews, and young novices in religion, unto the christian faith.

Also, that all ordinaries should yearly, at appointed times, provide certain men well learned in the holy Scriptures, in such places where Jews and other infidels did dwell, to declare to them the truth of the catholic faith, that they, acknowledging their error, might forsake the same; unto which preaching the said ministers should compel them to resort, and to hear, under pain of excluding them from occupying any more in that place; provided that the said diocesans and preachers should behave themselves towards them mercifully and with all charity, whereby they might win them to Christ, not only by the declaring of the verity, but also by exhibiting their offices of humanity.

And, to the intent their preaching might be the more fruitful, and that the preachers might be the better instructed in the tongues, it was also, in the same council, provided and commanded, that the constitution made before in the council of Vienna, for learning the Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, and Greek tongues, should, by all means, be observed and kept, and ordinary stipends provided for them that should teach the same tongues.

Another decree, moreover, in the twentieth session was enacted, that whosoever was known or publicly noted to be a keeper of concubines, should be sequestered from all fruits of his benefices for the space of three months, which fruits should be converted by the ordinary to the reparations, or some other utility of the church; and, if he did not so amend, it was by the synod decreed, that he should be clearly deposed from all his benefices.

Furthermore the said synod did greatly inveigh against those, who, having the jurisdiction of the church, did not shame to suffer such offenders, for bribes and money, still to continue in their filthiness, &c.

By these decrees of the council above specified, it is to be seen, what corruption had been then frequented in the church of God, through the bishop, and court of Rome. For the more express declaration thereof, we thought it not much impertinent here to infer the words of one Martin Meyre, writing to Æneas Sylvius, touching and noting the said corruptions; the tenor of whose epistle.