A war of races. of thoral free the corrup tom of the CHAP. VI. lopement'. That it rose out of a deep-rooted antagonism between the Latin and Teutonic races', that it was the An assertion assertion of the principle of individual freedom and individual responsibility, that it was a revulsion from the wideA recoll from spread and utter corruption of the age, are views which the student of the period finds himself called upon to weigh against assertions to the effect that it grew out of nothing more dignified than a petty squabble between the Augustinian and Dominican orders', that the age by which it was followed was not one whit less corrupt than that by which it was preceded, or that it is to be attributed to a fatal error on the part of the Reformers, who confounded the essential and accidental phases of Catholicism,-the abuses of the times and the fashions of scholasticism, with the fundamental conceptions of the one universal and indivisible Church. A friars' A miscon aption. 1 Dean Hook, Life of Archbishop Parker, p. 37. Dollinger has not failed to note the use to which Luther skilfully converted the national antipathy in his invectives against die Wahlen,' as he was wont to style the Italians. Kirche und Kirchen, p. 11. See Luther's Tischreden, Walch xx11 2365. A view recently reiterated by Prof. Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 3263. See Hallam's sensible observations on this theory, Lit. of Eu Tope, 17 382. Historisch ist nichts nurichtiger, als die Behauptung, die Reformation sei eine Bewegung für Gewissensfreiheit gewesen. Gerade das Gegentheil ist wahr. Für sich selbst freilich haben Lutheraner und Calvinisten, ebenso wie alle Menschen zu allen Zeiten, Gewissensfreiheit begehrt, aber Andern sie zu gewähren, fiel ihnen, wo sie die Starkeren waren, nicht ein.' Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, p. 68. Personne n'ignore que ce zèle de réforme tant vanté, et sous le prétexte duquel on a bouleversé l'Eglise et l'Etat dans une grande partie de l'Europe, a eu pour principe une misérable jalousie entre moines men. dians au sujet de la prédiction des indulgences. Léon x fit publier en 1517 une croisade contre les Turcs, et il y attachinit des indulgences, dont il faut avouer que le but n'était pas bien canonique ni exempt d'intérêt. La commission de prêcher les indul gences en Saxe se donnait communé ment aux Augustins. Elle fut donnée aux Jacobins. Voilà la source du mal, et l'étincelle chétive qui a causé un si furieux embrasement. Luther, qui était Augustin, voulut venger son ordre que l'on privait d'une commission fructuense. Crevier, v 134-5. This was the view on which Voltaire insisted:- Un petit intérêt des moines, qui s'enviaient la vente des indulgences, aliuma la révolution. Si tout le Nord se sépara de Rome, c'est qu'on vendait trop cher la délivrance du purgatoire à des âmes dont les corps avaient alors très-peu d'argent.' Quoted by Laurent, La Réforme, p. 431. Neither authentic documents, nor the literature and character of the times, nor, if national ethics are essentially connected with national art, its artistic tendencies, warrant us in believing that the era preceding the Reformation was more cor rupt than that which succeeded it.' Brewer, Introd. to Letters and Pa. pers, 1 ccccxvi. Moehler, Symbolik, p. 25. Dollinger, Kirche und Kirchen, pp. 2530. tliney's stimony. HAP. VI. obtainable at ten times the price, and rendered the reader in whose hands it was discovered liable to the penalty of death, -that relit the extinct flame; and the simple confession of Bilney, in his letter to Tunstal, supplies us with the true connecting link: but at the last,' he says, 'I hearde speake of Jesus, even then when the New Testament was first set forth by Erasmus. Which when I understood to be eloquently done by him, being allured rather for the Latine than for the word of God (for at that time I knew not what it meant), I bought it, even by the providence of God, as I doe now wel understand and perceive'.' Proclama tion of indulgences by Leo X, A.D. 1616. Those who may have occasion to consult the work to which our own obligations have been so numerous,-Cooper's Annals of Cambridge,-will find that there is but one year in the sixteenth century, the year 1517, under which the indefatigable compiler could find nothing that he deemed deserving of record. And yet, in this same year, the whole university was startled by an event as notable and significant as any in its history. In the preceding year, as is well known, Leo x had sent forth over Europe his luckless proclamation of indulgences. The effects of the suicidal policy of preceding popes, which led them to seek the aggrandisement of their own families in the alienation of the fairest possessions of the Church, had been for some time more and more sensibly felt by each successive pontiff, and were excep tionally intensified by the lavish expenditure of Leo. His proclamation was a last expedient towards replenishing an exhausted treasury. Each copy of the proclamation was accompanied by a tariff of the payments necessary for the expiation of every kind of crime; and though by many of the Humanists the proceeding was treated with open ridicule, the great majority of the devout only saw therein a heaven-sent opportunity for securing their religious welfare. A copy of Copies were of course forwarded to all the universities; and on the arrival of a certain number at Cambridge, it devolved Fisher to the on Fisher, as chancellor, to give them due publicity. The good bishop received them, apparently nothing doubting, and the proclamation affixed by gate of the common schools. 1 Foxe-Cattley, iv 635. ordered that, among other places, a copy should be affixed to CHAPL the gate of the common schools. The same night, a young Norman student, of the name of Peter de Valence, wrote over Ant of Pane the proclamation, Beatus vir cujus est nomen Domini spes ejus, et non respexit in vanitates et insanias falsas ISTAS. When with the morning the words were discovered, the excitement was intense. Fisher summoned an assembly, and, after explaining and defending the purpose and nature of indul gences, named a day, on or before which the sacrilegious writer was required to reveal himself and to confess his crime and avow his penitence, under pain of excommunication. On the appointed day Peter de Valence did not appear, and Fisher with manifestations of the deepest grief pronounced the dread sentence'. It is asserted by one of m Fisher's biographers, a writer entitled to little credit, that eventually De Valence did come forward, made open confession of his act, and received formal absolution'. The statement however is not supported by any other authority, nor is the question of its accuracy material to our present purpose. But our thoughts are irresistibly recalled by the story to that far bolder deed done in the same year at Wittenberg, -when, on the eve of All Saints' day, one of stouter heart than the young Norman, pressing his way at full nxn through the throng of pilgrims to the doors of the parish church, there suspended his famous ninety-five theses against the doctrine of indulgences'. The whole aspect of affairs seemed to change when the sturdy figure of Martin Luther strode into the foreground Up to that time, it is undeniable that there had been much to warrant the hopes of those who looked forward to a moderate and gradual reform within the Church, by means of the 1 Lewis, Life of Fisher, 1 62-6. Baily, Life of Fisher, pp. 26–7, A book which when lately in manu. script, I then more prized for the rarity, than since it is now printed I trust for the verity thereof. Fuller Prickett & Wright, p. 196, There seem to be no data for determining whether Luther's or De Valence's was the prior act; but ir nei. ther case is there any reason for it! year 1516. Epistola Obscurorum CHAP. VI diffusion of liberal culture and sounder learning. Erasmus, writing a few months later, records in triumphant tones the progress of the Humanists in every nation in Christendom'. Events of the The year 1516 had witnessed not a few significant indications that the growing intelligence of the educated class was more and more developing in antagonism not merely to specific doctrines but to the whole spirit of mediaval theology. It was, as we have already seen, the year in which the Novum Instrumentum of Erasmus appeared, in which Reuchlin triumphed over the machinations of his foes, in which Fox, at Oxford, so boldly declared himself on the side of innovation. In the same year there had also appeared the famous Epistola Obscurorum Virorum, that rapedpos to the Encomium Moria, which, emerging from an impenetrable obscurity, smote the ranks of bigotry and dulness with a yet heavier hand; which, in the language of Herder, 'effected for Germany incomparably more than Hudibras for England, or Garagantua for France, or the Knight of La Mancha for Spain.' Then too was given to the world the De ImmortaliPomponatus tate Anime of Pomponatius, wherein a heresy that involved all other doctrinal belief, was unfolded and elaborated with a candour that the transparent artifice of salva fide could not shield from punishment. While finally, in the Utopia of More, the asceticism of the monk was rejected for the theory of a life that followed nature, and the persecutor, for the first time for centuries, listened to the plea for liberty of conscience in matters of religious belief. Amid indications like these of extending liberty and boldness of thought,-though monasticism no longer sympathised with letters and the Mendicants were for the most part hostile to true learning,— Hopes of the there were yet not a few sincere and enlightened Catholics who looked forward to the establishment throughout Europe De Immor talitate. Utopia of Humanists. 1 Nunc nulla est natio sub Christiana dicione in qua non omne dis. ciplinarum genus (musis bene for tunantibus) eloquentin majestatem eruditionis utilitati adjungit.' Erasmi Opera, 11 350. Pomponatius did not, as has of ten been asserted, himself deny the immortality of the soul. He simply reargued more at length the question which had already been discussed by Averroes (see supra, pp. 115-7). His denial extended only to the philoso phic evidence, and he readily admitted the authority of revelation. His book was however burnt by the inquisitors of Venice and placed in the Index. |