A Friar of the Sixteenth Century
He found the whole territory in extreme confusion; all who had escaped by flight from the hand of Cæsar had returned—the Orsini, the Colonna, the Vitelli and Baglioni, Varani, Malatesta, and Montefeltri—everywhere throughout the whole land were the different parties in movement; murderous contests took place in the very Borgo of Rome. Pope Julius has been compared with the Neptune of Virgil, when rising from the waves, with peace-inspiring countenance he hushes their storms to repose. By prudence and good management he disembarrassed himself even of Cæsar Borgia, whose castles he seized and of whose dukedom he also gained possession. The lesser barons he kept in order with the more facility from the measures to this effect that had been taken by Cæsar, but he was careful not to give them such cardinals for leaders as might awaken the ancient spirit of insubordination by ambitious enterprise. The more powerful nobles, who refused him obedience, he attacked without further ceremony. His accession to the papal throne sufficed to reduce Baglioni (who had again made himself master of Perugia) within the limits of due subordination. Nor could Bentivoglio offer effectual resistance when required to resign that sumptuous palace which he had erected in Bologna, and whereon he had too hastily inscribed the well-known eulogy of his own good fortune; of this he saw himself deprived in his old age. The two powerful cities of Perugia and Bologna were thus subjected to the immediate authority of the pontifical throne.
But with all this, Julius was yet far from having accomplished the end he had proposed to himself. The coasts of the papal states were in great part occupied by the Venetians; they were by no means disposed to yield possession of them freely, and the pope was greatly their inferior in military power. He could not conceal from himself that his attacking them would be the signal for a commotion throughout Europe. Should he venture to risk this?
Old as Julius now was, worn by the many vicissitudes of good and evil fortune experienced through a long life; by the fatigues of war and exile, and most of all by the consequences of intemperance and licentious excess, he yet knew not what fear or irresolution meant; in the extremity of age, he still retained that grand characteristic of manhood, an indomitable spirit. He felt little respect for the princes of his time, and believed himself capable of mastering them all. He took the field in person, and having stormed Mirandola, he pressed into the city across the frozen ditches and through the breach; the most disastrous reverses could not shake his purpose, but rather seemed to waken new resources within him. He was accordingly successful; not only were his own baronies rescued from the Venetians, but in the fierce contest that ensued, he at length made himself master of Parma, Piacenza, and even Reggio, thus laying the foundation of a power such as no pope had ever possessed before him. From Piacenza to Terracina the whole fair region admitted his authority.
PREVALENCE OF SECULARISM IN THE CHURCH
[1471-1503 A.D.]
It was an inevitable consequence that the whole body of the hierarchy should be influenced by the character and tendencies of its chief, that all should lend their best aid to the promotion of his purposes, and be themselves carried forward by the impulse thus given. Not only the supreme dignity of the pontiff, but all other offices of the church, were regarded as mere secular property. The pope nominated cardinals from no better motive than personal favour, the gratification of some potentate, or even, and this was no unfrequent occurrence, for actual payment of money! Could there be any rational expectation that men so appointed would fulfil their spiritual duties? One of the most important offices of the church, the Penitenziaria, was bestowed by Sixtus IV on one of his nephews. This office held a large portion of the power of granting dispensations; its privileges were still further extended by the pope, and in a bull issued for the express purpose of confirming them, he declares all who shall presume to doubt the rectitude of such measures, to be a “stiff-necked people and children of malice.” It followed as a matter of course that the nephew considered his office as a benefice, the proceeds of which he was entitled to increase to the utmost extent possible.
A large amount of worldly power was at this time conferred in most instances, together with the bishoprics; they were held more or less as sinecures according to the degree of influence or court favour possessed by the recipient or his family. The Roman curia thought only of how it might best derive advantage from the vacancies and presentations; Alexander extorted double annates or first-fruits, and levied double, nay triple tithes; there remained few things that had not become matter of purchase. The taxes of the papal chancery rose higher from day to day, and the comptroller, whose duty it was to prevent all abuses in that department, most commonly referred the revision of the imposts to those very men who had fixed their amount. For every indulgence obtained from the datary’s office, a stipulated sum was paid; nearly all the disputes occurring at this period between the several states of Europe and the Roman court arose out of these exactions, which the curia sought by every possible means to increase, while the people of all countries as zealously strove to restrain them.
Principles such as these necessarily acted on all ranks affected by the system based on them, from the highest to the lowest. Many ecclesiastics were found ready to renounce their bishoprics; but they retained the greater part of the revenues, and not unfrequently the presentation to the benefices dependent on them also. Even the laws forbidding the son of a clergyman to procure induction to the living of his father, and enacting that no ecclesiastic should dispose of his office by will, were continually evaded; for as all could obtain permission to appoint whomsoever he might choose as his coadjutor, provided he were liberal of his money, so the benefices of the church became in a manner hereditary. It followed of necessity that the performance of ecclesiastical duties was grievously neglected. In this rapid sketch, we confine ourselves to remarks made by conscientious prelates of the Roman court itself.
In all places incompetent persons were intrusted with the performance of clerical duties; they were appointed without scrutiny or selection. The incumbents of benefices were principally interested in finding substitutes at the lowest possible cost, thus the mendicant friars were frequently chosen as particularly suitable in this respect. These men occupied the bishoprics under the title (previously unheard of in that sense) of suffragans; the cures they held in the capacity of vicars. Already were the mendicant orders in possession of extraordinary privileges, and these had been yet further extended by Sixtus IV, who was himself a Franciscan. They had the right of confessing penitents, administering the Lord’s Supper, and bestowing extreme unction, as also that of burying within the precincts, and even in the habit of the order. All these privileges conferred importance as well as profit, and the mendicant friars enjoyed them in their utmost plenitude; the pope even threatened the disobedient secular clergy, or others, who should molest the orders, more particularly as regarded bequests, with the loss of their respective offices.
The administration of parishes as well as that of bishoprics being now in the hands of the mendicant orders, it is manifest that they must have possessed enormous influence. The higher offices and more important dignities were monopolised, together with their revenues, by the great families and their dependants, shared only with the favourites of courts and of the curia; the actual discharge of the various duties was confided to the mendicant friars who were upheld by the popes. They took active part also in the sale of indulgences, to which so unusual an extension was given at that time, Alexander VI being the first to declare officially that they were capable of releasing souls from purgatory. But the orders also had fallen into the extreme of worldliness. What intrigues were set on foot among them for securing the higher appointments! what eagerness was displayed at elections to be rid of a rival, or of a voter believed unfavourable! The latter were sent out of the way as preachers or as inspectors of remote parishes; against the former, they did not scruple to employ the sword, or the dagger, and many were destroyed by poison. Meanwhile the comforts men seek from religion became mere matter of sale; the mendicant friars, employed at miserably low wages, caught eagerly at all contingent means of making profit.